WIDOW’S BRUTAL WARTIME MURDER STILL A MYSTERY

53-year-old’s body found bound and gagged alongside busy road

Harper’s body had lain there all night. There were signs of a furious struggle, and police officers found hooks and eyes, buttons and an earring.”

It was also reported that when Mrs Harper had left Gelligaer Gardens she had been carrying a small brown fibre attache case and a black envelope-shaped handbag, both of which were missing from the murder scene. They have never been found.

Mrs Harper had three children, two of whom served in the military, and at the time was known to her neighbours as quiet and industrious and was one of the most respected people in the locality. Her second husband had been a Channel pilot.

One neighbour told the South Wales Echo: “She was always ready to do a good turn and to help anyone in difficulty.”

At the time of the murder her son Lawrence, who worked as a chemist at the Ely Paper Mill, told the paper he had come home on the night of the attack and gone to bed under the impression his mum was already home and sleeping. The first he knew of the tragedy was when the police came to see him the next morning.

He told the paper his mother had twice been widowed and he was her son from the second marriage. Her first husband was Thomas Morris and they had had one son, Norton, and a daughter Elizabeth.

Lawrence said he had not been able to contact his step-brother because he was on service in the Mediterranean but a telegram had been sent to his step-sister and he hoped she would make it back to Cardiff the next day.

As part of the murder investigation soldiers on late pass on the night were interviewed, fingertip searches were carried out in the area, and appeals were made across different parts of the UK.

The case was covered in papers across the country from Liverpool to Dundee.

Chillingly police believed there was a witness to the murder and appealed for a man seen standing on the kerb in Western Avenue opposite the grass verge at about the same time as the murder to come forward. Police believed he had stood and watched the murder.

The man was spoken to by a special constable near North Road at around 12.17am. The murder was thought to have been committed between 11pm and midnight.

The man was described as being aged between 30 and 40 and about 6ft with a long thin face and fair hair.

He was wearing a light or fawncoloured raincoat and a trilby hat worn turned down in front.

At the time the police appeal said: “The facts which can be stated by the man whose description is known and who was observed standing on the kerbway on the northern side of

Western Avenue obviously very keenly interested in incidents then occurring on the grass verge abutting the southern side of the highway immediately opposite him.

“These incidents were occurring at the exact spot where the murder was committed and the police have established that what this man watched with obvious interest was in fact the murder actually being committed.

“The evidence which this man can give is, therefore, of major importance, and he is again urged to come forward voluntarily to state fully to the police his known knowledge of the vital facts indicated.

“The police are in possession of certain information which is developing stage by stage towards the final location of this man, and in his personal interests it is consequently very important that he should immediately disclose his identity to expedite the continuing police investigation.”

They also released details of a second man they wanted to speak to.

He was described as being aged between 30 and 35 and around 5ft 6in with round features.

There was a very detailed description of his hair which police said was “fair, wavy, wiry hair in a tousled condition, rather bushy on top, but cut short on the sides”.

He was wearing a dark doublebreasted suit but had no hat or overcoat.

Officers said this man was standing on the Western Avenue bridge across the River Taff about 12.50am on the night of the murder.

Mrs Harper’s body had been found on the southern side of the road about 100 yards to the western side of the Taff River Bridge.

The second man was standing on the kerb on the southern footway near the first pillar on the Llandaff side of the bridge.

A lorry and a van were seen passing him in an easterly direction and the man was seen shouting at the drivers of the two vehicles.

Despite interviewing people across Cardiff and others parts of the UK as part of their intensive investigations there were no reports that either man was ever found.

A month after the murder, the Western Mail reported that police conceded they had hit a “dead end” with their investigations.

Over the past eight decades the case has been looked at by South Wales Police’s review unit but no-one has ever been arrested.

A spokesman for South Wales Police said: “All historic murder cases remain under active consideration and will be subject of re-investigation as and when new information is received or when there are advances in forensic science.

“Cases are reviewed periodically and if information comes in from the public or other forces we act on it.”