Sandra Court - Bournemouth Murder

The Unsolved Murder of Sandra Court 

Sandra Court’s body was found in a water-filled ditch on May 3rd 1986, she had been strangled and dumped. There was no motive for the killing and the case remains unsolved.

It is thirty-five years since Sandra Court’s body was found dumped in a ditch on the Avon Causeway, close to Sopley, in the New Forest, England, she had been strangled. Her body had been discovered by a group of teenagers out on a Duke of Edinburgh award scheme trip, I can only imagine how disturbed they must have been at making such a gruesome find.

The twenty-six-year-old section head and an insurance clerk from Dorset had been for a night out to celebrate her last day of working for a company called Ambassador life. She had left the job in readiness to take on a whole new life as a nanny in Majorca.

Sandra’s last few days of life were taken up with her preparations for her career change and her leaving party which had ended at a Bournemouth nightclub called Steppes, situated in St. Swithuns Road. She then took a taxi to her sister, Jennifer’s house in Downton Close, on the Muscliff Estate, Bournemouth at 3am.

She told the taxi driver she would wait outside as her sister was still out. The sisters had been at the club together but had left separately, that was the last time that Sandra was seen alive. There were some unconfirmed sightings of Sandra close to her parent’s home in Moordown but she certainly never made it to their house.

Sandra’s body was still fully clothed when she was discovered, except for her shoes, which to be fair could have been washed downstream in the shallow river. Her jewellery and handbag were missing but some items were recovered over the days after the killing.

Her necklace was discovered just half a mile from the place where her body was found, her jacket was found near Bransgore, her cosmetic bag in a New Forest car park and her photo identity card near Stoney Cross, one of her shoes turned up close to Ringwood and her cheque book at Picket Post. 

I can’t help but wonder if the various items were deliberately planted by the killer, although why that should be the case I am not sure as it’s not like the body was missing and it was a form of leading detectives to the body.

It is important to say that there was no evidence of any sexual assault on Sandra, she had no known enemies, of the items missing none were of any great monetary value and she was not thought to be carrying any larger sums of money so any motive of robbery is pretty much ruled out.

The police gave a total of 63,000 made hours to the murder enquiry, made some 11,500 individual enquiries, took some 4.300 statements from 3,600 people, fielded over 2,000 telephone calls and took 5,000 fingerprints. 

Following massive media publicity, the officer in charge of the case, detective superintendent Alan Rose was sent a letter that is believed to be a definitive link to the enquiry. It was postmarked May 16th 1986 sent from Southampton, England.

Very interestingly, there was a clear fingerprint on the stamp, which is thought to separate Sandra's killer from justice. 

The contents of the letter read:

Dear Sir,

I am writing to tell you that the tragic death of Sandra Court was a complete and utter accident, in no form is the person a killer or murderer. The person concerned is deeply unhappy, hurt and in total shock. The only reason that the person has not come forward is the fact of being afraid that their explanation will not be believed. Please I beg, take this letter to be of the truth.

The same claim was later made during a telephone call to BBC's Crimewatch programme, featuring a reconstruction of the killing.

Something that I feel is quite important to say here is that for some time a major suspect, in this case, has been the somewhat notorious John Cannan, convicted rapist and killer of Shirley Banks and to some a lead suspect in the Suzy Lamplugh disappearance. So if the fingerprint was thought to belong to the killer then Cannan would have been charged. 

Police did interview John Cannan during the course of their enquiries but he was not charged in connection to the murder.

Officers from the investigation team are still hopeful that the letter writer may still come forward to assist them with this unsolved case.

If you know anything or feel that you have evidence that could lead to the conviction of the killer then please do contact Dorset Police on 01202-222222 or Crimestoppers on 0800-555-111

I will leave it there for this one and bring you another case very soon. Until then, if you'd like to contact me to discuss this case and of course any other matter then I am always happy to hear from you.

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