by Chris Clark
On 18 August that year I received an e-mail from twenty-four-year-old Robert Giles, our first contact of many, who introduced himself as a Criminology graduate from Northern Ireland and spoke of his interest and research into Robert Black, his background and suspected offences, all of which Robert Giles had been studying for several months, planning to eventually write a book on Black and his life and crimes.
I was immediately impressed with his enthusiasm, the depth of his knowledge and the amount of research that he was carrying out, similar to mine but worlds apart in terms of our professional backgrounds, expertise and age. I had been a police officer for almost thirty years with an intelligence-themed dedication, whereas Robert is an emerging criminologist who has to limit himself to part-time research when not working long night shifts as a carer, with the job’s associated sleep deprivation, brain fatigue and little time off.
Since then I have received nearly a hundred e-mails from Robert about Black and other serial killers and unsolved murders, and we have had many long telephone conversations to the detriment of our family lives. I am an expert at doing other people’s heads in with information overdrive; Robert does my head in with the volume and multi-diverse topics which he speaks about, without break; a mini computer mind.
Robert tells me that he has amassed over two hundred books about serial killers and all aspects of their crimes, solved and unsolved, as well as DVDs and other research material from the internet, and that his bedroom resembles my office – in Jeanne’s words, a dump! – conjuring up the popular image of a coffee-/tea-swilling, chain-smoking armchair detective merrily typing away on endless manuscript projects, surrounded by bins full of screwed-up paper representing completed or discarded research (although neither Robert nor I are smokers).
In the years that I have come to know Robert, his enthusiastic and dedicated approach to many cold cases – some of them murders committed long before he, and in some cases his parents, were born – combined with a strong empathy for the victims and their families, have not ceased to amaze me. Take for example, the 1981 murder of Jennifer Cardy: this occurred when I had served nearly sixteen years as a police officer, some seven years before Robert came into the world, and the 1990 arrest of Robert Black when Robert Giles was just a toddler and I was a Local Intelligence Officer with a long-service medal.
Robert has a natural ability when it comes to tackling unsolved crimes, a gift for research and the maturity of someone much older, and he has been very supportive to my own work throughout the time we have known each other, sometimes quietly suggesting from a different viewpoint a change in direction, as I come close to falling into the trap of blinkered thinking. We both continually bounce ideas off each other which helps to keep our minds focused and our eyes on the ball.
In this book Robert has captured the very essence that drove Black to kill time and time again, and placed him in various parts of the United Kingdom and on the Continent in locations of unsolved murders, as well as deducing Black’s method, motive and opportunity in his acknowledged crimes.
For me this book is a fully absorbing true-crime read and I wish Robert Giles every future success as I believe this is the platform that will launch him into a career where he can make the most of his powers of deduction and analysis and his abilities as researcher. We need thinking detectives like those famous fictional ones – Inspector Morse, Barnaby of Midsomer Murders, Lieutenant Columbo and Detective Inspector Frost – in Robert Giles you have that man who sorts fact from fiction.
My part of this work is dedicated to Jeanne, to her lucky escape, and to her continuing support.
And to the memory of April Fabb. Without both, my story would not have been told.
CHRIS CLARK
May 2017
PART ONE
TEARS BY THE LAY-BY
1
WHAT HAPPENED TO JENNIFER?
Northern Ireland was not by any stretch of the imagination a safe place in August 1981. The hunger strikes by Republican prisoners in the Maze prison in an effort to attain status as political prisoners was on-going and making the news worldwide. As each prisoner died and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to give in to the demands of the hunger strikers, rioting and murder would follow as Republicans and Loyalists took part in campaigns of violence. The conflict that had been raging since 1969 in Northern Ireland between Irish Republicans and Ulster Loyalists, known simply as the ‘Troubles’, was experiencing one of its most turbulent and troubling years. The security situation across the province was very tense indeed. However, despite the Troubles, Northern Ireland was one of the safest places to live in the United Kingdom, with a very low rate of non-politically motivated crime. Murders unconnected with the Troubles were rare, the murder of a child was rarer yet.
Across the six counties of Northern Ireland are many villages. These villages contain many God-fearing close-knit communities made up of hard-working families. The heads of these families did their best to get on with their lives during the Troubles and provide as normal a way of life as possible for themselves and their children despite the political carnage going on around them.
In August 1981, one such family was the Cardy family who lived on the Crumlin Road in the rural village of Ballinderry, County Antrim. Ballinderry is actually the name of the townland and civil parish of the area. The area itself is made up of two villages, Lower Ballinderry to the west and Upper Ballinderry to the east. It is around ten miles west of the city of Lisburn.
The Cardys lived on the Crumlin Road in Upper Ballinderry. Andrew Cardy, his wife Patricia and their four children: Mark the eldest, followed by nine-year-old Jennifer, Philip and baby Victoria the youngest.
Wednesday, 12 August 1981 should have been just another normal summer day for the Cardy family. It started out as one but by the end of that day, the events that would take place would ensure that it was anything but a normal day.
The older children were enjoying their summer holidays like all children, making the most of the good weather and the activities each day brought until school would resume in September. That day while Andrew Cardy was at work at the company he co-owned, Richardson and Cardy Kitchens, in the nearby city of Lisburn, Jennifer and her brothers were with their mother Pat, and had just finished a lunch of poached eggs, Jennifer with her baby sister Victoria on her lap.
She had arranged to visit her friend Louise Major, whose mum ran the local post office and lived about a mile and a half away. Louise’s house was on the Station Road in Ballinderry and Jennifer planned to use her new red bicycle to get there.
Jennifer and her mother Pat had travelled the same route previously together and Jennifer was eager to go and see her friend. Her new red bicycle had only been bought for her by her father two weeks before as she had outgrown her last one. It was her pride and joy.
Louise and Jennifer were good friends and just two weeks earlier they had sat together glued to the television, along with the rest of the world, watching the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana Spencer.
Jennifer asked her mother to wind up her red watch to the correct time. She planned to leave her home at 1.40 p.m. so as to arrive at her friend’s house around 2 p.m., and to return home in time to view a popular kids’ TV programme, Jackanory, that she enjoyed.
Wearing her favourite T-shirt – white with a red border and a design of red strawberries on it –a white cardigan and red trousers, Jennifer set off on her bicycle, looking forward to seeing her friend and to the rest of the day.
It was when Pat Cardy realised that Jennifer had not returned home in time for Jackanory, which started at 4.30 p.m., that she became worried, but she couldn’t go out far to look for Jennifer as her car had a puncture. When, shortly afterwards, Jennifer’s father Andy came home and heard that Jennifer had not come home for her evening tea, he changed the punctured tyre and drove off to collect her. He reached the Majors’ house to hear the worrying news that Jennifer had never arrived there..
A frant
ic search of the immediate area and local houses that her parents thought she might be in uncovered no sign of Jennifer. Andy Cardy contacted the local police services, the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), at 9 p.m. The operation that ensued would escalate to unprecedented heights.
Police immediately began searching around the surrounding roads and word was spread of the missing child. Retired RUC Inspector Cyril Donnan recalled the search shortly after Robert Black’s eventual conviction for Jennifer’s murder.
Speaking years later to the Daily Mirror (28 October 2011), he said, ‘I received a call from my colleague at 6 a.m. on Thursday. He had been on call on Wednesday when the report that Jennifer was missing came in. I normally went in at 8 o’clock but I went in early. I got my welly boots and went out. My colleague had then gathered up a handful of officers and did a sweep and found the bike in the field close to the road. They searched the scene.’
The discovery of Jennifer’s bicycle at the time was an important development as police were still trying to discover what actually had happened that led to the child going missing. The red bicycle of which Jennifer was so proud had been thrown over the hedge that ran alongside the road about a mile from the home she had set off from that afternoon of Wednesday, 12 August.
One of the theories put forward was that Jennifer had been a victim of a hit-and-run accident and that the driver of the vehicle involved had thrown her bicycle over the hedge in a panic. This theory was quickly dismissed, however, as there were no reports of any accidents in the area. Besides which, the bicycle showed no signs of damage and neither did the part of the road or the hedge where the bicycle was thrown over. Worryingly, it quickly began to look as if Jennifer had been abducted. The examination of her bicycle did reveal one thing, however. The bike’s stand had been pulled out, indicating that Jennifer had stopped her bike before being abducted.
Within hours of the little girl going missing local residents and volunteers organised by local police had begun searching or helping in any way that they could. Farmers and landowners were encouraged to check their outbuildings. Close to a hundred civilian volunteers helped police in the search. Due to the vastness of the local countryside surrounding the abduction point the search was initially focused within a five-mile radius. One of the policemen searching for Jennifer in the fields and roads around Ballinderry was a young uniformed constable by the name of Stephen Clarke, who would later reach the rank of Detective Chief Inspector before retiring. His in-depth knowledge of the case meant that he was able to provide valuable assistance to detectives of the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland, successor to the RUC) re-investigating Robert Black over twenty years after Jennifer’s murder.
‘We thought at that early stage, and hoped, that she could have been alive but as days rolled on and there were no leads we thought, “This is going to be a body.” We never ever thought something that dreadful,’ Cyril Donnan told the Daily Mirror.
Extra back-up was soon drafted in the form of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), the local British Army regiment, who assisted with the search. As word of the missing child spread, local people from the area, and further away as well, joined in the search.
Donnan continued: ‘As search coordinator you worry: Has someone missed something? You are relying heavily on the public with eighty to ninety people searching – so it’s not only the police eyes.’
At a time when Northern Ireland was so politically divided the people of the two communities came together, uniting as one to help search for the little girl, as roads and fields were walked through and searched around the Ballinderry and nearby Aghalee areas, the police concentrating on areas within a five-mile radius of where Jennifer’s bicycle was found. Workers from Richardson and Cardy Kitchens also took part in the search on full pay. One of the other searchers at the time was future Social Democratic and Labour Party Deputy Leader and Member of the Legislative Assembly for nearby Upper Bann, Dolores Kelly. Dolores recalls taking part in the search and the feeling of dread knowing that a child was missing in the community.
Speaking on ITV Live Tonight following Black’s conviction, she said, ‘Well, I actually was, along with my sister, one of the search party; we had volunteered to go through the fields and the local areas; I was twenty-one at the time and I had younger sisters, you know, the same age as Jennifer, so everyone was very frightened; although there had been many children killed in bombs and children traumatised, the fact that a young girl had been abducted not that far from her home heading towards the local post office, which was just up the road from there. You know, it was a normal, everyday activity and this young girl just disappeared for days into thin air. There was a great fear and a dread.’
Jennifer’s parents appealed for their daughter’s safe return on BBC television. Pat Cardy said: ‘Time goes on and you think every day without news means you have some hope left and yet every day without news seems to take some hope away so you try and face the inevitable and carry hope with you.’
Jennifer’s father Andy told the media that he had warned his daughter on many occasions never to accept a lift in a car and that she had reassured him that she would not. Speaking to ITN on 13 August 1981, during the search for his daughter, he said, ‘If she did get into a car she was forced into it – there is no way she would have got into it of her own accord.’
Police set up roadblocks and questioned local people as to whether they had witnessed anything suspicious or anything relevant, but they drew frustrating blanks in their quest for information – although people living on the Crumlin Road did report witnessing a blue van speeding through the area around the time of Jennifer’s disappearance. It was later traced and eliminated – even so, this sighting would be brought up in court over thirty years later at the trial of the man accused of Jennifer’s murder. There was also a sighting of a middle-aged man walking in the area whom police were keen to trace and speak to. Ultimately, however, it was to be a red herring.
‘Missing’ posters featuring a photograph of Jennifer and details of her physical appearance, her height, age and clothing, along with information about her disappearance, were distributed locally and further afield in an additional effort to receive information.
Nobody, however, had witnessed the abduction or heard a scream or cry for help. Whoever had forcibly taken little Jennifer had done so very quickly indeed on that quiet country road. Locally and regionally, the story continued to develop from the evening Jennifer had been reported missing and her bicycle being discovered shortly afterwards. It was only ever reported once on the British mainland that she was missing – in the Daily Express on Saturday, 15 August 1981, on page 5 – and nothing subsequently about her body being found and a murder hunt and after that nothing until 2002! This is very significant when one looks at the conversation Robert Black later had with a man called John (see Chapter 18) in a London pub in 1983, only two years after the incident.
As each day passed the chances of finding little Jennifer alive were decreasing. Yet, as in any case like this, there remained a ray of hope, a ray shared by the whole people of Northern Ireland, of finding Jennifer alive as they followed the day-by-day search. Then, sadly, it was extinguished on Tuesday, 18 August 1981.
McKee’s Dam is a large pond just outside Hillsborough at the edge of the dual carriageway off the A1 between Belfast and Dublin. Despite being so close to the motorway and being on a busy road itself, it could be described as quiet and tranquil. It is accessible from the dual carriageway via a lay-by which is often used by members of the public, indeed the lay-by was known to have been used by drivers to stop over for a rest or a bite to eat, particularly those who drive long distances for a living, such as lorry or van drivers. It was this local fact that would become very interesting to police and prosecutors many years later whilst investigating who was responsible for Jennifer’s death. The dam was also very popular with anglers as a fishing spot. On the early afternoon of 18 August 1981 two young duck hunters arrived at McKee’s Dam; as t
hey made their way to the edge of the pond they noticed something red floating in the water. The search for Jennifer Cardy was over.
Jennifer’s body was found floating face-down in the water of the weed-infested pond. The two duck hunters, horrified at what they had discovered, made their way to Hillsborough RUC station and reported what they had found. It had been six days since Jennifer Cardy had disappeared, six days of searching, hoping and praying. The news that her body had been found was devastating for her family and also for all the people who searched for her as well as the people of Ulster who had followed the story in the news, hoping against hope that she would be found alive and well.
Where Jennifer’s body was found was certainly a secluded spot, but its aura of peace and tranquillity was changed forever now it had served as a dumping ground by the killer of a kind young girl. Jennifer’s body was found in around six inches of water; she was wearing her white cardigan and red trousers.
‘The killer certainly wanted her to be found,’ retired RUC Inspector Cyril Donnan said in the Daily Mirror on 28 October 2011. ‘But the question at that stage was how long was she in the water? He wanted her remains to be found. There was no compassion in it. It was “I’m finished with this”.’ Cyril Donnan was certainly right about the lack of compassion shown by Jennifer’s killer in the disposal of her body. It was undignified and without feeling, cold and calculating. The child’s body was dumped in such a way that it was almost as if her killer was taunting the police, for while her body was not left in an open area it was left where it would be easily spotted by someone close to the dam.
There was a degree of cool arrogance displayed by the abductor and killer of Jennifer Cardy. At the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the second wave of hunger strikes was in full course with all its attendant horrors – while in a quiet backwater just a short distance away, a random abductor and killer was committing a deeply callous crime. Road blocks and security alerts were common at the time due to the security situation, yet the killer left very little trace of himself. The crime committed, he remained calm and confident, making no effort to bury Jennifer’s body, to cover it up or conceal it in any way.