Justice for Colette: My daughter was murdered - I never gave up hope of her killer being found. He was finally caught after 26 years

by Kirby, Jacqui

  One day, someone phoned and asked for Tony. When he answered, an unknown voice told him that I had sexually transmitted diseases. ‘Your wife has venereal disease and syphilis,’ mocked the voice. ‘You should get yourself tested at the doctors.’

  Tony never told me if it was a man or a woman. I never found out why, but I can only guess he was thinking of my fragile state and was acting to protect me.

  Why were people intent on being so cruel? What sort of sick mind would want to do this to my family – hadn’t we suffered enough?

  The phone calls continued every day. It got to the stage that, whenever the phone rang, I would stiffen and freeze to the spot and my whole body would begin to shake. It became a new fear – something else to cope with.

  The police thought that the phone calls were all in my mind. As time went on, even my own husband came to disbelieve me. After all, why would someone be so cruel as to torment me every single day? I started to doubt myself, thinking that maybe they were right. Was I going mad? I was on so many tranquillisers that sometimes I didn’t even know what day of the week it was.

  Then I had a breakthrough. One day, my friends Kay and Ann were sitting with me at home. They’d dropped me off after a day out but had decided to stay on a little longer for a cup of tea. The phone rang and I automatically froze. Seeing my reaction, Kay picked up the receiver and heard it for herself. The heavy breathing had begun as usual on the other end of the line. Kay gestured to Ann, who tiptoed over. The two of them shared the receiver, both listening in. At last, I had witnesses! I wasn’t going insane – this was really happening.

  After a while, they put down the phone.

  ‘Oh, Jacqui,’ Kay said, wrapping her arms around me, ‘I can’t believe that you have to put up with that after all you’ve been through. We need to call the police immediately and get them to take this seriously.’

  Relief washed over me. It wasn’t in my head after all.

  Both of my friends were furious that no one had believed me. They contacted the police to tell them what had just happened. Ann spoke to an officer at the station.

  ‘Doesn’t she have enough to cope with without all of this too?’ I heard Ann say, as she scolded the officer on the other end of the line. ‘It’s just unbelievable that you’ve let her think that she’s somehow imagined all this.’

  Moments later, there was a knock at the door. I froze in my chair, and Ann went to answer the front door. The village bobby had arrived to discuss the crank call. He explained that, to have my home phone tapped, Nottinghamshire police would have to go to the Home Office for special permission.

  Thinking that nothing would be done, I became very upset and frustrated. Seeing my distress, the police officer promised to speak to the local telephone exchange in Plumtree to see if there was anything they could do. After twenty minutes, the officer left, having promised to sort something out. I thanked him for his kindness.

  Later that afternoon, the telephone exchange agreed to put a special ‘tap’ on our home phone. ‘Whoever it is that rings you, try to keep them on the phone for as long as you can,’ the policeman told me.

  I did this over the next few days, but soon those days turned into weeks. The caller always rang off before the call could be traced. Then, one day, about a fortnight later, the phone rang. I was home alone. I glanced at the clock on the wall in the front room – it was the usual time for the crank call.

  As usual, no one spoke, but I knew that they were hanging on the other end of the line as the breathing commenced. I was worried that they would hang up too soon, so I tried to think of something, anything to say that would keep them on the line.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear you,’ I began nervously. ‘Please can you speak up?’

  Then I panicked slightly. What if they put the phone down before the trace could be made? I had to think of a way to keep them on the line.

  ‘Is that you, Mum?’ I asked. It was a ridiculous thing to say but the first thing that popped into my head. The telephone exchange were listening in, but, when I said the word ‘Mum’, the operator thought that I was speaking to my mother and unplugged the tap.

  After that, whoever was making those sick crank calls became wise – they never rang me again. We never did find out who it was, but I had my own ideas. I was convinced it was Colette’s murderer. Was he watching the house? Did he know I was home alone and scared? Where was he hiding?

  I put these fears to the police – in particular that I thought I was being watched – but they didn’t think that Colette’s killer lived in the neighbourhood.

  ‘He’ll be long gone by now,’ an officer insisted.

  But I knew in my heart and in my head that this evil sadistic bastard was somewhere watching me. Nothing anyone said could or would convince me otherwise.

  ‘I don’t care what anyone says,’ I’d say. ‘Colette’s murderer knows this village and he is hiding somewhere in it.’ I repeated the same thing over and over again. But was I going slowly mad, imagining things that weren’t there? Or was my premonition right? At the time I could not know.

  As if losing a daughter wasn’t enough, we endured these twisted hoax phone calls and then had strangers’ cars parking right outside our home. They were journalists and press photographers. Cameras would flash as soon as we left the house, waiting to get a photo of the ‘murdered girl’s mum’. It was a living nightmare – no one was prepared to let us grieve.

  Then came more people and more cars. This time, they were ghoul hunters – people who had nothing better to do than torment me and my family by taking in a tour of the murdered girl’s home. They parked as close as they could to our home, watching and waiting for an opportunistic glimpse into our hellish world. It sickened me beyond belief. We had no privacy just when we needed it.

  Three weeks after the murder, a memorial service for Colette was planned in nearby Plumtree church. To this day, I still don’t know who arranged it but I believe it was suggested by the school along with the vicar of Plumtree, a man called Stephen Oliver. It was a kind gesture but I really did not want to go. I was suffering from panic attacks and found it hard to breathe as soon as I stepped over the threshold of the front door and out into this cruel world – the one that had snatched Colette from me. But I was persuaded to attend the memorial by the doctor and Tony. They felt that, as her mother, it would be the right thing for me to do. Our GP even advised me to put on my make-up and go to the church as the Jacqui that everyone knew. But how could I? What would people think? My daughter lying in the mortuary while I turn up at the church plastered with a full face of make-up. What kind of a person would people think I was?

  I did as they said, but I didn’t wear a scrap of make-up – the lines of grief, pain and anguish were etched in my face for all to see. As I walked into the church that cold November day, I felt all eyes turn to look at me. Did I look like the grief-stricken mother? What did people think of me? Did they blame me? Was I somehow to blame? I saw everyone but at the same time I saw no one.

  Moments later, I struggled to take my next breath. The blood seemed to rush from my body and I felt dizzy. I collapsed on to the hard quarry tiles, hitting my head heavily as I went down.

  I don’t recall what happened next, only the concern on other people’s faces as they witnessed my own personal meltdown. People ran from all over to help me. Their faces and then hands pulling and lifting me back up on to my feet. Normally, one would feel a flush of embarrassment at having fallen quite so publicly, but the medication had blunted any emotions that I once had.

  Before I knew it, a car door swung open and I was eased gently into the passenger’s seat. I still couldn’t say who was driving, but someone took me home that day and helped me back to bed.

  In December, just weeks before Christmas, the police told me that they had received a letter just seventeen days after the murder. However, up until this point, they had decided not to make it public as it was being analysed for vital clues.

  ‘We
think it’s from Colette’s killer,’ a detective informed me.

  ‘How do you know it’s from him?’ I asked.

  ‘Because of what he’s written in it.’

  The officer began to explain that all the press reports had described that Colette had been naked when she was found. All her clothes had been dumped in a culvert – all except for her blouse. Only her closest family, her killer and the police knew about the white blouse that had been knotted around her wrist. It had to be him.

  The letter read:

  ‘As it is you will never find me. I was in a hut for hours waiting for a girl to return from horse riding. No one saw me.

  When the car came with keys I could not help take it. Masks are common around Haloween [sic]. No one knows what I look like.

  That is why you have not got me.

  I go soon and then you will never get me.

  I know I strangled her when a car past [sic]. She would have got me caught but she was not dead when I left her. Maybe the cold killed her. Cars past [sic] when we were there.

  I thought she would be alright. I drove around and ended up at Keyworth.

  I don’t know it so I drove around to find out about the place.

  I left the car there to fool you and walked back across field.

  To show it was me did she wear a blouse?’

  I was stunned and sickened beyond belief. The letter preyed on my mind. I thought what a dangerous and evil man Colette’s killer must be. What kind of low depraved scumbag would dare write a letter like that mocking us all after what he had done? He was mocking us as a family and the police. What sort of sick gratification was he getting from this? I wept in front of the police officer.

  The letter had been received at the Huntingdon Street sorting office around 3.15pm on Thursday, 17 December. It could have been posted in any post box in the City or County of Nottingham, with the exception of Worksop and Doncaster, whose mail is sorted in Doncaster, South Yorkshire.

  The police explained that the contents may or may not have been written by Colette’s murderer, but that there were certain aspects in it which pointed to it being from the killer.

  It had been written on plain paper, possibly cartridge paper, having been cut from a larger sheet. Police experts described how it had been written with a mapping pen in a brown/red-coloured ink. They explained how the style was not a natural one. The letters had been formed drawing lines along a straight edge, such as a ruler, rather than a stencil, to give the appearance of a computer print-out. Throughout the letter, an exclamation mark had been used instead of the letter ‘S’, which the police said indicated that its writer had knowledge of computers. I can’t quite remember why – it must have been something to do with computers as they were back then.

  I truly believed that the letter had come from the killer and that he was watching and taunting us all, laughing at us from afar. I just prayed that, somehow, his disgusting boastful letter would prove to be his undoing.

  I never did return to my job working for Lancôme at Debenhams. My employers had been supportive throughout my ordeal, and had kept my job open for me for the past three months. But, in my heart of hearts, I knew I wouldn’t be able to go back to my old life. So, one day, I pulled out a piece of paper and began to write. I told my boss that it didn’t seem fair that they were keeping my job open for me for all this time. I really couldn’t say when I would be in a fit state to return to work, so felt it best that I serve my notice. That day, another little part of my ‘normal’ life died.

  In March, five months after Colette’s murder, the police arrived at my home with a form which they explained was her death certificate.

  ‘You have to take this to the register office in Nottingham to register your daughter’s death,’ they told me.

  A few days later, I arranged to meet my mum Joyce and we travelled to the register office in Shakespeare Street, Nottingham. I didn’t want to be there, as I didn’t want anyone to know who I was. I felt so exposed. We walked into a big room with a long desk running down one side with a glass front on it, opposite rows of seats where you waited to be seen.

  I went up to the desk and a stern-looking woman in her late forties looked up from what she was doing and asked if she could help.

  ‘I’ve come to register my daughter’s death,’ I told her, handing her the paper that the police had given me.

  She took it from my hand and asked us to take a seat, which we did. Then she took the piece of paper and disappeared from view.

  Moments later, she reappeared at the window, waving the certificate in her hand over the top of the glass partition for all to see. ‘Mrs Aram, Mrs Aram,’ she shouted across the room. ‘This is not a death certificate; it’s a body release form.’

  I looked up at her and wanted to die right there and then. Did this woman not have any compassion in her pinched little body?

  I turned to my mother. ‘I can’t believe this,’ I said, as I felt everyone turn to look at us.

  The room was packed with around 25 people, all craning their necks to look at me, having recognised my name from the newspaper and TV reports. There were a mixture of people all there to register milestones in their lives, some were happy events such as a birth or a marriage, but mine wasn’t. I felt hurt and exposed. The woman behind the desk had just made a horrible experience so much harder to bear. I got up from my seat to face her.

  ‘Stay seated for a moment or two; the registrar wants to see you,’ she instructed.

  Shortly afterwards, we were called into another room to see the registrar but we had to walk past a row full of people to get there. My heart was thumping as I felt every single pair of eyes on me.

  We went through the door and into the registrar’s office.

  ‘Please sit down,’ he said. ‘Mrs Aram, this is not a death certificate, this is a body release certificate.’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied curtly, ‘so I’ve just been told. Well, I say told, more like shouted at across the crowded waiting room outside.’

  The registrar shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  ‘Everybody now knows who I am,’ I told him. ‘I came here wanting no fuss, and didn’t want anyone to know who I am, but now the world and his wife knows exactly why I’m here.’

  The registrar cleared his throat. ‘Er, well, if you want, I can phone the coroner now and get her body released for burial,’ he said. It was his attempt at making peace.

  ‘I don’t want you to do that for me. I can do that myself – I can do it through the police.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but you need to have her body and you need to have her buried, and I can do it for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ I told him, ‘but we don’t want her buried. We want her cremated.’

  ‘But, Mrs Aram, you won’t be able to have her cremated,’ he told me.

  ‘So I keep being told, but, when I do have her body for release for burial, I can do it through the police.’

  ‘OK,’ he agreed in a curt voice, ‘but, as it is, you’ve come to the wrong office – this should have gone to the office at Bingham.’

  Bingham was at the other side of the city and I didn’t have the strength to travel all the way over there, so, in the end, I left it to the police to sort it out for me and register Colette’s death.

  My hellish day wasn’t over yet. There was more in store for me on the way home.

  After stopping off for a coffee to compose myself, I left my mum in the city centre and caught a bus back home to Keyworth. As I got on, I found a seat near the front, facing two long side seats which ran along the edge of the bus. It was four o’clock, and the bus was crowded. On the side seats, there was a gaggle of gossiping women on their way home from work. No one had noticed me getting on as I sat straight down, taking my seat quietly. I felt self-conscious because my picture had been in the paper, and at the same time I felt vulnerable because of what had just happened in the register office.

  Suddenly, these women started talking about Colette.
They were gossiping about my daughter’s murder across the aisles of the bus. One woman piped up, ‘Yes, well someone I know says they found her dying in a phone box.’

  My God, I thought, What are these women talking about? What are they saying? I felt my heart and head begin to pound as I listened to this rubbish. In the end, after 25 minutes of hearing this nonsense,

  I leaned forward and touched one of the women on the shoulder.

  She turned to face me, but still didn’t recognise me as Colette’s grief-stricken mother.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘do you mind, that’s my daughter you’re talking about.’

  The penny dropped and the woman was mortified when she suddenly recognised my face. She flushed bright red and turned around, away from me. ‘Oh, I’m really sorry,’ she mumbled back.

  The other women all looked embarrassed too and they glanced down at the floor of the bus. After that, no one spoke again and we travelled the rest of the journey in complete silence.

  I got off the bus after three more stops, no doubt much to the relief of the other passengers. The atmosphere had been tense and uncomfortable. We’d been almost home by the time I’d summoned up enough courage to tap the woman on the shoulder.

  I felt sickened as I walked back home. All these people wanted to be in on Colette’s murder, as though somehow they thrived on our misery. They want to be partly involved, but why? Was it part of human nature or was it just morbid fascination?

  As soon as I walked through the front door, I burst into tears.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Tony asked, concerned.

  ‘I’ve just had the most awful day,’ I wept as I began to explain what had just happened. I couldn’t stop crying. ‘I just can’t believe people can treat us like this. Don’t people have any feelings?’

  Tony shook his head. He was as disgusted as I was.