After extensive enquiries it was established that the rope was probably sourced from Portugal and used in the fishing industry. The only identical rope recovered for comparison was found in the rear yard of the Lobster Pot public house at Marloes, only a few miles from Little Haven. The licensee of the pub, Alan Simpson, had found it whilst beachcombing with his son sometime between 1983 and 1988. That part of the Pembrokeshire Coast has many small coves and beaches and many are littered with ropes, lobster and crab pots and other equipment either lost at sea or ripped loose by the spectacular storms that batter that part of West Wales.
It was clear that the offender could easily have found the rope rather than buying it from a shop. This line of investigation had run its course, the most interesting outcome being the possibility that the offender was local and frequented the area. Likewise, hundreds of shotguns were examined and test fired in order to compare the waddings and distinct striation marks left on them as a result of the wadding exiting the barrel of the gun once fired. Doctor Renshaw, Head of Firearms at the Home Office Forensic Science Laboratory, was of the opinion that the fatal shots had indeed come from a double barrelled sawn off shotgun and the process of sawing the barrels had damaged the muzzle of the gun leaving distinct scratch marks on the wadding as fired. What was clear was that the killer had removed the cartridges from the scene believing that he was covering his tracks.
The investigation took a sinister twist when in November two sites were found which contained Semtex explosives, firearms and other devices associated with terrorism on the coastal path near Newgale some seven miles from Little Haven. At this time the UK mainland had been subject to a number of terrorist attacks linked to the IRA. It was clear that the authorities had stumbled onto an arms stash belonging to one of its active service units.
A covert investigation was quickly put in place between Dyfed Powys Police and the Anti-Terrorist Branch of the Metropolitan Police, code name ‘Operation Pebble’. This involved rendering the stash harmless and at the same time deploying armed covert surveillance teams in the knowledge that some time the terrorists would return to recover their weapons. The question troubling DCS Jones was the possibility that the Dixons had stumbled across the terrorists resulting in their execution style killing. He now needed access to the evidence quickly in order to implicate or eliminate them.
Peter Dixon was a visitor to Ireland when he worked for a company called Antiference Ltd that promoted the sale of security systems including tilt switches, a favourite component for terrorists at the time in the manufacture of car bombs. Could there be some connection?
In December 1989 the trap was sprung and Damien McComb and William Anthony O’Dwyer were arrested after being caught red handed with the arms cache. They were also in possession of a SPAS 12 bore pump action shotgun, with full length barrels and a Smith and Wesson 12 bore pump action sawn off shotgun. Both men were totally unco-operative with the police investigation. Very quickly the shotguns were test-fired and eliminated as the guns responsible for the murders. Furthermore the Elliot artist’s impression and the killer’s actions during and after the murders did not sit well with it being a terrorist related attack. It was also established that both men had a cast iron alibi showing they were not in Wales at the time of the killings. To some, Operation Pebble might have provided a convenient peg on which to hang the offence. The reality was somewhat different, there was no evidence at all to link the two incidents.
The police investigation was massive; there were hundreds of sightings of the ‘wild man’, some in between Little Haven and the Pembroke NatWest Bank, though none of them presented the police with a name or tangible connection to the killer. Likewise the detailed investigation into the origin of the rope and murder weapon came to nothing. As with any undetected murder a team was identified to review the investigation. During this review the team noticed that the Personal Descriptive Form completed in respect of Peter Dixon showed his twenty-two carat gold wedding ring was missing, a ring he always wore. It was clear that the killer had also stolen his wedding ring. Six months after the murders a new line of enquiry was identified to trace the gold wedding band.
Significant resources were directed towards identifying jewellers and possible places of disposal for the wedding ring. After extensive enquiries it was identified that only two wedding rings had been sold in West Wales during the relevant time. The first had been sold at Burgess Jewellers, Carmarthen, not far from the NatWest cash point, by a Mr David Evans from Cardigan. DC Dudley, an experienced officer who had worked in the Milford Haven area for many years, visited Mr Evans; he had with him the ‘Elliot’ artist’s impression for comparison. DC Dudley concluded that David Evans, a sixty-one year old man, did not resemble the artist’s impression and he was quickly eliminated from the investigation.
The second ring had been sold at Pembroke Jewellers on Main Street in Pembroke on 5 July 1989, the same day the bodies of Peter and Gwenda Dixon were found on the coastal path. This shop was fifty yards away from the NatWest cashpoint used by the killer on two occasions on 29 June. The owner of Pembroke Jewellers, Mr Raymond Smith, kept records and receipts of transactions for his purchase of second hand jewellery. One such transaction referred to a twenty-two carat gold wedding ring, which he had bought from a Mr J Cooper, 34, St Marys Park, Jordanston, Milford Haven for £25. DC Dudley went to speak to him but Cooper told the officer that he had in fact sold his own wedding ring and his wife Patricia verified this. The officer, who was familiar with Cooper, unfortunately concluded that the man in front of him did not resemble the artist’s impression and he too was eliminated from the investigation.
Over the months hundreds of people had been put forward as suspects or persons of interest by members of the public. Local police officers had also suggested names of local villains who had shown some of the same characteristics in their offending. These are known as MO Suspects. The review and tracing of MO Suspects raised problems for Clive Jones, as again he knew this would use up valuable resources, but at this point he had little choice. Over the months hundreds of men were interviewed and eliminated, thousands of hours were committed to these enquiries and all came to nothing. The trail went cold and the murderer was still at large.
The Milford Haven Attack
THE PEMBROKESHIRE TOWN of Milford Haven is situated on the sheltered estuary of the same name and has a population of around 13,000. In the first half of the twentieth century it was a prosperous fishing town. It is now more famous as a deep-water port giving large oil tankers facilities to unload crude oil at the refineries that cluster around the Haven. It houses pockets of council estates including one known as The Mount. The Mount Estate is located on the edge of a wood, on the periphery of Milford Haven near to an area known as Steynton. The estate is a warren of tightly woven houses interspersed with a series of interconnecting walks and alleyways. Children play freely in this relatively crime-free area.
On the pleasant spring evening of 6 March 1996, the light was fading quickly, and the lives of five children were about to be changed forever as they ambled through the fields near Milford Haven. (The names of the victims have been changed to protect their identity.) Jayne, at 16, was the eldest; Maria and Susan were both 15, and two brothers, David, also 15, and Steven aged 14, made up the rest of the group. They were all good friends, having grown up together. That evening they had decided to go for a walk in the fields at the rear of the Mount Estate near to the school they had all attended.
The fields, fenced with barbed wire to protect livestock and crops, were somewhere that the children had navigated before. Once in the open they headed for the Mount woods – privately owned woodland near a tidal estuary. The same woods then opened out onto land adjacent to Scoveston Park. One of the trees in the wood had a rope swing which in the past had provided them with hours of fun, as it did this evening. Maria and Jayne were rolling around on the floor laughing and enjoying themselves, getting very dirty. The others joined in, cutting themselves o
n the brambles during the process. Making the most of the spring evening they then planned to cross over the river through a location known as Black Bridge, following a route to North Road and towards the comfort of home. However when they got down to the river it was high tide and David was the only one wearing wellingtons, so he bravely tested the depth of the water by putting his foot in. To the delight of the others David’s boot filled up with water. They realised it was too deep and so decided to retrace their steps, going back into the woods and through the field. David and Maria took a short cut through another section of barbed wire, whilst Jayne, Steven and Susan took the longer route. Moments later all met up in the lower part of another field adjacent to their school. Susan decided to take a moment and light up a cigarette. Unwilling to wait for their friend, David and Maria got up and started to walk off towards their home on the nearby Mount Estate. Susan not wanting to be left behind, got to her feet to catch up. Within a few steps they were all back together talking and laughing about the evening’s tomfoolery. As darkness fell, little did they know that their childhood was about to be taken from them. Suddenly they heard a noise and footsteps behind them in the shadows of the hedgerow. The children then saw a bright light coming across the field so they all turned around and were dazzled by its intensity. Susan, thinking it was someone that she knew, naively shouted, “Oh shine the light in my eyes, why don't you?” David then said, “Oh it’s Wayne”, thinking Wayne, a friend of theirs, was out lamping or shooting rabbits. They continued to believe it was their friend until David in a nervous voice said, “I don’t think that’s Wayne.” Again he called out, “Wayne!” but as the figure got closer his shadow became clearer and the children could see that he was wearing a balaclava and pointing a sawn off shotgun at them. Then in a gruff voice he snarled, “Do I look like Wayne?”
David, terrified by the balaclava and the gun, started to cry. Thinking it was a farmer he pleaded, “Oh I’m sorry farmer, we’ll get off your field now.” The man then shouted, “Get back down there!” Fearing they would be shot, and now under the control of this frightening character, they were made to walk a few yards further down the field towards the edge of the woods. “Get down on your stomachs. Put your faces on the grass,” he demanded. He then hit David on the head with the butt of his gun ordering him to shut up and stop crying. Jayne became worried for Steven as she could hear his chest wheezing. The man however showed no such concern, telling him to shut up, as he walked around, shining the light on them. Again he demanded that they be quiet, offering them the small reassurance that none of them would get hurt. They were all frozen to the spot, shaking and frightened of what was going to happen. He then grabbed Jayne by the back of her hair. Grasping her in this painful manner he dragged her away from the others and then told her to lie on her stomach. Petrified, she complied. “Don't look behind!” he shouted to the rest of the children. He then repeated his previous instruction, “Don’t look up and no one will get hurt.” The man then instructed Jayne to turn around and while he was saying this he shouted to someone or something, “Oi!” He then whistled and the children believed it was a dog he was calling. Neither Jayne nor the others ever saw the dog, although Maria and David stated that they could hear and sense a dog moving about. Jayne then heard the attacker doing something with his shotgun; she believed he was loading it. He then ordered her to get on her back; again she did as she was told trembling with fear. The masked man told her to stop crying and that he wouldn’t hurt her. Putting the gun down by her side, he proceeded to pull her polo neck over her mouth; presumably to stop her from shouting. He then pulled her top up and started caressing her breasts. Undoing her trousers he told her to take one leg out, which she did, and while she was doing this he gruffly told the rest of the children to shut up and not to look behind. The attacker then took out a knife, which Jayne believes was from an inside pocket of his jacket and put it against her and said, “Stop crying, stop making a noise.”
Jayne was crying though and calling Susan’s name, unsure of why she was shouting for her. The man then raped her before telling her to get dressed and not to tell anyone.
Jayne later described the offender to the police as 5 feet 9 inches tall and of skinny build. The jacket he was wearing had a lining that was white with green checks and the knitted balaclava was tight fitting. He wore light blue jeans and green knitted gloves, and spoke with a deep Welsh accent. Steven also stated that the man’s jeans were tucked into black combat boots and he wore a wax jacket. He described the balaclava as black, with its eyes and mouth cut out and that the attacker had bushy eyebrows.
Maria’s statement agreed that he wore a black balaclava and that he must have cut out the eyes himself because the holes were big. The gun she described as being double-barrelled, black, and approximately twelve inches long. He was carrying a lamp in his left hand which Steven had described as a Black Eye make, connected to a twelve volt battery in a box about eight inches wide, similar to a car lamp. The knife was described as possibly a flick knife.
After raping Jayne he turned his attention to the rest of the group asking them if they had got any money. Then he spotted another female in the group – Susan. Whilst she was lying on the ground face down he put his hands underneath her and started to feel her breasts through her jumper, doing this for about thirty seconds. He then held her by the side as if he wanted her to turn over. So she turned over on to her back and he put his hands up her top. He pushed her bra up and he started feeling her breasts again, doing this again for about thirty seconds. He then put his hand down her trousers on top of her pants and started touching her and then went back up to her breasts, fondling them again. He repeated this sexual assault before finally pulling her bra and jumper down and saying to her, “If you tell anyone I’ll kill you. I know who you are and I’ll kill you. Don’t tell anyone.” While he was assaulting her, he kept covering her eyes with his fingers, so she wouldn’t look at him. But she could see that he had some sort of sack, or something like it, pulled over his head and it looked like the eyes were cut out. Having been on his knees, he now got to his feet and instructed the other four to get up and start walking up the field, again threatening them not to tell anyone because he knew where they lived and he’d come and get them. At this time he was controlling and holding Jayne by her jumper and the others were about six or seven feet away. He then pushed her and said, “Don’t look back.” He started to walk off, again threatening the children with the words, “Remember what I said, don’t tell anyone because I know where you live and I’ll come and get you.” He then fired the gun into the air. The noise terrified the children and understandably none of them looked behind.
The group made their way as fast as they could to the stile which gave them access into the council estate. Maria, concerned for Jayne, asked her what had happened. Jayne burst into tears and the boys were asked to run up to Maria’s house. The children, once in the safety of Maria’s home, telephoned the police and within minutes the area was flooded with local police officers and detectives. This was a cold and callous attack on five innocent children. It was a chance encounter with a man who was prowling the fields, masked and in possession of a loaded double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. He was clearly confident in controlling multiple victims. Robbery and sexual assault were evidently the motives for his attack. Very quickly an incident room was set up at Haverfordwest Police Station; the SIO was Detective Superintendent Aldwyn Jones, a top detective who was hugely respected by his team. Over the next few months Aldwyn Jones directed the investigation. His approach was thorough and meticulous, and a number of suspects were identified, interviewed and eliminated. It was not lost on him; that the same area had been plagued with a number of burglaries and robberies which had taken place at isolated properties with lone females becoming victims in their own homes. Another significant and worrying fact was that this latest attack was within sight of the scene of the two brutal and undetected murders at Scoveston Park. After months of hard work the trail w
ent cold, leaving this quiet rural part of Pembrokeshire with yet another dark secret.
Career Detective
I WAS BORN IN LIVERPOOL in 1959, thirty years before the Dixons were murdered, and was the youngest of four children. My father worked in the docks before going to sea as an engineer. In the early sixties his work took us to the Midlands and then on to Cheshire in the early 1970s. In 1976 my parents took over the Caledonia Inn public house on High Street in Pembroke Dock. The town was a bustling place with plenty of work at the nearby oil refineries and power station. Like many teenagers I didn’t really have any idea about what I wanted to do. In spring and summer I would work on local farms making hay or potato picking. It was instant cash and provided beer tokens for the social side of life and my first love, which was sport. I was a wild young man who enjoyed playing rugby for Pembroke Dock Harlequins, Pembrokeshire County Youth, and Pembroke Dock Cricket Club. My sporting claim to fame was playing in a half back partnership for the County with Peter Morgan who went on to play for Wales and the British Lions.
The Pembrokeshire Murders: Catching the Bullseye Killer Page 4