Murder of Jessie Earl

Jessie Victoria Earl was born to Valerie and John Earl, and was described as "strong and independent".[2] She became an art student, studying at the Eastbourne College of Art and Design (now East Sussex College).[3] She enjoyed writing about and being amongst nature, and liked walking on the Sussex coast.[2] Her favourite place to walk was on Beachy Head and she would enjoy reading there.[2][4]

On Wednesday 15 May 1980, Earl rang home from a phone box on the seafront at Eastbourne. She wanted to tell her mother that she would see her on Friday.[2] When Earl failed to arrive on Friday, her parents were not overly concerned. They were simply worried that she had not phoned them to tell them that she had changed her plans. She always notified them when she did.[2]

The next day, 18 May, Jessie's mother Valerie caught the train to Eastbourne to find out what had happened.[2] Upon opening the door to Jessie's bedsit in Upperton Gardens, she immediately felt there was something wrong.[2] There were dirty dishes on the table, a book and Jessie's reading glasses on the floor, and her purse on the bed.[2] It appeared that the room had been abandoned, as if she had briefly left for a short while but not returned.[2] Friends said that they hadn't seen her since Wednesday.[2] There was nothing in Earl's diary which gave any indication of why she had gone missing.[1] Earl was 22 at the time.[5]

Police sniffer dogs searched the area and Jessie's bedsit was searched for clues, while missing person posters were distributed.[2] After three weeks, Sussex police flew a helicopter over the South Downs, using a thermal scanner in the hope of finding something.[6]

After police found no trace of her, the investigation was scaled down.[2] Jessie's parents continued to campaign and made appearances on the BBC's Wogan chat show and on Crimewatch to appeal for information.[2]

In 1989 Earl's body was found in the thicket on the right of this image.[1] Today it appears to have been turned into a den, with a noticeable opening in the undergrowth (bottom right).

Earl's body was located in 1989.[2] An eight-year-old girl had been flying a kite on Beachy Head before losing control of it in the wind.[2][4] The kite got caught in an overgrown thicket, and when the child's father waded into the shrubland to retrieve it, he discovered a skeleton, which was Earl's remains.[2][4] The only piece of clothing police found was a bra, tied around Earl's wrists.[2] Apart from this, she had been naked.[7] Her silver ring, watch, leather bag and her asthma inhaler were missing.[8] Forensics were only able to establish that Earl had died at the scene.[8] Officers cleared an area of 20 square metres around where she had been found, and this was then excavated and the soil minutely examined for evidence.[8] A volunteer team of metal detectors led by an archaeologist searched the cliffs and found items such as jewellery and belt buckles, although they didn't help the investigation.[3][8]

At the 2022 inquest into Earl's death, it was revealed that Earl had "probably" been tied to a tree with her bra, since most of her bones were found by a tree and the bra had been "found very close to the base of the tree".[9][10] The inquest subsequently concluded that she had "possibly" been sexually assaulted.[10]

In 2000, after forensic, scene, witness, and pathology inquiries, the police recorded her death as murder.[13] A murder inquiry was launched, with the detective chief inspector leading the investigation commenting "We believe that Jessie was murdered."[3] However, because Earl's death had never been officially classed as a murder, the key forensic evidence had been destroyed by police in 1997.[1] This included the bra and the earth on which Earl had been found, which had been stored afterwards.[1][4] This meant that when the murder inquiry was opened in 2000, the evidence could not be analysed using modern forensic techniques.[1][4] The lead investigator of the 2000 inquiry, DCI Steve Dennis, has said that this was a significant mistake.[1][4]

Scrubland at the top of Beachy Head with Eastbourne beyond

A new suspect emerged in the late 2000s, serial killer and sex offender Peter Tobin.[14] Tobin had killed 23-year-old Angelika Kluk in Glasgow in 2006, but was subsequently linked to two missing persons cases from 1991 after police suspected he was responsible for numerous other murders.[15] The two young women's bodies were later found buried at his former home in Margate.[15] Police set up Operation Anagram after his 2006 murder, with the aim of tracing Tobin's past movements and investigating whether he could be linked to unsolved murders.[15] The case of Jessie Earl was one of the main cases that Operation Anagram reinvestigated.[15]

Tobin had lived in the area at the time of her murder, and Earl fitted in with the kind of victims Tobin attacked.[4][16] Earl was known to have been nervous about a man she had met while previously out walking, and had reportedly described meeting a middle-aged Scottish man near the same spot her body was found.[17][18] In the 2022 inquest into her death it was discovered that one of her last conversations with her mother had been about meeting this man on Beachy Head, when she also commented "I wish men would be prepared to be just friends."[10]

Tobin could also be specifically placed in Eastbourne at the time, as he was discovered to have had links to Holy Trinity Church in Eastbourne, and it is believed he worked as a handyman at the church, as a Scot named Peter was known to be working there in 1980.[1] Shortly after the discovery of Earl's body became public knowledge in 1989, Tobin hurriedly moved with his wife and child a great distance to Bathgate, Scotland, without prior informing his wife of these plans, which suggested he had an underlying reason to suddenly leave the area.[1] This was notably similar to how Tobin had suddenly moved a long way from Bathgate to Margate in 1991, shortly after he had murdered 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton in Bathgate, which showed that he had a habit of moving across the country to avoid being detected for crimes he had committed.[1] This was further suggested to be the case in Earl's murder as Tobin was found to have checked into a hospital in Glasgow a few days after she was killed, which again fitted his habit of moving as far away as possible after committing a murder.[8] When Earl was found, her bra had also been used to tie her hands, and Tobin was known to have tied Vicky Hamilton's hands with her bra when he murdered her.[8]

In Mark Williams-Thomas's book Hunting Killers, he stated that although Tobin buried his known murder victims, he also carried out merely opportunistic crimes like Earl's case appeared to be.[12] In 1994 he trapped two neighbouring 14-year-old girls in his flat before turning on the gas taps and leaving them for dead, indicating he carried out disorganised, random attacks and could have done so on Earl as he walked past her on Beachy Head.[19]

As part of Operation Anagram, police took DNA samples from Earl's parents and from her clothing, hoping to find a match with Tobin's clothes or possessions.[8] However, police were unable to find enough evidence to charge Tobin with Earl's murder.[8] A DNA link between Tobin and Earl's body could not be established through modern forensic techniques due to the key forensic evidence being destroyed by police in 1997.[1][4]

Louise Kay links

The top of Beachy Head, looking from near the spot Earl's body was found. In 1988 eighteen-year-old Louise Kay also disappeared from Beachy Head after saying she was going to sleep in her car in one of the car parks shown in the image.[4]

Apparently linked to Earl's murder and a similar case Operation Anagram investigated was the disappearance of 18-year-old Louise Kay from the same town of Eastbourne in 1988, a case which bore notable similarities to Earl's murder.[4][15] Not only had both young women last been seen in Eastbourne, but Kay's last known location was also at Beachy Head, where Earl's remains would be found only a year later.[4] Kay had been out with friends the evening she disappeared and ended the night by dropping her friend off by car at her house in Eastbourne, saying she was going to spend the night sleeping in her car on Beachy Head as she often did.[4] Earl's body was found on Beachy Head less than a year later. Kay has never been found.[4]

As with Earl, Operation Anagram established that Tobin was also living in the area at the time of Kay's disappearance, and it was discovered that he was working in a hotel in Eastbourne.[4] Kay's distinctive Ford Fiesta, which was gold with a white door, that she was driving that night disappeared with her and has never been found, and Anagram established that Tobin was selling a small hand-painted car after Kay's disappearance.[4] Kay had also met an unknown Scottish man in Eastbourne a few days before she vanished, who had given her money to buy petrol.[4] Some of Tobin's former homes in Brighton were searched in 2010 in the belief that Kay may have been buried there, although she was not found.[4] In 2018, investigative reporter Mark Williams-Thomas released a documentary as part of his The Investigator: A British Crime Story series, in which he asserted that the cases of Earl and Kay were likely linked and that both women were victims of Tobin.[4] In criminologist David Wilson's 2012 episode of Killers Behind Bars: The Untold Story that centred on Tobin's involvement in Earl's murder, Kay was also briefly brought up.[1] Operation Anagram's lead officer, Detective Superintendent David Swindle, told Williams-Thomas in the 2018 The Investigator documentary that he believes Tobin murdered Kay.[4]

In 2018, Sussex Police stated that they had "no evidence implicating Tobin or any other named or known individual" in Earl's murder.[7] By this point they had no open lines of enquiry, but they were reviewing the case every two years. Earl's parents believe that Peter Tobin could be responsible for her murder.[7]

In 2022, police gathered DNA from Earl's parents and checked it against "trophies" and other evidence collected by David Fuller, a double killer who had recently been convicted of killing two women in Tunbridge Wells in 1987.[13] However, no links were found.[13]

Jessie Earl's death is investigated in a 2012 episode of criminologist David Wilson's Killers Behind Bars: The Untold Story.[1] Wilson concluded that Tobin was likely responsible for Earl's murder.[1]

Earl's case also features as part of a 2018 episode of investigative journalist Mark Williams-Thomas's documentary series The Investigator: A British Crime Story.[4] Williams-Thomas concluded that Earl's death could be linked to Tobin and that it was linked to the disappearance of Louise Kay from Eastbourne in 1988.[4]

In September 2018, The Telegraph newspaper published a 17-minute mini-documentary on the case, which was released on YouTube.[23]

• Death of Helen Bailey, similarly controversial 1975 case
• Murder of Patsy Morris
• List of solved missing person cases: pre-2000
• John Bodkin Adams, another serial killer who was living in Eastbourne at the time
• Murder of Lindsay Rimer, similar unsolved 1994 case in which a girl who disappeared from Yorkshire was found a year later in a nearby canal

• Williams-Thomas, Mark (2019). "Victims of a Serial Killer?". Hunting Killers: Britain's top crime investigator reveals how he solves the unsolvable. UK: Bantam Press. ISBN 9781473564190.
• Wilson, David; Harrison, Paul (2010). "Cold Cases". The Lost British Serial Killer: Closing the Case on Peter Tobin and Bible John. London: Sphere. pp. 222–224. ISBN 978-0-751-54232-5.

• 2012 Killers Behind Bars documentary on the case by Criminologist David Wilson
• 2018 mini-documentary on the case by The Telegraph newspaper