One of Britain’s longest unsolved crimes: The murder of schoolgirl Muriel Drinkwater

On a summer’s day in the quiet Welsh village of Penllergaer, Swansea, 12-year-old Muriel Drinkwater sang to herself as she walked home from school. After passing a former school friend, she happily waved to her mum through the kitchen window. 

What happened next sent shockwaves far beyond her hometown – and still has detectives searching for answers. In the moments that followed, Muriel was beaten, raped and shot twice in the chest just yards from her family’s farmhouse. Her body was left in the woods nearby. 

It’s been 79 years since that tragic day, yet the schoolgirl’s killer remains unknown, and her murder is now one of the longest-running cold cases in the UK. Despite decades passing and detectives coming and going, the police are still trying to find out what happened on June 27 1946.

The day of Muriel’s murder

An intelligent young girl with a promising future ahead, every school day, Muriel would make her way up the one-mile path from the bus stop to her isolated house.

That June day, as she skipped down the familiar route, with her brown satchel swinging over her shoulder, she crossed paths with Hubert Hoyles, 13, who was heading in the opposite direction. The schoolboy had just visited her family farm, Tyle-Du, to purchase eggs from her mother, Margaret, at around 4.30pm. 

Looking out the window as she made a cup of tea, Margaret caught sight of her daughter through a gap in the trees about 400 yards away, and the pair waved at each other. 

When Muriel did not reach home soon after, her concerned mum went to the local village to alert the police constable. At the same time, her father began searching the woods with local men in torrential rain. 

Their desperate search came to an abrupt end the next day, on June 28, when PC David Lloyd George spotted something unusual in the undergrowth. Stepping closer, he realised it was Muriel’s body. 

The investigation begins

Following the grim discovery, the Glamorgan Constabulary called on Scotland Yard for assistance, and Detective Chief Inspector William “Bulldog” Chapman arrived in the village. He led the inquiry until his death nine years later, and was said to be greatly affected by the struggle to find the culprit.

‘The little police force wouldn’t have had the expertise to conduct a murder investigation of that type, so that’s why reinforcements would have been called,’ explains Simon Dinsdale, a former police detective who led on 30 murder enquiries, and now presents popular talks on cold cases, including Muriel’s. 

With no clear motive or suspect in sight, the schoolgirl’s murder made headlines for months. People were naturally horrified at the brutal nature of her death, and the police were under extra pressure to find clues. They carried out time-consuming investigative work, with detectives visiting every house within 150 square miles of the murder scene and interviewing 20,000 men.

‘It was a fairly comprehensive investigation for the time, and the lack of closure wasn’t for lack of trying,’ Simon tells Metro.

‘They did a huge amount of work, found the gun that was used to murder her just two days after her death near where her body was discovered, and had several suspects.’ These included Hubert, who had last seen her alive, and her dad, John ‘Percy’ Drinkwater. ‘If you’ve got a case like that and you don’t know who did it, you always look at the father. That’s fairly standard,’ Simon adds.

However, without any clear-cut evidence linking them to the murder, nobody was arrested or charged. 

New clues emerge

With the killer still at large over 50 years later, police hoped that DNA evidence, which had first been used in a UK criminal case in 1986, could be used to extract genetic information from the gun used to kill Muriel.

The dream was short-lived, however, as they quickly realised that too many people had handled the murder weapon over the years, making the task impossible. 

Five years later, a team of retired detectives investigating cold cases discovered Muriel’s coat, underwear and school uniform had been lying forgotten inside a wrapped paper bag in police storage. Scientists were able to use cutting-edge techniques to tease crucial information from a no-longer-visible semen stain that had been circled with a yellow crayon on the coat. Finally, Hubert was ruled out, after living his whole life under a ‘cloud of suspicion’. 

Another name that was linked to the killing was child murderer Harold Jones, after true crime writer Neil Milkins claimed him as the number one suspect. Jones had killed eight-year-old Freda Burnell and 11-year-old Florence Little 25 years before Muriel’s death, and when in prison, he said that voices demanded he kill again. He was freed in December 1941, but the DNA sample from the coat disproved any involvement.

With no match for the semen ever to have been found in the national DNA database, the retrieved samples are continually searched against the ever-growing records every month.

‘They could solve the case by identifying a familial match. A descendant of the killer could get caught drink driving, have their DNA added to the system, and then it would get flagged,’ explains Simon. 

‘The police could then look at the previous generations of their family, and get closer to who could be connected.

‘It’s unlikely the South Wales Police do any active investigation, but it’ll sit there in the background, bubbling away. A murder investigation is never closed until it’s solved.’

Hope for the future

While some may wonder why money is still invested in solving historical cases, Simon argues that a resolution is still important to many.

‘At one of my true crime talks a few years ago, an elderly lady came up to me and said, “Thank you so much for talking about Muriel. I used to sit next to her in school”,’ he recalls. ‘This lady was early 80s, but said people still want to know what happened. She explained that it had a huge effect on her and that she felt unsafe because of it. There are still direct descendants of Muriel who want answers too.’

Simon also knows firsthand how rewarding it can be, as he solved several cold cases before retirement. He led a team who looked into murder of 63-year-old Norah Trott, in Rochford in 1978, that went unsolved for 27 years until 2005 when DNA evidence to Wayne Doherty, led to a rape and murder conviction. ‘There is a real sense of satisfaction. Getting justice, even after many years, is why you do the job,’ he adds. 

‘If they get a resolution for Muriel, the investigators will feel real pride. There’s a small chance that the perpetrator is still alive, and if they were, that would be the most incredible justice.’

Old cases are solved ‘virtually every week’, he adds, so there is always a chance. ‘The science advancements are staggering, for instance, they can now find DNA in soil if a body lies above it. 

‘Something else could come along and make a difference in this case. Muriel’s killer could certainly be found, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.’

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk 

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