A BBC DRAMA IS SHINING A LIGHT ON THE CASE OF WALES’ FIRST SERIAL KILLER
On 17 July 1973, the body of 16- year-old Sandra Newton was found dumped close to a disused colliery near Neath in Wales. The teenager, who was last seen enjoying a Saturday night out with friends in Briton Ferry, had been raped and strangled. It was a brutal murder, and police suspected the perpetrator was someone unknown to Sandra, a dangerous predator who would strike again if not caught. That dreadful prediction came to pass just two months later, but it would be 30 years before the killer was unmasked, thanks to then-revolutionary new DNA techniques. As Steeltown Murders dramatises the events, we look back at the hunt forthemandubbedtheSaturdayNightStrangler.
INSURMOUNTABLE ODDS
Factory worker Geraldine Hughes and her best friend Pauline Floyd, both 16, had spent the evening of Saturday 15 September 1973 at Top Rank nightclub in Swansea. The venue was packed, and the girls danced to glam rock and enjoyed a few drinks before they started thinking about returning to the nearby village of Llandarcy, where Pauline lived. By all accounts, it was a rainy night when they left the club and ran for the shelter of a nearby bus stop. But they didn’t get on the bus. Instead, a seeming good Samaritan offered them a lift. An eyewitness would later tell the police he saw a white car stop and the driver lean over, a quick chat that ended with the girls getting in. It was the last time they were seen alive.
The next morning, a man walking in the woods in Llandarcy came upon a horrifying scene. Pauline was face down on the ground, with a rope around her neck. Covered in blood, she had been beaten around the face and head. Some 150 feet away was Geraldine, who had also been beaten and strangled. The bodies were found close to the motorway, and witnesses said they had seen a white car there in the early hours of the morning – the same car that had been seen the night before, and that had also been seen near where Sandra had been found. The police didn’t yet know it, but Wales had what they would later come to understand was its first serial killer.
A huge police investigation was launched, led by Chief Superintendent Ray Allen. Over 150 officers were hunting for the killer, but the task was almost insurmountable right from the beginning. The nearby town of Port Talbot was dominated by the steelworks, and the police had 13,000 male employees to rule out. Adding to their workload were hundreds of construction workers building the M4, and the men from the annual Neath Fair, which had been in town. With the white car their best lead – identified as an Austin 1100 – they began tracking down and quizzing 11,000 local owners. But with a suspect list that ran to 35,000 names, resources were stretched
