AN HEIRESS was forced into a 54ft mine and starved by her serial killer before she plummeted to her death in a chilling ransom case.
Teenager Lesley Whittle spent her tragic final days alone and without food at the bottom of a ventilation shaft after being abducted by serial killer Donald Neilson.
Lesley Whittle, 17, was abducted and left to starve at the bottom of a ventilation shaft[/caption]
She was kidnapped from her bedroom by Donald Neilson who demanded a £50,000 ransom in exchange for the safe return of the teenager[/caption]
Her body was later found inside a sewer drain more than 60 miles away from her home[/caption]
Nicknamed The Blank Panther, Neilson had crept into Lesley’s family home and kidnapped her from her bedroom in the quiet village of Highley, Shropshire, on 14 January, 1975.
Her naked body was eventually discovered 52 days later in Bathpool Park, Kidsgrove, hanging from a wire noose attached to a pipe.
Lesley had been born into a life of privilege, with Neilson targeting her after reading about a widely reported family dispute over the will of her father, George Whittle, who had died in 1972.
George had left behind a fortune of £300,000 intended for partner Dorothy and their two children, Ronald and Lesley, after heading a successful Shropshire-based coach firm.
Neilson meticulously watched the Whittle family home for over a year, figuring out their movements as well as any entry points into the six-bedroom property.
The serial killer had already murdered three sub-postmasters in armed robberies and burgled around 400 homes before he moved on to his teenage target.
After monitoring the home for over a year, he hatched a plan to break into the 17-year-old’s bedroom.
On a cold January night, Neilson struck and cut the phone wires for the property before he crept into the home through the garage.
Once inside, he let himself into Lesley’s room where he gagged the teenager, tied her hands, and forced her out of the house to a Morris 1100 that he had stolen to use during the kidnapping.
Lesley, who is remembered as a bright and studious girl who aspired to study at Sheffield University, was never seen alive again.
She was driven for almost two hours to Bathpool Park, 65 miles away in Kidsgrove, and then made to climb down a dark and dingy shaft while being held at gunpoint.
He kept the 17-year-old captive on a narrow platform at the bottom of the drain and demanded her family pay a £50,000 ransom in exchange for Lesley.
The teenager was also forced to make a ransom message for her mother, saying: “There is nothing to worry about, mum. I am okay.
“I got a bit wet but I am quite dry now and I am being treated very well, okay?”
This was unfortunately far from the truth, as Lesley was instead kept unclothed on the ledge and had a hood placed over her head.
She was kept tethered by a wire noose that wrapped around her neck.
Following an extensive search and a botched ransom drop, Lesley’s body was tragically discovered on 7 March, 1975, hanging from her wire noose attached to a pipe.
Excluding a pendant given to her by her boyfriend, Lesley was naked, and a postmortem examination determined that she had been starved for at least three days before her death.
Her body weighed just over six stone (38kg) despite Neilson claiming later in court that he had brought her fish and chips.
The teen’s malnourished body was tragically found with her feet just seven inches from the floor.
Lesley had died from shock after the fall from the ledge, and it’s believed it could have taken her four minutes to die as her neck hadn’t broken.
The horrific discovery kickstarted one of the most extensive investigations seen in Staffordshire.
It involved over 400 officers from three separate police forces and the Metropolitan Police.
Detective Chief Superintendent Harold Wright said: “It was a feeling of immense sadness — and the knowledge that we now had a murder inquiry on our hands.
“I didn’t mind who found him, I just wanted him found as soon as possible.
“Over the next nine months, we learnt everything there was to know about our killer — except his name and address.
With “the eyes of the whole country” watching them, cops worked 15 hours a day to find the kidnapper.
The callous killer was finally caught in 1975 after he was behaving oddly in a sub-post office in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
Cops who detained him initially were unaware they had found infamous murderer Donald Neilson until his fingerprints matched those found in the drain shaft.
He was questioned for two days before confessing to his heinous crimes but tried to paint the killings as accidents.
When he was convicted for Lesley’s murder, and the killing of the sub-postmasters a cheer broke out in the courtroom.
Neilson spent his life in prison and died from motor neuron disease in 2011, aged 75, having spent a total of 35 years behind bars.
A police press conference in Kidderminster at which point the force disclosed Lesley was in the hands of ‘the most dangerous criminal at large in Britain’[/caption]
A beaten up Neilson pictured after being apprehended by a crowd of angry miners who had left him for the police to take away in July 1976[/caption]
Part of the drainage shaft at Bathpool Park where Lesley’s naked body was found hanging[/caption]
