SOME detectives have an unsolved case which still torments them years after they have retired.
For Colin Sutton, it is the murders of two young women and a girl of 16 in the 1970s by a serial killer who was never caught.
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Bunny Girl Eve Stratford and croupier Lynda Farrow were victims of the same man, who also raped and murdered schoolgirl Lynne Weedon.
Since retiring from the Metropoliitan Police 12 years ago, Colin has pursued his quest to find their killer, who is still free after nearly 50 years.
Now, for the first time, his team have managed to positively link Lebanese gambler Abdul Khawaja to both Eve and Lynda.
They also discovered a new eyewitness who saw Lynda’s killer moments after he left the murder scene.
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Colin tells The Sun: “This case has stayed with me. I felt I had to do something about it for the sake of the surviving family members.”
In his dogged pursuit of the killer, he has come up against a wall of silence — and received death threats.
In March 1975 Eve was found with her throat cut at the home she shared with her boyfriend in Leytonstone, East London.
Then in January 1979 pregnant mother-of-two Lynda was found dead with identical wounds at her house in Woodford, five miles away.
Months earlier she had quit her job as a senior croupier at the International Sporting Club casino in Mayfair, central London and had just left her violent husband Paul Farrow to move in with a new partner.
In 2009 DNA evidence established that Eve’s killer was also responsible for the random sex murder of teenager Lynne in September 1975.
She was abducted yards from her home in Hounslow, West London, as she took a short cut through an alley late at night after spending the evening with friends at a pub.
She was bundled over a fence surrounding an electricity sub-station, repeatedly bludgeoned over the head, and then raped. She was found the next morning but died soon afterwards in hospital.
In 2002, while still in the Met, Colin began a cold-case review of Lynda’s murder following a campaign for justice by her mother Gladys.
He quickly noted similarities with Eve’s murder, but in 2004 his focus switched to investigating the murder of French student Amelie Delagrange by another serial killer, Levi Bellfield.
Mr Fixit
After nailing Bellfield later in 2004, Colin went on to catch serial rapist Delroy Grant, known as the Night Stalker.
Since retiring in 2011, Colin — played by Martin Clunes in ITV’s 2019 Manhunter series about his most high-profile cases — has continued to probe the murders of Eve, Lynda and Lynne.
He and two former detectives from the Bellfield team, Jo Brunt and Mark Leach, conducted a private investigation, though their results — featured in a new four-part TV series, West End Murders — stop short of pinpointing the triple killer.
Khawaja, 5ft 2in — known as Little Abdul — was a shady Mr Fixit operating in London’s clubs and casinos. He was a regular face at the Playboy Club and a 1981 licensing court case heard how he lined up girls for wealthy customers.
He was close to the Playboy Club’s London chief Victor Lownes and steered oil-rich Arabs to the gaming tables.
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The young women he introduced to clients were known as “Abdul’s Angels”, and according to other Bunny Girls, Khawaja knew Eve well. They are said to have dined together on the night before her death.
Khawaja — now dead — is said to have been angered by Eve’s centrefold appearance in that month’s Mayfair adult magazine, which led to her being suspended as a Bunny Girl.
Thanks to Colin and his team, Little Abdul has now been identified by croupier Lynda’s daughters Justine and Samantha after they were shown his photo.
They say he was a regular visitor to their family home in Chislehurst, Kent, and known as Monty.
Khawaja had a deformed leg and walked with a limp, and is thought to have been given the nickname by Paul and Lynda based on John Cleese’s Ministry of Silly Walks sketch on television comedy Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Daughter Justine said: “He was a close friend of my dad’s and always gave us a lot of money when he visited.
“We never really saw him again after my mum died. I do feel he is the link to these murders.”
Khawaja was quizzed separately over Eve and Lynda’s murders before he moved to France and married. He died in the early 2000s.
Khawaja’s name came into it and we looked at his known associates, which threw up one particular subject of interest
Colin Sutton
Family DNA from a sample provided by his son eliminated Khawaja forensically from the murders of Eve and Lynne, and neither was he a match for palm prints found at the site of Lynda’s murder.
Colin says: “Lynda and Eve didn’t know each other but we wanted to find a link, as there are so many similar factors in their murders.
“Khawaja’s name came into it and we looked at his known associates, which threw up one particular subject of interest, an ex-policeman.
“Then we found out through Lynda’s daughters — who were only eight and 11 when their mother died — that Khawaja was a regular visitor to their home and known as Monty.”
To Colin, the similarities between the two killings were stark. There was no sign of forced entry to their homes, neither was sexually assaulted and their throats were both slashed from behind, by a left-handed killer.
On the day she died, Eve got home at around 4.30pm, then a neighbour heard loud shouting from a male and female at 4.55pm — and a thump.
It was snowing that day and Eve changed out of her wet clothes when she got home.
She was wearing pink underwear and an open blue dressing gown when she was found dead by boyfriend Tony Priest when he arrived home from work.
Monkey boots
She was lying face down with her hands and ankles tied. The wound to her throat was so deep that it severed her spinal cord.
Two male DNA profiles were later found from the crime scene. The killer’s was found on her bindings, while the other unidentified profile was from semen, suggesting Eve had had sex that day.
A witness described seeing two men nearby at the time. One, described as short, with a too-long overcoat and walking with a limp, closely resembled Khawaja.
Colin says: “The original investigation looked at all aspects of Eve’s life and found no reason for her murder.
“The only motive left for killing Eve was her association with the Playboy Club. She had just been suspended from there for appearing in Mayfair magazine — could she have threatened to blow the whistle on someone?
“The club let Khawaja do things they should not have done because he was bringing business to them by enticing customers with girls.
“Eve knew Abdul well and the most logical thing is that because Eve was suspended and not going back there, she was party to knowledge that would have damaged him badly.
“It is clear that he is at the centre of this but we know he didn’t directly carry out the murders. Therefore someone must have been hired and brought in to do it.”
It was also snowing when Lynda died, on January 19, 1979. She too had her spinal cord severed, with a kitchen knife taken from a drawer.
At 17 she had married Paul, a casino croupier, and they lived in a large detached house. She trained as a croupier herself and later became a supervisor of the gaming tables.
Colin said there was “some evidence” she had argued with Khawaja at the club where she worked.
He was dressed in black and had long black hair. He was obviously in a hurry and looked at me angrily
Julie Reid
On the day of her death she visited her mother Gladys and they went shopping. Gladys, who has since died, said Lynda told her she had seen three men in a white car outside her home that morning.
Gladys said that while out with Lynda she had seen three men — Paul’s elder brother Ray, Dennis Facey, husband of Paul’s sister Iris, and ex cop Douglas Whittaker.
Lynda later headed home for her daughters’ return from school. But when younger daughter Justine arrived back first there was no answer to the doorbell, so she opened the letter box — and froze in horror.
Her mother was face down in the hallway next to a large pool of blood.
The back door was open and there were still footprints in the snow made by a pair of monkey boots.
Colin’s team found a new witness, Julie Reid, who had passed a suspicious man on the pavement at the rear of the house.
She said: “He was dressed in black and had long black hair. He was obviously in a hurry and looked at me angrily.
“He was carrying a plastic bag with something in.” But with no further clues, Colin’s team focused their inquiries on close associates of Paul Farrow, and discovered his brother Ray had been beaten up the following night by publican Ted Prosser.
Justine says Prosser later told her he had given Ray “a good hiding” after he went into his pub and “bragged” about her mother’s murder.
Major development
Paul Farrow, who had a concrete alibi, died three years after Lynda.
Police investigations into Eve and Lynda’s murders struggled, then in 2009 came a major development, when the murder of schoolgirl Lynne was linked by DNA to Eve’s death.
Colin says: “The logical explanation is that whoever was hired to kill Eve and Lynda then went on to kill Lynne on his own.
“You would never link the murders of Eve and Lynda with Lynne but the science does not lie.”
As a result of inquiries by Colin’s team, the Met reopened the case.
Former cop Mr Whittaker, who had moved to Thailand, gave a DNA sample and was eliminated as a suspect.
Colin says: “Next year will be 50 years since Eve and Lynne were murdered. The killer struck three times in four years but we must conclude the person has not been around since.
“If the killer died or went abroad to evade detection then it is unlikely he will ever be found.
“But his DNA profile is in the system and there remains a possibility that through familial DNA techniques he may yet be identified one day.
“Until that day ever comes this case will always be with me.”
Lynda’s daughter Justine, now 52, says: “I feel there is still someone out here who knows absolutely what happened.
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“It means there’s always a possibility it could be solved.”
- West End Murders started yesterday on Crime+Investigation. The series will also be available to stream on Crime+Investigation Play.
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