16 May 2023
Last month marked the 46th anniversary of the discovery of a woman’s body in a copse near Wheathampstead and the start of a 13 year murder hunt by police to bring her killer to justice – Ross Francis looks back on the case…
It should have been a day of fun and freedom for two schoolboys as the Easter school holidays were coming to an end.
But a bike ride to Nomansland Common near Wheathampstead ended in horror when they stumbled across the body of a young woman in a copse.
The shocked youngsters cycled back to their homes in St Albans and, after telling their parents what they’d found, the police were contacted.
That Monday evening, accompanied by their fathers, the boys showed officers the spot where the body lay in the copse beside the B651.
It didn’t take detectives long to realise the youngsters had found the body of 24 year Janie Shepherd, an Australian heiress who had gone missing after being abducted in London 10 weeks earlier.
This April marked the 45th anniversary of that grim discovery by the boys and the start of a murder investigation by Hertfordshire Police that was to lead to to the eventual jailing of Janie’s killer, a serial rapist called David Lashley – 13 years later at St Albans crown court.
Janie had disappeared in London on the night of February 4 1977 and by the time her body was found the Metropolitan police were already trying to establish what had happened, suspecting she had been murdered.
The disappearance of the young blonde-haired Australian had been reported by the national papers.
With the discovery of Janie’s body, it fell to Hertfordshire Police to investigate her murder.
A post mortem revealed she had died from compression of the neck. She had been tied up and bore extensive bruising on her upper arms and chest area and some of her clothes had been changed.
Detectives concluded she had fought for her life and had been the victim of a violent sexual assault before she was murdered.
Janie Shepherd had enjoyed a comfortable and happy upbringing in Melbourne, Australia.
Her father, Anthony Shepherd, was the head of the Rootes car operation, but had died of a heart attack in his 50s when she was just 11 years old.
By her late teens, she was determined to travel and, in the early 1970s, Janie came to London to live with her relatives, Camilla Sampson and her antique dealer husband, Alistair, at their large detached home in St John’s Wood.
Around this time her mother married Australian businessman John Darling IV.
The Darling dynasty had built a business empire founded on grain.
They had bred politicians and even an Australian cricket captain.
By the summer of 1976, blonde-haired Janie had met and fallen in love with Old Etonian solicitor Roddy Kinkead-Weekes, who played second team cricket for Middlesex.
Janie was working at The Caelt Art Gallery in Westbourne Grove and her father’s Will provided her with an allowance.
On Friday February 4 1977 she arrived home at the Sampsons’ in her Mini. She bathed, changed and spent time talking to Camilla and Alistair.
At around 8.40pm she left the house. Her intention was to drive to Roddy’s flat at Lennox Gardens in Chelsea, stopping on the way in Queensway to buy food for their supper. She had a change of clothes with her.
By 9pm, when Janie hadn’t arrived at Roddy’s flat, he phoned the Sampsons. They were out, but their maid told him she had already left.
Roddy later contacted hospitals and rang the police to see if Janie had been involved in a car crash.
In the small hours of the morning, he reported her missing.
Police feared she could have been kidnapped by terrorists because of her background.
Four days later, Janie’s car was found in Elgin Crescent, Notting Hill Gate.
The sun roof had been slashed and inside bore all the signs that a frenzied struggle had taken place.
A cossack style boot she had been wearing was in the footwell. Her bloodstained tampon was discovered and traces of semen were found.
Mud and a chalky substance was spattered everywhere and the passenger seat belt had been cut. Her handbag was present, but money was missing.
Receipts found in the vehicle showed she had gone into Europa Foods, a supermarket in Queensway, to buy food for her and Roddy. Another receipt showed she had visited a petrol station in Bayswater.
After the finding of Janie’s car, the Met’s Detective Chief Supt Henry Mooney had been put in charge of investigating her disappearance.
His attention was soon drawn to an attack on a blonde-haired young woman the previous year.
Late one night in June 1976, a 23 year old single woman pulled up outside her home near Ladbroke Grove.
Suddenly a black man forced his way at knife point into the small car and drove a short distance to a quiet cul-de-sac where he twice raped her.
The spot was close to Elgin Crescent where Janie’s abandoned Mini had been found.
During the attack, the rapist had spoken of his hatred for white women.
He throttled her and then slashed her right wrist, severing an artery and cutting through flesh almost to the bone before fleeing.
Amazingly, she was able to summon assistance and surgeons saved her life.
She told police her attacker was a powerfully built black man who wore glasses and had a scar on the left side of his neck just under the jaw line.
Mooney and his team were sure they were on the right track when the scar was in fact found to be not on the right cheek, but on the left, just where the woman victim in the 1976 attack had described it.
She was then able to pick him out at an identity parade as the man who raped and tried to kill her the previous June.
The police discovered too that on the night Janie vanished, Lashley had been all night.
Lashley was charged with the 1976 rape and attempted murder of the woman driver, but denied any involvment with Janie’s disappearance.
Frustratingly, Hertfordshire police didn’t have the evidence to charge him with Janie’s murder.
In November 1977, Lashley went on trial at the Old Bailey for the rape and attempted murder of the woman the year before.
He was found guilty and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment.
The years went by and in early 1988, back in Australia, Janie’s grieving mother, Angela Darling was deeply troubled.
She had been made aware by detectives a decade earlier that Lashley had been the prime suspect in her daughter’s still unsolved murder.
The mother knew too that he was due to be released in less than a year under the parole system.
From her home in Australia, she wrote to Hertfordshire Police who had custody of the case, urging that they reopen the investigation into her daughter’s murder.
Her plea was successful and an investigation headed by Det Chief Supterintendent Ian Whinnett of Herts Police was launched into the Janie Shepherd murder case.
As part of the enquiry, police visited the jails where Lashley, who was now in his late 40s, had been held during his sentence and as a result Whinnett got an important breakthrough.
At Frankland Prison in Durham, Lashley had told another inmate, who he would work out with in the prison gym, how he killed Janie and was planning a campaign of rape and murder on his release scheduled for early 1989.
The inmate, Daniel Reece, a former supergrass was genuinely shocked by what Lashley told him and was eventually persuaded to make a statement to the police.
He gave a detailed account and it was clear he had been told things by Lashley that only the killer could know. He described pushing his huge fist into the windpipe of Janie’s neck, something that only a few detectives were aware of.
In February 1989, as Lashley walked out of Frankland Prison, officers from Herts Police were waiting and arrested him for the murder of Janie 12 years earlier.
David Lashley had come to England in 1961 from Barbados. The following year he married a 19 year old blonde haired single mother in London.
At first, he was considerate and caring but, within a year, he had changed into a violent wife beater who would demand sex.
The couple had two children, but he forced his wife to place her first child in an orphanage in Harpenden and not far from Nomansland Common.
By the late 1960’s, he was stopping out late at night.
Lashley had also discovered body building and was incredibly strong.
He had developed too, a hatred for white people. His 1969 offences included six rapes on blonde haired women who had been driving small cars in West London.
His wife eventually divorced him after he was jailed in 1970, unable to put up with his brutish ways any longer.
During his years in prison, Lashley had spent much of his time in gyms working out and lifting heavy weights. He was regarded as one of the strongest prisoners in the country.
He had huge biceps and shoulders and, with his barrel chest, possessed an awesome strength.
A year after his arrest outside the prison Lashley stood trial at St Albans Crown Court for the murder of Janie Shepherd. Watching the proceedings from the public gallery was Janie’s Mother, Angela Darling.
The prosecution’s case against Lashley was that on the night Janie had disappeared, Lashley had spotted her driving through London on her way to meet Roddy.
At some point – probably when she had stopped to buy the food for their supper – he had forced his way into Janie’s car.
Somewhere, probably in London, he had raped and murdered her before driving to Nomansland Common in Hertfordshire which was an area he knew.
There, he hid her body, before driving back to London in her Mini and abandoning it in Elgin Crescent.
The evidence of Daniel Reece was vital and, at the end of the three week trial, Lashley, 49 was found guilty and jailed for life.
The way Lashley chose his prey meant he was regarded as one of the most dangerous killers in the country and he remains behind bars.
