ITV News 11 June 2019 Transcript
[0:00 – 0:11] Robert Murphy (ITV News): Shelley Morgan was the mother who dropped her young children off at school 35 years ago today and didn’t come home. It would be months before her desperate family discovered her fate.
[0:12 – 0:18] Reporter (ITV News): Shelley Morgan’s decomposing body was found in a shallow grave here in this copse a long way from the nearest road.
[0:19 – 0:28] Robert Murphy (ITV News): Shelley Morgan’s remains were found in the outskirts of Backwell, 8 miles west of Bristol. The death of the American, who had settled in Bristol, appalled even seasoned detectives.
[0:30 – 0:35] Reporter (ITV News): And your thoughts about this, as you said, excellent mother being killed in this way?
[0:36 – 0:39] Detective Superintendent Lew Clark (Avon & Somerset Police): Oh, diabolical. I mean, nothing’s worse than this, is it?
[0:40 – 0:53] Robert Murphy (ITV News): This was more than a riddle, but a full-blown murder inquiry. It led seemingly nowhere. No one was ever charged with her killing. But police today said new evidence may help unlock this decades-old mystery.
[0:55 – 1:06] Detective Sergeant Sarah Barnston (Avon & Somerset Police): Well we’ve had two postcards which we believe to be significant. What we do know of the postcards is they were tear off cards from a charity calendar which was probably produced back in 1980s.
[1:09 – 1:27] Detective Sergeant Sarah Barnston (Avon & Somerset Police): One of the images is the location that you can see behind me, looking over the River Avon. And the second postcard is of St Andrew’s Church in Backwell. We believe them to be significant because obviously this is where an area that she was seen and the Backwell card is where her body was located.
[1:33 – 1:48] Robert Murphy (ITV News): Children out playing found the remains of Shelley Morgan here at this copse near Backwell. When detectives got here, they could find few clues about her fate and who her killer was. She’d been stabbed, as that they were certain, probably sexually assaulted too.
[1:49 – 2:06] Robert Murphy (ITV News): But there was little other evidence. There was no murder weapon. She was wearing hardly any clothes and her belongings were not here. Shelley Morgan’s distinctive glasses have never been found. Today police said they were trying to trace her Olympus OM20 camera. It had a serial number, 1032853.
[2:08 – 2:21] Robert Murphy (ITV News): It could be in someone’s collection. They also believe her killer had a vehicle and had links, possibly through work, to Leigh Woods, Backwell or Clifton. [instruction: Prepare to move on!] Policing technology was very different in 1984.
[2:25 – 2:34] Robert Murphy (ITV News): No DNA, no CCTV Shelley Morgan’s body had laid here for four months so detectives had one main thrust of their inquiry
[2:35 – 2:53] Detective Superintendent Lew Clark (Avon & Somerset Police): Go back to the 11th of June that’s what we must do and start on the 11th of June in all probability that’s the crucial day Monday the 11th of June in the morning I would have thought she was either picked up voluntarily, or forcibly and taken somewhere and I would have thought murdered that day
[2:54 – 3:16] Robert Murphy (ITV News): Police are sure that on that day, Shelley Morgan left her home in Dunkerry Road, Bedminster, at 8.30 with her children. They went to school. Then it gets unclear. Some witnesses thought she caught a bus into Bristol. Another believe she spoke to Mrs Morgan on a bus from the old Marlborough Street depot to Long Ashton, getting off there at around 11.15am and speaking to a van driver behind it.
[3:16 – 3:41] Robert Murphy (ITV News): A third said she was a passenger in a council-type van, but none of these sightings was ever confirmed. They could each be false leads. Shelley Morgan would have been nearly 70 years old had she lived. Her children have grown up. She’d be a grandmother. Her husband has since died, never remarrying. Today her sister, speaking from America, made a heartfelt plea to people’s consciences.
[3:41 – 4:09] Holle Brian (Shelley’s sister): I’ve come to believe that people aren’t really completely dead until the people who love and remember them have passed also. As long as we carry Shelley in our hearts, she’ll always be with us. But we’re all getting older, and the time is going to come when all those doors are closed. We beseech you, if you know anything about what happened that day back in June of 1984, please come to the police. Maybe you were afraid to speak out at the time. Maybe your situation has changed.
[4:12 – 4:19] Holle Brian (Shelley’s sister): Out of love and respect for my sister, we really want to know what happened and be sure that the person who killed her will never hurt anybody ever again.
[4:20 – 4:33] Robert Murphy (ITV News): Police are not saying how the postcards fit into this inquiry. But this new evidence, plus public information, may, just may, solve the case of the mother who never returned home to her children. Robert Murphy, ITV News.