GIRL, 5, FOUND DEAD AFTER MANIAC ESCAPES: EVENING STAR, APRIL 30, 1952

John Thomas Straffen got over the wall at Broadmoor on the afternoon of April 29, 1952, and was free, the paper says, for only four hours. By the time he was back in custody, a five-year-old girl named Linda Bowyer had gone missing from her village nearby. Soldiers from the Arborfield camp joined the search through the night, and early the next morning she was found dead in a clump of woods. The Associated Press filed the story from Arborfield that same day, and Washington's Evening Star ran it on April 30, deep inside the paper on page 23.

The wire report has him recaptured about twelve hours before the body was found, walking in the woods with another little girl, seven years old, who was unharmed. He gave up without a struggle, it says, and Linda's disappearance was not reported until several hours after he was taken. The rest was still a question: "Police sought today to learn if Straffen was linked with Linda's death." The column's last paragraph explains why he had been in Broadmoor at all. The previous October, a hearing of about eight minutes had found him unfit to be tried for strangling two little girls.

Those girls were Brenda Goddard, five, and Cicely Batstone, nine, killed in Bath within weeks of each other in the summer of 1951, and Straffen admitted both. Linda Bowyer was the one he always denied. That same morning, before anyone had mentioned a child, he told a detective at Broadmoor that he had not killed the little girl on the bicycle. A jury at Winchester convicted him of her murder that July, and he was sentenced to death, reprieved in August, and kept in prison for the rest of his life.

This is a same-day wire report, written while the police were still asking whether Straffen was involved, and parts of it differ from the fuller record. Other accounts have him caught in a field at 6:40 after a short chase, with no mention of a second child, and have Linda's mother missing her at 7:30, within the hour. The paper gives the Bath girls' ages as six and nine; Brenda Goddard was five in most accounts and six in the police file. Straffen was convicted of Linda Bowyer's murder and denied it to the end. The journalist Bob Woffinden later questioned the conviction, and the Criminal Cases Review Commission declined to reopen it in December 2002.

The Evening Star of April 30, 1952, is less than ninety-five years old. The Library of Congress believes issues of that age are in the public domain, while warning that they may contain some copyrighted third-party material. This story is credited to the Associated Press, so it is syndicated wire matter rather than the paper's own work, though no copyright notice appears on it. The scan is from the Library's Chronicling America collection, and the citation and rights statement sit beneath it.

Most of the column reads cleanly and was transcribed word for word. The last paragraph did not survive intact: an advertisement bled over that stretch of the column, taking the opening letters of five lines, and each gap is marked [illegible] rather than filled in, even where the missing word seems plain. A stray quotation mark after the last damaged word belongs to the page and has been kept, as have the paper's own words for him, "insane strangler" in the text and "Maniac" in the headline.

A single column from Washington's Evening Star of April 30, 1952, under a heavy two-line headline, "Girl, 5, Found Dead After Maniac Escapes," credited to the Associated Press; the left edge of the last paragraph is lost, and an unrelated item, "Garlic Production Rises," begins below. No photograph.
Evening Star (Washington, District of Columbia), April 30, 1952, page 23, column 1: "Girl, 5, Found Dead After Maniac Escapes." Library of Congress, Chronicling America (LCCN sn83045462).Select the scan to open it at full size. The full newspaper page: JPG or PDF.Rights: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety." This issue was published in 1952. Because it is less than 95 years old, the Library of Congress notes that issues like it may contain some copyrighted third-party material.

Transcription

Transcribed word for word from the page scan. Original spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors have been kept exactly as printed. Unreadable words are marked [illegible]. Nothing has been modernised or corrected.

Girl, 5, Found Dead After Maniac Escapes

By the Associated Press

ARBORFIELD, England, April 30.—Five-year-old Linda Bowyer, who vanished from home shortly after an insane strangler escaped from nearby Broadmoor asylum, was found dead in a clump of woods today.

The escaped man, John Thomas Straffen, was recaptured some 12 hours earlier as he walked in the woods with another little girl, 7 years old. She was unharmed.

He had scaled the asylum wall and was free for only four hours.

Police sought today to learn if Straffen was linked with Linda's death.

Straffen gave up without a struggle. Linda's disappearance was not reported until several hours after Straffen was recaptured.

He had been sent to Broadmoor [illegible]t October after an eight-minute [illegible]ring in which he was found [illegible]ntally unfit for trial. He had [illegible]n charged with strangling two [illegible]ls," aged 6 and 9.