CHAPTER 13

The Red Mini Murder Raymond Sidney Cook, Eric Jones and Valerie Dorothy Newell 1967

At approximately 9.55pm on Thursday 2 March 1967, Robin Anthony Franklin and Colin Pinfield were driving up Cock’s Hill in Rumerhedge Wood in Peppard, Oxfordshire, when they passed a dark-coloured Cortina parked on a bend in the road. The car had its boot open, and the headlights were off, though the sidelights were still on. There was no sign of any occupant.

The two men continued on their journey and some one hundred yards further on they saw a red Mini, half on and half off the road. There was a woman lying on the ground close to the driver’s door and a man was bending over her, presumably trying to give what assistance he could. There was a third man at the scene, sitting in the front passenger seat and he appeared to be trying to get out of the car.

Robin stopped his car and asked what he might do to help, having first sent Colin off to find a call-box and get an ambulance to come. As Robin took in the scene, the man who had been leaning over the stricken woman said that he had not been involved in the accident but had simply found the car, just as Robin had done. He then said he would go back to his own car and get some blankets. To Robin Franklin’s surprise, the man never returned. Presumably he had climbed back into the Cortina up the road, and driven off.