This article originally appeared on VICE UK.
As a backyard was excavated in Birmingham, England earlier this month, thought to be where missing-presumed-murdered real estate agent Suzy Lamplugh had been buried following her disappearance in July of 1986, the case of Penny Bell came to mind.
Unlike Lamplugh, Penny's family know where she rests. She has a headstone. She has a marker. Like Lamplugh, though, her killer has never been identified. They are two women whose names haunt British cold case files. Penny—or Ruth Penelope "Penny" Bell, to give her full name—is one synonymous with crime unsolved in the British Isles. Notorious for the ferocity of the murder, as well as the big, never-answered questions her death posed, as the years have passed, the silence where answers should be has become deafening.
"People refer to my mother's murder as a cold case," says Penny's daughter Lauren over the phone. "But if it's cold, it's freezing cold." Lauren was just nine when her mother was found stabbed 50 times, on June 6, 1991, slumped behind the wheel of her powder blue Jaguar XJS in the parking lot of a gym, in Perivale, suburban west London.
"There is a team working on it," Lauren continues. "They're called Murder Command. They're looking at putting the forensics back through. I get an email once every four or five months from them. When a new murder occurs, we slip down the pecking order because of the age of the case, which is understandable, but very frustrating."
Born in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, on February 28, 1948, by 1981, Penny was married for a second time. Her husband was Alistair Bell, an real estate agent. They'd been friends before they married. Penny was a partner in Coverstaff Ltd., a thriving employment agency. With Matthew, 11, a son from Penny's first marriage, and Lauren, Penny and Alistair's child, the family lived in a £500,000 [$637,755] property in Buckinghamshire. At the time of the murder, The Sunday Times described the village as "The Home of the Stars," reporting that the magician Paul Daniels and singer Cilla Black lived there.
"I have no memories of my mother whatsoever," says Lauren. "Finding out what had happened, at nine, I wasn't able to cope cognitively with a trauma of that size. It's heartbreaking. The process of grieving involves revisiting memories, and when I was growing up I'd feel sad, but I just had no memories to draw upon. I've got a photo. I know that's my mom. But I can't remember anything about her. Anything."
What is known about the day of Penny's murder is as follows. At 8:30 AM, Alistair left for work as usual. The family was in the midst of house renovations, and builders were already at work. Penny left the house at 9:40 AM, telling the builders she was running late for a 9:50 AM appointment. No record of any appointment was listed in her diary and it has never been established who Penny had arranged to meet. Three days prior, on June 3, Penny had withdrawn a sum of £8,500 [$10,870] from her and her husbands joint bank account. Again, it has never been established what this money was spent on.
It's believed that Penny was murdered around 10:30 AM. She'd been seen motionless in the driver's seat of her car, parked at the gym, at 11 AM. A passerby had presumed she'd been sleeping. At 12:15 AM, a member of the public alerted the police. They discovered Penny had been stabbed 50 times in the chest and arms, the latter presumably defensive wounds, with a three- to four-inch blade. Forensics would later say the wounds indicated that Penny had initially been stabbed from the passenger's seat. Then from the driver's window.
At the time of the murder, the gym parking lot would have been full, though Penny's car was parked in front of a high hedge that ran around the perimeter of the lot, meaning the view from the front would have been obscured. The Jaguar was essentially soundproof. Nevertheless, the question as to how the killer—who would have been severely bloodstained by the attack—was able to leave the scene without being seen has perplexed anyone who has ever studied the case. Police quickly ruled out the motive of robbery due to Penny's handbag being left in the car with seemingly nothing removed. Police later reported that she hadn't been sexually assaulted.
Lauren reports that her father is a recluse. He doesn't see or speak to anyone. He still lives in the family home, "not that you'd know, it's like a rainforest there now."
"I do believe that if my mom hadn't been murdered," says Lauren, "that my dad would have told us the truth about his past, when we'd been old enough to understand it. For all of his wrongs, I think he was right to tell the police about it. He wasn't telling secrets that none of our close friends didn’t know. But it did change the investigation forever. Instantly people went, 'Oooh, it's the gay lover then.' I’m sure some of the bitterness my dad is eaten up with is because of that."
Despite previously saying she believed that Penny knew her murderer—which the criminal profile would back up—Lauren won't say she has a theory about who killed her mother. "There's so many things that don't make sense," she says. "My mom wasn't a secretive person; her diary was always open, she and my father always knew what each other were doing. My dad always said that prior to the day she died, my mom was the most stressed he'd ever seen her. He said he tried to talk to her but she just brushed it off as being tired. There are just so many loose ends…"
One of the details of the case that has never been explained is why, when police came to examine the murder scene, there were wallpaper samples laid out in the back of the car.
No theory, then, though Lauren says she is convinced she knows who the killer is. "What I'm not sure of is why, although the way she was killed does make me think there was some passion there."
She continues: "I know other people who've lost parents at a pivotal age who've turned to drinking and drugs, but thanks to a lot of therapy, I actually feel lucky that I think I've come out of this relatively unscathed. I made the decision to live. The one thing I know about my mother is that she loved life, so I try to live my life by that way of thinking." She pauses.
"I've had my own child now," she says, the sound of a toddler babbling distantly on the end of the phone. "I called her Penny."
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