Babes in the Wood murders (Epping Forest)

This article is about the 1970 Epping Forest murders. For the 1986 Wild Park murders, see Babes in the Wood murders (Wild Park).

Babes in the Wood murders
The April 1970 Metropolitan Police circular distributed in the manhunt to locate Blatchford and Hanlon
Date31 March 1970
LocationEpping Forest, Essex, England, UK
51°39′25″N 0°00′14″E / 51.657°N 0.004°E / 51.657; 0.004 (approximate)
CauseStrangulation[1]
MotiveChild sexual abuse
Rape
InquestOpen verdict (1970)
Murder (1998)
ConvictedRonald Jebson
ChargesMurder
SentenceLife imprisonment

The Babes in the Wood murders are the murders of two children which occurred in a copse in Sewardstone, Essex on 31 March 1970. The victims, Susan Muriel Blatchford (age 11)[2] and Gary John Hanlon (age 12),[3] were lured from an unknown location close to their north London homes into a copse on the outskirts of Epping Forest, where they were raped and murdered by known paedophile Ronald Jebson.[4] Their bodies were discovered on 17 June, 78 days after the two were reported missing by their parents.[5]

The case remained unsolved for almost thirty years until 61-year-old Jebson, serving a life sentence for the 1974 murder of an eight-year-old girl named Rosemary Papper, confessed to their rape and murder in 1998. He was convicted of both murders in May 2000.[6] Jebson subsequently died in prison in 2015.[7]

Blatchford and Hanlon became known as the "Babes in the Wood" due to the location of their murders and subsequent discovery of their bodies. They also became known by this epithet as the coroner was unable to determine if they died of exposure or foul play at the initial inquest into their deaths, leaving an initial possibility the children had died by misadventure.[8]

  1. ^ "'Babes in the Wood' Child Killer Ronald Jebson Got 'Very Good' End-of-life Care". The Belfast Telegraph. 14 September 2015. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  2. ^ "FreeBMD: Births: Sep. 1958". freebmd.org.uk. 19 September 2001. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  3. ^ "FreeBMD: Births: Dec. 1957". freebmd.org.uk. 19 September 2001. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  4. ^ "Killer Admits More Murders". The Irish Times. 10 May 2000. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
  5. ^ "Easter Disappearance that Heralded Three Decades of Heartache". The Guardian. 10 May 2000. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
  6. ^ "Violent Past of Babes' Killer". BBC News. 9 May 2000. Retrieved 24 June 2011.
  7. ^ "'Babes in the Wood' Murders: Paedophile Ronald Jebson Dies 'Secretly' in Hospital". The Independent. 27 April 2015. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  8. ^ "Man Admits 'Babes in Wood' Killings". BBC News. 20 April 2015. Retrieved 2 January 2021.