Marion Hartley

Whilst doing an interview for my family tree research I was told about a relative of mine who was murdered in the 1950s or 1960s.

There was only one source on the web that I could find that mentioned Marion Hartley, my 1^st cousin twice removed, and that was the grainy image of the front page of a Daily Mirror newspaper from Monday 25^th July 1966.

The transcription is:

Hunt in forest after girl, 15, is killed

By Mirror Reporter

Squads of police searched the fringe of a forest yesterday after a blonde schoolgirl has been attacked and killed.
The schoolgirl, 15-year-old Marion Hartley was attacked as she walked home from a dance at Chingford, Essex, after midnight.
Sounds of a struggle were heard by some of her neighbours in Forest Glade – a dim lit road with houses on one side and the edge of Epping Forest on the other.

Pond

Soon afterwards, 250 police with dogs began searching the forest.
Marion, a fourth-form pupil at Walthamstow High School was found dead in a bramble-patch, less than 100 yards from her home.
The police kept searching. Several men seen in the area were questioned.
As daybreak came, anglers began arriving to fish in a pond near where the dead girl had been found. They were turned away.
After five hours, the search was called off.
Last night, a 20-year-old man was charged with murder.
He will appear in court at Walthamstow today.

The article doesn’t mention the cause of her death, although my initial source said that she may have been strangled and that the person charged with murder may have been her boyfriend at the time. They also said they thought she had just got off a bus, but that seems to contradict the article.

If anyone knows anything about this, knew Marion Hartley, or knows where I may find more information about this unfortunate event, I’d be most grateful if you left a comment or otherwise got in touch.

A follow-up to this posts has been written, with new information.

Update 2010-09-01: Apparently, the birth certificate spelling was actually Marian and not Marion, so if anyone has information about the murder of Marian Hartley in 1966 then I’d love to hear from you as well!