The body of young mother Janine Downes was found in the hedge of a layby in Shropshire in 1991. She had been dragged there and partially concealed in the early hours of a cold February morning.
More than 30 years later, her death remains a complete mystery. No one has ever been charged or convicted for her brutal murder.
Police are convinced someone is withholding vital information which could help solve the crime.
Channel 4’s In the Footsteps of Killers will explore the case in an episode on Tuesday 22 July at 10pm.
We take a look at what is known about Ms Downe’s life, cut tragically short by murder.
Janine Downes was a mother of three very young children, who had turned to sex work to feed and clothe them.
The 22-year-old had two boys, Tyrone and Gavin, who were toddlers at the time of her murder, and baby Sioned who was just a few months old.
She had previously been living on the Yew Tree Estate in West Bromwich, in the West Midlands, with her children, but returned to Wolverhampton shortly before her death.
One of four siblings herself, she had lost her own mother when she was nine years old.
A week before she was killed, she had written a letter to her father John Downes, who lived in Low Hill, Wolverhampton. In it, she had apologised for not writing earlier and promised to stop the sex work.
Dr Graham Hill, Professor David Wilson and actress Emilia Fox will explore the case of Janine Downes in Channel 4 show In the Footsteps of Killers (Photo: Channel 4)He said: “Janine did what she did to make ends meet – to feed and clothe her children. She took to prostitution for her children – she just couldn’t manage. I told her to stop and said we’d help her. She wouldn’t harm anyone.”
Joyce Edge, a family friend, described Janine as “a lovely girl who would give you her last penny”. She said she “adored her children”.
On the night she died, Ms Downes had briefly visited The Harp Inn pub in Walsall Street, Wolverhampton. She had told friends she was planning to head to London that night but first needed to earn money for her fare.
But she never made it to the capital. Instead, her body was found, by a passing motorist, partially clothed in a layby on the A464 near Hatton, Shropshire, just outside of Shifnal, at 9.30am on 2 February, 1991.
She was wearing only a paisley blouse, a bra and blue ankle socks. Her blue jeans, white trainers and black shell-suit jacket were never found.
She had been strangled, sexually assaulted and suffered extensive head wounds before her body was dragged a short distance and hidden in a hedge.
She was just 5ft tall and weighed less than eight stone.
The pathologist estimated her body had been dumped in the hedgerow of the layby between midnight and 4am.
Why has Janine Downes’s murder remained unsolved?
Over the years, there have been a number of arrests but no one has been convicted for Ms Downes’s murder. It remains one of the oldest unsolved murders West Mercia Police continue to investigate.
Police believe someone is withholding a “nugget” of information which is key to the case.
On the 30th anniversary of her death in 2021, Detective Inspector Lee Holehouse of West Mercia Police appealed for anyone with information to come forward.
He said: “To date, despite a continuous and full investigation and several arrests being made, nobody has been charged with her murder and I desperately want to change that.
“We the police are still unclear as to what happened to Janine in the hours and days before her death. We are unclear as to whether it’s likely that Janine was killed by a stranger or someone known to her.
“We do know that Janine was a sex worker working in the Wolverhampton area at around the time of her death and would appeal to anybody who was within this circle at the time or even now and may who have information to contact us.
“Moreover, I appeal to anybody with any information which may lead to the identity of Janine’s killer to get in touch in order that we can get the justice that Janine and her family deserve.
“Somebody somewhere knows what happened. Janine’s family have lived without closure for far too long.”
Mr Downes said that DNA would provide the breakthrough now but “they didn’t have anything back then”.
Five months before his daugther’s death, her friend and fellow sex worker Gail Whitehouse was also murdered. The 23-year-old mother-of-two was strangled and her body dumped in bushes off Steelhouse Lane, Wolverhampton.
Her case has also remained unsolved.
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