Victim of the Motorway Monster? The unsolved murder of Barbara Mayo

Over fifty years have passed since the killings of Jacci Ansell-Lamb, and Barbara Mayo, and yet both remain unsolved. Here, in the second in a series of special reports, the first of which looked at Jacci's murder, Manchester Evening News chief reporter Neal Keeling looks back on a case which shocked Britain.

Seven months after the murder of Jacci Ansell-Lamb, 18, killed as she hitchhiked from London to Manchester, another young woman hitchhiker was brutally killed. It triggered one of the largest police investigations Britain had ever seen at the time.

Barbara Janet Mayo was a seasoned traveller. The English graduate had hitched her way around Europe after completing her studies. A trainee teacher, she made money on the side dealing in cars.

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On the morning of October 12th 1970, a month before George Harrison would release his sprawling and brilliant All Things Must Pass triple album, and the haunting single, My Sweet Lord, Barbara left her home at 40 Rockley Road, Shepherd's Bush, London, at 8am.

The reason for her early start from the home she shared with her boyfriend was to collect a vehicle some 240 miles away. She caught the tube to Hendon. From there she intended to hitchhike to Catterick in North Yorkshire.

Her plan was to collect her boyfriend’s car from a garage near Catterick. They had left it there after it had broken down as they headed south from a trip to County Durham to buy four new wheels. Both then hitched back to London.

Barbara began thumbing a lift near the same location where Jacci Ansell-Lamb had started her ill-fated journey. She was trying to go north via the M1 and A1. She did not make it to the