Kim Roberts

Kim Roberts was raped and murdered in 1964. A man was arrested 40 years later but there is no conclusion.

She went missing from her home in Stepney Way, Mile End whilst playing outside and was found 15 miles away in Watts Wood in a sandpit by two boys who were out rambling. One of the boys who found her said 'I was walking by a sandpit when I suddenly saw this girl in a brown coat. She was in a ditch on a bed of ivy on her side huddled up. I didn't move her at all. I called my friend. We ran to   the nearest tele­phone and dialled 999.'.

She had been missing for three days.

When she was found she was fully-dressed wearing a navy-blue gym-slip, white blouse, blue cardigan and brown coat which were the clothes she was wearing when she was last seen. However, some of her clothing was missing and the police said that they were looking for a sex maniac.

The police said that they thought that Kim Roberts had been picked up in a car or lorry and taken to Watts Woods and were interested in more information about a grey saloon car that had been seen parked near a bombed site near her home the previous Sunday. they were also keen to speak to anyone that had used the A13 that might have seen a grey saloon car near Watts Woods.

The investigations in Mile End focussed on a triangle bounded by Whitechapel Road and Commercial Road. It was not clear whether she had been murder in Mile End and dumped in Watts Wood, elsewhere or murdered in Watts Wood.

A man that had seen the grey saloon car said 'I was walking along the main road about 5.30am when a car came down a track from the wood. This struck me as odd because it is so little used, even in summer. I thought it even more odd when the driver dipped his head­ lamps and put them Full on again and darted on to the Southend Road. I have given the make and colour of the car to the police, plus part of its registration number. There was only one man in the car.'.

Other people that came forward during the investigation said that they had seen a man lifting a heavy bag out of a car near the spot where her body was found.

Whilst searching the woods police found stolen property worth thousands of pounds and appealed to the underworld for help saying that if any criminal that had dumped stuff there had seen anything unusual that they should contact them, anonymously if necessary.