Helena Swann

Helena Swann was strangled with a wire flex at her council flat in Memorial Avenue, West Ham.

Her body was found on the night of Monday 9 June 1986. The wire flex had been for her lamp and was still plugged in when she was found.

Her body had been sexually mutilated.

A neighbour was tried for her murder but acquitted.

Helena Swann had been a clerk with the Ministry of Defence. Her family had called at her ground floor flat after she didn't turn up for work and found her dead in her bedroom.

There was no sign of a forced entry.

The neighbour tried for her murder had been a factory worker. At his trial he admitted that he had found her body and that he had lied to the police when he had told them that he had never been in her flat. His palm print was found on the wall above her bed.

He said that he had gone into her flat when he noticed that the door was ajar and got no reply. He said that he went in and saw her dead on the bed and had a close look at her but that when he realised she was dead he panicked. He said:

He said that he then immediately left and shut the door and went back to his flat on the first floor and told no one about what he had seen.