Manchester Moon Murders | The Moor's Slender Man

It all started on August 18th, 1944 when Sheila Fox a 6-year-old disappeared as she walked home from school. Within the next 4 years 7 other children were attacked or killed, and only one of these incidents was actually solved. The common description of the perpetrator in all the cases was a thin, pale-faced man. | Host – Marlene Pardo Pellicer

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Sheila Fox missing since 1944

​It all started in August 18, 1944, when Sheila Fox, age 6 disappeared. Her family lived on MacDonald Ave, in Farnworth, and someone took her as she walked home from St. James’ Primary School in New Bury.

A huge search operation involving police, air raid wardens and scouts was mounted. She was never found. There were several unconfirmed sightings of a girl matching Sheila's description, wearing a blue dress and a green coat riding on the handlebars of a black bike driven by a man. He was described as  well-dressed, clean-shaven, between the ages of 25 and 30 years, with a thin build.

She became known as the "girl in the Green Mac".

Newspapers covered the story, which was quickly "overshadowed" by events caused by WWII.

The disappearance of Sheila Fox has never been solved.

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Patricia McKeown was stabbed by a man fitting the description of taking Sheila Fox a year before c.1945

On October 24, 1945 at almost the same spot, another 6 year old by the name of Patricia McKeown was stabbed on her forearm while on her way home from school. The knife thrust broke her arm as well. 

She lived in the same neighborhood, but on Ramsey Street.  She recovered in the hospital, and she described her attacker as a thin man, hatless with hair parted down the middle, clean shaven and wearing a black mackintosh, with a white shirt.

At this time the police had not made a connection between the two incidents, but this was soon to change.

In February 1948, Brenda Hulme, 6, told her parents she had been accosted by a man on her way to St. James' School. He met her in the farmyard there and gave her a penny. He walked up Piggott Street with her, and near the school he gave her another sixpence. He was unable to entice her away.

She later told the police that he had dirty shoes, a brown overcoat and a cap. Two weeks later she reported seeing the man again behind the school.

By then it was obvious that a child predator waited in the area where these children would walk to and from school. Police alluded to the chances he was local to the area.

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Quentin Smith and David Lee who were attacked by a strange man c.1948

On April 13, 1948 Jack Quentin Smith, 11 and David Lee, 9, were returning home from Highfield School.  David was stabbed in his chest and abdomen, and Jack’s body was found stripped naked except for  a shirt behind a bridge next to a railway line. He had been beaten savagely across his head and stabbed, until he was killed.  His clothes were in a heap nearby.

David described how a man had stabbed him and thrown him to the ground, and then ordered him to wait until he returned.  David staggered across a field which was only a few hundred yards away from his home seeking help. Two neighbors immediately came to help him, and then went off to look for the other boy, which is when they found his body.

Later a railroad ganger, told a trackman by the name of Edward Booth who also lived on MacDonald Avenue that he had seen a trespasser near the railroad line, and told him to chase the guy off.  Booth later said that when he tried to order the man off, he appeared to be deaf. When he approached the area where Jack was later found, the man had disappeared.

The description of this man was very similar to one who had attacked Patricia McKeown two years before. Tall, thin and young, but with grey hair, wearing a suit with zig zag pattern and black boots. 

Bloodhounds were brought to the area, but nothing came of it. The mothers in the neighborhood started to walk their children to and from school.

It was at this time that police started to connect all the incidents starting with Sheila Fox’s disappearance, as possibly being the work of the same perpetrator.

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Local police when discovering body of David Lee c.1948

Within a day a dog had found a boy scout knife approximately 1/2 mile from the railroad embankment where Jack Smith was attacked.  The dog’s owner turned the knife over to the police. The knife was stamped with “William Rodgers  I cut my way”.  Detective Superintendent  J. Woodmansey examined the knife and said that it could have caused the injuries inflicted on David Lee.

One hundred officers scoured the area including going door to door. They asked for any person who had been on the train when it came through the area at the time of the murder, to come forward and give information if they had seen anything.  The police believed that it was local man who had won the confidence of the children.

Police were then informed that in Westhoughton, about 6 miles from Farnworth at 8:25 p.m. a man fitting the description of the perpetrator went to the Royal Oak Hotel, and was asking the way to Blackpool.

The police interviewed 200 people and reviewed similar cases, and came down to two theories as to who the killer was:

1. That he was a local man, and that someone would know his identity, especially if they had seen him wearing bloody clothes;
2. That he was an inmate of Bolton Social Welfare Committee’s Fishpool Institute from their casual ward, which was 1/2 mile from the murder scene.

The police believed the man suffered from temporary moments of insanity, and that he was going about normally in his life, and that he might even be unaware he killed someone.

A 5 year old named Trevor Cole told his parents, who relayed it to the police that he had seen a man leaving the field where the boy was killed and the he was sheathing a knife on his belt.
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During this 16 year old Kenneth Lester was arrested came to the police and confessed to the murder of Jack Smith, however the police determined he was lying.  Within a couple of months on July 10th 1948,  he murdered his 9 year old brother by trying to choke him with a poker, and then he beat him with it. Kenneth had been a voluntary patient at Prestwich Mental Hospital for 3 days in November, 1947. 

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Ward CH3, Queen’s Park Hospital. June Devaney's body was found on the other side of this building c.1948

On May 18, 1948, one of the most savage killings occurred, when a 3 year old girl named June Anne Devaney was taken from her cribbed bed at Queen’s Park Hospital located in Blackburn. This was 20 miles away from where Jack Quentin Smith was killed. She was recovering from pneumonia.

The night nurse on duty was named Gwendolyn Humphreys, she had been tending to the children in the ward of which June was the eldest, when she moved into the adjoining kitchen to begin preparations for breakfast.

At 12:20 a.m. she heard a cry coming from one of the cots so she returned to the room to make sure all was well. She noticed nothing unusual, so she resumed her work. Then at 1:20 a.m. she felt a draft coming from the veranda door. At the time she simply closed the door, and did not regard it as suspicious that was until she noticed an empty cot, which belonged to June Anne.

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The Winchester bottle found near June’s cot. White marks show where Inspector Colin Campbell found fingerprints.

Nurse Gwendolyn noticed a Winchester bottle had moved from the trolley, which she had placed underneath the child’s cot along with a trail of vague footprints. In panic she raised the alarm, and the police raced to the scene arriving promptly at 1:55 a.m. They began a systematic search of the grounds and at approximately 3:16 a.m. June’s beaten body was found lying next to the boundary wall of the hospital, 283 feet from the ward. She had been raped, bitten over her body, and then taken by the feet and her had was slammed across the wall in order to kill her.
 
The emergency services were baffled; they had no explanation as to what had driven someone to carry out an act so inhumane against a girl so small. The moors around Blackburn were thoroughly searched by the police.

The police claimed that it bore a resemblance to the killings in Farnworth.

It was at this time the newspapers started calling him the "Mad Moon Killer". In some instances it was described the murders occurred when the moon was new, in others it was when there was a full moon.​

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Police log and check the fingerprints of the more than 40,000 men in Blackburn

The police acted quickly, and they gathered all of the evidence they could find. The place where the girl was taken from was dusted it for fibers and fingerprints. Although the evidence was minimal, it included only prints from the Winchester bottle along with fibers and markings from the footprints on the floor. As a result, they had no immediate leads except reports of a "peeping tom" lurking around the hospital earlier in the night. He was questioned by the nurses as to what he was doing, and he replied; "Hush, don’t tell anyone". This man was found, fingerprinted and ruled out as a possible suspect. 

The investigators fingerprinted the hospital staff in order to rule them out. There was no match and the investigation continued.
 
The police received a statement from a taxi driver who claimed to have picked up a gentleman on Queens Park Road with a "local accent". The police realized they would be searching for a man with local roots, who had an extensive knowledge of the hospital as it would be almost impossible to negotiate it in the dead of night. 
 
Chief Inspector Capstick was ordered to fingerprint every single male over the age of 16  known to have been around the Blackburn perimeter between the 14th and 15th of May.

A squad of 20 officers swarmed the pre-determined districts recording those over the age of 16, but keeping a suspicious eye on those under it. The records were checked thoroughly against the electoral register and stamped as "cancelled" then filed if they did not prove a match, making sure that nobody slipped through the net. 

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George and Carol Creamer, siblings of Joseph Creamer c.1948

Then another shocking incident occurred on August 10, 1948 when the naked body of Joseph Patrick Creamer was found hanging by an electric wire in the ruins of a blitzed factory on Dutton Street in  Bolton, Manchester. He was a month shy of turning 4 years of age.

Joseph was only wearing his undershirt, and and even though it was never clarified, certain verbiage in the coverage indicated that both Jack Quentin Smith, and this child had been examined to see if they were raped, or "interfered with", which was the euphemism used in the newspapers of the day. He had gone out to play and within 45 minutes after he left his home, two schoolboys who were in the area of the disused warehouse heard a scream, and went inside and found the boy hanging.

It was believed the boy could not have entered the factory by himself, which indicated someone had carried him inside.
 
Hundreds of people were questioned, and on August 12, a 12-year-old boy was brought in for questioning. He was one of the original boys who claimed he had heard a scream coming from the ruined building. Police determined that a scream could not be heard from inside the factory, in relation to where the boy claimed he was.

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By this time the crimes were being referred to as "Moon Murders" c.1948

The boy admitted being with Joseph Creamer earlier in the day and lassoing him, and making a statement equivalent to the boy’s body falling through a hole in the floor down to the basement below.

Despite this evidence, the boy was discharged and not prosecuted for the death due to lack of evidence.

The question remained, as to whether  Joseph Creamer was killed by this boy or someone else.

Before this boy was arrested the police had put out a description for two men they were interested in interviewing. The description was a slim man, ill shaven, wearing a black jacket, dirty brown trousers, wearing boots and carrying a raincoat. Another man the police was interested in was described as thin build, dark hair, clean shaven, pale face, wearing a dark suit and a dirty, brown raincoat. This murder was never solved.

Joseph's father was in jail serving a sentence of 18 months on charges of theft. He was allowed to attend his son's funeral, along with two prison guards to escort him. He was returned to Stafford jail at the end of the funeral service.

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Peter Griffiths and picture of ward CH3, Queen’s Park Hospital. June Devaney slept in the cot second from left. Note white footprints on the waxed floor c.1948

On August 12, there was a breakthrough in the murder of June Anne Devaney. A card was found that bore prints of an exact match to those found in evidence, which led the search to a 22-year-old ex-serviceman named Peter Griffiths. He was a local man who lived at 31 Birley Street Blackburn.

The inspectors and police arrested Griffiths at 9:15 p.m. on the August 13. Once at the Blackburn police headquarters he released a lengthy statement admitting his guilt, but eerily he displayed no remorse for his actions. He was charged with the murder of June. The police then raided Griffiths’ house and found several items with his fingerprints on it, including a ticket from the pawnbrokers where he had sold the blood stained suit that he wore when he killed the child. Aside from his confession, all of the evidence was conclusive and pointed directly at him as the perpetrator.

Griffiths' trial began in October 1948, under the judgement of Justice Oliver. He explained to the court how he had carefully removed his shoes before entering the hospital, and crept cautiously through the halls. He had picked up the Winchester bottle, planning to use it as a weapon if he had to. Once inside the ward, he told the court: "I carried her under my right arm and she put her arms round my neck and I walked with her down to the hospital field".

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Peter Griffiths was executed at Liverpool Prison and buried in the prison's cemetery.

He described how after reading of the murder in the Blackburn Times, it had little effect on him. Mrs. Griffiths gave a statement in which she referred to her son as a "queer" child who had locked himself in his room for hours on end, playing with matches. 

He served in the Welsh Guards as WWII came to an end in 1945, He was only 18 years old then, but he stayed in the army until February, 1948, and returned to England when he was 22 years old.

He moved in with his parents and found work at a cotton waste factory, but had found a new job in August 1948, working at the nearby Appleby Flower Mill doing night shifts

The evidence against Griffiths was undeniable, and his defense had little choice but to appeal to the court in sheer desperation to avoid his execution. They claimed he was insane, and suffering from a "split mind" or schizophrenia.

They used Dr. Bailey, who had treated Griffith's father for schizophrenia. He was committed at Prestwich County Mental Hospital from June 1916 to March 1919, and had failed to keep a job due to his mental state. 

Dr. Alastair Robertson Grant who had worked for seventeen years at Whittingham Mental Hospital examined Peter Griffiths, and concluded that he displayed early signs of schizophrenia passed down from his father. The doctor claimed that the defendant was aware of what he was doing, but did not fully appreciate that what he was doing was wrong.

Grant later admitted that after hearing Griffiths’ account of events, he was of sound mind. This claim was further rebutted by Dr. F.H. Brisby, a medical officer from Liverpool prison who had observed the accused since his admission on August 14, and concluded that he was sane when he committed the crime. 

Following the two day trial, the jury took only 23 minutes to find him guilty of murder of a "brutal ferocity". He was sentenced to hang, and the execution took place on November 19, 1948 at Liverpool Prison.

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Market Street, Farnworth c.1959

In 2001, a new search was undertaken to find Sheila Fox. The effort was based on the story told by a witness who was a young child at the time of Sheila's disappearance. In his 70s, he described a man digging a hole in the back garden of a nearby house at midnight. Through the years it had preyed on his mind, he didn't come forward afraid of leading the police on a wild goose chase.

Authorities dug up the garden of a property located at 64 Barton Road, which was on the route between Sheila's home and the school. Richard Ryan, who as 20 years old then, lived at this address.

In 1950, he raped a 15-year-old in the bedroom of his  home at 64 Barton Road. He was 25 years old and married. He went on to admit he concocted a story in order to lure the girl into his home, while his wife was absent. He was sentenced to 5 years.

In 1965, when he was 41 years old, he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination. He admitted to indecently assaulting two 9-year-old girls. He raped them at his home while his wife Amelia was at Blackpool. By then he had moved from the house at Barton Road. He pleaded with the courts not to be returned to prison, and said he could not help himself.

Ann Howarth, 54, another neighbor said her aunt Linda Neary  lived next door to the Fox family. She retold where the Fox family commented at the time of the child's disappearance, "They always said at the time that Sheila was killed by someone she knew. She was so timid and soft, she would not have gone with a stranger."

Richard Ryan died in 1990.

 A forensic examination of the soil in the garden found the girl had never been buried there.

Of all these murders the only one that was fully solved was the one for June Anne Devaney. Even though Sheila Fox’s body was never found, it is presumed she was killed.  The description of the suspect seemed to be similar, and the question begs to be asked who was the slender man of the moors?

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