After 49 years, the murderer of Eileen Cotter was caught
After 49 years, the murderer of Eileen Cotter was caught
Two shocking deaths occurred during my schooldays in Highbury, London – one was recently solved, the other never has been…
Fifty years ago, I was a schoolboy in Highbury, Islington, in London.
Highbury Grove Comprehensive School was then an all-boys school. Our obsessions were fashion and pop, naturally.
Anyone who thinks music was always better in the old days should bear in mind that in June 1974 Ray Stevens topped the charts with his novelty record The Streak. Other residents of the chart scene were Dutch duo Mouth & MacNeal, Arrows and Gigliola Cinquetti. Remember them? No, neither do I.
The dark side of the 1970s is denoted by repeated appearance of sex offender Gary Glitter in the Hit Parade that year.
His crimes, of course, remained hidden for years. However, two news stories from the real world that did puncture our adolescent haze that summer were two rare and disturbing murders discovered in our neighbourhood.
One has never been solved, while the other was only resolved recently.
The still unsolved case was that of 17-year-old Michael Lowe. His body was found stuffed in a chimney chute by builders at an empty property above a shop on Upper Street.
The news was chilling. Lowe was a couple of years ahead of me and my friends in age, and he went to our school. What had happened to him? How did he die? How had he ended up in the chimney?
It would later emerge that he had gone missing from a children’s home, also in Highbury.
Rare case of a body found in Highbury
The other case was that of a woman’s body discovered in June 1974 a couple of streets from where I’m typing this today (I still live in Highbury).
The victim’s name was Eileen Cotter, aged 22. She was found dumped by some secluded garages off Hamilton Park, a quiet residential street.
Ms Cotter had been found by a neighbour. She had been hit and strangled after having sex with a man. She was said to be a sex worker.
She was, however, also a sister and a daughter, and her loss would have a devastating affect on those close to her for ever afterwards.
Again, the nagging questions. Highbury was not an area known for this kind of sex trade (though Finsbury Park, less than a mile down the road, was blighted by kerb-crawling).
Who could have done such a brutal and senseless act in our area?
Such crimes can be notoriously difficult to solve. Sex work is one of the most dangerous occupations in the world, and sex workers in London are 12 times more likely to be murdered than those in the general population.
Compounding this for the police is the fact that the victim has been killed by a stranger, leaving investigators with few personal connections to pursue.
There is rarely much public pressure to throw resources at such crimes because the media seldom display much concern for the victims. And the police have been known to show little motivation in dealing with them.
As one detective who joined the Met in the 1980s told me, back then the attitude was, why push hard on such an investigation when the victim had been ‘putting themselves out there’.
The Cotter investigation, however, would appear to have been serious and extensive. Some 92 potential suspects were interviewed, kerb-crawlers checked and women officers used as decoys to flush out the killer, but the effort eventually ran into the ground and stayed dormant for decades.
Decades later, DNA points the finger
As usual, it was DNA that changed things.
In 2019, a former mini-cab driver, John Apelgren of Sydenham, south London, was investigated by police for attacking his third wife.
He got a caution for the attack but had to submit his DNA. The Cotter case had been re-opened in 2012, the vital pieces of evidence being two DNA samples taken from the victim’s body.
When Apelgren’s DNA was run through the system, it matched the samples found on Ms Cotter.
Apelgren, from South Africa, was tried at the Old Bailey last summer. After a two-week trial and 11-hour deliberation by the jury, he was acquitted of murder but found guilty of manslaughter.
He denied knowing Cotter or paying for sex. He admitted to having affairs and the court heard he had abused his ex-wife and grabbed her neck on one occasion.
Apelgren, aged 80, was also convicted of an indecent assault in 1972 against an 18-year-old guest at his own wedding.
He was jailed for 10 years and six months.
As a schoolboy I could not have imagined it would take five decades before this callous, shocking crime would be solved. But DNA does not forget, and there is some small measure of justice in Apelgren finally being brought to account.
However, he got to live his best years as a free man. Eileen Cotter never got beyond 1974, and her family has had the pain of her loss since then.
Her brother, Patrick, was five at the time and was taken into care. He was quoted in the media after the trial: ‘No one ever spoke to me about my sister’s death. I have no memory of her funeral.
‘As a result of the traumatic event during my childhood, I shut down emotionally. It’s made it difficult for me to form close relationships.
‘To sum it up, the impact of Eileen’s killing had on my life: I was not only deprived of a sister I had little time to get to know, the knock-on effect also meant I lost my mother to suicide and my father to mental illness and alcoholism, all brought about because John Apelgren took Eileen’s life.’
A cold case that was never cold for the victim’s close ones.
Meanwhile, the tragic case of how 17-year-old Michael Lowe died and ended in that chimney remains unsolved.