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John Green

Age: 36

Sex: male

Date: 2 Feb 1991

Place: Poole Road, Branksome

John Green was stabbed to death at his flat in Poole, Dorset.

His body was found there on the evening of Saturday 2 February 1991 by his fiancee. He was found in his office at the back of his shop, slumped between a desk and a window.

The police said that they thought that he had been murdered the day before, between 3.15pm and 4pm on 1 February 1991.

His stabbing was described as frenzied.

He had lived rent free in a basement flat that his mother owned and did a variety of odd jobs as well as running his own business. He was also said to have been setting up his own marine security company at the time. Above his flat there was a shop that he rarely used.

It was suggested that his murder might have been a case of mistaken identity.

The week before his murder on Saturday 26 January 1919 he had held a party in his basement flat to celebrate the birthday of a friend which was said to have been attended by about 50 people. The party went on into the small hours and police said that they were able to speak to most of the people there, but had still to trace a few of them. It was noted that the fact that there had been so many people at the party meant that searching for fingerprints was useless.

It was noted that the windows to the shop above his flat were usually whitewashed but that shortly after the party John Green had scrubbed them down.

On Tuesday, 29 January 1991 John Green had an appointment, which was later found detailed in his diary. It was a meeting at a roadside cafe on the A33 at 12 noon with an un-named person. The diary entry read, 'A33 8 miles Little Chef Wellington 12. oclock' The police later said that they determined that the appointment referred to the Little Chef restaurant that was on the A33 about 8 miles north of Basingstoke in Heckfield. The police said that he could have had a business meeting, or that he might have been meeting a friend and wanted to find out who he was meeting or why he had gone there.

On the Thursday, 31 January 1991, John Green's next door neighbour heard shouting through the wall between a man and a woman. The neighbour said that she heard the conversation quite clearly and that she had heard a woman threaten to knife a man. She said that she then heard some running footsteps and so she quickly rushed into the lounge to look through the window and just caught the glimpse of a woman walking off.

Later that same evening, other neighbours heard shouts and thumps coming from his shop.

However, it was noted that whatever might have happened, John Green had seemed untroubled by it when he was seen the following day. He was seen around lunchtime on 1 February 1991 by a shop keeper who said hello to him and noted that he seemed unusually cheerful.

However, later that day, on the afternoon that the police thought that he was murdered, 1 February 1991, at about 3pm, a person said that they saw John Green being jostled into his shop. Another person said that they saw two people leave his shop about 45 minutes later. Photofits of the two people were made, but without any success.

The person that saw him with the two men at the entrance to his shop said that John Green had looked pale and frightened and that he had been involved in a tussle with them. They were seen trying to get him to go into his shop and John Green was seen trying to walk away, but they were then seen to go into the shop and John Green was not seen alive again. It was noted that the person that had seen John Green being pushed about outside his shop gave the information in an anonymous letter and the police said that that person must have been watching what had been happening for several minutes and asked them to come forward. The police said that they knew that the author of the letter had told them that they were waiting for someone to pick them up as their car had broken down.

The letter also gave descriptions of the two men seen with John Green:

  1. Man, age 20-24, 5ft 9in to 5ft 10in tall, with dirty blonde or auburn hair with highlights. Light faded blue jeans and a dark blue top.
  2. Man, age about 40, about 5ft 10in tall, with dark hair, unshaven and much thicker set than the other man. Brown trousers with a lighter brown zip up top.

Later that day, at about 6.15pm, 2 February 1991, a woman who had just got off a bus outside his shop, said that she walked past it and saw a man coming out who said hello to her. She gave the description of the man as:

  1. Man, 6ft tall, 35-45 years old, of large build, and wearing denim jeans and a very thick dark green jumper which was described as distinctive.

Moments later, a friend of John Green's went to visit him at the shop and found his body.

It was noted that it was thought that two old aged women had got onto the bus outside John Green's shop at about 6.15pm and the police wanted to trace them in case they had seen anything whilst they were waiting. One of the women was said to have got off at Sheroff public house in Poole and the other got off in Upton, just outside of Poole.

The police said that they could find no reason why anyone would want to kill him.


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