John William Malthouse

John Malthouse was found dead in a toilet cubicle in a public lavatory off Victoria Avenue at Midsummers Common in Cambridge on Friday 22 August 1986.

He had been a city tramp from Newcastle.

He was described as being about 6ft tall, of slim to medium build, with dark hair, blue eyes and few teeth.

The police thought he had been killed sometime between 11.30pm on Wednesday 20 August and 9am on Thursday 21 August 1986 in the disabled lavatory cubicle after which whoever killed him locked it and left.

His body was discovered in the toilet at 7.30am on Friday 22 August 1986 by a lavatory attendant, about 24 hours after his death. The lavatory attendant had tried to get into the cubicle the day before at 9am, but found it locked and it was thought that it was left locked all that day. However, it was claimed that one witness said they had seen the door open on the Friday morning around 1.40am, and it was a mystery as to who had unlocked it or why.

The toilet cubicle had been just off Victoria Avenue, near to Four Lamps Roundabout.

John Malthouse was lying in a pool of blood and naked from the waist down and was thought to have died within hours of being attacked. A police detective said that John Malthouse had been drunk  when he was attacked and that he had been left battered and bruised and crawling around in his blood and vomit, before dying.

It was heard that he had been stripped of everything except his vest, shirt, jumper, socks and one brown shoe. The rest of his clothing was found dumped in the river.

A bloodstained broom handle was found outside the lavatory and it was said that he had been violently sexually assaulted and left to die a slow agonising death.

A police detective said:

The police said that his killer would have been covered with blood after the attack and that they thought that somebody might have been sheltering him.

His post mortem examination found that he had died from severe head injuries.

John Malthouse was described as a chronic alcoholic and had been of no fixed abode.

He had earlier been seen in Leicester between 5 August and 12 August 1986 after which he went to Coventry until 17 August before returning to Leicester where he spent the night.

He was spotted the following morning on Monday 18 August 1986 and there was a possible sighting of him in the afternoon.

He was known to frequent the railway station and was thought to have probably gone on to Cambridge that day by train, arriving at 10.30pm, but they didn't know where he spent the night.

It was further noted that his movements could be accounted for the whole of the next day.

He was traced to the Champion of the Thames pub in King Street at lunchtime on the Wednesday 20 August 1986 and to have later begged some clothes at a city hostel.

It was noted that at one point on 21 August 1986, John Malthouse met a 56-year-old ex-marine working as a security guard as he sat in his office outside the news building in Newmarket Road. The ex-marine said that John Malthouse spotted his marine tie-pin and struck up a conversation and claimed that he too had been a marine. He said:

He said that he offered John Malthouse a cigarette, but said he had no cash to give him and that they continued talking until John Malthouse walked off towards the Grafton Centre.

He said:

He said that John Malthouse had been staggering, wearing very dirty clothes and unshaven and looked fairly weak.

He said:

He was last traced in Cambridge to the Fort St George public house in Midsummer common on the night of 21 August 1986 where he had been seen begging for drinks and cigarettes and some youngsters were said to have plied him with drink. There had been a crowd at the pub celebrating the arrival of a new landlord.

The police said that when John Malthouse arrived at the Fort St George pub, between 8pm and 9pm, that:

The police said that they were still trying to trace a woman in her 20s who bought him a drink. The police said they were also trying to trace the youths that had been seen talking to him.

The police said:

At closing time he was said to have left the pub and to have staggered out across the common.

He was last thought to have been seen talking to a blond man with a bicycle halfway across the common.

The police said that they were interested in speaking to any ballet-goers that might have crossed the common that night and seen anything suspicious.

Blood tests later showed that he had had the equivalent of at least 15 whiskies.

A time table of known events across 20 to 21 August 1986 was established:

• 8.00-9.00pm: John Malthouse arrives at the Fort St George pub.
• 11.10pm: John Malthouse leaves the pub.
• 11.30-11.45pm: John Malthouse is seen talking to a blond man with a bike halfway across the common.
• 12.45am: An elderly woman hears two men arguing violently at the Midsummer Common lavatories.
• 12.48-12.49am: The violent row ended abruptly.
• 9am: Lavatory attendant finds the door locked.

The elderly woman that heard the row said that it had been a violent verbal row and that it had ended abruptly after three or four minutes. She was also said to have described the voices as those of vagrant itinerants.

The police also asked for help from the city's vagrant population in a bid to find out more about John Malthouse, stating that they wanted to know why he came to Cambridge and who he had mixed with.

It was reported that the investigation used a new system, developed in America, that was designed to pin-point the sightings of the victim. The guide was a 20ft long sheet of cardboard pinned on the wall and packed with information about the victims movements. It was said that it was the first time that Cambridgeshire detectives had used the visual system on a major enquiry.

The police said that someone must have seen the killer as he removed John Malthouse's trousers and threw them in the river.

Regarding the removal of the clothes, a detective said:

Police frogmen also dragged the river near to where John Malthouse was found and his clothes were dumped.

It was noted that the police failed to find what they thought was the murder weapon, some blunt instrument, which it was thought might have been dumped into the river with the clothes.

A Home Office pathologist said that he had been killed by a punch to his left eye and three blows to his head that had caused swelling of the brain. He added that he thought that it had taken John Malthouse up to 5 hours to die.

He said:

His inquest in March 1987 recorded a verdict that he had been unlawfully killed by a person or persons unknown.

His body was identified by his brother who travelled down from Newcastle

When the Coroner recorded the verdict he said:

During the police investigation, 2,000 people were interviewed and 850 statements were taken.

In August 1987 the police said:

In 2019 the police said that his case was again being looked at by a cold case specialist, but nothing more is known.

There is still a toilet block at the location where John Malthouse was murdered, but it is not the same one, and is now a new modern facility.