THE sound of the voice that emerged from the crackle of the cassette tape underlined the chilling reality a West Midlands family had become embroiled in.
Sounding near to tears, kidnapped teenage Shropshire heiress Lesley Whittle could be heard trying to reassure her desperate mother. Forced to record the one minute and 29 second message by her cold-hearted kidnapper, the A-level student said: “There is nothing to worry about mum. I am okay.”
Lesley, 17, was found to be missing from her bedroom of the family home in Beech Croft, Highley, Bridgnorth, Shropshire, about 7am on January 14, 1975.
A ransom note, demanding £50,000 for her safe return, was found punched out on Dymo plastic tape, normally used for marking binders and folders. It was so detailed it stretched a foot-and-a-half in length.
However, it wasn’t until a month later that police revealed Lesley’s kidnapper was the killer dubbed the Black Panther.
The Black Panther got his nickname from the way he dressed all in black, hid his features behind a balaclava and sneaked stealthily around in the dead of night to commit his crimes.
He had eluded police for years as he burgled homes and robbed post offices. In each case, the post offices were broken into by a robber who would wake his victims and demand they hand over the safe keys.
But his savage wave of crime took a dramatic – and deadly – turn on February 15, 1974, when the hooded robber shot dead 54-year-old Donald Skepper at his post office in Harrogate, Yorkshire.
Seven months later he struck again, killing Derek Astin, 43, during a struggle at his sub-post office in Accrington, Lancashire.
Two months later, the ‘Panther’ emerged from the shadows to strike in the Black Country.
On a chilly November day, Sidney Grayland and his wife Dorothy were in their post office, in Langley, Warley, when he struck.
Mr Grayland, 54, had gone to lock up the rear of the store when his wife heard a loud bang as he was blasted in the stomach.
She was beaten around the head and left for dead.
Police believe the Panther did not wear his traditional balaclava because he didn’t intend for either victim to live. He escaped with just £1,000.
And then the Black Panther went quiet – until January 1975 when he kidnapped Miss Whittle.
Police investigating the seemingly unconnected shooting of security guard Gerald Smith also that January found the bullets matched those in the Post Office murders. It was thought Mr Smith was shot after disturbing the Panther as he set up his ransom trail.
In March 1975, almost two months after the kidnapping, police descended into the labyrinth of dark tunnels beneath Staffordshire’s Bathpool Park, near Kidsgrove, in the search for Miss Whittle.
Her body was found hanging by a wire from the bottom ledge of a 30ft sewer shaft. Her feet were inches from the ground after the wire had snagged around a stanchion and she had died of a fatal shock to the nervous system.
However, the Panther had made the tiniest of mistakes that was to unmask him.
A partial fingerprint on a notepad found in the drainage complex led to officers identifying him as Donald Neilson.
His capture, when it came, could hardly have been more mundane.