On the night of November 22, 2967, 19-year-old Rita Ellis was supposed to babysit for Wing Commander Roy Watson and his wife. Rita would be walked out of her housing with a nurse, Liz, and Liz's boyfriend Steve. Rita would wait in front of the WRAF women's housing block on the RAF Halton in England at 7:25 to be picked up by Roy. But when Roy came around at 7:40 she was nowhere to be seen. He would wait around 15 minutes for her.
He would return home and get his wife so that she could go into the women's block to look for Rita. When they returned 10 minutes later his wife would go inside but she wasn't found. It was not known what had happened to her til the next day.
The next day in Rowborough Copse a woodland on the west edge of the camp someone would walk their dog. The dog walker would make it to where a disused railway line was and find Rita's body under some foliage. Rita's death was brutal had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death with her own underwear.
Hundreds of civilians and military personnel were on the base. There were two public functions happening on the base that night, which were a bingo and a disco. It's believed that Rita may have been approached by a man in a vehicle and offered a ride. She may have mistakenly thought that he was Roy Watson because she had never met him before. She may have been too shy to question his identity. The man then took advantage of the opportunity and raped and murdered her.
Rita had grown up in Stevenage and joined the WRAF on April 28, 1967. She accomplished her basic training at RAF Spitalgate in Grantham, Lincolnshire. At the time of her murder, she was working in the kitchen of the Princess Marys Royal Air Force Hospital the catering department on the camp at RAP Halton in Buckinghamshire. She was described as a gentle soul by those who knew her.
DNA of the killer is available. It's possible that Rita was not the only victim. There was a case of a nurse being sexually assaulted and left for dead around 3 miles away from Rita's attack there's no definitive evidence that they were, but the two cases were very similar.
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