Babes in the Wood murders (Epping Forest)

On the afternoon of 31 March 1970, Susan Blatchford, 11, left her home in Riley Road, Enfield, to call on her school friend Gary Hanlon, 12, of nearby Marrilyne Avenue. The two children were last reliably seen walking hand-in-hand across a field at around 5:30 p.m. Their disappearance was reported to police that evening, triggering a large-scale Metropolitan Police search led by Chief Superintendent Leonard Read, which at its height involved 600 officers, over 4,350 house-to-house inquiries, and more than 15,000 interviews. Despite extensive searches of local waterways and woodland, and national media appeals, no trace of the children was found for eleven weeks.

On 17 June 1970, a man walking his dog discovered the children's bodies inside a bird-watchers' hide in a densely wooded copse in Sewardstone, Essex, near Epping Forest — an area that had previously been searched without success. The children were found lying side by side, partially undressed, with clothing that appeared to have been removed and later replaced. Due to severe decomposition, pathologist James Cameron could confirm identity only through dental records, and little forensic evidence survived.

At the inquest in September 1970, coroner Charles Clarke was unable to determine a cause of death or confirm sexual assault, returning an open verdict and suggesting animal interference could explain the missing clothing. Despite Superintendent Read's conviction that the children had been murdered, Scotland Yard did not classify the case as a murder inquiry, and it went cold for nearly three decades. Both families continued to believe their children had been killed.

In 1996, Ronald Jebson — then serving a life sentence for the 1974 murder of eight-year-old Rosemary Papper — contacted police with an account implicating others in the children's deaths; this account was investigated and discounted. In August 1998, Jebson contacted police again, this time confessing to abducting, sexually assaulting, and murdering both children himself after encountering them by chance near Enfield. He described taking them to a hide he had built near Epping Forest, and gave details of the assault and killings. Blatchford's body was later exhumed, and findings were reported to be consistent with elements of Jebson's confession.

Jebson was charged in March 2000 and pleaded guilty to both murders at the Old Bailey on 9 May 2000, telling the court through his defence counsel that he did not wish to take the crimes to his grave. He was sentenced to two further concurrent life terms. Jebson remained imprisoned, later transferred to HM Prison Frankland, and died in hospital on 17 April 2015, having declined resuscitation and having no contacts to inform of his death.