Shelley Morgan

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Avon And Somerset (POLICE)

Offense Location:

Bristol, England

Summary:

Bristol mother of two Shelley Morgan was murdered on Monday 11 June 1984. Shelley's killer has never been identified. A forensic post-mortem examination concluded that she had died as the result of 14 stab wounds to the back and there was evidence the attack had been sexually motivated. On Sunday 14 October 1984, an unclothed badly decomposed body lying face down was discovered by children playing in a wooded copse at Watercatch Farm, off Long Lane in Backwell, approximately 8 miles west of Bristol, near Bristol Airport.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

Shelley left her home at 67 Dunkerry Road, in the Bedminster area of Bristol with her two children – Liam and Charlotte, at approximately 08:30 on Monday 11 June 1984. Shelley saw her children off to school prior to making her way to Leigh Woods near Ashton Court, where she had planned to spend the day sketching and taking photographs. Between 10:00 and 11:00 Shelley attended the Royal Mail sorting office in Kent Street, Bedminster, to collect a registered letter that contained money that her husband Nigel sent every week whilst he was away working on their property in Wales. A witness claimed a woman with long fair hair and distinctive red glasses, which closely resembled Shelley's description, boarded a number 121 bus in East Street, Bedminster at 10:10. The number 121 bus would have taken Shelley in the direction of Bristol Bus Station, arriving at the bus station before 11:00. Concerns were raised for the welfare of Shelley when she failed to collect her children from school on the afternoon of Monday 11 June 1984 or return home. Shelley's disappearance was reported to Avon and Somerset Police that evening, and at 19:30 she was officially registered as a missing person by the police. Police determind that Shelley was more than likely murdered on the day she disappeared.

Additional Details:

On Monday 24 September 1984 at 19:18, Avon and Somerset Police received a phone call from a male member of the public with a local Bristolian accent claiming to have important information, and stating the missing person enquiry would be a murder enquiry. The man claimed Shelley's body was in watery grave. Although uncertain of the exact location, the man stated Shelley's body was in a stretch of water in Hanham River located at the bottom of Conham Hill. A specialist underwater search team of 8 divers initiated an immediate search, however after 19 days they had found nothing and police declared the call a hoax. As a result of the post-mortem, Avon and Somerset Police's missing person enquiry became a murder investigation and a team of 80 detectives was assigned to the case. With the exception of a torn and twisted pair of tights around Shelley's ankles and a pair of discarded sandals in nearby brambles, no other clothing nor any personal effects were found with her body, and despite an extensive police search of the surrounding fields, hedgerows and lanes, no further items belonging to Shelley were found. Due to the rural location where the body was found, police said Shelley's killer must have had access to a vehicle and knowledge of the local area. Sighting's of a woman sat inside a yellow lorry in Backwell Hill Road and another of a woman in a BMW car parked on the Portishead-to-Bristol road led to nothing, as did reports of someone matching Shelley's description boarding a ferry in Weymouth, Dorset. On the 5 January 1987 it was disclosed that a 34 year old lorry driver from the Ashton area of Bristol, arrested on 3 January 1987 for other offences, was being interviewed as a matter of routine by officers investigating the murders of Shelley and 17 year old Melanie Road, murdered in Bath two days prior to Shelley. On the 8 January 1987 a police spokesman confirmed that the 34 year old man had been eliminated from the murder inquiries. Cold case detectives at Avon and Somerset Police discovered two ageing postcards which could hold vital evidence in their bid to solve the murder of Shelley Morgan. The tear-off postcards discovered are from a calendar sold by the local Bristol Hospice charity in the 1980s or 1990s. It is not clear to us so far as to where the postcards were found, but police say the locations are significant because they are linked to exact areas where Shelley had been going when she disappeared and where her body was found. Despite exhaustive enquiries and re-examination of the investigation over the decades since Shelley's murder, her killer has never been identified, and the whereabouts of her Olympus OM20 camera serial number 1032853 remains unknown, despite the police consistently appealing over the years for information about this specific item.

Case Last Updated:

Apr 27, 2026