Helen Fleet

Status:

Open

Offense Location:

Weston-super-Mare, Somerset

Summary:

Helen Fleet, aged 66, was murdered in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England, on 28 March 1987 when she was discovered stabbed, beaten, and strangled in the woods at Worlebury Hill while walking her two dogs. Her murder remains unsolved.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

On the morning of 28 March 1987, Fleet dropped her sister off to go shopping, then called in at a bakery and petrol station, before heading to Worlebury Hill to walk her two dogs. Fleet usually walked her dogs in the woods twice a day along a certain route of about a mile and was last seen alive at 10:50am, after parking her car along Worlebury Hill Road. The murder took place sometime between 12:20pm and 12:40pm, with three people subsequently reporting hearing a series of screams around 12:20pm. Helen Fleet was found beaten, strangled and stabbed in the woods at around 12.40pm on Saturday 28 March, 1987. The discovery of her body by another dog walker sparked a major police investigation, but no-one has ever been charged with her murder.

Additional Details:

Helen Fleet was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire in about 1921 and lived in Crewe, Cheshire until the age of 18. During World War II, she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, where she trained as a lorry driver, before transferring to the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She went on to have a career for an Oxfordshire engineering firm. Her first marriage ended in divorce and she was widowed from her second marriage in about 1967. After a period of living with her mother and widowed sister in Wales, Fleet and her sister moved to Weston-super-Mare around 1983 after their mother died. At the time of her death, Fleet was living with her sister, Betty Brough, at 38 Osborne Road, Weston-super-Mare. In 2017, Avon and Somerset Constabulary issued a renewed appeal for information on the 30th anniversary of Helen Fleet's murder and officers said they believed the key to solving the crime may still lie in Weston. Detective Sergeant Zoe Niccolls, from the major crime review team which investigates historic cases, stated that following the re-appeal they had several calls from members of the public with information that would be followed up. There has been speculation that Fleet's murder may be linked to the similarly apparently motiveless killings of the 14-year-old schoolgirl Kate Bushell at Exwick, Devon, in 1997, and 41-year-old woman Lyn Bryant at Ruan High Lanes, Cornwall, in 1998. In 2018, retired police intelligence officer Chris Clark noted the similarities between the three cases, although they have never been officially linked by police.

Case Last Updated:

Sep 14, 2026