Penny Bell

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Metropolitan Police (SERVICE)

Offense Location:

Greenford, London

Summary:

Ruth Penelope "Penny" Bell, an English businesswoman, was murdered on 6 June 1991 in the car park of Gurnell Leisure Centre, Greenford, London. She was stabbed over fifty times as she sat behind the wheel of her car. Her murder remains unsolved.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

On the morning of 6 June 1991, Alistair Bell left the house as usual at 8:30 BST. He described his wife's demeanour as "bright and chirpy". He noted that Penny did not wave him off as he left with their son in his car, as was her usual custom, but believed that this was due to the disruption caused by their kitchen renovation. Bell left her home in her arctic blue Jaguar XJS at around 9:40 BST, which was her usual leaving time. She informed the builders, who were renovating the kitchen, that she was running late for an appointment. No record of this appointment was later found in her diary or other papers, and it has never been conclusively established who she was meeting. A witness saw a man waiting by a brown or bronze coloured car get into a blue Jaguar XJS about 9:50 am on the Fulmer Common Road opposite the Bridgettine Convent and Guest House adjacent to Black Park. The witness, who was walking her dog, was sure the driver of the Jaguar was Bell. The man getting in was described as white, about 5' 10" tall and aged about 48. Another witness next recalled a blue Jaguar XJS driving along Greenford Road at about 10:20 BST at 10–15 mph with its hazard lights flashing. A third witness came forward six months after the murder and claimed he saw Bell driving into the car park with a passenger, and mouthing an appeal for help, which he ignored. It is believed that Bell was murdered around 10:30 BST. She was seen motionless in the driver's seat of her car in the Gurnell Leisure Centre car park at 11:00 BST, but the passers-by who witnessed her body assumed she was sleeping. It wasn't until 12:15 BST when the police were alerted and her body was discovered. She had been stabbed more than fifty times in the chest and arms with a three to four-inch blade, in what police were to describe as a "frenzied" attack. A forensic investigation determined that the killer had stabbed her from the passenger seat before exiting the car and frantically stabbing her from the driver's side.

Additional Details:

Three days earlier Penny had withdrawn £8,500 in cash from her joint personal account while visiting her bank in Kilburn High Road, at around 2.30pm on 3 June 1991. The money, all in used £50 notes, was handed to her in a brown manila envelope. Penny appears not to have mentioned this withdrawal to anyone or even made a reference to it in her spending records. By 1992, 4,000 people had been questioned. Police had also examined Bell's husband Alistair as a suspect, as he inherited the bulk of his wife's estate as well as a £200,000 life insurance payout. However, they found no evidence to link him to his wife's murder and he had a verified alibi of being at work in Shaftesbury Avenue in Harrow on the morning of 6 June 1991. Bell had worked as a Samaritan until around 1982, and police explored the idea that the killer was someone she had counselled but this line of inquiry did not identify any further suspects. A former neighbour of the Bell family from when they lived in Whitmore Road in Harrow before moving to Baker's Wood in 1987, John Richmond, was arrested by the police in April 1992 after he sold a story to The Sun newspaper in which he admitted being the man Bell had been with on the morning of her death. Richmond also claimed to have been in a secret relationship with Bell at the time. His fingerprints were then found in Bell's car. He was eventually released from police bail in July 1992 after the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to charge him. The police investigation was then wound up, with Richmond being described as "completely in the clear". In 2003, police were performing forensic DNA analysis on blood stains found at the crime scene. Robert Napper was interviewed in 2008 following his conviction for the 1992 murder of Rachel Nickell, but there was no evidence linking him to Bell's murder, and he was cleared of involvement. Lauren Bell announced in January 2021 that she was again offering a £20,000 reward for information that would solve her mother's murder in its thirtieth anniversary year. A £20,000 reward remains available to anyone who can provide information that will lead to the arrest and prosecution of the killer.

Case Last Updated:

May 11, 2026