Internet clue to brutal 1955 Wirral murder of Liverpool woman

Aug 30 2010 by Gemma Jaleel, Liverpool Echo

Alice Barton scene

MERSEYSIDE Police are following fresh leads in a 55-year-old murder case after information was posted on a website.

Prostitute Alice Barton, 49, was strangled and her body dumped in a wartime pillbox in the Fender Valley area of Woodchurch, Birkenhead, in September 1955.

A schoolboy picking blackberries found the body – triggering a police manhunt which led to 40,000 people across Britain being quizzed.

Now detectives are following up a new line of enquiry after the posting on the internet claiming the murderer was her grandfather.

Aimee Buckley, 19, from Wirral, relates a story that was passed down through her dad’s family over the years.

She describes the suspicion that her grandfather – her dad’s father – who frequented a pub just minutes away from the murder scene, was involved in the killing.

Aimee wrote: “One night, he came home wearing blood soaked clothes demanding my nan to burn them. My nan was so horrified and in shock that she went to throw them in the wash immediately, but he ordered her to burn them there and then.”

She goes on to say that a couple of days later the murder of Alice Barton was reported in the newspaper.