Since 2010 we have been investigating this murder and invested a lot of time in researching the murder of Janice Weston we are aiming to produce a documentary to shed light on the motive behind this brutal murder. The ultimate goal is to identify the motive and perpetrator behind Janice Weston’s 19th century historical brutal murder case and need to raise 250,000 euros to complete the project if any of our readers could share our gofundme or donate we would extremely appreciate it and will update all our readers on our progress….Here is the link below together with our article which we originally posted in December 2013. Many thanks for taking your time in reading this and thank you in anticipation for sharing Kind regards Caroline A Bayford.
DCI Julie Mackay and her team at Avon and Somerset Police were able to charge Hampton with murder when his daughter, in 2015, was arrested and provided a routine DNA sample to police. After checking her DNA sample with the national database, a familiar match was made to a sample stored from the 1984 murder scene.
Her father, Hampton, was then asked to provide a DNA swab, and a match was made to a semen stain found on the crotch of Melanie’s trousers.
Congratulations to DCI Julie Mackay and her team for finally bringing justice for this unsolved rape and murder of a teenage girl committed 38 years ago.
A year before Melanie Roads murder, a solicitor Janice Weston was also murdered and to this day still remains unsolved. Therefore, we republish the story we wrote in back in August 2012, together with new evidence that came to light on republishing our article over a period of years since on the Janice Weston murder in the hope that even further evidence will come forward to help Cambridgeshire Police solve this ongoing unsolved murder.
Janice Weston
Janice Weston came into affluence from the day she was born. She attended Manchester University. From there, she went to work as a lawyer with London, England’s acclaimed Herbert Oppenheimer, Nathan & Vandyke firm. There she met both her lovers: her future husband, Tony Weston, a property developer, a year her senior, and Heinz Isner, 40 years her senior, Chairman of the Mettoy Company that manufactured children’s Corgi toy cars. Janice was Mettoy’s legal advisor. (It must be noted when Janice first met Tony Weston, he was married with two children.)
In 1975, Isner’s wife died. He soon took up with Janice, inviting her to the theatre, ballet and his Chelsea flat. Apparently, he had even proposed to her, but Janice declined. They continued to see each other until Isner died in July 1977. Through his will she received paintings, furniture, shares and money totalling £140,000. Five years later, in 1982, she married Tony Weston, at the age of 35 (by this time, he was divorced). They bought a country mansion in Northamptonshire, which they converted into apartments, taking one for them. Thirty-nine days after her wedding, she made out her will. Her estate was valued at £300,000. £100,000 was to go to her sister; £10,000 to her mother, the income of the rest was to go to Tony. The capital after her death was to be shared between her two stepchildren, her nieces and nephews.
On the weekend she died, 10th/11th September 1983, Tony was away on business in France. Janice was at home, working. At 5pm on Saturday, the 10th, a colleague noticed her at the office. She was still there when he left a short while later. Sometime in the evening, she returned to her flat where she had a snack. Uncharacteristically, she didn’t clean up after the meal.
She was 36 years old………….
When she left – which seemed to be in a hurry – she didn’t take her purse but did take her wallet containing £37 leaving a half-eaten sandwich on the table. The weather was not pleasant that night and, again, it is not known why she went out or where she was going. Her body was discovered Sunday, September 11th at 9am by a cyclist, she had been thrown into a ditch along the A1. The body was badly beaten, especially on the back of the head. It was later determined she had been killed by a car jack found in a nearby field.
When the workaholic Janice failed to appear at work on Monday, colleagues called her sister who contacted police. It was she who identified the body as Janice Weston. Tony returned from France later that same day. Within 24 hours, a policeman spotted Janice’s car, an Alfa Romeo, parked in Camden Square, London, three miles from her apartment. The interior was smeared with blood but contained no fingerprints.
An owner of a car-spares shop in Royston, Hertfordshire, called police with the news that he had bought spare car plates from a man 25-35 years of age. The plates belonged to Janice Weston. However, no one has ever found the man. The morning she died Janice had picked up a spare tyre that had just been repaired. Before leaving for France, Tony had had a puncture. The newly repaired tyre went into the boot of Janice’s car; the old spare was on her rear wheel. When police found the car, the newly repaired tyre was back on the car and the spare was missing. Six witnesses had seen a man changing her tyre the night she died.
Tony was held and questioned in December 1983. After 55 hours of police questioning, his lawyers went to the High Court where they obtained an Order for his release. He was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, although a file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecution who decided there was insufficient evidence to raise charges. He never returned to live at Clopton Manor, the Northampton retreat that he and Janice were rebuilding as their country home. He also gave up all his interests in the French Chateau he was negotiating to buy for £175,000. A hotel clerk working in a Paris hotel confirmed that Tony Weston was at the hotel the very night Janice was murdered. The strange factor, however, was that he was not interviewed by Cambridgeshire Police until some ten days later. Ashok, the clerk at the Hotel d’Isly, specifically recalled Tony Weston picking up his room key because of an altercation at reception. It appears that the previous day, September 9th, 1983, Tony Weston had shown an English couple around the Chateau although, for what reason, has never been established. Was he trying to ensure a perfect alibi?
The couple have been traced by Giovanni Di Stefano and stated: “It was all so long ago but he seemed in good spirits and showed us around the house and then left at about 7pm for Paris on business.”
Cambridgeshire Police ultimately attended the French capital, but they were only able to confirm that Tony Weston paid for three nights’ accommodation at the hotel from Friday to Sunday and, that he used his credit card in Paris at 2.15pm on Saturday and, another transaction on Sunday evening. It would appear that Tony Weston left Paris on Monday, September 12th, 1983, and again visited the Chateau on Tuesday, 13th September. The police found him there and requested his urgent return to the United Kingdom. By that time, they had identified the body of Janice Weston.
Isner’s step-granddaughter was also questioned, but she had an alibi that checked out. An inquest was held in April 1984 which resulted in an unlawful killing verdict. The murderer of lawyer Janice Weston has never been identified or apprehended.
It’s now 39 years on, and no one has really taken the matter further.
A breakthrough came when Giovanni Di Stefano nicknamed the ‘Devil’s Advocate’ in 2007 wrote on his law firm’s blog the following request:
‘If anyone knows anything, remembers the incident, was one of the witnesses that saw a man change her tyre, was the man that changed her tyre, or knows anything no matter how remote, knows Tony Weston or his whereabouts now: please call or email me.’
On the 9th of February 2010 some three years later, Di Stefano received an email asking a question:
‘I recall this unsolved case with some interest and wonder if you ever were able to obtain the information you were seeking?’
The next day from a wholly different source the following email was received:
‘Hello, this may seem a little odd, but I was very interested to find your piece on Janice. It happens that I was at school with her (when she was Janice Wright; her sister Linda was there too but older – Potters Bar High School in Hertfordshire, UK, c.1956-61.) Diana Barker was our headmistress. I lost touch with Janice when I left Potters Bar; we were certainly not close friends as children, but I do remember her as a very vibrant, leading figure in our class; extremely clever and gifted with music as well as dance. I often wondered what happened – I think she went to St. Michael’s Convent at the age of 11. I heard nothing after that but came across the dreadful news in 1983 and was terribly shocked. Since then, she has come into my mind at times, and I tried a Google search, coming across your piece today. I would be most interested and grateful to know if there have been any developments at all since 2006, when your piece was posted. It seems odd that the police have never re-opened the case, even though DNA evidence has improved so much in the last 25 years. I have wonder why, and also why there was so little media coverage or follow-up at the time. I would be grateful to hear back if you can.’
It seemed that all of a sudden there was interest in a murder case that to all intent and purposes had been placed on hold. The same day an email was received with what seemed a little too much knowledge of the events of that night.
‘For what it’s worth, I have always thought that the key to the case was the car belonging to Janice Weston, and what it may have contained, with or without her knowledge, as the case may be, particularly the spare wheel.’
Back in December 2013 OPC Global News and Media first published the article and in the following year received further emails regarding Janice Weston’s murder:-
‘I am still interested in the unsolved murder of Janice Weston, and I am the person referred to on your website about the case, when I emailed to say I was at school with Janice (nee Wright) in the 50s.
Could I also add – and it is highly speculative – but I remember at the time (1983) having a strong feeling that a Green Card had been used or negotiated by someone close to the case, allegedly. It was so strong I phoned the police at the time but heard nothing afterwards.
I hesitate to send this, but I do have intuitive hunches at times, and perhaps I could pass this on privately. Whether true or not, I can’t see that it would add anything, but just in case it might.
Thank you so much; as commented on the blog, Janice was a particularly neat and organised child – even at that age (we were in the same class at Potters Bar High School 7-12 years). It is unimaginable that she would leave her home with an unfinished meal on the table, and not take a handbag, unless either she was forced out, or an extreme emergency had arisen (or was set up as such to lure her out).
A horrible mystery, I hope and pray we may be able to find out more.
If you can get back to me with anything it would be really appreciated’
Another email was received from a different source.
‘Good morning
Your piece on Janice Weston was a good read this has been an interesting subject to me personally as I was living in the estate at the time. I remembered also someone inside prison saying he knew it had something to do with the Sultan of the Amman this gent was murdered before he could talk which intrigued me as on the estate also lived someone who worked for the Sultan. As for Tony Weston, I saw him around the grounds many times over the next four years that I lived there before I moved.’
Will this be the breakthrough that the case requires? Was Janice involved with drug dealers? Were drugs placed in her tyre? Who was the man who bought a set of number plates identical to those on Janice’s car just a few hours after her death and only 20 miles away from where her body lay? Where is Tony Weston and what of his life since 1983? He was cleared of any involvement that is without doubt but with new evidence his recollections will be vital to solve this murder.
Since publishing the above paragraph OPC Global News and Media has learnt through a freedom of information request that Tony Weston is now deceased as per below.
Does anyone know what circumstances resulted in the demise of Tony Weston and where he died?
‘I know her husband was a suspect for a while and kept in custody for three days, but later totally exonerated. Her body was found on the A1 and her car – in London Square, London NW1 about three miles from her flat. The interior of her car was smeared with blood but strangely no fingerprints, or so the police say. Well, the blood can give DNA. The police go on the theory that she was killed on the A1 but why was her car driven back to London? Surely, it takes no Sherlock Holmes to think what if she was killed in London and the body transported to the A1? The police must, surely, to high heavens, have scientific material that can lead to some real clues? This case, surely, needs re-opening and media attention. She worked for Charles Russell Solicitors having joined from Herbert Oppenheimer Nathan & Vandyk, some seriously prestigious law firm. Charles Russell is still a top of the range firm. Why do they not push for the case to be reopened properly? She was a partner after all. Anyone knows what happened to her husband? Where is he now?’
OPC Global News and Media keep republishing this article in the hope more evidence will come to light.
If anyone has any new information, please contact us at contact@opcglobalnewsandmedia.com.
OPC Global with the help of investigative journalists will be looking more into the unsolved murder of Janice Weston for a future documentary.
First Published by OPCGLOBAL 28 August 2012
Republished on previous site 28 December 2013
NB: Some images retrieved from Google, will remove at owner’s request.