May 20, 2025
On August 2nd, 1986, the body of a young woman was found in an alleyway in Borough Road, Birkenhead- a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, in England.
A woman who had been walking her dog by the rubble filled alley way initially thought she was looking at a shop mannequin discarded amongst rocks and weeds. It took her a minute to realize that what she was actually looking at was the body of a murder victim, at which point newspapers report she began screaming.
The decedent was almost naked, wearing nothing but a bra and T-shirt that had been pulled up to her neck.
She had been badly beaten, with severe head wounds suggesting she had been hit several times with a heavy, blunt object.
There was a large pool of blood around her head and body.
Autopsy later confirmed the victim had been sexually assaulted.
She was soon identified as 21-year-old Diane Sindall, a florist who had been working part-time as a barmaid at the Wellington Pub in Bebington to save for her wedding.
On the night of her murder, Diane left work at approximately 11:30 pm. She had planned to drive to her fiancé’s house in Seacombe after her shift as they were going to spend the weekend in Wales with friends, but she never made it to his home.
Her locked blue Fiat van was found abandoned by a roadside, less than a quarter mile from the alleyway in which her body was discovered.
There was no gas in the tank, and police believe after running out of fuel that night, she had begun to walk, at some point crossing paths with the man that would murder her.
Geoff Harrison, who was Detective chief inspector at the time, said a few days after the murder:
"We believe Diane ran out of fuel and she decided to walk either to a garage, or to her parents' home on Cressington Avenue, Tranmere, and that on the way she was waylaid by the killer.”
He said: "He (the killer) carried out the vicious assault before beating her head,” and it was reported that she had injuries and lacerations to her chest and genitals.
Detective superintendent Tom Baxter, who was also working the case at the time, said of the murder:
"It has been said that Diane's body was horribly mutilated. It was indeed the most horrendous, frenzied attack I and many other experienced offices have encountered. She had been hit a number of times on the head with a heavy weapon, sustaining several fractures, and was violently and sexually assaulted."
Witnesses said that they heard what they believed to be a couple screaming and arguing at each other that night around 2:00am.
On August 07, 1986, Hoylake and West Kirby News reported that Police had issued a description of "a man who may hold vital clues to the fiend's identity."
The man was said to be walking past Diane's vehicle after she had left it on the night of her murder.
He was described as 5 feet, 4 inches tall, of average build, and estimated to be in his forties.
He was said to have had a "scruffy appearance," with stubble on his face, and "shabby" clothing. These details were provided by a girl who said she had been sexually assaulted near the murder scene. She told police that one of the man’s eyes appeared "deformed," due to a tick.
Other men who had been seen that night were asked to come forward and talk to police, including a young man in his late teens who had flirted with another girl that night, and two men loitering on Borough Road just before midnight that night.
The murder was so brutal, that members of the public at the time reconsidered the reinstatement of the death penalty in the hope that it would deter crimes of a similar nature in the future.
The killer earned the name "Beast of Birkenhead" and the "Mersey Ripper" in the media.
Diane's bag, a brown patchwork leather sling bag with a frayed strap, was missing. Inside was around £60 (approximately $80), and personal items.
Also missing, were her jeans, underwear, and the green shoes she was wearing that night. Her engagement ring was still on her finger.
The jeans and handbag were soon recovered after a couple reported something burning in the woodland on Bidston Hill. A partly burned sheepskin coat was also recovered.
"Right from the beginning the killer was worried about leaving evidence,” said Detective superintendent Tom Baxter, who added that he believed the killer lived alone, or was being protected by someone he lived with.
The victim's mother, Wendy Sindall, described her daughter as "a vivacious, bubbly, happy-go-lucky girl" who was excited to get married; a "family girl", and well-liked by everyone.
Diane was well liked by the regular customers of the pub. Her employers, Mr. and Mrs. John, a husband and wife team, were devastated by Diane's brutal murder.
Ann John, 37, said of the victim: "She was a lovely respectable girl who adored her boyfriend and if any of the regulars made any comments to her she would blush and ask another girl to serve the man. She was a very popular girl who worked for us on Friday and Sunday nights as one of ten barmaids. Her killing is senseless because she was such a lovely girl but only slight. If she had a bit more meat on her she may have been able to fight her attacker off."
The following month, on September 23, 1986, a man named Peter Sullivan was arrested on suspicion of Diane's murder. He was a local resident of Birkenhead and an out-of-work labourer at the time.
Reports state that, at the time of questioning, he gave conflicting information pertaining to his whereabouts on the night of the murder.
He was said to have begun crying and confessed to the crime, but later recanted the confession after securing legal representation a couple of days later.
Psychological evaluation of the suspect deemed him to have "limited intellectual capacity," and determined he was easily swayed.
Although there was only circumstantial evidence against Sullivan, bite marks found on the victim's body were matched to him by two separate experts at the time.
According to the innocence project "Nearly a quarter of people exonerated since 1989 were wrongfully convicted based on false or misleading forensic evidence, like bite marks."
Sourcing a report released in 2009 by the National Academy of Sciences, the project states that bite mark analysis is not supported by science and thus should not be used as evidence in criminal cases.
There was DNA evidence collected from the victim's body; however, it was not tested back in 1987 as the technology was not available to police. Sullivan was sentenced 16 years - life after pleading not-guilty.
Witnesses said they saw who they thought was Sullivan running out of woodland near the site of the burning evidence.
He had been drinking at a pub around a ten minute drive from the murder scene that day, and said he had entered the woodland to urinate in private.
A neighbour of Sullivan said he had borrowed a crowbar from them and it was suggested this could have been the missing murder weapon, which he denied.
He said he couldn’t recall what he had been doing around the time of the murder, which is why his stories were not exact.
Sullivan went on to claim he was abused by the police officers questioning him.
Applications for his case to be reviewed in both 2008 and 2019 were rejected on the grounds that re-testing samples collected from the crime scene would not benefit the appeal.
In 2021, however, forensic analysis was deemed valuable to the appeal by the Criminal Case Review Commission and revealed that Sullivan's DNA was not found on the victim.
Instead, a profile belonging to an unknown person was recovered.
Cross-contamination from investigators at the time has been ruled out, reports the BBC, as well as the victim's fiancé. Entering the profile into National DNA databases has yielded no results.
Sullivan's conviction was overturned and he was released in May 2025, after spending 38 years of his life behind bars.
Sullivan said of his prison release:
"I am not angry; I am not bitter. I am simply anxious to return to my loved ones and family as I’ve got to make the most of what is left of the existence I am granted in this world.”
