How missing man who heard murder girl’s screams could snare killer who dumped her naked body in carrot field
WHEN Julie Finley celebrated her 23rd birthday with her loving family including mum Pat, she believed she had her whole life ahead of her.
But sadly just days later Julie, who was described as a ‘nice girl’ and a ‘good kid’, was found dead in a carrot field, after being brutally strangled and killed.
The family’s unthinkable anguish lives on because exactly 30 years later – and despite multiple arrests, witnesses, theories and rewards – the crime remains unsolved and her killer STILL hasn’t been brought to justice.
Over the decades, Julie’s devoted mum Pat has made several appeals to track down her daughter’s murderer and Julie’s heartbroken dad Albie Finley, sadly died without any answers about his daughter’s death.
The last sighting
Julie was last seen in Liverpool city centre on Friday, August 5, 1994, talking to a white man believed to be in his 20s or 30s at approximately 11pm behind Royal Liverpool University Hospital.
Then, another witness saw someone matching Julie’s description in the early hours of the next morning at around 2:30am on Saturday, August 6.
He claimed he saw a young woman arguing with a man outside the Wheatsheaf Public House, close to where Julie’s body was found.
He also said the man was trying to force the young woman into a white transit van.
‘It was like I was floating on air’
On that same day, a cyclist discovered Julie’s naked body in a carrot field close to the Rainford bypass in St Helens, Merseyside.
She’d been strangled to death, and her killer had made no attempt to conceal her remains – meanwhile, the clothes she was wearing vanished without trace and still haven’t been found.
I don’t really recall what was said, honest to God, I didn’t believe it… I kept thinking she was going to come home.”
Julie's mum Pat
Speaking about the Saturday her daughter was found, Pat, who is now 79, said: “I wasn’t even dreaming that anything was wrong, then on the Saturday night the police knocked on the door.
“I don’t really recall what was said, honest to God, I didn’t believe it.
“I got my other daughter to come with me and I knocked on every door of people who knew Julie. It was like I was floating on air, I kept thinking she was going to come home.”
Unfinished business
In the early stages of the investigation, a core team of 15 detectives worked tirelessly and, in the first six months, more than 40 men were questioned in relation to the case.
A total of 20 people have been arrested over the years but nobody has ever been charged.
In particular, officers have been keen to speak to Julie’s friend, Tina, who called the police and said, on the night of the murder, Julie was going to meet a taxi driver.
This was all the information Tina gave and, at the time, she said she would call back. But she never did – and police are still trying to trace her.
‘Help me, help me, for god’s sake, help me’
Ten months after Julie’s murder, on Friday, July 21, 1995, a man picked up a hitchhiker at the junction of East Lancashire Road and Rainford Bypass.
The lead detective at the time, DCI Francis Youell, later told BBC’s Crimewatch that the hitchhiker had become extremely agitated when they approached the site where Julie was found.
He told the driver of the vehicle that ten months before, his motorcycle had broken down in the lay-by close to where Julie’s body was found.
He said that while he was fixing his bike, he heard bangs and screams coming from a van and, when he approached the van and opened the doors, he saw a young woman.
She was naked and said, ‘help me, help me, for god’s sake, help me’, before a man appeared and told him to get on his way.
The hitchhiker said the man told him the woman was his girlfriend and then the hitchhiker drove off.
Face-to-face with Julie’s killer
DCI Francis Youell told Crimewatch: “Certain things he told the driver, I and I alone know, other than anybody who was at the scene of Julie’s murder.
“I firmly believe that he was the last person to see Julie alive other than the killer, that he spoke to Julie and that the man he confronted was Julie’s killer.”
The hitchhiker was in his mid-20s, about 5ft 8 with clean-cut, blond short hair and was believed to be from St Helens and en route to Ainsdale in Merseyside to see his grandfather.
He has never been traced.
‘I loved her and miss her’
In 2014, on the 20th anniversary of Julie’s murder, the Finley family released a series of pictures of Julie growing up in the hope that those who know what happened will search their conscience and finally come forward.
Pat described her daughter, who was an older sister to Tony and Sharon, as a lover of music and said she had gone to college to do hairdressing.
She said: “I have got her tapes upstairs of her favourite music, things like Phil Collins she loved. She went to college in Garston to do hairdressing, she got me in to do modelling.
“She had her own gorgeous hair as well. I loved her and I miss her.”
‘A nice girl, a good kid’
But Pat, from Kirkdale, Merseyside, also knew her daughter was a heroin addict and Julie weighed just six stone at the time of her murder.
Pat said: “I knew she was on the drugs, she began losing more weight and she was always slim. But she was a nice girl, a good kid.”
Her family believe she was snatched from the street or bundled into a car before being attacked and killed but Pat feels certain Julie’s killer is not from Liverpool.
She said: “I said right away no-one in Liverpool has done that.
“I knew right away it was an outsider, I thought maybe a lorry driver or someone who has picked her up and then that was the end.
“I know 100 per cent no one from Liverpool killed her.
“We have spoken to everyone who knew Julie, someone would have slipped up.”
New evidence & prime suspect
In 2019, new evidence surfaced linking double killer, Christopher Halliwell, to Julie’s murder.
Devastatingly for the family, it was later revealed that evidence had lain untouched in police files for eight years.
In 2011, a witness told Wiltshire Police that Halliwell was living a few miles from where Julie’s body was found in August 1994.
Halliwell only became a prime suspect for Julie’s murder after a national newspaper found that witness in 2019.
The witness said Halliwell was in the area fitting windows and, during the week, was staying four miles away from the field where Julie’s body was found, while driving a white Transit van similar to the one spotted at Julie’s murder scene.
The taxi driver returned to his hometown of Swindon at the weekends.
Christopher Halliwell, 60, was given a full-life term in 2016 for the murder of Becky Godden-Edwards, 20, in 2003.
She was only found in March 2011 when Halliwell took detective Steve Fulcher to the field after he was arrested for the murder of office worker Sian O’Callaghan, 22.
He was sentenced to life for her murder in 2012.
‘I want justice before I go’
Merseyside Police were understood to be confident of building a case against Halliwell when they opened an investigation into him in 2020.
But four years later, they are still reviewing the case and continuing forensic work that began in 2021.
Now, on the 30th anniversary of her daughter’s death, Pat simply wants justice.
She told The Mirror: “I just want the police to go and interview him [Halliwell] in prison about our Julie. He’s doing life so he’s not going to get any extra time if he admits it.”
Remembering her husband, Pat said: “He died without getting justice. I’m 79 now and I want justice before I go.”
Perhaps the only small comfort to the family is how they are laid to rest together, with both father and daughter buried in the same plot.
Fresh appeal for information
A £10,000 reward is on offer for key information about Julie’s murder.
Head of Merseyside Police’s Serious Crime Review Unit, Kevin Clague, says: “We remain committed to finding her killer and we are determined to bring those responsible to justice so we can help her mum, Pat, and the rest of her family find some closure.
“A murder investigation is never closed.
“It’s never too late to come forward with any information you may have, no matter how small.
“Every vital bit of information and evidence can help us make significant progress and find justice for Julie’s family.”
If you have information, DM @MerPolCC, call 101 or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.