[11][12] At 9 p.m. on 2 December 1964, a nine-year-old named Julia Taylor was lured into a blue Vauxhall Velox in Bloxwich by a man claiming to be a friend of her mother and referring to himself as "Uncle Len".

[13] She was driven to a pile of slag heaps near the mining village of Bentley where she was sexually assaulted, manually strangled and thrown half-naked from the car into a ditch, having endured grievous internal injuries.

[14] However, one eyewitnesses to Taylor's abduction was certain the abductor's vehicle was a large car with two-tone paint, small fins at the rear and a hand spot-lamp mounted close to one wing "at the end of the windscreen, near the driver's door".

Two hundred posters featuring a composite photograph of the child in the clothes she was last seen, with an accompanying appeal for witnesses to contact police were printed by the Birmingham Evening Mail.

[29] At a press conference held on 14 January, the Assistant Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police, Thomas Lockley, informed the media: "We are hunting a dangerous child killer who may strike again.

Numerous vehicles sighted on Mansty Gulley between 30 December and 12 January were traced, their owners interviewed, and subsequently eliminated from the enquiry following the verification of their whereabouts on crucial dates.

[39] When the children pointed the direction to this individual, adding his intended destination was just a short distance up the road, he had feigned confusion and asked Christine to enter the car and show him the way, promising to drive her back to her friends immediately afterwards.

[43] Over the following days, 24,000 flyers bearing Darby's photograph were distributed to the public and displayed in prominent locations such as shop windows, bus stops and telephone poles in and around the West Midlands.

As approximately thirty per cent of the eighty-five square mile surface of Cannock Chase was covered by fir trees, dense foliage, mine shafts, clay pits and fox holes, any aerial search of the terrain would be ineffective.

[46] On the afternoon of 22 August, a soldier named Michael Blundred, searching a cluster of trees within an area of Cannock Chase known to the Forestry Commission as Plantation 110 discovered the child's sprawled, naked body partially concealed by broken fern branches.

A detailed examination of the crime scene itself on the morning of 23 August revealed fragmented tyre tracks determined to have been made by a family-sized saloon car close to where Darby's body had been discovered.

[n 5] These tyre impressions extended 140 yards from the open heath into the plantation where the child's body was discovered and clearly indicated Darby's murderer had driven into the plantation, then later reversed some distance from the location with very little deviation from the impressions made upon entry, prior to performing a U-turn, suggesting to a technical manager of the British branch of the Pirelli Tyre Company called to assist in the investigation the driver was "one of considerable skill and experience".

Over 2,000 copies of this facial composite of the individual seen close to Plantation 110 were distributed throughout the country on 5 September, with one national newspaper, the Daily Express, publishing the Identikit on their front page shortly thereafter.

"[62] By the spring of 1968, the task force investigators searching for the Cannock Chase murderer strongly believed the perpetrator had previously been questioned, but due to the reliance placed upon an alibi provided by a spouse or family member, had been cleared as a suspect and records relating to him simply marked "No Further Action" in the index card filing system.

[63] On 4 November 1968, a 10-year-old girl named Margaret Aulton narrowly escaped an attempted abduction in Bridgeman Street, Walsall, in which a man engaged her in conversation as she stood on a section of waste ground placing pieces of wood upon a bonfire.

The child managed to break free and run away when her would-be abductor observed an 18-year-old woman named Wendy Lane exit a fish and chip shop across the road, causing him to speed away from the scene with his head lowered.

[4] Lane had witnessed this incident; she made a mental note of the make of the vehicle (a green Ford Corsair with a cream roof) and the registration plate, which she recounted to police as being 429 LOP.

[n 8] This vehicle was registered to a 39-year-old local named Raymond Leslie Morris, who resided in a high-rise block of flats on Green Lane, directly opposite the Walsall police station.

[74] Confronted with statements from his wife and in-laws as to the timing of his movements on the date of Darby's abduction on the evening of 15 November, Morris became distraught but quickly regained his composure—frequently refusing to answer questions.

[4] Prior to Morris's arrest, police had conducted house-to-house enquiries at over 39,000 homes; interviewed approximately 80,000 people; and checked over a million car forms in their efforts to identify and apprehend the murderer.

[27] Morris was brought to trial at Stafford Assizes on 10 February 1969, charged with the murder of Christine Darby, two counts of sexual assault against his niece, and the attempted abduction of Margaret Aulton.

Although the defence argued against the prosecution's contention that each of the charges pointed to the defendant's sexual and behavioural proclivities, and were thus unduly prejudicial, the judge ruled Morris could be tried on all three indictments simultaneously.

[78] On the second day of the trial, two of the most crucial prosecution witnesses—Victor Whitehouse and Jeanne Rawlings—testified as to their eyewitness statements regarding the man they had seen on Cannock Chase on 19 August 1967 and the Identikits they had subsequently helped investigators to produce.

"[80] Rawlings' testimony was followed by that of Detective Chief Superintendent Harry Bailey, who testified as to the discovery of Darby's body, the recovery of evidence at and near the crime scene, and the child's subsequent identification.

Porter testified Morris had expressed annoyance at being interviewed repeatedly, adding he knew police had a job to do, but that since he had no children of his own he "[couldn't] imagine" how Darby's mother must feel, having lost her daughter.

He also disputed his wife's altered testimony regarding the time he had returned home on 19 August; alleging her renewed statement was a lie and possibly sourcing from her being subject to police coercion.

The jury deliberated for less than two hours on the afternoon of 18 February before reaching their verdict at 4:28 p.m.: Morris was found guilty of the attempted abduction of Margaret Aulton and the rape and murder of Christine Darby.

[4] Two years later, in October 1966, he was arrested on suspicion of taking indecent photographs of two schoolgirls, aged 10 and 11, whom he had encountered truanting outside the factory where he worked and whom he lured into his flat at a time his wife was absent from the premises.

Although he bore a striking resemblance to the 1967 Identikit, Morris had not been considered a suspect warranting further investigation due to his second wife repeatedly providing him with a false alibi and initial administrative protocol.

[100] Raymond Morris died at the HMP Preston health facility of natural causes on 11 March 2014 at the age of 84,[101] having spent the final 45 years of his life in prison.