A suspect was identified at the time, but there was insufficient evidence to charge him, and the crime remained unsolved for over four decades until a cold case review in the 2000s.
A week later on 25 August 1961, a dog walker found her body hidden in undergrowth at disused allotments close to her house in Everton Road.
[2] The ensuing murder investigation involved several hundred police officers who visited more than 1,000 homes in the area, and conducted interviews with local residents, as well as Thomas's colleagues and workers from the fair where she had last been seen.
[3] Witnesses recalled Thomas speaking with a young man at the fair; he was subsequently identified as 24-year-old Anthony Hall, a married father of one.
Her body was discovered by a lorry driver in December 1968 on waste ground at Bickenhill Lane, Marston Green, near Birmingham Airport.
[5] As part of their effort to routinely re-examine evidence from unsolved cases, West Midlands Police's Major Crime Review Team revisited the investigation in early 2007.
Documents from the Jacqueline Thomas investigation were studied by detectives, and the case file was closely examined by lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service.
[1] Outlining the essential case against the suspect, he said that it rested on two significant points – Jacqueline Thomas's time of death and the last person seen with her beforehand: "If they (the prosecution) had turned up something new it would have made all the difference, or may have done."