Ann Heron was a British woman who was murdered on 3 August 1990 at her home in Darlington, County Durham, by an unidentified killer.
[1] The case was heavily featured in British media as well as on the BBC programme Crimewatch in October 1990, but her murder remains unsolved.
Her husband, who was having an affair at the time, was charged with her murder in 2005 after his semen was found in samples taken from Heron's throat, but the case was subsequently dropped due to lack of evidence.
[2] In 2020, a self-proclaimed investigator claimed that Michael Benson, an escaped prisoner who was on the run in Hampshire at the time, was a possible suspect.
[2][5] She had been forced to move to the front of the house to sunbathe, nearer the road, because a tractor nearby had been blowing grass towards the back garden.
[5] This was supported by the fact that the family dog, which was found outside of the house when Peter arrived home, had not been heard to bark at an intruder or a stranger.
[5] The car pulled out immediately behind him but accelerated and overtook before racing across the nearby roundabout and driving down Yarm Road into Darlington.
[5] Several of the witnesses gave similar descriptions of the male driver as being aged between 35 and 45 with a suntanned complexion and short dark hair.
[14] One week after the murder, it was discovered that 55-year-old Peter was having an affair at the time with a 32-year-old barmaid at the local spa club, leading some to suspect that he may have had a motive to kill Ann.
[16] As Ann's husband and the person who found her body, Peter Heron hit two of the main criteria for murder suspects.
[6] Peter had left a meeting at Cleveland Bridge at 4pm and said he drove back to his office through the village of Croft-on-Tees and Middleton St.
In December 1992, a woman told police a man came to the card shop in Darlington where she worked and boasted about killing Heron.
"[18] Forensic tests were carried out on the letters in an attempt to establish who the author was, and handwriting samples were taken for comparison with suspects in the case.
[21] This led to the arrest in November that year of Ann's husband, Peter Heron, who had remarried after the murder and relocated to a bungalow in Wishaw, Lanarkshire.
[2] The Crown Prosecution Service agreed to charge him after he was interviewed a number of times, however, the case against him was subsequently dropped due to a lack of evidence.
[25][17][24] The decision was made after additional expert opinion was obtained on the scientific evidence presented, leading to an eminent barrister advising the CPS that the case should be discontinued.
[23] Investigators subsequently announced their plans to re-examine key evidence, and in 2007 fresh forensic tests were conducted on what police described as "the crucial samples" from the crime scene.
[27][2][10] Heron had also been positively identified driving his white car around a roundabout two miles from Aeolian House between 3:50 and 3:55 pm, when he was supposedly in the meeting with the clients.
[2] After watching the October 1990 edition of Crimewatch which featured the murder, she concluded that the killer must have been a prolific offender and burglar.
[2] She watched the next month's episode and saw that Hampshire Police were searching for Leeds man Michael Benson, who had escaped from prison using his wife's blue Ford Orion.
[4] In a 2022 Channel 5 documentary on the murder, Durham Constabulary revealed that Peter Heron, along with various unnamed individuals was still a suspect in the case.
The episode, titled The Murder of Ann Heron: Darlington, was published as a part of the podcast series spin-off to the documentary show Murdertown.