Brutal murder of librarian whose body was found in the grounds of Arundel Park in 1948 has never been solved: Now author claims the case was part of an establishment cover up

On the August Bank Holiday weekend of 1948, Joan Woodhouse (pictured, left)- a deeply religious librarian - left her lodgings in London to visit her family home in Barnsley, Yorkshire. 


She never arrived. More than a week later her body was discovered in the grounds of the Duke of Norfolk's historic Arundel Castle (left) in Sussex. She had been raped and strangled. Joan was found by well-known local Thomas Stillwell - a renowned flasher, who admitted he was in the park on the day of her murder with the intention of exposing himself to young girls, confirmed to police that he did speak to Joan, and even once conceded: 'It must have been me.' But he was cleared of her killing - twice - and no one has ever been found guilty of the 27-year-old's murder. The case has lay cold since 1950. One author is now hoping to change that. After studying the probe into Joan's death (inset) forensically for six years, Martin Knight is convinced he can prove that the murder was an establishment cover up, with Stillwell's freedom bought by the then Duke of Norfolk - a rich landowner rumoured to be the alleged killer's illegitimate father. The writer is adamant all the evidence points to labourer Stillwell - and that police did not charge him because of fears such a move would trigger unwanted scrutiny into what from the outset was a highly-flawed police investigation.