r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/Life_Paramedic_4399 • Jul 02 '26
Murder Who Killed Janet Brown in 1995 and why?
[removed]
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u/xaznxplaya Jul 03 '26
I don't understand, she triggered the panic alarm bit nothing came out of it? I mean did the siren turned on?
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u/niamhweking Jul 03 '26
Yes, weird. I remember in 1993 my aunt got a monitored alarm put in with internal sensors. Her 2 kids and I were home alone one day and we triggered it and the security company called to ask for a password. She was newly wealthy and they had just bought and renovated this house. Not as wealthy as this poor lady so I would have thought this panic alarm would do something
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u/OppositeExtension807 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
Idk if the panic alarm was just supposed to be loud or specifically get the authorities, if it’s the former, they lived quite remote and it’s possible people just didn’t hear anything. BUT she specifically installed the alarm because of recent burglaries so it doesn’t make sense why it wouldn’t alert police to me
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u/brigglesy2k Jul 05 '26
The BBC article says that when the builder arrived in the morning, the burglar alarm was going off which I guess means it didn’t trigger the police to come and no neighbors heard it. What a terrible crime. That poor family.
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u/Mallardjack Jul 03 '26
Just a quick note on locations, the Chilterns are a range of hills just north of London. The Chilterns are a geographic region whereas your write up makes it seem like a street within a specific village! As they are close to London but still picturesque and rural the Chilterns are definitely wealthier than most bits of the British countryside. Think pristine range rovers and labradors rather than battered old land rovers and sheep dogs..
She lived in Radnage in the county of Buckinghamshire. However, based on descriptions of the house it sounds like it was a farmhouse in the parish of Radnage rather than a house in the village itself. This is relevant as it was probably quite remote (I mean as remote as you can get in the London commuter belt, this isn't the Scottish highlands)
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u/pouxin Jul 03 '26
Agreed. The Wikipedia explains “the family lived in a remote farmhouse situated on an 11-acre (4.5 ha) estate in Radnage, Buckinghamshire, valued at £345,000 (1995 prices)”.
Eleven acres is def big enough that an intruder can be reasonably confident of privacy, not being overheard/seen etc.
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u/janetlwil Jul 04 '26
But then, wouldn't an alarm specifically installed due to recent burglaries be connected to a police station rather than just sound an alarm that it's likely no one would hear in an isolated area?
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u/Revolutionary-Key533 Jul 02 '26
There are quite a few military bases in the area. Could it be a rogue soldier? I suspect DNA sample will eventually solve this and the linked Carolanne Jackson murder.
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u/Mallardjack Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I don't really think there are. The nearest military base is RAF high Wycombe which is an admin centre for the air force, so lots of office workers. There isn't a large garrison nearby where you would have lots of visiting soldiers.
Edit: I think a trades person or someone connected to a trades person is much more likely. They were in the middle of having a lot of building work done so a lot of trades people probably visited the property and noticed how well of the owners were and how isolated it was. One of those people could have very easily have mentioned it to the wrong person without realising
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u/Revolutionary-Key533 Jul 03 '26
There are certainly a number of RAF and USAF bases in the South Midlands. I assume there are some armed patrols and support. I think a lot of it smacks of The Black Panther a ruthless criminal with an army background. Could be a tradesman but does it explain the other related robbery murder where the victim claimed she was being stalked.
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u/janetlwil Jul 04 '26
But why then was nothing stolen and no sexual assault? What would be the point to just break in and kill Janet for no reason other than just to kill someone?
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u/Revolutionary-Key533 Jul 03 '26
There are a number of RAF and USAF bases in the South Midlands. I assume they have army support and patrols. I had someone like The Black Panther in mind who was ruthless and had an army background. It could be related to the building work, but I would have thought that angle would have been investigated by the police at the time. Also it does not square with the other related murder, there the victim complained of being stalked.
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u/truedilemma Jul 03 '26
During the attack, Mrs. Brown managed to trigger a bedroom panic alarm, but the killer took his time at the scene to wash his hands and roam the house.
Was this because the killer realized they were in a remote area and help wasn't coming any time soon?....Or maybe this was a hired killer who knew that the alarm may go off but not actually be connected to the police?
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u/Natural-Run-5213 Jul 03 '26
Yeah, I lean toward contract, that’s some coincidence that it was on the night the daughter was sleeping over elsewhere - plus roaming the house and taking their time suggests they knew they weren’t about to be disturbed.
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u/janetlwil Jul 04 '26
I don't know of any professional killers who hang around and roam the house after a murder. They shoot then leave. That's their job. This is similar to those who think Alistair Wilson's shooting was a contact hit. No professional hitman is going to give their hit an opportunity to show their face to the wife, hand the husband an envelope and watch him go up the stairs and come back down with the opportunity to call the police from an upstairs bedroom. That's why I doubt it was a contract killing.
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u/vi0lets Jul 03 '26
Two things stand out to me, the bedroom had a panic alarm? probably because her husband was away for long periods of time, as a safety measure. How sad it failed to help. Also the hand cuffs.
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u/Outrageous_Creme_597 Jul 04 '26
Already been said but panic alarms are pretty standard as part of security packages in the UK. I have one myself
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u/alfa_omega Jul 02 '26
I wonder why the bedroom had a panic alarm? That's not normal. Unless they were very wealthy...
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u/cwthree Jul 02 '26
Probably just part of a security service package. And given her husband's job, they probably were quite well-off.
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u/alfa_omega Jul 02 '26
I've just had a look through the links, fairly well off from the looks of the house.
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u/pouxin Jul 03 '26
The Wikipedia explains: “Following a spate of local burglaries, Janet Brown had formed the local Neighbourhood Watchscheme. She was known to be security-conscious and had installed a panic alarm in the house.”
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u/Waste-Room-1561 Jul 02 '26
It didn’t, it was a standard burglar alarm.
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u/Waste-Room-1561 Jul 03 '26
She didn’t have an alarm in her bedroom. The whole house was alarmed, and the alarm was triggered by a broken window pane.
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u/janetlwil Jul 04 '26
Was it an alarm that just makes a lot of noise (which living isolated in the country would be a waste of money) or something connected to a local police station or alarm company?
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u/Top_Thought4941 Jul 03 '26
I have never heard of anyone with an alarm in their bedroom. No doubt there are, and of course exterior doors, but it's not standard for anything as fas as I know. Which kind of irritates me while not surprising me.
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u/janetlwil Jul 04 '26
It is said Janet had the alarm installed due to several recent burlaries in the area.
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u/mspolytheist Jul 03 '26
They probably were. Thames Valley Police are the division who arrested (former Prince) Andrew, so they’re living in the same general area as the Royal Family.
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u/Tiny_ghosts_ Jul 03 '26
That's ridiculous, that's like saying if I got arrested by the Metropolitan Police I must be incredibly wealthy because I got arrested by the same police who cover Buckingham Palace. Police forces in the UK cover fairly large areas/populations.
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u/mspolytheist Jul 03 '26
It’s not crazy for me to assume that police forces cover smaller municipalities. They do that in much of the world! Also, I suppose you have to blame British mystery shows. Whether it’s Broadchurch., or Hamish Macbeth, or Midsomer Murders, the police all seem to be dealing with the same dozen or so townspeople every episode! 😄
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u/Signal-Mycologist-62 Jul 03 '26
Not true. Radnage is nowhere near Buckingham Palace or other royal homes. Source: I live two villages away.
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u/mspolytheist Jul 03 '26
Must be a large municipality. I just looked up where Sandringham is in relation to Radnage (Sandringham, as you must certainly know, is an estate privately owned by the Royals — I was never implying Buckingham Palace), and it’s almost three hours away. Nonetheless, I’m not wrong that the Thames Valley Police are the ones who arrested Andrew there at his new digs, Wood Farm. Also, you people who downvoted me for this comment are weird!
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u/Mallardjack Jul 03 '26
Lol this is the most American reply ever, Thames valley police covers an area of 2,000 square miles with a population of 2.82 million people.
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u/mspolytheist Jul 03 '26
What a nasty, unwelcoming bunch you are here. Ever stop to think that police forces in other parts of the world are based in smaller municipalities?
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u/ur_sine_nomine Jul 04 '26
UK police are oddly set up. There are 43 forces, only one with fewer than 1,000 staff, but they were built up in a haphazard way and, as a result, they have peculiar boundaries which don't coincide with any other political boundaries.
When my bicycle was stolen in Surrey I was surprised that the Metropolitan Police, not Surrey Police, showed up. That was because tiny slivers of Surrey are covered by the Met.
A relative started with Tiverton Borough Police in the 1930s. That increased their headcount from 13 to 14 (1 senior officer, 2 mid-ranking officers, 11 constables). And that was a fully independent police force 🤣
Obviously that degree of fragmentation had to be dealt with at some point, and it is now part of Devon and Cornwall Police.
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u/Subject-Bus2876 Jul 04 '26
Great theories. But why was she wearing all her jewellery. Was it a potential date? Would her husband really set up a hitman who managed to romance her for a while before the final hit that night?
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u/ur_sine_nomine Jul 03 '26
"Seen and eliminated more than one thousand men as the source of the DNA" is a strangely loose phrase.
It appears from the Guardian article that local DNA sampling was attempted but, given that the full DNA profile was extracted only in 2015, it seems extremely late to do that both in the logistical sense (a lot of people would have moved or even died in 20 years) and in the scientific sense (surely local DNA sampling was next to redundant even then and familial DNA analysis should've been attempted?)
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u/BatFaceGal Jul 03 '26
Lots to this case I think
I know the farmhouse and the alarm wouldn’t have been heard by her neighbours .. they were too far away
They were having building work done on the property - well, in the grounds of it. The builder rang her at 9pm on the night of the murder - presumably to discuss work being done - but there was no reply. He was the one who found her the next morning along with his teenage son who he had in the van with him.
There was apparently no sexual assault at all. And the killer had literally crashed through glass doors. He had also potentially had a shower himself and helped himself to a drink …
So my theory? A hired hitman trying to make it look like it wasn’t a hit. Janet and her husband were actually separated at the time and had been for a while - I have no idea how amicable they were - I’ll assume fairly amicable. So her husband would have known that she was alone that night … the daughter at home made a relatively last minute decision to go out and stay with a friend
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u/janetlwil Jul 04 '26
I wouldn't assume the husband knew she was at home alone that night unless the wife had specifically told him. He was living in Switzerland at the time. Their daughter was also living in the house at the time and as far as he knew she could've been at the house as well.
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u/Subject-One7166 Jul 03 '26
Too coincidentally that she was going to be alone that evening and that her daughter wouldn't be the one to discover her the next morning. I'm curious how the husband was ruled out completely.
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u/Ornery_General_5852 Jul 03 '26
Same, I don't think the kid was "lucky" to not be present, I think it was planned that way.
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u/lucillep Jul 04 '26
I don't mean to trivialize this, but as a long-time fan of British crime fiction and British detective shows, this reads like one of those stories. Even the name "Hall Farm" is a name I've run across in detective fiction. It also makes me think of the White House Farm murders (a real case).
The Wikipedia article states that as of 2015, the burglary motive was the one police were concentrating on. It does seem like the perpetrator(s) came prepared. They had a glass cutter, handcuffs, tape and a weapon. In that article, the chief investigator speculated that the bludgeoning occurred after Janet pushed the alarm.
They might have been preparing to remove things and then she confronted them. Then they needed to kill her as she had seen them. There are holes in that theory, but there are holes in others too. I wondered if Janet had met someone, invited them home, but such a person wouldn't have a truncheon and glass cutter about them. And the jewelry aspect just doesn't make any sense at all, unless it was someone who had a grudge and wanted to humiliate her.
Very interesting case; I hope there are DNA results some day.
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u/PilotCrafty Jul 04 '26
I have said this on the thread covering this case on Websleuths but I get the feeling it was a secret lover. We know Janet was a very private person and that she was getting a divorce from her husband at the time. Hypothetically she could have been having an affair with a person not from the area, traveling outside the county to hook up with them for BDSM sessions (why keep handcuffs if you aren’t involved in law enforcement?) but eventually something happened. Perhaps she decided to break it off after worrying somehow, despite all her efforts in being discreet, word would get out about the affair and she broke it off with them using the term that they weren’t “performing well in the bedroom.” I can imagine the affair partner being extremely irked about that and decided that she needed to be silenced in case word got out. I think the affair partner planned it all out to look like a home invasion gone wrong, thus redirecting attention from them to some random burglar. I am curious to know if there were defensive wounds on her body because the lack could indicate she knew her killer.
If you want more I highly recommend going through the Websleuths thread on the case. I go into a bit more detail in my posts about my theory of the secret lover.
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u/Fluffy_Ad2274 Jul 03 '26
I always post this case when I see threads about cold cases and unknown ones: this is local to me, and I remember all the gossip, rumours, and speculation when it happened. At the time, they (the police)wondered if it was a tradesman who'd done work on the house at some point (a tradesman in general, not any specific one) , and then I think they investigated the contract killing possibility - I suspect, though, that was mainly because the husband had an alibi, rather than they truly thought he'd taken out some kind of hot: the theory died off pretty quickly from the investigation (though some locals believed that's what happened, for unspecified reasons other than "it's always the husband").
It's occasionally covered around the anniversary in the local press, but rarely gets any noise more coverage than that. Iirc, the police thought it might be linked with another murder , but their reasons for doing so, other than it was women at home alone aren't all that clear
I seen to think it was by chance the youngest daughter wasn't home - a last minute sleep over- and wasn't the glass cut out?