Latest Teesside headlines straight to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

It was a murder that ripped fear into a leafy Stockton suburb in the late 1980s and remains a mystery over 20 years on.

Kate Simpson, a sprightly and independent 94-year-old, was killed in her Hartburn home in a brutal and pitiless attack.

Following a massive investigation, three men were sentenced to life but were later released after the convictions were deemed unsafe.

No-one has ever paid the price for ending the life of the Stockton pensioner who had never been afraid of living on her own.

But a team of specialist police officers are now looking back at the tragic case and are welcoming help from the public.

Mrs Simpson lived alone at her three-bedroomed semi on Hartburn Avenue next to Ropner Park.

The mother and grandmother was 94 and a dot at 5ft 1ins tall - but she was sprightly and fiercely independent.

She had lived alone following the death of her husband, a British Rail executive, 20 years earlier. But friends said she was perfectly capable of looking after herself in spite of some deafness and high blood pressure.

A pathologist who carried out the post mortem on her body, said, apart from the injuries she sustained at the hands of her killer, Mrs Simpson was a healthy woman.

Dr Harvey McTaggart said: "She would have got the telegram off the Queen."

(Image: Google Maps)

At 9.45am on Saturday, February 27, 1988, Mrs Simpson had telephoned her best friend who lived nearby to pass on her shopping list

It was at 3pm, when the friend called in with the groceries, that she discovered the grisly scene.

Mrs Simpson was lying on the floor of her living room with a carving knife in her chest. The blade had severed her aorta.

She also had bruising on her face and injuries to her neck consistent with someone holding and squeezing it.

At the time Detective Chief Inspector Ron Newsam of Cleveland CID, who led the investigation, said: "It was a a callous and totally unnecessary attack on a defenceless old lady.

"She was very friendly, very gentle, well-respected and did not have an enemy in the world."

(Image: Evening Gazette)

The hunt for the killers became the biggest murder inquiry in the 15-year history of Cleveland Police.

Officers worked 12-hour shifts on the case and followed 1,707 lines of inquiry, took 1,093 statements, made 1,200 house-to-house inquiries and set up a road block that stopped 2,096 vehicles.

Detective Inspector Dave Scott, one of the senior detectives involved, said at the time: "I have never known detectives so enthusiastic about detecting something.

"Everyone took it so personally and they were all aware of the way she had been brutally murdered.

He was one of the first on the scene.

"I just felt sorrow," he told the Evening Gazette.

"Here was a defenceless old lady, she'd been a mature woman at the beginning of the First World War, now she's been killed in a brutal manner.

"I felt anger, of course, a sense of despair, but what it also did was create this desire to detect - there was no chance this crime was going to be undetected."

There had been no evidence of a forced entry and it was believed that Mrs Simpson had let her killers into the house in circumstances that pointed to distraction burglary.

Two weeks after the discovery of Mrs Simpson's body, three men were charged with the killing.

They were sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty by a jury.

But they were later released on appeal. And since then, no-one has been brought back to court over Mrs Simpson's tragic death.

The investigation is among those currently being re-visited by a team which specialises in cold cases.

The team was established in November 2016 at the same time as the Cleveland and North Yorkshire Major Investigation Team which deals with the most complex and high profile cases.

One of the cold case investigators is a retired detective who has worked on numerous high profile cases and does not want his name to be published.

But he told Teesside Live he would be more than happy to speak to anyone with information which could help finally catch Mrs Simpson's killers.

People's relationships breakdown, alliances end and there are continued developments in forensic science and technology.

All this means they still have a chance of catching the killers, he said.

The investigating team believes the culprits were "artifice" burglars, also known as distraction burglars, and there were at least two.

And they are also convinced that all those involved did not intended for the end result.

"We still potentially have someone going around who is capable of killing old ladies," he said.

"And whoever was with them must have been horrified by what happened.

"Mrs Simpson was 94 years old; you live to that age and would hope to go in a peaceful way."

He urged anyone who can help with the investigation to get in touch, including former police officers.

"We are quite happy to talk to former police officers who dealt with artifice burglars operating in the Stockton, Cleveland and South Durham areas in the late 1980s," he said.

Anyone with information about Kate Simpson's death is urged to call the cold case team on 01642 303315, 01642 303200 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.