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Sixty years on since newlywed Jean Chalinder was found dead in a Welsh field, her murder remains unsolved.

The 32-year-old’s body was discovered on September 20, 1956, a few days after she had cycled to a field to pick blackberries.

She had suffered extensive injuries and, to this day, her killer has never been found.

Scotland Yard detectives were sent to Cardiff after being called in to assist with the investigation into Jean’s murder.

Jean, of Southminster Road, Roath , was missing from her home for five days before she was found.

Married for only three months to Wellfield Road grocer Tony Chalinder, Jean was the daughter of Mr and Mrs George Wilson, who owned a newsagent’s shop in Llanishen.

Jean’s body was found in a 2ft ditch alongside a bramble hedge in a field on Llwyn-y-Grant Farm, about a quarter a mile from the winding Llanedeyrn Road.

Police said at the time that the crime appeared to be a motiveless one.

Jean, standing at 5ft 5ins, of medium build and with short, brown hair, was last seen wearing a red raincoat after telling her husband she was going blackberry picking. But she was never seen alive again.

It appears that she cycled along Llanedeyrn Road and went through the gate into the Peggy Giles fields on the Llwyn-y-Grant farm – a favourite blackberry picking spot at the time.

Reports from the time described how she pushed her bicycle 20 yards into the field, leaned it against a hedge and locked it, before wandering along the hedge picking blackberries and about 150 yards from her bicycle, walked through a gate into the next field.

It was there near a blackberry bush and a few yards from woods called The Plantation that it is believed she was struck down, before her body was found in a ditch days later.

It was a fellow blackberry picker, 23-year-old hospital secretary Susan Summers, who discovered the body.

Scattered a few yards from where Jean’s body were the blackberries she had picked and her plastic bag which contained the rest of her fruit.

Miss Summers reported the matter to police in Cardiff and Glamorgan police were called in due to the site being 150 yards over the city border.

Glamorgan’s Chief Constable Mr C. H. Watkins said at the time: “If Miss Summers had not gone into the field and discovered the body it might have lain there for weeks before it was found.”

A mobile headquarters with field telephones was set up a few yards from the spot where the body was discovered.

Despite a search which extended late into the night and resuming at dawn the following morning, police were puzzled as to what the weapon was and where it could be found.

Newspaper reports from the time described how police dogs were brought in while a foot-by-foot search to comb the surrounding area and hedges was ordered to try and find a heavy, sharp instrument.

Jean’s bicycle, which had been padlocked, was found where she had left it.

A Home Office pathologist believed that her death was caused by multiple head injuries.

In the days following the incident, police sought the help of audiences at more than 100 cinemas in South Wales by showing a notice to all cinemas in Cardiff, Glamorgan and Monmouthshire to appeal for information.

Six days after her body was discovered, Jean was buried in the small cemetery of Pantmawr, Whitchurch, overlooked by the historic Castell Coch, after more than 300 people attended the funeral on September 26, 1956.

Alongside the grave rested a 4ft cross of white flowers with deep red roses, while her garden at home was filled with wreaths.

The service was at the same church where she was married three months earlier at St Teilo Church in Cardiff.

Later stages of the investigation moved to a half-mile stretch of the nearby Rhymney river, announced by Scotland Yard, but the case was not solved.

The 60th anniversary of Jean’s death was marked last week by a notice in the parish notices of St Martin Church in Roath for September.

A spokesman for South Wales Police said: “South Wales Police policy is that all unresolved homicides remain open and are never closed.”