For my next case I am examining a surprisingly not widely known case from here in the UK - the 27-year unsolved disappearance and presumed murder of Yorkshire nurse and mother of two Marsha Wray.

~Background~

Marsha A Marley was born in 1958 in Northumberland to parents Sheila Whillis and William Marley, who had married in 1956. Sister Sheila Belinda Marley, known as Belinda, followed in 1964 and completed the Marley family unit. The Marley’s lived in Northumberland, the least-densely populated county of England. Situated in the far North-East of the country, it features pretty rural landscapes such as the Cheviot Hills and North Penines, flattening out to a long sandy coastline popular with tourists in the summer and scattered with famous sites such as Lindisfarne (known as Holy Island), Hadrians Wall and Bamburgh Castle. For a young family it makes for a great setting in which to grow up, and much of Marsha’s family have remained there throughout their lives.

Following completion of her high school education Marsha moved 2.5 hours south to the Yorkshire city of Leeds to train as a nurse. Here she met Colin Wray, a civil engineer born in 1948 in Leeds, and 10 years older than Marsha. She and Colin married in 1979 in Northumberland. Initially they lived together in the Leeds suburb of Bramley, before finally settling in a semi-detached house in 35 Forest Lane, Harrogate, a fashionable spa town commonly cited as one of the most affluent in the UK. Their first child, Philippa Anne Wray, was born in 1988 and followed in 1991 by son Robert Alan Wray. Marsha worked as a nurse at Harrogate District Hospital, just 1.5 miles from the family home.

~Marsha goes missing~

The mystery of Marsha’s disappearance began on the wintery morning of 24 January 1997. At around 9am Marsha dropped 10-year-old Philippa and 7-year-old Robert at Hookstone Chase Primary School, just 0.7 miles from the family home, in her red Austin Metro Quest car following a night shift at Harrogate District Hospital. Marsha was last seen alive when she turned left out of the road on which the school was situated (if she was planning on returning straight to the family home she should, in theory, have turned right – more on that later). However, Marsha did not turn up to collect her children from school as planned that afternoon. This was the first time that Marsha had not turned up to collect them – police described her as a devoted and loving mother who would always do so or ensure someone else would if she was otherwise engaged. However, it was not until 10 days later, on 3 February, and after Marsha had apparently not been seen or heard from by her husband, children or other family since 24 January, that her disappearance was finally reported to police by her sister Belinda.

Marsha is described as being 5ft 2inches tall with fair to blonde collar length hair at the time she disappeared. She weighed around 9 stones, occasionally wore glasses and had a mole on the left side of her face.

~The initial investigation~

Despite media appeals for the public to come forward with any sightings of Marsha or other information which could assist the inquiry, no positive sightings of her were established after she left her children’s school on 24 January. However, North Yorkshire Police did soon establish some intriguing and concerning information regarding the movements of Marsha’s car, a red Austin Metro with the registration K426 WVV. The car had been seen a number of times in the car park of Nidd Valley Gorge, Knaresborough from the morning of 24 January through to the 28 January, four days after she disappeared. Nidd Valley Gorge is a local 114-acre beauty spot made up of a steep-sided valley surrounded by five woodlands through which the River Nidd runs east to west. The car park where Marsha’s car was sighted is located just 2.6 miles from the Wray family home, approximately a 10-minute drive. The car then disappeared and was not seen again for a month.

In the meantime, following notification by Marsha’s sister of her disappearance on 3 February, North Yorkshire Police searched the River Nidd using dive teams and neighbouring force West Yorkshire Police assisted by deploying their force helicopter with heat-seeking technology to scan the area around Nidd Valley Gorge. Land searches in the gorge area also took place. Checks at airports and ports across the country were carried out, and Interpol and other UK police forces consulted, to ensure Marsha had not left the country. None of these searches found Marsha or any useful leads.

The first significant break in the case came when Marsha’s car resurfaced on 28 February when police in Leeds stopped it while it was being driven by two youths. The youths told police they had stolen the car around 27 February from Hollin Lane in Headingley, a suburb of Leeds 19 miles and roughly a 40-minute drive from Nidd Valley Gorge, and around 17 miles from Marsha’s family home in Harrogate. Local witnesses confirmed the account of the youths that the car had been left in Hollin Lane, parked and undamaged, prior to their taking the car. However, nobody could say who had parked the car there or precisely when over the previous month this occurred. Colin later noted in an interview with the media that he and Marsha often socialized in the Headingley area so Marsha would have been familiar with the locale where the car was found but stated that he had no idea how the car got there. The police questioned the two youths but eliminated them from the inquiry. A forensic examination of the vehicle provided no information as to where it had been or who had been driving it over the previous month, and the car was soon returned to Colin, where it remained on the driveway of the family home for a number of years.

~Murder, suicide, accident or purposeful disappearance?~

Other than the reappearance of the car there was little information for the police to go on in the aftermath of Marsha’s disappearance and they initially continued to investigate the case as a ‘missing person’. In March 1997 Colin made a public appeal for Marsha to come forward. During this appeal he claimed his wife’s personality had changed in the weeks prior to her disappearance, saying “We always had trust, care and affection but my wife, who I loved, suddenly changed to me. In the weeks leading up to Christmas she started to get insecure, unstable and very depressed.” He also claimed it was possible Marsha was having an affair, and that she had become difficult with their children too. When asked if he thought Marsha may have run away Colin said he believed she was ‘capable of anything. She avoided all our friends. She certainly seemed to be wanting a totally new existence.”

Police investigated the possibility that Marsha had committed suicide. She had recently experienced some trauma in her life, with a close friend suffering a brain haemorhage and dying in front of her in November 1996. However, police soon made it clear that they believed, from their investigations and information provided by family and friends, it was highly unlikely Marsha would have harmed herself. Suicide also seemed unlikely given that no body was ever recovered and, in particular, the mysterious movements of her car in the aftermath of the disappearance.

Police also queried whether Marsha could have purposefully disappeared to start a new life. However, no sightings of Marsha after dropping off her children at school were ever reported and no contact has ever been made with family or friends. Inquiries with Marsha’s bank showed her account remained untouched. There was no evidence of Marsha travelling abroad or that she was still alive after the 24 January. Police also ruled out the possibility of an accident, believing that searches over the months following her disappearance would have led to the recovery of her remains had this been the case. By early 1998 police were working with the hypothesis that Marsha had been murdered on the day she disappeared and changed the inquiry from a missing person to a murder investigation.

~An arrest~

There was little further news for over a year before a dramatic turn of events when, at 8am on the morning of 28 May 1998, 16 months after Marsha went missing, Colin Wray was arrested on suspicion of murder and the family home at Forest Lane cordoned off. A major incident room was set up in Harrogate, and a search of the family home commenced. Over 40 officers spent the next few days searching the home, with tents erected over the driveway and garden to shelter officers from the falling rain as they searched with sniffer dogs and dug in the garden. Officers took soil samples for forensic analysis and used a radar device to detect buried objects but later confirmed only pipes had been found. A police spokesperson stated that officers “have been collecting all sorts of evidence. We are looking for all sorts of things, some of it is specific, and with other things it is just whatever we find. It could be any number of items.” However, three days after his arrest Colin was released from custody without charge and the search of the home ended without making any significant finds, at least that have ever been released to the public.

Colin has always protested his innocence in his wife’s disappearance. Some months after his arrest, around the second anniversary of Marsha going missing, Belinda and the police held a press conference appealing for information. Colin later spoke to local media from the family home he still lived in with Philippa and Robert, saying that he had not been forewarned the press conference was to take place. He again maintained his innocence, saying he did not know whether Marsha was alive or dead. He stated his hope that she would contact family or police, asked her to contact her mother and said that the telephone number at the family home remained the same if she wished to ring there. He claimed that he and his children had always cooperated with the inquiry, and he had ‘told them absolutely everything I could think of’, outlining how he had allowed police access to all of the family’s medical records and had given a voluntary blood sample. He went on "They have searched our home from top to bottom and a lot of property has been taken away. The garden has been dug up and they took all our financial records for inspection. I have not changed anything in the house and her car is still here - I've just had its service and MOT done. There's nothing more we can think of to do." He stated that he and the children had just returned from a holiday to the Algarve before his arrest and, whilst he had been advised he would be under suspicion, he maintained that he had nothing to hide. Even the children’s bedrooms had been searched, which appears to have upset the children, and Colin confirmed that the police did speak to the children about the events surrounding their mothers disappearance at this time.

~Another search and dashed hopes~

In January 1999 police searched an area of Scotton Woods, close to the car park at Nidd Valley Gorge where Marsha’s car had been seen in late January 1997, after a dog walker reported finding an unusual ‘depression’ in the earth which could potentially have been a grave. However, despite a full search by detectives and specialist scientists, no remains or any evidence of Marsha was recovered. Whilst disappointed, police reiterated their commitment to the inquiry and their hope that other people who felt they had relevant information would continue to come forward.

Colin, however, gave an interview to the media criticising police for not advising him and the family of the lead before the search took place, stating "The first thing I would have known is when I saw it in the papers or when the children's friends told them about it at school. Nobody told me at all. I would have thought it was reasonable practice just to let us know this was going on - more for the kids so they don't hear about it first at school, but we were not informed”. In the interview he reiterated his hope that Marsha was alive and would come forward, saying “I hope that she is alive somewhere, wherever that may be, but if she is dead we just want her found so we know what has happened and we can at least start to get on with our lives. If she is alive and able to do so, I would plead with her to contact her own mother and let her know that she won't be back.”

The next news of the case came in 2001, when the body of a female was discovered in Lindley Woods between Harrogate and Otley, around 9.5 miles from the Wray family home in Harrogate. Despite initial speculation that the body could be Marsha, it quickly transpired that it was actually 16-year-old Leanne Tiernan, who had disappeared from Bramley in Leeds in November 2000. On 23 August 2001 Colin was again interviewed by the press, claiming that the discovery of Leanne has renewed his hope for news on Marsha. He talked about how Marsha’s car and belongings were still at the family home, but that "I was not even told that this body had been found. I haven't had any contact with the police for a long time, and we're just trying to get on with our lives now."

~27 years on and still unsolved – key questions~

27 years on from Marsha’s disappearance on a wintery January Yorkshire morning, her murder still remains unsolved and has become the longest unsolved cold case on North Yorkshire Police’s books. The case is now overseen by North Yorkshire Police’s Cold Case Review Team. A cold case review was launched in 2013 with the hope that new technologies could help solve the case, but no significant progress has been announced and no further arrests ever made. Police have advised that “long-term enquiries, such as this case, are subject to regular evaluation and any new piece of information reported to police will always be fully investigated.”

The key to resolving Marsha’s disappearance seems, police believe, to lie with the local community. A senior officer in charge of the investigation in the early 2010s believed people in the community have been asked to lie for the killer or provide a false alibi and have relevant information which could significantly assist the inquiry. The same officer hypothesised that Marsha was killed the day of her disappearance, before either the killer or someone helping them put her car at Nidd Valley Gorge car park, possibly to give the impression Marsha had committed suicide or had an accident there. The key to the case may well lie in how her car then got from the car park to Leeds. Who moved it there, when and why? Where was the car between the end of January and it being seen in Hollin Lane in February? And if Marsha is dead, where is her body?

It is notable that, on leaving the children’s school on the morning of her disappearance, Marsha was seen to turn left in her car. The most direct route to the family home would have been to turn right, as would the most direct route to Nidd Valley Gorge car park where her car was later seen. So why did Marsha turn left that morning? It is possible she was turning left simply to avoid turning right across oncoming traffic (the UK driving in the left-hand lane) – there would have been a fairly quick and easy route home having done so. However, it raises the possibility that Marsha was planning on meeting someone that morning somewhere other than her home or Nidd Valley Gorge. If so, who and where that may have been remains a mystery.

The picture painted of Marsha in the lead up to her disappearance by Colin doesn’t chime with the portrayal of her by the police, one which has been informed by their investigation and consultation with her family and friends. Given this and the fact that Colin never reported her disappearance to police it is easy to see how he became a suspect, but it is important to remember that despite his arrest he has never been charged in her disappearance and has steadfastly maintained his innocence. Their children remained in his custody. Given this it must be considered possible that a third party killed Marsha – possibly someone she was having an affair with if Colin’s portrayal of her is accurate, or even a complete stranger. However, at the moment there appears to be little hope of Marsha’s case being resolved.

~Sources~

~https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/update/2013-10-16/missing-mother-cold-case-to-be-reviewed/~

~https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/woods/nidd-gorge/~

~https://www.harrogate-news.co.uk/2013/10/16/marsha-wray-cold-case-review-appeal/~

~https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/yorkshire-news/mystery-tragic-yorkshire-nurse-who-22854584~