Julie Hogg, 22, was murdered at home in 1989 (Pictures: North News and Pictures/Getty/Emily Manley)
When Julie Hogg’s phone repeatedly rang out in 1989, her mother Ann was hit by a wave of anxiety. She had a gut feeling something was wrong.
Julie’s three-year-old son, Kevin, had stayed with Ann and her husband, Charlie, on November 15, as his 22-year-old mother had a late shift delivering pizzas across Teesside. She was dropped home by a colleague around 1.30am on November 16.
That morning, Ann called her daughter and received no answer.
Julie, who lived in a three-bedroom terraced home on Grange Avenue in Billingham, Stockton-on-Tees, was due in court for a meeting to seek a legal separation from her ex-husband Andrew. Worried at the radio silence, Ann raced to her daughter’s home and, with the help of her older son Gary, broke down the door.
‘Room by room, everywhere was very, very tidy which was out of character for Julie’, Ann told ITV’s Real Crime in 2002. ‘She was quite an untidy person. But the bed was made, everything was tidy. That aroused suspicion even more.’
Ann reported Julie missing to the police and officers suggested her daughter had left of her own accord. However, her family were convinced Julie wouldn’t abandon her son, Kevin. Four days after the 22-year-old vanished, police agreed to investigate further.
Julie’s mutilated body lay under her bath tub for months (Picture: PA/North News and Pictures)
After five days of wider investigations at her home on Grange Avenue, detectives reported nothing amiss. A police cordon was taken down and house keys returned to Julie’s family. Her ex-husband, Andrew, moved in with their son Kevin to try to provide some stability to the young boy.
However, Andrew soon noticed a ‘nauseating stench’ which got worse whenever they put the heating on. On February 1, 1990 – three months after Julie was reported missing – Ann visited Andrew to help him rid the house of the unpleasant odour. Noticing the smell was worse in the bathroom, Ann tentatively pushed a loose bath panel, only to find her daughter’s decaying body beneath the tub, wrapped in a blanket.
Ann, a nurse who worked at Middlesbrough General Hospital, told ITV’s Real Crime: ‘I ran down the stairs and screamed at Andrew “she’s under the bath! She’s under the bath” Kevin stood next to me crying, he didn’t know what was wrong. I was absolutely hysterical. I kept seeing her, kept smelling her, I couldn’t get the smell out of my nostrils.’
Police, who had been less than two feet away from Julie’s body when they searched her home months before, discovered Julie had been sexually assaulted before she died.
Investigations led them to labourer William ‘Billy’ Dunlop who had been living just two streets away from Grange Avenue. The former boxer had a history of violence and previously had a brief relationship with Julie. Detectives searched his home and discovered her house key under the floorboards.
Dunlop was charged with his ex-girlfriend’s murder on February …read more
Source:: Metro
