An elderly man, originally from South Africa, has been sentenced for killing a woman in Islington, London, 49 years ago in a cold case that was solved thanks to a DNA breakthrough.
A jury found John Apelgren, 80, guilty of killing 22-year-old sex worker Eileen Cotter, who was discovered strangled to death at a block of garages on 1 June 1974.
iTV reported her murder happened just six weeks after the birth of Appelgren’s first child with his then-second wife, Ann.
After killing Cotter, Apelgren pushed her out of his car.
She had a black eye and bruising from being hit in the face, the Daily Mail reported prosecutor Alexandra Healy KC as telling the court.
Healy said her body was discovered without shoes and her tights and underwear were still around her right leg.
“Eileen Cotter did not have the defendant’s DNA on her underwear and tights because she never pulled them up after he had sex with her. She was dead,” Healy was reported as saying.
Cotter’s killer could not be identified despite lengthy and thorough enquiries at the time, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
Apelgren was a dual citizen of both the UK and South Africa, according to the Islington Tribune.
iTV reported he had previously been married in South Africa to a woman with whom he also had two children.
(Supplied by Metropolitan Police)
Eileen Cotter, 22, before she was killed (Supplied by Metropolitan Police)
The cold case came back to life when Apelgren was arrested in February 2019 and cautioned for assaulting his third wife.
Police said his DNA was taken and found to match samples recovered from Cotter’s body decades before.
“Detectives worked closely with forensic scientists to prove that the location of the DNA evidence on Eileen’s body pointed to a timeline of events which meant only Apelgren could have been the killer.”
His third wife told investigators he had mistreated her too, and once forcefully put his hands around her neck.
Police said Appelgren was arrested on 22 June last year.
“In a police interview, Apelgren said at the time of the murder, he was living in Leyton.
“He denied having been to the Hamilton Park garages and said he did not know or recognise Eileen and claimed he never went to the general Finsbury Park area.
“He later conceded he did have sex with Eileen but did not kill her,” Metropolitan Police said.
(Supplied by Metropolitan Police)
John Apelgren in his younger days (Supplied by Metropolitan Police)
Detective Chief Inspector Laurence Smith told iNews if someone knocked on his door and arrested him for a murder almost 50 years ago, he would repeatedly plead his innocence until he could no longer speak.
“That was not him. He was very calm about it. He had an aura of, dare I say, evilness about him,” he reportedly said.
“You’ve got to be careful of first impressions. We can only follow the evidence. But when we asked ourselves, ‘Is he capable of doing that’? our gut feeling said he was – and that turned out to be the case.”
On Friday, the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) sentenced him to 10 years for manslaughter.
He was also handed a six-month sentence for the indecent assault of an 18-year-old woman at his wedding in 1972.
“The woman told police about this when she was spoken to during the investigation into Eileen’s death – she had never disclosed it to anyone before then,” police said.
The sentences will run concurrently.
According to court records, Apelgren would be eligible for parole on 21 June 2028, when he is 85.
Source News24
