Disclaimers,
Disclaimer
Reader / Viewer discretion is advised, parts of this story are very explicit.
About Patricia Grainger
At the time Patricia Grainger; also known as Pat for short, was 25 years old, just over 5ft tall, medium build and dark haired. She was living at Buchanan road in Parson Cross, Sheffield with her 5yo son and her parents.
Doctors said Patricia had a mental age of a 10 year old and it was thought she had ADHD. However, at the time of her murder, it had not been officially diagnosed. She also suffered from hearing problems, and was supposed to wear hearing aids. Although she didn’t always do so.
Because of the way Patricia was, her and her family was bullied, by a lot of people, including both youths and adults.
She would sit out on the front of the house and people would spit, smack or insult her for no reason other than to bully her.
That being said, everyone that actually knew Patricia said she was a lovely woman who would not hurt a fly. She was friendly, would talk to anyone and befriend anyone who would give her the time.
The Week Patricia Was Missing
Patricia Grainger’s body was found on Sunday 10th August 1997 at Sheffield Lane Dike, Parson Cross, Sheffield, England.
For those of you that don’t know a dike is basically a steam, that’s designed to hold back flooding. In this case it’s a stream with a little bit of a flood plain, but there is a footpath on either side as well as a housing estate on either side.
The dike is about a mile from where Patricia lived. It’s essentially behind some house down one road in the estate.
She had not been seen by her family since Monday, 4 August, which is 6 days before her body was found. So on that Monday Patricia’s mum phoned Patricia’s sister to say she had not come home.
Later on in the investigation it was said that Patricia was seen on Tuesday around the area of the dike were her body was found.
This wasn’t the first time Patricia had gone missing, but usually she would be found within a day or two
So on Wednesday when Patricias sister phoned her mum and found out Patricia still hadn’t been home, she told her mum to call the police. At this time ,her mum and dad also went looking for Patricia at a friends house, and generally around the area.
A witness claimed to have seen her on Thursday at Nothern General Hospital, which is less than 2 miles away on foot, this has been confirmed by CCTV Footage.
A witness claimed to have seen her around the Holgate area on the Friday. Holgate, is the estate on the other side of the dike.
On Saturday 9th, the day before Patricia was found, a man was seen talking to someone who the witness believes is Patricia. She was chatting to the man at about 7:45am at the junction of Holgate Crescent and Holgate Road. Which is essentially the entrance to the dike from opposite side to where she lived.
The man was white, aged about 30, five feet six to eight inches tall with dark, greasy or gelled hair.
This is the last known sighting of Patricia alive.
So, in brief, Patricia Grainger has apparently been seen on Tuesday near the dike, then a confirmed sighting on Thursday at the hospital, which is 2 miles in the opposite direction. Then on Friday she was seen around the estate on the other side on the dike. Then apparently on the entrance to the dike the day before her body was discovered.
On Sunday the 10th of August, a “scruffy” looking man was seen in the early hours, around the time of her death.
The woman that saw the man was terrified to walk past him, he was fidgeting with his hand in is pockets. He stared coldly at the woman before walking off.
Patricia’s Body Was Found
Later that day (on Sunday 10th August 1997), a group of young boys were playing in the area of the dyke and found Patricia’s semi naked body, face down in the water.
Her body was submerged by the weight of a divan bed base, which had been placed on top of her in an attempt to conceal her body.
Patricia Grainger had been stabbed to death.
The autopsy report showed she had water in her lungs. Which means she had still been alive, to some degree, while the stabbing, sexual abuse and mutilation had taken place.
The autopsy report also states that Patricia had being beaten resulting in bruising to her face and body. But there was no sign of any self defence marks.
Which could mean a few things. The seriously sick person that did this, had frightened Patricia so much, she was too scared to fightback, they’d knocked her unconscious or they’d got her to trust them that much that she allowed them to do these things to her.
Patricias family firmly believe that she trusted the person (or people) that did this and they abused that trust.
Due to the police wanting to protect the ears of the public and apparently to prevent damaging the investigation, the extent of Patricia’s injuries were not revealed until 22 years later, in 2019, when her son revealed the extent of what had happened.
Patricia had been stabbed multiple times including stab wounds in her neck. She had been strangled raped and mutilated. They had removed one of her nipples and attempted to remove the other. They also cut at and mutilated her vagina.
Despite the police talking to Patricias boyfriend, friends and acquaintances, where Patricia stayed for the week leading up to her death is still completely unknown.
It’s thought that Patricia’s body was in the water for at least 21 hours.
Post mortem tests are were carried out to check whether she had been drinking and taking drugs and they indicated that she didn’t have any alcohol or drugs in her system.
Patricias handbag was missing and no weapon has been recovered.
Because it’s unknown where Patricia has been staying or what she’d been doing for the week before her body was discovered. It’s not known how long she had suffered during that week.
Her son also says Patricia wasn’t a small lady and although she was mentally vulnerable, she was a big lady and she would have put up some sort of a fight. This suggests the perpetrator wasn’t a small person or it involved more than the one person.
After the Patricia’s body had been discovered
In 1997, 2 women and A man were arrested, due to conflicting accounts about where Patricia had stayed.
All three were later released on bail, pending further inquiries.
Also in 1997, a 45 Year old man was remanded in custody by Sheffield magistrates. He was charged with Patricia’s murder, but was later released due to a witness withdrawing their statement.
In Later Years
In October 2008, 2 men, aged 51 and 59, both from Sheffield, were arrested in connection with the death of Patricia. The police stated the men were helping police with enquiries. They were later bailed. The bail carried on until April 2009 when they were released without charge.
In 2009 the police still had a suspect. Which prevented Patricia’s son from seeking help from sources like crime watch, to appeal for information.
In July 2010, the police said they were still doing a few enquiries but it was mainly elimination of DNA and did not expect it to lead to any new suspects.
In August 2012, although not released publicly by the police found 2 partial DNA profiles from under Patricia’s fingernail fibres, one of a male and one of a female.
Police Conduct
Another 2 years on. In August 2014 the police discarded ALL (50+, including 30 clothing items) of Patricia’s possessions. As well as ALL of the clothes she was wearing at the time.
The bed base used to conceal Patricia’s body had also been discarded.
Apparently tests had been carried out but failed to find anything linked to the murder…. Although, In my opinion, it had been used to conceal her body so… it was obviously linked…
In 2015 an investigation report revealed South Yorkshire police did mishandle Patricia’s property. Including 33 items of clothing which had been taken from her house which has never been forensically tested!
And that’s all we have… there is nothing else. It’s just a major mystery. Still to this day, almost 26 years after, the information of where Patricia had been and what she was doing for the 6 days leading up to her body being discovered, is unknown to the police and her family.
Unfortunately due to how privacy works in the UK I don’t know if the people that got arrested were the same people. Although it seems very strange that were were a man and womans DNA found under Patricias nails, and a man and woman had been arrested.
Why did the person withdraw their statement in 1997?
There are just so many questions.. the main questions that Patricias family and the police want answering to be able to further their investigation are:
- Did anyone see her in or around the northern general on Thursday 7th August
- Where did she stay between the 6th and the 10th of august 1997? its still unknown but she must have stayed somewhere..
Before I bring this to an end there’s a few things I want to mention.
First of all there are a lot of cold cases in sheffield and even more in it broader county of south yorkshire. Patricias son posted a list on whokilledmymum.com in 2016 and just from that list. There is 14 cold cases in south yorkshire ranging from 10 years before patricia was murdered and 10 years after. 7 of them are females.
Patricias son has said on many occasion that whoever this sick person or people are, they must have done it before, and I completely agree. It’s rare that a murder, which involves mutilation and sexual motivation is an isolated event, and that’s even more worrying that there’s another 7 female cold cases within that 20 year window in the same county.
25 years… it’s very likely that the monster that did this is still alive. Still walking the streets, still very dangerous.
With the confirmed sighting of Patricia near the hospital on the thursday, half way through the time she’d been missing, someone else must have seen her. Someone must know where she’d been staying.
An Incredible Son
Finally I want to praise Patricia’s son. Being 5 at the time her son didn’t really understand what had happened. He just knew his mum had gone to heaven. When he was 13 he started to learn and understand that his mum had been taken from him.
This hit him pretty hard and sure enough this lead to depression and anxiety, leading him to lock him self in his room.
However his aunty helped him get through that tough time and in 2008 when he was 16 he decided he couldn’t just wait for answers he had to do something, so he started a website called whokilledmymum.com.
If anything this fuelled his fight for answers, but the fight hasn’t been easy for him, he’s had to keep nudging the police to continue investigating the case.
Nudging them to put the case on crime watch.
Raising money to put up rewards for information and then fighting with the police to make the reward offer official.
He’s had to rally the media every year when it approaches the anniversary of his mums death.
At one point he and his family had been putting A4 Printed posters up on bus stops. The posters were appealing for information. However the transport service made a complaint to the police, which in turn told him he had to stop.
But in the face of having to constantly fight for help, from people that should already be there to help. He never got properly bitter or resentful against the police or media. He stayed humble and polite. He even apologised on his website, to the transport service that made the complaint to the police.
And all this time he’s got on with his life in the background, even going to college and such. What an amazing person he is!
I have read every single piece of information on whokilledmymum.com all of which were written by Patricia’s son. And this made this whole thing so much more heart breaking, so I though rather than my usual I hope something comes out spiel, I though I’d end this with something he wrote that echo’s my intentions and hopes.
“I hope that because of advances in science and technology and with the help of the public one day her killer can be found. I hope someone out there will come forward to help put my mum’s killer away and to let her rest in peace and allow myself and my family to continue living the best we can. What happened to my mum as not only taken away her life but taken parts of mine and my family’s life too, by means of grief, stress, depression, anxiety, and hate.”
““All I have for you is hate. If its takes me till I die I’ll find you. I promise.”
If you have any information at all please visit whokilledmymum.com.
Patricia’s son has also set up a Facebook page, twitter page, instagram page and youtube channel. All of the above have information on the crime reference number and contact details for crimestoppers and police.
For more information on the case or to provide information, please see the sources below:
Website: http://www.whokilledmymum.com/
RSS feed: http://www.whokilledmymum.com/feed/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whokilledmymum
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whokilledmymum/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WhoKilledMyMum
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/whokilledmymum
CrimeStoppers: https://crimestoppers-uk.org/campaigns-media/news/2020/may/sheffield-murder-of-patricia-grainger-%C2%A310,000-reward-offered (this page mentions a reward, which I’m sure has expired. However it does contain information and an anonymous forum to submit information)