Who was Bill Brown? Was that even his real name? Was he the man who surprised two lovers in the back seat of their car in Epping Forest, subjecting them to a terrifying ordeal?
After spending the evening of Saturday, November 9th, 1946, at a dance at a Walthamstow technical college, Kenneth Dolden, 24, on demob leave from the RAF, drove his fianc?e, schoolteacher Jacynth Bland, to Epping Forest. They parked in a glade and moved into the back seat.
They had been in the parked car for about half an hour when a rough looking man, wearing a grey cloth cap pulled down over his face, a muffler over his mouth, and brandishing a gun, ordered Dolden to get out. He was then shot three times, once with the .38 revolver pressed against his body. The gunman ran off.
Calling for help, Miss Bland ran to another parked car. The driver, who said his name was Bill Brown, took her to a phone box, rang the police, and then said he was going back to help Dolden. He was not seen again.
At the inquest Mrs. Isabella Wilson said she had been in another car parked nearby. She had accepted a lift from a tubby man with a moustache, height 5 feet 6 inches. He said his name was Bill Brown and that he was a car salesman from Dalston.
We sat smoking in the car, she said. Mr. Brown didnt leave the car from the moment we parked.
The mysterious Mr. Bill Brown has never been traced.