Death in the Dark: The Tragic Unsolved Murder of Minnie "Peggy" Stott
In November 1940, 17-year-old Minnie Stott was found murdered in Bolton, England. The crime, which occurred during wartime blackouts remains Greater Manchester's oldest unsolved homicide
Background
The brutal unsolved murder of 17-year-old Minnie Stott in 1940 remains the oldest cold case in the files of Greater Manchester Police. At the time of her death, Britain was embroiled in the Second World War and in the midst of nationwide blackouts following blitzes by German bombers.
While the majority of the nation was focused on the war effort, for a small number of violent predators, like the killer of Minnie Stott, the darkness was a perfect cover for their wicked deeds.
Bolton, England, 1940
In Greater Manchester, in the North West of England, the borough of Bolton was an industrial town famous for its textile industry, and it is in this town that a killer stalked his young victim.
During World War II, Britain was living under rationing and continued blackouts. The blackouts were first initiated on September 1st, 1939, to hide or extinguish artificial lights. Citizens would cover their windows with heavy curtains, and street lamps would be shut off to prevent enemy planes from bombing civilians, towns, and cities.
However, this came at a price - car accidents rose dramatically, as did personal injury due to the darkness that engulfed England at that time. Despite the circumstances, the people of Bolton did their best to go about their daily lives as normally as they could.
Minnie “Peggy” Stott
One of these was a 17-year-old girl named Minnie Stott, affectionately known as “Peggy” by her friends.
Stott was an only child, the daughter of Alice and James Stott. The family lived on Clarence Street, not far from Bolton town centre. Minnie was described as a “happy and cheerful” person who loved to frequent dancing halls with her friends and enjoyed trips to the cinema.
Minnie Stott was a typical girl of the time who enjoyed a simple social life and held down a job as a manager at Hanburys Green Grocers within Bolton’s town centre, but all that would change during one violent night.
A Gruesome Discovery
Late on the night of November 16th, 1940, Officer Harry C. Brooks was conducting a routine check of a lock-up shop on Bradshaw Gate in Bolton’s town centre; he rounded the brick archways, and there in the yard of Parkers Garage, he stumbled upon the body of a young woman.
The young woman was lying on her back, with one arm stretched above her head. Upon closer inspection, Brooks noticed the faint trickle of blood that stained her lips, and on her neck, a large, red welt. There was nothing else at the scene, apart from the young girl’s handbag that was at her feet, with all the contents still intact, but disturbingly, her underwear was missing.
The victim was identified as 17-year-old Minnie Stott.
Investigation
The inquest on her body found that she had died of Asphyxia, which explained the red mark on her neck. Minnie had also been sexually assaulted. She was found to have died approximately two hours before her body was discovered, making her death around 10 p.m. on that Saturday evening.
After breaking the devastating news to her parents, Alice and James, the police also had to ask questions about what they knew about Minnie’s movements that night, including what she was wearing; her father told the police that Minnie was wearing a green tweed skirt, flesh coloured stockings, brown shoes, and a long, striking blue coat.
She had also been wearing a “crepe de chine” scarf; however, the scarf was not found at the scene of the crime. The missing scarf was now determined to be the murder weapon used to strangle Minnie, which the murderer took with them, along with her underwear. Neither the scarf or her underwear has ever been found.
When the police tried to determine the timeline leading up to her murder, a few details caused suspicion that Minnie may have met up with someone that evening - this was believed due to her Fathers account of events.
Minnie arrived home from work at around 6:40 p.m. that evening, and told her Father she was heading back out to the cinema, although she did not mention whether this was her friends or someone else. Around 7:45 p.m., Minnie left the house and travelled into Bolton town centre, where at 8 p.m. she visited her mother, who worked as a waitress at the United Cow Products Restaurant, and told her she was heading to the cinema.
Possible Suspects
The police began to look into Minnie’s movements, and two days before her death, it appears that she and her friend, Emily Wilks, shared a few drinks with an on-leave soldier the pair had met in a local fish and chip shop. The threesome had drinks at the Founders Arms pub before going to a dance hall; however, both girls arrived home safe that evening.
The police ran on a hunch that Minnie may have wanted to see the soldier again, but alone, and that could be who she met up with the evening of her demise; this particular bit of information was widely shared with the media, in the hopes of drumming up some leads, and it did just that. The soldier was tracked down by the police and questioned, but the man in question was cleared, though it has never been revealed why.
It was also reported that on the night she was murdered, Minnie was seen arguing with an unidentified man who was described as clean-shaven, between 20 and 25 years old, average height and build, with high cheekbones and sunken eyes. He was wearing a dark overcoat and a hat pulled down low. The two were arguing, and the man called her “Peggy”, and she addressed him back, implying that she was familiar with him. Though police attempted to identify the man, they were unsuccessful.
Another lead came from a woman who owned a sweet shop in town; she told the police that on that Saturday evening, two girls came into her shop to buy sweets and cigarettes at around 8:20 p.m. She was almost certain that Minnie was one of the girls. This information helped officers start to piece together the hours leading up to the murder, as when a search was conducted on her handbag at the crime scene, they found sweets inside.
The police tried to identify the other girl who had been seen with Minnie in the shop that night in an attempt to interview her; however, she never came forward or was identified.
On a cold January day, Minnie’s grieving parents were paying a visit to Minnie’s grave when they were approached by an unidentified woman. The woman proceeded to tell them that Minnie had been out on the night of her death with two other girls and that they were all being followed by two men.
According to the woman, Minnie was dragged into a car by the men on Bradshawgate, but the two girls ran away. The woman actually had the names of one of the men and one of the girls, but the police were never able to locate them or the car in question.
All of the information given to the police by potential witnesses seemed very promising at first, but they all led to dead ends.
Cold Case
As time went on, interest in the case began to dwindle, and the media almost abruptly stopped sharing information or even printing stories about the murder. A grieving family was left without any answers, and the police were completely in the dark - the case would remain cold for almost 55 years.
In 1995, a Morris Cobblet wrote a letter to the local newspaper; Cobblet said he worked in a barbershop at the time of the case, and had cut the hair of one of the investigators’ sons. He overheard the son detailing how the senior officer saw the case as closed, due to them tracking a suspect to Bury, which is situated about 6 miles from Bolton, but the suspect had committed suicide.
No one knows who this suspect was or why they were even considered a suspect. No other information about this man and the line of enquiry has ever been released or published.
Closing Thoughts
The case of Minnie Stott is one of the greatest mysteries known to the Greater Manchester Police. No one can say for sure what happened that night, but it is clear that a person with murderous intent took advantage of a young girl in the most depraved way possible, and all whilst under the cover of the wartime blackouts.
It has now been 85 years since the murder of Minnie Stott, and there are no leads, no suspects, and no real answers to any of the questions surrounding the hours leading up to her death. Sadly, it remains almost certain that the identity of her killer has been lost to history.
Sources:
Caprice, The Unseen Podcast, 2 October 2018, https://goodpods.com/podcasts/the-unseen-podcast-180354/11-the-murder-of-minnie-stott-15692585
Holt, James, “She left the house to go to the cinema - hours later she was found strangled to death.” Manchester Evening News, 23 February 2025, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/left-house-go-cinema-hours-30988398
Smith, Rachel, “A missing scarf, a mystery woman and an 85-year-old unsolved murder.” Lancs Live, 24 August 2025, https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/missing-scarf-mystery-woman-85-32322873
The Imperial War Museum, “The Nation at a Standstill: Shutdown in the Second World War.” https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-nation-at-a-standstill-shutdown-in-the-second-world-war
Street Crime UK, 28 November 2025, https://www.facebook.com/StreetCrimeUK1/posts/on-the-evening-of-november-16-1940-minnie-stott-left-her-family-home-on-clarence/1184780747126726/
Since killings would be risky in a wartime situation the social deprivation theory of crime combined with rape being about power indicates that the murderous rapists who operated in this time period practiced social cleansing (which was popular in Europe in the C.E. 1920s to "The Mismeasure of Man" and only became unpopular by the time "The Bell Curve" was published) and the fact most females date males their own age would indicate the killer was only a few days at the least before his 20th birthday, which would fit with the victim being nearly 18. Since the shoes were not removed this indicates that the victim took them off willingly (the killer would not have waited for her to put her shoes back on to kill her if he forced her to take them off for the purpose of rape) which given she was only 17 and not a grown woman indicates that she worked as a child prostitute out of fear that her family would lose everything in bombings. This and the fact she worked as a grocer in a world in which it was believed women should not work would make her a target of social cleansing, and since dates were chaperoned in those days the second male would have been the boy's father.
I would think the father had his son as a helper for the purpose of social cleansing, and the son murdered the girl after pretending to be a solicitor (the fact they knew each shows he was a client - in those days chaperones would have introduced themselves and their children - and the males were planning to commit more murders but could not because since it was not revealed that the girl was a child prostitute, it was instead seen as the murder of a girl: the police could not have pushed it under the rug) and the father committed suicide to throw suspicion off his son. The police had further incentive not to reveal any information because police support the murders of prostitutes (along with solicitors, pickpockets, petty thieves, graffiti artists, the poor, drug addicts and dealers, minorities, the culturally liberal, the disfigured, and the plain-faced and unattractive: this is evidenced by missing white woman syndrome, which is the police only caring about white affluent men and attractive affluent white tradwives or female celebrities going missing). I would think the red light districts and old and poor folk of the local area know perfectly well what happened, but middle class people do not talk about the fact the murder was tied to prostitution (except for the old folk).