On December 7, 1989, a group of workers were working on installing pipes in a house in Cardiffthe capital of Gales. They were horrified when they dug to the back of the property and found bone remains wrapped in a carpet.
That was the beginning of the search for answers that led investigators to discover the identity of the body: it was Karen Pricea 15-year-old teenager who had disappeared on July 2, 1981.
Karen Price was 15 years old and her case set an international precedent.The basement of the building located at number 29 Fitzhamon Embankment Street had been the scene of a brutal crime eight years earlier.
The British press gathered on the opposite sidewalk, waiting for the first statements from the police. Until then the case was known as «the body of the carpet«, and in a time before DNA testing, there was little certainty about what had happened there.
The first clues: teeth and insects in the carpet
Paul Fenton, a detective sergeant with South Wales Police, now retired, was one of the first to arrive at the scene. Participated in the new documentary Buried Secrets: The Body in the Carpet, on the Channel 5 screen, where they revealed archive images of the moment in which the five bricklayers made the grisly discovery.
The place where Karen Price’s remains were found. (Photo: Capture YouTube @TrueCrimeCentral)It was a very busy area where people came and went all the time, and they had made several extensions and building modifications to neighboring apartments.
«There was no one living in the house at the time it was found half-buried, and we began collecting all possible evidence»; Fenton recalled.
He described that the remains of clothing that covered her were the starting point for deducing that it was the body of a womenand they were sure that it had been a homicide. I had the tied dolls and one if over the head.
«Through the study of their teeth it was possible to determine that I was 15 and a half years old at the time of his death,» he indicated. Forensic dentist David Whittaker noticed the pink color of his teeth, another fundamental detail to determine that he had died violent.
«A blunt force trauma had to cause the capillaries to rupture so that the bleeding then spread to the teeth,» Whittaker revealed.
To determine the tentative date of death, they analyzed the presence of insects in the carpet. They found bluefly larvaewhich indicated that it died between April and October, the egg-laying season of that species.
They were able to determine that the crime occurred between 1982 and 1984, and with that information they began to track down the former residents of the property, to make a list of murder suspects, among whom the murderer could be included.
Thus they went from almost zero evidence, namely gender, age and time period in which the teenager was murdered. The name was missingto determine the identity of the victim, and know who he was interacting with at that time.
To do this, they resorted to missing persons reports, but they did not find any matches, nor did they find any subsequent complaints. «We went all over the country, and it was shocking that we found nothing, that no one had looked for her in eight years, Why had no one missed her?«Detective Fenton wondered.
The appearance of Karen Price’s face: a historical reconstruction with clay
The absence of her search since her death, and the fact that she was a minor, caused shock in the United Kingdom. The press dubbed her Little Miss Nobody, «Little Miss Nobody», and when it was finally known who she was, the case had national significance.
The contribution of Richard Neave, a forensic facial reconstruction artistwas essential for create an image of the victim’s face before dying.
The expert was able to create a replica with a technique that had been used in archaeological finds, but had never before been tested in a criminal investigation.
Richard Neave next to the clay representation of Karen Price’s face. (Photo: Capture YouTube @TrueCrimeCentral)«He made a mold of his skull with clayand molded an image that the police then showed on television along with a chronology of when she probably disappeared, desperately hoping that someone would recognize her,» the lead detective explained in the aforementioned documentary.
The police received a call from two social workerswho finally gave a voice to the victim, and finally knew his name: Karen Price.
To confirm that it was the same teenager they described, the forensic dentist located a clinic in the north of Cardiff that had a dental history compatible with the remains of the teeth, and the dental match confirmed that the record was from the same person, who was indeed 15 years old at the time of his death.
Karen Price’s face in clay. (Photo: Capture YouTube @TrueCrimeCentral)
Who was Karen Price, «Little Miss Nobody»: a short life from home to home
Karen had been a ward of the state since she was a 10-year-old girl, following her parents’ divorce. There were legal problems with her custody, and social services temporarily placed her in a nursing home.
After being sent to a foster home, from which ran away several timesshe finally left never to return in 1981. She was never recorded as missing and no one had searched for her in the eight years since she was last seen.
A worker at the children’s center from which she had disappeared contacted the police after seeing the clay reconstruction on the program Crimewatch, and confirmed that social services never reported their disappearance, because unfortunately the comings and goings of minors were common.
Karen Price was in public foster care systems since she was 10 years old.«Life was very difficult for the fugitives minors like Karen, due to all the temptations and undesirables who lived and operated in that area,» the researchers commented.
There were still no suspects, nor records of tenants or owners that matched the date of the murder. «The only way to find out was by knocking door to door, with an artisanal police investigation; it’s not like now when there are records of people’s movements on their social networks, where the dates of their posts, their locations, there was nothing like that here,» Fenton said.
When everything seemed to have stagnated on a dead end, they received another call, which turned out to be more somber than they could imagine.
Idris Alia young man in his twenties, called the station and said he had been friends with Karen in the time before her disappearance. He said that they were almost the same age and that he had met her at a bus station.
«She mentioned that he had introduced her to Alan Charltona young manager five years older than Idris, with a fearsome reputation for his reputation for procurer, that he had been living in the basement of the building where Karen was found; and that placed him in the time and space of the crime, as the main suspect,» the investigators revealed.
Idris Ali confessed to being an accessory to the murder of Karen Price. (Photo: Capture @TrueCrimeCentral)
The atrocious truth of witness «D», the only survivor of the horror
After questioning Idris, the police learned that he had taken Karen to Alan’s apartment, along with another young woman, who became known as «witness D»to protect your identity.
«We know that Idris Ali admired Charlton and saw him as someone he aspired to be, so when he asked him to get him two girls for a party, he saw Karen as a perfect victim,» detectives revealed.
Alan Charlton, the murderer of Karen Price. (Photo: Capture YouTube @TrueCrimeCentral)They knew that the second girlthat the moment of the crime I was 13 years old, She was a friend of Karen’s, and she became the key witness in the case for the police.
Paul Bethall, a retired detective chief inspector, said the two were completely off the radar of the foster care system when they went to that address together.
«Nobody knew those young girls were there.no one besides Ali and Charlton,» Bethall said. Adding: «That’s the problem, they were so vulnerable because no one besides themselves could take care of each other.»
«Once there, They asked them to undress and they got into bed so Alan could photograph them, but when witness D refused, Alan hit her; Karen tried to intervene, but was strangled and fatally hit in the head.«, described the forensics.
Karen Price died in an attempt to save her friend from being prostituted.The only loose end was why one of the murder’s accomplices had called the police if he knew he could be implicated in a national investigation. «We believe that he had a desire for prominence, and the events confirmed it over time,» they indicated.
Alan Charlton and Idris Ali were arrested in 1991 for Karen’s murder. As soon as they were charged, both pleaded not guilty, but the jury found them guilty and they were sentenced to life sentence.
Alan Charlton remains behind bars, Karen Price’s murderer
In 2016, Charlton, 56, and Ali, 51, filed a request to appeal their conviction. Charlton’s request was denied, and he remains in prison for life, but his accomplice, Idris, was released when his conviction was overturned after admitting more details of the murder.
A doctor confirmed that the young man had a «significant intellectual deterioration», with an intelligence level 5% lower than the population standard, bordering on a mental disability.
«When I look back on this case and the impact it had, not only on my career, but on the advancements it allowed for national and international investigations, I am proud that we were able to solve it,» reflected Detective Fenton.
The remains of Karen Wendy Price currently resting e n a legitimate gravewhich has the following dedication written: «In the beloved memory of our precious and beloved daughter, sister and aunt. Born on September 4, 1965 and died in 1981.»
No further details are known about the complex family structure of Karen’s loved ones, but as reported in a subsequent BBC documentary, her sister is still going to leave flowers at the cemetery.
She never spoke publicly to the press, but detectives said she considers it a miracle that they were able to find her after eight years and that the truth has finally come to light.
