How man who heard victim screams could help catch killer in carrot field

WHEN Julie Finley celebrated her 23rd birthday with her loving family, including her mother Pat, she believed she had her whole life ahead of her.

Sadly, Julie, who was described as a “nice girl” and a “good child,” was found dead in a carrot field just days later, having been brutally strangled and killed.

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The family’s unimaginable fear lives on, because exactly 30 years later – and despite the many arrests, witnesses, theories and rewards, the crime remains unsolved and the killer STILL not brought to justice.

Over the decades, Julie’s devoted mother Pat has repeatedly called for help to find her daughter’s killer. Julie’s father, Albie Finley, died heartbroken, with no answers as to what happened to his daughter.

The last sighting

Julie was last seen in Liverpool city centre on Friday 5 August 1994, when she was seen talking to a white man in his 20s or 30s behind the Royal Liverpool University Hospital at around 11pm.

The next morning, Saturday, August 6, around 2:30 a.m., another witness saw someone matching Julie’s description.

He claimed he saw a young woman arguing with a man outside the Wheatsheaf Public House, close to where Julie’s body was found.

He also said the man tried to force the young woman into a white van.

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‘It was like I was floating on air’

That same day, a cyclist discovered Julie’s naked body in a carrot field near the Rainford bypass in St Helens, Merseyside.

She had been strangled and her killer had made no attempt to hide her remains. Meanwhile, the clothes she was wearing disappeared without a trace and have still not been found.

I can’t remember exactly what was said, honestly, I didn’t believe it… I kept thinking she was coming home.”

Julie’s mother Pat

Pat, now 79, tells of the Saturday her daughter was found: “I didn’t even dream anything was wrong until the police knocked on the door on Saturday night.

“I can’t remember exactly what was said. Honestly, I didn’t believe it.

“I took my other daughter and I knocked on every door of people who knew Julie. It was like I was floating on air, I kept thinking she was coming home.”

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Unfinished business

In the early stages of the investigation, a core team of 15 detectives worked tirelessly. In the first six months, more than 40 men were questioned in connection with the case.

Over the years, a total of 20 people have been arrested, but no one has ever been charged.

The officers were particularly keen to speak to Julie’s friend Tina, who called the police and said Julie was meeting a taxi driver on the night of the murder.

This was all the information Tina gave and she then said she would call back. But she never did – and the police are still trying to track her down.

‘Help me, help me, for God’s sake, help me’

Ten months after Julie’s murder, on Friday 21 July 1995, a man picked up a hitchhiker at the junction of East Lancashire Road and Rainford Bypass.

Detective Chief Inspector at the time, DCI Francis Youell, later told BBC’s Crimewatch that the hitchhiker had become extremely agitated as they approached the scene where Julie was found.

He told the driver of the vehicle that his engine had broken down ten months earlier in the parking lot near where Julie’s body was found.

He said that while he was fixing his bike, he heard bangs and screams coming from a van. When he walked up to the van and opened the doors, he saw a young woman.

She was naked and saying, “Help me, help me, for God’s sake, help me,” before a man appeared and told him to go away.

The hitchhiker said the man told him the woman was his girlfriend, after which the hitchhiker drove away.

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Face to face with Julie’s killer

DCI Francis Youell told Crimewatch: “Certain things he told the driver are known to me and only me, apart from everyone else who was present at the scene of Julie’s murder.

“I am absolutely convinced that he was the last person to see Julie alive, other than the killer, that he spoke to Julie, and that the man he confronted was Julie’s killer.”

The hitchhiker was in his mid-twenties, approximately 5ft 8in tall, had short blond hair and was believed to be from St Helens. He was travelling to Ainsdale in Merseyside to visit his grandfather.

He was never found.

“I loved her and miss her”

In 2014, on the 20th anniversary of Julie’s murder, the Finley family released a series of photographs from Julie’s childhood, hoping that those who know what happened will consult their conscience and finally come forward.

Pat described her daughter, who was Tony and Sharon’s older sister, as a music lover and said she had gone to university to train as a hairdresser.

She said: “I’ve got her tapes upstairs of her favourite music, stuff like Phil Collins that she liked. She went to college in Garston to do hers, she brought me in to do modelling.

“She had her own beautiful hair too. I loved her and I miss her.”

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‘A nice girl, a good child’

But Pat, from Kirkdale, Merseyside, also knew her daughter was a heroin addict and Julie weighed just 80lb 10oz at the time of her murder.

Pat said, “I knew she was on drugs, she started losing more weight and she was always slim. But she was a nice girl, a good kid.”

Her family suspect she was either picked up off the street or put in a car, attacked and murdered, but Pat is convinced Julie’s killer is not from Liverpool.

She said: “I said straight away that no one in Liverpool had done that.

“I knew right away it was an outsider. I thought it was a truck driver or someone who picked her up, and that was it.

“I’m 100 percent sure no one from Liverpool killed her.

“We spoke to everyone who knew Julie, someone must have made a mistake.”

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New evidence and prime suspect

In 2019, new evidence emerged linking double murderer Christopher Halliwell to Julie’s murder.

Much to the family’s disappointment, it was later revealed that evidence had lain untouched in police files for eight years.

In 2011, a witness told Wiltshire Police that Halliwell lived a few miles from where Julie’s body was found in August 1994.

Halliwell only became the prime suspect in Julie’s murder after a national newspaper spotted the witness in 2019.

The witness stated that Halliwell was in the area installing windows and that he had been staying over four miles from the field where Julie’s body was found during the week. He was driving a white van similar to the one seen at the scene of Julie’s murder.

At the weekend the taxi driver drove back to his hometown of Swindon.

Christopher Halliwell, 60, was jailed for life in 2016 for the 2003 murder of Becky Godden-Edwards, 20.

She was not found until March 2011 when Halliwell took Detective Inspector Steve Fulcher into the field after he was arrested for the murder of office worker Sian O’Callaghan, 22.

In 2012, he was sentenced to life in prison for her murder.

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“I want justice before I go”

Merseyside Police were believed to be confident they could build a case against Halliwell when they launched an investigation into him in 2020.

But four years later, they are still reviewing the case and continuing the forensic work that began in 2021.

Now, on the 30th anniversary of her daughter’s death, Pat simply wants justice.

She told The Mirror: “I just want the police to question him [Halliwell] in prison about our Julie. He’s doing life, so he won’t get any more time if he admits it.”

Pat remembered her husband and said, “He died without justice. I’m 79 now and I want justice before I go.”

Perhaps the only small consolation for the family is that they are buried together, with father and daughter in the same grave.