Eileen Cotter

AN unsolved killing dating back nearly 50 years was finally cracked last week when an 80-year-old was found guilty of manslaughter.

Eileen Cotter was just 22 when she was beaten and strangled and her body dumped by a set of garages in Highbury in the summer of 1974.

John Apelgren was convicted at the Old Bailey on Friday of killing her after jurors debated for more than 11 hours. They found him not guilty of murder.

The former minicab driver and bricklayer would have been 31 at the time of Ms Cotter’s death, and had a six-week-old baby at home.

He was also convicted of indecent assault after the court was told he attacked an 18-year-old at his own wedding.

John Apelgren

During the trial his second wife Ann Apelgren took the stand to testify she learned he had assaulted a wedding guest some 20 years later, during a routine phone call with the woman. The victim told Mrs Apelgren she had kept quiet so as not to upset anyone, according to her evidence.

Mrs Apelgren also alleged her ex-husband attempted to strangle her one morning in their kitchen in Leyton, in front of their two small boys, before walking out of the house. She said she filed for divorce two days later.

Detectives only caught Apelgren after he had his DNA taken when he was cautioned for attacking his third wife, which linked him to the historic unsolved death of Ms Cotter during a cold case review. The case had been reopened in 2012 due to advances in DNA testing.

Earlier in the trial the court heard how Apelgren was a “perfect match” with DNA found on Ms Cotter’s body but prosecutors had to work to prove he was the final client Ms Cotter, a sex worker, had seen before her death.

The garages in Highbury where the body was found

Prosecutor Alexandra Healy KC told jurors: “The prosecution case is that the reason the defendant’s DNA was not recovered from Ms Cotter’s underwear or tights is because he was the last person to have sexual intercourse with her and that he then attacked and strangled her.

“Having killed her, he pushed her out of his car. Her body was discovered in the position it fell, without shoes, and with her tights and underwear still around her right leg.

“Eileen Cotter did not have the defendant’s DNA on her underwear and tights because she never pulled them up after he had sex with her. She was dead.”

Despite launching a major operation at the time, involving interviewing 92 men in the Finsbury Park area known to frequent prostitutes, police were unsuccessful in identifying the killer. Female police officers posing as sex workers were also deployed in the hunt, without any results at that time.