Police investigating the cold case murder of a mother more than 30 years ago have revealed for the first time that they had three suspects who have all now died. Karen Hales, 21, was stabbed multiple times in front of her 18-month-old daughter Emily before her body was set on fire at their home in Ipswich, Suffolk, on November 21, 1993.
Detectives said today that they had “insufficient evidence over the years” to charge three suspects who were “violent, involved in drugs and domestic burglaries”. It is now hoped their deaths will encourage people with knowledge of the murder, who may have been fearful of the suspects, to come forward with information.
Karen’s father Graham Hales found Emily sobbing, but otherwise uninjured, beside the burning body of her mother when he and his wife Geraldine arrived to visit them at 4.40pm. Her fiancée Peter Ruffles, then 22, had left the house less than an hour earlier to start a shift as a mechanic.
Andy Guy, the Major Crime Review and Unsolved Case Team Manager for Suffolk Police, said: “Despite the passage of time, the effects of this senseless murder are still very much felt by Karen’s family. My hope in revealing that these people have now died is that those barriers will be removed.”
A post-mortem examination found that Karen had died from shock and hemorrhage, secondary to multiple stab wounds. Suffolk Police launched one of the biggest murder hunts in the county’s history at the time, involving a dedicated team of around 50 officers.
