In May, Slough man Donald Robertson was sentenced to 30 years in jail for the murder of Shani Warren.
Ms Warren was found bound and gagged in Taplow Lake in April 1987 but a pathologist originally suggested she died by suicide.
It was only in October 2021, 34 years after Shani’s death, that Thames Valley Police charged Robertson, now 66, with her murder.
He was found guilty of her murder by a jury seven months later.
Donald Robertson and Shani Warren
The Crown Prosecution Service brought the case against after Robertson’s DNA was found on one of the gags attached to Shani.
READ MORE: Donald Robertson jailed for the 1987 murder of Shani Warren
While the authorities were able to solve this case, a number of local deaths remain shrouded in mystery.
We asked Thames Valley Police in what circumstances they consider re-opening cold cases.
A spokesperson said: “Any new murder will be investigated until the Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) believes there are no further lines of enquiry that could be carried out.
“There is no set time period for this, and it could be a couple of years or more before enquiries have been exhausted. It is at that point that the case will be filed with a current situation report.
“Once filed, the case will be the subject of a review every two years. On occasions, the police may take advantage of milestone anniversaries to do renewed media appeals.”
Below is a list of some of the murders which took place in and around Reading, West Berkshire, Bracknell or Wokingham, which families still have no answers to.
The mother who went to KFC and did not return
Vera Holland
Married mother of three Vera Holland, 47, went missing on Thursday, November 14 1996 on her way to a local KFC restaurant in Shinfield Rise, south Reading.
Her husband, Brian, reported her missing when she failed to return home.
Devastatingly, her body was found in a burning pile of rubbish close to the A327 two days later.
The cause of her death was strangulation. Although scores of witnesses came forward at the time, detectives were unable to identify who killed Mrs Holland, who lived on St Barnabas Road in Shinfield.
An appeal for new information was made by her children and Thames Valley Police on the 20-year anniversary of her death in November 2016 but, to date, no one has been charged.
On this anniversary, her son Andrew Bennett and daughter Dawn Reid, said: “Having your mum murdered is a really awful thing to happen to anybody.
“What made mum's death even more difficult for us, was the callous way her body was dumped amongst the rubbish and then set fire to. It robbed her of any dignity.
“What adds to our anguish is not knowing who was responsible for this horrific crime, and that they have been able to carry on with their life for the last twenty years.”
The little girl who died in an arson attack
Emily Salvini
Emily Salvini, 7, was asleep in her home on Hemdean Road, Caversham, Reading, when petrol was poured through the letterbox and then lit in the early hours of May 3, 1997.
Her brother Zach alerted the siblings' mother Katie of the flames, but the phone lines serving the house had been cut and they were unable to call the emergency services.
Emily's mother, Katie, was able to escape the blaze in the house along with Emily's brother, Zach, who was three years old at the time.
However, By the time tragic little Emily was reached, she had died as a result of the thick plumes of black smoke.
On May 3, 2017, on the 20 year anniversary of Emily's death, her mother and brother made a new appeal for information but the case remains unsolved.
Speaking on this anniversary, Emily’s mother said: “Losing Emily has been the devastation that has eclipsed everything else.
"Emily deserves justice. She was a pure delight to be around. She was sweet, she was kind and she was gentle.
“Emily is gone. She has been murdered. People need to see some form of justice. Her life shouldn’t have been taken.”
The teenager shot dead in the woods
14-year-old Ruth Bradbury was shot dead in Simons Wood, close to Wellingtonia Avenue on the morning of March 29, 1967, as she walked home from a shopping trip on behalf of her grandmother.
Close by in the woodland was evidence that someone had been using trees and tin cans for target practice with a .22 rifle.
It was believed that Ruth was accidentally shot as she walked through the woods.
The missing little boy who never returned from the funfair
Mark Tildesley
Although members of a London-based paedophile gang were convicted for seven-year-old Mark’s death, the boy’s body was never found so the case is still in review.
The youngster Mark Tildesley disappeared while visiting a funfair in Wokingham on the evening of June 1, 1984.
He never came home, and his body was never found.
Six years later, an investigation found that the boy had been murdered under horrific circumstances by as many as four men all part of a paedophile gang nicknamed the ‘dirty dozen.’
Only one man, Leslie Bailey, ever served any prison time for Mark’s murder.
He was killed in prison by two other inmates in 1993, just nine years after he, Lennie Smith, Sidney Cooke and an unnamed assailant had murdered Mark Tildesley.
Tragically, Mark’s mother died in 2011 without ever finding out who her son’s killers were.
The little girl found dead in the woods
Stacey Queripel
Seven-year-old Stacey Queripel disappeared from her home in Birch Hill on January 24, 1993 after asking her mother to go to bed early.
She was last seen alive at 5.30pm, but her body was found by a police dog handler several hours later in woodland near South Hill Park.
Initially, police thought the youngster's necklaces had become entangled in branches, leading to her asphyxiation.
But a post-mortem revealed marks on her body consistent with being strangled.
A Home Office pathologist concluded that she was probably killed elsewhere as her shoes were clean despite the muddy ground where her body was found.
Police arrested the girl’s mother on suspicion of murder but she was later released.
No one was ever charged with her murder.
On the 25th anniversary of her death, one of Stacey’s siblings spoke exclusively to the Bracknell News on the condition of anonymity.
They said: “We just want justice for Stacey.
“They didn’t have the forensics at the time that they do now, so I hope the anniversary will spur the police to look into it again.
“The case was never closed so I hold out hope that one day we will find who did this.”
The woman strangled with a dressing gown cord
Cheryll Grover
Cheryll Grover, 21, was last seen alive by a visitor to her home on Audley Close, Turnpike, Newbury, at 10.30pm on Friday, May 12, 2000.
Cheryll spoke to friends on the phone at 2.35am on Saturday, May 13, but efforts made by her estranged husband, Steven, to contact her later that same day came to nothing.
Concerned for Cheryll's welfare, Steven, and his mother, visited Cheryll's home at 3.30pm and Steven climbed the drainpipe to reach the first-floor bedroom window.
Inside, Cheryll was found dead in her bedroom. Someone had strangled her with a dressing gown cord.
Police suspected that Cheryll was selling drugs from her home and an appeal led to a number of people coming forward.
A 32-year-old man was arrested but released without charge.
Although Cheryll's death was investigated as a murder, the inquest returned an open verdict. In May 2006, Thames Valley Police announced that Cheryll's death was being reviewed by a cold case police team.
The man whose bones were found in nettles
Aivaras Danilevi?ius
The 'skeletal remains' of Aivaras Danilevicius, 45, were discovered by workmen clearing overgrown foliage in cornfields backing onto Hawthorn Lane in Warfield on Friday, July 24, 2015.
His body had been wrapped in 10 green plastic binliners from his neck to his feet and covered in a yellow and black checked blanket, which was tied at the bottom.
Aivaras’s skull was found to have two injuries indicating blunt force trauma.
The man was thought to have been 30–40 years old at the time of his death between 2008 and 2013.
In July 2016, he was identified as Aivaras Danilevičius. Mr Danilevicius' identity was eventually confirmed through a DNA sample matched with his father's.
The man’s mother died two months before his body was found, however.
Police were able to liaise with Lithuanian authorities and establish that in 2008, Mr Danilevicius' mother had reported her son as missing, after he had moved to the UK in 2004.
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