The unsolved murder of Tracey Ann Patient

 tracy Ann patient.

Now a warning for this weeks episode. Viewer discretion is advised. I cover the unsolved death of a child so if this in any way upsets or triggers you I suggest skipping this episode.

The murder of 13-year-old Tracey Ann Patient has been one of New Zealand's most sensational cold cases. In the 40 years since her death, investigations have involved a mysterious signet ring, anonymous callers, and a six-digit number that nobody knows the meaning of.

On the night of Thursday January 29 1976, Tracey went to a friend's house in Chilcott Road, Henderson. Tracey was due to be back home at her parent's house in Dellwood Avenue at 9.30pm. Tracey's friend walked her halfway home and they parted at the intersection of Great North Road and Edmonton Road at around 9.30pm.

She set off up Great North Road. The last known sighting of Tracey Patient was outside number 295 Great North Road, Henderson. She was only 5 minutes walk from her home.

However exactly what happened to her that night isn’t exactly known as there is conflicting accounts of where she was seen and who with.

The following morning, a man walking his dog found Her body 15 kilometres away in bush close to the Waitakere Dam car-park on Scenic Drive. The Coroner ruled her death as being ” due to homicide by strangulation by a ligature”. Tracey had been strangled with her own stockings, wound tight with a twig at the back of her neck.

Her signet ring (given to her by her boyfriend) and items of clothing were removed. The ring wasn’t found with the body or laying around the surrounding area. There was no evidence of a sexual attack or defence wounds.

Tracey was described as a sensible girl unlikely to accept a lift from a stranger. A leading theory was that she had been abducted. Which I strongly agree with because of evidence I shall get into later.

Thirty detectives, led by Detective Inspector Bruce Scott, followed a number of leads, quickly looking for a cream or white 1967 Ford Cortina seen slowly following a female jogger near the police station on Great North Rd just before Tracey arrived there.

At one point in the investigation, police considered that Tracey may have fallen victim to an unidentified serial killer who targeted teenage girls in the 1970s. Mona Blades and Olive Walker, both 18, were also murdered in that decade. While there were similarities in the three cases, there was no evidence which could conclusively link them to one another.

They also sought a man said to have pestered three girls three nights earlier. A description and identikit picture were published and the man was found, but he was later cleared.

Other significant clues in the case that are still puzzling include:

• Six weeks after the murder, an anonymous woman phoned Youthline saying she had seen a blond girl who she thought was Tracey on Great North Rd with a man in a brown suit. Both got into a brown car that drove off just after 9.30 pm. Despite public appeals, the woman caller was never found.

• A Ford Thames van was seen in the area at the time Tracey vanished. About 15 months later, a road map with Tracey's name written on it was found in an old Thames van. The van's owner was cleared, and police tracked down two prior owners but the owner at the time of the murder was never found.

Which strikes me as odd for two reasons 1 of all the names to have been written down on the map Tracys name was written on it which leads me to believe that the killer somehow knew her or had some type of connection to her?

Number 2 I would have thought that the police would have been able to trace the licence plate number and found out who owned it. I know that it was the late 70’s and there were no computers back then it was mostly a card system or something like that however there would have still been some type of record and I don’t know if the police ever traced it or did trace it and could only track down a few of the people.

They investigated 600 suspects, and as late as 1994 re-interviewed a suspect, which led nowhere.

On 22 November 1977 a man (likely the killer) phoned the Henderson Police Station. He said, "Listen, I am not going to give you my name or anything like that. I'll give you information about the PATIENT murder once and once only".

He then described the ring being outside in the rubbish bin of the Urgent Dispensary in avondale wrapped in purple tissue paper. He further said, "Take this number down : 126040. I will ring back on the 30th”.

That call became significant because When police went and searched the bin nominated by the caller in his phone call, they found the signet ring wrapped in purple tissue paper just like he had described. which was identified by Tracey’s boyfriend as the ring he had given her. Now because the ring wasn’t found on tracy’s body Police suspected that the person was either the killer himself who had taken it as some type of trophy prize after he killed her or someone who knew the killer but may not have wanted to get involved in the case for whatever reason.

The caller however never rang back. And They were unable to trace the caller. So whoever it was and whatever their connection was to this case remains a mystery.

Police then moved on and spent a significant amount of effort trying to solve the 126040 clue.

Detectives tried everything, including phone numbers, social welfare benefit numbers and military service numbers, but could never find out what the number meant.

The case was reopened in 2016 and the public responded with around 30 theories for the code.

There are a number of great suggestions for the 126040 code and what it might mean. Some people on reddit suggested it might be such things as:

• The digits add up to 13 – Tracey’s age.

• Backwards it reads as 4 June 1921. There were approximately 40 New Zealand males born on this date, many who would have served in the war and would have been 54 at the time of Tracey’s disappearance. Assuming the police investigation was thorough, these have been treated as suspects and eliminated on opportunity and means. 

• it is in the same format as a NZ military service number 12/6040. However this serviceman died in action in World War 2. 

• In terms of an alphabetical clue 1=A and 2=B, but the remaining numbers do not correspond to the 26-letter English alphabet. 

• a tattoo number; apparently some ex-servicemen had their service number tattooed on their arm after WW2. It was known as the 'dutch done', or something like that. 

BUT the alphabet connection becomes more interesting if the code is read as 1-2-60-40.

In Hebrew, letters are assigned numeric values. 1-2-60-40 corresponds to aleph-bet-samehk-mem (A-B-S-M) or אבסם (Hebrew is written right to left). This translates to "I was lost" – possibly a biblical reference to the parable of the prodigal son. “He was lost and now is found” (Luke 15:24).

The AB literally means "father" and "alphabet". The S (samekh) refers to the never-ending circle of life - symbolised by the exchange of RINGs - hence the importance of the Signet Ring. SaM i.e סם refers to "drug, potion, medicine" - "to heal".

In Arabic, one translation is the name “Bassam”. This is the name of a famous Lebanese Druze military hero. It means “one who smiles profusely”. This could be a deliberate taunt to the Police to catch the killer, if they can.

The problem is without a point of reference the number could mean anything. from a licence plate to a safety deposit box or bank account points on a map to a house number or lot number. The possibilities are endless. There is also the possibility that It also could mean nothing and be a red herring to lead the police down a dead end track.

There was also a new witness who came forward with a story about what he saw the night that tracy died.

Gary Ross read of the developments with interest. For years, he'd been trying to tell the police about what he'd seen in Henderson the night Tracey disappeared - how he'd seen an older man leading a young girl along by the elbow. For years, he felt he'd been ignored.

First, what did Ross say he actually saw?

He remembered the evening clearly. It was a Thursday and he and a friend were in Henderson.Ross and his friend (who passed away years ago) were leaning against the car parked on the side of Great North Road.

"While we were chatting, I saw a young girl being hustled along the road by an elderly, well a middle-aged to elderly, gentleman wearing a hat. He was holding her by the elbow...she wasn't panicking at all but she looked directly at us as she passed.

”I think that was her [Tracey] that was being escorted away, I'm quite sure it was her that was being escorted away by this guy. Absolutely. I was three or four metres away from them.

"I've seen her photographs in the newspapers and I'm quite sure that was her. And it was about 9.30 at night and Henderson was virtually deserted.”

Ross says that the next day when he heard on the radio that Tracey had disappeared from Henderson he rang the police. He said the person he spoke to took down his details and said they'd be in touch. But nobody rang.

He tried to pass on the information several more times over the years, most recently in 2011 when he saw that Detective Sergeant Murray Free was now in charge of the case. As they chatted, Ross figured out that that he used to know one of Free's uncles through cricket. With that in mind, he thought he'd have more luck getting heard this time.

But no.

"I outlined what I'd seen and he told me he'd come and see me - I'm still waiting.”

What’s interesting about this account from ross is that it is in complete contradiction to the last known whereabouts of tracy that night.

What Ross saw is significant for a number of reasons, it would appear. Never before have there been reports (at least publicly) of a girl fitting Tracey's description being seen led away by a man. Never before (at least publicly) have there been reports of a girl fitting Tracey's description in the vicinity of the Henderson shops that night.

Remember that according to the original police accounts, she was last seen at the corner of Edmonton Road and Great North Road, and in the latest police account she was outside 295 Great North Road.

Both those locations are several hundred metres east of where Gary says he saw Tracey that night.

Now according to the same article on stuff.co.nz they contacted the police for an answer about why ross was never interviewed about what he saw or why none of this new information was followed up and the polices response was weird to say the least.

What followed was a series of written responses from Detective Inspector John Sutton.

At first, Sutton said Free had taken a statement from Ross but later acknowledged it was a job sheet. A statement is generally a signed document in which a witness provides an account of what they have seen whereas a job sheet is a police document in which an officer records notes from a conversation with a witness or other investigations undertaken on a case.

This confirmed that police had never sat down with Ross to take a statement from him, a full, formal account of what he saw. Why not?

Sutton’s response: ”Det Sgt Free made an assessment on the information provided by Mr Ross against the large amount of material provided by witnesses and gathered over the years. Det Sgt Free's assessment was made based on his vast insight of this case, on information that Mr Ross, nor the public, are privy to.

"Det Sgt Murray Free has overseen the enquiries into the Tracey Patient case for the past twelve years, and has an intricate knowledge of the many hundreds of enquiries that have been conducted since Tracey was killed in 1976, including the timings of the confirmed last known sightings of Tracey.”

For the avoidance of doubt, Sutton reiterated that it wasn't that the police didn't believe Ross when he says he saw a girl fitting Tracey's description.

"However from the assessment of information from other witnesses who have reported seeing Tracey we believe the female Mr Ross saw was highly unlikely to have been Tracey.”

Later in the article stuff.co.nz claimed they obtained the job sheet document under the Official Information Act.

In it, Free suggests Ross's memory about the night is unreliable. This is based on the fact he says Ross said in their phone call that he was in Henderson that night after training for the league team he was helping coach.

"29 January is the height of summer and in 1976 summer sports and winter sports had a clearer demarcation," Free writes in the job sheet. "Unless Ross was playing at a high level pre-season training in January would be very early.

Stuff then checked with with Ross. He told them the club he coached actually did have pre-season training at that time of year. And besides, he said that with the passing of time, he has always said it was either after league training or cricket (which is consistent with what he told stuff.co.nz right when they first started dealing with him). Either way, the important point to him is that he was in Henderson that night.

Besides, it seems an unusual assumption for Free to make, particularly when using it as a basis upon which to dismiss a potential witness in a murder investigation.

The job sheet also captures Free's thoughts about what Ross said about trying to contact the police early on in the inquiry. "I find it difficult to believe that if he had phoned the station with this information on Day 2 of the investigation that it wouldn't have been documented and attached to the file," wrote Free. "He claims that he may have seen the victim being walked through Henderson by an older man which would have been highly relevant.”

In other words, Free didn't believe that Ross had rung then, dismissing the possibility that whoever took that original call had made a mistake. Surely, in those early days of the investigation, when calls flooded in, it's not impossible that something might have been missed.

In actual fact this isn’t actually that far out of the realm of possibility. It has happened before in other high profile cases overseas. For example in the Ivan millet backpacker murder investigation when lead investigator Clive small asked the public for help in identifying the killer of these backpackers one victim who escaped Ivan’s clutches Paul onions rang in with information and because they were swamped with information his account wasn’t straight away realised. It wasn’t until later in the investigation they discovered his phone call and figured out they had an A-grade witness. So these things do happen and no one is perfect.

And if what Ross says he saw was "highly relevant" at the time of the disappearance, why isn't it now?

So, in summary, here's the police position: yes, we have spoken to Gary Ross. No, we have never taken a formal signed statement from him. Yes, he told us he saw a girl fitting Tracey's description with an older man in Henderson that night. No, we don't believe it was Tracey, based on what we think we know about her movements that night.

Again I find it hard to believe that they just dismissed ross’s account hat evening. They also tried their best to discredit him. The biggest significance his account does is it places tracy somewhere different that what was originally reported.

Ross’s final word on the matter was chilling.

"It's not something I want to forget - it's something that annoys me because it niggles me that they haven't done anything about it.

"The place was deserted, it's not as if you have got hundreds of people walking around the street looking similar. It's highly unlikely there would have been two young girls of the same description in the same deserted street that night.

Which I tend to agree with the odds of him seeing two different people in that same areas around that same time are very slim to none. at best it was tracy he saw and at worst it was a coincidence. the other thing I can’t wrap my head around is why the police dismissed this guys claims out of hand.

Another interesting twist in this case was In 2010, a woman identified only as “Rose” came forward to claim that her neighbour’s 21-year-old son killed Tracey after he was released from prison. Rose, who was just 11-years-old at the time of Tracey’s murder, claimed that following Tracey’s murder, the neighbour’s car was cleaned, repainted and then sold. Rose also claimed that she saw the signet ring belonging to Tracey in her neighbour’s house and that she also heard a confession from the mother. Nevertheless, investigators said that Rose’s testimony was not credible.

Now what is interesting about this is I found on an online message board in which Tracys sister talked about some aspects of the case. Including this.

Tracys sister Debbie wrote and I quote: A couple of years ago I was contacted by a woman who told me that she was convinced that her ex neighbour had killed Tracey. She wasn't sure if it was the dad or the son, but she said that the wife / mum found the ring in a box under the son's bed. She said that this woman showed her the ring and used to cry over it.

She thought that one of the dad's son in laws might have been the person that called the police (according to my 'contact', the bloke used to abuse his daughters when they were young, and she thought that this might be their way of getting back at him). My 'contact' said that he had a tattoo on his arm, that she thinks was 6 numbers long the 'dutch done'?). She had already been to the police before they contacted me, and I also told them about what she had said. They said they looked into her story but concluded that she had an overactive imagination- even though she said she was prepared to swear in court that what she saw and heard was true.

Following Tracey’s murder, her family moved back to Britain. Her parents became the founding members of a support group named Parents of Murdered Children.

Tracy’s sister Debbie hopes the case will finally be solved and says what the killer did was unforgivable.

"What they did was wrong, it was very wrong, they took a child's life. However many years it's been, this person's had a life, probably got a family, you know he's running around happy as Larry. He's got off with murder," she said.

"I don't forgive that person at all. I hope that person's had an awful, awful life. I really do!

Over the last 44 years, the Police have investigated 850 suspects, but the case remains unsolved.

Sources: 

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/80206223/tracey-ann-patient-cold-case-new-witness-comes-forward

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/tracey-patient-murder-clues-lead-down-blind-alley/OJ4CUM7SYIWZFMYRPF4E4WGEA4/

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/42zxog/who_killed_tracey_ann_patient/

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/eucak9/who_is_the_smiling_man_that_killed_tracey_ann/

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/76331769/the-tracey-ann-patient-case-a-timeline

https://nz.news.yahoo.com/hope-theyve-had-awful-life-222731350.html

https://morbidology.com/the-unsolved-murder-of-tracey-ann-patient/

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=48&topicid=96481&page_no=5

https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptography/comments/1we9sn/morning_rcryptography_anyone_want_to_try_their/

https://newzealandmissing.wordpress.com/tracey-ann-patient/