Cause of death Knife wounds | ||
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Full Name Ruth Penelope Bell Born 28 February 1948 ( 1948-02-28 ) | ||
Ruth Penelope "Penny" Bell (28 February 1948 – 6 June 1991) was an English businesswoman who was murdered on 6 June 1991 in Perivale, Greenford, London. She was stabbed 50 times as she sat behind the wheel of her car in the car park of the Gurnell Leisure Centre. Her murder is unsolved.
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Murder
At the time of her death, Bell lived with her husband and two children, then aged eleven and nine, in Bakers Wood, Denham, Buckinghamshire. She was also a partner in a successful catering employment agency, based in Kilburn, north London.
On the day she was murdered, Bell left home at 9.40am telling the builders, who were renovating her home, that she was late for a 9.50am appointment. No record of this appointment was found in her diary, and it has never been established who she was meeting. It has been suggested that there was no meeting, and she was merely looking for a polite excuse to end a conversation.
Witnesses recalled the car driving along Greenford Road at about 10am very slowly with its hazard lights flashing. A witness came forward some time after the murder and claimed he saw her driving into the car park with a passenger, and silently mouthing an appeal for help, which he ignored.
Bell was found stabbed more than 50 times in the driver's seat of her car in the Gurnell Leisure Centre car park, close to the A40. Carpet display samples were laid out on the back seat. The hazard lights were still flashing when Bell's body was discovered around noon.
Investigation
No one has been charged with Bell's murder. A reward of £20,000 has been offered.