In this fourth and final extract from Tuula: A True Crime Tragedy, which examines the unresolved killing of 20-year-old Finnish woman Tuula Höök, Mark Bridgeman outlines his painstaking efforts to find the key to unlocking the only real clue of significance in the murder. Had the crucial witness been mistaken? Why did he change his statement to the police, and what does this evidence tell us about her killer?
‘Every possible detail’ needed in solving mystery
As I continued to investigate the mystery surrounding Tuula’s death, the more I acknowledged the importance of identifying the exact car seen in Rue Laurens that night.
What type of car was it? Was it a two-tone Vauxhall Cresta, as one key witness suspected, or was he mistaken? Could it have been a taxi? Had it been stolen or ‘borrowed’?
Before being able to identify any person of interest in Tuula’s killing, it became clear that I first needed to glean every possible detail I could about the car in which Tuula spent her last moments alive.
As mentioned earlier, although in January 1967, investigating officer James Axon was aware of the marque of car seen in the field (thanks to a statement from a key witness), this was not made public at the time. Had it been, the owner might well have attempted to conceal the car, flee the country, or set fire to it, for fear of being discovered. At any rate, it was almost certain that he would not have risked driving the vehicle through one of the many checkpoints that were established in the days that followed the murder. The possibility that the driver did not realise that a witness had spotted his car in Rue Laurens that evening was the only card the police held; they needed to play it wisely. For a brief moment, they were one step ahead.
As many as 4,000 cars were painstakingly catalogued at various police checkpoints in the six weeks following the discovery of Tuula’s body. Unfortunately, the original paper records from those operations no longer exist.
During the 2013 cold case review into Tuula’s murder, officers spent many hours in the Jersey Archives manually trawling through the original handwritten index cards of car registration numbers, hoping to produce a comprehensive list of all Vauxhall Cresta, Velox, and Victor cars recorded on the island in 1966/7. In addition, the list was expanded to include vehicles of a similar appearance, such as the Ford Zephyr, Austin Cambridge, and Humber Hawk. This list encompassed a staggering 692 cars.
In 2024 and 2025, I also spent many more hours in the Jersey Archives producing my own spreadsheet of vehicles, while attempting to filter the results wherever possible. I even managed to trace two more Vauxhall Crestas owned in Jersey in 1966, and not previously located by the police. This is the most mundane, disciplined, and mind-numbing form of detective work.
During investigations, credit is seldom given for the patience and effort that this type of endeavour requires. Nonetheless, it is frequently just such unheralded background work which produces results. In December 1966, records from the Jersey Driver and Vehicle Standards department indicate that there were approximately 60 two-tone Vauxhall Crestas registered on the island. Of these, roughly half were painted in colours which vary so greatly from the description given by the witness that they can probably be disregarded. The remaining half were listed as either maroon and grey/white, or a close colour combination that might easily be mistaken in the dark.
I also discounted the possibility that the killer repainted his car in the short period between Tuula’s murder and the commencement of police checkpoints. This would have aroused too much suspicion from his family, and, in any case, the original colour of his vehicle would still be recorded on the original registration index card. Easy so far, you might think. My quest had now narrowed the list of suspect vehicles to approximately 30. Life, of course, is seldom that easy. This process does not account for cars whose rear aspect was very similar: Vauxhall Velox, around ten in number, Vauxhall Victor, approximately 120, Humber Hawk Series IV, six, Ford Zephyr and Zodiac, another 100. And so on. Add these to the equation, and the list becomes much larger. Still, it was a starting point, and it made common sense to begin with those vehicles with matching descriptions.
But, before I explore the significance of the car and the mindset of its driver (who was, presumably, Tuula’s killer) that night, it is also worth mentioning another vehicle sighting, which was reported to the police shortly after Tuula’s murder, and is revealed for the first time in this book.
A witness contacted the police in January 1967 and gave the following statement, which detectives described as ‘of interest’. The witness noticed a similar car in the entrance to another field just a little further along Rue Laurens, not on the night of Tuula’s death, but three months earlier, around 7.30 pm on an evening in September 1966.
His statement read as follows:
“The car was possibly a Vauxhall Victor 1961-64 model, male driver, female passenger – taxi plate on the back, two-tone in colour, with the top half being darker than the rest of the car.”
Was this significant? At 7.30 pm in September, it would have been much lighter, enabling the witness to gain a much better look at the car (although, of course, its relevance would not have been realised at the time). The sighting added weight to Chief of Police James Axon’s assumption that the vehicle in which Tuula had accepted a lift may have been a taxi. ‘The Taxi Theory’, as it was dubbed, was certainly the strongest working hypothesis and may possibly have put Axon one step ahead of the murderer.
Let us begin with the arguments in favour of the car seen in the field being both a 1957-1962 Vauxhall Cresta PA, and also a taxi. As previously mentioned, the Cresta was a highly distinctive vehicle and approximately 25 were operated as taxis in Jersey during the 1960s (usually at the luxury end of the taxi or hire car market). Its front-and-rear bench seats comfortably accommodated five passengers. In addition, the key witness who noticed the car parked in the field entrance on Rue Laurens on 30th December 1966 thought that it may have had a badge on the rear and “something on the roof” (although he was not certain of this). This certainly indicates the possibility of a taxi. In addition, the following arguments make this a credible premise:
- Tuula would have instinctively trusted a cab more than a private car.
- It had been alleged by many female passengers during the mid-1960s (including several who contacted me during my research) that some taxi drivers had been offering free rides in exchange for sexual favours at that time.
- The sighting of a similar vehicle in the field three months earlier.
- The fact that the road to St Clement was a popular route ploughed by taxis.
Consequently, if we assume the car seen was both a two-tone Vauxhall Cresta – of which the witness was certain – and a taxi, it must have belonged to a relatively small subset. In my opinion, whoever picked up Tuula on the night of 30 December 1966 did not have a premeditated and well planned murder on their mind. If they had done so, they would not have used such a distinctive, easily recognisable vehicle, nor would that person have picked up their potential victim from a well-lit, busy street.
It is most likely that the driver of that car had hoped to have sex with Tuula, but was rejected. That rejection, and her probable threat to tell his partner or employer, combined with his ego-fired fury and instinct of self-preservation, led to a situation which spiralled rapidly out of control, resulting in Tuula’s tragic death.
With this premise, I became convinced that if I could identify both the car and its driver, I could uncover the murderer.
Tuula, A True Crime Tragedy will be published by Tippermuir Books on 21 May. An interview with author Mark Bridgeman is available via Bailiwick Podcasts in audio or visual format.
