Shropshire heiress kidnapped from her own bed 40 years ago today

Donald Neilson - The Black Panther Credit: PA/PA Archive/Press Association Images

Teenage heiress Lesley Whittle was kidnapped by serial killer Donald Neilson forty years ago today.

Neilson - who was dubbed 'The Black Panther' because of his trademark black balaclava - was eventually caught in Mansfield 11 months later. The operation to track him down involved four hundred police officers from the West Midlands.

On January 14, 1975, he had snatched Lesley - the daughter of a coach company magnate - from the bedroom of her home in Highley, Shropshire, after reading a newspaper article about her inheritance.

Police raise a manhole cover at Bathpool Park, at Kidsgrove, Staffordshire, to examine the entrance to the shaft at the foot of which was found the body of Lesley Whittle, the missing heiress Credit: PA/PA Archive/Press Association Images

He drove her to Bathpool Park in Kidsgrove, Staffordshire, and forced her into a reservoir drainage shaft.

Then, while Neilson tried to collect a £50,000 ransom for her safety, Lesley was left alone and naked in the shaft, with a wire noose around her neck.

A series of blunders meant the money was never delivered, and Lesley's body was found on March 7.

The coffin of 17 year old Lesley Whittle - borne by six members of the Whittle coach firm - followed by mourners, led by Lesley's brother Ronald, makes its way through the snow-covered churchyard at the parish church of St Mary at Highley for her funeral Credit: PA/PA Archive/Press Association Images