THE heartbreaking moment Vic Davies heard his mother had been murdered is seared into his memory.

The 61-year-old was an 18-year-old convict in February 1975, hardened by a childhood in care homes and living the life of a petty thief.

His voice still trembles 42 years on as he recalls the scene in Northampton prison when the news came on in the recreation room.

He said: “That week was my turn to be in charge of the TV and I was just about to change the channel.

“But then it said: ‘Murder in Southend’. I said: ‘Hold on a minute lads, I want to see if I know who it is.’

“The next thing I know a picture of a woman is on the TV. Someone said: ‘Do you know who it is then?’ I just froze. We were looking at a picture of my own mother.”

When he realised the full horror of what had happened to 48-year-old Ivy Davies, Vic spent the next two weeks recovering in the hospital wing.

Ivy had been battered to death at her home in Holland Road, Westcliff. The house was ransacked and a ligature left around her neck, although it was not the cause of death.

The murder weapon, a metal pry bar, was found near her body. No-one has ever been charged with her murder.

Prison officers made a conscious decision not to tell Vic because they believed the pair did not get along.

Echo:

Part of an Evening Echo report from 1975

Few, if any, of Ivy’s friends knew she was a mother-of-seven who placed her brood in the Seaview children’s home in Shoebury when Vic was just three years old, because her then-partner did not want to take them on.

Vic, who now lives in Brands Hatch, Kent, admits his mother might seem “cold” but he understands her decision, having seen her suffer at the hands of his own abusive father.

“These things stick in your mind, they never go away,” he said.

Vic believes Ivy later tried to re-claim her children but was turned down. Aged eight, Vic would take long walks along the seafront. One day he wandered off and found his mother.

The reconciliation led to the pair keeping strict appointments, arranged by Ivy, for 7pm every Thursday, when they would walk along the seafront or eat at Tomassi’s in Southend High Street.

Vic said: “After her murder, the newspapers said she was a bubbly person but she wasn’t like that with her children.

“What happened made me grow up. I was never a master criminal and I have not been in trouble since. I decided to change.”

Echo:

Vic Davies

4 decades, 3 suspects, but time is running out

THE son of a cafe owner who was battered to death in her own home fears time is running out to catch her killer.

Vic Davies, 61, has spent four decades putting pressure on Essex Police to keep up the search for his mother’s killer.

Two men were initially questioned on suspicion of carrying out the 1975 murder of Ivy Davies shortly after her death, but they were never charged.

They remained the prime suspects for more than 30 years until the case took an unexpected turn in 2006 when detectives arrested a third man, aged 68 from Basildon, on suspicion of murder.

He too was later released without charge.

All three men are believed to still be alive and now truck driver Vic wants the case to feature on the BBC’s Crimewatch in a last-ditch bid to nail the killer.

He said: “I have stayed in touch with the police and speak to them at least twice every year. “But some of the people investigating the case now weren’t even born when my mother was murdered.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever get a conviction or find out what happened, save for some death-bed confession.”

Chillingly, Vic came face-to-face with one of the original suspects in the years after Ivy’s death.

“I had one of those freeze-frame moments,” he said. “He looked me in the eye and I just thought: ‘I know it’s you’.”

In desperation, Vic visited a medium in 1996, who told him Ivy could describe her killer. The medium said she would pass the details onto police and not Vic, for ethical reasons, but the lead was not followed up.

The Echo told last week told how police are now probing claims Ivy met an escaped mental patient from Runwell Hospital, who was posing as a doctor, in the weeks before her murder.

Vic believes the steel pry bar used to batter Ivy is still the biggest clue to the identity of his mother’s killer.

It was obtained through the Snap-On tools company - which at that time had delivered just 2,000 of the tools to customers in the UK.

Another clue could lie in traces of semen found on a carpet in Ivy’s living room. Incredibly, when her personal belongings were divided among friends and family, her neighbours claimed her carpet.

It sat rolled up in their loft until 2005 when it was passed to cold case cops. The DNA sample turned up no matches, suggesting the killer might not have committed another crime.

Echo:

How Echo broke the 'Orange Tree murder' story

IT was a crime that shocked an entire town - and baffled police.

When Ivy Davies was battered to death in her Westcliff home on February 4, 1975, the story attracted huge media attention, but despite the resulting publicity her killer was never caught.

The 48-year-old owned the Orange Tree cafe in Palmeira Parade, Westcliff, and Southend’s Evening Echo dubbed her the “gentle lady of the Orange Tree”.

Ivy’s injuries were so severe that police initially thought they were dealing with a “mad axeman” and told reporters they had “no idea” why she had been murdered.

Residents of Holland Road told how they heard “piercing screams” when Ivy’s body was discovered by a horrified neighbour.

The neighbour, Stella Zammitt, described the scene and said Ivy had a cut on her forehead that looked like a knife wound.

She said she found Ivy in the living room, wearing her nightdress.

People who worked near the Orange Tree cafe said Ivy was “popular” and “well-liked”, although one said she was a “lonely figure”.

Another said: “She was one of the most generous, warm-hearted and helpful people you could ever meet.”

Ivy had owned the Orange Tree for about eight years and had previously worked there for five years, getting to know her customers well.

She had even spoken to the Echo six months previously, telling the newspaper her business was “marvellous”.

She said: “It’s all I work for. It’s a great pleasure here, and especially when people say they have enjoyed their meal.”

One regular said: “She was one of the nicest people you could meet and the news has really shattered us.”

Echo:

‘You have nothing to fear by speaking out’ - former detective

ANYONE with information about the murder should have nothing to fear about coming forward, a former cold case detective has urged.

Ray Newman, of Oak Road, Rochford, was a Detective Chief Inspector with Essex Police who joined the major crime review team in 2003.

Mr Newman worked on the Ivy Davies case in 2005. He said the investigation was “incredibly frustrating” and a lack of forensic evidence meant police had found it very difficult to charge someone.

He said: “We have had information from time to time about people who committed that murder and it has been looked into, but there has never been enough evidence to charge anyone.”

Mr Newman, 69, said the case is regularly reviewed and - like all cold cases - detectives will probe whether allegiances have changed over time.

He said: “My belief is that there are people who know what’s gone on. They are either too frightened to say or they believe you shouldn’t ‘grass’ to the police.

“But it happened so long ago now that people shouldn’t really worry about coming forward. I think people should come forward and share what they know and leave it to us to sort out.”

Mr Newman also worked on the 1978 Norah Trott murder case, which was solved 25 years later. Nora was a Rochford shopkeeper who lived above her shop.

She was raped and murdered and her killer Wayne Doherty was brought to justice in 2005 thanks to DNA evidence.

Doherty is currently serving a 27-year life sentence.