Brother pleads for help to find killer of sister, 37 years ago

EXCLUSIVE

The family of a pregnant schoolgirl have appealed for help in finding out who killed her more than 37 years ago – because they have heard virtually nothing in the decades since.

Andrea Troupe was stabbed to death in Warwick Gardens, in Lyndhurst Way, Peckham on May 2, 1983 – but the family have been told little about the results of the investigation since the funeral, later that year.

The family, then living in Pencraig Way, Peckham, only found out she was up to six months pregnant at the inquest into her death.

They had also been told she had been stabbed but only found out at that hearing that it was more than 12 times in the neck and heart.

Her fingers were also cut as she tried to defend herself. She was killed on the night of Monday, May 2, a bank holiday, and her sister Audrey looked in her bedroom when a friend called for her at the house the next morning.

Audrey said: “She was not in her room so we assumed she had gone to school already. But we found out what happened that evening.”

Audrey’s daughter wrote to police around 2012 but was told that DNA evidence, now regularly used in such cases, had not been invented at the time and samples would not reveal what had happened.

Now the family have pleaded with the Met to make a renewed appeal for information on what happened.

Andrea’s mother, Theresa, expressed her heartfelt desire on TV for the killer to come forward, just three days after the killing.

“She’s a happy-go-lucky sort of girl,” she said. “She has friends. She loves life. I have no idea who could have done this. Whoever it is – I want them to come forward so that my mind can be at rest.” But there were no arrests and Theresa’s mind has never been at rest.

But this week Andrea’s brother, Paul Burchell, asked the South London Press to make a renewed plea for information on how and why Andrea, who had not yet turned 16, had been ruthlessly slain in 1983.

Andrea was a pupil at Silverthorne School, Albany Road, Walworth. Theresa, now a 76-year-old widow, lives in Bullock Close, Peckham Park Road. Paul, 59, said: “It is years since we have heard anything. “Mum used to do everything in the house – she worked as a secretary and administrator at Freeman’s mail order in Kennington.

“She used to be strong. But now she cries a lot of the time when she looks at Andrea’s picture. She is deteriorating. She can’t even go out to the shops. It is torturing her. She sits alone and cries. We want to find out something about what happened before she goes to her grave.

“She has been trying to get the police to do something for years.

“You think of all the scenarios that might have happened. It is terrible not knowing. Maybe she was seeing a married man who did not want it to be revealed.

“Her friend Sandra bought her some new jeans that Saturday so maybe she wanted to wear them out somewhere. She had a boyfriend, Steven, who used to come to the house. But he would not have done it.

“If the police kept genetic samples from Andrea and the baby, there will be a way to find out who was the father.”

Paul went to his mum’s Pencraig Way home when Andrea did not return from school on the Tuesday evening.

“It came on the news about a girl being killed in the park,” said Paul.

“We never thought it was Andrea. Mum used to let us out but never after dark. “We think she must have sneaked out of the house in the early hours of Tuesday.

“The park was a mile away so we think she must have been picked up in a car.

“The police knocked on our door about 10 minutes after it was on the news that evening.

“We only found out at the inquest how many times she had been stabbed. It was terrible what was done to her. It was not good for mum to hear. She took it badly.

“She thought at least she would get some justice. The police just told us they were investigating, but nothing happened.

“We used to talk about it at the time – but as the years go by, you try not to, because you do not want to bring it all back.

“I now have granddaughters who are the same age, so it affects your feelings.”

Sister Audrey said: “We asked her boyfriend Steven what he thought had happened, but his mother stopped him being questioned by police.

“At the time, I thought I would not be able to carry on without my younger sister.

“I was 20 by then and went in to work, but someone saw my bulging eyes from crying and I told them. They sent me home. No one was in their right state of mind.”

A Met spokesman said: “No case, especially a murder investigation, is ever closed. Officers will review cases where new information comes to light and we re-test forensic evidence as science develops.

“We will continue to seek justice for victims and their families regardless of the length of time that has passed.

“If anybody has any information about Andrea’s death, please get in touch with police by calling 101.”

Pictured top: Andrea Troupe and brother Paul Burchell