HUNDREDS of volunteers turned out in Oxford to search for a missing teenager, who was later found murdered.

More than 1,500 people, including servicemen, firefighters, members of the Civil Defence Corps, Scouts and schoolboys, were involved in the hunt for 15-year-old Glenys Jewell.

Glenys, who lived in Albert Street, Jericho, and worked for publisher AR Mowbray and Co, disappeared on Friday, October 18, 1963. She went out on a date and never returned home.

A police search with dogs failed to find any trace of the quiet teenager with the bouffant hairstyle.

Her mother, Violet, appealed in vain the following week for her missing daughter to get in touch. She said Glenys was shy and looked more like 13 than 15.

The search was stepped up when there had been no word for 10 days. The family offered a £100 reward, parts of the Oxford Canal were dragged and Port Meadow and other open spaces were searched with tracker dogs.

Glenys was reported to have been seen in Birmingham, Coventry, Scotland and Southend as news of her disappearance spread nationwide.

In desperation, detectives invited members of the public to join the biggest search party that Oxford had seen on Sunday, November 3.

Glenys’s father, Richard, and his two oldest sons, John and Michael were among 1,500 people who gathered in Gloucester Green to receive instructions. Children under 18 were not allowed to join the hunt – Glenys’s 13-year-old brother Melvyn had to be dissuaded from taking part.

The volunteers were split into 12 groups, each led by two police officers carrying radios, and allocated an area within a mile radius of Carfax.

The breakthrough came when Adrian Pattinson, a trainee accountant, who lived in Kennington, pushed aside leaves and rotting vegetation on allotments at Holywell Ford Lane and found a partially clothed body, with a stocking tied round the neck. It was later confirmed to be Glenys.

Praising those who joined the search for Glenys, Oxford’s Chief Constable, Clement Burrows, said: “It was a really wonderful turnout and I should like to express my gratitude to the public spiritedness of those who responded to our call for volunteers.”

The case was unusual because Oxford police already had a suspect in custody before they knew Glenys was dead.

Patrick Michael Breen, a labourer, of Mortimer Drive, Old Marston, was drinking one evening in an Oxford pub when he told a woman that he had dreamed of killing Glenys. His story seemed so real that the woman told police.

Breen was arrested and kept in custody while the hunt began to find her body.

At his trial at Berkshire Assizes, he admitted seeing Glenys that night, but denied murder. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. His appeal against conviction was dismissed.

He served 20 years in prison and was released in 1984. It is believed he and his family settled in Essex.