Harold Jones (murderer)

Both Burnell and Little were buried in Brynithel Cemetery. Their graves fell into a state of disrepair over the decades, although a 2017 appeal initiated by a local author named Neil Milkins to restore their graves and headstones raised more than £4,000, he having been inspired to do so after speaking to relatives of both girls, who were upset by the condition of the graves. The girls' graves were subsequently restored in 2018.

Jones died of bone cancer on 2 January 1971. At the time of his death, he was employed as a night watchman and living under the alias of Harry Jones, although before he died, he told his wife the name Harold Jones should be written on his death certificate.

A number of investigators and authors believe Jones to be a likely perpetrator of the Hammersmith nude murders, a series of murders of prostitutes committed between 1964 and 1965 in West London. These theories have only abounded since his death, and Jones was never contemporarily considered as a suspect in these murders.

Shortly after the murder of Little, his employer, Herbert Mortimer, closed his shop and relocated with his family from Abertillery. Reportedly, this decision was made due to both a mixture of ostracization from locals regarding the false testimony he had delivered at the Burnell trial, and his own guilt that this false testimony had enabled Jones to subsequently remain at liberty and kill again. It is unknown where the Mortimer family initially relocated to, although the death of Herbert Henry Mortimer, at age 69, was registered in the Forest of Dean region of Gloucestershire early in 1955.

Jones served twenty years of his imposed sentence of life imprisonment. Against the recommendations of a psychiatrist, he was released from prison on parole on 6 December 1941 at age 35, and subsequently joined the Merchant Navy. At the conclusion of the Second World War, Jones briefly resided in Newport, although by 1948, he is known to have relocated to Fulham, London, using the alias Harry Stevens. He later married and fathered a child.

Jones was acquitted of the murder of his first victim, 8-year-old Freda Burnell, at Monmouthshire Assizes on 21 June 1921. Just seventeen days later, he murdered an 11-year-old neighbour named Florence Little. Jones pleaded guilty to Little's murder and also confessed to having murdered Burnell at his second trial.

Owing to his being under 16 at the time he committed the murders, Jones escaped capital punishment for his crimes; instead being sentenced to be detained at His Majesty's pleasure on 1 November 1921. He was released from prison in 1941, later marrying and fathering a child. Jones died of bone cancer in 1971 at the age of 64.

On the afternoon of 5 February 1921, Freda Elsie Maud Burnell, aged 8, was reported missing by her parents. She had last been seen by her father, Fred, at approximately 9 o'clock that morning, having been sent on an errand from her home at 9 Earl Street to purchase poultry spice and grit from Mortimer's Stores in nearby Somerset Street to feed the family livestock, with her father promising her a penny upon her return.

The trial of Jones for the murder of Little began at Monmouthshire Assizes on 1 November 1921. He was tried before Mr Justice Bray, with the prosecution contending this murder had been primarily committed due to Jones having enjoyed being "a part of the public eye" due to the attention he had received following his arrest and acquittal of Burnell's murder weeks earlier, adding that he had made evident attempts to conceal evidence of the crime within his home after the murder.

Shortly after Jones was escorted to prison to begin his sentence, a second written statement was read aloud to the court. This statement—also penned prior to his trial—read: "I, Harold Jones, wilfully and deliberately murdered Freda Burnell in Mortimer's Shed on 5 February 1921. The reason for this act was a desire to kill."

Harold Jones (11 January 1906 – 2 January 1971) was a British child murderer who killed two preadolescent girls in Monmouthshire, Wales, in 1921, when he was aged 15.

Harold Jones was born in the Welsh colliery town of Abertillery, Monmouthshire, in January 1906, the eldest of four children born into a poor family. His father, Phillip, worked as a coal miner and his mother was a housewife. Jones and his siblings attended a local council school where he was regarded as a popular and exemplary pupil, showing a particular flair for sports, and holding aspirations to become a professional boxer. He is also known to have spent much of his free time reading and to have occasionally played the organ at local church services.