Allen Redston was an Australian schoolboy who went missing the day before he was taken and killed on September 28, 1966. The person who killed Redston was never caught, and his death is still a well-known cold case in Canberra.

Disappearance of Alleb Redston

On September 27, 1966, Allen Redston’s mother sent him to the shops in the Canberra suburb of Curtin to buy ice cream for himself and his brother. But Redston sent his brother away and went to the home of a friend, where he planned to spend the day at the Curtin Tip. Redston waited for a short time, then left the area. He wasn’t seen again until the next day, when his body was found.

The police found Redston’s body in a creek bed in Curtin. It was in a patch of reeds. He had been tied down, strangled, and wrapped in carpet before being moved to the spot.

Suspects

A manhunt started, and it didn’t take long to find descriptions of two possible suspects: “a blond-haired teenager between the ages of 13 and 15” and a young man. Both men were seen with Redston earlier that day, and both were seen leaving the tip where Redston is thought to have been killed. Two boys also came forward to say that two men who fit the same description had tied them up and tried to kill them in the same way earlier that year. The first boy was tied up and thrown into a lake, but he was able to free himself and swim to safety. The second man was also tied, but his friends helped him get away. Before that, no one had told the police about either of those things.

No one was ever officially charged with the crime, but it was thought that Derek Percy, a serial killer, may have killed Allen Redston. Percy said that he was on vacation in Canberra at the time of the murder, but he never said that he did it. He died in 2013.