THE TRACY MERTENS MYSTERY

Two days before Christmas in 1994, Tracy Mertens answered a knock on the door, setting off a chain of events that would end in tragedy – and one of England’s most haunting unsolved mysteries.

(As heard on the Weird Darkness podcast, “‘Twas The Mystery Before Christmas“)

It was December 1994, and Tracy Mertens was starting over. It was just a few months into 2021, and the 31-year-old mother of two had recently returned to Rochdale, England with her long-time boyfriend Joey Kavanagh and their children. They had been based in Birmingham but Tracy wanted a fresh start. It turned out a trip back to Birmingham would spark a case that remains one of the most mysterious in the region’s history.

Two days before Christmas on December 23, Tracy returned to their former Birmingham flat. She had come to retrieve a few belongings and important papers they had left behind. Tracy had been in the flat for all of ten minutes when someone knocked on the door. When she opened it, two men pushed their way inside, asking where Joey was.

The men made off in a distinctive yellow Ford Escort – featuring silver paneled sides and a stuffed toy in the rear window – with Tracy. They drove 70 miles to a location in a town called Eaton, in Cheshire, where they dumped Tracy, badly injured, at the steps of a church. She was discovered by a passerby who summoned help.

Shortly before she died early Christmas Eve morning, Tracy was able to describe to the police what the men looked like. They were both Black men in their early thirties who were heavyset, she said. They wore brown leather baseball caps and black leather coats, and she heard them speaking a language she could not understand, which police believe may have been Patois.

The police were determined to track down her killer, interviewing members of Tracy’s family on Christmas Day to try to piece together what had happened. They interviewed more than 2,000 people and obtained 1,800 statements. They found out that Joey, Tracy’s boyfriend, had been using drugs and owed some people money, but he always insisted he had nothing to do with what happened to Tracy.

Tracy’s sister Sharon recalled that Tracy had been behaving erratically some months before she died. In the summer of 1994 Tracy had come to spend a few weeks with their sister Linda. She looked and acted frightened of something and was taking inexplicable measures to secure herself – taping shut the letterbox, taping the windows. But after a couple of weeks she returned home to Birmingham.

Sharon thinks Tracy wouldn’t tell the men where Joey was because she thought her children were with him – she was trying to keep them safe. Tracy was described as a doting mom who lived for her children. She worked as a lunch lady at a school and was known as a fun, chatty person who was beloved by her family.

A £30,000 reward was offered by police for information leading to a breakthrough in the case. They arrested someone in Birmingham in 1995 who they believed could be responsible, but they felt they did not have enough evidence to confirm. Only today, decades later, the police are searching for the people who injured Tracy.

Christmas has never been the same for Tracy’s family. Her sister Sharon says the holiday always reminds her of Tracy and the awful thing that happened to her. But the police have not lost hope. Detective Superintendent Guy Hindle says Tracy’s case remains an active investigation and new leads are being pursued.

Although the case remains unsolved, police still hope someone will step forward with information that can help them discover who hurt Tracy Mertens and why.

(Cover photo: Courtesy of Kelly Hill / SWNS)

SOURCES LIST: https://weirddarkness.com/christmasmysteries/