True Crime Collection

Jenny Nicholl

Jenny Nicholl was born 6th October 1985 in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The Nicholl family lived in Richmond, North Yorkshire, where Jenny worked at the local supermarket and played guitar in pub bands. Jenny's father was in the British Army and the family settled in Richmond when the eldest son also joined the army and was posted to Catterick. On the 30th June 2005, Jenny told her parents that she was spending the night with friends, which was not uncommon for her, and took items with her that suggested she was going on a camping trip. She left the house at 6:00pm and that was the last confirmed sighting of Jenny. Jenny was reported missing by her parents on 4th July 2005 after they had had no contact with her over the previous days and her car was found parked in the Holly Hill Pub in Richmond. 

9 days later, North Yorkshire Police interviewed David Hodgson, who was 45 at the time of Jenny's disappearance, was a married father of 2 who had been Jenny's boyfriend since she was 14 years old, though he maintained that their relationship was not sexual until she was 16 and that they had had sex only 5 times. David's 2 daughters both attended the same school as Jenny. Around the time of the affair starting, it was said that there was some name calling of Jenny and eventually an assaulting which the police were finally involved. 

During his first police interview, David denied having an affair with Jenny and also denied anything to do with her disappearance. The next day, Jenny's mobile phone was switched on and messages were sent which led her family and the police to believe she was alive and well. The text messages were later revealed to have been sent from locations as far afield as Carlisle in Cumbria and Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders. Later, the authenticity of these messages were put into doubt by the police when they stated in November 2005 that the inquiry had turned from a disappearance into a murder investigation. At the end of July 2005, police found David in a hut near to Hudswell. He had taken an overdose of pills and wine. In later police interviews, David admitted that he and Jenny were lovers, but that their affair had ended 12 months earlier. 

Whilst there was some initial hope with the mobile phone messages, police still maintained an active search for Jenny which lasted the rest of the summer of 2005 and involved searching over 150 areas, septic tanks at farms and also utilised soldiers from Catterick Garrison to help out.

During the investigation it was revealed that Jenny had also started seeing David's elder brother, Robert, in the weeks prior to her disappearance. Robert Hodgson was unaware of Jenny's being linked with his younger brother, despite the 2 brothers' erecting the huts in Sandbeck Plantation that critical evidence was found at during, and after the police searches. In December 2005, Ann Nicholl appeared on the BBC programme Crimewatch to appeal for help in finding her daughter and the conviction of her killer.

In May 2007, police formally charged David Hodgson, and he appeared that same month in Northallerton Magistrates Court where he was remanded in custody until a trial early in 2008.

The case came to court in January 2008 where David denied taking Jenny to any of his ramshackle huts hidden in the Sandbeck Plantation near to the A6136 road, south of Richmond. DNA evidence contradicted this as did the discovery of Jenny's nightdress, teddy bear and cassette player at the same location. Police believed that David became jealous of his brother's relationship with Jenny and he killed her on the night she disappeared. David's elder daughter states in court that Jenny was seen alive in Richmond 2 days after her disappearance and had been staying with Robert. Robert Hodgson denied this claim and stated in court he had not seen Jenny for some time. 

At court, the prosecution were able to establish that the text messages sent to family and friends days after her disappearance were not in the style that Jenny would typically compose. The prosecution also submitted evidence that David had hired a car on 2 separate occasions and the distances traveled on those days fit the distances both there and back from Richmond to Carlisle and Richmond to Jedburgh. The dates also married up with the dates that the messages were sent from Jenny's phone. The prosecution also said that David was an intensely jealous man who was angry about Jenny's new relationship with his brother, Robert.

In February 2008,  David Hodgson was found guilty of Jenny's murder at Teeside Crown Court.

In November 2009,  a coroner ruled that Jenny was dead and that her death was judged to be an unlawful killing.