Key clue in unsolved murder of mum whose throat was slashed after breaking down on motorway & leaving kids to get help
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A KEY clue in the unsolved murder of a pregnant mum who had her throat slashed after her car broke down has been revealed. Marie Wilks, 22, was driving along the M50 in Herefordshire on her way back from visiting husband Adrian at a barracks on June 18, 1988.
![[The murder of Marie Wilks remains unsolved]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/marie-wilks-unknown-internet-grab-434642330.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
She was seven months pregnant at the time and with her 11-year-old sister Georgia and 13-month-old son Mark when her car broke down on the motorway. A nervous Marie, who had only recently passed her test, was forced to leave the car and find an emergency telephone to call for help.
![[Marie with her husband Adrian and their son Mark]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/murdered-housewife-marie-wilks-husband-1090042.jpg?strip=all&w=697)
But she never returned to the car. Instead she was later found with throat slashed on an embankment three miles away. Former soldier Eddie Browning was jailed for her murder the following year. But the conviction was overturned five-and-a-half years later when a judge found police had kept evidence from the trial.
![[The abandoned SOS telephone with its handset left off its hook on the hard shoulder of the M50]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/d72bc2cb-ed0c-47d0-85e5-aae28e86d133.jpg?strip=all&w=651)
But a key clue in Marie's murder were tyre marks found at the scene. An expert gave evidence at trial that a skid mark found close to where Marie's body was discovered matched a wheel on Browning's car - a silver-grey Renault 25s. The expert said he was certain the mark had been made by Browning's front nearside wheel as it had been left heavily worn and without tread.
![[Eddie Browning and the e-fit picture released at the time of the Marie's murder]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/0f07f9fa-cd78-4bfd-9661-a054013a96ab.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
The former soldier died in May 2018. Browning's death came nearly 20 years after the discovery of Marie's body on the side of the M50. She had been making a return journey from a Territorial Army camp in the village of Symonds Yat. The trip was her first significant drive since passing her test, but she became lost upon her return home to Wandon.
![[Browning being taken to the Appeal Court, where he would later have his conviction quashed]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/dd4e77d5-d122-4a5d-b3d1-44ea3fb9021f.jpg?strip=all&w=849)
