THEY had died in a bloodbath. One had been stabbed with a throwing knife 19 times, the other 13.

Caretaker Bob Hughes made the horrific discovery. He used a pass key to gain access to their seventh floor flat overlooking The Solent after friends had become increasingly concerned they could not contact them.

Octogenarian Percy Harrison, a wealthy retired optician and one of the country’s longest serving Rotarians, and his 68-year-old wife, Joyce, had been butchered to death in a frenzied attack.

“It was in darkness,” Mr Hughes recalled of the scene. “Then in the bedroom, I saw the bodies, in the bed and covered with bedclothes. I could not see how they had died.”

Paying tribute, he said of the victims: “They were a devoted couple, always going out together, fishing sometimes. They were very active. Although they were wealthy people, they were the sort who would always speak to you and were very nice compared to some.”

Mrs Harrison was the sister of Olive Tompkins, whose husband, Group Captain Thomas Tompkins, assisted with the formal identification after police had broken the tragic news to them at their Pennington home.

Mrs Tompkins told the Echo: “They were a lovely couple. It is so unbelievable.”

She had last seen her sister when they had enjoyed “a wonderful Christmas” together but had talked to her on the phone the night before the murders.

Mr Harrison – who had several business interests in the Portsmouth area – and his wife had last been seen alive 24 hours earlier on February 12, 1977, when she, as usual, was driving their Rover 3.5 coupe.

The flat had been disturbed but there had been no ransacking and money and other valuables had surprisingly been left untouched.

Significantly Mr Hughes was to reveal the front door and windows had not been forced. The building was locked after dark and patrolled.

Police with tracker dogs scoured the 150 acre Southsea Common in front of the couple’s home for clues as detectives under the command of Chief Supt ‘Tank’ Holdaway began interviewing other occupants of the ten-storey St Martin’s House.

Initially they focused their inquiries on a theory Mr and Mrs Harrison might have picked up their killer and taken him back to their flat. But equally puzzling was the fact they had probably been slaughtered in their sleep.

Within hours however they discovered how the killer with a kinky fetish for rubber had slipped into their flats. A local man was helping with their inquiries and a crack team of divers was scouring the sea bed off Southsea for the murder weapon.

It transpired Philip Holman, 21, a Southsea casino door steward, had perilously clambered onto their balcony from an adjacent flat he had been illegally occupying.

Tragically the intruder woke up Mrs Harrison who began screaming and he repeatedly stabbed them before fleeing empty handed.

Holman was formally remanded in custody by Portsmouth magistrates on February 16 before facing committal proceedings that led to a three-day trial at Winchester Crown Court on September 12.

He denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility because he was in an abnormal state of mind. He did not give evidence but jurors heard of his ‘stay for free’ lifestyle in which he took over unoccupied houses or flats, remaining in hiding for lengthy periods. Then left as secretly as he came.

Bizarrely he always dressed in women’s underwear on such forays and carried a knife.

The sole witness for the defence, psychiatrist Alan Gibson contended that Holman, whose sexual adjustment was “grossly abnormal,” suffered from a psychopathic disorder.

“As long as he can remember, he has had a fantasy about rubber. He is particularly moved by comics such as Batman and Cat Woman because they wore body hugging garments which looked like rubber,” he explained.

However, jurors were not moved, convicting Holman of murder. Jailing him for life, Mr Justice Wien denounced him as having committed “brutal and callous murders.”