Bathpool Park is a public park in a rural area in Staffordshire near the border with Cheshire. The nearest town to the park is Kidsgrove. The park became notorious in 1975 as the location for the murder of the kidnapped Shropshire heiress Lesley Whittle. Her body was found hanging from a steel wire at the bottom of a shaft in the park. She fell or was pushed by a killer known as the Black Panther-Donald Neilson. Neilson was sentenced to life for Whittle's and four other murders, eventually dying in prison in December 2011. The park is owned and managed by Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council.