UK UK - Melanie Hall, 25, Bath, Somerset, 9 June 1996

[Rookie D]

It's interesting to note also that in many cases of abduction, murder and then a body being deposited, a killer often (but not always) tends to initially and instinctively head towards home, but then extends their geographical boundary to go and deposit their victim in a location that is beyond their home.

So in the case of Melanie Hall being abducted from Bath town centre, the killer then soon after heads north west towards the motorway and in the general direction of Bristol. But rather than go home, the killer bypasses their home location and drives to a location that extends that home boundary. In Melanie Hall's case, the boundary is the M5 slip road/the roundabout north of the slip road before the motorway services.

So if we take the abduction spot and the deposition site and then look at a geographical area somewhere between those 2 points, it can (and often does) give us an approximate location for the killer's base/address.

in all fairness, geographical profiling is more often than not frowned upon, but I feel it can be a useful tool in trying to ascertain an approximate location for a killer's residence.

On that basis, I believe the killer of Melanie Hall was possibly a Bristolian (South Gloucestershire) and someone who regularly used the M4/M5 motorways to get to Bath from the west, and likely within a proximal radius of where the 2 motorways meet.

 

[tes1984]

It is a fact however that in the Melanie Hall case, the killer has expressed certain behaviours that "indicate" that they haven't accidentally murdered Melanie on a whim, or accidentally killed her in a fit of passion.

I don't see how you can state this as any sort of fact. What behaviours indicate a planned murder? IMO it seems more opportunistic if anything...

 

[tes1984]

Stepfather found guilty of murder

MICHAEL BALDWIN was found guilty today of murdering his stepdaughter Jenna Brookfield.

www.southwalesargus.co.uk

The 2002 murder of Jenna Brookfield. Like Melanie, she was also found still wearing her gold ring.

 

[Rookie D]

I don't see how you can state this as any sort of fact. What behaviours indicate a planned murder? IMO it seems more opportunistic if anything...

You are right in the sense that Melanie herself wasn't a pre-planned target, but her killer was almost certainly a predator who was somehow able to charm her enough to convince her to either leave the club with him and/or to engage in conversation with her after she had left the club.


So here's my own view... (conjecture alert)


If the killer was in the club, he would have likely been watching her.

The killer has somehow managed to gain her trust fairly quickly, be it in the club itself, or when she has left the club.

The timing to me suggests that the killer most likely left the club with her, although that's not conclusive of course.

The killer was also likely to have been around the same age as Melanie as that would have also aided in making her feel at ease with him.

If she had any sense that he was creepy or dangerous, then it would be fair to question why she hasn't then raised her concerns with a member of staff, or security.
Rather than some random old pervert, to me it seems more likely that the killer was a young charmer who didn't stand out in the club, and who presented himself as the kind helpful guy who could give her a lift home, or perhaps walk with her to the taxi rank.

I believe the witness who claimed to have heard a commotion and a woman saying "no, leave me alone!" (paraphrasing?) was Melanie suddenly realising that the man she was with was going to harm her. It's possible at this point that the killer has forced her into his car, either by brute force or by implying he would hurt her if she didn't comply.

There's no evidence to suggest that once he had got Melanie into his car, that she ever left that car, until he deposited her by the slip road. That then negates the need to transfer her to anywhere else. If that's the case, then the blue rope that he used to bind her was probably already in his car. That then proves an intent to abduct a random victim at some point.

So even though the killer may have impulsively and randomly chosen Melanie, I believe that he had also intended to abduct and kill at some point. Having blue rope, a heavy blunt object and black bin bags in the boot of his car perhaps.

From his perspective, it was a case of trying to get her to his car, and then once he had achieved that, he had complete control over what he then did to her.
His car being his very own spider web in which to trap and contain his prey.

The use of blunt force trauma to her skull and multiple strikes from that object, also suggest it was a deliberate intent to kill. He used extreme force to end her life.

It is possible that once he had got her into his car, he drove away and headed out of Bath very quickly. At some point he has then either made her strip, or has killed her first and then undressed her. I favour the former, as it seems to me that once he had killed her, there was no particular reason to undress her, unless he wanted her silk dress and shoes as trophies.

All the above is supposition of course, but the man who took Melanie's life and then dumped her, was someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

This is in stark contrast of course to the murder of Melanie Road, also in Bath. Her killer; Christopher Hampton; whose flat overlooked the road that Melanie Road used to walk home, almost certainly saw her from his vantage point, checked his gf was asleep, grabbed a knife and then left his flat to follow Melanie before attempting to hold her at knife point while he raped her. An impulsive offender driven by a desire. However, Melanie Road fought back and then ran off. Hampton then chased her and caught her just yards before she was able to reach her door. He then brutally stabbed her repeatedly and raped her. This was all about control and sexual desire. A local man with an impulse to rape an innocent teenager based on nothing more than spontaneous impulse. Quite why the police didn't catch him sooner beggars belief, as it was clear from day one that Hampton was a local man.
Hampton was an opportunistic killer.

In stark contrast to this, the man who killed Melanie Hall, seems more of a charmer, a man who nobody would suspect. Someone who had planned to kill and who was out looking for prey. Patient, calculated and controlled on the surface, but driven by an inherent need and desire to kill. And not necessarily a local man either.

So, a killer's specific choices do seem to have an impact on how their picture is painted, from those looking from the outside in.


Of course, that's just my interpretation. I could be wrong, as could we all.

 

[Rookie D]

Interesting how Melanie Hall's killer took her dress and shoes, but left her ring.

All 3 could have likely identified her, but he was more interested in removing and taking what she was wearing.

A silk or shoe/foot fetish perhaps?

 

[tes1984]

Interesting how Melanie Hall's killer took her dress and shoes, but left her ring.

All 3 could have likely identified her, but he was more interested in removing and taking what she was wearing.

A silk or shoe/foot fetish perhaps?

An organised offender, who is evidence aware, and knows to strip the victim's body of any items he may have handled?

 

[Rookie D]

An organised offender, who is evidence aware, and knows to strip the victim's body of any items he may have handled?

Completely agree, yes.

 

[Konstantin]

An organised offender, who is evidence aware, and knows to strip the victim's body of any items he may have handled?

There are several reasons why the killer might have taken MH's dress and shoes, including that his semen or even blood might have been on the dress. Shoes can slip off - inconvenient and risky when you're carrying and hiding a body I imagine - if they were even still on the victim's feet at that stage. We will never know.

 

[rvlvr]

The sun would’ve risen quite early on the 9th of June, wouldn’t it? Probably by 5am it would’ve been relatively light? If she leaves the club just after 1 then the window of time in which to operate in darkness is quite small, you probably wouldn’t want to be dumping a body in daylight even early on a Sunday morning? So she must’ve been killed and her body disposed of fairly soon after leaving the club?

Or, was she taken elsewhere and held for a time? Or killed that night but her body was disposed of another day?

If she was killed and disposed of that night I lean towards the killer having the rope and bin bags in his vehicle. Was this a kit of sorts, or stuff that he might’ve had to hand anyway? But if Melanie was taken somewhere else then I guess these were items he’d have had at home (or wherever it was she was taken to) anyway.

 

[Eastend Eagle]

The police seem to have also placed a lot of emphasis on the blue rope used to tie the bin liners containing the body together. Not only did they find partial DNA on that rope but they also seem to be ‘intrigued’ by the odd number of knots used. They’ve also mentioned a few times now, that it is ‘commercially manufactured rope and commonly used on building sites and for drawing electrical cable through trunking.’ Perhaps that, paired with the location the body was found could be clues as to who the killer is/was.

DNA discovery raises hopes of finally finding killer of Melanie Hall

Police say they are confident of solving case, 23 years after NHS worker went missing in Bath

www.theguardian.com

The ' unnecessary ' number of knots, the fact there were 7 when fewer would have sufficed.
Could this have been some form of symbolism, religious or otherwise? Seven could perhaps be significant in Biblical terms or perhaps Melanie was killed by a group of 7 people, some type of Secret 7?
JMO

 

[Eastend Eagle]

I accept your point.

I do try and use words like "suggest" "imply" "indicate" "elude" "seem" "could" "perhaps" etc...etc... and so my use of syntax can sometimes come across as though I'm stating everything as fact; even though from my perspective that's not necessarily the case.

It is a fact however that in the Melanie Hall case, the killer has expressed certain behaviours that "indicate" that they haven't accidentally murdered Melanie on a whim, or accidentally killed her in a fit of passion.

The clear intent to kill and subsequent deposition site of the body in dense foliage beside a motorway slip road, by putting her body into black bin bags, "indicate" that Melanie was dumped like a piece of rubbish.

The killer didn't want to her to be found, and certainly wasn't expecting the foliage to be cut back.

Nobody would take any notice of a vehicle parked up on a slip road at say 3am in the morning. That section of the M5 northbound is arguably one of the quietest stretches of the motorway.

If the killer has a body in his car and needs to dispose of his victim, then statistically speaking, by taking the body out beside a motorway slip road is one of the most advantageous places for the killer to do so.
The reason being that a motorway slip road is a location where one might expect to see a car pulled up; probably with its hazard light on.
There's nothing inherently suspicious about driving past the junction in the early hours and seeing a vehicle parked up, as to most people, they would likely assume that the car had broken down just before trying to join the motorway. If a driver heading north drives past the junction, they would likely be driving over 70mph and therefore wouldn't notice anyway.

Also, when cars use a slip road to join a motorway, a driver naturally speeds up to match the motorway speed. This means that between the hours of 2am-3.30am, and in the unlikely event that someone tries to join onto the slip road with the intent to join the motorway northbound, they would already be driving at a speed that would be too fast to notice anything suspicious about a car parked up on the slip road.
A driver about to join the motorway might presume that the driver is a male who has chosen to get out and urinate, or that the vehicle has broken down etc...
All the killer has to do, is to wait for the slip road to be clear.
Note that he chooses to park up at the motorway end of the slip road rather than closer to the entrance to the slip road further back (where cameras might lurk) The reason for parking the car where he did, was because it gave the killer the longest time possible to get Melanie's body out of his car.
He could wait in his car and then wait for the road to be clear, and then only need a relatively short amount of time to get the body out of the car and then slip through into the undergrowth to place the body.
Depending on how the body is then deposited, the killer could have been and gone all within a couple of minutes.
He then calmly gets back into his car and quickly joins the motorway.
The only issue for him being that he would need to pick up speed very quickly to match the motorway.

I think the choice of deposition site implies that the killer was well versed in his M.O. and knew that nobody would notice his car parked up on a motorway slip road at a time when the motorway northbound would have been like a ghost town.

The killer's biggest concern should have been truck drivers, who use the inner lane and drive at a slower speed. Although again, that section of the M5 motorway northbound would have been very quiet and it's possible that only a small handful of vehicles had driven at speed past the slip road as they headed north.

The choices that a killer makes, can and does often tell us what their thought process might have been at any given point of the timeline that occurred after a murder took place.


In terms of previous victims? Well anyone who could be easily missed, or anyone who has gone missing and have yet to be found.

Hands up, my mistake, it had been my belief that the slip road had been a motorway exit one rather than an access road.

 

[forensicswannabe]

The killer could have kept her prisoner somewhere for years since her remains was dumped years later in 2009.

 

[tes1984]

The killer could have kept her prisoner somewhere for years since her remains was dumped years later in 2009.

The police seem to think Melanie was either dumped there the night she disappeared, or within a few days of her disappearance.

I'm not sure exactly what they're basing this on, but it might be something related to the car keys found next to Melanie's body, which dated from 1996.

 

[Eastend Eagle]

The police seem to think Melanie was either dumped there the night she disappeared, or within a few days of her disappearance.

I'm not sure exactly what they're basing this on, but it might be something related to the car keys found next to Melanie's body, which dated from 1996.

The car keys are interesting. I take it the Police thought they were left by the perpetrator?

 

[tes1984]

The car keys are interesting. I take it the Police thought they were left by the perpetrator?

I'm not sure, but it was certainly a line of enquiry.

Unfortunately, much like the VW Golf enquiries, it doesn't seem to have led anywhere

Strangely enough, two years after Melanie, a girl called Jenny King was murdered after leaving a nightclub in Bristol. Jenny's killer dropped his front door key when he hid the body and was soon caught.

 

[Deadbeat]

The car keys are interesting. I take it the Police thought they were left by the perpetrator?

I’d forgotten about the car keys that were found. They were definitely a line of enquiry around the time the bones were discovered but I don’t recall hearing much regarding these keys in recent years. They were found close to Melanie’s remains but could be (and probably were) completely unrelated I suppose.

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Bristol | New keys clue in M5 bones inquiry

news.bbc.co.uk

 

[Konstantin]

I’d forgotten about the car keys that were found. They were definitely a line of enquiry around the time the bones were discovered but I don’t recall hearing much regarding these keys in recent years. They were found close to Melanie’s remains but could be (and probably were) completely unrelated I suppose.

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Bristol | New keys clue in M5 bones inquiry

news.bbc.co.uk

The car keys were from the 1990s and so it makes sense to hypothesize they could be related to the deposition of Melanie's body.

The killer didn't seem to dump her remains very far from the road, as they were discovered in undergrowth when a maintenance crew was clearing it near the side of the road. While animals might have moved her body over the years, it seems the likelihood is that they would not have dragged her remains very far (though who knows). So he probably didn't need to park for very long.

Father of murdered Melanie Hall says he 'wished he didn't wake up'

The 25-year-old, who was a clerical worker at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, was last seen on Sunday 9 June, 1996, at Cadillacs nightclub in Bath city centre at about 1.45am.

www.dailymail.co.uk

There is a photo there that shows a drone or aerial shot of the police forensic recovery of Melanie's remains.

I am not familiar with the M5 but looking at Google maps, this slip road does seem to be the nearest place to Bristol along that motorway where there is a suitable place for dumping a body, given that it has a wooded area that is not very accessible and not close by houses etc. The next junction just a bit further north has a service station on it where you'd expect there to be plenty of people even late at night as truckers do stop for personal needs breaks all night I guess! So it does seem reasonable to assume that the killer did have knowledge - good knowledge - of this route. So, did he get off the M5 at J14, drive up the road and then do a U turn and come back on to access the slip road and deposition site on the northbound slip road entrance? That seems the most likely - so either he thought fast about where to dump her as he drove away from Bristol, or he had the remains for probably a short while as he worked it all out. It would be helpful to know where cameras were located back then, if there even were any. Did he have the bin bags and rope to hand - e.g. as part of his job, or was he otherwise doing some DIY or building work - or were these bought after the fact as part of a cover up?

Regardless, he seems more organised than, say, John Cannan, who wasn't very good at hiding bodies (unless you think he is responsible for Suzy Lamplugh's murder).

 

[tes1984]

Melanie Hall | True Crime Zone

Melanie Hall went missing on 9th June 1996 after a night out with her boyfriend. Her remains were discovered in October 2009. Her murder remains unsolved.

www.truecrimezone.com

In this article it says that the man who Melanie danced with was interviewed and ruled out of enquiries.

Can anyone find a source for him being ruled out?

Or any information about the source of the composite sketch for that matter? Was it made by the witness who thought he saw Melanie with a man in the foyer area?

I'm confused about whether the composite sketch is supposed to be of the dancing man, or the man in the foyer, or both...

Dancing man was described as wearing a brown shirt, flashy watch and possibly an earring. The composite sketch doesn't show clothing or accessories.

The dancing man was described as possibly wearing an earring in his right ear. In the mid 90s an earring in that ear was usually code that a man was gay. Straight men who wore an earring would always get the left ear pierced.

Might it explain things a bit if the unusually well dressed man with a pierced right ear was gay? Melanie knows him and is dancing up close, because she knows he isn't interested in her sexually, or a rival to her boyfriend. Boyfriend sees her hugging and kissing a handsome man and gets completely the wrong end of the stick?

 

[Rookie D]

The set of Ford car keys found close to Melanie's remains, are potentially an important clue that make for a tantalising set of circumstances that may just be the 'key' to the entire case.

So let's assume for the sake of discussion, that the keys were deposited by the killer, who was working alone.

Why?

Well it means he either dropped them accidentally, or left them on purpose.

Now we can be certain that if he did drop the keys accidentally, that they weren't the keys to the vehicle he was driving. This is because he was able to drive off after having deposited Melanie's remains. So we can know that the keys found can't have been the keys for his own escape vehicle.
Ford issued keys in a set of 3; 1 red master key and 2 black ignition keys.
To accidentally drop a set of 3 keys and not notice is possible; especially in the heat of the moment, but it would also mean that the killer happened to randomly have a full set of Ford car keys that didn't belong to the vehicle he was driving. Why would he be carrying them, and why would they drop out without his knowledge? Dropping them accidentally seems particularly unlikely, though still possible of course.

If he dropped them intentionally, then why?
The only reasons to do so, would be to either deliberately leave a clue, or to try and dispose of evidence that could be linked to him in some way. The latter would seem more likely, but either reason is possible.

But regardless of all the possible connotations, it still means that the killer was carrying an entire set of keys that belonged to another vehicle other than his own escape vehicle.

But why?

The keys themselves aren't simply just a standard black ignition key, but rather a full set of 3 keys, 2 black and the primary red key.

Who would carry a full set of 3 keys like this?

Well you would typically find a full set of (Ford) cars keys when you have only recently purchased or sold a vehicle, and haven't had the time or inclination to separate the master red key and 1 spare black key, from the other black key that would then be used to drive the vehicle.
The sort of situation that one would expect when having recently bought a vehicle from either a private seller, or perhaps a 2nd hand car dealer?
A Ford car dealer perhaps?

Is there a possible link between the full set of Ford car keys and the killer choosing to leave the keys at the deposition site?

I think there may well be.

It's at this juncture whereby I probably need to be mindful of what I say...

There is a family run Ford dealership located approximately 5 to 6 miles due east of the deposition site, which is approximately a 10 minute drive.
Even though I've been looking into this, I obviously can't disclose an exact location, nor give the name of the garage itself (because I've only recently joined this site and I don't want to infringe on any house rules) but it has been a Ford dealership/garage for quite some time, and would have certainly been dealing in used Ford cars back in 1996.

The geographical proximity to this particular Ford garage is IMO potentially significant, because there's a real possibility that the killer dropped a FULL set of Ford car keys, that COULD then suggest a connection to someone who had recently bought or sold a Ford vehicle through a local Ford affiliated dealership/garage.

This could be someone who either dealt with the Ford garage in question, or perhaps someone who worked at, or was affiliated with the garage itself.

That's probably the limit of where my hypothesis can go.


The whole point being that a FULL set of 3 car keys were found by the body.

I believe this is a clue to the killer's identity.

It would be interesting to know if the police working on Operation Denmark over the past 30 years have ever made this possible link to the Ford garage located so close to the deposition site?...as it took me about 20 minutes.

It's worth consideration at the very least.

 

[rvlvr]

The ' unnecessary ' number of knots, the fact there were 7 when fewer would have sufficed.
Could this have been some form of symbolism, religious or otherwise? Seven could perhaps be significant in Biblical terms or perhaps Melanie was killed by a group of 7 people, some type of Secret 7?
JMO

It’s interesting isn’t it, could the killer have killed then bagged Melanie’s body and tied these knots inside a vehicle, especially a small one like the Golf that police seemed very interested in for a time? Or would he have needed to take Melanie out of the vehicle to do this? I lean towards the latter - but where? Somewhere secluded, rural, off the beaten path, or a property?

If this all happened under the cover of darkness then it had to have happened quickly, if Melanie wasn’t abducted until maybe 2am? Was Melanie’s body dumped during daylight or was it kept for some time while the killer (and possibly an accomplice?) came up with a plan?