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

[Professor Moriarty]

“We believe there’s a strong possibility Melanie left the nightclub with her killer, as a coat she’d checked into a cloakroom was collected, but she could have met them outside or got into a car.''

What is the connection between collecting her coat and leaving with her killer? Surely, she wouldn't leave her coat behind whether she left with her killer or not?

 

[tes1984]

You needed a ticket (which was usually £1) to get your coat back when you left a 90s club. Interesting if Melanie and her boyfriend both kept hold of their own tickets, rather than keeping them both together in his wallet or her purse.

Also interesting that the reward is now 20k. IIRC at one stage it was 100k, with Melanie's parents putting up 50k, and a newspaper the other 50k. I wonder why the amount has been reduced.

 

[Rookie D]

Interesting how Melanie Hall's father refers to his daughter's killers.

As in PLURAL.

That means he believes that more than one person was involved.

 

[tes1984]

Interesting how Melanie Hall's father refers to his daughter's killers.

As in PLURAL.

That means he believes that more than one person was involved.

The police and Steve Hall have both mentioned the possibility of two perps in the past.

It's quite interesting that the police are keeping an open mind about when Melanie was taken to Thornbury. In the past, they've always said it was very soon after she disappeared.

If Melanie was kept somewhere for an extended period of time, then it must have been someone with enough privacy and space to conceal a victim or body, without others noticing.

 

[Rookie D]

The police and Steve Hall have both mentioned the possibility of two perps in the past.

It's quite interesting that the police are keeping an open mind about when Melanie was taken to Thornbury. In the past, they've always said it was very soon after she disappeared.

If Melanie was kept somewhere for an extended period of time, then it must have been someone with enough privacy and space to conceal a victim or body, without others noticing.

Like tied up on a barge or canal boat on the canal for example.

 

[tes1984]

Like tied up on a barge or canal boat on the canal for example.

Possibly, but more likely a house or even a van IMO. The searches so far have involved houses and commercial property in Bath, and a rural area near a farm outside Bath.

 

[tes1984]

IIRC this case has been a live enquiry since 1996. There's always been at least one detective on the case.

I'm very surprised that it's taken this long to digitise the case files. The Byford report into the failings in the Yorkshire Ripper case was almost 15 years earlier, and advised police incident rooms to move away from paper files.

 

[Deadbeat]

Apologies if this HAS already been posted but I couldn’t find it during a quick browse of the thread. This article is from January and details how the police are using ‘advancements in AI’ and ‘digitising the contents of 90 crates of evidence so they can analyse it with the latest technology’.

It also contains grim photos of one of the bin liners Melanie’s remains were wrapped in and the rope they were tied with (courtesy of Avon and Somerset Constabulary).

Major update after woman vanished from nightclub then body found years later

Detectives could employ digital tools in a "root and branch" review of the 1996 unsolved murder of the 25-year-old as they focus on less than 20 potential suspects

www.mirror.co.uk