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Sarah Evelyn Isobel Payne, was the victim of a high-profile abduction and murder in West Sussex, England in July 2000.
Susannah Jane Lamplugh was a British estate agent reported missing on 28 July 1986 in Fulham, London, England, United Kingdom. She was officially declared dead, presumed murdered, in 1993. The last clue to Lamplugh's whereabouts was an appointment to show a house in Shorrolds Road to someone she called Mr Kipper. The case remains unsolved.
Raymond Edmunds, also known as the Donvale Rapist and Mr. Stinky, born 12 March 1944 at Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, is a convicted rapist and double murderer who was active in Victoria, Australia from the 1960s to the mid-1980s.
On 21 March 2002, Amanda Jane "Milly" Dowler, a 13-year-old English schoolgirl, was reported missing by her parents after failing to return home from school and not being seen since walking along Station Avenue in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, that afternoon. Following an extensive search, her remains were discovered in Yateley Heath Woods in Yateley, Hampshire, on 18 September.
Terapon Dang Adhahn is a Thai convicted sex offender and a former Bhikkhu who, in May 2008, was sentenced to life in prison for raping and murdering 12-year-old Zina Linnik in Tacoma, Washington.
The World's End Murders is the colloquial name given to the murder of two girls, Christine Eadie, 17, and Helen Scott, 17, in Edinburgh, in October 1977. The case is so named because both victims were last seen alive leaving The World's End pub in Edinburgh's Old Town. The only person to stand trial accused of the murders, Angus Sinclair, was acquitted in 2007 in controversial circumstances. Following the amendment of the law of double jeopardy, which would have prevented his retrial, Sinclair was retried in October 2014 and convicted of both murders on 14 November 2014. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 37 years, the longest sentence by a Scottish court, meaning he would have been 106 years old when he was eligible for a potential release on parole. He died at HM Prison Glenochil aged 73 on 11 March 2019. Coincidentally, he died on the same day the BBC's Crimewatch Roadshow programme profiled the murders.
Crimewatch is a British television programme produced by the BBC, that reconstructs major unsolved crimes in order to gain information from the public which may assist in solving the case. The programme was originally broadcast once a month on BBC One, although in the final years before cancellation it was usually broadcast roughly once every two months.
Colette Aram was a 16-year-old British trainee hairdresser who was abducted, raped and strangled as she walked from her home to her boyfriend's house in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, on 30 October 1983. The murder was the first case to be featured on the BBC television series Crimewatch when it began in June 1984. However, despite receiving over 400 calls as a result of the programme, Nottinghamshire Police were unable to catch the killer, and it was not until 2008 and following advances in forensic technology that police were able to develop a DNA profile of the suspect. Paul Stewart Hutchinson was finally charged with the murder in April 2009. He initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea to guilty on 21 December 2009 and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 January 2010. Following his sentencing, Crimewatch ran a recap of the murder and investigation on BBC TV on 27 January 2010 exposing several inaccuracies reported in the press about his background, notably a lie about being a psychology graduate.
Melanie Hall was a British hospital clerical officer from Bradford on Avon, who disappeared following a night out at Cadillacs nightclub in Bath. She was declared dead in absentia in 2004. On 5 October 2009, her partial remains were discovered, after a garbage bag containing human bones was found by a workman on the M5 motorway near Thornbury, South Gloucestershire. On 7 October 2009, the bones, which included a pelvis, thigh bone and a skull, were analysed and identified as belonging to Melanie Hall. It was determined that Hall had suffered severe fractures to her skull and face, and had been tied up with rope, although a definitive cause of death could not be established. Over the years, various people have been arrested in connection with the murder, but subsequently released.
Robert Black was a Scottish serial killer and paedophile who was convicted of the kidnap, rape and murder of four girls aged between 5 and 11 in a series of crimes committed between 1981 and 1986 in the United Kingdom.
Peter Britton Tobin was a Scottish convicted serial killer and sex offender who served a whole life order at HM Prison Edinburgh for three murders committed between 1991 and 2006. Police also investigated Tobin over the deaths and disappearances of other young women and girls.
John David Guise Cannan is a British murderer, serial rapist, serial abductor and suspected serial killer. A former car salesman, Cannan has claimed to have had 100 one-night stands and was said to be charming. He was convicted in July 1988 of murder and multiple sexual offences, abductions and attempted abductions. He was given three life sentences for the murder of Shirley Banks in Bristol in October 1987; the attempted kidnapping of Julia Holman on the previous night; the rape of a woman in Reading, Berkshire, in 1986; the rape of his girlfriend in December 1980; and several other abductions, attempted abductions and sexual offences. He became eligible for parole in September 2023, but this was refused in October 2023.
The Batman rapist is an unidentified English serial sex offender who committed at least seventeen sexual assaults on women in the city of Bath, Somerset, between 1991 and 2000. He is the subject of Britain's longest–running serial rape investigation, codenamed Operation Eagle, and has now eluded capture for more than thirty years. Detective Inspector Paul James of Avon and Somerset Constabulary, leading the operation, said it is "one of the most complicated and protracted investigations" that the force has ever undertaken. In January 2001, the Forensic Science Service used the Low copy number (LCN) DNA profiling technique to isolate the rapist's DNA "fingerprint". They then began the process of taking swabs for comparison from all the men, believed to be around 2,000 individuals, whose names had come up during the course of the investigation.
Donald Albin Blom was an American convicted of the murder of Katie Poirier in 1999. A registered sex offender involved in five cases of kidnapping and sexual assault prior to Poirier's murder, he was suspected of being a serial killer by case investigators.
Mark Anthony Tildesley was a seven-year-old English child who disappeared on 1 June 1984 whilst visiting a funfair in Wokingham, Berkshire. A widespread search of the Wokingham area, involving both police officers and British Army soldiers, did not locate him. Thames Valley Police initially suspected that his body was buried near Wellington Road in Wokingham, near the funfair from which he was abducted, but they now believe that he was probably buried in a shallow grave on abandoned farmland.
Patrick Warren and David Spencer were two English schoolboys who disappeared on 27 December 1996 in the town of Solihull, near Birmingham. Although initially treated by the police as runaways, they are now presumed deceased. Despite a BBC Crimewatch special report on the boys, along with numerous appeals from both their families, the case remains unsolved.
In October 2019, a 78-year-old man from South Wales was sentenced for 33 years for serious sexual offences against three of his daughters, spanning 20 years, one of whom was also his granddaughter. He frequently raped his daughters from the ages of 12, 13, or 14, fathering six of his own grandchildren with one. He also arranged for other men to rape his daughters.
Joseph McCann is an English serial rapist. In April and May 2019, McCann committed sexual attacks in Hertfordshire, London, Greater Manchester and Cheshire against 11 strangers, ranging in age from an 11-year-old boy to a 71-year-old woman. He evaded police, who suspect that he was sheltered by a "support network" across the country. For these crimes, he was tried at the Old Bailey and, on 6 December, convicted of 37 offences. Three days later, he was given 33 life sentences.
Kate Bushell and Linda "Lyn" Bryant were a schoolgirl and a woman who were murdered in separate high-profile incidents of West Country, England, in 1997 and 1998 The similar circumstances of the murders led investigators to conclude that there is a high possibility the murders are linked, with both killed with knives while walking their dogs along isolated lanes.
On 1 August, 1992, 15-year-old schoolgirl Helen Gorrie was found half-naked and strangled in the grounds of Merchistoun Hall in Horndean, Hampshire, after going out one night to meet a 21-year-old man named John Corcoran.