A DETECTIVE who cracked a brutal cold case murder believes the killer had three more victims.
Melanie Road was raped and stabbed to death after a night out in June 1984 – sparking Britain’s biggest manhunt for her killer.
SWNS:South West News ServiceStraight-A student Melanie Road was just 17 when she was raped and knifed 26 times on her way home from a nightclub[/caption]
Avon and Somerset PoliceMonster Christopher Hampton was brought to justice in 2016 – 32 years after the grisly killing[/caption]
PA:Press Association‘Bubbly’ Melanie, pictured, left, with a friend in 1983, had dreamed of becoming an archaeologist[/caption]
Detective Sergeant Julie Mackay cracked the case
PA:Press AssociationShelly Morgan was murdered in 1984[/caption]
But 30 years later, police were still no closer to finding their man — until Detective Sergeant Julie Mackay transferred to the Cold Case Unit.
Through sheer determination she snared the killer – Christopher Hampton.
However, now MacKay has revealed she believes Hampton is a serial killer responsible for the death of three other girls.
Shelley Morgan, 33, was found dead in Backwell Hill, near Bristol, just two days after Melanie’s death.
And in April 1985, Linda Guest, 35, was found dead in Frampton Cotterell, north of Bristol.
Meanwhile, Helen Fleet, 66, were killed in Weston-super-Mare just two years later.
All four women had been sexually assaulted then stabbed tens of times – and all lived in the areas where Hampton had been working as a painter decorator.
Speaking to The Telegraph: “The method of killing was the same. It was a frenzied knife attack.”
Melanie, from Bath, Somerset, was just “moments” from home when she was raped and stabbed 26 times – including eight times in her breasts.
After the brutal attack in June 1984, she was left to die in a pool of blood. Her body was found hours later by a milkman and his 11-year-old son.
While combing over the details of her death – MacKay found a report by a psychiatrist at Broadmoor Hospita who was one of the country’s leading experts in sex offenders.
Dr David Mawson had been comparing evidence in the first two murders.
His report in 1984 reads: “I think the most important observation on this must surely be a statistical one.
“Given the low incidents of sexually motivated homicides, which at least, in part, we must assume both to have been, and given the low incidence of these in the area, it is extremely improbable that two such events would occur so closely together other than as the result of the actions of one man.”
In her impact statement, read out at Hampton’s trial, Melanie’s mother, then 81, described how the family was torn apart by the brutal death and haunted by thoughts of her finals moments.
Melanie’s murder: Timeline of events
June 8, 1984 – Melanie Road, 17, goes on a night out with her boyfriend and friends to Beau Nash nightclub in Bath, Somerset.
June 9, 1984 – Melanie leaves the club when it closes at 2am. She is then brutally stabbed to death while walking home.
June 9, 1984 – Melanie’s body is found by a milkman and his 11-year-old son at around 5.30am in Bath’s Lansdown suburb. The scene is just “moments” away from the victim’s family home.
1984 to 1989 – The murder sparks one of Britain’s biggest ever manhunts. Police launch an investigation, Operation Rhodium.
1995 – The DNA profile of the suspected killer is put on the national database for the first time, but there is no match.
2009 – It’s the 25th anniversary of Melanie’s death. A Crimewatch special is shown. Seventy names are handed to police – none of which are Christopher Hampton.
April 2014 – Detectives investigating the cold case reveal they have a full DNA profile of her suspected killer.
November 2014 – Hampton’s daughter gets a caution for criminal damage. Her DNA is added to the national database.
May 2015 – Results come back with a familial match to Hampton’s daughter.
June 2015 – Hampton provides a voluntary DNA swab to police.
July 4, 2015 – Hampton is charged with murdering Melanie.
May 2016 – Hampton, who had earlier entered a not guilty plea, shocks the courtroom by pleading guilty to murder. He is jailed for life, with a minimum of 22 years behind bars. The judge tells Hampton the attack had been “for your own sexual gratification”.
“We put on a face for the outside world,” she said. “Once asleep I hoped I would never wake up so that I could be with Melanie and comfort her.
“The thought of what our lovely daughter had to endure on that fateful night still sucks the energy from within me.
“The horror of the way our daughter died hangs over us like a heavy lead weight which never moves away.”
Jean said the family’s “world fell apart”.
Big brother Adrian was unable to complete his university exams and sister Karen, who was breastfeeding her youngest child, was so distressed her “milk dried up”.
“We sat for hours traumatised by the horror of knowing Melanie was gone forever,” she wrote.
“To never see her beautiful smile and girlish laughter hurts beyond repair.”
Avon and Somerset police said: “Our thoughts continue to be with the families of Helen Fleet, Linda Guest and Shelley Morgan and we remain committed to providing them with the answers they deserve.
“A number of reviews have taken place over the years but regrettably, those responsible for these horrific crimes have not yet been brought to justice.
“Scientific techniques are constantly advancing and, in time, they could well provide new lines of inquiry which may prove to be the key to identifying the offenders and securing convictions against them.
“While there is no established link between any of these unsolved cases or with any solved ones either in our policing area or nationally, we remain open minded and will act appropriately on any new information which comes to light.”
PA:Press AssociationA police forensic tent is erected on the street near to where Melanie was found by a milkman and his young son[/caption]
A policeman holds a poster appealing for help in the hunt for the killer of the teen