S5 Ep9: S05E09: The Murder Of Melanie Hall

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Skills First Hiring helps you see talent others miss, like more than 70 million stars skilled through alternative routes. Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage because hiring managers who start with skills are 60% more likely to find a successful hire. Hire Skills First. Learn why at tearthepaperceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. I am David Suchet, and this is Blood Ties. Hi everyone, welcome back to the Blood Ties podcast. I'm Molly Wansall, and I'm here with my father, Geoffrey Wansall. Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast. And thank you all so much for listening. It's a great joy to us all. And have we got more followers? Yeah. Oh, oh my goodness. I need to tell you a funny story. Oh, good. Not funny, sorry, to our listener, listeners, plural, who like us so much that they made their Valentine's Day card about us. Goodness me. Isn't this amazing? Crikey. Hold on, let me find it so I can tell you. Goodness me. I was so touched when I received this message. I didn't quite know what to say. It's from Kieran. He says, Dear Molly and Geoffrey, we love your podcast so much that in my Valentine's Day card, I imagine Geoffrey's introduction to my girlfriend if she were a killer. We are particularly obsessed with Geoffrey's pregnant pauses. I have attached a photograph of said card. Thanks for the podcast. That's absolutely wonderful. I will show you a picture of the card later, Dad, but they've just written out a little transcript and then Dad, you talking and then taking your pregnant pauses. Goodness me. If anybody else likes Geoffrey's pregnant pauses. We'd be very pleased. Please do let us know. We will, yes. Yes, we've got up to 500 followers on Instagram this week. Oh, that's very good. And so in honour of that, I posted a picture of Betsy wearing a hat. Oh, splendid. Lovely. Very good. That's very good. We'll try and take a picture of that. We'll try and take some more pictures for the Instagram of me and Geoffrey. Yeah, absolutely. And you've started an extraordinary diet. Yes. Which means you can't eat anything much. Pretty much, yeah. I don't know if it's working. We'll see. Well, I have to do it for a while. You have to do it for months? I have to do it for three months. Three months. Okay, and that, whatever it is, cleanses your system. In theory, yeah. I mean, the nutritionist said maybe six months, but review at three months. Okay. So I'll see how I go at three months. Yeah. So that'll take you to May? Yes. Yes, middle of May. About 17th of May, yeah. Okay. Crikes. Same day as the TV BAFTAs. Thank you, Molly. Yes. I've got it now. How's your week? Yes, I did a podcast for the Daily Mail. Oh, yeah. Daily Mail Plus about the Wests, which I did with my. with my old colleague, Stephen Wright, who was the crime editor at the Mail for a long time. Not Steve Wright, the Radio 2 DJ. No. Stephen Wright, the ex-crime editor of the Mail, and I think he's called associate editor now. Anyway, it's very good to see him. I mean, 25 years ago, we were both in court together for Rosemary West's trial at Winchester. And he'd been there when they dug up West's garden and his cellar. I didn't get involved, as you know, in that case until after West's death. I know. When I was appointed his official biographer. Did it go well? Seemed to. I mean, they've got a lot of people working on it. I mean, there's great big desks of people. I feel like it may have been a more professional operation than this set up. Well, I don't know. Yes, I mean, they've got a studio and everything. I mean, equipment-wise. Oh, well, they've got nice equipment. One of the things that people comment, on the most, is that our sound isn't always very good. I'm very sorry, it's not. We try our best and we are working on it, but we do literally sit in Dad's living room. And I did buy everything off. I just found a podcast kit on Amazon. But yeah, the more listeners we get, the more we will improve it. So if you tell your friends to listen, then we'll be able to invest in new equipment so we can improve. Yes. I mean, I think that's all, you know, good causes. We're a good cause. We are. So I think we should begin. Okay, so what are we doing this week? Hold on. We're doing The Disappearance of Melanie Hall. We're doing The Disappearance of Melanie Hall and this was suggested to us by listener Mark Smith, who sent us a message on the 30th of October 2019 asking if we could cover this. Melanie Hall was a vivacious, cheerful, blonde, born on the 20th of August 1970. She came from Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire. It was one of those cases that captured the imagination. There are a few of them. Susie Lamplew, whom we've done. Yep. Joanna Yates and the extraordinary case over Christmas. Remember? Yep. Bristol. The guy who went shopping afterwards. That's right. Vincent Tabak. And a case I'll refer to towards the end of this and that's The Disappearance of Claudia Lawrence, the chef at the University of York. I don't remember that one. Who disappeared in 2009. All of these are examples of what can happen. To young women who just seem to disappear off the face of the earth. Now, you may remember we did a case linked to an ITV drama called The Confession. Yeah. Detective Steve Fulcher's Confession. Martin Freeman. Martin Freeman playing Steve Fulcher. And the villain or the murderer was a man called Christopher Halliwell. Yeah. Remember that? The mini-cab killer. The mini-cab killer. Okay. So, here we have the most delightful young woman. She graduated from the University of Bath in 1995. Her mother, Pat, was a nurse who called her a young and vibrant daughter. She had a sister called Dominique. Her father, Steve, was a builder, but he was also chairman of Bath City Football Club. Very, very upright, good people. Of the very nicest kind. And she'd quite recently struck up a relationship with a doctor because she was working as a clerical officer in a Bath hospital. And she'd met Dr. Philipp Karlbaum, who was a 33-year-old German who was working on the orthopaedic unit. And they struck up a relationship. They both worked at the Royal United Hospital in Bath. On this particular weekend, and we're talking about June 1996, they'd been to a party, a barbecue, and she'd gone home. And her mother had given her a lift back to stay with Philipp on the night of the 8th of June. They and another couple go to Cadillac's nightclub. In Bath. Sounds like a classy joke. joint. Yes. But there was a tiff. No one's ever precisely put their finger on what the tiff was. The tiff between her and her fella. Yes. Between she and Philip. I think he got into something of a jealous rage because he saw her dancing with another man. Now this is significant or will become significant because Philip leaves the nightclub. Some suggest he stormed off. I mean, whatever happened, I don't think he ever meant to abandon her. But she's last seen sitting on a stool at the side of the dance floor at ten minutes past one in the morning of the 9th of June, 1996. The other couple have left. She's on her own. Now, what exactly happened, we'll never know. What we do know is that two days later, her parents report her missing to the Avon and Somerset Police. Philip hasn't seen her. She's not in the house. She's not in the room. She must be feeling terrible at this point. Absolutely. You can't imagine how he must be feeling. She absolutely disappears off the face of the earth. The boyfriend is literally devastated. There are appeals. Father and mum and dad, you know, Steve and Pat. Crime Watch. It's a very public appeal. Bath is closed. It's closed. It's closed. It's closed. It's quite a small city. Yeah, it is small. It's not. The police search endlessly. They search the River Avon. They interview literally hundreds of people who were in the club that night. Dominique, her sister, also appeals. There's a £10,000 reward offered. No sign of Melanie Hall. Just gone. Whatever. Gone. It was, to say it would have been heartbreaking is absolutely an understatement. Can you imagine what Melanie's parents must have gone through? The awful trauma of losing this twenty-five-year-old, vibrant young woman, kind. And the tragedy is, on the 17th of November, 2004, that is eight years, considerable amount of time, after her disappearance, an inquest declares an open verdict, but suggests that she's almost certainly, probably is the phrase used by the coroner, unlawfully killed. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0, depending on their plan. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day. Because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on the things you love. Like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company. Affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. But as far as anyone knows. Well, there are those cases as well. Like, there are some cases of people disappearing from nightclubs and things. Although they're always found more soon, aren't they, if they have accidentally killed themselves. Like, you know, like, I think a guy fell in a wheelie bin and, like, froze to death or, you know, fallen down into a ravine or something. Particularly that aircraftman. Aircraft, the RAF worker who. Well, that's the one. Didn't he fall in the bin? It seems as though he probably did, but we are never sure. They've searched endlessly the rubbish sites around Bury St Edmunds. But then they do usually find. More CCTV and remains more quickly. More quickly, yes. And it's now clear, isn't it, that most nightclubs are very extensive CCTV. But nevertheless, they don't always have it outside. Did they have it back then? Yes. Yeah. But there's no footage of her post being in the club on the dance floor. You may remember, if you remember the Halliwell case, that he was eventually identified. A minicab. That's right, by a police car driving the other way. I thought that was Belfield. No, that's him. No, no. That's Halliwell. Belfield was the bus thing. The bus video. Yeah. Yeah. By sheer accident, on the 5th of October 2009, so we're talking about 14, well, nearly 14 years later, a motorway worker on the M5 discovers remains on the. Slip road of Junction 15, on the northern, northbound slip road, going down towards the motorway. So you've got your. Coming down towards it. It's on the left-hand side. There's a lot of vegetation. But he discovers bin bags, which contain a skull, a pelvis and a thigh. Other things are discovered nearby in this slightly wooded area, including a piece of jewellery. Which the police show to Melanie's mum and dad. They recognise it and suggest it was Melanie's. But there is not a formal identification until the dental records are checked. Yeah. And the skull. Yeah. There are also some Ford car keys found nearby. Which might have been for a transit van, might have been for a Ford Fiesta. It turns out, in the end, to have been a false lead. But now the reward's gone up to £20,000. We now have remains. We know what happened to Melanie Hall. We know she was killed. In October last year, the police revealed that they had a partial DNA match. To the blue rope that had been wrapped around the bin bags. And the reward goes up to £50,000. Is it common for the UK police to give financial rewards? Sometimes, yes. It isn't unusual. Often it's newspapers which start topping up the reward. Do they ever get paid out? Yes. It's dependent on a conviction, however. I don't think so. Her father, Steve, says - and I think it's one of the most heartbreaking remarks. He said after the remains were identified: "It's never over. We'll have this with us for the rest of our lives. She was a lovely, kind girl who gave pleasure to everyone she met." It's very sad. The police - I'm not - in any way criticising the police here. In 2003, two men were arrested. In 2009, a 37-year-old confessed, but was found to have a psychiatric condition. In 2010, two more arrests. And another arrest in August 2010. In November 2013, another arrest - 44-year-old. In 2016, a 44-year-old. In 2016, a 45-year-old arrested following the partial DNA match. By October last year, 11 men have been arrested. but not one has ever been charged. We literally have no idea what happened in any way, shape or form. We literally have no idea. Could it have been a man and a woman? Could it have been a woman? Could it have been a man? Could it have been a group of people? We literally don't know. There are a couple of really interesting theories. The city of Bath, in the period covered by Melanie's disappearance, was being terrorised by a man known as the Batman Rapist because he'd left a Batman hat by one of the victims. Like a mask. Yeah. And just before Melanie disappeared, he'd attempted to carjack a woman at knife point a matter of hours before Melanie disappeared. Interesting. Incidentally, the Batman Rapist has never been caught. We are now in what is to us familiar territory. Links, of course, to the disappearance of Susie Lamplew and the mysterious Mr. Kipper in 1986, which we have dealt with, and which I think most people are prepared to say is almost certainly John Canaan, who's in jail. Yeah. 3,800 people have been interviewed about Melanie's disappearance. And nothing. Nothing. Not a single thing. Now, there was a link to your friend and mine, Levi Belfield. Do the timings work? Timings work. But it's a long way out of his comfort zone. Yeah, it's very far away for him. It's a long way for him. The more convincing link, which was identified by someone who works with, on media, with me on Murder by the Sea, Chris Clark, who suggests and suggested to the police that Christopher Halliwell, the killer of Sean O'Callaghan and Becky Gordon Edwards, was a likely suspect for Melanie's disappearance. Timings fitted. And what's more interesting, the M.O. fitted. Yeah. You may remember that. The nightclub. It was nightclubs. Yeah. And the minibus. And the minicab, which is an easy one, because he could get into. She would have been on her own. She was upset. Totally normal to get into a cab and then for him to disappear off. Yes. You may remember he took his victim to the Savanake Forest a good long way, in fact. Where did he dispose of the bodies, though? Or did he just leave them there? He left them in the woodland. Do you remember he took a vulture? Yeah. To the site of the disposal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then it's weird to dump someone by a motorway. Well. Because that particular part of the M5, and I'm not for a moment suggesting that this is what happened, but that particular part of the M5 is much beloved of Frederick West. He was, of course, dead at the time of his disappearance, so I'm not suggesting for a moment that she was a West victim. But it is a very convenient place if you're in a hurry. Well, is it woodland that backs onto motorway then? It's not. Okay, so you could access it the other way. So I'm driving down the northbound. ramp at Junction 15, and to my left is a lot of vegetation. And at this point, Melanie is probably in pieces. Okay. Rather than one body. I understand. Okay. I was sort of thinking it of being a kind of reserve in between lanes, but it's not. It backs onto the motorway. Yeah, if you look at. You could access it from the other side. There are pictures of it. If you'd like to go back to your trusty phone, you'll get a clearer view. What would I have to look up to get that? I think just scroll down. Wiki? Yeah. The point was that the motorway worker, completely by accident, comes across parts of Melanie's body. No one saw anything. It is an astonishing case. But for me, it's. I would be much more. Now, the Avon and Somerset Police have dismissed the theory that it could be Christopher Halliwell, though they haven't told us exactly why. I see the vegetation. Oh, I see there. Okay. Yeah. It sort of backs onto a fence area which leads into Woodlands. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. The Avon and Somerset Police have dismissed Chris Clark's suggestion that it might be Halliwell. We don't know on what basis. It's possible that. There's a DNA dissimilarity. But the case which, to me, echoes in the most remarkable way is another disappearance. The disappearance of Claudia Lawrence, the chef at the University of York, who disappeared on her way to a shift in the university. She had to start at six in the morning and she disappeared in 2009 on the 18th of July. She disappeared on the 18th of July. She disappeared on the 18th of March, 2009. She was 35. She was also blonde. Now, there's been a lot of criticism. This was investigated by the North Yorkshire Police because she lived in Heworth, near York. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. Skills-first hiring helps you see talent others miss, like more than 70 million stars, skilled through alternative routes. Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage because hiring managers who start with skills are 60% more likely to find a successful career. Hire. Hire skills first. The investigator of Christopher Halliwell, detective superintendent, the former detective superintendent Steve Fulcher, also suggested that Halliwell was a likely candidate for the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence. But again, we have never discussed Claudia Lawrence's remains. Ah, OK. Has she been declared dead? Not yet. Not yet. There are striking similarities. Is it a copycat? All we can say is that there are occasionally cases like these that somehow fascinate the nation because they're not the same. They're not the same. Because everyone wants there to be an explanation. They want to find a reason that the young woman, vibrant, happy, who gave pleasure to everyone she met, should suddenly disappear off the face of the earth only to be discovered in bits in bin bags at the side of the M5. A long time afterwards. You may remember that poor Millie Dowler wasn't discovered for six months and her body was badly affected. Not only was she affected by foxes, rodents, but virtually obliterated. Now, it has been, and again, I attribute no blame to the Avon Somerset Police. They were thorough beyond words. But quite literally, she seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. Now, one can only suspect that she must have been offered a lift. Coming out of Cadillac's nightclub. That she was probably taken somewhere. We don't know where. And that she was killed at some point. Probably quite quickly. I sincerely hope quite quickly anyway because the thought that she was kept captive is too horrifying for words. Yeah. It is a case that somehow lingers in the memory. You know, everything, thing to live for, gone. And we aren't in the same situation as the Claudia Lawrence case, because in that point she is rather older. She was, at least the North Yorkshire police suggested, that she had a rather complicated life, but they never were able to put much detail to that. She had friends in Cyprus. One of the last texts she received was from a friend in Cyprus. There was even a suggestion at one point that she simply disappeared. Then they created, about four years after Claudia's disappearance, a major crimes unit to investigate cold cases, among other things. And they took another completely fresh look at the case, but again, without any convincing resolution. I think, like Susie Lamplew, there are cases like this, like Jill Dando, that somehow stick in your mind. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm about to go and see Serrano de Bergerac. Oh, very good. The James McAvoy. Yes. Supposed to be good. It's meant to be amazing. It's the last day today. I love to go to the last matinee. Yeah, lots of people have said it's amazing. So I'm looking forward to that. So that's where you're taking yourself off to this afternoon. Yes. Well done. My ticket was incredibly expensive. Theatre is a very elitist game. It is very, very expensive. What am I doing? No, I don't think I'm doing anything very exciting. You're looking after Betsy for me while I go to the theatre. Yes, I'm looking after Betsy. Betsy is very welcome, as ever. And we won't make her wear a hat. No, don't make her wear a hat. Not today. Or walk in the rain. Betsy's not keen on walking in the rain. No. So she has to be carried a lot of the time in this weather. Well, I can see she's a bit low to the ground, isn't she, to be perfectly honest? She gets very damp. Did you see an article the other day that a dog had got coronavirus? Yes, I did. That is not good. Nope. I immediately thought of Betsy. I know. Me too. What am I doing? I'm doing some reviews. I've got some reviews to do this week for my column for the Daily Mail. And I'm preparing another podcast because I'm disappearing for ten days. Going on your holly bobs. Yep, I'm going to the Tunisian Sahara. That would be nice to have a change of scene. It'll be warmer than here and it won't rain very much. Yes, well, that would be delightful because this country is very damp. It is extremely damp. No one really wants to be in England at the moment. No, except Emma Thompson has now swapped damp England for damp Venice. The Dame Emma Thompson has moved to Venice. Oh, has she? How nice. It's the front page of the papers this morning. I really love Venice. Yes, I like Venice too, but it is a bit congested these days, especially in the summer. Very true. A good time to go to Venice is November when it's very misty and cold. Very moody. Very, very moody. Moody Venice. I bought a wonderful jacket in Venice once. Very, very nice jacket. I have a very funny picture of you in Venice standing by the canal looking really miserable. Yes. I'm not miserable all the time. No, it was just a funny picture. I think it was just a bit cold and damp. We ought to thank everyone. Yes, thank you so much to our. Thank you to our producer, Poppy Damon, to Audioboom for hosting us, my brother, Dan, who does the music, my friend, George, who drew our picture, my friend, Hannah, who helps us with all things podcast, my friend, Barney, who helps us with the sound. We need more help. And to you, Geoffrey, for doing all the hard work and telling the stories. It's a pleasure. And as I say every week, do be careful out there. Real talent is defined by what people can do. Not where they learn to do it. Skills First Hiring helps you see talent others miss. Like more than 70 million stars skilled through alternative routes. Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage. Because hiring managers who start with skills are 60% more likely to find a successful hire. Hire Skills First. 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