Lisa Hession murder: cold case chief makes 40th anniversary appeal

That the victim was a schoolgirl makes Sunday December 8 all the more tragic, but the head of Greater Manchester Police’s cold case unit said today that the case remains open and officers will never give up.

He also made a fresh appeal for information and reminded the public that a £50,000 reward still stands.

On December 8 1984, Lisa’s body was discovered by a member of the public at around five minutes before midnight behind Rugby Road, in Leigh.

She was 14 years old when she was sexually assaulted and fatally strangled in an alleyway, just 200 yards from her home on Bonnywell Road.

She had been walking back from a party when she was attacked.

Lisa’s mum, Christine, reported her missing when she had not returned home at her expected time of 10.30pm.

Despite police efforts and obtaining a DNA sample, which could lead them to a detection and the conviction of Lisa’s killer, they have never found a match, and no-one has ever been charged with Lisa’s murder.

Sadly Christine passed away in 2016 without the knowledge of who killed her daughter.

On the anniversary police are reappealing to the public to come forward if they think they may have seen anything unusual that night or have any information that could help with the investigation.

No matter how small or insignificant people think it may be, it could be a vital piece of the puzzle that could help solve this four-decade-long case and finally get some closure for Lisa’s family and friends, and a community that still mourns her loss.

Head of GMP’s Cold Case Unit, Martin Bottomley, said: “On what is the 40th anniversary of Lisa’s death, we want to let her loved ones, friends and the community know that we are committed to not losing hope on getting answers.

“This case has been subject to a number of reviews since 1984. The reviews have concentrated on using advances in forensic techniques and investigating all information provided to GMP by members of the public

“Lisa, a young teenager, who was a keen gymnast and ran cross-country for Leigh Harriers, had her whole life ahead of her, and somebody took that away from her.

“Her mother, Christine, never got to see her daughter grow up, and she died never knowing who killed Lisa. “Sadly, the case still remains undetected but will always be open until Lisa’s killer is brought to justice, and any information received will be followed up appropriately.

“Anyone with information can contact the GMP Cold Case Unit on 0161 856 5978. There is a £50,000 reward for information leading to the identification and conviction of the killer.

Alternatively, reports can be made anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.”

An utter tragedy followed by 40 years of frustration

It was a straightforward journey that Lisa Hession had taken on foot many times before. But the one she made on the night of Saturday December 8 1984 was to be her last.

An only child, the 14-year-old lived with mum Christine and grandma Ellen in Bonneywell Road, Leigh, and she was dating a local boy.

That day the young pair had been invited to party held by one of his friends who lived on the other side of the town centre.

The Bedford High School girl, who was described by her teachers as kind, popular and well-behaved, had been given permission by her mother to attend, but was under strict instructions to be back by 10.30pm.

Lisa spent a couple of hours at the house in Leigh Road before making her way home alone on foot.

Under normal circumstances the one-and-a-half-mile walk should not have presented any difficulties.

She was travelling along well-lit main roads and there were plenty of people around - many out on Christmas dos - for all but the last few hundred yards.

She left the party house at between 10.10pm and 10.15pm, travelling along Leigh Road into the town centre and out the other side onto St Helens Road.

Lisa was last seen alive by two customers of a takeaway on St Helens Road who watched her pass the outlet.

One of them, who then happened to be standing at the door, then also saw the teenager turn into Buck Street, which was her usual route for getting back to nearby Bonneywell Road. But Lisa never arrived home.

At 10.45pm Christine began to worry and went out to look for her daughter in the surrounding streets.

It was all the more worrying for Christine because it was out of character for Lisa not to be punctual.

The search was fruitless so she went back home and waited a short while. But as panic increased then Christine went out searching a second time, again to no effect.

At around 11.30pm she rang the police to raise the alarm.

Just 20 minutes later, at 11.50pm, a local man walking his dog down a dark alley behind Rugby Road (which runs parallel with Bonneywell Road) found Lisa collapsed. It was only a short distance from the youngster’s home.

He tried to keep her warm and telephoned for an ambulance which took her to hospital, but there was nothing medics could do for her.

Christine had been asked to accompany officers to the hospital at virtually the same time and the devastating news was broken to her that her beloved daughter had died. She would later face the trauma of having to identify her child’s body.

It was obvious from the outset that Lisa had been the victim of an attack rather than an accident or some kind of medical episode.

An incident room was set up at Leigh police station and post-mortem examination revealed that Lisa had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

The man put in charge of the investigation - Det Supt Terence Millard - would later tell an inquest that he believed Lisa had been manhandled down the back alley, although he could not determine whether the person responsible intended to assault or rape her.

He added: “I think her attacker had a one-handed grip on her clothing while putting the other hand over her mouth.”

No witnesses every reported screams or even sounds of a scuffle. As a “best guess” police believe the killer choked Lisa to silence her after the sexual assault.

Initial inquiries focused on footprints left in the muddy alleyway although these would come to nothing.

More than 90 officers were drafted in to join the manhunt and queues formed outside a special mobile unit set up near the scene as people offered information that they hoped would help catch the killer.

No fewer than 1,300 addresses were visited during house-to-house inquiries, interviews were given and appeals issued in the local and national media. And a week to the day after the tragedy - on Saturday December 15 - a reconstruction of Lisa’s journey was conducted using another local schoolgirl.

But despite many people’s willingness to help there were no obvious suspects.

No-one was seen following Lisa by the takeaway witnesses, no-one was reported loitering suspiciously in the vicinity of the murder scene on the night in question, and to this day there has never been a description issued of a prime suspect.

Names have been ventured by various sources but all suspects have either been eliminated from inquiries or it has been decided that there was simply insufficient evidence to prosecute after exhaustive investigations.

If a conviction ever is to be achieved, the likeliest breakthroughs are to be either from a key witness breaking their silence or a technological one.

From the outset detectives had DNA and, as science advances, these samples have been put to regular re-testing.

Back in 2011 police spent many months taking swabs from local men yet again.

But they, like other lines of inquiry, drew a blank.

So too did a revisting of the mystery on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme in 2005, despite the studio and incident room’s taking dozens of calls and officers’ pursuing 95 new lines of inquiry.

Cold case review officers are not discounting links though with a series of indecent assaults on girls and young women which all happened in streets on the southern side of Leigh town centre between August and December 1984 but which suddenly stopped when Lisa died.

Police say the modus operandi did differ to a degree from what happened to her and they were never able to make forensic links with the murder, but there were certainly enough similarities not to discount them.

The first attack was on a 20-year-old woman on Rugby Road in the August of 1984, the second saw a 16-year-old attacked in Central Avenue in the September and a third - when a 17-year-old was set upon in Mather Lane - happened just a day before Lisa’s death.

No-one was ever successfully prosecuted for those crimes either.