This podcast includes descriptions of sexual violence and murder.

Listener discretion is advised.

How do you find a killer from the past?

A man who just appeared in the night, murdered and then vanished.

Where do you start?

The murder of Melanie Road, the high school girl, attacked and stamped to death as she walked home in the early hours of the 9th of June, 1984.

Melanie was last seen alive walking along the Pulteney Bridge at 2 o'clock in the morning last Saturday.

Other detectives have come before. Some of them have gone to their grave. They're one regret of their careers, being unable to solve this.

These are the questions facing Julie Mackay, a cold case detective.

A most incredible journey.

And when I started on it, I never thought it would finish in the way it did.

It never thought it would have so many twists and turns.

She ran one of the most important historic murder inquiries in British history.

Who goes out carrying a knife?

Why was it such a frenzied attack outside on a young girl?

They had actually got away with the perfect murder.

How many men are out there doing those sort of offences?

Every man that sat next to me in a restaurant, did you kill my little sister, Melanie? The story of what happened has never been told in this depth with this access.

And to begin, we must go back in time.

It's June the 9th, 1984. We're in one of the most elegant cities in the world. Bath in the

south-west of England, a grand historic city which draws tourists from around the world. We're not

in the famous city centre, but a short distance away, in the affluent suburbs.

...