This podcast includes descriptions of sexual violence and murder.

Listener discretion is advised.

Young girls shouldn't get murdered on the streets of Bath, should they?

A crazed knife attack on a young girl in 1984 left a city stunned and police on the hunt for a man who seemingly just disappeared.

But who was he?

Who was she with? And who had she been with? The boyfriend and some friends.

A local man or a psychopath passing through, an ex-con from abroad or a first-time killer.

I know in the bail hostel there were people who'd been serving life imprisonment for murder, rape.

What were those people doing at that time of night? A trail of blood leading from the murder

scene, showing a getaway. But if police map and analyse it, will this lead them to the killer?

Alibis are only as good as people are prepared to lie.

Within hours of Melanie Rhodes' body being found, the scene was swarming with officers,

scenes of crime teams, forensics, house to house.

The word started spreading in this genteel city

that something awful had happened.

I'm watching a video from that time.

Police investigators filmed it on the 9th of June 1984.

It's a bright sunny day in the landsdown suburb, the city of Bath.

There's a set of yellow brick, single-story garages. In front a blue and white forensics tent.

The cameraman zooms in now to a small pool of blood on the ground. Now the shot cuts away to the top

of a small wall upon which sits a set of bright new-looking keys attached to a fob which says Melanie.

Next to this lies an eyeliner.

...