Murder of Lindsay Rimer

Lindsay Jo Rimer (17 February 1981 – ca. November 1994) was a British thirteen-year-old girl from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, who was murdered. She was last seen alive in Hebden Bridge on 7 November 1994, and her body was found in a canal about a mile away on 12 April 1995. Despite repeated appeals for information by police, her murder remains unsolved.

Life

Rimer lived with her parents, two sisters and her brother in the family home on Cambridge Street in Hebden Bridge. She was in Year 9 at Calder High School and was described as a "popular" pupil.[1]

Last sighting

Rimer was last seen alive on the evening of 7 November 1994. At about 10:00 p.m., she left her home to buy a packet of cornflakes from the Spar Supermarket in Crown Street. On her way to the shop she briefly stopped by a local pub, the Trades Club in Holme Street, where her mother was having a drink with a friend. Her mother asked her if she wanted to stay and have a cola with them, but Lindsay said no and continued to the shop.[2] CCTV footage from the shop showed her paying for the cornflakes at 10:22 p.m. That remains the last known sighting of Lindsay alive. She failed to return home that night, and when she did not turn up for her paper round the following morning, the alarm was raised.[3]

Initial police investigation

Police initially suspected that Rimer might have run away.[3] There was local speculation that Rimer had been having problems at home, although this was strenuously denied by her family.[2] Rimer's older sister, Katie, took part in a reconstruction of Rimer's walk to the shop and hundreds of local people joined the police in searches of the area around Hebden Bridge, but no trace of Rimer was found.[1] Parts of the Rochdale Canal and River Calder along her route home were searched but she was not found.[4]

Body found and post-mortem

Rimer's body was found by two local canal workers in the Rochdale Canal, about a mile upstream of the centre of Hebden Bridge and close to Rawden Mill lock, on 12 April 1995. It had been weighed down with a concrete boulder.[3][5] Police had previously searched parts of this canal but said after the discovery of Rimer's body that they had not searched the section where she was found.[4] Detectives admitted this had been a mistake, as the flow of the water in the canal would have taken her body upstream from Hebden Bridge towards where she was eventually found.[4]

The post-mortem was carried out later that day at Royal Halifax Royal Infirmary by Home Office pathologist Professor Mike Green. He concluded that Lindsay Rimer had probably been strangled to death. Her voicebox had been flattened against the spinal column and there were also signs of congestion across the middle of the neck muscles.[note 1] There were no signs of a sexual assault, and Green concluded that the attack had not been of a sexual nature.[6][7]

Murder inquiry

Initial considerations

Detectives believed Rimer was killed the same night she disappeared and placed in the canal by her killer a matter of hours before she was reported missing on the morning of 8 November.[4] They also believed that she had likely been killed by someone she knew.[4] She was described as a "cautious" girl who would most likely only get into a vehicle with someone she trusted.[4] The canal she was found in ran close to the street where the Rimer family lived.[4]

Continuing investigations

In the late 1990s, Rimer's murder was investigated as part of Operation Enigma, which was a national cross-force police enquiry set up to review the unsolved murders of 207 women across Britain.[8] In part it aimed to examine possible links between murders and examine whether unidentified serial killers could be at large.[8] However, Enigma ruled out the possibility of there being links between Rimer's murder and other killings.[8]

In 2000, leading forensic psychologist Richard Badcock told police that the killing may have had a sexual element to it. He asserted that she may have been killed after she rebuffed the killer's sexual advances, and also claimed that she was killed close to where her body was discovered.[9]

In the years since the discovery of Rimer's body, the police have taken hundreds of witness statements and spoken to more than 5,000 people during their investigation. Detectives have investigated a number of convicted murderers and sex offenders who were still at liberty at the time of the murder. John Taylor, jailed for life in 2002 for the murder of Leeds teenager Leanne Tiernan, and John Oswin (jailed for life in 1998 for two rapes) have both been investigated, but no evidence has been found to link either to Lindsay Rimer's murder.[3][10] In 2003 it was reported that detectives were investigating a possible link to double murderer Tony King and that they had sought out a copy of his DNA.[11] However, police subsequently stated to the press that any suggestion that King was linked to Rimer's killing was pure speculation.[12]

In 2007, crime writer Wensley Clarkson published a book claiming Francisco Arce Montes, responsible for the highly publicised murder of Caroline Dickinson, was Rimer's killer.[13] Dickinson was a 13-year-old British schoolgirl who was killed by Montes as she slept in a hostel during a visit to France with her class.[13] In the book, titled The Predator: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Clarkson said that Montes was on a hunting trip in Yorkshire on 7 November 1994 and likely abducted and murdered Rimer that night in a sexually motivated killing, since his preference was to target girls between 12 and 14.[14] However, Rimer's mother said she was "highly sceptical" of the claims and detectives working on the murder enquiry said that it was the first they had heard of it.[13] The information that Montes may have been responsible came from a retired police officer, although Clarkson refused to disclose which force the officer worked with and was unable to confirm if there was any evidence Montes was in Hebden Bridge on the day.[13] However, he said that Montes had recently been visiting York while working as a waiter at a London hotel.[13] A spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police said they would seek to establish the factual basic of the claims made in the book.[13]

Rimer's father Gordon was separately convicted of defrauding his employer's company in 2007.[15] Gordon Rimer had been working for a canal cruises company, working on the same stretch of canal Lindsay's body was found.[15]

In April 2016, it was revealed by West Yorkshire Police that a DNA profile had been obtained by a Canadian team of forensic specialists. The police were hopeful that it would lead to the identity of the killer.[16]

On 8 November 2016, an unnamed 63-year-old man from Bradford was arrested on suspicion of the murder. He was later released on police bail.[17] A second suspect, aged 68, was arrested by West Yorkshire Police on suspicion of murder on 25 April 2017 in Bradford.[18]

Subsequent theories

In 2017, retired detective sergeant John Matthews from Cleveland Police stated that a man he had questioned in connection with the murders of Tina Bell and Julie Hogg had connections to Hebden Bridge and the Rimer family. He suggested that the man, who died in 2005, should have been considered as part of the investigation into Lindsay's murder.[19][20] The man was named Vince Robson and had moved to Hebden Bridge in 1990.[20] He had worked at the Trades Club where Rimer visited shortly before she disappeared.[20]

In 2018, investigative journalists Tim Hicks and Chris Clark suggested that Lindsay Rimer could have been murdered by convicted killer Christopher Halliwell.[21] However, this can easily be disproved by police with DNA, as they have since 2016 had a full profile of Rimer's killer and already have Halliwell's DNA on file.[22]

Notes

  1. A congested muscle is one that has been inflated by having been strongly solicited and exposed to important tensions. More simply, it is obtained by the muscle having contracted over a certain duration.

See also

References

  1. "Lindsay Rimer: 10 Years On". Hebweb News. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
  2. Rimer, Geri (4 November 2006). "I don't know what happened to my daughter". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
  3. "The Murder of Lindsay Rimer". Hebweb News. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
  4. Wilkinson, Paul (14 April 1995). "Murderer tied weights to schoolgirl and dumped her in canal; Lindsay Rimer". The Times.
  5. "Police to grill killer over Lindsay death". Evening Courier. 9 July 2002.
  6. "Canal gives up its grim secret". Hebweb News. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
  7. Welch 2012, p. 133.
  8. "Police link Nickell case to serial killer cluster; Murder". Sunday Times. 19 April 1998.
  9. "Never forgotten". Yorkshire Evening Post. 1 November 2004.
  10. Herbert, Ian (23 October 2002). "Murderer questioned about sex attacks". The Independent. London. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
  11. Hudson, Neil (22 September 2003). "Costa murder suspect to be quizzed over Yorks killing". Yorkshire Evening Post.
  12. Bruce, David (24 September 2003). "Riddle of wound on Costa suspect's arm". Yorkshire Evening Post.
  13. "Lindsay's mum speaks out over murder claim". Evening Courier. 4 January 2007.
  14. Clarkson 2007, pp. 52–55.
  15. "Lindsay's dad is a benefit cheat". Evening Courier. 9 November 2007.
  16. "Lindsay Rimer death: New DNA leads in 1994 murder case". BBC News. 12 April 2016. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
  17. "Lindsay Rimer death: Man arrested over 1990s case bailed". BBC News. 9 November 2016. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  18. Jones, David (25 April 2017). "Second Bradford man arrested over Lindsay Jo Rimer murder". Bradford Telegraph and Argus. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  19. "Ex detective says police missed 'prime suspect' in Lindsay Rimer murder". Halifax Courier. 3 November 2017. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
  20. "Tina Bell murder cop reveals hunch still nagging him almost 30 years after teen's horrific death; John Matthews believes the teenager's death could be linked to another unsolved murder investigation". Evening Gazette (Middlesbrough). 3 February 2019.
  21. "CHRISTOPHER HALLIWELL: THE SECRET MURDERS PART 3". North Yorks Enquirer. 19 August 2018. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
  22. Clark & Trueman 2021, p. 174.

Bibliography

  • Clark, Chris; Trueman, Bethan (2021). "Chapter Ten: 'The Midlands Murders'". The New Millennium Serial Killer. Wakefield: Crime Publishing Network. pp. 160–178. ISBN 978-1-8384861-0-5.
  • Clarkson, Wensley (2007). "Chapter 7". The Predator: Portrait of a Global Serial Killer (Online copy). London: John Blake. pp. 51–55. ISBN 978-1-84454-290-1. Retrieved 11 March 2022.
  • Welch, Claire (2012). "Lindsay Jo Rimer". Unsolved Crimes: From the Case Files of The People and Daily Mirror. Yeovil: Haynes. pp. 132–133. ISBN 978-0-857331-75-5.
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