Murder of Lindsay Rimer

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]

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]