This episode contains distressing themes and descriptions of sexual violence.

This podcast is intended for a mature audience.

Listener caution is advised.

Thank you. Listener caution is advised. A milkman was going about his early morning rounds in St Stephen's Court in Bath.

June 9, 1984 was a day he would never forget.

As he journeyed along his usual route, he noticed something on the ground.

He followed what appeared to be a trail of blood, which led him to the source, the body of a teenage girl.

She wasn't moving. She had been brutally stabbed a short distance from her home.

At the time, DNA testing, a tool that would soon revolutionize criminal investigations,

was still not in use. Without such a reliable method of analysis, the inquiry was exceptionally

challenging for the police to identify a suspect or make substantial headway in solving the murder.

It was not until several years later that DNA fingerprinting was first used.

Over time, this groundbreaking technology had evolved leaps and bounds,

reigniting hope for solving cold cases that had long remained dormant.

Unsolved murder cases across the United Kingdom were now being re-examined through the lens of this

revolutionary innovation.

These advancements would later prove that the trail of blood along St Stephen's Court had not in fact come from the victim.

Her murder has defined the lives of her family.

When she failed to come home in June 1984, her mother ran into the street, responding to a police officer calling her daughter's name.

We've only got to look at Melanie's photograph.

Who can do that to somebody?

It's not a man, he's a monster.

...