Murder of Leanne Tiernan

Leanne Tiernan (27September 1984– 26November 2000), a pupil at West Leeds High School, was last seen alive at 4:50p.m. on 26November 2000 when she and her friend, 15-year-old Sarah Whitehouse, returned to Bramley by bus after a shopping trip to Leeds city centre.

The girls parted company at Houghley Lane, and Whitehouse last saw her setting off along an unlit path through an area of wooded wasteland known as Houghley Gill.

When Whitehouse arrived home, she telephoned Tiernan's home and was surprised to find she was not there.

At 5:20p.m., Tiernan's mother rang her mobile phone to find out where she was, but the phone rang out for some time and then cut off.

When she rang it again, it was cut off after four rings.

At 7:00p.m., she rang the police and reported her daughter as a missing person.

The police immediately began a missing person inquiry, headed by Detective Superintendent Chris Gregg, and a search of the area where Tiernan was last seen was undertaken, although no trace of her was found.

As the inquiry progressed, it became one of the largest ever undertaken by West Yorkshire Police, involving up to 200 officers and hundreds of volunteers.

More than 1,400 house-to-house inquiries were conducted, and 800 houses along her probable route — designated by the police as "Red Route" — were searched, along with 800 sheds, garages and outbuildings and 150 commercial premises within a half-mile radius of Houghley Gill.

DNA samples were taken from 140 men interviewed by the police in connection with the inquiry and twelve search warrants were executed at various addresses in Leeds.

The West Yorkshire Police Underwater Search unit carried out a search of a three-mile section of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal between Spring Garden lock and Bramley Falls, two miles of which was drained to a depth of one metre.

The unit also searched thirty-two drain shafts in the area and Yorkshire Water were called in to help locate disused and abandoned drains and wells.

Collections of household waste were halted temporarily to allow police to search all bins in the area for evidence.

The inquiry also received assistance from British Waterways, British Transport Police, the Ministry of Defence’s aerial reconnaissance department, Calder Valley Search and Rescue Team, Interpol and the Police National Search Centre, a joint police and military training facility.

At the end of his trial, the police officers who brought him to justice spoke of their belief that he may have been responsible for other unsolved murders, including the 1992 murder of Yvonne Fitt, a Bradford sex worker.

The murder of Leanne Tiernan was a high-profile English child murder involving a 16-year-old schoolgirl who was abducted less than one mile from her home on 26November 2000 while returning from a Christmas shopping trip in Leeds, West Yorkshire, and subsequently murdered.

The missing person inquiry which followed was one of the largest in the history of West Yorkshire Police, involving the search of around 1,750 buildings, underwater searches of thirty-two drainage wells, the draining of a two-mile section of a canal and the halting of household waste collections.

On 3December 2000 police staged a reconstruction of the girls' last movements, reenacted by Sarah Whitehouse and Tiernan's older sister Michelle, in the hope of jogging the memory of potential witnesses about Leanne's movements.

Detectives also sent text messages to Tiernan's mobile phone, which was now switched off, but had briefly been activated on 27November 2000.

A local businessman offered a £10,000 reward for information leading to her safe return, and supermarket chain Iceland printed her picture and details on milk cartons sold at its stores nationwide.

There were unconfirmed reports of sightings as far away as Doncaster and Blackpool, but after nine months, there had been no positive sightings.

Leanne's boyfriend, care assistant Wayne Keeley, 19, pleaded with her to get in touch.

On4 December 2000 police released an E-FIT facial composite of a man who had been seen walking a dog in the Houghley Gill area shortly before Tiernan disappeared.

He was described as being "5 feet 8 inches tall and of stocky build with a round, reddish face that may possibly be scarred... wearing a black woollen hat, a three-quarter-length waterproof jacket and dirty jeans."

Leanne's body was discovered on 20August 2001 in dense woodland just 50 yards from a busy car park at Lindley Woods near Otley, on the border of North and West Yorkshire.

Following the discovery of her body, DNA samples were taken from 200 people, including family, friends and known sex offenders living in the area.

Forensic evidence led police to her killer, John Taylor, who lived only 1300 yards from Tiernan's home.

On20 August 2001, Tiernan's body was found by Mark Bisson, who was walking his two dogs in Lindley Woods, North Yorkshire, 100 yards from where another murder victim, Yvonne Fitt, had been discovered buried in 1992.

Tiernan was identified from her fingerprints on 22August 2001, and Det. Supt. Gregg announced that the inquiry had now become a murder investigation, codenamed Operation Conifer.

Tiernan's body had been wrapped inside nine green plastic bin bags secured with twine, with a black bin bag secured around her head with a leather dog collar, then placed inside a floral-patterned duvet cover.

Tiernan's Ellesse coat and black boots were not found.

Plastic cable ties had been used as a ligature to strangle her and more ties had been used to bind her hands.

A dark coloured scarf was also wrapped around her neck.

Her hair was still tied in a ponytail with the same band and hairclips that she had been wearing when she disappeared.

The state of decomposition of Tiernan's body led some forensic experts to believe that after her death she had been kept in cold storage or a freezer up until a few weeks before the body was found, in part to avoid detection and in part as a trophy.

A cryobiology expert was called in to examine the microstructure of Tiernan's cardiac tissue, and concluded that the body could have been kept frozen for some time, taking into account the air temperatures for the months between her disappearance and the discovery of the body.

Police made a public appeal for anyone who might have been in Lindley Woods recently or had information about others who regularly visited the area to come forward and contact police.

On 8July 2002 Taylor pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court to her kidnap and murder and received two life sentences, with the trial judge telling him that he should expect to spend the rest of his life in prison.

On 3April 2003, following a police review of unsolved sexual attacks in the area, Taylor pleaded guilty to two separate rapes committed before the schoolgirl's murder and received a further sentence of life imprisonment with a recommended minimum of 30 years.

As a result of the Tiernan murder inquiry, police re-opened at least ten further cold case murder investigations.