Murder of Rachel McLean

Rachel Margaret McLean (1971–1991) was a British student at St. Hilda's College in Oxford, England, when she was murdered by her Boyfriend, John Tanner, a day after she had refused his marriage proposal.

In the aftermath, Tanner concocted ruses in an attempt to allay suspicion, and elaborated a series of lies in an attempt to confuse the crime investigation and outwit the police.

McLean, who was born in the English town of Blackpool and raised in nearby Carleton, was a second-year student studying English Language at St. Hilda's when Tanner, a 22-year-old British-born New Zealand national, strangled her on 14 April 1991 and hid her body under the floorboards of her house.

On the evening of 13 April 1991, Tanner was due to arrive in Oxford by train at 6pm.

McLean, 19 years old, went to meet him at the station.

Discovering that the train had been delayed, she returned home.

At around 7.30pm, Tanner arrived at the house by taxi.

The following day was FA Cup semi-finals day in football, and McLean and Tanner, an avid Nottingham Forest fan, planned to spend the day at home.

She studied in the front room while he watched the game on television.

Afterwards, the couple were seen by neighbours outside the house at around 4.30pm, which was the last time McLean was seen alive.

Later that evening, Tanner strangled McLean, then forced her head face down and tied a ligature around her neck.

In his confession, Tanner told detectives that he spent several hours looking for a hiding place for the body in the house.

It took police searchers seventeen days to locate the body hidden in an eight-inch-high gap at the back of a cupboard under the stairs, crammed with household junk.

After emptying the cupboard's contents, Tanner had dragged McLean's body, clothed in ski pants and a T-shirt, from the adjacent bedroom, along the hall, and into the recess under the floor.

He then crawled along under the hallway to hide the body under the floorboards of her bedroom.

Tanner left the house the next day to return to Nottingham, where he was a classics student at the city's University of Nottingham.

He was seen by a passenger on the 5pm bus bound for Oxford railway station.

As he waited for the 6.30pm train to Nottingham, Tanner penned a love letter to McLean, which he later posted to her 25 Argyle Street address.

In the letter, he stated how fortunate it was she had been met by a long-haired man who had offered her a lift home from the station when they were going their separate ways.

On 16 April, Tanner telephoned Rachel's home but there was no answer.

He tried again the following evening and was answered by Victoria Clare, McLean's 20-year-old housemate.

Tanner asked to speak to McLean, but Clare said she knew nothing of her whereabouts.

Tanner's letter arrived on 18 April, and Tanner called the house again that evening, asking for McLean.

By 19 April, five days after she was last seen, McLean's friends had begun to wonder where she was.

She was due to attend a meeting with her tutor that morning to discuss work for the new term and sit a pre-term exam at St. Hilda's in the afternoon.

A phone call to McLean's family in Lancashire confirmed that she had been left in Oxford the previous weekend.

College authorities notified police about McLean's apparent disappearance.

Initially, the inquiry was low-key, as Oxford police received dozens of reports of missing students every month.

McLean's description – 5 ft 6 in tall, slim, fresh complexion, shoulder-length ginger-auburn hair and brown eyes – was circulated to local patrols.

On 21 April, after the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) took control of the inquiry, an initial search of McLean's house was made by detectives.

There was nothing to suggest she had come to any harm at the house; an examination of the floorboards showed they had not been tampered with.

McLean's disappearance was made public knowledge on 22 April.

Tanner spoke from his home in Lenton, Nottingham, and said how he had given McLean a farewell kiss on platform 2 of Oxford railway station as he boarded his train home.

He also explained how he and McLean had been joined by a long-haired man as they sat drinking coffee in the station concourse.

He said the stranger seemed to know McLean well and offered her a lift home.

McLean's parents, Joan and Malcolm, took part in a press conference on 24 April and appealed for help in finding their daughter.

Police had briefed journalists at the conference to pose questions to Tanner that would ultimately reinforce their suspicion that Tanner was involved in the disappearance.

Meanwhile, searches continued around Argyle Street and nearby scrubland, and police frogmen dragged the River Cherwell.

Police issued a photofit picture of the man whom Tanner claimed to have met at Oxford station, but nobody came forward to place him at the station with McLean and Tanner.

By 28 April, police were now convinced that McLean was dead, and ordered search teams to examine sewers and cess pits around the area of Argyle Street.