Tragic trail begain with a trip for a loaf

5 February 2003
Rochdale Observer

Timeline

• 5 October 1975: 11-year-old Lesley leaves home in Delamere Road, Turf Hill, at noon to buy a loaf of bread. She never arrives. Family and friends join the police search. 
• 8 October 1975: Lesley's fully clothed body is discovered by a motorist, who stops at a lay-by on the A627 Oldham to Halifax road. She has been stabbed 12 times. Police from Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire launch a joint operation to find her killer. Turf Hill is sealed off while officers question residents. Meanwhile more than 7,000 drivers are stopped and interviewed on the bleak moorland road in a bid to gather evidence. Police say they are looking for a man with a "sexual kink" in urgent need of mental treatment and urge the killer to give himself up. 
• 7 November 1975: Lesley's funeral is held at Rochdale Cemetery. Her father Fred Anderson and stepfather Danny Molseed help to carry the coffin. 
• 24 December 1975: Tax clerk Stefan Kiszko, of Kings Road, Rochdale, appears before Calder Magistrates Court charged with Lesley's murder. No application for bail is made and Kiszko is taken to Armley Jail in Leeds. 
• 21 July 1976: Stefan Kiszko is jailed for life at the end of an eight-day trial. Jurors return a 10-2 majority verdict after five hours of deliberation. His mother Charlotte protests his innocence outside the courtroom and said her son has "signed away his life" by making a confession in a bid to get home and see her. 
• 20 December 1991: Three appeal court judges in London release Stefan on bail to Prestwich Hospital pending a full appeal. 
• 18 January 1992: Stefan is finally cleared of murder and officers from Lancashire Police are ordered to investigate why crucial forensic evidence, which eventually proved his innocence, was not produced at trial. 
• 19 March 1992: As part of new inquiry by West Yorkshire Police, eight-year-old Emma Del La Bertouche plays Lesley in a reconstruction for BBC TV programme Crimewatch. 
• 23 December 1993: Stefan Kiszko dies and a month later West Yorkshire Police scale down the inquiry. 
• May 1995: Announcement that former Superintendent Richard Holland and forensic scientist Ronald Outteridge will not face trial on perverting the course of justice after a stipendiary magistrate rules further proceedings in the Crown Court would be an "abuse of process." 
• October 1997: A book by Manchester Evening News reporter Steve Panter, Jonathan Rose, and former policeman Trevor Wilkinson names paedophile Raymond Hewlett as Lesley's killer. 
• 5 February 2003: Detectives in Halifax announce they have uncovered new DNA evidence left at the crime scene. They appeal to the public to come forward and help them bring Lesley's murderer to justice.