Molseed: Timeline and gallery
- October 5, 1975: Lesley Molseed, 11, disappears while running an errand for her mother. She leaves her Delamere Road, Rochdale, home for shops on the nearby Turfhill Estate around noon. An investigation is launched by West Yorkshire Police with more than 250 detectives working on the case in the first five days.
- October 8, 1975: Lesley's body is found by police on moorland above the A672 Oldham to Halifax Road, near Ripponden, at 6.45am. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed 12 times.
- December 21, 1975: Tax clerk Stefan Ivan Kiszko, 23, of Rochdale, is arrested in connection with the murder.
- December 23, 1975: A terrified Kiszko signs a police "confession" and is charged with Lesley's murder and jailed on remand at Armley Prison, Leeds.
- July 21, 1976: Following a two-week trial, Kiszko is convicted of the murder by a 10-2 majority verdict.
- July 1976: In the same month, Ronald Castree - who would later be revealed as Lesley's true killer - abducts and assaults a nine-year-old girl.
- May 25, 1978: Stefan Kiszko appeals against his conviction but is rejected.
- March 1991: Kiszko's solicitor, Campbell Malone, lobbies the Home Office for an official inquiry and his case is re-opened. Police tests prove he has a zero-sperm count and is therefore incapable of being Lesley's murderer. The evidence was unavailable at the time of his trial.
- February 18, 1992: Sixteen years after he was jailed, Kiszko's conviction is quashed and he spends nine months in rehabilitation before returning home.
- February 1992: Convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett is interviewed by police in connection with the Molseed murder but there is insufficient evidence to form a case against him.
- December 23, 1993: Stefan Kiszko dies of a heart attack, aged 41 - 18 years to the day after he signed his "confession".
- May 11, 1994: Following an inquiry into the investigation of Lesley's murder and the conviction of Stefan Kiszko, the Crown Prosecution Service issue legal proceedings against ex-detective superintendent Richard Holland, formerly of West Yorkshire Police, and Ronald Outteridge, a former forensic scientist, who were summonsed with charges of doing acts intended to pervert the course of justice.
- 1995: Magistrates decide that the matter amounts to abuse of process and should not proceed.
- 1999: Scientists launch the FSS SGM-plus profiling technique which would later lead to Castree's conviction and through which there is a billion-to-one chance of finding two unrelated people with the same genetic code. Police carry out a cold case review into the Molseed murder and the inquiry is later re-launched.
- November 2000: A scientific breakthrough. Forensics experts have compiled a DNA profile of the killer from bodily fluid left on items at the murder scene, allowing police to rule out suspects including Hewlett, Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe and child killer Robert Black.
- February 2003: Detectives make public the existence of the profile and an appeal is made on BBC's Crimewatch programme. Mouth swab samples for DNA are taken from all suspects.
- March 19, 2005: Fred Molseed, the 41-year-old brother of Lesley, is found dead in his home. Depressed, he cut his throat with a kitchen knife.
- November 5, 2006: Following a reported match on the DNA database, a 53-year-old man, later revealed as Ronald Charles Edward Castree, is arrested at his home in Brandon Crescent, Shaw, on suspicion of the murder.
- November 6, 2006: Castree is charged with the murder of Lesley Molseed between October 4, 1975 and October 9, 1975.
- April 11, 2007: Castree pleads not guilty to the murder.
- October 23, 2007: Castree's trial opens at Bradford Crown Court. The following day, Lesley Molseed's mother, April, will come face to face with her daughter's killer for the first time as she gives evidence.
- November 12, 2007: The trial jury find Castree guilty by a 10-2 majority verdict .
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