The First Murders Solved Via DNA Fingerprinting — Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashcroft

In 1983, Lynda Rosemary Mann was 15 and lived in Narborough, a small village in Leicestershire. She was, in many ways, a typical teenage girl, and on November 21, she had been babysitting for a local family in the village. She wasn’t meant to be working particularly late that evening, so when she didn’t arrive home as expected, her parents and neighbours were immediately concerned and started to look for her. Unfortunately, their search ended when Lynda’s body was found the next day.

Lynda had apparently been walking home when she had made the decision to take a shortcut through an isolated footpath known locally as the Black Pad, and it was there that she had apparently been attacked, raped and strangled. The police in 1983 had very little evidence or leads in the case — they had no witnesses and the only forensic evidence they had was a semen sample found on Lynda’s body. Forensic science in 1983 was not as advanced as it is now, or even as it was by the end of the 1980s, and so all the police could learn from this evidence was that the killer had type A blood and an enzyme profile that matched only 10% of men. Unfortunately, with no other clues or leads, the police had no suspects they could even check for a matching blood type, so there was nowhere for the case to go. After several months, the case was left open and eventually went cold.