THE investigation to find the killer of Rachel Wilson was one of the largest and most complex carried out by Cleveland Police.
It took almost 20 years for them to bring Keith Hall to justice after they sifted through 20,000 hours of CCTV, 4,825 statements, 6,526 exhibits and dedicated 572,000 hours over the course of the investigation.
Detectives described the 62-year-old as a manipulative and controlling man who preyed on the vulnerable teenager and took advantage of her by making her work as a prostitute to fund their crack cocaine habit.
Hall targeted Rachel when she was around 15 -years-old and eventually managed to distance her from her family and have her under his complete control.
Temporary Detective Superintendent Paula Dewell, who led the cold-case investigation Operation Seyton, branded the killer as ‘arrogant’ as he repeatedly lied to officers as the net closed in on him.
She said: “The thing that was the real clincher, because it was a circumstantial case that we were trying to build on and build on, was the confessional evidence. There were five or six key witnesses who came forward and very bravely gave an account of their experiences with Keith Hall and when you brought all of that together, that was what brought us to the point where we could charge.
“We couldn’t establish a cause of death because the remains were just skeletal and there was no forensic evidence left at the scene. So, whilst it was a significant development to find somebody who has been missing for ten years, it didn’t give us the lines of inquiry we thought we would get.”
Hall, a married father-of-four, was the father of Rachel’s boyfriend he first met the teenager and eventually managed to split the pair up before starting to exploit her at her most vulnerable.
By 2000, the 17-year-old was addicted to crack cocaine and being forced to work the streets of Middlesbrough to fund their drug habit.
As her life spiralled out of control she made repeated efforts to escape the grasp of Hall but as detectives say, ‘he wasn’t afraid of using violence against her’ and witnesses said he used physical and psychological abuse to exploit her for money and drugs.
In May 2002, Hall was living in a bedsit on Southfield Road, Middlesbrough, close to where Rachel regularly worked the streets and by the end of the month she had disappeared without a trace.
The day before she vanished May 30, 2002, Rachel had spent the day with her family at Crows Fair on Clairville Common and detectives believe it was the teenager’s attempts to reconnect with them they could have resulted in her death.
The last time she was caught on CCTV was at 7.22am the following morning as she walked along Woodlands Road in the direction of Southfield Road.
Despite countless appeals and thousands of hours of sifting through evidence police were unable to find the breakthrough they required.
Even the discovery of Rachel’s body in a drainage ditch at Newham Hall Farm, on the outskirts of Middlesbrough, on June 27, 2012, didn’t lead to a breakthrough as there was no forensic evidence discovered at the site.
Two years later, Hall was identified as the key suspect and when he was arrested police recovered a number of items which he had kept secret for 12 years.
They found a lock of Rachel’s hair inside his wallet which he was unable to explain away and a note written on a piece of paper which she had dropped off at his Southfield Road flat.
Officers were eventually able to link a purple Vauxhall Combo van to Hall through CCTV footage captured on Friday May 31 when Rachel went missing and on Sunday June 2 when they believe that he dumped her remains.
Several witnesses over the years described conversations with Hall where he made incriminating comments about what had happened to Rachel and their evidence played a key role in finally bringing him to justice.
Det Supt Dewell said: “A lot of witnesses we spoke to were in the sex industry and didn’t want to go back and relive some of the worst periods of their life, so it was very difficult but thankfully, some very brave people came forward and told their story.”
In December 2019, Hall was charged with murder, living off immoral earnings and perverting the course of justice.
After almost 20 years he finally accepted responsibility for killing Rachel and pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the day his trial was due to start in May this year.
Det Supt Dewell said: “It is difficult to feel any sense of happiness with this result when at the heart of this enquiry is a 19-year-old vulnerable girl who lost her life in extremely tragic circumstances.
“Keith Hall thought he had fooled everyone and escaped justice but he didn’t. He will now spend a significant period of time in prison for his crimes.”
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