Rachel - A Stolen Life

On the morning of New Year's Day 2003, my youngest daughter, Rachel, left the family home at 1.45 am. Having spent New Year's Eve celebrating with her brother Rachel had arrnaged to stay at the family home but decided instead to walk back to her own small apartment, which she shared with her long-term partner, to feed her new kittens which were home alone. Against my wishes Rachel set out on her own for the short journey, promising to call when she arrived home. It should have been no more than twenty minutes. When she didn't call and she didn't answer her mobile or landline I called the Police who mounted a search. It was two weeks before her belongings were fished out of a near by drain and another two weeks before her body was discovered. At some stage during that twenty minute walk she had been abducted a mere 200 yards from her own front door - raped and stabbed until she was dead. The perpetrator was a complete stranger to her and she to him. He had moved into the area a mere three months earlier and his apartment was visible from Rachel's own. We will never know how he lured her to his flat, all we do know is that she was killed and discovered there. Her body was found hidden in a utility cupboard where she had lain for a month in a filthy duvet cover, with her killer continuing to live in the flat. He was later tried for her murder and received life in October 2003.

Wanda Moran is Rachel's mother and lives in Hull with her family. She has written this account of Rachel's life in the hope that it will bring comfort and guidence to others faced with a simialr tragedy so that Rachel's death will not have been in vain.