WHEN Melanie Road was stabbed to death on her way home from a night out in Bath in 1984, the police trail soon went cold.
It would take 32 years, and the unwavering efforts of tenacious cop Julie Mackay, to catch the 17-year-old’s killer.
In 2016, Christopher Hampton pleaded guilty to Melanie’s murder and was sentenced to life in jail after police linked DNA from the crime to a sample his daughter had given when arrested for a minor incident.
Ten years later, mum-of-three Julie – who wrote a book about the case – is now the inspiration behind hit ITV1 drama Gone.
It sees a cat-and-mouse game between cop Annie Cassidy, played by Eve Myles, and headteacher Michael Polly (David Morrissey), who is suspected of killing his wife Sarah.
The 52-year-old former Detective Superintendent said: “I joined the Avon & Somerset Police cold case unit 25 years after Melanie’s death.
“They’d just done a huge appeal on Crimewatch. I just had a gut instinct that I was going to find the killer.
“It took another six years, and a lot of sweat and tears, before we eventually found him through familial DNA, which was just another way of approaching it because we didn’t know who he was.”
Julie wrote about the case in To Hunt A Killer, which the ITV series is loosely based on.
The six-parter is leaving viewers on the edge of their seats as they watch determined Det Sgt Annie follow her instincts to catch the killer.
Melanie was stabbed 26 times as she made her way home from a nightclub but, more than two decades later, the hunt for her killer was never going to be easy.
“Melanie’s case was exceptional,” said Julie. “I didn’t know if the killer was going to be dead or alive.
“I was just really convinced. And I told people we were going to find him.”
Years of painstaking work and many setbacks followed for Julie and her team, but they never gave up hope.
She said: “I’d go, ‘This is what we’re going to do this week to try and find him’, and of course that would never work.
“And then a couple of months later, you have another idea about something you might do to find him and that wouldn’t work. And so it went on.
“The instinct inside me that I was going to find Melanie’s killer was an overriding one, from when I just started working on the case until the day when we caught him.”
News of the breakthrough came while Julie was on annual leave — and her first thought was for the tragic teenager.
She said: “There was just this overwhelming feeling of, ‘We’ve done it for you, Melanie. After all this time, we’ve finally done it’. To this day, I’ll never forget that feeling — and then I was able to tell her mum, Jean, and I have become great friends with her. She said, ‘Oh Julie, I’d seen you on the court steps two weeks ago [for another homicide]. I thought, ‘One day, Julie’s going to be on those court steps for me and my Melanie’ – and here you are’.
“It doesn’t take away their trauma but it does matter to know who’s responsible.”
That care and compassion is mirrored in Gone’s Annie.
Alongside the main case of murdered Sarah Polly, Annie is investigating the disappearance of a woman called Tina Bradley who has been missing for several years.
Over time, Annie has grown close to Tina’s mother, but as her focus is centred on Sarah’s case, Tina’s mum begins to lose faith in her.
Annie is then assigned as liaison officer to the Polly family, having been overlooked as the investigator in the case.
It is something Julie has faced throughout her career, too. “I was unsuccessful at promotion more times than I was successful, for different reasons,” she said.
“It was hard getting there, like it is for Annie.”
Julie was delighted with the casting of Welsh actress Eve.
The pair bonded on set and Julie was bowled over by Eve’s performance.
“I was just so privileged to have met Eve and spent a bit of time with her,” said Julie. “What a phenomenal actress she is.
“Eve was asking lots of different questions about different things. It was nice to be able to support her to do such an amazing job.
“She’s just very lovely. She’s also a working mum – she’s got three kids, she’s busy, and all those other things that we can relate to.
“It’s so good to have an amazing leading woman.”
Julie and her book co-author Robert Murphy acted as consultants on the TV series, and both bagged cameos, too.
But Julie is not actually a fan of true-to-life crime dramas.
She said: “I like the nonsense shows, like Midsomer Murders, where it’s ridiculous and you can switch off. But Gone had me gripped.
“It’s good to be able to work with such amazing people and to watch this story unfold because I have no influence over the story.
“They would just ring me up and say, ‘Oh, so if this happened, what do you think the police would be doing?’
“We had a lot of conversations that were sort of in the margins without really knowing how it was going to unfold.”
In the first three episodes, Annie can be seen getting to grips with formidable headmaster Michael, who is the prime suspect in his wife’s murder.
Stoic and stern, his cold demeanour puts him in the frame — but did he actually commit the crime?
Julie says she has encountered many characters like Michael, and gives her verdict on his suspicious behaviour.
She mused: “I’m watching it and thinking, ‘You’re a difficult person to deal with because you’re not giving me anything’.
“And of course, as a detective, what you want is for the person there to tell you what’s going on.
“And as it goes on through the series, it does eventually sort of unfold a little bit and give the insight as to what it was really like in their relationship.
“But at the beginning, that is absolutely not there and you can almost feel the barriers that are up.
“Absolutely, I have encountered people like him. But you can say or do whatever you like, at the end of the day, the truth generally does come out, however you portray yourself.”
With episode four airing tonight, fans will be hoping the net is closing in on the killer and that they will soon get some answers.
But there were not always answers on a number of the cases which Julie worked on during her four-decade career.
The unsolved death of Keith Burgess, who was murdered in his flat in Redland in Bristol in 1989, sticks with her.
“That was the very first murder I went to work on and that has never been solved,” she said.
“I’ve looked at that again when I was in the cold case team and sadly, we’ve not had any developments. It’s a tragedy, partly because it was the first murder case that I ever had any insight into.”
Julie also recalls the case of Melanie Hall, who was killed 12 years to the day after Melanie Road in 1996.
Hall, 25, was also last seen alive at a nightclub in Bath.
Her body was later discovered in October 2009, wrapped in bin bags beside the M5.
Julie said: “It was unbelievably coincidental – two Melanies, same day, 12 years apart.
“I know they’re still hopeful that they might get that breakthrough, even though that’s 30 years on now.
“I’m just always really sorry for the families of those people who definitely deserve to find out who was responsible, but haven’t yet.”
- Gone continues tonight on ITV1 at 9pm.
