The Sun doubles £50k sum offered by parents of Melanie Hall to find her killer
THE SUN today offers £50,000 to double the reward to catch the killer of Melanie Hall who was murdered after going missing 20-years ago.
Her parents Steve and Pat put up their £50,000 life-savings and now The Sun has matched it - making the £100,000 reward one of the biggest ever in British criminal justice history.
Blonde university graduate Melanie was 25 when she was last seen at a nightclub in Bath, Somerset, on June 9, 1996.
Her battered remains were found 13 years later dumped by a motorway slip road. Her killer has never been caught.
But after crucial DNA evidence was found at the scene, the Halls are now hoping a conviction is within reach.
Today they reveal the torture they have been through since Melanie’s death and how they pray her murderer is brought to justice before they die.
SHE had graduated from university, found a job she liked, a successful wealthy boyfriend, a loving family, and a new home.
As a bright, vivacious 25-year-old she had everything to look forward to.
But after going out one summer evening to celebrate a friend’s birthday, Melanie Hall never returned.
Her brave parents Steve, 72, and Pat, 71, have spent the last 20 years agonising over what happened to their beloved daughter.
In desperation, they are now putting up their life savings as reward to help catch her killer and find the answers to questions that have haunted them for two decades.
Retired builder and lecturer Steve said: “We are willing to put up everything we had.
“We have a crusade in Melanie’s name to bring to justice her killer, and we are doing everything we can within our means to support the police in doing this.
“It’s a huge amount of our savings and we are giving up our security to make this happen.
“This is money that was originally set aside to help us in old age and help us if we were ill and help our surviving daughter and grandchildren get started in life.
“This is our family finance we’ve put at risk here because this is the last thing we can do to help catch Melanie’s killer.”
Steve, who was chairman of Bath Football Club and now runs painting courses, added: “Getting justice for Melanie is more important than material things.
“Losing a huge amount of our life savings like this is the price we are willing to pay so that we can nail her killer before we die.
“This crusade is worth more than money to us.
“We would rather die poor than not know who killed Melanie.”
Before her disappearance, Melanie had got a job working at the Royal United Hospital in Bath where mum Pat was a nurse.
There she met a German surgeon called Philip Karlbaum and the pair struck up a romance and Melanie was about to move into her new house bought by her parents.
Steve, who has been married to Pat for 48 years, aid: “She was very excited, this was a girl who had everything in front of her.
“She was absolutely bubbling, it was the pinnacle of her youth.”
On the Friday before she vanished, Pat had driven her to Philip’s flat in the city.
Melanie had plans to stay with him that evening, before going to a colleague’s birthday party the following night.
Pat said: “I just said ‘Have a lovely time’.
“That was the last time I spoke to her. I didn’t need to tell her I loved her.
“She knew we loved her, we didn’t have to say I love you, she knew it.”
The following evening Melanie went out with Philip to the party. It finished early and a few decided to go to a nightclub in the city called Cadillacs.
But Philip left the club after being angered at Melanie dancing with another man. Melanie was never seen again.
Steve said: “Philip left the club to get some money, when he came back Melanie was dancing with someone else and he decided he would leave.
Melanie’s other friends left and saw that Philip’s car had gone.
“She was left alone in the nightclub.
“Melanie wasn’t flirtatious, Philip didn’t want to be there. For some reason he came back and was disenchanted with things and left.
“It’s not something most people would’ve done but he was typically Teutonic and if things weren’t to order - well perhaps that’s the way he saw it.
“We never saw him straight after, we didn’t want to speak to him.”
Her parents had assumed she would stay with Philip on Friday and Saturday but might pop in to see her new house on Sunday but she never arrived.
Steve said: “At eight o clock we drove down to Bath police station.
“I remember driving down and thinking for the first time perhaps I will never see her again, that crossed my mind but I didn’t say it to Pat.
“We were caught up in the moment, it’s like a car accident, suddenly there’s a lot going on and it takes you over. Once we had gone to the police station things happened quite quickly.
“The police came to us that evening and we were being overtaken by events.
“They searched here in the garden til midnight and came back the next morning, it was full scale and all kicked in.”
Pat said: “We slept on and off. I was lucky I had a job to go to, in the hospital and everyone knew Melanie, everybody waved to her, I got a lot of support.
“I decided to carry on going to work because there was nothing I could do.”
Steve said: “One of the hardest things is the helplessness, not being able to do anything.
“We were working on the house all day, it was surreal.
“Just round the corner was a newsagent and every lunchtime we would buy a sandwich and a paper, and Melanie was all over the paper.
“We would come home at night and see police officers searching under hedges and in dustbins in the city.
“It was surreal, you couldn’t understand it was your daughter. It was almost like you were looking in on it, I couldn’t get my head round it.
“The first few weeks, if I had taken in the awfulness of it, I don’t know what I would have done.
“I remember thinking I wish I could wake up dead.”
After Melanie’s disappearance Dr Karlbaum left the UK and returned to Germany.
He was arrested in January 1997 and was quizzed all day while his car was stripped for forensic examination but was later released.
He refused to speak publicly about that night.
When The Sun tracked him down in 1998 he said: “When I was arrested I was overwhelmed.
“I can understand how awful this must be for Melanie’s parents. But I had nothing to do with her disappearance.”
Dr Karlbaum, 53, works as a GP and is married to wife Joanna, 46, and they live in Cheltenham, Glos.
Steve said: “We tried not to have any theories.
Personal plea by Mel's dad
I’m appealing personally to someone out there who knows what has happened to my daughter Melanie.
Whoever that person is, you and I have a bond between us.
I have the terrible agony of having lost a daughter, brutally murdered on the streets of Bath, you know what has happened or know the people who have been involved in Melanie’s demise.
I want to share with you my agony in a way that is positive and that will help you and will help me.
If you come forward with the information that will help me find the killer of my daughter, I in return want to help you reshape your life with a financial reward.
In association with The Sun newspaper we’re looking at a sum of £100,000.
That is a lot of money that can change your life for the better and that will happen if you help me with information.
So I appeal to you come forward tell me what you know about the demise of my daughter and I will help you shape your life for the future.
ends
“If you go down the what if scenario; what if we hadn’t moved here, what if she hadn’t gone out that night, what if she hadn’t met Philip?
“There’s a temptation. I must admit, you do get a few people saying ‘I’m sure the doctor did it’ or ‘I’m sure this happened’ and that was no help at all.
“One of the things we found very annoying was people playing amateur detectives. It’s not a bloody Morse programme to us.”
Pat said: “I obviously knew something terrible had happened to her, you know how much she was loved and lived here happily so there must have been something seriously wrong or she would have phoned for help.”
The Halls believe Melanie probably met her killer in or after leaving the club.
Steve added: “I assume she came into contact with someone who might have offered to help her, an offer she might have accepted, which then went horribly wrong.
“I won’t let my imagination go beyond that supposition because I don’t know, simple as that.
“Whatever happened wasn’t very pleasant we know that from the injuries.”
“She was very unlucky and met the wrong person at the wrong time.
In the aftermath of Melanie’s disappearance cops questioned some 900 clubbers and 1200 taxi drivers in an extensive investigation.
But frustratingly nothing came of the inquiries.
Steve and Pat feel time is now not on their side and they are desperate to find the killer.
Steve said: “We were younger then, we’re not young now.
“We want to see this through for Melanie before we pop our clogs.
“If someone is found and convicted we’re not going to feel any better, the only thing which will make us feel better is to get our daughter back and that not going to happen.
“But we feel we have an obligation to Melanie as her parents to get justice for her.
“There’s a feeling of an eye for an eye over this. It doesn’t bring Melanie back, but there’s a sense of justice by finding who did it and get a conviction.
“There won’t be a sense of closure, there never will be.
“We will carry our grief to our dying day.
“It marks the last thing we can physically do on behalf of Melanie as her parents, closure for the incident but not closure for us as people.”
Forcing back tears Pat said: “The only thing we can do is hope to find who it was who did what they did to her.
“And to be left by the side of the road for 13 years in a bin bag with no clothes, you wouldn’t do that to your dog.
Steve added: “Dark moments come and go, grief is a very personal thing, it just catches me out when I’m on my own driving and you can feel tears welling up thinking about Melanie, and I’m cross with myself because I’ve let the genie out of the box.
“The anniversaries are stressful but they’re not particularly the worst times.”
In January this year it was said that serial killer Levi Bellfield, 47, could be quizzed over Melanie’s murder after confessions he made while in jail but he family believe he is “playing games.”
Earlier this month the Halls received fresh hope after the detectives revealed they had found DNA at the scene and are close to completing a DNA profile of the killer.
That could be used to search the national DNA database, even potentially tracking the murderer through their family.
TIMELINE OF 20-YEAR MYSTERY
JUNE 9, 1996: Melanie vanishes after leaving Cadillacs nightclub in Bath just after 1am.
JUNE 14, 1996: Halls make a public “Let our daughter go” plea to abductor.
AUGUST 1999: Cops drag River Avon in Bath after new information is received.
MARCH 2003: Two men in their 30s quizzed over murder. Cops search pig farm.
NOVEMBER 2004: Melanie is legally declared dead.
OCTOBER 2009: Melanie’s body is found next to M5 slip road and Crimewatch launch fresh appeal.
DECEMBER 2009: Melanie’s funeral is held at Bath Abbey, 1,000 people attend.
SEPTEMBER 2010: Man, 39, arrested and bailed a day later.
MARCH 2011: Melanie’s death linked to taxi driver killer Christopher Halliwell.
OCTOBER 2013: A 45-year-old man is quizzed. Cops pass file to CPS but no charge is brought.
JANUARY 2016: Melanie’s murder is linked to Levi Bellfield, but dismissed.
JUNE 10, 2016: Police announce breakthrough in analysis of DNA from where Melanie’s remains were discovered. New information received following a Crimewatch appeal.
JUNE 14, 2016: Melanie’s parents offer £50,000 reward to catch her killer.
JUNE 24 2016: Man, 45, from Wiltshire quizzed and given police bail.
JULY 11, 2016: The Sun doubles reward to £100,000.
Steve said: “When Melanie was murdered the DNA found could link to a section of people. Now because of new technology we can say that it’s a billion to one chance it’s not that person.”
The breakthrough and a flurry of calls following a Crimewatch appeal has reignited the inquiry and the Halls now believe they are “within striking distance” of finding Melanie’s killer.
Steve said: “I don’t believe someone is going to come forward and say I killed Melanie Hall, but I do believe someone knew what happened or had a pretty good idea what happened or who was involved.
“I’m hopeful they will come forward.
“It could be they can’t be bothered, they are afraid they will incriminate themselves, they are in fear of revenge, or they’re unaware they could play a vital role in the investigation.
“Whatever we’ve done in the past is not sufficient to bring them forward but with the potential of £100k on the table we’re in a much better position to entice that person to change their mind than we ever have been - because that sum of money is life changing.
“I’m incredibly grateful that The Sun has matched our £50,000 because that gives it much more clout.
“I would be disappointed in two or three years’ time if we haven’t got a pending court case or are looking back haven’t got a conviction
“We just want to nail this guy now, get a conviction. Job done.”
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