Man charged with murder of Lesley Molseed

Date published: 06/11/2006

Officers investigating the murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed, whose body was found  in October 1975, arrested a 53-year-old man, named in reports as Ronald Castree a market trader from Oldham, on Sunday 5 November in connection with her death.

Lesley had left her home in Turf Hill at about noon on Sunday, 5 October, 1975, to buy bread and an air freshener from a local shop for her mother, April Garrett. Her body was found dumped on the moors above Ripponden in West Yorkshire. She had been stabbed 12 times and then sexually assaulted. The brutal killing outraged local people.

In the ensuing investigation police spoke to more than 12,000 people and took nearly 5000 statements.

Local man Stefan Kiszko was wrongly convicted of the (sexual) murder of Lesley in 1976, Mr Kiszko spent 16 years in prison until he was released in 1992. He died of a heart attack the following year at his mother's home aged 44; his mother, who had waged a long campaign to prove her son's innocence, died six months later.

Stefan Kiszko suffered from XYY syndrome, a condition in which the human male has an extra Y chromosome. Such males are normal except for - sometimes slight - growth abnormalities and minor behavioural abnormalities.

One of Stefan Kiszko's 'behavioural abnormalities' was jotting down the registration numbers of a car if he had been annoyed by the driver. This led, in part, to his wrongful conviction - he had at some point prior to the murder unwittingly jotted down the number of a car seen near the scene of the crime. It was argued that only someone at the scene could have known the number of this car.

As part of his condition Stefan Kiszko would have been physically incapable of the sex crime of which he was convicted; the semen found on Lesley's body contained heads of sperm - which Mr Kiszko could not possibly have produced as he was infertile. Something which was never disclosed to his defence.

After Mr Kisko's release detectives reopened the case and named Raymond Hewlett as a prime suspect. Lesley's family, including her father Fred Anderson, her mother and her sister Julie demanded access to police evidence so they could consider a private prosecution against Mr Hewlett. However, although Mr Hewlett was never traced, samples of his DNA held by police eliminated him from the enquiry.

West Yorkshire police have confirmed the man, who was arrested in connection with a separate matter, for which he was subsequently cleared, but officers took a DNA sample, is still being questioned.

UPDATE

Monday 7 November, 2006

A 53-year-old man has been charged with murder and is due to appear at Calderdale Magistrates Court on Tuesday 7 November.