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wouldn’t talk about the case and at dinner-time my legendary appetite deserted me. For the next three days I sank into the pain of Caroline Osborne’s death, sifting through the details. With Lynda Mann I had only contemplated what questions to ask, now it was real. What could I tell the police about Caroline’s killer? It clearly wasn’t an act of the moment - the bindings and the knife were brought along for the purpose, as was the drawing of the pentagram. This suggested a degree of planning and deliberation.
    Nor was it a case of a man coming across an attractive woman, becoming aroused, being rebuffed and angrily stabbing her before running away. Caroline had been disabled, tied up in a particular way and then attacked. Yet despite these elements of control, there was also a lack of sophistication. Why did he choose such a public place and such a busy time? He could have achieved so much more if he’d chosen somewhere more private. He could have exerted more control, made the bindings more elaborate and increased his pleasure. Instead, the killing was over in a matter of minutes.
    This element of opportunism suggested that the killer was a stranger to Caroline, although she may have been known to him. Perhaps he’d seen her walking her dogs or been a customer at her shop.
    In terms of a motive, I had no doubt that it was sexual, although not in the way that we normally think of a rape or sexual assault. It displayed evidence of a more extreme deviant sexuality. My work in the sexual dysfunction clinic at Leicester General Hospital had helped me understand that people’s sexual functioning can become tied to and crossed with other things.
    When men and women find themselves unable to have sexual intimacy in a way that feels good for everyone involved, the drive doesn’t just go away. Sometimes they find themselves developing fetishes and vivid fantasies to such an extent that they lose the ability to sustain or enjoy sexual intercourse unless they imagine or actually have some very specific factor present, for example, certain types of pornography, underwear, footwear, or ritualistic behaviour.
    Some people become so preoccupied with these things that the actual sexual act becomes less and less important or valuable so that even their masturbatory thoughts turn increasingly towards these fetishes and vivid fantasies. For a man, the woman can cease to be a mutually consenting, eager participant and instead become a depersonalized vehicle for his pleasure.
    Caroline Osborne’s murder was an expression of a corrupt lust. The bindings, control and choice of victim suggested a killer whose sexual desire had become mixed with anger and the need to dominate. Rather than fantasizing about some form of mutually consenting sexual contact, the killer’s fantasies would feature extreme sexual aggression against women and closely mirror the events that unfolded on Aylestone Meadows. He would have rehearsed the scene in his mind beforehand - fantasizing about a woman being taken, restrained, bound, dominated, mutilated and killed with a knife.
    But how did he become like this?
    A sense of bitterness and anger towards women often begins early when, for example, a lonely and sexually immature young man may discover that he hasn’t the necessary social skills to get girls to take an interest in him. He sees other boys and young men having success with women but it doesn’t happen for him.
    Feeling hurt and rejected, he may begin to blame women for his loneliness and sexual frustration. Over time, this can lead to a growing sense of bitterness and anger which can distort sexuality. Instead of fantasizing about consenting and mutually pleasurable sexual events, he may begin to link pleasure through masturbation with gross sexual violence. In his fantasies he can make women do what he wants and, more importantly, he can punish them for what he believes they have done to him.
    The pentagram found near the body was the crux.