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Caroline’s murder wasn’t a ritual sacrifice. The diagram had been drawn earlier and left behind so that the scene would resemble the re-enactment of a ritual sexual sacrifice to a satanic or other black magic figurehead. This is how the killer rationalized his grossly deviant urges to control, torture and murder a woman. It gave his actions a purpose, even if totally spurious. If devil worship or human sacrifice had truly been the motive I would have expected to see far more of the elaborate preparation, degradation and theatre that is associated with the black arts.
    Finding a foolscap page, I began writing down a list of psychological features that I could draw from the material. ‘The lack of ultimate sophistication or practice in the killing suggests a very young man in his mid-teens to early twenties,’ I wrote. ‘He’s likely to be very lonely and sexually immature, with few previous girlfriends, if any. He will have wanted relationships but won’t have the necessary social skills to begin or maintain them.’
    Point two: ‘He will probably live at home with his parents or a parent.’ This is quite a common feature that emerges among young men with poor social skills and no sexual confidence.
    Another common feature concerned his likely employment. The inability to verbally express himself would make it difficult for him to hold down a managerial or higher clerical job. For this reason I wrote, ‘He is more likely to be a manual worker in the sort of job that demands dexterity and may involve being comfortable with sharp knives.’ The reference to knives had been flagged by his handiwork on Caroline’s body.
    ‘He’s physically strong and athletic,’ I wrote, something evident from the way his victim had been subdued and bound, as well as the force used to inflict the knife wounds.
    ‘He may have known Caroline, or at least been aware of her, and she may have played a part in his various masturbatory fantasies.
    ‘This is his territory. He knows the area and lives very close by - if not now then at some point in the recent past.’ This explained how he managed to murder Caroline and then disappear so quickly from Aylestone Meadows that none of the people who were in the general area noticed anyone acting suspiciously or anything untoward. For this to happen, he had to be confident in his surroundings.
    At the same time, to have struck in the open air, on a warm summer’s evening when it was still light, involved taking considerable risks, but he was so aroused he was willing to take the chance.
    ‘His violent sexual fantasies will be fed by pornographic magazines, books, posters and videos, some of it violent and featuring satanic themes,’ I wrote. ‘When you find him and look inside his house, I expect you’ll find ample evidence of this, as well as his strong interest in knives.’
    The fact that the murder weapon had not been found at the scene indicated that the killer may have a forensic awareness. Equally, it suggested that he might regard the knife as a treasured artefact and, therefore, he wouldn’t have casually discarded it; he would have kept it close.
    Going through each point with David Baker in his office, I sensed that he didn’t quite know how to respond. Although grateful, he was unsure of how I could read so much into photographic and case history information that he and his colleagues had studied for months. How much weight could he give to my conclusions? Nobody, as far as we knew, had ever asked a psychologist to become involved in a murder investigation in quite this way before - it was virgin territory, without maps, and I was a guide who followed signs that David couldn’t see.
    Weeks were to pass, then months, and when I didn’t hear from Baker again I assumed my role had ended. There was no way of gauging whether I’d been a help or not, I simply went back to my clinical work.
    Fourteen months later, on Monday 29 April, 1985, I saw a newspaper poster on my way home