Nineteen-year-old Rebecca Hall was the mother of a four-month-old son named Jordan, and the small family lived in a flat on Elizabeth Street in Little Horton, Bradford, West Yorkshire. Rebecca had been struggling with a heroin addiction, and was known to earn money as a sex worker.
At approximately ten p.m. on April 13th, 2001, Rebecca left her flat; it was later thought that she was heading for Thornton Road, perhaps to meet a client. She was never seen alive again.
Four days later, on April 26th, 2001, her nude and beaten body was discovered in an alley behind a parking lot. Cause of death was found to be severe head trauma, and whoever had bludgeoned her had apparently torn her clothes off her after death and left them near the body. The only items found to be missing were a pair of knee-high black boots Rebecca had last been seen wearing, a distinctive wristwatch featuring a South Park character, and the victim’s Motorola Star Tac cell phone.
Since Rebecca was a known sex worker, police initially presumed that a regular client, or perhaps an ex-lover, was responsible for the murder, though early investigations in that regard produced no solid leads. In 2008, improved DNA technology was used to obtain evidence from Rebecca’s clothing that had previously been too small to be examined, though it is not clear whether this resulted in any viable suspects.
In 2010, serial killer Stephen Griffiths was questioned in the homicide; the so-called “Crossbow Cannibal” was also put forward as a person of interest in the 2000 slaying of Vicky Glass, though there is no compelling evidence that he committed either crime.
In January of 2019, authorities announced that a thirty-seven-year-old woman had been arrested in the Rebecca Hall murder, and though there has been no further update as of this writing, the investigation presumably remains open.
Crime Immemorial 