Fifty-six-year-old William Smith, better known as Bill, lived in West Yorkshire with his wife and two sons and worked as a customer liaison executive for the Yorkshire Weekly Newspaper Group. By all accounts, he was quiet and well-liked and had no known enemies.
On Saturday, October 25th, 1986, Bill had just returned from a working vacation in Jersey, and that evening was taking a walk along an unlighted path in Mirfield Memorial Park. At some point after ten-thirty p.m., he was attacked by an unidentified assailant.
Sometime later, Bill’s body was discovered lying in shallow water at the edge of the canal, at the bottom of an embankment. A post-mortem examination determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation.
Police were baffled at the randomness of the crime, and the seeming lack of motive. Though the investigation is still open and new pleas were made for information as recently as 2016, the brutal slaying of Bill Smith remains unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 