Ryan Daly-Aruoture was born six years after 14-year-old Lisa Hession was murdered in 1984. Yet for more than a decade, he has campaigned tirelessly to uncover the truth, leading vigils and running a social media group determined to see her killer brought to justice. Neal Keeling reports.
Lisa Hession wjo was murdered in Leigh on December 8th 1984. Her killer has never been identified.(Image: Manchester Evening Newws)
He wasn’t even born when her life was snuffed out in an alleyway. But for the last decade Ryan Daly-Aruoture has attempted to galvanise a community into giving up the truth about Lisa Hession’s murder.
December 8th is the 41st anniversary of the Leigh schoolgirl’s death. Ryan will lead a vigil which will follow the route of her final walk.
That Saturday evening in 1984 aged 14 years 8 months, Lisa had been allowed by her mother, Christine, to meet a group of friends at a house in Leigh Road, Leigh. A condition was that she was home by 10.30pm and her reward for doing so was to be allowed to go to her school’s disco two nights later.
At 10.15pm she kissed her boyfriend, Craig Newell, 15, goodnight at the gate of the house and began to walk home. She went through the town centre and along St Helens Road where she was last seen at 10.35pm, before turning into Buck Street. At that point she was a one minute walk from her home in Bonnywell Road.
Campaigner Ryan Daly (Image: Joel Goodman)
But Lisa never made it. Lisa’s body was found five minutes before midnight by a father and son walking their dog in a ginnel behind Rugby Road. She was lying on her back in the recess which led to garage doors. She was 200 yards from her own front door.
She had been strangled and was the victim of a sex attack. At an inquest into her death in April 1985, pathologist, Dr Geoffrey Garrett, said her death had been caused by pressure on her neck, consistent with her T-shirt being tightened around her throat. Her skirt was pulled up around her waist and her underwear was ripped. It was believed the killer pulled the T-shirt tight with one hand and had his other hand over Lisa’s mouth.
A verdict of unlawful killing was recorded by Coroner, David Blakey, but he observed that the attacker may not have intended to kill her.
Ryan and friend Andrea Aldred set up the Justice for Lisa Hession Facebook Page in 2018 which has just under 3,000 members. Ryan said: “I keep campaigning because even though I wasn’t born when Lisa died, her death remains a very big issue in Leigh, and there is a desire to see the person who killed her identified and brought to justice.”
Ryan was born six years after the murder in September 1990. “I became aware of the case from the late 90s. As I lived on Rugby Road I learned that there had been a murder there. We have people from all over the country commenting on the Facebook page.
The alleyway behind Rugby Road, Leigh, where Lisa Hession was murdered on December 8th 1984. Image by Joel Goodman(Image: Joel Goodman)
“I am still hopeful that the case will be solved. I believe that the answer lies on the estate where she died. I believe that someone has shielded the culprit for decades. I really do think that Lisa knew the person.
“I do not think personally that Lisa went down that alley for anything seedy. I think that night when she got to Buck Street she saw someone she knew and she walked down the alley with them to take a shortcut home. Then he turned on her.
“My understanding is that several people saw her as she was walking home and no one was following her. I do think she took a short cut with someone she knew. Our group is about getting justice for a 14 year-old child and her late mum, and her family.
“People in Leigh just want closure. I intend to keep campaigning. I think the most heartbreaking aspects of the case are that she was so close to her home, was so young, and that her mum died without ever seeing justice.”
Andrea shares Ryan’s gut feeling about the killer. “Where she lived is where he is from. I think she had rejected him in some kind of way as a friend for coming on too strong. And that led him into wanting her more and more in his head, to eventually doing what he did that night.”
The group has passed intelligence it has received over the years to Greater Manchester’s Cold Case Unit, which has carried several reviews of the case over the last four decades.
Campaigners Andrea Aldred and Ryan Daly on the estate where Lisa Hession was murdered. Image by Joel Goodman.(Image: Joel Goodman)
Martin Bottomley, head of the unit, said: “I am convinced that in Lisa’s case there is a relative or close friend of the killer who knows what he has done and has covered up for him. Or if they don’t know definitively they very heavily suspect. My feeling is that for 40 years someone has protected him.”
For the people of Leigh there is another aspect of the case which amplifies the poignancy. When Lisa had not returned home her mother left the family home to search surrounding streets for her.
Three times she unknowingly walked past the entrance to the ginnel where Lisa lay. On a final search she saw a police Panda car driving by her house. Officers were trying to find the alleyway in which a child’s body had been found.
Christine later recalled: “I stood on a corner watching for her white boots to come along the pavement. I felt if only I could see them everything would be all right. But she never came.”
Lisa Jane Hession photographed in July 1984 – just months before her murder in Leigh.
Chillingly, three days after the murder police revealed that three young women had been victims of sex attacks in the previous four months within one mile of where Lisa was murdered. The possibility that the same man was responsible for all four attacks and a fifth in May 1985 on Buck Street – where Lisa was last seen alive – remains.
Two suspects have been arrested. One was held soon after the murder and has since died. Another person who was being held in prison in Merseyside on suspicion of another offence was quizzed. No action was taken against either.
All five boys who were at the gathering that Lisa attended on the night she died were interviewed. None were under suspicion.
Police have a partial DNA profile of the suspect from the scene which if they got the right name would help prove it was him.
A memorial plaque and a tree in place at Bedford High School, to remember murder victim, Lisa Hession.(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
There is a document which would disturb the conscience of anyone who knows the identity of the killer. At 3.45pm on December 11th Christine Hession gave a statement to PC S Wood 4001.
In a matter of fact but caring way she describes her daughter, Lisa Jane, who was born at Firs Maternity Home, Leigh, on April 12th 1970. She says: “Lisa Jane had good health….and was at present a pupil in the fourth grade at the upper school at Bedford High.
“She was a very helpful, kind and loving girl who had many friends. She would babysit for members of our family and put any money she got from that with the £2 a week I gave her into a building society account for clothes and holidays.
“Lisa Jane had a boyfriend who came to visit our home and watch TV with us, the last (time) being Thursday December 6th and Friday December 7th.
“She was always a very punctual girl and if she said she would be home by a certain time, she would be. Only once was she late one evening, and instead of being home at her usual time of 9.30pm, it was 10pm because she missed her bus.”
Christine Hession with a picture of her daughter Lisa. (Image: Manchester Evening Newws)
She adds: “Saturday December 8th started as normal and Lisa watched ‘The Saturday Superstore’ on TV in the morning”. She says during the afternoon Lisa mentioned that later on she would be going to a meeting of friends at a house in Atherleigh.
She says: “Lisa left the house at 6.45pm and promised to be back by 10.30pm..” She goes on to detail how Lisa was wearing short white boots, white sport socks, a red and blue striped T-shirt, and a red V-neck jumper she had borrowed from her mother, a white skirt, three quarter length blue coat. She was carrying an umbrella.
Christine then details how she “started to worry” when Lisa had not come home by 10.30pm. Fifteen minutes later she went out for the first time to look for her. She went as far as Woody’s chippy on St Helens Road, but there was so sign.
She went out again at 11.15pm. Lisa’s grandma, Ellen, who lived with her and her mother, had tried to contact the house where Lisa had been but got no reply. Christine went out a third time walking as far as the B.I.C.C cable works near a canal bridge.
When she got home she called Leigh Infirmary and Leigh Police Station to report Lisa missing.
In the last paragraph of her statement Christine says: “A short time later a policeman arrived with a policewoman and told me that a young girl had been admitted to Leigh Infirmrary and asked if I would go in and tell them if it was Lisa or not.
“As soon as I walked into the room I knew it was Lisa before I had ever seen her face properly.”
Christine died in January 2016 after hoping in vain for 32 years to see justice for her daughter – her only child.
The vigil tomorrow will start on West Bridgewater Street (outside Christ Church Pennington school) at 7pm. It will go on to St Helens Road, following the walk that Lisa should have taken on the night, including Buck Street, Poplar Street, Newlands Road, then onto Bonneywell Road where she lived. Flowers will be laid outside her home.
There is a £50,000 reward for information leading to the identification and conviction of the killer. Anyone with information can contact the GMP Cold Case Unit on 0161 856 5978.