A MURDERER who raped and butchered a teenage girl 32 years ago was finally
jailed for life yesterday — after he was nailed by his daughter’s DNA.
Christopher Hampton, 63, pounced on 17-year-old Melanie Road as she walked
home from a club, stabbing her 26 times.
He escaped justice for three decades until his daughter Clare, 43, was
arrested for breaking her boyfriend’s necklace during a row in 2014.
She gave a routine DNA swab which showed a “familial link” to blood and semen
left on Melanie’s body in June 1984.
And when detectives swabbed painter and decorator Hampton they got a match.
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Yesterday at Bristol Crown Court he admitted murdering Melanie. Mr Justice
Andrew Popplewell told Hampton he would serve a minimum of 22 years, adding:
“You will very likely die in prison.”
Melanie’s sister Karen summed up her family’s nightmare for the court, saying:
“For 32 years I’ve felt as if I’m living in a horror film — one where the
perpetrator has not been caught.”
Melanie’s mum Jean Road, 81, said: “He is not a man, he’s a monster. He should
be shut up in a dungeon and left to rot.”
A-level student Melanie had been out dancing with her boyfriend in Bath and
was 200 metres from home when Hampton pounced at 1.30am.
Her route home had taken her past the house where he was living with his then
girlfriend.
Hampton, who was separated from the wife with whom he had three children,
raped and knifed Melanie in a “lengthy and brutal attack.”
A huge police hunt failed to find the killer.
TIMELINE OF EVENTS
* 8th July 1984 – Melanie Road, 17, goes on a night out to Beau Nash
nightclub in Bath, Somerset.
* 9th July 1984 – Her mutilated body is discovered by a milkman and his
10-year-old son at 5.30am in Stephen’s Court, Lansdown, Bath.
* 1984 to 1989 – Operation Rhodium is launched.
* 1995 – DNA profile of the suspected killer is put on the national database.
* 2009 – 25th anniversary of Melanie’s death and a Crimewatch special. 70
names handed to police – none of which are Christopher Hampton.
* November 2014 – Christopher Hampton’s daughter gets a caution for criminal
damage. Her DNA is added to the national database.
* May 2015 – Results come back with a familial match to Hampton’s daughter.
* 1st June 2015 – Hampton provides a voluntary DNA swab to police.
* 4th July 2015 – Hampton was charged with murdering Melanie.
* 22nd December 2015 – Hampton appeared at Bristol Crown Court to deny
murdering Melanie.
* 9th May – Start of the trial. Hampton pleads guilty to murder.
Meanwhile Hampton continued to live in Bath. He remarried and had another
daughter.
Speaking outside court Detective Chief Inspector Julie MacKay said: “He spent
30 years able to conceal his dark secret from all around him.
“I don’t know how his conscience allowed him to do it.”
‘He’s not a man – he’s a monster’: Confession agony for Melanie’s 81-year-old
mother
JEAN Road, Melainie’s 81-year-old mother has spoke of her relief at finally
getting closure on her daughter’s death – but labelled her killer a “monster”.
Speaking after evil Christopher Hampton, 64, was jailed for life for the
killing, Jean said her loss still “hurts beyond repair”.
She added: “When we finally went to court, I thought he’s not a man, he’s
a monster.
“Then I realised his wife and his daughter were sitting behind me in
court – both blonde hair. How could he do that then live with people like
that and them not knowing?”
Heartbroken Jean has never given up hope of bringing Melanie’s killer to
justice despite having to wait three decades for it to happen.
She added: “Because I’m 81 I thought I might be dead before it all
finalised but thank God.
“I said to the police ‘I’ll be 80 this year so if you don’t find this man
I don’t think I can last’.
“Yes 81 now and I want to see this through. I want to see a smile on my
other two children’s faces.”
Speaking of sick Hampton she added: “I always said if I got hold of him
I’d strangle him or stick a knife into him and that’s how I felt but I
wouldn’t even use my energy up on him.
“I feel that he should be shut up in a dungeon like they used to in the
olden days and just left to rot because he’s not worth looking after.
“I know that’s against the law but I can think that, I’m allowed to think
that.”
Paying tribute to A-level student Melanie, Jean said she was bright and
popular.
Her husband’s job with the Ministry of Defence meant the family moved often
and Melanie used to bake flapjacks to make friends.
Jean added: “She made herself welcome wherever she went. She would walk
straight in and she was at home.
“I think what helped her was because she was so bright. Everything that
she did she did well. She was loved by everybody.”
Jean last saw her daughter alive at the Francis Hotel in Bath at lunchtime on
June 8 1984.
Recalling their last moments together she remembered: “Melanie got out of
the car and she said ‘Look, there’s a red carpet laid out for me, what a way
to go’.
“That’s her last words.
“I know she wasn’t meaning in that direction that she was going to die
but she was so happy and trotted off.
“That was the afternoon it was just after lunchtime on the Friday.
“We didn’t see her again until she was dead.”
Police traced her family by shouting her name over a loud speaker, having
found a keyring with her name on near her body.
Jean added: “My husband and I just looked at each other and there was a
police officer’s car going past and he was calling out ‘Melanie’.
“That’s all I heard. “Then I opened the front door and ran after the
car banging on the back of the boot.
“I got into the car and he took me back to the house and that’s when all
hell let loose and I knew my daughter was never coming back again.
“And my whole life was taken over by this horrible deed.”
Melanie’s sister and brother also released statements.
Sister Karen said: “I have had 32 years to fill in the gaps.
“Melanie has died hundred of times in hundreds of different ways in my
mind, when I am awake, when I am asleep.
“I could tell you it is like being in a nightmare but you wake from a
nightmare and life returns to normal.”
Her brother Adrian added: “Thirty-two years I have waited patiently for
that telephone call to say ‘Adrian, we have him’.
“When they told me I cried uncontrollably. Melanie was very close to me
and a very special little sister.”