Susan Renhard

Susan Elizabeth Renhard (17 November 1961 – 27 June 1983) was a student murdered in Cave Dale near Castleton, Derbyshire in 1983. Norman Hugh Morrison Smith, a young student, admitted to her sexual assault but denied strangling her. He was found guilty of murder on 24 February 1984.

Background Susan Renhard was born in Birmingham in the United Kingdom and brought up in the small village of Hagley, on the outskirts of Stourbridge. In 1983, Susan was engaged to be married to Bob Wood, another 21-year-old student from Sunderland, and was living in a flat in Heaton Moor, Stockport, whilst she completed her studies in Graphic Art at Manchester Polytechnic.

As part of her studies, she had to carry out a photographic project and thought the nearby Peak District would be a suitable choice. Although she had already completed her photo project (which included a slideshow and taped documentary), she was dissatisfied with the initial results, and she decided that some of the photographs needed retaking. Her father later recalled: "Susan has always been very thorough about everything she does—a real perfectionist." As part of her itinerary, Susan intended to spend a whole day in Castleton, one of the District's most popular tourist destinations, where she could then photograph its famous dales, caves and ruined Norman castle.

Murder Although her visit was brief, Susan nevertheless booked a room at the Lose Hill Study Centre in Castleton where, on 27 June 1983, she left alone in order to take some pictures. It was a bright, sunny day and, being a Monday, there was a lull in the normal crush of visitors to the area. Towards the beginning of the afternoon Susan was seen by two members of the public walking alone towards a famous beauty spot called Cave Dale. The route to Cave Dale runs from the centre of Castleton, past the ruined Peveril Castle and out onto the moors.

The last confirmed sighting of Susan was at 2:50 pm, and nothing more was seen of her until two members of the public discovered a red-haired Susan's lower clothing had been removed and her hands had been loosely tied with her camera strap. Her face and head had been hooded by her cagoule, and her jeans had then been draped over the lower part of her body in an apparent effort to make her look decent. A day after her death, police officially confirmed Susan's identity to the national press.

Police investigation The murder shocked the inhabitants of Castleton, and there was an immediate climate of fear, which only increased in the days that followed when another young woman, Diana Towers, was found murdered only 10 miles away at the site of the Roman fort Melandra Castle. The authorities, however, quickly discounted any link. The police launched an appeal for a man to come forward who had been seen against the skyline some 200 yards from where Susan's body was eventually found. By 8 July The Times reported that fifteen such individuals had come forward to talk to the police.

When Susan's body was examined it was discovered that she had not been sexually assaulted, but her body, particularly her legs, hands, arms and head, clearly indicated that she had been pushed to the ground, and that she had fought violently with her attacker. Dr. Stephen Jones, a Home Office pathologist, later recorded over 30 injuries, mostly bruises and abrasions, which indicated that she had made every attempt to defend herself. Her nails were all broken, and this seemed to indicate that her killer's face had been raked. She had been manually strangled, with the killer using one hand to throttle her, and her hands had been tied and lower clothing removed. The murder case quickly became national news, and Derbyshire police allocated 60 officers to try and track down her killer. Detective Superintendent Peter Burgess took a prominent part in the case.

The police initially looked without success at the film in Susan's camera to see if it could reveal any clues about her attacker. On 4 July, the police sealed off Castleton for four hours and stopped every motorist passing through in their search for Susan's killer. Those who said they had been in the area the week before then underwent more detailed questioning.

On 9 July 1983, the High Peak Coroner, Clive Rushton, opened and adjourned the inquest into Susan's death, pending the further police investigation. No cause of death was officially confirmed at that stage, and none of Susan's relatives were present. An interim death certificate was granted, however, which allowed formal preparations for her funeral to begin. Later that month a final death certificate was issued which listed Susan's cause of death as: "asphyxia due to obstruction of the airway". On 10 July 1983, Derbyshire police undertook a full-scale reconstruction of the day that Susan died, with Detective Constable Brenda Kirby playing the part of Susan. About 45 members of the public returned to the Dale, many of them potholers, hikers and day trippers. Amongst the witnesses was a young couple from North Wales who police thought were amongst the last to see Susan alive, and the 'running man' that detectives had originally thought might be a suspect. Press reports later described him as a man in his 30s or 40s, so it was decided that he could not have been Susan's killer. On 12 July, a local businessman (who had children of his own) put up rewards totalling £2,000 for any information that might help the police investigation, saying that he had been sickened by the deaths of Susan and Diana.

By the end of the police investigation, some 1,200 witness statements were taken, and some 2,000 questionnaires had been completed by the public. On 22 July, according to newspaper reports, police received a tip-off from an anonymous caller. The man left a six-digit number, and police appealed for him to contact them again. (Whether this call was genuine and a breakthrough for the case is not clarified in the subsequent newspaper reports.)

Tourist film In the middle of July, police also became especially interested in a film taken by an Australian tourist at the time of the murder. Experts at Central TV had seen what they thought was a figure of a man crouching, and the film was subsequently flown to NASA in Texas for a more detailed analysis. Shortly afterward, police arrested Norman Hugh Smith, a 17-year-old computer student, who lived at Sunnyside Villas in Buxton Road and was jeered by a large crowd on his arrival. He was remanded in custody until the following year.

Trial Smith's trial began on 20 February 1984 at Nottingham Crown Court. The prosecution alleged that Renhard had died to satisfy the sexual curiosity of an immature teenager: in police interviews, Smith had admitted that he wanted to see a woman's naked body. Smith had never had a girlfriend and was portrayed as a loner who loved computers, books, nature and stargazing, and who lived in fear of his strict father who later said: "Norman had no steady girlfriend unless you could call his computer a girlfriend. That's all he ever seemed to show an interest in. He was fanatical about electronics." He continued to insist that, when he left Susan lying on the footpath, she was still alive and that someone else must have come along and killed her. The jury had also earlier seen colour photographs of Susan's body that indicated the extent of the struggle that had taken place, and the Home Office pathologist, Dr. Jones, in response to the questions of the defence counsel, admitted that many of the head injuries could have been caused by Susan hitting her head against stones on the ground. The jury also heard of an alleged confession by Smith to Detective Sergeant Brian Willis when Smith had broken down under interrogation and said: "it was an accident, I didn't mean to do it." The jury of 8 women and 4 men retired and took 2 hours, 40 minutes to reach their final verdict. announced that there would be an appeal against the sentence. Following the trial, David Renhard became heavily involved in the Society of Compassionate Friends, and Support After Murder and Manslaughter, two charities that seek to help relatives who have lost loved ones through homicide.