Murder of Lesley Molseed - Crime and Subsequent Developments

Crime and Subsequent Developments

Lesley Molseed, born Lesley Susan Anderson, was a frail child: small for her age, she had been born with a congenital cardiac condition. She was known as "Lel" to her brother and two sisters. Early in the Sunday afternoon of her murder she had volunteered to go from her home at 11, Delamere Road, to the local shop to buy bread. She was last seen in Stiups Lane, but she never returned. A search around the town and the adjacent M62 area was immediately begun. Lesley's body was found three days later lying on a natural turf shelf 30 ft above a remote layby on the trans-Pennine A672 near Rishworth Moor. She had been stabbed twelve times in the upper shoulder and back. Some of the wounds were very deep and one had penetrated her heart. None of her clothing was disturbed but her body had been posed and the killer had ejaculated on her underwear.

At the time of the hunt, four teenage girls, Maxine Buckley, Catherine Burke, Debbie Brown and Pamela Hind, claimed that Kiszko had indecently exposed himself to them the day before the murder. One of them also said he had exposed himself to her a month after the murder, on Bonfire night and that had been stalking her for some time previous to that. West Yorkshire Police quickly formed the view that Kiszko fitted their profile of the sort of person likely to have killed Lesley Molseed even though he had never been in trouble with the law and had no social life beyond his mother and aunt. (His father Ivan had died of a heart attack, in the street, at Kiszko's feet, on 29 September 1970). Kiszko also had an unusual hobby of writing down registration numbers of cars that annoyed him, which supported police suspicions. The police now pursued evidence which might incriminate him, and ignored other leads that might have taken them in other directions.

Acting upon the teenage girls' information and their suspicions of Kiszko's idiosyncratic lifestyle—and having allegedly found girlie magazines and a bag of sweets in his car—the police arrested him on 21 December 1975. During questioning, the interviewing detectives seized upon every apparent inconsistency between his varying accounts of the relevant days as further demonstration of his likely guilt. Kiszko confessed to the crime after three days of intensive questioning: he believed that by doing so he would be allowed to go home, and that the ensuing investigations would prove him innocent and his confession false. Prior to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984, suspects did not have the right to have a solicitor present during interviews, and the police did not ask Kiszko if he wanted one. His request to have his mother present whilst he was being questioned was refused and, crucially, the police did not caution him until long after they had decided he was the prime – indeed, only – suspect.

After admitting to the murder to police, Kiszko was charged with Molseed's murder on Christmas Eve 1975. When he entered Armley Jail, following his being charged, he was nicknamed "Oliver Laurel" because he had the girth of Oliver Hardy and the perplexed air of Oliver's comedy sidekick Stan Laurel. Later, in the presence of a solicitor, Kiszko retracted his confession.

Kiszko was remanded until his murder trial, which began on 7 July 1976 under Sir Hugh Park. He was defended by David Waddington QC, who later became Home Secretary. The prosecuting QC, Peter Taylor, later became Lord Chief Justice the day after Kiszko was cleared of the murder in 1992. Taylor was most noted for his reports into the Hillsborough Disaster at the Sheffield Wednesday FC football stadium at Hillsborough, Sheffield.