Lindsay Jo Rimer

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

West Yorkshire (POLICE)

Offense Location:

Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire

Summary:

Lindsay Jo Rimer was a 13-year-old British schoolgirl who disappeared from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire on the evening of 7 November 1994 while walking to a local convenience store to buy cornflakes, and her strangled body was discovered five months later in the Rochdale Canal. Despite repeated appeals for information, her murder remains unsolved. In October 2025, a man was arrested at an undisclosed UK prison on suspicion of her murder, where he is serving a sentence for other offences.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

On the late evening of November 7, 1994, 13-year-old Lindsay Rimer, a Year 8 pupil at Calder High School, left her home in Cambridge Street to go shopping. She visited the Trades Club where her mother Geri was enjoying a night out to get some money and was last seen alive on CCTV at the Spar supermarket buying a packet of cornflakes. Lindsay was last captured on CCTV footage at the Spar shop on Crown Street around 10:22 PM, appearing unaccompanied and carrying no bag, before she was spotted shortly afterward near the town's war memorial garden. When West Yorkshire Police made an appeal for information on the case on Crimewatch Live in October 2024, it was revealed that one final confirmed sighting of Rimer alive had been made of her standing at the bottom of Crown Street by the entrance to the Memorial Garden, leaning against a wall, at 10:40 p.m., made by two people getting off a bus at this location. It wasn't until the following morning, when Lindsay failed to appear for her paper round, that her family realized she was missing. Her paper delivery bag and school money were still at home, and her bed had not been slept in.

Additional Details:

Rimer's weighted down body was found by two local workmen in the Rochdale Canal, about a mile upstream of the centre of Hebden Bridge, on 12 April 1995. The post-mortem was carried out at Royal Halifax Infirmary by Home Office pathologist Professor Mike Green. He concluded that Rimer had probably been strangled. Her voicebox had been flattened against the spinal column and there were also signs of congestion across the middle of the neck muscles. Her body weighted down by a 20-pound stone at Rawden Mill Lock, approximately one mile upstream from her home, and showing no signs of sexual assault. She was found fully dressed in the clothes that she was wearing when she had disappeared, and in her pocket was still the exact change from the cornflakes she bought that night. The arms of her jumper had been tied together in a sling. In the years since the discovery of Rimer's body, police have taken hundreds of witness statements and spoken to more than 5,000 people. More than 1,200 vehicles were examined in the first year of the investigation. In the late 1990s, Rimer's murder was investigated as part of Operation Enigma, a national cross-force police operation assembled to review the unsolved murders of 207 women across Britain, with one of its aims being to examine possible links among murders. However, Enigma eliminated the possibility of links between Rimer's murder and other killings. On 8 November 2016, a 63-year-old man from Bradford was arrested on suspicion of the murder, but he was later released on police bail. In April 2017, a second man from Bradford, a 68-year-old, was arrested but he too was released without charge. In April 2016, West Yorkshire Police announced that they had isolated a DNA profile that they would attempt to develop further. The police hoped that it would identify the killer, saying that they were "really interested in developing further" the DNA profile. In January 2023, the Rimer case was discussed in an episode of David Wilson's Channel 4 series In the Footsteps of Killers. John Matthews from Cleveland Police discussed his theory on a connection between the Tina Bell and Lindsay Rimer cases and his belief that Vince Robson, who died in 2005, was responsible for Rimer's murder. In October 2024, an appeal for information on the Rimer case was made on Crimewatch Live. Marking the 30th anniversary of Rimer's disappearance in 2024, her family organized a memorial event at Calder Holmes Park in Hebden Bridge, attended by over 100 community members, where they renewed their appeal for information. Sisters Kate and Juliet Rimer participated in interviews with outlets like Sky News and ITV, pleading for anyone with knowledge of the murder to speak out.

Case Last Updated:

Apr 27, 2026