A Sad Holiday Season
November 25, 2000, was like any other rainy winter Saturday in Leeds, England. Sixteen-year-old Leanne Tiernan and her best friend, Sarah Whitehouse, spent the day shopping for Christmas presents for their friends and family.
The sun set early in Northern England in November and it was already dark when they boarded the bus home. The girls got off their bus at Houghley Lane at 4:50, said their goodbyes, and walked in opposite directions home. Sarah watched as Leanne walked toward Houghley Gill, a shortcut to her home with an unlit path leading through a dark, wooded area.
When Sarah arrived home, she called Leanne’s home but was surprised that she hadn’t made it back yet. They were both an equal distance from their homes and she’d had plenty of time to make it back. Leanne’s mother, Sharon, called her cell phone but there was no answer. When she tried to call again, the phone rang four times before it cut off entirely.
Leanne’s mother called the police and a search started immediately. Several branches of law enforcement searched the area around Houghley Gill while friends and family members gathered volunteers to help. Sharon had a sinking feeling that if her daughter didn’t come home by 10:00 p.m., she would never return.
Leanne didn’t return that night and the missing person investigation dragged on for weeks. There was simply no sign of Leanne Tiernan. Police searched more than 1,400 houses, 800 sheds, garages, and outbuildings, and more than 150 businesses throughout the neighborhood, but they found no clues whatsoever. Investigators questioned 140 men in the area and twelve search warrants were issued.
Police dive teams drained and scoured three miles of canals. Utility companies searched abandoned drains and drain shafts. Police suspended garbage collection so officers could search dumpsters throughout the area, but there was still no trace of Leanne.
On December 3, television news crews recreated the last movements of Sarah and Leanne. Sarah played herself and Leanne was performed by her sister, Michelle. She wore the same clothes that Leanne wore the night she went missing. Leanne’s face was displayed on milk cartons and a local businessman offered a reward of £10,000 for her safe return.
There were many calls to the police but only one lead provided any helpful clues. After seeing the television reenactment, a woman came forward to say that she had seen a man in Houghley Gill around the same time Leanne went missing. The man was walking a black and tan dog.
She described the man as approximately five feet eight inches tall, with a stocky build and a round, reddish, possibly-scarred face. He wore a three-quarter-length waterproof jacket, dirty jeans, and a black stocking cap.
Police tracked down seventy men who walked dogs in that area and showed them to the woman, but none of the men were the one she saw that day and all were eliminated as suspects.
Police generated a composite drawing of the man and released it to the public, but almost ten months had passed and detectives were no closer to finding Leanne.
Leanne’s family members had all but given up hope. Reluctantly, they resorted to combing through red-light districts in the area, thinking the fifteen-year-old may have been lured into a life of prostitution.
Sixteen miles from where Leanne went missing, Mark Bissen was walking his two dogs through Lindley Wood, an area of deep forest in North Yorkshire near Otley, when he came across an object in the woods. It looked like a package bound in twine. However, when he saw a sock nearby, he knew it wasn’t a package. There was a body inside.
When police arrived, they found an object wrapped in a floral-printed duvet cover held together by black twine. Inside the duvet was the body of Leanne Tiernan, wrapped in nine large, green trash bags. A black garbage bag was around her head, held tightly by a dark-colored scarf, a leather dog collar, and a plastic cable tie. She had died from strangulation.
Her arms were bound behind her back with three plastic cable ties – one around each wrist and a third securing the other two together.
She was still wearing the clothes she had disappeared in except for her coat and boots, which were missing.
Strangely, after ten months, the body was very much intact. Decomposition was minimal and they were able to identify her as Leanne through fingerprints. After analyzing her body tissue, forensic investigators determined she had been frozen. This explained the lack of decomposition and the fact that animals had not torn at the body. She was only recently dumped there and had most likely been stored in a freezer somewhere for several months.
There were an enormous number of potential clues with the body. Forensic investigators found hair on her clothing and pollen from a plum tree, a poplar tree, and a privet bush. In addition, bits of burnt wood were found on her clothes, as if she had been near a burning barrel or bonfire.
The cable ties used to bind her were very specific. They were manufactured exclusively for divisions of the UK postal service – The Royal Mail and Parcelforce.
The duvet cover was typical and could have been purchased at any number of stores throughout the United Kingdom, but the green plastic garbage bags were somewhat unique. They were sold exclusively through the Morrison’s grocery store, which had only two locations in the area.
The twine that was wrapped around the duvet was unique as well. Ordinary twine is brown with three twisted strands. This particular twine had four twisted strands and was black. Through some research, investigators determined it to be a distinctive twine often used for rabbit traps.
The duvet and clothes contained dozens of carpet fibers and animal hairs. The carpet fibers had gone through a unique dye process, making them dark red at one end and lighter red at the other. The animal hairs were from a black and tan dog, which was consistent with what the witness had reported from the day Leanne went missing.
One of the most critical pieces of evidence was a dog collar that the killer had used to tighten the plastic bag around her neck. Investigators tracked down 220 wholesalers that carried the particular collar, although anyone could have purchased that collar in any number of local pet shops. However, when they asked a mail-order company called Pets Pajamas for a list of customers who had ordered through the mail, there were only three customers in that area of Leeds. One person, who had purchased six of the same collars, lived within a half mile of Leanne Tiernan – John Taylor.
* * *
Immediately after announcing the discovery of Leanne’s body, police asked the public for help. When Deborah Benjamin heard that the police were looking for anyone that frequented the Lindley Woods to get in touch with the police, she knew she had to call.
Deborah Benjamin told police that she often placed ads in the “lonely hearts” section of the local newspapers. Through those advertisements, she met and dated a man named John Taylor. She explained that he was an avid hunter and often hunted in the same area of Lindley Woods. She had gone there with him on several occasions.
She told detectives that she had eventually ended their relationship because he was obsessed with violent bondage. She explained that he enjoyed tying her hands behind her back with plastic cable ties. One on each wrist, then a third to connect the other two together – precisely the same way Leanne Tiernan’s hands had been bound. Deborah said that Taylor kept the cable ties in a drawer behind his bed and he got them from his work.
Forty-four-year-old John Taylor was known in the area as the “pet man” because he had so many pets. He kept several dogs, ferrets, and owls. He fed the owls baby chicks that he purchased in bulk and kept in large chest freezers.
He was a divorced father of two grown children and lived alone on Cockshott Drive, not far from Houghley Gill. He was generally known as an average man by neighbors, but prior girlfriends and close friends knew of his sadistic tendencies. Although he kept several dogs, he was also known to be particularly cruel to them.
On October 16, 2001, just two months after discovering Leanne’s body, police detained and questioned John Taylor.
John Taylor worked for Parcelforce, giving him free access to the same cable ties used to bind Leanne. Twine similar to that used to secure the duvet was found in his house. In his yard were plum trees, poplar trees, and privet bushes, which explained the pollen found on Leanne’s body and in her nostrils.
Police searched his home, garage, and backyard for ten days. The first thing they noticed as they walked in the door was a newspaper on his kitchen counter, open to a headline about the discovery of Leanne’s body. They found the same type of cable ties, identical dog collars, and three large chest freezers. A tear of green plastic that matched the garbage bags around Leanne’s body was found hanging from a nail in his house. His floor, however, was bare. He had pulled up the carpeting recently and burned it in a fire in his backyard. However, investigators found nails that had secured his floorboards and still bore pieces of the red nylon carpet he had removed. The carpet fibers matched the fibers found on Leanne’s body. Most importantly, the hairs on Leanne’s body matched Taylor’s DNA.
Searching his phone records, detectives discovered he had contacted hundreds of women from lonely hearts ads in the newspapers. When police interviewed the women that had dated him, many gave similar stories of his penchant for violent sex and bondage. One woman said he liked to tie her up and lock her in a cupboard. Another said he wanted to tie up her daughter and have sex with her.
Investigators excavated John Taylor’s backyard to reveal several graves with the bodies of dogs. One, a black and tan dog that matched the dog hairs found on Leanne’s body, had its skull crushed with a meat cleaver.
* * *
When confronted with the massive amount of evidence against him, Taylor confessed to abducting Leanne. He said he was walking in the opposite direction through Houghley Gill when he saw Leanne Tiernan walking home. As he passed her, he acted impulsively, turned around, and grabbed her from behind. He threw his coat over her head and tied her hands behind her back with a dog leash. He then dragged her back to his nearby home and pushed her onto the bed. When Leanne’s mother called and her phone rang, he asked her which buttons to press to turn off the phone.
Taylor explained that Leanne fought to escape but, during the struggle, she fell off the bed and struck her head. He claimed her death was an accident. He had no explanation for why she was found with the cable tie, scarf, and dog collar around her neck other than he used them to move her body more efficiently.
Taylor maintained that her death was an accident until the first day of his trial in February 2002, when he finally admitted murdering her. He pleaded guilty and never explained exactly what happened in his house.
At his sentencing, Judge Justice Astill said:
“After the death of this girl at your hands, you wanted sexual deviancy with a girl of similar age. That not only demonstrates how dangerous you are but demonstrates your lack of remorse. Not by chance were you in this area for this purpose. You were not acting on impulse. You chose a secluded place and a vulnerable young girl who suited your purposes. This was as cold and calculating as can be imagined. You are a dangerous sexual sadist. Your purpose in kidnapping this young girl was so that you could satisfy your perverted cravings. The suffering you caused her and the suffering you continue to cause those who loved her simply cannot be measured. You must expect to spend the rest of your life in custody.”
John Taylor received two life sentences for the crime. After just four months in prison, detectives tested Taylor’s DNA against the evidence found in two older rape cases that took place in the same area of Houghley Gill during the late 1980s.
The first happened on October 18, 1988, when a thirty-two-year-old woman walked through Houghley Gill to pick up her children from school. Wearing a mask, Taylor forced her at knifepoint to give him oral sex, then raped her.
The second was on March 1, 1989, when he broke into the home of a twenty-one-year-old woman during the day, tore her clothes off, forced her into the bedroom, and raped her with her small child still in the house. Again, he wore a mask and threatened her with a knife.
Taylor, already facing life in prison, refused to cooperate with police but eventually pleaded guilty when faced with the DNA evidence still on file from the rapes. As a result, he was sentenced to two additional life sentences.
* * *
John Taylor insisted that was the extent of his crimes but, as detectives continued to dig, they found he was responsible for more and more horrible crimes dating back to 1977. Finally, he was again pulled from prison and confronted with the crimes.
In 1984 he tied a seven-year-old girl to a drainpipe at a church in Bromley, Leeds, and was found guilty of an indecent assault.
He also confessed to another rape of a twenty-seven-year-old woman as she walked with her three children.
In October 2018, Taylor was sentenced to a whole life order, guaranteeing he would never be released from prison.
* * *
Detectives, however, are certain he is responsible for many more murders. Five murder cases have since been reopened in West Yorkshire and another five in Strathclyde, of Glasgow prostitutes murdered between 1991 and 1997.
In West Yorkshire:
- Twenty-year-old Deborah Alison Wood was found burning near Burley Park Station in Leeds in 1996. She had been frozen for some time and was found wrapped in bedding and plastic trash bags.
- The body of thirty-eight-year-old Yvonne Fitt was found in Lindley Woods in January 1992, just feet from where Leanne’s body was found.
- Thirteen-year-old Lindsay Rimer was found strangled at the bottom of a canal five months after her disappearance.
- Nineteen-year-old Rebecca Hall was found dead in an alley just thirteen days after her disappearance in April 2001.
Strathclyde police have reopened the murder investigations of Diane McInally (23), Karen McGregor (26), Leona McGovern (22), Marjorie Roberts (34), and Tracey Wylde (21), all of whom were Glasgow prostitutes that were murdered between 1991 and 1997.
