The Tragic Murder of Colette Aram, Solved 26 years After her Death.

Colette lived on Normanton Lane in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire with her parents and brother Mark. She had recently left school and was training to be a hairdresser, like her mother, Jackie.

On the 30th of October 1983, Colette left her home on foot to go and see her boyfriend, Russel. Russel only lived about 10 minutes away, but would normally pick up Colette in his car. Russel was 17 and had already passed his driving test. On this evening though, his car was in the garage, so he was unable to pick her up. Her mother insisted that she drove Colette to meet Russel, but Colette wanted to walk, saying that it was a nice evening.

Approximately five minutes after Colette left her home, Russel called Colette. Her mother answered the phone and told Russel that Colette was on her way down to meet him, to which Russel said that he would ride his bike and meet her halfway. When Russel could not find Colette, he called her mother back.

Her mother knew something was wrong and called the police. At first, the police officer said that it was not unusual for a 16-year-old to be unaccounted for on a Sunday night. However, her mother knew differently, as Colette always told someone where she was going. The police officer told Jackie to call them back if she did not turn up by 10.30 pm.

Jackie called everyone she knew in the local area, including Colette's friends and the hospital, to see if they had any admissions matching Colette’s description, but no one had seen or heard from her. The family went out to look for themselves, but she was nowhere to be seen. Jackie called the police back, this time the police came to the house and attempted to trace her last known steps. Colette was nowhere. Police called off the search that evening and said that they would continue the next morning.

The next morning on Halloween of 1983, Mark, Colette’s brother, got in his car and went out to look for Colette. As he was driving down Thurlby Lane, he noticed some police tape and police cars. He pulled over and ran to the tape. A police officer tried to stop him, but Mark got through, where he saw his sisters’ body.

Police determined that Colette had been hit over the head, raped, and strangled. Her body was found naked and covered in bruises. The killer had posed and arranged her body in a sexually explicit way.

Two weeks later, Nottinghamshire Police received a letter that they believed to be from the killer. The letter gave the police some vital clues. Firstly, it was written strangely, there was ‘!’ in the place of the letter ‘S’. In the letter, the killer told police that on the day of Colette’s murder, he had been hiding in a hut near a riding school, watching young girls riding their horses before stealing a car that had been left with the keys inside. When police searched the hut, they found a rag that contained a human semen. They were now convinced that this letter was not a hoax and was from the killer.

Police appealed to the public on the TV show, Crimewatch, staging a reconstruction with the evidence that they had on the case.

The stolen car, a red Ford Fiesta, was sighted the day that Colette went missing at approximately 5 pm on a housing estate in Keyworth. A resident told police that the car was parked on the street for about an hour and that they could clearly describe the driver. The man was said to be white, aged between 25-30, with brown wavy hair.

That same evening between 6.20 and 7.20 pm, the killer is said to have been cruising the neighbourhood trying to pick up young girls, with one girl saying that she was out walking her dog when a man in a red car stopped and asked her for directions before asking her where she was going. The man then asked her if she wanted a lift and tried to get her into his car, but she declined, and he drove off.

At approximately 8 pm, there was another sighting of the man in the red car. The witness stated that he was in his garden when a man pulled up in a red car. The driver got out of the car and said that he was going around the corner to see a mate, and that he would not belong. About ten minutes later, he returned to the car and commented on someone not being in. The man in the garden thought this strange, as there were no houses in that direction. He also noted that the man was carrying a knife. He noted the car’s registration number. However, it is not clear if he called the police and reported this or not.

Another witness told police that he was in his house when he heard screaming. He got up to look, and he saw a car speed off. It was sometime between this witness’s account and the next account that Colette was killed.

At approximately 9 pm, a man matching the description of the killer, went into the Generous Britain Pub at Costock, ordering a pint of orange lemonade and a ham cob.

The man was not local, or if he was, the barmaid had never seen him before. She asked the man if he was on holiday, to which he replied, at first, that he had taken the wrong turning off the motorway. However, he then changed his story, telling her that he was visiting a friend. Indeed, his stories were made up, but he did know the local area. He told the barmaid that his friend worked in the Power Station and had an accident and that he was here to visit him. She noticed that he had blood on his hand, and then he asked her where the bathroom was. When the police searched the bathroom, the forensic investigation found traces of human blood and semen.

After the story was aired on Crimewatch, police received thousands of calls, including one from a woman who told the police and a local newspaper that she knew who the killer was, but she put the phone down before giving them any more information.

The case remained unsolved for 26 years.

In 2010, Paul Hutchinson, 51 was convicted of Colette’s rape and murder. Paul was twice-married with four children. He was living in the West Bridgford area, just over 15 miles from where he killed Colette back in 1983. Paul was caught when one of his children was arrested for a driving offence in 2008. A DNA swab was taken which contained a genetic match to the DNA found in the evidence in Colette’s case.

According to the Nottingham Post, at the time that he killed Colette, he was living on Seymour Road in West Bridgford, but he had told his family that he was having treatment for cancer.

At first, Hutchinson tried to blame the murder on his brother, then deceased, but there was no doubt about it, the DNA was his. Thanks to advances in DNA technology, Colette's killer was put behind bars.

Hutchinson was jailed for a minimum of 25 years in January 2010. He was found dead of an overdose in his cell at Nottingham Prison on October 10, 2010.

Sources, Further Reading and Watching

Justice for Colette: My Daughter was Murdered - I Never Gave Up Hope of Her Killer Being Found. He was Finally Caught After 26 Years by Jacqui Kirby, 2012

The Guardian, Mon 25 Jan 2010. Man Jailed for Life Over 1983 Murder of Colette Aram. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/25/paul-hutchinson-jailed-colette-aram

Nottinghamshire Live, 11th October 2010. https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/colette-arams-murderer-paul-hutchinson-261072

Crimewatch episode - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxxMFm0FWk4

ITV News https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x78qdn