Susan Elizabeth Renhard (17 November 1961 – 27 June 1983)Register of Deaths, High Peak District, Volume 6, Page 0922. 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.The Guardian, 25 February 1984. In 1983, Susan was engaged to be married to Bob Wood, another 21-year-old student from Sunderland,Daily Express, 4 July 1983. and was living in a flat in Heaton Moor, Stockport,Daily Express, 3 July 1983. whilst she completed her studies in Graphic Art at Manchester Polytechnic.The Guardian, 21 February 1984.
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),The Guardian, 4 July 1983. 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."Daily Express, 30 June 1983. 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.The Guardian, 2 July 1983.
Murder Although her visit was brief, Susan nevertheless booked a room at the Lose Hill Study Centre in CastletonThe Guardian, 4 July 1983 where, on 27 June 1983, she left alone in order to take some pictures. It was a bright, sunny dayThe Guardian, 27 June 1983. 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 Times, 4 July 1983. 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 body on the path at Cave Dale at 3:25 pm. The scene of the murder was at a point after the path along Cave Dale ascends a hillside. This is only five minutes' walk from where the valley path disappears from view when looking across from the battlements of Peveril Castle.Interview with Det. Supt. Peter Burgess, 19 July 1983, ITN Digital Archive. Susan's lower clothing had been removed and her hands had been loosely tiedThe Guardian, 30 June 1983. 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.The Guardian, 29 June 1983.
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 Guardian, 22 July 1983. 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. This "running man" was seen about half an hour before Susan's body was discovered and was initially the chief suspect. More ominously, they also appealed for local 'peeping toms' (who were known to be watching parties of schoolchildren on the day) to come forward with any information they might have.The Guardian, 6 July 1983. 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.The Guardian, 22 February 1984. Her nails were all broken, and this seemed to indicate that her killer's face had been raked.The Daily Express, 21 February 1984. She had been manually strangled, with the killer using one hand to throttle her,The Daily Express, 25 February 1984. 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 Guardian, 11 July 1983.
The police initially looked without success at the film in Susan's camera to see if it could reveal any clues about her attacker. One of the problems the police faced was the possibility that the murder had been committed by a tourist. On 29 June 1983, therefore, police made a nationwide appeal for people to come forward and report any man who had unexpectedly cut short a holiday to the area, or was behaving in a suspicious way. They were still intrigued by the silhouette of a man seen on a ridge at Cave Dale above the site of the murder, but this figure was later eliminated from the enquiry when a man came forward to say that he had been horseplaying with his girlfriend.The Guardian, 26 July 1983. 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.The Times, 5 July 1983.
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.The Guardian, 9 July 1983. 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".Death Certificate, No. 44, High Peak, 15 July 1983 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.
Detectives with stopwatches and maps monitored the events, so that an accurate timeframe for the events of that day could be created. Vast areas of the moor were sealed off in an operation that took over four hours. Shortly after the reconstruction, police revealed that a 14-year-old girl had been stalked the same afternoon as Susan died by a man who had been watching her through binoculars. Fortunately, he had been frightened away.The Guardian, 12 July 1983. 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.The Times, 12 July 1983. 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.The Guardian, 13 July 1983.
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 14 July 1983, Susan's funeral took place at the Baptist Church in Carter's Lane in Halesowen close to the family home in West Hagley.ITN Digital News Archive 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.)The Guardian, 23 July 1983.
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. The police released the enhanced footage on 19 July. As it turned out, however, the film did not apparently yield anything of importance.
Norman Smith The police then arranged for five key witnesses to go back to the scene of the murder following the reconstruction, and announced on 24 July that they had new clues.ITN News report, 24 July 1983. Shortly afterward, police arrested Norman Hugh Smith,The Times, 21 June 1984. a 17-year-old computer student,The Times, 2 March 1984. who lived at Sunnyside Villas in Buxton Road in Castleton. He lived with his parents and two younger brothers and had just left Chesterfield Technical College. He first appeared in court at Buxton on 25 August 1983 charged with Susan's murderThe Guardian, 25 August 1983. and was jeered by a large crowd on his arrival.The Guardian, 26 August 1983. He was remanded in custody until the following year.
Trial Smith's trial began on 20 February 1984 at Nottingham Crown Court. Both Renhard's and Smith's parents were present throughout.The Times, 25 February 1984. 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's defence counsel, Martin Thomas, said that Renhard's death had been an accident, the clumsy attempts of an immature youth to steal a kiss.The Guardian, 24 February 1984. 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."
Douglas Draycott QC, prosecuting, said that the facts of the case were relatively simple: "She was an attractive girl and he made some sort of approach to her. Only he can tell us the exact details but there was obviously a struggle. Although he removed some clothes she was not sexually assaulted at all. The tragic fact is that it was the sexual curiosity of a very immature young man that led to this killing." Smith was described by his defence counsel as: "a stumbling, confused schoolboy" and his story was that he chatted to Susan whilst she was taking photographs for her project.