Wanda Moran - The Murder of Rachel

Dedicated to the memory of Vanda Maria Moran

7.9.1968 7.8.2010

My daughter, my friend, without whom Rachel's story would never have been told.

Loved and missed more than words can say.

O n Monday, 16 May 2007, my husband Ray and I made the long journey to Bristol. Accompanying us was one of the senior detectives who had played a large part in the investigation of Rachels murder.

We had been waiting since October 2003 for this day to arrive. Finally, it had come and after three and a half years, we were about to find out Michael Littles tariff we would know how many years he would have to serve behind bars.

The session in court was a low-key affair that took place before an almost-empty room. It bore no resemblance to the trial although I found it equally as terrifying. Little himself was not in attendance as it was not compulsory. Nor was it compulsory for Ray and I to be there, but we had to see this through to the end.

It was over quite quickly. After reading from the transcript of the trial, and the recommendations that were made afterwards, the judge gave his own verdict. He sentenced Little to no less than twenty five years in prison, before being considered for parole, adding that there was no guarantee that he would be freed after twenty five years because of the nature of Littles crime. He could well remain behind bars for the rest of his life.

A bitter-sweet result for us, Rachels family. Sweet because we had never dared to hope Little would get the sentence he so justly deserved but bitter because, no matter how many years he remains incarcerated, we will never see Rachel again.

Meanwhile, we are still struggling to come to terms with the loss of Rachel. Her final moments are a constant torment to me and always will be. Little steadfastly refuses to talk to the police, who occasionally try to speak to him. To this day, he has not admitted his guilt nor shown any remorse for what he did on that fateful night.

July 2009

T he abduction and murder of Rachel Moran during the early hours of New Years Day 2003 was one of the most shocking crimes in Hull in recent years.

She was a 21-year-old woman from a loving, Catholic family snatched from the street as she walked home from a party and stabbed to death, seemingly without reason. Her killer, Michael Little, was a loner who happened to live nearby. Rachel hadnt met him before. She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I got to know the family through covering the case in my role at the time as crime reporter for the Hull and East Riding Mail and spent many hours in their company, talking about Rachel and what she meant to them. Throughout their ordeal, they conducted themselves with the utmost dignity.

During the weeks she was missing, they did everything they could to assist the police investigation and help media appeals for information. They welcomed me into their home from the start. I was a stranger who came into their lives in the most terrible of circumstances but they were never anything other than completely co-operative. I spoke to the family most days during the four weeks between Rachel being reported missing and the police finding her body at Littles flat. We got to know each other well.

Publicly, they clung to the hope Rachel would return home safe and well. As the days and weeks passed though, it became clear there would be no happy ending. They knew it and so did I.

Yet they never fell apart. They stayed strong for each other.

I was, and still am, amazed by the individual and collective strength they showed throughout. They are a remarkable family. The day Rachels body was found was one of the worst of my professional life. I was outside Littles flat trying to interview neighbours about the gruesome discovery but could only think about Rachels family and what they must be going through. They were decent, hard working people who had been plunged into the most devastating of tragedies.

When Little was eventually convicted of Rachels murder, after the most dramatic court case I have witnessed, senior police officers and court staff broke down in tears. I struggled to contain my own emotions and I know colleagues also covering the trial were the same. I have covered numerous murders for the newspaper, but none have affected me as much as Rachels.

Her senseless killing impacted on so many lives. At the centre of it all was her mother. Wanda spoke little of her own feelings throughout, but she talked constantly about Rachel. She reminisced about the good times and bad, and of the hopes she had for her future. But she gave hardly anything away about her own trauma. She didnt talk about the devastating impact Rachels brutal death had on her personally. I had no idea at the time she was writing it all down in her diaries.

Wanda began writing as a form of therapy, to try and come to terms with the loss of her youngest daughter. She didnt intend for them to be published. Her diaries allowed her to express her private emotions when her life was falling apart around her. It was only on the advice of daughter Vanda she realised hers was a story that deserved to be shared with a wider audience.

At times, her diaries make for harrowing reading. In a startlingly honest account, Wanda reveals the full horror of the search for Rachel. She details the moment she was told her daughters body was found and the anguish of burying her. As one of the last people to have seen her alive, Wanda had to give evidence at crown court during Littles trial for murder. She reveals the full trauma of the experience and the pain of having to listen to Littles vicious lies as he tried to escape justice. She also tells of the suffering that will never ease.

But even out of the most devastating of tragedies shines some light. There is a determination Rachels brutal death will not tear the rest of her family apart. And there is hope Wandas own experiences will help others struggling to cope with loss. It is a truly moving account.

Rick Lyon

Assistant News Editor

Hull and East Riding Mail

Saturday, 16 August 2003

T his is a story that should not have been written and, indeed, should not have needed to be written. It begins in 1981, the year in which my daughter, Rachel, was born and charts the life of that girl, from her birth to her untimely death 21 years later at the hands of a brutal, callous killer.

She was my youngest child and, as is so often the case with the baby of any family, she was cosseted and overindulged throughout her all too brief spell on this earth. When I bade her farewell on the eve of the New Year 2003, when she left me to make the short journey to her own home, little did I think that it would be the last time that I would ever see her.

She never arrived and so began every mothers worst nightmare and it is one from which I can never awaken.

Rachel was officially a missing person for the first month following her disappearance and continued to be so until her body was found. During these first weeks of dreadful uncertainty, I began to put into writing my own recollections of Rachel which have ultimately become the first part of this story, although of course I didnt know at the time that this would be so.

Later, in the months leading up to the trial of her murderer, I started to keep a diary of events as they unfolded and these diaries make up a large portion of this book.

For me, it was a cathartic experience, during what can only be described as the darkest days of my life. In penning my innermost thoughts and deepest fears, I was able to save my sanity and, in some small way, to assuage my grief. I continued with my diary until long after the first anniversary of Rachels death had been and gone. I saw it as no more than a personal journal that might possibly be read by future generations of the family.