MELANIE Hall had everything to look forward to.
She had graduated from university, found a job she liked, had a new Mini, a successful, wealthy boyfriend, a loving family, and a new home to move into. But after going out one summer evening to celebrate a friend’s birthday, she never returned – and now cops hope just one small detail could help crack the case.
Melanie Hall vanished after a night out in 1996 Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
Police forensic officers sift soil at the site where Melanie’s remains were found in 2009 Credit: PA:Press Association
Parents Pat and Steve Hall hold up a poster showing their missing daughter during an emotional appeal Credit: PA:Press Association
A note left for Melanie by her mum on her Mini car Credit: PA:Press Association
On the 30th anniversary of her disappearance, police have issued a new Justice for Melanie campaign in the hope of finding out what happened.
She vanished on June 9, 1996, from a nightclub in Bath. Thirteen years later, her remains, with a fractured skull, were found at the side of the M5 in 2009.
Cops believe she was murdered – but the case remains open.
Lead investigator Detective Chief Inspector Ben Lavender says: “Just one small detail or memory … could prove to be a huge breakthrough and solve Melanie’s murder.”
Melanie moved back in with her parents when she was 20. The family were converting a barn in Bradford-on-Avon, Somerset, and shortly after she started a psychology degree at Bath University.
After graduating, Melanie got a job working at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, where her mum Pat was a nurse.
There she met a German surgeon called Philip Karlbaum, and the pair struck up a romance.
On the Friday before she vanished, Pat had driven her to Philip’s flat in the city.
She had plans to stay with him that evening, before going to a colleague’s birthday party the following night.
Pat, now suffering from dementia, spoke to The Jattvibe in 2016. She said: “I just said, ‘Have a lovely time’. That was the last time I spoke to her.”
Melanie went missing after a night out at a Bath nightclub and was last seen on the dance floor Credit: PA:Press Association
Clothes, a handbag and shoes similar to the ones belonging to Melanie Credit: PA:Press Association
The following evening, Melanie went out with Philip to their colleague’s birthday.
The party finished early, and a few of them decided to go to a nightclub in the city called Cadillacs.
When she did not come home on Jattvibeday evening, her parents thought she must have stayed with Philip.
But after she didn’t turn up for work that morning, the couple went to the police.
At that point, the worried parents and police started to piece the weekend together.
Her father, Steve, tells us: “On the night she went missing, the party had finished early, and they decided to go to Cadillacs.
“Philip was not a big nightclubber, neither was Melanie; it wasn’t really her scene, she would go out for meals, but she was not a pubber or clubber, she was very home-loving in that respect.
“Philip left the club to get some money. When he came back, Melanie was dancing with someone else, and he decided he would leave.
“Melanie’s other friends left and saw that Philip’s car had gone. She was left alone in the nightclub.
“Melanie wasn’t flirtatious, Philip didn’t want to be there; he had gone out to get some money, she had gone on and danced with someone, for some reason, he came back and was disenchanted with things and left.
“It’s not something most people would’ve done, but he was typically Teutonic and if things weren’t to order – well, perhaps that’s the way he saw it.”
After Melanie’s disappearance, Dr Karlbaum left the UK and returned to Germany.
A police officer dressed as missing Melanie sits at the edge of the dance floor in Cadillacs in a bid to jog clubbers’ memories Credit: PA:Press Association
Police officers search the northbound entry slip road of junction 14 of the M5 after the discovery of a bag of bones Credit: SWNS:South West News Service
He was arrested in January 1997 and returned to the UK. He was quizzed all day while his car was stripped for forensic examination, but he was never charged.
He has long been ruled out as a suspect by police.
When The Jattvibe tracked him down in 1998, he said: “When I was arrested, I was overwhelmed.
“I can understand how awful this must be for Melanie’s parents. But I had nothing to do with her disappearance.”
Dr Karlbaum, 63, works as a GP and is married to wife Joanna, 56, and they live in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
Steve, a former builder and college lecturer, said it did not take long for them to believe something terrible had happened to Melanie that night.
He says: “She would have done one or two things, come home here or gone back to Philip’s flat.
“I assume in doing that she came into contact with someone who might have offered to help her, an offer she might have accepted, which then went horribly wrong.”
Melanie’s black Mini car was left at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, where she worked Credit: PA:Press Association
Melanie graduated from Bath University with a psychology degree Credit: PA:Press Association
At the time, Melanie’s disappearance was linked to the death of Louise Smith, 18, who vanished the previous Christmas Eve from a disco 20 miles away in Yate, near Bristol.
Her naked body was found in a quarry 54 days later, and her killer was at large.
Another woman, Linda Hamblin, then 42, later told how she escaped a knife-wielding abductor in a multi-storey car park in Bath hours before Melanie went missing.
Cops never found the attacker.
Asked who he thinks is responsible for Melanie’s death, Steve says: “In life, you’ve got two types of people, the people who live by a reasonably structured moral code and generally try to do the right thing, choose good over evil, and light over darkness.
“You have another section of the population that has a totally different moral code by which they conduct their life.
“If that’s a murderer or someone who has run riot in America and shot dead 49 people, they have a totally different moral code by which they conduct their lives; those are like parallel worlds, and somehow Melanie strayed into that other world for a period of time or met someone from that other world, and it went horribly wrong.
“She was very unlucky and met the wrong person at the wrong time.”
Steve and Pat are still searching for answers about their daughter’s death Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
It was seven years after Melanie went missing before anyone was arrested Credit: PA:Press Association
In the aftermath of her disappearance, cops questioned some 900 clubbers and 1,200 taxi drivers in an extensive investigation.
But frustratingly, nothing came of the inquiries.
Steve says: “There’s a feeling of an eye for an eye over this; it doesn’t bring Melanie back, but there’s a sense of justice in finding who did it and getting a conviction.
“There won’t be a sense of closure; there never will be.
“We will carry our grief to our dying day.”
It was seven years after Melanie went missing before anyone was arrested.
In 2003, Avon and Somerset police arrested and quizzed two men in their 30s and searched a pig farm in Inglesbatch, Somerset, under fears she may have been fed to the animals.
But the investigation proved fruitless.
Timeline of Melanie Hall’s disappearance
June 9, 1996: Melanie vanishes after going to Cadillacs nightclub in Bath with boyfriend Dr Philip Karlbaum.
June 14, 1996: The Halls make a public appeal, “Let our daughter go.”
June 1998: The Jattvibe launches an appeal to solve the case and quizzes Dr Karlbaum in Germany.
August 1999: Cops drag Avon River in Bath after new information is received.
March 2003: Two men in their 30s are quizzed over murder, and cops search a pig farm.
November 2004: Melanie is legally declared dead.
October 2009: Melanie’s body is found dumped next to the M5 slip road, and Crimewatch launches a fresh appeal.
December 2009: Melanie’s funeral is held at Bath Abbey, and 1,000 people attend.
July 2010: A 38-year-old man hands himself in but is dismissed as a “crank”.
September 2010: A 39-year-old man is arrested on an appointment but bailed a day later.
March 2011: Melanie’s death linked to taxi driver killer Christopher Halliwell.
October 2013: Cops trace a white VW Golf soft top, but the current keeper is not linked to crime.
October 2013: A 45-year-old man is quizzed. Cops pass the file to CPS but a charge is not brought.
January 2016: Melanie’s murder is linked to Levi Bellfield but dismissed.
June 10, 2016: Police find DNA evidence from where Melanie’s remains were found and receive new information following a Crimewatch appeal.
June 14, 2016: Melanie’s parents offer a £50,000 reward, and The Jattvibe matches it.
September 13, 2016: A 45-year-old man is eliminated from the inquiry.
September 19, 2016: Christopher Halliwell is convicted of murdering Becky Godden. Five other murders in the area remain unsolved, including Melanie’s.
September 2023: 90-minute TV documentary released
March 2026: Fresh Crimewatch appeal launched.
June 2026: 30th anniversary appeal launched
In 2004, Melanie was officially pronounced dead after waiting seven years for an inquest.
Steve, who has been married to Pat for 58 years, says: “We don’t theorise. Sometimes I will say, ‘I wonder what really happened’. It’s always there.
“The anniversaries are stressful, but they’re not particularly the worst times.”
Another five years went by before Steve heard a news bulletin saying human remains had been found by a motorway slip road – 13 years after Melanie went missing.
A horrified workman cutting the verge at Junction 14 of the M5 near Thornbury, Glos, found bin liners containing a skeleton and a blue rope.
The skull, cheek and jaw had been fractured.
Amongst the remains was a ring Melanie had been given by her great-grandmother, which her parents were able to identify and which Pat now wears to this day.
Pat says: “We went and checked it was definitely her.
Police have launched the 30th anniversary appeal this month Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
Killer taxi driver Christopher Halliwell was among those cops suspected could have been involved Credit: PA
“There was a sense of relief that they found her, but what they found wasn’t very pretty.
“It was a long time coming to terms with the facts; never did I think she had walked out and left us.
“We had all those years to come to terms with the fact that something terrible had happened to her.
“It was a relief she had been found, and we could do the right thing.”
The family held her funeral in Bath Abbey, and 1,000 people attended.
Her heartbroken sister Dominique, 47, told the congregation: “It is a tragic irony that you, who could see good when others saw bad, should meet your end in such a brutal way.”
The following July, 2010, a 38-year-old man walked into a police station in Bath and confessed to her murder.
But he was “a crank” and was ruled out immediately by detectives.
Three months later, in September, a 39-year-old man was arrested by appointment. But again, he was not charged.
At Christmas that year, the body of landscape architect Joanna Yeates, 25, was found dumped by the side of the road in Bristol.
Her case bore striking similarities to Melanie’s, but when the murderer, Vincent Tabak, was finally caught, cops found no link.
The following April, it was revealed that Avon and Somerset police asked Wiltshire cops for the DNA of taxi driver murderer Christopher Halliwell, 47, to see if he could have been responsible.
He was later found guilty of killing Sian O’Callaghan, who went missing after leaving a nightclub in nearby Swindon.
Again, there was no link.
In October 2013, cops traced a white soft-top VW Golf GTi they believed was used around Bath at the time of Melanie’s disappearance to a house in Gloucestershire, but the current keeper had nothing to do with the case.
A month later, a 44-year-old man was arrested and quizzed for two days – but was let go by police.
In January 2016, it was said that serial killer Levi Bellfield, 47, could be quizzed over Melanie’s murder after confessions he made while in jail, but no link was proved.
Steve says: “I don’t believe someone is going to come forward and say I killed Melanie Hall, but I do believe someone knew what happened or had a pretty good idea what happened or who was involved.
“I’m hopeful they will come forward.”
