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Michelle Bettles

Age: 22

Sex: female

Date: 29 Mar 2002

Place: Rush Meadow Road, Scarning, Dereham, Norwich

Michelle Bettles was a sex worker in Norwich and was found strangled three days after disappearing on 28 March 2002.

She had previously arranged to meet a regular client close to her home address in the Dereham Road area of Norwich but she failed to keep the appointment which was considered unusual.

However, CCTV footage showed Michelle Bettles walking along St Benedict's Street towards the city centre at 8.20pm that night, indicating that, for whatever reason, she had never intended to keep the appointment with her regular client since she was heading in the opposite direction to where her pre-arranged meeting should have taken place.

There were a series of further sightings of Michelle Bettles in various locations in the red light district of Norwich by people that knew her, the last being at about midnight or the early hours of 29 March 2002

One potential sighting of her was at 10.30pm on 28 March in the City Road area, walking towards Queens Road.

Other uncorroborated sightings of her were made around the Rouen Road and Ber Street area.

Her body was found on the morning of 31 March 2002 by a local resident in woodland by the side of a country track known as Rush Meadow Road in Scarning, near Dereham just off the A47. She had been strangled. Scarning was about 20 miles from the red light district area of Norwich.

She was still dressed but her long black leather coat that she was known for was missing, as well as her handbag and other personal possessions.

A pathologist said that she had been strangled.

The police said that they had followed up reports that she had been abducted and held against her will for up to three days before she was dumped in the country lane.

Michelle Bettles was also said to have been a heroin addict.

In March 2022 it was announced that the police had recovered new DNA profiles from the evidence in a forensic review and later in October 2022 that they had recovered a complete male DNA profile.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.