The enquiries centred on Walter’s movements and on a number of sightings which made tracing his movements in the hours before his death very difficult. For instance, he had been seen in Rowland Road (not far from the place where the dance was held); then, someone who could have been him was seen being sick further along towards Ashby at Revesby Avenue. This would be consistent with his taking the short-cut, as that road leads directly to the snicket through to the park. But if this was him, then two hours had passed between the two main sightings. He had apparently travelled only around a quarter of a mile in those two hours.

As the hunt for the killer or killers began in earnest, a complex picture of the movements of various gatherings of people on that night was put together, and there were in total thirteen groups or pairs of people seen around the streets in the area around Jubilee Park at that time. Logically, the closest position for any suspects to have been seen was close to Ashby High Street, but such sightings as two youths seen climbing over the park gates and four people seen walking into Belmont Street around midnight were never conclusively found and sorted. Certainly, Belmont Street was very close to the scene of death.

Walter was a sociable type, and when he did not return the next morning, it seemed natural to assume that he had stayed over with a friend. But his mother was to find out what had happened in a very dramatic and shocking way; she was in Mill Road Club and heard someone say that there had been a murder and that a young lad wearing black clothes had been found dead. Mrs Taylor said, ‘That’s our Walter!’ She was sure of this after hearing the description. So began her campaign to find out how he died. She is on record as having worked constantly to increase the efforts, even to the extent of asking that Scotland Yard be brought into the case investigations.

The local force did indeed work hard also; CS John Crawley was involved and he set up a mobile police station in a nearby street. DS Ron Smith organised the search. The Home Office pathologist from Sheffield, Dr Alan Usher, was present also. A massive trawl began, across a wide area, officers working house-to-house. Over eight thousand people were interviewed, and then a reward was offered. There was no outcome. The search spread further than the Scunthorpe area and seventy potential suspects were cleared. Other detectives took over later, and the focus was obviously on looking for a motive. Writers have already expressed the range of potential motives, but these all depend on situations yet to be established firmly, such as the possibility that Walter was making enemies in some way. Words such as ‘revenge attack’ have been in print; the only sure thing is that robbery was not a motive as there was no evidence of any attempt to steal from him.

On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the murder, a report was published focusing on D I Tony Garton, with a picture of him looking through the voluminous police files on the case. The feature noted two interesting details: first that the body was found near the centre of the football pitch, and second that the men seen clambering over a fence on Lindley Street who were never traced, may well hold the key to the case. We have a description: both were short, in their early twenties, wearing jeans, and eating from cardboard cartons. As to the scene on the football pitch – was this meant to convey something of significance about the killers and some kind of intended irony linked to their victim’s life?