By Saul Cooke-Black

TWO weeks after Richard Miles was murdered the SNJ reported the news with the headline, 'Who killed Richard?'

Mr Miles, who worked as a panel beater in Frampton-on-Severn, was found dead in the garden of the family home at Newtown, near Stonehouse.

More than 20 years since the death – after arrests and alleged confessions – the headline remains the same.

Mr Miles was found with a kitchen knife in his heart on March 10, 1993, just six days after he had celebrated his 29th birthday.

Police said he had gone home for lunch at around 1pm and his body was found by his mother Freda, a nurse at Standish Hospital, at 3.30pm. The murder weapon was found at the scene.

Speaking to the SNJ at the time, his father Tony Miles, said: “We are all completely devastated by his death.

"His mother is shattered and I wonder if she will ever get over it. He was a very quiet lad.

"He did not have very many friends but the ones he did have were very close to him.

“The police are baffled too because they have not found anyone who has said a bad word about him.”

News of the death shocked friends, family and colleagues across the community in the peaceful hamlet, set alongside the Stroudwater Canal.

“I was completely taken by surprise when I saw it on the local news and recognised the house,” said neighbour Arthur Williams.

Colleagues at Pollards, the Frampton-on-Severn car repair shop where Mr Miles had worked for the past ten years said they were ‘ shocked and devastated.’

“He was a very quiet and very unassuming sort of lad,” said Mr Martin Pollard, his former boss.

“I suppose he was the sort of lad who would work all day and you wouldn’t know he was there.

“I couldn’t see him upsetting anyone or having any enemies like this.”

Members of Stonehouse Town Council voted to send their condolences to the family.

“This has come as a great shock to us all,” said councillor David Drew, who once taught one of Mr Miles’ brothers.

A major police hunt was launched in the wake of the murder.

More than 40 officers were drafted into the case with all rest days and annual leave cancelled.

Police stopped 1,140 vehicles in the area, questioned 277 people who passed through Newtown at the time of the killing and police divers scoured the nearby canal.

Several mysterious figures were never identified including an ‘attractive woman’ pushing a buggy near the home on the day of the killing and two men seen in a nearby field.

A reconstruction of the case featured on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme and the Miles family offered a £10,000 reward for information which could lead to the arrest and charge of those responsible. Yet the killers were never found.

Former SNJ reporter Andy Read remembers covering the case.

He said: “I was a trainee reporter and it was one of the first murder stories I covered.

"I knocked on the door of the Miles family’s home in Newtown, a little nervously.

“But it soon became clear that they were keen to talk about Richard and their loss.

"They were desperate for someone to come forward who could give them any answers as to what happened and why.”

At Mr Miles’s inquest, the coroner recorded an open verdict due to a lack of evidence about the stabbing.

In November 2013, the case was re-opened after a man called police leading to officers arresting him and two others.

An alleged confession was made and three men were bailed. Two months later all three men were released.

The case is no longer active but police will investigate any new evidence that comes to light.

The killing remains a mystery.