The murder of ‘lovely’ Sheffield woman Michaela Hague resulted in one of South Yorkshire Police’s biggest ever investigations

Transcript

00:00Today marks exactly 23 years since Michaela Haig was murdered in what remains one of Sheffield's

00:06most shocking and high-profile unsolved murders. Michaela was just 25 years old when she was

00:14fatally stabbed 19 times in an isolated car park in Sheffield's city centre. At the time

00:22of her killing, Michaela was working as a prostitute to fund heroin habits and she thought

00:28that the man that killed her was one of her punters. It is believed Michaela was picked

00:33up on Barrow Street in the city centre before being driven to an isolated car park off Spitalfields

00:41which is where the fatal stabbing is believed to have taken place. In the last few weeks

00:46both South Yorkshire Police and the Sheffield Star have been contacted by somebody who believes

00:51that they know the name of Michaela's killer and is urging police to investigate it. Asking

00:59South Yorkshire Police whether or not they are looking into the potential lead, Dave

01:03Stopford who is head of the force's major incident review team said, we do research

01:09and investigate all lines of inquiry that are passed on to us as we do with all undetected

01:15homicides. A South Yorkshire Police spokesperson added, as with all other unsolved homicide

01:22investigations, the death of Michaela Haig has been constantly reviewed by our major

01:28incident review team. We allocate resources accordingly to look into any new information

01:34or intelligence that we receive and we take all lines of inquiry incredibly seriously.

01:41We want to thank members of the public who have already contacted us with information

01:45in connection with Michaela's death and we would urge anyone who has intelligence

01:50but has yet to share that with us to do so now. PC Twigg from South Yorkshire Police

01:55arrived on the scene very shortly after the fatal attack was carried out and was able

02:00to take down a few pieces of vital information from Michaela as she took her final breaths.

02:05He had to take them down on his hand in a hurry, take down the vital information.

02:11Michaela told PC Twigg that her attacker was white, clean-shaven, that he wore a wedding

02:16ring. She said she believed he was around 38 years old, about six feet tall and was

02:22wearing a blue fleece and glasses. As another sex worker working in the area also described

02:29seeing a vehicle that drove off as Michaela was found fatally injured on the ground. The

02:35sex worker in question said she believed it was a blue Ford Sierra. The South Yorkshire

02:41Police investigation that followed Michaela's murder was one of the biggest in its history

02:46and it saw the force interview more than 10,000 people. It also saw detectives travel up and

02:51down the country tracing anybody, any male with a blue Ford Sierra at the time of Michaela's

02:56murder. Despite that and several appeals on Crimewatch and developments in the investigation,

03:04Michaela's killer remains at large after managing to evade justice for the last 23 years.