The murders of Kate Bushell and Linda "Lyn" Bryant, a 14-year-old schoolgirl and a 41-year-old woman, respectively, occurred in separate incidents in the West Country, England.

Bryant was stabbed a number of times, her killer had apparently returned to the scene four months later to place her missing glasses back at the site.

In 2018, it was revealed that a DNA profile had been isolated in the Bryant case, leading to renewed hopes that the perpetrator could be identified.

There has been speculation that the murders could be linked to the similarly apparently motiveless killing of 66-year-old Helen Fleet, who was also walking her dog in Weston-super-Mare in 1987.

[a] Both crimes made headline news and received significant coverage in the press and media, and both cases having featured on Crimewatch appeals.

[4] At 6 p.m., with Bushell having not returned home and it being dark, her mother and father drove up the lane in their car to search for her, and also contacted the police.

[4] They then searched the footpaths through the adjacent fields and at 7:30 p.m. her father found Gemma, and then saw that Bushell was lying dead next to her.

[4] On the evening of Wednesday 12 November 1997, as the local resident again walked his dog down the lane, the vagrant suddenly came out from behind the trees and startled him.

[4] A mother and her daughter driving down the lane at 5:00 p.m. reported passing Bushell and her dog as they drove towards Exwick.

[4] They noted that she was looking straight at them, which they thought was unusual, and slightly further up the road they saw a man stood by a small blue van that was parked on the southern side of the lane.

[4][6] The witnesses questioned what the man was doing there, and said after they heard of the murder that they felt guilty that they had not gone back to help Bushell in some way.

[4] About a quarter of an hour before this sighting was made, two other witnesses had driven down the lane and seen a blue Ford Fiesta parked in the opposite direction, and it was not known whether this was the same vehicle.

[4] Police did not know for sure if the sighting of the man was connected, and when Bushell's murder was featured on Crimewatch in January 1998 they appealed for him to come forward.

[4] The lead detective on the case, Mike Stephens, said that all the officers on the inquiry were concerned that the murder may just be the start of the killer's attacks.

[7] At the conclusion of this second Crimewatch appeal, it was asked for any individuals who knew the identity of the killer to come forward before he committed another offence.

[8] On Tuesday 20 October 1998, Linda Bryant (known as Lyn), a 41-year-old mother-of-two was killed and investigators quickly concluded that her murder might be linked to Bushell's.

[8][6] At 2:30 p.m. she was found by a gate to a field near her home on the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall, five miles south of Truro, by a holiday-maker driving past.

[8] Bryant drove to Chenoweth's garage at Ruan High Lanes and on the A3078 in her car and arrived at about 1 p.m., where she saw a friend and chatted with her.

[8] Whilst they were talking, at about 1:10 p.m., a small, scruffy white van turned into the garage and parked at a strange angle, facing towards Bryant's car.

[8] Then, between 1:45 and 2:00 p.m., a witness driving past saw Bryant speaking with a man outside the chapel, 100 yards (91 metres) from where she was later found dead.

[6] A farmer moving his animals at the murder site did not report seeing Bryant at around 2:00 p.m., but she was then found dead at this location shortly after.

[8][11] Bryant's glasses were missing from her body and were not initially found by investigators, which detectives noted on Crimewatch three weeks later.

[4] Despite the high profile of the Bushell case, and the appeal on Crimewatch in January 1998, the killer was not caught quickly.

[7] He also stated that the man was right handed, possibly the owner of a blue vehicle, and may have had prior experience of slaughtering animals, particularly sheep.

[7] A psychological profile of the killer was also revealed, which said the killer was likely: Despite the high profile of Bushell's killing and the appeals, none of the three suspicious figures seen in the area of Bushell's murder (the vagrant, the man by the vehicle 100 yards from the murder site, and the man running from the scene) came forward, and Mike Stephens stated in November 1998: "We must question why some of these people have not come forward.

[12] The man had driven past them on the lane in a blue-grey Vauxhall Cavalier saloon, before coming up behind them again at slow speed several minutes later, before deliberately driving into the daughter's legs.

[15] On 2 July 2000, there was an incident in which a woman was stalked for more than 300 yards by a man carrying a six-inch knife in Salcombe, Devon.

[18] In October 2018, it was revealed that a partial DNA profile of the killer of Bryant had been isolated during a 2016 forensic review of the case.

[9] It was also said that three men of interest in the Bryant murder had still not been identified: the scruffy, bearded driver of the white van seen following her out of the garage, the man seen talking to her beside the chapel shortly before she was killed (the last known sighting of her), and a clean-shaven man wearing "normal clothes" who was seen by a farmer walking through a field away from the scene, which the farmer said was very unusual.

[14][23][31][21] In 2009, Bushell's case was discussed in detail in a chapter of a book by Vanessa Brown, titled Britain's Ten Most Wanted: The Truth Behind the Most Shocking Unsolved Murders.