38-year-old Pacey was found strangled to death with a cord in her first-floor bathroom by her 14-year-old daughter on her return home from school.

[6][2] A man in blue overalls – apparently the same that had randomly turned up at Pacey's home asking for directions three days earlier – was seen walking up the road at the same time.

[6] At around 4:15 pm Julie's daughter Helen arrived home from school to discover her mother dead in the first-floor bathroom.

[9] Only one item was found to be missing from the home after the murder: her French Luc Desroches watch, which she bought shortly before she died while on holiday in France for the equivalent of £10.

[6] The morning after the murder, at 9 am, he was seen again kicking grass nearby as if he was looking for something, and he later entered a shop in Grantham town centre, acting "totally suspiciously" according to the shopkeeper.

[6] Furthermore, a BMW with the same description was seen twice speeding away from the scene of the murder at around 3:20 pm, the time at which Pacey was seen driving her Audi down Highcliffe Road as she encountered the man in the blue overalls.

[5] Detectives believed that the watch that had been stolen may have been given to a wife or girlfriend by the killer, and they then may have started wearing it without realising its significance.

[12] Pacey's parents later said that they believed that the killer may not have known Julie but "known of her", saying: "It is too much of a coincidence that it happened the one day when she wasn't looking after the little girl she minded and before the children came home from school".

In 2001, it was reported that links between Pacey's case and the murder of 21-year-old Sharon Harper four months earlier in Grantham had been investigated.

[18] The links were made as part of Operation Enigma, a wider national police investigation into the unsolved murders of dozens of women in the UK in the 1990s.

[18] Barmaid Harper had been murdered after she left her Grantham pub workplace after midnight one night, and her body was found soon after in undergrowth near to her home having been strangled to death and beaten.

[19][20][1][21][22] A second appeal was made on Crimewatch, 21 years after the original reconstruction, where it was revealed that scientists had managed to isolate a full DNA profile of the killer.

[20] It was further noted that all investigations had failed to establish an actual motive for the crime, with Pacey simply being a family woman who lived for her children and there being no reason why someone should attack her.

Lead detective Helen Evans appealed to the public to help identify the murderer by giving names to compare to the DNA profile.

Shortly after the Crimewatch appeal, in early September 2015, the original actor himself in the 1994 reconstruction was investigated after calls to the programme.

[23] Some viewers who had watched the re-appeal, which included sections from the original 1994 reconstruction, became, as described by The Independent, 'confused', and called to name the actor playing the killer as being responsible.

[21] This caused police to visit and take the DNA of the man, the 53-year-old Steve Watson, who they did not realise was the original appeal actor.

[22] Watson had previously received abuse from confused locals who thought he was the killer after he played the suspect in the 1994 appeal.