Killing of Julie Pacey

Julie Pacey, a 38-year-old mother of two, was found strangled to death in the first-floor bathroom of her family's bungalow in Grantham, Lincolnshire, on Monday 26 September 1994. Her body was discovered by her 14-year-old daughter, Helen, who had returned home from school at around 4:15 pm. Pacey had also been sexually assaulted. She was fully clothed, though some clothing had been disarranged, and a ligature mark indicated she had been strangled with a cord. There were no signs of a break-in or struggle, and investigators believe she was attacked shortly before her daughter arrived home.

In the days surrounding the murder, numerous witnesses reported seeing a man in blue overalls, dubbed "Overalls Man," in the vicinity of the Pacey home. Three days before the murder, this man had appeared at the house while Pacey was alone, asking for directions. On the day of the murder, he was seen again near the home. Witnesses also reported seeing a BMW car—despite the Pacey family owning only an Audi—parked in the driveway and speeding from the scene around the time of the attack. The only item reported missing from the home was Pacey's French Luc Desroches watch, purchased shortly before her death, which has never been recovered.

Police established that the attack appeared sexually motivated but were unable to determine why Pacey was specifically targeted, describing the crime as apparently premeditated. The case was featured on Crimewatch in November 1994, with an artist's impression of "Overalls Man" distributed throughout the area, and police stopped hundreds of local residents to gather information. In 2001, investigators examined potential links between Pacey's murder and the killing of Sharon Harper, a 21-year-old barmaid murdered in Grantham four months earlier, as part of the national Operation Enigma review of unsolved murders of women in the 1990s.

The case returned to public attention in 2015 when a second Crimewatch appeal revealed that a full DNA profile of the killer had been obtained using DNA-17 profiling technology. The profile did not match any entry in the UK National DNA Database. Lead detective Helen Evans appealed for the public to provide names that could be compared against the profile, and direct appeals were made to "Overalls Man" himself to come forward, without success. Shortly after the 2015 broadcast, police investigated and took a DNA sample from Steve Watson, the actor who had played the suspect in the original 1994 reconstruction, after confused viewers mistakenly identified him as the killer. Watson was cleared and no further action was taken against him. As of the most recent reporting, the murder of Julie Pacey remains unsolved.