Jacqueline Ansell-Lamb could have been the victim of a serial killer who stalked young girls hitchhiking - but the man who strangled her to death has evaded capture for 48 years.

A number of notorious murderers have been linked to the crime over the years, but no one has ever been charged.

Now Cheshire Police have asked anyone with information on the unsolved case to get in touch. The file remains open on an investigation which, at its peak, saw 120 detectives carrying out 10,000 interviews.

Here the Manchester Evening News traces the final tragic journey of a vivacious, party-loving teenager, who was murdered on her way back to Manchester back in 1970.

It was a different era.

A young girl stood alone on the side of the road thumbing for a ride - a risk few would take today.

But it was 1970, and hitchhiking was commonplace across the UK.

By a poignant twist of fate the Number One song in the charts was ‘Wand’rin Star’- sung by a gravel-voiced Lee Marvin from the hit film, Paint Your Wagon.

That old song, about never staying too long in one place, captured the freewheeling spirit of the time, and had reached the top spot the day before.

At about 2.30pm, on Sunday March 8, Jacqueline Ansell-Lamb, a striking 18-year-old, was at the start of the M1 in north London, 200 miles from Manchester.

She had been dropped off by a boyfriend at Brackley Hill interchange, he had watched her walk down an approach road to the motorway.

Jacci, as she liked to be called, worked as a secretary and had recently moved to a tiny attic flat in a rambling Victorian house in Wellington Road, Whalley Range, Manchester.

On the walls of her £4.50 a week digs were posters of actor Steve McQueen and Beatle George Harrison.

There was a nest of shampoo, hand cream, and make-up, shared with her flat mate, Judi Longrish.

The two had been back to London for the weekend for a party. They had argued about how they would return to Manchester. Judi bought a return train ticket. Jacqueline got a single and said she would try and borrow the money for the return.

Several people noticed Jacci on the motorway, attempting to get a lift Northbound. It was the day after Manchester City had won the League Cup, defeating West Bromwich Albion 2-1.

Newspaper clippings from the time of the murder

Jacqueline managed to get a lift. But she never reached her destination.

On Saturday March 14th 1970 a farmer, Ted Whittaker, of Knowles Pit Farm, found her body off a rural road near Square Wood, Mere, Knutsford. He had gone out at 9.30pm to take hay to his sheep and noticed clothing, before discovering a Jacqueline’s body face-down in a copse.

She had been sexually assaulted and strangled with an electrical flex.

The bruises on her neck and cuts on her face indicated she had put up a desperate fight.

Dressed in a maxi coat, mustard jumper and steel grey tights, she was lying off Bentleyhurst Lane, close to the B5569 Chester to Manchester road.

Her blue and white mini-skirt and buckled maroon leather patent shoes were found nearby.

Police also found her distinctive Japanese Airlines shoulder bag, and a diary in which she had written about boyfriends.

A police appeal resulted in an eye-witness coming forward. He said he saw Jacqueline get into a saloon car sometime between 4 and 5pm on March 8, at Keele Services motorway station on the M6, which had opened seven years earlier.

Then, another crucial clue emerged. A woman who matched her description had been seen in the Poplar Transport Cafe, in High Legh, near Knutsford on the same evening.

Police issued an ‘Identikit’ image of a man who was with her in the cafe - which is now Lymm Truckstop,

'Yorkshire Ripper' Peter Sutcliffe and some of his victims

He was 5ft 9in, of medium build, dressed in a dark suit. There was a suggestion he had been driving a white Jaguar.

He was never traced.

Perhaps the last sighting of Jacqueline was by a couple who saw her thumbing for a lift in a spring blizzard, stood on the A556 Manchester to Chester Road - less than a mile from where her body was found.

While the murder remains unsolved, but the spectre of a notorious killer - and another who lived a life of quiet respectability - have risen around her death.

In a book by writers Chris Clark and Tim Tate, it is suggested that the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, may have been her killer.

The book says Jacci had a wound to the back of her skull, and describes how her jacket had been ripped from her body and used to hide her from view, while her skirt was placed next to her and her body had been posed.

There is no firm evidence linking the Yorkshire Ripper to the crime but hitting victims on the back of the head with a hammer was a method of attack used by Sutcliffe - who was convicted of 13 murders and seven attempted murders of women.

Seven months later, another murder occurred which was a carbon copy of Jacci’s.

Barbara Mayo, 24, a trainee teacher, was also hitchhiking from Hendon, north London, but was trying to go northbound up the A1.

She was hoping to get to Catterick, North Yorkshire and set off on Monday the 12th of October, 1970.

Her plan was to collect her boyfriend’s car from a garage near Catterick. They had left it there after it had broken down as they headed south from a trip to County Durham.

Barbara Mayo was murdered in October 1970 while hitchhiking up M1

Barbara did not make it to the garage. Her body was found near Hodmire lane, Glapwell, Aul Hucknall in Derbyshire.

She too had been sexually assaulted and strangled, and had a wound to the back of her skull.

Ten months after her death, Scotland Yard announced they were investigating the possibility that Jacqueline’s murder, plus that of Barbara Mayo, could be linked to two others - Susan Long, aged 18 found strangled in a lane in Norfolk on March 10th 1970; and Rita Sawyer, 18, who was stabbed to death and found in a cornfield near Harbury, Warwickshire, between the M1 and M5 on September 5th, 1970.

It was suspected the killer of all four could have used the motorway system as a rapid escape route.

In another turn, in 2008, retired librarian Harvey Richardson confessed from beyond the grave to another unsolved murder from 1970.

He wrote a nine-page letter about the killing, which was found in his Wigan home after he died from cancer aged 77.

He detailed the death of mother-of-two Lorraine Marguerite Jacob, 19, who was sexually assaulted and strangled.

Her body was found in an alley in Liverpool in September 1970.

Inside the shoebox which contained Richardson’s confession, at his house in Reservoir Street, Aspull, there was also newspaper clipping about Jacqueline’s murder.

Richardson lived in Manchester, London, and Bolton before spending his last ten years in Wigan.

In the days after Jacqueline’s murder, the caretaker at her Whalley Range flat, Mrs Katherine Hall, said: “Jacqueline was a beautiful girl, refined, and well mannered.”

Meanwhile, her flat mate, Judi Longrish, described what she thought had happened to her.

“With someone she liked and was attracted to she could be very charming and pleasant. If a man made approaches and Jacqueline didn’t find him attractive she could be extremely blunt and even cruel. She would simply tell them where to go.

“I think this may have happened with the man who killed her. He probably lost his temper,” Judi said.

Ten months after her murder, Jacqueline’s heartbroken father, accountant Peter-Ansell Lamb, described how she had been affected by her parents’ broken marriage.

“Jacci lost interest in everything. We had to take her to a psychiatrist. Once we were contacted by the Samaritans after she had contemplated suicide.

“She could be a saint at times but could also be very cruel, even to people she loved. But no matter what Jacci did I continued to love her.”

Appealing to those who might know the identity of his daughter’s killer he added, overcome with emotion: “To whoever is sheltering him...For God’s sake turn in him.”

At Jacqueline’s inquest in Altrincham in June 1970, where a jury was instructed to return a verdict of murder by persons unknown. Coroner John Hibbert, highlighted the disagreement between Jacqueline and her friend.

Newspaper cutting from 1997

“With the benefit of hindsight it is easy to say the tragedy could have been avoided if the girls had stuck together. If you have a young girl who cares to travel about the country in this way she is laying herself open to this type of tragedy,” he said.

Jacci had done nothing wrong, of course. She was just a young woman working and enjoying her life. But this was 1970, and while younger generations were pushing for liberation, many still spoke and thought in ways that we would understand as victim-blaming now.

Speaking to Manchester Evening News now, Detective Chief Inspector Simon Blackwell from Cheshire Police Major Crime Directorate said: “Cheshire Police continually monitor unsolved murder cases, exploring any new lines of enquiry and considering advancements in forensic technology that may assist the investigation.

“I’d ask anyone who believes that they have any information in relation to the murder of Jacci Ansell-Lamb to contact the team here at Cheshire Police on 101.”