Murder of Karen Price

On 7 December 1989, two construction workers installing a garden behind a house in Cardiff, Wales discovered a rolled up carpet buried in the ground. When the carpet was unrolled, the skeletal remains of a young female were revealed. There was a plastic bag placed over her head, and her arms were tied behind her back. Forensic entomologists studied insect eggs around the discovery site and determined that the girl had been dead for 5 to 10 years. When early efforts to identify the body failed, Richard Neave of Manchester University created a clay facial reconstruction of the skull. This reconstruction, along with a comparison of DNA samples from the victim and Price's parents, made the identification possible. The police investigation discovered that Price was living in a children's home, and had run away in July 1981. This was not the first time she had run away from the home, but she did not return on this occasion. She later turned to prostitution. In 1991, Idris Ali and Alan Charlton, who were alleged to have managed her solicitation as a prostitute, were charged with her murder. Ali's charge was eventually reduced to manslaughter, and he was released in 1994. Charlton continued to serve a life sentence, but was released on parole in 2017. ==Review of convictions==

In February 2014, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the public body responsible for investigating alleged miscarriages of justice in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, referred Charlton's conviction to the Court of Appeal, stating that there was a "real possibility" that the conviction could be overturned. In March 2015, the commission also referred Ali's conviction to the appeal court, It was disclosed that a number of officers from the South Wales Police who were involved in the investigation of Price's murder had also worked on the Lynette White and Philip Saunders murder inquiries, in which six men were wrongfully convicted. ==See also==

• • • Murray, Elizabeth A. (2012). Forensic Identification: Putting a Name and Face on Death. Twenty-First Century Books. • Palmer, Trisha (1994). Real-Life Crimes: Forensic Mysteries. Chancellor Press. pp. 5–11.