THE murder of Quinton student Kevin Ricketts in 1995 was one of the most grisly in West Midlands crime history.

Alan Giles was found guilty of kidnapping and killing the mild mannered 16-year-old student despite the youngster’s body remaining unfound at the time of the trial.

When Kevin, who studied woodwork at South Birmingham College, failed to return home his family immediately contacted the police.

Despite repeated appeals through the media by Kevin’s family for information about his whereabouts he remained missing.

However, it did not take long for detectives to suspect Alan Giles was connected with the incident.

He was Kevin’s sister’s former common-law husband who had been stalking her since the relationship ended.

The killer’s twisted motive for murdering Kevin was to get back at his sister.

She had left him and won custody of the pair’s child sparking a blood lust within Giles which led him to stalking her and then ultimately killing her brother.

Detectives had their work cut out proving Giles was guilty without a body and officers conducted finger-tip searches throughout Warley, Bartley Green and West Bromwich to no avail.

The breakthrough in the case came when a friend of Giles, Carl Morris, revealed he had helped the killer dispose of Kevin’s belongings after the killing.

The trial at Birmingham Crown Court in July1997 demonstrated the lengths Giles had gone to in ensuring the kidnapping of Kevin would go smoothly. He had followed Kevin to and from college every day memorising his route to the bus stop.

Jurors convicted Giles of kidnap and murder, he was only the ninth person in British legal history to be convicted of murder without a body and was sentenced to two life sentences.

A year later Giles contacted detectives and revealed the whereabouts of Kevin’s body.

A corpse was found in the garden of an Edgbaston house and despite being badly decomposed X-rays and medical records confirmed it was the Quinton teenager’s body. However, cause of death could not be established.

However, the Ricketts family could at last lay their beloved Kevin to rest.