Dawn Shields murder: 'My friend told me my sister's dead body had been found after hearing it on radio'

It was May 1994, and Mandy Shields heard the phone ring.

That was when she heard the devastating news that would change her, and her family’s lives forever.

It was a friend who had just heard a news bulletin on the radio. It had announced that police had found a body. It came as a horrific shock to her and the rest of the family.

Her sister, Dawn, had been missing for days.

She said: “I can remember it crystal clear from my mum ringing me, because the babysitter had said she’d not come home. Even though she’s not done it before, I said ‘she’s probably just fallen asleep somewhere. She’ll wake up and run home because she knows the babysitter will be going mad.’

“Time went on and there was still no Dawn. Me and my friend went looking, and my mum was going to clairvoyants.

“I can remember the Friday a body was found. I can’t remember what radio station it was on, but a friend phoned my house up. He went ‘Mandy, I’ve just heard on the radio that they’ve found the body of a young female’. I went up to my mum’s. I walked up and said ‘mum, they’ve found a body’. My mother just passed out on the floor.”

Her mum’s partner drove them up to where the police had found the body, near Mam Tor in the Peak District. They were sent home.

Dawn had been killed and found naked in a shallow grave. A National Park ranger had found her body, on May 20, 1994. South Yorkshire Police launched a murder investigation. But 30 years later, her murder remains unsolved.

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Despite widespread publicity at the time, and re-appeals for information over the years, the killer of Dawn Shields has never been identified.

Dawn, a mum-of-one from Pitsmoor, was just 19 years old when she disappeared on May 13, 1994. The young woman was working as a prostitute in Broomhall at the time.

Dawn had head injuries, had been strangled and was buried.

Now, 30 years on Mandy says it is time for police to start the whole investigation from scratch.

She said: “It needs to be reopened. It needs to be started from the beginning. Even if it amounts to nothing, at least they’ve double ticked those boxes again, because the line that they’re going down is not working. Because 30 years later, here we are. The way it’s going it will be another 10 years, and another 10 years.

“After 30 years of getting nowhere would it hurt to start from the beginning again?

“I think 30 years is a long time now. My sister is now a nannan, of a grandson she has not even seen.” Remembering Dawn 30 years on, Mandy still has her fond memories of her younger sister before she got involved in drugs.

“She would not leave home without her make up, without her hair done” said Mandy. “She was one of the kindest, gentlest, people. She wouldn't say boo to a goose. If anyone picked on her, I would be the one to defend her.

“She was funny, even her friend still puts things up to this day saying she misses her crazy cooking because she’d make a dinner out of absolutely nowt. She’d come up with some concoction. She loved life. She was always happy. She loved my son and used to babysit for me. She was always at my house.

“Growing up she was one of the quirkiest kids I’ve ever known. She wouldn't let my mum do her hair. She was so particular about it.”

A former pupil at St John’s Church of England School near Wybourn, she loved children and used to take Mandy’s boy to the park.

But Mandy said Dawn later developed a drugs problem, leading to her involvement in sex work.

Mandy left Sheffield after Dawn’s death, and lived in Intake, Doncaster, for 23 years, before recently returning to Sheffield.

She had felt she had to get out of Sheffield because she was so affected by her sister’s death.

She said: “It was one of the reason I left Sheffield. I started to suspect everybody. I thought I can’t live like this. My son was in school and kept seeing his auntie. He kept seeing her on telly. Everyone knew. I just wanted out, and moved out.”

Dawn’s son was 11 months old when his mum was murdered. He lived with his grandmother until he was three, when Mandy and Dawn’s mum had a nervous breakdown. He is now 30.

Mandy says Dawn’s son, who she does not want to name, was angry about what had happened, having been raised without his mum, but not having any answers as to what had happened to her.

But she added: “He’s doing fine. He works, he’s doing fantastic in his life but it’s always shadowed by not knowing his mum. Obviously I fill in all the blanks in that I can. You can’t tell him everything he wants to know. He hates it that 30 years after someone is still walking around.”

Dawn’s family still want answers. Mandy says that over the 30 years, every time they have heard of someone being arrested for any similar murders, they have wondered if it may be the same person that killed Dawn, But still no one has been linked to her death.

Dawn’s mum is still alive, but has now been hit by ill health. She suffers from vascular dementia, which affects the memory.

Mandy said: “She once rang me and asked ‘Mandy, how did Dawn die? And I just didn't want to tell her again. How could I tell my mum that her daughter got murdered 30 years ago and they’re still looking for somebody?”

She does not like to ask her mum how much she still remembers about what happened to Dawn, with it being such an upsetting thing. But her mum has a big picture of Dawn on her wall, which was done by an artist showing how she may have looked 15 years later. She once said she did not know whether to take it down.

“She’s got that there but she doesn't talk about it much,” added Mandy.

“It affected mum really badly. Dawn was her only child born in hospital.

“She always said Dawn needed her more than us. I don’t know if it’s because she was the youngest, but it literally knocked mum sideways. I can’t ever say she’s been the same since.

“I’d love for someone to be brought to justice just so mum can see it. Even if she doesn't take in what’s happening in her head, she would in her heart.”

South Yorkshire Police have been approached for comment.