Exclusive:Murderer in bid for freedom as police search for victim's body continue - 31 YEARS on
Murderer Peter Turner is weeks away from a Parole Board hearing
As police resume their search to find Teresa Shephard more than 31 years after she was last seen, the man who murdered her is poised to be freed.
Sheffield cutlery worker Teresa was just 26-years-old when she disappeared without a trace.
The police investigation into Teresa’s disappearance soon turned to her ex-boyfriend, Peter Turner, against whom she was due to give evidence at an upcoming trial.
Detectives built the case against Turner without a body, and in July 1996, jurors convicted him of Teresa’s murder.
Turner, then aged 24, was handed an indefinite life sentence, and has spent the three decades that have followed behind bars.
During that time, the whereabouts of Teresa’s body have remained unknown.
The first hope of a breakthrough came yesterday (Tuesday, September 15, 2026), when South Yorkshire Police confirmed they had resumed the search for Teresa’s remains in Rotherham.
A South Yorkshire Police spokesperson said the search was underway off Piper Lane, Aston, and have confirmed they expect to remain in the area for the next few days.
And now, the Parole Board has confirmed Turner is listed to go before an oral hearing on October 6, when a panel is expected to make a decision on whether he can be freed.
The Parole Board is an independent body that sits as a court and carries out risk assessments on prisoners to determine whether they can be safely released into the community.
The main cases they oversee are for prisoners serving: life sentences; sentences of imprisonment for public protection (IPP); extended determinate sentences and prisoners of particular concern, including terrorists and serious child sex offenders.
South Yorkshire Police has been asked to confirm whether their resumed search for Teresa’s body, follows cooperation from Turner, now aged 54.
Turner’s 1996 trial heard how after Teresa went missing, he insisted to police that he had not seen her.
But when he was searched they found a book of apparently innocuous Supertram tickets.
They bore serial numbers and further investigations revealed they had been purchased with Teresa's credit card on the last day she was seen alive.
Turner had no obvious use for Supertram tickets and could give no adequate explanation of how he had tickets bought on Teresa's credit card long after he claimed to have last seen her.
A forensic examination also revealed traces of smeared blood on Turner's leather jacket and spattered on the interior of a Metro car used by the former student.
Blood samples taken from Teresa’s mother and estranged father, along with DNA from hairs found on a brush in Teresa’s Basegreen flat, allowed scientists to confirm the blood on Turner’s jacket and in the car was hers.