Murderer to bid for freedom - despite maintaining decades-long silence over location of victim's body
Teresa’s family have never been given answers as to the location of her remains
A murderer is set to bid for his freedom after continuing to maintain a decades-long silence about where he disposed of his victim’s body.
Cutlery worker Teresa Shephard, aged 26, disappeared without a trace in June 1995.
Police built a case against her ex-boyfriend Peter Turner despite a body ever being found, and just over a year later he was convicted of Teresa’s murder, leading to him receiving an indefinite life sentence.
A fresh search for Teresa’s remains began last month, leading to renewed hope that Teresa’s loved ones may finally be given answers.
But after a week-long search on farmland off Piper Lane in Aston, Rotherham, police confirmed on September 18 that no remains had been found, bringing an end to the excavation.
South Yorkshire Police told The Star that Turner had not been cooperating with their search.
Despite this, Turner, now aged 54, is set to go before an oral Parole Board hearing today (Tuesday, October 6, 2026), following which a panel will make a decision on whether he is deemed safe to 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.
Turner has remained behind bars since receiving an indefinite life sentence in July 1996. He was then aged 24.
His Sheffield Crown Court 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.