THIS is the face of beautiful Southamp-ton University student Lesley McMurray - pictured just months before she was brutally murdered.

Detectives on one of Hampshire's longest-running murder investigations have taken the unusual step of releasing the photograph - one of several - in the hope that more witnesses will come forward.

Marine biology student Lesley disappeared in June 1969 as she walked back to her Swaythling digs along the Itchen navigation canal from Shawford, near Winchester.

Following a massive but unsuccessful police search for the 21-year-old, her badly decomposed body was found eight months later, in March 1970, on a railway line embankment about three-quarters of a mile away from the footpath.

It is not known who took the photos but they were found in Lesley's student halls after she disappeared and kept by her grieving family.

Detective Sergeant John Gunner today said: "The family have very kindly allowed us to release them in the hope they will jog people's memories of that June day.

"This is exactly the way Lesley would have looked on the day she took her last walk.''

Detectives believe Lesley was killed on the west side of the navigation canal and then carried by her killer along the railway line, across several bridges and then buried.

Some of her clothing was discovered in Lymington 20 days after she disappeared.

DS Gunner said: "Lesley was an attractive woman with her whole life in front of her until it was cut short. We are still as keen as the original officers to bring it to a conclusion and find the person responsible for her death."

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