A 66-year-old man charged with the kidnap and murder of Victoria Hall will appear at Ipswich Crown Court.
Steve Wright is accused of murdering Victoria Hall, 17, who was last seen alive in the early hours of Sunday 19 September 1999, in High Road, Trimley St Mary.
Wright appeared by video link at Suffolk Magistrates Court on Monday.
The defendant has short grey hair and had a grey T-shirt on and gave his name as Steve Gerald James Wright.
He gave his date of birth as 24 April 1958 and confirmed he was not recording the proceedings from a room in HMP Long Lartin.
The proceedings lasted only a few minutes.
The case was committed to Ipswich Crown Court for a hearing at 2pm today.
Miss Hall left home in Trimley St Mary on the evening of Saturday September 18, 1999, to go for a night out with a friend at the Bandbox nightclub in Bent Hill, Felixstowe, where they remained until around 1am on the morning of Sunday September 19.
They then went to get some food at the Bodrum Grill in Undercliff Road West, before beginning the walk back to Trimley St Mary.
They parted at around 2.20am near to the junction of High Road and Faulkeners Way. Victoria was just yards away from her home.
When Miss Hall’s parents woke up that morning and discovered that she had not returned home, the police were called and a missing person inquiry commenced.
Five days later, on Friday September 24, Miss Hall’s body was found in a ditch beside a field by a dog walker in Creeting Lane, Creeting St Peter, approximately 25 miles away from where she was last seen.
In September 2019, Suffolk Police revealed that the case – known as Operation Avon - was now a live inquiry again and being fully reinvestigated by a new team of detectives.
The Crown Prosecution Service authorised Suffolk Police to charge a 66-year-old man with three offences.
On Wednesday May 22, Steve Wright, formerly of London Road in Ipswich, was charged with kidnap and murder, in connection with the abduction and death of Victoria Hall.
He has also been charged with one count of attempted kidnap of a 22-year-old woman in connection with a separate incident occurring the night before Victoria’s disappearance.
The 22-year-old reported that a man approached and followed her, between 3am and 4am on Saturday September 18, 1999, in High Road East, Felixstowe.
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