Tied up in a cornfield and executed side-by-side with a rifle 37 years ago... but could there finally be justice for two British teachers murdered during French cycling holiday? Detectives reopen case that has baffled cops for decades

The bodies of engaged British teachers Paul Bellion and Lorraine Glasby were found in a field on October 1, 1986 at the end of a 'dream holiday' to France The discovery sparked a 37-year mystery that to this day remains unsolved

Even 37 years later, the memory of a chilling cold case still lingers in the minds of the residents of the northern French town of Lanvallay.

On October 1, 1986, the quiet, unremarkable Côtes-d'Armor village was shaken to its core with the discovery of a brutal double execution in a nearby cornfield.

The bodies of Paul Bellion and Lorraine Glasby, a pair of British teachers, were found bound and gagged - with gunshots to the back of their necks

Locals recall first hearing the tragic news and the fear that gripped the town over the days that followed as a killer remained on the loose for months and eventually years.

'It made noise in the town,' 86-year-old Martine tells local news. 'We were afraid.'

Martine would once walk in the area near to where the young couple were found. 'I stopped going there' after the killings, she tells local news outlet DayFR.

While the locals 'talked about it a lot at the time' Martine said the fear faded, and people of the town carried on with their lives

But for those old enough to remember the horrific killings, memories were brought back to the surface last week when prosecutors announced they are reopening the case, which - despite years of efforts - has never been solved.

The horrific murders thrust Lanvallay on to news pages on both sides of the English channel, and sparked a long investigation that would ultimately be fruitless.

On July 27, 1986, Paul and Lorraine, aged 28 and 29 respectively, set off from England for their third holiday in France together. When they arrived, there was no reason to believe it would be any different to the last. The engaged couple wrote in postcards to their family they were on their 'dream holiday'.

Paul, who taught craft at Rosemary Musker High School in Norfolk, had moved from his native St Helens to Norfolk after his fiancée Lorraine got a job in the nearby town of Diss, a small town halfway between Bury St Edmunds and Norwich.

They were set to return to the UK via Portsmouth on August 24 by taking a ferry from Saint-Malo, 13 miles north of Lanvallay, but they never completed the final stint of their journey. Instead, investigators believe, they were murdered that same day as they made their way to the port.

When the couple failed to return home, their worried parents alerted the authorities, with Lorraine's mother - Pauline Glasby - travelling to France herself and on September 23, 1986, entered a police station in Saint-Malo.

According to a 2006 report from Le Figaro, she explained: 'They wrote to us regularly. The last card we received, from La Rochelle, dates from August 14. They were supposed to reach Saint-Malo to take the return ferry on August 24 at 9.30pm. We know that they were not on board. Apparently, they still haven't left France.'

The inspector at the time immediately issued a missing persons notice, and the search began.

Witnesses came forward from Saint-Solen, a village two miles east from Lanvallay, saying they remembered seeing the young couple together on August 23 in the pouring rain around 7pm, putting on yellow raincoats and drinking hot chocolate.

They said they got on their bicycles and headed east towards Lanvallay.

Several weeks after they were last seen, a man in his 50s named Gérard went out hunting into the fields near the town. Ubik, his Brittany spaniel, was happily trotting ahead when he entered a cornfield in Bois-Fougère, another small village.

It was then that the search for the British couple tragically ended, with the man discovering Paul and Lorraine's decomposing bodies more than a month after the date coroners were later able to trace their deaths back to.

If my dog ​​hadn't barked, I wouldn't have thought to look between the stems, more than two meters high... I understood straight away. I instantly thought of the English tourists for whom we had issued a wanted notice,' Gérard told Le Figaro.

The killer had stripped the couple down to their waists and tied them back-to-back with a rope, their hands tied by cable ties, and their mouths gagged with tape.

A 10-foot rope or cable was also attached to Lorraine's wrist, leading investigators to believe the killer had them both on some kind of leash.

Paul then received a rifle cartridge to the back of his head. Lorraine was hit at point blank range. Their bodies were dumped in the field.

Extensive excavations were carried out at the site, but they yielded nothing. The couple's belongings had also disappeared, depriving police of vital evidence.