ANGELA Heyes was one of life's victims long before she was brutally sexually attacked and murdered.

The 33-year-old who lived alone in a bedsit on Park Road, Bolton, was horrifically killed two weeks before her 34th birthday.

Her partially clothed body was found dumped in a country lay-by near Egerton by a cyclist.

It was a tragic end to a short, but hard life that took Angela from her family home in Bolton to a residential school in Sussex, and back to a life on the streets of her home town.

Angela was estranged from her mother Joyce Hilton and in the final years of her life the pair had only one brief meeting.

She was born and brought up in Bolton, one of four children. The family spent most of their early childhood in the Breightmet area.

But after a traumatic few years, Angela was sent to a residential corrective school in East Grinstead. She remained there, paying occasional weekend visits back to Bolton, from the age of eight to 16 years. When she returned to her home town she began working as a prostitute and had her first fateful meeting with the man who would end her life 17 years later - Steven Penn.

The pair had a relationship and a baby daughter together. Angela's relationship with Penn ended soon after - but they met up again and resumed a "casual relationship" in 1995.

When Angela's daughter was 12 months old, she was taken into care. Angela never saw her again.

Several years ago, Angela was knocked down by a taxi on Chorley Old Road. Neighbours on Park Road, Bolton, say the accident affected Angela and that she had suffered from depression ever since. She also made subsequent attempts on her life.

Angela was buried at Tonge Cemetery 14 weeks after her body was discovered. Perhaps her most fitting epitaph came in a letter to the BEN from the Rev Paul Carr of St Joseph's Church in Salford when he described Angela as "a victim in life". One woman told the BEN: "I knew Angela briefly. She had some emotional problems, but she was an okay person on the whole.

"This was a sad and horrible tragic death." Angela sometimes used the alias, Shelley, and would often wear a blonde wig when she went out to change her appearance. In the final months of her life, she had stopped working as a prostitute. However, friends say that in the months leading up to her murder, Angela had tried to trace her daughter, who would have been 16-years-old. That had been about 12 months before Angela's murder and had taken place in Bolton town centre.

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