The Babes in the Wood murders blighted Brighton, tearing apart a close-knit neighbourhood which still bears the scars more than 30 years later.

The "Babes girls" never left the minds of locals still reeling from The Grand Hotel IRA bombing two years earlier.

Sir Andrew Bowden, then Brighton Kemptown MP, said: "It was traumatic.

"Many were so deeply disturbed by what happened."

Detective Superintendent Jeff Riley, the now senior investigating officer of the longest running probe in Sussex Police's history, said the "massive impact is still being felt today", adding: "We have never forgotten or given up on the case."

Moulsecoomb, where Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway lived, is as much a hive of suspicion, anger and hurt as it was in October 1986.

Many remember the inseparable school friends happily playing near their Newick Road homes.

And Russell Bishop - who lived on the nearby Hollingdean estate and was known through his well-respected dog breeder mother - was "always seen" in the area visiting friends.

The isolated 1920s council estate three miles north of the town centre was built in a bid to clear out wartime slums and described as Brighton's "bandit country" which had been "hit by a spiral of blight".

In the 1980s the warren of streets was still seen as rife with deprivation, crime and a far cry from the bright lights of seafront tourist attractions, but with a strong sense of community and a place where doors would be left open while children congregated in the road.

The murders left the estate "shrouded in a mist of fear", changing the atmosphere overnight and altering it forever, newspaper reports of the time said.

Revenge talk circled the streets and a wave of hearsay split opinion.

Former detective sergeant Philip Swan, one of the investigating officers, said: "There was so much tittle tattle going on in the Moulsecoomb estate you did not know what to believe."

In the intervening years, annual vigils at the Wild Park memorial served as a permanent reminder of the unsolved case, as did roadside posters calling for support for the families' ongoing campaign for justice.

Now the estate is mostly inhabited by young families and students but still home to locals who never moved away.

Isobel Downes, 63, who lives almost opposite the girls' homes, said: "It never leaves you when you're so close to a murder. After the case is over it will still linger.

"The girls weren't shy. The day they went missing I lifted them over my fence as I left to play darts as they liked to play with my sons in the garden.

"When I came home there was a cordon, I had no idea what was going on. It was very frightening."

Hundreds of locals skipped work to join the search and thousands of men were asked to speak to police.

Neighbour Anita Smith, 73, whose son also played with the girls, said: "There's a lot of anger still. Some people didn't believe Russell was to blame but when he kidnapped that other girl, that was it.

"When we heard he was to stand trial a second time we thought 'good' and 'about time'.

"Now everyone wants him to get what he deserves."

Some still recoil at mention of the case.

Tracey Cox - one of the last people to see the girls alive, who was a friend of Bishop's girlfriend Marion Stevenson and still lives nearby - said she is "fed up" with being contacted about the case and does not want to talk about it.

Some of Bishop's childhood friends are still in disbelief but his former Stephen's Road neighbours - who watched as police turned over their gardens in search of evidence - described him as a "horrible boy" with an unusual fascination for small birds which he would catch to "look after" in his flat.

Peter Martin, 72, said the murders still affect his daughter Lianne, who played the role of her schoolfriend Miss Hadaway in a Crimewatch re-enactment.

He said: "It was an unusual thing for her to be involved with at such a young age.

"I've saved the newspaper cuttings for her, she's been keen to follow the case."

The case reminds him that the 1996 murder of Katrina Taylor - who played the role of Miss Fellows alongside his daughter in the reconstruction - remains unsolved.

The general public feeling when Bishop was cleared was the jury "got it wrong" and the prosecution case fell short, leaving him free to attack again four years later, according to the journalists of the day.

John Buss, crime reporter on local paper the Evening Argus, said: "Because of the extraordinary result of the first trial, everyone was left hanging. It stuck in the mind."

Fellow reporter Phil Mills told how "the Babes murders sank deep", and left the newsroom "unusually quiet".

He still remembers the "worry and dread" which engulfed Michelle Hadaway the first time he interviewed her.

Kate Parkin, who covered the original case and is still following the developments as a sub-editor, said there was a "huge backlash" when Bishop was arrested and ongoing anxiety surrounding the latest trial.

She added: "It's one of those stories that goes down in history and is very much in people's minds."