Murder of Rachel McLean

In 2018, Tanner was jailed for assaulting his partner.

A documentary, entitled "Love You to Death", part of ITV's Real Crime series, was aired in 2004, with Thea Rowland portraying Rachel McLean and Noah Huntley playing John Tanner.

McLean, who was born in the English town of Blackpool and raised in nearby Carleton, was a second-year student studying English Language at St. Hilda's when Tanner, a 22-year-old British-born New Zealand national, strangled her on 14 April 1991 and hid her body under the floorboards of her house.

On the evening of 13 April 1991, Tanner was due to arrive in Oxford by train at 6pm. McLean, 19 years old, went to meet him at the station. Discovering that the train had been delayed, she returned home. At around 7.30pm, Tanner arrived at the house by taxi. The following day was FA Cup semi-finals day in football, and McLean and Tanner, an avid Nottingham Forest fan, planned to spend the day at home. She studied in the front room while he watched the game on television. Afterwards, the couple were seen by neighbours outside the house at around 4.30pm, which was the last time McLean was seen alive.

Confronted with the evidence gathered by the police, Tanner broke down and admitted killing his girlfriend. Tanner appeared before Oxford magistrates on 4 May and was charged with the murder. During a four-day trial at Birmingham Crown Court, in which he pleaded not guilty, Tanner said that Miss McLean had told him she had been unfaithful and wanted to end the relationship. "I flew at her in a rage and proceeded to put my hands around her neck…I think I must have lost control, because I have only a vague recollection of the time that elapsed afterwards. I am bewildered why I have done such a terrible thing to a person I love dearly." On 6 December 1991, the jury returned a majority verdict of 10 to 2 and Tanner was given a life sentence. In early 2003 after serving only little more than 11 years of his life sentence, Tanner was released from jail and returned to live in Whanganui, New Zealand. He is a graduate of Whanganui Collegiate School. He then continued his Classics degree at Victoria University of Wellington and graduated in 2005.

At the time, Joan, Rachel's mother, was head of foreign language at Hodgson High School in Poulton-le-Fylde. Her father, Malcolm, was a British Aerospace engineer. Rachel was the oldest of three children, with brothers David and Peter. Prior to gaining a place at St. Hilda's College, McLean attended Blackpool Sixth Form College. Rachel McLean met Tanner as she celebrated her 19th birthday at her home. Ten months later, on 13 April 1991, Tanner proposed to McLean, but she turned him down. After McLean's murder, it emerged that Tanner felt increasingly threatened by her life away from his in Nottingham, and she found his obsessiveness too restrictive.

Rachel Margaret McLean (1971–1991) was a British student at St. Hilda's College in Oxford, England, when she was murdered by her boyfriend, John Tanner, a day after they became engaged. In the aftermath, Tanner concocted ruses in an attempt to allay suspicion, and elaborated a series of lies in an attempt to confuse the crime investigation and outwit the police.