DESPITE his horrific secret, Castree was so arrogant that he posed in newspapers to promote his comic shop.
Believing himself to be untouchable he grinned out of the pages, as though he hadn't a care in the world.
The smug smile takes on a whole new meaning with the benefit of hindsight.
Castree described in the article how he loved the escapism of comics and wept when he saw terrorist planes crash into the twin towers. He must have believed he had got away with murder.
A dad-of-three and on his second marriage by the time he was eventually arrested for murder, Castree was a taxi driver in Rochdale during evenings and weekends and an office clerk during the week. He was nearly 22 at the time when he attacked Lesley.
Prostitutes
Castree was not the model husband. He cheated on his wife, Beverley, with a string of women, bragged about sleeping with prostitutes and had an unhealthy sexual interest in very young girls. Neighbours would console her when she ran out into the street when they rowed.
Weeks before his attack on Lesley, Beverley had given birth to her first child, Jason, the product of an affair with another man.
Despite this, Castree visited her in hospital and even brought the young mum home in his father's car. Beverly had not been home long when she fell ill with deep vein thrombosis and had to go back into hospital.
This left Castree alone at the couple's rented council house at 711Oldham Road, Rochdale on the Sunday when Lesley disappeared.
The unimaginable tragedy devastated Lesley's family forever while Castree carried on life as normal, or so it seemed to those who knew him.
The only child of Eric and Marjorie Castree, he had been born and brought up in Rochdale.
Eric and Maj had been staunch supporters of MP Sir Cyril Smith and had campaigned hard on his behalf during Ron's formative years.
During interview with police he described himself as a small child for his age - just as little Lesley had been - and that as a result he had been bullied at school.
Having also worn glasses most of his life, he said the bullying became so bad that his grandfather eventually paid for him to go to a private school.
Castree married Beverley in 1973. He told police that as a young couple they had no close friends outside their parents.
Sometimes they would have Sunday lunch with Beverley's parents, Marjorie and Leonard, in Shaw.
Other times they'd call in on the Castrees at their home in Edenfield Street. And when he didn't have a car of his own, he would borrow his father's to run an errand.
As the months passed following Lesley's death, so must Castree's initial fears of being discovered.
He was a free man - safe in the knowledge that no-one would ever suspect him of being involved - following the wrongful conviction of unfortunate fall guy Stefan Kiszko.
As reports of the trial appeared in the press in July1976, Castree was on the prowl again.
Vulnerable
Just nine months after killing Lesley, in what was an almost carbon-copy crime, he went out in his car and picked up another vulnerable little girl in Rochdale.
As 11-year-old Lesley was so small for her age, the little nine-year-old would probably have looked about the same size.
Driving her to a derelict house, he abused her in the same way he had done Lesley.
Unlike little Lesley though, the other youngster managed to break free following the assault, running home to tell her parents what had happened with the foreign coins he had given her held tight in her hands.
The police were called in the same day. Castree had no option but to tell his long-suffering wife, Beverley, that night.
She knew he had a number of mistresses thoughout their marriage and said she never knew where he was when he left the house, but this was far more serious and he knew it, telling her: "You can divorce me now."
Beverley didn't take him up on the offer, instead she stood by her man, going to court with him when he pleaded guilty to the assault and was allowed to leave the court a free man, punished with just a fine.
The pair remained together for another 24 years. Beverley spent her days looking after Jason and the two other sons that followed while Castree spent long hours at work for local companies International Metals and Oswald and Duncan before nipping home for dinner and dashing out again in the taxi.
The money came in handy when the couple decided to move from their home in Oldham Road to Brandon Crescent in Shaw.
As well as the house move, Castree had by this time decided on a change of career.
By the eighties, he was selling second hand books and comics on local markets before eventually opening a shop called Arcardia in Old Street, Ashton.
Popular with children who visited to browse among the comics or play on computer games, this was the business he was championing when he was interviewed and photographed in the newspapers.
In 1994 wearing a Batman baseball cap he told one reporter: "The timeless appeal of the comic is escapism. As people increasingly need a break from real life it can only mean greater popularity for comics of all kinds."
Seven years later after the September 11 terrorist attack, he appeared in the Ashton Advertiser complaining he had not had any deliveries of Superman and Batman magazines from suppliers based close to the twin towers.
Referring to the footage of the planes shown on the television news, he said: "It was an unbelievable thing to have happened. I cried over it."
Soon afterwards, amid suspicion his business was flagging, he left the shop and a trail of unpaid rent bills behind him. Carrying the business on at home using auction websites, he began settling in to life with his new wife, Karen.
He had divorced Beverley in 1997 and started a relationship with a divorcee who had children of her own.
Karen was with Castree for between eighteen months to two years before his arrest. She would often pop back to Ashton to do a bit of shopping, telling people how wonderful her new husband was, doing DIY jobs around the house.
Her dreams were shattered though when police arrived at the couple's home in Brandon Crescent, at the end of 2006. After his arrest, she was seen leaving the house in tears and it wasn't long before she left the area to start a new life many miles away with her children.
