A man wanted in connection with one of Suffolk’s longest-running unsolved murder cases is no longer being sought, detectives have said.
Suffolk police had wanted to find Stephen Mackay after football fan Karl Morris died after a pub fight at Great Cornard in April 1999.
Ten years ago Suffolk Police pledged that “justice will triumph” in the case and said it was still “very much alive”.
But Karl’s mum Frances died of cancer in 2010 before she got any answers.
Her 23-year-old son was on a day out with friends at the Queens Arms pub in Great Cornard on Good Friday, April 2, 1999, watching a Bank Holiday football match on TV involving his team Manchester United when an argument broke out between two groups of friends.
The disagreement spilled into the pub car park where Mr Morris suffered horrific head injuries as he stepped in to try to break up the fight.
His mother was holding his hand when he died from his injuries the following day at West Suffolk Hospital.
Mr MacKay, then 28, was at the scene and a month after Mr Morris’ death police said they wanted to find him.
The former Green Jacket infantryman’s last known address was Eldred Drive, Great Cornard, and reports over the years of the police investigation have placed him in Thailand, America, Germany as well as closer to home in Sudbury and Colchester but he was never been found.
Television appeals, Interpol searches, dawn raids were all carried out to find the former British soldier.
Several appeals were also carried in this newspaper.
But police said after a review of the case this summer Mr Mackay is now no longer wanted.
A Suffolk Constabulary spokesman said: “Following a recent review into the investigation of the death of Karl Morris it was concluded there would be insufficient evidence to secure a prosecution in court against a known suspect wanted in connection with the incidents of 2 April 1999.”
Mr Morris’s family were believed to have been living in north Essex for a time but are now understood to have moved.
No-one from the family was available to comment at the weekend.
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