Crime Scene Investigator (31 page)

The scene that greeted the investigator was that expected in any post-Christmas home. It was tidy, with Christmas decorations and cards displayed in many places. The sight of toys indicated the presence of children. The house was two storeys. A front door gave way to a small hallway. To the right a flight of stairs led to the first floor where there were three bedrooms and a bathroom. To the left of the downstairs hallway were a lounge and a kitchen at the rear. There was a kitchen door leading to the enclosed garden. The house was detached. Outside the front of the house, on a small driveway, was Anna’s red Vauxhall hatchback car. Bill’s Mini was parked in the street.

Starting downstairs, the house was searched in a general way for blood and disturbance. Some stains were found when using a presumptive test for blood. The test is not specific for blood. If it indicates a positive result it means that the stain could be blood. This is because other materials (such as coffee) may also give a positive reading. It is a useful way of screening stains but it needs confirmation later in the laboratory. All positive stains will be considered in the investigation. A negative reaction means the material is not blood.

The search continued to the stairs to the first floor. More stains were found on the white-painted woodwork and these had a directional shape, indicating a moving splash. They looked more like blood. These continued up the stairs in small amounts. At the top of the stairs there was a door to the rear master bedroom. Inside the door was a wash and vac machine, it was plugged in. Looking inside the door, the investigators saw to the left a pine double bed. Either side there were small freestanding pine wardrobes. On the right wall there were pine chests of drawers. On the floor there were neat piles of clothing.

There was one sight which soon captured their attention. On each corner of the bed, there was a bedpost. Sitting on top of them were round wooden balls.

The room was searched in detail. The plugged-in wash and vac was particularly interesting. If there had been a clear-up the scene might be largely inside the machine by now. The bed was made, so the bedding was removed and recovered in sequence, eventually exposing the mattress, which was clean. That was until it was turned over to reveal a large area of blood staining. It was still wet. It also contained a blue dye which would turn out to be ink. Was this part of the attempt to cover it up? Things moved quickly, well quickly for scene investigations. Examination of the bed frame at the foot of the bed at first sight looked unpromising. That was until a detailed examination revealed blood in the crevices and edges. The blood had been cleaned up, but it could not disguise what had soaked into the recesses.

The bedhead looked more and more like a potential murder weapon. So it was the subject of a careful examination and detailed search.

Feedback from the forest scene had revealed that there was the remains of a black plastic bag, similar to those used as refuse bags. Under the bed two black bags were also found.

When the loft was searched, a black plastic bag was found containing two blood-stained pillows. Pat Crossan was not happy when they were found. The loft had been searched when Anna was reported missing, long before we were involved. I stood up for the two police officers who had conducted the search. They were looking for Anna and not searching for evidence, even something which now looked obvious.

The forest search revealed only a little more. It looked more and more like a disposal site. One interesting observation was the depression in the frost-laden grass of two tracks. It indicated that a vehicle had been backed up to allow the body to be removed. The rough distance could be measured. We might be able to narrow down the type of vehicle and implicate or eliminate.

A wider search of the forest would be made over the coming days, extending from where the body was found. It would involve cutting back some of the vegetation and gorse. Although some items would be found, they were unconnected with this crime.

Examination of the refuse bags found under the bed, in the loft (the one containing the blood-stained pillows), and a fragment found under Anna’s body would all be linked to the same source. When I asked the laboratory at Aldermaston to undertake this, I was surprised to hear that they were not aware of the technology. So I put them in touch with a scientist at the Metropolitan Police Laboratory who enlightened them. When plastic bags are made the plastic is drawn through rollers which leave extrusion marks. Viewed under polarised light the striations form a pattern which extends along the batch. There is always a possibility that if two bags are in direct sequence there may be uneven tears which line up along the perforated edge. Examination of the bags would link them together.

The two vehicle scenes would take a few days to complete. The vehicles were relatively clean. We knew that Bill had cleaned them. However, blood was found inside the car and also on the edge of the boot. The boot was also examined for fibres, in case fibres from Anna’s nightdress could be found there. Although there could potentially be a legitimate reason to find such fibres there, I argued that finding them there would be unusual.

A petrol can was found in Bill’s car and enquiries were made to see if he had purchased petrol on the day of Anna’s disappearance. The laboratory was also asked to compare the remnants in the petrol container with any residues found in the debris under Anna’s body. This technology is now more advanced as it is possible to link petrol by its chemical profile and any contaminants back to previous sources.

Enough evidence was found in the first two days for Bill to be charged with his wife’s murder. Further examinations would continue.

Two weeks after the initial post mortem, a second post mortem was undertaken. This was to allow a pathologist for the defence to make his examination. We took the opportunity to undertake some further reconstruction. So our preparations included bringing along the bedhead and a mannequin to reconstruct the injuries. In the event they were not needed. Injuries recorded on Anna’s head and shoulder showed that the bedhead was the murder weapon. The deputy SIO was present with members of the team and a full CSI team. The defence pathologist noticed that there were two and possibly three blows, more than our pathologist had noticed in the original examination. The head wound had caused Anna’s death. Both pathologists were in no doubt. I waited as this sank in and I held back, waiting for the deputy SIO or someone else to ask the next and to me fundamental question. It didn’t come, so I then asked, once she had received this injury could she have got up and walked out? The response was equally profound. She had died instantaneously. Bill was the only other person present.

Bill would deny murder. He offered no defence, insisting that he was not responsible for hurting his wife. He was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Maureen Foot had not been heard from for over a week. Her brother, who lived in the north of England, reported her missing.

The thirty-seven-year-old woman had come to the UK from South Africa in the autumn of the previous year. She rented a room in semi-detached house on an estate on the outskirts of Guildford. Also renting rooms were two men, Neil Sanders, a twenty-two-year-old shed builder, and James Woolf, a twenty-seven-year-old dustman.

The owner of the house lived elsewhere on the estate. The rooms rented by the three occupants were on the first floor of the house with a shared bathroom. Downstairs there was a communal lounge and shared kitchen.

In December, Maureen started a job at a fast food restaurant in the town. On a day in the following March she left work shortly after five pm. The same day she used a cash machine in Guildford. She was not seen again.

Her brother, worried that he had not heard from her, made all the calls he could make from a distance and then, a week after she had last been seen, he reported her missing.

People go missing every day. Many turn up within a day or so, just not having told their friends or family that they were going away. Others leave a life and their problems behind. Some never return.

The concerns of family and friends are real and deep. It may seem out of character and the police may not immediately appear over concerned but it is a difficult call. With adults, hospitals will be checked and enquiries made at work and with all known friends are the first steps. Adults are responsible for their own lives. A missing child will, however, always call for a wider and immediate search.

Police officers went to Maureen’s home and managed to get into her room. It was sparse but tidy. The officers were not unduly concerned, although they noticed some staining on the walls and ceiling which the other occupants put down to a leak in the loft.

No one but her brother was concerned about her disappearance. Apparently she had gone walkabout before, the police were told. The managers at the fast food restaurant where she worked were used to staff taking time off without giving any notice. Even after a week nobody had thought or cared to check with her.

In the following week the officers made their enquiries but no sign could be found of Maureen. She had not accessed her bank account and she had not been seen. A few days later the officers returned to her flat. This time they were more concerns about the staining.

The officers called Trevor Wykes, a crime scene manager, and asked him to go to the scene. They wanted him to have ‘a quick look’. Well, there is no such thing as a quick look in these circumstances. Once you have set your foot in the door you are committed and you can’t go back. So, as head of the CSI department, I was called. The decision was easy but it had cost implications. There was only one way of doing this and it was the right way. It could have turned out to be a waste of time but there was no way of knowing that until we looked, and to look we would use all the resources systematically and thoroughly examine the scene.

With a sense of urgency, a scene investigation team was put together. No detectives were involved at this stage; it was a simple missing person enquiry. The focus of our search would be Maureen’s room. That would be our inner cordon. At this stage we had no reason to search the whole house. To get to her room, access was via the front door and up a flight of stairs, immediately inside it, to the first-floor landing, off which all the bedrooms were situated. An officer would protect the front door entrance to make it our outer cordon. There would be no search of the hall and stairs at this stage. It had been well trod since her disappearance. We would have to deal with that later. The priority was to examine her room and go nowhere else until that had been done.

The officers made arrangements for the occupants to restrict their access whilst we made our examination.

The room was small but that did not necessarily make it an easy task. The search would start with the carpeted floor to allow access to the rest of the room. The walls would be searched without disturbance. The bedding would be examined and carefully removed and the furniture searched methodically. All the furniture would be removed in sequence to expose the whole floor. Once fully examined it would be removed so that the floor and walls could be examined.

Our search would include the use of light sources to examine the carpet, recover any footwear marks and alien fibres. Forensic photographers would work alongside a scene of crime officer under the direction of the crime scene manager. I also agreed from the outset we would involve a specialist in blood pattern analysis. So Roger Mann (a forensic biologist from the Aldermaston Forensic Science Laboratory) was there from the start.

Throughout the scene, investigators would review progress as they made any observations or made any finds.

Very quickly, once the floor had been cleared, the staining on the wall was examined. It was blood. Under the bed a small piece of bone was found. This was sent to a forensic pathologist to see if he could determine its origin. The big question was, Is it human? Once the bed covers were removed from the bed, the mattress looked unremarkable. Until it was turned over. It revealed heavy blood-staining. It was apparent that someone had bled heavily on the bed, and there were stains up the wall. It looked like it could be as the result of a violent assault. What was more, there had been a significant clean-up. Someone knew about this. But who?

The senior detectives were immediately informed and started a major investigation. Brian Woodfield was appointed the senior investigating officer. He was in charge of the overall investigation and I and my team were totally at his disposal now. I would now work closely with Brian, coordinating all the crime scene investigations and forensic science examinations.

A team of detectives continued to make enquiries to see if Maureen could be found alive. There was also a focus on the fact that Maureen could be dead and the knowledge that if she were we would have to find her body. All the men associated with her accommodation (the landlord and male occupants) were under suspicion.

We would eagerly await the results of the bone examination and confirmation that the blood was human, although all of us thought that in a bedroom it was unlikely to be anything else. Nonetheless it needed confirmation and we would expect that within a few hours.