UK - Julia James, 53, murdered, Snowdown, Kent, 27 April 2021 *ARREST*

[SocksKitty]

I found another filming of the Colliery loaded onto youtube a Month ago. It is supposed to have guard dogs so not sure how an urban explorer managed to film this.

 

[HongKongPhooey]

I think this was the same car from the drone footage a few weeks before Julia's murder approaching the colliery

Has this been submitted as a tip Socks?

 

[tallmansix]

I still think that the black car parked near the Colliery a few weeks before is a bit out of place unless the person dressed in black was walking a dog.

It is probably the drone operator that was parked near the colliery in the drone video - the said they were outside the grounds on the YouTube comments and there is no other people in view of the drone other than the two people at the vehicle and they appear to be stationary throughout the footage and looking at the drone so almost certainly the operators.

 

[SocksKitty]

Has this been submitted as a tip Socks?

I am waiting to hear back from the person to see what he says about the black car and the person dressed in black. I gave him the police number as well.

 

[Redgoblin]

Eye witness accounts can be dodgy at the best of times, I thought the same thing; maybe the witness thought they saw the black car a week ago, when in fact it 'might' be three weeks ago and it's the person who uploaded the drone footage.

 

[SpursGyal]

I have been reading from the start, this case is just drawing blanks for me with what appears to be so little to go on. This perp either planned it well or got very lucky. Was it ever confirmed by LE that there was signs of a sexual motive?

 

[SocksKitty]

Eye witness accounts can be dodgy at the best of times, I thought the same thing; maybe the witness thought they saw the black car a week ago, when in fact it 'might' be three weeks ago and it's the person who uploaded the drone footage.

Good point Redgoblin.

 

[SocksKitty]

Has this been submitted as a tip Socks?

The police are now aware that drone footage was taken about two weeks before the incident around the same area. As tallmansix pointed out in an earlier posting it could have been simply the drone operators parking the black car and may have no significance to later sightings of a black car in the area.

 

[SocksKitty]

There does seem to be a regular group who go up to the area where Julia was found on their motorcycles. (See youtube snowdown pit)

 

[Rosegold68]

never mind drones.....as an urban exploration fan myself i can tell you there are ways into the colliery. signs about guard dogs and security vans parked at gates do not really deter

 

[SocksKitty]

There seems to be a secret entrance into the Snowdown pit.

 

[tallmansix]

There seems to be a secret entrance into the Snowdown pit.

Somebody should have told the police about the secret entrance - seems they had to climb over the gate

Abandoned colliery searched as hunt for Julia's killer continues

 

[Rosegold68]

in January last year there was on site security....where are they now then?

 

[annpats]

in January last year there was on site security....where are they now then?

The budget for that probably ran out....

 

[JuicyLucy]

in January last year there was on site security....where are they now then?

In January last year there wasn't a global pandemic going on.

Security at such locations is often technological rather than human (if it exists at all beyond threatening signs) but if there were actual guards then I imagine they'll have been furloughed. They wouldn't exactly be essential workers.

There was a plan to turn the colliery site into a business and leisure park at one point, but it may have been mothballed under the current circumstances.

Plan to transform former colliery site

 

[Distant Observer]

Just a thought about the lack of contact with local mobile phone masts leading the police to believe the perp didn't carry a mobile phone. My understanding is that a phone without a sim card or perhaps with certain foreign sim cards would not be able to contact phone masts except if an emergency call was being made. It does raise the possibility that perhaps an illegal migrant was hiding by the woodland and could maybe have been challenged by Ms James. Aylesham is just 12 miles from Dover, the main entrance for cross-channel traffic and where Ms James was found is only about a mile from the A2 the main road from Dover to London. As a theory it seems possible.

 

[Pinkizzy]

Dbm

 

[Amonet]

Just a thought about the lack of contact with local mobile phone masts leading the police to believe the perp didn't carry a mobile phone. My understanding is that a phone without a sim card or perhaps with certain foreign sim cards would not be able to contact phone masts except if an emergency call was being made. It does raise the possibility that perhaps an illegal migrant was hiding by the woodland and could maybe have been challenged by Ms James. Aylesham is just 12 miles from Dover, the main entrance for cross-channel traffic and where Ms James was found is only about a mile from the A2 the main road from Dover to London. As a theory it seems possible.

I can't really imagine her challenging someone for a reason like that. That sort of thing would be more appropriate to pass on to headquarters for them to get someone to look into it. Julia wasn't a beat cop who was out on the beat, she was working in office work, from what I understand. I don't know if the DV unit might include things like going to court at times, but I don't even get the impression she would be an arresting officer at a dispute, but there for more there for post-offence victim support?

So I think that while going for a walk with her dog, she'd behave just like anyone else. Maybe someone might shout out to a few village kids who'd dropped litter? Maybe say to a fellow dog walker "hey, do you need a bag to pick up your dog's mess?" But I don't think she'd be approaching anyone she thought might be up to criminal behaviour, she'd surely call that in the same as anyone else would, although perhaps she'd have a direct line she could call to a colleague or section at the station she works out of?

 

[tallmansix]

Just a thought about the lack of contact with local mobile phone masts leading the police to believe the perp didn't carry a mobile phone. My understanding is that a phone without a sim card or perhaps with certain foreign sim cards would not be able to contact phone masts except if an emergency call was being made. It does raise the possibility that perhaps an illegal migrant was hiding by the woodland and could maybe have been challenged by Ms James. Aylesham is just 12 miles from Dover, the main entrance for cross-channel traffic and where Ms James was found is only about a mile from the A2 the main road from Dover to London. As a theory it seems possible.

Just to be absolutely clear on this one, the police have made no such comments about mobile phone data. The best we have is "a source" to The Sun newspaper that suggested that there was no mobile or "GPS data" and made some conclusions about the perpetrator leaving the mobile at home. I have many doubts about that source because the quotes were technically incorrect although it is perfectly plausible that a determined perpetrator would not take their mobile or switch it off during relevant times. This doesn't raise an illegal immigrant as a suspect in my mind.

I've also said in an earlier comment that mobile phone data is a needle in a haystack to interpret. It gets such a high profile because in serious crime court cases it is used retrospectively to confirm the suspect was / wasn't at certain location but that is once they have a particular mobile phone associated with an individual.

In terms of the data available now, the police can easily obtain a list of all mobile phones connected to local masts during the time of the murder, that will run into thousands of records and cover many square miles in rural locations. There is some ability to triangulate mobile phones to narrow down the location but this will not be particularly accurate in rural areas where transmitters are miles apart, the whole of Aylesham and Snowdown are probably served by the same masts.

The best the police could do would be look at mobile phones connected in the area that moved to another area shortly after the crime occurred but even then they would probably find a list of hundreds, some of which will be unregistered and untraceable. They can't go knocking on the doors of the hundreds of mobiles phone owners that left the area around the time of the crime without something more substantial to connect them to the crime.

Finally the whole "GPS data" comment gets my goat, there is no centrally held GPS data, only the device that uses GPS 'may' have a record of the location. The satellites that provide GPS location have no awareness of who or what is using them or indeed where.

 

[Pinkizzy]

Just to be absolutely clear on this one, the police have made no such comments about mobile phone data. The best we have is "a source" to The Sun newspaper that suggested that there was no mobile or "GPS data" and made some conclusions about the perpetrator leaving the mobile at home. I have many doubts about that source because the quotes were technically incorrect although it is perfectly plausible that a determined perpetrator would not take their mobile or switch it off during relevant times. This doesn't raise an illegal immigrant as a suspect in my mind.

I've also said in an earlier comment that mobile phone data is a needle in a haystack to interpret. It gets such a high profile because in serious crime court cases because it is used retrospectively to confirm the suspect was / wasn't at certain location but that is once they have a particular mobile phone associated with an individual.

In terms of the data available now, the police can easily obtain a list of all mobile phones connected to local masts during the time of the murder, that will run into thousands of records and cover many square miles in rural locations. There is some ability to triangulate mobile phones to narrow down the location but this will not be particularly accurate in rural areas where transmitters are miles apart, the whole of Aylesham and Snowdown are probably served by the same masts.

The best the police could do would be look at mobile phones connected in the area that moved to another area shortly after the crime occurred but even then they would probably find a list of hundreds, some of which will be unregistered and untraceable. They can't go knocking on the doors of the hundreds of others mobiles phone owners that left they area around the time of the crime without something more substantial to connect them to the crime.

Finally the whole "GPS data" comment gets my goat, there is no centrally held GPS data, only the device that uses GPS 'may' have a record of the location. The satellites that provide GPS location have no awareness of who or what is using them or indeed where.

The killer may have left their phone at home during the crime, however did they remove their smartwatch with inbuilt GPS? I hope they get caught out this way