Deceased/Not Found UK - Nicola Payne, 18, Coventry, 14 Dec 1991

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So, only one man was seen by the witness. Are we thinking Barwell abducted her and killed her later? And where did O'Reilly fit into the story?
 
CoverMeCagney said:
So, only one man was seen by the witness. Are we thinking Barwell abducted her and killed her later? And where did O'Reilly fit into the story?
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The witness saw 2 men, one in the bushes and 1 standing by the Ford Capri. O'reilly's hairs (pubic) have also been found in the tent along with Nicola's hair. They were also seen together moving what is believed to be Nicola's body wrapped in a tent inner.

The more I read about this the more I think Nicola was personally targeted , Barwell knew her and had tried it on with her before, plus waiting in the bushes for a random lone female to come along could have been a very long process indeed. I think they knew she was coming.
 
Deano7 said:
The witness saw 2 men, one in the bushes and 1 standing by the Ford Capri. O'reilly's hairs (pubic) have also been found in the tent along with Nicola's hair. They were also seen together moving what is believed to be Nicola's body wrapped in a tent inner.

The more I read about this the more I think Nicola was personally targeted , Barwell knew her and had tried it on with her before, plus waiting in the bushes for a random lone female to come along could have been a very long process indeed. I think they knew she was coming.
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I'm inclined to agree. How would they have known though, no texts or anything those days, I wonder if she walked over regularly at set times. I hope we find out!
 
CoverMeCagney said:
I'm inclined to agree. How would they have known though, no texts or anything those days, I wonder if she walked over regularly at set times. I hope we find out!
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I wonder if the fact he tried it on with her is significant, he was married at the time and maybe didn't want his wife to find out what he'd been up to? Maybe shutting her up was the prime motivator, and obviously he must have been attracted to her. Also the confession to his friend "I did that Payne *****" sounds very hateful and personal in my opinion. It says Barwell knew the brother of Nicola's boyfriend, so he may well have known that she was backwards and forwards between the 2 houses. Makes it even worse that he knew her, because that means he knew she had a young baby.
 
Sounds like West Midlands Police have a lot to answer for, unbelievable that they can just lose evidence like that.

I hope this doesn't result in them getting away with it, I'm convinced they are guilty.

They match the descriptions, there's a forensic link, and they obviously lied about being in Rugby when Nicola went missing. Then went on to skip the identity parade, seen vigorously cleaning the car the next day which wasn't normal for Barwell, it's mostly circumstantial evidence but there's a lot of it.
 
Jury is due back in court today, my personal opinion is that they did it but I think they are going to get off. With the justice system in this country requiring a 10 to 2 majority to secure a conviction, I think there will be doubts in the mind of some jurors and that will be just enough to get them off the hook. I hope I'm wrong as to me they seem as guilty as can be.
 
Deano7 said:
Jury is due back in court today, my personal opinion is that they did it but I think they are going to get off. With the justice system in this country requiring a 10 to 2 majority to secure a conviction, I think there will be doubts in the mind of some jurors and that will be just enough to get them off the hook. I hope I'm wrong as to me they seem as guilty as can be.
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I agree, Deano, I feel they're both guilty. It's hard to successfully prosecute a 25 year old case, especially when DNA/forensics weren't as prevalent and stringently governed as they are now. When you hear "cross contamination" in old cases like this you just know evidence may be wobbly. We shall see. I'll be disappointed if they walk free....
 
CoverMeCagney said:
I agree, Deano, I feel they're both guilty. It's hard to successfully prosecute a 25 year old case, especially when DNA/forensics weren't as prevalent and stringently governed as they are now. When you hear "cross contamination" in old cases like this you just know evidence may be wobbly. We shall see. I'll be disappointed if they walk free....
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I'm convinced they are lying, I think Barwell comes across as the dominant one and O'Reilly was more of a "follower". One good example of Barwell lying is when he was asked how he got to Rugby and he replied that he must have walked... It's 18miles! So about a 6 hour walk just to visit a friend, in the winter!

I really hope they go down for this but I just think the elements of doubt may tip it in their favour.

The other bad thing about the element of doubt, is that they will never give up Nicola's whereabouts now even if found guilty, not while they can still plead innocence.
 
Bugger - NOT GUILTY!!

How horrendous for her family to have gone through all this. And still Nicola's body has never been found either. No closure whatsoever for the Paynes :(
 
CoverMeCagney said:
Hi Tortoise, good to see you here! Let's hope this goes the same way as Becky's case did :)
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oh no! they couldn't be sure.

what a massive shame

ETA (sorry didn't mean to ignore your greeting cagney)

thanks, this is really disappointing news.
 
Tortoise said:
oh no! they couldn't be sure.

what a massive shame

ETA (sorry didn't mean to ignore your greeting cagney)

thanks, this is really disappointing news.
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Hmmmm. I haven't followed this case in even the fraction of depth of Becky's. And really, with no body, no sound evidence, and the long passage of time I knew a conviction would be shaky. But these two man have lied and lied, and why lie if there's no need?

I feel they have got away with murder and would love to know what the jury REALLY think. It's that old "beyond reasonable doubt" thing, often gets in the way of justice in my opinion!
 
Hmm no big shock... Wonder if someone had a little word with the jury...

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk
 
I also have not followed this case, though I do vaguely remember Nicola's name.

How tragic for her family. It does sound as though these 2 have a very close connection to whatever happened. As CMC says, why lie if there is no reason to do so.

I see that they are keeping the case open, so I hope that at some future point, Justice will be done for Nicola.
 
I've followed this case for a long time, can't help feeling that these 2 have got away with it and poor Nicola will never be found. If we believe that they are not guilty then it must have been 2 other guys matching their description, wearing the same clothes they always used to wear and driving the same distinctive car, and who had very good local knowledge of the area.

They said they were in Rugby, but several independent witnesses saw them in Coventry including Barwells neighbours. 2 people say they admitted killing Nicola, the traffic wardens report confirms that their car wasn't where they said it was parked in Rugby and not one person has confirmed them being there. So all of these witnesses must be lying?

They skipped bail to avoid the ID parade, when asked how they got to Rugby on another occasion they said they think they must have walked, I'm pretty sure you would remember walking 18 miles.

They claim that the police said they were going to frame them, so we are believing 2 petty crooks with many previous convictions over the West Midlands police force?

Then there is the matter of hairs forensically proven to probably belong to Nicola and O'Reilly being found in a tent exactly the same as one owned by Barwell. Do we really believe that these hairs accidentally found their way into that tent? Or even more unlikely that the police put them there deliberately?

In my eyes they just got off on a technicality, had those evidence bags been handled properly they would have been bang to rights and we would have seen a guilty verdict.
 
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