EBM
They must have loads more information...
“Met police officer Wayne Couzens arrested in Kent on suspicion of kidnap. A 39-year-old woman at the same address is arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.”
They wouldn’t arrest the woman without some other information.
this to me reeks of impulse and unplanned
I think the natural reaction when crimes of this nature happen is for people to immediately think of violence and the victim being forced, when in reality a lot of these case where people are taken off the street end up being due to the victim being coerced rather than forced. A prime example of this being the Libby Squire case where she was lead to the car by her killer on the pretence of a lift home.
I think with the news coming out this morning that he may have used his badge would suggest he tricked her in some way, the thought in my mind would be that he falsely arrested her for breaking lockdown rules, which led to her getting in the car thinking she was under arrest...
but equally it could be the offer of a lift home etc.
I think there will be a lot more to come from this, it would be an incredible occurrence for a serving police officer to commit a murder on his first offence... there are a lot of stones about to be unturned IMO
I think i maybe read it slightly differently. (JMO).
Maybe naively, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt (even if he is not talking at the moment).
- He has nefarious sexually motivated intentions. (Indicated by possible indecent exposure and possibly other events that have not yet been discovered or processed).
- He is escalating but not necessarily with an intention to kill - he is serving police officer with some degree of vetting so (again naively) would like to think he is not a calculated psychopath (yet).
- He is as frustrated as the rest of us by lockdown so goes out to get his “kicks” by attempting to pick up a young woman. He doesn’t use his warrant card at that stage because he actually doesn’t have a kill intention and is expecting to be able to let her go, so wouldn’t risk being identified as such. He maybe uses a false cry for help (he is the father of 2 young children, maybe plays up fatherly instincts and asks for her help, or he just rapidly overpowers her without saying anything). Bundles her into the car (child and window locks the back). Has intentions of some sort of assault BUT (here is where I maybe trying to write SE as the extremely tragic but feisty hero of this story) SHE FIGHTS back. At this point he panics and does something stupid.
- And now things are suddenly FUBAR, he can’t leave her there, she’ll be found quickly in central london so drives her to Kent. He is a serving police officer, there will be evidence on her. So he dumps the body under cover of darkness and goes home.
- But, he knows it might only be a matter of time before she is discovered in tact, and he can’t “wash” her of potential traces of DNA.
- So he then goes back the subsequent night (or maybe more recently) and does what by then he thinks is is best option which is destroy ALL the evidence (fire?).
- But these subsequent movements etc are also caused on ANPR and the net has closed around him.
- he could still be staying silent on the basis that unless they can identify her, everything else is circumstantial (“so what I was in central london, I work there”, “so what I drove near here I went for a nighttime walk to clear my head”, “so what a body was found - could be anyone, quite a common body dumping ground”. While the police don’t appear to be able to identify her immediately, once they do it seems to me to be over for him - since they could only have found her because HIS suspicious movements led them there (can you see a jury believing “yes I was caught on CCTV in the exact vicinity of SE going missing in London and she turned up dead at a spot recently visited by me - but that is all coincidence). I would imagine the police were confident enough that what they found were human remains that were perhaps identifiable as having been placed there/tampered with, fairly recently. But I hope to god they DO manage to identify her (mitochondrial DNA?) because if not, then the above COULD work for him.
The alternative is that he is an arrogant psychopath who planned all this including the method of body disposal (I’ve seen mention of some documentary on Netflix about being able to essentially “cremate” a body with a bonfire hot enough to leave no personal trace) - could this have been massively, methodically planned - yes.
But for Sarah’s sake, and his children’s sake, I really, really, really hope it was the former. Unless he talks we might ever know.
(And that is also truly horrifying)
All the above pure speculation, but it makes me feel safer to imagine stupid/pathetic/impulsive/ disgusting men roam the streets rather than psychotic men.
