UK UK- Joy Hewer, 50, Teacher/church volunteer, sexually assaulted & fatally stabbed in chest, apartment set on fire, Walthamstow, 17 Oct.1995 *REWARD*

[dotr]

Wondering if Joy acted as a support buddy to a 'recovering' alcoholic who showed up at her door to say he feels tempted to drink, so she lets him in to have a coffee instead? speculation, imo.

 

[jojojaja]

If it's a planned murder, then why is he wearing a light coloured jacket?

Wouldn't a knife attacker wear dark clothing, to camouflage any bloodstains?

It doesn't look like a very warm jacket either. It was a cold and drizzly evening, only about 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit). A local offender who hasn't had far to travel?

Opportunist or too mentally unwell to think clearly. But still tried to burn evidence.
Even if you are local, and rational, if planned you still won't want anyone to spot you with bloodstains.
I notice nothing about if anything was taken. That could be because they don't know or are keeping something to themselves. But I think they often say if they know something has been taken, so people may come forward recognising if someone suddenly has those items.

 

[jojojaja]

Wondering if Joy acted as a support buddy to a 'recovering' alcoholic who showed up at her door to say he feels tempted to drink, so she lets him in to have a coffee instead? speculation, imo.

Funnily enough if it weren't for the change in mo I would suspect Anthony Hardy who was an alcoholic, with a personality disorder, drug related psychosis etc. To a charitable person they would be classed as very vulnerable.
He was also supposedly a devil worshipper so would this not be an attraction? A very christian and charitable women?

However aside from that mind wander, being very kind and concerned can also attract unwanted attention, I know from experience, it can be misunderstood by people with a certain mindset and they can get fixated.

 

[jojojaja]

Really good points. Setting the fire to cover up also seems like a panic response. Maybe it was an attempt at seduction gone wrong by someone who was obsessed with Joy and very unstable.

If he was local, you'd think there would be a better chance of him being recognised perhaps. I wonder, like the poster above, if this person had followed her home from the Mission and was mentally unwell. That would fit with this being someone she knew and was perhaps helping.

I rewatched the Crimewatch reconstruction and she made a good few phone calls after returning home. I doubt she would do that if she was with someone. So if followed would they have waited patiently outside. Unless they knew her, how would they know which flat to go to? I can see why the police suspect it was someone who knew her, not just the fact she let them in. Could they have known her phone number and called her first? Oh hey I'm in the area and wondered how you were? Or faked some urgent situation they needed help with.

 

[Westchester76]

Listened to the YouTube mini doc on this case, and heard the full 999 call from the unknown male caller. No way he was the murderer. Asking strangers the name of the road, whilst staying on the line. If it was the culprit, he wouldn't of hung on the line, what if a police car was around the corner and was scrambled to the phone box. However, although his demeanour sounded right, as a passer by who called in what he thought was a fire, the fact he never came forward is strange, apparently countless appeals, and the murder was national news (featured on Crimewatch etc). Strangely the person he spoke to regarding the name of the street also never came forward. I would put this down to both possibly having no time for the police and not wishing to become involved, especially an unsolved murder in fear of being fitted up

 

[dotr]

@Approx. 1:10 (3/4 of clip) Joy Hewer

 

[tes1984]

IMO the answers are most likely to be found within Joy's 'church' healing group.

 

[rvlvr]

Strange no one has been able to identify CCTV man. Quality isn’t the best but still good enough to ring more than a few bells imo.

Doesn’t seem like the coffee cups yielded DNA or fingerprints? Not sure how extensive the fire damage to the flat was though?

 

[tes1984]

There seem to be four suspects. The CCTV man, the man who made the phone call, the black man seen running from the block, and the young white man seen in the block a few hours earlier.

The police seem to be going with CCTV man as prime suspect.

It is strange that no one has been able to identify him. That suggests he's not an immediate neighbour or perhaps even local to the area.

The healing group had various places of worship, and drew members and visitors from far and wide. Joy also worked at a soup kitchen, which could have attracted someone troubled and transient.

Joy was a very kind woman, who spent her whole life trying to help others. Her door was presumably always open to those in need. Someone could have tricked her that he needed help. The coffee suggests it wasn't someone overpowering Joy at the door, so this offender seems to have been calm at first.

 

[tes1984]

It's got to be something she thinks is very urgent, or she wouldn't have still been in her nightdress. Like she didn't want to keep him waiting for even a minute or two to throw on some clothes.

 

[Konstantin]

It's got to be something she thinks is very urgent, or she wouldn't have still been in her nightdress. Like she didn't want to keep him waiting for even a minute or two to throw on some clothes.

I can see it being something like this as a possible scenario:

-- Joy is in her dressing gown, it's quite late. Her flat's intercom goes, she is not expecting anyone but because she is a kind and trusting person or perhaps she has neighbours who sometimes ask for help or some other reason, she answers.

-- It's someone she is acquainted with, most likely from her Church group.

-- They present as troubled, they have a problem, they ask for her help or if she can listen. As you say, it must be compelling enough that she has to listen. Maybe this is someone who has expressed suicidal ideation to her or has expressed another, very difficult emotional problem and she feels compelled to listen. The man in the CCTV footage is older, about her age or a little older, so perhaps she does not see him as any threat whereas she might have considered a younger man a threat?

-- She buzzes the guy up even though it's late and she is getting ready for bed. She knows him so she is not afraid to let him into her home at this late hour. Has he been there before? How does he know where she lives? I wonder if he has been there before, as if he just showed up at her flat, knowing the flat number to buzz up to (no one else in the block said they let him in), that would be super creepy and frightening and she prob would not have let him up.

-- He comes into the flat. She makes 2 cups of coffee, one for herself and one for him. That suggests the plan was to talk something through.

-- Either he planned to rape and kill her and that's why he went there, or he didn't plan to, but thought that Joy letting him in, late at night, when she is in her dressing gown, is a "signal" that she is interested in him. He tries it on, she rebuffs him probably quite forcefully and he turns violent and assaults her, then in his rage kills her so she can't identify him, then panics and tries to destroy evidence. If he had been there before perhaps he thought he was starting a relationship with Joy.

I can't see a scenario where she didn't know him, and I do think she must have known him well enough to think it reasonable to admit him at that late hour. He had her address!

 

[tes1984]

Joy was an administrator for the healing group, so presumably her address was known to quite a lot of people within the organisation.

Anyone fixated on her could have found her address from the local library, but I don't think she would have let a complete stranger in, unless he had an extremely convincing cover story.

The killer has to get into the block, and then get into Joy's flat. Perhaps he claimed to be associated with someone Joy knew and respected.

 

[Konstantin]

A lot of people might have known her address, but someone who hadn't specifically been given it for legitimate reasons and just turning up quite late at night out of the blue having looked her up, might have given her quite a bit of pause when he buzzed up to her flat. That would be incredibly creepy and sinister.

Whereas if she had given him her address herself at some point, or he had been there before, or she knew he was someone who would have her address for legitimate reasons -- then she might have been more willing to let him in or feel comfortable about him turning up.

Perhaps he claimed to be associated with someone Joy knew and respected.

That's a very interesting thought -- if he pretexted her with that sort of story. Meaning, he had some knowledge of her life. Which, if he were fixated on her, he would plausibly have either because he had come into contact with her enough to have this detail, or he researched her.

 

[Konstantin]

https://archive.ph/lVYq6

The London Healing Mission, where Joy spent a lot of time, was part of a scandal in 1994 where the minister carried out "sexual exorcisms" on women.

The above link is a news article from December 1994:

POLICE are investigating allegations that an Anglican priest practised
exorcisms involving internal ''cleansing'' of sexually abused women.

Old Etonian the Rev Andrew Arbuthnot is reported to have poured wine
over the victims' genitals and to have inserted crucifixes [redacted but you can read it at the link].

Mr Arbuthnot had continued ministering to a congregation at the London
Healing Mission in Notting Hill, west London, despite having his licence
revoked last year, meaning he no longer had the backing of the Church of
England.

Did the police interview people from the Mission to see who Joy could have crossed paths with there?

 

[tes1984]

How many floors was the block of flats? Joy lived on the sixth floor. Was that the top floor?

 

[dotr]

2015

One Day of Crime: 20-year mystery of teacher's murder

A post-mortem found the devout Christian had died as a result of multiple injuries, and that she had been sexually assaulted.

news.sky.com

'A man who was caught on CCTV, pictured above, entering the front of St David's Court at around 10.30pm is also sought by police.

He is white, aged 30-40, although will now be aged 50-60, with short hair. He was wearing a light-coloured jacket.

Police think it would be unlikely Joy would have let a stranger into her flat late at night.'

 

[rvlvr]

How many floors was the block of flats? Joy lived on the sixth floor. Was that the top floor?

Street View of St David Court · Google Maps

60 Parkstone Rd, London E17 3HS, UK

maps.app.goo.gl

6th floor is about halfway up, looking at that

 

[tes1984]

6th floor is about halfway up, looking at that

Thanks. So the perp has a total disregard for human life. He's willing to burn dozens of people to death to try and hide Joy's murder.

 

[rvlvr]

Thanks. So the perp has a total disregard for human life. He's willing to burn dozens of people to death to try and hide Joy's murder.

Yeah. Although, in theory high rise flats were designed in such a way that a fire in one flat couldn’t spread to other flats. As I understand it, this likely would’ve happened at Grenfell, had it not been for the cladding and modifications that had been made to the building, which allowed the fire to spread quickly from flat to flat, and floor to floor.

The perp might’ve known that the fire would’ve been contained, but if they didn’t then perhaps they felt guilty and placed the 999 call? The call is a funny one - the caller is familiar with the name of the tower block but apparently doesn’t know the names of any of the streets surrounding it, which seems odd, but maybe he’d simply seen the name of the block on the side of the building but couldn’t see any road signs from the phone box.

The caller said he was driving past and saw flames ‘coming out of one of the floors’ - it’d be interesting to know if police investigated if that was actually possible, was the fire so severe that flames were visible from ground level, and especially to someone who was driving past?

I feel like if this was the perp calling he’d have given a few details then hung up in order to make his escape, rather than spend so much time on the line, which makes me think it was just a random person who called, who hasn’t ever wanted to talk to police. But still, it’s peculiar.

Presumably police checked to see if CCTV man had visited the flat previously, though how much footage would have been retained back in those days? Not a lot, I’d imagine.

 

[RC80]

Yeah. Although, in theory high rise flats were designed in such a way that a fire in one flat couldn’t spread to other flats. As I understand it, this likely would’ve happened at Grenfell, had it not been for the cladding and modifications that had been made to the building, which allowed the fire to spread quickly from flat to flat, and floor to floor.

The perp might’ve known that the fire would’ve been contained, but if they didn’t then perhaps they felt guilty and placed the 999 call? The call is a funny one - the caller is familiar with the name of the tower block but apparently doesn’t know the names of any of the streets surrounding it, which seems odd, but maybe he’d simply seen the name of the block on the side of the building but couldn’t see any road signs from the phone box.

The caller said he was driving past and saw flames ‘coming out of one of the floors’ - it’d be interesting to know if police investigated if that was actually possible, was the fire so severe that flames were visible from ground level, and especially to someone who was driving past?

I feel like if this was the perp calling he’d have given a few details then hung up in order to make his escape, rather than spend so much time on the line, which makes me think it was just a random person who called, who hasn’t ever wanted to talk to police. But still, it’s peculiar.

Presumably police checked to see if CCTV man had visited the flat previously, though how much footage would have been retained back in those days? Not a lot, I’d imagine.

This is what interests me. It was quoted earlier that it was a "smouldering" fire started in the living room and bedroom. If that was the case, then I would be surprised if a passer-by would see anything up in a 6th floor flat. Would there have been flames from a smouldering fire? Not in my mind.

Late at night, did she have curtains in the window and if so surely they would have been drawn? Again, if that is the case, even if there was some small flames, how would you determine it was an actual flat fire and not just a candle or two flickering?

My initial instinct is that the caller is the culprit, perhaps feeling the guilt of what he has done as from the few details of the fire we have been given, I don't see how he would of known if he wasn't there. Is there any photos of her flat and/or the fire damage?