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

[Rookie D]

How old would CCTV guy be now? If he WAS the killer the police may have missed their chance at catching him, sadly. Assuming he is still alive he’d be what, around 70? And if he’s dead, the DNA they have won’t lead anywhere. I think this case WAS solvable but fear the passage of time has made it much much harder, if not impossible. I really hope I’m proven wrong one day, this case has bothered me since I first saw it on Crimewatch in the 90’s.

A very good point indeed

This case was absolutely solvable, but I get the impression that there was more going on here than we will ever know.

There are only really 3 or 4 viable persons of interest in the case, and if it was none of them, then it's anyone's guess.

 

[GTB72]

How old would CCTV guy be now? If he WAS the killer the police may have missed their chance at catching him, sadly. Assuming he is still alive he’d be what, around 70? And if he’s dead, the DNA they have won’t lead anywhere. I think this case WAS solvable but fear the passage of time has made it much much harder, if not impossible. I really hope I’m proven wrong one day, this case has bothered me since I first saw it on Crimewatch in the 90’s.

The Police have a DNA profile from the flat, I think, so if any of his relatives have their DNA taken by the Police in the future then it should still be solveable. The person may be deceased,but surely the Police would be able to use the DNA from the relative?

50% of your DNA comes from your father and half from your mother, so if a son or daughter of the killer commits a crime in this country then that would lead quickly to the killer.

The person on the CCTV is in their 30's at the time according to the Met, so between 60-70 now, so still very feasible that they are currently alive.

Of course, that all predeposses that the person is British. If they are from overseas and have gone back home after the crime then that is going to make it much harder to solve using DNA.

Appeal 30 years after teacher’s murder

Joy Hewer was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death in her own home.

news.met.police.uk

 

[Deadbeat]

I realise the CCTV image isn’t the best BUT if that WAS someone Joy knew from the mission, wouldn’t you think other people from the mission would recognise him? Like “Oh that was… He always used to speak to Joy at the mission”? It almost seems like it was someone no one remembers seeing Joy with.

 

[GTB72]

I realise the CCTV image isn’t the best BUT if that WAS someone Joy knew from the mission, wouldn’t you think other people from the mission would recognise him? Like “Oh that was… He always used to speak to Joy at the mission”? It almost seems like it was someone no one remembers seeing Joy with.

Indeed. I think Joy also volunteered at her local church(St Mary's, Walthamstow) so I think the same thing would apply in that instance. I still think she knew her killer in some capacity though.

 

[Deadbeat]

Indeed. I think Joy also volunteered at her local church(St Mary's, Walthamstow) so I think the same thing would apply in that instance. I still think she knew her killer in some capacity though.

Also I’m not sure exactly what year that CCTV image was released to the public BUT by the time it was, I guess many of the volunteers from the mission or church may have already passed away sadly. This is also assuming CCTV man IS indeed the perp.

 

[Rookie D]

Also I’m not sure exactly what year that CCTV image was released to the public BUT by the time it was, I guess many of the volunteers from the mission or church may have already passed away sadly. This is also assuming CCTV man IS indeed the perp.

The CCTV image wasn't released to the public until the Crimewatch update in 2015 marking the 20 year anniversary of the murder.

In the original broadcast in 1996, the CCTV photo was never mentioned.

It seems to me almost certain that the man caught on the CCTV image is the killer.

However, that said, there are really only 4 viable suspects;

1) the white man caught on CCTV,
2) the black male who made the 999 call,
3) the distinctively tall black male seen running from the flats and who was nearly hit by a motorist. (1996 only)
4) the young male seen talking to the couple by the lifts; who were moving furniture into one of the flats. (1996 only)

Note that suspect 2 and 3 may have been the same guy.

Also note that suspect 3 and 4 only appeared in the original 1996 broadcast and were never mentioned in the update of 2015.


I have my own working theory as to who the killer was, and IMHO it's one of my strongest theories to date.


With Cold Cases like these, it's often not about what the police think they know, it's more about what they know they can prove.


I am convinced that this particular case will one day be solved.

 

[dotr]

I have my own working theory as to who the killer was, and IMHO it's one of my strongest theories to date.

rbsbm
Can you give us a hint or two, is your POI somebody who might have been mentioned in the news?

 

[tes1984]

CCTV man seems to be prime POI, but I don't think there are really only four viable suspects. The killer could have been someone else, who avoided being witnessed or caught on CCTV.

In the somewhat similar Caroline Harris-Reed murder, the killer forced his way into the flat after Caroline and her friend saw him peeping through the spy hole, and opened the door to ask him what he was doing. He was a local sex offender, who prowled the streets and then decided to try and prowl inside a block of flats. He gained access to the flat of the first residents he encountered.

 

[Rookie D]

In the somewhat similar Caroline Harris-Reed murder, the killer forced his way into the flat after Caroline and her friend saw him peeping through the spy hole, and opened the door to ask him what he was doing. He was a local sex offender, who prowled the streets and then decided to try and prowl inside a block of flats. He gained access to the flat of the first residents he encountered.

I don't see any real link between the murder of Caroline Harris-Reed and Joy Hewer.

Firstly, Caroline was murdered in a newly renovated 3 storey Victorian house; whereas Joy was murdered in a 6th floor flat in a 12 storey tower block.

What the Caroline Harris-Reed murder does highlight brilliantly however, is what I said about Cold Cases often remaining unsolved because it's often based on what the police can actually prove, and not what they know; or what they think know, to be true.

It is clear that the man who killed Caroline was a man named Frank Harvey; who lived in a flat directly opposite the flat where the murder took place. His flat was level with the flat opposite.

He had a distinct and relatively rare nasal deformity that the murder victim's friend (Catherine Osborne) noticed after having gone through a 2 hour ordeal by the man who would later stab her friend Caroline to death.

Frank Harvey's first trial was a joke, because the jury couldn't reach a verdict. It then went to a retrial.

His 2nd trial was very much hush hush, but only because at the time he had already been charged on a violent assault on an 18 year old girl who had been walking her dog near his flat. He grabbed her from behind and threatened to kill her if she didn't do what she was told.
He had already served 10 months for this offense and so when his retrial took place concerning the murder of Caroline Harris-Reed, he was set free immediately.

The case is a prime example of the fact that everyone knew it was him; the police believed they had their man. But he was still acquitted.
However, the fact that he was proven to have been a sexual predator, had the exact same nasal deformity as the man who killed Caroline, and who lived opposite the murder site; it is merely a case of the jury not having the courage to convict a clearly dangerous sexual predator.

One thing that is interesting about the murder of Caroline Harris-Reed, is that her killer allegedly cut off her breast as part of his macabre post mortem mutilation.

Her friend Catherine Osborne only survived because she feigned illness.

And so even though I don't see many similarities between this case and that of Joy Hewer, there may still be a chance that it was indeed the same man. I say this because even though Caroline was murdered 14 years prior to Joy Hewer, the idea that the killer was free to walk the streets and the case was never "officially" solved, it is absolutely certain that the police knew who the killer was; but just couldn't convince a subjective and flawed jury to reach the correct verdict; as is often the case with many jury members who are mandated to make crucial decisions on a subject they know hardly anything about. That's the major flaw with the archaic and outdated jury system that we have in the UK.


It does make me wonder what happened to Frank Harvey because he was a convicted criminal who was charged with indecently assaulting the 18 year old girl, and so because he was also almost certainly the man who murdered Caroline Harris-Reed, then there's a high probability that he may just have killed and/or maimed others.

Of course, if the name Frank Harvey appears in the records pertaining to the London Healing Mission, then maybe he could also be a potential suspect in Joy's murder. it's a long shot of course, but not an impossible hypothesis.


Food for thought

 

[tes1984]

I wasn't trying to suggest it was the same killer for Caroline and Joy. More that Joy's killer could have been the same type of person as FH.

Local offender, previous sexual offences, chances upon his victims etc.

Having said that, I still favour the idea of a connection to Joy's church or charity work and this being a planned encounter.

 

[Deadbeat]

Apologies if this has been posted here before but I didn’t see it when doing a quick scan through this thread?

Uploaded to YouTube 2 months ago, this is a very informative video, featuring an interview with Joys sister, who shares her theory on CCTV man. Archive footage of the flat after the fire is included too, apparently furniture was piled high and then set alight. I hadn’t heard those specifics before.

 

[Rookie D]

This video is helpful because it highlights what I was saying about the entrance door to the flats facing east and not the main road. You can also see the gap between the top of the steps and the main door and the fact that the killer's face had to be caught on CCTV as he walked between that gap to get to the door.


Unless of course there's a way to circumvent the building from the rear and get to those doors without walking up the steps.

 

[Rookie D]

Interestingly, the 999 call was made from Fulbourne Road at 23.18pm; the call duration being just over 2 and a half minutes.

Meaning that the Fire Service were dispatched to St David's Court no earlier than 23.21pm

The fire service then arrived at the building circa 23.25pm-23.30pm, ergo, no earlier than 23.25pm. (based on a minimum response time of 4 minutes)

They then entered Joy's flat circa 23.30pm-23.35pm, ergo, no earlier than 23.30pm (based on the approximate time required to ascend up to the 6th floor and secure the lowers floors)

And yet the man caught on CCTV at 22.31pm was seen approximately 1 hour before Joy's body was found circa 23.30pm-23.35pm (based on the quickest time estimates)

The man who called 999 needed to have driven past the flats, seen the "flames coming from one of the floors..." driven past the junction, then parked up, got out of his car and then walked into the phone box in Fulbourne Road.

That would mean that the man who claimed to have seen the flames must have done so no later than 23.17pm, because it would have taken at least 1 minute between him having seen the flames, to then having made the 999 call.

And to be able to see the "flames" the fire must have been started before 23.15pm.

Now when we consider that a relatively small flat in a tower block would take an average of 2 to 3 minutes to becomes completely engulfed in flames, and approximately 5 minutes for the flat to reach a temperature that would have made most items combust through heat and not just from contact with the flames, it means that the fire couldn't have been started much before 23.15pm.

This is because even if the fire was started at 23.15pm at the very latest, then when the fire service entered Joy's flat no earlier than 23.30pm, that the fire had been alight for an absolute bare minimum of 15 minutes.

That's around treble the time required for the entire flat to be ablaze.

And so my question is this; how did items such as the plant and paperwork on the table and in the bag, all survive the blaze, despite the fire having raged for at least 15 minutes?

And not forgetting that 15 minutes is the minimum time that the fire could have been alight.

So when we add in the fact that a man is caught on CCTV at 22.31pm, but the fire couldn't have been started much before 23.15pm, it perhaps suggests that the killer was with Joy for a period of time that encompassed them having a chat over a coffee.

I think there's a possibility that the man who murdered Joy was the man caught on CCTV, but that he wasn't necessarily the same person who started the fires. So we have 2 men, one killer and one fire starter.

Or we have a killer who kills Joy just before he starts the fire just before 23.15pm, or a killer who kills Joy, but then waits for around 20 minutes to half an hour before then starting the fires and then leaving.


Either way, the fire couldn't have started much before 23.15pm because it defies the science.


Fire is fire, and there's absolutely no way that the fire was started much before 23.15pm, because otherwise everything in that flat would have been incinerated.

 

[tes1984]

Apologies if this has been posted here before but I didn’t see it when doing a quick scan through this thread?

Uploaded to YouTube 2 months ago, this is a very informative video, featuring an interview with Joys sister, who shares her theory on CCTV man. Archive footage of the flat after the fire is included too, apparently furniture was piled high and then set alight. I hadn’t heard those specifics before.

I'm not at all convinced by the theory that CCTV man arrives to assist the killer.

Joy's neighbours heard the sound of furniture being dragged around the flat, which was presumably the killer piling things high.

 

[tes1984]

This video is helpful because it highlights what I was saying about the entrance door to the flats facing east and not the main road. You can also see the gap between the top of the steps and the main door and the fact that the killer's face had to be caught on CCTV as he walked between that gap to get to the door.


Unless of course there's a way to circumvent the building from the rear and get to those doors without walking up the steps.

I don't think it's a fact that the killer's face had to have been caught on CCTV. The killer might not have been seen by witnesses or caught on camera.

 

[tes1984]

Some interesting points about the arson, but weren't there two fires?

Did the initial fire fail to take light, or was it a controlled fire which the killer allowed to burn out?

 

[Rookie D]

Joy's neighbours heard the sound of furniture being dragged around the flat, which was presumably the killer piling things high.

There is no evidence to suggest that the neighbours heard furniture being moved around in JOY'S flat.

That's because In the original 1996 Crimewatch broadcast, the woman who claims to have heard noises above her bedroom specifically states that the flat above "is empty."

Therefore, the couple who heard banging didn't live on the floor directly below Joy, they actually lived TWO floors below Joy.

However; coincidentally, there WAS indeed furniture being moved around in the flat directly above the couple who heard banging above them.

There was another couple who had just moved into the 5th floor flat that had been empty up until the very day of Joy's murder. This was the same couple who were seen by the lifts "moving furniture into a flat" and were seen talking to a young man in his twenties by the lifts.

And so unless the woman who awoken by banging could hear through 2 floors, then she actually heard the other couple who had just moved into the flat above them the very same day.

But what's interesting is that the couple who had just moved in, lived directly BELOW Joy Hewer, and their bedroom was directly below Joy's bedroom.

So when Joy got back to the flats circa 6pm and passed another resident on her way into the building, she almost certainly used the stairs up to the 6th floor rather than take the lift. By doing so, she may have encountered or been made aware of the couple who had just moved into the flat directly below her as they were still in the process of moving stuff into their flat.

The idea therefore that banging was heard coming from Joy's flat, is almost certainly a red herring.

And based on the archive footage of the flat after the murder, there is little evidence to support that furniture had been piled up at all.

So to summarise; we have Joy on the 6th floor, a new couple moved into the "empty flat" below Joy on the 5th floor (the same couple seen by the lifts talking to the young male) and the couple who were awoken by banging who lived directly below the "empty flat."

In other words, the woman who claimed to have heard banging above her in the empty flat, is unlikely to have heard Joy at all.


The devil as they say, is in the detail.

 

[Rookie D]

Some interesting points about the arson, but weren't there two fires?

Did the initial fire fail to take light, or was it a controlled fire which the killer allowed to burn out?

The evidence supports the idea that there were 2 separate fires started; one in the living room and one in the bedroom.

This likely indicates that the killer only went into those 2 rooms.

Interestingly, if the man who made the 999 call at 23.18pm hadn't made the call, then it's possible that other residents may have lost their lives due to smoke inhalation or the fire itself.

And based on the fact that nobody from the flats called 999, and it was left to a random motorist passing by to spot the flames, then it seems likely that the killer and/or the man who started the fire, wasn't keen on being a mass murderer by letting the fires rage and potentially cause the entire block to go up in flames.

I believe therefore that the man who made the 999 call was the fire starter himself; the man who stated (not questioned) the name of the flats, and yet somehow didn't know any of the street names.

But despite the 999 caller having IMO been the fire starter, I still don't believe that he was actually the killer of Joy Hewer.

IMHO Joy was murdered circa 22.45pm, and then the fire starter sent in around 25 minutes later to go and destroy the evidence.

The reason for this 25 minute time gap; to give the real killer enough time to get away and create an alibi of being elsewhere at the time the fire was later called in at 23.18pm.

It wouldn't surprise me if the killer and the fire starter weren't both involved in the church in some way. The pecking order present in many of these Christian cults determining who called the shots and what essentially compelled the fire starter to go to the flats to destroy the evidence.

The real killer couldn't have left as late as 23.15pm when the fires were likely started, because it wouldn't have given them enough time to get away and secure an alibi in another geographical location that would at face value seem too far away for them to have been the murderer.

Joy's murder was almost certainly premeditated.

 

[tes1984]

Not sure why I thought the neighbours heard furniture being dragged in Joy's flat. Apologies for misdirecting the thread if the furniture being moved around hasn't been confirmed.

 

[Konstantin]

Not sure why I thought the neighbours heard furniture being dragged in Joy's flat. Apologies for misdirecting the thread if the furniture being moved around hasn't been confirmed.

The Crimewatch episode I believe says the flat above the neighbours was empty and the flat above that one was Joy's. I haven't heard before that someone had moved into the flat above the neighbours and below Joy's so am interested in what the sourcing is on that?