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

[GTB72]

Maybe he was deciding whether to call it in, or just leave it for someone else to report, and after a minute or two his conscience got the better of him?

The first screenshot is the bus stop today. The stop has been moved 50 yards closer to Forest Road in the direction of Walthamstow/Leyton stone.

The second screenshot is where the bus stop and phone box was in 1996.

The third is from Crimewatch 1996 showing the phone box and bus stop at night, at 2A Fulbourne Road.

I like your theory of the driver's conscience troubling him and thus stopping to make the call but I am more inclined to think that since he was travelling in the Chingford direction, moo, that that was the first available phone box that he saw.

Very difficult to get into the driver's mindset here.

EBM.

 

[GTB72]

There's

It's a direct quote from one of the investigating officers about the phone caller being 6ft4 and slim.

I guess it's possible that DC McLeary was misquoted (the newspaper report contains some inaccuracies) or that he was quoted correctly, but mixed up his POIs.

It does seem a massive coincidence if the running man and the caller are both slim and 6ft4, but who knows?

The running man was seemingly seen at either 10.45pm, or at just after 10.30pm. The phone call wasn't until 11.18 pm, so there appears to be a big gap between the two sightings.

BBM.

Yep, I can't get my head around that at all.

 

[tes1984]

Surely if Joy had some kind of association with a 6ft 4 black man then it would of cropped up in investigations at some point?

AFAIK Joy had lived in Walthamstow all her life. She worked in the area as a teacher for many years, so presumably had a lot of formers students, grown up and still in the area in 1995.

She volunteered at the Mission, but was also active at her local church in Walthamstow. In addition she did volunteer work for a homeless charity, so she might have had a lot more associates than the typical retired woman, living alone.

 

[rvlvr]

Was a fire in a block of flats not too far from myself very recently, apparently it took 3 hours to be put out, fortunately the fire was contained within just the one flat, which is - as I understand it - how these things should play out, based on the way these buildings were designed and built. But would the fire starter have known this?

Photos reveal burnt remains of Glasgow flat after crews tackled blaze for 3 hours

A charred broken remnants of a window show the impact of a blaze which took hold inside a flat block this morning

www.glasgowtimes.co.uk

 

[Rookie D]

Was a fire in a block of flats not too far from myself very recently, apparently it took 3 hours to be put out, fortunately the fire was contained within just the one flat, which is - as I understand it - how these things should play out, based on the way these buildings were designed and built. But would the fire starter have known this?

Photos reveal burnt remains of Glasgow flat after crews tackled blaze for 3 hours

A charred broken remnants of a window show the impact of a blaze which took hold inside a flat block this morning

www.glasgowtimes.co.uk

This is a great example that I believe supports my point that the 2 separate fires in Joy's flat couldn't have been burning for too long before the fire service were able to access the flat.

The caller who made alerted 999 did so at 23.18pm, a 2:33 call duration which meant the call ended at 23.20 or 23.21pm.

If the person who made that 999 call genuinely witnessed seeing those "flames" up on the 6th floor, then he would have done so no later than 23.16pm (based on 90 seconds to 2 minutes to look up and see the flames, drive up to the traffic lights, turn left at the traffic lights, drive up Fulbourne Road to the phone box, to then park up, get out his car, cross the road, and then make the call at 23.18pm.

This means that the fire must have been started at or before 23.15pm.

But if the Fire crew arrive in 4 minutes after the call ends, that would mean they arrive at the flats at 23.25pm at the very earliest. Then we need to add another 5 minutes to access the building, secure the lower floors, ascend up to the 6th floor, risk access the situation on the 6th floor, and then proceed with a controlled entry into the flat.

This means that the fire service wouldn't have accessed Joy's flat until at least 23.30pm

And if the fire was observed just after 23.15pm by the passer by, then the fire must have been started before that time for the flames to have been observed in the first place.

Of course, the caller may have meant to say "smoke" instead of "flames," but that would mean the window must have been open for the man to have seen the smoke; which would have been harder to see compared to actual flames at the window.

So if the fire was started before 23.16pm and the fire service didn't start tackling the fires until at least 23.30pm, then the fire itself need to have been burning for a minimum of 15 minutes before it was tackled by the fire crew.

The science tells us that the average fire in a domestic high rise flat, should have taken around 5 minutes or so to become a totally devastating force capable of combusting physical objects in the room without the need for the flames to physically touch those objects. The combustion phase of a fire usually take as little as 5 minutes, but can indeed take longer depending on environment and accelerants.
Therefore a timeframe of 15 minutes between the caller seeing the flames, to the earliest possible point the fire was tackled by the fire crew, means that there's already at least TREBLE the time required for the fire to have reached a temperature and pressure high enough to spontaneously combust organic material and various other objects.

I believe that it strongly suggests that the fire could not have been started much earlier than 23.15pm, because even if the fire had been started at 23.00pm, that would be 30 minutes before the fire crew could even start to tackle the fire.

A 30 minute fire in a flat located on the 6th floor of a tower block, would have incinerated the entire flat and there would have been nothing left to save.

 

[Rookie D]

There is one elephant in the room that never seems to be addressed.


Where was the smoke?

If there had been 2 small fires started, then after just a few minutes the room would have been filled with smoke.

Not only that, why does it appear that only one person outside was aware of the flames , and nobody else called 999 to say that had seen black smoke bellowing from the building?

It's almost as though the only person to have seen and therefore known about the fire in the flat, was the man who made that 999 call at 23.18pm

Why is that?

If you look on Youtube and search for tower block flat fires, you see that they all have the same common feature... SMOKE!

The fire crew did state that the 6th floor was full of smoke, but AFAIK, there was no fire or smoke damage anywhere outside of Joy's flat. that's odd for a domestic flat fire.

And what about the communal smoke alarm system? I'm guessing it wasn't working? Or did the man who started the fires deliberately disconnect the smoke alarm in Joy's flat?

If not, and the smoke alarm was working, then why didn't the smoke alarm go off to alert all of the other residents in the building?

It seems that the 2 fires started in Joy's flat were the smallest and least destructive fires in flat fire history.

 

[dotr]

Were the fires started to hide evidence of some sort, or as an excuse to bring attention to Joy's murder?

 

[GTB72]

There is one elephant in the room that never seems to be addressed.


Where was the smoke?

If there had been 2 small fires started, then after just a few minutes the room would have been filled with smoke.

Not only that, why does it appear that only one person outside was aware of the flames , and nobody else called 999 to say that had seen black smoke bellowing from the building?

It's almost as though the only person to have seen and therefore known about the fire in the flat,

There is one elephant in the room that never seems to be addressed.


Where was the smoke?

If there had been 2 small fires started, then after just a few minutes the room would have been filled with smoke.

Not only that, why does it appear that only one person outside was aware of the flames , and nobody else called 999 to say that had seen black smoke bellowing from the building?

It's almost as though the only person to have seen and therefore known about the fire in the flat, was the man who made that 999 call at 23.18pm

Why is that?

If you look on Youtube and search for tower block flat fires, you see that they all have the same common feature... SMOKE!

The fire crew did state that the 6th floor was full of smoke, but AFAIK, there was no fire or smoke damage anywhere outside of Joy's flat. that's odd for a domestic flat fire.

And what about the communal smoke alarm system? I'm guessing it wasn't working? Or did the man who started the fires deliberately disconnect the smoke alarm in Joy's flat?

If not,

There is one elephant in the room that never seems to be addressed.


Where was the smoke?

If there had been 2 small fires started, then after just a few minutes the room would have been filled with smoke.

Not only that, why does it appear that only one person outside was aware of the flames , and nobody else called 999 to say that had seen black smoke bellowing from the building?

It's almost as though the only person to have seen and therefore known about the fire in the flat, was the man who made that 999 call at 23.18pm

Why is that?

If you look on Youtube and search for tower block flat fires, you see that they all have the same common feature... SMOKE!

The fire crew did state that the 6th floor was full of smoke, but AFAIK, there was no fire or smoke damage anywhere outside of Joy's flat. that's odd for a domestic flat fire.

And what about the communal smoke alarm system? I'm guessing it wasn't working? Or did the man who started the fires deliberately disconnect the smoke alarm in Joy's flat?

If not, and the smoke alarm was working, then why didn't the smoke alarm go off to alert all of the other residents in the building?

It seems that the 2 fires started in Joy's flat were the smallest and least destructive fires in flat fire history.

BBM.
High Rise flats in general are designed in such a way that any fires that start are contained to the specific flat so it's not really that odd for there to be no damage outside of Joy's flat.

There was a bad fire in my flats but other than the smell of smoke if the lift stopped at the landing you wouldn't even have known.

Edited by me.

 

[Rookie D]

BBM.
High Rise flats in general are designed in such a way that any fires that start are contained to the specific flat so it's not really that odd for there to be no damage outside of Joy's flat.

There was a bad fire in my flats but other than the smell of smoke if the lift stopped at the landing you wouldn't even have known.

Edited by me.

That's good to know, thank you for highlighting that because it goes some way to explaining why the fire was contained in just Joy's flat.

Ironically, if the fire had been on the outside, the cladding would have likely have cause the fire to spread uncontrollably; as we know from the devastating events that occurred at Grenfell tower.
The flats are AFAIK currently undergoing external renovations to address this exact issue with external cladding, although I can't be certain.

So if the fire was evidently contained solely in Joy's flat, then what is the very earliest time that the fire could have been started if it was first reported to emergency services at 23.18pm, and the fire crew first accessing Joy's flat no earlier than 23.30pm?

I would argue the fire was started between 23.10pm - 23.15pm, but with a chance that it may have been as early as 23.00pm at the very very earliest.

I may be wrong of course, but I see no viable way that a fire in a relatively small and enclosed tower block flat, could have been started any earlier than 23.00pm, if it wasn't tackled until at least 30 minutes later; especially seeing as though plants, paperwork, clothing and an acoustic guitar were among the things to not receive any significant fire damage.

 

[RC80]

That's good to know, thank you for highlighting that because it goes some way to explaining why the fire was contained in just Joy's flat.

Ironically, if the fire had been on the outside, the cladding would have likely have cause the fire to spread uncontrollably; as we know from the devastating events that occurred at Grenfell tower.
The flats are AFAIK currently undergoing external renovations to address this exact issue with external cladding, although I can't be certain.

So if the fire was evidently contained solely in Joy's flat, then what is the very earliest time that the fire could have been started if it was first reported to emergency services at 23.18pm, and the fire crew first accessing Joy's flat no earlier than 23.30pm?

I would argue the fire was started between 23.10pm - 23.15pm, but with a chance that it may have been as early as 23.00pm at the very very earliest.

I may be wrong of course, but I see no viable way that a fire in a relatively small and enclosed tower block flat, could have been started any earlier than 23.00pm, if it wasn't tackled until at least 30 minutes later; especially seeing as though plants, paperwork, clothing and an acoustic guitar were among the things to not receive any significant fire damage.

I think you may be putting too much emphasis on the fires. The problem is we have so little to go on barring a few photos of the aftermath and a phonecall supposedly seeing flames. Not every fire turns into a blazing inferno or spreads even in a contained room. How many fires just fizzle out and don't get reported?

As Dotr mentioned in their last post, could it have been an attempt to destroy evidence? For all we know the fires could have been started in bins which would have prevented the spread but could also have caused smoke damage. Maybe it was flickers from there that the driver-by saw? While I am not saying the fires would have been started hours ago, I don't think it is beyond the realms to think any time within the last hour or so is possible to reach a stage where some form of flames could be seen from outside.

 

[RC80]

I think there should be more emphasis/consideration on why the fires were started? What was the killer trying to achieve? Joy was already dead so logical reason would be to hide something. But what? Clearly not enough dna evidence that would lead back to the killer plus trying to burn a 6th floor flat down to the point of destroying a body is putting the whole block of flats at risk. With the lack of fire damage and the amount of time that passed then an accelerant wasn't used, so again, doesn't look like they were trying to cause maximum damage. So why start the fire? Why start two fires in separate rooms?

This leads me to think about the table with what looks like photo fits on. Maybe they were there prior and maybe there was more of them and that was the purpose of the fires? It would be helpful to know where the fires was started but not sure this information has been released?

 

[GTB72]

I think there should be more emphasis/consideration on why the fires were started? What was the killer trying to achieve? Joy was already dead so logical reason would be to hide something. But what? Clearly not enough dna evidence that would lead back to the killer plus trying to burn a 6th floor flat down to the point of destroying a body is putting the whole block of flats at risk. With the lack of fire damage and the amount of time that passed then an accelerant wasn't used, so again, doesn't look like they were trying to cause maximum damage. So why start the fire? Why start two fires in separate rooms?

This leads me to think about the table with what looks like photo fits on. Maybe they were there prior and maybe there was more of them and that was the purpose of the fires? It would be helpful to know where the fires was started but not sure this information has been released?

I think the reason why posters were speculating about when the fires were started is because the 999 call was made at 23.18 and the person captured on CCTV who the Police wish to speak to, was timed at 22.31 entering St David's flats. Also, the person seen running from the building onto Forest Road as per the Crimewatch 1996 reconstruction was sometime between 22.30 - 23.00.

The timelines don't seem to add up. Identifying roughly when the fires started could be helpful, though we can't conclude a definite answer.
Also, would a driver driving by at 30mph have the time and awareness to see flames/smoke from a flat 6 floors up.

The Met Police say the fire was a smouldering one. Would a driver be able to spot a smouldering fire whilst driving by? Your concentration would, imo, be on the road conditions, hence why the "driver" who made the 999 call arouses suspicion in my opinion.

Of course, the 2 people mentioned in the reconstructions could have nothing to do with the murder. And the driver who made the 999 call could be just that, a driver. It would certainly explain the somewhat confusing timelines.

As to why the fires were started then I don't know. If it was an attempt to destroy evidence, wouldn't you make certain that the fire was starting to take a hold before you would take your leave?

A reason to perhaps push the Police investigation away from the real reason for the murder?

It's certainly a baffling one.