UK - Julia James, 53, murdered, Snowdown, Kent, 27 April 2021 *ARREST*

[OrlandoJames]

I’m sitting on my hands with this one!!

won’t be long til it’s known

Have they arrested somebody Julia knew?

 

[Deleted member 113679]

I feel that Julia was approached by someone who tried to harrass or intrude on her in some way, perhaps a flasher, and I think that she may have reacted to that - perhaps reflexively - in a way that sadly escalated matters. Perhaps she tried to photograph him with her phone. Perhaps she laughed. Perhaps the dog went for him and he kicked it and she lost her temper. Who knows.

We do know that some crimes are gateway crimes that can be part of an escalating pattern, and that flashing/indecent exposure is one of them, and we can infer from that that a perpetrator who escalates from that to sexual assault or murder is at some point going to go further than their history suggested they would - in other words, there will be a particular incident that with retrospect marks the point at which they escalated. I feel that this may turn out to be that event.

You may be on to something there based on this most recent news report

Woman was reportedly accosted by 'flasher' near to where Julia James was found

"A 'flasher' in a white van reportedly indecently exposed himself to a female dog walker shortly before Julia James was found dead.

Detectives are however examining claims involving another female dog walker who was accosted by a flasher in a van less than two weeks ago, at a spot around a mile from where James died."

 

[TheTruthWillOut]

I’m sitting on my hands with this one!!

won’t be long til it’s known

Will it be a major development?

 

[MissUnderstood]

Not all people have a phone, how can they state it’s a local who left their phone home. Could it just as easily be a drifter with no phone? I think they definitely know more than we are hearing!
Moo

 

[Grouse]

PCSO Julia James's murderer 'left mobile phone at home to avoid detection' | Daily Mail Online


The killer of PCSO Julia James may have deliberately left their phone at home to avoid being traced as desperate police stopped cars in the hope of a breakthrough, it was revealed today.

A lack of GPS data close to where the mother-of-two was bludgeoned to death in a Kent village north of Dover suggests that her attacker is 'local' and a man, a source has claimed.

Mrs James was murdered eight days ago but no arrests have been made, with Britain's FBI, the National Crime Agency, brought in to help with the forensics search of the fields where she was found dead on Tuesday, April 27.

This massive leap to concluding that due to lack of phone/GPS data it's a local person who left their phone at home seems a bit ridiculous to me. Have they considered it might be a non-local person who just turned their phone off to avoid detection while in the area!

Edit: or indeed doesn't have a phone as @MissUnderstood says

BBM "Ms James's killer may have deliberately left their phone at home to avoid being traced as desperate police stopped cars in the hope of a breakthrough, it has been revealed.

A lack of GPS data close to where the mother-of-two was bludgeoned to death in a Kent village north of Dover suggests that her attacker is 'local' and a man, a source claimed."

 

[scandinavian girl]

Not all people have a phone, how can they state it’s a local who left their phone home. Could it just as easily be a drifter with no phone? I think they definitely know more than we are hearing!
Moo

Exactly, I was just about to say the same, I seldom take my 15 year old Nokia with me. I dislike smartphones and will resist them as long as I can.

 

[Scorpiette]

Not all people have a phone, how can they state it’s a local who left their phone home. Could it just as easily be a drifter with no phone? I think they definitely know more than we are hearing!
Moo

I wonder if LE have suspicions who the culprit is, but maybe their alibi is they were at home, they left their phone on at home. (If you see what I mean).

 

[Skigh]

PCSO Julia James's murderer 'left mobile phone at home to avoid detection' | Daily Mail Online


Prowler 'offered to pay child for pictures down secluded lane' the day after PCSO Julia James was murdered, it is revealed - as detectives believe killer 'left mobile at home to avoid detection'

• Man initially asked young person for directions but then offered money in exchange for sending him photos
• 'Please would you remind your children of the dangers of being approached by strangers,' warned the school
• Happened in the daytime on Wednesday April 28 just hours

 

[Angleterre]

Not all people have a phone, how can they state it’s a local who left their phone home. Could it just as easily be a drifter with no phone? I think they definitely know more than we are hearing!
Moo

It’s a line of enquiry that they are pursuing because with all major incidents, phone data is one of the largest parts and in depth, mountainous workloads of a major incident and they look at all phone numbers and the registered owners of those who are sending signals to and from the nearest mast and most people nowadays do own mobile phones and the chances are that a younger generation of person will own a mobile phone. I’m 51 and have had a mobile since 1996 when they first became available to all at a reasonable cost ( as opposed to the ‘brick’ size phone from 1986 onward that was prohibitive in terms of cost ), so it’s certainly something that I as the SIO would look at .

 

[Grouse]

<snipped for focus>
I think Julia's body being left on the path and not hidden could very possibly be because the killer knew how frequently the path was used and it was more important for them to get out of there very fast without being seen. Which in turn suggests someone who knew they might be recognised - a local. I'm not sure it is a disorganised characteristic.

That sounds very plausible to me, though I would go further to say that even a non-local would still have that same requirement to get out fast and avoid being seen and potentially picked out by a witness later, or identified via a description being published.

Given that multiple people called the police it does sound like the path was frequently used.

 

[Skigh]

Given your expert knowledge as a SIO, Angleterre, do you think the police will be able to gather enough evidence to be able to charge someone?

If there are no witnesses,cctv ,phone data and no weapon found . I imagine the weapon used was removed and taken away by the culprit.

Would it be possible for specialist dogs to track the probable route the culprit took out of the fields?

Is it likely with a blunt instrument attack that no open injury would be present and so no blood spatters?

How likely would it be that no DNA of the culprit would be found on or near Julia's body?

 

[Pinkizzy]

PCSO Julia James's murderer 'left mobile phone at home to avoid detection' | Daily Mail Online


Prowler 'offered to pay child for pictures down secluded lane' the day after PCSO Julia James was murdered, it is revealed - as detectives believe killer 'left mobile at home to avoid detection'

• Man initially asked young person for directions but then offered money in exchange for sending him photos
• 'Please would you remind your children of the dangers of being approached by strangers,' warned the school
• Happened in the daytime on Wednesday April 28 just hours

Did the prowler have his phone with him when he approached the child? If yes, I'm sure he can be traced somehow

 

[Grouse]

Would it be possible for specialist dogs to track the probable route the culprit took out of the fields?

That's a good point, I don't think I've seen anything about dogs being used. That's something I've seen discussed at length on other WS threads. Even if the path was quite busy there are different kinds of sniffer dogs trained for different purposes and some can be very effective even in areas with lots of human presence.

 

[Deleted member 113679]

It is worth saying that the police have made no specific statements about the mobile phone data, the news article that originally mentioned it said it was "a source" and not a particularly knowledgeable one either because they mention "lack of GPS data" so they clearly don't understand how GPS works.

I'm sure the police have scoured the mobile phone data but it is like a needle in a haystack job when you don't know which mobile phone you are looking for, it is most useful when the phone is known and linked to a person then can be used to approximate the movements of said person retrospectively to prove their presence at a crime.

In rural areas, mobile transmitters are sparse and triangulation is not as accurate - could be a few miles to the nearest mast. Even if they manage to filter for phones that were connected in the area during the key times they could be left with hundreds of phones on the list, many unregistered and untraceable anyway.

 

[Angleterre]

This may be an opportune moment to post a message that I have previously posted in another U.K. case last year, so that it reminds those of you who are interested, just what is happening behind the scenes of Julia’s Investigation:

With any major enquiry wether that be a Murder / Homicide or a Missing Person, a dedicated team of detectives is set up with a SIO (Senior Investigative Officer ) as the lead.

Certainly in the UK, a Policy Book is commenced and everything that you know, everything that subsequently happens, every decision taken and every action followed up, is written into the policy book . Every decision made by the SIO and the justification behind such a decision, has to be written into the policy book . Even if the SIO considers a line of enquiry but makes the decision to discount it at that time, they MUST write it in the Policy Book and explain their reasoning for its consideration and then the reasoning for the decision taken to put it on hold or fully discount it and a full justification is written.
This justification is imperative for EVERY decision made wether it progresses the investigation forward or wether it’s just considered and discounted. You can have an infinite number of Policy Books by the time that the case is finalised at Crown Court I think the most Policy Books that I have ever written for an investigation is 6 and they are thick books with carbonated paper in between to enable the SIO to rip out the carbonated duplicate and enter it immediately into the HOLMES system . So it’s a LOT of writing.

I was responsible for leading a number of Murder investigations and Missing persons investigations and I would lead teams of Detectives and Forensic experts amongst other support staff.

A twice daily briefing would be held where everyone has an input as to what has happened that day , any evidence found , any witnesses spoken to etc and a summary of the day’s investigation would be written up by the SIO.

Each investigation has a MURDER INVESTIGATION STRATEGY and that strategy is followed from the Murder and Major Crime investigations Manual

So at the start of the Investigation, there will be various strategies drawn up to encompass all of the different strands of the Investigation.

They are :

1.Victim - what do we know ?

2. Suspect - Do we have any?

3. Circumstances of last seen and other pertinent information.

4. Intelligence - What do we know ? What can we find out?

5. Cell phone analysis.

6. Forensics -
Allocation of Forensic staff and any imperative retrieval’s made . Therefore, what do we have ? How are the Forensic Submissions to be prioritised? Which are being Submitted to the Forensic Laboratory and their cost? ( Forensics are a HUGE cost to the Investigation and the SIO has to make decisions having cognisance to the budgetary requirements and the Annual Forensic allocated budget.)

DNA evidence
Fingerprints
Paperwork recovered for treatment.

7. Search parameters and recovery of evidence to include continuity of retrieval as exhibits.

8. CCTV- What’s available ? How do we prioritise it? Which is viewed in what order ? (Again bearing in mind the cost of this exercise and the cost to the investigation of Officer Allocation to look through each and doing your best to ensure that it’s relevant and timely).

9. Cell Phones - Victims, Suspect’s, Family, people who are in the area at the relevant time who come forward as witnesses .

10. Family History and antecedents and any information deemed relevant to the enquiry.

11. Actions - those raised that need investigation and graded according to their priority, those that are considered but not deemed to take the investigation further ( but it still all needs recording ).

12. Forensic mapping

13. Witnesses to be identified and interviewed and statements taken.

14. Interviews - suspect/s? Who will conduct them ? Will it be ‘downstream monitored’ to allow ‘real time’ alibis and further enquiries to be made?

15. Exhibits/Property Officer - to record everything brought into the enquiry and the continuity of that evidence. A VERY IMPORTANT ROLE as this is the easiest way, alongside Procedural issues, to lose the case at Crown Court).

16. File of evidence - Who will create the file of evidence for submission to CPS?

17. Warrants - allocated officer to swear all warrants pertaining to the investigation.

18. Disclosure - Officer allocated to start a disclosure record ( court process which again is very important).

19. Family liaison officer - Officer allocate to be the go between for the family and SIO and this role can continue long after any Crown Court case and conviction.

20. Media strategy - controlled release of information to press.

I could go on but I think that you get the drift that any investigation of this type is massive and takes time and has to be that way to get it right so that by the time it gets to the Court process, there’s no room for doubt or for weaknesses in the investigation to allow the accused to get off on a technicality or procedural issue .

Then if there is a suspect you need to start thinking of who will do the suspect interview and the downstream monitoring and alibi checks .

And on top of all that, the biggest and most onerous task besides MOBILE PHONE DATA is CCTV . Both are huge, time consuming and onerous tasks. ... it takes Detectives hours upon hours to go through and watch CCTV to enable them to ascertain if there is anything of evidential value on each individual recording and that can be CCTV from the street , from a shop, car park, toll booth , buildings, churches , Public CCTV along a route and individual CCTV in peoples driveways or on their mobile phones, dashcam from vehicles and private residential CCTV etc

You start to get the idea of just how much work is involved in a Major Investigation and that’s before you go to a Judge to swear out warrants and arrest the perpetrator. Once an arrest takes place, you then have interviews and downstream monitoring in real time of the interviews and then liaison with the CPS in UK .And then putting the whole file of evidence and Investigation together and ensuring full disclosure to the defence ... it’s massive workloads and it goes on and on ...

Cell phone data is also massive because of pings of location and subsequent searches and data dumps of all cell phones active within a specific MAST area and tracing who those numbers belong to and ascertain what they were doing in the area. And I can tell you that the evidence from one cell phone alone can run into thousands of pages for my Detectives to read through and decipher what, If anything, is relevant to the case . So can you imagine when you have numerous people involved in an investigation, wether it to be rule them in or out or as a suspect, an alibi or a victim, just how onerous this task is? And it is just one small part of the investigation. Everything has to be prioritised as much as reasonably possible .

In the UK we have HOLMES ( Home Office Major Enquiry System ) and everything is entered into the system and looked at by three Police officers and Police supervisors above each officer, working with a large number of administrative support staff and any actions deemed necessary as a result of those 3 officers painstakingly going through every piece of information, item, cell phone number, cctv , search recovery evidence etc and allocating actions ( work ) to officers to compete before they are given another action . And some officers are individually given specific roles for example CCTV, Cell phones, Intelligence, Statement takers , Family liaison .

So this gives you an idea of just what is going on behind the scenes .

And the information released has to be protected and provenanced to ensure accuracy and the SIO doesn’t want information released unless absolutely necessary because the perpetrator may slip up and say something that hasn’t yet been released to the public and that then becomes dynamite to the investigation.

I hope this helps you all to understand the process , procedures and time for any major investigation to bear fruit .








◦

 

[BelburyPolytechnic]

I think Julia's body being left on the path and not hidden could very possibly be because the killer knew how frequently the path was used and it was more important for them to get out of there

JMO

Just on the path point. It does appear that the body is away from the main formal bridleway which runs through the edge of the wood at an angle (as indicated by the earlier OS extract post). The tent is on what appears to be an informal / unofficial path along the edge of the field. Just speculating IMOO, whether the informal path along the field is regularly used to avoid going through the edge of the woodland? Alternatively, was Julia on the formal bridleway when attacked but it escalated out into the edge of the field or even that she made it that far after being attacked and left? The initial body tent with the two tripods also shows the immature crop around the tent being displaced and flattened; wonder if that was from the police or associated with the attack?

All MOO

 

[JuicyLucy]

This may be an opportune moment to post a message that I have previously posted in another U.K. case last year, so that it reminds those of you who are interested, just what is happening behind the scenes of Julia’s Investigation:

With any major enquiry wether that be a Murder / Homicide or a Missing Person, a dedicated team of detectives is set up with a SIO (Senior Investigative Officer ) as the lead.

Certainly in the UK, a Policy Book is commenced and everything that you know, everything that subsequently happens, every decision taken and every action followed up, is written into the policy book . Every decision made by the SIO and the justification behind such a decision, has to be written into the policy book . Even if the SIO considers a line of enquiry but makes the decision to discount it at that time, they MUST write it in the Policy Book and explain their reasoning for its consideration and then the reasoning for the decision taken to put it on hold or fully discount it and a full justification is written.
This justification is imperative for EVERY decision made wether it progresses the investigation forward or wether it’s just considered and discounted. You can have an infinite number of Policy Books by the time that the case is finalised at Crown Court I think the most Policy Books that I have ever written for an investigation is 6 and they are thick books with carbonated paper in between to enable the SIO to rip out the carbonated duplicate and enter it immediately into the HOLMES system . So it’s a LOT of writing.

I was responsible for leading a number of Murder investigations and Missing persons investigations and I would lead teams of Detectives and Forensic experts amongst other support staff.

A twice daily briefing would be held where everyone has an input as to what has happened that day , any evidence found , any witnesses spoken to etc and a summary of the day’s investigation would be written up by the SIO.

Each investigation has a MURDER INVESTIGATION STRATEGY and that strategy is followed from the Murder and Major Crime investigations Manual

So at the start of the Investigation, there will be various strategies drawn up to encompass all of the different strands of the Investigation.

They are :

1.Victim - what do we know ?

2. Suspect - Do we have any?

3. Circumstances of last seen and other pertinent information.

4. Intelligence - What do we know ? What can we find out?

5. Cell phone analysis.

6. Forensics -
Allocation of Forensic staff and any imperative retrieval’s made . Therefore, what do we have ? How are the Forensic Submissions to be prioritised? Which are being Submitted to the Forensic Laboratory and their cost? ( Forensics are a HUGE cost to the Investigation and the SIO has to make decisions having cognisance to the budgetary requirements and the Annual Forensic allocated budget.)

DNA evidence
Fingerprints
Paperwork recovered for treatment.

7. Search parameters and recovery of evidence to include continuity of retrieval as exhibits.

8. CCTV- What’s available ? How do we prioritise it? Which is viewed in what order ? (Again bearing in mind the cost of this exercise and the cost to the investigation of Officer Allocation to look through each and doing your best to ensure that it’s relevant and timely).

9. Cell Phones - Victims, Suspect’s, Family, people who are in the area at the relevant time who come forward as witnesses .

10. Family History and antecedents and any information deemed relevant to the enquiry.

11. Actions - those raised that need investigation and graded according to their priority, those that are considered but not deemed to take the investigation further ( but it still all needs recording ).

12. Forensic mapping

13. Witnesses to be identified and interviewed and statements taken.

14. Interviews - suspect/s? Who will conduct them ? Will it be ‘downstream monitored’ to allow ‘real time’ alibis and further enquiries to be made?

15. Exhibits/Property Officer - to record everything brought into the enquiry and the continuity of that evidence. A VERY IMPORTANT ROLE as this is the easiest way, alongside Procedural issues, to lose the case at Crown Court).

16. File of evidence - Who will create the file of evidence for submission to CPS?

17. Warrants - allocated officer to swear all warrants pertaining to the investigation.

18. Disclosure - Officer allocated to start a disclosure record ( court process which again is very important).

19. Family liaison officer - Officer allocate to be the go between for the family and SIO and this role can continue long after any Crown Court case and conviction.

20. Media strategy - controlled release of information to press.

I could go on but I think that you get the drift that any investigation of this type is massive and takes time and has to be that way to get it right so that by the time it gets to the Court process, there’s no room for doubt or for weaknesses in the investigation to allow the accused to get off on a technicality or procedural issue .

Then if there is a suspect you need to start thinking of who will do the suspect interview and the downstream monitoring and alibi checks .

And on top of all that, the biggest and most onerous task besides MOBILE PHONE DATA is CCTV . Both are huge, time consuming and onerous tasks. ... it takes Detectives hours upon hours to go through and watch CCTV to enable them to ascertain if there is anything of evidential value on each individual recording and that can be CCTV from the street , from a shop, car park, toll booth , buildings, churches , Public CCTV along a route and individual CCTV in peoples driveways or on their mobile phones, dashcam from vehicles and private residential CCTV etc

You start to get the idea of just how much work is involved in a Major Investigation and that’s before you go to a Judge to swear out warrants and arrest the perpetrator. Once an arrest takes place, you then have interviews and downstream monitoring in real time of the interviews and then liaison with the CPS in UK .And then putting the whole file of evidence and Investigation together and ensuring full disclosure to the defence ... it’s massive workloads and it goes on and on ...

Cell phone data is also massive because of pings of location and subsequent searches and data dumps of all cell phones active within a specific MAST area and tracing who those numbers belong to and ascertain what they were doing in the area. And I can tell you that the evidence from one cell phone alone can run into thousands of pages for my Detectives to read through and decipher what, If anything, is relevant to the case . So can you imagine when you have numerous people involved in an investigation, wether it to be rule them in or out or as a suspect, an alibi or a victim, just how onerous this task is? And it is just one small part of the investigation. Everything has to be prioritised as much as reasonably possible .

In the UK we have HOLMES ( Home Office Major Enquiry System ) and everything is entered into the system and looked at by three Police officers and Police supervisors above each officer, working with a large number of administrative support staff and any actions deemed necessary as a result of those 3 officers painstakingly going through every piece of information, item, cell phone number, cctv , search recovery evidence etc and allocating actions ( work ) to officers to compete before they are given another action . And some officers are individually given specific roles for example CCTV, Cell phones, Intelligence, Statement takers , Family liaison .

So this gives you an idea of just what is going on behind the scenes .

And the information released has to be protected and provenanced to ensure accuracy and the SIO doesn’t want information released unless absolutely necessary because the perpetrator may slip up and say something that hasn’t yet been released to the public and that then becomes dynamite to the investigation.

I hope this helps you all to understand the process , procedures and time for any major investigation to bear fruit .

◦

Great post @Angleterre, very informative. Thank you.

 

[Tortoise]

That's a good point, I don't think I've seen anything about dogs being used. That's something I've seen discussed at length on other WS threads. Even if the path was quite busy there are different kinds of sniffer dogs trained for different purposes and some can be very effective even in areas with lots of human presence.

Yes dogs have been used.



Uniformed officers carried out fingertip searches in undergrowth nearby, while sniffer dogs were used to scour hedgerows.

Julia James: Murdered PCSO's family 'won't feel safe' until they find out what happened

Dozens of police are still scouring the surrounding areas for clues about what happened to their colleague, including a fingertip search using dogs along the route Mrs James would have taken before her death. A team were also seen arriving with metal detectors, presumably to look for a murder weapon. Footpaths and fields remain sealed off.

New warnings for vigilance as police admit having no clue who killed PCSO or why

 

[Grouse]

Just on the path point. It does appear that the body is away from the main formal bridleway which runs through the edge of the wood at an angle (as indicated by the earlier OS extract post). The tent is on what appears to be an informal / unofficial path along the edge of the field. Just speculating IMOO, whether the informal path along the field is regularly used to avoid going through the edge of the woodland? Alternatively, was Julia on the formal bridleway when attacked but it escalated out into the edge of the field or even that she made it that far after being attacked and left? The initial body tent with the two tripods also shows the immature crop around the tent being displaced and flattened; wonder if that was from the police or associated with the attack?

All MOO

It looks like the bridleway is used by the farmer to get from one field to another looking at the tractor tracks from the satellite view on google --> Google Maps

Without being familiar with Julia's walking habits (and I'm not a dog expert so not sure how long a walk a 9 year old Jack Russell would typically be able to manage - I'd have imagined not too far?) I'd guess that she was making an anti-clockwise circuit of the field and that she'd probably have stuck to the smaller path outside the woods, where she was found - MOO

ETA: That said, there was a post up thread that stated that, judging by the witness on her street who saw her setting off, she may have turned right out of her house and gone the other way, which would imply a clockwise circuit of the field. MSM seem to be sure it was anticlockwise though.

 

[BelburyPolytechnic]

This aerial photo from late summer 1990 shows a network of informal pathways through the woodland which are hard to now delineate due to the tree growth.

It also helps shows how the bridleway curves away from the position where the police tent was/is erected in the field.

Image (c) Kent County Council and used for non commercial purpose