Here is The Times story in full
How Wayne Couzens lied to cover up plans to kill in days before abduction of Sarah Everard | News | The Times
Three days earlier Couzens, a married father of two who lived in Deal, Kent, had hired the car online and used Amazon to purchase a carpet protector to cover up any forensic evidence in the vehicle.
Couzens did not know Everard, a 33-year-old marketing manager, and police believe he was trawling for a victim when he spotted her a few minutes later on the A205 south circular, a busy road and popular pedestrian route between
Clapham and Brixton. It was the height of the coronavirus lockdown, and police were questioning people who were out.
Only Couzens knows whether he used an excuse to get Everard into his car, or whether he forced her inside. However, police sources suspect he initially showed his warrant card to give the false impression he could be trusted. It took three minutes to execute his plan.
A bus camera image at 9.35pm shows the pair standing beside the Astra. At 9.38pm, when another bus drove past, the figures had disappeared into the car, and the front and passenger doors were open.
A father and son who were camping in the woods during that weekend saw Couzens with an axe and the officer told them he was chopping wood for a fire. Couzens burnt Everard’s body among piles of dumped rubbish at the entrance to the woodland in Hothfield, Kent.
His efforts to get rid of DNA traces and his connection to the crime were thwarted when detectives, having linked Couzens to the hire car, used his phone’s cell site analysis to trace him to the crime scene. Everard’s body was found there in a large green rubble bag, deposited in a stream.
After Couzens’s identity was uncovered the Met carried out a vast scoping inquiry to determine whether he had been responsible for any other unsolved crimes or internal misconduct. The force has not disclosed its outcomes.
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