Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hello, welcomes to Crime divers I'm Laura and I'm Jill.
I'm welcome to today's picture on episode. Yes here we
are for another Patreon ones are ready? Yes, I am already.
We're in the world, is it? We're in the uk Okay, ukay, okay,
I'm okay you okay. So well, Lota is actually not
(00:45):
that good today because Lota just fell. That was so
funny as you'll have heard. You know, She's got her
puppy and she brings her down here knows obviously the
two dogs can, you know, get to know each other
and bond and whatnot. So she took the puppets to
Piper out for a pee and came back and I
(01:09):
was in the kitchen and she came to the back.
I just saw her fallen dog on her hands and
knees in the back door. It was sore because you're
decking slippy it's wet raining outside. Yeah, so she's she
had a headache, girl on and then she did that,
(01:32):
and then her Piper actually didn't go for a pee
because she'd already been for a pee in Lily's bed.
And then we were just about to come back to record.
I was put on the lead to go out for
a pee, and she put on my carpet and then
she decided. And then yet it's for straining for me.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Because she's been doing so well back at home with
the going outside and not having many accents in the house.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
She just goes and shows now and for some reason,
I took it upon myself to clean it up. I
was actually gonna clean it up. But you're like, I'm
all right, it was horrible. It was sorry anyway, when
we talk about your dog's toilets haense and after that,
(02:20):
my dog went outside for ship, so she really showed
your dug up. She's like, no one exactly just what
my dog was doing well, and she just show she's
just a baby. She needs to learn.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Sorry, she'll be walking next week, so next time maybe
she'll be a bit better.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, and how's your arm from falling? All right? Now?
I think it was just like an impact pain. Thank
thank they didn't break in. I just laughed it. I
did ask if you're a right, you have to laughing? Well,
it was funny. You you just tell the door basically
you didn't. I did. It was sliding inside as well
(03:01):
because your feet were wet. Well, you should take your
shoes off. You need to sort out anyway. We need
to be serious. Now, this is the true crime. It's
not white fixing your hair. You're like, right, have you serious? Now?
She's fixing her hair as if like you know when
you're getting ready, like right, okay, fix the hair? Right? Okay,
(03:24):
So we're in the UK. I want to here's the
next part. What's your title? I've got one. I didn't
realize I didn't have a title until I switched the
laptop on and we started recording, didn't me And I
was like, ah, ship, I've not got a title, and
I haven't. I can't think of one, and I don't
(03:45):
really have time to think of one, because obviously you
need to get back for your daughter coming in from school.
So I'll think of a title, or you can help
me think a title afterwards. So this will mean nothing
to our listeners because there will be a title on it. Yes,
there will actually be one by the time. That's exactly,
because there'll be a title of it because I've written
what the title is exactly, so you'll have one name.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So for everybody that is listened this, you know that
the title is excellent.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Okay, so she would dive in so. Jane Longhur Longhurst
was born on the sixth of November nineteen seventy one.
Her parents were Liz, who was forty and her husband, Bill,
who was fifty eight, and they called her a late blessing. Unfortunately,
Bill died in two thousand from a long battle with dementia.
(04:34):
Jane had an older sister and they lived in Reading
in England. Her mum said that she was always a
very lovely, happy child and she smiled a lot. They
had a good relationship and Liz said Jane was just
such an easy person to get along with. She loved
music and she learned to play the violin from the
age of five. So Jane moved to Brighton, which is
nearly two hours away from her home and Read in
(04:56):
in the mid nineties, and by two thousand and three
thirty one Jane worked as a teacher at a special
needs school. So Jane lived with her partner, Malcolm Sentence,
and on the fourteenth of March two thousand and three,
he got home to find that Jane wasn't there when
he I couldn't quite find out the details, but obviously
(05:18):
he must have thought she was good. She should have
been at home, but she wasn't. So he waited for
a while, but then you know, he started started to
get worried because it's like, why she's not home. Yeah,
you know, obviously it was probably I'm assuming he's probably
text phoned dor or whatever and got no answer. So
it called Jane's mum, Liz, to ask if Jane was there.
(05:42):
I mean, like, she was like two unless she's moved
by this point, I'm not sure, but I thought that's
about a stretch to ask if she's there. Were just
two hours away back, but you know, she wasn't there,
and Liz had said, well, she's probably at the Brighton
Youth Orchestra because she would help sometimes, like helping teach
people's violin. So she's like, that's probably where she's probably
(06:05):
just down you know, wherever that is. It's local to
her anyway. So Malcolm was like, all right, yeah, of
course that's where she'll be. So he checked and she wasn't.
So he called us back and he said that Jane's
not there, and I'm getting worried, and then he kind
of like he was he was calling Liz like every hour,
(06:27):
just getting more and more frantic, like he tried calling
her friends but nobody had seen her. And of course
he had as I said, like he tried numerous times
to Corn on our mobile, but he couldn't get through
as it was turned off. And that was really unusual
for Jane. She never had her phone switched off. I mean,
who does people search their phones off these days? Not really, Well,
(06:48):
obviously we don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
It's put it on silent and then you just don't
answer it, or you just like block people's numbers.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I guess I don't know, That's what I was thinking.
I was like, I'm actually I can remember my will back.
There was something wrong on my phone and you told
me it was you. I was like, oh, there's something
on my phone. You're like switching off and switching back
on again, and I was like, I don't know how
you had to tell me how to switch off for
so long because I didn't know how. I just didn't
know how to do it because that was a newer phone. Sorry,
(07:17):
the dog is trying to get up on the bed
and she's not managing. Come on, right, you're a pest. Okay,
So yeah, So a couple a couple of Jane's friends
did think or you know, maybe they've had an argument
and she's gone off somewhere to get some space, sort
(07:38):
of cooled down or whatever. But her friend Ellie was like, nah,
if that was the case, she would have told Malcolm.
But yeah, she was going off, you know, or left
on a message saying right, you know, I'm going to
have a time out kind of thing. She wouldn't have
just disappeared without telling him or anyone else. So Jane
still wasn't home by the following morning, so Malcolm called
(07:59):
the to report her missing. So officers visited their flat
to find out as much information as they could, of course,
and they established that Jane had taken her purse and
her mobile phone. Malcolm didn't know what she'd been wearing
that day, as I'm assuming he must have left the
house before she did, because I'm assuming that he's went
to work because it was a Friday morning, so I'm
assuming he went to work and when he came in
(08:20):
from work, he was expecting her to be there. So
apart from that, it was pretty evident that Jane hadn't
left any any of our things, you know, nothing to
say that she wasn't coming back or whatever. You know,
she hadn't taken like a suitcase or you know, so
she did like she intended to come back like that day.
(08:41):
So police started making inquiries and knocking on doors and
speaking to neighbors and Jane's friends, and Malcolm was of
course interviewed, but no one was able to offer any
information at all. Her family and friends were getting more
and more worried, and her mum Liz felt Satin was
definitely wrong because the day that Jane went missing that Friday.
(09:01):
Originally they had Liz and Jane were supposed to be
meeting up in London to go to an exhibition in
the National Portrait Gallery, but Lizard woken up a couple
of days beforehand on the Wednesday, she wasn't feeling well,
so she had called Jane and said, look, do you
know what I don't I'm not feeling well now, so
I think we'll just can we postpone Friday and we'll
(09:22):
go next week And Jane was like, yeah, no problem
at all. But on that day on the Friday, Lizard
actually she's woken up and she was feeling fine, and
she was thinking to herself, do you know what I
could have went? But she said that she had a
really uneasy feeling all day, but she put that down
to the fact that she was she was feeling bad
that she'd canceled when she could actually go, But in
(09:44):
fact her daughter had gone missing, and that must have
been what her uneasy feeling was. So it just goes
to show you that mother's instinct, you know, people always
say that, you know. So two days after Jane being
reported missing, the case was referred to the at the
CID and they started building up a profile of who
Jane was, which she might have if she had gone
(10:06):
over on a cord you know, where my ship went.
So they found out she was a very stable woman.
She was kind hearted, she was in a happy relationship,
she was financially stable. You know. There just didn't seem
to be any reason why she would go missing. So
it did look like something sinister was behind her disappearance.
And as the officers kept investigating, they saw that Jane
(10:28):
hadn't used her bank cards since she'd gone missing, and
she regularly took money out of her bank account, and
you know, obviously she went off somewhere. Surely she would
have taken money out for food, accommodation and travel expenses.
All that kind of stuff. So her mobile phone records
were looked at as well, and they could see that
her phone hadn't been used since that Friday morning. She
(10:50):
had made a few calls that morning, and the last
one was to one of our good friends. I mean,
some sources can't say best friends, so I think they
were that really really close good friends. Might be her
best friend. It's been a good friend, yeah, somebody who
was close to her anyway. So the police spoke to
this friend and she told him that she hadn't actually
(11:12):
spoken to Jane as she was away for work, so
she must have owned the landing. She was to own
the house. The house born, so Jane has spoken to
her partner. Her partner picked up to him. So they
didn't get any helpful information from the last phone calls
that she made, so they turned her attention again to Malcolm,
Jane's boyfriend. They were like, they weren't only looking at
(11:33):
close let him know. They were also looking at a
guy called Tony Byrne, and he was Jane's music teacher.
Police went into his house and they took him into
one room and his wife and another room, and in
his words, they were serious suspects. Oh he was serious
suspect and they were questioned for hours and Tony said
he was scared as they actually seem to be like
(11:54):
really suspicieds of one. But there wasn't him, no anything.
So after four day of Jane being missing and the
decision was made to launch Operation Keen, So forty five
officers were brought in to help with house to house
inquiries and once they got the bigger team, they were
able to recover CCTV from train stations and bus stations
(12:14):
and their own CCTV, but it was still no leads
whatsoever like that, just nothing, nothing was helping. The police
turned to the public for help, so they did a
press conference with Jane's family and made an appeal to
the public looking for any information whatsoever to help find Jane.
So calls came in with site into Jane and Southampton
(12:37):
and Wales like all over Brighton and they were all
followed up. But all these leads just dead ends and
it was like she just disappeared into thin air. So
two weeks passed and police had drawn a complete blank
and a meeting was called to decide if they were
still dealing with a missing person's case. So they asked themselves,
(12:59):
has Jane had as an accident and she's died somewhere.
Has she taken her own life? Has she took herself
off and started a new life somewhere else? Had she
fallen ill and died? But all those questions were just
met with no, we don't think so, because where's her body, Like,
there's nobody. I mean, there's no body. So you know
(13:21):
she'd fallen ill and die, surely it would would have
found her something. Yeah, you would think so. I mean
maybe less so if it had been suicide, because she
could have taken herself off somewhere remote. So, but you know,
the starting a new life kind of thing. You know,
she hadn't didn't have her passport, she didn't have her money,
hadn't been touched, you know, all that kind of stuff.
(13:42):
So that just red flags all over the place. Well
that's it. So they were left with one other scenario
that she was either she had been abducted or abducted
in a murdered Yeah. So then they were convinced that
something sinister had happened to Jane. The case was elevated
to a full scale murder inquiry. So now instead of
(14:03):
looking for a missing person, they were looking for a body.
So the search now expanded and went well beyond the
local community, and the search like large areas of open land.
But still nothing. And a month later, investigators were still
no closer to solving the mystery of Jane's disappearance. And
that's always a bad sign. When you just always say
(14:26):
first few.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Days, it means that's the most important if you're hopeful
of finding somebody alive.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
So on the night of Saturday, the nineteenth of April,
so this was like five weeks after Jane had gone missing,
a local man was driving past a place called wigging
Hope Common, which is like a large wooded area about
twenty miles from Brighton, and he saw a fire. So
he stopped and he looked at the fire from his car,
but he was he noticed that the flames were like
(14:55):
a funny color, so it's okay, and apparently like it
being the dry and when he was worried about the woods,
you know, catching fire spread them, so he called the
fire service and he waited until they got there, and
then he got it. He was like, right, okay, I'm
going home. I've had a long day, you know, I've
done my duty. So she got in his car to drive home,
(15:18):
and as he drove off, he was just driving away,
and he looked in his mirror and he saw that
somebody was running. One of the firemen was actually running
after him, and so the guy stopped, and the man
chasing him told him that he had to go back
because this wasn't just a fire and this was a
body burning. Obviously, they had to go back and answer
the questions. So within minutes the place where they are
(15:42):
and investigators on Jane's case were immediately contacted because obviously
missing person. Yeah, of course, so they had to wait
until dawn for daylight, and as soon as they could
see properly, like, the forensic teams began there out the dogs.
She scratched me. Oh why so it was having a
(16:06):
wee stretched to her cell and started kicking her legs
a bit, and she just scratched me on my beef
skin out I wanted to got scratches on my arm
from your dog, so I was on my back from mine.
Sorry about that, yeah, So they began their examination of
the scene so they could see the remains of an
adult female. She was naked and there were clothes and
(16:28):
other debuts in the area of a very localized fire.
They were surprised to see that a body was burning
in that particular place because it's popular with walkers and
close to the road and obviously easy to people to
see for people driving past, because that guy was just
driving back. Yeah, So it was about strange that that's
where it was. So the police told the man who
(16:49):
had found the body that if he had arrived just
a couple of minutes earlier, he would have seen the
person who set the body alight, so the fire had
obviously just started when he saw it. So the body
was identified through dental records and it was Jane Longhurst.
A postmartin was carried out and it determined that Jane
had probably died on the fourteenth of March, the day
(17:10):
that she went missing. And so the question was like
where are her body being for these five weeks while
all of a sudden somebody said to burn it?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
And what you would say is a very easy place
to spot, As I say, like, why would somebody do that?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Well, I will be able to tell you why why
they did it when they did, but I don't know
why they did it there. Yeah, I'll never find out
that to say why they did it in such a
and obvious obvious place, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Over the next few days, forensics processed. Sorry, I'm just
having a heck up. Over the next few days, forensics
processed the crime scene and they found they saw that
she had been naked and covered with a tarpollin and
they found because they found like the little rings that
you find on tarps that she used to put their
(18:00):
hope through the time, they also found the remnants of
corrugated cardboard, and I was like, what the hell is that? Like? Cardboard?
What was corrugated? I know what it means. It's the
kind that you like when you get a parcel. It's
got like you have a cardboard and you have an
inner bit that's sort of like, now you didn't know
(18:20):
what it's like, an inner bit and it's like as
if you were making a fan. It's like, wrinched. Okay,
it does it really doesn't matter. I mean the fact
that there's card like did you just cracked my ankle?
I'm really sorry, everybody, like this episode is about your disaster.
(18:42):
This is our first day back recording after weeks and
we're really not doing very well.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
No, I just got I just got a fright because
I was expecting it. I just moved, I just cracked. Apologies, Yes,
carry on. Yeah, so it's important that there's cardboard there,
but tell you what kind of cardo is?
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So on the on some of the cardboard that was
over Jane's head, they were the remains of the word
fragile cardboard boxes. So in closer examination of the body,
they realized that there was a pair of tights tied
tightly around Jane's neck. So the police realized that with
Jane being naked and tight's being used as a ligature,
(19:23):
that it was very likely that they were dealing with
a sexually motivated murder. Investigators return to the case file
was convinced that there was a late hid somewhere amongst
the evidence from the day that Jane went missing, and
when they read back to all statements, a man called
Graham Coots told them that he spoke to Jane on
the phone that morning that Friday morning that she had disappeared.
(19:47):
He was the partner of her friend. Remember I said
that she'd phone her friend and her partner had answered
because your friend wasn't there, So Graham was the last
person that they knew of to speak to Jane. So
they're right, we're going to go yeah, start And so
they were like, right, we're going to go back. We're
going to read his statement again. So they went. But
they read back on his statement and they realized that
(20:09):
he'd actually given quite a vague account of what he'd
been doing that day, and there was nothing that could
be like checked and backed up. So one of the
officers said that a child just went down his spine
and he had a feeling that this guy was involved
in Jane's disappearance. So, acting on the hunch, investigators were
quickly sent to Graham's house to see if he could
(20:29):
be eliminated from the inquiry. But when they entered the property,
their concerns were raised even further because the first thing
that they saw in the hallway was a box with
the word fragile printed on it, just like the one
that had been discovered at the crime scene. You know,
he had boxes the same boxes.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
You know, that could be coincidence, because a box out
there that people use, it could be coincidence.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
But but of course, you know were you know, well,
ye see, so Graham was saying question about the night
that Jane's body had been found, the officers found it
would be very in harvested, and he wouldn't answer questions directly,
and he just kind of like skipped around them. So
he was asked what he'd been doing that evening and
he said he'd been doing his Clean Easy round Clean
(21:12):
He is, Nope, it's a like a catalog company. So
I only know. I only know because John's mom used
to get stuff from it. The one like drop a
catalog off in the they'll come back up with with
an order form. Yeah, so I mean from what I
can remember, John's mum, she used to buy like sort
(21:34):
of household. It was like cloths and like clean them,
you know, like stuff like mops and buckets and all
that kind of stuff. Yeah, so like small household. So yeah,
so like so he would go drop a catalog off
and then say I'll be back in a few days
if you order, and they'll go but he and get
(21:55):
back with the order form. So that's what Clean Easy
is it. And I said I would never know that
I've it wasn't for Johnson.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
No, I mean I've heard of I know the things
because I know that our mom used to get like
them through the door quite a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, he used to come pick them up. I know
what the concept of it, and I just didn't. I
hadn't heard of the clean easy like Avon, because that's
what Avon does. I think they do a bit more
online and stuff now, but that's what Avon used to
used to go around with the Amon catalog. So yeah,
so that that's what he said that he'd been doing
on the night that that Jane's body had been found.
(22:28):
So of course Graham was asked to provide receipts it's
proof that he'd been Jingy's friend. But the receipts that
he provided were actually older ones. There was none from
the night that Jane had been found. And I'm like,
do you not think they're going to check the dates?
Really not? So yeah, so that the officers they just
(22:49):
felt like they were just going round and rounding circles
where and like something just clearly wasn't right. So investigators
were getting so suspicious of him that they were like,
you know what, fuck it, We're arrest So I said
she was arrested. No, he was arrested on suspicion of murder.
And so he was taken into custody and place took
(23:09):
possession of, you know, like his flat in the car,
you know, so they could search everything. And they examined
the car and as soon as they opened the boot,
they could smell, you know, pretty nasty smell. So I'm
sure you can guess what that probably was. Yeah, So
in custody, Graham seemed calm and collected. He was asked
how how he would describe his relationship with Jane, and
(23:32):
he said friends. And they were like, well, just just
friends or was it anything more than that? And he
was like, no, just just friends. He came across as
being very concerned about what happened to Jane, and like,
you know, he had no involvement, what's in her murder whatsoever.
He asked when it was the last time he had
seen Jane, and he said it was a Sunday before
(23:53):
she went missing, and he said that Jane and Malcolm
had visited him and his girlfriend. And I did read
from another stores, but I'm not quite sure how sort
of fact factul it is, but I did read in
another source that the girlfriend his girlfriend was I think
they just found out that she was pregnant. They'd been
(24:13):
both thrive yet and pregnant, and so they went over
and sort of you know, congratulations and whatnot, because the
four of them were friends, you know, the yeah, like
a four sum you know what I mean, two couples
other friends. Yeah. Yes. But then he was asked when
(24:34):
it was the last time that he spoke to Jane,
and he said it was on the morning that she
went missing, because she had phoned the house looking for
his partner, her friend, and he just said, no, you know,
she's not here. Whatever. That was it. So we're no confession. Sorry,
we no confession and insufficient evidence. Investigators had no choice
but to release them after twenty three hours because you know,
(24:56):
they yeah, you can hold them for a certain amount
of time. So they were pretty certain that they had
the right man. So they had They were like, right,
we're gonna have to search harder fast, you know, to
find something that's going to get back in absolutely. So.
Two days after Graham was released, the police got a
call from the manager of a local storage company who
(25:18):
had heard about the murder. He said that he'd had
an odd customer called Paul Kelly, and this Paul Kelly
addrended a unit because you know that I mean by
the storage units. Yeah, it's like a building and units
were stuff. Yeah, I know that just that's that's really
obvious what storage unit.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Is like if you need the extra storage that you
it's not in your own house that you pay somewhere
to go and store some stuff.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Like everybody probably knows that. So that watches any true
time kind of dramas whose killers perpetrators always want a
storage unit review. Like my husband, he likes to watch
the ones where the auction off the stuff and the
storage uni have they used? Yes? Actually anyway, Yeah, so
(26:07):
this is Paul Kelly. He had rented a unit on
the lower ground floor level and a really bad smell
had been coming from that area, but then over the
previous week weekend the smell had disappeared. Uh huh. So
he put two and two together because obviously heard about
the jans body, So we put you to together and
(26:27):
came up before that doesn't have very generally come up with.
So yeah, he thought maybe that's where Jane's body had
been before been taken to the common to burn. So
the place thought, oh shit, so whre's this Paul Kelly? Like,
have we been after the wrong man? So they quickly
headed to the self storage place and the managers showed
(26:50):
them paperwork to prove you know this, Paul Kelly when
you're dreading in details, And then he then showed them
CCTV footage of him enter in and laying the storage
placed on several occasions. And yes, you guessed it, Paul
Kelly was, in fact Graham Coots. So the manager then
(27:13):
showed officers to the unit, and inside they found Jane's clothing,
her bank card, and her mobile phone. They also found
a blue a men's blue shirt that had blood on it,
and later they found it had semen on it as
well once it had been tested I used. And also
there was a used condom there as well. So now
that they had found where Jane's body had been kept
(27:34):
for those five weeks and by who. And the thing is, though,
this Graham Cooks, he had been going back to visit
the body. So I've read a couple of different accounts.
So one said that he had gone back eleven times,
and another one said he'd gone back seven times, So
he'd been back a few more than too many things. Yeah,
(27:55):
so you know why strange mm hmm. So Graham was
rearrested straight away, and further CCTV footage was quickly gathered
as police tried to piece together how he'd managed to
remove the body from stories before taking it to the
common on the nineteenth of April. So remember I told
you we'll find out the reason why. Well, that's because
(28:17):
the smell was coming in. Yeah, so that's why.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
That's why he was also aware that there was a smelled.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
He needed to get. Yeah, of course, So they saw
the footage from the eighteenth, so that was the day
before Jane. Jane's body was worn. So they saw the
fitters from the eighteenth where Graham entered the building and
he took a trolley down at the lower ground floor
and then later came back into few out of the
lift with a very large white box. And on top
(28:46):
of the box was a flattened box with the word
fragile on it. So Jane's body must have been inside
this big white box. He took the trolley toy's car
and he put the box in the boot. He then
took the trolley back to the storage building and then
he was seeing like looking at the floor, and then
he got some t shirt in his pocket and kneel
down and he started mopping up what must have been
(29:08):
blood and body fluid that had leaked out of the box.
So yeah, you see it. You can see it on
the CC's TV. Yeah, well you know, you just see
him down, like popping the floor up. So in his
place interview this time he was very different. The last time,
(29:28):
he'd been camera collected and seemed to be concerned about
his friend, but this time he was kind of like subdued,
extremely upset and like hardly talking. He was asked what
was in the box, and he was quiet for a
while and then said, sorry, I can't talk about it. Yeah,
bloody well cat. He was then asked if he strangled Jane. Again,
(29:50):
quiet for a minute, and then I went, I don't know.
On the twenty nine to April two thousand and three,
thirty four year old Graham was charged with the murder
of thirty one year old Jane Longhurst. But he's still
were in Congress and just kept saying that he couldn't
talk about it when asked if he killed her. His
(30:10):
trial started on the twelfth of January two thousand and four,
and by then he had By then he had admitted
that he was responsible for Jane's death, but the Pact
courtroom was stunned when it learned or the defense statement
that Graham had made prior to the trial. He basically
said that Jane's death was an accident. So his version
(30:32):
of events was that he said that they had spoken
on the phone when she ran to speak to her friend,
and they had agreed to go swimming, which wasn't unusual.
This is something that they did do as friends, so
it was not a usual So he had said that
he would, you know, he was going to pick her
up and then go to the swam pill. So he
went to pick her up, and he said when they
(30:52):
were in the cash he had become upset. I don't
know what about, I don't know if, he said. So
he asked her if she wanted to go back to
his flat and have a cup and a chat. So
they went into the foot and she was like yeah,
because you know, these are good friends. It's like when
she would have been thinking anything. And so they went
(31:13):
into the flat and apparently she fell into his arms
and for the first time ever, they had some sort
of sexual contact, right, he said. He then asked her
if she fancied trying something new, and she agreed. So
he said he had a fetish for next and strangulation,
and he had engaged in breath control play with several
(31:35):
consented partners in the past. So he asked Jane if
she want to try it, and she said yes. So
he placed while they were you know, doing their doing
their thing, he placed the tights around her neck and
she died by accident. So this seemed very far fet
the to the courtroom, and it was just saved with disbelief,
like nobody believed it. One of our friends said that
(31:57):
they were all extremely angry, angry because not only was
Great I'm trying to Wriggle out of his guilt at
the same time he was bringing Jane down with them.
All of our friends and family said that Jane was
not interested in him sexually in this light. She was
happy with Malcolm. She was in a happy relationship, you know,
and they were both friends with Gaming his partner, and
(32:18):
that was you know, as we said before, it was
poor friends as far as the two couples. So of
course the prosecution had to put forward a different account
to how Jane died, and what they said was that
when they discovered her body, the tights were tied tightly
around her neck. So if this had been an accent,
like he said, wouldn't the first thing he would do
(32:39):
would be to remove the tights and try to I
would have thought, so, yeah, yeah, why why was it
the tits still tightly round? Why would you not be
like ship untie them? And I was trying exactly if
that was if that was a genuine accent, exactly, totally
not auine accent. And remember they found a men's shirt
and the storage. You know, it would blow on the sleeve,
(33:01):
and that was consistent with him attacking Jane from behind
and strangling her, And the blood splatter on the shirt
fitted the scenario that Jane coughed up blood when she
was been manually strangled by Graham. And also when they
found Jane's trousers in the storage, you know, one of
the legs was like inside out, as if they'd been
pulled off her, which I mean, yeah, that could be
(33:24):
could have been done consensually, you know, and the passion
pulled the trousers off, But along with all the other evidence,
it does seem likely that they had been pulled off
without her consent. So the prosecution's case was that he
had actually lured her into his flat, attacked her, strangled her,
and then removed her clothes and raped her. I say
that's the most likely. Yeah, it does sound like that's
(33:46):
probably what it was. So for eleven days after the murder,
the prosecution suggested that Graham kept Jane's body in a
flat above his that he had the keys for and
before or later run it to the storage unit. And
his defense said that he simply panicked and didn't know
what to do, so he just hid the body away.
(34:07):
But that doesn't sound like the actions of a panicked man.
When he had to remove the body from the flat,
put it in the car, take it to the storage unit,
he would have to fill out the paperwork for and
he lied about his identity and his name was Paul Kelly.
And then you know, later transfer the body. Then transferred
(34:28):
transferred the body from his car. Not sure when she
was putting the box though, because he would have had
because he would have had to taken her out of
the storage unit in the box obviously. So yeah, got
a trolley to get the building, you know. To me,
that's that's all thought out in the fact that seven
or eleven times, well, we're just about to get to that.
(34:49):
But yeah, I mean, like to me, it sounds like
he's kept her in the flat and that while she's
been in the flat above him, that's gave him time
to think, right, what am I going to do with
the body? And then he's that's what he's So I
was just this is not panics, and the fact that
the police found a used condom in the unit meant
that he must have had sex with Jane's body at
least once, because like, why else would the condom be
(35:11):
there if what he said they had sex in the flat,
So the condom would be there, well he would he
would have disposed of it, wouldn't It wouldn't be on
the floor or whatever in the storage unit. So I
think we know what he was visiting the storage unit for. Well, yeah, obviously,
(35:32):
So the court finally heard that on the eighteenth of April,
Graham was caught on CCTV at the storage unit removing
Jane's body. The next day, he was again caught a CCTV.
This time he was buying a can of petrol at
a garage, and that night he drove to Wiganhole Woods,
where he dunk Jane's body. Only a few meters from
the road. He then doused the body and petrol and
(35:52):
set fire to it and left, and it was only
minutes later that the passerby saw the flames and called
the fire Brigade. Said Graham was lying about what actually
happened to Jane. The answer lay inside his compure, which
had been seized by the police in the forensic search.
I was flat. There were thousands of images of women
(36:13):
and poses of strangulation torture, and some of them more
even of dead women. So his motive was that these
sexual fantasies that he had. Apparently, Graham had sexually aroused
and murderous thoughts about women since he was fifteen, and
he had been to see a doctor about it, and
he was referred for psychiatric help. A psychiatrist testified that
(36:38):
he had seen Graham twelve years before Jane's murder, and
he had told him that he feared his thoughts would
lead them to criminal actions. So, like Graham kind of
newly how bad it could get. Graham confessed to being
addicted to internet porn and he would look at violent
porn that simulated strangulation, rape and necrophilia, and day before
(37:00):
he murdered Jenny had downloaded images of dead and strangled women.
So the jury deliberated for nine hours and he was
found guilty and sentence to a minimum of thirty years
in prison. Graham appealed on multiple grounds, including the issue
of manslaughter charges and his minimum m minimum prison term.
(37:21):
The appeal against his murder conviction was ejected, but upheld
that the juries should have been given a possible manslaughter verdict,
so they were obviously basically it was either guilty or
not guilty to murder. Didn't have an option for manslaughter,
so he sentence was reduced to a minimum of twenty
six years. His case was then taken to the House
(37:42):
of Lords and on the nineteenth of July two thousand
and six, the murder conviction was overturned and because the
jury should have been given a possible manslaughter verdict, because
that verdict would have been appropriate if the jury had
decided that jane death was an accident that they had
believed on they could have still done from the So
(38:05):
a retrial was ordered and that began on the eleventh
June two down and seven. But again he was found
guilty of murder and sentenced again to a minimum of
twenty six years so Jane's mum Liz began campaign a
campaign to address extreme violent pornography on their net and
in two thousand and nine a law was passed by
extreme internet sites promoting violence against women in the name
(38:28):
of sexual gratification. So they were unable to shut down
the websites because these were legally hosted. But there were
new laws introduced governing governing the possession of extreme pornography,
meaning that possession of such material would be punishable by
up to three years in prison. So they couldn't stop
(38:50):
the internets because they were legal. They couldn't stop the website,
but they could stop being promoted and if somebody is
downloading and having been as they can get yeah, so
it's better than nothing can get removed completely back at
least there's a consequence if you're found to be doing it. Yeah,
(39:12):
so horror, all for a sexual fantasy.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
And then you kind of wonder, I'm not wanting to
I mean, you just think I wonder why I thought
Jane was the right person to try and do whatever
it was working.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Well, and maybe had some sort of feelings towards her.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
It's like, not not that we want his girlfriend either,
but I mean, you just wonder why it wasn't maybe
naturally hor or maybe.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I don't know. I mean, like obviously he's saying it's
an accident, so we're never going to know, are we.
But the way I think, I don't think many people.
I mean, it's possible, but you know, his saying it
was an accident. I don't think many people would on
their first time of having sexual contact with a person
that they've just been friends with. I don't think if
(39:58):
that person says, oh, do you want to try something
new strangulation and she's gonna go yeah, why not? Yeah? Yeah?
I mean people especially she's not known to have been
into that kind of stuff. I mean, if somebody I get,
I mean, you know, different strokes for different folks, Like
everybody's different, and that's what people some people are into.
But it's the same for a fetch to believe that
(40:19):
she would be quite happy to go along with Yeah,
it never had any before that.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
They're meant to be friends, like two couples that are friends.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
And then they're like crossing over couples and yeah, and
there's no there's no history of her doing that with
other partners, you know, like I mean, he apparently and
has been confirmed by people that he has been wearing
the past. That is a thing that he has done,
the breathing and control thing. That's the thing that he
does and has done in the past. But there's no
(40:49):
evidence of her doing that. So it just seems a
bit espec Sure she was happy with Malcolm. He's just
he's just making it up. He was just trying to
get out of it, definitely, so you know, he he
I think he obviously had it planned or well, I
don't know he had it planned because I don't know.
He wouldn't have known that she was going to phone.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
That day, but took an opportunity that he thought, yeah,
because they had her.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
By swimming, he had her in the car. Yeah, I mean,
I mean I'm thinking that. Yeah, he probably was telling
the truth when he said that she was upset and
he says to want to go back to the flat
for a cup, because why else would you go back
to the flat if they planned on going swimming? Yeah,
and because they're also good friends. Yeah, then she would
see that as being like, you know, do you know
what I'm here about? Said yeah, let's go back for
a chat. Yeah, I know absolutely awful because he wanted
(41:39):
to get his jolly's yeah, but I really yeah. Anyway, Well,
thank you to everybody for listener and we'll see you
next time.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
If you would like to follow us on social media,
we are on Twitter and Instagram which is Crying.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Underscore Divers Underscore Pod.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
We're also on TikTok, YouTube and Facebook which is Crimedivers Podcast.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
If you would like to get in contact with us,
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outlook dot com. And if you would like to support
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(42:30):
which are a pound, three pound or five pound and
you get your bonus content, early access to episodes and
free episodes and obviously that will be in your own
currency whichever country you live in.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
And if you haven't already, please don't forget to subscribe,
rate and review
Hello, welcomes to Crime divers I'm Laura and I'm Jill.
I'm welcome to today's picture on episode. Yes here we
are for another Patreon ones are ready? Yes, I am already.
We're in the world, is it? We're in the uk Okay, ukay, okay,
I'm okay you okay. So well, Lota is actually not
(00:45):
that good today because Lota just fell. That was so
funny as you'll have heard. You know, She's got her
puppy and she brings her down here knows obviously the
two dogs can, you know, get to know each other
and bond and whatnot. So she took the puppets to
Piper out for a pee and came back and I
(01:09):
was in the kitchen and she came to the back.
I just saw her fallen dog on her hands and
knees in the back door. It was sore because you're
decking slippy it's wet raining outside. Yeah, so she's she
had a headache, girl on and then she did that,
(01:32):
and then her Piper actually didn't go for a pee
because she'd already been for a pee in Lily's bed.
And then we were just about to come back to record.
I was put on the lead to go out for
a pee, and she put on my carpet and then
she decided. And then yet it's for straining for me.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Because she's been doing so well back at home with
the going outside and not having many accents in the house.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
She just goes and shows now and for some reason,
I took it upon myself to clean it up. I
was actually gonna clean it up. But you're like, I'm
all right, it was horrible. It was sorry anyway, when
we talk about your dog's toilets haense and after that,
(02:20):
my dog went outside for ship, so she really showed
your dug up. She's like, no one exactly just what
my dog was doing well, and she just show she's
just a baby. She needs to learn.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Sorry, she'll be walking next week, so next time maybe
she'll be a bit better.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, and how's your arm from falling? All right? Now?
I think it was just like an impact pain. Thank
thank they didn't break in. I just laughed it. I
did ask if you're a right, you have to laughing? Well,
it was funny. You you just tell the door basically
you didn't. I did. It was sliding inside as well
(03:01):
because your feet were wet. Well, you should take your
shoes off. You need to sort out anyway. We need
to be serious. Now, this is the true crime. It's
not white fixing your hair. You're like, right, have you serious? Now?
She's fixing her hair as if like you know when
you're getting ready, like right, okay, fix the hair? Right? Okay,
(03:24):
So we're in the UK. I want to here's the
next part. What's your title? I've got one. I didn't
realize I didn't have a title until I switched the
laptop on and we started recording, didn't me And I
was like, ah, ship, I've not got a title, and
I haven't. I can't think of one, and I don't
(03:45):
really have time to think of one, because obviously you
need to get back for your daughter coming in from school.
So I'll think of a title, or you can help
me think a title afterwards. So this will mean nothing
to our listeners because there will be a title on it. Yes,
there will actually be one by the time. That's exactly,
because there'll be a title of it because I've written
what the title is exactly, so you'll have one name.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So for everybody that is listened this, you know that
the title is excellent.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Okay, so she would dive in so. Jane Longhur Longhurst
was born on the sixth of November nineteen seventy one.
Her parents were Liz, who was forty and her husband, Bill,
who was fifty eight, and they called her a late blessing. Unfortunately,
Bill died in two thousand from a long battle with dementia.
(04:34):
Jane had an older sister and they lived in Reading
in England. Her mum said that she was always a
very lovely, happy child and she smiled a lot. They
had a good relationship and Liz said Jane was just
such an easy person to get along with. She loved
music and she learned to play the violin from the
age of five. So Jane moved to Brighton, which is
nearly two hours away from her home and Read in
(04:56):
in the mid nineties, and by two thousand and three
thirty one Jane worked as a teacher at a special
needs school. So Jane lived with her partner, Malcolm Sentence,
and on the fourteenth of March two thousand and three,
he got home to find that Jane wasn't there when
he I couldn't quite find out the details, but obviously
(05:18):
he must have thought she was good. She should have
been at home, but she wasn't. So he waited for
a while, but then you know, he started started to
get worried because it's like, why she's not home. Yeah,
you know, obviously it was probably I'm assuming he's probably
text phoned dor or whatever and got no answer. So
it called Jane's mum, Liz, to ask if Jane was there.
(05:42):
I mean, like, she was like two unless she's moved
by this point, I'm not sure, but I thought that's
about a stretch to ask if she's there. Were just
two hours away back, but you know, she wasn't there,
and Liz had said, well, she's probably at the Brighton
Youth Orchestra because she would help sometimes, like helping teach
people's violin. So she's like, that's probably where she's probably
(06:05):
just down you know, wherever that is. It's local to
her anyway. So Malcolm was like, all right, yeah, of
course that's where she'll be. So he checked and she wasn't.
So he called us back and he said that Jane's
not there, and I'm getting worried, and then he kind
of like he was he was calling Liz like every hour,
(06:27):
just getting more and more frantic, like he tried calling
her friends but nobody had seen her. And of course
he had as I said, like he tried numerous times
to Corn on our mobile, but he couldn't get through
as it was turned off. And that was really unusual
for Jane. She never had her phone switched off. I mean,
who does people search their phones off these days? Not really, Well,
(06:48):
obviously we don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
It's put it on silent and then you just don't
answer it, or you just like block people's numbers.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I guess I don't know, That's what I was thinking.
I was like, I'm actually I can remember my will back.
There was something wrong on my phone and you told
me it was you. I was like, oh, there's something
on my phone. You're like switching off and switching back
on again, and I was like, I don't know how
you had to tell me how to switch off for
so long because I didn't know how. I just didn't
know how to do it because that was a newer phone. Sorry,
(07:17):
the dog is trying to get up on the bed
and she's not managing. Come on, right, you're a pest. Okay,
So yeah, So a couple a couple of Jane's friends
did think or you know, maybe they've had an argument
and she's gone off somewhere to get some space, sort
(07:38):
of cooled down or whatever. But her friend Ellie was like, nah,
if that was the case, she would have told Malcolm.
But yeah, she was going off, you know, or left
on a message saying right, you know, I'm going to
have a time out kind of thing. She wouldn't have
just disappeared without telling him or anyone else. So Jane
still wasn't home by the following morning, so Malcolm called
(07:59):
the to report her missing. So officers visited their flat
to find out as much information as they could, of course,
and they established that Jane had taken her purse and
her mobile phone. Malcolm didn't know what she'd been wearing
that day, as I'm assuming he must have left the
house before she did, because I'm assuming that he's went
to work because it was a Friday morning, so I'm
assuming he went to work and when he came in
(08:20):
from work, he was expecting her to be there. So
apart from that, it was pretty evident that Jane hadn't
left any any of our things, you know, nothing to
say that she wasn't coming back or whatever. You know,
she hadn't taken like a suitcase or you know, so
she did like she intended to come back like that day.
(08:41):
So police started making inquiries and knocking on doors and
speaking to neighbors and Jane's friends, and Malcolm was of
course interviewed, but no one was able to offer any
information at all. Her family and friends were getting more
and more worried, and her mum Liz felt Satin was
definitely wrong because the day that Jane went missing that Friday.
(09:01):
Originally they had Liz and Jane were supposed to be
meeting up in London to go to an exhibition in
the National Portrait Gallery, but Lizard woken up a couple
of days beforehand on the Wednesday, she wasn't feeling well,
so she had called Jane and said, look, do you
know what I don't I'm not feeling well now, so
I think we'll just can we postpone Friday and we'll
(09:22):
go next week And Jane was like, yeah, no problem
at all. But on that day on the Friday, Lizard
actually she's woken up and she was feeling fine, and
she was thinking to herself, do you know what I
could have went? But she said that she had a
really uneasy feeling all day, but she put that down
to the fact that she was she was feeling bad
that she'd canceled when she could actually go, But in
(09:44):
fact her daughter had gone missing, and that must have
been what her uneasy feeling was. So it just goes
to show you that mother's instinct, you know, people always
say that, you know. So two days after Jane being
reported missing, the case was referred to the at the
CID and they started building up a profile of who
Jane was, which she might have if she had gone
(10:06):
over on a cord you know, where my ship went.
So they found out she was a very stable woman.
She was kind hearted, she was in a happy relationship,
she was financially stable. You know. There just didn't seem
to be any reason why she would go missing. So
it did look like something sinister was behind her disappearance.
And as the officers kept investigating, they saw that Jane
(10:28):
hadn't used her bank cards since she'd gone missing, and
she regularly took money out of her bank account, and
you know, obviously she went off somewhere. Surely she would
have taken money out for food, accommodation and travel expenses.
All that kind of stuff. So her mobile phone records
were looked at as well, and they could see that
her phone hadn't been used since that Friday morning. She
(10:50):
had made a few calls that morning, and the last
one was to one of our good friends. I mean,
some sources can't say best friends, so I think they
were that really really close good friends. Might be her
best friend. It's been a good friend, yeah, somebody who
was close to her anyway. So the police spoke to
this friend and she told him that she hadn't actually
(11:12):
spoken to Jane as she was away for work, so
she must have owned the landing. She was to own
the house. The house born, so Jane has spoken to
her partner. Her partner picked up to him. So they
didn't get any helpful information from the last phone calls
that she made, so they turned her attention again to Malcolm,
Jane's boyfriend. They were like, they weren't only looking at
(11:33):
close let him know. They were also looking at a
guy called Tony Byrne, and he was Jane's music teacher.
Police went into his house and they took him into
one room and his wife and another room, and in
his words, they were serious suspects. Oh he was serious
suspect and they were questioned for hours and Tony said
he was scared as they actually seem to be like
(11:54):
really suspicieds of one. But there wasn't him, no anything.
So after four day of Jane being missing and the
decision was made to launch Operation Keen, So forty five
officers were brought in to help with house to house
inquiries and once they got the bigger team, they were
able to recover CCTV from train stations and bus stations
(12:14):
and their own CCTV, but it was still no leads
whatsoever like that, just nothing, nothing was helping. The police
turned to the public for help, so they did a
press conference with Jane's family and made an appeal to
the public looking for any information whatsoever to help find Jane.
So calls came in with site into Jane and Southampton
(12:37):
and Wales like all over Brighton and they were all
followed up. But all these leads just dead ends and
it was like she just disappeared into thin air. So
two weeks passed and police had drawn a complete blank
and a meeting was called to decide if they were
still dealing with a missing person's case. So they asked themselves,
(12:59):
has Jane had as an accident and she's died somewhere.
Has she taken her own life? Has she took herself
off and started a new life somewhere else? Had she
fallen ill and died? But all those questions were just
met with no, we don't think so, because where's her body, Like,
there's nobody. I mean, there's no body. So you know
(13:21):
she'd fallen ill and die, surely it would would have
found her something. Yeah, you would think so. I mean
maybe less so if it had been suicide, because she
could have taken herself off somewhere remote. So, but you know,
the starting a new life kind of thing. You know,
she hadn't didn't have her passport, she didn't have her money,
hadn't been touched, you know, all that kind of stuff.
(13:42):
So that just red flags all over the place. Well
that's it. So they were left with one other scenario
that she was either she had been abducted or abducted
in a murdered Yeah. So then they were convinced that
something sinister had happened to Jane. The case was elevated
to a full scale murder inquiry. So now instead of
(14:03):
looking for a missing person, they were looking for a body.
So the search now expanded and went well beyond the
local community, and the search like large areas of open land.
But still nothing. And a month later, investigators were still
no closer to solving the mystery of Jane's disappearance. And
that's always a bad sign. When you just always say
(14:26):
first few.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Days, it means that's the most important if you're hopeful
of finding somebody alive.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
So on the night of Saturday, the nineteenth of April,
so this was like five weeks after Jane had gone missing,
a local man was driving past a place called wigging
Hope Common, which is like a large wooded area about
twenty miles from Brighton, and he saw a fire. So
he stopped and he looked at the fire from his car,
but he was he noticed that the flames were like
(14:55):
a funny color, so it's okay, and apparently like it
being the dry and when he was worried about the woods,
you know, catching fire spread them, so he called the
fire service and he waited until they got there, and
then he got it. He was like, right, okay, I'm
going home. I've had a long day, you know, I've
done my duty. So she got in his car to drive home,
(15:18):
and as he drove off, he was just driving away,
and he looked in his mirror and he saw that
somebody was running. One of the firemen was actually running
after him, and so the guy stopped, and the man
chasing him told him that he had to go back
because this wasn't just a fire and this was a
body burning. Obviously, they had to go back and answer
the questions. So within minutes the place where they are
(15:42):
and investigators on Jane's case were immediately contacted because obviously
missing person. Yeah, of course, so they had to wait
until dawn for daylight, and as soon as they could
see properly, like, the forensic teams began there out the dogs.
She scratched me. Oh why so it was having a
(16:06):
wee stretched to her cell and started kicking her legs
a bit, and she just scratched me on my beef
skin out I wanted to got scratches on my arm
from your dog, so I was on my back from mine.
Sorry about that, yeah, So they began their examination of
the scene so they could see the remains of an
adult female. She was naked and there were clothes and
(16:28):
other debuts in the area of a very localized fire.
They were surprised to see that a body was burning
in that particular place because it's popular with walkers and
close to the road and obviously easy to people to
see for people driving past, because that guy was just
driving back. Yeah, So it was about strange that that's
where it was. So the police told the man who
(16:49):
had found the body that if he had arrived just
a couple of minutes earlier, he would have seen the
person who set the body alight, so the fire had
obviously just started when he saw it. So the body
was identified through dental records and it was Jane Longhurst.
A postmartin was carried out and it determined that Jane
had probably died on the fourteenth of March, the day
(17:10):
that she went missing. And so the question was like
where are her body being for these five weeks while
all of a sudden somebody said to burn it?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
And what you would say is a very easy place
to spot, As I say, like, why would somebody do that?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Well, I will be able to tell you why why
they did it when they did, but I don't know
why they did it there. Yeah, I'll never find out
that to say why they did it in such a
and obvious obvious place, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Over the next few days, forensics processed. Sorry, I'm just
having a heck up. Over the next few days, forensics
processed the crime scene and they found they saw that
she had been naked and covered with a tarpollin and
they found because they found like the little rings that
you find on tarps that she used to put their
(18:00):
hope through the time, they also found the remnants of
corrugated cardboard, and I was like, what the hell is that? Like? Cardboard?
What was corrugated? I know what it means. It's the
kind that you like when you get a parcel. It's
got like you have a cardboard and you have an
inner bit that's sort of like, now you didn't know
(18:20):
what it's like, an inner bit and it's like as
if you were making a fan. It's like, wrinched. Okay,
it does it really doesn't matter. I mean the fact
that there's card like did you just cracked my ankle?
I'm really sorry, everybody, like this episode is about your disaster.
(18:42):
This is our first day back recording after weeks and
we're really not doing very well.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
No, I just got I just got a fright because
I was expecting it. I just moved, I just cracked. Apologies, Yes,
carry on. Yeah, so it's important that there's cardboard there,
but tell you what kind of cardo is?
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So on the on some of the cardboard that was
over Jane's head, they were the remains of the word
fragile cardboard boxes. So in closer examination of the body,
they realized that there was a pair of tights tied
tightly around Jane's neck. So the police realized that with
Jane being naked and tight's being used as a ligature,
(19:23):
that it was very likely that they were dealing with
a sexually motivated murder. Investigators return to the case file
was convinced that there was a late hid somewhere amongst
the evidence from the day that Jane went missing, and
when they read back to all statements, a man called
Graham Coots told them that he spoke to Jane on
the phone that morning that Friday morning that she had disappeared.
(19:47):
He was the partner of her friend. Remember I said
that she'd phone her friend and her partner had answered
because your friend wasn't there, So Graham was the last
person that they knew of to speak to Jane. So
they're right, we're going to go yeah, start And so
they were like, right, we're going to go back. We're
going to read his statement again. So they went. But
they read back on his statement and they realized that
(20:09):
he'd actually given quite a vague account of what he'd
been doing that day, and there was nothing that could
be like checked and backed up. So one of the
officers said that a child just went down his spine
and he had a feeling that this guy was involved
in Jane's disappearance. So, acting on the hunch, investigators were
quickly sent to Graham's house to see if he could
(20:29):
be eliminated from the inquiry. But when they entered the property,
their concerns were raised even further because the first thing
that they saw in the hallway was a box with
the word fragile printed on it, just like the one
that had been discovered at the crime scene. You know,
he had boxes the same boxes.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
You know, that could be coincidence, because a box out
there that people use, it could be coincidence.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
But but of course, you know were you know, well,
ye see, so Graham was saying question about the night
that Jane's body had been found, the officers found it
would be very in harvested, and he wouldn't answer questions directly,
and he just kind of like skipped around them. So
he was asked what he'd been doing that evening and
he said he'd been doing his Clean Easy round Clean
(21:12):
He is, Nope, it's a like a catalog company. So
I only know. I only know because John's mom used
to get stuff from it. The one like drop a
catalog off in the they'll come back up with with
an order form. Yeah, so I mean from what I
can remember, John's mum, she used to buy like sort
(21:34):
of household. It was like cloths and like clean them,
you know, like stuff like mops and buckets and all
that kind of stuff. Yeah, so like small household. So yeah,
so like so he would go drop a catalog off
and then say I'll be back in a few days
if you order, and they'll go but he and get
(21:55):
back with the order form. So that's what Clean Easy
is it. And I said I would never know that
I've it wasn't for Johnson.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
No, I mean I've heard of I know the things
because I know that our mom used to get like
them through the door quite a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, he used to come pick them up. I know
what the concept of it, and I just didn't. I
hadn't heard of the clean easy like Avon, because that's
what Avon does. I think they do a bit more
online and stuff now, but that's what Avon used to
used to go around with the Amon catalog. So yeah,
so that that's what he said that he'd been doing
on the night that that Jane's body had been found.
(22:28):
So of course Graham was asked to provide receipts it's
proof that he'd been Jingy's friend. But the receipts that
he provided were actually older ones. There was none from
the night that Jane had been found. And I'm like,
do you not think they're going to check the dates?
Really not? So yeah, so that the officers they just
(22:49):
felt like they were just going round and rounding circles
where and like something just clearly wasn't right. So investigators
were getting so suspicious of him that they were like,
you know what, fuck it, We're arrest So I said
she was arrested. No, he was arrested on suspicion of murder.
And so he was taken into custody and place took
(23:09):
possession of, you know, like his flat in the car,
you know, so they could search everything. And they examined
the car and as soon as they opened the boot,
they could smell, you know, pretty nasty smell. So I'm
sure you can guess what that probably was. Yeah, So
in custody, Graham seemed calm and collected. He was asked
how how he would describe his relationship with Jane, and
(23:32):
he said friends. And they were like, well, just just
friends or was it anything more than that? And he
was like, no, just just friends. He came across as
being very concerned about what happened to Jane, and like,
you know, he had no involvement, what's in her murder whatsoever.
He asked when it was the last time he had
seen Jane, and he said it was a Sunday before
(23:53):
she went missing, and he said that Jane and Malcolm
had visited him and his girlfriend. And I did read
from another stores, but I'm not quite sure how sort
of fact factul it is, but I did read in
another source that the girlfriend his girlfriend was I think
they just found out that she was pregnant. They'd been
(24:13):
both thrive yet and pregnant, and so they went over
and sort of you know, congratulations and whatnot, because the
four of them were friends, you know, the yeah, like
a four sum you know what I mean, two couples
other friends. Yeah. Yes. But then he was asked when
(24:34):
it was the last time that he spoke to Jane,
and he said it was on the morning that she
went missing, because she had phoned the house looking for
his partner, her friend, and he just said, no, you know,
she's not here. Whatever. That was it. So we're no confession. Sorry,
we no confession and insufficient evidence. Investigators had no choice
but to release them after twenty three hours because you know,
(24:56):
they yeah, you can hold them for a certain amount
of time. So they were pretty certain that they had
the right man. So they had They were like, right,
we're gonna have to search harder fast, you know, to
find something that's going to get back in absolutely. So.
Two days after Graham was released, the police got a
call from the manager of a local storage company who
(25:18):
had heard about the murder. He said that he'd had
an odd customer called Paul Kelly, and this Paul Kelly
addrended a unit because you know that I mean by
the storage units. Yeah, it's like a building and units
were stuff. Yeah, I know that just that's that's really
obvious what storage unit.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Is like if you need the extra storage that you
it's not in your own house that you pay somewhere
to go and store some stuff.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Like everybody probably knows that. So that watches any true
time kind of dramas whose killers perpetrators always want a
storage unit review. Like my husband, he likes to watch
the ones where the auction off the stuff and the
storage uni have they used? Yes? Actually anyway, Yeah, so
(26:07):
this is Paul Kelly. He had rented a unit on
the lower ground floor level and a really bad smell
had been coming from that area, but then over the
previous week weekend the smell had disappeared. Uh huh. So
he put two and two together because obviously heard about
the jans body, So we put you to together and
(26:27):
came up before that doesn't have very generally come up with.
So yeah, he thought maybe that's where Jane's body had
been before been taken to the common to burn. So
the place thought, oh shit, so whre's this Paul Kelly? Like,
have we been after the wrong man? So they quickly
headed to the self storage place and the managers showed
(26:50):
them paperwork to prove you know this, Paul Kelly when
you're dreading in details, And then he then showed them
CCTV footage of him enter in and laying the storage
placed on several occasions. And yes, you guessed it, Paul
Kelly was, in fact Graham Coots. So the manager then
(27:13):
showed officers to the unit, and inside they found Jane's clothing,
her bank card, and her mobile phone. They also found
a blue a men's blue shirt that had blood on it,
and later they found it had semen on it as
well once it had been tested I used. And also
there was a used condom there as well. So now
that they had found where Jane's body had been kept
(27:34):
for those five weeks and by who. And the thing is, though,
this Graham Cooks, he had been going back to visit
the body. So I've read a couple of different accounts.
So one said that he had gone back eleven times,
and another one said he'd gone back seven times, So
he'd been back a few more than too many things. Yeah,
(27:55):
so you know why strange mm hmm. So Graham was
rearrested straight away, and further CCTV footage was quickly gathered
as police tried to piece together how he'd managed to
remove the body from stories before taking it to the
common on the nineteenth of April. So remember I told
you we'll find out the reason why. Well, that's because
(28:17):
the smell was coming in. Yeah, so that's why.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
That's why he was also aware that there was a smelled.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
He needed to get. Yeah, of course, So they saw
the footage from the eighteenth, so that was the day
before Jane. Jane's body was worn. So they saw the
fitters from the eighteenth where Graham entered the building and
he took a trolley down at the lower ground floor
and then later came back into few out of the
lift with a very large white box. And on top
(28:46):
of the box was a flattened box with the word
fragile on it. So Jane's body must have been inside
this big white box. He took the trolley toy's car
and he put the box in the boot. He then
took the trolley back to the storage building and then
he was seeing like looking at the floor, and then
he got some t shirt in his pocket and kneel
down and he started mopping up what must have been
(29:08):
blood and body fluid that had leaked out of the box.
So yeah, you see it. You can see it on
the CC's TV. Yeah, well you know, you just see
him down, like popping the floor up. So in his
place interview this time he was very different. The last time,
(29:28):
he'd been camera collected and seemed to be concerned about
his friend, but this time he was kind of like subdued,
extremely upset and like hardly talking. He was asked what
was in the box, and he was quiet for a
while and then said, sorry, I can't talk about it. Yeah,
bloody well cat. He was then asked if he strangled Jane. Again,
(29:50):
quiet for a minute, and then I went, I don't know.
On the twenty nine to April two thousand and three,
thirty four year old Graham was charged with the murder
of thirty one year old Jane Longhurst. But he's still
were in Congress and just kept saying that he couldn't
talk about it when asked if he killed her. His
(30:10):
trial started on the twelfth of January two thousand and four,
and by then he had By then he had admitted
that he was responsible for Jane's death, but the Pact
courtroom was stunned when it learned or the defense statement
that Graham had made prior to the trial. He basically
said that Jane's death was an accident. So his version
(30:32):
of events was that he said that they had spoken
on the phone when she ran to speak to her friend,
and they had agreed to go swimming, which wasn't unusual.
This is something that they did do as friends, so
it was not a usual So he had said that
he would, you know, he was going to pick her
up and then go to the swam pill. So he
went to pick her up, and he said when they
(30:52):
were in the cash he had become upset. I don't
know what about, I don't know if, he said. So
he asked her if she wanted to go back to
his flat and have a cup and a chat. So
they went into the foot and she was like yeah,
because you know, these are good friends. It's like when
she would have been thinking anything. And so they went
(31:13):
into the flat and apparently she fell into his arms
and for the first time ever, they had some sort
of sexual contact, right, he said. He then asked her
if she fancied trying something new, and she agreed. So
he said he had a fetish for next and strangulation,
and he had engaged in breath control play with several
(31:35):
consented partners in the past. So he asked Jane if
she want to try it, and she said yes. So
he placed while they were you know, doing their doing
their thing, he placed the tights around her neck and
she died by accident. So this seemed very far fet
the to the courtroom, and it was just saved with disbelief,
like nobody believed it. One of our friends said that
(31:57):
they were all extremely angry, angry because not only was
Great I'm trying to Wriggle out of his guilt at
the same time he was bringing Jane down with them.
All of our friends and family said that Jane was
not interested in him sexually in this light. She was
happy with Malcolm. She was in a happy relationship, you know,
and they were both friends with Gaming his partner, and
(32:18):
that was you know, as we said before, it was
poor friends as far as the two couples. So of
course the prosecution had to put forward a different account
to how Jane died, and what they said was that
when they discovered her body, the tights were tied tightly
around her neck. So if this had been an accent,
like he said, wouldn't the first thing he would do
(32:39):
would be to remove the tights and try to I
would have thought, so, yeah, yeah, why why was it
the tits still tightly round? Why would you not be
like ship untie them? And I was trying exactly if
that was if that was a genuine accent, exactly, totally
not auine accent. And remember they found a men's shirt
and the storage. You know, it would blow on the sleeve,
(33:01):
and that was consistent with him attacking Jane from behind
and strangling her, And the blood splatter on the shirt
fitted the scenario that Jane coughed up blood when she
was been manually strangled by Graham. And also when they
found Jane's trousers in the storage, you know, one of
the legs was like inside out, as if they'd been
pulled off her, which I mean, yeah, that could be
(33:24):
could have been done consensually, you know, and the passion
pulled the trousers off, But along with all the other evidence,
it does seem likely that they had been pulled off
without her consent. So the prosecution's case was that he
had actually lured her into his flat, attacked her, strangled her,
and then removed her clothes and raped her. I say
that's the most likely. Yeah, it does sound like that's
(33:46):
probably what it was. So for eleven days after the murder,
the prosecution suggested that Graham kept Jane's body in a
flat above his that he had the keys for and
before or later run it to the storage unit. And
his defense said that he simply panicked and didn't know
what to do, so he just hid the body away.
(34:07):
But that doesn't sound like the actions of a panicked man.
When he had to remove the body from the flat,
put it in the car, take it to the storage unit,
he would have to fill out the paperwork for and
he lied about his identity and his name was Paul Kelly.
And then you know, later transfer the body. Then transferred
(34:28):
transferred the body from his car. Not sure when she
was putting the box though, because he would have had
because he would have had to taken her out of
the storage unit in the box obviously. So yeah, got
a trolley to get the building, you know. To me,
that's that's all thought out in the fact that seven
or eleven times, well, we're just about to get to that.
(34:49):
But yeah, I mean, like to me, it sounds like
he's kept her in the flat and that while she's
been in the flat above him, that's gave him time
to think, right, what am I going to do with
the body? And then he's that's what he's So I
was just this is not panics, and the fact that
the police found a used condom in the unit meant
that he must have had sex with Jane's body at
least once, because like, why else would the condom be
(35:11):
there if what he said they had sex in the flat,
So the condom would be there, well he would he
would have disposed of it, wouldn't It wouldn't be on
the floor or whatever in the storage unit. So I
think we know what he was visiting the storage unit for. Well, yeah, obviously,
(35:32):
So the court finally heard that on the eighteenth of April,
Graham was caught on CCTV at the storage unit removing
Jane's body. The next day, he was again caught a CCTV.
This time he was buying a can of petrol at
a garage, and that night he drove to Wiganhole Woods,
where he dunk Jane's body. Only a few meters from
the road. He then doused the body and petrol and
(35:52):
set fire to it and left, and it was only
minutes later that the passerby saw the flames and called
the fire Brigade. Said Graham was lying about what actually
happened to Jane. The answer lay inside his compure, which
had been seized by the police in the forensic search.
I was flat. There were thousands of images of women
(36:13):
and poses of strangulation torture, and some of them more
even of dead women. So his motive was that these
sexual fantasies that he had. Apparently, Graham had sexually aroused
and murderous thoughts about women since he was fifteen, and
he had been to see a doctor about it, and
he was referred for psychiatric help. A psychiatrist testified that
(36:38):
he had seen Graham twelve years before Jane's murder, and
he had told him that he feared his thoughts would
lead them to criminal actions. So, like Graham kind of
newly how bad it could get. Graham confessed to being
addicted to internet porn and he would look at violent
porn that simulated strangulation, rape and necrophilia, and day before
(37:00):
he murdered Jenny had downloaded images of dead and strangled women.
So the jury deliberated for nine hours and he was
found guilty and sentence to a minimum of thirty years
in prison. Graham appealed on multiple grounds, including the issue
of manslaughter charges and his minimum m minimum prison term.
(37:21):
The appeal against his murder conviction was ejected, but upheld
that the juries should have been given a possible manslaughter verdict,
so they were obviously basically it was either guilty or
not guilty to murder. Didn't have an option for manslaughter,
so he sentence was reduced to a minimum of twenty
six years. His case was then taken to the House
(37:42):
of Lords and on the nineteenth of July two thousand
and six, the murder conviction was overturned and because the
jury should have been given a possible manslaughter verdict, because
that verdict would have been appropriate if the jury had
decided that jane death was an accident that they had
believed on they could have still done from the So
(38:05):
a retrial was ordered and that began on the eleventh
June two down and seven. But again he was found
guilty of murder and sentenced again to a minimum of
twenty six years so Jane's mum Liz began campaign a
campaign to address extreme violent pornography on their net and
in two thousand and nine a law was passed by
extreme internet sites promoting violence against women in the name
(38:28):
of sexual gratification. So they were unable to shut down
the websites because these were legally hosted. But there were
new laws introduced governing governing the possession of extreme pornography,
meaning that possession of such material would be punishable by
up to three years in prison. So they couldn't stop
(38:50):
the internets because they were legal. They couldn't stop the website,
but they could stop being promoted and if somebody is
downloading and having been as they can get yeah, so
it's better than nothing can get removed completely back at
least there's a consequence if you're found to be doing it. Yeah,
(39:12):
so horror, all for a sexual fantasy.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
And then you kind of wonder, I'm not wanting to
I mean, you just think I wonder why I thought
Jane was the right person to try and do whatever
it was working.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Well, and maybe had some sort of feelings towards her.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
It's like, not not that we want his girlfriend either,
but I mean, you just wonder why it wasn't maybe
naturally hor or maybe.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I don't know. I mean, like obviously he's saying it's
an accident, so we're never going to know, are we.
But the way I think, I don't think many people.
I mean, it's possible, but you know, his saying it
was an accident. I don't think many people would on
their first time of having sexual contact with a person
that they've just been friends with. I don't think if
(39:58):
that person says, oh, do you want to try something
new strangulation and she's gonna go yeah, why not? Yeah? Yeah?
I mean people especially she's not known to have been
into that kind of stuff. I mean, if somebody I get,
I mean, you know, different strokes for different folks, Like
everybody's different, and that's what people some people are into.
But it's the same for a fetch to believe that
(40:19):
she would be quite happy to go along with Yeah,
it never had any before that.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
They're meant to be friends, like two couples that are friends.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
And then they're like crossing over couples and yeah, and
there's no there's no history of her doing that with
other partners, you know, like I mean, he apparently and
has been confirmed by people that he has been wearing
the past. That is a thing that he has done,
the breathing and control thing. That's the thing that he
does and has done in the past. But there's no
(40:49):
evidence of her doing that. So it just seems a
bit espec Sure she was happy with Malcolm. He's just
he's just making it up. He was just trying to
get out of it, definitely, so you know, he he
I think he obviously had it planned or well, I
don't know he had it planned because I don't know.
He wouldn't have known that she was going to phone.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
That day, but took an opportunity that he thought, yeah,
because they had her.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
By swimming, he had her in the car. Yeah, I mean,
I mean I'm thinking that. Yeah, he probably was telling
the truth when he said that she was upset and
he says to want to go back to the flat
for a cup, because why else would you go back
to the flat if they planned on going swimming? Yeah,
and because they're also good friends. Yeah, then she would
see that as being like, you know, do you know
what I'm here about? Said yeah, let's go back for
a chat. Yeah, I know absolutely awful because he wanted
(41:39):
to get his jolly's yeah, but I really yeah. Anyway, Well,
thank you to everybody for listener and we'll see you
next time.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
If you would like to follow us on social media,
we are on Twitter and Instagram which is Crying.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
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Speaker 3 (42:00):
We're also on TikTok, YouTube and Facebook which is Crimedivers Podcast.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
If you would like to get in contact with us,
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outlook dot com. And if you would like to support
the show, we have buy my Coffee so us Buy
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(42:30):
which are a pound, three pound or five pound and
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Speaker 2 (42:44):
And if you haven't already, please don't forget to subscribe,
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