What happened that night in 9 Kelvin Road was a crime that continued to dominate the news in Wales and the rest of Britain for months. South Wales Police were hounded daily by the media and were under intense pressure to make an arrest. Four innocent people had been murdered in their own home, and their killer was still at large.
The motive for the murders was unknown and Detective Inspector Martyn Lloyd-Evans told reporters that few useful clues had been found at the crime scene. Since discovery of a motive frequently leads to the perpetrator of a crime, the need to discover the reason behind the attacks became crucial.
Enquiries by detectives established that the heavy fibreglass pole used as the murder weapon had come from the nearby New Inn. This pub, standing a little back from a bend in the road, is located on the outskirts of Craig Cefn Parc village on the road leading to Clydach. Kelvin Road is less than a 15-minute walk away. Alan Cook, a previous landlord, had used the pole to reach a switch high up on the wall to turn the outside lights on and off. Glynn Hopkin, a pub regular and the previous occupier of 9 Kelvin Road, had asked Cook if he could have the pole for his wife Jayne, because she was nervous about intruders when she was alone in the house and he wanted to give her the pole to defend herself in case anyone tried to enter the house.
In April 1998, Hopkin took over the lease of the New Inn and moved in as its landlord. This left 9 Kelvin Road empty, though a few pieces of furniture and the pole were left behind. Hopkin then let the house to Mandy Power and her family. When they moved into the partly furnished house, the pole was effectively part of the fittings. In a grim irony, Mandy Power kept it to protect herself and her family.
On 1 July 1999, the same day that rumours of Mandy Power’s affair with former policewoman Alison Lewis became public knowledge, detectives escorted twenty members of the victims’ family to the house to see the crime scene. To enter, they had to walk through the sea of colourful flowers, and step over cuddly toys at the front door. On their way in, Mandy’s sisters Sandra Jones and Julie Evans stopped for a moment and placed their own flowers and a large white teddy bear near the door with a note attached that read: ‘Love you forever. God bless you. Lots of hugs and kisses.’ After viewing the terrible aftermath of the murders and what remained of the fire-gutted home, the family members left, several in tears. All were shocked into silence.
By the simple process of eliminating 80-year-old Doris Dawson and the two little girls as the reason for the killings, Mandy Power was considered to be the person most likely to be at the centre of this dreadful catastrophe. The investigation, therefore, focused on her. The empty ring box on the lounge carpet, the engagement ring on her mother’s corpse, the silver watch placed on Mandy Power’s wrist and the attempt made to destroy a photograph of the two little girls brought an element of mystery to the crime. The brutal manner of Mandy Power’s death – beaten, then stripped and a vibrator pushed into her vagina – gave her murder a sexual twist.
The police investigation quickly began examining Mandy Power’s life, especially her love life, to see what in her past might provide clues. Family, friends and neighbours were all interviewed to help detectives build as full a picture as possible of the attractive young mother and her tragically short life. Police appeals on British television asked witnesses to come forward to reveal what they knew.
Police enquiries were far-reaching and stretched back to Mandy’s schooldays. They established that in 1982, when she was just sixteen, Amanda ‘Mandy’ Dawson met Michael Power, a baker, her first serious boyfriend. Four years later they married with the blessing of Mandy’s family. In May 1989, Mandy gave birth to their first child, Katie, and two years later, in May 1991, their second child, Emily, was born.
In the mid-1990s problems developed within their relationship when Michael took up golf, leaving Mandy feeling ignored and unloved. She found work as a part-time care assistant in a Clydach nursing home which gave her independence, while the income she earned increased her self-confidence and improved her social life. By 1996 the love and sex that Mandy wanted from the marriage had deteriorated to the point where, in desperation, she looked elsewhere for both. She began an affair with Richard Franks, a local taxi driver who used to drive her to work. The relationship did not last long and she attempted reconciliation with Michael, but it failed. In March 1998, Michael left the marital home and the marriage was over.
Even before the decree absolute finally dissolved the marriage, Mandy began to revel in her new-found freedom. She was in her early thirties, she was attractive and relished the attention male admirers gave her. She enjoyed affairs with several men, some of whom were married. All were traced by the police and investigated. One of these men was Robert Wachowski, the neighbour who had tried to rescue her and her family on the night of the fire. They had first met some months earlier when he had found a bottle of wine she had left on his doorstep with a note attached to it inviting him out for a drink. He accepted her offer, they got on well together and the relationship flourished, quickly becoming sexual. But Wachowski was just getting over a divorce and, even though his small son, David, enjoyed playing with Katie and Emily, he did not want the relationship to become serious and it fizzled out after only a few weeks. Their friendship continued, however, and Wachowski retained Mandy’s number on his mobile phone. Wachowski told detectives that he knew about her relationship with Alison Lewis because she had discussed it with him. He recalled her telling him that they sometimes argued fiercely.
Another lover, Howard Florence, 36, was a former golf professional who worked at Nevada Bob’s golf shop in Swansea. When detectives questioned him about his relationship with Mandy Power, Florence lied repeatedly about the extent of his involvement with her. This, he explained later, was because he was married and did not want Yvonne, his wife of 17 years, to find out. Finally, he was forced to admit the truth about the affair. He told detectives that he and Mandy met about once a week and they always had sex on these occasions. He said ‘Mandy was very shy of exposing her body and would cover up under the bed clothes.’ Sometimes, he said, they used a vibrator during sex. Their physical relationship lasted for 18 months and ended in December 1998, although they kept in regular phone contact. Their last phone conversation had taken place on Saturday, 26 June 1999, the day before the murders. It was later established that Power carried around with her a photograph of Howard Florence, even after their relationship ended. On St Valentine’s Day 1999 Florence sent Mandy flowers. By his own admission, he still had ‘strong feelings for her’ and said he ‘would have continued the affair had she not, by then, met somebody else’ – her new partner Alison Lewis.
Howard Florence said that sometimes when he telephoned Mandy the phone was answered by a woman, whom he assumed was Alison Lewis. He maintained that Mandy told him several times that Stephen Lewis, Alison’s husband, knew of her affair with his wife. This was despite Stephen Lewis insisting later, under oath in court, that he had not known of his wife’s relationship with Mandy until the morning of her death.
Mandy Power was clearly a warm, sensitive and vibrant young woman, devoted to her widowed mother, doting on her daughters, close to her brother Robert, her older sisters Margaret, Julie and Sandra, and loyal to her relatives and her many friends. Elizabeth Evans, who enjoyed evenings out with Mandy on a regular basis, said that : ‘Mandy was fun to go out with. We had a brilliant laugh.’ Lisa Sullivan, who sometimes acted as Mandy’s babysitter said: ‘Mandy was a really happy person who lived for her two girls. The children were getting to a really nice age and you could tell they were going to grow up to be lovely people. They were my little angels – my little rays of sunshine.’
But family and friends who were close to the recently divorced Mandy also worried about her. They felt that she was vulnerable and too trusting; that she did not recognise danger, but saw good in everyone. Mandy’s sister Julie Evans said that Mandy had described Alison Lewis as ‘possessive and jealous’, and Mandy’s close friend of twenty years, Manon Cherry, said: ‘Alison Lewis dominated Mandy’s life.’
Elizabeth Evans, who knew Mandy well, hinted that jealousy could have been the motive for the murders. Regrettably, she never explained her reasons for suggesting this. Another female friend, who did not wish to be named, said: ‘Mandy was very attractive. Her personality made her shine; a lot of people were instantly attracted to her. She drew people to her like a magnet.’ But, she continued, Mandy ‘attracted people who tried to take over. She became stifled, but she was too nice to say so. I know that she worried over certain relationships.’ Which relationships the friend unfortunately failed to specify.
Three weeks before her death, Mandy was seen in the company of a woman in the Farmers Arms pub in Clydach. A female witness who saw them together and overheard some of their conversation said she was discussing a ‘problem relationship’. She gave the police a description of the woman Mandy was talking to, but despite their efforts they were never able to trace her.
The person with whom Mandy had become so deeply involved in the six months before her death was former South Wales Police officer Alison Lewis. This relationship naturally brought Lewis into the police spotlight, and while officers continued to make their enquiries elsewhere, others began the task of investigating Alison Lewis, her husband, South Wales Police Sergeant Stephen Lewis, and his twin brother, Detective Inspector Stuart Lewis.
It was quickly discovered that Alison Lewis was active in women’s rugby. She was a club member and an outstanding player with an international reputation, having won seven caps for Wales. The police contacted rugby clubs in the Swansea Valley and a list was drawn up of registered members. All of them were traced and questioned. Officers also contacted local gay and lesbian groups in the area in their efforts to find out more about Alison Lewis.
While these enquiries were taking place, the police made another media appeal on 2 July which resulted in some 500 calls being received via the murder incident line. Incredibly, the police still made no mention in the programme about the unidentified man carrying a bag in the Kelvin Road area whom Nicola Williams had seen on the night of the murders.
It was established that on the Saturday evening, just hours before the murders, Mandy Power and her daughters had gone to the home of her nephew, Stephen Jones (a Dyfed Powys police constable, the son of her sister Sandra) to babysit for him and his wife Christine. As midnight approached, taxi driver Kevin Duffy picked up Stephen Jones and his wife from the Sunnybank Club in Clydach where they had been celebrating Stephen’s parents’ wedding anniversary. Duffy drove them to their home in Craig Cefn Parc, dropped them off, collected Mandy Power and her children and headed for Kelvin Road. Duffy was the last known person to have seen Mandy Power and her daughters alive.
Following the 2 July media appeal, Rosemary Jones, an elderly pensioner and widow who lived opposite 9 Kelvin Road, called the police to say that a car, which she had recognised as a diesel by its distinctive sound, had pulled up outside the house at about 12.45 a.m. on the morning of the murders. She then heard a car door open. Someone got out, she heard the car door close, and this was followed by the sound of footsteps going towards 9 Kelvin Road. Since this was about 15 minutes after Mandy Power and her children had arrived home, the information was naturally of great interest to the detectives.
In a subsequent witness statement, Rosemary Jones said she had looked out of her window and saw that the car’s passenger was now inside the house, although whether the figure was male or female she was unable to say. Nor did she know if the person had let themselves into the house, or had been admitted by someone already inside.
By now, the ground floor light had come on. This seemed to indicate to Rosemary Jones that whoever had entered the house had turned on the light. She saw the silhouette of a person’s head inside the house through the pane of frosted glass in the front door. Then the upstairs landing light went on. The front lounge curtains were open at this time, though they were normally closed at night. Upstairs, in the front bedroom where the children slept, the curtains were also open. This, Rosemary Jones believed, suggested that everyone in the house was still awake, though perhaps not 80-year-old invalid Doris Dawson.
These events were also witnessed by Rosemary Jones’ adult son, Wayne. He too saw the shape of a head behind the frosted glass in the door, but was also unable to say whether the person was male or female. Their sightings would, however, enable the police to estimate the approximate height of the unknown person.
Less than a week after the murders, more than 100 witness statements had been taken and the murder hunt was already the biggest in Wales. A forensic science spokesperson confirmed that the house was still being searched for trace evidence: DNA, fingerprints, skin, hairs, blood particles and any human tissue that did not belong to the victims.
In a further announcement on national television, Detective Superintendent Martyn Lloyd-Evans said: ‘Whilst we are delighted with the hundreds of telephone calls received, we are disappointed with the lack of response to our call for help following the clues we have had.’ Inexplicably, yet again no mention was made of Nicola Williams’ sighting of the man walking near Kelvin Road on the night of the murders.
Some callers put forward names of individuals whom they said police should interview. Several of them mentioned builder’s labourer Dai Morris and he quickly became a ‘person of interest’ to the murder team.
Within two days of the murders, David George (Dai) Morris had been traced to the council flat he shared in Craig Cefn Parc village with his girlfriend, divorcee Mandy Jewell and her eight-year-old daughter Emma. At the time of the murders, Morris, a banned driver, did not own a car, though Jewell’s flat in Rhyddwen Road was within easy walking distance of 9 Kelvin Road, perhaps 25 minutes at most.
Burly, heavily tattooed Morris, aged thirty-eight, was the father of three girls on whom he doted, Laura, Adele and Janine. His ex-wife Wendy had divorced him several years earlier after he physically abused her. Morris, originally from Gendros, a quiet suburban district of Swansea, was well known to the police and had a history of petty crime and violence, some of it directed towards women. Morris revelled in his reputation as a hard man, although he was not a practitioner in the martial arts. This fact would assume crucial significance at his trial. He was known as the Enforcer in the village where he now lived, and as the Nonce Basher in Swansea prison where he had spent several months for robbery and conspiracy to rob, before being moved to Dartmoor prison to complete a five-year sentence.
Morris’ relationship with Mandy Jewell began in 1995. Both he and Jewell enjoyed a drink and the couple had had their share of ups and downs. He was very fond of Jewell’s daughter, Emma, whom he treated as one of his own daughters. Sometimes after arguing with Jewell, Morris retreated to his own rented accommodation in Llangyfelach Road, Treboeth in Swansea. He said that ‘this gave her the time she needed to cool down’. He described their relationship as ‘very volatile. We could get on for a week or two and then have a big argument and then I’d leave.’ Morris also rented a council flat in Arennig Road, Penlan which he used from time to time, having taken on the tenancy some time after the murders.
Mandy Jewell, an attractive Yorkshire girl, worked in Eynon’s bakery in Clydach. She had lived in the Swansea area for the previous ten years and for five of those years she occupied her ground floor council flat in Craig Cefn Parc with her husband Andrew Jewell, a local man, from whom she later separated. Before moving to Rhyddwen Road, Jewell lived in Pendre in Clydach where she met Mandy Power, a neighbour. They were both pregnant at the time: Mandy Power with Emily, she with Emma. They struck up a friendship which lasted several years, but they began to drift apart in 1998. The following year their relationship took a major blow. In April 1999 Power told Jewell and several other people close to her that she was suffering from cervical cancer. The following month they discovered that this claim was a lie. Christine Pugh, a friend and neighbour of Mandy Power, rang the hospital that Mandy said she was attending, and discovered that she did not have cancer. What made matters worse was that Mandy Power had simulated symptoms exhibited by Mandy Jewell’s mother who really did have cervical cancer. Hurt by this discovery, Jewell and Power stopped speaking to one another for several weeks. Jewell later said: ‘I believed what I had been told. I was really scared for her…. I thought she was dying.’
In statements given to the police two days after the murders, Dai Morris and Mandy Jewell claimed that on Saturday 26 June they had gone to the New Inn in Craig Cefn Parc for a few drinks. They sat in the lounge bar where they stayed for the next few hours, drinking and chatting with friends and watching rugby on the pub’s large-screen TV. Wales were playing South Africa at the inaugural rugby match that day in the recently opened Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Kick-off was at 5.00 p.m. and the Welsh team went on to win 29-19, so there was a celebratory atmosphere among the customers. When closing time came at 11.00 p.m., Morris and Jewell spent a few minutes finishing their drinks, left the pub and walked home, taking a short cut through the woods. They arrived back at their flat about 11.30 p.m. They then went to bed together. The first they knew about the deaths, they agreed, was at about 7 a.m. on the Sunday morning when Mandy Jewell received a telephone call from Alison Lewis. Jewell knew Alison Lewis well because of her relationship with Mandy Power. Their statements were filed and the investigation moved on.
On 6 July, Richard Morgan, coroner for Swansea and Gower, received the results of the Home Office pathologist’s report. The four bodies were then released to the relatives so that they could make the funeral arrangements. The inquest was formally opened, but was adjourned immediately, pending completion of the police investigation.
On 13 July, another broadcast was made on BBC’s Crimewatch, when Detective Superintendent Lloyd-Evans made a further public appeal for help to the programme’s huge audience. Afterwards, 40 calls were received by the studio and a further 40 calls by the incident room at Cockett Police Station, but none of them provided any helpful information.
Nearly three weeks after the murders, on 17 July, the forensic investigation at 9 Kelvin Road ended and the house was sealed. Lloyd-Evans confirmed that it was the longest time ever spent at a murder scene by South Wales Police. By now, more than 1,000 people had been interviewed, 280 witness statements had been taken and 300 messages received in connection with the investigation.
Even more puzzling than Lloyd-Evans’ unwillingness to publicise Nicola Williams’ e-fit image of the mysterious man was his response when he received the report, that week, which contained the results of the forensic investigation undertaken at 9 Kelvin Road. At first the police were certain that there would be numerous clues left in the fire-damaged house to help them identify the killer, and Martyn Lloyd-Evans was confident of an early arrest. The house was stripped of its contents; the bathroom suite was removed in its entirety, the water drainage pipes taken right down to the sewerage system, all the furnishings were packaged and hundreds of items were sent away to the Home Office crime laboratory in Chepstow for forensic examination.
The team of investigators had spent almost three weeks minutely examining the house and practically everything it contained. But, according to Lloyd-Evans, the results had been negative. No useful evidence leading to the identification of the killer had been found, either in the house, or on any of the hundreds of items taken away for analysis, including the murder weapon. He claimed there was no DNA or fingerprints on anything or on any object that the murderer might have handled, touched or seized: they had all been wiped away. Indeed, at some stage, after the murders had taken place and with four bodies lying only feet away, the murderer had coolly gone into the bathroom and used the shower over the bath to wash blood-soaked clothing and afterwards had used the bath to wash away any remaining blood.
Lloyd-Evans said he did not want the contents of the report to be made public. The few reporters who knew about it agreed to postpone publishing the findings that, they were assured, the report contained. The detective superintendent did, however, tell reporters that the killer may have been male or female, and that more than one person could have been involved. In other words, he did not tell them anything at all.
This left reporters with the image of a brutal killer who possessed the scientific know-how to destroy DNA and fingerprint evidence which might otherwise have led to his or her identification. Thus was born the myth that the murderer was someone who was ‘forensically aware’ – a person who was conscious of the type of clue that might be left behind to lead to their identification – which eventually became one of the hallmarks of the Clydach murder case.
Certainly no DNA or fingerprints belonging to the man who would stand trial for the murders were discovered anywhere in 9 Kelvin Road. But evidence which came to light much later showed that DNA and fingerprints from an unknown male were found in the female-only household. Why then was Detective Superintendent Martyn Lloyd-Evans so reluctant to make public the forensic report?
An unnamed scene of crimes officer, a university lecturer in forensics consulted by the author, said that in a crime of this brutality, ‘Tracking down and eliminating every bit of biological debris left behind would have been impossible, even for the cleverest criminal. DNA fingerprinting allows the forensic investigator to use even the smallest piece of genetic material to identify an individual who was present at the crime scene. The forensic investigation should have at least found hair follicles or dead skin cells in the bathwater. While conditions might have made it difficult to extract DNA, a genetic profile could have been extracted from a single cell immersed in water, even for a long time, sufficient to identify the Kelvin Road killer.’ Yet, unbelievably, no DNA was reported as having been found in the bath or bathwater.
One explanation suggested for the lack of useable DNA was that the murderer might have poured bleach into the bath which would have the effect of destroying DNA. But the scene of crimes investigator also said that if it was bleach which had been used, it could not have been ordinary bleach. It would have to be a special type of oxygen-producing bleach – such as Vanish – which has the effect of destroying DNA completely. Ordinary bleach does not have this effect, and traces of DNA may still be detected, sometimes even years afterwards.
An enquiry by the author directed to South Wales Police to establish whether or not bleach had been used, and if so, the type, was met with silence, though if this special type of bleach had been used, such knowledge as to its effect on DNA went far beyond that usually possessed by anyone not trained in forensics. Likewise, an enquiry made to South Wales Police to establish whether or not DNA had been found in the bath, and if so, why the discovery had never been made public, also received no reply. Commenting on the forensic investigation, the scene of crimes investigator said, “It is simply not credible that no DNA or trace evidence leading to the murderer could be found [at 9 Kelvin Road].”
The final obstacle to the forensic investigation was the series of fires lit in four locations throughout the house, each started with the obvious intention of eliminating whatever evidence remained. Of all the methods employed by criminals to destroy evidence of their crime, including DNA and fingerprints, fire is by far the most effective. When the first fire failed to spread, three further fires were started, but only the fourth fire in the kitchen took hold. This led to the blaze which might have destroyed the house and any remaining evidence the killer had failed to get rid of. But the house had not burned down. The fire had been quickly brought under control, preserving such evidence as there was. Realisation of this might have caused the murderer to panic, acting in a manner inconsistent with his or her normal behaviour, which later might be difficult to explain.
Perhaps there was another reason why no DNA, fingerprints or trace evidence which belonged to the man who was eventually convicted of the murders could be found in 9 Kelvin Road. Not, as South Wales Police and later the prosecution insisted, owing to his being ‘forensically aware’ and wiping them all away, but quite simply, because he was never there?
As the end of July drew near and no appreciable progress had been made, a public campaign appealing for help was launched. Nicola Williams’ e-fit image, however, had still not been made public. On 26 July, posters were put up in shops, post offices, pubs and libraries and on the internet, asking anyone who knew anything about the murders to get in touch with the police. It was a fruitless exercise which drew no worthwhile results.
On Friday 30 July, the streets of Clydach were packed with thousands of mourners who fell silent as the cortège of four hearses and several funeral cars slowly made its way to the small church of St Mary’s. The coffins of Mandy Power and her mother Doris were covered with wreaths of white roses. Wreaths in the shape of teddy bears and a cross lay on the two small white coffins of Katie and Emily. One by one the coffins were carried into the church to the strains of the family’s favourite song, ‘My Heart Will Go On’, from the film Titanic. The congregation sang three hymns: ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’, ‘The Old Rugged Cross’, and ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. A poem entitled ‘Peace’, written by ten-year-old Katie seven weeks before her death, was read out. It told of her love of nature and the safe, starry sky. Stephen Jones, Mandy’s nephew, recited ‘Mandy’, a poem he had written as a moving tribute to his aunt. It told of her love for her children, and of life, and of her warm generous personality. He said he ‘wanted everyone to know the real Mandy’.
The poignant service was too much for some to bear. For others, the grim reality of the terrible tragedy struck home and they were overcome with grief. The Reverend Nigel Griffin urged anyone with knowledge that might lead to the killer to come forward. He said the four coffins should be enough to prompt whoever was shielding the killer to act. The clergyman’s words fell on stony ground.
After the church service, all four victims were laid to rest. They had lived together, and now they were buried together in a single grave on the grassy slopes of Coedgwilym Cemetery in Clydach, on the Brecon Road.