Maureen Foot had not been heard from for over a week. Her brother, who lived in the north of England, reported her missing.
The thirty-seven-year-old woman had come to the UK from South Africa in the autumn of the previous year. She rented a room in semi-detached house on an estate on the outskirts of Guildford. Also renting rooms were two men, Neil Sanders, a twenty-two-year-old shed builder, and James Woolf, a twenty-seven-year-old dustman.
The owner of the house lived elsewhere on the estate. The rooms rented by the three occupants were on the first floor of the house with a shared bathroom. Downstairs there was a communal lounge and shared kitchen.
In December, Maureen started a job at a fast food restaurant in the town. On a day in the following March she left work shortly after five pm. The same day she used a cash machine in Guildford. She was not seen again.
Her brother, worried that he had not heard from her, made all the calls he could make from a distance and then, a week after she had last been seen, he reported her missing.
People go missing every day. Many turn up within a day or so, just not having told their friends or family that they were going away. Others leave a life and their problems behind. Some never return.
The concerns of family and friends are real and deep. It may seem out of character and the police may not immediately appear over concerned but it is a difficult call. With adults, hospitals will be checked and enquiries made at work and with all known friends are the first steps. Adults are responsible for their own lives. A missing child will, however, always call for a wider and immediate search.
Police officers went to Maureen’s home and managed to get into her room. It was sparse but tidy. The officers were not unduly concerned, although they noticed some staining on the walls and ceiling which the other occupants put down to a leak in the loft.
No one but her brother was concerned about her disappearance. Apparently she had gone walkabout before, the police were told. The managers at the fast food restaurant where she worked were used to staff taking time off without giving any notice. Even after a week nobody had thought or cared to check with her.
In the following week the officers made their enquiries but no sign could be found of Maureen. She had not accessed her bank account and she had not been seen. A few days later the officers returned to her flat. This time they were more concerns about the staining.
The officers called Trevor Wykes, a crime scene manager, and asked him to go to the scene. They wanted him to have ‘a quick look’. Well, there is no such thing as a quick look in these circumstances. Once you have set your foot in the door you are committed and you can’t go back. So, as head of the CSI department, I was called. The decision was easy but it had cost implications. There was only one way of doing this and it was the right way. It could have turned out to be a waste of time but there was no way of knowing that until we looked, and to look we would use all the resources systematically and thoroughly examine the scene.
With a sense of urgency, a scene investigation team was put together. No detectives were involved at this stage; it was a simple missing person enquiry. The focus of our search would be Maureen’s room. That would be our inner cordon. At this stage we had no reason to search the whole house. To get to her room, access was via the front door and up a flight of stairs, immediately inside it, to the first-floor landing, off which all the bedrooms were situated. An officer would protect the front door entrance to make it our outer cordon. There would be no search of the hall and stairs at this stage. It had been well trod since her disappearance. We would have to deal with that later. The priority was to examine her room and go nowhere else until that had been done.
The officers made arrangements for the occupants to restrict their access whilst we made our examination.
The room was small but that did not necessarily make it an easy task. The search would start with the carpeted floor to allow access to the rest of the room. The walls would be searched without disturbance. The bedding would be examined and carefully removed and the furniture searched methodically. All the furniture would be removed in sequence to expose the whole floor. Once fully examined it would be removed so that the floor and walls could be examined.
Our search would include the use of light sources to examine the carpet, recover any footwear marks and alien fibres. Forensic photographers would work alongside a scene of crime officer under the direction of the crime scene manager. I also agreed from the outset we would involve a specialist in blood pattern analysis. So Roger Mann (a forensic biologist from the Aldermaston Forensic Science Laboratory) was there from the start.
Throughout the scene, investigators would review progress as they made any observations or made any finds.
Very quickly, once the floor had been cleared, the staining on the wall was examined. It was blood. Under the bed a small piece of bone was found. This was sent to a forensic pathologist to see if he could determine its origin. The big question was, Is it human? Once the bed covers were removed from the bed, the mattress looked unremarkable. Until it was turned over. It revealed heavy blood-staining. It was apparent that someone had bled heavily on the bed, and there were stains up the wall. It looked like it could be as the result of a violent assault. What was more, there had been a significant clean-up. Someone knew about this. But who?
The senior detectives were immediately informed and started a major investigation. Brian Woodfield was appointed the senior investigating officer. He was in charge of the overall investigation and I and my team were totally at his disposal now. I would now work closely with Brian, coordinating all the crime scene investigations and forensic science examinations.
A team of detectives continued to make enquiries to see if Maureen could be found alive. There was also a focus on the fact that Maureen could be dead and the knowledge that if she were we would have to find her body. All the men associated with her accommodation (the landlord and male occupants) were under suspicion.
We would eagerly await the results of the bone examination and confirmation that the blood was human, although all of us thought that in a bedroom it was unlikely to be anything else. Nonetheless it needed confirmation and we would expect that within a few hours.
The cordon was immediately extended to the front gate of the house. The results quickly confirmed that the blood was human. This was followed by news from Dr Dick Shepherd, the forensic pathologist, that the bone was human and from a skull.
In the days following the initial search two crime scene investigators (Jon Young and Andy Penson) continued the systematic search and examination of the rest of the house under Trevor Wykes’s management. No sign of Maureen could be found. An extension had been built and a concrete floor laid. Enquiries were made to see if it had been laid after Maureen’s disappearance. It was determined that it had been completed before Maureen went missing so it was recorded that there was no need to disturb it. The examination revealed that Maureen had been attacked whilst on the bed. Directional blood distribution emanated from this location. The stripped room was pasted with lines of string to indicate the distribution so it could be photographed for presentation in court. The clean-up attempt had been thorough, but it was never going to be thorough enough.
Detectives made extensive enquiries of the owner and male occupants. They were interviewed at length. They were also the subject of thorough examination. There had been a clear-up and one of these men knew something, although there was no evidence to say who at this early stage.
A large team of police officers was involved in searching the area which surrounds the housing estate. The searches were going on everywhere. The objective was quite simply to find Maureen or her body. Amongst the areas which would need specialist search were the local streams and drains. In the middle of the estate there was a pond. It was surrounded by a large green. Houses overlooked the perimeter offering clear uninterrupted views of the green and central pond.
As a senior manager, I had to balance a budget. This and a number of other investigations in the preceding months had severely reduced the funds I had available. I had to make some correctional decisions. Our policy and practice had been pretty firm. Even at the risk or running over budget I would not let cost limit an investigation that needed to take place. We would always look at the most cost-effective way of meeting our goals in a professional manner. Up to that time it was the crime scene managers who knew the criteria and managed the problem of authorising overtime to investigators. They managed this process well. To relieve CSMs of the pressure, I decided to be the sole arbiter for authorising overtime. The final decision would have to come from me. After all, the buck stopped with me. I didn’t like doing it because the managers were doing the job well but if I continued to go over budget, I would have to demonstrate the steps I had taken to try and reduce it. I had a department of fifty. Thirty-three were scene of crime officers or forensic photographers of which four were on call to cover events through the night.
On the very day, and within an hour of making the decision and notifying the department, events took place which would mean I would have eleven staff working throughout the night. So much for trying to limit the overtime costs. It looked like the crime scene managers were doing a better job than me!
Having no underwater search unit within our police force we arranged for a team from a neighbouring force to undertake a search of the pond. Accordingly, the underwater search team from Sussex Police was called in. Within forty minutes they had found a body in two black plastic bin liners.
I was at Police Headquarters when Brian Woodfield, the senior investigation officer, called me with the news. Trevor Wykes and his team were nearby but obviously committed, and could not get involved because of contamination issues.
I made my way quickly to the pond. It was only a ten-minute drive from Police Headquarters. I called John Armstrong (who was the crime scene manager on the neighbouring Woking Division) to muster a team. I got to the pond scene first. The Sussex Underwater Search team had set up their equipment at one end of the oval-shaped pond. They had found the two bags submerged under a fallen tree. The green was covered in grass but the edge of the pond was slightly muddy around the perimeter. It was all in full view of the houses around the green. The search team had yet to remove the bags from the water. This would have to be planned and carefully undertaken in such public view. I quickly set a new five-metre cordon around the perimeter of the pond to protect potential areas where the body may have been introduced. There could be shoe or tyre tracks in such an area.
Another problem was that the local senior school was about to turn out for their lunch break. The presence of the underwater search team was drawing the attention of a large number of people and this would soon be swelled with hundreds of teenagers. This could be a disturbing and unpleasant sight. So the recovery had to be as dignified and as simple as possible. The outer cordon in place, a path was cleared from where the search team had set up to the water’s edge and a tent erected and brought close to the water so that the bags could be brought into this controlled area.
Putting up the tent went well. This may seem like a strange statement. Only a few weeks before, I had been horrified to see on the TV news a CSI team from another force trying to erect a tent around a body in the full gaze of the cameras. Not only were there poles missing, but they managed to get it inside out. It looked like the Keystone Cops. Seeing this I took the precaution of calling in the Surrey CSI staff to the Force HQ gymnasium to practise in small groups. It paid off and the tent went up without any fuss.
The tent prepared, the bags were photographed and briefly examined within the tent to preserve evidence and then removed to the mortuary for closer examination and post mortem. The bags each contained half of a female body severed at the waist. Dick Shepherd, the forensic pathologist, had already been called and attended the scene at the pond.
An investigator remained at the scene searching inside the five-metre cordon for signs of where the body may have been introduced into the water. It was their job to look for shoe or tyre marks or any other signs.
John Armstrong led the remainder of the crime scene team at the mortuary. We had a number of new, younger staff for whom this was their first murder investigation and postmortem examination. I went to the mortuary to keep an eye on them and see how they performed as members of the team. John Armstrong was more than capable of leading the CSI team. John carefully briefed his team, and included the message that if at any stage they felt unwell, they should let him know. It was not a problem; in fact it was quite natural. Being present and taking part in a post-mortem examination is not a pleasant experience. It is a necessary part of our work, but not something we should take lightly.
The post mortem had a number of priorities. One was to identify the deceased and confirm or otherwise if it was Maureen Foot. Others were to determine the time, cause and manner of her death if at all possible. This was obviously not a suicide (the body was in two halves in plastic bags). This was most likely a murder investigation from the very outset. The investigators would be looking for signs of violent or sexual assault, injuries and the presence of any material which could have come from her attacker or the person who had dismembered her body and placed her in the bags.
The bags themselves would need careful examination. They were both large refuse sacks. They were bound with clear adhesive tape. A decision had to be made where to open them so that they could be examined later for finger marks and other evidence. They would have to be dried in a clean environment without causing a health hazard.
The bags were carefully opened on a large plastic sheet on the floor and the two parts of the body photographed individually. They were searched for extraneous material and marks and injuries recorded. Then the parts were placed in line. They made the complete body of a female. No limbs or parts were missing. The description matched Maureen’s and there really was little doubt that it was her. But that would need confirmation.
Each part of the body was examined in detail. When it came to move the lower part of the body on to the dissection table Dick Shepherd bent down and placed one arm under the buttocks. Placing his other arm under the knees he stood up and took a few paces towards the table. As he did so the outstretched legs sagged at the knee joint. The sight made my heart jump. In a flashback it reminded me of the times I would pick up my own daughters and carry them up to bed. The horror was that there was nothing above her waist.
I had gone to the mortuary to keep an eye on the newer members of staff and I had found myself upset by what I had seen. It is important to maintain an emotional distance from the events in hand. But every once in a while a sight will touch every investigator, no matter how experienced. This was one of those times for me. Of course it is a sound human quality never to forget the victim. That is why we do what we do.
Maureen had a heavy head wound and her skull was fractured. It was the cause or contributed to her death. Dick Shepherd stated that her body had been cut in two in by someone who ‘knew where to cut’.
This information made Brian Woodfield’s ears prick up. One of the male occupants of the house at Hazel Avenue, Woolf, had worked in a slaughterhouse before becoming a bin man for the local council.
Further enquiries narrowed down Woolf as the main and only suspect. He was arrested and remanded in custody.
Over the next weeks and months the case against Woolf was built. The search of his room and the rest of the house had revealed a larger than normal number of bin bags with markings similar to those found with the body. Woolf had free access to them in his work. The same types of bags were also given freely to residents of the street. We needed to try and narrow things down. Once again we called on the evidence of the extrusion marks we had used in the Ross case. Detective Inspector Bill Harding, the deputy SIO, made extensive enquiries. There was a link between the bags in the house and those around the body but the process needed to be described so that it could be explained to the jury.
The clear adhesive tape which had secured the bags around the body also revealed further clues. We had examined the tape for finger marks but none were found. What we did find were three human hairs. They did not match Maureen, but they were of a similar colour to Woolf’s sample. The bad news for us was that the hairs had no roots. So the main DNA profiling technology of the time (SGM+) would not work. For SGM+ DNA to work, DNA material would have to be extracted from cells present in the root. This result left me with a slight dilemma. There was another DNA technique called Mitochondrial DNA. The mitochondria are the source of power around cells but not within it. They are inherited only from the mother’s DNA. Brothers and sisters will have the same mitochondrial DNA as their mother and maternal grandmother. But it is statically low evidence. It also took a long time to undertake and was an expensive technique. The examination of the three hairs would cost £15,000. Although the inclusion of evidence, if found, would have been limited, there was always the possibility of eliminating Woolf as the source of the hairs. So, on this basis, I authorised the examination of the hairs to ensure the results were known before any forthcoming trial. If Woolf was not the source if the hairs we would have to ask who was. He may not have been excluded from the enquiry, but it would open the possibility of another offender or an accomplice. I also reasoned that any good defence lawyer would rightly pick up on this question if we did not answer it. Cost was no excuse. But that wasn’t going to help my budget situation.
Two months later, Bill Harding received a surprise call from Woolf’s solicitors. Brian Woodfield wasn’t available, although he would have raced back if he knew what was about to transpire. Woolf had decided that he wanted to speak to the investigators. He wanted to change his plea to that of guilty and he wanted to tell the police all about it.
He was brought to Guildford Police Station where he admitted he had attacked Maureen on the bed in her room. We already knew the attack had taken place there from the reconstruction of directional blood staining. He also described how he cut her body in two. Late one night he took it to the nearby pond and threw it in. He also told officers that he had wrapped the weapons he had used to kill and dismember her body in a black plastic bin bag and had hidden them under a fallen tree in woodlands ten minutes’ walk from his house. The bag, he said, contained an axe and a knife in a sheath.
Once the interviews were completed, Woolf was taken back to the house and asked to retrace the route from the house to the tree where he had hidden the weapons. His steps were videoed as he – handcuffed to a prison officer – his solicitor and a small group of officers retraced his steps. The route led from the house, along the road, into a woodland path and then cut across to a fallen tree. When he got to the tree Woolf pointed to it. Jon Young stepped forward and recovered the package from under the tree. It was taken intact to Guildford Police Station where it was photographed, opened and examined. The process was itself videoed. The package contained exactly what Woolf said it would.
As soon as I got the news I made an urgent call to the lab to hold the mitochondrial DNA examination of the hairs. A few days later, once it was clear that Woolf was going to plead guilty, I cancelled the extra work and saved £15,000 from the precious budget.
Woolf pleaded guilty to the murder of Maureen Foot and remained silent as to why he murdered her. Missed by her brother, she had not been forgotten and doing things right from the very beginning, as the CSI team had done, paid off. Taking the easy route is not always an option when faced with suspicions which turn into serious allegations. It can cost time and money but there is really no other way. If you are going to investigate crime you must do it well from the very beginning.