Did Joanna Yeates see too much?

by Richard Smith, Ryan Parry and Greig Box-Turnbull, Daily Mirror 1/01/2011

JOANNA Yeates’s killer may have been waiting for her inside her basement flat as she returned home.
Detectives yesterday sent towels and bedding for DNA tests after finding no signs of a break-in.
They were also given until Tuesday to continue questioning Jo’s landlord Chris Jefferies, 65.

Jo Yeates may have been killed after finding an intruder in her flat who did not want to be identified later.

Murder detectives are probing a theory a struggle then ensued as the prowler tried to silence the 25-year-old landscape architect.

As forensic officers yesterday removed further evidence from the flat she shared with boyfriend Greg Reardon, 27, it suggested they think her killer may have left DNA behind.
Another theory is that the killer was waiting to attack her when she returned.

Police have now as good as stripped the rented basement flat where she mysteriously vanished after returning from work on December 17.

It is a lengthy and painstaking task which could explain the increasingly strange circumstances behind her death. Her partly hidden body was found dumped on a roadside verge near a quarry on Christmas Day. She had been strangled. Yesterday, as detectives stepped up the hunt for the killer, three evidence bags were spotted being removed from Jo’s flat.

Labels on them read: bedding; blue and brown towel from bathroom; green and white curtain underneath skis and surfboard in hallway; and orange throw from fridge in living room.

Police also entered a property next to the house where Jo lived in upmarket Clifton, Bristol, and spent three hours inside.

It is owned by engineer Peter Stanley, a friend of her landlord and murder suspect Chris Jefferies who was arrested on Thursday.

Mr Stanley, 56, and former English teacher Jefferies, 65, jointly run the local Neighbourhood Watch scheme together. They are apparently friends and have known each other for years. Detectives spoke to Mr Stanley’s tenant, Laurence Penney, as a witness for more than an hour.

Font design specialist Mr Penney, 41, was at home on the day Jo vanished but has only just returned from a Christmas break in France. Mr Penney said last night: “I was here when Joanna Yeates disappeared but I didn’t see or hear anything.

“I don’t know her or her boyfriend. I see Chris Jefferies from time to time, but I didn’t see him that day or after Joanna disappeared. Police spoke to me as a matter of routine.”

Detectives also spoke to Mr Stanley as a witness and stayed at his house for more than three hours. One officer was seen leaving the four-storey £1.5million property with a number of large evidence bags.

At 4pm, Mr Stanley drove from the home at the wheel of his 1995 burgundy BMW 5 Series flanked by a detective. Two Avon and Somerset police support vans had turned up outside with eight officers who stood by until Mr Stanley emerged. Mr Stanley and the police officers then left the scene.

Some 15 minutes later he was dropped back to the house in a police car.

It is believed the BMW was taken to a police station to be forensically examined.

Officers have also spent the last two days stripping the flat of Mr Jefferies, who lived two floors above her. The eccentric former private school English teacher was arrested on suspicion of murder by police on Thursday. Last night they were granted four more days to question him.

Neighbours have described Mr Jefferies, who sports a distinctive mane of straggly white hair, as a “nutty professor type” .

Known as CJ, he used to teach English at exclusive Clifton College, yards from his flat.

A former colleague said he keeps a close circle of friends comprising other public school masters who share similar peculiar ways.

He said: “They were all eccentric, arrogant and close-minded to the outside world. CJ has always been an utter show-off.”

An ex-pupil yesterday recalled Mr Jefferies was teased over his blue bouffant hairstyle and called Walnut Whip and Will o’ the Wisp.

James Austin, 29, who was in his English lit class during the 90s, said: “We used to laugh at the fact he was so eccentric. The way he speaks in his arty and camp affected way.

“But most of all we laughed at his wild blue hair and his long fingernails.”

Another former pupil added: “He was not an aggressive man and certainly not violent. He was also very intelligent and articulate, so his solution was normally a witty retort to express himself rather than anything remotely physical.”

A waitress said yesterday that the day before Mr Jefferies’ arrest he chatted in a nearby cafe to friends about Jo’s killing.