Cops hunting a white van man over Jo murder

Jan 9 2011 by David Collins, The People

Jo article

The hunt for Jo Yeates’s killer took a dramatic turn last night after The People discovered that a white van driver was seen acting suspiciously where her body was found – two days before its discovery.

Dog walker Marilyn Stevens saw the “strange” man in a woolly hat sitting alone in a small left-hand drive van before he spotted her and sped off.

Jo’s frozen body was found 48 hours later under snow only a few yards from where the mystery driver was parked.

Police believe the corpse may have been there for several days.

Marilyn, 67, said: “I didn’t think what I’d seen was important at the time but when they found that poor girl’s body I immediately thought of the man in the van. It was strange.”
Last night detectives were due to quiz Marilyn as police praised our investigation team for highlighting the potentially vital new evidence.

A police spokesman said: “Every piece of information is looked at and prioritised as a potential line of inquiry.

“We currently have more than 1,000 actions to work through. All actions are being treated seriously including this one.” Marilyn was on her daily dog walk shortly after 8am on December 23 in the woods alongside a golf course in Longwood Lane, Failand near Bristol.
She walked into the road and saw the man in a white van parked in a lay-by at a quarry entrance around 10-15 metres from where Jo’s body was found on Christmas Day.

Marilyn, from Long Ashton in Bristol, says the moment she emerged from a small gate which marks the beginning of the path, the driver noticed her and sped off towards Long Ashton village.

When Jo’s body was found 48 hours later, Marilyn realised the importance of what she had seen and her husband Phillip reported the van driver’s suspicious behaviour on the Crimestoppers number.

Worried Marilyn took our reporter back to the spot where she saw the suspicious van driver.
She said: “I came out of the gate at the end of the path and noticed a man sitting in a white van.

“At first I thought it was my husband, because he always picks me up at the bottom of the road after I’ve finished my walk.

“He also drives a van, but when I looked at it, I realised it wasn’t him. It was smaller than his van.

“The man was parked in the lay-by outside the quarry gates. It’s only a few steps from where Jo’s body was found and is where all the flowers are now, next to the wall.

“The van had a square-type top and was fairly small, and white in colour. I described it later in detail to my husband and he said it sounded like a Citroën Berlingo or a Vauxhall Astramax.

“There was a man sitting in the driver’s seat with his elbow up on the window frame. But it was a left-hand drive which I thought was weird at the time.

“He was wearing a woolly hat, like a beanie, which was dark grey and knitted like a tea cosy. I couldn’t see what else he was wearing, and I only got a side view of him, but I would guess he was in his late twenties to early thirties.

“He had white skin, was clean shaven, and had a round face. I didn’t see what colour of hair he had because of his hat.

“He saw me come out of the path and on to the road and immediately drove away down the hill towards the crossroads.

“I didn’t see which way he turned. Soon after my husband arrived to pick me and the dog up.

“I didn’t think anything of it at the time. It was just a white van man. But when I heard her body was found practically on the same spot where he was parked, I got my husband to report it.”

Jo’s frozen body was found by another dog walker.

She had been dumped by her killer after being strangled – possibly by one of her long ski socks. One was missing when she was found.

One theory is that the sock is being kept by the killer as a trophy.

Jo, 25, may have been snatched from her home after the killer knocked on her door or found her outside her flat in Clifton, Bristol on the evening of December 17.

Police found the landscape architect’s coat, mobile phone, and boots all left in her flat on the night she disappeared.

Frozen

There is no suggestion the home she shared with boyfriend Greg Reardon, 27, was broken into.

Detectives are unsure as to how long Jo’s body was lying in the verge on Longwood Lane, but because it was frozen solid it could have been there for a number of days.

Forensic scientists are struggling to gather DNA evidence because of the effect of the freezing winter on her body. A postmortem on Jo’s body found no trace of a sexual assault.

Marilyn said: “It’s scary to think I was walking around there every day and her body was lying there in the snow.

“I can’t understand how she was lying there in that verge for so long without being spotted.

“It’s incredible. I feel awful about what happened to that young girl, and would love to see someone brought to justice for what they did to her.”

Police on Friday were speaking to motorists and pub-goers in Bristol in a bid to find her killer.

Officers questioned customers at the Bristol Ram, the pub she visited on the night she vanished, and put up posters.

She was caught on CCTV in a Waitrose supermarket at the Clifton Triangle and then went to a Tesco Express in Clifton village where she bought a pizza.

http://www.people.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/2011/01/09/cops-hunting-a-white-van-man-over-jo-murder-102039-22835569/