Bristol Murders (Sutton True Crime History)

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In February 2016, a wooden bench was unveiled in Watts's memory, located in Goat's Field, close to her home. On 26 March 2015, the case was the subject of an episode of the Channel 5 documentary series Countdown to Murder, titled "The Killer Next Door: The Last Hours of Joanna Yeates". A specialised firm from the film industry was contracted to reproduce the snowy conditions at the time of Yeates's disappearance. On 29 July Jefferies accepted "substantial" damages for defamation from The Sun, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, the Daily Record, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Daily Star and The Scotsman in connection with their coverage of his arrest. A trail of blood leading up to his car was found by police, and was one of the first indications foul play was involved.

Jefferies said: "At the time it felt as if the police were deliberately playing a game – promising the ordeal would soon be over and then finding it necessary to prolong the wait.In December 2008, Yeates met 25-year-old architect Greg Reardon at the firm Hyland Edgar Driver in Winchester. Several memorials were planned, including one in a garden she had been designing for a new hospital in Bristol.

Police made a public appeal for information regarding the movements of a black Vauxhall Zafira between 19 and 23 February. A cordon is in place and roads in the area are closed to enable officers to carry out investigations at the scene. The murder inquiry was one of the largest police investigations ever undertaken in the Bristol area.His girlfriend, Shauna Hoare, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 17 years in prison, although Hoare had insisted to police that she had nothing to do with the killing, or dismembering Watts' body and hiding the parts. The killer tied her hands with a pink belt and sexually assaulted her before using a weapon, believed to be a screwdriver, to mutilate her body. The victim, in her 60s, fell from her scooter to the ground during the incident in Brentry and had items stolen from her handbag. Like many other old Bristol pubs (especially the Llandoger Trow and King William Ale House) it is reportedly haunted. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images Flowers at the side of the road where the body of Joanna Yeates was found on Christmas Day.

The team deployed a method known as DNA SenCE, which enhances unusable DNA samples through purification and concentration: "We couldn't say whether the DNA was from saliva, or semen, or even touch. A Bristol murder which shook the city 11 years ago is the subject of a two-part Channel 5 documentary. Matthews and Hoare lodged appeals against their convictions and sentences, but on 23 June 2016, the Court of Appeal rejected their applications, saying that there was "no reasonable argument that the convictions are unsafe or that the sentences were wrong in principle or manifestly excessive". Investigators found that her phone, laptop and tablet computer were missing from the house, but she had not taken any money or spare clothes with her and did not tell anyone that she was going away. It includes input from key people involved in the case, as well as the thoughts of Bristol Live crown court reporter Geoffrey Bennett, who covered the trial of Jo's killer, Vincent Tabak.Tabak also gave Thomas a different version of what he had done on the night of Yeates's disappearance, explaining that he had gone out twice, once to take photographs of the snow and the second time to go to Asda. The sexual assault took place in Belle Vue Road, with the victim being attacked by a man who had followed her off the No 24 bus from Stapleton Road. In his sentencing remarks, the judge agreed with the prosecution's belief that the planned kidnap was for a "sexual purpose", telling Matthews he had "a fixation with having sex with petite teenage girls" and that he believed Hoare had been "persuaded to participate in this fixation. In November 2015, her step-brother, Nathan Matthews, was found guilty of her murder and was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 33 years. During the murder investigation, police found images of a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Yeates.