The Pembrokeshire Murders: Catching the Bullseye Killer

by Steve Wilkins

  The local area had been plagued with cut fences over a number of years. What I didn’t want to do was to suggest that he was responsible for all of them. Fences on farmland can of course be cut and damaged by machinery. Farmers are probably the best people to recognise the difference between an accidental and a deliberate act. I only wanted to include those cut fences that could be linked to a specific offence with reliable evidence. What was clear was that the person responsible had an excellent knowledge of the area and knew his way about the fields and hedgerows. The cut fences served two purposes: easy access and escape routes. Some were cut in such a way that they would frustrate or injure a person in pursuit. In a three-wire fence, the two lower strands would be cut leaving the top one intact. His escape routes on occasions would cross Scoveston land and go past the scene of the Milford Haven attack. (That was another reason I wanted the Milford attack kept together with the murders.) There was evidence that Cooper cut fences near to nine of the burglary and robbery scenes. On two occasions dog handlers had tracked across fields to Cooper’s house, and on one occasion PC Mark Jenkins tracked him to the lane outside his house and actually spoke to Cooper. Significantly, if we took these offences as the edge of a wheel, all the tracks and cut fences were like spokes leading to Cooper’s house at the centre. It was a geographical profiler’s dream.

  Another interesting point for the statisticians was that there were only eight unsolved double murders in the UK where a shotgun had been the weapon; we had two within a few miles of each other in Pembrokeshire. The Dixons murder was the only offence committed outside the tight geographical wheel, but Cooper had served us up with the reason for this, recalling that at the time he was keeping a low profile in the area around his home because his landlord had served him with a notice to quit.

  We believed it was a compelling account and the initial crime pattern analysis was also showing some interesting data. From his arrest and remand in custody for the Huntsman offences, similar offending in the area had gone down by a staggering ninety per cent. There had been no other armed robberies where a shotgun had been used and certainly no double shotgun murders. It was an interesting story, but its strength was in keeping all of the offences together and I had grave doubts that we would be able to do this as we moved towards any trial. The forensic work continued on the fibres and we all knew this was our best and last chance. I needed that golden nugget of forensic evidence to place in the middle of the story to make it an overwhelming case; surely after all the hard knocks we were due a break?

  The Golden Nugget

  IT WAS APRIL 2009 AND I had booked Lynne Harries, Glyn Johnson and myself on the Major Crime Review course at South Wales Police Headquarters. Martin Lloyd-Evans and Paul Bethel led the session. Both were retired senior detectives with probably eighty years service between them; they were always very knowledgeable and good fun. I had spoken to Martin on quite a few occasions and he had given me excellent support and encouragement. We listened for days about how cold cases had been detected after twenty and thirty years, all as a result of a forensic approach. It confirmed to me that we were doing everything right and in many ways we were ahead in our approach. I can remember sitting in the classroom thinking, Why not us, surely we deserve a break? The course ended on 23 April 2009, and I stood in the car park with Lynne and Glyn. “I can’t believe we have not had a break in the forensic evidence,” pondered Lynne. We chewed it over for ten minutes before getting into our cars and driving back to Carmarthen. As I headed out of Bridgend towards the M4 the hands free phone rang in the car. “Hi Steve, it’s Angela.” I instantly recognised the well-groomed tones of Dr Angela Gallop from LGC Forensics. “Are you driving Steve?” she said. “Yes, but no problem I am on hands free,” I replied. “No, Steve I think you had better pull over because that golden nugget you were after – we’ve got it”. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I went completely cold. Luckily I was near a lay-by and I was able to steer off the busy main road.

  “Angela, I love you,” were the first words I could think of. She laughed. “The shorts recovered in Cooper’s bedroom, we taped them for fibres and noticed a faint stain on the tape lift. We were able to go back to the exact spot on the shorts and remove a tiny flake of blood. It’s Peter Dixon’s blood!” The words stunned me into silence. I had waited for this call and I could feel the emotion welling up inside me. “Steve, are you still there?” she asked. I managed to pull myself together and replied, “Angela, thank you so much, you have made me a very happy man. I can’t begin to tell you what this means.” Angela then went on to tell me the discriminating value: “It’s the strongest Steve, one in a billion. In simple terms this meant that the likelihood of it coming from any other person other than Peter Dixon was one in one billion.” It was a stunning result. All I could think was, ‘Got you!’

  We had waited for almost three years and now the meticulous hard work and planning had paid off. I knew this evidence now made our case a forensic one supported by some fantastic bad character and circumstantial evidence. Other motorists passing the lay-by must have thought that I was having a bad bout of road rage. I was banging my hands on the steering wheel while at the same time screaming, “Yes, yes, yes!” I must have repeated it twenty times. Then I thought, crikey, is Angela still on the line, and had to check that I had ended the call. I cannot begin to describe the feeling of total elation. As a detective you always want to work on the ‘big one’, and this was as big as it gets. Now we had tangible evidence and a very strong case. The next two phone calls were to Lynne and Glyn who had worked tirelessly on the case. Both were over the moon and the calls between us were quite emotional. I decided not to tell the rest of team by phone and just sent a message asking them all to be at Pembroke Dock Police Station the following morning for a briefing.

  The next day I had them all together and Glyn had prepared a short powerpoint presentation. As planned, I started to recap on the evidence so far. By now I had spoken to Dr Gallop again and she had explained in detail the process which had recovered the blood. I asked why it had not been found before. Her explanation was simple, and one I was now repeating to the team. The test for blood is a bit like playing the game Battleships: based on experiences and the circumstances of the case, the scientist tests certain areas of the garment, but not the full article. In essence they are trying to hit a target area. The tape process is very different because the scientist tapes all of the exposed area, and then seals the tape in a bag so it cannot be contaminated, before examining it with powerful microscopes. Having done this it’s easy to return to the garment and know exactly where a certain tape lift has come from. I could see the team looking puzzled. Glyn then displayed the photograph of the green shorts AJM/165, and I continued. “LGC have carried out tests on the green shorts recovered from Cooper’s bedroom.” I saw one of the team look at me and I knew she had twigged about where this was going. Glyn then flicked to the next slide; it was the same shorts only this time written in large red letters were the words ‘Got the bastard!’ As the picture came up I told them the result. Their initial response was far more controlled than mine had been on receiving the news, but as it sank in, the room echoed to the sound of happiness. It was a fantastic scene, hugs and handshakes and again one or two tears from people genuinely delighted that all of the hard work and commitment had given us the first breakthrough. It was now my job to refocus the team and bring us back down to earth. “This is fantastic news team, and I am delighted for you all, but this is only the start and we have got a long way to go. We now need to establish the integrity and continuity of this evidence and prepare a case. I will be speaking to the CPS this morning to inform them and arrange an urgent meeting.”

  The following few days were a whirlwind. The team were bouncing and the buzz in the incident room was tangible. As I was about to contact Tom Atherton on the telephone I could hear Lynne Harries in the room opposite on the phone to the fibre expert Roger Robson. It sounded like an interesting call.
I walked into Lynne’s office and he had a huge grin on his face. “Come on Harries boy, spit it out,” I said. “That was Roger, he has compared some fibres from the glove BB/109 found in the hedge row near Cooper’s house and they are identical to fibres taken off the belt on Peter Dixon’s shorts and the branches used to cover the bodies of Peter and Gwenda Dixon,” replied Lynne. “And that’s not all boss, fibres from the gloves MTJ/5 and MTJ/7, the ones worn by Cooper on the Sardis robbery have been found on the clothing of the rape victim from the Milford Haven job.” This was unbelievable, we had waited for years to get a breakthrough and now I had direct evidence to connect him with two of the Ottawa offences in just 48 hours. It was clear, that like gold mining, LGC had now hit a rich evidential vein. Experience told me that they would find more as they had now found his vulnerability. Cooper was clearly forensically aware. He knew about fingerprints and DNA and was therefore a gloved offender. He had chosen to wear woollen gloves and that was now becoming a significant weakness and potentially fertile area for us. In Roger and April Robson, we had two fantastic experts who filled me with optimism through their sheer enthusiasm and commitment. It was clear, too, that they felt confident that they were at the start of a trail of evidence that would link Cooper to more of the Ottawa offences.

  As I expected, Tom Atherton was delighted and I could hear the excitement in his voice. He would brief Gerard Elias QC and we agreed to meet on 29 April 2009. The meeting was business-like and focused; there were important issues to discuss and decisions to be taken. The first issue was the impact of the evidence on the investigation, and the potential arrest of Cooper. The evidence we now had linked him directly to the murders of Peter and Gwenda Dixon and the attack on the five children at Milford Haven, but not the murders of Richard and Helen Thomas. It was my view, however, that we were now in a position to arrest him for all three offences and that the question of the Milford Haven case being dropped was redundant. Tom clearly agreed, though he still had concerns that the trial judge would question the value of keeping the Milford Haven attack on any indictment. I was determined that this would not happen. Tom Atherton and a colleague listened as I outlined the evidence on which his arrest would be based.

  We now had a powerful DNA link between Peter Dixon and shorts recovered from Cooper. There were fibre links between a glove, BB/109, recovered from a hedgerow less than one hundred yards from Cooper’s home address, and Peter Dixon’s belt. The glove was found amongst jewellery stolen from a burglary at 23 Castle Pill Crescent, Milford Haven on 1 March 1996, just five days before the Milford attack. In the same burglary a Bruno shotgun and cartridges were stolen. The gun was later found buried under his duck run and Cooper was convicted of this burglary. Peter Dixon’s gold wedding ring was stolen from his finger during the murder. Cooper had sold a man’s gold wedding ring on 5 July 1989 in Pembroke. He had admitted in interview in 2008 that he had lied about this ring and its origin. The jeweller’s was fifty yards away from the NatWest cash point, used by the murderer. Cooper was filmed for the popular television quiz show Bullseye three weeks before the murder of Peter and Gwenda Dixon. Cooper had a remarkable resemblance to the artist’s impression of the man using Peter Dixon’s cash card in Haverfordwest on 1 July 1989. A partial DNA profile on rope used to secure Peter Dixon’s hands contained elements common to Cooper. There was a fibre link between the rape and indecent assault victims and the gloves MTJ/5 and MTJ/7; the gloves were discarded by Cooper following the Sardis armed robbery and he, of course, had been convicted of this attack. Cooper’s voice had been identified by some of the victims of the Milford Haven attack. A key found on Cooper’s property was from Norton Farm, a property owned by Richard Thomas and visited by him on the day he was murdered. A large bunch of keys were missing from Scoveston Park and we had evidence that Cooper stole keys from his victims. There were also significant similarities between Cooper’s bad character and the behaviour displayed in the three Ottawa offences.

  Tom Atherton was well aware of the ongoing work in relation to bad character, geographical and behavioural profiling and crime pattern analysis and we quickly agreed that together with the forensic evidence we had now reached the threshold to arrest Cooper for all three offences. I was delighted, but for me there was a competing demand going on in the background. On one hand I now had enough evidence to arrest him with a realistic prospect of a successful outcome; on the other hand I knew I was going to get more forensic evidence. The problem was, Cooper was out in the community and we had information that he was gambling again on the horses. The warning words of Dr Adrian West were still ringing in my ears. Cooper’s wife had died and he wasn’t working, other than doing odd jobs for his elderly neighbours. How long would it be before he started to offend again? Taking everything into consideration I could not afford to wait for the forensic work to be completed. The interviews would need to cover all bases removing the need to go back to him at a later stage, especially if his defence was going to be, “It wasn’t me, I wasn’t there”.

  At the same meeting I confirmed with Tom that there would be no requirement to go through a visual identification procedure due to the time elapsed. I also informed him that there would be a substantial ‘hearsay application’ as a number of our potential witnesses had passed away and couldn’t be called to give evidence in person. The shorts were clearly vital to the case and we needed to do more work on this item to secure the wearer’s DNA. This involved the scientist looking in places like the waistband and pockets. If we could find traces of Cooper it would negate any attempt by him to distance himself from the shorts.

  I left the meeting with Lynne and Glyn with the green light to arrest Cooper for the murders of Richard and Helen Thomas, the murders of Peter and Gwenda Dixon, five attempted armed robberies, a rape and indecent assault. To say we were happy is an understatement. There were new problems exercising my mind though. If, following his arrest and interview, we were in a position to charge Cooper we would only have eight weeks to submit an initial file to the CPS. (An extension of up to a maximum of twelve weeks was the most likely outcome.) It was pleasing to know that decisions I had made on disclosure and securing statements would put us ahead of the game, but it would still be tight. The Gold Group meeting two days later was uplifting, and an opportunity to break the news to the senior team. It also helped me avoid any awkward questions regarding forensic costs, which were now over £800,000 and likely to double before we were finished. I needed additional staff, in particular experienced detective sergeants to put the files together. I was told that Gareth Rees would remain with me post the arrest and interview, and that DS Paul Jones would join him. Paul had worked with me on the murder of a retired police officer and I had been very impressed with his skills. He was a jolly, round faced ex-Royal Navy man with many an exciting story of close escapes in exotic locations and he would prove to be a fantastic addition to the team.

  Accommodation was again becoming an issue because the Force had earmarked the top floor at Pembroke Dock Police Station for a Customer Service Unit. Ottawa was clearly in for the long haul and it would not have been the right for us to move now because I wanted the team to concentrate on preparing for his arrest and interview.

  Over the years I had spent many hours with Tim Dixon, his sister Julie and Peter’s brother Keith, all of us hoping that this day would come. They were obviously stunned by the news. Richard and Helen Thomas did not have any very close family members but again their relatives were briefed. My discussions with them and their response will remain private between us. At this stage I chose not to tell the victims of the Milford Haven attack, but made a decision to inform them the night before the arrest. My concern was not that they would disclose the planned arrest, but some of them had large families and I could not be sure that someone would not unwittingly let the cat out of the bag. However I did tell them that I was leading a review on their case, giving me an opportunity to introduce family liaison officers prior to the arrest. These were very importan
t roles and were performed by DC Donna Thomas and Sergeant Helen Coles. They would have a very difficult job because of the emotional demands made on them by the victims.

  The date was set, John William Cooper was to be arrested on 13 May 2009 and interviewed at Haverfordwest Police Station. It sounded simple but there was much to be done to prepare. Time was precious as we had less than two weeks to plan for the arrest and I needed to ensure the team were match fit for the big day and beyond. There were a number of pieces of work that I needed to assign and Gareth Rees, Louise Harries and the interview team had to be brought back together. To be honest, they had prepared so well that it was just a matter of refreshing and developing their interview strategy.

  The arrest and custody plans were pretty straightforward. Cooper collected his paper from the local shop in Letterston every morning at 8 a.m. He would be arrested on the street and quickly taken away. This meant we wouldn’t need a firearms team to arrest him at his house and this would buy us some more time before the press became aware. The Head of Corporate Communications, Rhian Davies-Moore, had prepared a number of press releases and considered the top twenty questions we might be asked at any conference. It was agreed that Detective Chief Superintendent Steve Mears and Deputy Chief Constable Andy Edwards would face the media on the day of arrest, allowing me to concentrate on directing proceedings. A number of searches would need to be carried out at Cooper’s address and in his car. The community fall-out would be picked up by local officers. The Ottawa offences had been significant events in local history and many people had suffered as a result of Cooper’s actions. We needed to have contingency plans in place to protect his home and family. Members of the Dixon family lived in the Thames Valley and Hampshire Force areas and they too were visited and given support. Following the arrest a number of people and organisations would need to be contacted and briefed and trigger plans were developed to this end.