A pair of gloves recovered from the kitchen of 34, St Marys
Park, exhibit number AJM/60.
Fibres found in sweepings taken from Cooper’s work-bench at 34, St Marys Park, exhibit number GC/15.
Fibres found in sweepings from the floor of the work shed at 34 St Marys Park, exhibit number GC/12.
Shorts recovered from 34, St Marys Park, exhibit number AJM/165.
A single glove found in a hedge near to 34, St Marys Park, exhibit number BB/109.
Pair of gloves abandoned by Cooper on the Sardis trail exhibit, number MTJ/5 and MTJ/7.
Double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun abandoned by Cooper on the Sardis trail, exhibit number PH/2, and the lanyard attached to the same gun, PH/2A.
Balaclava abandoned by Cooper on the Sardis trail, exhibit number MTJ/14.
Fleece abandoned by Cooper on the Sardis trail, exhibit number MTJ/29.
The LGC team had now received the case papers and fibre lifts from The Forensic Science Service and had started to compare them with the exhibits recovered from Cooper’s offending and his home environment. The FSS samples had been recovered from the victims with tape lifts:
Tapings from the body of Gwenda Dixon, exhibit reference JAW/2, JAW/4 and JAW/5.
Tapings from the clothing and body of Peter Dixon, exhibit reference JAW/100, JAW/110, GWJC/90 and GWJC/112.
Forensic paper pants belonging to Milford Haven rape victim, exhibit reference CEM/1 (provided to capture shedding fibres).
Pants belonging to Milford Haven rape victim, exhibit reference BKG/9.
Jeans belonging to Milford Haven rape victim BKG/7.
Jumper belonging to Milford Haven indecent assault victim, exhibit reference HPC/3.
Shirt taken from Milford Haven indecent assault victim, exhibit reference HPC/4.
External tapings, jogging bottoms taken from Milford Haven indecent assault victim, exhibit reference HPC/8.
Internal tapings from the linings of jogging bottoms exhibit reference HPC/8.
Doctor Phil Avenell from LGC Forensics had now raised wearer’s DNA from the shorts and from a handkerchief in the pocket. The DNA profile was that of John Cooper. During interview he had accepted the shorts belonged to him, suggesting they were his swimming shorts. He had been at pains to point out that his shorts were shorter than those in the artist’s impression.
As we travelled to Oxford to meet with the scientists, Lynne and Glyn had obviously been talking about the Sardis gun, PH/2. We all believed this was the murder weapon but did not have the evidence to support this view. Scientists had identified that the barrels of the gun had been hand coated with Hammerite, and identical paint had been recovered from Cooper’s shed. Lynne and Glyn were aware of a previous case where paint had been removed from a skirting board to reveal the blood of the killer and felt that this avenue needed to be explored with LGC. I also expressed my suspicions regarding the shorts. Why had Cooper gone to such lengths to tell us they were shorter than the artist’s impression?
The meeting was a happy one. It was the first time I had seen the LGC team since they had discovered the blood of Peter Dixon on the shorts. They could see my obvious delight. Angela Gallop chaired the meeting with Phil Avenell, Roger Robson and April Robson also present. Straight away there was good news. Fibres recovered from the clothing of the Milford Haven rape victim were identical to fibres from the gloves MTJ/5 and MTJ/7. Bingo! I now had evidence to connect Cooper to the Milford Haven attack. Any lingering concerns that this case might fall by the wayside had now gone and I could have kissed Roger Robson there and then. He and April had been recovering and grouping fibres from the various items and tape lifts and were of the firm view that on initial viewing there were some interesting and encouraging similarities. They were clearly on to something.
Our relationship had developed into one of total respect for one another. It meant that we could now ask some more probing questions regarding the examinations. Following the discussion with Lynne and Glyn there were two items I needed to explore. I wanted to know exactly down to the finest detail how they had examined the gun. Phil Avenell went into great detail on how it was taken to pieces and every nook and cranny was swabbed for trace DNA. Tape lifts had been taken from the lanyard but the paint had not been removed from the barrels. I then asked Phil if he could forensically sterilise the outer surface of the gun and then remove the paint to see what was underneath it. The thinking was that, any evidence found underneath the Hammerite coating must have been left there by the person who had painted the gun. The same paint, of course, had been found in Cooper’s shed. The conversation then went onto the shorts. Roger described them in fine detail and how they had recovered the bloodstain, but his next disclosure was interesting. He informed us that the hem on the shorts had been re-stitched using a home sewing machine. They had been shortened after leaving the manufacturer. We knew that Pat Cooper made a living from making curtains on her own sewing machine and more than likely had been responsible for any alterations. I then asked Roger if he had unpicked the hem to see what had been sealed inside during the stitching process. He hadn’t but agreed to do so. Without doubt the process of bringing scientists and detectives together was paying dividends. It allowed us to bring our knowledge of the scene and sequence of events to the table. On the way home we all agreed that there was a great deal more to come from LGC. They were an excellent team and clearly very interested in our investigation. It was more important than ever that the forensic work carried on to a natural conclusion, but it had to be managed in line with the trial date.
Justice John Griffith Williams had been identified as the trial judge and he would need to be satisfied, at case management hearings, that all work was being carried out expeditiously. The general consensus of opinion was that the defence would need a considerable amount of time to consider the material and would probably not object too much to any delays.
Because of the forensic breakthrough our initial case was starting to change. I now had strong forensic evidence linking Cooper to the Dixons murders and the Milford Haven attack. Lacking was a forensic link to Scoveston Park. The proximity of Scoveston to Cooper’s home and the fact that the Norton Farm key belonging to Richard Thomas had been found on Cooper’s land presented a strong circumstantial argument that he was responsible for the murders. The temptation with bad character evidence is to throw everything into the pot and it can become more of an attack on the individual rather than clear evidence. Whatever the complexities of the case, we worked with junior counsel Mike Jones and prepared a Bad Character Application to go before Justice Griffith Williams. There was a considerable amount of evidence to show that Cooper was a violent man who physically abused his son Adrian. There was also evidence that he had displayed significant cruelty to animals, but following discussion with Gerard Elias QC I felt that it added little to the case and could be seen as a character assassination exercise. We decided not to use it.
The next few weeks had the feeling of being Christmas Day, every day. LGC was on a roll but the news I received on 14 August 2009 was beyond anything I could have hoped for. The paint had been removed from the barrels of the sawn-off shotgun PH/2, the firearm used by Cooper during the Sardis armed robbery, and blood had been found near the end of the barrel and at the breach of the gun: it was the blood of Peter Dixon. Lynne and Glyn’s hunch had been spot on, we now had the murder weapon. No wonder Cooper had continued to protest his innocence over the Huntsman investigation and convictions; he knew that gun directly connected him to the Dixons’ murder.
This evidence and disclosure to the defence would have a significant impact on the case. Cooper now lodged an appeal against the 1998 Huntsman convictions and appeared to be more focused on this than fighting the Ottawa charges. The reason was now very clear. Cooper knew what potential traps lay for him in the exhibits abandoned on the Sardis robbery trail. He had to try and distance himself from the gun because he knew its value to the police. If he could successfully appeal hi
s Huntsman convictions he would remove a significant plank of evidence, but he faced a major problem. In order for his appeal to be granted Cooper would need to show that there was new evidence to support his position. His protestations of innocence were not regarded as new evidence and his application duly failed. Another problem for him was that the Huntsman exhibits were now inextricably linked to the Ottawa charges and I had tasked LGC Forensics with carrying out work on them that would, if anything, strengthen the original Huntsman conviction. Over many hours, mugs of tea and the occasional pint, I sat with Lynne, Glyn and the rest of the team hypothesising over his likely defence. The usual approach would be for his defence team to attack the integrity and continuity of the key exhibits and evidence. “It wasn’t me and I wasn’t there” had been his response in interview, but now faced with the forensic evidence this position would be seriously undermined. We believed he would continue to claim his innocence over the Huntsman convictions as a major part of his defence. This would make for a messy trial and I hoped we could avoid this happening. The other option he might go with was to offer up his son, Adrian. He had, during his interviews, made suggestions regarding Adrian but never gone as far as to directly accuse him. A big problem for him was that at the time of the Dixons’ murder Adrian was living in Birmingham, and he also had an alibi for the Scoveston Park murders. Blaming others would not be a new concept for John Cooper; during his Huntsman trial he had implicated a local man for the Sardis robbery. Again there was no evidence to justify this; in fact this man was captured on CCTV at a local garage at the time of the robbery filling his car with petrol. In the fullness of time it would become clear that Cooper was to rely on a combination of all options available to him, as was his legal right.
The forensic evidence was still continuing to build up and as anticipated provided additional evidence to strengthen the Huntsman conviction:
Fibres from the Sardis balaclava MTJ/14 were recovered in the sweepings taken from Cooper’s workbench GC/15.
Fibres from the gloves AJM/60 (found in Cooper’s house) were recovered on the Sardis shotgun PH/2 and its lanyard PH/2A.
Fibres from the Sardis glove MTJ/5 were found on the Sardis fleece MTJ/29.
Fibres from the Sardis fleece MTJ/29 were found on the Sardis glove MTJ/5.
Fibres from the fleece MTJ/29 were found on Cooper’s workbench GC/15.
Fibres from the Sardis fleece MTJ/29 were found on the Sardis glove MTY/7.
Fibres from the Sardis glove MTJ/5 were recovered at the point of entry at ‘Westwinds’ the scene of the Sardis robbery.
Fibres from the Sardis glove MTJ/5 were found on the cartridge box AJM/216 (which was buried by Cooper under his duck run together with a stolen shotgun).
Without any doubt this evidence connected the items he had abandoned as he made his escape after the robbery with his home. The fibre links to his workbench and floor sweepings from his shed were interesting. This was Cooper’s secret place, a location that his family avoided because it was his domain. This was where he would go to change before disappearing into the night; this was where he kept his secret wardrobe, which he probably destroyed just prior to his arrest in 1996. He must have feared the net was closing.
We were now up and running at Pier House in Pembroke Dock. Gareth Rees and Paul Jones were impressive in their approach to pulling the files together and securing the necessary evidence. I had now tasked Lynne to oversee this work and had asked Glyn to concentrate on the continuity and integrity of the key exhibits. Glyn was the master of the spreadsheet and I tasked him with producing a timeline for each exhibit detailing its movements, and he then compared this with other key exhibits. Anticipating an attack on integrity of evidence, I wanted to identify any opportunities for contamination. If I could show that there was no opportunity for fibre exhibits to come together or for blood to contaminate clothing, I could go a long way to closing off this defence.
For various reasons proposed trial dates came and went. The defence did not object too loudly as they were experiencing their own problems. But as time went on more forensic ‘golden nuggets’ were being revealed. It had already been established that fibres from the gloves MTJ/5 and MTJ/7 had been found on the clothing and underwear of the Milford Haven rape victim and indecent assault victim. The location of these fibres was also consistent with the sequence of events described by the victims during their attack. Just as interesting was what we call a two-way transfer, which provides very strong evidence that two items have come into direct contact. Fibres from both victim’s clothes and underwear were found on the gloves MTJ/5 and MTJ/7, gloves directly linked to Cooper.
There were also some interesting results from the glove BB/109, found in a hedgerow near to Cooper’s house. Fibres from this glove had already been recovered from the bodies of Peter and Gwenda Dixon and the branches covering their bodies. A fibre from this glove was now found on the ground sheet given to the Milford Haven indecent assault victim. (When assault victims provide their clothes to the police, they do so whilst standing on a forensic ground sheet. This ensures that any fibres shed by the victim are captured on the ground sheet and preserved.) We were satisfied that Cooper was wearing the gloves MTJ/5 and MTJ/7 when he attacked the children. The presence of this single fibre from BB/109 suggests that all three gloves have come into contact with each other at some time, probably in the wardrobe in Cooper’s shed. This was an important find. It again provided a direct link between the Dixons murder and the Milford Haven offence.
The forensic evidence for these two particular offences was very strong and, if taken into account along with the evidence of his bad character, I felt it would be overwhelming. I was firmly of the view that any jury who accepted that Cooper was responsible for the coastal path murders and the Milford Haven attack would have no problem in accepting he had murdered the Thomases who lived only yards away from the scene. Unfortunately, the man who mattered, Gerard Elias QC, was not entirely convinced by my view that ordinary people on the jury would see this connection.
The next set of forensic results made any difference in our views totally redundant. The shorts had not finished giving up their secrets. After un-picking the hem, the scientist had recovered fibres sealed inside which were from the gloves MTJ/5. They had also recovered two balls of fibre in the pockets of the same shorts; these fibres had been compared with fibres recovered from the sock BM/1. The sock came from the badly burnt body of Richard Thomas and was remarkably intact. The fibres were the same. We did not have the source garment from which the fibres were shed, but their meaning and value were clear. The likely scenario being this: the woollen gloves used by Cooper when he dragged a lifeless Richard Thomas back into the burning building had been at some stage in the pockets of the shorts. The source garment had probably long gone, but its value in connecting Cooper to the murders of Richard and Helen Thomas had not. When I heard this news I could hardly believe my ears. I now had a pair of shorts recovered in Cooper’s bedroom which had revealed forensic evidence connecting him to four murders, one armed robbery, five attempted armed robberies, a rape and an indecent assault. Cooper’s own DNA was on the shorts and he had accepted ownership of them. In my wildest dreams I could never have expected that after almost three years of nothing, I would now be in this position with such a wealth of strong forensic links to the Ottawa offences. The mood in the office was quite strange. We had now become so used to receiving good forensic news that this development passed with little comment. The challenge we now faced was presenting the evidence in a format that the jury would understand. The scientists would need to begin their evidence by explaining their scientific processes and what their terminology actually meant and not get lost in the technical language that might alienate the jury.
Modern courtrooms contain televisions, computers and visual presentations of evidence and the use of CCTV is an everyday occurrence. To meet demand a number of private companies have sprung up nationally offering the production of such presentations to
the police and CPS; the service does not come cheaply and my experience told me that they can frequently become style over substance, leading to a challenge in court. All too often this can overshadow the impact of the evidence. I wanted to keep control of ours because it was clear that Mr Elias intended to open the case using such a presentation. The cost of outsourcing it would be enormous. The answer was at hand. We would do it in house and for the cost of £500 worth of software. Glyn Johnson was confident he could do just as good a job and from what I had seen I believed him. As our new ‘graphics wizard’, Glyn set about creating a detailed presentation that would be used to open the case and everyday thereafter.
Just when I thought we had used up all of our luck came another piece of forensic evidence that had us all scratching our heads. When Phil Avenell had examined the un-picked hem of the shorts he found blood, and believed it was a mixture of DNA from Peter and Gwenda Dixon. That would have been extremely useful, but on further examination Phil eliminated that conclusion. The true origin of the DNA was totally unexpected. It was the DNA of their daughter Julie Dixon. We thought this must be impossible because Julie was in Cyprus at the time of the murders and Phil ruled out a secondary transfer. There could only be one explanation and it was in keeping with Cooper as an offender who kept mementos: the shorts must have belonged to the Dixons. The more we discussed this possibility the more likely it became. The shorts had an elasticated waist and the rear pocket was high on the hip and there was no zip or button fly. One of the female officers, Debbie Chodecka, made quite a telling observation. “Those hips are roomy boss, and they are female shorts.” Looking at photographs of Peter, he always wore shorts that were appropriate for the task in hand; his running shorts were an athletics type and his walking shorts always had a clip fastener, zip fly and a leather belt to hold them up. We did not have a clear photograph of Gwenda in shorts, but what we did have suggested that they were the type of shorts she might have worn. I then spoke to Tim and Julie and was surprised to learn that they did not know that their mother was wearing long trousers at the time she was murdered. Without any prompting, Tim added that if his mother were wearing long trousers she would always put a pair of shorts in her holdall to change into in case it became hot. The answer was there and made perfect sense in the circumstances.
The Pembrokeshire Murders: Catching the Bullseye Killer Page 24