The case of Joanna Yeates involves a story that was too easy to be true - and a search for the truth that we may never really find.
Killer: Vincent Tabak
Victim: Joanna Yeates
Date: 17th December 2010
Location: Bristol
Method of Murder: Strangulation1
Timeline 10.2010 | Joanna Yeates moves into new home in Bristol 17.12.2010 | Joanna Yeates goes missing 19.12.2010 | Yeates boyfriend reports her missing 25.12.2010 | Yeates body found in North Somerset 30.12.2010 | Christopher Jeffries arrested for murder 20.1.2011 | Vincent Tabak arrested for murder 5.5.2011 | Tabak pleads guilty to manslaughter 28.10.2011 | Tabak found guilty of murder
The story of Joanna Yeates’ death is a tragic one. She did nothing to bring on such a fate, and yet she was subjected to a cruel and violent end.
The story was told by Vincent Tabak when he finally confessed to killing her on the fifth of May, 20112. It went like this.
On the 17th of December, Tabak saw the twenty-five-year-old landscape architect who lived in the apartment next door to him and invited her into his flat, a neighbourly gesture. She was in good spirits after having after-work drinks with her workmates and had bought a pizza and two bottles of cider on the way home.
Yeates went inside and made a flirty remark at him in his kitchen, to which he responded by making a pass at her. A physical pass.
However, he had interpreted the situation incorrectly. Joanna screamed, and he put his hand over her mouth in order to keep her quiet so that no one else would be disturbed. At the same time, he gripped her throat with his other hand to keep her still. He only did this for around twenty seconds before she slumped lifelessly to the floor, causing him to panic.
He took her body to his car, put it into the boot, and drove to North Somerset.
Two witnesses had heard the scream, about five minutes after she reached her home. Joanna’s boyfriend, Greg Reardon, was on a weekend away and came back on the evening of Sunday 19th December to find that Joanna was not at home. In the flat, though, he found her phone, keys, purse, and coat3.
He called the police and reported her missing, and for a week, that was all she was.
When her body was found on Christmas Day in a snowbank4, and eventually Tabak was arrested, he confessed. The story was told.
But the story he told had significant question marks - and many soon began to wonder if that was what had really happened at all.
First, there was the other suspect. A man named Christopher Jeffries seemed to be deeply embroiled in the case. He was Joanna’s landlord at the flat she shared with Greg, and therefore knew her already. He lived in the same building as her, which meant he had access5.
He also told the police that he had seen Joanna leave her flat with two other people the night she disappeared6. That would be the last time she was seen alive - making him the last witness and therefore one of the most obvious suspects (see, the Soham case).
Police soon discovered that Jeffries had helped Greg to fix his car earlier in the day, which meant he knew Joanna was going to be alone all weekend.
He was arrested by the police and forensic searches were done on his property and possessions - but on January 1st, 2011, he was released without charge.
He seemed such a perfect suspect, but he was absolutely cleared. It was an odd case. Why had he claimed to see Joanna leaving when we now know she did not?
Jeffries ultimately sued eight newspapers in order to claim damages for the harm done to his reputation for their reporting, and won7.
Then there were the other cases.
Glenis Carruthers, who was strangled aged twenty in 19748.
Melanie Hall, who went missing in 1996 aged twenty-five, her body found in 19969.
Claudia Lawrence, who disappeared in 2009 at the age of thirty-five.
There were similarities between all four cases: young women, some of whom had similar appearances, who disappeared in similar circumstances. But in the end, the connection came to nothing.
The next wrinkle was the earring.
It was found in Tabak’s bed, under the duvet. And it was a match for one that Joanna had been wearing10. How did it get there if they only talked in the kitchen?
There was the sock missing from her foot - she was only wearing one. People speculated the killer had taken it as a trophy11. Where was the missing sock?
What about the time between her disappearance and her body being found? And why was she found in fresh snow? Was she held captive? Had she been put in the snow bank to slowly freeze to death?
And there was the pizza. She was seen on CCTV buying the pizza at Tesco and then travelling home with it and the two bottles of cider. The cider, the receipt, her purse and her coat were all found in her apartment.
But where was the pizza?
"From CCTV, we know she bought a pizza at Tesco Express in Clifton Village and there is no evidence of the pizza, the wrappings or the box in the flat," Detective Chief Inspector Gareth Bevan said.
Then there were all the injuries she sustained - 43 in total, including a broken nose. "Her neck was held for long enough and hard enough to kill her," lawyer Nigel Lickley said. "There was a violent struggle by Miss Yeates to survive. Death was not instantaneous. It took sufficient force to kill her. There was no sign of a use of a ligature. He might have let go but he did not. He knew that Miss Yeates was in pain and struggling to breathe. Despite that, Vincent Tabak continued to hold and squeeze her neck to kill her."12
The explanation for all of these things was simple.
Vincent Tabak did not happen upon her by chance and kill her by accident. He waited for her to come home, knocked on her door, grabbed her in the hallway, and fought her as she screamed and tried to resist. He took her into his flat where he got his kicks by controlling and killing her, pinning her to the floor while she struggled until she died. He ate her pizza13. Then, when the high from the power was starting to wear off, he calmly disposed of her body miles away from where she was killed in order to draw suspicion off him. Fresh snow fell on her and covered her body for eight days until enough of it melted to reveal her again. Finally, returning home, he found the sock he had missed in his first clean-up, and put it in a municipal bin.
A final, sick link that was not shown in court during Tabak’s trial: police found violent pornography featuring women and children on his computer. In one of the photographs, a woman who looked like Yeates was pictured with her pink top pulled up to expose her underwear14. When Yeates was found, she was wearing a pink top, arranged in the same way.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/dec/28/joanna-yeates-strangled-postmortem-shows
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/jan/20/joanna-yeates-police-search-neighbour-flat
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/oct/28/joanna-yeates-case-vincent-tabak
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/who-joanna-yeates-who-killed-5881663
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a14432079/joanna-yeates-murder-anniversary-vincent-tabak-christopher-jefferies/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8232412/Joanna-Yeates-murder-suspect-Christopher-Jefferies-let-himself-into-tenants-flat.html
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2011/jul/29/joanna-yeates-national-newspapers
https://web.archive.org/web/20110108152449/http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/DID-KILL-GLENIS/article-3079127-detail/article.html
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/killing-similar-to-death-of-melanie-hall-14-years-ago-glsbfj9z8vf
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/oct/20/joanna-yeates-killer-speaks-crime
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/oct/28/joanna-yeates-murder-mysteries-explained
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a14432079/joanna-yeates-murder-anniversary-vincent-tabak-christopher-jefferies/
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/oct/28/joanna-yeates-murder-mysteries-explained
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/oct/28/vincent-tabak-porn-searches-jury