Colin Pitchfork

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Colin Pitchfork (born March 23, 1960 in Newbold Verdon , Leicestershire ) is a convicted British murderer and rapist . He is the first person convicted with the help of a DNA test and the first to be found by a DNA screening . Pitchfork raped and murdered two girls, the first in November 1983 in Narborough , Leicestershire and the second in July 1986 in Enderby , also in Leicestershire. He was arrested on September 19, 1987 and sentenced to life in prison on January 22, 1988 , after confessing to both murders.

Life

Pitchfork lived in Newbold Verdon. He attended the schools in Market Bosworth and Desford . In 1981 he married a social worker in Littlethorpe . He has two sons with her.

Before his marriage, Pitchfork was convicted of exhibitionism and admitted to the Carlton Hayes Hospital in Narborough for therapy .

In 1976, Pitchfork was hired as an apprentice at Hampshire's bakery . He worked there for the murders until his arrest. During his work he developed a special talent for cake decorations. He hoped to start his own cake decorating company at some point. According to his head of department, he was a decent worker and managed his time well, but he was moody “... and he couldn't leave the employees alone. He always turned them on. "

crime

On November 21, 1983, Lynda Mann, a fifteen year old girl, left home to visit a friend, but she never came back. The next morning, she was found raped and strangled on an abandoned walkway known by locals as the Black Pad . Using the forensic techniques available at the time , the police linked the sperm sample taken from the corpse to a person with blood type A and an enzyme profile that only matched 10 percent of the men. As there was no other evidence or evidence, the case initially remained unsolved.

On July 31, 1986, another fifteen-year-old girl named Dawn Ashworth took a shortcut instead of her normal route home. Two days later, her body was found in a wooded area near a footpath called Ten Pound Lane . According to the investigation, she was beaten, raped and strangled. The modus operandi resembled that of the first attack and semen samples showed the same blood type.

DNA screening

The prime suspect was Richard Buckland, a local seventeen-year-old who knew the appearance of Ashworth's body and confessed to the murder when interrogated, but denied the first murder. Alec Jeffreys from the University of Leicester , together with Peter Gill and Dave Werret from the Forensic Science Service, had only recently developed the use of the genetic fingerprint and wrote this technique down in 1985.

Gill said:

“I was responsible for developing all of the DNA extraction techniques and demonstrating that it was possible after all to obtain DNA profiles from old stains. The biggest achievement was developing the preferential extraction method to separate sperm from vaginal cells - without this method it would have been difficult to use DNA in rape cases. "

“I was responsible for developing DNA collection techniques and proving that it was possible to get DNA profiles from old stains. The greatest achievement was the development of the preferred collection method to separate the sperm from the vaginal cells - without this method it would be difficult to use DNA in rape cases. "

Using this technique, Jeffreys compared sperm samples from both murders with blood samples from Buckland, which conclusively proved that both girls were killed by the same man but not by Buckland. Police notified the FSS to confirm Jeffrey's findings and to decide which direction the investigation should take. Buckland became the first person whose innocence was proven by a DNA sample.

Jeffreys later said:

“I have no doubt whatsoever that he would have been found guilty had it not been for DNA evidence. That was a remarkable occurrence. "

“I have no doubt that Buckland would have been found guilty had it not been for the DNA evidence. That was a remarkable incident. "

The Leicestershire Police and the FSS then conducted an investigation asking 5,000 local men to voluntarily collect blood or saliva samples. This lasted six months and was inconclusive.

Arrest and conviction

On August 1, 1987, Ian Kelly, one of Pitchfork's colleagues at the bakery, revealed to his colleagues in a pub that he was paid £ 200 for giving samples of his own DNA under the name Pitchfork. Pitchfork said he wanted to avoid being harassed by the police because of his criminal record. A woman who overheard the conversation reported this to the police. On September 19, Pitchfork was arrested at his home in Haybarn Close, a neighboring village to Littlethorpe, and a sample found that matched the killer’s DNA. During the interrogation that followed, Pitchfork confessed to having exposed himself to women over a thousand times, a tendency he developed in his early teens. This culminated in rape and the subsequent strangulation of his victims to prevent his identification. He pleaded guilty to both rapes and murders as well as another sexual assault committed by him . Pitchfork was preparing to move to Littlethorpe at the time of Lynda Mann's murder and was living in Haybarn Close at the time of Dawn Ashworth's murder. He was convicted of rape in coincidence sentenced to life imprisonment with murder. The State Secretary set the minimum sentence at thirty years, which was later reduced to 28 years on appeal .

Artwork

In April 2009, a sculpture that Pitchfork designed in prison was exhibited at the Royal Festival Hall . The work of art, which was called Bringing the Music to Life , represented an orchestra and a choir that were created “in meticulous detail by folding, cutting and tearing up Beethoven's ninth symphony ”. The sculpture was exhibited as part of a Koestler Trust project and purchased by Festival Hall for £ 600. It was removed from the exhibition following the outrage in the Daily Mail . Pitchfork created the artwork while incarcerated at Frankland Prison in Durham . He exhibited it with the following caption:

"Without this opportunity to show our art, many of us would have no incentive, we would stay locked in our cells as much as the walls that hold us."

"Without this opportunity to show our art, many of us would have no incentive, we would remain as trapped in our cells as the walls that hold us."

vocation

After this was initially postponed on April 30, Pitchfork's appeal was heard on May 14, 2009 at the Royal Courts of Justice in London . He received a two-year reduction from his original thirty-year sentence. As a result, Pitchfork was entitled to dismissal in 2016. The Lord Chief Justice Igor Judge stated, however, that "he cannot be discharged unless the safety of the public is guaranteed." The court learned that Pitchfork had now graduated from college and was an expert in transcribing printed music Braille is and I hope to one day be able to help blind people . This was presented by his defense lawyers as evidence of his character development during his imprisonment. In April 2016, Pitchfork's dismissal was rejected and open execution was suggested instead ; his release is scheduled for 2020.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b "Child killer Colin Pitchfork can appeal his sentence" ( Memento of December 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). Hinckley Times. December 19, 2008. Retrieved June 15, 2014.
  2. Colin Evans (1998). The Casebook of Forensic Detection: How Science Solved 100 of the World's Most Baffling Crimes. London: John Wiley & Sons. Page 62. ISBN 978-0471283690 .
  3. Joseph Wambaugh. The Blooding: The True Story of the Narborough Village Murders . Bantam. 1989, p. 250.
  4. ^ John Sanders (2000). Forensic Casebook of Crime. London: True Crime Library / Forum Press. Page 229. ISBN 1-874358-36-2 .
  5. ^ Pitchfork, R v . [2009] EWCA Crim 963.
  6. a b c "Work of art or monstrous cynicism? Convicted pedophile creates extraordinary paper sculpture in bid to win freedom" . Daily Mail . April 10, 2009. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  7. ^ "Anger over child killer's artwork" . BBC News . April 9, 2009. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  8. No parole for Colin Pitchfork: First killer caught by DNA , BBC News, April 30, 2016
  9. Martin Fricker: Child rapist and murderer nailed by DNA evidence 'free in weeks' after 32 years inside , Mirror (UK), February 6, 2020.