The truth about what happened to Becky Watts in her final moments and following her death may never be known, police have admitted.
Yesterday, the stepbrother of schoolgirl Becky Watts was found guilty of murdering her during a sexually motivated kidnap. His girlfriend Shauna Hoare was cleared of her murder but found guilty of manslaughter.
Matthews (28) suffocated his 16-year-old stepsister while trying to kidnap her from her semi-detached home in Crown Hill, Bristol, on February 19th. He dragged her body into the boot of his Vauxhall Zafira and drove it to the home he shared with girlfriend Hoare (21) less than two miles away in Cotton Mill Lane.
Officers first attended 18 Crown Hill, Bristol, at 6pm on Friday, February 20th – more than 24 hours after Watts had been brutally murdered.
Unbeknown to them at the time, they were speaking to Becky’s killers Nathan Matthews and Hoare as well as Becky’s worried father and stepmother.
The couple pretended to help in the search for Becky, with Matthews choosing a photograph to use for an appeal and Hoare sharing links about her disappearance on Facebook.
Over the course of the weekend, Avon and Somerset Police classed Becky as a “high risk” missing person and began searching for her — believing she was alive.
At that stage, detectives were being fed a web of lies by Hoare and Matthews, who insisted they had heard Becky leave at about 11.15am on February 19.
“From the outset, we were deliberately misled and lied to by Nathan Matthews in so much as we were told that Becky left the address and the door had slammed,” Detective Superintendent Mike Courtier said.
“That was confirmed at the time by Shauna Hoare.”
The case was being handled by a local detective inspector and passed to a colleague, Det Insp Richard Ocone, on Monday, February 23rd.
By that evening, police had so many lines of inquiry that the case was transferred in its entirety to the force’s major crime investigation team, led by Detective Superintendent Liz Tunks.
An appeal was made to the media by Becky’s grandmother, Patricia Watts and her father, Darren Galsworthy.
Officers desperately tried to make contact with Hoare and Matthews – as the last people to see Becky – but the couple evaded interviews.
More than 30 people were identified for police to speak to, such as friends, family members and associates of Becky from college and school.
Forensics officers first entered Crown Hill on Tuesday February 24 and confined their search to Becky’s pink and white bedroom.
The following day, Mr Galsworthy and his wife – Matthews’s mother – Anjie Galsworthy, moved out of the property for a full examination to begin.
Blood – visible to the open eye – was spotted on the doorframe of Becky’s bedroom and sent for DNA analysis, along with a toothbrush belonging to the teenager for comparison.
On Friday February 27th, finger prints in the blood were identified as belonging to Matthews and the following day the blood was confirmed as Becky’s.
Matthews and Hoare were arrested and subjected to an urgent interview to help find Becky but both lied and claimed they could not help find her.
“Everybody might have had their own personal view but we had to follow the evidence and the information that we had,” Mr Courtier added.
“When they were in custody and we then searched 14 Cotton Mill Lane there was the finding of the receipt for the circular saw, the gloves, the goggles.
“That was the moment that those people involved in the case realised that he made that purchase the day after she had gone missing and felt that it was only for one purpose and we were going to be dealing with something pretty horrific.”
Mr Courtier said the investigation then moved fast at a “minute by minute, hour by hour” pace, as searches were ongoing and Matthews and Hoare were interviewed.
On March 2nd, Matthews’s solicitor asked police if they had discovered blood upstairs in 14 Cotton Mill Lane.
Blood, later revealed to come from the murderer, had been discovered and, after hearing this, Matthews provided a “confession” of lies to police.
He told police where Becky’s body parts were hidden – which was contained in the search area where outbuildings and sheds were being checked.
Mr Courtier said: “One of the issues in this case is nobody actually knows precisely what happened inside 18 Crown Hill.
“We have had an account given from Nathan Matthews.
“All the police and the prosecution can do is piece together as best as we are able to the forensic evidence and the evidence from any other sources such as witnesses or movements of people.
“Everyone can speculate but nobody actually knows the precise events that happened that morning.” – PA