His reign of terror was finally brought to an end when he was arrested just days after his last attack — following a development in the case which took Bedfordshire Police officers to an address in London. Handed six life sentences by a judge after his confession to a violent series of burglaries, rapes and serious sexual assaults, which spanned over 80 crimes, today Fairley is still behind bars. Now, 35 years on from the day he was sentenced, former officers who worked on the landmark case have shared their memories of how they caught the man who managed to evade justice for so long, and reflected on how the developments in policing and forensic science since the s would likely have led to his capture much quicker.
Residents queued in the high street to buy additional locks and some even had code words for their family before they opened their front door. The community were pleased to see me on patrol, either on foot or on my bike, acting as a deterrent and giving advice on security measures. It was a very terrifying time, the community breathed a huge sigh of relief when the arrest was made. The rare and complex case was often likened to that of the Yorkshire Ripper, and was on a scale that has not to be seen by the force since.
Officers, often in their hundreds, paraded on the manhunt on a daily basis from a custom incident room setup at Dunstable Police Station, and included officers from neighbouring forces, as well as dog units, firearms officers and, at times, the deployment of the army helicopter.
Investigators worked with a senior scientist from the Home Office who was dedicated to the case. As Fairley continued his catalogue of offending and his behaviour became increasingly more audacious the case was developing rapidly. Officers were harvesting more and more forensic evidence and quickly learning about the offender. By September the search had narrowed to tracing an owner of a car that was harvest yellow in colour, of which there were less than 1, in the UK.
When officers arrived at an address of interest in London, they were greeted by a man who stood alongside a harvest yellow Austin Allegro, he spoke in a north east accent, and wore his wristwatch on his right-hand - these were three of the key elements to the picture detectives had worked painstakingly to fit together. Through interviewing the victims of these crimes, it was established that the suspect wore a hood, carried a sawn-off shotgun and spoke with a Northern accent.
He also wore a watch on his right wrist and was believed to be left-handed. The offender became known as The Fox. He continued to commit a series of break-ins, assaults and robberies in numerous towns including Tring, Cheddington, Leighton Buzzard, Milton Keynes and others.
On 17th August that year, a similar incident occurred in Brampton, Yorkshire. The offender broke into the house of a couple early in the morning, tied them up and raped the wife.
The rapist attempted to clean up after himself, cutting out part of the sheet that had been covered in his semen. Fortunately the attacker did not clean up outside the premises, where various items of evidence were found, including footprints, tyre tracks, a poorly-hidden shotgun, semen-smeared bed linen and small specks of yellow paint on a tree branch.
The victims also reported that the Fox had a northern accent. When investigators checked their records, they found more than 3, known burglars who were from northern England but had moved south.
Detectives sent to investigate each of these men found a man washing a yellow Leyland in front of his house on September Upon closer inspection, they noticed that a bit of paint was missing from the back of the car. Malcolm Fairley confessed to the crimes after his arrest and received six life sentences in But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! On August 17, , Alice Roth experiences what surely is one of the worst days any spectator has had at a Major League Baseball game.
After being struck by a foul ball off the bat of future Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn, Roth is being treated for a broken nose when the At nearly three in the morning, Saundra Williams walked across a stage with a cream rhinestone cape around her shoulders, a sash across her torso and a scepter in her hand, ready to be crowned as pageant royalty. The Double Eagle II completes the first transatlantic balloon flight when it lands in a barley field near Paris, hours after lifting off from Presque Isle, Maine.
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