A brutal killing of an elderly woman in Cambridgeshire will feature in a two-part special programme on Channel 4. Former postmistress, Una Crown, 86, was found dead in her home in Wisbech in 2013. She had been stabbed and set on fire.
24 Hours in Police Custody will follow Det Supt Iain Moor and his colleagues in the Major Crime Unit as they re-open the investigation more than a decade later. The two new episodes of “The Cold Case Murder”, will see the team combing through the old evidence and later, using new forensic techniques that reveals male DNA under her fingernails. The DNA matched a man who still lived a stone’s throw away from her bungalow – David Newton, now in his 70s.
The detectives had to rule out all male relatives in Newton’s paternal line, travelling all over the country, before adding the DNA breakthrough to new evidence to form a strong prosecution case.
In February last year, Newton was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 21 years, with Judge Justice Neil Garnham telling him he had launched “a ferocious and sustained knife attack on a defenceless old lady in her own home”.
David Newton Credit: ITV News Anglia
Det Supt Moor said: “For more than a decade David Newton thought he had gotten away with this most horrendous crime. He was hiding in plain sight, but jurors saw through his lies and as this programme highlights, you cannot hide forever.
“Also demonstrated in the two episodes is the police commitment to continually reviewing unsolved cases and seeking new lines of enquiry. No unsolved murder case is ever closed.
“When I joined the Major Crime Unit, the first thing my wife said to me was, ‘you’ve got to solve this murder’.
“I’m immensely proud of bringing Newton to justice after more than a decade, and finally getting justice and closure for Una’s family. Una, by the actions she took on that night, solved her own case as she fought her attacker.”
24 Hours in Police Custody: “The Last Roll of The Dice”, is due to air at 9pm on Channel 4 on Monday and Tuesday (13 and 14 April).
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