Evidence linking double killer Christopher Halliwell to woman’s murder was untouched by cops for eight years
CRUCIAL evidence potentially linking double killer Christopher Halliwell to a woman’s murder was untouched by police for eight years, it has emerged.
Julie Finley’s body was found in Rainford, Lancashire, in August 1994.
But in 2011 a witness told Wiltshire police Halliwell lived just a few miles from where the 23-year-old was found.
They added how the killer had been in the area fitting windows while driving a white Transit van just like the one spotted at the scene.
And despite a police detective who maintains there was “compelling” case against Halliwell, the statements gathered dust in a police file for eight years, The Mirror reported.
Halliwell has never been charged with Julie’s murder.
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Halliwell, a taxi driver from Swindon, Wiltshire, only became the prime suspect in Julie’s murder in 2019 after the paper traced the witness.
The 58-year-old murdered vulnerable Becky Godden-Edwards, 20, in January 2003 and buried her body in a field.
She was not discovered until March 2011 when the killer showed detective Steve Fulcher the spot.
It came after Halliwell was arrested for the murder of office worker Sian O’Callaghan, 22.
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The Mirror now say the witness gave a number of detailed statements to police in 2011 but was not asked about Julie’s case until 2019.
Mr Fulcher, a police detective who maintains there was a “compelling” case against Halliwell, slammed: “For God’s sake get a grip and do the job you are paid to do.”
Wiltshire police are carrying out a review into unsolved murders potentially linked to Halliwell after a report last month revealed a string of failings in the Becky investigation.
Merseyside Police – who opened an investigation into Halliwell in 2020 – are understood to be confident of building a case against him.
But the force has admitted in the two years since, it has not carried out a full forensic review nor spoken to a key witness in Julie’s murder.
The witness is a businessman who used Halliwell to fit windows, but he told the Mirror he has not been approached by cops.
Julie, who battled with addiction and weighed just six stone, vanished from the centre of Liverpool on the evening of Friday, August 5, 1994.
‘NAKED WOMAN SCREAMING FOR HELP’
Her naked body was discovered by a cyclist the following day in a carrot field near the Rainford bypass.
At the time a witness said they saw a man trying to force a woman into a white transit van during an argument at around 12.30am on August 6 – yards from where Julie was found.
Another witness claimed a hitchhiker – who has never come forward – was threatened by a man after seeing a naked woman screaming for help in a van.
Halliwell was sentenced to a full life term in 2016 after being found guilty of Becky’s murder four years after he was convicted of Sian’s killing following a string of police failings.
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A Merseyside Police spokeswoman said: “This case is subject of biennial reviews and these reviews take into account developments in forensic technology”
A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said they continue to work with forces across the country “to ensure information is shared with them which may be pertinent to their investigations”.