Levi Bellfield, Milly Dowler And The Ripper: Roundup
LEVI Bellfield stalked his victims by watching bus stops and looking into brightly-lit buses at night.
Bellfield murdered Amelie Delagrange, 22, and Marsha McDonnell, 19, after they got off buses in south-west London. He also tried to kill 18-year-old Kate Sheedy by twice running her over. He used a hammer. The Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe used a ball pein hammer.
Case closed. After months of speculation in such matters as what happened to Madeleine McCann and if the Mad Hatter, Prince Philip or the Easter Bunny murdered Princess Diana, the press can focus on the perpetrator of heinous crime.
But readers are used to playing amateur detective. So rather then celebrating Bellfield’s detection and jailing, they lead with speculation. Did Bellfield murder Milly Dowling? Is Bellfield a Ripper?A look at today’s newspapers:
DAILY MIRROR (front page): “DID YOU KILL OUR MILL?”
Milly Dowler’s parents last night begged bus stop killer Levi Bellfield to reveal if he murdered their girl. Bob and Sally Dowler made the plea over their 13-year-old as Bellfield was convicted of two murders. He is feared to have struck before and will be quizzed over 20 other attacks. Bellfield, 37, is linked to Milly’s kidnap and murder in 2002 by a series of clues.
GLASGOW DAILY RECORD: “Did Hammer Beast Murder Milly Too?”
“HAMMER horror killer Levi Bellfield is prime suspect in the murder of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, it can be revealed today.”
The 20-stone woman-hater was found guilty yesterday of murdering Marsha McDonnell, 19, and Amelie Delagrange, 22, by smashing their skulls.
And after the verdicts, it emerged that police suspect him of TWENTY other savage attacks – including the abduction and murder of Milly.
Bellfield lived yards from the spot where Milly vanished as she walked home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in March 2002.
His girlfriend drove a red Daewoo Nexia car similar to one caught on CCTV near the scene. The car vanished shortly after Milly was snatched and police believe Bellfield had it crushed.
THE SUN (front page): “HE KILLED MILLY TOO”
The Sun looks at the evidence and makes a ruling
The jury failed to reach verdicts over the attempted kidnap of Anna Marie Rennie, 17, and the attempted murder of hairdresser Irma Dragoshi, 36. Cops are now looking at the 1990 murder of Judith Gold in Hampstead and the 1980 strangling of Patsy Morris, 14, in Hounslow.
And Milly Dowling?
But among the clues we can reveal today is that trusting Milly almost certainly KNEW woman-hater Bellfield — after playing with the daughter of an ex-girlfriend when she was younger.
He was ALSO the doorman at a youth club she went to — and lived in a flat 100 yards from where Milly was last seen.
DAILY EXPRESS: “Was Milly one of his victims”
The ruthless “Bus Stalker” is to be questioned by detectives investigating the killing of the 13-year-old in 2002
BBC: “‘I survived the bus stop killer'”
Says Edel Harbison: “There’s a dent about the size of a ten pence piece, and below it a sort of long furrow, in my skull,” she explained. “It’s virtually a perfect imprint of the head of a hammer and its claw.” Tabloids resist calling Bellfeild the new Ripper.
DAILY HERALD: Milly’s parents renew plea for public’s help
“The parents of teenager Milly Dowler yesterday said they will never find peace until her killer is brought to justice. Bob and Sally Dowler said the murder of their daughter destroyed their lives and left them overwhelmed by anger and pain.
The body of Amanda Dowler, 13, known as Milly, was discovered six months after she disappeared on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames, in March 2002.
They said: “How can we find peace? How can we ever understand who could commit such an evil act and why?”
DAILY STAR: “BLONDE-HATING ‘CAVEMAN’ NO.1 SUSPECT FOR MILLY MURDER
Milly’s parents Bob and Sally have said they will not rest until the “monster” who killed their daughter is behind bars.”
Sally appealed to her daughter’s murderer, saying: “Nothing will ever bring Milly back but, even six years on, you can still help to start easing our pain by letting us know finally what happened.”
Police work:
l24 Collingwood Place: Emma Mills [BEllfield’s lover at the time] rented a flat near the street where Milly vanished. She gave it up two weeks later.
Detectives visited the flat 11 times but never spoke to her or Bellfield or tried to trace her new address – Bellfield’s flat in West Drayton, Middlesex.
METRO (front page): “How many more?”
DAILY MAIL (front page): “WILL HE GET AWAY WITH MURDER?”
DID POLICE BLUNDERS LEAVE THE BUS-STOP STALKER FREE TO KILL MILLY DOWLER?
A series of appalling police blunders could let bus-stop killer Levi Bellfield cheat justice for the murder of Milly Dowler.
The 39-year-old thug, who had a pathological hatred of blondes, was found guilty yesterday of murdering two young women and attempting to kill another. Police believe he is also responsible for killing 13-year-old Milly.
He lived only yards from where she was last seen in Surrey and might even have known her.
Incredibly, police knocked on his door ten times, failed to get a reply and gave up.
They ignored his attempts to target two other young girls in the weeks before Milly disappeared plus the failure to identify a red car he drove, captured on CCTV the day she vanished.
And, in the two years before Milly’s abduction, Bellfield was also reported a staggering 93 times to police for alleged indecent assaults, physical attacks and obscene phone calls.
DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Bus top killer’s link to Milly”
In June 1980, when he was 12, his girlfriend, Patsy Morris, was found strangled on Hounslow Heath. Police may now reinvestigate her unsolved murder…
One detective said: “I’ve lost count of how many women started their statements ‘I had a brief sexual relationship with Levi Bellfield’”…
Peter Jarvis, who shared a cell with him and labelled him a “caveman”, said Bellfield had summed up his opinion of women: “You feed them and keep them – you can do what you want to them.”
THE TIMES: “Violent woman-hater Levi Bellfield is main Milly Dowler murder suspect”
The man convicted yesterday of murdering two women and trying to kill a third was left free to continue his campaign of violence against women because of basic investigative errors by police
Police in Surrey investigating Milly Dowler’s death failed to follow up on house-to-house inquries that could have led them to Bellfield in 2002 — before the murders of Miss McDonnell in 2003 and Miss Delagrange in 2004.
They called 11 times at the house of Emma Mills, Bellfield’s girlfriend, but after being told that she had moved they did not trace her new address. Miss Mills was by then living with Bellfield in West Drayton, West London.
And:
A previous girlfriend of Bellfield’s had a daughter who was a schoolfriend of Milly. The schoolgirl had been to her classmate’s for tea and was thought to have met Bellfield.
Miss Mills is also understood to have told detectives that, on the night of Milly’s disappearance, Bellfield got out of bed at 4am and told her that he was going “to take care of the dog” at her flat in Walton. Detectives think this might have been when Bellfield went to dispose of Milly’s body.
Posted: 26th, February 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids Comments (6) | TrackBack | Permalink
