Naman Shrestha
The episode titled ‘Joanna Yeates: The Killer Next Door’ of Hulu’s ’20/20 Britain’s Most Notorious Crime Investigations’ delves deep into the horrific homicide of a 25-year-old landscape architect named Joanna Yeates in Bristol, England, in December 2010. As the detectives dug deeper into her life and her neighborhood, a couple of suspects emerged who had the opportunity to attack and kill her. Thanks to the DNA evidence, they eventually apprehended the perpetrator responsible for the gruesome crime.
Joanna Yeates Was Found Dead a Few Miles Away From Home on Christmas 2010
On April 19, 1985, in Hampshire, England, David and Teresa Yeates welcomed Joanna “Jo” Clare Yeates into the world as a little bundle of joy. The sister of Chris Yeates, Jo, attended Embley Park and Peter Symonds College before earning her bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture from Writtle College. For her postgraduate diploma, she went to the University of Gloucestershire. In her early 20s, Jo crossed paths with Greg Reardon, an architect at the firm Hyland Edgar Driver in Winchester, in December 2008. At the time, she worked as a landscape architect at the Building Design Partnership in Bristol. By October 2010, Jo and Greg moved into a flat at 44 Canynge Road in the suburb of Clifton.
The couple looked forward to spending the rest of their lives together, but fate had other ideas. On the evening of December 17, 2010, she had hung out with her colleagues at the Bristol Ram pub on Park Street. Sometime before 8:30 pm, she left the bar and went into two different supermarkets, from where she purchased two small bottles of cider. Before heading home, she also bought a pizza from a local Tesco Express. At the time, her boyfriend, Greg, had traveled to Sheffield for the weekend. When he returned to the Clifton residence around 8 pm on December 19, 2010, he became worried when he couldn’t find Jo. Strangely, he found her purse, her phone, and the keys inside the house. A few hours later, he reported his girlfriend missing and informed her parents.
When the detectives arrived at the apartment, they found no sign of the pizza she had purchased but discovered the cider bottles, one of which was partially consumed. However, they found no evidence of a forced entry or a struggle, indicating that Jo knew the perpetrator. A few days into the search, a couple walking their dog on Longwood Lane in Bristol came across the remains of the missing 25-year-old woman, covered by leaves and snow, on December 25, 2010. Three days later, the medical examiner’s office determined that the cause of her death was compression of the neck or strangulation, making it a homicide. Without any delay, a homicide investigation was immediately launched.
The Authorities Had Suspicions about Joanna Yeates’ Landlord
In the initial stages of the investigation, the detectives interviewed Jo Yeates’ live-in boyfriend, Greg Reardon, who was with his family in Sheffield at the time of the murder. Thus, he was quickly ruled out as a possible suspect. On December 20, 2010, the officers conducted house-to-house inquiries in the neighborhood, asking if they had seen or heard anything suspicious on December 17, 2020, when Jo was reportedly killed. Two neighbors reported hearing two distinct screams in the area before 9 pm. Jo and Greg’s next-door neighbors, Vincent Tabak and Tanja Morson, were also questioned. They told the police that they were going to the Netherlands for Christmas.
With a reputation for being strange, Jo’s landlord, Christopher Jefferies, was also on the list of suspects. The teacher at a local Clifton College claimed that he saw someone in the garden on the fateful night. As for his alibi, he told the detectives he stayed at home reading. However, since he also had the key to Jo’s flat, the police zeroed in on him and arrested him on suspicion of the homicide. During the search of his property, the investigators found a pair of shoes that seemed to have traces of blood on them. On December 31, Vincent contacted the authorities, claiming to have information on Christopher. Since he was in the Netherlands at the time, one of the detectives flew there and met him and his sister at an Amsterdam hotel.
During the meeting, he alleged that on December 17, he went out to buy some beers and snacks and noticed that Christopher’s car was pointing in a certain direction. He claimed that it pointed in another direction by the next morning, debunking the accused’s claim of being home all night. However, during the interview, the detective suspected that Vincent was trying to frame Christopher as some of his claims made little sense. He said that they might find his DNA in the property too, as he allegedly knocked on Jo’s door around the same time — something he didn’t mention during the house-to-house inquiries. The investigator convinced Vincent to give him his DNA swab and fingerprints so that they could eliminate him as a potential suspect.
The Killer Tried to Frame Christopher Jefferies
On January 1, 2011, upon testing the blood on Christopher Jefferies’ shoes, the police discovered that it was cow’s blood. Consequently, he was released on bail. The detectives then turned their focus on Vincent, who worked as an architectural engineer at a design company in Bath. In the following days, the authorities learned that his DNA matched the DNA found on Joanna Yeates’ remains and clothing. Thus, on January 20, 2011, Vincent was arrested.
During the interrogation, he altogether denied ever meeting Jo. To the rest of the questions the detectives asked over the next two days, he answered “no comment.” Meanwhile, his house and belongings were searched thoroughly. The investigators recovered suspicious web searches from his computer, including the street maps of Longwood Lane, where Jo’s remains were discovered. They also found pornography depicting violence against women on his computers. On January 22, Vincent was officially charged with Jo’s murder.
Vincent Tabak is Likely Incarcerated at an English Prison
While awaiting his trial, Vincent Tabak confessed to killing Joanna Yeates in December 2010. However, on May 5, 2011, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, but denied killing her. As a result, his murder trial commenced on October 4, 2011. During the four-week trial, Vincent took the stand and stated, “We were standing close to each other, she invited me in for a drink. She made a flirty comment. I thought she was flirtatious.” He claimed that she began screaming when he went in for a kiss, and he then covered her mouth and wrapped his arm around her neck to silence her. While the prosecution told the jury that Jo resisted the defendant’s advances, Vincent argued that there was no struggle.
He also denied being sexually aroused during the moment, but admitted to being attracted to her. Ultimately, the jury deliberated for three days, and on October 28, 2011, he was found guilty of murder. Consequently, he was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 20 years. Following his conviction, the Yeates family released a statement: “There was never any doubt in our minds that Jo had been murdered…We will never get over how she was murdered and the total lack of respect with which her body was treated. The best we can hope for (Tabak) is that he spends the rest of his life incarcerated, where his life is a living hell, being the recipient of all evils, deprivations, and degradations that his situation can provide.”
More than three years later, in March 2015, the killer pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing indecent images of children between January 2009 and 2011 at Bristol Crown Court. Thus, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison for the crime, to be served concurrently and immediately. On top of that, he was put on the Sex Offenders Register for the next 10 years and banned from working with children or younger people. As of today, Vincent Tabak appears to be serving his sentence at a prison facility in England.
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