The case
Joanna Yeates was a twenty-five-year-old landscape architect who lived with her boyfriend, Greg Reardon, in a basement flat at 44 Canynge Road in Clifton, Bristol. On December 17, 2010, she walked home alone after drinks with coworkers. Greg was away that weekend, and when he returned he found her coat, keys and phone in the flat but no sign of Joanna.
On Christmas morning, a couple walking their dogs found her body on Longwood Lane in Failand, about three miles away. She had been strangled. Suspicion first fell on the couple’s landlord, Christopher Jefferies, who was arrested, held and pilloried in the press, though he had done nothing wrong. The real killer lived next door: Vincent Tabak, a thirty-two-year-old Dutch engineer. DNA linked him to Joanna, and his internet history showed searches about body decomposition. He was arrested on January 20, 2011.
Tabak admitted manslaughter but claimed he had only meant to stop Joanna screaming after he tried to kiss her. On October 28, 2011, a Bristol jury convicted him of murder, and he was sentenced to life with a minimum of twenty years. Jefferies later won libel damages from several newspapers. In 2015 Tabak pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children.
Case photographs
Where it happened
Longwood Lane in Failand, where Joanna Yeates was found