Volume 9 · Chapter 9
A Tragic December
Vincent Tabak
Victim: Joanna “Jo” Yeates
Case at a glance
- When
- December 17, 2010
- Where
- Clifton, Bristol, and Failand, Somerset, England
- Perpetrator
- Vincent Tabak
- Victim
- Joanna “Jo” Yeates
- Outcome
- Convicted of murder in October 2011 and sentenced to life with a 20-year minimum term; given a concurrent 10-month term in 2015 for indecent images of children
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.
Read the full story
This case is told in full in True Crime Case Histories, Volume 9 by Jason Neal.
Get Volume 9 on AmazonCase photographs
11 photos
Where it happened
Why this case
“Two men were put in front of the public in this case, and only one of them had done anything. Christopher Jefferies lost his reputation for weeks because he looked odd to reporters. As you read, compare how the press treated him with how quietly the actual killer carried on next door.”
— Jason Neal, author of True Crime Case Histories
