Page 19 (1/1)
‘How much do you wantat Moss and Peterson and the other newWe don’t live near Hayes We’ve never heard of Jessica Collins We are all hearing this for the first ti the incident room ‘There are never any stupid questions If you don’t understand soht iant four metre square map on the back wall,
‘Okay so this map covers an area of twenty miles from top to bottom In the centre is central London, and the bottom of the map, down south is the Kent borders, and here we are in Broe red cross on the e It’s a popular coe, lots of people who live there work in the city of London It takes thirty et into the centre of London by train, and it has a higher than average population of retired people Property prices are high, and it’s a predoht then nodded to DC Tehts Shethe projector, which shone a larger scale ht er scale h street here in the centre, and where the houses thin out to the north it becomes Hayes Common The common is an area of woodland and heath, crossed by bridleways and footpaths It’s one of the largest areas of common land in Greater London, at 225 acres There are multiple access points to the common that can be accessed from Baston Road, Baston Manor Road, Five Elms Road, Croydon Road, Prestons Road, Warren Road, West Common Road and Commonside At its southern end is the disused quarry where Jessica’s remains were found The quarry was created between 1906 and 1914, when sandstone was excavated Over the years it has twice been filled and cleared; during the Second World War there was an aruns In 1980 the quarry was cleared for the second ti for Bronze Age relics After this, it was left to fill ater Bromley council twice put forward applications to have the quarry used for co, but on both occasions the idea was overturned as the common is a site of nature conservation interest, and is protected’
She paused and moved to the other side of theover her tired face like arteries
‘I’ll nowup to the disappearance of Jessica Collins She lived here with her family in 7 Avondale Road, which is less than ahere on Five Elms Road You can see the houses on Avondale Road are all detached with large gardens It’s an affluent area On Saturday 7th August 1990 at 145po to a birthday party for her school friend, Kelly Morrison, who lived at number 27 Avondale Road It was only a short walk of around five hundred meters, but she never arrived The alarm wasn’t raised until over two hours later, just after 4pm, when Marianne Collins arrived at 27 Avondale Road to collect Jessica, and saw she wasn’t there’
She nodded at Tee appeared,
‘Here’s a view from the top of Avondale Road where it branches off a le Street view blurred forward in bursts, the i past the houses on Avondale Road ‘You can see that the houses are all large, two of three storeys They’re all set back froes, trees… Here we are passing 7 Avondale Road, the Collins house… and we’re et hold of io, but from the witness statements I’ve read As is today, it wasn’t possible to see the street froed forward past better-appointed houses A postman was frozenFurther along, a wo From the back she had short curly blond hair
‘Okay, now you can see that Avondale Road curves sharply to the left where it becoe rand pillared entrance ‘This is now, The Swann Retireo it was used a halfway house for convicted sex offenders Its existence wasn’t ht shortly after Jessica’s disappearance One of its residents, Trevor Mattheas the raphs of Jessica were found in his room on the top floor And the Matthews house could be seen clearly fro around outside their house on the afternoon of August 5th, on the 6th around the sa of the 7th He was arrested on the 10th August He was kept in custody for questioning, but no evidence, beyond photos he had taken of Jessica was found to link him to her disappearance, ’
‘But noe have a body,’ said John
‘We have Jessica’s remains, but there is virtually no forensic evidence after twenty-six years underwater,’ said Erika
Knight went on,
‘All members of Jessica’s immediate family have an alibi Marianne and Martin were both at hohbour and her husband popped in for coffee at around 315pm, a Mr and Mrs O’ Shea now deceased They stayed for forty-five o to collect Jessica Their oldest daughter Laura was a two hundred and fortytrip with her boyfriend in the Gower Peninsula in Wales They’d left early the day before’
She looked at the roohbours were out and those ere in had strong alibis As you saw in the Google Street Map, most houses are blind to Avondale road, we have a two hour period where anything could have happened There were few tradesmen; there is no post on a Saturday afternoon Back in 1990 very little of the area was covered by CCTV No buses travel down Avondale Road’
A silence fell over the roohts back on Erika moved to the front and stood by the hts