DOUBLE killer Christopher Halliwell had a sick “murder sketchbook” which could pinpoint burial sites of other victims, including missing York chef Claudia Lawrence, a Sunday newspaper has claimed.
The Sunday People says Steve Fulcher, the detective who caught Halliwell, has told how a stash of puzzling pencil drawings of rural scenes was seized at his home.
The paper said Mr Fulcher believed the sketches showed places where Halliwell buried several other women, and a forensic psychologist helping with the investigation believed the killer probably drew them as macabre trophies of his crimes.
The former detective superintendent first suggested last month that Halliwell may have killed Claudia along with other women, telling the Sunday Express that Halliwell’s father lived a few streets away from where Claudia went missing in Heworth in 2009, meaning he may have known and visited the area.
But North Yorkshire Police said last week it had been established that Halliwell’s father was not a resident of York or the North Yorkshire area, and that he had actually passed away in 1992, adding: "It can be confirmed that on the information provided by Wiltshire Police, there are no known links between Halliwell and the Claudia Lawrence case."
The People said today that Mr Fulcher said he saw a 'good dozen or so sketches....all of remote locations" and one of his lines of inquiry was to try to identify where they were.
“All the evidence pointed to there being more victims," he said. "The theory I was working on was that if I could find those locations I could find other victims.”
Mr Fulcher said he called in experts to help identify the locations and supplied sketches to other police forces.
He recalled: “I wanted as many people as possible trying to identify these places. I left the inquiry a few weeks after and I don’t know what happened after that.”
Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale has said his force has no evidence to link Halliwell to any other murders but Mr Fulcher said today he was asking his MP to press for a top-level inquiry into a failure by the force to investigate possible links between Halliwell and other victims, adding: “There is specific information that links Halliwell directly to other victims. I’m not able to go into further detail."
Mr Fulcher was controversially found guilty of gross misconduct in 2014 for not following the correct procedure when Halliwell confessed to Becky’s murder to him in 2011.
Halliwell was jailed for life last month at Bristol crown court for the murders of Becky Godden in 2003 and Sian O’Callaghan in 2011.
North Yorkshire Police repeated today that there were no known links between Halliwell and the Claudia Lawrence case, adding: "This type of speculation does not help the family."
Martin Dales, friend and spokesman for Claudia's father Peter, said today: "Judging by the drip-drip effect of Mr Fulcher's comments again this week, there is a book on it's way.
"More seriously, if he has evidence of what has happened to Claudia and others still missing, that evidence should be given forthwith to those who are still in a position to investigate namely his former colleagues in the police."
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