Terror in the Woods : Episode 480

Welcome to Always True Crime, a podcast network bringing you gripping real-life stories that you won't be able to stop thinking about. Discover your next true crime obsession at AlwaysTrueCrime.com. Hello and welcome to episode 480 of the UK True Crime podcast. I'm Adam. Thanks so much for joining me today as we are already almost at the end of this never-ending January. It feels like it doesn't it? Today's story is from Kent in the south-east of England, and it is that most scary of true crime incidents are totally random murder by a stranger, the real stuff of nightmares. But first before we begin, let's set some context with our guest a month's new game. You ready? Top of the UK music charts was Lil Nas and Montero. In the US, I leave the door open from Silk Sonic was in the top spot, and in Australia, the top album at this time was Californian's soil with London grammar. In the news this month, Coinbase became the first major crypto currency company to trade shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The funeral of Prince Philip took place at Windsor Castle, a very solemn event. Former police officer Derek Shoveen, if I say pronounce it, was convicted of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. This month, foes running the sport of football showed themselves to be even more unfit for purpose and greedy than usual, and that's saying something, but following a backlash, all six English clubs withdrew from their proposed European super league. And in UK True Crime news, 39 post office workers convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting had their names cleared after one of the UK's most widespread miscarriages of justice in our lifetimes. But still today, despite all the posturing from our politicians, justice still evades so many, some forever. What a total scandal this still is. So did you get the month from year? It was April 2021. Snowdown is a small hamlet in eastern Kent about 10 miles northwest of Dover and 70 miles southeast of London. Snowdown, surrounded by fields is located less than three miles from the village of Chilindan, which you may recall is where Lin Russell and her six year old daughter Megham were killed in a savage attack in July 1996, whilst walking their dogs. But awful incidents like this are of course incredibly rare in this rural environment. This is the sort of place where nothing much happens, which is just fine with the locals in this lovely part of England, and they couldn't believe such horror had visited their local community again with the discovery of the body of popular resident, 53-year-old Julia James. On Tuesday the 27th of April 2021, Julia had been walking her Jack Russell dog Toby in a cult wood, just minutes from her home in Snowdown. A family in the woods spotted her dog Toby running around with his leaves still attached, but no owner. When looking around, they discovered Julia's body, laying face down on the end of the farmer's field at about 4pm, and they called 999. Julia had sustained significant head injuries. It was a terrible attack. The pathologist later confirmed that Julia was subjected to a very violent and sustained assault to the head with a heavy object. He said that after carrying out many years of post-mortem examinations, the head injuries were, I quote, "among the worst that I've seen." The injuries were completely unsavivable, even with immediate medical intervention, he said. Her death would have been very, very quick. The community was in total shock. Julia was a popular mum of two or wife and a grandma, who loved her job as a police community support officer, and was a common sight out and about walking her dog. Her police colleagues were also, of course, devastated by the terrible news. Having joined the force in 2008, she supported many victims of crime, with a particular focus on domestic abuse. Julia always looked at tackle problems, said assistant Chief Constable Tom Richards. She helped so many communities in cancer flourish. She moved into a specialist role with victims of domestic abuse, providing safeguarding and support to the more vulnerable survivors, and witnesses of this abuse. Tom Richards continued that her actions had such a positive impact on so many people. She cared about the partners she worked with, cared about her colleagues, he said. Julia was just so important to us as a police force. She was very much loved. The impact of her death is really quite difficult as a force for us to deal with. In recent weeks on this podcast we've seen the value of CCTV and other technology in solving crimes. But in this investigation, the Texas had no access to any footage of the murder scene, there was no CCTV. Julia had been killed a course of a mile from the nearest property or road on a dirt track running along the edge of a field by woods. So the police went back to basics and knocked on over 5,000 doors asking for details of what anybody may have seen. Surely someone had seen Julia that day or something suspicious, but all inquiry drew a blank as the days went on. And the police were again in that position when they were aware that there was a highly dangerous merger on the loose, who needed to be caught quickly for a strike again, but they also didn't want to worry the local community too much, it's such a fine balance. As the investigation continued, the police asked other forces and agencies for support, including the National Crime Agency, who gave advice on specialist forensic search techniques. But although not CCTV, technology did play a vital role in the investigation. Firstly, Julia walked an apple watch on the day she was attacked, and this watch featured a heart rate sensor and GPS tracker. From this, the police were able to extract key data, showing Julia's exact moments between leaving her house in snow down at 2.12 pm, and her death, which was approximately half an hour later. They traced her route through her back garden gate, around a field behind her house along a roadaway, and into nearby at-cult wood. The data continued to track Julia as she paused for a while at a spot that she and her husband knew well it was very special to them. They called it Butterfly Place, where she and they often stopped to enjoy watching the butterflies, before she then turned back and headed home. But distressingly, just seconds after this, her heart rate rapidly increased from 97 BPM to 145 BPM in just 19 seconds. At this time, Julia's pace of movement also rapidly increased. Police officers believe this is where Julia must have experienced a terrifying sight of seeing her armed attacker, waiting in the woods, before she ran away to try to escape. Julia's heartbeat then dropped below 60 BPM, as she was subjected to a brutal, sustained attack, with what appeared to have been a blunt instrument. Appeals were made, and some 1,400 people came forward with information. While the 2,500 houses were visited during the investigation, there was also almost 7,000 hours worth of footage from house CCTV, dash cams and doorbells examined, everything was examined in microscopic detail by the investigation team, but no breaks were unfortunately. But the breakthrough did eventually come, and it was via a local gamekeeper, a farmer, Gavin Tucker. Having confronted a suspicious young man, as to what he was doing in the area the day after the murder, Gavin was worried enough to take two photographs of him on his phone, and then called 999, telling the operator of what he called a suspicious fella. It was the same man that he'd confronted over seven months earlier, Gavin explained. He was walking up the side of the field towards where I was. I just asked him what he was up to, the land belongs to the farm. He said that he was lost or new to the area. I was in a different vehicle at the time so he never recognised me. I knew he was telling lies. I asked him where he'd come from, and he pointed towards Ackholt. Police were in that area, I said, "What are you up to? Where are you going?" As the man ran away, Gavin followed him and died 999. In the call he told the operator, "I'm reporting, it might be nothing to do with it, but there's a suspicious fella I've just approached." He was running off and there has been a death down at Ackholt's woods. The gamekeepers Dashcam footage then showed the man crossing the road and into another wood, Elshanwood nearby. Gavin sent the photograph and the Dashcam footage to the police. Officers did not recognise the man, but they asked other law enforcement agencies across the UK to help to identify him, but with no success, which was a surprisingly investigation. A surely someone who may have carried out such a violent attack must have used extreme violence before and so be registered in some way with the police. 10 days after it was taken, a cropped version was released to the public. From this, a breakthrough, a name from someone who recognised the image as 22-year-old Callum Wheeler, a local man. And later that evening, Wheeler was arrested, but the arrest certainly wasn't a standard one. Body-worn camera footage showed Wheeler shouting "Fuck off from inside his bedroom", which he'd barricaded himself into as officers tried to force open the door. After the officers finally managed to get into his room and handcuff him, he told them, "I didn't do it, use a fucking dead, trust me." Police seized the metal railway jack, believes to be the murder weapon from Wheeler's bedroom, after he was arrested, and forensic experts later found Julia's DNA on this tool. Why he had that tool in his bedroom was never discovered. When arrested and in custody, it made some police station. His behaviour was very troubling. He told the custody officer, "Sometimes I do things that I cannot control and add it. You can't go into the woods and expect to be safe." He also said that if he was released, he would return to the woodland to rape and kill women, and that Julia had deserved to die. He exposed himself to female police officers and tried to masturbate in front of them, before asking to be spanked. Disturbingly, it turned out that Wheeler had spent the days after the attack, roaming around the area still with the murder weapon. It was a 97 cm long cylindrical bar used to lift train tracks, sticking out from his bag, which was later found in his bedroom. It seems that he was just looking, for another opportunity, to kill again. Wheeler had no connection at all to Julia or her family. Although twice in early 2021, she had told her husband Paul that she had seen what she described as "a really weird dude on the woodland path." And again in February 2021, when she was out walking in the woods with her husband, she pointed out this person to him again. This person Paul recognised as Wheeler. Detectives that more into Wheeler's life, he was born in South London in Suffolk, in February 2000, the youngest of three sons. He had a history of mental health problems, and dropped out of school at 15, failing to achieve any GCSEs at all. He moved to Elsham Kent about eight miles from the scene of the murder, with his dad and younger brother, about two years for the attack after his parents separated. He was very much a loner. He didn't have any friends at all or relationships, not even with the brother he shared a house with. Police said of him, Wheeler wasn't studying, he wasn't working. I'll describe him as a complete and utter loner. This was some dear to life that existed of absolutely nothing. He spent most of his time watching TV in his bedroom, he had no friends, and even his mobile telephone had very few contacts, so we know very little about him. At the time of the events Wheeler had no previous convictions or portions recorded against him, and for months in custody, Wheeler denied everything, including ever having been to the crime scene. As the trial approached, he repeatedly refused to engage with his defence team, but on the first day of the trial, he made a significant admission. Not guilty to murder, he said, but guilty to manslaughter on diminished responsibility. The prosecution told how Wheeler had waited in that cult wood last year, with the intention to kill a lone woman when he got the chance. He'd been seen in that location a number of times before, and had actually walked around the area, carrying the railway jack that he ultimately had used as a weapon. The prosecutor said, "This attack on Julia James was not a moment tree in spontaneous acts of violence by this defendant. She told jurors he'd planned this attack over many days and weeks. She added, "He knew those woods members of the jury. He knew that people walked dogs in those woods. He knew that if he waited for the right moment, there would be a lone female when nobody else was around, when he could commit this attack." He was described during the trial as an angry, violent, strange, highly sexualised man, and it seems as though the attack was sexually motivated. However, the post-mortem examination found no signs of sustained or violent sexual assault, but Wheeler's DNA was found on the left breast of Julia's white vest top, which she was wearing beneath a jumper and a raincoat. The trial was told how Wheeler accessed a number of pornography websites and Googled the word "rape" in the days before Julia's death. Wheeler again visited pornography websites in the days after Julia's murder and he accessed articles about her killing. The jury heard a strange incident about how Wheeler had called 999 10 days before he attacked Julia. He said nothing during the call. So two police community support officers, Sarah McGuinness and Emma Carmichael, were sent to his house to follow it up, in case he'd been in trouble. The exchanges between him and the officers were captured on one of the PCSO's body-worn cameras, footage from which was played to the jury. Standing behind the door, Wheeler could be heard telling the officers to get lost and go and bother someone else. He said they probably weren't even real police and laughed when he described them as phonies, just another very strange incident from a whole series of them involving Wheeler. Defending him, tough gig, all of the blunt QC told the jury that through his not guilty plea to murder, Wheeler was saying that he did not have the level of intense required adding. He was 21 at the time and had no previous convictions or cautions recorded against him. He told the court that Wheeler's behaviour both before and after the killing did not make any sense and that the railway jack was unwieldy and difficult to conceal as a weapon, so why would he have carried that around waiting to make an attack? Describing the killing itself he said, this appears to be a completely motive-less, random, senseless and inexplicable incident. Wheeler didn't give any evidence. After just an hour of deliberations, the jury returned with a verdict of murder. Wheeler refused to stand and had to be held up by members of staff as the jury returned its verdict. Wheeler had actually been carried into the dock early in the day he'd refused to walk. The judge gave Wheeler, who had been housed at Broadmore High Security Psychiatric Hospital in Berkshire since the attack, a life sentence, with a minimum term of 37 years. Before Wheeler received his sentence, Julia's son Patrick told the court that his mum's killer should never see the light of day again. Wheeler didn't even look up but sat with his head bowed as his victims' family, including a husband, Paul and daughter Bethan, read the emotional victim-impact statements. Patrick told how his mum's life had been taken because of a sick, twisted individual's strange desires he continued, "My mum only wanted to walk her dog but had her life ended by this disgusting creature. I would not refer to him as a human being." Julia's daughter Bethan said, "My life has changed beyond measure to lose my own parents. The woman I love the most in the world is truly awful. To know how she was brutally attacked in broad daylight, having run for her life as horrific, it haunts me every day of my life." Outside the court, Julia's husband, Paul, praised his wife for helping people, particularly the victims of domestic abuse through her work. He said, "She was just amazing. I was so proud of her. The work she did was just amazing, to help so many other people, women who were in danger from men, from bad men." Speaking outside court, Kent Police Detective Superintendent Gavin Moss said, "Callon Wheeler has demonstrated that he is an incredibly dangerous individual, reflected by his actions that he subjected my colleague, Julia James, to the most horrific of injuries. I'm reassured, and so should the public be, that Callon Wheeler is now off the streets for a significant period of time." So what did you make of what we've heard today? It's just the most shocking, shocking of episodes, isn't it? How many of us see dog owners happily walking dogs all around the UK at any time of day or night? I know that I walk by dogs all the time and I never consider the danger somebody lurking. And yet Julia was murdered in the middle of an April afternoon, by a man lying white for victim, any female victim. And as we've heard it's a man she'd seen before as had other people. But just because someone looks a bit odd to you, you don't for a moment think they could be capable of such a horrendous act as we've heard today, do you? One thing we should mention here today is something I neglect to talk about much on this podcast. And that is what a great job so many members of the public do, noticing things, acting as witnesses. Today the gamekeeper we've heard about was key to solving this case, praising him Detective Superintendent Moss said, "This witness had the presence of mine to take a photograph of him in his mobile phone, which is what was circulated to the public via the media. Ultimately, that's how we were able to identify Karen Wheeler. Sure they may have found him eventually, but in that time, before they did find him, maybe he may have struck again." So however many stories we hear were DNA CCTV and other tech is vital. There are still so many cases that are solved, very much yelled fashion way by good, solid policing, and observant members of the public like you and I, who report their suspicions. The court case that was only a few days was incredibly emotional. Julius Husband Paul had told the court that since he'd met Julius, his life was complete as he had found his soulmate. He also said, "My heart would flutter every time I'd see her, and I would tell her that every day, every morning, every night, and we used to call each other three or four times. We felt like we were on honeymoon every day, every day it was still a honeymoon, and Julia was equally happy with her life, and looking forward to a happy future, together with Paul and her family and her friends. And yet that future was snatched away by Karen Wheeler on that Tuesday afternoon, which was just a normal afternoon, and Julia was just outwalking her dog like so many times before. As we finish today, our thoughts of course with Julia's family and her friends, their loss, is impossible for us to comprehend. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the UK True Crime Podcast. I'll be back with another episode as always on Tuesday, but if you want one hundred of my four-length special bonus episodes, we have number 101, dropping later this week. Why not join my community at patreon.com/uktru Crime. As well as these episodes, you'll get every single episode early and completely advert-free, imagine that, and loads of other exclusive news and content. It really matters to me, as this is what enables me to produce free content every week, in my ongoing quest to become the UK's 37th most popular True Crime Podcast host, maybe 2026, could finally be the year. As always, a huge thank you to all of my patrons, but especially the new members of this community, this week, that is, Chloe Wright, Gemia Campbell, Sue Richards, Alex Siam and Paul Harwood. Thank you all so much for your support, which is just so much appreciated. We must exchange towels in the saunas of Rochdale's scene. What do you mean you're busy that day? If you would like to join us, just head to patreon.com/uktru Crime. The link is in the show notes, it's super cheap, and you can leave any time at all if you choose to, but of course you won't want to. You know it makes sense. And please, please, please don't forget to get your ticket for True Crime Fest, that's True Crime Fest, all one word.co.uk, the link is in the show notes. It's shaping up to be a great day of True Crime, all for just 55 pounds. Please do come and join me and my podcasting friends in London on March 28th for True Crime Fest. Finally for me, our UK True Crime Facebook group is now at over 96,000 members, it still astonishes me. And we discuss all things UK True Crime every day, seven days a week, in a very safe and supportive environment. So please do come and join us. You've been made very, very welcome. Tomorrow on the True Crime catch up, me and Stuart from British murders, discuss Lucy Letby. It's going to be interesting, so please do join me for that if you can. And that is all for me for another week. So I'm just off to check on tickets for the Kings of Leon Tor. You know, I haven't been this excited since I'd root canal treatments with no anaesthetic. So until we speak in on Tuesday, please do take it easy out there and despite the others, and as we know, it's always the others, stay classy. Cheerio for now. Want more True Crime? This podcast and loads more are part of the Always True Crime Network. It's packed with box sets to binge and twisted tails you won't find anywhere else. Find your next podcast obsession at always truecrime.com.