A 17-year-old boy has been arrested after the body of a female teacher was found in a shallow grave at the back of a cemetery in Accrington, Lancashire.
The teen pleaded guilty to assisting in the disposal of the body but claimed he didn’t play any role in her death.
He also said that he was offered ‘a lot of money’ by a man to ‘get rid of the body,’ but this explanation wasn’t expected by the Preston Crown Court.
It took the jurors less than three hours to find the teen intended to murder the teacher, Lindsay Birbeck, in the woods.
The mother-of-two left her home for a walk one afternoon but when she didn’t return that night, her family immediately contacted the police.
Helicopters, drones, specialist officers and hundreds of volunteers searched for the 47-year-old until a dog walker found her body wrapped in two plastic bags in a shallow grave behind the cemetery.
According to reports, attempts had been made to dismember the victim’s body.
Prosecutor David McLachlan QC said the attacker had been waiting for females and told the jury how another female had a ‘lucky escape’ only minutes after the teacher’s death.
About two others after the killing, the teen was seen on a surveillance camera.
After finding a secluded area, he spent more than an hour burying the body before leaving the wheelie bin and gloves at the scene. The teen was also captured on surveillance camera returning many times to visit the grave.
The teen pleaded guilty to assisting an ‘unknown man’ in the disposal of the body but the court did not accept this.
“We say that is a work of fiction. It’s complete nonsense that someone who killed Mrs. Birbeck would enlist the help of a passer-by to get rid of the body and thereby confess to the unlawful killing he committed,” Mr. McLachlan said.
“What if the passer-by shouts for help on the Coppice? It makes no sense. Was there a mystery man who killed her which the defendant asserts or is the mystery man a creation of the defendant’s limited imagination? ‘The defendant can’t or perhaps won’t tell you with whom this mystery man really is,” he added.
“The prosecution say he can’t because there is no mystery man. It’s him.”
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Replaced!