Cambridgeshire Police has released the chilling moment a 999 call was made after a postmistress was found murdered and set alight in her own home.
86-year-old widow Una Crown was discovered at her home in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, in 2013, by family members who had driven to collect her for Sunday lunch on January 13. After tragically finding her, a harrowing call was made to police after she was found stabbed to death with cuts to her throat and chest, and her clothing set on fire.
In the call, a woman tells the operator “there’s a fire near the radiator. There’s something weird. There’s debris of what could be burnt fingers.” Officers were dispatched to the crime scene as the operator recoils at the gruesome details. According to prosecutors, she had been killed the day before.
David Newton, 70, initially denied murder when he was charged in April last year, but was today found guilty of the brutal killing at Mrs Crown’s bunaglow in 2013 – after his DNA was found on her nail clippings. Police did not initially consider her death suspicious and there was a two-day delay in preserving the scene due to what prosecutor John Price described as a “grave error of judgment by police officers who went to the house”.
Former kitchen installer David Newton, of Magazine Close in Wisbech, was charged last year with murdering Mrs Crown. He denied the offence at her home in Magazine Lane on January 12 2013, but was found guilty after a trial at Cambridge Crown Court.
Detective Superintendent Iain Moor of Cambridgeshire Police said afterwards that “mistakes were made during the initial investigation in 2013, for which we have apologised to Una’s family”. Mr Moor, who became the senior investigating officer in the case, said it was looked at again “as part of our normal review processes in October 2022”.
“Vital evidence was retained from the 2013 crime scene, in the form of DNA under the fingernails of Una Crown’s right hand,” he said. “It was through pioneering new techniques, testing for male DNA only, that gave the evidence breakthrough which has been so crucial. This DNA testing technique was not available in 2013.
“The DNA allowed us to cast doubt on David Newton’s claims that he hadn’t seen Una on the day, or days, before her death and place him at the scene of her murder. For more than a decade he thought he had gotten away with this most horrendous crime, but today’s result shows you cannot hide forever.”
Mr Moor said he hoped that the guilty verdict “gives Una’s family the closure they deserve and the answers they have longed for”, adding: “My thoughts are very much with them at this time.” He will be sentenced on Friday.
Get email updates with the day’s biggest stories