Killers: Caught on Camera (2023-…): Season 1, Episode 7 - Guys and Julia - full transcript
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It just sounds like something bad
is happening to her.
-I heard her scream, "No, stop it!"
-I heard some gun shots.
-Whatever it is, drop it.
-It's not true that I killed my wife.
We know what happened.
The video tells us what happened.
The camera doesn't lie.
This time
on Killers Caught on Camera.
In Knoxville, Tennessee,
a married couple
are killed in their home
-on the eve of retirement...
-I hear a dog howling.
There's something wrong.
...as police discover body parts
abandoned around the house.
-That's blood, right?
-Looks like blood.
It was pretty... pretty gruesome.
In the UK, a police officer's found
dead in the woods
after a violent attack...
Catastrophic head injuries,
worst I've ever seen.
...as her colleagues examine
every angle to catch her killer.
Mate, what are you up to?
Knoxville, Tennessee.
Home to Lisa and Joel Guy,
married for 31 years.
Joel Guy Sr. was a hard worker,
just your typical east Tennessean.
A good guy. He worked
as an engineer, primarily in piping.
Lisa Guy was a recordkeeper
and secretary
for an engineering firm
here in Knoxville.
Joel had three daughters
by a previous marriage.
And in 1988,
Lisa and Joel had a son together,
Joel Michael Guy Jr.
Lisa Guy, by all accounts,
was a really dedicated mother.
I know that they liked the outdoors.
They liked being on the water.
In 2016, they were really looking
forward to retiring.
They were preparing for a new phase
in their life.
They had spent most of their life
working and taking care of the kids.
Now the children were up
and out on their own.
And that's what
they were looking forward to.
When your kids get up and out,
you get to kind of be a couple again.
They lived well and lived right
and they were getting ready
to enjoy the benefit of that.
Jamie Satterfield has been
an investigative journalist
for over 30 years.
It was Thanksgiving 2016.
In east Tennessee, it's pretty,
so you have a lot of fall colors.
Lisa, in getting ready
for Thanksgiving,
she had decorated the house.
Sisters were coming.
Grandkids were coming.
Joel and Lisa were looking forward
to seeing their son, Joel,
who would be returning home
for the holidays.
I dare say she was probably
a little excited about that.
In that it had been a while.
It was the setup
for a really happy time for them.
With Joel Guy Jr. living
600 miles away,
this was a rare opportunity for Lisa
to spend some time with her son.
I know that Lisa was enjoying
that time with him
because she was going
to go to the store.
She was going to get
his favorite ice cream.
Everything seemed, on the surface,
really good that night
and the next morning.
But just two days later,
Lisa was missing.
She failed to turn up
to her last day of work
and her own retirement party.
The day rolls around and no Lisa.
So her co-workers tried to call her
and, you know,
she's not answering the phone.
And they knew that that was not
in Lisa's character to disappear.
Her co-workers
grew concerned enough
that they reached out
to the Knox County Sheriff's Office.
Police officers visited
the Guys' residence
and checked in with their neighbors.
We're doing a check
to make sure they're okay.
When did you last see them?
They were here at Thanksgiving.
Their son was with them.
-That's all their vehicles?
-Yes, sir.
Okay, okay.
Hector Sanchez
was Assistant District Attorney
for Knox County.
Officers were able to determine
that the vehicles registered
to both Lisa and Joel Guy Sr.
were present.
They could also hear a faint dog bark
inside of the residence.
-We'll make sure they're okay.
-Okay.
Police couldn't get hold of Lisa
or Joel on their phones.
That big light,
it was on this morning.
I came home
from the gym at about 6:00 am.
I remember like,
"Lisa's getting ready for work."
Looking through the window,
they could see that groceries
were in the foyer area.
It was apparent
to them that there was perishables
that were in those bags, things
such as ice cream, meats and such.
So that was obviously curious
to them.
They did canvas around to the back
of the residence.
Hound dog's not out,
and all their cars are here.
They were able to determine
that the doorknob in the back
was completely missing,
so they could see into the residence.
When they looked, they could feel
an immense amount of heat
coming from that open portion.
The heat is jacked up like
as high as it'll go. It's scorching.
They could smell chemicals.
That was concerning
based on the fact that
there was no contact
with Joel and Lisa.
There's something wrong.
The police had to get
into the house.
Hello, Sheriff's Office!
They managed to get access
through the garage
and found a back door.
There's dog (BLEEP) everywhere.
I hear a dog howling.
Steven Sanders was a detective
from the Sheriff's Office.
He arrived on the scene
to an overheated house.
The interior door was opened,
and it was, I mean, it was hot.
It was... it was ridiculously hot.
Police!
Police department, Sheriff's Office.
When you go in, there was
obviously groceries on the floor.
Sheriff's Office!
There was animal feces throughout
the house and a dog barking.
Knox County Sheriff's Office.
And as they got up the stairs,
you could see brown staining,
which they believed to be blood.
-That's blood, right?
-Looks like blood.
Officers obviously at this point
have a heightened alertness.
They're looking to not only determine
if someone's okay
but also to determine whether or not
a suspect is present.
That's where dog is. Knives.
Lots of blood in here.
On the top of the stairs,
they found clothing
covered in what they believed
to be human blood
that appeared to be cut off
of a human body.
That was in a pile
next to a very large stain of blood.
Lots of blood in here.
Is that people's hands?
I think so. That's what I think.
That's what it looks like.
It's horrific. There's blood.
There's human remains.
You can't really put that into words,
but you'll never stop seeing it.
It's pretty, pretty gruesome.
-These are (BLEEP) hands.
-Get out now.
We've not cleared this.
There's blood all over too.
You can't. Back out.
Officers cleared the remainder
of the upstairs
and made the decision to back out.
Out through the garage the same way
we came in. Don't touch nothing.
Officers surrounded the house
in case anyone tried to flee.
We keep our eyes
on this back corner.
I've got the front.
Okay.
It appeared the only living being
left in the house was a dog.
What's up, buddy?
He is very hot and distressed
right now.
The house was made a crime scene
and cordoned off.
Multiple units within
the sheriff's department moved in.
And they began documenting
the scene.
Potential weapons, cash
and cleaning products
were gathered as evidence.
The police had to find out
what happened
and who the body parts belonged to.
Somebody out there is true evil,
and we've got to get them.
A suspicious mixture
of recently bought items
provided detectives with clues.
There were several bottles
of corrosive, acidic-based solutions
such as muriatic acid,
food-grade hydrogen peroxide,
bleach, liquid fire, Drano.
In the middle of the bedroom,
a workout machine was tipped over.
That was an indication to them
that there had been a struggle.
And officers in the corner did find
a very, very large spot in the corner
of a reddish brown substance.
In the master bathroom
were two blue storage bins.
They look in there. Now, they are
these big Rubbermaid containers.
And then they look in there,
there's torsos.
There was two bodies in there.
-Oh, there's two bodies in there?
-Yeah.
But the worst was yet to come.
They get into the kitchen area.
They see is that there's a big pot,
a soup pot, sitting on the stove.
It is boiling. They weren't sure
if it was water or a chemical,
but they could see that this
had been cooking, if you will.
And they look into it.
And when they look into it,
what they see is a human head.
A gruesome discovery.
Whoever decapitated this body
was still at large.
They know nothing about who may
or may not have been in that home.
But all they know is that they have
a house full of body parts
and this chemical smell.
The other thing that was unusual is
somebody who has taken
extraordinary measures of chopping,
trying to boil away
to literally dissolve these bones,
make these bodies disappear,
but was interrupted in some way
because it was incomplete.
The job was not done.
Disposing of bodies, especially when
people dismember bodies,
always sounds and feels
so incredibly gruesome,
and it is objectively,
but subjectively
for the person doing it,
they often describe it as going
into problem-solving mode.
The problem is
that they have this body.
The solution:
anything that'll get rid of it.
They're no longer seeing
these individuals as human beings.
They're seeing them as a problem,
as a body to be removed,
as objects, effectively.
So that can help us to understand
why it might seem less gruesome
to the person doing it
and more just the necessity.
We don't know if it's a random act
or if it's family.
We don't know anything
until we start getting our clues
and putting them together
and piecing the pieces together.
But right off the bat, you know
that whoever's responsible for this
has got to be caught.
Two vital pieces of evidence
gave the police a breakthrough.
We found two receipts.
The first was in the groceries
that were left in the foyer area
just through the front door.
In processing the scene,
the second level specifically,
investigators found an additional bag
that had blood on it
that had medical supplies,
including tape, ointments,
things you'd use for a serious wound
to treat, such as a knife injury.
In that bag was a second receipt.
Receipts these days have
timestamps on them.
They send some folks to go
to the Walmart
to review surveillance video
around that time frame.
The Walmart was only two miles
from the Guys family's home.
Going into the Walmart, being able
to give them the receipt,
we were able to pull a video
of what was taking place
at that particular cash register
in the self-checkout line.
The video surveillance
helped the police
identify the person
buying the groceries.
We were able to identify
some of the clothing.
We believed that was Lisa's.
They were able to determine
that just two days before
that Lisa Guy was in there
buying those exact groceries.
The police now had proof that Lisa
was alive on the 26th November
and that she made it home
with the groceries.
When the police checked
the video footage
for the time printed
on the second receipt,
3:30 pm that same day,
they made a surprising discovery.
You can tell in the Walmart footage
that this person,
he's got bandages on.
He's clearly injured himself.
He's buying some bandages,
it would appear, for his own cuts.
They look at this surveillance video
and who they see
is the face that they've seen
in that house in family photos...
of the son.
The son of Lisa and Joel Guy Sr.
was 28-year-old Joel Guy Jr.
He lived in an apartment
in Baton Rouge
over 600 miles away.
He was working
on his undergraduate degree
from Louisiana State University,
and he had been doing so
since he was roughly 18 years old.
He was smart, by all indications,
a smart young man,
and was working on becoming
a plastic surgeon.
Joel Guy Jr. also had
a difficult relationship
with his family.
What was a little strange is that
while the girls were very close
to their parents,
their son really never connected
with his own family.
From a very young age, Joel Guy Jr.
wanted to be away from home.
And as a child,
he wasn't sent to boarding school.
He insisted on going
to a boarding school.
Lisa and Joel had been supporting
their son financially.
Lisa Guy worked for the purpose
of supporting him.
She paid for his rent.
She paid for his food.
She paid for his vehicle,
his car insurance.
Joel Junior never worked
a day in his life.
His parents had had enough.
They told him they planned
to stop supporting him
so they could retire
more comfortably.
Someone dependent on his parents
at this point starts to wonder,
"How am I going to survive
if my parents cut me off?"
And that can lead
to a spiral of catastrophizing,
of thinking worse and worse
potential consequences.
That catastrophizing can make you
think, "The only thing I can do
is to somehow figure out
how I can still get that money."
And that might lead you to fantasize
about ways to do that.
Fantasizing can include thinking
about taking advantage of people
or of maybe even killing people.
Two days after Thanksgiving,
Joel Guy Jr. was supposed
to be back home in Baton Rouge.
But the Walmart footage showed
that he was still in Knoxville.
The distance between Knoxville
and Louisiana is huge.
We're talking 500 or 600 miles,
a drive of, you know, 8 to 10 hours.
So to have Joel Michael Guy Jr.
still present in Knox County
after he was thought
to have been gone
was significant
to our investigation.
On closer inspection,
the CCTV footage also revealed
Joel Guy Jr.'s physical condition.
This angle of the video from Walmart
is real important to us.
It's a self-checkout which allows us
to see the items purchased
which match the items
at the residence.
It also allows us to see his hands,
which shows us that he has injuries
and wounds on his hands.
The police found footage
of Joel Jr.'s car leaving Walmart,
which meant
they could track his number plate.
The FBI task force,
they actually located the vehicle
and him in the apartment
back in Baton Rouge.
They set up surveillance
and watched that
while me and Detective McCord
began our travel to Baton Rouge.
When they got there,
they arrested Joel Guy Jr.
He was taken into custody.
Police found
another trail of receipts
inside his apartment.
In connection with the investigation,
officers were able to ascertain
that Joel Michael Guy Jr.
had been buying various supplies
in and around the Baton Rouge area,
Louisiana.
Seventeen days
before Thanksgiving,
Joel Guy Jr.
was captured on camera
at Ace Hardware in Louisiana.
This video is of him purchasing
heavy chemicals, Drano and so forth,
that were the same chemicals
found here,
which helped us prove premeditation.
This is him at a Home Depot,
going through self-checkout,
purchasing the garden hose,
purchasing a garden sprayer,
bleach sprayer and a spray bottle.
And we have him walking out.
Police matched the items
with the same items found
at his parent's house in Knoxville.
They also discovered
another chilling piece of evidence.
As the law enforcers are searching
this house,
one of these rooms belonged
or had at one time belonged
to Joel Guy Jr.
And so when they go into that room,
they find he had left a backpack.
It had his laptop in it.
But it also had
this college-rule notebook.
And when they open it up,
what they see is page after page
after page
of handwritten notes.
The best description of its contents,
I would call this a murder book.
He wanted to render his parents
into a liquid form
and put them into the public waterway
before he lit the house on fire
to get rid of any evidence.
Joel Guy Jr. was putting
his detailed plan into place
in the days
leading up to Thanksgiving.
The video evidence was damning.
The Walmart in Louisiana,
he is purchasing the bins.
The blue bins are what we located
in the master bathroom
with the human remains.
Twenty days before these murders,
he's out in Baton Rouge,
buying all these supplies
that were all captured
on various surveillance.
The importance to it to us was
it showed his premeditation
and his intent for what had
had happened back in Knoxville.
Through DNA analysis,
forensic pathologists found
that the body parts in the house
belonged to Lisa and Joel Guy Sr.
Their son, Joel Michael Guy Jr.,
was charged with two counts
of first-degree murder
and abuse of a corpse.
When you think about a case
that involves
someone who's accused
of chopping up his parents,
the first thought anyone would have
is, "He's got to be crazy."
His defense team would have loved
to pursue an insanity defense
because they had nothing else,
but he refused.
And it was almost
as if he were offended
that anybody would be questioning
his intellect.
Joel Guy Jr. was comprehensively
captured by the net of surveillance.
He was sentenced to life in prison
for two counts of murder
and dismemberment of his parents,
Joel Guy Sr. and Lisa Guy.
At the trial, the full extent
of the horrific details
of what happened were revealed.
He did kill his father first
when his mother
was grocery shopping.
He accomplished the act of killing
the bigger threat, his father.
He did that in the upstairs
spare bedroom slash exercise room.
We believe that perhaps his father
was working out
when he was attacked.
There was proof that he was stabbed
in the back multiple times.
There's proof that Joel Guy Sr.
fought back,
which ultimately led to Joel Guy Jr.
obtaining a pretty serious wound
to his hand.
Further proof established that once
Miss Lisa got home from Walmart,
based on the groceries
that were not put away,
she was lured upstairs.
The minute she reached the top
is where she was attacked
and murdered.
Joel Guy Sr. was disarticulated
at his hips
and also at his elbows and hands.
Lisa Guy was decapitated.
She was disarticulated
at the kneecaps.
And we believe that that was in order
to render his parents in a position
where he could put their remains
in each one of those storage tubs.
Despite the measures
and the planning he took,
his plan did fail.
I think the reason his plan failed
was based on the fact
that Joel Guy Sr. fought back.
Joel Michael Guy Jr. had to leave
the state of Tennessee
and drive roughly 500 to 600 miles
to seek medical attention.
We were able to determine
that he came back to Knox County,
where he saw that his neighborhood
was saturated with law enforcement
and decided to again leave
and go back to Baton Rouge.
Parricide is when a child kills
their parents.
Double parricide is when a child
kills both parents.
It's rare to kill the parents.
It's even more rare for children
to kill both parents.
If a child is going to kill a parent,
it's usually one parent
and it's often a boy who is killing
their father or their mother.
Joel Jr. was made aware
that his parents were going
to cut him off.
And when that was threatened,
he decided to kill his parents.
It's the coldest motive
there is, greed.
I'm sure he manipulated his mother
all the time.
And for once, she was standing firm,
even though it upset her.
She was standing firm,
and I think he realized
that the gig was up,
and that's when he put
this murder book plan into place.
Joel Guy Jr. hoped
by killing his parents,
he would receive all their savings
and life insurance money.
But there was another twist
to his financial motive,
an emotional one.
He was homosexual.
He had a partner that lived with him
for a while
and then they separated
and they were friends.
But Joel Guy Jr.
wanted to be with him
and the other individual did not want
to be with him.
The individual in question
was Michael McCraken.
And in jail, Joel Guy Jr.
made a call to Michael
where he revealed his motivation
for killing his parents.
So I have been in love with you
since we first met 12 years ago.
And I always got insanely jealous.
It became blatantly obvious that
I didn't meet any of the criteria.
There's never been any question
about that. Physically speaking.
I could get bariatric surgery,
cheek, face implants
to give me facial bone structure
so that I wouldn't have that
'"round thing" as you call it.
That's just sort of been
a wild fantasy of mine.
We genuinely had
a realistic chance of being happy
if I got around to doing that.
He wanted the inheritance for himself
to change his appearance
and make
the love of his life want him.
I don't know what to say.
I'm angry and lost and confused
and disappointed and upset
and mourning you like you're dead
even though I'm talking to you.
It's taking everything I have
to process and maintain my sanity.
I think about you all the time.
You were the only good thing
in my life.
He did this to take the inheritance
to change his appearance,
to make
his significant other want him.
And that's basically it.
What was particularly disturbing
when you look at that murder book
is that while he's seated
at the family table on Thanksgiving
and he's being friendly
and loving on his family,
all the while, his instruction manual
for killing his parents
is up there in his bedroom,
and they had no idea.
The role of cameras as it relates
to this case was tremendous.
All the security surveillance footage
that we had at various locations.
It would have been a lot harder
to present the case
in the way that we were able to
and to corroborate theories
that we had about the premeditation
in purchasing items
and utilizing them in the commission
of these brutal murders.
The cameras are very important
because there is no disputing
who this is and what's being bought
and what was at the crime scene.
This case is obviously one
that no one wants to be a part of.
It's a very heavy case.
The loss of life and the manner
in which these folks...
were murdered is brutal.
He's the strangest defendant
that I have ever encountered.
There's something missing
in his soul.
How can a person be so, so cruel
and brutal
not only to just somebody but family?
It's a day
that you will never forget.
Research has found
that since at least 2020,
CCTV has been used more often
than any other forensic science
or technology
to identify and charge suspects.
Cameras are vital in helping track
and place suspects
in or around the scene of a crime.
The Hamlet of Snowdown
near Aylesham in Kent.
Home to 53-year-old Julia James.
Julia had recently remarried.
She had two children
from two separate relationships.
Julia James was
a police community support officer,
and she was well-known in the area
because of her role as a PCSO,
and she was
really outgoing, friendly.
She was a massive part
of the Kent Police community as well.
She was a DA PCSO.
So domestic abuse police
and community support officer,
supporting victims of abuse.
She was there to help.
That's what she wanted.
Julia lived next to Ackholt Wood
and often walked
her Jack Russell, Toby,
in the woodland and countryside
which surrounded her home.
Kirsty Bennett is a Lecturer
in Criminology
at Leeds Beckett University.
Julia used to walk her dog
quite frequently in a wood
at the back of her house.
While there, she came across a man
on a couple of occasions, lurking,
which made
her feel quite uncomfortable.
Gavin Moss is
a senior investigative officer
at Kent Police.
Julia had expressed some concerns
about a male she'd seen
on two or three occasions.
She described the person, saying
he was in the area of Ackholt Woods.
It gave her some cause for concern.
This was never, ever reported.
That's no criticism
because people do see things
and things don't always get reported.
Julia told her husband, Paul, that
she'd passed a "really weird dude"
on the Ackholt Wood Bridle Path.
When Julia went
for a walk with her husband,
she pointed out
the same man to him.
Paul, Julia's husband, mentioned that
he'd seen this person in February,
so February 2021,
in the area of Ackholt Wood.
Women typically wait
for 19 separate incidents
to occur, either threats or incidents
where they've been watched,
before they report it to police.
So you need to have really seen
that person quite a lot
in order to raise the alarm
and go to authorities.
After their encounters
with the strange man in the woods,
Julia and her husband avoided
their usual dog-walking route.
And as an extra precaution,
Paul bought Julia a smartwatch.
That was there
as an extra security safety measure.
So she could quickly alert people
if she felt unsafe.
That allowed her to go back
after taking a break
from not visiting.
On Tuesday, 27th April,
at 2:12 in the afternoon,
Julia left her house
and took her dog, Toby,
for a walk in the nearby woods.
At 2:23 p.m., she was spotted
on a distant CCTV camera,
walking through a gap in a hedge
near Ackholt Wood.
This video clip here is
from a local business
that overlooks the Ackholt Wood area,
and what it actually shows
is an image of somebody
walking along here.
This CCTV was cross-referenced
with GPS data from the smartwatch.
We were able to say that
that individual was Julia James.
It showed the route she had taken
from her home address.
Eight minutes after she appeared
in the footage,
Julia's smartwatch detected
a big change.
Her smartwatch indicated that
her heart rate rose from 97 to 145.
We can see that something's
a problem. She's moving very quickly.
The data also showed Julia
made a detour from her usual route.
It was awful viewing
to see her Apple Watch
and her heart rate
change dramatically.
It was very clear to see that
she'd run away.
Our take was
that she was being chased.
An hour and a half later,
a local family were walking
in the woods
and came across Julia's dog
wandering alone.
They saw Julia's dog, Toby,
but without an owner.
They went to investigate.
That's when Julia's body was found.
Julia suffered very traumatic
blunt-force-trauma injuries.
She had a broken wrist.
She had multiple lacerations
and injuries to her skull and face.
The offender took strides
to really injure Julia.
She stood no chance of survival
and died very, very quickly
and fortunately, didn't go
through too much pain.
Police were on the hunt
for the person capable
of carrying out such violence.
At the time,
there was a lot of concern,
a lot of fear in the community.
My thought is, "Is this person
going to strike again?
"Will we end up
having another murder?"
The police searched the area
where Julia's body was found.
The area was absolutely enormous.
It is by far the biggest scene
that I've ever dealt with.
We used Licensed Search Officers
to undertake line searches,
fingertip searches.
We used the drone. We had
forensic recovery dogs out as well.
Gathering video evidence
was crucial to the case.
I remember saying at one briefing,
"Be creative.
Think about other opportunities,
about buses,
about lorries,
think about delivery drivers.
Get it as open as we can
to capture everything possible.
In terms of footage
that we had to view,
it worked out to 6700 hours
worth of footage.
But digital forensic analysts
spotted something.
Just under two hours
before Julia was murdered,
CCTV captured a person
in Aylesham carrying a bag.
He's walking in the direction
of a gap in a tree line.
This individual was carrying
something in his bag.
You can't get
any facial identification of him.
Thirty-one minutes later,
the same person
was spotted again.
And then again leaving the area
at 3:45 p.m.
What really helped is that this
also coincides within the timeframe
of obviously after Julia
was brutally murdered.
So it all starts bringing it
all together about his movements
pre and post
what tragically happened.
As well as the footage, police also
investigated potential witnesses
who'd been driving in the area
around the time of Julia's murder.
After such a high-profile incident,
the community was on high alert
and a critical piece
of dashcam footage was recorded
by local gamekeeper Gavin Tucker.
Alright, mate, what are you up to?
Right. Yup.
Alright, what's that about, then?
-Yeah, where are you going, then?
-I'm going home. I live here.
He'd described the location
he'd come from, the crime scene.
And that's what aroused
Mr. Tucker's suspicions.
The suspicious character
hastily left the scene.
Gavin Tucker needed to act fast.
Police, police.
Hiya, it's... I'm reporting
it might be nothing to do with,
but there's a suspicious fella
I've just approached
and he's running off
and there's been a...
obviously, a death
at Ackholt,
down at Ackholt at the moment.
He then runs away
and runs along Addisham Road.
As you can see here, he cuts across
and runs into the wooded area.
Ackholt Wood, near Dover.
Between Dover and Canterbury.
Of particular interest to us was
this item here being carried.
The pathologist's report gave
the police critical information
about the type of weapon
that was used to kill Julia.
From the post-mortem,
the pathologist said,
"You're looking for something
cylindrical, linear and heavy."
The weapon used to kill Julia
hadn't been located
near the scene of the crime.
Police were looking for anything
which may have fit
the pathologist's description.
As well as the dashcam footage,
Gavin Tucker managed
to take a photo of the suspect
in the field before he ran off.
We circulated the image
to the general public.
I wanted the holdall to be cropped
so we didn't show what that was
in the event
that we could hopefully locate that
in the future.
When police released the image
to the media,
a witness identified the suspect
as 21-year-old Callum Wheeler.
Police arrested Callum
on Friday, May 7th.
Ten days after Julia was murdered.
Show me your hands.
Hands, both hands, show me hands.
-Step back, step back.
-Okay.
He barricaded himself in,
protesting his innocence.
And he resisted arrest.
-Callum.
-(BLEEP) off.
Callum, you're under arrest
on suspicion of murder...
-But why?
-...of Julia James.
Within his bedroom,
just over this side,
there is what we believe to be
the weapon,
-which was subsequently seized.
-I haven't done it.
You were in the area
during the time of the offense.
-Callum, relax.
-Calm down.
The weapon, still propped up
against his bedroom wall,
matched the item he was carrying
before and after Julia's murder.
The weapon that was used was
actually a railway jack handle
that is used by the railways to lift
tracks effectively with it on a jack.
It's made of fiberglass
and consistent with what,
exactly what the pathologist said,
it was linear, cylindrical
and it was very heavy on one end.
Once Callum
was taken into custody,
the police began building a case
against him.
We didn't know a great deal
about Callum Wheeler.
From a police point of view,
very little was known about him.
And he was a complete loner in life.
He had no friends.
He'd lived in Aylesham
for a couple of years.
Came from London, and apart from
that, we didn't know a great deal.
As part of the investigation,
detectives create
a narrative of the event
to support a successful prosecution.
DNA evidence was vital
to put Callum
at the scene of the crime.
What we were able then to show
was that we had Callum's DNA
on Julia's clothing,
but also on the weapon,
we had Julia's DNA.
We had on his training shoes
presence of Julia's blood.
He was charged.
He appeared at court,
and he was remanded in custody.
In court, the full details
of what happened to Julia James
on 27th April 2021 were revealed.
Callum Wheeler had ambushed her,
subjected her to an absolutely brutal
and horrific murder,
causing catastrophic head injuries,
worst I've ever seen.
The extent of the injuries
is not a common occurrence
because Julia was likely unconscious
from the first injury
and we've seen
the multiple attacks afterwards,
which is not necessarily needed
to cause death.
Julia was not sexually assaulted
in the sense that she was
a victim of a rape.
We know that because
of the forensic analysis that we did.
But there were significant issues
in relation to Callum Wheeler
that we were able to establish
during the investigation.
The presence of Wheeler's DNA
on a vest top
that Julia had been wearing,
and that didn't happen by accident.
She was wearing a jacket.
She was also wearing a jumper.
The top was underneath those items.
So, you know,
he had touched her breast.
That all came to what we said was
a sexually motivated murder.
Wheeler's internet search history
also showed
that he'd searched the word "rape"
just two days before Julia's murder.
His actions after he was arrested
were disturbing.
When he got arrested,
he exposed himself
to a female police officer
and masturbated,
which would have been
absolutely horrendous
for that individual officer to see.
Had he not been caught,
this could have been the first
in a series of attacks on women
in the area.
I can't ignore that he was walking
around with that weapon.
Was it because he wanted a trophy
or because
he would have killed again?
Only one person knows that,
and that is Callum Wheeler.
I'm a detective of many years.
I can't help but think that
potentially we could've had another.
Without the videos, the prosecution
may not have had enough evidence.
Surveillance footage and CCTV
are so important
for tying weapons, belongings
to an offender and the victim
and identifying
the sequence of events.
What was
the offender doing beforehand?
What were they doing afterwards that
we can put together into that story.
Alright, mate, what are you up to?
Had we not had CCTV,
we wouldn't have seen him holding
the weapon before or afterwards.
That could have presented a defense
that he'd found the weapon.
Callum Wheeler was sentenced
to life in prison
with a minimum term of 37 years.
I went to the funeral, and the impact
of Julia's murder was significant.
Did I treat this any differently
to another murder?
I didn't
because I needed to catch him.
We needed to catch him
because it was clear
he was a brutal individual.
But it is, you know,
something different and difficult
when it's one of your own.
Translated by: Evelyn Towne
Iyuno
---
It just sounds like something bad
is happening to her.
-I heard her scream, "No, stop it!"
-I heard some gun shots.
-Whatever it is, drop it.
-It's not true that I killed my wife.
We know what happened.
The video tells us what happened.
The camera doesn't lie.
This time
on Killers Caught on Camera.
In Knoxville, Tennessee,
a married couple
are killed in their home
-on the eve of retirement...
-I hear a dog howling.
There's something wrong.
...as police discover body parts
abandoned around the house.
-That's blood, right?
-Looks like blood.
It was pretty... pretty gruesome.
In the UK, a police officer's found
dead in the woods
after a violent attack...
Catastrophic head injuries,
worst I've ever seen.
...as her colleagues examine
every angle to catch her killer.
Mate, what are you up to?
Knoxville, Tennessee.
Home to Lisa and Joel Guy,
married for 31 years.
Joel Guy Sr. was a hard worker,
just your typical east Tennessean.
A good guy. He worked
as an engineer, primarily in piping.
Lisa Guy was a recordkeeper
and secretary
for an engineering firm
here in Knoxville.
Joel had three daughters
by a previous marriage.
And in 1988,
Lisa and Joel had a son together,
Joel Michael Guy Jr.
Lisa Guy, by all accounts,
was a really dedicated mother.
I know that they liked the outdoors.
They liked being on the water.
In 2016, they were really looking
forward to retiring.
They were preparing for a new phase
in their life.
They had spent most of their life
working and taking care of the kids.
Now the children were up
and out on their own.
And that's what
they were looking forward to.
When your kids get up and out,
you get to kind of be a couple again.
They lived well and lived right
and they were getting ready
to enjoy the benefit of that.
Jamie Satterfield has been
an investigative journalist
for over 30 years.
It was Thanksgiving 2016.
In east Tennessee, it's pretty,
so you have a lot of fall colors.
Lisa, in getting ready
for Thanksgiving,
she had decorated the house.
Sisters were coming.
Grandkids were coming.
Joel and Lisa were looking forward
to seeing their son, Joel,
who would be returning home
for the holidays.
I dare say she was probably
a little excited about that.
In that it had been a while.
It was the setup
for a really happy time for them.
With Joel Guy Jr. living
600 miles away,
this was a rare opportunity for Lisa
to spend some time with her son.
I know that Lisa was enjoying
that time with him
because she was going
to go to the store.
She was going to get
his favorite ice cream.
Everything seemed, on the surface,
really good that night
and the next morning.
But just two days later,
Lisa was missing.
She failed to turn up
to her last day of work
and her own retirement party.
The day rolls around and no Lisa.
So her co-workers tried to call her
and, you know,
she's not answering the phone.
And they knew that that was not
in Lisa's character to disappear.
Her co-workers
grew concerned enough
that they reached out
to the Knox County Sheriff's Office.
Police officers visited
the Guys' residence
and checked in with their neighbors.
We're doing a check
to make sure they're okay.
When did you last see them?
They were here at Thanksgiving.
Their son was with them.
-That's all their vehicles?
-Yes, sir.
Okay, okay.
Hector Sanchez
was Assistant District Attorney
for Knox County.
Officers were able to determine
that the vehicles registered
to both Lisa and Joel Guy Sr.
were present.
They could also hear a faint dog bark
inside of the residence.
-We'll make sure they're okay.
-Okay.
Police couldn't get hold of Lisa
or Joel on their phones.
That big light,
it was on this morning.
I came home
from the gym at about 6:00 am.
I remember like,
"Lisa's getting ready for work."
Looking through the window,
they could see that groceries
were in the foyer area.
It was apparent
to them that there was perishables
that were in those bags, things
such as ice cream, meats and such.
So that was obviously curious
to them.
They did canvas around to the back
of the residence.
Hound dog's not out,
and all their cars are here.
They were able to determine
that the doorknob in the back
was completely missing,
so they could see into the residence.
When they looked, they could feel
an immense amount of heat
coming from that open portion.
The heat is jacked up like
as high as it'll go. It's scorching.
They could smell chemicals.
That was concerning
based on the fact that
there was no contact
with Joel and Lisa.
There's something wrong.
The police had to get
into the house.
Hello, Sheriff's Office!
They managed to get access
through the garage
and found a back door.
There's dog (BLEEP) everywhere.
I hear a dog howling.
Steven Sanders was a detective
from the Sheriff's Office.
He arrived on the scene
to an overheated house.
The interior door was opened,
and it was, I mean, it was hot.
It was... it was ridiculously hot.
Police!
Police department, Sheriff's Office.
When you go in, there was
obviously groceries on the floor.
Sheriff's Office!
There was animal feces throughout
the house and a dog barking.
Knox County Sheriff's Office.
And as they got up the stairs,
you could see brown staining,
which they believed to be blood.
-That's blood, right?
-Looks like blood.
Officers obviously at this point
have a heightened alertness.
They're looking to not only determine
if someone's okay
but also to determine whether or not
a suspect is present.
That's where dog is. Knives.
Lots of blood in here.
On the top of the stairs,
they found clothing
covered in what they believed
to be human blood
that appeared to be cut off
of a human body.
That was in a pile
next to a very large stain of blood.
Lots of blood in here.
Is that people's hands?
I think so. That's what I think.
That's what it looks like.
It's horrific. There's blood.
There's human remains.
You can't really put that into words,
but you'll never stop seeing it.
It's pretty, pretty gruesome.
-These are (BLEEP) hands.
-Get out now.
We've not cleared this.
There's blood all over too.
You can't. Back out.
Officers cleared the remainder
of the upstairs
and made the decision to back out.
Out through the garage the same way
we came in. Don't touch nothing.
Officers surrounded the house
in case anyone tried to flee.
We keep our eyes
on this back corner.
I've got the front.
Okay.
It appeared the only living being
left in the house was a dog.
What's up, buddy?
He is very hot and distressed
right now.
The house was made a crime scene
and cordoned off.
Multiple units within
the sheriff's department moved in.
And they began documenting
the scene.
Potential weapons, cash
and cleaning products
were gathered as evidence.
The police had to find out
what happened
and who the body parts belonged to.
Somebody out there is true evil,
and we've got to get them.
A suspicious mixture
of recently bought items
provided detectives with clues.
There were several bottles
of corrosive, acidic-based solutions
such as muriatic acid,
food-grade hydrogen peroxide,
bleach, liquid fire, Drano.
In the middle of the bedroom,
a workout machine was tipped over.
That was an indication to them
that there had been a struggle.
And officers in the corner did find
a very, very large spot in the corner
of a reddish brown substance.
In the master bathroom
were two blue storage bins.
They look in there. Now, they are
these big Rubbermaid containers.
And then they look in there,
there's torsos.
There was two bodies in there.
-Oh, there's two bodies in there?
-Yeah.
But the worst was yet to come.
They get into the kitchen area.
They see is that there's a big pot,
a soup pot, sitting on the stove.
It is boiling. They weren't sure
if it was water or a chemical,
but they could see that this
had been cooking, if you will.
And they look into it.
And when they look into it,
what they see is a human head.
A gruesome discovery.
Whoever decapitated this body
was still at large.
They know nothing about who may
or may not have been in that home.
But all they know is that they have
a house full of body parts
and this chemical smell.
The other thing that was unusual is
somebody who has taken
extraordinary measures of chopping,
trying to boil away
to literally dissolve these bones,
make these bodies disappear,
but was interrupted in some way
because it was incomplete.
The job was not done.
Disposing of bodies, especially when
people dismember bodies,
always sounds and feels
so incredibly gruesome,
and it is objectively,
but subjectively
for the person doing it,
they often describe it as going
into problem-solving mode.
The problem is
that they have this body.
The solution:
anything that'll get rid of it.
They're no longer seeing
these individuals as human beings.
They're seeing them as a problem,
as a body to be removed,
as objects, effectively.
So that can help us to understand
why it might seem less gruesome
to the person doing it
and more just the necessity.
We don't know if it's a random act
or if it's family.
We don't know anything
until we start getting our clues
and putting them together
and piecing the pieces together.
But right off the bat, you know
that whoever's responsible for this
has got to be caught.
Two vital pieces of evidence
gave the police a breakthrough.
We found two receipts.
The first was in the groceries
that were left in the foyer area
just through the front door.
In processing the scene,
the second level specifically,
investigators found an additional bag
that had blood on it
that had medical supplies,
including tape, ointments,
things you'd use for a serious wound
to treat, such as a knife injury.
In that bag was a second receipt.
Receipts these days have
timestamps on them.
They send some folks to go
to the Walmart
to review surveillance video
around that time frame.
The Walmart was only two miles
from the Guys family's home.
Going into the Walmart, being able
to give them the receipt,
we were able to pull a video
of what was taking place
at that particular cash register
in the self-checkout line.
The video surveillance
helped the police
identify the person
buying the groceries.
We were able to identify
some of the clothing.
We believed that was Lisa's.
They were able to determine
that just two days before
that Lisa Guy was in there
buying those exact groceries.
The police now had proof that Lisa
was alive on the 26th November
and that she made it home
with the groceries.
When the police checked
the video footage
for the time printed
on the second receipt,
3:30 pm that same day,
they made a surprising discovery.
You can tell in the Walmart footage
that this person,
he's got bandages on.
He's clearly injured himself.
He's buying some bandages,
it would appear, for his own cuts.
They look at this surveillance video
and who they see
is the face that they've seen
in that house in family photos...
of the son.
The son of Lisa and Joel Guy Sr.
was 28-year-old Joel Guy Jr.
He lived in an apartment
in Baton Rouge
over 600 miles away.
He was working
on his undergraduate degree
from Louisiana State University,
and he had been doing so
since he was roughly 18 years old.
He was smart, by all indications,
a smart young man,
and was working on becoming
a plastic surgeon.
Joel Guy Jr. also had
a difficult relationship
with his family.
What was a little strange is that
while the girls were very close
to their parents,
their son really never connected
with his own family.
From a very young age, Joel Guy Jr.
wanted to be away from home.
And as a child,
he wasn't sent to boarding school.
He insisted on going
to a boarding school.
Lisa and Joel had been supporting
their son financially.
Lisa Guy worked for the purpose
of supporting him.
She paid for his rent.
She paid for his food.
She paid for his vehicle,
his car insurance.
Joel Junior never worked
a day in his life.
His parents had had enough.
They told him they planned
to stop supporting him
so they could retire
more comfortably.
Someone dependent on his parents
at this point starts to wonder,
"How am I going to survive
if my parents cut me off?"
And that can lead
to a spiral of catastrophizing,
of thinking worse and worse
potential consequences.
That catastrophizing can make you
think, "The only thing I can do
is to somehow figure out
how I can still get that money."
And that might lead you to fantasize
about ways to do that.
Fantasizing can include thinking
about taking advantage of people
or of maybe even killing people.
Two days after Thanksgiving,
Joel Guy Jr. was supposed
to be back home in Baton Rouge.
But the Walmart footage showed
that he was still in Knoxville.
The distance between Knoxville
and Louisiana is huge.
We're talking 500 or 600 miles,
a drive of, you know, 8 to 10 hours.
So to have Joel Michael Guy Jr.
still present in Knox County
after he was thought
to have been gone
was significant
to our investigation.
On closer inspection,
the CCTV footage also revealed
Joel Guy Jr.'s physical condition.
This angle of the video from Walmart
is real important to us.
It's a self-checkout which allows us
to see the items purchased
which match the items
at the residence.
It also allows us to see his hands,
which shows us that he has injuries
and wounds on his hands.
The police found footage
of Joel Jr.'s car leaving Walmart,
which meant
they could track his number plate.
The FBI task force,
they actually located the vehicle
and him in the apartment
back in Baton Rouge.
They set up surveillance
and watched that
while me and Detective McCord
began our travel to Baton Rouge.
When they got there,
they arrested Joel Guy Jr.
He was taken into custody.
Police found
another trail of receipts
inside his apartment.
In connection with the investigation,
officers were able to ascertain
that Joel Michael Guy Jr.
had been buying various supplies
in and around the Baton Rouge area,
Louisiana.
Seventeen days
before Thanksgiving,
Joel Guy Jr.
was captured on camera
at Ace Hardware in Louisiana.
This video is of him purchasing
heavy chemicals, Drano and so forth,
that were the same chemicals
found here,
which helped us prove premeditation.
This is him at a Home Depot,
going through self-checkout,
purchasing the garden hose,
purchasing a garden sprayer,
bleach sprayer and a spray bottle.
And we have him walking out.
Police matched the items
with the same items found
at his parent's house in Knoxville.
They also discovered
another chilling piece of evidence.
As the law enforcers are searching
this house,
one of these rooms belonged
or had at one time belonged
to Joel Guy Jr.
And so when they go into that room,
they find he had left a backpack.
It had his laptop in it.
But it also had
this college-rule notebook.
And when they open it up,
what they see is page after page
after page
of handwritten notes.
The best description of its contents,
I would call this a murder book.
He wanted to render his parents
into a liquid form
and put them into the public waterway
before he lit the house on fire
to get rid of any evidence.
Joel Guy Jr. was putting
his detailed plan into place
in the days
leading up to Thanksgiving.
The video evidence was damning.
The Walmart in Louisiana,
he is purchasing the bins.
The blue bins are what we located
in the master bathroom
with the human remains.
Twenty days before these murders,
he's out in Baton Rouge,
buying all these supplies
that were all captured
on various surveillance.
The importance to it to us was
it showed his premeditation
and his intent for what had
had happened back in Knoxville.
Through DNA analysis,
forensic pathologists found
that the body parts in the house
belonged to Lisa and Joel Guy Sr.
Their son, Joel Michael Guy Jr.,
was charged with two counts
of first-degree murder
and abuse of a corpse.
When you think about a case
that involves
someone who's accused
of chopping up his parents,
the first thought anyone would have
is, "He's got to be crazy."
His defense team would have loved
to pursue an insanity defense
because they had nothing else,
but he refused.
And it was almost
as if he were offended
that anybody would be questioning
his intellect.
Joel Guy Jr. was comprehensively
captured by the net of surveillance.
He was sentenced to life in prison
for two counts of murder
and dismemberment of his parents,
Joel Guy Sr. and Lisa Guy.
At the trial, the full extent
of the horrific details
of what happened were revealed.
He did kill his father first
when his mother
was grocery shopping.
He accomplished the act of killing
the bigger threat, his father.
He did that in the upstairs
spare bedroom slash exercise room.
We believe that perhaps his father
was working out
when he was attacked.
There was proof that he was stabbed
in the back multiple times.
There's proof that Joel Guy Sr.
fought back,
which ultimately led to Joel Guy Jr.
obtaining a pretty serious wound
to his hand.
Further proof established that once
Miss Lisa got home from Walmart,
based on the groceries
that were not put away,
she was lured upstairs.
The minute she reached the top
is where she was attacked
and murdered.
Joel Guy Sr. was disarticulated
at his hips
and also at his elbows and hands.
Lisa Guy was decapitated.
She was disarticulated
at the kneecaps.
And we believe that that was in order
to render his parents in a position
where he could put their remains
in each one of those storage tubs.
Despite the measures
and the planning he took,
his plan did fail.
I think the reason his plan failed
was based on the fact
that Joel Guy Sr. fought back.
Joel Michael Guy Jr. had to leave
the state of Tennessee
and drive roughly 500 to 600 miles
to seek medical attention.
We were able to determine
that he came back to Knox County,
where he saw that his neighborhood
was saturated with law enforcement
and decided to again leave
and go back to Baton Rouge.
Parricide is when a child kills
their parents.
Double parricide is when a child
kills both parents.
It's rare to kill the parents.
It's even more rare for children
to kill both parents.
If a child is going to kill a parent,
it's usually one parent
and it's often a boy who is killing
their father or their mother.
Joel Jr. was made aware
that his parents were going
to cut him off.
And when that was threatened,
he decided to kill his parents.
It's the coldest motive
there is, greed.
I'm sure he manipulated his mother
all the time.
And for once, she was standing firm,
even though it upset her.
She was standing firm,
and I think he realized
that the gig was up,
and that's when he put
this murder book plan into place.
Joel Guy Jr. hoped
by killing his parents,
he would receive all their savings
and life insurance money.
But there was another twist
to his financial motive,
an emotional one.
He was homosexual.
He had a partner that lived with him
for a while
and then they separated
and they were friends.
But Joel Guy Jr.
wanted to be with him
and the other individual did not want
to be with him.
The individual in question
was Michael McCraken.
And in jail, Joel Guy Jr.
made a call to Michael
where he revealed his motivation
for killing his parents.
So I have been in love with you
since we first met 12 years ago.
And I always got insanely jealous.
It became blatantly obvious that
I didn't meet any of the criteria.
There's never been any question
about that. Physically speaking.
I could get bariatric surgery,
cheek, face implants
to give me facial bone structure
so that I wouldn't have that
'"round thing" as you call it.
That's just sort of been
a wild fantasy of mine.
We genuinely had
a realistic chance of being happy
if I got around to doing that.
He wanted the inheritance for himself
to change his appearance
and make
the love of his life want him.
I don't know what to say.
I'm angry and lost and confused
and disappointed and upset
and mourning you like you're dead
even though I'm talking to you.
It's taking everything I have
to process and maintain my sanity.
I think about you all the time.
You were the only good thing
in my life.
He did this to take the inheritance
to change his appearance,
to make
his significant other want him.
And that's basically it.
What was particularly disturbing
when you look at that murder book
is that while he's seated
at the family table on Thanksgiving
and he's being friendly
and loving on his family,
all the while, his instruction manual
for killing his parents
is up there in his bedroom,
and they had no idea.
The role of cameras as it relates
to this case was tremendous.
All the security surveillance footage
that we had at various locations.
It would have been a lot harder
to present the case
in the way that we were able to
and to corroborate theories
that we had about the premeditation
in purchasing items
and utilizing them in the commission
of these brutal murders.
The cameras are very important
because there is no disputing
who this is and what's being bought
and what was at the crime scene.
This case is obviously one
that no one wants to be a part of.
It's a very heavy case.
The loss of life and the manner
in which these folks...
were murdered is brutal.
He's the strangest defendant
that I have ever encountered.
There's something missing
in his soul.
How can a person be so, so cruel
and brutal
not only to just somebody but family?
It's a day
that you will never forget.
Research has found
that since at least 2020,
CCTV has been used more often
than any other forensic science
or technology
to identify and charge suspects.
Cameras are vital in helping track
and place suspects
in or around the scene of a crime.
The Hamlet of Snowdown
near Aylesham in Kent.
Home to 53-year-old Julia James.
Julia had recently remarried.
She had two children
from two separate relationships.
Julia James was
a police community support officer,
and she was well-known in the area
because of her role as a PCSO,
and she was
really outgoing, friendly.
She was a massive part
of the Kent Police community as well.
She was a DA PCSO.
So domestic abuse police
and community support officer,
supporting victims of abuse.
She was there to help.
That's what she wanted.
Julia lived next to Ackholt Wood
and often walked
her Jack Russell, Toby,
in the woodland and countryside
which surrounded her home.
Kirsty Bennett is a Lecturer
in Criminology
at Leeds Beckett University.
Julia used to walk her dog
quite frequently in a wood
at the back of her house.
While there, she came across a man
on a couple of occasions, lurking,
which made
her feel quite uncomfortable.
Gavin Moss is
a senior investigative officer
at Kent Police.
Julia had expressed some concerns
about a male she'd seen
on two or three occasions.
She described the person, saying
he was in the area of Ackholt Woods.
It gave her some cause for concern.
This was never, ever reported.
That's no criticism
because people do see things
and things don't always get reported.
Julia told her husband, Paul, that
she'd passed a "really weird dude"
on the Ackholt Wood Bridle Path.
When Julia went
for a walk with her husband,
she pointed out
the same man to him.
Paul, Julia's husband, mentioned that
he'd seen this person in February,
so February 2021,
in the area of Ackholt Wood.
Women typically wait
for 19 separate incidents
to occur, either threats or incidents
where they've been watched,
before they report it to police.
So you need to have really seen
that person quite a lot
in order to raise the alarm
and go to authorities.
After their encounters
with the strange man in the woods,
Julia and her husband avoided
their usual dog-walking route.
And as an extra precaution,
Paul bought Julia a smartwatch.
That was there
as an extra security safety measure.
So she could quickly alert people
if she felt unsafe.
That allowed her to go back
after taking a break
from not visiting.
On Tuesday, 27th April,
at 2:12 in the afternoon,
Julia left her house
and took her dog, Toby,
for a walk in the nearby woods.
At 2:23 p.m., she was spotted
on a distant CCTV camera,
walking through a gap in a hedge
near Ackholt Wood.
This video clip here is
from a local business
that overlooks the Ackholt Wood area,
and what it actually shows
is an image of somebody
walking along here.
This CCTV was cross-referenced
with GPS data from the smartwatch.
We were able to say that
that individual was Julia James.
It showed the route she had taken
from her home address.
Eight minutes after she appeared
in the footage,
Julia's smartwatch detected
a big change.
Her smartwatch indicated that
her heart rate rose from 97 to 145.
We can see that something's
a problem. She's moving very quickly.
The data also showed Julia
made a detour from her usual route.
It was awful viewing
to see her Apple Watch
and her heart rate
change dramatically.
It was very clear to see that
she'd run away.
Our take was
that she was being chased.
An hour and a half later,
a local family were walking
in the woods
and came across Julia's dog
wandering alone.
They saw Julia's dog, Toby,
but without an owner.
They went to investigate.
That's when Julia's body was found.
Julia suffered very traumatic
blunt-force-trauma injuries.
She had a broken wrist.
She had multiple lacerations
and injuries to her skull and face.
The offender took strides
to really injure Julia.
She stood no chance of survival
and died very, very quickly
and fortunately, didn't go
through too much pain.
Police were on the hunt
for the person capable
of carrying out such violence.
At the time,
there was a lot of concern,
a lot of fear in the community.
My thought is, "Is this person
going to strike again?
"Will we end up
having another murder?"
The police searched the area
where Julia's body was found.
The area was absolutely enormous.
It is by far the biggest scene
that I've ever dealt with.
We used Licensed Search Officers
to undertake line searches,
fingertip searches.
We used the drone. We had
forensic recovery dogs out as well.
Gathering video evidence
was crucial to the case.
I remember saying at one briefing,
"Be creative.
Think about other opportunities,
about buses,
about lorries,
think about delivery drivers.
Get it as open as we can
to capture everything possible.
In terms of footage
that we had to view,
it worked out to 6700 hours
worth of footage.
But digital forensic analysts
spotted something.
Just under two hours
before Julia was murdered,
CCTV captured a person
in Aylesham carrying a bag.
He's walking in the direction
of a gap in a tree line.
This individual was carrying
something in his bag.
You can't get
any facial identification of him.
Thirty-one minutes later,
the same person
was spotted again.
And then again leaving the area
at 3:45 p.m.
What really helped is that this
also coincides within the timeframe
of obviously after Julia
was brutally murdered.
So it all starts bringing it
all together about his movements
pre and post
what tragically happened.
As well as the footage, police also
investigated potential witnesses
who'd been driving in the area
around the time of Julia's murder.
After such a high-profile incident,
the community was on high alert
and a critical piece
of dashcam footage was recorded
by local gamekeeper Gavin Tucker.
Alright, mate, what are you up to?
Right. Yup.
Alright, what's that about, then?
-Yeah, where are you going, then?
-I'm going home. I live here.
He'd described the location
he'd come from, the crime scene.
And that's what aroused
Mr. Tucker's suspicions.
The suspicious character
hastily left the scene.
Gavin Tucker needed to act fast.
Police, police.
Hiya, it's... I'm reporting
it might be nothing to do with,
but there's a suspicious fella
I've just approached
and he's running off
and there's been a...
obviously, a death
at Ackholt,
down at Ackholt at the moment.
He then runs away
and runs along Addisham Road.
As you can see here, he cuts across
and runs into the wooded area.
Ackholt Wood, near Dover.
Between Dover and Canterbury.
Of particular interest to us was
this item here being carried.
The pathologist's report gave
the police critical information
about the type of weapon
that was used to kill Julia.
From the post-mortem,
the pathologist said,
"You're looking for something
cylindrical, linear and heavy."
The weapon used to kill Julia
hadn't been located
near the scene of the crime.
Police were looking for anything
which may have fit
the pathologist's description.
As well as the dashcam footage,
Gavin Tucker managed
to take a photo of the suspect
in the field before he ran off.
We circulated the image
to the general public.
I wanted the holdall to be cropped
so we didn't show what that was
in the event
that we could hopefully locate that
in the future.
When police released the image
to the media,
a witness identified the suspect
as 21-year-old Callum Wheeler.
Police arrested Callum
on Friday, May 7th.
Ten days after Julia was murdered.
Show me your hands.
Hands, both hands, show me hands.
-Step back, step back.
-Okay.
He barricaded himself in,
protesting his innocence.
And he resisted arrest.
-Callum.
-(BLEEP) off.
Callum, you're under arrest
on suspicion of murder...
-But why?
-...of Julia James.
Within his bedroom,
just over this side,
there is what we believe to be
the weapon,
-which was subsequently seized.
-I haven't done it.
You were in the area
during the time of the offense.
-Callum, relax.
-Calm down.
The weapon, still propped up
against his bedroom wall,
matched the item he was carrying
before and after Julia's murder.
The weapon that was used was
actually a railway jack handle
that is used by the railways to lift
tracks effectively with it on a jack.
It's made of fiberglass
and consistent with what,
exactly what the pathologist said,
it was linear, cylindrical
and it was very heavy on one end.
Once Callum
was taken into custody,
the police began building a case
against him.
We didn't know a great deal
about Callum Wheeler.
From a police point of view,
very little was known about him.
And he was a complete loner in life.
He had no friends.
He'd lived in Aylesham
for a couple of years.
Came from London, and apart from
that, we didn't know a great deal.
As part of the investigation,
detectives create
a narrative of the event
to support a successful prosecution.
DNA evidence was vital
to put Callum
at the scene of the crime.
What we were able then to show
was that we had Callum's DNA
on Julia's clothing,
but also on the weapon,
we had Julia's DNA.
We had on his training shoes
presence of Julia's blood.
He was charged.
He appeared at court,
and he was remanded in custody.
In court, the full details
of what happened to Julia James
on 27th April 2021 were revealed.
Callum Wheeler had ambushed her,
subjected her to an absolutely brutal
and horrific murder,
causing catastrophic head injuries,
worst I've ever seen.
The extent of the injuries
is not a common occurrence
because Julia was likely unconscious
from the first injury
and we've seen
the multiple attacks afterwards,
which is not necessarily needed
to cause death.
Julia was not sexually assaulted
in the sense that she was
a victim of a rape.
We know that because
of the forensic analysis that we did.
But there were significant issues
in relation to Callum Wheeler
that we were able to establish
during the investigation.
The presence of Wheeler's DNA
on a vest top
that Julia had been wearing,
and that didn't happen by accident.
She was wearing a jacket.
She was also wearing a jumper.
The top was underneath those items.
So, you know,
he had touched her breast.
That all came to what we said was
a sexually motivated murder.
Wheeler's internet search history
also showed
that he'd searched the word "rape"
just two days before Julia's murder.
His actions after he was arrested
were disturbing.
When he got arrested,
he exposed himself
to a female police officer
and masturbated,
which would have been
absolutely horrendous
for that individual officer to see.
Had he not been caught,
this could have been the first
in a series of attacks on women
in the area.
I can't ignore that he was walking
around with that weapon.
Was it because he wanted a trophy
or because
he would have killed again?
Only one person knows that,
and that is Callum Wheeler.
I'm a detective of many years.
I can't help but think that
potentially we could've had another.
Without the videos, the prosecution
may not have had enough evidence.
Surveillance footage and CCTV
are so important
for tying weapons, belongings
to an offender and the victim
and identifying
the sequence of events.
What was
the offender doing beforehand?
What were they doing afterwards that
we can put together into that story.
Alright, mate, what are you up to?
Had we not had CCTV,
we wouldn't have seen him holding
the weapon before or afterwards.
That could have presented a defense
that he'd found the weapon.
Callum Wheeler was sentenced
to life in prison
with a minimum term of 37 years.
I went to the funeral, and the impact
of Julia's murder was significant.
Did I treat this any differently
to another murder?
I didn't
because I needed to catch him.
We needed to catch him
because it was clear
he was a brutal individual.
But it is, you know,
something different and difficult
when it's one of your own.
Translated by: Evelyn Towne
Iyuno