Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to The Unseen Podcast, a podcast
Speaker 1: dedicated to missing people, unresolved cases, and UK true crime. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to be looking into the nineteen ninety five
Speaker 1: murder of fifty two year old Joy Heuer in Walthamstow.
Speaker 1: This was a tragic and mysterious case which still very
Speaker 1: sadly remains unsolved despite nearly thirty years going by. This
Speaker 1: episode contains descriptions that some listeners may find distressing, so
Speaker 1: listener discretion is advised. Walthamstowe is a town in East
Speaker 1: London which is known today as a bustling and cultural center,
Speaker 1: famous for the William Morris Gallery and its many shops
Speaker 1: and public transport links into central London. It retains much
Speaker 1: of its history charm while also feeling like part of
Speaker 1: a big city. In nineteen ninety five, fifty two year
Speaker 1: old Joy Hewer lived in Walthamstow in a flat within
Speaker 1: a complex named Saint David's Court. Around fifty five other
Speaker 1: people lived there during that time. Joy was a well
Speaker 1: known resident, living in a flat on the sixth floor.
Speaker 1: She was known for being kind, smiley and extremely welcoming.
Speaker 1: Joy had grown up in the area and lived alone
Speaker 1: in her flat. Despite the fact that she lived alone,
Speaker 1: it was known that she was not lonely. She spoke
Speaker 1: to her parents often, as well as her siblings and
Speaker 1: her nieces and nephews. She was friendly and warm, and
Speaker 1: her neighbors loved speaking with her and seeing her around.
Speaker 1: One of her neighbors described her as quote she was
Speaker 1: one of the loveliest people living here. She was always
Speaker 1: smiling and helping elderly people. Joi had been a primary
Speaker 1: school teacher at the local school, Woodhouse Primary. She was
Speaker 1: known as a kind and diligent teacher who cared a
Speaker 1: lot about the children in her care. In nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: Joy had decided to retire early from her job, and
Speaker 1: since then she had devoted her whole life to volunteering.
Speaker 1: She was a devout Christian who did everything she could
Speaker 1: to help and support others. She volunteered at several churches
Speaker 1: in the area. However, Saint Mary's in Walthamstow was one
Speaker 1: that she visited most regularly. She would help by completing
Speaker 1: general admin tasks, volunteering at the soup kitchen, and cleaning
Speaker 1: the church. Joi was happy to help anyone she could,
Speaker 1: and Reverend Paul butler from Saint Mary's later stated that
Speaker 1: when he became reverend in nineteen ninety four, Joi was
Speaker 1: the first person to welcome him to the area and
Speaker 1: explain how much she was happy that he was there.
Speaker 1: This just exemplifies who she was as a person and
Speaker 1: her caring and supportive nature. It was known that Joy
Speaker 1: also volunteered at the London Healing Mission, and this was
Speaker 1: to help homeless people and those that may be drug dependent.
Speaker 1: She attended meetings at the mission on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 1: so on Tuesday, the seventeenth of October nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: Joy followed her usual routine of heading down for the
Speaker 1: meeting at the mission. She was there until around three
Speaker 1: thirty pm, when a colleague of hers saw her leaving
Speaker 1: for the day. It was then known that Joy visited
Speaker 1: the chemist close to her home around five fifty pm.
Speaker 1: She then headed straight home to Saint David's Court, arriving
Speaker 1: around ten minutes later. On her way in, she saw
Speaker 1: another resident and spoke to them. Joy stayed in that
Speaker 1: night and it's known that she spoke to several people
Speaker 1: on the phone that evening. At around nine forty pm,
Speaker 1: she phoned her brother. However, he wasn't in, and she
Speaker 1: spoke to her nephew instead, asking him to tell his
Speaker 1: dad to wring her back and that she was in
Speaker 1: all evening, she told him it wasn't urgent. This seemed
Speaker 1: like a normal evening for Joy, who enjoyed speaking to
Speaker 1: people on the phone and socializing. At around ten thirty pm,
Speaker 1: the couple who lived two floors below Joy were woken
Speaker 1: by some very loud banging noises that they could hear
Speaker 1: through the ceiling. One of the residents of the flat
Speaker 1: said that she was concerned as the flat directly above
Speaker 1: them was empty at that time and she was worried
Speaker 1: that it was being burgled as the bangs were that loud.
Speaker 1: She stated they did stop and she lay back in bed.
Speaker 1: Around ten minutes later, though, she then heard footsteps which
Speaker 1: she described as heavy. They were running down the communal staircase.
Speaker 1: It then went quiet. This was an unusual occurrence at
Speaker 1: Saint David's Court and did concern her. At around eleven
Speaker 1: eighteen pm that same evening, a nine nine nine call
Speaker 1: was received. It was later found that this call had
Speaker 1: been made from a phone box on Fullburn Road, close
Speaker 1: to Saint David's Court. The caller told the operator that
Speaker 1: he had been driving past the flats when he noticed
Speaker 1: some flames and smoke coming out from one of the floors.
Speaker 1: He said he couldn't work out which floor it was
Speaker 1: coming from, and when he was asked whereabouts he was located,
Speaker 1: he wasn't sure what street he was on. He's heard
Speaker 1: on the phone call asking someone who was stood at
Speaker 1: the bus stop which road they were on. He eventually
Speaker 1: said that they were on the junction of Wood Street
Speaker 1: near Walthamstow Town Hall. Fire services were dispatched to Saint
Speaker 1: David's Court, where they noted that smoke had started to
Speaker 1: fill the lobby and they quickly established that it was
Speaker 1: coming from a flat on the sixth floor. The flat
Speaker 1: belonged to Joi Heuer. When they entered, they discovered two
Speaker 1: separate fires. One was located in the lounge area and
Speaker 1: one was in the bedroom. These fires were quite quickly extinguished. However,
Speaker 1: when they were they made a discovery they had found
Speaker 1: Joy's body. It quickly became apparent that Joi had not
Speaker 1: passed away as a result of the fire, and the
Speaker 1: post martem established that Joi had actually been stabbed in addition,
Speaker 1: she had also been sexually assaulted. It would appear that
Speaker 1: the fires had been set after the attack and the
Speaker 1: murder had taken place, and it's been speculated that this
Speaker 1: had possibly been as a way to remove forensic evidence
Speaker 1: from the scene. Police began to look into how someone
Speaker 1: could have got into the flat that night. Joi was
Speaker 1: known to be a cautious person who cared about her
Speaker 1: own personal safety. She wasn't someone who would have just
Speaker 1: let a stranger into her home, and her flat had
Speaker 1: a chain link lock as well as a peephole that
Speaker 1: was installed in her door. There appeared, however, to be
Speaker 1: no forced entry at the home, and Joi was found
Speaker 1: wearing her NightWare, meaning that she'd probably been in bed
Speaker 1: at the time that the attacker entered her home. Had
Speaker 1: she let someone into her home? Had this been a
Speaker 1: stranger or someone she knew. Police reportedly could find no
Speaker 1: evidence that anything was missing from the home, and they
Speaker 1: didn't find the murder weapon there either. There was one
Speaker 1: intriguing piece of evidence, though, Police recovered two used coffee
Speaker 1: cups from the home, which could suggest that someone had
Speaker 1: visited Joy that night. Who was this and why had
Speaker 1: Joi let them into her home. Police set about trying
Speaker 1: to speak to everyone that knew Joy and might be
Speaker 1: able to shed some light on who this could have been.
Speaker 1: Everyone who knew her spoke of her as a kind, understanding,
Speaker 1: and caring woman who only wanted to help other people.
Speaker 1: Police could find no one who had any reason to
Speaker 1: harm Joy, and her timeline of that day was quite
Speaker 1: easy to establish, given that she'd been at the mission
Speaker 1: for most of the day and had spoken to people
Speaker 1: on the phone for most of the evening. There was
Speaker 1: a period of time between three point thirty and five
Speaker 1: fifty pm where Joi was unaccounted for. However, it's unclear
Speaker 1: this time was important to the murder. The time of
Speaker 1: the murder seemed to coincide with the bangs heard by
Speaker 1: the downstairs neighbors and the footsteps on the stairs, and
Speaker 1: this was only forty five minutes after speaking to her
Speaker 1: nephew on the phone. As well as speaking to people
Speaker 1: who knew Joy personally, they also spoke to the residence
Speaker 1: of Saint David's Courts and reviewed footage from the CCTV,
Speaker 1: which was located at the entrance. Police knew that whoever
Speaker 1: let the killer into the building had done so through
Speaker 1: the two way into commsystem. None of the residents reported
Speaker 1: that they had let an unknown man into the building,
Speaker 1: and most other people were found to be accounted for
Speaker 1: and had a reason to be in the building that day.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of people who police wanted to
Speaker 1: speak to, though A man had been seen in the
Speaker 1: building at six thirty five pm. This man had reportedly
Speaker 1: been stood by the lifts and had been spotted by
Speaker 1: a couple who were moving in and they'd had a
Speaker 1: chat with him. He was described as white, well spoken,
Speaker 1: with a boyish face, and was around five feet seven
Speaker 1: inches tall. He was stated that this man was not
Speaker 1: a suspect, but they wanted to speak to him, identify
Speaker 1: him and rule him out. A crime Watch reconstruction was
Speaker 1: shown on TV to try and drum up leads, and
Speaker 1: an e fit of this man was created. Another lead
Speaker 1: that police wanted to follow up with was the man
Speaker 1: who'd called in the fire at eleven eighteen. They knew
Speaker 1: that it had been made from a phone box on
Speaker 1: Fulburn Road, and they knew that he had asked someone
Speaker 1: at a bus stop what the road name was. They
Speaker 1: were trying to locate both of these men in the
Speaker 1: hope that they could help them with the investigation. They
Speaker 1: published the nine to nine to nine call on the
Speaker 1: Crime Watch episode in case someone could identify the voice.
Speaker 1: Another significantly that police wanted to follow up with was
Speaker 1: a report from a witness who was driving past Saint
Speaker 1: David's Court when a man sprinted out of the flats
Speaker 1: and ran across the road, causing the driver to stop suddenly.
Speaker 1: This man was described as black and six feet four
Speaker 1: inches tall. It was unclear if this man had anything
Speaker 1: to do with the crime, but if he did, then
Speaker 1: he was not caught on CCTV entering the building at
Speaker 1: any point. The police did have one CCTV image of
Speaker 1: someone who who were very interested in speaking to. It
Speaker 1: was someone who was also unaccounted for and the police
Speaker 1: could not identify. This man also entered at a crucial
Speaker 1: time in the known timeline. He was thirty to forty
Speaker 1: years old, was white, and was seen wearing a light
Speaker 1: colored jacket. He entered at around ten thirty p m.
Speaker 1: The CCTV image was grainy and difficult to make out. However,
Speaker 1: it was hoped and is still hoped, that somebody might
Speaker 1: know something. This information was all important, but who these
Speaker 1: people were was difficult to ascertain. Despite the appeals that
Speaker 1: took place at the time and the Crime Watch episode,
Speaker 1: information was not forthcoming in the case. It proved difficult
Speaker 1: to find out any new information, and those that knew
Speaker 1: Joy could not imagine who would have wanted to harm her.
Speaker 1: This is the way that the case seemed to stay,
Speaker 1: with little movement or progress being published. Twenty fifteen marked
Speaker 1: the twenty year anniversary of the case and the Metropolitan
Speaker 1: Police appealed for information. Detective Inspector Susan Stansfield urged anyone
Speaker 1: who hadn't come forward before to do so now. Her
Speaker 1: sister Peggy also spoke in a BBC article. She said
Speaker 1: she was no harm to anyone and stated we've never
Speaker 1: forgotten the moment that we were told she'd been murdered.
Speaker 1: It will never make any sense to us. She lived
Speaker 1: a quiet and peaceful life which was totally at odds
Speaker 1: with her last terrifying moments. There was another Crime Watch
Speaker 1: appeal shown in twenty fifteen in the hope that information
Speaker 1: would come forward. It's reported that there's a twenty thousand
Speaker 1: pound reward available for anyone with information leading to a conviction.
Speaker 1: It's clear that Joy's family have continued to appeal for
Speaker 1: information and are dedicated to finding the killer. Joi has
Speaker 1: not had justice and she deserves it as well as
Speaker 1: her family who deserve answers. It's now coming up to
Speaker 1: thirty years since it happened, so if you do know
Speaker 1: anything about Joi Huer's murder, please contact the Metropolitan Police
Speaker 1: on one oh one. Thank you for listening to today's episode.
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Speaker 1: and this has been unseen the