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00:03On a dark January evening in 2020, a 55-year-old man is reported missing in Carmarthenshire,
00:11in the southwest of Wales. Worried about his safety, his family called the police.
00:16He hadn't come home from work. He'd sent his family a text message, and the message said,
00:22I'm so sorry. A search of unprecedented scale takes place in the local areas.
00:30The kind of search that the police would have to undergo then would be enormous.
00:34You're looking at that area of Carmarthenshire, which is woodlands and rivers and streams and farms,
00:40disused buildings. There is so much to consider. It really is looking for a needle in a haystack.
00:45Police begin to uncover evidence that leads them to believe that something sinister is going on.
00:50They discovered crucial insight into what might have happened to him.
00:55Michael always texted in Welsh, and the message that was received by his friends and family
01:00was in English. Investigators managed to track down a suspect, but lacked the evidence to prove
01:06their theory. There was a lot of pressure on the police, because they could only hold him
01:10for four days, and there was no body. That's just simply not something that happens very often,
01:16and is something that will resonate and stick in the memory for a lot of people for a very long
01:19time.
01:49We'll see you next time.
01:57Carmarthenshire, often called the Garden of Wales, is a picturesque county in southwest Wales,
02:03known for its rolling hills, ancient castles, and scenic coastline.
02:10Carmarthenshire is a very beautiful area of west Wales. You've got the seafront areas and the beaches,
02:15which are particularly beautiful, and then you've also got inland lots of rural areas,
02:19lots of area, lots of farming, and also lots of very pretty and historic National Trust properties.
02:25Some of the most beautiful country in the whole of the British Isles. It's an ancient medieval town.
02:32It's got a beautiful castle, a priory, and it's the fabled birthplace of Merlin, from the Arthurian legend.
02:43It's a place stock full of history.
02:46The industry centres around farming and things like that, so there's lots of agriculture, lots of construction.
02:51Those are kind of very, very dominant industries in the area.
02:55It's beautiful, it's green. It's a place where nothing really happens.
03:04In places like Carmarthenshire, it would be very rare to see the kind of levels of crime, or volume crime,
03:09or kind of seriousness of crime that you would find in inner cities, in big cities around the UK.
03:16January 27th, 2020.
03:19Police receive a report of a missing person.
03:2155-year-old Michael O'Leary from the town of Nantgaradig in Carmarthenshire.
03:28On a very cold Monday night at the end of January,
03:32Michael O'Leary's brother-in-law himself, a former police officer,
03:35made a 999 call reporting that his brother-in-law, Michael O'Leary, was missing,
03:40and that there was potentially a risk to him.
03:43Is there some urgency here?
03:45Yeah, I want to report a missing person who's a threat to life.
03:49OK, bear with me.
03:52What's his name?
03:54Michael O'Leary.
03:56He hadn't come home from work.
03:59And he'd sent his family a text message, and the message said,
04:03I'm so sorry.
04:07Now, that obviously gave rise to some fear that perhaps he'd, you know,
04:11taken actions towards himself.
04:15But there were a couple of interesting things about that message as well
04:18that the family noted right from the off.
04:21The message was in English, and Michael O'Leary,
04:25when he was communicating with his family,
04:26would only ever communicate with them in Welsh.
04:30They found that, even though it's only a three-word message,
04:33very, very strange.
04:36The other thing they noted was he would always use WhatsApp.
04:39This was a regular text message, something that he simply wouldn't do.
04:43So, behaviourally and linguistically,
04:44they're looking at this and going,
04:46something's not quite right,
04:47but primarily, obviously, it's a concern for Michael.
04:52A wide-scale search of the surrounding area is launched
04:55to locate the missing man.
04:59Once Michael is reported missing,
05:01there is naturally a search for him and for the car that he was driving.
05:06His car is located some four miles from his home address
05:10by the river Toei, indicating potentially, as people might fear,
05:15listening to what was said on that text message
05:18and where his car is positioned next to a river
05:21that maybe he's come to harm.
05:23They quickly discovered footprints leading from the car or truck
05:28to the riverside.
05:30So, the first impression the police received was,
05:33this is a possible suicide.
05:37And, of course, the thinking was, has he gone into the river?
05:40Has he hurt himself?
05:42Has he taken his own life?
05:45All they had to go on was the car, which was locked,
05:48but they could see his work phone inside it
05:50and they had to break into the car
05:51and see what the phone revealed to them.
05:57Investigators hope Michael's phone
05:58will be able to give them information on his disappearance.
06:02Meanwhile, the search continues.
06:05The kind of search that the police would have to undergo then
06:08would be enormous.
06:11You're looking at that area of Carmarthenshire,
06:13which is woodlands and rivers and streams
06:17and farms, disused buildings.
06:21There is so much to consider.
06:23It really is looking for a needle in a haystack.
06:29But the police have certain tools at their disposal.
06:32In this particular case,
06:34the senior investigating officer identifies straight away
06:36that he needs as much help as possible.
06:40And that is through things like helicopters
06:43using thermal imaging along the riverbank.
06:45So, looking for heat sources that might indicate
06:48that Michael is somewhere along that river.
06:52Using search dogs that can help identify where a body might be.
06:57They also use search teams,
07:00quite often known as Pulsar teams.
07:01And they are officers who are specially trained in searching
07:06large rural areas such as Carmarthenshire
07:09and where Michael's car was found.
07:12But this would all be done under a huge operation,
07:16a huge load of strategies being brought in for certain areas.
07:19But what you have to start with is the senior investigating officer
07:23is, right, where was he last seen?
07:24So, start at that car and then work out.
07:30Investigators begin delving into the life
07:31of the 55-year-old Welshman in search of clues.
07:35As the uniform branch was searching for Michael O'Leary,
07:39the detectives were investigating O'Leary's phone
07:44but also his background.
07:45And they discovered a crucial insight into his character
07:50or what might have happened to him
07:51in that he had been conducting an affair
07:53with the wife of one of his best friends.
07:57They went to the same gym together
07:59and they also both attended the local rugby club fairly frequently.
08:02They were in a circle of friends that knew one another
08:04and knew one another's families very well.
08:06So, that obviously was something
08:07that immediately piqued the interest of the police.
08:10The woman who was last seen with Michael
08:12is married to Andrew Jones.
08:16Officers investigating the case will look at CCTV
08:19and once they understand that Michael O'Leary
08:22is a member of this rugby club,
08:24they understand the rugby club itself has CCTV
08:26and what they discover is 48 hours before Michael has gone missing,
08:29he could be seen sitting at the bar with the wife of Andrew Jones
08:33and this is somebody that potentially he is involved in an affair with at the time.
08:39They now want to speak to the wife of Andrew Jones
08:42and say, OK, well, what is it you're talking about?
08:44Can you help us with the disappearance of Michael?
08:47She is located at a local hospital
08:49suffering with dizziness, headaches and memory loss.
08:55So, questioning her obviously at that point
08:57is going to be particularly difficult,
08:59especially if she says, I don't remember what's happened.
09:02The police ask Andrew Jones, who's with his wife in the hospital,
09:06well, can you help us with where Michael might be?
09:09You know him, obviously, down at the rugby club.
09:12He says, well, the last time I saw him
09:14was two days ago at the rugby club.
09:17The police, now having had the initial accounts from Andrew Jones,
09:21obviously move away from that part of the inquiry
09:23and continue with the physical searches
09:25that are taking place down by the riverbanks.
09:29There was some quite severe weather conditions at the time of the search
09:33and the river Towie burst its banks,
09:36which obviously hindered the investigation.
09:38The police had to put some aspects of the search on hold
09:42just to allow the water to calm down.
09:48But because it had flooded, they couldn't put divers into the river at all,
09:53so they had to leave that real only major source
09:56and try and piece together his last movement in other directions.
10:02The police began to look into GPS tracking to do with mobile phone analysis.
10:07They were looking where Michael had been.
10:10One of the strands of an investigation is
10:12when an officer will start to look at somebody's telephone.
10:16And this could be calls that they've made or texts made or received,
10:20but also it gives you a GPS location as to where that phone was
10:24at the time that calls were being made.
10:26And what they did have a breakthrough really at that early stage
10:29was that the GPS linked to Michael O'Leary's phone
10:33showed that he went to a derelict farm at a certain time in that evening.
10:40But what was very interesting to those officers
10:42was that that derelict farm was actually owned by Andrew Jones.
10:49Andrew Jones told detectives he last saw Michael O'Leary
10:53two days ago at the rugby club,
10:54but police have evidence placing Michael's phone on Jones's farm.
10:58Police decide to contact Jones again
11:00and confront him with this new information.
11:15In Carmarthenshire, southwest Wales, police are investigating the disappearance
11:20of 55-year-old Michael O'Leary, who vanished on the 27th of January, 2020.
11:27They learn Michael was having an affair with a married woman
11:30and question her husband, Andrew Jones, who claims not to have seen Michael in days.
11:36However, police have received intel tracing Michael's phone to Jones's property.
11:43Andrew Jones is Rhiannon's husband.
11:46He's a successful businessman.
11:47He lives locally.
11:48He runs a building company.
11:49Well respected in the community.
11:53A rich man for that part of the country, very well known in the area.
11:57But the first thing the police wanted to know was,
11:59what was Michael O'Leary doing at Andrew Jones's disused farm?
12:07Confronted with the evidence from the phone,
12:10Jones then went to his second story, which was,
12:13yes, I had told you a lie earlier.
12:16In fact, I did see Michael on the night he disappeared.
12:22I had lured him deliberately to the farm by taking my wife's phone
12:28and sending him a message to lure him to the farm
12:31because I knew they were having an affair
12:33and I wanted to scare him off.
12:38He says that when the pair met there,
12:40there was some kind of confrontation
12:41and that Michael O'Leary drove off perfectly safely,
12:45having had some kind of exchange between the pair,
12:48but nothing more insidious than that.
12:52The suspicions around Michael's disappearance now
12:55is teetering almost from a missing persons inquiry
12:59to something more sinister.
13:06The SIO there has to make a decision
13:08whether Andrew Jones is now a person of interest
13:11or whether he should elevate him now to a suspect.
13:15And I think he describes, really,
13:17where he goes through that thought process thinking,
13:19am I doing the right thing?
13:21But what he's doing is he's bringing in
13:22all those pieces of information he has.
13:27So the SIO makes a decision
13:29that he elevates Andrew Jones to a suspect
13:31and by that means that Andrew Jones will be arrested
13:36in relation to the disappearance,
13:38potential murder of Michael O'Leary.
13:45But there's a difficulty for the police
13:47because they haven't found a body,
13:49they don't have really enough evidence
13:52to keep hold of him for too long.
13:54They have to act quite quickly.
13:57While they have no body
13:59and no actual clear evidence at this stage
14:01that definite harm has come to Michael O'Leary,
14:04Andrew Jones has obviously lied to them
14:06in his first exchange with them,
14:07telling them that he hadn't seen him.
14:09And then you've got this very clear link
14:11between a property owned by Andrew Jones
14:13and Michael O'Leary's whereabouts.
14:17Behind all this as well is the time clock
14:19which governs how long you can keep people in custody.
14:22Andrew Jones, maximum of 96 hours.
14:25And that's not 96 hours that's given straight away.
14:28It starts at 24 hours.
14:30You have to apply for a further 12.
14:31You then have to apply more so to a court
14:34to keep persons in to a total of 96 hours.
14:38So, four days.
14:41It places them under enormous pressure.
14:43It's the kind of case, I'm sure,
14:44where police officers aren't going home,
14:46seeing their family, getting a good night's sleep.
14:48They're probably pretty much working to gather
14:50all the evidence they need to hopefully make a charge.
14:54Police make the decision to arrest Andrew Jones,
14:56despite having little idea of Michael O'Leary's whereabouts.
15:02On the way to the police station,
15:04Andrew admits that he has Michael's phone
15:07in the pocket of his jeans at home.
15:10It's a slightly strange admission that he makes there.
15:15A really strange bit of information to give way.
15:18Perhaps suspecting the police might find it anyway,
15:21so he's looking as though he's going to help.
15:24But having this phone in your pocket,
15:26in your jeans at home,
15:28doesn't fit with the previous story
15:30that he's told the police,
15:31which is that I confronted him about the affair
15:33and then he drove off.
15:35It doesn't fit,
15:36well, why would you get involved in having his phone?
15:38So, this is more information and evidence
15:42that the investigating officers will be looking at
15:44and thinking this is extremely suspicious.
15:50Once at the police station,
15:52police observe Andrew Jones' behaviour closely.
15:55Police were astonished that a man with no criminal record at all,
15:59never had any sort of dealings with the police
16:01from the wrong side,
16:02was so calm and so collected
16:06when having been arrested
16:08on suspicion of the gravest crime in the criminal calendar.
16:12He did act very calmly,
16:16some might say arrogantly,
16:18and when the police offered him some reading material
16:22while he waited for his solicitor to arrive and interviews to start,
16:25he readily accepted their invitation,
16:28as long as it wasn't a Midsummer murder novel.
16:34He's just making casual comments, really,
16:36with the police officers
16:37and just calls his solicitor
16:39and says,
16:40I've been arrested on suspicion of murder,
16:42as if it was really nothing big.
17:00He's a telephone call to his solicitor,
17:02he opens up with,
17:02all right, boy,
17:04and then he says,
17:05sitting down,
17:06almost as though he's telling somebody some kind of joke.
17:09He's treating the whole process very, very lightly
17:12and he's just been arrested on suspicion of murder,
17:14and not just any murder,
17:15murder of somebody that is known, loved,
17:17and, you know,
17:18has been a close friend of his for many years.
17:23Andrew Jones is now in custody at the police station,
17:25and part of that is that he will be interviewed
17:29with a solicitor present
17:31and has the right to silence as well.
17:33And what you see is that Andrew Jones
17:36actually does use the right to silence,
17:40says no comment to a large number of questions that are asked.
17:47But Jones did let slip through this rather over-casual attitude
17:52and gave the police another grounds to suspect him,
17:56because he asked them,
17:58somewhat out of the blue at the end of the interview,
18:00whether they had discovered a body.
18:02He didn't actually ask them whether they had found Michael O'Leary,
18:07they actually said,
18:08have you found Michael's body?
18:10In the meantime, police conduct searches of Andrew Jones' properties.
18:16They go to his house
18:17and what they uncover is a quite bizarre amount of firearms,
18:22eight licensed firearms, 20 imitation firearms.
18:26And when you look at these firearms,
18:27you're not talking about small pistols,
18:29you're talking about huge guns
18:31that would be incredibly scary
18:33and obviously incredibly powerful
18:34and, you know,
18:36it's a real worry that somebody has a need for that many
18:40in today's society.
18:44Outside of the interviews,
18:46they look at the area of the farm that they have.
18:50And also about Andrew Jones
18:52and his access to derelict buildings
18:56and machinery and equipment,
18:58plants that people, you know,
19:01normal people wouldn't have access to.
19:04Police were particularly concerned about Jones
19:08because he was a builder.
19:10He ran his own company
19:11and builders have a way of accessing tools
19:14and sites where bodies can be easily hidden.
19:21The farm was a quiet farm.
19:24It was eerie.
19:26It was run down.
19:27It was derelict.
19:29Imagine what that would have been like at night,
19:32which is when Jones said he lured Michael over.
19:38I think probably the best word for the farm is almost spooky.
19:41It's really, really isolated, windows blown out and missing,
19:46lots of outbuildings, no light really anywhere,
19:49lots of overgrown vegetation.
19:51The only kind of concession to modernity, if you like,
19:54aside from some of the machinery that's there,
19:56is there's a static caravan as well
19:58in the grounds of the buildings.
20:01The officers investigating now have a huge area to search.
20:05Derelict buildings, huge farmland.
20:08What they do in the background is they're looking at CCTV.
20:12They see that Andrew Jones' property
20:14is covered by several CCTV cameras
20:16rolling 24 hours a day.
20:18So there's hundreds and hundreds of hours
20:21of CCTV footage to look through.
20:23Trying to identify if anything they can see on that
20:26is suspicious.
20:27Whilst they're doing that,
20:28they've got scenes of crimes officers
20:30searching through the buildings and derelict buildings.
20:33And you can't just go anywhere.
20:35This has to start from if somebody came into that site
20:38in a car, start at that position and work out.
20:42Time is running out for investigators.
20:45They must find concrete evidence that Andrew Jones
20:47is responsible for the disappearance
20:49and suspected murder of Michael O'Leary.
20:52Or they will have to release him without charge.
21:10In January 2020, in Karlmarthenshire, southwest Wales,
21:15police have detained Andrew Jones over the suspected murder
21:18of Michael O'Leary, whose phone was last active on Jones' property.
21:23While in custody, Jones asks if police have found the body,
21:27implying O'Leary is dead.
21:31Investigators continue searching Jones' farm for forensic evidence.
21:35Otherwise, they will have to release him.
21:39They go back to the farmhouse where the GPS had pinged.
21:42They start to take a look in one of the sheds and they find a forklift.
21:46It looks like it's been concealed in some way.
21:49It's been tucked away under a generator.
21:51And when they take a look at the forks of the forklift,
21:56they find that there's some discolouration
21:58and that that discolouration is actually blood.
22:02Now, that would be rushed off as a priority,
22:04whilst Andrew Jones is in custody, to see whose blood that is.
22:10Having searched the farmhouses,
22:12they also discovered two buttons on the floor amongst the gravel,
22:17where the cotton behind the bud is tightly wrapped still.
22:21So they've not fallen off naturally.
22:23It appears they've been ripped off.
22:25Forensic tests later on would show
22:27that there's a microscopic amount of blood on these buttons,
22:32which would be completely invisible to the naked eye.
22:37More so, a seen-to-crimes officer noticed something in the gravel,
22:42shines their torch on it,
22:43and sees a shell casing of a bullet
22:46that is unusually placed in where it was.
22:49In fact, they find about four of these casings amongst the gravel also.
22:54Having discovered the casing of these bullets amongst the gravel,
22:58this becomes a priority to say,
23:00well, OK, where have these come from?
23:02One of the things that you look at as an investigator,
23:05especially now knowing that Andrew Jones is in possession
23:09of eight licensed firearms and 20 imitation firearms,
23:13you know, has these casings come from any of his guns?
23:21The guns are taken into the laboratory,
23:24along with the evidence that you find of these casings.
23:27Now, what you're trying to do
23:28is match the casings to any of these guns.
23:31So they will test the guns and fire them
23:35in forensic conditions.
23:37What that gives you is, on each shell casing,
23:40is what's called striation marks.
23:42And they are almost like a genetic fingerprint to a gun,
23:46to the barrel that it comes out of.
23:48And then you match that against the casing that you find
23:51to say, are there similarities?
23:54The scientists were able to pin the four casings,
23:59the bullet casings of the .22 bullets,
24:03not just to a Colt .22 rifle,
24:05but the .22 Colt rifle that was owned by Jones.
24:13The test results of the blood found on the forklift
24:16arrive back from the lab.
24:19The blood comes back from the lab under a priority
24:22as that belonging to Michael O'Leary.
24:27So now the police know that something has happened to Michael,
24:32different to what this story is that Andrew Jones says,
24:35at that farm, in that location.
24:40All these small little things,
24:43as you start to put them together,
24:45it starts to become a more clear case.
24:48They start to become a bit more confident.
24:50There's plenty of evidence that they've managed to get together
24:54to find that Michael O'Leary was there
24:56and that something's happened to Michael O'Leary.
24:58But what they really need to do
25:00is to connect that to Andrew Jones.
25:05And then they come across a key piece of evidence.
25:08They get hold of Andrew Jones's genes,
25:10and on those genes there's specks of Michael's blood.
25:17Police obviously searched Jones's house when he was arrested,
25:21and there they found clothes,
25:25a pair of trainers, some jeans, a green rugby top,
25:29all of which bore traces of Michael O'Leary's blood.
25:33And this was the killer link
25:35between Jones personally and O'Leary,
25:41and this was enough to bring the murder charge.
25:45That gives the police enough evidence
25:48to give to the Crown Prosecution Service
25:50to say all these things put together
25:52about the GPS and what Michael has said
25:55to his family on this unusual text,
25:58what Andrew Jones has changed his story several times,
26:01and now the discovery of forensic evidence
26:04linking Michael to coming to harm at that farm
26:07gives them enough to secure a charge against Andrew Jones.
26:13So the evidence is mounting up.
26:15It's, you know, it's looking like
26:16they're beginning to build a case,
26:18but the key piece of evidence that they need is missing.
26:22They still can't find Michael's body.
26:26Investigators continue searching the locality
26:28for Michael O'Leary's body
26:30and compiling evidence against Andrew Jones.
26:34Officers who are looking at CCTV as part of their role
26:38are looking at CCTV everywhere,
26:40not just on the farm and the many cameras
26:42that Andrew Jones had around that farm,
26:44but also in the local area as well.
26:46The routes in and out of that farm
26:48to see where Michael O'Leary came from,
26:51but also what happened after he was lured to that farm.
26:57And what they see on these cameras
27:00is Michael O'Leary's truck being driven away from the farm.
27:06But importantly, not Michael O'Leary driving it,
27:10it's Andrew Jones driving that truck.
27:14They also then combine that with the information they have
27:18with the GPS around Andrew Jones' telephone,
27:22and it's following the same journey as that truck as well,
27:26giving them great evidence, really,
27:29to say that that truck is with, at the time, Andrew Jones,
27:34and we believe he is driving it.
27:38Now, even more significantly,
27:41is that only a few minutes later,
27:43they see a bicycle coming back the other way
27:46towards the farm being cycled by Andrew Jones himself.
27:51And there's only a six-minute period of time in this,
27:56three minutes out and three minutes back.
27:58So officers would draw a circle around a map here
28:01and say, OK, what's the furthest he could have got
28:04in that period of time to allow him to go out and come back?
28:09And that helps them then focus on the search for Michael's body.
28:17So they put a radius of three minutes each way in that direction on the road
28:24to see where he could possibly have been going.
28:27And it turned out that the most likely spot was a bridge over a small river.
28:32And so the police absolutely swamped it with divers and with investigators
28:37and were delighted to come across what they thought was bones.
28:42Sadly, on examination, it turned out to be animal bones.
28:46And it was rather a waste of time.
28:49But they had eliminated that particular lead.
28:52Once Jones had been charged, the investigation, of course, continued.
28:57And they were still desperate for new information.
29:00And quite by chance, Jones provided to himself, virtually,
29:05his depot, his builder's yard, close to where he lived,
29:10was covered with CCTV cameras.
29:13It's extraordinary.
29:14And they ran 24 hours a day.
29:17So the police had hours and hours and hours of everything that Jones did
29:21in that yard leading up to the disappearance and immediately afterwards.
29:27The police were quickly able to see a pattern of behaviour.
29:32Firstly, two days before the disappearance,
29:34Jones is constantly moving pallets on a forklift truck
29:38to the edge of a quarry on the far side of the builder's yard
29:43for no apparent reason.
29:47Further inspection of the CCTV cameras
29:50shows Andrew Jones acting suspiciously
29:53the day after Michael O'Leary's disappearance.
29:57Then he's back and forward carrying buckets, substance unknown.
30:01Then he sets fire to this, obviously with an accelerant.
30:07And it burns for five hours.
30:09And Jones watches it burn for five hours.
30:15Police now had a complete schedule or a scenario
30:18of what Jones must have done.
30:21He must have shot O'Leary at the farm,
30:25transported the body in Jones' own 4x4
30:28to the builder's yard, burned the evidence.
30:35Three stages, the proof was there and the police had got it.
30:41Andrew Jones is officially charged with the murder of Michael O'Leary.
30:45But they still need to gather as much evidence as possible,
30:48as it is difficult to secure a conviction without a body.
30:53I've been covering court cases for 45 years
30:56and I can't even count on the fingers of one hand
31:00the number of times a jury has returned a murder verdict
31:03against a killer where nobody has been discovered.
31:08It is extraordinarily difficult to convince a jury
31:11or to prove murder when there is no body.
31:14For a start, how do you prove that a murder has taken place
31:17if there is no body?
31:18Just because nobody has seen someone who has disappeared
31:21doesn't mean to say he's dead.
31:23Secondly, no body, no forensics.
31:26The key element of any murder hunt is per se the body,
31:30what forensic stuff could be brought from that.
31:32No body, no post-mortem.
31:34They have no proof of a cause of death,
31:37let alone who might have been able to do it.
31:40Investigators understand that to secure a conviction
31:43for Michael O'Leary's murder, they must present an airtight case
31:47proving Andrew Jones guilty of the crime.
31:50While Jones may have burned O'Leary's body,
31:53could crucial forensic evidence still be hidden somewhere on the farm?
32:09In February 2020 in Carmarthenshire, southwest Wales,
32:1553-year-old Andrew Jones is arrested on suspicion of murdering 55-year-old Michael O'Leary
32:21after discovering his affair with Jones' wife.
32:25Trace evidence of Michael's blood is found at Jones' derelict farm,
32:29along with CCTV footage showing him starting a large fire
32:33the day after O'Leary's disappearance,
32:36where it's believed he burned the body.
32:39However, investigators will need more concrete evidence
32:42to secure a guilty verdict in court.
32:47Police suspect that Jones killed Michael at the farm,
32:50moved him in a truck to his builder's yard
32:51and then burned him on this pile of pallets in this long-lasting fire.
32:58Now this is looked at evidentially as premeditation.
33:03Is he setting everything up ready to lure Michael to that farm
33:07to then kill him and burn his body?
33:12Based on the alarming CCTV footage found at Jones' yard,
33:16police decide to launch an extensive search of the property.
33:20Andrew Jones basically lives and works, if you like,
33:23almost in exactly the same place.
33:24So he's got the property itself and then all around it,
33:27lots and lots of land where he's able to do his building work and his quarrying,
33:30so all of this heavy machinery and pallets and things like that,
33:34none of this is out of place.
33:37Dealing with crime scenes in large rural areas is incredibly difficult.
33:42When you're talking about this kind of area as well,
33:45which has got gravel and soil and derelict buildings,
33:50the search is going to be very, very painstaking for those officers,
33:55but they have a task and they have a want to do it.
33:58The SIO is driving them to say, you know, this is for the family.
34:02They probably won't need much encouragement.
34:04They had 70 tonnes of soil to sift through after that fire
34:08and they were looking for pieces of bone or anything really
34:12that could prove that Michael's body had been on that fire.
34:16Any fillings or anything else that might significantly help
34:19with that inquiry and identify not just that there was a body there,
34:23but that body was Michael O'Leary,
34:26trying to find any fragment of evidence they can find.
34:32Well, there's an awful lot of manpower being used,
34:34but obviously the priority for police is to build this case
34:37and to be able to get answers for Michael O'Leary's family
34:39as to what exactly has happened to him
34:41and then to bring the person responsible to justice.
34:45It was a huge job.
34:47It took dozens of people to sift through all of that sand
34:51and soil and rubble by hand.
34:53It was a massive operation.
34:56They did find pieces of bone, but because of the fire damage,
35:01it wasn't possible to glean anything from that.
35:05Then the search team makes a discovery
35:07that is both significant and gruesome.
35:11The one and only fragment of remains of Michael O'Leary's body
35:15was discovered in a rusty oil barrel.
35:20And on examination it turned out to be a small part
35:23of his small intestine.
35:25And that's all that was left of a huge man,
35:29five foot ten, fifteen stone, heavy built.
35:32A small intestine, that's all it was.
35:38The police had a duty to put all the new evidence that they had
35:41to Jones for his response in an official police interview.
35:45And each time Jones repeated,
35:47as is his right to reply, no comment.
35:51It was clear he was trying to form in his mind
35:54a possible defence based on the evidence that the police had.
36:02Andrew Jones maintained his very stolid stonewalling approach
36:06to not giving them any answers,
36:08even when police kind of change tack, if you like,
36:10and start saying, can you help us?
36:12Almost to give some resolution to the family of Michael O'Leary,
36:15a family that you know well, and even under that kind of pressure
36:18and under that kind of scrutiny,
36:19and even presented with the increasing amount of evidence against him,
36:22Andrew Jones continues to maintain this very staunch silence.
36:28Jones' uncooperation adds a layer of difficulty to the casework,
36:31but police and prosecutors push on,
36:34working tirelessly to prepare for the trial.
36:38Even from the outside,
36:40it's impossible to say exactly how much work goes in,
36:42but I think even if you thought it's an awful lot,
36:44that's probably an underestimate.
36:45This is something that lots and lots of people
36:48are working round the clock on for months and months,
36:50and trying to tie up kind of every eventuality,
36:52having to disprove everything, check everything,
36:55you know, to make sure that their case is absolutely watertight,
36:57because the last thing that they want is somebody
36:59that they believe to be very dangerous,
37:01somehow free to walk the streets,
37:02and the very last thing they want is not to get justice
37:05for Michael O'Leary and for his family that loved him so much.
37:11The trial begins on September 14th, 2020,
37:14almost eight months after the disappearance of Michael O'Leary.
37:20The police and everybody else in court
37:22was absolutely on the edge of the seats
37:25to see what possible defence Jones would produce.
37:28He entered a plea of not guilty to murder,
37:31but accepted his responsibility
37:33of having been at the scene of Michael O'Leary's death.
37:43Perhaps another indicator of his arrogance, maybe,
37:45decides he'll go down the not guilty route
37:47and put everybody through the difficulty of a three-week trial.
37:52And the story he put forward,
37:54based on a large number of tears as he was in the witness box,
37:57was that he could not possibly have harmed Michael O'Leary.
38:00He was one of his best friends.
38:03Fifth or sixth best friend he had in the world, he said.
38:06He knew his family and he got on very well with them.
38:09Yes, he knew about the affair,
38:11but he didn't blame O'Leary for it.
38:16The court hear from Andrew Jones to say that,
38:19yes, he lured Michael O'Leary to the farm
38:22to talk about the affair that he was having with his wife.
38:27And, of course, at that point, a scuffle took place.
38:31And during that scuffle, a gun went off
38:34because Andrew Jones was holding a rifle,
38:37a huge gun when you see it.
38:40And that accidentally during that scuffle,
38:43Michael O'Leary was shot.
38:45It was an accident.
38:47And that is what Andrew Jones is telling the court.
38:50Yes, he had produced a gun,
38:51but he never pointed it at O'Leary.
38:55He wanted him to leave his family alone.
38:57And to try and reinforce that,
39:00he had fired two or three shots into the ground.
39:04But, he claimed, O'Leary then grabbed him,
39:08a scuffle ensued,
39:09and somehow a shot was fired straight up through O'Leary's chin,
39:14killing him instantly.
39:18But, Jones said that he had no idea
39:21whose finger had been on the trigger at the time.
39:24But, of course, it was entirely accidental,
39:26or so he said.
39:29Andrew Jones, now with Michael O'Leary lying dead in front of him,
39:34having been shot by his own rifle,
39:37says to the court that he put Michael O'Leary's shoes on
39:42and drove that Nissan vehicle away from his farm.
39:46The prosecution effectively catch Andrew Jones in a lie.
39:51But police have been able to prepare for this eventuality
39:54and they're able to disprove that version of events
39:56because they take this to their experts and they say,
39:59well, what would happen if this had happened?
40:01If Michael O'Leary had been shot at those kind of close quarters,
40:04they would expect to find blood spatter from him on that gun.
40:07They conduct a very thorough examination of the weapon.
40:10There is no blood spatter
40:11and they're able to disprove Andrew Jones' version of events.
40:15You would think when there's been
40:17such a body of evidence built up against him
40:19and, you know, a kind of a creep, if you like,
40:21of more things being found all the time,
40:23his own version of events being disproved
40:25in terms of the evidence around the gun
40:28and there not being Michael O'Leary's blood on it,
40:30you would think that at some point
40:31Andrew Jones might take a more pragmatic approach
40:33and go, OK, hands up, I'm guilty.
40:39Not only would it draw proceedings to a close
40:42and give, you know, the loved ones of Michael O'Leary
40:44some closure much more quickly than putting them through
40:47the agony of having to hear lots of detailed evidence
40:50in a three-week trial,
40:51but it would also account for some kind of reduction
40:53in the sentence he's going to face.
40:56When you don't have a body, it's almost, in a sense,
40:58the absence of the evidence that is the most important thing
41:01because the fact that he has then taken the steps
41:04to get rid of Michael O'Leary's body in such a brutal way,
41:08I mean, there isn't a kind way, really, to dispose of a body,
41:11but, you know, to seemingly have effectively incinerated his body
41:15and for the only trace of him to be, you know,
41:18a ten-centimetre piece of small intestine,
41:21in some ways the strongest or most eye-catching piece of evidence
41:24is the evidence that isn't there.
41:29Even though Jones had come up with some sort of fatuous explanation
41:32about how the gun had gone off,
41:35he still could not explain burning the body.
41:38He told the jury that he just panicked in the moment,
41:42it was all too much for him,
41:44and that he, yes, he did stage the fake suicide,
41:46but he'd done it to try and protect Michael O'Leary's family
41:49from the shame, as he described it,
41:52of Michael being involved in an affair,
41:55and that, yes, he had set everything up,
41:57that he had set fire to the body,
41:59but he had conducted some sort of ancient funeral service
42:02to try and give it some sort of religious significance.
42:07It was such an incredible load of baloney
42:11that was clearly a desperate attempt
42:14to try and fit a flimsy defence,
42:17any sort of defence,
42:18around the overwhelming evidence
42:21that the police had produced.
42:24On the 14th day of the trial,
42:26the jury are finally asked to deliberate.
42:31The senior investigating officer and his team
42:33will be quietly confident, really,
42:35that they have a significant amount of evidence
42:39against Andrew Jones
42:40for the disappearance of Michael O'Leary.
42:43But what they're always thinking in the back of their mind,
42:45and these are one of the hardest things to investigate,
42:48certainly in homicides,
42:49is the fact they don't have the body of Michael O'Leary.
42:52They don't have the evidence
42:53which would have been gleaned through a post-mortem
42:56about exactly what happened.
42:58But all the circumstantial evidence,
43:00the hours of investigation that had been put in,
43:03the months of searching,
43:04the meticulous way in which that SIO
43:07went through his case
43:08and went through all the things he needed to do
43:10to prove that,
43:11it was an extraordinary piece of policing.
43:16The jury took 13 hours
43:18to return a majority verdict of 11 to 1
43:23that Jones was guilty of murder.
43:28And he was sentenced to a life imprisonment,
43:31as is mandatory,
43:32where the judge fixed the minimum term
43:34before Jones could be considered for release
43:38at 30 years.
43:39But the judge was making no two ways about it.
43:42He told Jones that he would be eligible for parole
43:47in his eighties.
43:49But the overwhelming probability is that he wouldn't get that far,
43:54that Jones would die behind bars.
43:57I think Andrew Jones is somebody that just has got an incredible inbuilt level of arrogance.
44:03To have gone all the way through this process
44:05and tried to maintain a not guilty plea
44:08is extraordinary in the face of the evidence against him.
44:11And an incredible level, presumably, of pride
44:13to decide that that somehow, that evil, that methodical planning,
44:19and then to kill somebody that you would consider the friend for so long,
44:23to kill them in cold blood,
44:25just takes an almost kind of, you know,
44:29pathological disassociation from any kind of empathy or compassion.
44:33I think he's somebody that is entirely lacking in any sensitivity
44:36or human feeling, really.
44:40Despite getting justice for their loved one,
44:44Michael's family must live with their devastating loss.
44:49The lack of a victim's body in this case
44:52is incredibly difficult to investigate
44:56and, you know, has to be taken off to the investigation team
45:00to present this case in the way they did,
45:03the way they conducted themselves through this case
45:06and the way that the family conducted themselves too.
45:10People talk about closure.
45:12It's not a word I really use with families or ever have done
45:15because there is never a form of closure.
45:17You never forget what's happened.
45:19They relive these days all the time.
45:20It's another stage of moving on in their life,
45:23you know, as a legacy and thinking about their loved one.
45:30To lose a loved one through such brutal ways
45:35is difficult anyway.
45:37But then to not be able to have a proper burial,
45:40to not have a grave they can visit,
45:42it just further compounds their distress.
46:02We'll see you next time.
46:03We'll see you soon.
46:03We'll see you soon.
46:04We'll see you soon.
46:12Bye.
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