A former tiler has been convicted of the rape and murder of a teenage girl nearly 34 years ago after spending half a lifetime working and living in the same borough of London in which he committed the crime.
James Warnock, now 56, was found guilty by jury at the Old Bailey on Thursday of raping and strangling 17-year-old Yiannoulla Yianni, known to her family as Lucy, when she was home alone in Hampstead on the afternoon of 13 August 1982. Her family broke down in tears as the jury took just over two hours to find Warnock guilty.
Warnock, who went on to have two children with his wife after the murder, was arrested in December last year on suspicion of making indecent images of children at his home in Harrington Street, two miles from where he took Lucy’s life.
Detectives took a routine swab test from Warnock upon his arrest and a week later the results returned a match on the national DNA database with samples taken from Lucy’s body and the crime scene nearly 34 years ago.
The verdict could not be reported until Warnock entered guilty pleas to six charges of making indecent images of children between 2013 and 2015.
“We were really beginning to think the perpetrator was either dead or it was such a long time past that he had to be abroad or we might never find them,” said DI Julie Willats, who took on the case in 2013. “It was the science that has solved this one.”
Lucy, who was also known by schoolmates as Noodles, was waiting for O-level exam results from Quintin Kynaston school in St John’s Wood and was considering a career as a beautician or in banking.
The former Woolworths shop assistant enjoyed reading, watching television, styling her hair with an old-fashioned dryer, and taking Greek dancing classes.
On the day of the attack, Lucy had been with her parents Elli and George Yianni at their shoe repair shop minutes from their home. Lucy’s mother had sent her ahead to start preparing a leg of lamb for supper, planning to join her soon after.
At around 2pm, a man in his early 20s was spotted chatting with Lucy on her doorstep and 20 minutes later, a neighbour heard a scream.
When the parents arrived home half an hour later, they found Lucy’s jewellery scattered on the stairs, and they called out to her but were met with silence. Upstairs, in their bedroom, they were confronted with a horrific scene: they found Lucy on their bed, half naked and dead.
Despite a high-profile police appeal, which included a reconstruction by Maria, Lucy’s sister, the crime was never solved.
Warnock, who had married Lynne Abrahams a year before the murder, lived in Taplow Tower in Adelaide Road at the time – a short walk from Lucy’s home. He moved away a short while after to start a family with Abrahams, whom he went on to divorce in 2003.
Yiannoulla’s heartbroken father died in 1988 without ever seeing justice for his daughter. Her mother, however, is now 86 and despite ill health gave evidence during Warnock’s trial.
“Her father died a few years later, he never really got over it,” Willats said. “While he was alive he even wrote to the prime minister and the commissioner at Scotland Yard begging that the investigation is never closed and it never has.”
Witnesses at the time described the man on Lucy’s doorstep as being in his early 20s and possibly “Mediterranean-looking”. Artists impressions and e-fits were created, which officers now believe presented an accurate likeness of Warnock.
More than 1,000 witness statements were taken in the case which has been periodically reviewed. A small number of arrests were made but were based on routine elimination rather than meaningful leads.
When Willats took on the role, faced with an absence of CCTV or mobile phone records, tools to which modern policing has become accustomed, she adopted “old-fashioned” detective techniques.
Following up on an old tip that a mysterious character dubbed “Tony the Barber” had murdered Lucy, Willats searched old copies of the Yellow Pages in the British Library and even trawled through an archived episode of comedy-drama Minder to case out key locations.
When the match came back from the DNA database, Willats initially met the breakthrough with disbelief. “I got a text when I was at the theatre in January this year,” she said. “I was sitting there with my mum and I couldn’t wait for the interval, it was a really good show but I just wanted to get outside. I was thinking this can’t be right, it must be a mistake.”
In a police interview, Warnock admitted he knew Lucy, having first noticed her when he took a pair of boots to be repaired at her father’s shop.
Warnock claimed they would go for walks, sit on park benches and over time their relationship became more intimate, telling the court in front of Lucy’s disbelieving family he had sex with her on about 10 occasions.
Asked what he looked like in 1982, the defendant told police: “How can I put it? Er John Travolta?”
He claimed he had never seen any coverage of Lucy’s death because he did not read newspapers or watch the television.
But medical evidence revealed Lucy had been a virgin when she was raped.
“The story he creates is unbelievable,” Willats said.
