The blunders made by the killer of teenage murder victim Jayden Parkinson led him straight into the hands of the police, a new documentary reveals.
Jayden, 17, disappeared after being spotted on CCTV leaving Didcot train station in Oxfordshire with her violent ex-boyfriend Ben Blakeley, then 22, on 3 December 2013.
He was seen returning to the station later that day – and she was never seen again.
Her body was found in buried in Blakeley’s uncle’s grave two weeks later and he was arrested, charged and convicted of her murder.
He regularly beat her and was often controlling and obsessive. She plucked up the courage to leave him and move into a hostel a month before she died, but had got back in touch to say she was pregnant with his child.
A new episode of When Missing Turns To Murder on Crime+Investigation looks at how a catalogue of basic errors meant police were able to pin the murder on Blakeley in just five days.
The blunders made by the killer (Ben Blakeley’s police mugshot, right) of teenage murder victim Jayden Parkinson (pictured, left) led him straight into the hands of the police, a new documentary reveals.
One of the senior investigating officers who worked on the case told the programme how buying a suitcase to dispose of the body and then ordering a taxi to help him move it was what first gave him away.
DSI Christopher Ward said: ‘The taxi driver said he had collected a man from a dirt track in Didcot at about one o’clock in the morning.
‘That person had a large blue suitcase which was described as being covered in mud, and it was very, very heavy.’
Jayden’s mother Samantha Shrewsbury told the programme: ‘He couldn’t lift it on his own and got the taxi driver to help him.’
Later when police were doing house-to-house enquiries in the area, they spoke to Blakeley’s grandmother, who said he had been to the house to pick up a suitcase recently.
DSI Ward continued: ‘One of the houses they knocked on was the grandmother of Ben and his brother Jake.
‘She said that Ben had come into her house a few days before, very agitated, saying he needed a suitcase.
‘He took her suitcase, after having emptied the contents onto her floor. He came back a few hours later and dumped that suitcase in her shed, and it was covered in mud.’
Blakeley was found guilty of murdering Jayden (pictured) and handed a life sentence at Oxford Crown Court in 2014
A search of his grandmother’s house also revealed two spades that were covered in the same thick mud as the blue suitcase from the taxi.
Police then commissioned an RAF helicopter to fly over Didcot taking aerial pictures of the area to check areas that had been dug up.
The pictures were sent to a forensic archaeologist who spotted disturbances at All Saints’ church – where Blakeley’s uncle was buried.
DSI Ward added: ‘What we were looking for were any areas of disturbed soil. They identified ten areas, and the forensic archeologist looked through each of them.
‘Significantly, one of those areas was All Saints’ church in the cemetery, where there were some foot patterns around one of the graves.’
Blakeley was found guilty of murdering Jayden and handed a life sentence at Oxford Crown Court in 2014.
Around a month before she died, he had threatened to post dozens of naked pictures and videos of Jayden online – in an apparent bid to make her kill herself.
Jayden is pictured on CCTV leaving the hostel she had moved into to get away from Blakeley on December 3 2013
Jayden had informed police but was forced to get back in touch when she discovered she was pregnant and he was the father.
She left the One Foot Forward hostel at 3.41pm and was later seen leaving Didcot train station with him. She was never seen again.
DSI ward added: ‘We got involved after Jayden had been missing for just over a week.
‘I looked back over the circumstances of her disappearance and the fact she had been no contact whatsoever with her family, which was unusual.
‘On the other occasions she had gone missing, within 24 to 48 hours she had made some form of contact, either on social media or she’d called her mother.
‘I asked the police officers on the investigation to start going through the proof of life checklist, things such as financial records, use of social media, use of technology, mobile phone use.
‘This checklist derives from the fact it is virtually impossible for an adult to go missing without leaving any trace of their existence if they are alive.’
A review into her murder found the response by key agencies to Jayden’s disappearance was ‘fundamentally flawed’, although they could not have stopped her from being killed.
Blakeley is seen coming back from Didcot on December 3 2013 – without Jayden – who was never seen again
The review found that Blakeley had been ‘violent and highly controlling’ towards three of his previous girlfriends.
In 2008 he threatened to stab his 16-year-old girlfriend but the incident was not passed on to all services.
The report also found that Jayden was viewed as being a difficult teenager and was not noted as a child that needed safeguarding.
Oxfordshire County Council’s Children’s Social Care were one of the agencies criticised in the report.
The report concluded by saying that no matter which actions the agencies could have taken, there could have been no guarantee that her murder could have been prevented.
Two officers from Thames Valley Police were also issued with final written warnings and a third was given a written warning.
When Missing Turns to Murder is on CRIME+INVESTIGATION tonight at 9pm.
A series of errors by Blakeley quickly led police to his uncle’s grave (pictured at the time), where he buried his ex-girlfriend Jayden in December 2013