THE killer of Amélie Delagrange is thought to have dumped items from her handbag into the Thames within 20 minutes of battering her to death on Twickenham Green.
Detectives investigating the murder of the 22-year-old French woman now believe that her attacker fled the scene last Thursday night in a vehicle and threw her property into the river at Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.
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The killer may have been waiting in his car or van for a victim to wander across the green, as Mlle Delagrange did to take a shortcut home.
Divers have recovered her keys, purse and personal CD player and are continuing to search the river for other items from her bag. Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Murphy, leading the murder hunt, said yesterday that the find was “a vital breakthrough in the hunt for Amélie’s killer”. It is believed that police were led to the spot at Walton Bridge by mobile phone tracking techniques, known as cell-site analysis.
Experts have been tracking the whereabouts of Mlle Delagrange’s Sony Ericsson mobile, which is still missing and may also have been thrown in the Thames. These techniques do not give the exact location where a phone has been used, but can reveal an area and possible “hot spots” where a device may have been switched off. Similar examination of the signals from Jessica Chapman’s mobile led police to identify Ian Huntley as a suspect during the Soham murders inquiry two years ago.
“This is an important location and we believe that this is where we will get our next piece of information,” Mr Murphy said.
“The killer could have reached here in a vehicle from Twickenham Green in ten or twenty minutes. We want to appeal to anyone who was in this area at 10.20pm last Thursday night. Did you see anyone disposing of property by the bridge? Somebody has committed a brutal murder, his demeanour has changed in the last six days. We are asking people to think hard. Is that someone you know?”
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The murder of Mlle Delagrange may be linked to a series of similar attacks, in which pedestrians have been attacked with blows to the head in the same area of West London. In one incident, in February last year, Marsha McDonnell, 19, was killed as she walked to her home in Hampton.
A 29-year-old policewoman took the place of Mlle Delagrange in a reconstruction of her last movements, which was filmed last night and will be broadcast today.