Widow, 86, found stabbed and with clothing burnt in 2013, murder trial told

A widow was found murdered in her bungalow 12 years ago with her throat cut, a stab wound to her chest that passed through both her lungs and her heart and her clothing set on fire, a court heard.

But there was a two-day delay in preserving the scene at the house due to a “grave error of judgment by police officers who went to the house” and did not deem it suspicious, prosecutor John Price told jurors.

David Newton, now aged 70, of Magazine Close, Wisbech, denies murdering Una Crown at her home in Magazine Lane in the Cambridgeshire town on January 12 2013.

The 86-year-old’s body was found in her hallway the following day by John Payne, the husband of her niece Judith Payne, who had driven to collect her to bring her to Sunday lunch at their house.

Mr Price said that police who attended on January 13 did not initially treat the scene as suspicious, and a murder investigation did not begin until January 15 2013 – two days after Mrs Crown’s body was found.

This followed a post-mortem examination on January 15 which recorded the cause of death as “stab wounds to neck and chest”.

He said that an officer had been asked to photograph all the rooms at the house on January 13, so “we can therefore see how things appeared on the day the body was found, while it was still there and before family members were allowed into, and changed things, within the house”.

He said there was “no doubt that Una Crown was the victim of a crime of murder, the only issue that will arise for your (the jury’s) decision is: who did it?”

Mr Price told jurors at Cambridge Crown Court that the prosecution “relies upon a combination of several different pieces of evidence” to identify Newton as her alleged killer.

“At their heart is scientific evidence,” he said.

“It’s male DNA, the profile of which matches that of David Newton and which was discovered by scientists in 2023 on nail clippings, which had been taken from the fingers and thumb of the unburnt right hand of Una Crown.”

He said the clippings had been taken at a post-mortem examination in 2013.

“The prosecution alleges that it was David Newton who murdered Una Crown and that he did so acting alone,” said Mr Price.

“He it was who somehow got into her house that night.

“We say he did so on the Saturday night – that’s to say he killed her on the evening of January 12.

“Once he was inside of her home, there came a time thereafter when he used a knife to stab her several times and to kill her.

“The fatal assault, we say, most likely happened not long after he got into her house, but probably not immediately.

“After he had killed her, he set fire to her body, and at some time while he was in the house, he set … two other fires.

“Then we say he left, taking with him her key to the front door and using it to lock that door behind him.

“He will probably have found that likely either in the keyhole on the inside of the front door or in her possession.”

He said there were no signs of forced entry to the house, and no soot was found in Mrs Crown’s lungs – suggesting she was not breathing at the time her clothing was set on fire.

Mr Price said Mrs Crown’s “throat had been cut and she had been stabbed four times to the front and left side of the chest”.

“One of the chest wounds had an entry point at the left side,” he said.

“It passed through both of her lungs and her heart before exiting on the right side.”

He said that “her killer had also set fire to the clothing she was wearing” and there were two other seats of fire, a tea towel on a rail in the kitchen had been ignited, and there were burnt remnants of newspaper on the hall floor just outside the bathroom door.”

Mr Price said that “if the purpose of the arsonist in setting fire to the body of Una Crown had been to try and destroy the evidence of what he had done to her, then it was to prove ineffective”.

“Quite what his purpose might have been in setting the other two small fires is perhaps less clear,” he continued.

“If he had wanted to burn down the house entirely, you might think there were other obviously far more effective ways of trying to do so.

“So we pose a question – did he just enjoy setting small fires?”

The prosecution say evidence indicates Mrs Crown was killed between 7pm and 9pm on the Saturday evening.

He said that “as to why he (Newton) went to her house on that night and as to why he then did to her what he did, these are not matters that the prosecution need prove”.

Mr Price said Newton was “not a person to whom she (Mrs Crown) was very close”.

He said a witness had seen Newton out walking his dog in Magazine Lane on the evening of January 12.

The prosecutor said that the “knife used to stab Mrs Crown will necessarily have been a long-bladed weapon – that knife has never been found”.

He said that her front door key “wasn’t in the house on January 13 and like the knife used to kill her, has never been found”.

“Therefore you may conclude that the front door, given it was locked when Mr Payne arrived on the Sunday morning, must have been locked from the outside by the killer when he left using Una Crown’s key to do so.”

The trial, estimated to last four to five weeks, continues.