‘Ambushed’ by killer in woods
Watch captured moment PCSO Julia was attacked
A SMARTWATCH recorded a police worker’s heart rate suddenly race as she was ambushed before being brutally killed, a court heard.
Data from Julia James’s Apple Watch showed her heart rate soared from 97 to 145 bpm in a few seconds as she spotted her killer in the woods, a QC said.
Callum Wheeler, 22, had been waiting for the gran or another vulnerable female, prosecutors allege.
Julia was walking her Jack Russell Toby in a spot she called Butterfly Corner near Ackholt Woods, in Snowdown, Kent, when she was killed on
April 27 last year.
Canterbury Crown
Court heard the off-duty police community support officer, 53, took her usual route from her back gate at 2.12pm.
But prosecutor Alison Morgan QC told the court she turned back at Butterfly Corner.
When she reached a bridleway where she had seen the defendant several months earlier, calling him “weird” at the time, her heart rate surged and she suddenly detoured, Ms Morgan said.
Ms Morgan went on: “She has run out of the wood, doubtless to try to escape her attacker, and has got as far as she could along the path and that was as far as she got. She was chased by her attacker and it’s likely that as she ran she fell – either from the first blow... or by tripping.”
After peaking at 145 bpm, Julia’s heart rate then dropped off, the court heard.
Her watch recorded no movement after 2.35pm and her last heart rate was recorded at 2.43pm. Pathologists concluded she was killed by “violent and sustained blunt force trauma” to the head, mainly on the back of the head. Family members wiped away tears in as the prosecutor said Julia’s injuries were “completely unsurvivable even with immediate medical intervention”. Experts think most of the blows came when she was face-down on the ground with her hood pulled up, as particulate matter was not found in the surrounding area. Ms Morgan added: “He waited for Julia James or another vulnerable female. He waited to ambush her. She ran, desperate to get away. “Unable to outrun him – caught by surprise wearing wellington boots – he struck her. She fell... she broke her wrist. “Then, when she was face-down on the ground, he struck her again and again and again. She’d no chance of survival.” Witnesses and CCTV put Wheeler in the area on the day of the murder with a 3kg metre-long railway jack handle covered in plastic bags sticking out of his bag, the court heard. He was also seen with the tool in the days after the killing. Julia’s blood was found on the tool, which Wheeler kept in his bedroom. Her blood was on his trainers.
His DNA was identified on her jacket and boots. Wheeler, from Aylesham, Kent, accepts that he killed Julia but denies murder. The trial continues.