The explosive fallout between friends that led to brutal murder
CONNOR’S DEATH SENT SHOCKWAVES THROUGH COMMUNITY
IT should have been a classic everyday tale of two boisterous, high-spirited lads who were friends and spent hours together, even if they didn’t always get on like best mates.
But the tragic twist that ended up with one of them brutally killing his younger pal sent shockwaves through their Bransholme community and the whole city.
The sometimes difficult and bad-tempered friendship of Cole Jarvis and Connor Lyons turned toxic in a shattering way that they, their shocked families and the police could never even have imagined in their worst nightmares.
Jarvis, now 22, and the luckless Connor, who was just 17 when he met a violent and untimely death, must have fallen out in a truly spectacular way that fateful evening.
The teenager’s body was found on a river bank close to Thomas Clarkson Way on the morning of January 19.
He had been strangled before later drowning.
His body was found by a dog walker on a river bank on the outskirts of Bransholme.
What happened between them to cause such an aggressive loss of temper from Jarvis will never be known, but it must have been huge, sudden and explosive.
The argument probably came from nowhere or it may have been a spark of anger or an accumulation of pent-up bad feeling.
Jarvis, of Stroud Crescent West, must have been fuming about something and it almost certainly caused him to snap.
It may have been the result of some festering resentment or grudge.
The two friends had their ups and downs, as any young pals do, but they were often out together at night hunting for small animals, such as rabbits or vermin.
It’s known as “lamping” because of the use of bright lights to find lurking animals.
To outsiders, there’s certainly an element of skulduggery and cruelty to it, but some petty dispute must have broken out.
It left Connor dead and lying near water at the bottom of a river bank.
It was a terrible way for a probably tempestuous friendship to end.
It led to a high-profile police investigation and a depressing and harrowing trial at Hull Crown Court.
Jarvis did not even bother to give evidence in his own defence and it was left to his barrister to make what submissions he could to the jury.
The jurors saw through Jarvis, however, and he was convicted in October of murder.
During the trial, the prosecution said that the relationship between
Jarvis and Connor was “not straightforward” and was “volatile” and “fractious”.
Some described them as “fighting like cats and dogs” and it was suggested that Jarvis was a “bully”.
In one message from Jarvis in June last year, he branded Connor a “cheeky, gobby little rat”.
There was an argument centring around a bike and whether money was owed for it.
They went out “lamping” on January 18. But Jarvis returned alone at about 10.30pm.
Jarvis had attacked Connor and left him for dead or in serious danger of drowning.
Poignantly, Connor’s dog made its own way home after Jarvis left his friend either dead or dying. It was found hungry in the street. The prosecution pointed out that, tellingly, Jarvis made no attempt to contact Connor because obviously he knew what had happened to him.
When Jarvis was arrested, he told a “convoluted lie” claiming that he had not seen Connor for two weeks. What a friend he turned out to be. He denied having Connor’s bike and, during a police interview, repeatedly said: “No comment.”
He claimed that he had nothing to do with Connor’s death.
Jarvis repeatedly tried to sell Connor’s bicycle and he was seen riding it.
He knew, from having killed his friend, that Connor would not need it again and he did not want the bike on his hands.
Jarvis made other attempts to cover up what he had done.
Samples from the clothes of Jarvis matched the area where Connor’s body was found.
A piece of rope “secreted” in his garden might have been used to strangle Connor, whose DNA was on it.
The official cause of death was drowning.
Connor’s mother, Kelly Lyons, told the court in a statement that
Connor was the second oldest of four children and had three sisters.
“With his sisters, he tried to play the father figure,” said his mother.
“He also loved his baby niece, who he doted on.”
He got on well with his mother’s extended family.
She said that he was a “pleasant young boy” who could be loving and caring.
She believed that he was always honest with her.
But he started to become “really angry” at the age of ten and got involved in petty crime, including stealing bicycles.
His mother believed that he was smoking cannabis every day and he had seen a psychologist.
He repeatedly sent messages to her on Facebook and she had to take action over this. She had been trying to get him professional help.
He took cannabis for pain relief after being injured in a serious motorcycle accident about 18 months earlier.
He suffered a spleen problem from the accident.
In the last few months of his life, he had been arrested for possessing drugs and had been given a 7pm to 7am curfew through the probation service.
It was not enforced but he had been sticking to the curfew.
She had noticed that he would occasionally have more money than she would have expected.
Connor was “easily led” but “couldn’t handle himself physically” and he “wasn’t hard” as a person.
He was of “slight” build and, although she did not know if he could swim, if he had been able to do so, he would not have been a strong swimmer.
He was very protective of his dog Cali, a bull greyhound crossed with a German shepherd.
He was “very attached” to it and would take it everywhere with him.
Jarvis was, it seems obvious, quite a significant part of Connor’s life, with their unpredictable on-off friendship.
They mostly managed to rub along with a friendship liberally sprinkled with fallouts and problems.
It’s a supreme and bitter irony that it ended so shockingly in murder.