NEW APPEAL FOR WITNESSES AFTER POSTIE’S MURDER
ON A bitterly cold February morning in 2003, a postman lay dying on the snowcovered drive of an ordinary Welsh home. More than 15 years on, that market town murder of Paul Savage remains a mystery. It was the subject of a BBC One Crimewatch Roadshow Live reconstruction shown on Friday.
Mr Savage had been midway through his rounds in Mold at 7.15am on February 4 when he was repeatedly coshed around the head so violently that the base of his skull was crushed.
It was so quick and efficient noone appears to have seen the crime.
If there had been a scream from the victim, no-one had heard it.
The gravely injured postman’s body was only discovered when the owner of the property on Clayton Road went to his car a short while later.
The unconscious postman who had been beaten “ferociously” with a blunt weapon did not have much longer to live.
As the 30-year-old father-of-one was rushed to Wrexham Maelor Hospital, the police got under way in earnest.
Witnesses later reported seeing two young men wearing hoodies near where Mr Savage had left his bicycle around the time of the attack.
Immediate theories were that the postman had been the victim of an horrific robbery gone wrong or, less likely, an unprovoked attack.
Shortly before 11am, the detectives were no longer investigating a violent assault but a murder, as Mr Savage passed away without regaining consciousness.
It did not take long, however, for officers to reassess their initial thoughts about the killing. As they probed the postman’s past, a picture emerged that suggested it may not have been a random tragedy.
Originally from Sale, Greater Manchester, Mr Savage, they learned, could boast a lengthy criminal record stretching back 10 years.
He was jailed for nine months by Blackfriars Crown Court in October 2001 for possessing drugs with intent to supply.
He had been caught with cannabis worth more than £1m.
On leaving prison he did not stay long around his old haunts, instead taking his wife, Charlotte, and four-