The internet strangler
Clare’s online lover ended up killing her…
On 6 February 2009, the body of 36-year-old Clare Wood was discovered in her home, in Salford, Greater Manchester. She’d been raped, strangled and the bed she’d been found on had been set on fire.
There was just one suspect – George Appleton, a man she’d met online who’d been cruelly harassing her for months.
Clare got together with Appleton in April 2007 and within weeks they’d decided to get married, but Clare’s family instantly took a dislike to the 40-year-old fairground worker.
Harassment
‘There was something about him that turned my stomach,’ says Clare’s father Michael Brown in this week’s Swipe Right For Murder. ‘I told her she was making a mistake but she thought he was the light of her life.’
Appleton soon began to show his true colours, however, and Clare ended the relationship after discovering he’d been seeing four other women he’d met online.
But Appleton refused to move on and began a vicious campaign of harassment that included sexual assault and threatening to burn down her house, which left Clare living in fear.
Then, on 6 February, Michael got a phone call from the police saying Clare had been murdered.
Manhunt
‘I was in a daze,’ he says. ‘Nothing prepares you for the earth-shattering news that your child has gone.’
A manhunt was launched, but almost one week later Appleton’s body was found in a derelict pub — he’d taken his own life. It later turned out he’d had a string of prior convictions for harassment and assault on other women.
Since then, Michael has campaigned for Clare’s Law that allows people to find out from the police if their partner has a history of abuse.
‘I wanted to make sure other girls didn’t have to go through what my daughter went through,’ says Michael. ‘There’s not a day goes by that I don’t miss her.’