A loner who prowled around woodland with a weapon stuffed in his backpack has been found guilty of the murder of a popular police community support officer. Callum Wheeler, 22, used a railway jack, a tool used to lift train tracks, to beat mother-of-two Julia James to death as she walked her dog in fields and woodland near the back of her home in Snowdown, Kent.
He was seen roaming around the countryside with the weapon the day before the 53-year-old died, and in the days after as hundreds of police officers scoured the area for clues. On arrest, Wheeler told officers “sometimes I do things that I cannot control” and “you can’t go into the woods and expect to be safe”.
He also told a member of police staff that he would return to the woodland and rape and kill a woman, and that Mrs James had deserved to die. On Monday afternoon, a jury of eight women and four men at Canterbury Crown Court took less than one hour and 10 minutes to find him guilty of Mrs James’s murder.
