Teresa De Simone's killer named by police (From Daily Echo)
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David Lace named as the killer of Teresa De Simone
6:00am Thursday 17th September 2009 in News
By Jenny Makin, Crime Reporter
David Lace aged 14, three years before the murder
A BABY-FACED teenager brutally raped and murdered Southampton gas board clerk Teresa De Simone 30 years ago, it can be revealed today.
David Andrew Lace was just 17 when he carried out the horrific killing as 22-year-old Teresa got in her car to drive home following a night out to celebrate a friend’s birthday.
He confessed his guilty secret to police in 1983, four years after his crime – but nothing ever came of it.
His statement was placed in a file alongside the admissions of at least five others who claimed to have played a part in the killing.
Lace fled his home in Portsmouth to start a new life more than 100 miles away in Devon – where he killed himself in December 1988. He didn’t leave a note or explanation as to why.
Only seven days after his death, Lace’s family left poignant tributes in a newspaper.
One, from his parents, questioned: “God only knows why.”
Meanwhile, for 27 long years, another man Sean Hodgson was incarcerated in prison, wrongly jailed for life for the monstrous murder in the car park at the back of the Tom Tackle pub in Commercial Road.
He was only released in March this year after a successful appeal against the conviction.
The real killer’s identity can today be revealed after lengthy forensic tests – using DNA from his remains that were exhumed from a Hampshire graveyard last month – returned a perfect match, proving Lace is almost certainly responsible.
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It is likely that the match between Lace’s DNA and that taken from the scene of the horrific sex attack and strangling in 1979 was so definitive that it would mean a billion-toone likelihood of someone else being responsible.
Police reopened the investigation into Teresa’s murder at the start of the year when lawyers acting for Sean Hodgson – the man wrongly jailed for life for Teresa’s murder in 1982 – launched an appeal bid at the High Court in London.
Comments(10)
Nearly an OAP
says...
8:48am Thu 17 Sep 09
freemantlegirl2
says...
9:02am Thu 17 Sep 09
Brite Spark
says...
9:33am Thu 17 Sep 09
Adrian-Smith
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9:46am Thu 17 Sep 09
TGRWorzel wrote:I know what you mean. Even the report above states:-
I'm amazed that forensic science can now hold the dead to account...
"proving Lace is almost certainly responsible".
OK, he did it - but a Court hasn't confirmed that and never will.
freemantlegirl2
says...
10:12am Thu 17 Sep 09
Brite Spark wrote:Yes very good point, DNA is only a relatively new thing but there is another column here where it says Sean will sue the Police. Those questions will be answered in the course of time. and right too that a Court of Law hasn't found Lace 'guilty' but I think they have done that so that they can close the case, Let Hodgson claim compension and most importantly perhaps so that the family can have closure.
The police could have verified that David Lace's DNA was left at the scene of the murder, and that Sean Hodgson's was not, at any time during the last 20 years. Once the police had convicted the wrong man, they sat on their hands whilst Hodgson rotted in prison for 27 years. They should explain why they didn't test Lace's DNA many years ago, and they should state why they ignored the fact that Hodgson's DNA was not found at the crime scene.
Bassett Boy
says...
12:01pm Thu 17 Sep 09
But the question we should all be asking is why the police did not take his confession seriously and investigate it thouroughly, along with the 5 other "confessions"
Had this been done in 1983 when it should have been then justice would have been done and not the serious miscarriage that has happened.
Back in those days and to some extend today as well, there is the underlying thought that "we've got someone banged up so that'll do".
It didn't seem to matter whether that person was really guilty or not.
Back in the 80's there were several infamous cases where the plod planted evidence to get a conviction. I'm not suggesting that was done in this case, but the slightly backward Sean Hodgson made for a good fall guy and that , as they say, was that!
So let's try and get the truth from the police as to why his confession wasn't properly investigated untill 2009 when the fall guy was suddenly proven to be innocent.
bullarboy
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1:00pm Thu 17 Sep 09
southy
says...
1:06pm Thu 17 Sep 09
dna 30 years ago was practly unheard off, they was still trying to put the dna strands together, and could not be used has evidence, it was not till 10 years later did they know it could be used has evidence, and it had better odds than finger prints of 2 peolpe having being the same genic marks.
latitude19
says...
6:21am Fri 18 Sep 09
lesson learnt i think, never confess unless your guilty, He does not deserve a pay out but the wet left wing PC human rights brigade will insist. shame Hanging was not still around and then he would have thought twice before confessing.
As for Lace, Typical a skate done the crime, no more to be said there.
TGRWorzel says...
8:17am Thu 17 Sep 09