April Jones

Case background and investigation

April Jones, aged five, was abducted on the evening of 1 October 2012 while playing on her bicycle with friends on the Bryn-y-Gog estate in Machynlleth, a market town in Powys, mid-Wales. According to a timeline published by The Guardian, she was taken at about 7:15 p.m., and a seven-year-old friend told police that April had got into a vehicle. Her mother, Coral Jones, called 999 at 7:29 p.m. and the first officer arrived minutes later.

Dyfed-Powys Police declared a critical incident, and residents began searching that night. The BBC reported that the operation became the largest missing person search in UK police history, covering around 650 areas and drawing help from 45 other forces. The child witness's account led detectives to Mark Bridger, a local man who had recently moved into a rented cottage in the village of Ceinws, a few miles from Machynlleth. He was arrested on the afternoon of 2 October 2012 on suspicion of abduction and was arrested on suspicion of murder on 5 October after DNA testing identified April's blood in the cottage.

Bridger told police, and later the jury, that he had accidentally run April over and could not remember what he had done with her body. At trial the court heard that fragments of bone consistent with a juvenile human skull were found in the ashes of his wood burner, that April's blood was found in several places in the cottage, and that the property had been extensively cleaned. The BBC also reported that indecent images of children were found on his computer.

The trial opened at Mold Crown Court on 29 April 2013. On 30 May 2013 the jury unanimously found Bridger, then 47, guilty of abduction, murder and perverting the course of justice after a little over four hours of deliberation. Mr Justice Griffith Williams sentenced him to life imprisonment with a whole-life order, meaning he will not be considered for release. Bridger later applied for permission to appeal against the sentence, but the Judicial Office confirmed in January 2014 that he had abandoned the application.

April's body has never been recovered. Police ended the search on 22 April 2013, shortly before the trial. After the verdict the BBC reported that Bridger had told a prison chaplain he had put the body in a river; that account was not placed before the jury. A funeral was held at St Peter's Church in Machynlleth on 26 September 2013, attended by hundreds of people. According to Wikipedia, the Welsh Government bought the cottage in Ceinws in August 2014 and it was demolished that November.