The Murder of Katie Kenyon - Documentary

[Music] thank you [Music] police are searching for the missing Burnley mum Katie Canyon believed that she is no longer alive and have launched a murder investigation police were questioning a 50 year old man on suspicion of kidnap has now been further arrested and has been questioned in connection with murdering the mother of two thank you these guys outside the concern up here did you know where she is [Music] sex today today yeah but when I pick the kids up from school and behind the door so we came into [Music] this morning [Music] where do you think she'll be now she's obviously driven the car down here actually yeah and they are concerned that Andrew burfield may know the whereabouts of their loved one and he distanced himself completely says I've not seen Katie have no idea what you're talking about nothing to do with it I have no idea and goes onto the extreme of showing them on an iPhone 8 phone and showing them a series of messages that are purported to have come from Katie the family equally will say we've received a load of messages brought to be from Katie but we are certain and adamant they have not gone from Katie she told me she said before that message getting pregnant you the contents in the message the makeup of the messages inside the messages the language the grammar the punctuation spell the name wrong yeah all completely inconsistent with how Katie would write ordinarily were you just try ring in a number for us is the phone still on I don't know I've been ringing it is it ringing or is it going to voicemail man I'm a bit worried this thing man not have to do this I'm not worried about the money just ring my threes okay if you had to go lucky for getting out where would you go first place you'd go [Music] pend a little come on so how would she get there would you walk after dropping the keys off here for the car you'd seriously think she'd walk to Pendle from here from around two o'clock this afternoon yeah so I hope from have you reported any of this no no because it's only just happened it's it's I've had a sister right you said that message come up too yeah yeah so the message has come for a quarter too yeah and you've replied put him up straight away I know I'm just wondering because she said it's only just happened but it's happened at like two o'clock this afternoon yeah I I I I I came here at four to be honest with you I thought it was like so you weren't concerned I worked but I I I work if you will she's asked him to look after kids and she's going to go on well foreign is concerned so that launched obviously into the inquiry and they then do some quick work around ampr and different things and the phone cell signs to see where Casey's phone's going that shows the phone going right up towards Gisborne Forest so when we know the phone's going to talk give some Forest it's up there for a period of probably around about 51 minutes and then on the ampr data and the cameras and the CTP world has been done we now know that Katie is in that vehicle when it travels up to Gisborne Forest the concerning factories when the vehicle comes back Katie is no longer present in that vehicle but her phone is the last sighting of Katie Canyon was around half past nine on Friday morning one of Woman matching her description was seen getting into a silver Transit van with a man in Burnley that's the immediate concern that's massively inconsistent with what burfield has said in his initial assertion of I've no idea what he said about another sinner so then subsequently when we're going to speak to him against part of the missing from home inquiry it was like a hot day middle of April and the police have gone in to speak to him and the house is described as being like an infernal it's red hot it turns out he's actually got his log burner raging and the decision is made to lock him up on suspicion of kidnap I took lots more suspicion to kidnap um and we then started to do Urgent interviews with him those urgent interviews he still maintains the Jazz not known where Katie is [Music] a very simple question Andrew can you tell me where Katie is so is there any clue he can give a situation might be I did give you a clue early on um pictures of career center yeah [Music] foreign [Music] we start to launch a massive inquiry the purpose being to try and thank Katie safe and well on the belief potentially she is still safe and well up in the forest you can imagine it's like about a 25 mile radius around Gisborne Forest is massive so massive operation in terms of air support helicopters planes all kinds of things with heat Source cameras trying to search the forest we've got multiple search teams up there underwater search Mountain Rescue you name it everybody is up in that Forest cadaver dogs everybody's up there but even though we've got all these vast amount of resources we were sort of conscious through running this at the beginning that the the area which we've got we've got to sort of search through is so vast it's almost a bit like Neil and Haystacks we need to narrow that down hence with the sort of significant media appeal to see if we get any witnesses that could help us narrow that process what we then find is that one witness comes forward who says we think we've seen that vehicle and it's parked at one of the search areas that we were looking to address and search so we could prioritize that search area equally from the media appeal what also was identified was that birfield is a builder and we find that he'd been working doing some building work and address they've said I've had a weird conversation with him I've had a weird conversation on Saturday the 23rd of April and it's really it's weird in this context he's turned up kind of a quarter past eight in the morning which was unexpected didn't expect him to be a quarter past eight but yeah unusual it only works when the kids are at school school one time it's a weekend quarter past eight yeah isn't what he does yeah so they've kind of like well fair enough he's still doing some work here the entrance were unusual conversation around his inquiring as so when the bins are likely to be taken and when he's been day um at which point they just thought a bit odd but thought nothing of it the media appeal comes in and then they realize Kate is missing they're aware that Katie's ex-partner of Andrew burfield and it's not always asking about the bins when they've checked in their bin they then find the underneath buried under their Refuge is another bag with bags within bags that contain a pair of train Earth flip-flops that seem to match those of Katie's visually what we now know is in those bags also was a number of heavily stipped blood stain bags um so at which point then we've thought and believed they potentially could be Katie's and that's the first time we believe potentially come to some sort of harm to what degree we still didn't know but we were certainly concerned the potential to come to harm so we're fast-tracked all those bags in terms of trying to get them to determine whether or not they are caters or otherwise and then we continue the interview process with birfield I believe that you want to speak to us today um so I'm just going to hand it over to you so tell us what you want to say for part of the van we went to our side which we've always got to I say always we're going to twice right yeah that's where she still is okay what you changed his rhetoric completely so from previously it's not syncated now we are sincator he accepts he's taking her up to the the forest area and he accepted the killing of Katie but he did it on the basis of an accidental killing so we don't know what went wrong you're roaming at the tree and yeah I just don't even know what went wrong stupid [Music] how close was she from you okay no no people no signal on my phone carrier attractive [Music] so it taught me through this [Music] this has happened now [Music] um so following that he then says so in his interview account wasn't it he says he's gone back to his van when he gets back to his van um he has gone in there to consider about whether or not oh my God I might have to kill myself now I'll take my own life as you say because I'm concerned about what's occurred he has a bit of a reflection moment thinks you know what I've not got my finances in order and plus I've not brought my nail gun with me and perhaps I need to give myself a bit of time to get everything in order so he then makes the decision to go back to the actual scene which is approximately 70 meters away from the road and at which point then makes the decision to dig a shallow grave plays Katie within the grave and then cover it up again and leave in order to get his finances in order so that is the assertion that he is giving that interview the thing is Andrew you've told us a lot over the last few days haven't you and you've told us a lot certainly today a lot of information and a lot of it just does not add up okay and ultimately we don't believe you of what you've said do not believe that this has been an accident this is about your control and your over overkating and you're losing the control I've been plans to go up to Scotland she even says that you it said that you were going to buy a house and that you've got a portfolio of a number of houses [Music] the way it's relevant is because it's about you Andrew and the fact that you have told lies you tell lies to women and you're manipulating these relationships to control and you fantasize about a life that you would want to have that's not a crime because we're building to the fact that this hasn't just happened on Friday as you have tried to account for this morning that what we're saying is that hasn't happened okay it's you have not dug that hole in the 10 minutes that you have said to us it might have been longer I've got how long over there and you're not long enough care to herself even had a concerns about you she even told her own sister and based what she said to her sister was if I go missing it will be him meaning you who's done it the difficulty we've got is negating the assertion that this was an accident without finding Katie we need Casey in order to one bring clothes to the family so um for Katie as well we don't want her to be left somewhere in a shallow grave but evidentially we also need to get Katie's body to confirm and again that it's an accidental act through pathology which clearly we haven't got [Music] foreign [Music] ERS that we thought that potentially identified a shallow grave yeah and where the witness had seen the bump yeah these fans got quite a distinctive panel I don't remember on the side it had a bit of work done so it had quite a distinctive panel which is how this guy would be really adamant about where it's been parked and really specific about time and that it was that bum so that LinkedIn with what the GMP Dog Handlers and our pulses were seeing at the scene game was quite strong hope absolutely founder absolutely would be really no no words were spoken even he really didn't say anything no one said anything he's got his solicitor with him your other risk with it is escape as well isn't it so you've got there's lots of injury to the team there's so many risks involved with that but actually our priority was for the family to find Katie so you you have to kind of run those risks to get the result we need okay this okay oh yeah okay but as much as we're hopeful we found her there was a couple of things that weren't used as well what about a grave in terms of unusual like for example if you are to place a body inside a grave the void the size of one of those inside a grave you would expect to create a a mound subsequently you wouldn't have a perfectly flat surface this had a perfectly flat surface it was finished impeccably to a point where you would not even realize a grave was there if you're going to listen to his account and you know that he's been there for 51 minutes if you even dig a hole in order to put somebody into as part of a grave you would expect that was done in haste you'd expect you would dig a hole very very quickly not taking time and precision over it what he has actually done he's actually taken layers so he took a layer of topsoil a layer of soil put them on the side a layer of clay put it on the side so actually when you start to excavate there's no difference in the two types of soil so this part here looks like the same as this looks like to be undisturbed because it's been layered back exactly as you've taken away exactly so there's no anomalies and then the masks branches and weirdly a tree root has gone right over the top if you were doing it to the Precision that he's done it and actually left it so impeccably then how would you ever you know how would you ever have done that in the time available it's just not feasible thank you [Music] obviously we're all aware of the position we're in around this job in terms of what we've got for um the investigation as we know birfield has claimed his attack on cater to be an accidental act so the way I want to structure this today in terms of this briefing is we're going to start first and foremost around any updates we've got from a defense perspective that may be different to what he's previously asserted during his police interview and then I cover it around three main headings one what evidence we've got over the last few weeks around the actual Act of Killing two any evidence we've gathered around the premeditation and three the actions pulsed Katie being killed so what we actually know in relation to that and what's become apparent around those three things so that's the way I want to structure today's briefing if we can [Music] I think on the day that Katie's killed 51 minutes is what we talked about well if you think about what he's actually suggesting I think and I forget you could maybe confirming correct me on this I understood it to be maybe up to about six minutes to drive from the last CCV site up to the actual place where we know the vehicles was part from a witness perspective so six minutes on two ways of that Journey knocks another 12 minutes off takes us down to 39 minutes then you've got the walk from where the vehicle was parked the 60 meters into the forest which we expect caters done in flip-flops which and then you've got the fact his suggestion is that um from there he's walked back to the van where he's obviously at this moment of thinking about what he's going to do about the fact he's killed or whatever's going on in the forest area setting a picnic blanket out and chopping firewood ended up killing her administer first aid then walk back 60 meters back to the van and then decide he's not got a nail gun there to obviously harm himself and then come conclusion he's going to dig a grave and walk back again another 60 meters your time frame is just collapsing down all the time to a point I would argue based on his account you've only got 30 minutes and the con the contrast for that is that we've got this support unit staff who was saying it takes nearly an hour just for them to fill in the grave which was not dug like a hole so if you're going to dig this hole we've said this all the way through and consistently you dig the hole you do it in panic he has not elated the archeology says he has layered this he's a he's not a quick job this it's not something that's even feasible within that and on that note Simon I've not actually read it yet but I know we've got Ali stamen from an archeology I haven't read it in detail I've only skimmed through it but that's pretty much what it says the different levels of soil have been taken out and in her opinion put separately rather than just taken out in a mass as in you're just frantically digging a hole and the top of it then has been taken out in as if it like bits of turf or whatever so it can then be laid back flat over the top you add into that as well as Dave described it one of the other briefings about the route that's part cut and bent back um he does suggest in his interviews that he's a good Digger where I'm paraphrasing when asked about that he does say I'm good at digging so I could do it in that time yeah but I don't think he could do it the way it's being described um certainly the precision as well because it's he's narrow isn't it it's narrow at the feet end it's wider at the head end it's deeper at the head end there was something I read it looked like it might have had to be made bigger yeah I think which is a an interesting in that again from Ali's statement was that maybe the first hole that was dug wasn't big enough to fit her in so there's been some further digging that's been done at some stage afterwards it's left it tidy enough hasn't he that it we didn't find it no moving that on a little bit witness perspective anything we've got new witness wise [Music] anything that you've seen Simon is reading um there's lots of stuff around we've got quite a few of his ex-partners which is interesting that the the is quite a controlling and a Walter Mitty type character it seems with an awful lot of his ex Partners promising this and not actually going through um and and meeting people in all sorts of varieties of mediums he's on dating sites and online and sort of dropping into people's messages on Facebook and Instagram and stuff into hello how are you and this this talk about quite a lot of inappropriate talk on Single Ladies that he's gone doing building work for although where's your husband and are you single and this that and the other so he looks like he's continually out and about looking for potential Partners is probably the wrong word but um women that he can form relationships with um and he's yeah there's a couple that I read where he's taking money off them one of whom has gone through the same process with him that he's done with Katie as in they've served letter on him from the court saying I've given you this money and you always owe me back whether that's what's giving him the idea to do it but yeah um he's it's certainly and that that is that's coming out from a perspective of of what sort of a person he was [Music] so on the 8th of March the debt company received an email from Katie saying that birfield's going to pay the balance that they he's going to pay the debt off she tells him on the eighth and then on the ninth he's sending that saying put more pressure on her to um to get the money off her the previous one and we've got messages being sent between the two of them and she is saying I'll sort it for you don't worry yeah and then he's going straight to doing that I think that we need that in personally because you you've given him and then that message comes up from her saying I don't know what he's going to do next when he is doing all this stuff that she doesn't know about behind the scenes so on the 25th he Rings them to request an update on the case he stated that Miss kenyan's offered has been to his address giving him abuse and asking why the 200 pound paid so he's then playing the other side again as soon as uh breathing calm down it's all controller in terms of the sort of level of premeditation how long you've been thinking of murdering a for so we know that she goes missing and is killed on the 22nd of April what becomes really clear for us is those messages that I touched on before that the family will say okay to categorically has not written so she was looking at they were saying because the language grammar punctuation as you said spelling the simple things like the dog incorrectly when you actually look at that through a different lens what we now know is those messages that have been sent to her children to other family members so multiple different people that they're saying not come from Katie they've been written and have been produced by birfield in about well certainly two to three weeks prior to Katie's death so what we've looked at is when we've seized his iPhone what we're able to establish is that on the 17th of March 2022 if you look at your iCloud account your notes section of your phone which people might put the shopping list or something similar in there these messages and they are vast in nature they're like really long messages these they had already been created on the 17th of March by the 4th of April those messages existed in exactly the format that they were actually subsequently sent so what we believe is when he's murdered Katie he has brought her phone back with him in order to use that in order to send messages to suggest that she was still alive and he used to in order to do that he's transferred message from his own phone onto Katie's phone that he can onwardly send to other people but the most chilling part of that is that's like what certainly 18 days prior to Casey's murder so it's clearly premeditated this for me is quite important and this needs to be evidenced in full and basically what this is in the first of April there's 28 phone activity records that show the device has been used to access notes when you think about writing a note 28 notes on one day is quite significant um yeah it is you know so I think that in itself is quite important knowing that we know on the second and fourth the key dates that we're using in evidence the Keynotes we're using evidence are edited on those days yeah and then the next bit so the WhatsApp message you sent me to in case Ken and Andrew burfield from um first the fourth 9 37 to 11 24 make reference to him having a way to help her and that she'll see soon enough because I think yeah that that 28 phone activity Records On on the first of the fourth probably sits us somewhere within the sequence as a slide just to say yeah and and and at the same time she's she's stressed if you read the messages at the same time she's stressed and he's basically saying don't worry I I can help you I'm on with it I'm actually on with it now he's like you'll see soon enough Katie and he's it's quite Eerie when you read it like at the same time he's creating and editing these notes yeah so I think he's he is as you say he's piling the pressure on her to make sure that she is beholden to him and she's not just going to cut off contact and leave him because he's got this plan in place that he started back on the 17th so he needs to keep contact with it in order to put that plan in place and see yeah which is everything else is is about reeling her in and then then stressing you're in there reeling it backing again and stressing her [Music] so seven weeks prior to trial we want to run through the whole chronology of the events that have taken place and Associated evidence just to check one for accuracy to check there's anything anomalies index it needs to be correct and accurate and secondly to check if any sort of new developments that have taken place that would inform that position from an SLC equals perspective so that's the purpose of today um he is now accepted that he's been at the forest the day before he claims around that that was down to um he's had his brakes on his car which Bend his brakes in he's traveled up to the Forest Area to walk his dog the reason that becomes so significant for me is a number of different things so we already knew that he's been up to the forest area but we also now know that when they've done the excavation work around the great time that we know this but what we've all done around the excavation work the great is we find two different recessive Footwear at the base of the Grave so one of those is a block one of those is a zigzag now straight away that indicates that either a number of different iPods to sit around those one is that two people that have been um super grays now that's largely eliminated straight off because he accepts he's the only person there that's consistent with the 60v because everything else will take place that is negated to a large extent which then begs the question why two sets of footwork she's gonna have that for one or two reasons either you've won two different sets support where during the digging of that grave has took place over two days which is what we believe to be the case or or what makes it more likely that to be their favorite hypothesis is because there's narrowing time frames so if you recall there's only a 51 minute period of enter into the Forest Park in the vehicle okay and him going into the walls obviously engaging instead of a picnic suggesting something different enjoy that period come way get the kill to try to finish the first aid according to his account and then come back to the van collect some sprayed have a bit of deliberation going back he's just implausible you would dig that Gray from that complex way collapse inside but if you're going to suggest that in between all that you change your shoes during a period of Panic it's completely collapsing that time frame again even further to what you had previously so the likelihood that is significantly less there's a lots of it that I would say that sits around each of those but again as as much as that's my observation that's something we need to work with the experts around the archeology at the bottom of the pathology to actually overlap what my view would be around for where the Footwear that we've got recovered we've recovered from him zigzag in terms of trainers and walks in terms of um his work boots so they are the lap Ridge detail it's like to make a direct comparison yeah enough to say they are consistent with those two sets of footwork now interestingly some of the Footwear was concealed under items within his address and so I'm fairly confident that collectively and holistic when you consider this they are likely to correct Footwear today's meeting is predominantly around the secret events which Brian's going through to check for the accuracy before when I was seven weeks at 3 35 I know he turns up at house do what he's wearing it's got those Reebok trainers on it's got a spade distinctive black panel on the side of the van that helped and so everyone in his defense case statement he's saying that he goes up on the 21st of April he goes up to that area to walk the dog and he drives up there to bed his brakes in because he's just got his brakes done so at 1954 just been out with eggs the dog had tea and now there's a mad chance of just chilling but we're no different don't we that's him passing the last season to the opportunity towards the forest he passes over 2013 and he then takes him until about I don't know 2032 to arrive at where the burial site is so he's had from 2032 just doing some rough calculations 2032 to 21 31 so give or take an hour at the site to dig the hall and then that gives him about 18 minutes or so 19 minutes or so to then get back and if you just go forward and hit that camera then return it so what we've done is we've timed the journeys so we know how long it takes between that camera site and the dig site having got it on walks from where he parked and then timed it all and it's given about an hour at the dig site so we reattaches turns his farm back on about 2203 and there's his van [Music] and here arrives Katie and that's the from across the road so here going into the front door which you don't ever catch him doing because he always enters around the back until he comes back and this looks on the doorstep yeah which in that time he uh conveniently comes through the front door so Katie's phone travels even though his doesn't and again we can't see Footwear or anything like that but we can't see that they're both in the van last sighting on CCTV if Katie alone but now 50. so that feels bound same Parts in the lay by on whole house Lane by Our member of the public which you've got on the Drone footage bone traveling back down so this time we've got the 40s so Dave's done the same bit of work Dave do you want to talk through that one the previous shot it's a two minute drive to where he Parks up 290 second walk he's working with buried I've simply worked out a little bit and then worked out these guys for 42 minutes and then get back to these camera signs Maria's coming home well there's a few minutes of coming back and then messaging her what you want to say when she says just out on a walk what about you well she doesn't she does all right go on talk us through this time during that six minutes of night frantic in between WhatsApp notes WhatsApp notes WhatsApp notes so I was referred to earlier we're saying that this is in amending those notes that he'd written two or three weeks ago for example changing morning to afternoon and changing the odd emoji that type of thing when she turns it off he's at his house yeah and if that's the last time I connected to that yeah and that's actually inside itself yeah and there's not really much to say about that as they switched off and yeah obviously know what happens to it he says he burns it on the Fire and then he's creating his messages to cater to me yeah he's just tired he's just typing I'm trying to make him look at his name and then this is the voicemail that we got at the time was that these acting skills I think we should play this caught you can embed that oh yeah they can do that get pages to go everyone so he's continuing with his messages to her just for me when you can you've turned your phone off again just now when you're ready to talk and I'm here and support you in any way I can love you remember that and another voicemail message from him that's the more impactive one yes when he says what you want me to do kids are ringing I haven't got a clue foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] and up to God I'm fed up how's your day been yeah my day's been good I'm home now work was great as always and then we see Jenny arrive at um birdfield's house Jenny London she knows [Music] and this is from the body cam footage when the cops turn up to talk to him [Music] thank you all very much you've all worked ridiculously hard on this job and that is proof of where we're up to so keep going and thank you all take five minutes let's ride that foreign [Music] burfield changed his plea to guilty three days into his trial for killing Katie Canyon who was from Padia burfield had claimed he killed Katie by accident yesterday he changed his plea to guilty the judge told the 51 year old that he should prepare himself that he might die in jail has been jailed for a minimum of 32 years for her murder today with burfield starting a life sentence the profound loss on permanent harm with birthings of course to Katie Kenya's children would never be erased the fun they've also asked me to personally thank every person who's been involved in the case to bring cater's killer to Justice they also think it's important to express who Katie was and the family have given me a few words I'm now going to read on their behalf Katie's a happy loving mum of two she had a whole life ahead of her Katie was beautiful and silly [Music] she had a truly beautiful soul she always surrounded herself by chill with children her own and everybody else's who wants to join in she would take kids and the dogs everywhere with her she'd even try to set up summer camp for the local children so they had something to do and somewhere to go she loved the outdoors and she loved people we miss her we miss her very much beyond words and we will never get to express our loss to me Katie was funner caring soul he was loved by many and also love to penne and as a sister they're all quite argumentative as well but I suppose that's your sister love yeah [Music] yeah yeah to me just funny silly beautiful foreign kids [Music] should live for her children the dog and the dog don't forget the dog no but yeah that were alive it was the children the dog [Music] yeah and Outdoors what did you miss sir oh Millions words can't describe yeah put the words out the wrong just no words to describe and stuff no it hurts even like you think oh it's a bit for his birthday first Christmas it's every day yeah it is every day it will be first birthday and first Christmas it'll be everybody every Christmas every Milestone and then every day today I mean obviously when I got to walk the dogs [Music] they it's me then because it was always me Katie walking them dogs it's just everyday things yeah I wake up in the morning and get his pictures there and I just I get to wake up and live my life and she's she's not here anymore [Music]

Channel: Lancashire Police

Views: 408,848

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Id: FsluACQ663w

Length: 41min 33sec (2493 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 29 2023