Oxford Mail's true crime podcast: The killing of Vikki Thompson

It was 15 years before her grieving family heard the guilty verdict. It took police officers to reopen a cold case, advances in DNA testing, a change of law and one pair of blood-stained boots to make sure that Vikki's killer wouldn't get away with murder. 

You can read along the words to this mini podcast here:

Hello and welcome to the Oxford Mail’s True Crime Podcast with me, Fran Way.

In these new series we’ll be looking at the most notorious crimes from across Oxfordshire.

This week we focus on a crime the shocked the nation.

30-yeard-old Vikki Thompson had everything to live for.

Two children – seven-year-old Matthew and five-year-old Jenny, a devoted husband Jonathan, her collie dog Daisy and a family home in the quaint West Oxfordshire village of Ascott-under-Wychwood.

On Saturday, August 12, 1995 like thousands of other people across the UK she took her dog for a walk in the hot summer sunshine.

She walked along a popular bridleway close to her home in the afternoon – as she would have done countless times before. But on this day, Daisy trotted back without her.

Three hours later, at around 7pm, Vikki was found battered, laying in a pool of blood, semi-conscious near the Cotswold Railway Line.

She was airlifted to the John Radcliffe Hospital by helicopter where she was put into intensive care. Her husband Jonathan is said to have played music from her favourite movie, Pretty Woman, for days on end – hoping it would help Vikki fight back to consciousness.

Jonathan took part in an emotional press conference, too. He spoke of his disbelief of the attack saying the injuries were so ‘horrific and unbelievable’ that he couldn’t understand how it could happen to ‘anyone, let alone his beautiful wife’.

While in care at John Radcliffe, Vikki occasionally opened her eyes and moved her limbs. Police officers were stationed at the hospital, ready to question her when she awoke.

Alas, she never regained consciousness and died six days later.

A murder investigation was opened.

Police said they believed Vikki had been hit over the head, dragged around 40 yards across a field and thrown over a fence by the Paddington to Hereford train line. They were unsure what the motive could have been, however.

Vikki’s family said they were ‘numbed’. They were worried that the ‘monster’ responsible for killing her was going to strike again.

The neighbours in the rural village were in total shock that something so awful could happen to a young mum right on their doorstep. Fears started growing, could there be a killer in their midst?

Lead investigator Ds David Blair told women at the time not to go out alone.

“Unless we can assess the motive more accurately, regretfully I must advise women in the Wychwood area to be cautious and observant when walking alone,” he said. They advised women to avoid isolated situations and to take someone with them if at all possible.

Only days Vikki’s death, husband Jonathan decided he could not sit and wait.  He headed a search party of 50 relatives, friends and neighbours all looking for clues that police might have missed. They combed fields, paths and riverbanks around the village.

The group had hoped to find the dog’s missing lead, and perhaps the murder weapon. Instead, they found a bag of clothing containing a glove, shoe, sock and two cigarette lighters.

On August 19 police put out a £10,000 reward in a desperate bid to catch the killer. At the time 50 officers were on the case, including 16 murder hunt detectives and dozens of PCs making house-to-house enquiries.

TVP did a special reconstruction of the events on BBC’s Crimewatch and disclosed that a naked man was seen near the village at the time of Vikki’s murder.

130 people called in with information on the back of it, forcing police to defend why it had taken so long to tell people about the naked man. The force said that they were worried people would sensationalise it.

Officers later appealed for the owners of two bras found in a Londis carrier bag near the crime spot to come forward.

In September officers swooped in at a house just 150 yards away from the Thompson’s home and arrested a 20-year-old man called Mark Weston.

He was questioned for 12 hours before being released.

During the month of October police in Warwickshire were hunting for the killer of 15-year-old Naomi Smith. They announced they would be carrying out DNA testing of 800 young men who lived near her home when she went missing posting a letter.

But TVP ruled out this approach. They said they wouldn’t be doing the same for the Vikki Thompson murder, despite still desperately waiting for a breakthrough in December.

By February, Weston had been arrested at his home on Dawl’s Close for the second time and was questioned for 36 hours.

Police charged him with murder and he appeared at the then-Witney Magistrates’ Court. He arrived in the back of a police van with a blanket over his head.

The prosecution asked if he could be remanded in custody for his own safety, with Denis Burke from the CPS being quoted saying: “It is very likely there might be some form of revenge if Weston were given bail today.”

On May 28, 1996, the then 21-year-old pleaded not guilty and a trial at the crown court was scheduled.

Jurors were told how loner Weston, who had odd-jobs at the time, had been staring at the Thompson’s house for several days before the attack. And on August 13, a day after Vikki’s attack, jurors were told, he was seen having a bonfire. Forensic tests showed that items of clothing had been burnt.

Neighbours who lived near the pathway where Vikki was found also stood in the dock. They recalled hearing a woman screaming and dog barking at around the same time of the attack.

That same evening, a police dog handler said his dog followed a human scent close to where Vikki was found, which also led to some footprints.

Samples from Weston’s boots had shown a striking similarity with the chemical content taken from the footprints in the field.

It was also revealed during the trial, how Weston had changed his story several times about his whereabouts on August 12.

In one story he had told PC Danny Hargreaves, the officer doing house-to-house inquiries, that he had been fishing on the river Evenlode before going shopping then back home then fishing again at 8pm.

But three days later when he was questioned by another PC, Weston said he had been fishing in the morning and changed his version of events about what happened in the evening.

At court one juror fainted when she saw Vikki’s horrific injuries which included five fractures on her head, that had been caused by a either rock or a brick the jury was told.

The pathologist said that it was likely the attacker would have been covered in blood after dragging Vikki across a field, throwing her over a fence and running away.

He also concluded that there had been at least three heavy blows to the back of the young mum’s head with a heavy blunt object. There were another 54 injuries to her whole body.

Police bugged Weston’s house for more than three months to listen in to his conversations. The device was secreted into the Weston’s home on the day he was arrested (first time or second time he was arrested?).

Jurors were told how the recording picked up Weston telling his mum what time he went out the day Vikki was attacked, but that the mother was heard telling her son that the times did not tally.

After hearing three-weeks of evidence, it took jurors 40 minutes to reach a not guilty verdict.

But that wasn’t the end….

There’s plenty more to this case, in fact there’s 15 years more to this. Tune in for our next episode where we’ll delve into even more court battles, the changes in law, and the new evidence which came to light.

I hope you enjoyed our first episode of this new crime series, get in touch with any feedback or suggestions for cases you’d like to hear next.  

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