'It was without doubt the toughest investigation, mentally and physically, I have ever been involved in', one of the senior cops who led the Liam Smith probe said
As Michael Hillier and Rachel Fulstow enjoyed the Jamaican sun - posing for pictures astride horses in the crystal clear Caribbean Sea - they had no idea the net was closing in. They thought they'd got away with murder.
A stop and search in Sheffield led police to Hillier. He remained tight-lipped, but his insurance and phone logs then pointed them to his then girlfriend, Fulstow. "It was six weeks in when we got the footage of Hillier [at the scene] three weeks before - that was a really significant breakthrough. Prior to that, the most significant breakthrough was when we had the information surrounding the R22 plates being in Sheffield. It was slow, which was very difficult for the family."
DI Lee Shaw, deputy senior investigating officer, said: "A lot of different theories were coming up at the time. We were looking at a specific firearm at the time, from our expert, who was telling us it was a 4.10 shotgun, and then we then were looking at types of ammunition. GMP bought a blank firing gun to test it - to see if it was capable of firing the same type of shot discovered. It was then, following assistance from expert across the country, it was determined Hillier had converted the gun.
An intelligence officer found Fulstow was listed as a named driver on his car insurance. Coupled with her inconsistent answers as to what they found on her phone, she became a suspect. "I think, although we explained to Hillier during his interview that Fulstow wasn't saying what he was saying, I don't think he believed it because the police were saying it," DI Shaw said.
"Liam's eldest son, on his 15th birthday, saw his dad in the mortuary. He could only touch a small part of him, which was the only bit that he was allowed to see of him because he was so badly damaged by the acid.
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