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| Case file: Malcolm Fairley In 1984, a series of violent burglaries took place in southern England. The offender would threaten his victims with a sawed-off shotgun, rape the women, beat the men. He always wore a hood that covered his face, and the only clues the detectives had were that he had northern accent and was left-handed. A massive police hunt ensued, but with so little to go on, the investigators made no significant progress. Meanwhile, the attacks received regular exposure in the newspapers, which dubbed the man "The Fox". On August 17, he struck again. As it turned out, this attack was opportunisitc, since "The Fox" had been on his way north to visit his mother and he had decided on a whim to carry out the burglary. It would be a serious mistake. He parked his car out of sight in a field near the village of Brampton, fashioned some makeshift hood from some coveralls he had with him, grabbed his shotgun and broke into a nearby house. There he bound the male resident and raped the man's wife, after which he calmly removed any obvious evidence that could tie him to the crime, including part of the bedsheet. When police investigators arrived at the scene, they discovered tire tracks where the car had been parked, as well as a paint chip, which had been dislodged when the car had rubbed against a tree. Nearby was the section of the bedsheet, the hood, and the shotgun, which had been hidden under some leaves. Certain that the offender would return to retrieve his gun, the police mounted a survelliance operation. To acount for their presence in the quiet country lane, they faked a car accident, but he never showed up. Meanwhile, the paint chip had been analyzed and turned out to be a color called Harvest Gold, which had been applied to one make and model of car, the Austin Allegro, for two years only. With nothing else to go on, detectives began tracing and interviewing all the burglars known to have moved south from the north of England - over 3,000 of them. In the course of this search, two police officers went to the home of Malcolm Fairley, where they found him outside washing his car, a Harvest Gold Austin Allegro. Fairley spoke with a northern accent and appeared shifty when they questioned him; when he reached into the car to pick up his wristwatch and put it on, the officers noticed he was left-handed. His car was damaged in a place that matched the position of the paint chip found at Brampton. He was arrested, and subsequent search of his apartment revealed identical coveralls to those from which the hood had been cut. He confessed and was given six life sentences for his crimes. |
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