The bizarre murder of Joanna Yeates this month has left the U.K. stunned, but ever since her body was discovered in the snow on Christmas Day, there seem to be more questions than answers. And most of them are aimed at her landlord Christopher Jefferies, a former private school teacher whose students believe is gay. Yeates, a 25-year-old landscape architect, and her boyfriend apparently enlisted the help of Jeffries and another neighbor on the day she was murdered when his car had trouble starting.
Described as a ‘nutty professor’, the bachelor used to dye his hair blue and has an obsession with Christina Rossetti, a 19th-century poet who often wrote about death. … A series of former pupils have told how the bachelor, who they nicknamed ‘the strange Mr Jefferies’ was seen as an odd character. They claimed he made sleazy comments and invited them to his house.
‘He was a stickler for discipline and was very traditional,’ said one old boy, who was taught GCSE English by the bachelor in the 1990s. ‘He used to get very angry and shout and throw books and pens across the room. He was very flamboyant. We were convinced he was gay. You didn’t want him to come near you, he was very unkempt and had dirty fingernails.’
Another added: ‘It was commonly assumed that he was gay. It was treated as an open secret. All sorts of rumours used to fly around about him.’
[…] A couple who used to live in the building have claimed Jefferies was a ‘nosy neighbour’ who used to peer into the living room and bedroom. They said he refused to let them put up net curtains to protect their privacy because it was not in keeping with the building’s style, according to the Mirror. They also accused the landlord of preventing them fitting a chain lock on the door and claimed he let himself into their home several times.
Police are still questioning Jefferies in the on-going investigation, having arrested him Thursday. Investigators say Yeates was strangled.
Fagburn
Queerty,
There’s another story blowing up in the UK right now linked to this about how various people are getting very angry about speculative press coverage like this.
There’s a law over here that is supposed to stop media publishing anything that may prejudice a trial.
Nice to see you joining in and – once again – quoting a famously homophobic right-wing British newspaper, this time the Dail Mail (The Hate Mail we call it), without questioning it.
Well done Queerty – another great post to round off the year!
Mary Taylor
I agree with the above. Queerty you may be in the US, but you need to observe UK law when publishing about a UK story. As the Attorney General is quoted as saying on the BBC News website, following the Daily Mail article you have regurgitated; ‘Mr Grieve – the government’s most senior legal officer – said it was not only newspapers which had to be careful about the sort of material published.
“Newspapers are under a legal obligation, indeed all media is under a legal obligation, in fact everybody who puts something on the internet is under a legal obligation, to observe the principles of the Contempt of Court Act,” he said.
“If they don’t, they lay themselves open to proceedings for contempt.”
And really, does it even matter if he was gay or not?
LoveThatGuy
Dirty finger nails? Never catch a gay with those.
Leroy Laflamme
@LoveThatGuy: Nor a do like that. Except on The Lady Buuny, perhaps – but blue?