A man has been found guilty of the murder of police community support officer Julia James.
Loner Callum Wheeler, 22, beat the mother-of-two to death as she walked her dog in fields and woodland near the back of her home in Snowdown, Kent.
Mrs James was off duty on the afternoon of 27 April last year when she was killed by Wheeler who attacked her with a railway jack, a tool used to lift train tracks, resulting in “catastrophic injuries”.
He was seen roaming around the countryside with the weapon stuffed in his rucksack the day before the 53-year-old woman died near Ackholt Wood, and in the days after as hundreds of police officers scoured the area for clues.
When he was arrested, Wheeler told officers “sometimes I do things that I cannot control” and “you can’t go into the woods and expect to be safe”.
He also told a member of police staff that he would return to the woodland and rape and kill a woman, and that Mrs James had deserved to die.
Detectives used data from her Apple watch to find out where and when she had walked her Jack Russell called Toby, and pinpoint where she was attacked.
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Data showed her heart rate and walking pace spiked at the point it is believed she spotted Wheeler in the woodland, and changed her route home in an attempt to escape.
Mrs James had seen him in the same location before, and had described him to her husband Paul as “a really weird dude”.
But, in an unexplained outburst of violence, Wheeler, who lived in nearby Aylesham, beat her to death and walked away.
