Yesterday I broke my blogging silence on Britain's most topical news item, the disappearance and murder of Bristol architect Joanna Yeates.
I concluded my article by saying: "So many questions but only a few plausible answers, which makes me think the police are quite close to making a breakthrough."
This morning's news would seem to bear that out, with the arrest of 65-year-old Chris Jefferies, Joanna's landlord, who lives in a separate flat in the same building.
Mr Jefferies, a retired teacher, entered the limelight yesterday with his announcement that he might have seen Joanna with two unknown people shortly before her disappearance on the night of Friday, 17th December 2010.
There are a few oddities surrounding Mr Jefferies, not least the fact it took him a whole week, police crawling around the flat downstairs, to remember that he may have seen Joanna on the night she vanished.
Just as I correctly said with the Suffolk Strangler case, we mustn't automatically assume that the first person arrested, in this case Mr Jefferies, is guilty of Joanna's murder. The police will have to carefully assemble the pieces of the evidential jigsaw, which will prove particularly difficult should Mr Jefferies be the right man.
I say that because as Joanna's landlord, should he (hypothetically) wish to hide his guilt, he would be able to offer a range of entirely plausible explanations to the police. Joanna's flat could, quite legitimately and innocently, be covered with his fingerprints and DNA. He could have used his vehicle to innocently give Joanna a lift to the shops. Joanna could have given him a hand loading items into the boot of his car, thereby explaining her presence in there.
Enough of playing devil's advocate.
My gut feeling is that a man as weak and weedy as Mr Jefferies, wearing his fluffy wool mittens and shuffling along with his woven nylon shopping bag, would not have been physically capable of strangling a fit and healthy girl like Joanna.
Time will tell.
The police can only hold Mr Jefferies for 36 hours without charge, before having to apply to Magistrates for an extension up to a maximum of 96 hours.
I concluded my article by saying: "So many questions but only a few plausible answers, which makes me think the police are quite close to making a breakthrough."
This morning's news would seem to bear that out, with the arrest of 65-year-old Chris Jefferies, Joanna's landlord, who lives in a separate flat in the same building.
Mr Jefferies, a retired teacher, entered the limelight yesterday with his announcement that he might have seen Joanna with two unknown people shortly before her disappearance on the night of Friday, 17th December 2010.
There are a few oddities surrounding Mr Jefferies, not least the fact it took him a whole week, police crawling around the flat downstairs, to remember that he may have seen Joanna on the night she vanished.
Just as I correctly said with the Suffolk Strangler case, we mustn't automatically assume that the first person arrested, in this case Mr Jefferies, is guilty of Joanna's murder. The police will have to carefully assemble the pieces of the evidential jigsaw, which will prove particularly difficult should Mr Jefferies be the right man.
I say that because as Joanna's landlord, should he (hypothetically) wish to hide his guilt, he would be able to offer a range of entirely plausible explanations to the police. Joanna's flat could, quite legitimately and innocently, be covered with his fingerprints and DNA. He could have used his vehicle to innocently give Joanna a lift to the shops. Joanna could have given him a hand loading items into the boot of his car, thereby explaining her presence in there.
Enough of playing devil's advocate.
My gut feeling is that a man as weak and weedy as Mr Jefferies, wearing his fluffy wool mittens and shuffling along with his woven nylon shopping bag, would not have been physically capable of strangling a fit and healthy girl like Joanna.
Time will tell.
The police can only hold Mr Jefferies for 36 hours without charge, before having to apply to Magistrates for an extension up to a maximum of 96 hours.
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