London - A handyman appeared in court on Wednesday accused of the rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl almost 34 years ago – after modern DNA techniques linked him to the scene.
James Warnock, 56, is suspected of attacking Yiannoulla Yianni when he was 22 after charming his way into her home in August 1982.
The murder remained unsolved for decades despite a huge police inquiry and nationwide appeals.
But the father-of-two was arrested in January after he was held in connection with a separate offence and his DNA was put on the police database. It was then found to match forensic samples from Yiannoulla’s body.
On Wednesday, the balding defendent sat in the dock at the Old Bailey as details of the crime were revealed for the first time.
After his arrest, he was asked by police what he looked like in 1982 and replied: ‘How can I put it? John Travolta?’
Jurors were shown a picture of the Hollywood star from the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, with Prosecutor Crispin Aylett explaining it was ‘for those perhaps less familiar with the younger John Travolta’.
Yiannoulla – known as Lucy – was found dead by her parents in their bedroom at home in Hampstead, north-west London.
Police believe she had been listening to music when she answered a knock at the front door. Mr Aylett QC said ‘charming’ Warnock forced his way inside and chased her upstairs before raping and strangling her. Her parents, George and Elli, returned home half an hour later to find her jewellery scattered on the stairs and landing.
Mr Aylett said: ‘They went into their own bedroom. There they met a sight beyond their worst imagining. Their beloved daughter was lying on their bed. She was obviously dead. Yiannoulla’s breasts were exposed and she was naked from the waist down.’
The jury was told she had been asphyxiated, probably after her neck was held in an arm lock.
‘This terrible crime has remained unsolved for half a lifetime,’ said Mr Aylett, who explained there was no such thing as DNA evidence in 1982. When Warnock learned police had found his DNA on the victim, he claimed they had begun a relationship after he saw her in her father’s cobbler’s.
He told police she had a ‘lovely smile’ and claimed their relationship became intimate after they met six or seven times.
‘He said that they had gone back to Yiannoulla’s house and had sex in her bedroom. He said, they had sex on about ten separate occasions,’ Mr Aylett said.
‘He remembered she had always been anxious lest her parents come home and find them.’
But Mr Aylett said his story was unlikely as Yiannoulla came from a conservative Greek family.
Having just finished school, she lived with her parents, older sister Maria and two brothers Erenaious, known as Ricky, and Petros, known as Peter.
She was brought up in ‘the traditional Greek manner’, could not go out without a chaperone, and was still a virgin.
‘Nonetheless, Yiannoulla was an attractive, physically mature young woman who looked older than she was,’ Mr Aylett said.
She went to Quintin Kynaston School near her home and was called Noodles by pals.
She was hoping to take a beauticians’ course after her O-levels.
At the time of the murder, around 2pm on August 13, witnesses saw a man in his early twenties, around 5ft 6in, with short, dark hair at her door. Warnock was 5ft 8in and had short, black hair. He was working as a tiler at a neighbouring house.
Shortly after the man was seen at the front door, one neighbour heard a man and woman arguing before another heard a scream.
Warnock, who had married in 1981 and went on to have two sons, claimed he knew nothing of the murder because he only read the sports pages and did not see anything about it on television.
The accused, of, Camden, north-west London, denies rape and murder. The trial continues.
Daily Mail