Unanswered questions over Billie-Jo Jenkins’ tragic murder – from stranger ‘Mr B’ to ‘3 minute kill window’

WILL the puzzle behind Billie-Jo’s murder finally be solved?

A new podcast and cold-case review of forensic evidence could finally bring Billie-Jo Jenkins’ murderer to justice – almost 30 years on from her death.

Naomi Channell stared at the image on the screen and shuddered. In the foreground of the gruesome photograph lay the lifeless body of a girl, sprawled on the patio of a family house, blood pooling around her.

In the background, visible through the large windows, were all the usual trappings of family life – books, coats, school bags…

The photo was taken by police officers on February 15, 1997. The dead girl was Billie-Jo Jenkins, whose murder shocked the nation and has carried on making headlines to this day. She was just one month away from her 14th birthday when she was bludgeoned to death with an 18in iron tent peg while painting the patio doors in the back garden of the home she lived in with her foster family in Hastings, East Sussex.

Naomi, 38, from Essex, viewed the photo as she prepared to produce her hit eight-part podcast Who Killed Billie-Jo?, released earlier this year. She hopes it will revive interest in the case, which remains unsolved 27 years later.

“That image is ingrained in my brain,” says Naomi. “Billie-Jo had beautiful long, dark hair – you can see in the photo it’s glistening, and you know why. It’s almost unbearable to look at.”

Taken into care

Billie-Jo was born in east London in March 1983 to Deborah Barnett and Bill Jenkins. When Bill was sent to prison, Deborah was unable to look after her daughter and she was taken into care when she was eight, before being placed with the Jenkins family (who coincidentally shared the same surname as Billie-Jo).

Lois Jenkins, a social worker, and Siôn, a teacher, had four girls of their own: Annie, 12 at the time of the murder, Lottie, 10, Esther, nine, and Maya, seven. When Siôn got a job as deputy headteacher at a school in Hastings, they moved to a large Victorian house in the seaside town.

It was Siôn, then 38, who found Billie-Jo’s body – and the following year, he was convicted of her murder.

On the day Billie-Jo was killed, Esther and Maya were out with Lois shopping. Billie-Jo was earning pocket money painting the patio doors. According to court documents, Siôn, accompanied by Annie, collected Lottie and a friend from a music lesson, before returning home. He claimed he did not see Billie-Jo, but heard Annie speaking with her and recalled Annie saying goodbye to her. All three then left the house again to buy some white spirit from a local hardware store.

It was on returning that Siôn found Billie-Jo lying on the patio, the left-hand side of her face on the ground facing the garden. There was a plastic bag at the scene, part of which was up her left nostril. He called an ambulance, before making a frantic call to neighbour, Denise Franklin, who rushed round to help.

But just days after making an emotional public appeal, it was Siôn who was arrested and charged with the murder, after Lois made a statement to police alleging he was violent to her and their children. Court documents stated that: “On March 7, Mrs Jenkins made a statement to the police. She said that the appellant [Siôn] had a bad temper, and had been violent towards her, and that he would use a slipper or stick on A [Annie] and L [Lottie]. All of them were afraid of him.”

Lois’ allegations were ruled as inadmissible at trial, and while the prosecution put forward a number of theories as to why Siôn had killed Billie-Jo – including that he’d been abusing her, or that they’d argued over the messy painting of the patio doors and he’d lost his temper, Siôn maintained his innocence. He argued that the blood spray found on his clothes and shoes was caused when he tried to help Billie-Jo as she lay dying, until he was found guilty in July 1998.

Lois later wrote a newspaper article claiming her husband was a violent control freak obsessed with discipline, while Siôn wrote his own account of events in another paper.

‘He was accused of being in a sexualised relationship with his foster daughter’

Accusation from prosecution

In his 1999 ruling on Siôn’s first failed appeal, Lord Justice Kennedy described the father’s journey to Do-It-All, the hardware store, as a “curious” one. “It involved a double circle around a large park, followed by a drive to the Do-It-All store, which the appellant said was to purchase white spirit, something he did not need, because a later search revealed he already had some.

In fact, nothing was purchased because, he said, he realised before he entered the store that he had no money, and so he simply returned home.”

Siôn also went outside when the ambulance arrived, got in his car and put the roof up. The prosecution claimed no credible explanation was given for this.

It was claimed that he killed Billie-Jo in the three-minute window between returning to the house with his daughters and going with them to the DIY store, taking the unusual route to buy himself time to think and come up with a plan.

Two retrials

In 2004, the case was referred to the Court of Appeal for a second time, when an expert witness argued Billie-Jo may have been suffering from a rare condition which caused gas to build up in her lungs, which then sprayed blood droplets over Siôn when he found her body.

The judges ordered a retrial and Siôn’s conviction was quashed. He was released to await a new trial.

By then, his marriage was over and Lois had moved to Tasmania in Australia, taking their four daughters with her. The following year, Siôn married Christina Ferneyhough, a millionaire divorcée and former Miss Southsea beauty queen, who’d written to him while he was behind bars.

In 2005 and 2006, he faced two retrials – during which the prosecution accused him of being in a sexualised relationship with his foster daughter. They claimed he preferred his biological children to Billie-Jo, and that she flirted with him and other men to get her way.

The jury also heard how a family friend claimed to have witnessed Siôn kick Billie-Jo with full force while on holiday in France – a claim Siôn denied.

Neither jury was able to reach a verdict, so in February 2006 Siôn was acquitted. Speaking outside court, he said he’d faced a “terrible ordeal”, adding: “Billie-Jo’s murderer has escaped detection because of dreadful errors in the police investigation and their single-minded, desperate determination to convict me at all costs. The police… have been wilfully blind and incompetent.”

In 2009, Siôn wrote a book, The Murder of Billie-Jo, in which he claimed a prowler had killed the teenager. He even alleged the killer had still been in the family home soon after he’d discovered his foster daughter’s body, and he’d mistaken the smartly dressed man for a police officer.

His allegation was echoed by his supporters at the time, who maintained there had been reports of a suspicious man in the area in the weeks leading up to Billie-Jo’s death.

A man with mental health issues, referred to during Siôn’s trial as “Mr B”, had been arrested two days after the murder and officers saw him holding part of a plastic bag up to his nose as he lay on the bench in the police cell. However, he was released without charge, after several witnesses placed him 15 minutes away from the Jenkins’ home at the time of the crime.

‘I’ve had messages from old friends of Billie-Jo. It’s a case that has haunted the town’

Naomi Channell, podcaster

Siôn went on to study criminology at Portsmouth University, and is believed to be living in the south of England. Nobody else has been charged or convicted of Billie-Jo’s murder.

For Naomi, the motivation to scrutinise the details of this case is rooted in her own childhood and in personal tragedy.

“I was 11 in 1997 and remember my parents reading about the case, and seeing the picture of Billie-Jo in school uniform. She could have been me or any of my friends,” she says.

 “Also, a friend of mine was murdered in 2017. Her name was Suzanne Brown and she was murdered by her boyfriend, Jake Neate. She was stabbed 173 times. There was no history of domestic abuse – he was schizophrenic. She was a nursery nurse with a loving family and a full life, but in all the crime reports she was just the victim of a violent murder. She was a victim for 10 minutes, but that’s all anyone who saw the reports knew of her.

“With the Billie-Jo podcast, I tried to humanise her, because it’s important to remember the person and not just the crime.”

Forensic review

Former Sussex police detective inspector Kevin Moore was one of the first people on the scene. He says: “Originally there was some suggestion that Billie-Jo had fallen, but I could straight away rule that out because of the seriousness of the head injuries.”

Kevin has spent years pushing the force for a forensic review of evidence, which was finally announced in 2022. The force has yet to reveal the results and did not reply to a request for an update at the time of going to press.

However, Siôn could theoretically be tried again after a change in the law in 2003, which allows retrials in cases of serious offences where there’s been an acquittal. New evidence – such as DNA, fingerprints or a new witness – would have to be produced.

Time will tell whether Siôn, or someone else, faces another trial in this case, which remains etched on the memories of Hastings residents.

“I’ve had messages from old school friends of Billie-Jo and people who knew the Jenkins family,” says Naomi. “One gentleman said it’s a case that has haunted the town.”

Naomi hopes if a new trial does take place, Billie-Jo is still remembered as the fun, outgoing teenager that she was.

“Everyone I spoke to said that she would have made something incredible of her life and it’s such a shame the world never got to see who she could have become.”

• Good Cop Bad Cop and Real Murder Investigations: An Insider’s View, both by Kevin Moore, are out now.