STALKER WHO KIDNAPPED EX AND DROWNED HER IN WOODLAND STREAM JAILED FOR LIFE
A jilted boyfriend who lay in wait for his ex before kidnapping and drowning her in a woodland stream has been jailed for life.Andrew Pearson, 45, stalked Natalie Harker, setting up camp close to a secluded path she cycled along to get to work.
He took photos of the scene and even conducted a dry run before ambushing her on October 9 last year.
After forcing the 30-year-old into the woods, near Colburn in North Yorkshire, he violently held her head underwater before carrying her lifeless body back to his camouflage tent, stripping her clothes off and having sex with her as she lay either dead or dying.
Pearson, of Catterick Garrison, was convicted of murder and kidnap at Teesside Crown Court and jailed for life with a minimum term of 24 years.
After the attack, the court heard Pearson messaged a friend in the US, saying: ‘Goodbye, I have killed Natalie, I’m going to hand myself in.’ He then spent 42 minutes chatting to them on a FaceTime call while Ms Harker’s bruised body lay next to him under a sleeping bag.
Despite his message, Pearson never confessed to the killing.
Instead, around 12 hours after abducting Ms Harker he tearfully phoned 999 claiming she had fallen into a stream and he had collapsed after dragging her out and trying to give first aid.
The court heard the couple had split weeks before the murder and Ms Harker, a popular and conscientious medical centre cleaner, had told family and friends she was scared of her ex who was pestering her by text.
Just two days before she died she told people at her church she was worried she was being followed.
Judge Stephen Ashurst said she tragically did not take their advice to contact the police, adding: ‘I tend to take the view that’s likely to be because Natalie thought the best of people.
She was trusting and naïve.’ The murder was aggravated by the fact she was a vulnerable woman with some learning difficulties and that he had stalked and kidnapped her.
In statements read out in court, Ms Harker’s brother Alistair and parents John and Deborah expressed the huge impact her murder had on their family.
Mr Harker said: ‘Was she calling out for me, was she in pain?
These are questions I always ask myself.’ The family named a star after her, saying: ‘Each night we would look up and look for her.’ Her brother Alistair added: ‘I feel totally lost without Natalie, completely alone and abandoned.’ Outside court, Detective Inspector Steve Menzies, of North Yorkshire Police’s Major Investigation Team, said: ‘The family have and continue to endure the most unimaginable pain and sense of loss.’
