Police dig in garage once owned by murderer Christopher Halliwell

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/21/police-dig-garage-swindon-christopher-halliwell

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Police search teams appear to be carrying out digging work inside a garage that was once owned by the double murderer Christopher Halliwell.

Wiltshire police said the search of two garages and two gardens in Swindon is expected to take five days. The force has not confirmed the operation is connected to Halliwell but one of the garages and gardens belongs to his former home in Broad Street.

A cordon has been set up around the two properties and on Tuesday – day two of the search – forensics experts could be seen coming and going. A tent had been set up over the entrance to his former garage and the sound of power tools could be heard coming from inside, suggesting officers were carrying out excavation work.

Taxi driver Halliwell is serving a full life term after being convicted of the sexually-motivated murders of Sian O’Callaghan and Becky Godden.

After he was jailed, the former Wiltshire detective who caught Halliwell, Steve Fulcher, said he believed he had killed other women.

Halliwell was convicted last year of murdering sex worker Godden in January 2003. He had sex with her, strangled her and buried her body in a field in Gloucestershire.

In 2011 he picked up office worker O’Callaghan in his taxi after she left a nightclub alone in Swindon before stabbing her in the head, strangling her and leaving her partially clothed body next to a road in Oxfordshire. After he was arrested over O’Callaghan’s disappearance, Halliwell led police to the field where he had buried Godden.

Halliwell, 53, lived at a number of addresses in Swindon – including in Broad Street.

A force spokeswoman said: “Work at the addresses in Broad Street is expected to last five days. This intelligence-led activity is part of an ongoing investigation.”