Una Crown: Man jailed for at least 21 years for murder of 86-year-old after DNA found on nail clippings

A 70-year-old man has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 21 years for the 2013 murder of a retired postmistress after DNA which matched his profile was found on her nail clippings.

Una Crown, 86, was found dead at her home in the Wisbech area of Cambridgeshire on 13 January 2013.

Her throat had been cut, stab wounds were found to her chest and her clothing burnt in her bungalow.

David Newton was charged with Mrs Crown’s murder last year and was found guilty following a trial at Cambridge Crown Court.

Sentencing judge Mr Justice Neil Garnham told Newton: “This was a ferocious and sustained knife attack on a defenceless old lady in her own home.”

There was an intake of breath and whispers of “yes” from the public gallery as the sentence was passed on Friday.

The defendant appeared to raise an eyebrow before swiftly being led to the cells.

Detective Sergeant Dan Harper read a statement outside the court afterwards on behalf of Mrs Crown’s family.

“In 2013 we heard how our auntie Una had passed away,” the statement said.

“Two days later we heard it was murder and our world stopped. An elderly widow watching her favourite TV programme feeling warm and safe in her own home.

“The attack was brutal, horrific and an assault on a defenceless, frail, elderly widow. The verdict in this case has prevented him from causing further distress and misery to others.

“Since her untimely and savage death three close family relatives including her brother have sadly passed away not knowing her killer has been brought to justice.”

The family thanked “all who have helped us get to this point” and said they could now “carry on with our lives knowing justice has been done”.

Newton, a former kitchen installer of Magazine Close in Wisbech – which is close to Mrs Crown’s address in Magazine Lane – had been interviewed as a suspect and later arrested on suspicion of murder 12 years ago.

But police had not initially considered Mrs Crown’s death suspicious – and there was a two-day delay in preserving the scene because of what prosecutor John Price KC described as a “grave error of judgment by police officers who went to the house”.

Newton was told in July 2013 that he would not be charged on the evidence that was then available.

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He was charged more than a decade later after scientists made a DNA breakthrough, having tested nail clippings from Mrs Crown’s dominant right hand using techniques that were not available in 2013.

Mr Price told jurors when opening the case that “male DNA, the profile of which matches that of David Newton” was discovered by scientists in 2023.

He said this was “on nail clippings, which had been taken from the fingers and thumb of the unburnt right hand of Una Crown”.

He said the clippings had been taken at a post-mortem examination in 2013.

The jury found Newton guilty by a majority of 10 jurors to two on Thursday following a month-long trial.

Detective Superintendent Iain Moor, of Cambridgeshire Police, said after the verdict that the force had apologised to Mrs Crown’s family for “mistakes… made during the initial investigation in 2013”.