A man has been sentenced for life following his conviction guilty of killing six-year-old schoolboy Rikki Neave over 30 years ago. The murder was the result of one of the biggest and complicated investigations ever carried out by Cambridgeshire police.
James Watson, 41, was 13 when he killed Rikki in the forest on the Welland Estate in Peterborough on November 28, 1994.
After killing the man, Watson stripped him and left his naked body with arms stretched out and legs dangling and tossed the clothes of the boy in the nearby wheelie bin. Rikki Neave, 6 with his murderer, James Watson, now 41
Rikki’s mom Ruth Neave reported him missing around 6 pm that night and extensive search efforts began. assisted by the local community.
The body was discovered in the wooded area of Eye Road, close to Willoughby Court, the following day, at 12.05pm. It was just five minutes walk from his house.
An examination of the postmortem revealed that Rikki was dead because of an injury to the neck or strangulation. It is believed that he’d been strangled behind by the zip of the coat.
With the advent of the new DNA technology Watson who has no address and no address, was declared guilty of the crime on the 21st of April by a majority verdict after a trial in the Old Bailey in London.
He was imprisoned on today (June 24) in that same venue for life. He will be serving a minimum 15 years. This is minus 843 days already completed.
The sentence was based on the fact that he was 13 at the time of his murder.
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