Joanna Yeates

Joanna Clare Yeates (19 April 1985 – 17 December 2010) was a landscape architect from Ampfield, Hampshire, England, who went missing from the flat she shared with her partner, in a large house in Clifton, Bristol, on 17 December 2010 after an evening out with colleagues.

Joanna Clare Yeates was born on 19 April 1985 to David and Teresa Yeates in Hampshire, England.

She was privately educated at Embley Park near Romsey.

Yeates studied for her A-levels at Peter Symonds College and graduated with a degree in landscape architecture from Writtle College.

She received her postgraduate diploma in landscape architecture from the University of Gloucestershire.

In December 2008, Yeates met 25-year-old architect Greg Reardon at the firm Hyland Edgar Driver in Winchester.

The couple moved in together in 2009, and settled in Bristol when the company moved there.

Yeates later changed jobs to work at the Building Design Partnership in Bristol.

Following a highly publicised appeal for information on her whereabouts and intensive police enquiries, her body was discovered on 25 December 2010 in Failand, North Somerset.

A post-mortem examination determined that she had been strangled.

The murder inquiry was one of the largest police investigations ever undertaken in the Bristol area.

The case dominated news coverage in the United Kingdom around the Christmas period as Yeates's family sought assistance from the public through social networking services and press conferences.

Rewards amounting to £60,000 were offered for information leading to those responsible for Yeates's death.

The police initially suspected and arrested Christopher Jefferies, Yeates's landlord, who lived in another flat in the same building.

He was subsequently released without charge, but was vilified in the press.

Yeates and Reardon moved into a flat at 44 Canynge Road, a large house that had been subdivided into several such flats, in the city's Clifton suburb in October 2010.

At approximately 8:00 pm on 19 December 2010, Reardon returned home from a weekend visit to Sheffield to find Yeates absent from their flat.

Reardon had been trying to contact her by phone and text, but without success.

While awaiting Yeates's return, Reardon called her again, but her mobile phone rang from a pocket of her coat, which was still in the flat.

He found that her purse and keys were also at the flat, and that their cat appeared to have been neglected.

Shortly after half past midnight, Reardon contacted the police and Yeates's parents to report her missing.

Investigators determined Yeates had spent the evening of 17 December 2010 with colleagues at the Bristol Ram pub on Park Street, leaving at around 8:00 pm to begin the 30-minute walk home.

She told friends and colleagues that she was not looking forward to spending the weekend alone as it would be her first in the flat without Reardon; she planned to spend her time baking in preparation for a party the couple would be throwing the following week, and shopping for Christmas.

Yeates was seen on closed-circuit television (CCTV) at around 8:10 pm leaving a Waitrose supermarket without purchasing anything.

She phoned her best friend, Rebecca Scott, at 8:30 pm to arrange a meeting on Christmas Eve.

The last known footage of Yeates recorded her buying a pizza from a branch of Tesco Express at around 8:40 pm.

She had also bought two small bottles of cider at a nearby off-licence, Bargain Booze.

Reardon and Yeates's friends set up a website and used social networking services to help look for her.

On 21 December 2010, Yeates's parents and Reardon made a public appeal for her safe return at a police press conference.

In another press conference, broadcast live on 23 December by Sky News and BBC News, Yeates's father David commented on her disappearance: "I think she was abducted after getting home to her flat ... I have no idea of the circumstances of the abduction because of what was left behind ... I feel sure she would not have gone out by herself leaving all these things behind and she was taken away somewhere".

Vincent Tabak, a 32-year-old Dutch architectural engineer and the occupant of a third flat in the building, was arrested on 20 January 2011.

Media attention at the time centred on the filming of a re-enactment of her disappearance for the BBC's programme Crimewatch.

After two days of questioning, Tabak was charged on 22 January 2011 with Yeates's murder.

On 5 May, he pleaded guilty to Yeates's manslaughter, but denied murdering her.

His trial started on 4 October; he was found guilty of murder on 28 October, and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years.

The nature of press reporting on aspects of the case led to legal proceedings against several UK newspapers.

Libel action was brought by Jefferies against eight publications over their coverage of his arrest, resulting in the payment to him of substantial damages.

The Daily Mirror and The Sun were found guilty of contempt of court for reporting information that could prejudice a trial.

A memorial service was held for Yeates at the parish church of Christ Church, Clifton Down, in the Bristol suburb where she had lived; her funeral took place at St Mark's church near the family home in Ampfield, Hampshire.

Several memorials were planned, including one in a garden she had been designing for a new hospital in Bristol.