Fiancé accused of missing Co.Tyrone woman's murder

by Q Radio News

The 48-year-old former boyfriend of missing Co Tyrone woman Charlotte Murray was today (wed) named as the man who murdered her nearly seven years ago when she disappeared without trace.

He is John 'Johnny' Patrick Miller and while the alleged evidence against him is admittedly circumstantial, a prosecution lawyer at Dungannon Crown Court claimed it pointed 'to one man only' - him.

Miller, originally from Coleraine, but with an address in Redford Park, Dungannon, denies murdering the 34-year-old Omagh woman on a date between October 31 and November 2, 2012.

Today (wed) prosecution QC Richard Weir told a jury of eight men and four women that this was a somewhat different case in that "no body has been recovered" but that Charlotte has "not been seen or heard from since ... and the evidence points to her being dead and that John Miller killed her".

However, while later accepting their case was ''circumstantial" Mr Weir maintained when each evidential strand was examined, individually and wholly, it proved that Charlotte "is dead and that she died around the end of October, beginning of November 2012.

"We can't say precisely when she died, and we do not know how she died, but we say that circumstances point to Mr Miller and only to him.

"They point inexorably to him, they point comprehensively, they point with certainity and sureness to him," said Mr Weir who also told the jury once they had heard and analysised all of the evidence they would be satisfied to the necessary standard, "that the accused is guilty of the offence of murdering Charlott Murray".

The jury and trial Judge Stephen Fowler QC also heard that among those strands of evidence were bloodstains found in the bathroom of the home the couple once shared, bloodstains which matched Charlotte's DNA profile.

Other evidence included examination of various computers, and the mobile phone records of the couple which allegedly showed text messages couldn't have been sent by Charlotte from "Belfast or anywhere near it", and that "Mr Miller could have and did instigate those texts to falsely show that Charlotte was alive after November 1st 2012".

When initially spoken to by police in May 2013, he made a witness statement said Mr Weir, before he was later interviewed as a suspect in Charlotte's disappearence.

"Essentially," added Counsel, Miller "denies that she is dead, and denies that he has killed her".