Police Were Alerted to Suspect Days Before Sarah Everard Died

Police confirm that remains found are hers
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 12, 2021 10:57 AM CST
Police Were Alerted to Suspect Days Before Sarah Everard Died
Forensic officers conduct a search behind a house in Deal, south east England, on Friday.   (Gareth Fuller/PA via AP)

Police have confirmed that a body found in London is that of Sarah Everard, who vanished while walking home from a friend's house last week. Wayne Couzens, a Metropolitan Police officer who'd finished a shift monitoring the US Embassy around the same time Everard departed for home, is accused of kidnapping and killing the 33-year-old, whose remains were found in a wooded area of Kent, some 50 miles from where Everard was last seen, per the Sun. "I can now confirm that it is the body of Sarah Everard," police assistant commissioner Nick Ephgrave said Friday, per the Guardian. "That investigation continues at a pace and we have hundreds of officers working round the clock to establish the full circumstances of Sarah’s disappearance and her murder."

Meanwhile, police are facing an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct into the handling of an indecent exposure case, which allegedly involved Couzens, three days before Everard vanished, reports the BBC. The suspect allegedly exposed himself to female staff at a McDonald's restaurant in south London on Feb. 28 before fleeing, reports the Sun. Police were apparently given CCTV footage of the incident and a description of the suspect's vehicle. "It is understood police simply did not [have] time to investigate," per the Sun. Couzens is held in London. He was briefly taken to a hospital Thursday to be treated for a head injury suffered while alone in his cell, then "returned to a police station," the Met said, per the BBC. (In response to the attack, a baroness has proposed a curfew for men.)

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