Man faked mental health episode minutes after killing

The killer of a woman found buried in woodland weeks after her death told a sequence of lies to police and faked a mental health episode while her body was hidden in his flat.

Mohammed Durnion, 42, was found guilty at Warwick Crown Court on Tuesday of the manslaughter of Reanne Coulson on 21 May last year.

A neighbour of Durnion alerted West Midlands Police to screams coming from his Coventry flat, but the crack cocaine user denied entry to officers minutes after killing Coulson, also claiming his father had cancer.

Weeks later, the labourer led police to where he had dumped her body in Binley Woods, also setting fire to it, after detectives played him a media appeal by the victim's family.

"I believe he was acting," Det Insp Nigel Box said.

"He does have the appearance of being, certainly, agitated and upset. However, he tells a sequence of lies, and he's clearly thinking through his actions."

During the initial callout, officers forced their way into his property on Paynes Lane, which had no electricity and a bucket for a toilet, but did not find Coulson, who had been hidden under a mattress.

"Durnion obstructed the officers, and that's clear on the body-worn footage," Box added.

"He told them that nobody else was in the flat. He told them that it was him that was shouting and screaming, and that's what the neighbour had heard, and he refused them entry."

The officers were at that point concerned for Durnion's well-being and tried to convince him to seek immediate help, but he walked off, the force said.

However, the police investigation later revealed Durnion returned to his flat in the early hours of 22 May after officers had left, and he retrieved Coulson's body.

He put her in a suitcase and then, enlisting the help of a labourer friend, drove her to dense woodland, dug a grave and used petrol to burn her body, the force said.

The pair met one another just hours after Coulson, a sex worker, had left a support group at a Catholic church and gone to Durnion's flat.

She was reported missing on 11 June, with a further report made a week later after she did not contact her family on her birthday.

Officers looked at data from the mother-of-two's mobile phone to track its movements, which were similar to the movements of the Audi car Durnion used to transport Coulson's body.

Durnion claimed she died from an overdose after an argument at his flat, but police said they believed she was attacked and strangled "more or less" after they arrived at the flat.

"It was "brutal and quick," Box said.

"It [the attack] had been going on for some three to four minutes before the next-door neighbour called 999; such was his fear that something terrible was happening in the flat next door."

Police said Durnion admitted taking a lot of drugs, making his behaviour "volatile and unpredictable".

"I believe when he came into contact with Reanne, he killed her and then he took a number of steps to hide the fact that he'd killed her," added Box.

Durnion initially refused to answer questions during multiple interviews in which he was asked about the whereabouts of Coulson's body.

"It was ultimately the family's appeals that were played to him at the end of the interview process that I think convinced him to do, in his mind, the right thing and take us to the body of Reanne," continued Box.

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