AN ALLEGED killer who was "trusted" to walk his female friend home instead raped and murdered her before dumping her face down in a pond with her pants down, a court heard today.
Keeley Bunker, 20, was discovered by her uncle who screamed "No!" when he found her body at a park in Tamworth, Staffordshire, on September 19 last year, after she went to see rapper Aitch with a pal.
The prosecution alleges that Ms. Bunker, who was just 4ft 11in and weighed six-and-a-half stone, was killed by "trusted" friend Wesley Street, who tried to cover up her body with branches in Wiggington Park, a jury was told.
She had celebrated her birthday just days earlier and was due to attend a job interview later that day - but never arrived, Stafford Crown Court heard today.
There was evidence that she had been strangled.
Street, also 20, of no fixed address, told the victim's best friend that he would walk Ms. Bunker home safely, but prosecutors have alleged he told "lie after lie", claiming she was still alive when they parted ways.
Jurors heard that, on the evening of Wednesday, September 18, Ms. Bunker had been to a concert at Birmingham's O2 Institute.
The pair arranged to go clubbing afterward with Street.
He added: "But Keeley refused - tragically - saying she was tired and wanted to sleep in her own bed."
She told her friend: "I've got Wes, Wes lives near me, Wes will walk me back, it'll be fine."
Mr. Hallam said: "As the afternoon of Thursday, September 19, 2019, wore on, Keeley Bunker's family became increasingly concerned about her welfare and her safety.
"She had been out the night before, Wednesday, through to Thursday, with two friends. One of them, the Crown say, proved to be rather better than the other.
"The second was this defendant, Wesley Street. Although Keeley had left her friend's home, to make her way home in the early hours of the morning, she did not return on what should have been a walk of perhaps 20 minutes or so across the center of Tamworth."
about 9 pm that night, seeing the glint of a bracelet that was on her arm as he shined a torch into the water.
"He began to scream 'No!' because he knew what he was looking at was the body of his niece. He had found Keeley," Mr. Hallam said.
Mr. Hallam said it was "obvious" from the state of her body and clothes that she had been brutally raped and then killed.
"Her clothing was in disarray, her black leggings and her underwear had been pulled down and they were twisted over and around her trainers," Mr. Hallam said.
"The police identified the last person reported seeing Keeley alive was this defendant, Wesley Street."
Mr. Hallam said Street had told Keeley's family that he had walked her to a phone box near his home earlier on Thursday morning.
"He even showed police the route that he said that they had taken and where they parted. It was a lie," Mr. Hallam said.
"CCTV was found that showed it was a lie. Analysis of his telephone showed it was a lie. DNA showed it was a lie. And he admits, now, that it was a lie.
"Because the truth, we suggest on behalf of the prosecution, was that he had taken Keeley Bunker's life and he had sexually assaulted her.
"She, a young woman, who had trusted him."
The court heard Keeley had the life choked out of her as a result of "sustained pressure" lasting three minutes.
"It is obvious that it was not a killing that was instantaneous," Mr. Hallam said.
To lose consciousness takes 10 to 15 seconds of sustained pressure around the neck. And that pressure carries on for a much longer period of between two to three minutes.
"That is how long it took to kill her. In the first 10 to 15 seconds, the victim cannot breathe and so they try to grab hold of whatever they can round their neck.
"This can leave marks on the victim's neck or their face. Such marks were found on Keeley Bunker's body
The court heard CCTV captured Street with his arms around the lower part of Keeley's face and later on with his arm around her neck.
"The defendant said they parted company at the telephone box. It was a detailed account and it was a lie. Expert analysis of his telephone GPS shows it was," Mr. Hallam said.
"At 4.18 am the GPS positioning puts him near the park. It stays in that area of the park until 4.52 am.
"He is up there for about half an hour. The amount of steps and the amount of distance recorded on the telephone is reduced.
"Within that period there is no GPS activity in the northern part of the park."
Mr. Hallam said Streete's grey ASOS top had made upon it that matched what Keeley had put on before the concert.
"CCTV and GPS suggest they were together at 4.23 am that morning. She moved south towards her home with him behind her," he said.
"She was wearing her rucksack with her concert clothes. That rucksack was with her and was discovered with her a short distance from where she was captured on a CCTV camera.
"His telephone was over an hour at the site at which Keeley Bunker's body was recovered. That is why we suggest Keeley Bunker was dead by about 4.58 am at the latest.
"He intentionally moved her body at about five o'clock and took an hour to hide it."
He added that Ms. Bunker was "not alone", and that police had discovered other women who had been allegedly assaulted by Street.
The street is also accused of two further counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and a charge of sexual activity with a child, against three other victims, all said to have happened in previous years.
The trial, expected to last three weeks, continues.
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