Men in Sussex village urged to provide DNA in murder hunt

Artist Valerie Graves was murdered on 30 December 2013 as she house sat for friends in Bosham.

Men aged 17 and over who live, work or visit the village, which once featured in an episode of ITV drama Midsomer Murders, are urged to provide a mouth swab and a thumbprint.

Police hope the screening at the Millstream Hotel will lead officers to the killer as they have a limited DNA match of a suspect.

This DNA indicates it is a male who carried out the crime but no one has yet been charged.

The 55-year-old is believed to have been killed with a claw hammer in a ground floor bedroom.

NEWS: DNA screening gets underway in #Bosham in hunt for Valerie Graves’ killer. More at 11am pic.twitter.com/IqrMwqQoi2

— Wave 105 (@wave105radio) January 21, 2015

She was bludgeoned whilst house sitting with her sister Jan, mother Eileen and her sister’s partner, Nigel Acres, while the property’s owners holidayed abroad over Christmas.

More than 9,500 people have been interviewed by police, a £20,000 reward has been offered and BBC Crimewatch appeal made.

Detective Superintendent Nick May, from Sussex Police, said police were not clutching at straws and remained “very confident” of finding the killer.

He said: “What we are looking to do here is to eliminate the people who live in and around Bosham so that we can actually make the pot of people we have been looking at smaller.

“We in Sussex have not done a mass screening like this for some considerable time. However, there are examples elsewhere in the country where it has been successful.”

Last month the mother-of-two’s family said Christmas was put “on hold” during their first festive season without her.