Rapist Peter Chapman Jailed for Life over Facebook Murder
March 9, 2010
A 33-year-old British, 2-time convicted sex offender posed as a male teenager on Facebook in order to lure a 17-year-old college girl from her home. He then raped and killed Ashleigh Hall on October 25, 2009.
Peter Chapman uploaded a picture of a bare-chested, good looking teenager on the social network site. The friends of Hall say that she didn’t get attention from guys, although she was interested in them, so it’s very likely that she became an easy target after being flattered by the attention from the man.
After the two connected on Facebook, their chats moved to MSN messaging and another website, Tagged.com. Hall also gave Chapman her mobile phone number, and they were communicating through text messages.
Prosecutor Graham Reeds says that it was apparent that Chapman was obsessed with sex and trying to meet with Hall from the beginning. He didn’t make it to their first meeting at a park after thinking that she wouldn’t get in the car with him when she saw that he wasn’t the same person in the Facebook photo, so he devised a plan to tell her that his dad would pick her up from her house.
Hall agreed to the plan, and Chapman picked her up. Afterward he took her to a dark, secluded lay-by, where he made her have oral sex with him. Then he bound her forearms and gagged her with tape before raping her. After the act he wrapped more tape around her head to suffocate and kill her before dumping her body close to a cafe.
Chapman was stopped by police after returning to the scene. He had been evading police for over a year, because he had failed to notify them about a change of address, a violation of his Sex Offenders’ Register order. After being taken in, he admitted that an accident occurred and wrote a 9 page account of his story – which was a bunch of lies, according to authorities.
After finding key evidence in Chapman’s car that he killed Hall (including her phone), he was forced to confess to everything. He has now been sentenced to a minimum of 35 years to life.
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