Hunt for wicked fire killer continues after seven years (From Echo)

Police hunt murderer who burned Southend mother to death

11:00am Tuesday 30th October 2012 in Local News By David Trayner

A WICKED killer who burned a mother to death in her family home is still at large seven years on.

Despite more than 245 house-to-house inquiries, 550 police statements and an arrest, the arsonist who killed Andrea Daly, 40, by pouring petrol through the front door of her home in Rochford Road, Southend, as she and her two sons slept upstairs still walks the streets.

DCI Mark Hall, of Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: “It’s a wicked thing to have done to pour petrol into a house in the early hours of the morning when you could expect people to be there.

“An innocent victim is still missed by her husband and her two boys.

“Someone out there will know something and I’m confident with the passage of time someone will come forward.”

An inquest at Southend Coroners Court last Thursday found the German-born engineer was killed unlawfully and was told a murder investigation is still live.

Mrs Daly, who worked for Colchester-based railway property firm TES 2000, died of smoke inhalation and burns. Police had to use dental records to indentify her body. Recording a verdict of unlawful killing, coroner Yvonne Blake said: “Listening to the evidence from the fire brigade it seems certain an accelerant was used to start the fire, although we don’t know who did it or why.

“It remains an unsolved crime.”

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