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Lace: loner turned violent and aggressive after troubled youth
A troubled, crime-filled youth, set David Lace on a path that would end in murder and his eventual suicide.
Born David Andrew Williams, he went off the rails as a child after being shunted from boys' homes to hostels and foster homes.
The loner's increasingly violent and aggressive behaviour led to Lace brutally raping and murdering Teresa de Simone when he was just 17 years old.
The horrific crime left Lace plagued with guilt over the horrific secret that would haunt him for the rest of his short life.
Born in Portsmouth on September 2, 1962, baby-faced Lace was convicted of his first crime – a minor burglary at a building site – in November 1977 aged just 15.
By August 1978, he was found guilty of snatching a handbag from a woman and was given a care order which would last until his 18th birthday.
Sixteen months later the teenager – then 17 – brutally raped and murdered gas board clerk and part-time barmaid, Miss de Simone, in the car park of the Tom Tackle pub in Commercial Road, Southampton.
He was later convicted of four more crimes, including the theft of money from an electric meter and stealing a rucksack from his Portsmouth lodgings the night before Miss de Simone's death.
Lace cracked on September 16, 1983 – almost four years after killing the 22-year-old – when he was arrested and quizzed over a series of burglaries in Portsmouth.
Records show the then 21-year-old said he could 'no longer live with what he had done'.
But despite his confession he slipped through the net and was never charged with Miss De Simone's rape and murder.
Police did not take a blood sample and eliminated him from their enquiries after finding 'inconsistencies' in his account of his sickening attack on December 5, 1979.
When Lace was sentenced to five years and nine months in Dartmoor prison in June 1984 for a knife-point robbery at a sub post office in Swanwick Lane, Swanwick, his own solicitor Richard Lissack described Lace as 'obviously odd'.
As reported in The News on June 9, 1984, Mr Lissack told Portsmouth Crown Court during Lace's sentencing: 'This young man does not care what happens to him. He says he has no future. One psychiatrist said he is a callous young man. He is obviously odd. At 21, he is isolated, friendless and sad.'
Lace fled to Brixham in Devon on his release from prison in July 1987 where he worked on fishing boats.
Detective Chief Inspector Phil McTavish, who led the fresh investigation into Miss de Simone's death, said Lace had little or no contact with his family until autumn 1988 when he returned to Portsmouth.
DCI McTavish said: 'Family members whom he visited at this time gained the impression he had visited to say goodbye for some reason.
'He made one disclosure at this time to the effect that he had done some bad things like the post office robbery and was responsible for killing someone in Southampton when things got out of hand some years before.'
Lace reportedly became depressed as he struggled to cope with his guilt. On December 5, 1988 – the ninth anniversary of Miss De Simone's murder – he hinted that he would try to commit suicide.
DCI McTavish added: 'It was noted by friends and others in Brixham that he had become depressed for some reason and made various disclosures to the effect that he had done bad things, could no longer cope and appeared to be inferring that he would take his own life. He gave away his possessions and gave up his job.'
Lace was last seen by friends on December 7 or 8 when he said he was leaving and said his goodbyes.
At 4pm on December 9, the landlord at Lace's lodgings found him dead in bed. He had minor cuts on his wrists and a plastic bag over his head.
The cause of Lace's death was recorded as asphyxiation. The full extent of Lace's secret went with him to his grave in Kingston Cemetery, New Road, Copnor, on December 20, 1988.
It remained buried until his body was exhumed last month for tests revealing his DNA to be an exact match with the killer's.
For breaking and archive coverage of the Teresa De Simone case go to: portsmouth.co.uk/TeresaDeSimone On December 5, 1988 – the ninth anniversary of Miss De Simone’s murder – he hinted that he would try to commit suicide.
DCI McTavish added: ‘It was noted by friends and others in Brixham that he had become depressed for some reason and made various disclosures to the effect that he had done bad things, could no longer cope and appeared to be inferring that he would take his own life. He gave away his possessions and gave up his job.’
Lace was last seen by friends on December 7 or 8 when he said he was leaving and said his goodbyes.
At 4pm on December 9, the landlord at Lace’s lodgings found him dead in bed. He had minor cuts on his wrists and a plastic bag over his head.
The cause of Lace’s death was recorded as asphyxiation. The full extent of Lace’s secret went with him to his grave in Kingston Cemetery, New Road, Copnor, on December 20, 1988.
It remained buried until his body was exhumed last month for tests revealing his DNA to be an exact match with the killer’s.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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