True crime: 'Body in the bag killer' David Hilder dismembered friend David Guy - one of the most gruesome homicides in Portsmouth in recent memory

On July 3, 2012, a group of foreign students on holiday in Southsea made a disturbing discovery on the rocks at the beach. The group came across a torso wrapped in a pink shower curtain stuffed inside a plastic bin. Three days later police found a pair of legs at another spot on the beach after forensic teams were seen combing the area and taping off locations. The body would later turn out to be that of 30-year-old David Guy who lived in a camper van in Southsea. While his torso, legs and pelvis were found in two places, the rest of his body has never been recovered.

A Home Office pathologist was unable to say what the exact cause of death was, but said the marks on the torso indicated the man suffered a ‘sustained and violent assault’ sometime between June 30 and July 3, 2012.

DAVID HILDER FRIENDSHIP

David Guy was friends with a Southsea man called David Hilder, aged 46, who lived in a flat in Keelan Court, Richmond Road. The long-time friends were known to spend a lot of time together at Hilder’s flat and were said to have an up-and-down and volatile friendship. Hilder was known as ‘Big Dave’ and David Guy was known as ‘Little Dave’.

Hilder, who was a scrap metal dealer, was known locally as someone who rode around on a bike with a butcher's box attached to the handlebars. Witnesses said they had seen a man on such a bike in the area where the torso was found.

On July 5, a ‘dirty and dishevelled’ Hilder showed up at Shoreham police station. But the station was closed so he used a police free-phone to call operators. He told the operator his name and address and said: ‘I would like to speak to someone, I think I have done something serious... this morning I found a lot of empty Nurofen wrappers in my pocket.’

When asked if he needed an ambulance he replied: ‘I need to speak to a copper first, I think I have killed someone.’

PC Stephen Miles then met Hilder outside the station. PC Miles said Hilder was ‘very confused’. When he asked what had happened, Hilder said: ‘I do not know, I'm not sure what I have done.’

Hilder went willingly into the station for further questioning, with PC Miles recalling: ‘He said he was having flashbacks as if he had done something. I think he said words to the effect, “If I have done what I think I've done then I'm going to kill myself.”’ But when Hilder was asked what he thought he had done he just said, “I don't know”.’

Hilder was taken to hospital after saying he thought he had taken an overdose. Meanwhile, police checked his flat and found ‘nothing suspicious’. When Hilder was told this by Sussex Police he was said to have been ‘visibly relieved’, and said: ‘It must have been all in my head then.’

After medical checks, Hilder was discharged and put on a train back to Portsmouth.

Investigations into the relationship between the two men revealed a history of violence. David Guy was said to have accepted food from Hilder and showered in his flat. In return he was supposed to take care of Hilder's cat, Tinker. When Hilder returned home to find his place a mess and Tinker neglected, he would beat David Guy.

On July 8, Hampshire police arrested Hilder for killing David Guy. He denied having anything to do with the death or dismemberment. A year after the grim discovery of David Guy’s torso, Hilder was on trial at Winchester Crown Court for murder with manslaughter as an alternative.

TRIAL

The trial heard that the precise relationship between the two men ‘will never be known’. It was said that Hilder killed David Guy and dismembered his body in a ‘painstaking and deliberate’ way. Hilder then used his ‘distinctive’ bike with a box on the front to transport the parts to other locations. Jurors were told David Guy's head, arms, some internal organs and genitalia were cut off and have never been found.

His torso was wrapped in bin liners and a curtain on which hairs from Hilder's cat were found. Fibres from the curtain were recovered from Hilder's flat, where traces of David Guy's blood were also found.

Hilder was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter and was sentenced to a minimum term of 12 years. Justice David Bean said the exact circumstances of the death may ‘never be known’, before he added: ‘It seems most likely the two of you quarrelled, you had a sudden loss of self control and stabbed him through the chest with a sharp blade causing him to die almost instantly. Afterwards you mutilated and cut up his body.’

Jurors had heard of Hilder’s mild learning disability and low IQ of 63 and how he suffered from bouts of depression.

AFTER THE VERDICT

After the verdict, David Guy's father Michael said: ‘In time I will come to terms with my loss, but it is the cutting up of my son's body I cannot accept and never will.’

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said Hilder's ‘violence may have been triggered by the fact that his friend was not taking care of his cat’. He said the ‘precise nature of their relationship will remain unknown’.

The spokesman said witnesses had described their friendship as ‘love hate’ in which Hilder was providing food and washing facilities for David Guy but was in the meantime violent. ‘The prosecution case stated that Hilder was in some respects dominant in this friendship, and would use violence to punish his younger friend, who remained dependent on him,’ the spokesman added.

A police spokesman said the DNA evidence, including cat hairs found at relevant scenes, had played a major part of the investigation.

The killing caused shock and fear in the community at the time with Hilder commonly referred to as the ‘body in the bag killer’.

A police spokesman said the DNA evidence, including cat hairs found at relevant scenes, had played a major part of the investigation.

SENTENCE APPEAL

Hilder subsequently appealed for his life sentence to be overturned. But judges at the Criminal Appeal Court upheld his sentence in February 2014, concluding he was a danger to the public. The appeal for Hilder’s life sentence to be replaced with a conventional jail term would have meant he automatically only served half his term.

Lord Justice Fulford said the life sentence was necessary before adding: ‘He poses a substantial risk of causing serious harm to others. Whenever he is depressed and something happens, that angers him – thereby triggering an extremely violent reaction.

‘This is not a case where the circumstances in which this happened will never be repeated – at present, the risk from this appellant could potentially arise whenever there is a convergence of depression and such a trigger.'

Ten years on from his sentence, Hilder is due to be released in two years’ time, in 2025.