DNA found on a discarded cigarette butt led police to charging a taxi driver with the murder of a prostitute five years after she was found bludgeoned to death, a court heard today.
The body of mother-of-four Anne Marie Foy, 46, was found in undergrowth near Liverpool city centre in September 2005.
David Butler, 65, of Albert Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool, was charged with her murder in June 2010, a trial at Liverpool Crown Court heard.
Police charged the taxi driver, who denies the allegations, following a forensic "breakthrough", picked up by cold case review detectives, which linked his DNA with that found on nail clippings taken from the deceased.
Nigel Power QC, opening the case for the prosecution, said: "It was some years into the investigation before Mr Butler was identified as a suspect."
He told the jury of seven women and five men that DNA found on the nail clippings corresponded to a DNA profile taken from a cigarette butt found in the yard of a house in Albert Grove, Liverpool, following the report of a burglary in August 1998.
He said: "That address was linked to the defendant and he became a suspect and a full DNA sample was taken from him when he was later arrested."
The court heard that the scientist who conducted the cold case review found that the DNA match was the only match against "the more than five million profiles" held on the national DNA Database.
Mr Power also told the jury about CCTV footage which showed a "distinctive and striped" Hackney Carriage taxi, known to have been driven by the defendant, at the scene around the time of the murder and that following his arrest Butler admitted to police that he used sex workers.
"In September 2005, David Butler was a taxi driver.
"He was one of a small pool of people who could have been driving that very distinctive taxi at 1.48am on September 15 when it was close to and interacting with sex workers, close to where Anne Marie Foy worked and close to where she died.
"And you will hear, he was someone who used the services of sex workers when he was working as a taxi driver."
The court was told that Miss Foy was a drug addict who had "gained a reputation" as someone who would sometimes try to steal from her "punters".
Mr Power said: "It may be that it was that which caused someone to kill her."
The jury was also told that Miss Foy told friends that in September 2005 she stole around £300 from one customer who was a taxi driver "who had assaulted and threatened her in revenge".
The court heard that when her body was found, police discovered a discarded condom between her legs, which the prosecution say was "placed there by the murderer in an attempt to cast blame on someone else".
DNA from that condom was not found anywhere else on the deceased's body or at the scene.
During this part of the proceedings, Miss Foy's two adult daughters broke down in tears due to the disturbing nature of the evidence.