Nocturnal 
A journalist who put the first question to murderer Tracie Andrews at a police news conference says her answer instantly convinced him she was lying.
Rod Chaytor was covering the murder of 25-year-old Lee Harvey, who was stabbed 42 times by his fiancée Andrews as the couple travelled home from a pub in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, in December 1996. Andrews initially claimed they had been attacked by a road rage driver and appeared alongside Harvey’s parents at a news conference to appeal for witnesses.
Chaytor, who asked the opening question, said Andrews changed part of her account almost as soon as he spoke. “My initial feeling was ‘oh my God, I’ve messed this up’ having been asked to take this leading role by my peers – but my second reaction was ‘she did it’,” he said.
‘It was electric’
Harvey had been killed on the journey from the Marlbrook pub in Bromsgrove to the home he shared with Andrews in Alvechurch. Chaytor, from Coventry, described the atmosphere at the news conference at Redditch Police Station as “electric”, with Andrews appearing “bloodied, beaten up” in stark contrast to softer, posed photographs that had circulated of her beforehand.
He said he deliberately opened with a question he already knew the answer to – checking the timings police had given reporters the previous day. “Instantly she changed her account,” he said. “I thought for a second I’d got this horribly wrong and then I realised she was buying herself an extra hour of time to cover eventualities.”
His suspicions were reinforced, he said, by the reaction of senior investigating officer Ian Johnstone, who was sat alongside Andrews and Harvey’s parents. “He did this incredible slow-motion double take, looking piercingly at Tracie,” Chaytor recalled. “That was of course, incredibly suspicious.”
Andrews was later charged with Harvey’s murder and convicted at Birmingham Crown Court. Forensic evidence suggested the couple had been arguing in the car, and it emerged there was no road rage attacker at all – Andrews had stabbed Harvey with a knife she had hidden in her boot. She was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1997 and was released in 2011.
Case revisited in new drama
The case has returned to public attention with a new Channel 5 dramatisation, part of the broadcaster’s true-crime franchise, ahead of the 30th anniversary of Harvey’s death in December. Former Hollyoaks actress Emma Rigby plays Andrews in the film, which is based partly on transcripts of things Andrews actually said.
Rigby, who had never heard of the case before being cast, told the Mirror she found Andrews “the very definition of chilling” and said: “I would love to make a documentary following a sit down between the two of us. I have so many questions for her. She has never told the truth on camera.”
To prepare for the role, Rigby said she watched documentaries about the case and read Pure Evil, a book written by Harvey’s mother, Maureen.
Andrews has never given a full, truthful account of what happened on the night Harvey died, according to those who have followed the case closely. For now, Chaytor’s recollection of that tense press conference remains one of the clearest first-hand insights into the moment her story began to fall apart.
