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Neil Maxwell: Leah Croucher murder suspect's inquest record released

Thames Valley Police/PA E-fit of Neil Maxwell depicting him with a slimmer face and dark beardThames Valley Police/PA
Police believe Neil Maxwell changed his appearance between December 2018 to his death in April 2019 to evade arrest

The inquest record of the man suspected of murdering Leah Croucher has been released after previously being withheld when police said it could "jeopardise" their case.

Neil Maxwell has been named the prime suspect in the killing, but he took his own life weeks after the 19-year-old went missing in Milton Keynes in 2019.

The BBC obtained his inquest record, which stated: "He left a suicide note."

Miss Croucher's body was found in the loft of a house last year.

The teenager was last seen by her family at their home on the night of 14 February 2019.

CCTV footage from the following morning showed her walking to work, but she never arrived.

Her body was found more than three years later at a property in Loxbeare Drive and soon afterwards Thames Valley Police named Maxwell as the suspect.

Thames Valley Police Leah CroucherThames Valley Police
Leah Croucher, 19, was last seen on CCTV on 15 February 2019 in Milton Keynes

At the time Ms Croucher went missing, Maxwell was on the run from police in connection with a sexual assault in Newport Pagnell in November 2018, and he had previous convictions for sexual offences against women and children.

Thames Valley Police said the 49-year-old, who worked as a maintenance man for the owner of the Loxbeare Drive house, who lived abroad, was the only person to have keys to the house.

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After an application to release his record of inquest by the BBC, Milton Keynes coroner Tom Osborne said police had asked him to withhold disclosure for a period of time.

Mr Osborne said police said it contained "information that is sensitive to their continuing investigation, and by releasing that information into the public domain at this stage may seriously jeopardise the investigation".

But the one-page document has now been released, recording his occupation as a builder and stated his place of death on 20 April 2019 as "bike shed, Mainstay Court, Campbell Park, Milton Keynes".

It said he was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and the coroner concluded he died by suicide.

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