Strangler of teenage lover dies in jail
A builder who strangled his teenage lover and buried her in a shallow grave at his Black Country home has been found dead in his prison cell.
David Sharpe was jailed for life for the murder of 17-year-old Dawn Falconer, whose bones were found in 1995, an estimated 16 years after she was killed.
The teenager, whose family lived next door to her killer, disappeared from her home in North Street, Walsall, in 1978. She had secretly moved in with the unemployed builder and had been in hiding
The Ministry of Justice has confirmed that Sharpe, aged 67, died at Wakefield Prison, West Yorkshire.
He was sentenced at Shrewsbury Crown Court in 1995 after he pleaded guilty to the murder of Dawn between 1978 and 1984.
The court had heard the discovery of the teenager's body in Sharpe's garden was triggered by an episode of the soap opera Brookside, in which a body was found beneath a patio.
Today Dawn's sister Maria, aged 43, brothers Dan, 44, and Jeffery, 50, who still live in the Walsall area, told the Express & Star that Sharpe's death had lifted a burden from their lives.
Dan Falconer, a revenue inspector, said: "We are all relieved. We are glad he's dead. Justice has been done. He served his time.
"We'd like to thank the judge who gave him the life sentence and the police officers who worked on the case.
"Dawn is truly at rest now and is at peace. We are going to visit her resting place at the cemetery to mark this moment."
Dawn's mother Maureen died in 1988 without ever learning the tragic truth about her daughter. Her stepdad George Duffus still lives in Walsall, while her father Ernie Falconer has moved to Jamaica.
It was the killer's eldest son, David John Sharpe, who eventually told police of the crime when he found himself unable to keep the gruesome truth to himself any longer after his dad confessed to him years earlier and sworn him to secrecy.
Sharpe's inquest has been opened and adjourned in Wakefield. He was found dead in his single cell on February 1, just weeks before his 68th birthday.
A post mortem report said the likely cause of death was disseminated malignancy.
Sharpe, a smoker, was on several medications after an earlier heart attack.
