THE veteran crime buster's confidence was not misplaced.

Scotland Yard based Detective Superintendent Ken Drury, who had worked on more than 20 murder inquiries, had been specifically brought in to solve the horrific murder of a defenceless woman, pledging to remain in the area until the killer was caught. "I feel reasonably confident that we shall find the murderer."

And so, it proved within days.

The tragic victim was 60-year-old Doris Westbury whose body was discovered a few hours after leaving a nearby bingo hall. Tied up, bound and gagged, she had died from asphyxia.

"It was a particularly brutal murder," reflected the burly 6ft 2in family man who devoted 18 hours day in the hunt. He believed the wanted individual could be a local hotel worker or someone staying in one of the town's numerous lodging houses and whose landlady would be unaware of his identity.

"But what do you look for in a murderer?" he asked, delivering his first press conference.

The victim had been brutally attacked in her flat above a sweet and tobacco shop she ran in Christchurch Road, Pokesdown, Bournemouth. As a Home Office pathologist carried out the post-mortem, a special operations room was set up at Boscombe's Gloucester Road police station with 200 police officers assigned to the investigation.

Concern for Miss Westbury had begun after the shop remained closed. Following calls from customers, police went to the scene and forcing their way into the upstairs flat, found her body.

A shrewd man, who never put all his eggs in one basket, Drury, 48, had one message for the killer: "The heat is on."

And within days, two men were arrested and charged. They were named as James Robertson, 19, and Barry Fox, 23, who both lived in Cambridge Road, Bournemouth.

It transpired to be the case of killers returning to the scene of a crime. Only seven days earlier, they had burgled the flat with an accomplice and stolen £11 in cash after learning she had won money from a newspaper Spot The Ball competition.

After drinking in a pub and taken cannabis, the pair, armed with stolen knives, broke into the shop through a rear door to target the till but found it empty. Venturing upstairs, they were suddenly confronted by Miss Westbury, coming out of her sitting room. She was wearing a housecoat over her underwear as though she was preparing to go to bed.

From statements to the police, John Westbury QC detailed at Hampshire Assizes what then happened.

"Fox rushed out at Miss Westbury and placed his hands over her mouth. The old lady tried to get away and appeared to have failed in the process. Robertson then tried to tape her mouth with an adhesive bandage they had brought with them. Miss Westbury apparently screamed and bit Robertson's left index finger. She wouldn't let go, Roberston said he punched her twice and she let go of his finger after which he kicked her."

Fox then struck her in the face and while he stopped her kicking out, Roberston tied her up with flex he had ripped from her bedroom and covered her mouth with the adhesive bandage.

As she lay unconscious, they scoured her flat but only found £10 which they took. When they finished, they thought she was dead and turned off the appliances before fleeing.

Fox, however, told police that if they believed she was still alive, they would have notified the hospital.

Both pleaded guilty to murder and passing a sentence of life imprisonment, Mr Justice Blain told them: "This was an act of the greatest brutality in the course of a deliberately chosen path of dishonesty. Even though neither of you set out that night with deliberate intentions of killing, it is still abundantly clear that when you found there was a risk of your activities being interrupted when this poor elderly lady came along, you did not hesitate to use the wherewithal that you had brought with you, primarily no doubt to silence her.

"Then you chose the most violent means at your disposal simply to protect yourselves against the risk of being caught while burgling her home, and in result you killed her."

The judge told Fox he would recommend to the Home Office that the maximum period of 15 years should elapse before he could be released back into society but he made no such directive in relation to Robertson because he was the younger defendant and until a few weeks before the murder he was of good character.