Supermarket sweep

What links musician Brian May and impressionist Jon Culshaw? To find out, solve the crossword then read down the shaded squares to find the two-word prize answer.

ACROSS 1 Money tin (4, 3) 5 Crosses the road unlawfully (8) 9 Sound bounce (4) 13 ... Horan, singer (5) 14 Having sharp corners (7) 15 Way that fabric feels (7) 16 ... Hawke, actor (5) 17 Consuming (5) 18 Most modern (6) 20 Rotating machine (5) 21 Extension (of a licence, eg) (7) 23 Arduous journey (4) 26 Expressed in words (4) 27 Make available (7) 30 Untidily dressed (7) 34 Become less drunk (5, 2) 36 Garment’s inner material (6) 37 Showbiz star, familiarly (5) 39 Cravings (10) 40 Rush hour (4, 6) 42 African river (5) 43 Expel from a country (6) 44 Argue, quarrel (7) 46 Superficial layers (7) 47 Marvels, miracles (7) 48 Assist (in a crime) (4) 53 Too, as well (4) 54 Ironworks (7) 55 Small cove or bay (5) 58 Wood for building (6) 60 Show a response (5) 62 First name of singer Ms Sandé (5) 66 Furthest away (7) 67 Fashionable set (2-5) 68 Bay window (5) 69 Ancient Japanese form of wrestling (4) 70 Move on, go forward (8) 71 Shop ..., union official (7)

DOWN 1 Keep secret or hidden (7) 2 Popular variety of pasta (9) 3 ... to, was owned by (8) 4 Hospital picture (1-3) 5 Goes for a run (4) 6 Cries out (5) 7 Organised, planned (8) 8 ... Beckinsale, actor (4) 10 Laundry slide (5) 11 Pass another car (8) 12 Person living abroad (5) 19 Month before April (5) 22 Finishing (6) 24 Topping up (9) 25 Bodybuilder (9) 26 Continues (8) 28 Mend or patch up (6) 29 Pleated edges of sheets (8) 31 Basic foodstuffs (9) 32 Crawling (with) (8) 33 Ready to do as told (8)

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53 54 55 56

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58 59 60 61 62

63 64 65

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35 Gradually (2, 7) 38 Kebab stick (6) 41 Great respect (6) 45 Tool for sweeping (5) 49 Classical female dancer (9) 50 Bouncy part of a bed (8) 51 Vexing, enraging (8) 52 Same-hour international region (4, 4) 56 Spun round (7) 57 Something used as a lure (5) 59 Counterpart of ‘sir’ (5) 61 Ride a bike (5) 63 Begin to move (4) 64 Throw a pancake (4) 65 Bookie’s prices (4)

Issue 45, 7 November 2019

PHOTOS: GETTY ‘I feel great to have won. This is my fi rst time after a long time doing Chat puzzles. I’ll put it towards a holiday.’ Teresa Warner, Leighton Buzzard

Scrolling through Vanessa Masucci’s Facebook profile, it would be easy to think she had it all. Regular posts drew a timeline of her courtship with her partner Andrew MacCormack.

An announcement of their engagement, happy snaps of their wedding.

Vanessa’s profile picture showed her in a beautiful fishtail gown on her big day, glowing with happiness.

She was a teacher, Andrew had a good job in a union. They lived in a new house in Revere, Massachusetts, USA. And in 2016, they’d announced the arrival of their baby girl. It should have been the start of a long, happy future.

But on September 2017, tragedy struck.

Andrew was out when he received a worried phone call from Vanessa’s parents. They couldn’t reach her.

Andrew raced back home, staying on the line to Vanessa’s mum.

Arriving, he told them he’d found Vanessa dead. Calling 911, Andrew seemed panicked. ‘She’s dead, I think,’ he said, sounding shell-shocked. Soon after, officers arrived at the couple’s home.

Doting mother Vanessa was pronounced dead at the scene. Officers could see she’d been beaten, strangled and stabbed.

The killer had covered her head with a bin bag and the house had been scrubbed with bleach.

As the police cordoned off the crime scene, the news began to spread.

Vanessa was a well-liked teacher, a loving wife and a doting mother to her 1-year-old daughter. Why had she been murdered in her own home? A postmortem revealed Vanessa had a blunt-force injury to her head, sharpforce injuries to her neck, and asphyxiation.

Vanessa’s body also had chemical burns, after the murderer had tried to cover their tracks with bleach. The police worked through the night, scouring the house for evidence.

And it became clear that

Good times for the couple?

Crying in court, with his attorney Vanessa and Andrew’s picture-perfect life wasn’t all it seemed...

Two days later, Andrew MacCormack, 31, was arrested and charged with Vanessa’s murder.

Yet at Suffolk Superior Court in November 2019, he denied he was responsible for his wife’s death.

Sobbing in the dock, he looked every part the heartbroken widower.

The prosecution painted a different picture. They told the court Andrew was hiding a drug addiction. And they presented evidence showing Vanessa was tired of her husband’s erratic behaviour.

In text messages a month before her death, Vanessa told Andrew she wanted to sell their house and get a divorce. Months earlier, Andrew had forged cheques from his wife’s bank account. Then Vanessa’s wedding ring had vanished. She’d claimed on insurance, buying a replacement. The new ring went missing, too. Andrew pawned his own wedding ring for $120 (around £90). Far from a loving newlywed, the prosecution said Andrew was a selfish drug addict, willing to steal from his wife and pawn sentimental jewellery in order to fund his habit. No speck of DNA The prosecution said he’d left Vanessa dead and taken their little girl out in the car for hours. He drove her to his friend’s house and completed some carpentry work.

On the way there, Andrew

had texted Vanessa. The prosecution alleged he was trying to create the appearance he had no idea Vanessa was lying dead.

Then the police found out Andrew had made another stop before he went home to the bloody scene.

His dealer’s home, where he spent $100 (around £80) on cocaine.

Andrew MacCormack insisted that the police and prosecution were wrong. He wept in court as he re-lived the day that he’d found his wife dead.

Investigators noted they could find no speck of Vanessa’s DNA on him. Public defence attorney John Hayes argued that his client could not have carried out the vicious attack.

He said Andrew had no wounds ‘consistent with a brutal assault against a healthy woman’ who worked out daily and who would have been ‘able to fight back’.

Andrew now admitted WORDS: SASKIA MURPHY. PHOTOS: SUFFOLK COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEYÕS OFFICE, GETTY to investigators he’d struggled with substance abuse, but claimed he’d been clean for six years. And he denied having any ongoing marital issues. But a drug dealer told investigators that Andrew MacCormack spent up to $500 a week (around £400) on drugs. Further investigations showed that, not long before she died, Vanessa had told Andrew that he’d ‘ruined their lives’. I hate you so much, Vanessa had texted. You’ve ruined our daughter’s life because she won’t have her parents together. So now the jury had to decide. Was Vanessa a victim of domestic violence, killed by a man who prioritised his drug habit over his wife and child? Or was her tragic death at the hands of an unknown killer a mystery?