Bus driver is charged with murder of college student
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A man was charged with the murder of the college student Alicia Eborne last night, shortly after her body was found in dense woodland on the edge of Dartmoor.
Lee David Holbrook, 39, a bus driver from Plymouth, will appear at Torbay magistrates' court today, 10 days after Alicia disappeared after leaving her home in the village of Corntown in Devon. The 18-year-old had set off at 8.45am to walk half a mile from her home to the nearby village of Cornwood to catch a bus to Plymouth. Her partly hidden body was found by a police search team around lunchtime yesterday in thick woods close to the river Tavy near Buckland Monachorum.
The secluded valley, close to a public road popular with walkers, is about 15 miles from the teenager's home. Police could not say whether she was killed at the scene.
The search for Alicia began after friends contacted police when she did not turn up for a night out in Plymouth the day she disappeared. She had earlier been missed from her health and social care course at Plymouth College of Further Education, and from her part-time job at a patisserie.
Her parents, Anthony and Joan Eborne, were informed their daughter's body had been found yesterday afternoon.
Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Webster, the head of CID at Devon and Cornwall police, said: "At this time our thoughts are with Alicia's family and friends. We would like to express our deep sympathy for her family and to state the distress and concern this has caused to all those who have been hunting for Alicia in the hope she would be found well."
Speaking half a mile from where her body was found, he added: "This is a place of great sadness today."
Dr Jill Spencer, who lives in Corntown, said that the whole village had feared that Alicia would not be found alive. "It almost had that inevitability. I can't really begin to imagine what they [Alicia's parents] are feeling and what they are going through," she said.