The London Metro Police have much to answer for in the now almost two-year-old investigation into the death of San Francisco drag legend Heklina — and more details are coming to light about just how slowly they've been slow-walking this thing.
We learned two weeks ago that London police are still seeking three persons of interest in the death of Heklina — three men who were seen on CCTV footage leaving the Soho neighborhood flat she was staying in early in the morning on the days she was found dead.
Peaches Christ, aka Joshua Grannell, was in London and sharing the flat with Heklina, and was the person to find her. She now tells the Chronicle's Tony Bravo that she knew about the CCTV footage because it had been used early on to clear her as a suspect — she previously said that she had left the flat two days earlier to stay in a hotel so that Heklina could arrange a sexual encounter.
Peaches said she found Heklina in the living room in a "compromising position," and now we also learn that drugs were present on the scene as well.
But the Chronicle also now reports the further detail that not only did the London Metro Police take two years to release the CCTV footage seeking the public's help in identifying the men, they also majorly flubbed another aspect of the case. Without attempting to gain access to Heklina's cellphone, they packed it with her other belongings and shipped it off to back to the states to her "next of kin," who is her friend Nancy French.
French says she informed the London investigators that she had the iPhone in a Zoom call a year ago, in February 2024. It would then take them four more months to send her a box in which to return it to them, and they have yet to be able to access the device without Heklina's pincode. French tells the Chronicle it's especially frustrating because if Heklina was only communicating with people via an app, after two years, those people could be impossible to locate.
French also says that London Detective Chief Inspector Dean Purvis has admitted that the department has failed in this investigation so far. "He basically fell on his sword and admitted they have not handled this correctly. He admitted what he called 'investigative bias,'" French tells Chronicle.
Grannell spoke to the BBC this week, appearing on a news broadcast Tuesday night in which the news agency reported on the accusations of homophobia against the London Metro Police, and a 2023 report that found institutional bias in the department.
"They convinced me that we would be updated weekly, that we would be included in the process," Grannell says. "I got on that plane, and every email went unanswered for months and months. They just completely ignored us."
Grannell adds, "I hate being the person who incorrectly would cry 'homophobia' if it's not homophobia. They have left me no choice."
The police department has previously faced serious criticism over the botched investigation into serial killer Stephen Port, who killed four young gay men in London in 2014 and 2015 before being caught.
