The case dominated news coverage in the United Kingdom around the Christmas period as Yeates's family sought assistance from the public through social networking services and press conferences.

[9] Investigators determined Yeates had spent the evening of 17 December 2010 with colleagues at the Bristol Ram pub on Park Street, leaving at around 8:00 pm to begin the 30-minute walk home.

[23] On 25 December, a fully clothed body was found in the snow by a couple walking their dogs along Longwood Lane near a golf course and next to the entrance of a quarry in Failand, approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) from her home.

[31] Jones urged the public to come forward with any information to help catch the killer, especially potential witnesses who were in the vicinity of Longwood Lane in Failand in the period before Yeates's body was discovered.

"[16] Following the discovery of Yeates's body, detectives from the Avon and Somerset Constabulary issued an appeal for anyone with information about the death to come forward,[42][43] and investigated similarities with other unsolved cases.

Of particular interest to them were those of 20-year-old Glenis Carruthers who was strangled in 1974, Melanie Hall, aged 25, who disappeared in 1996 and whose body was discovered thirteen years later, and 35-year-old Claudia Lawrence who went missing in 2009.

[44][45][46][47] Investigators identified "striking similarities" between the Yeates and Hall cases, notably their age and appearance, and that they had disappeared after returning home from meeting friends,[48] but the possibility of such connections was later played down by authorities.

On 4 January 2011, a clinical forensic psychologist, who had previously been involved as a criminal profiler in other high-profile murder cases, joined the investigation to help narrow down the number of potential suspects.

[66] On 9 January 2011, Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy gave her support to the idea of a public DNA screening process if the police found it useful.

[79][80] He subsequently won an undisclosed sum in libel damages for defamatory news articles published following his arrest,[81] and received an apology from Avon and Somerset Police for any distress caused to him during the investigation.

[85] On the morning of 20 January, the Avon and Somerset Constabulary arrested 32-year-old architectural engineer Vincent Tabak, who lived with his girlfriend in the flat next door to Yeates.

[108][109] Leaving university in 2007, he moved to the United Kingdom after taking a job at the headquarters of Buro Happold, an engineering consultancy firm in Bath, and settled in a flat in the town.

[109] After killing Yeates, Tabak attempted to cast suspicion for the murder onto Jefferies after watching a news broadcast about the case while spending the New Year with relatives in the Netherlands.

He contacted Avon and Somerset Police to tell them that Jefferies had been using his car on the night of 17 December, and a CID officer, DC Karen Thomas, was sent to Amsterdam to talk to him.

They met at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport on 31 December, where Tabak elaborated on his story, but Thomas grew suspicious of his interest in the forensic work being carried out by the police and because what he said did not concur with a previous statement.

[110] He also viewed violent internet pornography that depicted women being controlled by men, showing images of them being bound and gagged, held by the neck and choked.

[1] The prosecutors stated that Tabak – around a foot (30 cm) taller than Yeates – had used his height and build to overpower her, pinning her to the floor by the wrists, and that she had suffered 43 separate injuries to her head, neck, torso and arms during the struggle.

[121] The prosecution also said that Tabak attempted to implicate Jefferies for the murder during the police investigation, and that in the days following Yeates's death, he had made internet searches for topics that included the length of time a body takes to decompose and the dates of refuse collections in the Clifton area.

[131] He cited several examples of headlines and stories that had been published, including a headline in The Sun describing Jefferies – a former schoolmaster at Clifton College – as weird, posh, lewd and creepy; a story from the Daily Express quoting unnamed former pupils referring to him as "... a sort of Nutty Professor" who made them feel "creeped out" by his "strange" behaviour; and an article from The Daily Telegraph, which reported Jefferies "has been described by pupils at Clifton College ... as a fan of dark and violent avant-garde films".

Being a retired English teacher who lived alone, whose physical appearance and "eccentrically unkempt white hair," made him stand out, led people to believe that he looked the type.

"[133] He was represented by Louis Charalambous of the law firm Simons Muirhead and Burton, who in 2008 had successfully acted for Robert Murat after he became a suspect during the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and had faced similar media scrutiny.

[137] Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General for England and Wales, stated on 31 December 2010 that he was considering action under the Contempt of Court Act 1981 to enforce the obligation of the media not to prejudice a possible future trial.

[72] Criminology professor David Wilson commented on the resonance of the murder case with the national news media: "The British public loves a whodunnit ...

[142][143] The Yeates case was mentioned during a Parliamentary debate on a private member's bill that would have imposed a sentence of six months' imprisonment on any journalist who names an uncharged suspect.

[144] The proposed legislation was introduced into the House of Commons in June 2010, by Anna Soubry, the Conservative MP for Broxtowe, a former journalist and criminal law barrister.

[147][148] Jefferies gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, established by Prime Minister David Cameron to investigate the ethics and behaviour of the British media following the News of the World phone hacking affair.

[149] Jefferies told the inquiry that reporters had "besieged" him after he was questioned by the police;[150] he said: "It was clear that the tabloid press had decided that I was guilty of Miss Yeates's murder and seemed determined to persuade the public of my guilt.

"[149] Appearing before the same inquiry on 16 January 2012, the Daily Mirror editor, Richard Wallace, described the newspaper's coverage of Jefferies's arrest as a "black mark" on his editing record.

[157] Other plans for memorials included a garden of remembrance at the BDP firm's studio in Bristol, a published anthology of Yeates's work and an annual landscape design prize named after her for students of the University of Gloucestershire.

On 26 March 2015, the case was the subject of an episode of the Channel 5 documentary series Countdown to Murder, titled "The Killer Next Door: The Last Hours of Joanna Yeates".