Tell-tale signs of a murderer: Two actions reveal a man killed his stepdaughter

Convicted murderer Miles Evans tried to fool investigators with an emotional plea following the disappearance of his nine-year-old stepdaughter, but two key blunders blew his cover.

Zoe Evans went missing from her home in Warminster, UK, on January 11, 1997, and according to a new documentary, the televised police appeal Evans gave alongside her mother Paula three days later was ladened with giveaway signs that outed him as a liar.

Attempts to deflect attention away from himself backfired, and his body language gave a key indication that Evans, a Private in the Royal Logistics Corps, was responsible for the young girl's disappearance, Daily Mail reported.

Investigators would later discover that Evans woke Zoe in her bed before punching her in the face and suffocating her with her own T-shirt.

He then disposed of her body half a mile away from their home on a wooded hillside.

One forensic psychologist suggests he may have killed her when she resisted an attempt to rape her.

And now experts have pinpointed the two major signs of deception in his flawed appeal.

In the latest episode of Investigation Discovery's Faking It: Tears of a Crime, body language expert Cliff Lansley returns to the footage and firstly notes Evans' brief eye closure as an attempt to distance himself from his crime.

"When the eyes close for a second, like they've done twice at this point, then that's a clue that he's not connecting with the words he's saying. This could be deception," Mr Lansley explains.

The other giveaway comes after careful inspection of the clips reveals considerable movement of Evans' right shoulder.

Mr Lansley, a former mentor for US Department of Homeland Security staff, believes this shows Evans was constantly touching his leg in a bid to comfort himself in his attempts to deceive his audience.

"This suggests he's manipulating on his knee. And this is something we do to comfort ourselves when we're under stress," he revealed.

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"So, is he under stress, and he's manipulating his leg because of the TV cameras? Is he under stress because he's fearing being disbelieved when he's telling the truth? Or more likely, with the other signals, is he feeling stressed because he's trying to get away with a lie?"

Just two days after his unconvincing press conference, detectives found Evans' blood-stained T-shirt stashed away near his home while finding a pair of Zoe's knickers that were also covered in blood.

Six weeks after her disappearance, Zoe's body was discovered naked and partially buried in a disused badger sett on Battlesbury Hill, in woodland visible from their family home.

The prosecution told Bristol Crown Court she died from asphyxiation due to her top being forced into her mouth as a gag which led to her inhaling blood from her nose after Evans had struck her in the face.

Evans was found guilty following a trial and given a life sentence in April 1998 despite always denying killing his stepdaughter.