Who was she anyway?

This article from the BBC, which I have quoted in full, annoyed me. It discussed the murder of Kinga Legg by her boyfriend, but throughout the article, her boyfriend is discussed as a businessman, while she is his girlfriend. We learn about his businesses, his houses, where he lives, and his bankruptcy in 2006. In the last sentence, it is noted that she too is a successful businesswoman, and owns a tomato growing company with sites in the UK and Poland. But while he is the focus of the article, she is reduced to the bloody body in the bed. The effect is to make her ancillary to her murderer throughout, reducing her to his partner and a victim, rather than a human being.

Porsche recovered in murder hunt

Police in Cheshire have found a sports car thought to belong to a businessman whose girlfriend was found beaten to death in a Paris hotel room. Ian Griffin, 39, is at the centre of an international manhunt after Kinga Legg's body was found at the l'Hotel Bristol on Tuesday. Cheshire Police recovered a Porsche 911 they were looking for during searches of properties connected to Mr Griffin. Surrey Police have also been searching a property as part of the inquiry. Ms Legg, 36, from Poland, checked into the £1,000-a-night hotel on Monday. Mr Griffin arrived later.

Company owner

Her body was found by a hotel cleaner the following day. French police said she had died from "internal bleeding caused by multiple blows". Mr Griffin, originally from Warrington, previously lived in Knutsford and had several businesses listed in Cheshire. In 2006 he was declared bankrupt at Warrington County Court. Two plain-clothes officers from Cheshire Police had been standing outside his parents' home in Delph Lane, Winwick, on Friday. Ms Legg owned international company Vegex, which supplied Tesco and other supermarkets with tomatoes. The company has a site in Oxshott, Surrey and Opatówek, Poland.

The alternative, in case you were wondering, could be something like this:

Police in Cheshire have found a sports car in the murder investigation of businesswoman Kinga Legg, found beaten to death in a Paris hotel room. Legg's partner, Ian Griffin, 39, is at the centre of an international manhunt after her body was found at the l'Hotel Bristol on Tuesday. Cheshire Police recovered a Porsche 911 they were looking for during searches of properties connected to Mr Griffin. Surrey Police have also been searching a property as part of the inquiry. Ms Legg, 36, from Poland, checked into the £1,000-a-night hotel on Monday. Mr Griffin arrived later. Ms Legg's body was found by a hotel cleaner the following day. French police said she had died from "internal bleeding caused by multiple blows".

Kinga Legg owned international company Vegex, which supplied Tesco and other supermarkets with tomatoes. The company has a site in Oxshott, Surrey and Opatówek, Poland. Mr Griffin, originally from Warrington, previously lived in Knutsford and had several businesses listed in Cheshire. In 2006 he was declared bankrupt at Warrington County Court. Two plain-clothes officers from Cheshire Police had been standing outside his parents' home in Delph Lane, Winwick, on Friday.

It's not just the reordering of Ms Legg's person via that of her partner, but the use of her name throughout the article, instead of 'she', that makes her a central part of the text; a central part of the story- which after all is about her. To be honest, it would also be nice to get the words domestic violence in there and the 'found beaten to death' does disembody the crime from the murderer. But, equally, at this stage in the investigation it may be problematic to accuse a particular suspect of the crime.