The mystery over the murder of a former defence official in the George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations has deepened after CCTV footage emerged showing him wandering around a car park wearing one shoe.

Surveillance video, filmed in the car park of a nearby office block two nights before his death, shows John Wheeler stumbling around, holding one of his shoes, and telling an attendant he was not drunk.

Mr Wheeler, a 66-year-old defence contractor and ex-Pentagon aide, was found dead at a landfill site in Wilmington, Delaware, on New Year's Eve.

He was murdered according to a state examiner, but detectives have declined to say how he was killed. It is thought his body was placed in a bin collected by a rubbish truck and driven to the dump....