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He Murdered A WWII Veteran - Murder Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:05
Speaker 1: On a warm summer's evening in nineteen ninety three, police
0:09
Speaker 1: in East London made a tragic discovery at the home
0:12
Speaker 1: of two elderly siblings.
0:16
Speaker 2: They found Annie slumped in an armchair in the living
0:19
Speaker 2: room and Billy lying on the floor pretty much in
0:24
Speaker 2: front of her.
0:25
Speaker 1: A beloved grandmother and a World War II veteran killed
0:29
Speaker 1: in a violent attack.
0:31
Speaker 3: There's no obvious suspect. Annie and Billy haven't got any
0:35
Speaker 3: obvious enemies.
0:37
Speaker 1: With no killer court for years, the victims family search
0:41
Speaker 1: for answers.
0:43
Speaker 4: That was my life, just constantly trying to find out
0:47
Speaker 4: what had happened.
0:48
Speaker 1: Finally, a forensic breakthrough led police to Danville Neil, a
0:53
Speaker 1: sexually deviant career criminal with a taste for brutality.
0:58
Speaker 5: He was actually what you call a violent, prolific burglar.
1:01
Speaker 6: That kind of criminal is not that common.
1:04
Speaker 1: After almost thirty years, Danville Neil was finally unmusked as one.
1:10
Speaker 7: Of the world's most evil killers.
1:36
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety three. The East London community of bethnal
1:40
Speaker 1: Green was no stranger to crime.
1:43
Speaker 6: There was violence, There was a lot of burglary's drugs.
1:47
Speaker 5: Heroine was at the top of its game, but the.
1:50
Speaker 1: Brutal attack on pensioners Annie Castle and her brother Billy
1:54
Speaker 1: Bryan was a far cry from.
1:57
Speaker 8: Every day criminal activity.
2:00
Speaker 3: Not only does it cause moral revulsion, it's also causes
2:04
Speaker 3: panic in the community. People don't want to think that
2:07
Speaker 3: they're not safe in their own home.
2:10
Speaker 9: The police would have been under a huge amount of
2:12
Speaker 9: pressure to solve this.
2:15
Speaker 1: Only when Danville Neil was convicted could this community feel
2:20
Speaker 1: justice had been done for Annie and Billy. This killer's
2:28
Speaker 1: story begins in the London borough of Lewisham.
2:32
Speaker 6: Danville Nil was born in September nineteen fifty seven. He
2:37
Speaker 6: was actually what you would describe as a South London boys.
2:40
Speaker 3: We don't know a great deal about Danville Neil's background.
2:43
Speaker 3: We can guess, or at least speculate that he must
2:45
Speaker 3: have had a difficult childhood because by the age of
2:48
Speaker 3: sixteen in nineteen seventy three, he gets his first conviction
2:52
Speaker 3: for burglary.
2:54
Speaker 9: Neil started offending at quite a young age, acquisitive crime
3:00
Speaker 9: like theft, and that's not actually abnormal for that age
3:07
Speaker 9: of young men, but you know, it's something that they
3:10
Speaker 9: passed through and you know, forget about as they get older.
3:19
Speaker 1: This was not the case with Danville Neil. As he
3:23
Speaker 1: entered adulthood, his path in life seemed very much set.
3:28
Speaker 10: Danielle Neil was a career criminal.
3:31
Speaker 2: He was a petty thief and a burglar, and he
3:35
Speaker 2: used to fence stolen items around the South London area
3:40
Speaker 2: where he mainly.
3:41
Speaker 6: Operated, also buying their own admissions. Was involved in distributing cannabis.
3:50
Speaker 1: Much of what is known about Danville Neil's early adult
3:53
Speaker 1: life comes from his lengthy rap sheet.
3:57
Speaker 6: He had a number of conviction I think it was
3:58
Speaker 6: something like fifteen conviction for burglary between nineteen seventy three
4:03
Speaker 6: and nineteen ninety eight.
4:05
Speaker 1: But Neil was not simply interested in stealing people's property.
4:10
Speaker 3: Danville Neil was a man with proclivity to violence, sexual violence,
4:15
Speaker 3: psychological violence.
4:18
Speaker 2: He had not only broken into people's houses, but he
4:22
Speaker 2: specifically targeted people who he thought had stashes of cash
4:28
Speaker 2: or valuables in their homes and he would threaten them,
4:34
Speaker 2: tie them up and beat them. And during the course
4:37
Speaker 2: of some of these burglaries.
4:40
Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty four, he in an accomplice, committed two
4:45
Speaker 3: violent biurglaries, which were to set a pattern for his
4:49
Speaker 3: later crimes.
4:53
Speaker 1: One night in June nineteen eighty four, twenty six year
4:57
Speaker 1: old Danville Neil and a fellow career, William Norris, traveled
5:02
Speaker 1: the five miles from Lewisham to the middle class suburb
5:05
Speaker 1: of Penge.
5:08
Speaker 6: On the first occasion, he broke into a home where
5:10
Speaker 6: the family were at home.
5:12
Speaker 3: Neil wakes up the sleeping couple, mum and dad and
5:17
Speaker 3: tells them that they've already killed one of the children.
5:21
Speaker 8: Your girl's dead. Neil and his.
5:23
Speaker 3: Accomplice beat both mum and dad with an iron bar
5:28
Speaker 3: and try and smother the father and rape the woman.
5:35
Speaker 6: He tried to rings off her fingers and I think
5:38
Speaker 6: at one point she said in what you're going to
5:39
Speaker 6: do with these rings?
5:40
Speaker 5: They're not even worth thirty bob.
5:43
Speaker 3: There's also a suggestion that there was some kind of
5:45
Speaker 3: sexual humiliation of the husband as well as rape as
5:48
Speaker 3: the wife.
5:50
Speaker 1: It was a terrifying ordeal for the couple. Neil had
5:55
Speaker 1: played on their worst fears, but he was bluffing.
6:01
Speaker 2: Thankfully, their three children were asleep upstairs and they weren't woken.
6:06
Speaker 2: But the couple at the time didn't know what was
6:10
Speaker 2: going on. They didn't know that the children were okay.
6:14
Speaker 9: He starts with theft, which is pretty normal way to start.
6:20
Speaker 10: A criminal career if you like.
6:21
Speaker 9: But then he moves to burglary, and he moves to
6:24
Speaker 9: burglary's that are violent, and that is one hell of
6:30
Speaker 9: a development. This is the kind of a fender we
6:33
Speaker 9: need to be really worried about.
6:36
Speaker 3: In August nineteen eighty four, Neil had his familiar accompanist
6:40
Speaker 3: William Norris attack another house, this time in Norwood, also
6:45
Speaker 3: in southeast London, where a woman is alone asleep. It's
6:50
Speaker 3: another home invasion, a really.
6:53
Speaker 2: Really frightening experience for this woman who's woken up in
6:56
Speaker 2: the middle of the night by this guy in her bedroom,
7:00
Speaker 2: gain threatening again used to violence.
7:04
Speaker 6: They threatened her, they smothered her in actual fact, and
7:07
Speaker 6: they raped her.
7:09
Speaker 2: And in that instance he only made off with I
7:13
Speaker 2: think fifteen pounds in a music system, so really very
7:18
Speaker 2: very low, low value items. But the level of violence
7:23
Speaker 2: use was extreme, a gratuitous and designed to cause maximum
7:30
Speaker 2: fear and alarm of his victim.
7:32
Speaker 9: We might think that the motivation is only to take
7:37
Speaker 9: things that they can sell or take money, but these
7:41
Speaker 9: crimes are not all about what they can acquire. During
7:45
Speaker 9: that burglary, the sexual violence has absolutely nothing to do
7:50
Speaker 9: with the acquisitive part of this burglary. In my opinion,
7:55
Speaker 9: the overriding motivation here is that joy of dominating and
8:00
Speaker 9: the power and the humiliation of the people in the home,
8:05
Speaker 9: and that is incredibly dangerous.
8:09
Speaker 1: These two burglaries, just a couple of months apart in
8:13
Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen eighty four, were violent and sadistic,
8:17
Speaker 1: but Danville Neil and his accomplice did not escape justice
8:22
Speaker 1: for long.
8:24
Speaker 3: He didn't wear a balaklava, he didn't wear a ski mask. Well,
8:28
Speaker 3: it's perfectly obvious by this point that Danville Neil is
8:33
Speaker 3: a person of interest to the police, and it doesn't
8:34
Speaker 3: take them very long the track him down and the
8:37
Speaker 3: two men are brought to trial and indeed convicted of
8:42
Speaker 3: these aggravated burglaries with burglary with sexual violence and other violence.
8:49
Speaker 1: In June nineteen eighty five, Danville Neil and his accomplice
8:53
Speaker 1: were found guilty at London's Old Bailey and sentenced to
8:56
Speaker 1: twelve years in jail, but seven years later Neil was
9:01
Speaker 1: a free man once again.
9:10
Speaker 2: Danville Neil is released in August nineteen ninety two, and
9:16
Speaker 2: he effectively goes back to his old ways pretty much
9:19
Speaker 2: straight away.
9:21
Speaker 10: He really doesn't know any.
9:22
Speaker 2: Other life than the criminal life, so you know, he
9:26
Speaker 2: goes back to his old stomping ground in Sydenham.
9:31
Speaker 1: Getting a real job was the last thing on Danville
9:34
Speaker 1: Neil's mind in nineteen ninety two, Now almost thirty five
9:39
Speaker 1: years old, he simply picked up where he left off,
9:43
Speaker 1: resuming the life of crime he pursued since he was
9:46
Speaker 1: in his teens. Seven miles away in bethnal Green pensioner's
9:54
Speaker 1: seventy four year old Annie Castle and seventy one year
9:58
Speaker 1: old Billy Bryan would enjoy their well earned retirement and
10:01
Speaker 1: looking back on a life well lived.
10:05
Speaker 2: Annie Castle and her brother had lived in East End
10:11
Speaker 2: of London all their lives. Vesnal Green is really very
10:16
Speaker 2: much in the center of the East End, quite a
10:18
Speaker 2: sort of working class community, very close knit, so the
10:22
Speaker 2: neighbors or knew each other.
10:25
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety three, Annie and Billy were living in
10:29
Speaker 1: a flat on the Minerva Estate, somewhere they'd called home
10:33
Speaker 1: for almost fifty years.
10:35
Speaker 3: Annie had moved in with her husband shortly after the
10:39
Speaker 3: end of the war, when these flats had recently been constructed.
10:42
Speaker 2: Annie was a lovely pillar of the community. And she
10:49
Speaker 2: had five children and I think thirteen grandchildren and went
10:54
Speaker 2: on to have fifteen great grandchildren.
10:57
Speaker 10: When her brother Billy.
10:59
Speaker 2: Was in lid It out of the army at the
11:02
Speaker 2: end of the Second World War, he got tuberculosis, so
11:05
Speaker 2: he was sort of released from the army and was
11:09
Speaker 2: really taken in by Annie and her husband and the
11:13
Speaker 2: rest of the family, and he lived with them from.
11:15
Speaker 1: Then on, and his husband, Jim, died in nineteen eighty seven,
11:20
Speaker 1: but she and brother Billy continued to live together and
11:25
Speaker 1: his grandson Mark remembers the Bethnal Green flat as a
11:29
Speaker 1: lively hub for the entire family.
11:31
Speaker 8: We would be and Nanni's every Saturday.
11:35
Speaker 4: He'd get there and Nanny would be up making a passover,
11:41
Speaker 4: and then another member of the family had turn up
11:43
Speaker 4: with their kids, and then we all go down and
11:45
Speaker 4: play football, and then someone else will turn up, and
11:48
Speaker 4: then one of the moms or it's a jumble cell
11:50
Speaker 4: over the church, a couple of the moms would go.
11:53
Speaker 4: All the dads would be sitting there, the mums would
11:55
Speaker 4: be walking around, Nanny would be making tea, his toast,
11:58
Speaker 4: Billy was cooking.
12:00
Speaker 8: It was just quite fun.
12:02
Speaker 1: Annie and Billy's warmth extended beyond their family to their
12:06
Speaker 1: neighbors and acquaintances in the local area.
12:09
Speaker 2: The neighbors or knew each other and would socialize together.
12:13
Speaker 2: So for example, Annie would go to the local social
12:16
Speaker 2: club every week with her friend.
12:18
Speaker 10: I think it was Winifred.
12:21
Speaker 4: Nanny was and a bad type of person being go
12:26
Speaker 4: going to our people's they'll get togethers. And she looked
12:31
Speaker 4: a million dollars and she was looking at walking down
12:34
Speaker 4: the street. And I actually see her once since she
12:36
Speaker 4: looked a million dollars with a nice long coat on
12:39
Speaker 4: or a ha done makeup.
12:42
Speaker 6: Anim was also described as being very generous, so she
12:45
Speaker 6: would help people in her community. She would often give
12:48
Speaker 6: money to people to support them if she could help
12:51
Speaker 6: them out.
12:52
Speaker 2: Billy, with because of his illness, was you know, stay
12:58
Speaker 2: sort of quite close to the house. But he was
13:00
Speaker 2: very interested in the local community. He had a pair
13:03
Speaker 2: of binoculars. They used to use them to spy on
13:07
Speaker 2: the local fruit and vegetable down the road so he
13:10
Speaker 2: could check what they had in on that day to
13:12
Speaker 2: see if he wanted a thing.
13:16
Speaker 1: As well as being a close knit community, the layout
13:20
Speaker 1: of the estate meant residents were often aware of one
13:23
Speaker 1: another's comings and goings.
13:25
Speaker 6: There were a number of blocks of flats, but it
13:28
Speaker 6: was on quite an open sort of green areas, and
13:31
Speaker 6: even lived on the first floor, but it wasn't a
13:34
Speaker 6: high rise floor. It was just a few steps up
13:36
Speaker 6: onto her landing, where there were several other flats along
13:40
Speaker 6: that particular landing.
13:42
Speaker 1: The flats front doors were accessed from shared walkways along
13:46
Speaker 1: the fronts of the buildings, while at the back some
13:49
Speaker 1: of the flats had enclosed concrete balconies. The blocks faced
13:53
Speaker 1: one another across communal lawns, as neighbor Anne Ambrose remembers.
14:00
Speaker 11: Opposite them, so you could have a chat across the grass,
14:03
Speaker 11: because we've got great big grass expense, so you could
14:06
Speaker 11: actually check if you needed to.
14:08
Speaker 1: When the peace of this settled community was brutally shattered
14:12
Speaker 1: one night in August nineteen ninety three, it would be
14:16
Speaker 1: the neighbors who noticed something was a miss.
14:20
Speaker 2: The twenty second of August nineteen ninety three, Billy and
14:24
Speaker 2: Annie are at home and they're flat in the mid afternoon,
14:29
Speaker 2: about five thirty, I think Annie goes out to her
14:36
Speaker 2: weekly trip to the social club on a Sunday with
14:39
Speaker 2: a friend Winifred.
14:40
Speaker 6: They did this regularly every Sunday, so they met at
14:43
Speaker 6: around about five thirty and then they returned at about
14:47
Speaker 6: eight thirty.
14:49
Speaker 2: Now, according to Winifred, Billy would very often be standing
14:54
Speaker 2: in the communal balcony waiting for Annie to return home
14:58
Speaker 2: from the social club, and he would usually prepare a
15:02
Speaker 2: hot drink like a coffee and a sandwich for her
15:05
Speaker 2: for when she returned. And that does seem to be
15:08
Speaker 2: what had happened in that particular day, although when Annie
15:13
Speaker 2: returned home the front door was shut, there was no
15:16
Speaker 2: sign of Billy.
15:19
Speaker 1: Much of what happened after Annie Castle entered her flat
15:23
Speaker 1: that evening is unknown. Other residents would later help police
15:28
Speaker 1: piece the story together.
15:31
Speaker 3: Neighbors recall hearing screams that evening, but no one paid
15:38
Speaker 3: much attention.
15:41
Speaker 1: At around one thirty am, Anne Ambrose was getting ready
15:45
Speaker 1: for bed in the flat opposite Annie and Billy's.
15:49
Speaker 11: I just looked over and I noticed the lights were on.
15:52
Speaker 11: But you don't, you don't think that's any problem at all,
15:55
Speaker 11: you know, you think, well, naturally they're just not gone
15:57
Speaker 11: to veget.
15:58
Speaker 3: And the lights were still on when she got up
16:00
Speaker 3: to go to the loo. At about four in the morning, and.
16:03
Speaker 11: Then I noticed that the back door was opened slightly,
16:06
Speaker 11: because say, we've got back balconies. But even then, I
16:10
Speaker 11: don't think anything suspicious went through in my mind.
16:13
Speaker 6: And then she got up in the morning and she
16:15
Speaker 6: left Monday morning to go to work.
16:18
Speaker 5: She said. She noted again that the lights were.
16:21
Speaker 11: On, and then it was when I got back home
16:24
Speaker 11: that I noticed that nothing had changed across the way,
16:27
Speaker 11: and I thought that cannot be right.
16:29
Speaker 6: She got back about ten thirty that night, and when
16:32
Speaker 6: she saw that the lights were still on and the
16:36
Speaker 6: back door was still open, she decided that she would
16:40
Speaker 6: make a phone call to and she didn't get any
16:43
Speaker 6: reply to her call.
16:45
Speaker 3: So she goes round and knocks on and in Billie's door,
16:49
Speaker 3: no answer. She looks through the letterbox, I can't see anything.
16:56
Speaker 6: So at that point she decided that she was going
16:58
Speaker 6: to call the police.
17:00
Speaker 1: And a police officer responded to Anne's call that night.
17:03
Speaker 1: He recognized immediately that this was an emergency. The elderly
17:09
Speaker 1: siblings were nowhere to be seen, and then normally pristine
17:13
Speaker 1: flat was in disarray.
17:15
Speaker 6: He looked through the window and what he could see
17:17
Speaker 6: where the lights were still on the fridge door was open.
17:20
Speaker 6: There were cupboards and doors open.
17:23
Speaker 11: You could see that there's been something that's been around.
17:25
Speaker 6: Neck went round to the back of the flat, looked
17:29
Speaker 6: up at the balcony area and they saw that the
17:31
Speaker 6: door was open.
17:33
Speaker 3: At about ten pass midnight, the fire brigade arrive and
17:37
Speaker 3: the ladder is erected and the police enter the flat
17:41
Speaker 3: through the back.
17:42
Speaker 6: And unfortunately what he saw there was quite an awful sight.
17:53
Speaker 1: What the police officer found when he entered Annie Castle
17:56
Speaker 1: and Billy Bryant's flat on the night of the twenty
17:59
Speaker 1: five of August nineteen ninety three shopped the local community
18:04
Speaker 1: and devastated Annie and Billy's close and loving family.
18:12
Speaker 8: I was working with my.
18:13
Speaker 4: Father in the thro A market night workers and got
18:18
Speaker 4: we got on winter bit. I was ringing downstairs and
18:22
Speaker 4: ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing. They go off
18:26
Speaker 4: there and ring again and straightway. I know something that
18:28
Speaker 4: well right, So I went down and with my father.
18:31
Speaker 4: He said Nan believed me painted in the flat, and
18:34
Speaker 4: I was like, oh my god.
18:37
Speaker 1: The police officer who entered Annie and Billy's home just
18:41
Speaker 1: before midnight on August to twenty third had found the
18:45
Speaker 1: two pensioners.
18:46
Speaker 8: In the living room.
18:47
Speaker 6: Annie was slumped in a chair with her head down
18:52
Speaker 6: and Billy was laying on his side directly in front
18:57
Speaker 6: of him. He'd had his hands tied together and with
19:02
Speaker 6: a cord, and he had some of cloth tied around
19:06
Speaker 6: his feet.
19:08
Speaker 1: It was neighbor Anne Ambrose who'd raised the alarm that
19:12
Speaker 1: evening about unusual activity at the older couple's flat.
19:17
Speaker 11: It wasn't too long before the police came back out
19:22
Speaker 11: and I said to them, how are they? And he
19:26
Speaker 11: said they did. It was such a shot.
19:29
Speaker 2: The whole house was in complete disarray. In the lounge area,
19:35
Speaker 2: christians had been upended, a vase had been smashed, and
19:39
Speaker 2: there was glass all over the.
19:40
Speaker 3: Floor, cupboards open, draws open, A screwdriver is found in
19:46
Speaker 3: the lounge and a hammer is found outside the flat.
19:51
Speaker 2: One of their pairs of glasses was just sort of
19:54
Speaker 2: chucked on the floor, fallen on the floor somehow, and
19:58
Speaker 2: Annie's handbag was lying on the floor with the content
20:02
Speaker 2: strewn all over the place.
20:05
Speaker 1: Shabnam Chowdhry was one of the detectives assigned to investigate
20:09
Speaker 1: the unexplained deaths and to piece together exactly what had
20:14
Speaker 1: befallen Annie and Billy, and why.
20:17
Speaker 6: Once a detective has attended, or what you call a
20:20
Speaker 6: senior investigating officer, that now becomes an official murder investigation
20:25
Speaker 6: and a crime scene for evidence to be gathered.
20:29
Speaker 2: When they looked at the scene, they could see that
20:32
Speaker 2: Annie's fingers had areas of sort of white where she
20:36
Speaker 2: would normally have worn her her rings, so she was
20:41
Speaker 2: wearing two gold wedding rings, and she also had two
20:48
Speaker 2: diamond rings that she would habitually wear, so it was
20:51
Speaker 2: clear that they'd been ripped off her fingers, either when
20:55
Speaker 2: she was alive or after she died.
20:58
Speaker 3: It's not a very thorough burglary, given the fact that
21:03
Speaker 3: a lot of things missed, for example, more than four
21:07
Speaker 3: thousand pounds in cash hidden in socks in the flat.
21:12
Speaker 6: You don't know what has actually happened. You don't know
21:14
Speaker 6: for sure whether it is actually a burglary. You don't
21:16
Speaker 6: know for sure whether somebody is known to those individuals.
21:20
Speaker 5: There were no signs of a breaking of that particular flat.
21:24
Speaker 5: You've got to keep an open mind.
21:27
Speaker 1: One of the first tasks for the investigation team was
21:30
Speaker 1: to work out exactly when Annie and Billy had been attacked.
21:35
Speaker 1: No one had seen them since Annie had arrived home
21:37
Speaker 1: from the social club at around eight thirty on the
21:41
Speaker 1: Sunday evening.
21:43
Speaker 2: There was a half drunk cup of coffee and the
21:47
Speaker 2: remnants of a meat sandwich. So within about half an
21:51
Speaker 2: hour something has happened to interrupt their usual routine.
21:59
Speaker 6: And we did have plenty to your witnesses that came forward,
22:01
Speaker 6: but nobody that actually saw anything that happened. So everybody
22:05
Speaker 6: gave a picture which we were able to draw up
22:08
Speaker 6: a timeline of events that likely took place.
22:12
Speaker 1: One neighbor had heard a scream at around nine thirty pm,
22:16
Speaker 1: while Anne Ambrose had seen lights and movement at around
22:19
Speaker 1: one thirty am.
22:21
Speaker 2: There was a six year old boy living nearby who
22:24
Speaker 2: was woken up in the night and heard someone saying repeatedly,
22:28
Speaker 2: get out of here, Get out of here.
22:30
Speaker 6: He was awoken during the early hours of the morning
22:33
Speaker 6: and he became very scared. He went into his mother
22:36
Speaker 6: and he told her what he'd heard, and then she
22:40
Speaker 6: puts him back to bed. So when you combine all
22:43
Speaker 6: of that information and all of that evidence together, what
22:46
Speaker 6: you can work out is that there would have been
22:48
Speaker 6: a timeline of between around nine thirty pm when the
22:52
Speaker 6: first scream was heard to around about four point thirty
22:57
Speaker 6: early hours of the following morning on the twenty third,
23:00
Speaker 6: when both and Billy was subjected to that violent attack
23:05
Speaker 6: of being tied up and actually been murdered in their
23:08
Speaker 6: own homes.
23:10
Speaker 1: The post mortem examinations confirmed suspicions that Annie and Billy
23:15
Speaker 1: had indeed died during a prolonged violent incident.
23:21
Speaker 6: Annie Castle's post mortem was interesting because and He actually
23:25
Speaker 6: had a history of heart disease angina. The fact that
23:30
Speaker 6: she was placed in such a stressful situation would have
23:34
Speaker 6: caused her to have a heart attack.
23:36
Speaker 2: Physical examination of her body found that there were bruises
23:41
Speaker 2: to her arms which were consistent with her being restrained
23:47
Speaker 2: physically with hands.
23:49
Speaker 4: So we've straight away realized that and He was Bacon's.
23:55
Speaker 8: As well.
23:57
Speaker 6: Billy's postmortem was more complex in our actual fact because
24:00
Speaker 6: he too also did have a history of heart disease
24:05
Speaker 6: and of heart problems, but he was subjected to more violence,
24:10
Speaker 6: subjected to severe violence.
24:13
Speaker 2: The evidence showed that he'd been not just restrained, but
24:17
Speaker 2: he'd been beaten and beaten by somebody probably wearing a ring,
24:22
Speaker 2: because not just bruising, but sort of some cuts from
24:28
Speaker 2: small puncture wings from being hit by someone wearing a
24:31
Speaker 2: prominent ring.
24:33
Speaker 6: He had felt injuries inflicted to one of his eye sockets.
24:37
Speaker 6: He had injuries under his chin, some abrasions under his chin.
24:41
Speaker 6: He'd also been assorted on both of his arms, on
24:45
Speaker 6: his body, and also within on his thighs.
24:49
Speaker 1: Despite the horrific number of injuries Billy had suffered, it
24:53
Speaker 1: was not the beating that had killed the seventy one
24:56
Speaker 1: year old veteran.
24:57
Speaker 2: He had been suffocated asphyxiated and that was the cause
25:03
Speaker 2: of death. It caused him to have a heart attack
25:05
Speaker 2: as well that the cause of death itself was asphyxiation.
25:11
Speaker 1: Hearing that his beloved grandmother and great uncle had endured
25:15
Speaker 1: such a violent death was devastating for Mark Castle and
25:20
Speaker 1: for their extended family.
25:22
Speaker 8: That just was quite a numb numb shock shock who
25:27
Speaker 8: done it.
25:28
Speaker 9: Older people, statistically are actually highly unlikely to suffer this
25:34
Speaker 9: kind of crime, especially you know, if they don't go
25:39
Speaker 9: out very often and they live in secure homes, and
25:43
Speaker 9: we can't conceive of the type of person that would
25:51
Speaker 9: target the vulnerable in that way. Immediately, the first place
25:57
Speaker 9: your head's going to go to is that there's an
26:00
Speaker 9: evil predator on the loose. These people don't share your values,
26:06
Speaker 9: They don't share your moral code.
26:09
Speaker 10: That can be terrifying for a community.
26:14
Speaker 11: Do get scared because you think, well, now, is there
26:17
Speaker 11: anyone in our community would do that to these people?
26:19
Speaker 11: And obviously we were just living how the catch, whoever
26:24
Speaker 11: this person was.
26:25
Speaker 1: The investigation team followed every line of inquiry at their disposal.
26:31
Speaker 9: This is not an entry level offense, so they would
26:34
Speaker 9: have started looking through who their local criminals were and
26:40
Speaker 9: who was most likely to have committed this type of offense.
26:46
Speaker 6: We would target individuals who we might think might have
26:49
Speaker 6: been responsible for this, particularly in the Bethel Green area,
26:53
Speaker 6: because we did have a number of prolific burglars in
26:56
Speaker 6: that area.
26:57
Speaker 1: None of the usual suspects with the crime, and no
27:01
Speaker 1: fingerprints were found at the scene that could be matched
27:05
Speaker 1: with known criminals on the national database.
27:08
Speaker 6: There was nothing that came from that particular investigation, in
27:11
Speaker 6: those very early stages in nineteen ninety three that could
27:15
Speaker 6: actually put anybody at that scene of that murder at
27:20
Speaker 6: that time.
27:21
Speaker 3: By nineteen ninety nine, six years later, no one has
27:26
Speaker 3: been charged for these heenus crimes. In spite of the
27:30
Speaker 3: fact that a reward of five thousand pounds has been offered.
27:34
Speaker 8: Nothing absolutely nothing.
27:39
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety nine, police investigating the murders of Annie
27:43
Speaker 1: Castle and Billy Bryan achieved a small but frustrating step forward.
27:51
Speaker 6: Billy was tied with a black cord that later transpired
27:55
Speaker 6: to be a called from a set of binoculars that
27:59
Speaker 6: came from this property. In nineteen ninety six, new advanced
28:03
Speaker 6: scientific technology was introduced, and then in nineteen ninety nine
28:08
Speaker 6: what actually happened was that scientific technology was allowed to
28:11
Speaker 6: be used in casework. The black cord was submitted to
28:15
Speaker 6: the scientific lab, an actual fact that had been preserved
28:19
Speaker 6: all that time within the same packaging, never been removed.
28:24
Speaker 2: There was DNA extracted and they put it through the
28:30
Speaker 2: DNA database.
28:31
Speaker 10: And they got more than three hundred possibles.
28:36
Speaker 9: In the early nineties, we didn't have a DNA database.
28:40
Speaker 8: We do now, but we did not then.
28:43
Speaker 9: And what has happened over the years is that since
28:47
Speaker 9: the introduction of DNA identification it has developed really quite quickly.
28:58
Speaker 1: The list of suspects had been rowed down and one
29:01
Speaker 1: of them had a long record for violent offenses.
29:05
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, it was three hundred and names within that list
29:09
Speaker 6: came Danville Neil.
29:12
Speaker 1: Danville Neil had been convicted of yet another burglary in
29:15
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, and in nineteen ninety nine was believed
29:19
Speaker 1: to have been serving time for this offense.
29:23
Speaker 10: As he's kept.
29:24
Speaker 9: On offending over the years and DNA has been developing
29:27
Speaker 9: alongside him, his DNA profile has been taken and it
29:32
Speaker 9: is now on the database, so that any crimes that
29:36
Speaker 9: he committed before and after are.
29:40
Speaker 10: Now going to leave him open to being arrested.
29:44
Speaker 6: The problem was he was numb one hundred and thirty
29:46
Speaker 6: six on that list, and therefore it wasn't enough for
29:50
Speaker 6: them to profile him as being responsible.
29:55
Speaker 1: Police didn't have enough evidence at the time to single
29:58
Speaker 1: Danville Neil out from the three hundred and eight potential culprits.
30:03
Speaker 1: For Annie and Billy's devastated loved ones, the news brought hope,
30:07
Speaker 1: but no resolution.
30:10
Speaker 4: We had regularly into the detectives where they were telling
30:13
Speaker 4: us what had gone on and that they had a
30:17
Speaker 4: little bit of DNA, but it wasn't advanced as it
30:20
Speaker 4: is now, so it was really.
30:22
Speaker 8: Really tough to get suspect.
30:26
Speaker 4: And again it went quite after that for a number
30:29
Speaker 4: of years.
30:31
Speaker 1: It was a devastating time for the families of Annie
30:34
Speaker 1: Castle and Billy Bryan, and as the years went by
30:38
Speaker 1: and the years became decades, the case remained unsolved. But
30:43
Speaker 1: as forensic science continued to advance, Danville Neil's name wouldn't
30:48
Speaker 1: remain hidden on a list for long and justice would
30:52
Speaker 1: soon be done.
31:00
Speaker 3: Twenty seventeen, there have been some new techniques in DNA identification.
31:06
Speaker 1: By twenty twenty, the techniques had been approved for police
31:10
Speaker 1: to apply to unsolved crimes as before. The focus of
31:14
Speaker 1: the investigation was Billy's binocular strap, which had been used
31:18
Speaker 1: to bind the seventy one year old's hands before his murder.
31:23
Speaker 6: The strap was actually knotted where the perpetrator had tied
31:26
Speaker 6: the knots in order to secure Billy's hands and tie
31:29
Speaker 6: them up, and for the first time ever, those knots
31:34
Speaker 6: were undone, and therefore they used the DNA from those
31:39
Speaker 6: knots and.
31:41
Speaker 3: The DNA comes back as identifiable to one Danville Neil.
31:48
Speaker 2: Danville Neil was already very very well known to the
31:52
Speaker 2: police as a prolific burglar, and he had a history
31:56
Speaker 2: of violence as well. So not only is he won
32:01
Speaker 2: in a billion match to the DNA. He also absolutely
32:06
Speaker 2: fits the profile as the kind of person who would
32:09
Speaker 2: have done this.
32:10
Speaker 1: It was an unbelievable breakthrough. Almost three decades after the crime.
32:16
Speaker 1: Eager to build a case, officers obtained a warrant to
32:20
Speaker 1: search Danville Nil's home.
32:21
Speaker 6: Now, it might seem unusual that they're going to search
32:24
Speaker 6: his premises because thirty years have passed, but the fact
32:27
Speaker 6: remains that there was jewelry outstanding from that burglary, and
32:33
Speaker 6: whilst they were searching the premises, Danville Neil came back home.
32:37
Speaker 6: The officers arrested Danville for the double murder of Annie
32:41
Speaker 6: Castle and Billy Ryan.
32:44
Speaker 1: Neil, by now sixty three years old, denied any knowledge
32:48
Speaker 1: of the victims or the crime.
32:51
Speaker 6: He clearly stated he had never ever been to that flat,
32:55
Speaker 6: he'd never been to bethmcgreen, and he didn't know anything
32:58
Speaker 6: about that particular burg.
33:01
Speaker 1: Though the search of Neil's home hadn't turned up any
33:05
Speaker 1: of Annie or Billy's belongings, he'd had given police another
33:09
Speaker 1: piece of evidence in their case against the suspected killer.
33:17
Speaker 2: They discovered that Danville Neil owned a pair of white
33:22
Speaker 2: high tech training shoes. They brought Danville Nil in for
33:27
Speaker 2: an interview, and they asked him about his shoes, and
33:31
Speaker 2: they said, all, what about your trainer, So these are
33:34
Speaker 2: the kind of trainers that you wear all the time.
33:36
Speaker 6: And he spoke about those trainers quite candidly that back
33:40
Speaker 6: in the nineties and still to this date of his
33:44
Speaker 6: age at sixty three, he always wore the same type
33:46
Speaker 6: of trainers, which were high tech squash type trainers.
33:49
Speaker 3: They are a very particular kind of trainer, sneaker. They
33:53
Speaker 3: were a very particular.
33:55
Speaker 1: Pattern on the souls unbeinknnst to Neil. In nineteen ninety three,
34:00
Speaker 1: scene of crime officers had recovered footprints from the home
34:04
Speaker 1: of Annie Castle and Billy Bryan.
34:07
Speaker 6: The exhibits officer and the crime scene manager would have
34:11
Speaker 6: lifted all forms of different types of evidence, and within
34:15
Speaker 6: that came some footprints on newspaper articles that were found
34:19
Speaker 6: on the floor. These were in the shape of high
34:23
Speaker 6: tech trainers.
34:25
Speaker 1: It was another important piece of evidence to link Neil
34:29
Speaker 1: with the fatal attack in nineteen ninety three. Finally, on
34:34
Speaker 1: the sixth to July twenty twenty one, the police not
34:37
Speaker 1: only arrest Danville Neil, but they charge him with the
34:41
Speaker 1: murders of Annie and Billy. In the summer of twenty
34:47
Speaker 1: twenty one, the team now investigating the murders were able
34:51
Speaker 1: to share with Mark Castle and his family the news
34:54
Speaker 1: they had waited twenty eight years for.
34:58
Speaker 4: We've got a phone call to a and I'm meeting
35:01
Speaker 4: with some detectives and said, delight to tell you we've
35:06
Speaker 4: got a viable suspect. No names were mentioned, no area,
35:13
Speaker 4: nothing about him whatsoever. I remember leaving there in a
35:17
Speaker 4: bit of a trance really and sobbed.
35:22
Speaker 1: Hope was on the horizon. In the family's quest for justice,
35:26
Speaker 1: Danville Neil was remanded in custody sixteen months after he
35:31
Speaker 1: was charged.
35:32
Speaker 8: He stood trial for the double.
35:33
Speaker 2: Murder and a trial was heard at the Old Bailey
35:37
Speaker 2: in November twenty twenty two.
35:41
Speaker 1: Journalist Emily Penning attended the trial at London's most famous
35:46
Speaker 1: criminal court.
35:47
Speaker 2: People have been waiting for years to see someone in
35:52
Speaker 2: the dock for Annie and Billy's death, so you know,
35:56
Speaker 2: you really feel the weight of that, the weight of
35:59
Speaker 2: the crime, the level the brutality, the callousness that they
36:04
Speaker 2: were treated with.
36:08
Speaker 8: He pleads not guilty. I had nothing to do with it.
36:11
Speaker 8: I don't know anything.
36:12
Speaker 3: Danville Neil is now sixty five years old. His escaped
36:16
Speaker 3: justice for many, many years, more than a quarter of
36:20
Speaker 3: a century.
36:22
Speaker 4: When the first sawy moves on screen, from where I
36:25
Speaker 4: could see, he looked smart.
36:29
Speaker 8: Tie and shirt on.
36:32
Speaker 4: Then when we went to trial, it was a fragile man,
36:37
Speaker 4: gray hair, could hardly walk, lasses, unshaven gray, which was
36:44
Speaker 4: as I know, this is that act playing a sympathy card.
36:51
Speaker 2: My initial impressions of Danville Neil, though, was he looked
36:55
Speaker 2: exactly what he is, a career criminal, someone who doesn't
37:03
Speaker 2: care about the hurt that he causes to other people.
37:09
Speaker 2: He didn't exude a feeling of someone who is innocent.
37:15
Speaker 2: Everything he said, I think just seemed like a lie
37:19
Speaker 2: to my mind. He seemed cold and callous, which is
37:23
Speaker 2: exactly what he was.
37:30
Speaker 1: The prosecution's case centered on the DNA you found on
37:34
Speaker 1: the cord that had bound Billy's hands. This proved they
37:38
Speaker 1: claimed that Danville Neil could be the only person responsible
37:42
Speaker 1: for attacking and killing Annie and Billy in their home
37:46
Speaker 1: that night in August nineteen ninety three.
37:49
Speaker 6: The most crucial part of that evidence was linking him, solely,
37:55
Speaker 6: him directly to that murder scene, and that was in
38:00
Speaker 6: the form of the DNA on the strap. He never
38:02
Speaker 6: really gave an explanation as to how his DNA his
38:06
Speaker 6: bodily fluids were placed on that knot.
38:10
Speaker 3: Danville Neil insists that the only reason there's DNA on
38:17
Speaker 3: the binocular strap is that he happened to have sold
38:21
Speaker 3: a pair of binoculars to Billy at a car boot sale.
38:26
Speaker 3: That would have made more sense had it been simply
38:30
Speaker 3: somewhere on the binocular strap, but the DNA evidence was
38:34
Speaker 3: found on the knot that was.
38:37
Speaker 8: Used to subdue Billy.
38:40
Speaker 1: It was an unlikely story and one the police had
38:43
Speaker 1: been able to disprove.
38:45
Speaker 2: They spoke to Billy's nephew and he said, oh no,
38:50
Speaker 2: Billy was very proud of his gadgets.
38:53
Speaker 10: He was really into them and he would have bought
38:55
Speaker 10: them me.
38:56
Speaker 2: And actually, when the police looked into it even further,
39:00
Speaker 2: they discovered that this particular type of binocular had only
39:05
Speaker 2: started to be imported into Britain in nineteen nineteen ninety one,
39:11
Speaker 2: so they would have been pretty much brand new when
39:14
Speaker 2: they were acquired by Billy.
39:18
Speaker 1: The court was also told about the shoe prins found
39:21
Speaker 1: in the flat, so similar to the trainers habitually worn
39:25
Speaker 1: by Neil and about some of the similar crimes he'd
39:28
Speaker 1: been convicted of in the past.
39:31
Speaker 2: All of that added together to a pretty compelling case
39:35
Speaker 2: against Danvilmill.
39:37
Speaker 1: When the jury retired to consider their verdict, Annie and
39:40
Speaker 1: Billy's loved ones faced a tense weight to hear if
39:43
Speaker 1: after twenty nine years, justice would be served.
39:48
Speaker 8: And I thought he was going to walk?
39:50
Speaker 4: Did they or the verdict? There was twelve of us upstairs.
39:55
Speaker 4: Why it's kind of gallery. I lost it stopped.
39:59
Speaker 12: And so and so.
40:02
Speaker 4: I was so scared he was going to walk, because
40:06
Speaker 4: once she walks, we've got nothing.
40:08
Speaker 10: And then the jury went out, came back relatively quickly.
40:13
Speaker 8: I think we went in and I'd never be so
40:16
Speaker 8: scared in my life.
40:17
Speaker 2: The first count was the murder of Billy, and that
40:22
Speaker 2: came back guilty of murder. The second count came back
40:27
Speaker 2: not guilty of murder. So there's a bit of a
40:30
Speaker 2: heart stopping moment. Oh my goodness, they're going to requit
40:34
Speaker 2: on the second murder. And then they said, how do
40:37
Speaker 2: you find the defendant on the count two of manslaughter?
40:42
Speaker 2: And they said guilty.
40:45
Speaker 8: So they come out with a Gilly.
40:48
Speaker 4: It's like.
40:51
Speaker 12: Everything come out of the staying pain had gone and
40:58
Speaker 12: everyone was grey. May and Billy and May and were
41:01
Speaker 12: keeping this one, shaking that one.
41:03
Speaker 10: This is justice.
41:04
Speaker 2: She mer Grubb sentence Danville Neil to life in prison,
41:10
Speaker 2: and she said that he would have to stay in
41:12
Speaker 2: prison for at least thirty two years.
41:17
Speaker 3: In passing sentence, the judge says, you dodged justice for
41:24
Speaker 3: nearly thirty years.
41:27
Speaker 8: Now justice has caught up with you.
41:29
Speaker 2: She said it was an absolutely appalling crime, not least
41:34
Speaker 2: because of the failty of the victims, but because there
41:39
Speaker 2: were two victims involved in his crime. So not only
41:43
Speaker 2: had he effectively tortured Billy in a failed attempt to
41:48
Speaker 2: find the valuables, his actions had also led to the
41:51
Speaker 2: death of Annie.
41:53
Speaker 3: The judges sentence means that Danville Neil will almost certainly
41:58
Speaker 3: die in jail. It would mean he'd be over ninety
42:00
Speaker 3: seven before he could even be eligible for parole, and
42:05
Speaker 3: that must be regarded as a very distant possibility.
42:08
Speaker 1: Given Nil's violent history, the idea he'll never be released
42:13
Speaker 1: will be a comfort to those who suffered at his hands.
42:17
Speaker 3: I don't think he was solely motivated by greed. If
42:21
Speaker 3: that's the case, he was a very poor burglar. He
42:24
Speaker 3: never seemed to make real money out of burglary, but
42:27
Speaker 3: I think he was motivated by violence of all kinds.
42:31
Speaker 9: There was nothing else to Neil except this need to
42:36
Speaker 9: be cruel and controlling and domineering, and that makes him
42:44
Speaker 9: really evil.
42:46
Speaker 1: The conviction of Danville Neil brought a measure of closure
42:50
Speaker 1: not only to the family of Annie Castle and Billy Bryan,
42:54
Speaker 1: but also to all of the victims who survived his
42:57
Speaker 1: violent attacks throughout his criminal career, a career that had
43:02
Speaker 1: begun when he.
43:03
Speaker 8: Was still in his teens.
43:05
Speaker 1: With Annie and Billy's deaths likely to be the last
43:08
Speaker 1: entry on his lengthy rap sheet, Danville Neil has finally
43:12
Speaker 1: been recognized as one of the world's most evil killers.