Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / True Crime Documentary - 24 Hours of Terror - The Serial Killer Who Posed His Victims as Crucifixes
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: It is a privilege to be a detective. You deal
- 0:06Speaker 1: with lots and lots of horrible things that comes with
- 0:08Speaker 1: the territory.
- 0:10Speaker 2: The majority of us don't have to see these things,
- 0:12Speaker 2: don't have to deal with these things. The launch of
- 0:16Speaker 2: a fifth murder inquiry in such a short space of time.
- 0:19Speaker 1: Justice for the victims is absolutely the most important thing.
- 0:23Speaker 2: You've been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and murder.
- 0:27Speaker 1: It could be worse.
- 0:31Speaker 2: You can only imagine the grief of the families who
- 0:33Speaker 2: lost their loved ones in such brutal circumstances.
- 0:36Speaker 1: With your DNA, how can that be? We don't comment.
- 0:43Speaker 3: Judge said the murder showed a degree of premeditation and planning.
- 0:46Speaker 4: He'd been stabbed and beaten.
- 0:48Speaker 1: He was very much a manhunt at that stage of
- 0:50Speaker 1: the investigation. He knew that the wars were closing in
- 0:53Speaker 1: on him.
- 0:54Speaker 2: I always remember a more experienced officer telling me, you know,
- 0:58Speaker 2: you never forget these jobs, and he was right.
- 1:02Speaker 4: These are the detectives who solved some of Britain's most
- 1:05Speaker 4: notorious homicides. Now they relive those cases.
- 1:12Speaker 2: Every fear that I had was being realized in front
- 1:15Speaker 2: of my eyes.
- 1:16Speaker 4: Through every twist and turn of the investigation.
- 1:19Speaker 1: The only way you forget about it is when you're asleep.
- 1:24Speaker 4: Their personal accounts reveal what it really takes to catch
- 1:28Speaker 4: a killer alive. and bring them to justice.
- 1:30Speaker 1: As a detective, you know, there can't be any greater
- 1:33Speaker 1: honor than for you to investigate the death or murder
- 1:38Speaker 1: of another human being.
- 1:56Speaker 2: It's often described as a privilege to investigate the death
- 2:00Speaker 2: of another human. It's also a significant onerous responsibility and
- 2:07Speaker 2: whilst you will always work as part of a much
- 2:10Speaker 2: broader team, ultimately the buck stops with you. In 2006,
- 2:24Speaker 2: I was the head of crime services. I considered myself
- 2:28Speaker 2: to be a fairly experienced and confident leader and investigator.
- 2:37Speaker 2: But these circumstances that we were being presented with, for me,
- 2:44Speaker 2: were unprecedented and unparalleled in living memory in my county.
- 2:54Speaker 4: In early November, worried Suffolk mother Kerry Nicholl reports her
- 2:58Speaker 4: daughter Tanya as missing.
- 3:06Speaker 2: It wasn't unusual for Tanya to sometimes stay overnight with friends,
- 3:12Speaker 2: but she hadn't been heard of for 24, 48 hours.
- 3:17Speaker 2: Mum became a bit more concerned. She was unable to
- 3:20Speaker 2: contact Tanya and she reported.
- 3:23Speaker 1: Her missing We were able to track her final movements.
- 3:30Speaker 2: She caught the bus into town and we secured some
- 3:34Speaker 2: CCTV footage, which clearly showed Tanya late on that night.
- 3:40Speaker 2: But from there on in, she simply disappeared off the
- 3:43Speaker 2: face of the earth.
- 3:48Speaker 4: Tanya was only 19 and police had immediate concerns.
- 3:55Speaker 1: There's something not right here.
- 3:57Speaker 2: She had a mobile phone, and we were able to
- 4:00Speaker 2: quickly look at her call records, which showed standard traffic,
- 4:06Speaker 2: both incoming and outgoing. But from the 30th of October,
- 4:11Speaker 2: you just saw a flat line.
- 4:12Speaker 1: The phone had dropped off the network.
- 4:17Speaker 4: There was another factor that put Tanya at risk, one
- 4:20Speaker 4: not even her own mother knew about.
- 4:25Speaker 2: There was intelligence and evidence to suggest that she was
- 4:30Speaker 2: working as a street worker or a prostitute. When you
- 4:34Speaker 2: look at those circumstances and the profile of Tanya, you're
- 4:39Speaker 2: already dealing with a high-risk missing person. It was important
- 4:43Speaker 2: that we left no stone unturned.
- 4:53Speaker 4: Early on in the case, one man repeatedly makes himself
- 4:56Speaker 4: known to the police.
- 4:58Speaker 2: He was really quite engaging, quite candid with the officers
- 5:02Speaker 2: and indicated that he knew Tanya, that they'd been together
- 5:06Speaker 2: on a client basis. He would regularly pick up street
- 5:12Speaker 2: workers and prostitutes from the Ipswich area.
- 5:16Speaker 1: He was sort of.
- 5:17Speaker 2: Putting himself out there, saying, you should show some interest
- 5:21Speaker 2: in me. look at me, I knew Tanya, I'd been
- 5:25Speaker 2: with her, I'm clearly somebody that you should be interested in,
- 5:30Speaker 2: which was quite unusual. The surveillance team were deployed for
- 5:35Speaker 2: a couple of days during early November, mainly to assess
- 5:40Speaker 2: his lifestyle, just to try and build up a much
- 5:43Speaker 2: fuller picture of the man that was presenting himself to us.
- 5:49Speaker 4: But the surveillance of this man produces no useful leads
- 5:53Speaker 4: and police are no closer to finding Tanya.
- 5:56Speaker 2: With each passing day, of course, Tanya is missing. You
- 6:01Speaker 2: fear for the worst. You recognise that on the balance
- 6:05Speaker 2: of probabilities, Tanya may well end up being found dead somewhere.
- 6:15Speaker 4: Then 14 days after Tanya Nicholl, another local woman disappears.
- 6:21Speaker 2: Gemma Adams was reported missing by her boyfriend. He'd driven
- 6:26Speaker 2: her into Ipswich, dropped her off, and they'd agreed a
- 6:30Speaker 2: prearranged pickup time during the early hours of the following morning.
- 6:36Speaker 2: So the boyfriend had driven back in, had waited for
- 6:41Speaker 2: Gemma to appear, and she didn't return.
- 6:47Speaker 1: Gemma was a prostitute. She was a street worker. She
- 6:51Speaker 1: used drugs.
- 6:53Speaker 2: Gemma came from a loving family, very supportive. She'd probably
- 6:59Speaker 2: just taken the wrong turn early on in her life.
- 7:05Speaker 2: She was a little bit older than Tanya. She was 25,
- 7:08Speaker 2: but they knew one another. Here we are now, two
- 7:12Speaker 2: weeks later, still no sign of Tanya. and we've got
- 7:17Speaker 2: a second young woman who's gone missing. The concerns are
- 7:24Speaker 2: heightened and raised even further.
- 7:26Speaker 1: At this point.
- 7:30Speaker 2: You recognise the similarities. We quickly assessed her mobile phone records,
- 7:37Speaker 2: and it showed a similar profile to that of Tanya.
- 7:41Speaker 2: Lots of activity, incoming and outgoing calls and texts, up
- 7:46Speaker 2: to the point of her disappearance and then a flat line.
- 7:53Speaker 4: Detective Gull ramps up the search for the two missing
- 7:56Speaker 4: women with extensive local appeals for information.
- 8:02Speaker 2: The disappearance of two young vulnerable women caused grave concern.
- 8:08Speaker 2: We feared for the worst and we planned for the worst.
- 8:16Speaker 2: So as the head of crime management for the Suffolk Constabulary,
- 8:20Speaker 2: it was my ultimate responsibility to see that we found
- 8:23Speaker 2: these young women.
- 8:27Speaker 4: For over a month, there is little progress, but then
- 8:30Speaker 4: comes a terrible discovery.
- 8:35Speaker 2: I was at home with my wife, it was lunchtime,
- 8:38Speaker 2: my mobile phone rang, and my deputy told me that
- 8:44Speaker 2: a water bailiff near Belstead, just outside Ipswich, had found
- 8:50Speaker 2: what appeared to be the naked body of a female
- 8:55Speaker 2: in the Belstead Brook.
- 9:00Speaker 5: On moving leaves and bracken away, saw the hair flowing
- 9:04Speaker 5: and the golden earring right on the bend with her head,
- 9:08Speaker 5: this end, facing upstream. Suddenly realised that I'd come across
- 9:12Speaker 5: a dead body.
- 9:15Speaker 2: Our working hypothesis was that this body was one of
- 9:20Speaker 2: our young, vulnerable women. There'd been significant flooding. The terrain
- 9:29Speaker 2: was extremely heavy and muddy, and I do recall we
- 9:33Speaker 2: needed the assistance of the Fire and Rescue Service to
- 9:36Speaker 2: actually retrieve her body from the belstered brook. You're automatically
- 9:41Speaker 2: thinking about forensic opportunities, but of course, I'm already aware
- 9:45Speaker 2: that she's naked, she's in fresh water, which is highly destructive.
- 9:51Speaker 2: So the potential for the recovery of any forensic evidence
- 9:55Speaker 2: was going to be very limited if possible. if not impossible.
- 10:05Speaker 2: The fact that she was naked, you automatically think, was
- 10:09Speaker 2: there a sexual motive to this untimely death of this
- 10:12Speaker 2: young woman? Was the murderer, in removing her clothing, Did
- 10:18Speaker 2: he or she or they think about that they were
- 10:23Speaker 2: potentially eliminating forensic evidence?
- 10:27Speaker 4: Following a post-mortem, police put a name to the victim.
- 10:32Speaker 2: Within a short period of time, we were able to
- 10:35Speaker 2: establish it was Gemma. The pathologist was unable to determine
- 10:42Speaker 2: a cause of death at that stage, but certainly confirmed
- 10:45Speaker 2: in our minds We were now dealing with a case
- 10:49Speaker 2: of fur homicide. We confirmed that this was Gemma, so
- 10:58Speaker 2: the prospects for tenure weren't looking good.
- 11:03Speaker 4: Specialist divers from Norfolk Police are called in to help
- 11:06Speaker 4: search Bellstead Brook. For nearly a week, police comb the
- 11:10Speaker 4: freezing waters, hunting for anything that might throw light on
- 11:14Speaker 4: Gemma Adams' death.
- 11:16Speaker 2: The soil was heavily sodden, so it was really quite challenging. But,
- 11:22Speaker 2: of course, we wondered where Gemma's clothes were, and it
- 11:25Speaker 2: wasn't inconceivable that we may have found them somewhere within
- 11:30Speaker 2: the Belstead Brook.
- 11:34Speaker 4: Six days later, two miles downstream, they find something else entirely.
- 11:43Speaker 2: I do remember distinctly getting a call to say that
- 11:46Speaker 2: the same Dive and Wade team had come across a
- 11:50Speaker 2: body further along the Belsted Brook, and that was believed
- 11:54Speaker 2: to be Tanya.
- 12:01Speaker 4: In Suffolk, the search for two missing young women has
- 12:04Speaker 4: become a double murder inquiry, with the discovery of two
- 12:08Speaker 4: bodies in a brook near Ipswich. Leading the investigation, is
- 12:12Speaker 4: Detective Stuart Gull.
- 12:15Speaker 2: It wasn't even on my radar that I thought that
- 12:18Speaker 2: we'd find Tanya in the same body of water as Gemma.
- 12:24Speaker 2: My initial reaction was one of complete and utter disbelief.
- 12:28Speaker 2: Your mind goes into a bit of a whirlwind. What's
- 12:31Speaker 2: happening here? How has this happened? Tanya Nicholl, she too
- 12:37Speaker 2: was naked. We know that she'd been missing for two
- 12:41Speaker 2: weeks longer than Gemma. Assuming she'd entered the water at
- 12:47Speaker 2: the end of October, early November, she'd been in this
- 12:50Speaker 2: water for much longer. There was no obvious injury to
- 12:58Speaker 2: either Gemma or Tanya, and the pathologist was unable to
- 13:02Speaker 2: give us any cause of death. What he did note
- 13:06Speaker 2: was that both victims had hyperinflated lungs, which may have
- 13:11Speaker 2: indicated some form of interference with the airways.
- 13:19Speaker 4: Determining how the women died is not the only difficulty
- 13:22Speaker 4: police face.
- 13:24Speaker 1: We had nothing other than two naked bodies.
- 13:28Speaker 2: We'd already been investigating Tanya's disappearance for five weeks and
- 13:34Speaker 2: Gemma's for... a little over two, and we'd recovered little
- 13:38Speaker 2: or no evidence. It increases the challenge, the professional challenge, to.
- 13:42Speaker 1: Finding those responsible.
- 13:48Speaker 2: Were we looking for the same person or persons here?
- 13:51Speaker 2: We didn't know at this stage, but the similarities we
- 13:54Speaker 2: know were striking.
- 13:58Speaker 4: As detectives struggle with the lack of trace evidence, news
- 14:01Speaker 4: of the young women's deaths is sending shockwaves across the county.
- 14:06Speaker 2: Suffolk is one of the safest places to live in
- 14:10Speaker 2: the UK. We would experience on average somewhere between six
- 14:15Speaker 2: and seven murder investigations during the course of the year.
- 14:21Speaker 2: Incidents of this nature are very rare. Certainly unprecedented in
- 14:27Speaker 2: living memory as far as Suffolk was concerned.
- 14:33Speaker 4: Street workers in Ipswich Red Light District are particularly anxious
- 14:38Speaker 4: and particularly at risk.
- 14:41Speaker 1: Why have you decided to come out tonight?
- 14:42Speaker 4: Because I need the money. I need the money, you know?
- 14:47Speaker 1: Despite the dangers?
- 14:49Speaker 4: Well, that has made me a bit wary about getting
- 14:52Speaker 4: into cars, you know?
- 14:55Speaker 1: But presumably you will do that tonight?
- 14:58Speaker 3: Well, probably.
- 15:02Speaker 4: Then just two days after Tanya, there's another shocking find.
- 15:10Speaker 2: I was ironing my shirts for the forthcoming week and
- 15:13Speaker 2: the phone rang and it was the force control room.
- 15:17Speaker 2: They told me that a motorist had driven through the
- 15:20Speaker 2: village of Nacton, which is just to the south of Ipswich.
- 15:24Speaker 2: And the driver had seen what initially they thought was
- 15:27Speaker 2: a mannequin lying in a wooded area just off the road.
- 15:32Speaker 2: But on closer examination, they realized that this was the
- 15:36Speaker 2: naked body of a female. We weren't looking for anybody else.
- 15:51Speaker 2: Who on earth is this latest victim that's been found?
- 15:57Speaker 2: I think that was probably one of the lowest moments
- 16:02Speaker 2: in my sort of professional life. Because you just begin
- 16:07Speaker 2: to think, good grief, what on earth is going on here?
- 16:12Speaker 4: At first, there's little to connect the bodies found in
- 16:14Speaker 4: the Bellstead Brook with the new discovery at Nacton.
- 16:18Speaker 2: She wasn't found in water, unlike Gemma and Tanya.
- 16:24Speaker 1: She was on dry land.
- 16:26Speaker 2: She appeared to have been laid out in a cruciform position.
- 16:31Speaker 2: She had long peroxide blonde hair that was drawn back
- 16:36Speaker 2: in a conical form. Whoever had taken her to this
- 16:40Speaker 2: place appeared to have spent some time with her. You know,
- 16:43Speaker 2: she wasn't just dumped. She was some distance from the road,
- 16:49Speaker 2: 20 or 30 meters. The murderer, he or she certainly
- 16:54Speaker 2: hadn't gone to any lengths to cover her up or
- 16:58Speaker 2: bury her, disguise her in undergrowth, so it was a
- 17:02Speaker 2: little odd. She had some quite distinctive tattoos on her
- 17:07Speaker 2: upper arm. Those tattoos provided us with a name, and
- 17:13Speaker 2: the name was Annalee Alderton.
- 17:19Speaker 4: With the light fading, Detective Gull has to make a
- 17:22Speaker 4: difficult decision.
- 17:25Speaker 1: You only get one go at a crime scene. Once
- 17:28Speaker 1: you walk away, it's gone.
- 17:31Speaker 2: It was now dark, wet and windy, so we wanted
- 17:35Speaker 2: to lift her in daylight in order to maximise the
- 17:38Speaker 2: potential for the recovery of any forensic evidence. We agreed
- 17:42Speaker 2: that we would leave her laying there overnight.
- 17:45Speaker 1: That was.
- 17:47Speaker 2: A really difficult decision because, of course, having established her identity,
- 17:52Speaker 2: we needed to tell her family that that's what we
- 17:54Speaker 2: were going to do. And I suspect her family probably
- 17:58Speaker 2: got little sleep that night knowing that their loved one
- 18:02Speaker 2: was laying.
- 18:03Speaker 1: Where she was. But that was the right thing to do.
- 18:13Speaker 4: Details emerge, more clearly connecting 24-year-old Anneli with the first
- 18:18Speaker 4: two victims.
- 18:21Speaker 2: Anna Lee had a similar profile to that of Tanya
- 18:25Speaker 2: and Gemma.
- 18:26Speaker 1: She was young.
- 18:28Speaker 2: She had been a street worker, a prostitute, on and off.
- 18:34Speaker 2: There was some intelligence to indicate that she had or
- 18:38Speaker 2: was using illicit drugs. So a very young and vulnerable female.
- 18:51Speaker 1: We used Dr. Nat Carey, the same home office pathologist.
- 18:55Speaker 2: And I think it was for the first time with
- 18:58Speaker 2: this victim, he was able to establish a cause of death.
- 19:02Speaker 2: There'd been some form of interference of her airway. She
- 19:07Speaker 2: also had hyperinflated lungs, so very similar to the condition
- 19:12Speaker 2: that Gemma and Tanya had been found.
- 19:19Speaker 1: Good afternoon.
- 19:20Speaker 4: Police are investigating the possibility that a serial killer could
- 19:23Speaker 4: be at large in Ipswich following the discovery of the
- 19:25Speaker 4: body of a third prostitute on the outskirts of the city.
- 19:29Speaker 2: It began to feel like a crime in action. It's
- 19:34Speaker 2: a term that we use ordinarily just for kidnaps or
- 19:39Speaker 2: demands where the crime is actually happening. It means you
- 19:45Speaker 2: need to respond with some speed. otherwise somebody's going to
- 19:49Speaker 2: get hurt And, of course, in these circumstances, we feared
- 19:54Speaker 2: that there may be further victims.
- 19:58Speaker 4: Racing against time to prevent another murder, Stuart's team is
- 20:02Speaker 4: stretched to capacity.
- 20:04Speaker 2: Suffolk is one of the smallest forces in England and Wales.
- 20:10Speaker 2: In terms of resources and specialists, we were beginning to
- 20:16Speaker 2: be stretched.
- 20:17Speaker 1: We were at close to tipping point.
- 20:20Speaker 2: Support from our immediate neighbours in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire was
- 20:24Speaker 2: offered and we accepted.
- 20:26Speaker 1: It very quickly escalated.
- 20:28Speaker 2: A total of additional 300 officers and staff who came.
- 20:32Speaker 1: To our support.
- 20:35Speaker 4: For the police, the pressure is being felt from all directions.
- 20:40Speaker 2: This was no longer a local story. We had media
- 20:43Speaker 2: organisations right from around the world reporting and following the events.
- 20:49Speaker 2: I can recall the media saying, is the murderer toying
- 20:52Speaker 2: with you?
- 20:53Speaker 1: Is he playing with you?
- 20:55Speaker 2: These three victims were only a stone's throw from a
- 20:59Speaker 2: few miles from Suffolk Police Headquarters.
- 21:02Speaker 4: New developments mean that pressure is only going to increase.
- 21:07Speaker 2: Following the discovery of Annalee Alderton, we quickly become aware
- 21:12Speaker 2: that during the following 24 hours, two other young women
- 21:20Speaker 2: of a similar profile to the first three are reported
- 21:24Speaker 2: as missing, and they're Paula Clennell and Annette Nichols.
- 21:30Speaker 1: So we knew the clock was ticking, and it was
- 21:33Speaker 1: ticking quickly.
- 21:36Speaker 4: In Suffolk, Detective Stuart Gull is leading a major murder inquiry.
- 21:41Speaker 4: The killer is targeting street workers. Three bodies have already
- 21:45Speaker 4: been found and now two more young women are missing.
- 21:50Speaker 2: I can remember appealing specifically for these two young women
- 21:54Speaker 2: to make contact with us or anybody who may have
- 21:57Speaker 2: known their whereabouts.
- 21:58Speaker 4: Police warn women in Ipswich to stay in for their
- 22:02Speaker 4: own safety.
- 22:03Speaker 3: Please stay off the streets.
- 22:06Speaker 2: If you are out alone at night, you are putting
- 22:10Speaker 2: yourself in.
- 22:11Speaker 3: Danger at this time.
- 22:14Speaker 4: Fear is spreading throughout the wider community too.
- 22:18Speaker 1: Everybody here you talk to has the same thought. People
- 22:22Speaker 1: are terrified.
- 22:23Speaker 3: Normally I'd walk around on my own, but at the moment,
- 22:27Speaker 3: because it's quite scary, so I've had to get.
- 22:30Speaker 4: My boyfriend to come and meet me today. Within 24 hours,
- 22:39Speaker 4: the fear and shock consuming Ipswich reaches a whole new level.
- 22:45Speaker 2: At 3.05pm today, police received a call from a member
- 22:50Speaker 2: of the public who was walking along the old Felixstowe
- 22:53Speaker 2: Road near the Levington Turnoff. He saw what appeared to
- 22:57Speaker 2: be the naked body of a female about 20 feet
- 23:00Speaker 2: off the road. Police immediately attended... and have closed the
- 23:05Speaker 2: road and set up a cordon. As part of our
- 23:09Speaker 2: initial response, the helicopter was sent up to film the scene.
- 23:14Speaker 1: Foxtrot 1 Sierra.
- 23:15Speaker 5: From Alpha 9-9.
- 23:18Speaker 6: Alpha 9-9, good.
- 23:20Speaker 1: Yeah, unfortunately, it looks like we've found a second body
- 23:23Speaker 1: in the woodland.
- 23:24Speaker 2: It's approximately 200 yards, probably the same distance.
- 23:28Speaker 1: In as the first.
- 23:32Speaker 2: Within the space of 10 minutes, not only have we
- 23:35Speaker 2: now got a fourth victim, but we've got a fifth.
- 23:40Speaker 2: So if there'd been difficult and dark moments earlier in
- 23:45Speaker 2: the investigation, goodness only knows what this place was now.
- 23:50Speaker 2: I can confirm that this afternoon, Tuesday, December the 12th,
- 23:54Speaker 2: two bodies have been found near Ipswich. This is breaking
- 23:57Speaker 2: news and we're giving it to you as we get it.
- 24:02Speaker 2: I'm not sure who was more aghast, the media and
- 24:05Speaker 2: the public or ourselves. I thought at one stage my
- 24:08Speaker 2: heart was gonna jump out through the chest.
- 24:13Speaker 4: The bodies are quickly identified as those of the women
- 24:15Speaker 4: reported missing the previous day. Annette Nichols was 29. She
- 24:21Speaker 4: had an eight-year-old child and she was known as a
- 24:23Speaker 4: street worker in Ipswich.
- 24:25Speaker 2: Annette had been laid out in a cruciform position, the
- 24:29Speaker 2: same as Anna Lee with her hair pulled back.
- 24:35Speaker 4: The other body found at Levington is confirmed as that
- 24:38Speaker 4: of 24-year-old Paula Clennell. The way her body had been
- 24:42Speaker 4: left is altogether different.
- 24:45Speaker 2: Paula had just been dumped, just crumpled. She literally had
- 24:50Speaker 2: just been sort of tossed into the undergrowth, probably because
- 24:54Speaker 2: when the murderer deposited her there, police colleagues were already
- 24:58Speaker 2: on scene in Nacton at Annalee Alderton's fine. And I
- 25:05Speaker 2: think he, she, they decided that they couldn't spend the
- 25:09Speaker 2: time that perhaps they had with Anna Lee and Annette,
- 25:13Speaker 2: and that's why Paula was just dumped in the way
- 25:15Speaker 2: that she was.
- 25:18Speaker 4: Investigations into Paula's last known movements bring a chilling realisation.
- 25:24Speaker 2: The media, understandably, as part of their reporting and their story,
- 25:28Speaker 2: looked to speak with a number of street workers, and
- 25:32Speaker 2: one of those who was interviewed was was Paula.
- 25:36Speaker 1: Why have you decided to come out tonight?
- 25:38Speaker 4: Because I need the money.
- 25:40Speaker 2: And she, of course, recognised the vulnerability and the danger
- 25:44Speaker 2: in what she did. She also articulated that she didn't
- 25:48Speaker 2: feel she had a choice.
- 25:52Speaker 4: Paula had been interviewed about a killer on the loose,
- 25:55Speaker 4: and days later, she'd become a victim herself.
- 26:03Speaker 2: The post-mortems of both Paula and Annette were subsequently undertaken
- 26:08Speaker 2: by the same pathologist. And again, he was able to
- 26:12Speaker 2: establish a similar cause of death to that of Anna Lee,
- 26:17Speaker 2: an interference of the airway, so some form of strangulation.
- 26:22Speaker 2: And they too had hyperinflated lungs. So that was now
- 26:26Speaker 2: the consistent sort of presenting factor in terms of all
- 26:30Speaker 2: five patients.
- 26:36Speaker 4: Five women with shared backgrounds in life are now connected
- 26:40Speaker 4: in death.
- 26:42Speaker 6: It is inconceivable, surely, that these five murders are not
- 26:45Speaker 6: the work of one man. So, Suffolk Police, one of
- 26:48Speaker 6: Britain's smallest rural forces, is now dealing with one of
- 26:52Speaker 6: the country's biggest serial murder hunts.
- 26:55Speaker 2: With every additional victim, it just adds another level of severity, complexity, challenge.
- 27:02Speaker 2: All five victims were found during the course of a
- 27:04Speaker 2: 10-day period.
- 27:07Speaker 1: You've got a serial killer on the loose.
- 27:11Speaker 2: It really provided for a focus and an internal pressure
- 27:15Speaker 2: on needing to find the individual or individuals.
- 27:19Speaker 1: As quickly as possible.
- 27:20Speaker 4: Whoever's responsible is still out there. He's left precious few
- 27:24Speaker 4: clues as to his identity and the police desperately need
- 27:27Speaker 4: a breakthrough.
- 27:28Speaker 2: There was a tremendous response from the public and the
- 27:32Speaker 2: local community, certainly as things escalated that week following the
- 27:37Speaker 2: discovery of Paula and Annette. Whilst that's great, of course, logistically,
- 27:44Speaker 2: that presents as a challenge to you. Was there a
- 27:49Speaker 2: golden nugget in amongst the information that you get from
- 27:53Speaker 2: the public? We needed a huge team just to be
- 27:57Speaker 2: able to managed that, the overall challenge was just the
- 28:01Speaker 2: sheer pace, the sheer sort of breadth and depth of
- 28:04Speaker 2: what we were dealing with.
- 28:05Speaker 1: Five women found dead in the last ten days.
- 28:07Speaker 7: The hunt for the killer has become the biggest murder
- 28:10Speaker 7: investigation ever carried out by East Anglian police of any county.
- 28:16Speaker 4: Despite the huge police investigation, there is still no key
- 28:19Speaker 4: to solving the murders. The only suspect detectives have is
- 28:28Speaker 4: the man who had put himself in the frame right
- 28:30Speaker 4: at the start of the inquiry.
- 28:33Speaker 2: He said, well, if I was you, I'd suspect me.
- 28:36Speaker 2: He was really quite a strange individual.
- 28:41Speaker 4: Once more, police put him under surveillance.
- 28:44Speaker 2: I can remember getting a call late one evening from
- 28:47Speaker 2: the ground commander to say, we're behind him. He's just
- 28:50Speaker 2: picked up a street worker and he's driving out of Ipswich.
- 28:53Speaker 2: What do you want us to do? Put yourself in
- 28:56Speaker 2: my shoes. What would you do? We already had a
- 29:01Speaker 2: number of homicides. Was this the potential for another one?
- 29:05Speaker 2: Of course it was. We had some drugs intelligence, and
- 29:12Speaker 2: we used that as a ruse to stop him and
- 29:15Speaker 2: separate both parties, ultimately to protect her.
- 29:21Speaker 4: The little evidence available so far has been purely circumstantial.
- 29:26Speaker 4: But now the forensic science service drops a bombshell.
- 29:31Speaker 2: I was actually grabbing a bite to eat. It was
- 29:34Speaker 2: about seven o'clock in the evening in the canteen. I
- 29:36Speaker 2: was with my deputy. And I can remember the scientific
- 29:39Speaker 2: service manager, David Stagg, walking up to me and saying, Stuart,
- 29:44Speaker 2: I've got some information that I think you'll be interested in.
- 29:47Speaker 2: And it transpired that from all three of the victims
- 29:52Speaker 2: that were found on the land, so Annalee, Paula and Annette,
- 29:57Speaker 2: that a DNA profile had been recovered from all three
- 30:03Speaker 2: and it was the same person. I can remember David
- 30:06Speaker 2: saying to me, well, don't you want to know who
- 30:08Speaker 2: it is? He said, it's Steve Wright, or a man
- 30:13Speaker 2: by the name of Steve Wright. I think I said,
- 30:16Speaker 2: who the hell is Steve Wright?
- 30:19Speaker 4: Police are hunting for the killer or killers of five
- 30:22Speaker 4: women in Suffolk. Three of their bodies have revealed compelling
- 30:26Speaker 4: DNA evidence, pointing to local man Steve Wright.
- 30:30Speaker 2: We had his profile on all three victims, so this
- 30:34Speaker 2: was a most significant breakthrough in terms.
- 30:37Speaker 1: Of the investigation.
- 30:41Speaker 4: Detective Gull has to make a high-risk call, whether to
- 30:44Speaker 4: arrest Steve Wright now or wait.
- 30:47Speaker 2: We were confident that he was involved, but was he
- 30:50Speaker 2: primarily involved or was he just an accomplice? And that's
- 30:54Speaker 2: why we took the decision to arrest him 48 hours later,
- 30:57Speaker 2: put him under surveillance in the intervening to allow us
- 31:01Speaker 2: to do the necessary planning before we went and knocked
- 31:03Speaker 2: on his door. It was still a big decision to
- 31:06Speaker 2: make not to go and arrest Steve Wright immediately. The
- 31:12Speaker 2: risk of allowing him further freedom was probably as high
- 31:17Speaker 2: as it could be, but we didn't feel we were ready.
- 31:20Speaker 2: We needed a little bit more time to plan for
- 31:23Speaker 2: his arrest and learn as much about.
- 31:24Speaker 1: Him as we could.
- 31:27Speaker 4: The DNA evidence only links Steve Wright to the three
- 31:30Speaker 4: women found on dry land. So the team's original suspect
- 31:35Speaker 4: remains of significant interest.
- 31:38Speaker 1: We couldn't just ignore him.
- 31:40Speaker 2: We didn't know at that stage whether in fact Wright
- 31:43Speaker 2: and this man weren't working together as a team.
- 31:52Speaker 4: Police arrest their first male suspect on suspicion of murder.
- 31:57Speaker 4: While he's questioned, detectives build a profile of their newest suspect,
- 32:01Speaker 4: Steve Wright.
- 32:04Speaker 2: We established that he lived on London Road in the
- 32:07Speaker 2: heart of the Red Light District in Ipswich. He appeared
- 32:10Speaker 2: to have a partner. She was always working nights in
- 32:14Speaker 2: a call centre. He'd worked at a foundry as a
- 32:19Speaker 2: forklift truck driver. He'd been stop-checked on a couple of
- 32:23Speaker 2: occasions in respect of both Tanya and Gemma's disappearance. He'd
- 32:28Speaker 2: been subject to house-to-house inquiries. We'd got a questionnaire that
- 32:33Speaker 2: he'd completed, and interestingly, we were able to establish that
- 32:37Speaker 2: he'd lied to us. He'd lied to us through the
- 32:39Speaker 2: questionnaire and on the road check.
- 32:43Speaker 4: Police attention would not have been drawn to 48-year-old Wright
- 32:46Speaker 4: if it hadn't been for a minor crime in his past.
- 32:50Speaker 2: We had dealt with Steve Wrights back in 2001. He
- 32:54Speaker 2: was employed as a barman in a hotel at Felixstowe.
- 32:59Speaker 2: He'd stolen some cash from the till. And as we
- 33:02Speaker 2: do with all individuals who are charged with offences of
- 33:06Speaker 2: this nature, we secure a DNA profile. So Steve Wright's
- 33:11Speaker 2: profile was already on the National DNA Database.
- 33:15Speaker 4: What the DNA evidence doesn't provide... is proof of Wright's
- 33:19Speaker 4: involvement in all five murders. The team hone in on
- 33:23Speaker 4: his recent movements.
- 33:25Speaker 2: His vehicle had been captured on AMPR, automatic number plate recognition,
- 33:31Speaker 2: driving out of Ipswich on the nights of the disappearance
- 33:35Speaker 2: of both Tanya and Anna Lee. Not only have we
- 33:40Speaker 2: got these, his DNA on the three victims, But we've
- 33:46Speaker 2: also got these other elements now that increasingly make him
- 33:50Speaker 2: as our number one suspect. The 48-year-old man was arrested
- 34:02Speaker 2: at his home address in Ipswich at approximately 5am this morning.
- 34:07Speaker 2: He has been arrested on suspicion of murdering all five women.
- 34:12Speaker 2: At the point of arrest, he had a big wobble
- 34:15Speaker 2: and he virtually collapsed because he knows.
- 34:21Speaker 1: His game is up.
- 34:23Speaker 4: In custody, however, Steve Wright gives little away.
- 34:27Speaker 2: Throughout his detention, pretty unemotional, pretty detached, maybe a bit arrogant.
- 34:34Speaker 8: This is your earliest opportunity to give an account. And
- 34:39Speaker 8: that is significant because it makes a difference. We've got
- 34:44Speaker 8: the last girl to go missing with your DNA and
- 34:46Speaker 8: the one before with your DNA, both on their naked bodies.
- 34:53Speaker 1: How can that be? No comment.
- 34:59Speaker 4: Throughout eight hours of questioning, Steve Wright simply answers, no comment.
- 35:06Speaker 4: Despite this, the Crown Prosecution Service agree there's enough evidence
- 35:10Speaker 4: to progress.
- 35:14Speaker 2: In the last few minutes, Suffolk Police have announced they
- 35:16Speaker 2: have charged a man with the murder of five.
- 35:19Speaker 1: Prostitutes in Ipswich. He is Steve Wright, the second man
- 35:23Speaker 1: to be arrested.
- 35:26Speaker 4: Police are satisfied that their initial suspect is not involved
- 35:29Speaker 4: in the murders and release him without charge. Steve Wright's
- 35:33Speaker 4: trial date is then set for January 2008, a full
- 35:36Speaker 4: year ahead.
- 35:39Speaker 2: I think there's a perception that as soon as you've
- 35:42Speaker 2: made an arrest and certainly charged, you've got your man
- 35:46Speaker 2: job done. But as I tell my teams, that's when
- 35:49Speaker 2: the hard work begins because we now have responsibility for
- 35:53Speaker 2: building a successful prosecution case.
- 35:56Speaker 1: Nobody else is going to do it. It's going to
- 35:57Speaker 1: be us.
- 36:00Speaker 2: We forensically dismantled Steve Wright's house. We took away a
- 36:07Speaker 2: lot of clothing, took away his car. On his fluorescent jacket,
- 36:13Speaker 2: there were traces of blood for both Annette and Paula.
- 36:18Speaker 4: Wright's Ford Mondeo also delivers droplets of Paula's blood.
- 36:22Speaker 2: How on earth has Paula's blood ended up on the
- 36:25Speaker 2: back seat of his car?
- 36:29Speaker 4: But police are still lacking forensic evidence firmly connecting Wright
- 36:33Speaker 4: to Gemma Adams and Tanya Nicol.
- 36:37Speaker 1: When Tanya and Gemma.
- 36:39Speaker 2: were recovered from the Belstead Brook, the chances of recovering
- 36:43Speaker 2: any forensic evidence was going to be negligible.
- 36:47Speaker 4: All the Forensic Science Service has to work with is
- 36:50Speaker 4: the women's hair.
- 36:52Speaker 2: They go through a process of continual washes to cleanse
- 36:57Speaker 2: the hair, to get rid of all the debris that
- 37:01Speaker 2: of course will.
- 37:01Speaker 1: Have gathered through being in the stream.
- 37:04Speaker 2: It was somewhere in the region of two kilos of
- 37:07Speaker 2: debris that was recovered.
- 37:11Speaker 4: Within the debris, the forensic team find the tiniest but
- 37:15Speaker 4: most crucial fragments of evidence.
- 37:18Speaker 2: From Tanya, they recovered just one or two carpet fibers
- 37:23Speaker 2: that matched the carpet in the footwell of Steve Wright's
- 37:28Speaker 2: Ford Mondeo. Tanya's head, at some point, has been in
- 37:33Speaker 2: contact with the footwell of his car.
- 37:36Speaker 1: There were fibres recovered.
- 37:38Speaker 2: From Gemma's head hair that again matched back to some
- 37:42Speaker 2: of Steve Wright's clothing. We could demonstrate a link through
- 37:47Speaker 2: fibre transference between all five victims and Wright.
- 37:52Speaker 4: As the forensic evidence builds, detectives dig deeper into Steve
- 37:56Speaker 4: Wright's background.
- 37:58Speaker 2: He was a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde, it
- 37:59Speaker 2: would seem. At face value, quite an ordinary man. There
- 38:04Speaker 2: was certainly a history of Domestic violence. He had a
- 38:08Speaker 2: record of, went back some decades, of using prostitutes. And
- 38:14Speaker 2: he was a regular user of street workers within the
- 38:17Speaker 2: Ipswich area.
- 38:18Speaker 4: 11 months after the funerals of Gemma, Tanya, Anna-Lee, Annette
- 38:28Speaker 4: and Paula, Steve Wright appears at Ipswich Crown Court to
- 38:32Speaker 4: be tried for their murders.
- 38:39Speaker 2: I think we were feeling reasonably confident. Without being complacent,
- 38:45Speaker 2: we knew we had a strong case. But of course,
- 38:48Speaker 2: until proceedings are concluded and the jury return a verdict,
- 38:54Speaker 2: you can never be sure.
- 38:56Speaker 4: It takes 15 days just to present all the evidence
- 38:59Speaker 4: against Steve Wright.
- 39:02Speaker 9: Wright admitted that he had had sex with four of
- 39:05Speaker 9: his victims. but during cross-examination he claimed it was just
- 39:09Speaker 9: a coincidence, giving this same explanation 53 times.
- 39:15Speaker 2: His broad defence was that he'd been with all the victims,
- 39:20Speaker 2: so yes, of course, you'll find traces of my DNA,
- 39:24Speaker 2: but I'm not responsible for murdering them.
- 39:29Speaker 4: After a six-week trial, the jury take just six hours
- 39:32Speaker 4: to decide their verdict.
- 39:35Speaker 2: The adrenaline was flowing fairly high. The blood pressure was up,
- 39:39Speaker 2: I'm sure. I think my hands were shaking and my
- 39:42Speaker 2: heart was pounding. And whilst we thought we had a
- 39:45Speaker 2: strong case, we couldn't be sure.
- 39:49Speaker 5: The man on trial for the murder of five women
- 39:51Speaker 5: who worked as prostitutes in Ipswich was today found guilty
- 39:55Speaker 5: on all counts.
- 39:56Speaker 9: The serial killer embarked on one of the most intensive
- 39:59Speaker 9: killing sprees in British criminal history.
- 40:01Speaker 2: The murders of these vulnerable young women left five families devastated.
- 40:06Speaker 2: Our sympathies are clearly with them at this time. But
- 40:10Speaker 2: I hope that today's guilty verdict on their killer brings
- 40:13Speaker 2: a little comfort to them. Steve Wright was very close
- 40:20Speaker 2: and personal with these young women when they were at
- 40:24Speaker 2: their most vulnerable. And maybe it was the fact that
- 40:28Speaker 2: he had life and death.
- 40:30Speaker 1: In his hands.
- 40:34Speaker 2: Ultimately, the only man that knows why he did what
- 40:38Speaker 2: he did is Steve Wright.
- 40:44Speaker 4: Fifteen months after his killing spree began, Steve Wright returns
- 40:48Speaker 4: to court.
- 40:50Speaker 7: The man found guilty of murdering five young women who
- 40:53Speaker 7: were working as prostitutes in Ipswich is to spend the
- 40:56Speaker 7: rest of his life in prison. Steve Wright was told
- 40:59Speaker 7: his carefully planned campaign of murder meant that he would
- 41:03Speaker 7: never be eligible for parole.
- 41:06Speaker 2: He will never come out of custody, which I think
- 41:09Speaker 2: is right and proper. The families, they'll never be able
- 41:20Speaker 2: to get over the loss of their loved ones in
- 41:23Speaker 2: such tragic circumstances, but knowing that the man responsible will
- 41:28Speaker 2: never see the light of day again hopefully provides for
- 41:30Speaker 2: some solace.
- 41:33Speaker 3: No parent should have to bury their child. No parent.
- 41:40Speaker 3: It was devastating. Beyond belief. This sort of thing shouldn't
- 41:46Speaker 3: happen to anyone. Not just Paula. She was helpless, homeless, penniless.
- 41:53Speaker 3: The girls on the street, all five of them had
- 41:56Speaker 3: the same sort of lifestyle. And people used to look
- 42:01Speaker 3: down their nose at them. I mean, I used to
- 42:04Speaker 3: ask Paula, why did she do it? And she would say, mum,
- 42:07Speaker 3: because I'm a heroin addict. He was a fair good lass,
- 42:12Speaker 3: lovely girl. I miss her dearly.
- 42:21Speaker 2: I can't remember another case of its nature. The scale,
- 42:25Speaker 2: the speed, the magnitude, the coverage, the exposure. Of course
- 42:32Speaker 2: it's left its indelible mark. I found myself in a
- 42:36Speaker 2: place that I never expected to be. Hopefully never to
- 42:40Speaker 2: be repeated.
- 43:01Speaker 1: Thank you.