Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Serial Killer Documentary - Steve Wright： The Prostitute Serial Killer

Transcript

Serial Killer Documentary - Steve Wright： The Prostitute Serial Killer · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:00
Speaker 1: You going to book me?
0:01
Speaker 2: I got a mug here.
0:01
Speaker 3: Is that gorgeous or what, eh?
0:05
Speaker 4: And I believe I can run to see some marathons.
0:08
Speaker 5: Download Vealy now.
0:14
Speaker 3: During the winter of 2006, Ipswich in Suffolk was paralysed
0:19
Speaker 3: with fear. The bodies of five missing prostitutes had been
0:23
Speaker 3: found by police, sparking the biggest ever manhunt in the
0:28
Speaker 3: east of England.
0:30
Speaker 1: He's targeting these women because they are vulnerable, because they
0:34
Speaker 1: are easy for him to access and easy for him
0:36
Speaker 1: to control.
0:38
Speaker 3: As the horror began to unravel, it became a race
0:42
Speaker 3: against time to catch the killer. The police questioned over 2,000
0:46
Speaker 3: motorists with no success.
0:50
Speaker 6: He had to be caught because he wouldn't stop until
0:52
Speaker 6: he was.
0:53
Speaker 4: Steve Wright, through this whole period... was sitting at home
0:57
Speaker 4: watching this whole drama played out on 24-hour news channels,
1:03
Speaker 4: thinking to himself, I'm doing this, I'm controlling this, I'm
1:08
Speaker 4: going to try and get away with this.
1:10
Speaker 3: Steve Wright, the man dubbed the Suffolk Strangler, had earned
1:14
Speaker 3: his place as one of the world's most evil killers.
1:22
Speaker 5: MUSIC PLAYS.
1:42
Speaker 3: Steve Wright is one of Britain's most prolific serial killers.
1:46
Speaker 3: In the space of just six weeks during the winter
1:49
Speaker 3: of 2006, he murdered five young women who were working
1:53
Speaker 3: as prostitutes on the streets of Ipswich. As the girls
1:58
Speaker 3: disappeared one by one, the world's media descended upon Suffolk.
2:04
Speaker 3: There was an inevitability with each breaking news report that
2:08
Speaker 3: another body.
2:09
Speaker 5: Would be found.
2:11
Speaker 6: Two bodies have been found near Ipswich. This is breaking
2:15
Speaker 6: news and we're giving it to you as we get it.
2:18
Speaker 3: But Steve Wright's story begins over 40 years before. Wright
2:29
Speaker 3: was born in the Norfolk village of Irpingham in 1958,
2:33
Speaker 3: one of four children. He grew up in a military family,
2:38
Speaker 3: living on RAF bases around the world with his father, Conrad,
2:43
Speaker 3: a retired corporal.
2:44
Speaker 7: He was a normal child. No aggression.
2:48
Speaker 3: Typical boy.
2:50
Speaker 7: Just wanted to play.
2:52
Speaker 3: But family life was far from happy and Wright's mother
2:56
Speaker 3: left when he was just eight years old. Wright and
2:59
Speaker 3: his siblings stayed with their father, who went on to remarry.
3:05
Speaker 7: Whilst he was living with me, there was never a problem,
3:08
Speaker 7: you know, never see one even.
3:10
Speaker 2: He was happy.
3:12
Speaker 7: He had little barnies, I suppose, with his stepmother at
3:17
Speaker 7: times when he weren't a bit mischievous, if you like,
3:21
Speaker 7: but it was nothing that you would sort of think
3:23
Speaker 7: about an hour later.
3:26
Speaker 6: Steve was not a particularly bright young man, but cheery
3:32
Speaker 6: enough in his own way. left school at 16 without
3:35
Speaker 6: any qualifications to speak of, and got a job working
3:39
Speaker 6: as a chef on the ferries which sailed from Felixstowe
3:43
Speaker 6: to the Continent.
3:45
Speaker 3: By the early 1980s, Wright had become a steward on
3:49
Speaker 3: the cruise ship the QE2, and it was during this
3:52
Speaker 3: time he reportedly spent money on sex workers during trips
3:57
Speaker 3: to Thailand, which some experts believe may have altered his
4:01
Speaker 3: perception towards the opposite sex.
4:05
Speaker 1: I think he's got an expectation of women. Women are
4:08
Speaker 1: there to perform a service for him, to play a
4:11
Speaker 1: particular role. They serve a function for him. And that's
4:15
Speaker 1: something that we continually see throughout the rest of his life.
4:19
Speaker 3: He would often return home from sea penniless.
4:23
Speaker 7: He was a bit of a loner, like, in a way.
4:27
Speaker 7: He didn't mix that much. But he did come out
4:30
Speaker 7: with me at the weekends, when he lived here especially,
4:34
Speaker 7: because he looked after the dogs when I had two then.
4:37
Speaker 7: Copped the beers down the end of the road.
4:40
Speaker 5: Normal.
4:42
Speaker 1: So Steve Wright was a performer. He was performing a
4:45
Speaker 1: role as a guy who was interested in playing golf
4:48
Speaker 1: and going to the pub and going on holiday. He
4:51
Speaker 1: appeared to be somebody who was normal, somebody who fitted in,
4:54
Speaker 1: but behind that, there was something altogether different going on.
4:57
Speaker 3: Wright married twice, but both ended in divorce with rumours
5:02
Speaker 3: of domestic violence. He struggled to hold down a job
5:06
Speaker 3: and ran up large gambling debts.
5:08
Speaker 7: I knew he'd put money on the horses. because when
5:11
Speaker 7: he got his wage from the bingo hall, I used
5:14
Speaker 7: to take his wages off him, believe it or not,
5:16
Speaker 7: and I said, I'll give you enough to see you
5:19
Speaker 7: through the week, because I wanted him to build up
5:21
Speaker 7: a kitty to sort himself out.
5:23
Speaker 3: Wright continued to gamble and was eventually declared bankrupt. Unable
5:28
Speaker 3: to see a way out of his debts, he tried, unsuccessfully,
5:32
Speaker 3: to take his own life.
5:34
Speaker 7: For him to want to gas himself in a car,
5:39
Speaker 7: it must have been something that I went a lot of.
5:41
Speaker 5: aware of for.
5:42
Speaker 7: Him to get pushed to that limit. Whether he was
5:46
Speaker 7: trying to befriend young females, I think the girls that
5:50
Speaker 7: he was getting, they were younger than him, and whether
5:55
Speaker 7: in the end they turned him down and he couldn't
5:58
Speaker 7: face it or something, and he felt rejected or whatever,
6:02
Speaker 7: I don't know. When he was here, there weren't a problem.
6:07
Speaker 7: Where did he get them? Did he get so much
6:09
Speaker 7: in the debt that it pressurised him so much that
6:12
Speaker 7: he just broke?
6:13
Speaker 1: I think Steve Wright's alleged suicide attempts are quite significant.
6:17
Speaker 1: So what does suicide represent? It represents somebody trying to
6:22
Speaker 1: get control back, somebody whose life has kind of gone
6:26
Speaker 1: beyond their grip and they're desperately trying to reel that
6:30
Speaker 1: power back in. And I think for Steve Wright, If
6:34
Speaker 1: we look at some of his earlier experiences, this is
6:37
Speaker 1: somebody who came to crave control. He wasn't in control
6:40
Speaker 1: of his life as a child. The family were moving around.
6:44
Speaker 1: It was quite transient. It was quite chaotic. And as
6:46
Speaker 1: an adult, I think he felt an intense need to
6:49
Speaker 1: be in control. And that was what he was essentially
6:52
Speaker 1: doing here. He was internalizing. So he was being violent
6:57
Speaker 1: towards himself.
6:58
Speaker 3: In 2002, while working as a barman, Wright, now age 44,
7:04
Speaker 3: was arrested for stealing £ 80 from the pub till to
7:08
Speaker 3: pay off his escalating debt. This petty theft would later
7:12
Speaker 3: contribute to his downfall.
7:15
Speaker 7: He'd been to court because he'd taken money from the till.
7:19
Speaker 7: But he kept that from me anyway. So, again, if
7:23
Speaker 7: he can keep one thing from you, can he keep others?
7:27
Speaker 3: By October 2006, 48-year-old Wright was living with a new
7:32
Speaker 3: girlfriend on London Road, in the heart of Ipswich's red-light district.
7:38
Speaker 3: In the same month, 19-year-old Tanya Nicol went missing from
7:42
Speaker 3: her home.
7:44
Speaker 2: She came round to mine by 8 o'clock at night,
7:49
Speaker 2: something like that, and she wanted to lift home, so
7:54
Speaker 2: I gave her a lift. I didn't want to... tell
7:56
Speaker 2: her off about anything, you know, but we knew, as
7:59
Speaker 2: far as I was concerned, she was taking cannabis and whatever.
8:04
Speaker 2: And I didn't know that she was into drugs so heavily,
8:08
Speaker 2: you see. You don't know. We just talked like friends.
8:13
Speaker 2: When we got there, she just got out of the car.
8:16
Speaker 2: One of the things I noticed was she just walked
8:18
Speaker 2: straight into the house, whereas, you know, you might turn
8:23
Speaker 2: around and give a little wave. but she just walked
8:26
Speaker 2: straight in. So I suppose that's sort of like this
8:30
Speaker 2: drug stuff, it dulls your senses to a lot of things.
8:35
Speaker 2: So it robs you of your life, really. And that
8:38
Speaker 2: was the last time I saw her.
8:40
Speaker 3: The family was unaware that Tanya was living a double
8:44
Speaker 3: life as a prostitute to fund her addiction to heroin.
8:49
Speaker 2: I didn't know that until afterwards. Obviously she was doing
8:52
Speaker 2: that to feed her habit, isn't it? That's what I've
8:55
Speaker 2: been told, you know.
8:56
Speaker 8: Before 2006, Ipswich, like many market towns of this size
9:01
Speaker 8: in the UK, experienced problems with drugs. We had a
9:06
Speaker 8: quite vivid and lively street prostitution scene. There was around,
9:11
Speaker 8: in the summer of 2006, we'd done some research and
9:15
Speaker 8: identified around 70-odd women that were working on the streets
9:18
Speaker 8: of Ipswich as prostitutes. The main issue, obviously, why they're
9:21
Speaker 8: out on the streets in the first instance, all these
9:23
Speaker 8: women were out there to feed a drug habit.
9:25
Speaker 5: They were all class A addicts.
9:28
Speaker 3: Another young woman working on the streets of Ipswich in
9:32
Speaker 3: 2006 was Jade Reynolds.
9:35
Speaker 9: Every morning I'd wake up, you know, I have a
9:38
Speaker 9: heroin addiction to fund, you know, so unless you've probably
9:41
Speaker 9: saved money from working on the streets the night before,
9:44
Speaker 9: you've either got to lay there not very well for
9:46
Speaker 9: the morning and for the day, and then I'd get
9:49
Speaker 9: up at night time, put on make up and clothes
9:51
Speaker 9: and pretty much go and sell myself down on the street,
9:55
Speaker 9: you know. It was cold, dark, you know, very dangerous.
10:00
Speaker 9: but you don't think about the danger, you really just
10:03
Speaker 9: go out there and do what you've got to do.
10:04
Speaker 9: But it wasn't a good lifestyle, it wasn't an easy lifestyle, really.
10:10
Speaker 9: There is a lot of emotion that go with it
10:12
Speaker 9: and you either have to learn to switch it off
10:14
Speaker 9: or let it overrun you, you know? And heroin is
10:17
Speaker 9: an easy way to switch off all your emotions.
10:20
Speaker 3: After Tanya Nicholls' family hadn't heard from her for 48 hours,
10:24
Speaker 3: they reported her as missing. Police began to investigate, but
10:29
Speaker 3: it appeared she'd just vanished off the face of the earth.
10:33
Speaker 2: We possibly thought she went with a load of people
10:35
Speaker 2: down to London somewhere and just stayed in a house
10:38
Speaker 2: or something like that.
10:39
Speaker 6: Prostitutes go missing all the time, change cities. That's not unusual.
10:44
Speaker 6: Very seldom do they have many relatives who will identify
10:47
Speaker 6: their disappearance. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
10:52
Speaker 3: As time passed, Jim became increasingly concerned about his daughter.
10:58
Speaker 2: You're terribly... You're worried beyond... You just go out of
11:01
Speaker 2: your head, you know. You just... You just can't think straight.
11:06
Speaker 2: You know, you're so worried. It really hits you for six.
11:10
Speaker 2: And I think after about two or three weeks, it
11:13
Speaker 2: was sheer hell not knowing where she was.
11:15
Speaker 6: And.
11:16
Speaker 2: By then, you know that something's up.
11:20
Speaker 3: While Jim waited desperately for any news about his daughter, Tanya,
11:25
Speaker 3: on November the 15th, another young woman was reported missing,
11:31
Speaker 3: 25-year-old Gemma Adams.
11:34
Speaker 9: For Gemma to go missing, that's when you worry, because
11:38
Speaker 9: Gemma would never go missing. You know, she's not like that.
11:40
Speaker 9: You know, she's always certain times, certain places, this, that, that,
11:44
Speaker 9: you know. Yeah, so that was... When Gemma went, that's
11:47
Speaker 9: when you knew something was wrong.
11:48
Speaker 3: The police stopped nearly 2,000 people and over 500 cars
11:53
Speaker 3: travelling through Ipswich's red-light district to see if anyone recognised
11:58
Speaker 3: photos of Tanya and Gemma. But they drew a blank.
12:03
Speaker 3: And it was a similar story when they spoke to
12:05
Speaker 3: the local sex workers.
12:08
Speaker 9: You don't report every attack, but there's loads of times
12:10
Speaker 9: where we get people trying to steal our handbags or, like...
12:14
Speaker 9: trying to accost us because we're saying no to them.
12:18
Speaker 9: You are worried and you are scared thinking, hang on,
12:20
Speaker 9: Gemma's gone now. I didn't know Tanya, but she's gone.
12:23
Speaker 9: Where are they? And you think, yeah, it could be me.
12:26
Speaker 9: I could be next, but I've got to go and
12:28
Speaker 9: get my money for my drugs. And you have to
12:31
Speaker 9: go out there. You have to learn to put emotions
12:34
Speaker 9: to the back of your mind while you're out on
12:35
Speaker 9: the street. I can then go home and be really scared.
12:37
Speaker 9: But if I was going to be scared that the
12:40
Speaker 9: girls are going missing, I'm not going to be able
12:42
Speaker 9: to earn the money for my drug addiction.
12:45
Speaker 3: Then, on December 2nd, 2006, the police got the call
12:50
Speaker 3: they'd been dreading. A body had been found in a
12:53
Speaker 3: brook on the outskirts of town.
12:58
Speaker 10: Right on the bend, right on the corner, with her
12:59
Speaker 10: head this end, facing upstream, her legs downstream, arms beside
13:06
Speaker 10: her body. Saw the hair flowing and the golden earring,
13:10
Speaker 10: and the head was on its side, and my immediate
13:13
Speaker 10: thought was.
13:15
Speaker 2: one of the missing girls.
13:17
Speaker 3: Tanya's father, Jim Jewell, feared the worst.
13:21
Speaker 2: By this time, I concluded that she'd gone, quite honestly.
13:27
Speaker 2: I concluded that she was dead. That's what I concluded.
13:31
Speaker 2: Because by this time, she would have phoned her mother.
13:34
Speaker 2: Because she always phones her mother if she's going to
13:37
Speaker 2: be back late or anything. She was good at it.
13:41
Speaker 3: But it wasn't Tanya. Police identified the body as that
13:46
Speaker 3: of 25-year-old Gemma Adams. There was no sign of a
13:50
Speaker 3: sexual assault, but her naked body had been dumped in
13:54
Speaker 3: flowing water. So finding any DNA evidence was going to
13:59
Speaker 3: be difficult.
14:01
Speaker 11: When someone dies, then there will be all sorts of
14:04
Speaker 11: evidence on the body, in the body, that tells you
14:08
Speaker 11: all sorts of information. If you leave a body in
14:11
Speaker 11: running water... then the water will quite literally wash away evidence. Equally,
14:18
Speaker 11: the water will bring other things onto the body that
14:20
Speaker 11: can contaminate it. So you've got a double problem, really,
14:25
Speaker 11: of things being lost and things being brought to the body,
14:29
Speaker 11: which makes interpretation more difficult.
14:32
Speaker 3: Unsurprisingly, the media were starting to take notice, including Paul
14:37
Speaker 3: Harrison of Sky News.
14:40
Speaker 4: My boss said to me that I should go to
14:42
Speaker 4: Ipswich at the weekend. One body had been discovered. To him,
14:47
Speaker 4: something didn't seem quite right. He wanted me to get
14:51
Speaker 4: under the surface of what was happening in the red
14:53
Speaker 4: light district because we knew that two prostitutes had gone missing.
14:58
Speaker 4: So what was this all about? Was this going to
15:01
Speaker 4: be something bigger?
15:03
Speaker 3: For a week, forensic teams scoured nearby woodlands for clues,
15:08
Speaker 3: and divers explored the brook. Then, just when they were
15:12
Speaker 3: about to call off the search, divers found another body.
15:16
Speaker 3: This time, it was Tanya Nicol.
15:20
Speaker 2: I think when I got the actual news, I can't
15:23
Speaker 2: remember my reaction, because it was something like, well, that's,
15:26
Speaker 2: you know... In my heart, I knew already.
15:32
Speaker 3: Just like Gemma Adams, there was no sign of sexual
15:35
Speaker 3: assault and the rushing water had stripped Tanya's body of
15:39
Speaker 3: any DNA evidence. Suffolk Police called on Commander David Johnston
15:44
Speaker 3: from Scotland Yard, a homicide expert.
15:49
Speaker 12: So I joined the investigation around the time the second
15:53
Speaker 12: victim body had been discovered and that initially meant I
15:57
Speaker 12: went to Suffolk to speak to the chief officer team
16:00
Speaker 12: to assess the situation.
16:02
Speaker 5: I'm not sure I would say they were overwhelmed.
16:04
Speaker 12: I think they recognized the need to bring additional resources
16:08
Speaker 12: in to avoid that situation, and that's what they did.
16:11
Speaker 12: And Suffolk, I know, had probably 100 to 200 people
16:15
Speaker 12: initially engaged in this inquiry. But that number quickly grew,
16:20
Speaker 12: and Suffolk suddenly found themselves, of course, at the center
16:24
Speaker 12: of a huge incident with significant media interest globally.
16:32
Speaker 4: So by the time they discovered the body of Tanya Nicol,
16:36
Speaker 4: we had already begun to spend a bit of time
16:40
Speaker 4: in the Red Light District late in the evening, early
16:44
Speaker 4: in the morning, just to see how prevalent prostitution was
16:48
Speaker 4: in Ipswich. And it wasn't difficult to find girls on
16:54
Speaker 4: the streets very late at night. We spoke to a
16:57
Speaker 4: number of them.
16:58
Speaker 5: They were aware.
17:00
Speaker 4: That two girls had gone missing. We were almost delivering
17:04
Speaker 4: them the news that a second body had been found.
17:07
Speaker 4: We were almost telling many of these girls for the
17:11
Speaker 4: very first time that the body of a second woman,
17:14
Speaker 4: almost certainly a prostitute, and almost certainly Tanya Nicholl, had
17:19
Speaker 4: been discovered in Kopdark. Their reaction, they weren't fazed by it,
17:24
Speaker 4: it seems.
17:25
Speaker 9: It's scary every night going out on the streets. It's
17:27
Speaker 9: scary every night. You could get attacked every night, you know.
17:31
Speaker 9: To be honest, it doesn't matter how scary anything is, really,
17:34
Speaker 9: you've still got to go out there and do it.
17:36
Speaker 9: It tears at your heart and you think, oh, God,
17:38
Speaker 9: you know, what's happening? Who's next, you know? But even
17:42
Speaker 9: though you're discussing what if it could be me, you're
17:44
Speaker 9: still out there on the streets and you're still selling
17:46
Speaker 9: yourself because you still have a drug addiction to feed.
17:49
Speaker 9: You've got to put all them worries to the back
17:50
Speaker 9: of your mind.
17:52
Speaker 3: Police were at a dead end. They had no clues
17:55
Speaker 3: and nothing to link the two murders. They watched hours
17:59
Speaker 3: of CCTV footage from Ipswich's red light district and finally
18:04
Speaker 3: found something of significance. Tanya had been caught getting into
18:08
Speaker 3: a dark car on the night of her disappearance. Could
18:11
Speaker 3: the driver of the car be the killer?
18:16
Speaker 2: Hanford Road, Burlington Road, that was a place you would
18:19
Speaker 2: stand there, which went out at night on that corner.
18:23
Speaker 2: and they found footage of just a brief glimpse.
18:29
Speaker 3: The CCTV was captured outside of a supermarket on London Road,
18:34
Speaker 3: the same street where Steve Wright was living. Unfortunately, the
18:39
Speaker 3: footage wasn't clear enough to reveal a number plate or
18:42
Speaker 3: identify the driver.
18:46
Speaker 5: From my point of view, it's professionally very frustrating. The whole.
18:50
Speaker 12: Emphasis of our role is to protect the public, and
18:53
Speaker 12: we take that very seriously. And so each day when
18:55
Speaker 12: we're carrying out the investigation and trying to identify this offender,
19:00
Speaker 12: it's very concerning to us when we still don't have
19:04
Speaker 12: an identification made.
19:07
Speaker 3: It had been eight days since Gemma Adams had been
19:10
Speaker 3: found murdered. As the police continued with their investigation, they
19:15
Speaker 3: received some more shocking news. On December 10th, Just two
19:20
Speaker 3: days after the discovery of Tanya Nicol, the body of
19:24
Speaker 3: a third woman was found in a woodland in nearby Nacton.
19:29
Speaker 4: The 10th was a huge day, really. I had literally
19:34
Speaker 4: driven out of Ipswich for about 10 miles when I
19:38
Speaker 4: got a phone call from the news desk. And the
19:41
Speaker 4: blood really felt like it drained from my face, from
19:45
Speaker 4: my body, because shivers down the spine... We were now
19:49
Speaker 4: in serial killer territory.
19:52
Speaker 12: I think it would be fair to say, yes, there
19:54
Speaker 12: was extreme concern being expressed in Ipswich, not just amongst
19:59
Speaker 12: sex workers or women involved in that line of work,
20:03
Speaker 12: but across the.
20:04
Speaker 5: Whole of the community.
20:05
Speaker 12: This was a significant event, completely unparalleled, as far as
20:10
Speaker 12: I know, in the history of Ipswich and that area,
20:13
Speaker 12: which is normally a very quiet, rural town.
20:15
Speaker 4: We were now dealing with a serial killer, almost certainly,
20:18
Speaker 4: and also, whilst the national media, the UK media, were
20:22
Speaker 4: all over it by now, this is when you began
20:25
Speaker 4: to see the beginnings of the international interest in it
20:29
Speaker 4: as well.
20:30
Speaker 3: Distinctive tattoos on the third body led the police to
20:34
Speaker 3: identify her as Annelie Alderton, who'd not been reported missing.
20:39
Speaker 3: She'd also been working as a prostitute in Ipswich. She
20:42
Speaker 3: was a 24-year-old mother of one.
20:46
Speaker 9: She was a mad, kind of happy-go-lucky, crazy chick. You know,
20:50
Speaker 9: I lived in my first squat with Annelie. Really nice girl.
20:54
Speaker 9: I would say she's like a free spirit, you know,
20:56
Speaker 9: she's like, you know, great, like, I'm Annie, you know,
20:59
Speaker 9: this is me, you know, so she's kind of cool, like,
21:02
Speaker 9: to hang around.
21:03
Speaker 2: With, you know.
21:05
Speaker 3: The media's focus on Ipswich intensified even further.
21:10
Speaker 4: I'd raced back to the scene in Nacton where the
21:14
Speaker 4: body of Anna Yalderton was discovered. We knew very little
21:18
Speaker 4: at that stage about in what position it lay, but
21:22
Speaker 4: what we did know was that it was on dry land.
21:25
Speaker 4: And this was a twist in the story because the
21:29
Speaker 4: two previous victims had been deposited in water. So the police,
21:34
Speaker 4: for them, it was very exciting that in terms of DNA,
21:37
Speaker 4: this could be something that they could work with.
21:41
Speaker 3: The autopsy showed that Annalee had been strangled and tragically revealed...
21:46
Speaker 3: She'd been three months pregnant.
21:49
Speaker 11: So the evidence that you'd see in a strangulation, you'd
21:53
Speaker 11: see bruising on and in the neck, you'd often see
21:56
Speaker 11: fine pinpoint haemorrhages in the eyes, these things really point
21:59
Speaker 11: you very directly towards that cause of death.
22:02
Speaker 3: She'd been left in the crucifix position with her arms outstretched.
22:08
Speaker 1: There is a tendency to want to attach a lot
22:10
Speaker 1: of meaning to that. Many people were looking at this
22:13
Speaker 1: as it unfolded, saying, well, there's some religious motivation here.
22:17
Speaker 1: But I don't think it was about that at all.
22:19
Speaker 1: It was about essentially getting attention. Even serial killers get bored.
22:25
Speaker 1: They want to mix things up a bit. They want
22:27
Speaker 1: to try something new.
22:29
Speaker 3: The police still had no DNA, no clues, and no leads.
22:34
Speaker 3: The pressure to catch the killer was mounting.
22:38
Speaker 12: There's always pressure because you have the media, who are
22:41
Speaker 12: consistently requiring information because there's 24-hour media. They want to
22:47
Speaker 12: know what's happening. There's anxiety being expressed in the community. And,
22:50
Speaker 12: of course, the police themselves want to catch this man
22:53
Speaker 12: as quickly as possible.
22:54
Speaker 9: I'm losing my friends. I don't want to keep losing
22:56
Speaker 9: my friends. I don't want to lose my own life.
22:58
Speaker 9: You do think about stuff like that. It's not something
23:00
Speaker 9: that you don't think about.
23:01
Speaker 3: The world's media descended on Ipswich and the cameras were
23:05
Speaker 3: all pointed at the police.
23:08
Speaker 1: I think this case was one that attracted so much
23:10
Speaker 1: attention because it was unfolding in front of our eyes.
23:13
Speaker 1: This was the era of reality television when that started
23:17
Speaker 1: to become very popular. We were seeing it as it
23:20
Speaker 1: unfolded on 24-hour rolling news, and you never knew what
23:24
Speaker 1: was going to happen from one day to the next.
23:26
Speaker 3: Detectives told prostitutes to stay off the streets, but their
23:30
Speaker 3: warnings were largely ignored. A local news crew interviewed one
23:35
Speaker 3: of the girls anonymously. Why have you decided to come
23:39
Speaker 3: out tonight?
23:40
Speaker 13: Because I need the money. I need the money, you know?
23:45
Speaker 3: Despite the dangers?
23:46
Speaker 13: Well, that has made me a bit wary about getting into.
23:50
Speaker 1: Cars, you know?
23:52
Speaker 11: But presumably you will do that tonight?
23:55
Speaker 1: Well, probably.
23:58
Speaker 3: The woman interviewed was Paula Clennell.
24:01
Speaker 9: Paula Clennell, she had children and she was always trying
24:06
Speaker 9: quite hard to change her life, You know, she was
24:08
Speaker 9: happy when she saw her, you know, nice girl, but, yeah,
24:11
Speaker 9: she tried quite hard, you know, to get out of it,
24:14
Speaker 9: you know, because it's a very hard thing to get
24:16
Speaker 9: out of the addiction if you still live generally in
24:19
Speaker 9: the same town. But, yeah, she was trying, you know,
24:23
Speaker 9: to get away from it and change her life, bless her.
24:25
Speaker 3: Just six days after that news report aired, Paula Clennell
24:31
Speaker 3: was missing. In December 2006, the police in Ipswich were
24:37
Speaker 3: under mounting pressure to catch a prolific serial killer. The
24:42
Speaker 3: bodies of three dead prostitutes had been found in just
24:46
Speaker 3: ten days. They had no clues or potential suspects and
24:51
Speaker 3: the killing wasn't about to stop. Two more young women
24:55
Speaker 3: had gone missing. 24-year-old Paula Clennell, who'd been interviewed on
25:00
Speaker 3: the news just days before, and now police receive reports
25:05
Speaker 3: of a fifth missing woman, 29-year-old Annette Nicholls, the best
25:10
Speaker 3: friend of fellow prostitute Jade Reynolds.
25:15
Speaker 9: Annette was a girl, for me, that I was so
25:19
Speaker 9: humbled to know. You know, she always... Took time for me.
25:22
Speaker 9: She'd want to know if I was all right, if
25:23
Speaker 9: there was anything she could do. She'd do anything for
25:25
Speaker 9: anybody else. She was always well kept. She'd greet you
25:28
Speaker 9: with a smile and a happiness. You know, you felt
25:31
Speaker 9: all right when you was with Annette. I did. I
25:33
Speaker 9: could think, oh, yeah, wicked. There she is, you know.
25:36
Speaker 9: It was a relief because I know that I could
25:38
Speaker 9: talk to her. She'd understand my problems. So when she
25:41
Speaker 9: went missing, that's kind of like tearing out a piece
25:44
Speaker 9: of my heart.
25:45
Speaker 3: As the police searched for Paula and Annette, there was
25:48
Speaker 3: a macabre inevitability in the air amongst the mass of
25:52
Speaker 3: international journalists who'd gathered in Ipswich.
25:56
Speaker 4: There was almost certainly going to be another discovery. Where
26:00
Speaker 4: was it going to be? Who was it going to be?
26:03
Speaker 4: It was nail-biting. And whilst it can't be described as fear,
26:09
Speaker 4: it was really palpable. You sense that from the people
26:12
Speaker 4: in the town. You sensed it from your colleagues, but
26:16
Speaker 4: also from other colleagues from other media organisations and the
26:19
Speaker 4: police as well.
26:21
Speaker 3: On December 12th, another body was found in Levington, just
26:25
Speaker 3: a mile away from Nacton, in the same woods where
26:29
Speaker 3: Annalee Alderton had been discovered days before.
26:33
Speaker 4: While somebody was out walking their dog, they stumbled upon
26:37
Speaker 4: the body of a fourth victim. just a few metres
26:41
Speaker 4: away from the main road in Levington, in the undergrowth,
26:47
Speaker 4: also this time not in water. Again, the DNA was
26:52
Speaker 4: important in this case. But what seemed quite strange about
26:57
Speaker 4: this one is that it almost had an appearance of
27:01
Speaker 4: a rushed approach, that this body was deposited by the
27:06
Speaker 4: side of the road, albeit a few metres off the
27:10
Speaker 4: main road, It had the appearance, or it seemed as
27:13
Speaker 4: if it had been done quickly.
27:15
Speaker 3: The police sent a helicopter up to survey the woodland
27:18
Speaker 3: for evidence. As it circled the area, they made a
27:22
Speaker 3: further gruesome discovery. Another body was lying in the woods
27:26
Speaker 3: only 100 yards away. The naked bodies were those of
27:31
Speaker 3: the missing women, 24-year-old Paula Clunell and 29-year-old Annette Nichols.
27:38
Speaker 9: I don't think I'll ever get back what I had
27:40
Speaker 9: with Annette with another girl. You know, this is the
27:43
Speaker 9: most beautiful woman that I'd ever known, that had become
27:46
Speaker 9: quite important to me, that I could trust. You know,
27:49
Speaker 9: and now it's not there. I didn't go out after that.
27:52
Speaker 9: It was quite sensible, because, like, I couldn't, I emotionally
27:56
Speaker 9: couldn't go out and work on the streets after Annette
27:59
Speaker 9: was found.
28:01
Speaker 3: Five women had been murdered in Ipswich in just six weeks.
28:05
Speaker 3: The press had named the killer the Suffolk Strangler.
28:11
Speaker 11: Alderton and Clennell, they were both asphyxiated. That was the
28:15
Speaker 11: cause of their death. In the other cases, the changes
28:20
Speaker 11: after death really prevented pathology giving a definitive answer, although
28:24
Speaker 11: I think it's reasonable to assume that someone who's killing
28:28
Speaker 11: someone Five people in a short space of time probably
28:31
Speaker 11: used similar methods.
28:33
Speaker 6: Interestingly, none of the five victims showed any sign of
28:36
Speaker 6: sexual assault. So it isn't a rape murder. It's not, oh,
28:43
Speaker 6: I've satisfied myself, now I'm going to kill you, murder.
28:46
Speaker 6: It is a targeted murder without a sexual element.
28:51
Speaker 1: He is very much feeding off the media frenzy that's
28:56
Speaker 1: being created around his crimes. And he's increasingly feeling even
29:01
Speaker 1: more in control of what's going on. So he's changing
29:04
Speaker 1: the way that he's doing things. And he's looking at
29:06
Speaker 1: the reaction from the media when he does that. And
29:09
Speaker 1: he's absolutely loving it.
29:11
Speaker 6: He believes he's fulfilling something. Maybe he's convinced himself that
29:17
Speaker 6: he's clearing the world of prostitutes. They're all dumped really
29:22
Speaker 6: quite close to each other. Demonstrates that he thinks he's
29:26
Speaker 6: doing something. in his own fantasy world that is cleansing
29:31
Speaker 6: the world of evil or cleansing the world of dirt
29:34
Speaker 6: or cleansing the world of inappropriate sexual appetite, we'll never know.
29:40
Speaker 6: I don't think Wright probably knows now. All I do
29:43
Speaker 6: know is that he had to be caught because he
29:46
Speaker 6: wouldn't stop until he was.
29:48
Speaker 3: On December 15th, Tanya Nicholl's dad, Jim Jewell, made an
29:54
Speaker 3: emotional plea for the killer to turn himself in.
29:58
Speaker 13: Tanya has been taken by someone who needs to be found.
30:04
Speaker 13: We ask for anyone who knows this person or persons
30:10
Speaker 13: to come forward and contact the police.
30:13
Speaker 3: With increasing pressure to make an arrest, police decided to
30:18
Speaker 3: question a local 37-year-old man.
30:21
Speaker 12: He was identified because he had spent considerable time in
30:25
Speaker 12: a radio car talking to a radio.
30:27
Speaker 5: Journalist and other TV journalists.
30:31
Speaker 4: I spent a bit of time with him to try
30:33
Speaker 4: and get to know his relationship with the girls. There
30:36
Speaker 4: was a kind of an understanding between them that you
30:41
Speaker 4: scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.
30:43
Speaker 12: He was loosely associated as a friend of one or
30:47
Speaker 12: more of the girls who were murdered and at that
30:50
Speaker 12: stage he became of significant interest to the inquiry. There
30:53
Speaker 12: was a very strong feeling from some of the media
30:55
Speaker 12: people present that this man was the right man and
30:59
Speaker 12: should be looked at more seriously.
31:01
Speaker 3: With a suspect in custody, detectives received a lead from
31:05
Speaker 3: the forensics lab. The three bodies that were found on
31:08
Speaker 3: dry land did have DNA evidence on them. In a
31:13
Speaker 3: one-in-a-billion chance, the DNA found on all three women was
31:17
Speaker 3: the same, but whose was it? The DNA was run
31:21
Speaker 3: through the national database, and police got a match. But
31:25
Speaker 3: to their surprise, it wasn't the man they had in custody.
31:29
Speaker 12: At that time, and as it still stands today, if
31:31
Speaker 12: a person is arrested or convicted of an indictable offense
31:34
Speaker 12: or a serious offense, they can have their DNA taken
31:38
Speaker 12: and held on the database.
31:39
Speaker 3: The DNA matched that of a local man who'd been
31:42
Speaker 3: convicted of stealing 80 pounds from a pub till in 2002,
31:47
Speaker 3: 48-year-old Steve Wright.
31:51
Speaker 12: And it was that match which led to significant additional work,
31:55
Speaker 12: including then the CCTV evidence, which showed a vehicle being
31:59
Speaker 12: used by Wright moving between some of the locations around
32:02
Speaker 12: the relevant times. So he became a major suspect in
32:06
Speaker 12: the inquiry.
32:09
Speaker 3: Over just six weeks, five prostitutes had been murdered in Ipswich.
32:14
Speaker 3: The police finally believed they'd found the killer, 48-year-old Steve Wright,
32:19
Speaker 3: whose DNA had been found on three of the bodies.
32:23
Speaker 3: Wright had not been a suspect at any point during
32:26
Speaker 3: the police investigation, even though he had been stopped during
32:30
Speaker 3: routine checks of the red-light district. Whilst the world's media
32:35
Speaker 3: was focusing on a local man who police currently had
32:38
Speaker 3: in custody, Wright was put under surveillance.
32:45
Speaker 4: Once the police had discovered the DNA, it matched Steve
32:49
Speaker 4: Wright immediately, although from a distance, making quite a brave move, actually,
32:56
Speaker 4: not by arresting him straight away, but watching him, seeing
32:59
Speaker 4: his movements, what was he doing, where was he going,
33:02
Speaker 4: just for a 24-hour period. And ultimately, as we were
33:07
Speaker 4: all elsewhere looking at somebody else, another suspect, bang, they
33:12
Speaker 4: had made an arrest. They'd arrested Steve Wright.
33:15
Speaker 3: It was a huge shock to Wright's father, Conrad.
33:19
Speaker 7: I didn't believe it.
33:20
Speaker 5: It was similar as that.
33:23
Speaker 7: Two people come to my door to say, your son
33:26
Speaker 7: has been arrested, and I didn't believe it.
33:29
Speaker 1: I think the only emotion that Steve Wright would have
33:31
Speaker 1: felt upon getting arrested was annoyance. This has stopped the
33:36
Speaker 1: media circus that I've been at the centre of. And
33:39
Speaker 1: I think also self-pity. Oh, terrible. I'm now going to
33:45
Speaker 1: be in prison or I'm going to be in a
33:47
Speaker 1: police station. I'm not going to be able to do
33:48
Speaker 1: the things I want. He would never have had any
33:52
Speaker 1: kind of expressed empathy for his victims or their families
33:55
Speaker 1: because they just didn't matter to him.
33:57
Speaker 9: At the time I split up with my partner, moved
33:59
Speaker 9: into my mum's house and I woke up one morning with, uh,
34:02
Speaker 9: the world's media on my doorstep to put it bluntly.
34:06
Speaker 9: And they said, did you know Steve Wright was like
34:09
Speaker 9: a client to your daughter, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
34:11
Speaker 9: And I didn't even know my mum didn't even know,
34:14
Speaker 9: you know, but then it all came out, you know,
34:17
Speaker 9: that it turned out he's actually my first partner, which
34:20
Speaker 9: was shocking, you know? And I thought, Oh my God,
34:23
Speaker 9: I was right with him right there, right then, you know? And, uh, Yeah,
34:27
Speaker 9: I was kind of shocked, really. Really shocked, to be honest,
34:31
Speaker 9: thinking I was that close to him. Made me feel sick.
34:34
Speaker 3: During eight hours of interrogation, Wright made no comment.
34:39
Speaker 1: The no comment at police interviews is indicative of that
34:43
Speaker 1: power and that control. So I have all of this
34:45
Speaker 1: knowledge and all of this information. I know everything about
34:48
Speaker 1: these crimes and you want that knowledge. So I'm going
34:51
Speaker 1: to use this to my advantage. He knows everything that
34:54
Speaker 1: the police want to know. And is he going to
34:56
Speaker 1: tell them? Is he not going to tell them? That
34:58
Speaker 1: gives him a massive sense of control.
35:00
Speaker 3: Although Wright didn't confess to the killings, on the 21st
35:04
Speaker 3: of December 2006, the police charged him with all five
35:08
Speaker 3: murders based on the forensic evidence they'd so far found.
35:13
Speaker 3: The other suspect was released from custody without charge. Prosecutors
35:18
Speaker 3: now began the arduous task of building a solid case
35:21
Speaker 3: against Wright for the upcoming trial. Michael Krimp was part
35:26
Speaker 3: of the legal team.
35:28
Speaker 14: Of the five bodies that were recovered, two of them
35:31
Speaker 14: had been immersed for some time in water, and if
35:35
Speaker 14: there had been any DNA on their bodies, it had
35:37
Speaker 14: long since gone. And so in terms of DNA evidence,
35:41
Speaker 14: there was nothing to link Steve Wright with them.
35:44
Speaker 3: Detectives impounded Wright's car. In it, they found fibres from
35:48
Speaker 3: a fake fur jacket owned by Annette Nicholls and, more significantly,
35:53
Speaker 3: traces of Paula Clennell's blood.
35:56
Speaker 6: Wright really didn't do very much to conceal his movements.
36:01
Speaker 6: He drove his own car. He dumped the bodies from
36:04
Speaker 6: his own car. He wasn't very forensically aware, as so
36:08
Speaker 6: many determined killers are these days... He didn't know about
36:13
Speaker 6: DNA and fibre analysis and trace and all the other
36:17
Speaker 6: things we've all become so familiar with as a result
36:20
Speaker 6: of television series and the rest. Wright pretty much did
36:24
Speaker 6: as he pleased and thought he could get away with it.
36:27
Speaker 6: And he thought he could get away with it because
36:28
Speaker 6: he thought that no-one was going to miss a prostitute.
36:31
Speaker 3: Forensic experts also examined Wright's home. They found the blood
36:36
Speaker 3: of Paula Clunell and Annette Nicholls on a high-vis jacket.
36:40
Speaker 3: more conclusive proof that his encounter with the women had
36:44
Speaker 3: taken a sinister turn. But there was no link between
36:47
Speaker 3: Wright and the deaths of Tanya Nicol and Gemma Adams,
36:51
Speaker 3: the two women whose bodies had been found immersed in
36:54
Speaker 3: running water. Investigators re-watched the CCTV from the night Tanya
37:01
Speaker 3: Nicol went missing, and they were now certain the car
37:04
Speaker 3: that she got into was Wright's blue Ford Mondeo. Forensic
37:11
Speaker 3: teams painstakingly analysed microscopic debris found in the women's hair. Remarkably,
37:19
Speaker 3: they found fibres from Wright's tracksuit bottoms, sofa and carpet
37:23
Speaker 3: fibre from his Mondeo.
37:26
Speaker 14: Both fibres in their hair and fibres on gloves and
37:32
Speaker 14: other items that belonged to Steve Wright clearly linked him
37:36
Speaker 14: to those two as well.
37:38
Speaker 3: The game was up.
37:40
Speaker 11: This was a case that involved a lot of experts
37:44
Speaker 11: and a lot of expertise. And what it came down
37:47
Speaker 11: to was that they were able to place fibres from
37:52
Speaker 11: the bodies at Wright's property. They were able to place
37:57
Speaker 11: blood on articles of clothing and in his car. We
38:01
Speaker 11: call it Locard's exchange principle. You go and interact with somebody,
38:05
Speaker 11: you leave something of yourself there and you take something
38:08
Speaker 11: away from it. And as clever as you may try
38:12
Speaker 11: and be, you're always going to leave evidence of that interaction.
38:16
Speaker 3: Steve Wright was now linked to all five women. His
38:20
Speaker 3: trial began at Ipswich Crown Court on 16th January 2008.
38:24
Speaker 3: Wright pleaded not guilty.
38:28
Speaker 14: To me, he looked pretty cool about it all. He
38:31
Speaker 14: didn't seem particularly emotive about the evidence as it was
38:35
Speaker 14: being put to him. Well, he had to explain the
38:40
Speaker 14: scientific evidence in this case, which linked him very closely
38:44
Speaker 14: with all five of the victims, and so his explanation
38:47
Speaker 14: was that he'd been in close association with all five
38:51
Speaker 14: of them, and obviously not long before they'd disappeared off
38:54
Speaker 14: the street.
38:55
Speaker 3: Wright argued he'd picked up the women for sex, and
38:58
Speaker 3: that was why there was evidence of them in his car.
39:02
Speaker 14: The defence were arguing that it might have been a coincidence,
39:06
Speaker 14: but no more.
39:07
Speaker 3: But his case began to fall apart under intense questioning.
39:11
Speaker 14: It was an odd picture that he portrayed because there
39:15
Speaker 14: was just too much coincidence in this case. The evidence
39:19
Speaker 14: provided more than just coincidences, it provided the evidence that
39:24
Speaker 14: damned him. We put to him various bits of evidence
39:28
Speaker 14: and said, well, was that just a coincidence? And to
39:32
Speaker 14: each question like that, all that Steve Wright said was
39:35
Speaker 14: something like, well, so it would seem or it appears so,
39:38
Speaker 14: and he just couldn't deal with the questions that he
39:40
Speaker 14: was being asked about how all these apparent coincidences existed.
39:45
Speaker 3: On February the 21st, 2008, after only six hours of deliberation,
39:51
Speaker 3: the jury found Wright guilty of all five murders and
39:55
Speaker 3: he was sentenced to a whole life term. He was
39:58
Speaker 3: immediately sent to Belmarsh Prison. He will never be released.
40:04
Speaker 12: I think the thing that's striking about this case is
40:06
Speaker 12: the speed with which Wright moved from being a relatively
40:09
Speaker 12: unknown minor offender involved in a minor theft... to killing
40:13
Speaker 12: five women in a very short period of time.
40:16
Speaker 5: And I am.
40:18
Speaker 12: Strongly of the belief that had he not been arrested,
40:20
Speaker 12: he would have continued to kill.
40:22
Speaker 4: This was a man who was desperate to be known,
40:25
Speaker 4: desperate to be someone. And by killing those five women,
40:29
Speaker 4: the notoriety that he achieved effectively made him into someone.
40:35
Speaker 4: We talked about the Suffolk Strangler, this man who nobody
40:39
Speaker 4: really knew. Suddenly, everyone knew him. He was world famous
40:44
Speaker 4: for being the Suffolk Strangler.
40:46
Speaker 6: I find it very difficult to call Wright a truly
40:49
Speaker 6: evil man. Deeply wicked. Deeply, with no sense of remorse.
40:57
Speaker 4: To this day, he has maintained his innocence. He says
41:01
Speaker 4: he did not kill those five women. He goes even
41:05
Speaker 4: further to write to his father who, in his father's eyes,
41:11
Speaker 4: he did what he did. And it hurts Steve Wright, actually,
41:15
Speaker 4: that his father doesn't believe him when Steve Wright says,
41:19
Speaker 4: I didn't do it. His father looked in his eyes,
41:22
Speaker 4: turned and walked out of prison when he said, look
41:27
Speaker 4: into my eyes, do you think I did it?
41:31
Speaker 7: It wouldn't make me feel any different whether I forgive
41:33
Speaker 7: him or not. I mean, the deed is done, and.
41:37
Speaker 7: I'm, in a way, responsible for him being out there.
41:41
Speaker 7: You know, I brought him into the world.
41:44
Speaker 3: Life will never be the same for the friends and
41:47
Speaker 3: families of those who were killed.
41:51
Speaker 2: You know, I got to a resting place and say
41:55
Speaker 2: and then have a little conversation, like you would, you know,
41:59
Speaker 2: and say, I've come up to see you, dear, you know,
42:02
Speaker 2: and have a little bit of emotion going there, you know.
42:06
Speaker 2: But there you are, it's love, isn't it? It's always
42:08
Speaker 2: in our memory, of course she is.
42:12
Speaker 9: Even now, 10 years later, I can still... I'm sitting
42:15
Speaker 9: here and I'm trying to be clean and I'm trying
42:16
Speaker 9: not to let my emotions get the better of me,
42:18
Speaker 9: but there's so many things that I see and I think, oh, yeah,
42:21
Speaker 9: Annette would love that. I still, I find it hard
42:24
Speaker 9: now and I find it hard, like, 20 years' time,
42:26
Speaker 9: you know, that she's not here anymore. It tore a
42:29
Speaker 9: piece of me out that I won't get back.
42:33
Speaker 8: Something positive has happened in Ipswich out of such a
42:36
Speaker 8: tragic turn of events. And that is for me, is
42:39
Speaker 8: that there's no longer any street prostitution occurring in Ipswich.
42:44
Speaker 8: If I wanted a legacy for the five women, that
42:46
Speaker 8: would be it. That no other women have put themselves
42:48
Speaker 8: in such perilous and stark and dangerous situations.
42:53
Speaker 4: I think Ipswich will never forget those terrible times, those
42:58
Speaker 4: few weeks. in December 2006, where the world's eyes were
43:02
Speaker 4: on them for all the wrong reasons. And they will
43:05
Speaker 4: take the vital lessons learned during that period forward. They
43:11
Speaker 4: won't forget the women, they won't forget the girls who
43:13
Speaker 4: were killed, but they will move forward and try to
43:18
Speaker 4: not allow that period to effectively dictate their future.
43:24
Speaker 3: We may never know why Wright carried out these frenzied
43:27
Speaker 3: attacks or if there are other victims that have perished
43:30
Speaker 3: at his hands. He remains one of the UK's most
43:34
Speaker 3: prolific serial killers. For six weeks, the whole world watched
43:39
Speaker 3: in shock as the body count in Ipswich continued to grow.
43:44
Speaker 3: But eventually, the forensic evidence brought justice for the families
43:49
Speaker 3: of all five victims. and put pay to the killing
43:53
Speaker 3: spree of Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler.