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Serial Killer Documentary - Anthony Russell · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:06
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, pregnant Nicole McGregor disappeared from Lemington Spa.
0:12
Speaker 1: Her frantic boyfriend Chris searched for her, helped by a
0:16
Speaker 1: new friend. He had no idea that his friend was
0:20
Speaker 1: stone cold killer Anthony Russell.
0:23
Speaker 2: Chris saw a newspaper and realized that Anthony was the
0:27
Speaker 2: person that the police were looking for in connection with
0:29
Speaker 2: the team murders in Coventry.
0:32
Speaker 1: The last person to see Nicole alive was wanted for
0:36
Speaker 1: the brutal murders of Julie Williams and her son David,
0:41
Speaker 1: and now Anthony Russell had killed a third victim.
0:45
Speaker 3: He was saying things to Nicole's boyfriend like, oh, he
0:49
Speaker 3: must be really looking forward to becoming a father. He
0:53
Speaker 3: knew that Nicole was dead.
0:56
Speaker 1: Anthony Russell went on the run, sparking a huge manhunt.
1:02
Speaker 4: This wasn't a that of madness was calculated, and that
1:06
Speaker 4: calculation had cost three people their lives.
1:13
Speaker 1: Had Russell murdered three innocent people and destroyed the lives
1:17
Speaker 1: of those left behind.
1:19
Speaker 5: Daniel didn't want to live without his mom, or up
1:21
Speaker 5: without his brother.
1:23
Speaker 1: His week long murderer's rampage left a trail of death
1:26
Speaker 1: and destruction, making twisted Anthony Russell one of the world's
1:31
Speaker 1: most evil killers. The search for thirty nine year old
1:57
Speaker 1: Anthony Russell was one of the largest in West Midland's
2:01
Speaker 1: police history.
2:03
Speaker 2: We launched a huge manhunt. I think we had two
2:07
Speaker 2: hundred officers that were working on it. We've got a
2:09
Speaker 2: responsibility to protect the public. That's our number one responsibility.
2:13
Speaker 2: And you've got someone who's already been prepared to kill,
2:15
Speaker 2: who's on the loose.
2:17
Speaker 5: The police put in the papers a photograph of him.
2:21
Speaker 5: Can it come on the radio every half hour? This
2:23
Speaker 5: man is dangerous, Do not approach him. So the police
2:27
Speaker 5: already knew what he'd done and they were frightened for
2:30
Speaker 5: the public.
2:31
Speaker 1: Over the course of a week, Anthony Russell killed three people.
2:37
Speaker 1: This was a murderer without mercy.
2:42
Speaker 3: This wasn't just enough violence to kill somebody. This is
2:46
Speaker 3: what we call over kill. So that's way more violence
2:50
Speaker 3: than is needed to kill that person.
2:54
Speaker 1: The carnage that Anthony Russell left behind will stay with
2:58
Speaker 1: his victims loved ones forever.
3:01
Speaker 5: You never expect something like that ever to happen to
3:04
Speaker 5: your family. Ever. He might watch on the television, read
3:07
Speaker 5: about it in a book, but to actually have it
3:10
Speaker 5: happen to you absolutely ripped our families apart.
3:16
Speaker 1: This killer's story begins in the West Midland city of Colentry.
3:22
Speaker 2: Anthony was born on the sixteenth of April nineteen eighty two.
3:26
Speaker 2: He'd got a number of siblings, had a difficult childhood
3:29
Speaker 2: and he grew up mainly in care. He used to
3:32
Speaker 2: regularly go missing when he was in care and he
3:35
Speaker 2: was often difficult to find, so he would be reported
3:39
Speaker 2: missing on a regular basis and it would take quite
3:41
Speaker 2: a long time to find him.
3:44
Speaker 1: As he entered adulthood, bad behavior became criminal behavior.
3:50
Speaker 4: Anthony Russell had a track record of low level crime theft, burglary,
3:58
Speaker 4: possessing weapons.
4:00
Speaker 2: There was a bit of violence in there. I think
4:02
Speaker 2: he was convicted of a robbery, crimes that are often
4:05
Speaker 2: associated with people that have.
4:07
Speaker 6: Substance issues.
4:10
Speaker 4: It's pretty clear that Anthony Russell had a very big
4:13
Speaker 4: heroin addiction.
4:17
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, Russell was thirty eight years old and
4:21
Speaker 1: living in a flat in Riley Square in the Belgreen
4:24
Speaker 1: area of Coventry.
4:27
Speaker 2: It was a nineteen sixties development. It's sort of precinct
4:31
Speaker 2: type design. It was built in a quadrant, so you
4:34
Speaker 2: have shops all around the bottom of the quadrant, and
4:37
Speaker 2: then I think there's about four or five stories above
4:39
Speaker 2: that which contains flats, so a very sort of urban
4:44
Speaker 2: area with local shops. So it was quite a close
4:47
Speaker 2: knit community.
4:50
Speaker 1: On that same estate, living in a one bedroom flat
4:54
Speaker 1: was fifty eight year old Julie Williams, widowed, young, raised
5:00
Speaker 1: her sons alone.
5:02
Speaker 5: Julie was my brother's partner, the love of my brother's life.
5:07
Speaker 5: My brother unfortunately passed away when he was thirty nine.
5:12
Speaker 1: Julie and her eldest son, David shared a close bond.
5:16
Speaker 5: David is my nephew. David didn't have along with my brother,
5:22
Speaker 5: which is a great shame because his dad absolutely adored him.
5:25
Speaker 5: He and his brother Daniel, he absolutely adored his mom.
5:30
Speaker 5: They lived together and they went out together. He lived
5:35
Speaker 5: for his mom. He was very family orientated. He had
5:39
Speaker 5: lots of cousins that he got on with everywhere. Everybody
5:42
Speaker 5: absolutely loved him because he was such a happy chappie.
5:46
Speaker 1: On Wednesday, the twenty first of October twenty twenty, thirty
5:51
Speaker 1: two year old David did not come home as planned.
5:54
Speaker 1: Three days later, Julie still hadn't managed to get in
5:57
Speaker 1: touch with David.
6:00
Speaker 5: My daughter Fomi or and she said there's something on
6:02
Speaker 5: the internet. She says that Julie's looking for David. She
6:12
Speaker 5: put out on the local radio. Has anybody seen David?
6:17
Speaker 5: But we just thought always crashed out at one of
6:20
Speaker 5: his friend's houses, you know, and he'll be back in touch.
6:24
Speaker 2: She first came to the attention of police on Saturday,
6:27
Speaker 2: the twenty fourth of October twenty twenty, and that was
6:31
Speaker 2: a report made by Julie to say that her son
6:34
Speaker 2: David had gone missing.
6:37
Speaker 3: Police will always do a kind of a victimology when
6:40
Speaker 3: they get a missing person report, and that will be
6:43
Speaker 3: largely around vulnerabilities and how unusual it was for this
6:48
Speaker 3: person to go missing.
6:52
Speaker 2: This daily routine involved him being in the local area
6:56
Speaker 2: and associating with friends and spending time with his mother,
7:00
Speaker 2: so it was really unusual for him not to be
7:02
Speaker 2: in contact with her or to come back home.
7:06
Speaker 6: We have a dedicated team that deal with missing persons.
7:10
Speaker 2: Inquiries were started to be made around house to house
7:14
Speaker 2: inquiries looking at CCTV to see when they could see
7:17
Speaker 2: his last sighting.
7:19
Speaker 1: West Midlands Police identified David as a man struggling with addiction.
7:26
Speaker 5: He didn't want to do drugs, but all those around
7:28
Speaker 5: him were, and unfortunately David got into that way of living,
7:32
Speaker 5: which changed him as a person. And I think that's
7:37
Speaker 5: why his mum always kept an eye out for him
7:39
Speaker 5: all the time.
7:42
Speaker 4: He'd been using drugs, it seems for some considerable time,
7:46
Speaker 4: and all his connections were in the world of people
7:48
Speaker 4: who had similar addictions.
7:52
Speaker 2: We knew he regularly visited the chemists for medication, so
7:56
Speaker 2: they started to look at to see when the last
7:58
Speaker 2: time it was that he picked his medication.
8:01
Speaker 6: To work around his phone, see when that was last active.
8:06
Speaker 1: The police obtained David's phone records. Amongst the people that
8:10
Speaker 1: he called friends, there were some that worried his mother.
8:15
Speaker 2: She mentioned one person that she was concerned that he
8:17
Speaker 2: owed some money for drugs, and she'd also received a
8:21
Speaker 2: text from David that said he was potentially having to
8:24
Speaker 2: get out of the area because he owed money for drugs.
8:27
Speaker 2: I think she thought that was unusual because David could
8:31
Speaker 2: often know money for drugs, but that wouldn't cause him
8:33
Speaker 2: to go missing.
8:36
Speaker 1: The circumstances surrounding David's disappearance were unclear. Police kept an
8:42
Speaker 1: open mind about what may have happened, but on the
8:45
Speaker 1: afternoon of Sunday, October the twenty fifth, just twenty four
8:49
Speaker 1: hours after Julie Williams reported David missing. There was an
8:53
Speaker 1: unbelievable twist in the investigation.
8:58
Speaker 4: Julie herself is report did missing by one of her sisters.
9:03
Speaker 5: Julie kept in touch with her sisters and her brothers
9:06
Speaker 5: every single day, so when she wasn't around, that's why
9:10
Speaker 5: her sister then reported it to the police because she
9:12
Speaker 5: knew that that was out of character.
9:15
Speaker 2: Once we've done all the background checks into the fact
9:19
Speaker 2: that David was missing, then it became a real concern.
9:22
Speaker 2: So at this point they went to Julie and David's
9:25
Speaker 2: address and they couldn't go a response there.
9:29
Speaker 4: The police said, at eleven o'clock that Sunday evening, break
9:33
Speaker 4: into Julie's flat and they find her dead.
9:39
Speaker 1: The scene that met them was one of carnage. In
9:44
Speaker 1: the center laid Julie's blooded body.
9:48
Speaker 7: Julie been subjected to this episode of prolonged beating, essentially
9:53
Speaker 7: punching and blunt force injury.
9:58
Speaker 3: Julie had an enormous number of injuries, something like one
10:02
Speaker 3: hundred and thirteen injuries to her body, so that suggests
10:05
Speaker 3: a rage fueled attack.
10:10
Speaker 7: The final act which caused her death was the application
10:13
Speaker 7: of a ligature. The ligature which was used in Julie's
10:17
Speaker 7: case was an electric flex from an electric fan.
10:22
Speaker 1: The case was allocated to the homicide team, with Detective
10:26
Speaker 1: Inspector Jim mun put in charge.
10:29
Speaker 2: I am that senior investigating officer, which means that I
10:32
Speaker 2: am the lead investigator for any serious crime. I went
10:38
Speaker 2: there in the middle of the night. It's dark, it's gloomy,
10:41
Speaker 2: so just even the inquiries around, just trying to establish
10:44
Speaker 2: who was going in and out at the time, was
10:46
Speaker 2: going to be really really challenging.
10:50
Speaker 1: Julie's family woke to the news of her murder.
10:57
Speaker 5: We heard about Julie and that was from the papers
11:01
Speaker 5: telling us that they'd found a woman's body. It was
11:05
Speaker 5: so final, It was so traumatic. It is so evil
11:10
Speaker 5: frightening that somebody could do that to another human being,
11:14
Speaker 5: and straight away then I think that's when we felt
11:17
Speaker 5: something bad's happened to David.
11:20
Speaker 2: We obviously then had immediate concerns about the welfare of
11:24
Speaker 2: David because he was still a missing person, but now
11:27
Speaker 2: Juliet had been killed, so it just really ramped up
11:31
Speaker 2: in terms of one trying to identify who the killer
11:34
Speaker 2: was and secondly try and find where David was.
11:38
Speaker 1: There were many questions and no answers to what.
11:41
Speaker 8: May have happened.
11:44
Speaker 1: Investigators needed to find David Williams fast on the twenty
11:58
Speaker 1: sixth of October twenty two and see. The investigation into
12:02
Speaker 1: the murder of fifty eight year old Julie Williams in
12:05
Speaker 1: Coventry had just begun.
12:08
Speaker 2: At this point we were in the evidence gathering stage.
12:12
Speaker 2: There was some blood and what looked like a fingerprinting
12:15
Speaker 2: blood on the radiator. There was only a bedroom and
12:20
Speaker 2: a living room in the flat. David would sleep on
12:23
Speaker 2: a bed in the living room and Julie would sleep
12:26
Speaker 2: in her bedroom and watch Telly there. Julie was dead
12:31
Speaker 2: on the floor in the room that David occupied her
12:35
Speaker 2: Telly was still on in the bedroom. The neighbors had
12:39
Speaker 2: heard someone approach Julie's flat the night before, but they
12:43
Speaker 2: couldn't really hear what was being said. The person that
12:48
Speaker 2: had killed Julie had taken the keys and had locked
12:50
Speaker 2: the door behind them, so was probably known to Julie
12:54
Speaker 2: for her to have let him into the house.
12:57
Speaker 1: For the family, not only the horror of Julie's death,
13:01
Speaker 1: the worry of David's whereabouts, but also the rumors surrounding
13:06
Speaker 1: the murder.
13:09
Speaker 5: People were saying, Davis and that has gone disappearing, and
13:12
Speaker 5: David's gone and killed his mother. And I said, no,
13:15
Speaker 5: he wouldn't do that. He loves her too much. He
13:17
Speaker 5: definitely wouldn't do that. And he hasn't got a bad
13:19
Speaker 5: bone in his body.
13:22
Speaker 2: We didn't have a suspect at all. The main focus
13:26
Speaker 2: then was on this fingerprinting blood. Now, that might have
13:29
Speaker 2: been Julie's fingerprint, but if it wasn't, then.
13:33
Speaker 6: It's most likely to be the killer.
13:36
Speaker 2: That became the sort of priority submission to take a
13:40
Speaker 2: photo and then see if we can match it to
13:41
Speaker 2: the fingerprint database to somebody on it.
13:45
Speaker 1: Whilst the forensic investigations were underway, the search for David intensified.
13:52
Speaker 1: Accessing his phone records provided police with vital information.
13:58
Speaker 2: When we examined david phone, we saw that he was
14:02
Speaker 2: in regular contact, quite a lot of contact with an
14:05
Speaker 2: individual that, when we checked him out on our police systems,
14:08
Speaker 2: was known to supply Class eight drugs. That phone activity
14:12
Speaker 2: dropped off at the point where David had been reported missing,
14:15
Speaker 2: so there was an assumption there that that person knew
14:18
Speaker 2: that David was no longer going to be using his phone,
14:22
Speaker 2: and the Sunday night we had that individual identified, located
14:26
Speaker 2: and arrested and brought into custody, and he protested his
14:29
Speaker 2: innocent straight away and provided an alibi.
14:33
Speaker 1: Part of David's routine included regular visits to the Riley
14:37
Speaker 1: Square pharmacy where he collected his methodone prescription.
14:42
Speaker 2: What we found out as our inquiries went through on
14:44
Speaker 2: the Monday was that David had been seen going in
14:47
Speaker 2: and out of the chemist with an individual called Anthony Russell.
14:51
Speaker 6: There were both.
14:51
Speaker 2: Drug users, they lived near each other. They used to
14:54
Speaker 2: beg in the area for money, so we were quite
14:57
Speaker 2: keen to trace Anthony. He was the last person than
15:00
Speaker 2: Julie that had seen David alive.
15:02
Speaker 1: Five days after David Williams had been reported missing. Police
15:07
Speaker 1: had a name, thirty eight year old local men Anthony Russell.
15:13
Speaker 2: We realized that he was a close associate of David
15:16
Speaker 2: and he lived in the area. He would hang around
15:20
Speaker 2: Riley Square or around the local supermarkets that surrounded the
15:24
Speaker 2: area and would beg for money with other people in
15:27
Speaker 2: that community and then once they've got enough money. They
15:30
Speaker 2: tended to head towards each other's flats and new drugs.
15:37
Speaker 1: He was a well known figure in the area and
15:39
Speaker 1: one with a reputation for trouble.
15:43
Speaker 5: He was unhinged. He wasn't normal, you know, his behavy
15:47
Speaker 5: wasn't normal. But people were always frightened of him. So
15:51
Speaker 5: he got moved on, but nobody ever did anything about it.
15:55
Speaker 5: He used to go up to the hospital and annoy them.
15:58
Speaker 5: My daughter works at the hospital and she said that
16:01
Speaker 5: security'd had to move him on several times.
16:07
Speaker 2: We tried to locate him. We went to his flat,
16:12
Speaker 2: couldn't get any response on the flat. We forced entry
16:16
Speaker 2: into his flat to try and search for Anthony and David.
16:20
Speaker 1: Anthony Russell's sparsely furnished flat was spattered with blood. A
16:25
Speaker 1: brief search uncovered the sauce.
16:29
Speaker 2: On that Monday evening, we found David's body hidden underneath
16:32
Speaker 2: Anthony's bed. What was evident was that he had been
16:38
Speaker 2: quite savagely beaten, so it had been quite a lot
16:41
Speaker 2: of brute force used on David.
16:45
Speaker 3: Either those injuries were defensive and came as a result
16:50
Speaker 3: of a full out fight with his attacker, or again
16:55
Speaker 3: they could have been about the rage that the attacker
16:59
Speaker 3: was feeling.
17:02
Speaker 5: My daughter firred me up and she was screaming down
17:05
Speaker 5: the phone at me, She says. They found David. We
17:11
Speaker 5: was devastated. I couldn't eat or sleep, and every time
17:17
Speaker 5: I closed my eyes, I kept thinking about what David
17:19
Speaker 5: must have gone through. He must have been so scared,
17:23
Speaker 5: because he probably wouldn't have believed it. You know, if
17:25
Speaker 5: somebody went to attack him, he'd probably just laugh, thinking
17:28
Speaker 5: it's a joke. He wouldn't have realized until it was
17:30
Speaker 5: too late.
17:33
Speaker 1: David's death meant the police faced an entirely different investigation.
17:39
Speaker 2: It had gone from a missing person on Saturday, a
17:43
Speaker 2: murder and a missing person on Sunday. We've now got
17:45
Speaker 2: two murders. This now is where the investigation really really
17:51
Speaker 2: ramped up. David had suffered from eighty one external injuries,
17:58
Speaker 2: some including a knife, had been stabbed. It'd got some
18:02
Speaker 2: severe wounds and bangs to his head.
18:06
Speaker 7: Also, there was a lanyard around his neck which was
18:11
Speaker 7: causing neck compression, which would be very similar to Julie.
18:16
Speaker 1: The lanyard ordinarily held David's keys, but they were not
18:20
Speaker 1: with his body. Detectives believed his and his mother's deaths
18:25
Speaker 1: were linked.
18:26
Speaker 7: The fact that I could see similarities between Julie's body
18:30
Speaker 7: and David's body supported the notion that was likely to
18:33
Speaker 7: be just one person, and I could see that the
18:37
Speaker 7: changes in which were present in David's body would suggest
18:41
Speaker 7: that he was in fact the first victim, with Julie
18:44
Speaker 7: following on afterwards.
18:50
Speaker 2: We've got two crime scenes that were working through, working
18:53
Speaker 2: through all the phone evidence, working through who were the
18:56
Speaker 2: last people to see everyone alive, and understanding their background.
19:00
Speaker 2: But the main priority is we've got someone who's killed
19:02
Speaker 2: two people on the loose and is a real danger
19:05
Speaker 2: to the public.
19:07
Speaker 1: The double murder investigation was code named Operation in Shore,
19:12
Speaker 1: and detectives had one person at the top of their list,
19:16
Speaker 1: Anthony Russell.
19:21
Speaker 4: Anthony Russell is a person of considerable interest in the
19:23
Speaker 4: killing of David and Julie Williams.
19:26
Speaker 2: When we spoke to his family, we found that he
19:30
Speaker 2: had left the area, but he never had a phone.
19:33
Speaker 2: He never had his own mobile phone, so we had
19:35
Speaker 2: no way of tracking his phone or understanding who he
19:38
Speaker 2: was in contact with, and it just disappeared from Coventry,
19:41
Speaker 2: So we'd got a big man hunt on the go,
19:44
Speaker 2: but we had no idea where he was.
19:45
Speaker 6: At this point where.
19:47
Speaker 1: They suspected double murderer at large, every precaution.
19:52
Speaker 8: Had to be taken.
19:54
Speaker 1: The alert on Russell was put out nationwide.
19:58
Speaker 5: They put it on the in and in the Common
20:00
Speaker 5: Chieving Telegraph. They were showing you photos of this Anthony
20:05
Speaker 5: Russell saying do you not approach him? He is very,
20:07
Speaker 5: very dangerous.
20:10
Speaker 2: We were getting sightings all over the country and we
20:12
Speaker 2: couldn't ignore these sightings because we had no way to
20:15
Speaker 2: confirm whether that sighting was correct or not, so we
20:18
Speaker 2: had to link in with all the different police forces
20:20
Speaker 2: to try and do those inquiries.
20:23
Speaker 3: He didn't have a vehicle of his own, so they
20:25
Speaker 3: weren't using the usual AMPR tracking that kind of thing,
20:29
Speaker 3: but they would have been looking at all public transport.
20:36
Speaker 2: What we did find as we moved through the tracking
20:38
Speaker 2: on the CCTV, so we'd got some points where people
20:41
Speaker 2: who knew him had last seen him. He'd certainly been
20:45
Speaker 2: to a supermarket, which allowed us then to track him
20:47
Speaker 2: on the supermarket, which captured him getting on a bus.
20:50
Speaker 6: Now this bus then we were able.
20:52
Speaker 2: To track him going into Commentary City Center, but then
20:55
Speaker 2: we lost him within the sort of bus station area
20:58
Speaker 2: which wasn't covered by CC so we assumed he'd gone
21:02
Speaker 2: into the city center to then travel on with We
21:04
Speaker 2: had no idea where he would have come.
21:08
Speaker 1: Anthony Russell had been running away since childhood. By twenty twenty,
21:13
Speaker 1: he was a man skilled in staying under the radar.
21:17
Speaker 4: Anthony Russell took it upon himself to adopt various disguises.
21:23
Speaker 4: He was a man who hadn't lost his senses. He
21:26
Speaker 4: was extremely aware that he was a focus of interest
21:29
Speaker 4: by the police.
21:30
Speaker 6: Or the CCTV.
21:31
Speaker 2: When you put together each still of what he looked like,
21:35
Speaker 2: he was changing his appearance all the time.
21:37
Speaker 6: He was stealing glasses.
21:39
Speaker 2: He'd wear different hats, he'd wear hoods, His clothing was
21:42
Speaker 2: changed quite regularly.
21:45
Speaker 1: Russell was as organized as he was brutal. On Monday,
21:50
Speaker 1: twenty sixth of October, just hours since Julie's body was
21:54
Speaker 1: discovered and David still lay dead in his flat, Anthony
21:58
Speaker 1: Russell was already thinking ahead.
22:02
Speaker 3: He needed cash and he needed a phone.
22:06
Speaker 4: He attacks a seventy eight year old man stealing his
22:09
Speaker 4: mobile phone. He goes to Kenilworth, where, believe it or not,
22:17
Speaker 4: Russell attacks a seventy one year old woman and steals
22:20
Speaker 4: two hundred pounds. He drags the poor lady along the ground,
22:25
Speaker 4: injuring her.
22:27
Speaker 8: Once again.
22:28
Speaker 4: The actual man who has absolutely no concern for anyone
22:32
Speaker 4: but himself.
22:33
Speaker 3: Anybody coming into this man's path at this time is
22:39
Speaker 3: in danger.
22:42
Speaker 8: On the run from the police.
22:44
Speaker 1: Wanted for two murders, Anthony Russell was a desperate man
22:48
Speaker 1: with nothing to lose, and his murderous rampage was far
22:54
Speaker 1: from over. By the twenty seventh of October twenty twenty,
23:06
Speaker 1: Coventry double murder suspect Anthony Russell had been on the
23:11
Speaker 1: run for two days.
23:13
Speaker 8: Twelve miles away.
23:14
Speaker 1: In the town of Lemington Spa, Waisha, Police received a
23:18
Speaker 1: missing person alert.
23:21
Speaker 2: A man reported that his girlfriend had gone missing. They
23:24
Speaker 2: were begging in Lemington Spa. They had a different spot
23:27
Speaker 2: in the town where they would beg and when he
23:30
Speaker 2: went to see where she was when they finished begging,
23:32
Speaker 2: she'd just gone. He made that report on the Tuesday,
23:37
Speaker 2: so Warwickshire Police started a missing person inquiry into a
23:41
Speaker 2: girl called Nicole.
23:44
Speaker 4: Nicle McGregor. At this point is five months pregnant and
23:48
Speaker 4: extremely proudly.
23:51
Speaker 2: She got a boyfriend called Chris. They lived in a
23:53
Speaker 2: flat in Lemington. They were both drug users, but they
23:58
Speaker 2: were trying to get off drugs.
24:00
Speaker 1: Nicole had not been seen since the previous day, when
24:04
Speaker 1: she had spent the morning with her partner and a
24:06
Speaker 1: new friend. By Tuesday afternoon, Chris was frantic with worry.
24:13
Speaker 2: Chris wasn't the sort of person really to interact with
24:15
Speaker 2: the police. I don't think he was particularly fond of
24:18
Speaker 2: the police, but he got so worried by that evening
24:21
Speaker 2: that he actually approached the uniform police officer and said,
24:24
Speaker 2: I'm really concerned that my girlfriend's missing. When the police
24:28
Speaker 2: started to get the information from Chris, he started to
24:32
Speaker 2: disclose that the day before they'd befriended a person called Anthony.
24:36
Speaker 6: He was from Coventry.
24:38
Speaker 2: It was at that point when the realization came in
24:41
Speaker 2: that this might be Anthony Brussell.
24:43
Speaker 1: That same evening, the investigation into the double murder of
24:47
Speaker 1: Julie and David got a result. The blooded fingerprint from
24:52
Speaker 1: Julie's flat found a match on the national database. It
24:56
Speaker 1: belonged to Anthony Russell.
24:59
Speaker 2: The fingerprint was the confirmation that Anthony was the suspect
25:02
Speaker 2: that we were looking for.
25:04
Speaker 1: The chilling revelation that Nicole McGregor had been in the
25:08
Speaker 1: company of a man suspected of murdering two people in
25:12
Speaker 1: cold blood was one police took very seriously. They knew
25:17
Speaker 1: that time was of the essence.
25:20
Speaker 2: We scoured Lemington for CCTV and seized all the CCTV
25:24
Speaker 2: of the town center. Were able then, with the information
25:29
Speaker 2: from Chris to piece together where Nicole was.
25:35
Speaker 4: Then the story dark although it already is, begets even
25:39
Speaker 4: darker because for some reason known only really to Anthony Russell,
25:44
Speaker 4: he targets Nicole McGregor.
25:47
Speaker 2: What we saw was that Anthony Russell had approached her,
25:51
Speaker 2: he'd been begging over the other side of the road,
25:53
Speaker 2: and they had walked away together.
25:56
Speaker 4: Anthony Russell invites Nicole McGregor to join him in a
26:01
Speaker 4: place called Newbold Common, a wooded area in Leamington spa
26:07
Speaker 4: quite quiet, quite secluded. Suggested that she'd taken up the
26:14
Speaker 4: invitation because she thought that he could supply more drugs.
26:20
Speaker 1: CCTV showed Nicole and Anthony Russell entering the woods together.
26:26
Speaker 1: Forty minutes later, Russell emerged alone.
26:30
Speaker 2: That gave us then the last sighting of Nicol McGregor
26:34
Speaker 2: and we were able to go through the woodland in
26:36
Speaker 2: the area where he could have got to on foot.
26:39
Speaker 6: In that forty minute period.
26:41
Speaker 1: The CCTV cameras captured Russell walking the short journey back
26:46
Speaker 1: to the town center.
26:47
Speaker 4: He goes to seek out Nicole's boyfriend, the father of
26:51
Speaker 4: her unborn child.
26:53
Speaker 2: What we were able to do then was track Anthony Russell,
26:56
Speaker 2: and what we found was that he spent the Tuesday
27:00
Speaker 2: with Chris Nichole's boyfriend going around Leamington looking for her.
27:07
Speaker 3: He was like sympathetic to him and he was inserting
27:11
Speaker 3: himself into an investigation as a good guy. He was
27:15
Speaker 3: saying things to Nicole's boyfriend like, you know, oh, you
27:18
Speaker 3: must be really looking forward to becoming a father.
27:22
Speaker 1: On the twenty ninth of October, three days after Nicole
27:26
Speaker 1: was last seen, police searched Newbold Common.
27:30
Speaker 2: We knew Anthony had already killed two people. We've got
27:33
Speaker 2: a girl going missing with Anthony, so you know, our
27:38
Speaker 2: biggest fear was that she was dead. On the Thursday,
27:45
Speaker 2: there was a specialist police teams that are trained to
27:48
Speaker 2: search wooded difficult areas, do a methodical search to make
27:53
Speaker 2: sure that they search every area and they take it
27:56
Speaker 2: piece by piece, storm Barbera was hitting the UK.
27:59
Speaker 6: The river was riding quite high, so the terrain was
28:03
Speaker 6: really really difficult.
28:06
Speaker 2: Her body was found in some bushes and she had
28:10
Speaker 2: been strangled with her own leggings.
28:14
Speaker 7: I received another phone call from the police to inform
28:18
Speaker 7: me that they had found another victim and this victim
28:22
Speaker 7: was Nicole McGregor. Nicole's body was found with her face
28:27
Speaker 7: down and what I could see was that there was
28:30
Speaker 7: vegetation within Nicole's mouth, which is likely to have been
28:35
Speaker 7: when she was face down on the floor but alive.
28:40
Speaker 4: The sheer terror that she must have felt when she
28:43
Speaker 4: was being attacked by this man she thought she trusted.
28:48
Speaker 7: The position in which she was found was very suggestive
28:51
Speaker 7: that she was likely to have been the subject of
28:54
Speaker 7: a sexual assault as well.
28:56
Speaker 1: Both Nicole and the baby she'd look forward to bringing
29:00
Speaker 1: into the world were dead.
29:03
Speaker 7: It can be a very sobering experience when you perform
29:06
Speaker 7: a post mortem examination or an expectant mother when you
29:11
Speaker 7: find the unborn child lying peacefully inside.
29:15
Speaker 6: The mum's womb.
29:17
Speaker 7: This woman who was excited about the prospect of being
29:22
Speaker 7: a mum has had that taken away from her.
29:26
Speaker 1: The death of Nicole McGregor meant police suspected Anthony Russell
29:31
Speaker 1: of killing three innocent people in a period of less
29:35
Speaker 1: than a week. Their biggest concern was what he would
29:39
Speaker 1: do next.
29:41
Speaker 3: Russell is becoming more and more dangerous, so he's committed murders.
29:49
Speaker 3: He then is attacking people, taking their money, taking their phones.
29:54
Speaker 3: But again there's a kind of a logical reason for
29:57
Speaker 3: doing that, even if the methods are brutal an awful.
30:01
Speaker 3: But now he's escalated to kill in for the sake
30:04
Speaker 3: of it, because it pleases him. So at the end
30:07
Speaker 3: of this seven days he's about as dangerous as he
30:10
Speaker 3: can possibly get.
30:14
Speaker 1: Once again, Russell went on the run. A wanted man.
30:18
Speaker 1: He was prepared to do whatever it took to make
30:21
Speaker 1: his escape.
30:24
Speaker 6: He left Lemington. He'd walked away on foot.
30:26
Speaker 2: We saw that on CCTV and lost the tracking of
30:29
Speaker 2: him as he disappeared. We then found that there'd been
30:32
Speaker 2: a robbery just outside Lemington.
30:35
Speaker 6: Old man called Roy.
30:37
Speaker 2: He'd had a brick smashed over the top of his head.
30:40
Speaker 1: The attacker was a man with a plan, a man
30:44
Speaker 1: without mercy.
30:46
Speaker 8: He steals the car.
30:48
Speaker 4: He leaves the seventy eight year old with a fractured
30:51
Speaker 4: skull in his own front door, takes the car and leaves.
30:56
Speaker 2: He only survived because there were some people that were
31:00
Speaker 2: doing gardening that turned up to help with his garden
31:03
Speaker 2: that actually found him there or were able to get
31:06
Speaker 2: paramedics there and do first aid to keep him alive.
31:10
Speaker 1: Police suspected the attacker was Anthony Russell, a fugitive hell
31:15
Speaker 1: bent at getting away no matter what the cost.
31:19
Speaker 3: Russell is what I would call on a spree one
31:23
Speaker 3: emotional event. He's not coming down. He's gone up into
31:28
Speaker 3: that rage when he's killed the first person, and he
31:31
Speaker 3: kind of stayed there. Spree killers don't stop until they stopped.
31:37
Speaker 1: Preventing Russell from killing again was the police's number one priority.
31:43
Speaker 9: So we're working closely with Warwickshire Police to locate Anthony
31:48
Speaker 9: Russell as soon as possible. But i'd appeal to the
31:51
Speaker 9: public if they've got any information as to where he
31:53
Speaker 9: might be, if they see him at all, make sure
31:56
Speaker 9: that they call us.
31:57
Speaker 1: On nine nine nine, they put out alerts on the
32:03
Speaker 1: red Ford c Max he'd stolen.
32:06
Speaker 2: It was picked up on some AMPR cameras and it
32:09
Speaker 2: had headed towards the Staffordshire Police area. But it had
32:13
Speaker 2: pretty much disappeared into the countryside and it hadn't been
32:17
Speaker 2: hitting any AMPR cameras from that point.
32:20
Speaker 1: In October twenty twenty, there was a large police presence
32:24
Speaker 1: in rural Staffordshire due to a recent spike in theft there.
32:30
Speaker 1: In the early hours of the thirtieth of October, one
32:33
Speaker 1: of the patrol cars made an unexpected find.
32:38
Speaker 2: They came across the vehicle and when they did the
32:41
Speaker 2: check on the vehicle they realized that it had been
32:42
Speaker 2: stolen in a violent robbery.
32:44
Speaker 6: It might have been linked to our murder suspect.
32:47
Speaker 5: There's the car.
32:49
Speaker 7: Sec sax Sack.
32:51
Speaker 6: They approached the.
32:52
Speaker 2: Car found Antony.
33:02
Speaker 6: That's where he was arrested.
33:04
Speaker 4: Anthony Russell, you're under arrest for the murder of three people.
33:09
Speaker 4: You do not have to say but my army defense.
33:11
Speaker 9: You do not mind to a question something with you
33:13
Speaker 9: later around court ath you do say, maybe given Everett.
33:17
Speaker 1: At four seventeen am on Friday thirtieth of October, the
33:21
Speaker 1: man suspected of killing three people was taken to penny
33:25
Speaker 1: Bar Police station in Birmingham.
33:28
Speaker 6: He refused to be interviewed.
33:30
Speaker 2: He wouldn't leave his cell, so he was eventually asked
33:32
Speaker 2: the questions at his cell and he just put a
33:35
Speaker 2: blanket over his head and ignored.
33:36
Speaker 6: All the all the questions, refused to make any comment.
33:41
Speaker 1: Having caught their fugitive, the police would now need to
33:44
Speaker 1: use all their skills to link Russell to all three
33:48
Speaker 1: murders and make sure a suspected triple killer didn't escape justice.
34:02
Speaker 1: On Monday, the tewond of November twenty twenty, Anthony Russell
34:06
Speaker 1: appeared via video link from Birmingham Magistrate's Court, charged with
34:11
Speaker 1: the murders of David Williams, Julie Williams and Nicole McGregor.
34:16
Speaker 1: Nichole's unborn baby was too young to be classed as
34:20
Speaker 1: a victim.
34:22
Speaker 5: He killed Julie, he killed David, he killed Nichola, but
34:26
Speaker 5: they didn't say he killed the baby because she wasn't born.
34:31
Speaker 5: I don't understand how that baby was not even classified
34:36
Speaker 5: as a body.
34:40
Speaker 1: The violent robberies Russell had carried out whilst on the
34:44
Speaker 1: run were added to the list of offenses.
34:48
Speaker 2: The team that works on it were brilliant. The real
34:51
Speaker 2: fear there is that you can find him within a week,
34:54
Speaker 2: but if you've not got the evidence hand, he could
34:57
Speaker 2: be back out the door again. So it was really
34:59
Speaker 2: really that the team worked as hard as they did
35:01
Speaker 2: to make sure that they got that evidence.
35:04
Speaker 1: Whilst Russell awaited trial, another charge was brought against him.
35:10
Speaker 2: We also charged him with rape of Nicole because we
35:13
Speaker 2: found evidence that he'd had sexual intercourse with her. We
35:18
Speaker 2: knew that Nicole wouldn't have willingly gone with him to
35:21
Speaker 2: have sex, so we charged him with the rape.
35:26
Speaker 1: In the leader to trial, the Williams family suffered further heartbreak.
35:31
Speaker 1: For Julie's son, David's brother Daniel. The loss was too
35:35
Speaker 1: great to bear.
35:38
Speaker 5: Daniel didn't want to leave without his mum or without
35:40
Speaker 5: his brother, which is why he decided to hang himself,
35:45
Speaker 5: which is heartbreaking the thing that he is in that
35:48
Speaker 5: much pain that he thought that was the best outcome.
35:56
Speaker 5: As far as I'm concerned, Anthony Russell should be charged
35:59
Speaker 5: with Daniel's mud. As well.
36:03
Speaker 1: As the team prepared for the court case, investigators put
36:07
Speaker 1: together an account of that fateful week in October.
36:13
Speaker 2: We did piece together some things from Anthony's associates and
36:17
Speaker 2: David's associates, and we realized that Anthony thought that David
36:22
Speaker 2: had slept with his girlfriend. So we think that was
36:25
Speaker 2: the motive for killing David.
36:27
Speaker 5: It was all lies, but all this was going on
36:30
Speaker 5: Facebook saying Anthony Russell's looking for David because he's been
36:33
Speaker 5: seeing his girlfriend.
36:36
Speaker 1: Police believe that Julie's murder was directly related to her sons.
36:42
Speaker 2: Anthony's never really given us a full account as to
36:45
Speaker 2: exactly what happened, so we've never understood the real motives.
36:50
Speaker 2: But we think Julie reporting David missing was the potential
36:55
Speaker 2: motive for killing Julie.
36:58
Speaker 4: Russell calculated that he couldn't keep up the charade of
37:03
Speaker 4: David having disappeared and decided in a cold bloody, premeditated
37:08
Speaker 4: manner to kill David's mother, Julie.
37:12
Speaker 5: The police said that Auntie Russell probably knocked on Julie's
37:17
Speaker 5: door because she wasn't shutting up and she weren't going away.
37:22
Speaker 5: My heart breaks thinking she's just been told that a
37:25
Speaker 5: son's dead and now you're next.
37:28
Speaker 1: In the case of Nicol McGregor, the evidence suggested Russell
37:32
Speaker 1: had raped her then killed her to cover his tracks.
37:37
Speaker 1: The team put together a case which the Crown Prosecution
37:40
Speaker 1: Service felt confident of winning.
37:43
Speaker 2: It was really really challenging because we used to dealing
37:46
Speaker 2: with one murder, one crime scene, and then suddenly we
37:51
Speaker 2: were finding murder, murder, murder scene, seeing scene.
37:56
Speaker 1: The investigation gathered almost nine thousand hours of CCTV footage
38:02
Speaker 1: and put together a timeline which shon light on the
38:06
Speaker 1: message Julie had received from David about leaving town due
38:10
Speaker 1: to drug debts.
38:12
Speaker 2: We believe that that text message had actually been sent
38:15
Speaker 2: by Anthony after David had been killed, to Julie to
38:19
Speaker 2: try and put her off the center of it being
38:21
Speaker 2: Anthony that had killed him.
38:26
Speaker 1: It was fourteen months after the murders before Anthony Russell
38:31
Speaker 1: was tried for his crimes. On the fourteenth of February
38:34
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, his trial began at Warick Crown Court.
38:41
Speaker 2: Everyone was there and it was before the jury was
38:43
Speaker 2: sworn in, so we were expecting quite a lengthy trial.
38:46
Speaker 2: But then he pleaded guilty on the first day. They
38:50
Speaker 2: pleaded guilty to everything apart from the ray.
38:54
Speaker 3: That's not unusual actually, because murdering somebody has some kind
38:58
Speaker 3: of machismo to it. You can hold your head up
39:01
Speaker 3: in the prison when you get your sentence, You're much
39:03
Speaker 3: more likely to get sympathy because you can say I
39:07
Speaker 3: thought this and I thought that and I was being
39:09
Speaker 3: treated badly. You can't say anything like.
39:11
Speaker 2: That about a rape. So that left us with a
39:15
Speaker 2: decision then whether we were going to proceed just with
39:17
Speaker 2: the rape or not, and we decided we would try
39:21
Speaker 2: him for the rape.
39:26
Speaker 5: Julie's sister went to the court every single day. I
39:29
Speaker 5: couldn't go because I kept thinking, if I go and
39:32
Speaker 5: I see something, I won't be able to unsee it.
39:36
Speaker 5: The thing she's seen in the photos she's seen and
39:39
Speaker 5: what she heard that never come out in the papers.
39:42
Speaker 5: I think people would be very, very shocked if they'd
39:46
Speaker 5: known just how bad he was.
39:49
Speaker 1: The jury heard the testimonies of those involved in the case.
39:55
Speaker 7: The focus of the trial was whether or not Anthony
39:58
Speaker 7: Russell had raped Nicole prior to her death. The fact
40:03
Speaker 7: that she was found in a state of undress, the
40:06
Speaker 7: position in which her body was found would suggest to
40:10
Speaker 7: me that she had been subject to a sexual assault.
40:15
Speaker 1: Called to give evidence for the prosecution was Nicole's boyfriend Chris,
40:20
Speaker 1: who'd searched for.
40:21
Speaker 8: Nicole with the very man who'd killed her.
40:25
Speaker 2: It was the first time he had seen Anthony since
40:27
Speaker 2: Anthony had been with him. He was unable to give
40:30
Speaker 2: any evidence in a calm way. Because he reacted so
40:34
Speaker 2: badly to seeing Anthony in the courtroom and that resulted
40:37
Speaker 2: in a jury failing to reach a verdict.
40:40
Speaker 1: A new trial date was set for the following month,
40:43
Speaker 1: and on the seventh of March twenty twenty two, at
40:46
Speaker 1: Way Crown Court, Russell returned to face the charge of
40:51
Speaker 1: raping Nicole McGregor.
40:53
Speaker 2: We ran exactly the same trial and the second time round.
40:57
Speaker 2: I think because Chris had actually seen Anthony, he had
41:00
Speaker 2: faced him, he was able to stand and give evidence.
41:04
Speaker 6: Chris's evidence was quite compelling.
41:08
Speaker 4: When the jury came back, they found him guilty after
41:11
Speaker 4: only deliberating for eighty three minutes of the rape of
41:14
Speaker 4: Nicole McGregor.
41:18
Speaker 1: At his arrest and during the trial, Russell had remained
41:22
Speaker 1: relatively silent. When the time came for sentencing, he declined
41:27
Speaker 1: to leave his cell.
41:29
Speaker 4: Russell is so uncooperative he isn't even prepared to leave
41:34
Speaker 4: his jail cell to go to court to hear his sentence.
41:39
Speaker 2: Got a whole life term, which means he will never
41:42
Speaker 2: ever be released, and that is reserved for the most
41:45
Speaker 2: serious offenders. I think there's less than one hundred people
41:48
Speaker 2: that have received that sort of sentence in the UK.
41:52
Speaker 1: It was the result everyone had hoped for, but there
41:56
Speaker 1: was little cause for jubilation.
42:00
Speaker 5: The families are the ones that are doing the sentence,
42:02
Speaker 5: not Russell. He's got the easy bit to do, but
42:06
Speaker 5: the people that have to live with what he's done
42:08
Speaker 5: is unbearable.
42:13
Speaker 2: It's really difficult to feel any good feeling from it
42:16
Speaker 2: because it's just is so horrific. But the only satisfaction
42:20
Speaker 2: you get is that he's in prison now, he won't
42:23
Speaker 2: come out and he won't hurt anybody else.
42:27
Speaker 5: The bodies weren't released until after the court cases. David
42:32
Speaker 5: and Julie has a funeral together at the Hanley Crematorium
42:36
Speaker 5: and they also had a picture of Daniel and his
42:41
Speaker 5: ashes were there so that they could include the three
42:44
Speaker 5: of them. And we're all sat there, all looking at
42:48
Speaker 5: each other like everything's surreal. Because you might see on
42:52
Speaker 5: the television, you might read about it in the newspaper,
42:55
Speaker 5: but that doesn't happen to people like her, as just
42:57
Speaker 5: ordered me people. If only he Julie hadn't opened the
43:01
Speaker 5: door to Anthony Russell, if David had realized what an
43:05
Speaker 5: evil person's friend was, you know, story would be completely different.
43:13
Speaker 1: Anthony Russell was a man who took what he wanted
43:17
Speaker 1: and gave nothing back in return, A man motivated only
43:22
Speaker 1: by serving his own needs, who terrified the elderly victims
43:27
Speaker 1: he brutalized and stole from. Who subjected three people who
43:31
Speaker 1: trusted him to sadistic and tortuous murders. To this day,
43:36
Speaker 1: he's refused to explain or apologize for his actions, making
43:41
Speaker 1: Anthony Russell one of the world's most evil killers.