Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Serial Killer Documentary - Stephen Unwin & William McFall

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Serial Killer Documentary - Stephen Unwin & William McFall · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:09
Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of the 15th of August, 2017,
0:14
Speaker 1: a fire and rescue service in the northeast of England
0:17
Speaker 1: responded to a 999 call reporting a car on fire.
0:22
Speaker 1: Inside the car, the body of 28-year-old mother of two,
0:25
Speaker 1: Nguyen Anhoc Nguyen, from Vietnam.
0:31
Speaker 2: The flames were so intense that her body had been
0:33
Speaker 2: fused into the backseat of the car.
0:37
Speaker 3: This was an act that was premeditated and planned.
0:40
Speaker 1: Her killers were 50-year-old William McFall and 39-year-old Stephen Unwin,
0:47
Speaker 1: two convicted murderers.
0:51
Speaker 4: It was the evil of all evils. They're just evil people.
0:57
Speaker 1: The killers had met in prison where they struck up
1:01
Speaker 1: a deadly friendship.
1:07
Speaker 5: When Unwin and McFall joined forces, they really amplified their
1:11
Speaker 5: level of dangerousness and violence, because it's not just about
1:15
Speaker 5: committing crime and hurting people now. It's about doing that
1:19
Speaker 5: and performing it in front of another individual.
1:22
Speaker 1: In her final hour, their victims suffered unimaginable pain and
1:27
Speaker 1: cruelty at the hands of Stephen Unwin and William McFall,
1:32
Speaker 1: two of the world's most evil killers. In April 2018,
2:00
Speaker 1: Stephen Unwin and William McFall were on trial in the
2:04
Speaker 1: Crown Court at Newcastle, England, for the brutal murder of
2:08
Speaker 1: Gwynne Nguyen. Unwin was also charged with raping the 28-year-old
2:13
Speaker 1: from Vietnam. Covering the day-to-day court proceedings was North East
2:19
Speaker 1: reporter for The Sun newspaper, Robin Perry.
2:25
Speaker 2: Quinn was subjected to a horrific assault. She was attacked, beaten,
2:29
Speaker 2: strangled with a ligature, and then quite horrifically, Unwinner McFall
2:33
Speaker 2: injected her with a syringe full of whiskey. As she
2:36
Speaker 2: was incapacitated, far too badly injured to escape, Unwinner then
2:40
Speaker 2: subjected to a series of sexual assaults and raped her.
2:45
Speaker 3: This poor woman has lost her innocence and her life
2:49
Speaker 3: eventually to these two mindless thugs. And this wasn't just
2:55
Speaker 3: an act of opportunism.
2:58
Speaker 1: On the 25th of April 2018, Mr Justice Morris sentenced
3:03
Speaker 1: 40-year-old Stephen Unwin and 51-year-old William McFall to life in prison.
3:11
Speaker 2: Both men were given not just life terms, but full
3:13
Speaker 2: life terms. There are two of only approximately 60 people
3:16
Speaker 2: in the country who have full life terms, which means.
3:19
Speaker 3: They will never be released. They will die behind bars.
3:23
Speaker 6: Lovely cheese.
3:25
Speaker 7: Real cheese.
3:26
Speaker 5: They are considered among the most dangerous criminals in the country.
3:31
Speaker 5: They are highly likely to kill someone else, to harm
3:34
Speaker 5: someone else, if they were ever released.
3:36
Speaker 1: This was not the first time Stephen Unwin and William
3:40
Speaker 1: McFall had killed. Both men were already convicted murderers before
3:45
Speaker 1: they attacked Gwyn.
3:47
Speaker 5: I think we do need to take a step back
3:49
Speaker 5: and say, why on earth were these two men released
3:52
Speaker 5: in the first place? They took people's lives away, and
3:55
Speaker 5: the circumstances in which those first murders happened were particularly heinous.
4:00
Speaker 1: William McFall's story begins in Northern Ireland. He was born
4:05
Speaker 1: in 1967 and grew up in the small town of
4:08
Speaker 1: Green Island near Carrickfergus in County Antrim.
4:12
Speaker 5: These were quite turbulent times in Northern Ireland, so... Things
4:17
Speaker 5: weren't particularly stable.
4:18
Speaker 1: There was always a.
4:19
Speaker 5: Kind of fear in the air about what might happen next.
4:22
Speaker 5: And he's a child who didn't really seem to have
4:25
Speaker 5: very much in the way of sort of guidance and
4:27
Speaker 5: direction and discipline. So right from the word go, he
4:31
Speaker 5: was kind of left to his own devices, really.
4:34
Speaker 1: Jimmy Smith knew McFall as a child.
4:38
Speaker 6: The early memories of McFall was him just running about
4:41
Speaker 6: in the estate with a pair of Wellington boots on
4:43
Speaker 6: and a pair of shorts. and just like a feral child.
4:47
Speaker 6: He didn't seem to have any friends at all, but
4:50
Speaker 6: everyone knew him. People did really avoid him because he
4:54
Speaker 6: was just... There was something not right.
4:58
Speaker 1: McFall grew up with two sisters and a brother.
5:02
Speaker 6: McFall and his other siblings seemed to have no discipline
5:05
Speaker 6: in the house at all. You know, they just ran wild.
5:08
Speaker 8: All of them.
5:12
Speaker 6: MacFarlane always had a weapon in his hand, whether it
5:14
Speaker 6: be a stick or a hammer or a knife. The
5:18
Speaker 6: most bizarre one was a chainsaw.
5:21
Speaker 5: This really does tell us that he wants to be
5:23
Speaker 5: seen as threatening. He attaches a value to violence. He
5:27
Speaker 5: wants other people to fear him.
5:31
Speaker 6: He wasn't really a violent man with anybody that could
5:37
Speaker 6: challenge him. but if it was someone weaker, then, yes,
5:40
Speaker 6: he would be violent, he would be very, very nasty,
5:43
Speaker 6: very vindictive, you know.
5:45
Speaker 1: There were early signs that McFall was a troubled boy
5:49
Speaker 1: with tendencies to cruelty.
5:51
Speaker 6: McFall had an altercation with one of the teachers in
5:54
Speaker 6: Silverstream Primary School, and later on that evening, he broke
5:58
Speaker 6: into the school, went to the teacher's praise topical fish
6:01
Speaker 6: tank and killed all the fish and put them under
6:06
Speaker 6: desks and between books. and nailed him to the blackboard
6:09
Speaker 6: as well. Just really bizarre behavior.
6:13
Speaker 3: There's also a story that he killed 40 mice by
6:16
Speaker 3: beheading them. He was a brutal little boy, a boy
6:21
Speaker 3: who set himself apart from the crowd by his ferocity.
6:28
Speaker 5: We do see this quite often in cases of people
6:31
Speaker 5: who go on to commit horrendous murders. We look back
6:35
Speaker 5: at their childhoods and they do seem to have animal
6:38
Speaker 5: cruelty within them. We know that he is using animals
6:42
Speaker 5: to exercise power, to exercise control. When you are a
6:47
Speaker 5: small child, you don't have really much physical control over
6:51
Speaker 5: other people.
6:53
Speaker 6: His actual nickname was Mad John when he was a kid.
6:55
Speaker 6: It just stuck with him.
6:59
Speaker 1: As a young adult, William Mad John McFall had several
7:04
Speaker 1: convictions for violence and firearms offences.
7:08
Speaker 3: McFall did what he wanted. But then, as he grew
7:12
Speaker 3: towards the second half of his 20s, again in jail,
7:16
Speaker 3: he brags to a fellow cellmate that he's going to
7:19
Speaker 3: plot to rob an elderly lady who lives basically 100
7:23
Speaker 3: yards from his house, whom he's convinced has loads of
7:27
Speaker 3: cash under a bed.
7:30
Speaker 1: William McFall lived on Station Road, not far from 86-year-old
7:35
Speaker 1: Martha Gilmore. Martha was a frail woman who had bad
7:40
Speaker 1: arthritis and struggled with movement. She relied on carers for help,
7:46
Speaker 1: and one of the carers to visit her regularly was
7:49
Speaker 1: community nurse Anne Scott.
7:53
Speaker 7: She was just a lady that I just hit it
7:55
Speaker 7: off with her from the word go and she was
7:58
Speaker 7: a lady that I was very, very fond of. She
8:02
Speaker 7: did go out using her two sticks but she would
8:05
Speaker 7: have been very slow and she was very fragile but
8:09
Speaker 7: fiercely independent and always made me very welcome.
8:14
Speaker 1: In the early hours of Sunday 5th May 1996, McFall,
8:20
Speaker 1: armed with a hammer, went to Martha Gilmore's semi-detached bungalow
8:24
Speaker 1: on Station Road with the intention of burgling her. He
8:28
Speaker 1: hoped to find loads of cash under her bed. He
8:33
Speaker 1: rang the doorbell. Nobody answered.
8:37
Speaker 7: She'd obviously been in bed because she was slow because
8:41
Speaker 7: of her reduced mobility.
8:48
Speaker 3: But, of course, McFall doesn't factor any of this into
8:51
Speaker 3: his thinking. Nobody comes to the door because she can't
8:55
Speaker 3: get up very quickly. She's simply an old lady who
8:59
Speaker 3: finds movement extremely difficult. He rings the doorbell again. No response.
9:04
Speaker 3: So McFall breaks in. By this point, Martha Gellhorn has
9:09
Speaker 3: got up and gone into the hallway. Now, McFall is
9:13
Speaker 3: in the hallway. realizes that the house isn't empty. He's
9:18
Speaker 3: convinced she can identify him. After all, they live about
9:21
Speaker 3: 100 yards apart, so it's pretty likely she could. So
9:24
Speaker 3: without hesitation, he kills her. He hits her over the
9:27
Speaker 3: head with a hammer.
9:28
Speaker 1: McFall battered the frail old woman three times on the
9:32
Speaker 1: back of the head.
9:33
Speaker 3: This is a violent young man who acts on instinct
9:37
Speaker 3: and also has a vengeful temper. So rather than risk
9:41
Speaker 3: leaving Martha alive... He kills her. But not only that,
9:46
Speaker 3: he then drags her along the hallway so that he
9:49
Speaker 3: can get back out of the door again and on
9:51
Speaker 3: the way breaks her sternum.
9:53
Speaker 1: McFall fled the scene, leaving Martha dead in the hallway
9:58
Speaker 1: in a pool of her own blood.
10:01
Speaker 7: The news came on and it said an elderly lady
10:06
Speaker 7: had been murdered she lived in the station road in
10:09
Speaker 7: Green Island and I know this sounds ridiculous but I
10:14
Speaker 7: just knew in my heart that it was Martha.
10:20
Speaker 1: McFall was arrested within hours of the murder after police
10:24
Speaker 1: discovered fingerprints on Martha's front door which matched those held
10:28
Speaker 1: on file for William McFall.
10:32
Speaker 6: When his name came up, I wasn't surprised that McFall
10:34
Speaker 6: had killed her. It was obvious. The most striking thing
10:37
Speaker 6: was the violence behind it. It's out of order, killing
10:40
Speaker 6: an old woman.
10:42
Speaker 5: We often find this in cases of killers like this individual.
10:47
Speaker 5: They begin by targeting very vulnerable people because they are
10:51
Speaker 5: easier to control. It's almost like a testing out, essentially,
10:56
Speaker 5: of a particular offence, of a particular crime, to see
10:59
Speaker 5: if they can do it.
11:03
Speaker 7: This lady who was kind, who was genteel, who did
11:09
Speaker 7: nobody any harm, who should have been safe in the
11:13
Speaker 7: sanctuary of her own home. But no, it was invaded
11:17
Speaker 7: and she was horribly and brutally attacked. He didn't need
11:21
Speaker 7: to use a hammer on a wee frail lady like Martha.
11:25
Speaker 7: He could have pushed her out of his way. No
11:28
Speaker 7: one deserves to be attacked like that. But Martha was
11:32
Speaker 7: particularly defenseless, not only her age, but her frailty as well,
11:37
Speaker 7: against a young man wielding a hammer.
11:41
Speaker 4: It's despicable.
11:43
Speaker 1: On the 11th of April, 1997, William McFall was sentenced
11:48
Speaker 1: to life in prison at Belfast Crown Court for the
11:51
Speaker 1: murder of Martha Gilmore.
11:54
Speaker 3: This is a violent man, truly given his justice. It's
11:56
Speaker 3: a life sentence. for murder.
12:00
Speaker 1: McFall was sent to HMP Swaleside in Kent, England, where
12:05
Speaker 1: he was housed with like-minded individuals. During his time behind bars,
12:10
Speaker 1: he shared a cell with Stephen Unwin. The two convicted
12:14
Speaker 1: killers struck up a close friendship.
12:18
Speaker 5: Friendships within prison are an interesting thing because for some people,
12:23
Speaker 5: they will not want to continue those friendships when they
12:26
Speaker 5: get out because they want to tie over a new leaf,
12:29
Speaker 5: they want to start again. But on the other hand,
12:31
Speaker 5: prison friendships can often be the most meaningful, the deepest
12:35
Speaker 5: attachment that somebody has felt to another individual in their
12:39
Speaker 5: entire lives. And I think potentially that's what we're looking
12:42
Speaker 5: at in this case.
12:44
Speaker 1: Stephen Unwin's story begins in 1978. He was born on
12:49
Speaker 1: the 16th of February in Durham. He grew up with
12:53
Speaker 1: an older sister in Fence Houses, a working-class village near
12:58
Speaker 1: Sunderland in the northeast of England. Like McFall, he was
13:02
Speaker 1: a troubled boy from an early age.
13:06
Speaker 3: Unwin is a face, if you like, in that local
13:09
Speaker 3: criminal community. At 13, there was arson. on a heavy
13:15
Speaker 3: goods vehicle. There's theft. There's another brush with the law
13:19
Speaker 3: at 17. More burglary, more theft. Out of control would
13:24
Speaker 3: be the contemporary way of describing him. Bouncing in and
13:28
Speaker 3: out of juvenile care. In the mid 1990s, when Unwin
13:33
Speaker 3: was a teenager, he burgled the house of an amputee
13:38
Speaker 3: of 72.
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Speaker 8: Unwin broke into his house. He forced a panel on
13:42
Speaker 8: the front door He went in downstairs. The chap was
13:46
Speaker 8: asleep upstairs, obviously taking his false leg off. Unwin stole
13:50
Speaker 8: some benefit books. But most remarkable about this offence was
13:54
Speaker 8: that all he had to do was just leave the house.
13:57
Speaker 8: He hadn't been disturbed. What he then did, he set
14:00
Speaker 8: five separate seats of fire downstairs.
14:03
Speaker 3: It was a crime of opportunity, but it also indicated
14:08
Speaker 3: that he was prepared to try and cover his tracks
14:11
Speaker 3: because a certain amount of arson was involved. And that
14:15
Speaker 3: became one of Unwin's fingerprints.
14:19
Speaker 1: Luckily, neighbors were able to rescue the old man in time.
14:23
Speaker 1: Later that day, Unwin was caught when he tried to
14:27
Speaker 1: cash in the books.
14:29
Speaker 5: He is engaging in quite lawless behavior from a very
14:33
Speaker 5: early age. These incidents happened before he was 18 years old.
14:37
Speaker 5: So this shows somebody who doesn't have respect for the law,
14:41
Speaker 5: who likes to create chaos, essentially.
14:44
Speaker 3: But the most horrifying part of this story of the
14:47
Speaker 3: young life of Stephen Unwin comes when he apparently befriends
14:52
Speaker 3: an aged pharmacist called John Greenwell.
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Speaker 8: He was 73 years of age, a retired pharmacist. He
14:59
Speaker 8: was well respected in the community. He knew one or
15:02
Speaker 8: two young lads who used to run messages for him. Really,
15:05
Speaker 8: really nice man from all accounts.
15:07
Speaker 1: In the summer of 1998, one of the neighbourhood boys
15:11
Speaker 1: introduced 20-year-old Stephen Unwin to the retired pharmacist. John had
15:18
Speaker 1: terminal cancer and was often bedridden. He lived very close
15:22
Speaker 1: to Unwin, who decided one day he'd steal a few
15:25
Speaker 1: items from the old man's house. Unwin burgles Greenwell and steals,
15:31
Speaker 1: among other things, a Zenit camera. A friend remonstrates with him.
15:36
Speaker 1: and says, you can't do that. You must return the
15:39
Speaker 1: goods that you've stolen. And so a very unrepentant, and
15:42
Speaker 1: in fact, I would say probably furious, Unwin leaves what
15:47
Speaker 1: he's stolen on the doorstep, including the Zenit camera. But
15:51
Speaker 1: now Unwin's got a grudge. He's going to teach Greenwell
15:54
Speaker 1: a lesson. On the 25th of December, 1998, two uniformed
16:00
Speaker 1: police officers on patrol spotted John Greenwell's bungalow on fire.
16:06
Speaker 8: They notified the fire brigade who attended, and after several hours,
16:11
Speaker 8: extinguished the place. And once they'd gained entry, they realised
16:14
Speaker 8: that there was a body in the back room. He
16:16
Speaker 8: was lying on a bed, face up, and it was
16:18
Speaker 8: the body of Mr Greenwell.
16:20
Speaker 1: Colin Dobson was the senior investigating officer on call that
16:25
Speaker 1: Christmas bank holiday weekend.
16:28
Speaker 8: I knew that we were dealing with a murder investigation
16:30
Speaker 8: once we saw the scene. Mr Greenwell's body was desecrated,
16:34
Speaker 8: badly burned. When a pathologist carried out the post-mortem, it
16:37
Speaker 8: was quite evident that he'd received several blows to the head.
16:42
Speaker 8: We think that he attacked Mr Greenwell as he lay
16:45
Speaker 8: in bed using the Zenith camera. We also realised that
16:49
Speaker 8: he'd been stabbed to the chest, once to the chest.
16:52
Speaker 8: So the cause of death was actually a fractured skull
16:55
Speaker 8: and brain damage as well as the stab wound.
16:59
Speaker 1: Unwin set fire to several parts of the house, including
17:03
Speaker 1: John's body. He stole a television set and a VHS recorder.
17:09
Speaker 1: Shortly after Unwin had set fire to John's home, the
17:13
Speaker 1: two police officers on patrol had seen him pushing a
17:16
Speaker 1: wheelie bin down the road and had stopped him.
17:19
Speaker 3: Where are you going? What you got there? He says, oh,
17:22
Speaker 3: I'm just returning the VHS recorder for the time being. Well,
17:26
Speaker 3: they're suspicious, to put it politely, and they watch what
17:29
Speaker 3: house he goes into.
17:31
Speaker 1: As the officers walked on, they spotted John Greenwell's bungalow
17:35
Speaker 1: on fire. It didn't take Colin Dobson and his team
17:40
Speaker 1: long to connect the dots between the fire and Unwin.
17:44
Speaker 1: They arrested him the same day.
17:48
Speaker 8: Once he was arrested and we did a check, we
17:51
Speaker 8: realised that he had previous convictions and, indeed, He had
17:54
Speaker 8: two previous convictions of arson. There's no doubt that he
17:57
Speaker 8: was setting fire to the different scenes to destroy evidence,
18:02
Speaker 8: evidence of contact, any DNA evidence, anything at all. Unwanted
18:06
Speaker 8: had been arrested. We had no eyewitnesses. We had no
18:09
Speaker 8: forensic evidence. There was no CCTV in the area. Although
18:14
Speaker 8: he was a prime suspect, we had to build up
18:16
Speaker 8: a case, you know.
18:17
Speaker 1: But Unwin made one vital mistake. He'd wrapped the VHS
18:22
Speaker 1: recorder in a bin bag and taped it with sticky tape.
18:26
Speaker 8: The beauty about this one was that our own scenes
18:29
Speaker 8: of crime officers, they found amongst the debris a roll
18:32
Speaker 8: of sellotape. The Forensic Science Service was able to say
18:35
Speaker 8: that the roll of sellotape was a physical match to
18:38
Speaker 8: the tape used on the recovered bin line as we
18:40
Speaker 8: got back off Unwin. Not only that, there was a
18:43
Speaker 8: fingerprint on the sellotape roll, which was Unwin's fingerprint. When
18:46
Speaker 8: we got that evidence, obviously, we placed Unwin in the property.
18:49
Speaker 8: There was no doubt he was the person responsible for
18:52
Speaker 8: Mr Greenwell's savage murder, and we charged him with murder.
18:55
Speaker 1: Stephen Unwin pleaded guilty to the murder of 73-year-old pensioner
19:00
Speaker 1: John Greenwell. On 29th October 1999, the 21-year-old was sentenced
19:06
Speaker 1: to life in prison at Newcastle Crown Court.
19:12
Speaker 8: I was watching Unwin at the time, and in my eyes,
19:14
Speaker 8: he showed no remorse whatsoever. At the end of Mr
19:18
Speaker 8: Greenwell's case, I was interviewed, and I remember saying quite
19:20
Speaker 8: clearly that I thought Unwin was a very, very dangerous man,
19:24
Speaker 8: and I didn't say that lightly.
19:26
Speaker 1: Stephen Unwin and William McFall were both in their 20s
19:30
Speaker 1: when they killed frail and defenceless pensioners.
19:35
Speaker 3: One question must always remain. McFall and Unwin, both burgled, elderly,
19:42
Speaker 3: very vulnerable people. Why didn't they just leave it? at burglary?
19:48
Speaker 3: Why did they proceed to kill Martha and John? What
19:52
Speaker 3: was it in their nature, in their character, that drove
19:55
Speaker 3: them to kill? I would argue that it's a propensity
20:00
Speaker 3: to violence and a propensity to murder that exists in
20:03
Speaker 3: both men, which is why, when you add them together,
20:07
Speaker 3: they become even more dangerous.
20:10
Speaker 5: I think burglaries are a bit of a sideshow to
20:12
Speaker 5: what these crimes are really about. They are about dominating
20:16
Speaker 5: and controlling other people, and their victims were elderly, they
20:20
Speaker 5: were vulnerable. This really does add to the gravity of
20:23
Speaker 5: their crimes. They're never going to go after some muscle-bound
20:26
Speaker 5: man who is more than a match for them. They
20:29
Speaker 5: will always target those who can't fight back.
20:32
Speaker 1: William McFall and Stephen Unwin, two convicted killers, would meet
20:37
Speaker 1: and become friends in prison. Both men were released on
20:42
Speaker 1: licence after serving just 14 years of their life sentences.
20:50
Speaker 1: While Unwin was still in prison, he got back in
20:53
Speaker 1: touch with a girl he'd met as a teenager. To
20:58
Speaker 1: protect her identity, Rachel is not her real name and
21:02
Speaker 1: her image has been concealed.
21:06
Speaker 4: When I first met Stephen, he was quite charming.
21:09
Speaker 9: You know, the typical teenage charming lad, bit of Jack
21:13
Speaker 9: the Lad, made us laugh and we started dating for
21:16
Speaker 9: a little bit. It was like a teenage sort of
21:19
Speaker 9: summer romance kind of thing. And then we just ended
21:23
Speaker 9: up losing touch after that. When I first started talking
21:27
Speaker 9: to Stephen back in prison, I didn't really think much
21:30
Speaker 9: of it. A mutual friend got us talking again through
21:33
Speaker 9: phone calls and letters and stuff. He had the charm
21:37
Speaker 9: when I was speaking to him on the phone. made
21:39
Speaker 9: everything seem like it was okay.
21:41
Speaker 1: In December 2012, 34-year-old Stephen Unwin was released on license
21:47
Speaker 1: to serve the remaining years of his life sentence supervised
21:51
Speaker 1: by probation.
21:53
Speaker 9: When Stephen was released from prison, he convinced everyone he
21:55
Speaker 9: was a changed man, even his probation officer. Even she
21:59
Speaker 9: believed that he was remorseful for what he'd done, that
22:01
Speaker 9: he was never going to reoffend again.
22:04
Speaker 2: He moved back to his native northeast and lived and
22:08
Speaker 2: worked in the Sunderland area and the Hotel of Spring area,
22:11
Speaker 2: where he worked as a handyman, carrying out maintenance on properties.
22:16
Speaker 1: By 2014, Rachel and Unwin lived together and were expecting
22:21
Speaker 1: a daughter.
22:22
Speaker 4: When I first told Stephen I was pregnant, he was
22:24
Speaker 4: quite excited.
22:25
Speaker 9: He was there through the pregnancy and he was there
22:29
Speaker 9: at the birth as well.
22:29
Speaker 4: He was quite good at the birth.
22:32
Speaker 1: Family life was great at first.
22:35
Speaker 4: Absolute daughter and dad, to be honest. He was a
22:38
Speaker 4: good dad to her. It's one thing I can say.
22:41
Speaker 5: Many men who engage in criminal and violent behavior are fathers,
22:46
Speaker 5: and I would say that none of them are good fathers.
22:49
Speaker 5: What they are very good at is performing the role
22:52
Speaker 5: of the good father, the doting father, because they're aware
22:55
Speaker 5: that that is going to distract attention.
22:58
Speaker 1: And Unwin struggled to keep up the charade of the caring,
23:02
Speaker 1: loving partner and dad.
23:04
Speaker 9: He was a very jealous man. Stephen was abusive a
23:07
Speaker 9: couple of times. Once, he got all of us by
23:10
Speaker 9: the throat. Never hit us, but more sort of mental abuse.
23:16
Speaker 9: Convinced I wasn't good enough for anybody else, that I
23:18
Speaker 9: was his and his only.
23:20
Speaker 4: He was an angry man. He had lots of issues,
23:24
Speaker 4: especially when he was drinking. He'd become very, very angry.
23:28
Speaker 4: just at everything and everyone.
23:30
Speaker 5: I look at Unwin's behaviour and what I see is
23:32
Speaker 5: somebody who is a misogynist. Men like Unwin are possessive
23:37
Speaker 5: and jealous in their relationships with women because they see
23:40
Speaker 5: women as their possessions, who are there to meet their needs.
23:44
Speaker 1: While Unwin was living with Rachel, he kept in touch
23:47
Speaker 1: with his old cellmate, William McFall, who'd moved to Blackpool
23:52
Speaker 1: after his release from prison in 2010. Stephen used to
23:55
Speaker 1: talk about McFall a lot.
23:57
Speaker 9: My first impression of McFall was that he was just bonkers, basically.
24:02
Speaker 4: He liked to have a good laugh. He liked his drugs.
24:05
Speaker 4: He used to smoke cannabis.
24:07
Speaker 1: But Rachel soon realised there was something about McFall that
24:11
Speaker 1: didn't feel right.
24:14
Speaker 4: McFall was very scary. Just the way he looked.
24:18
Speaker 9: That he had a lot of anger inside him, which
24:21
Speaker 9: was really scary, yeah.
24:22
Speaker 4: I never felt safe around him.
24:24
Speaker 1: The relationship between Rachel and Unwin was becoming increasingly strained.
24:28
Speaker 1: The couple eventually broke up in December 2016.
24:33
Speaker 9: Final separation from Stephen was I'd just had enough of
24:37
Speaker 9: failing the way I felt.
24:38
Speaker 4: I was never happy.
24:40
Speaker 9: For all he did do it on our little one,
24:42
Speaker 9: I wasn't happy with him and I just said enough's enough.
24:47
Speaker 3: Rachel's departure from her relationship with Stephen Unwin is significant.
24:51
Speaker 3: I think it unsettles Unwin, and he doesn't quite know
24:54
Speaker 3: where to turn. The obvious person, of course, is McFall, his, quote, friend.
24:59
Speaker 3: And indeed, McFall cements that by leaving Blackpool and moving
25:05
Speaker 3: to stay with Unwin.
25:07
Speaker 1: By the summer of 2017, McFall and Unwin, the two
25:11
Speaker 1: convicted killers released on license, were living together at St.
25:16
Speaker 1: Oswald's Terrace in the Houghton-le-Spring area near Sunderland.
25:24
Speaker 5: When Unwin and McFall joined forces, they really amplified their
25:29
Speaker 5: level of dangerousness and violence because it's not just about
25:33
Speaker 5: committing crime and hurting people now. It's about doing that
25:36
Speaker 5: and performing it in front of another individual. So you
25:40
Speaker 5: have that competitive element that's going on.
25:47
Speaker 1: Unwin's and McFall's behavior escalated. They stole substantial cannabis crops
25:55
Speaker 1: and tried to get hold of guns. They were like
25:59
Speaker 1: a ticking time bomb about to explode. In the early
26:05
Speaker 1: hours of the 15th of August, 2017, Tyne and Wear
26:09
Speaker 1: Fire Service in England received what seemed to be a
26:13
Speaker 1: routine 999 call. A car had been spotted ablaze down
26:18
Speaker 1: a quiet lane near the allotments behind Shiny Row in Houghton-le-Spring.
26:24
Speaker 1: But the inferno was concealing an horrific secret.
26:28
Speaker 3: When the fire brigade finally extinguish the blaze, they do
26:33
Speaker 3: discover what they think is the body of a child
26:37
Speaker 3: in the back. In fact, it's just a very small woman,
26:41
Speaker 3: and it rapidly turns into a murder investigation.
26:48
Speaker 2: The flames were so intense that a horrific damage had
26:51
Speaker 2: been caused to her body, and when investigators were able
26:54
Speaker 2: to get close to the car, they discovered that her
26:57
Speaker 2: body had been fused into the back seat.
27:00
Speaker 1: The car had been burning for over an hour, and
27:03
Speaker 1: the dead body inside was unidentifiable.
27:09
Speaker 2: Initial information came out from the police in the normal
27:13
Speaker 2: fashion that journalists get to hear about breaking news stories,
27:16
Speaker 2: but there was very little detail to start with.
27:18
Speaker 3: It was a curious case.
27:19
Speaker 2: Not much information was given initially.
27:23
Speaker 1: The passport and other documentation were recovered from the burnt-out car,
27:29
Speaker 1: but police needed more to identify the body on the
27:32
Speaker 1: back seat of the black Audi. Later that morning, Gwen
27:44
Speaker 1: Nyok-Nguyen woke up and realized her sister Gwen had not
27:48
Speaker 1: come home the night before.
27:52
Speaker 2: She tried to contact her by mobile phone without success.
27:55
Speaker 2: And she alerted the authorities and went out looking for
27:59
Speaker 2: her herself without any success. And later in the day,
28:03
Speaker 2: she was told the terrible news that Quinn's car had
28:07
Speaker 2: been found burnt out and that there was a body
28:10
Speaker 2: inside it.
28:12
Speaker 1: Only dental records could confirm that the body found in
28:16
Speaker 1: the burnt-out car was that of her sister, 28-year-old mother
28:21
Speaker 1: of two, Nguyen Ngoc Nguyen. Nguyen was originally from Vietnam.
28:29
Speaker 1: Little is known about her life before she relocated to
28:33
Speaker 1: Berkeley near Gateshead.
28:36
Speaker 2: She arrived in Britain in 2010 when she moved to
28:39
Speaker 2: London to study business at a university. Following her studies,
28:43
Speaker 2: she moved to the northeast of England, where she worked
28:46
Speaker 2: with her sister.
28:47
Speaker 3: In a nail bar.
28:49
Speaker 2: She also was involved in the management of residential properties,
28:52
Speaker 2: looking after them and sourcing tenants for those properties. She
28:56
Speaker 2: was a caring, loving, devoted, hardworking mother of two. All
29:00
Speaker 2: her working hours, really, were spent providing for her family.
29:05
Speaker 1: Thanks to CCTV footage, police were quickly able to retrace
29:10
Speaker 1: Gwyn's final steps.
29:13
Speaker 2: CCTV footage was crucial to this case and the first
29:16
Speaker 2: relevant footage was at 6.12pm when Gwyn was seen leaving
29:21
Speaker 2: Glitter Nails, the nail bar that she ran with her
29:23
Speaker 2: sister in Gateshead.
29:25
Speaker 3: And then there's some more CCTV that shows her outside
29:29
Speaker 3: the back of Unwin's house.
29:33
Speaker 1: Gwyn had driven to St Oswald's Terrace for a business
29:36
Speaker 1: meeting with Stephen Unwin.
29:39
Speaker 2: Gwyn came into contact with Unwin because she managed a
29:42
Speaker 2: number of residential properties and Unwin would work as a
29:47
Speaker 2: handyman doing minor maintenance jobs on these properties. McFall would
29:51
Speaker 2: work for £ 50 a day helping Unwin in this job.
29:56
Speaker 2: Quinn and her sister spoke at 7 o'clock when her
29:58
Speaker 2: sister asked her when she would be home that night
30:01
Speaker 2: and Quinn explained she would be late because she had
30:03
Speaker 2: some business to attend to at a rental property.
30:06
Speaker 1: At 7.24pm, Quinn arrived at St Oswald's Terrace and was
30:10
Speaker 1: greeted by Stephen Unwin.
30:13
Speaker 2: This is the last moment that Quinn is ever seen
30:15
Speaker 2: alive by anyone other than Unwin and McFall.
30:24
Speaker 3: Unwin invites her in. having told McFall to hide, to
30:30
Speaker 3: conceal his existence in the house.
30:33
Speaker 2: Once Quinn had entered the property, it isn't exactly known,
30:36
Speaker 2: apart from by when Winnie McFall, exactly what happened.
30:39
Speaker 3: Now, precisely what happens next and in precisely what order
30:43
Speaker 3: is a matter of conjecture. But we can be sure
30:48
Speaker 3: that Quinn, this tiny little Vietnamese woman, is subdued very quickly.
30:58
Speaker 5: The attack on Quinn happened over a number of hours,
31:02
Speaker 5: and at any point during this time, either or both
31:05
Speaker 5: of these men could have decided not to go any further,
31:08
Speaker 5: to call it a day, to say, no, we're not
31:10
Speaker 5: doing any more here.
31:12
Speaker 4: But they didn't.
31:13
Speaker 5: They followed it through. And I think they fed off
31:15
Speaker 5: each other's energy when they were doing that.
31:18
Speaker 1: Quinn was forced to hand over her bank cards and
31:21
Speaker 1: reveal the PIN numbers.
31:27
Speaker 3: So she's been in their hands for hours. And she's
31:32
Speaker 3: been subjected to the worst imaginable treatment. She's been just
31:38
Speaker 3: about allowed to live so they can make sure they've
31:41
Speaker 3: got the right PIN number so that she can, in
31:44
Speaker 3: a sense, give them money.
31:46
Speaker 1: At 9.51pm, Arnwil was seen getting into his van at
31:50
Speaker 1: St Oswald's Terrace.
31:52
Speaker 2: The CCTV camera at the back of the house captured
31:55
Speaker 2: Unwin leaving the property and then driving to a nearby
31:58
Speaker 2: co-op where he used her bank card to withdraw cash
32:03
Speaker 2: and then to go and buy a bottle of spirits.
32:06
Speaker 1: Unwin withdrew 500 pounds using Quinn's card. The PIN number
32:10
Speaker 1: she'd given them was correct.
32:13
Speaker 3: But then the most horrific element of it all emerges.
32:17
Speaker 1: At 11.35 p.m., the CCTV at the back of the
32:21
Speaker 1: house captured more movement.
32:24
Speaker 3: Shortly after half past 11 that evening in August 2017,
32:29
Speaker 3: the two men are seen again on CCTV carrying Gwen's
32:35
Speaker 3: body wrapped in a sheet to the back of her car,
32:40
Speaker 3: her Audi.
32:42
Speaker 2: Quinn was very petite. She was only five foot tall
32:44
Speaker 2: and seven stones tall. and Unwin was clearly capable of
32:48
Speaker 2: carrying her out. McFall walked behind him, making sure that
32:52
Speaker 2: she'd completely covered her body.
32:55
Speaker 3: They put her in the back seat and drive it
32:59
Speaker 3: not terribly far away.
33:01
Speaker 2: She was still alive at this point, but only just.
33:04
Speaker 2: They then drove a short distance, around a mile away,
33:07
Speaker 2: to a deserted remote lane where they set fire to
33:11
Speaker 2: the car in an attempt to cover their tracks.
33:15
Speaker 1: While the fire was taking hold of the car with
33:17
Speaker 1: Gwyn lying gravely injured in the back seat, Unwin and
33:21
Speaker 1: McFall walked back home as if nothing had happened. Several
33:26
Speaker 1: CCTV cameras picked up their whereabouts as they returned on
33:30
Speaker 1: foot to St. Oswald's Terrace to pick up Unwin's car.
33:33
Speaker 2: 30 minutes after killing Gwyn and disposing of her body
33:37
Speaker 2: by setting her car alight, they were in Unwin's Audi
33:41
Speaker 2: driving around the local area.
33:44
Speaker 1: The men drove to a local post office to use
33:46
Speaker 1: Quinn's bank card once more and withdrew another £ 500. They
33:51
Speaker 1: returned to St. Oswald's Terrace around the same time the
33:55
Speaker 1: burning car was spotted and the fire service was called
33:58
Speaker 1: at 12.34 a.m.
34:01
Speaker 5: The details of how McFall and Unwin took Quinn in
34:05
Speaker 5: her own car to a deserted road where they would
34:08
Speaker 5: then set fire to her body. There are so many
34:11
Speaker 5: elements here of control, of possession. We have taken what
34:16
Speaker 5: we wanted from you. We've had our fun with you.
34:18
Speaker 5: We're now going to destroy you. And we're going to
34:21
Speaker 5: destroy something that's important to you as well. Your car
34:24
Speaker 5: is a symbol of your success and your independence and
34:27
Speaker 5: your accomplishments. So we're going to get rid of that too.
34:31
Speaker 1: The next day, Gwyn's ruthless killers casually went shopping and
34:35
Speaker 1: to the pub with no apparent fear of being caught
34:38
Speaker 1: for their crimes. The CCTV images captured on the evening
34:44
Speaker 1: of the 14th of August were the last time Gwyn
34:47
Speaker 1: Nyok Nguyen was seen alive. Four hours later, her dead
34:52
Speaker 1: body was discovered inside a burned-out car.
34:57
Speaker 2: During the four-hour ordeal in the house when Gwyn was
34:59
Speaker 2: lying on the floor after being severely beaten, and when
35:03
Speaker 2: she was close to death, quite unbelievably, MacFarlane Unwin then
35:07
Speaker 2: cooked a curry and casually ate it.
35:11
Speaker 5: I think this shows us the absolute lack of empathy,
35:14
Speaker 5: the absolute lack of attachment, of understanding of other people's
35:17
Speaker 5: emotions and suffering that these men have. They are just
35:21
Speaker 5: about fulfilling their own basic needs. They cooked the curry
35:25
Speaker 5: because they were hungry. They wanted something to eat. and
35:27
Speaker 5: the fact that somebody's dying on the floor next to
35:30
Speaker 5: them is immaterial to them.
35:32
Speaker 1: Thanks to CCTV, the killer's whereabouts on the night of
35:36
Speaker 1: the murder and the following day could be quickly retraced.
35:41
Speaker 1: The footage was damning.
35:43
Speaker 2: The police were on to one man very quickly. Early
35:45
Speaker 2: investigations led them to his door. He'd used Quinn's bank
35:49
Speaker 2: card to withdraw money from her account and had bought
35:51
Speaker 2: some spirits with it, and he'd been caught on various
35:54
Speaker 2: CCTV in the area.
35:56
Speaker 3: They have left so much evidence, there is so much CCTV,
36:02
Speaker 3: that it beggars belief. They haven't even thought out any
36:07
Speaker 3: explanation for any of this action.
36:12
Speaker 2: Within 24 hours of the attack on Quinn, the police
36:16
Speaker 2: arrested Unwin. McFall was actually pulled into the inquiry early
36:19
Speaker 2: on as a witness initially, but he was very quickly
36:22
Speaker 2: arrested as a suspect as well.
36:24
Speaker 5: Looking at the evidence against them, it was incredibly compelling,
36:28
Speaker 5: and it shows us how stupid these two were as well.
36:31
Speaker 3: They're very brutish.
36:33
Speaker 5: They're very primitive in a way because they're so focused
36:36
Speaker 5: on the violence, they're so fixated on that, that they're
36:38
Speaker 5: not really doing very much to think about how they're
36:41
Speaker 5: going to get away with it, and that's why they don't.
36:44
Speaker 1: Police also analyzed the data on the men's mobile phones.
36:48
Speaker 1: The content was highly incriminating.
36:51
Speaker 2: Evidence was found on the phones of them chatting to
36:54
Speaker 2: each other, plotting the attack going back a number of weeks,
36:57
Speaker 2: and also of them communicating with each other and other
37:00
Speaker 2: people in the hours after Quinn had been murdered. Approximately
37:05
Speaker 2: half an hour after they set fire to Quinn's car,
37:09
Speaker 2: McFall took a selfie of the both of them in
37:12
Speaker 2: the car. McFall was smiling on the selfie, seemingly without
37:15
Speaker 2: a care in the world, and he sent that to
37:17
Speaker 2: a friend.
37:20
Speaker 5: The fact that this guy wanted to document this in
37:23
Speaker 5: a photograph, he wanted to take a picture of himself
37:26
Speaker 5: at this time, this is really significant. This is a
37:29
Speaker 5: sort of decisive moment for him that he wants to
37:31
Speaker 5: capture in a picture. It's almost a celebratory mood.
37:36
Speaker 3: Both men are charged with the murder of Quinn.
37:40
Speaker 1: News of the murder spread through the local community. Unwin's
37:44
Speaker 1: ex-partner and mother to his daughter was shocked.
37:48
Speaker 4: It was on the local news.
37:50
Speaker 9: His picture got brought up, and I just burst into tears.
37:54
Speaker 9: It's just the thought that he'd been in my.
37:57
Speaker 4: Life, really.
37:59
Speaker 1: Only the day before killing Gwyn, Unwin's daughter had stayed
38:03
Speaker 1: with him at St. Oswald's Terrace, as she did so
38:06
Speaker 1: on many weekends.
38:07
Speaker 9: Just before the murder, Stephen had had my daughter on
38:10
Speaker 9: the Saturday night, overnight. He came, dropped her back off
38:14
Speaker 9: on the Sunday sort of late morning, just seemed normal.
38:18
Speaker 9: Mr McFall was also sitting in the car, but hadn't
38:21
Speaker 9: gotten out of the car.
38:23
Speaker 1: Thanks to overwhelming evidence, police were able to shed some
38:27
Speaker 1: light on the horrific events that took place on the
38:30
Speaker 1: night of the murder. It emerged that Gwyn had been
38:35
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted. Furthermore, she was dragged through the house, beaten
38:41
Speaker 1: and asphyxiated.
38:43
Speaker 2: They obtained a DNA sample using her toothbrush and a
38:46
Speaker 2: face mask that she had previously used at the nail
38:49
Speaker 2: bar that she ran with her sister. And using that
38:52
Speaker 2: DNA profile, they were then able to piece together what
38:55
Speaker 2: had happened at the crime scene in Unwin's house.
38:59
Speaker 3: As if there could be the slightest doubt of Unwin
39:03
Speaker 3: and McFall's guilt, Gwen's DNA is found on Unwin's tracksuit bottoms.
39:10
Speaker 1: It was the evidence investigators needed to charge Stephen Unwin
39:15
Speaker 1: with rape as well as murder.
39:18
Speaker 2: Police were also able to prove that she'd been sexually
39:21
Speaker 2: abused with a number of items, including a gas gun.
39:24
Speaker 1: The forensics team found Gwyn's DNA on the barrel of
39:28
Speaker 1: McFall's gas gun. and chillingly on a toy lightsaber belonging
39:35
Speaker 1: to Unwin's young daughter.
39:37
Speaker 5: I think parents feel a particular kind of attachment to
39:42
Speaker 5: objects that their children play with, because these objects represent innocence.
39:47
Speaker 5: But those parents are people who have an emotional attachment
39:51
Speaker 5: to their children. I don't think that Unwin does. I
39:54
Speaker 5: don't think he has an emotional attachment to anyone. So
39:57
Speaker 5: I think he would have assaulted Quinn with whatever was there, essentially.
40:06
Speaker 1: Six months after the murder of Gwyn, the trial began
40:09
Speaker 1: on the 20th of February 2018 at Newcastle Crown Court.
40:14
Speaker 2: The most striking thing about their court case was their
40:16
Speaker 2: behaviour in court, especially McFall. He made a series of
40:19
Speaker 2: outbursts throughout the trial. On one occasion, he made a
40:23
Speaker 2: throat-cutting gesture towards the press bench. Unwin was a lot different.
40:28
Speaker 2: He seemed to be this quiet, smouldering individual. He was
40:31
Speaker 2: clearly capable of incredibly violent, dangerous acts. but he just
40:35
Speaker 2: seemed to sit there with his very calm demeanor throughout
40:38
Speaker 2: the trial, as if he was on trial for an
40:40
Speaker 2: incredibly minor offense.
40:43
Speaker 5: Behavior in the courtroom is always really revealing, and this
40:45
Speaker 5: case is no exception. So Unwin was quite cool and
40:49
Speaker 5: calm and collected, and I think that tells us about
40:52
Speaker 5: his coldness, about how unaffected he is by things. McFall,
40:57
Speaker 5: on the other hand, was the opposite end of the spectrum.
41:00
Speaker 5: he would break down and freak out and make a
41:03
Speaker 5: scene on multiple occasions. And I think this tells us
41:06
Speaker 5: a lot about the dynamic between these two. Unwin is
41:09
Speaker 5: the puppet master.
41:11
Speaker 3: McFall is the puppet.
41:13
Speaker 1: The killers were convinced they'd found a legal loophole by
41:17
Speaker 1: which they could escape justice.
41:20
Speaker 3: They're both going to claim that the other one did
41:23
Speaker 3: it to confuse the jury.
41:28
Speaker 2: McFall's version of events is that he walked into the
41:30
Speaker 2: property and discovered Unwin raping Quinn and then strangling her.
41:36
Speaker 2: Unwin claimed the polar opposite. He claimed he walked into
41:39
Speaker 2: the property to find McFall strangling Quinn.
41:44
Speaker 3: It's an absolute cacophony of silliness, except it's so awful,
41:50
Speaker 3: so serious, it demands to be treated as it was,
41:53
Speaker 3: which is barbarism.
41:56
Speaker 1: The jury didn't fall for it and decided both men
41:59
Speaker 1: were equally responsible for Gwyn's murder. On the 25th of April, 2018,
42:05
Speaker 1: William McFall and Stephen Unwin were given whole-life prison sentences.
42:10
Speaker 1: This time, they will never be released.
42:15
Speaker 2: Anyone connected with this case will remember it for many
42:17
Speaker 2: years because the horrific degree of cruelty they both exhibited
42:20
Speaker 2: towards Gwyn and the way that they disposed of her
42:23
Speaker 2: body There are no happy endings in this case for
42:27
Speaker 2: Quinn's family at all, but one tiny degree of comfort
42:30
Speaker 2: is them knowing that they will never, ever be released
42:33
Speaker 2: from prison.
42:34
Speaker 3: This meeting of two murderous men who meet by coincidence
42:43
Speaker 3: in a jail cell meant that they were more dangerous
42:46
Speaker 3: together than they were apart. The treatment of Quinn... literally
42:55
Speaker 3: is heartbreaking. What she had to suffer was all but unimaginable.
43:02
Speaker 1: Stephen Unwin and William McFall are ruthless killers in their
43:06
Speaker 1: own right. They preyed on the most vulnerable when they
43:10
Speaker 1: viciously killed elderly pensioners. And when they joined forces, the
43:15
Speaker 1: sadistic nature of their wicked ways knew no bounds. they
43:21
Speaker 1: brutally murdered an innocent young mother and set fire to
43:25
Speaker 1: her car while she was still alive inside, all for
43:30
Speaker 1: their own twisted gratification, making Stephen Unwin and William McFall
43:37
Speaker 1: two of the world's most evil killers.