The 5 Worst Serial Killers In Modern British History | World's Most Evil Killers | Absolute Crime

foreign on the 4th of August 2002 10 year olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman disappeared whilst buying sweets in the Sleepy cambridges town of soham they were so appealing so beautiful so Charming so smiley the world and his wife wanted to know what on Earth had happened to them for two weeks police and locals desperately scoured the area it was every parent's worst nightmare there was a sense of real fear and dread in the Village People will soon get more and more desperate as to what might have happened to these two little girls Ian Huntley a local school caretaker gave an emotional interview to the Press appealing for the safe return of Holly and Jessica somebody would have seen or heard something if somebody had tried to get those girls into a car if it had just been somebody passing through but in truth Huntley had brutally murdered both girls in the bathroom of his home apparently was a bomb waiting to explode all it needed was an opportunity and on that Sunny August afternoon in 2002 he found an opportunity Ian Huntley had unquestionably become one of the world's most evil killers [Music] [Music] it is one of the most talked about Crimes of the 21st century the murders of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman shocked the nation to its core for two weeks newspapers and rolling news channels brought a constant flow of updates in the search for the missing pair when their bodies were finally found on the 17th of August 2002 the world mourned out of an evening Mist which had fallen on a remote patch of Suffolk Woodland the bodies of Holly and Jessica were taken away the killer was 28 year old school caretaker Ian Huntley a man who moved to soam in 2001 to escape a troubled past Huntley was born in Grimsby in Lincolnshire on the 31st of January 1974. he had a turbulent time at school and was often the target of bullying so I think this created a bit of a sense shame in Ian Huntley something that is often at the root of a lot of men like him in terms of what they go on to do so he started off as somebody who was always the kid that was a bit old the odd one out the one who's a bit of a loner in December 1994 Huntley met 18 year old Claire Evans they had a whirlwind romance and were married within weeks his wife Claire quickly found that he had a terrible temper she later claimed that she feared for her life and that he would often put his hands around her neck Ian huntley's who is not relationship with a woman so he he moves very quickly because he wants to maintain a sense of control within his relationship so he will Breeze into women's lives this knight in shining armor full of of charm and compliments and and we'll kind of try and wind them in huntley's marriage didn't last long his wife Claire had started a relationship with his younger brother Wayne despite the marriage being all but over Huntley refused to Grant her a divorce until 1999 to prevent their relationship from becoming official he'd always fight incredibly threatened by his younger brother he took the attention away from him when he he came into that family and because Ian huntley's narcissistic Tendencies he's always going to feel he's being outdone by by his brother while still married to Claire Huntley fathered a daughter with a 15 year old girl in 1998. I think it would be fair to say that Huntley demonstrated throughout his adolescence and early manhood that he had a unhealthy appetite in younger and younger women well during his twenties Ian Huntley prayed on a lot of young girls underage girls and and the police who investigated the case thought that there were possibly up to 60 young girls that he'd had some kind of interaction with on on that level and he would kind of worm his way into these girls lives and they're younger they're more impressionable they're easier to to lure in in 1998 24 year old Huntley appeared at Grimsby Crown Court charged with both burglary and the rape of an 18 year old girl both cases were dropped due to lack of evidence but he was gaining a bad reputation across Lincolnshire was insignificant little man who on the surface wouldn't say boo to a goose unfortunately he had no conscience and would do whatever he wanted when he wanted to do it in February 1999 Huntley met 22 year old Maxine Carr and after dating for just four weeks they moved in together she was naive impressionable and he was a an interesting figure to her I think she found him perhaps I would hesitate to call him charismatic but at least interesting and did not discover the violent side to his nature that his wife had Maxine Carr was a very easy Target in a way for Ian Huntley because at this point in his life he's managed to hone those skills of hooking women in being quite superficially charming and manipulative and saying the things that they wanted to hear so he's got quite a well rehearsed script at this point in time and he pulls that out when he meets Maxine Carr in February 2000 after a year together the couple moved from Grimsby and set up home just 30 miles away in scunthorpe their new neighbor Marissa Gibb befriended the couple Max and in the lovely couple Maxine was only 25 26 year old girl bubbly giggling talking about I wanted to have children she wanted to work in a nursery and get a job and everything she was fantastic and it wasn't long before huntley's past was catching up with him I've finished work at eight o'clock at night come home and the next minute there was a police van outside in the back and I looked at the window for all cries open everything's okay so then they left next day I saw Maxine I said are you all right is the family okay you don't be like that's no worm Ian's been accused of raping Grimsby he says but the dates they've got we were living next door here so well why didn't you tell the police to come see me I verified that you moved next door but then she said he was always getting allegations when they lived in brisbee that he was raping this girl and done this to this other girl that's why they moved to scunthong to get a new life the couple rarely left the house and Marissa recalls huntly's controlling Behavior I went around to see Maxine for a cup of coffee Ian was at work and um basically I had a cup of coffee I put it on the table next minute was taken off the table bleached cleaned and put in the cupboard I thought it was a bit OCD but I thought it was just Maxine and then she told me no Ian doesn't like to know that anybody's been in the house so she was a bit scared of what was happening and I was not allowed to tell him that I've been in the house huntley's controlling nature would occasionally lead to Violent outbursts my sitting room goes you could see straight into their kitchen and he was shouting at her car and all the names of sun you does your toe you do what I tell you to do to see her crouching in the corner where he was hitting her you listen to me you do what I say you don't listen to nobody else I'm your boss I'm in charge of you nobody else despite the tumultuous relationship in 2001 Humphrey and Carr decided to up and leave once more and headed south to start a new life in the small Cambridgeshire town of soham 24 year old Carr had found herself a job as a teaching assistant at Saint Andrews Primary School while 27 year old Huntley was working as a caretaker at nearby soham Village College the caretaker's job came with a cottage for the pair to live in number five College close I got a phone call of Maxine said we've moved in the house is lovely the countryside's lovely I said I hope you're okay but if you ever need me just ring me and I'll get my brother and we'll come and get you foreign on Sunday the 4th of August 2002 two of Maxine Carr's pupils ten-year-olds Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells were enjoying a barbecue at Holly's family home in Red House Gardens the two girls decided to walk to the shops to buy some sweets without telling their parents where they were going it was a decision that would cost them their lives at 8 30 PM that evening Holly's parents went upstairs in the family home to check on the girls but they were nowhere to be found they immediately raised the alarm as Dawn broke the following day police began to search the local area with the help of hundreds of local volunteers the media were beginning to take note within hours of their disappearance police from three forces and hundreds of townsfolk have joined the hunt for Holly and Jessica it is a small village in the middle of the Cambridgeshire Countryside where it's one of those places where everybody knows everybody so almost everybody in town would know the two families they'd probably know the little girls and therefore it was a Community concerned that these girls were missing and they didn't know where they were later that same day police issued a public appeal they were becoming increasingly concerned for the girls their disappearance is incredibly out of character they haven't been missing before very well balanced very bright young girls as far as we can tell they've taken no change of clothing and no money so as you say it's quite out of character the police had a very real belief that the girls could have just gone missing that they could have wandered off and got themselves lost in the countryside it was after all just a a few hundred yards where they were last seen from open Meadowlands and then the fens of Cambridgeshire and East Anglia so it would have been perhaps quite easy for them to wander off get lost perhaps get into trouble falling offend police tried to track Jessica's mobile phone signal but they couldn't pinpoint a location there was still hope that they could be found alive and a worst case scenario was that perhaps they'd been taken hostage by somebody or just abducted by someone with not good intent so the police still and I think the families and the people of some still had a real hope that they'd see the girls alive again in those first few days on the 5th of August Holly and Jessica's parents appeared at an emotional press conference to appeal for their safe return I just everyone anyone who's got children must know what we're going through The Disappearance of Holly and Jessica created a storm of interest at media circus they were so appealing so beautiful so Charming so smiley the world and his wife wanted to know what on Earth had happened the police based their headquarters at Holly and Jessica's school around 500 locals and officers from neighboring Suffolk and Essex joined cambridgeship the lease in the round-the-clock search for the girls it quickly became one of the biggest investigations the country had ever seen not surprisingly an absolutely extraordinary Manhunt results police are drafted in areas are searched news crews arrive reporters arrive everyone who's ever seen them has interviewed a great length with no real Clues as to where the children are and what state they're in searching these vast areas of finlands is difficult so these friends of Holly's parents have chosen an area close to the A-10 Cambridge Road where the two girls were reportedly last seen yesterday morning it's the helplessness but as long as there's something to look for we just never give up hope well um it's been uh probably the worst night so so far last night we've had an experienced friends and family searching in Ditches but the police had no luck the search for Holly and Jessica continued for over a week but it seemed as though they just vanished off the face of the Earth on the 15th of August 11 days after the girls went missing Sky News decided to retrace their steps which meant interviewing the last person to see them local school caretaker Ian Huntley the boyfriend of Holly and Jessica's classroom assistant Maxine Carr it's 6 15 p.m the timeline on that Sunday night the 4th of August puts the girls here right in the fourth quarter of the village College the local education center we know they've been to the sports center just across the road a few minutes before to buy some sweets and were carrying on walking through what would have been very familiar territory their primary schools and Andrews is just across the back of the village College here how do we know they were here at 6 15 well we have an eyewitness Ian Huntley here's a familiar figure evening in the school caretaker the girls Jessica and Hollywood know you and they saw you on the front doorstep what what went on the girl but I don't know the girls I'll stood on the front doorstep grooming my dog down she'd run away and come back a bit of a mess and they just came across and asked how this car was and she used to teach them at St Andrews and I just said she went very good if she hadn't got the job and they just says please tell her that we're very sorry and off the walks in the direction of the um the library over there and you may as it turned out to be the last person to actually chat to them before they vanished yeah that's what it seems like hardly look like an unassuming ordinary little bloke with a soft voice who wouldn't hurt a fly he was a slight withdrawn sort of character but at the time he seemed reasonably credible it seemed like a credible story that's where the girls would have walked so when I talked to him I had an open mind I certainly at the time wasn't thinking this is the guy that's done them harm Maxine Carr was also Keen to appear on camera we interviewed her in the middle of the village and got her to tell us about her relationship with the girls the kind to everybody um they wouldn't say a bad word about anybody and I love the families and everything which is why nobody believes that they would ever run away and there was very close to all their family this is something I probably keep for the rest of my life I think it's what Holly gave me on the last day of time she was very upset and that's the kind of girl she was she was just lovely in the conversation we realized a few minutes afterwards she spoke about the girls in the past tense when I was talking to her live didn't really occur to me but a couple of minutes afterwards we said thanks very much and she walked off and my producer said just play that tape again I'm sure she was talking about the girls in the past tense strange and that certainly got our alarm bells ringing huntley's unusual interest in the case and Maxine's TV interview raised suspicion among investigators on Friday the 16th of August 12 Days After The Disappearance of Holly and Jessica police brought the pair in for questioning while forensic experts began to search their home and sew him Village College where Huntley worked it's a common place now and indeed it was a commonplace even in 2002 for the police to take an intense interest in bystanders and onlookers at crime scenes it's true in arson it's true in murder and indeed it is fairly familiar and indeed even was then that it always look at who volunteers to search for a body whether it's body of a child or an adult often the perpetrator is among the Searchers not without exception but often because they want to admire their own handiwork there's some responsible for Holly and Jessica's disappearance had been under the noses of detectives from day one on the 16th of August 2002 12 Days After The Disappearance of 10 year old school girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman local caretaker Ian Huntley and his girlfriend Maxine Carr had been taken in for questioning by police interviews given by the pair on Sky News had roused the suspicions of detectives we were starting to think wow these two people really could be involved in something to do with these girls they're close enough to it they've clearly aroused police suspicion at this stage but after just seven hours they were released when Carr provided Huntley with an alibi she claimed she was with him in their home on the night of the girl's disappearance it wasn't until about 10 or 11 at night that we heard that police released them which we found interesting and I got a phone number from Maxine card if I thought well worth a gamble I'll just ring and see if I get through to them and extraordinary enough I did I got straight through to Maxine car and I said I gather you've been interviewed by the police what happened how are you sure well we're fine um I can't tell you anything about it but it's all all right hardly then grabbed the phone off her and I guess wanted to end the conversation quickly so he said well thanks for ringing uh yeah we're fine nothing nothing to report um the police have let us go nothing going on thanks a lot thanks for ring bye once Huntley and Carr had been questioned further searches were carried out at their home and at huntly's place of work soham Village College quite clear as we tracked back that something had happened on the Friday night during the interviews with Huntley and car it had triggered further searches and because they suddenly saw Huntly as perhaps the key figure here they went back over his territory his home and his workplace and it was then that they began to find evidence that he had abducted the girls on the 17th of August investigators got their biggest breakthrough in the case yet in the bins at the school where Huntley worked they found the burnt remains of two football shirts tracksuit bottoms shoes and some underwear forensic expert Peter Lam identified the clothes as those belonging to Holly and Jessica one of the crucial items in this particular case was the tops that the little girls were last seen in these were unusual and this helped us tremendously to build up a picture of the types of fibers that it would be easy for us to find Whenever two human beings interact there is an exchange of material be that something as Tiny as DNA up to something less subtle like a fiber up to saliva or bodily fluids blood we leave a mark on each other and no matter how hard one tries to destroy all of that evidence there will usually be something left to say that two people have been interacting there is this constant interaction of material that allows forensic scientists to draw conclusions and ultimately to come up with very strong evidence that place as one person in one place with another person and builds the case forensic scientist Peter Lamb had the girls clothes but now he had to link them forensically to Ian Huntley and it didn't take long during the examination of the items from the bin I found five human head hairs these head hairs were compared with Holly's hair and Jessica's hair they didn't match either of those two but they did match Ian huntley's hair this vital evidence led to the arrest of both Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr on the very same day the 17th of August on suspicion of abduction and murder when Carr had previously been questioned by police she'd provided Huntley with an alibi but she'd lied she admitted that on the night Holly and Jessica were murdered she was in Grimsby 110 miles from soham in the last few hours the 28 year old man and a 25 year old woman have been arrested the 28 year old man has been arrested for the murder and Abduction of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman the 25 year old woman has been arrested for the murder of both girls they've been taken to separate police stations in Cambridgeshire where they will be interviewed Huntley and Carr's former neighbor Marissa Gibb was completely shocked [Music] I didn't think he would be that type because he's always wanted his children and when my God children came round or my niece or my nephew used to play with them in the back ten foot everything and I didn't seem him to be the type to do them to the two young girls it made me upset really because that could have been my God children that could have been my niece or my nephew he could have done it then you know kill them but it did upset me and for Maxine to stay by his side that scared me a little bit because I knew she's always wanted children I thought I'm glad they haven't got any children themselves so what would have happened if they did have children and as the day went on came the news the whole world had been dreading burnt human remains had been found in a ditch near an air base at mildenhall in Suffolk the following day August the 18th the police updated the Press it is with great sadness that I have to tell you the following news it may be some days yet before we are able to positively identify the two bodies found at common drove near lakenheath in Suffolk yesterday lunchtime however we are certain as we possibly can be tonight that they are those of Holly and Jessica a team of experts include went to the ditch and we found that it was the bodies of two little girls and it was then that we began to carefully excavate the area looking for any clues who might have put them there and what had actually happened to them within the ditch whilst we were searching we found various items which led us to believe even before we'd done Danny DNA testing that these were the bodies of Holly and Jessica in particular we found part of the pocket of the tracksuit bottoms that one of them was wearing part of the little plastic logo off the side of the tracksuit bottoms and also uh a piece of jewelry which belonged to one of the two girls this isolated spot is about 10 miles from where the two girls disappeared and for the moment the army of press from around the world covering the police inquiry are being kept well away when you're live on air the thing is to keep broadcasting over the news that bodies have been found was Dreadful and it was all the worst we'd feared but we knew that a lot of people had been following this story on air like everybody else you know your hearts sink when you realize the reality of it but it's much later when you finally come off air that you kind of go that's just awful I mean what a terrible terrible ways to model terrible tragedy for this family for those little girls for the for a village that was really really torn apart it was now officially a murder investigation forensic experts had to find as much evidence as they could but the remains were badly damaged if the bodies couldn't provide any clues perhaps the deposition site may but finding any small traces of evidence at the vast Air Base was like looking for a needle in a haystack to help hone in on exactly where the killer may have entered the ditch with the bodies the police called on Botanical ecologist Professor Patricia Wiltshire strange place there are a series of drove roads in this part it's near Lake and Heath Air Base you're on the breckland sounds there that's the soil when it gets wet it gets very very muddy and horrible so what the farmers do they get crushed up shells and they put them along a track so as we drove along the track it was all crunchy with shells and then it stopped and beyond that was the breckland sand what is very interesting is that the girls were found in a ditch just where the shell stopped the police were flummoxed really so they said where did he enter the ditch it was obvious to me because the a lot of the Nettles had gone through corrective growth they'd been flattened but they'd grown up and corrected themselves and uh so I said to the police well here it is and when they looked at that pathway they found Jessica's hair on a twig so they knew that's where he had entered the entered the ditch it's quite important because then they can do their fingertip searching in appropriate places now investigators needed to prove that Huntley was the person who had deposited the girls bodies in the ditch again the surrounding environment at the deposition site held the key when I looked at the burnt clothing it had masses of evidence that matched the vegetation in the ditch there were older trees and all sorts of other things growing over the ditch and there were older fruits and pollen grains all sorts of things in bed it in the clothing we're from that ditch and it showed that the girls were clothed when he put them in the ditch so he must have taken the clothes off while they were in the ditch further searches at huntley's home revealed that his house and car had recently been meticulously cleaned officers who interviewed Huntley a day after the girls went missing also reported a strong smell of a lemony cleaning product coming from the house not only did we examine the carpets Upholstery and items within the house but we were also given the contents of vacuum cleaners that Mr Huntley had access to buy the use of these vacuum cleaners it's likely that some of these fibers would have been distributed throughout the house so not only had they been removed but also distributed as well and so there wasn't just one particular location in which we found the fibers from the girls clothing they were found downstairs upstairs and in the bathroom as well we had quite a lot of exhibits from huntley's belongings but his car he'd carefully change the tires he'd washed it what he forgot was that the chassis had picked up soil the chunks of soil had the same profile as where he'd put the girls what investigators really needed was DNA proof that the girls had been in huntley's house but there was none to be found it was unusual not to find any DNA evidence whatsoever if the girls had been within Mr huntley's house I Now understand that it may be that Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr cleaned the house thoroughly using Solutions of bleach and that type of cleaning May account for the fact that no DNA was ever found within the property prosecutors still felt they had enough evidence to convince the jury that Ian Humphrey had abducted and murdered Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman on April 16 2003 Huntley pleaded not guilty of the hearing of the Old Bailey it meant that families would have to suffer through a trial which was set for the 3rd of November the whole world wanted Justice for the two girls Huntley was charged with the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman and Carr with perverting the course of justice and assisting an offender both had pleaded not guilty the world was watching [Music] the lead prosecutor on the case Karim Khalil had received new information from the defense team the initial defense possession I mean up until about a month before the trial was that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the death of these two girls about a month before the hearing his position changed and we were informed by his Council that in fact he would accept that the two girls had gone to College close and that they had died whilst in that property and that he had taken them to the area which became known as the deposition site where their bodies were eventually found what we were not informed about was what Huntley would say about the actual death of the two girls and how that had come about the reason that I think Ian Huntley is so terrifying is because of this chameleon-like quality that he's got he's able to to roll out a performance to whatever audience he's in front of so it's that ability to create that veneer of normality that facade of normality and I think behind closed doors yeah he really was a monster in the making on the 25th of November Huntley spoke in court he proceeded to give an extraordinary explanation of how Holly and Jessica had died part of huntly's story was the first child had fallen into the bath having a nosebleed she had died Without Really any involvement on his part and the second child he had held around the mouth with his hand because she was screaming and he was anxious that others shouldn't be disturbed and to settle her down and that was going to be his account a suggestion by Ian Huntley that he didn't mean to kill those girls um I regardless preposterous too fit and healthy ten-year-olds it just seems inconceivable that their death could have been caused by anyone other than a person intent on causing their death the prosecution argued that minutes before seeing the girls Huntly had a furious telephone argument with Carr as he suspected heard of cheating on him he then saw the girls lured them to his house and killed them in a jealous rage we can only speculate about why Huntley killed the two it's too horrifying to contemplate what might or might not have happened and I feel that so strongly because of Holly and Jessica's parents it cannot be anything but torture to imagine what might have happened to your daughter in the hands of family Sky News presented Jeremy Thompson who'd interviewed Huntley and Carr on camera before they were arrested testified during the trial I got a call from the police saying yes please we would like you to be a witness in the murder trial of Ian Hundley and so I've been in the old bayley plenty of times sitting in the Press benches but for the very first time I was in the witness box it's intimidating being in the witness box particularly at the Old Bailey because it's got a a venerable and weighty atmosphere but then I looked down there's Huntley looking up at me as well with a fairly blank face a fairly deadpan face but who knows what he was thinking he was probably thinking I wish I'd done that interview with you I might have given myself away who knows I think for Ian Huntley that in live television news was the high point of his life he was absolutely loving every minute of this he's completely 100 in control nobody knows what's going on he's the only one who knows exactly what happened and that makes him feel incredibly powerful on the 3rd of December 2003 Maxine Carr took the stand she admitted she'd lied about being with Huntley on the day of the murder and was in fact in Grimsby she argued if she'd learn of huntler's murderous actions she would never have lied to protect him so Maxine cars is a bit of a Target because she was employed as a teaching assistant she was supposed to be somebody who cared for and nurtured and looked after children you've got to remember Ian Huntley was the one who carried out these murders he was the one who made these decisions and a Maxine Carr you know looking back on it now it's clear that she was another one of his victims huntly's defense was falling apart investigators had proved he tried to cover up his actions and there was a vast amount of forensic evidence linking him to the girls we had a large number of transfers of fibers we had fibers transferred from Mr huntley's clothing and his home to the tracksuit bottoms we had hairs from Mr Huntley transferred to the items of clothing of the girls and in total we had 154 transfers of one way and two-way types it took the jury just five days of deliberation to reach a verdict they refused to believe huntley's explanation of The Accidental killings on December the 17th 2003 Ian Humphrey was found guilty of the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by a majority voting Huntley was given two life sentences by the judge Mr Justice Moses and was immediately sent to belmarsh prison two years after the trial in September 2005 it was recommended that Huntley should serve 40 years as a minimum I think Ian Huntley would like to think that he was a master manipulator but I don't think he had the the correct level of social skills to be able to get away with with a crime like this um I think he became a victim of his own narcissism in the end he literally just couldn't help himself in putting himself in front of the television cameras so so he was never going to get away with this and I think he he very much enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame Maxine Carr was found guilty of perverting the course of justice but not guilty of assisting an offender the court accepted that Carr had only lied to the police to protect Huntley because she believed his claims of Innocence she was sentenced to three and a half years and immediately sent to Holloway prison in May 2004 Carr was released and given a new identity I think she is a victim as well because I think if she said anything he would have probably killed her as well and that's probably why she kept kept quiet because she was scared of her own life Earth solicitor spoke to me and said would you like to speak to Max and I said yeah because she's a friend and I was there through thick and thin with the e-9 and that I did speak to a couple of times on the phone and we wrote I wrote to her when she was in prison and that and then it just all faded away it's been over a decade since the summer murders and one question Still Remains unanswered why did Ian Huntley carry out these senseless killings there's only one person who knows what happened and because he chose to give the account he did and has given no other we will never be certain as to what precisely did occur on in case one day Hunter's conscience will allow him to tell us what really happened he kept himself together pretty well through nearly two weeks of Investigation of these interviews and meter interviews like ours so they didn't fall apart they didn't act crazy he certainly seemed to know what he was doing in covering up a crime that at the time only he knew about it and I would question those aren't the actions of a Madman just someone who's very cold and calculating Ian is so secretive you will never find out what he did to the girls and why you didn't because it's like someone with in a ball and he will not eat he won't come out that body you'll never know till the day he dies you'll never know what he did to them girls Huntley was able to leave his dark pasting Grimsby behind just by moving away from the area but as a direct response to the sower murders the police National Database was launched in 2011 which transformed the way information is shared between forces across the UK and a new child protection scheme was set up to help prevent such a tragedy ever taking place again well I think the most positive thing to come out of the case is simply that the government then tightened laws on employment with children you know to work in schools or work in any areas where children are involved hopefully they've closed up the loophole certainly and Hundley with his past record which hadn't come to light now that wouldn't happen again huntley's house five College close where Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman spent their last moments was demolished in 2004 but for some the memories of the sower murders cannot be erased it still upsets me because I'm a mother I'm my grandma and everything and it's just the fact it could have been my family even though it's not your children it's still mother instinctly it's children cases like this are quite rare and the thing that always sticks out is that children involved in this case I think perhaps gain more notoriety simply because to innocent little girls to pretty little girls who've gone out from a family Barbecue to buy some sweets and never came back anybody who had kids would have thought oh there but for the grace of God go our family when it can happen in some it means it can happen anywhere everywhere for 13 days in August 2002 the British public went through a range of emotions during the search for Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman from shock to Hope and finally to sorrow but over a decade on it's important we remember the victims and their loved ones not Ian Huntley one of the world's most evil movies in April 1991 doctors at Grantham and cast even Hospital in Lincolnshire were perplexed in just two months the health of 13 children on Ward 4 had mysteriously deteriorated four of them had died had died sadly I had shared with the parents and said look this is impossible but I can't do anything more I felt so sad he died in my hands but this was no unfortunate coincidence I began to realize that there was a serial killer that was working on that Ward and was causing the collapses of these children unbelievably one of the nurses was deliberately attempting to kill her young patients by injecting them with deadly poison Sergeant walked in and then he said then we have reason to believe that Paul's illness hypoglycemic sex who are a result of a male administration of drugs and I remember my words exactly that would explain a lot wouldn't it Beverly Alex the woman dubbed the angel of death had without doubt become one of the world's most evil killers [Music] [Music] it was a case that shocked the world for 59 days in 1991 there was a serial killer stalking the children's Ward at Grantham and guest even Hospital in Lincolnshire but nobody knew it 22 year old nurse Beverly allott's job was to protect the children in her care but she abused her role she was purposely harming them her crimes were horrific and ruined the lives of many including the families of her innocent victims as a judge said to take her down there were emotional scenes in the public Gallery with families bursting into tears one woman jumped up shouting bastard bastard another shouted Locker in a cage Beverly Elliott had tried to get away with murder her Story begins over two decades earlier Beverly Alex was born on the 4th of October 1968 in the small Lincolnshire Village of Corby Glenn she was one of four children to be any real red flags in Beverly Alex background the the so normally when we we have a serial killer we have an abusive or a violent childhood there's something that's there in the background but with Beverly Outlet there doesn't seem to be any real powerful explanatory Factor fast forward to April 1991 22 year old Beverly Allard had been working on the children's Ward at Grantham and kiss Stephen hospital for three months one of the Consultants on Ward 4 was Dr charith nanayakara my first impressions about Beverly era it was nothing outstanding see we're just another quiet Pleasant obliging nurse who was available during aled's short time on the ward three children had died suddenly and a further nine had fallen seriously ill under suspicious circumstances on April the 22nd 1991 Beverly allott was on duty when 15 month old Claire Peck was admitted to Ward four she was under the care of the two Consultants at the hospital Dr Frederick Porter and Dr Nana yakara clear pick she had come with a severe attack of asthma breathing difficulties requiring oxygen so Dr Porter was cold and he had come he had tried to resuscitate and provide all the necessary care as appropriate and Beverly alert on this occasion had been with him in spite of all the efforts taken the report couldn't resuscitate and she had died within hours Claire pack was the fourth child to die unexpectedly at Grantham and kiss Stephen Hospital in three months it was an alarming number in such a short space of time I said I really don't know what's going on and got together with Dr Porter and the senior nursing manager and checked through all the cases of worrying suspicions and anxieties we had I compiled a report and sent it to unit general manager saying we have series of these unexplained and sometimes explained collapses we are very worried about these problems and therefore we want to bring it to a notice we need your help on the 30th of April the hospital decided to ask the police to investigate the deaths to see if there could be something or someone casting a shadow over Ward 4. the case found its way to Chief superintendent Stuart Clifton one of my detective sergeants at Grantham contacted me to say that he'd had a call from Grantham Hospital which suggested that they'd had a high number of collapses of children which may or may not be down to some criminal act when I use the term collapsed I'm talking in terms of each of them having stopped breathing and the resuscitation team known colloquially as the crash team were called to resuscitate the children there were two pediatricians employed at the hospital a Dr Porter and Dr nanyakara Who had differing opinions about whether the collapses of children at that hospital over a period of about three months were actually medically related or whether they were at the hands of somebody who was causing those collapses after a meeting between detectives and doctors on the 3rd of May It was decided they'd asked Professor David Hull an expert in Pediatric to give his Insight on each of the cases he set out in some detail his findings but concluded by saying of the 13 children that I've looked at I think that there are only three that are worthy of further investigation in two of these cases I feel that there will be a medical explanation and in one case a little boy called Paul Crampton I think it's worthy of further investigation five-month-old Paul Crampton had been admitted to Ward four on the 20th of March 1991 with a chest infection his dad David remembers it well Paul was actually born with um measles and he was taken home and then after a relatively short period a few months cath talking to the doctors my wife um and he had a wheeze they were I think over cautious but that's the right thing with a child of that age and they took him into Hospital the first three days of his care were completely unremarkable and and he was expected to go home on on that third day during the course of that that day Beverly Hallett brought to the attention of other nurses the fact that this little boy was having difficulty breathing I walked into a scene I did not expect and that was Paul in the arms of a nurse I think at that particular time he was cold clammy Gray and I recall that nurse Beverly Allen was there and she said at the time this child is hypoglycemic the doctor had been called the doctor came and Paul was taken into the treatment room and he disappeared for what seemed to be an eternity before we were allowed into the dreamer room and I remember Paul sat there playing with his toes he seemed to have made a Total Recovery the following day which was a Sunday Beverly Alec went to take the drip down and within the space of a few minutes the boy was once again hypoglycemic so obviously that was quite frightening so we went within a very short space of time from a child that's coming home to a child that's now seriously ill and without too much explanation three days later this little boy is expected to go home that day because he's continued to to recover from his attacks about 10 minutes to 12 the boy's father goes up to the hospital canteen to get himself a sandwich and when he returns some 20 minutes or so later he finds a little boy that is gray arched back and clearly in some form of distress Paul came from the board that Paul had collapsed again and my colleague rushed through and when he saw his collapse he immediately called the team from Nottingham and transferred him he went in the ambulance both with my wife and and with a doctor and nurse Beverly Allen went in the ambulance with him I remember walking into the ward at Queen's Medical Center and it was just totally different atmosphere calm relaxed pause in intensive care but she's got the feeling that he was just going to get better and he did transferring Paul Crampton to Queen's Medical Center in Nottingham had saved his life test revealed the insulin in his blood which is usually between four and six million units per liter was alarmingly high Dr Porter had taken blood which had been sent to the university hospital at Cardiff for examination the insulin in the blood Paul Crampton at 47 000 is the second highest ever recorded in the world he was fortunate enough to survive and it was felt that he had abnormal external incident been administered I think when we got the blood results I began to realize that there was a serial killer that was working on that Ward and and was causing the collapses of these children I had a phone call from Grantham police and it was we'd like to come see you I won't tell you what it is but we'll come and see you tomorrow so that's an office in Grantham at the time and um Sergeant walked in and then he said um we have a reason to believe that Paul's illness hypoglycemic attacks were a result of male administration of drugs and I remember my words exactly that would explain a lot wouldn't it it was Unthinkable with someone at Grantham and guest even Hospital murdering helpless children the police had to investigate each of the cases to try and find the Killer they would begin with seven week old Liam Taylor who was admitted on the 21st of February 1991 just two days after nurse Beverly allott had begun working on Ward 4. To Tread carefully in a healthcare setting it is very difficult to investigate a murder or a suspected murder because all of the the individuals on that that Ward have a legitimate reason to be there they have the access to the victim anyway and often it's very difficult to prove that direct link between one particular member of staff and one particular victim so the police have got a really really difficult job on their hands when they're investigating this type of crime and it wasn't going to get any easier about a week or so into the inquiry the whole investigation was blown by the local paper and of course then the world's press descended on on Grantham local radio reporter Sean dunderdale was one of the first journalists to latch on to the story none of us had experienced a story like this before we we kind of heard rumors we knew the police were involved at the hospital that something was happening but exactly what I mean at that stage I don't think even the police knew what they were facing what they were coping with because nobody knew what was happening there wasn't that much information to start with and slowly it started to develop as a story that clearly something big was happening at Grantham that there was a major investigation and eventually it did uh sort of get out there into the into the media that there had been certainly a number of uh of odd occurrences involving children on the children's world just began to approach family members of the victims with the shocking news that their children may have been deliberately attacked by an active serial killer in the early stages of the investigation the the parents were certainly had a an attitude that suggested that the police should not be interfering with an investigation of this type I think it's fair to say that as the teams began to investigate the circumstances and they became more and more aware of the circumstances surrounding the collapse of their child they became more and more on board police had to try and find a link between all 13 of the children who've been affected they began with the first suspicious case the death of seven-week-old Liam Taylor who'd been left under the care of a new staff nurse Beverly alett on the 21st of February of 1991 he was taken to Grantham hospital and was seen by one of the pediatricians and diagnosed with bronchiolitis a couple of hours later they see their child with just a nappy on he's clearly terribly distressed and the nurse Beverly Elliott explains that during the course of feeding he'd vomited and choked the next evening the two parents decide to stay in the hospital the mom is so tired that she goes to bed early and the father stays off he looks in on the child just before midnight after having had a shower at the hospital and sees that there's a nurse with him he goes off to bed thinking that the problems are over and he's awoken about five o'clock in the morning by the night sister who asked him to come because Liam has relapsed the child's blue box arched and Dr nanyakara tells them that the SOB breathing and they'd had some difficulty restarting the heart later that morning Liam dies [Music] sadly I had to share with the parents and said look this is impossible but I can't do anything more I felt so sad he died in my hands the last nurse to tend to Liam before his death was Beverly allott who joined the war just four days previously it was her first ever nursing role so Beverly Allen had applied to other hospitals other departments for a job as a nurse upon her completing her her qualification she'd been turned down by all of them when Ward 4 employed Beverly Allied it was because they were incredibly short staffed they were pretty desperate they they needed more nurses on duty and normally they wouldn't have taken Beverly Allen on because she she didn't have the correct level of qualifications though the usual level of qualifications that they would ask for so it was desperation really Alex had begun training as a nurse at 16. even at a young age she seemed to have an unhealthy fascination with hospitals was a regular in the a e Department she would constantly turn up their complaining of various symptoms and illnesses and she got a bit of a reputation amongst the staff there so they were very surprised to learn that that she was a trainee nurse and the adults just simply weren't joined up because often when when somebody is a nurse and they're training as a nurse you're only seeing them you know during that part of their day you're not seeing the the bigger picture detectives investigating the suspicious incidents on Ward 4 had begun to look into each case to find a common link Beverly Allied had again been on duty on the 5th of March 1991 the day that Timothy Hardwick was admitted Timothy Hardwick was an 11 year old boy who had a lot of problems in his life he he suffered with cerebral palsy and was epileptic he had an epileptic fit at school in Newark as a result he was transferred to Grantham hospital where doctors managed to get his fitting under control a very very short time after Beverly had been left with him this child suddenly stops breathing she raises the alarm and the Crash team occult one of the staff nurses came to my office and said Doctor and please come and see Timothy he is not well apparently he had collapsed and then when I went I tried to resuscitate him but by that time he's virtually had no signs of life sadly they can't resuscitate him and the child dies just five days later on March the 10th 14 month old Kaylee Desmond was on Ward 4 suffering with a chest infection after being left alone with aled for some one-to-one nursing Kaylee had an unexpected heart attack medley allot was seen in the room and that actually called her the nurses to go and have a look which was one of her common things she would call other nurses to say come and have a look at this child and then the crash team would be called Katie survived the collapse and was transferred to another hospital due to the massive toll the arrest put on her young body she was left brain damaged detectives investigating the unusual pattern the patient collapses on Ward 4 found a clue in Katie's x-rays we were able to show that there was needle tracking under the arm of this little girl and and an air bubble which had obviously caused the equivalent of what we would call a heart attack this mysterious needle Mark was further proved to detectives they were dealing with a killer they'd already discovered the high insulin count in the blood of Paul Crampton who survived they continued their investigations with the cases of two more suspiciously ill children Bradley Gibson and two-year-old Yik Chan Radley Gibson is Edmonton under Dr Porter he was about five or six year old and her breathing difficulty is that Porter had treated him with possible chest infection and he then suddenly had stopped breathing and stopped his heartbeat as well what you call a cardiac arrest which is extremely rare Dr Porter had tried repeatedly to resuscitate him with the defibrillator he managed to get him round extremely fortunate was admitted with the suspected fractured skull he's in the hospital for a couple of days and he's charging around the place there's clearly not very much wrong with him one particular evening Beverly Alex is going off duty and she speaks to the oncoming nurse at about nine o'clock in the evening and said can you have a look in at Chan he's crying he's he's not very well the oncoming nurse goes into the room and and finds him with his back arched and blue and the Crash team are called and he's resuscitated Bradley Gibson and Yik Chan both survived unscathed three-month-old identical twins Katie and Becky Phillips were not so lucky the pair were born prematurely and were regular visitors to Ward 4. in early April 1991 they were back and being treated by Dr Nana yakada they had repeated admissions not surprisingly again with variety of illnesses diarrhea vomiting breathing difficulties and so on so forth and the parents quite rightly were very worried and brought them straight to the hospital rather than going to the GP I had seen them and discharged them reassured the parents but the same night Becky was brought to the casualty the casualty staff taking lots of effort to resuscitate but she was virtually dead so I had a long discussion with the parents they were completely shocked and they were very very upset I left some blood samples in the laboratory for any future investigations if needed we subsequently found that that blood and had it analyzed and that contained 9660 Milli units per liter of insulin in the blood and you always have to remember with these huge figures that a child should have 15 to 20 Milli units so it horrendous later on that same day April the 5th Dr Nanny yakara asked Becky's parents to bring her twin sister Katie in as a precaution Katie's taken into hospital and that afternoon she's allocated related to the care of Beverly Ellet one of the senior nurses goes to that particular room to see what's going on as she enters she sees Beverly Outlet nursing the child in her arms the child's crying she sees that the child collapse within Beverly Alex arms and the Crash team are called they managed to resuscitate Katie who is later transferred but over the next three days the child Katie suffers convulsions and this child is severely brain damaged as a result of what occurred now during my investigation detective inspector Jones managed to find x-rays that were taken at the time the child had squeeze injuries which had broken a number of ribs this was further evidence that proved to detectives that something very Sinister was happening on Ward 4 and Grantham and kiss Stephen Hospital between the deaths of Becky Phillips on the 5th of April and Claire peck on April the 22nd four more boys had been admitted with minor symptoms and unexpectedly came close to death that made a total of 13 suspicious incidents four deaths and nine close calls but now investigators have the arduous task of making a list of suspects one of the names on that list was a woman who always seemed to be on duty whenever something went wrong 22 year old staff nurse Beverly Allen May 1991 police were investigating a Spate of mysterious deaths and illnesses on the children's Ward at Grantham and cast even Hospital in Lincolnshire after digging deeper into the individual cases they were certain they were chasing a serial killer that's clear evidence of air injected under the arm of one child there's evidence of squeeze injuries there's evidence of insulin what was a common factor with the vast majority of these children was that each of them had a cannula fitted a site usually in the back of the hand where drugs or drips can be administered through so injecting cardio toxic drugs would not be would not be very difficult because it could go in through the IV port this is quite a common method for firstly a female serial killer and a healthcare serial killer poison is a very common method used by these people it's accessible it's something that that is not going to immediately cause concern because this is something that's already in that hospital environment anyway and also poisoning is quite a quite a remote method of killing somebody you're not up close and personal with them it's not messy you can administer the poison and then then leave the scene you don't have to see them suffer the effects of it Chief superintendent Stuart Clifton and his team interviewed all the staff members on Ward 4 and a new piece of evidence emerge that suddenly became crucial I began to look at the circumstances of insulin in Grantham hospital and I found that it was kept in locked fridges on on the wards and on the children's Ward the key to the fridge had gone missing three days before the first child had collapsed Beverly Allen was the last known person to have that key but no hospital investigation had actually taken place Beverly alett's name kept cropping up she always seemed to be at the hospital when the incidents occurred and the staff duty rotor confirmed this what we discovered was that for every collapse Beverly Allen was the only nurse that was on duty on every occasion and on many of these occasions we could actually put a right at the bedside either at the time of the collapse or just before on the 21st of May 1991 Stuart Clifton made the brave decision of having Beverly allott arrested I basically couldn't take the chance that if she was still working on there she would harm more children albeit that I hadn't completed the investigation by any means we were merely scraping the surface at that time so she was arrested and the house was searched during the course of that search we found a hospital pillowcase a used syringe and a little child's notebook and it was headed allocations book this allocations book had gone missing from Ward four it detailed the names of children who needed extra attention and which nurse was allocated to them it was not only further proof that Alex had been caring for the children who died but evidence that she was hiding the information from her colleagues Beverly Allen was interviewed at the police station over the course of two days she made no admissions in fact she went so far as to distance herself from all the events at that hospital saying things such as I wasn't there on that day my I didn't come on duty until after that it happened so she she completely distanced herself maintained their innocence she was a very strange girl in the interview in the she would talk to you quite quite normally or talk to the interviewing offices quite normally about things like football pop music and the minute you got down to to actually talking about the events at Grantham hospital she became a completely different person when news of the arrest broke the Press knew this was a huge Story Once the investigation went that one step further and obviously a nurse had been arrested a nurse was clearly under investigation they had to go public with that and that's what it all exploded really that's when the world's media were suddenly interested because it had never been heard of before that a nurse would do such a thing you know such a rarity and certainly in this country at first the whole of of Grantham was just surrounded by journalists at TV Crews from around the world newspapers Alex arrest was also a huge shock for the victims families I felt the mixed emotion is one of those people don't harm a child but secondly we now know what was wrong with Paul and thank God it's not anything to do with Paul it's not a medical problem it is an outside influence Stuart Clifton and his team were convinced that Alex was behind the deaths but they had no proof she was released on bail without charge I convinced the hospital that they needed to suspend Beverly ellip from Duty because we couldn't take the chance and they couldn't take the chance that another child would be attacked the police needed to build a case if they were right about Alec then they just released a serial killer into the public Chief superintendent Stuart Clifton turned back to the expert who just a month previously had concluded the majority of the cases could be explained medically I I asked David Hall to go away and re-look at the case notes of the children but to use the statements that my team had taken which detailed the circumstances of the collapse of each of each of these children he agreed to do that months passed as Stuart Clifton and his team built the case against Beverly allott and by November 1991 Professor Halden re-examined his original case notes based on the new evidence found by detectives he agreed that all the incidents could be viewed as suspicious on the 20th of November Alec was arrested once more the former nurse is charged with the murder of four children she also faces eight charges of attempted murder of eight other children she faces a further eight charges of causing Grievous bodily harm with intent she was new to appear at the Grantham magistrates Court the next day bear in mind this is a young girl that's never been in police custody before and at nine o'clock the next morning one of the police women had to go and wake her up she didn't appear to have a care in the world there wasn't very much in the way of remorse she didn't cry there was no kind of real visible reaction in her so I think she does have that kind of cold personality she's she's orchestrated all of these terrible events but but she doesn't feel any impact from them she's somebody who who doesn't have the same feelings and emotions as as the rest of us during the 15-month wait for her trial the stunned press began to uncover Beverly allet's history of Faking illnesses and self-harming the more we dug into Alex background again the more unbelievable it became and the one question our listeners would ask is how how did nobody spot all of this um and and allow her to continue being a nurse how did she get through that recruitment process we've got an authorization from her to have a look at her medical records They indicated going back to Childhood that Beverly liked to be the center of attention there were incidents while she was at school where she would sprain a finger and demand that she'd her arm be put in a Sleek I think it's tempting to look back and say they should have picked up on that they should have known that this was somebody who was not quite right but I don't think they would have automatically made the link between somebody who was perhaps harming themselves and somebody who would then go on to harm other people nurses care for their patients they want to preserve their lives and enhance their quality of life so to think that a nurse would do this is it's almost Unthinkable on February the 15th 1993 24 year old Beverly Allard was in Nottingham Crown Court charged with the murder of four children and the attempted murder of a further nine her not guilty plea meant a trial would have to take place for much of the time Beverly was not there because she was suffering from anorexia and was supposedly too ill to attend trial the judge in his wisdom ruled that it should go ahead without her the court case was very harrowing experience I mean it was it was a long drawn-out Affair uh Beverly how it wasn't in court for a lot of it again I think some of that manipulation that she was was known for some of the manipulation she'd clearly done in the hospital she was trying it with the court case as well and I know that was having an impact on on family members they knew of their own individual case the actual scale of it apart from what they'd read in the media heard on the radio it was the first time they'd actually heard exactly what had been happening at Grantham hospital I mean that was quite traumatic because obviously it was a fact that there was significant media interest and and we couldn't walk down the street from the car park to the court case without having microphones and stuffed under our nose and and cameras flashy and you know there's a lot of emotion a lot of emotion around that clearly you couldn't just go home and you know close the door and put the TV on and forget about it it was it just was all encompassing it was it was the only thing that was on my mind throughout the case and and for a long time afterwards as well in the times that Alec was in the courtroom she seemed completely distant from what was going on around her I firmly believe she felt the families would still be on her side because you know they'd been very close you know they thought certainly initially in those initial stages that um you know she'd helped save or tried to save their child's life and so in court you know she would smile at them to the outside world a lot of the evidence may have seemed circumstantial but as the trial went on it became clear the case against Alex was a strong one for a long time people believed it must be a mistake you know a nurse surely wouldn't be be responsible for that there must be some other explanation for it but then slowly as the evidence was revealed you could see that tight turning that that people suddenly realized complete revulsion that that a nurse of all people would would do that um you know it's suddenly like well if I can't trust a nurse who can I trust and I think that that was a real shock to the nation it resonated right across the country when those those actual facts came out about what Beverly Elliott had done during the trial the jury heard from experts who believe that Alex had been suffering with a mental illness throughout her life which caused her to commit the murders for Munchausen syndrome is a condition which basically means that people will invent symptoms in themselves in order to gain the the attention of medical professionals there's also Munchausen Syndrome by proxy this is when somebody invents symptoms in somebody else in order to get attention from medical professionals and and that somebody else is often a child or or somebody who you're in charge of the care of I think she's she's certainly ill and that there has to be an element of of evil somewhere within that because people can be ill without without wishing to cause harm to other people on the 28th of May 1993 after a draining three-month trial the jury had reached a decision I think the moment we were called back into the core is is something you know we'll always I certainly I'll always remember it was very tense you know very quiet the member of the jury stood up and that first verdict came in of guilty and there was just a again an intake of breath lasted just a couple of seconds then someone I remember shouting yes and I think there was a couple of people clapping and then tears from the families tears from members of the public it was a very difficult job for the police to actually say you know without doubt Beverly Hallett was responsible so so there was always that possibility if the jury could have just tipped the other way and thankfully you know that guilty verdict came in I think it was a huge sense of relief for everyone on May the 28 1993 judge Mr Justice Latham sentenced Beverly Allen to 13 concurrent life sentences one for each of the charges against her I relieved David Crampton made a statement outside the courtroom well I saw Beverly as a rather pathetic figure really and when we listen to her medical evidence we probably could conclude that these are tragedies were inevitable there was clearly some massive media interest associated with the Alec case both pre and post to trial that was pretty easy for me and my family because Paul was at home and well if Paul if something worse had happened to Paul such as it happened to other families how would I have conducted myself I don't know thankfully I'll never have to know Paul is 26 years old he has a house he has a long-term partner lovely girl he's got a career who's doing very well very very well Beverly Allard was immediately sent to Holloway prison but after just a week behind bars She was transferred to rampton secure Hospital in Nottinghamshire the Beverly it has ended up in a secure hospital is is a really interesting one for me because this is somebody who before developing Munchausen Syndrome by proxy could have been argued to to have just Munchausen Syndrome so she was fabricating illnesses and symptoms in herself before she was harming other people she was going after that role as the patient she wanted to be seen you know by medical professionals and and play that sick role she's essentially achieved what she set out to achieve she's got that status of the patient which she always wanted what do I think about where I'll let seven a sentence I I I don't waste any energy on that I don't don't really think about it she doesn't enjoy the same freedoms that I do my rest of my family and the vast majority of the population in this country she's in a prison um whether that is more comfortable than perhaps some people would like is a bit academic really in December 1993 Central television interviewed Beverly Allard inside Brampton hospital as part of a special news report she enjoys relative luxury and freedom within the maximum security walls the parents of her victims who gave their approval for these pictures to be included in central TVs the Tuesday special tonight believes you should be in prison it's not too bad what's a good thing about it you like it better than where you were before because I've got more freedom locked up all the time Stuart Clifton also visited alet inside Brampton in 1994 determined to get the truth out of her she made admissions at that time she admitted nine of the 13 cases that she'd been um convicted of she wouldn't have anything to do with the two Phillips cases the minute that I began to press her for details about precisely what she'd done what she'd used she just walked away from me wouldn't answer any more questions there are plenty of questions left unanswered especially for the loved ones of the victims of Beverly allot Alex crimes are like dropping a pebble into a pool of water those ripples spread far and wide and a dramatic effect clearly on the families how the families of the victims but their extended family grandparents parents Etc and of course a dramatic effect on the hospital and its staff so her crimes went far and wide into the community not just the immediate people affected I think Beverly Allen was was really most at home when she was in the middle of a drama so she was deliberately creating the drama and then casting herself in it in a leading role within it there's a real impact there of you know it could have been a family member you know it's the local hospital one of my members of my younger family could have gone into the hospital to be cared for by a nurse and look what happened and that could and that's the thing with this story you know it could have happened to absolutely anyone the parents who were affected by that were purely unlucky that their child went into that hospital on that day and that Beverly alley was their nurse we may never understand why Beverly Allen intentionally set out to poison the children she was meant to care for and lust for attention turned from selfish to deadly and for three months in 1991 she acted upon it in the most horrific manner nobody on Ward 4 was safe but the determination of doctors and police brought justice for all the victims families and proved the Beverly Allen the angel of death was a cold-blooded killer during the winter of 2006 Ipswich in Suffolk was paralyzed with fear the bodies of five missing prostitutes had been found by police sparking the biggest ever Manhunt in the east of England he's targeting these women because they are vulnerable because they are easy for him to access and easy for him to control as the hot air began to unravel it became a Race Against Time to catch the killer the police questioned over 2 000 motorists with no success he had to be caught because he wouldn't stop until he was Steve Wright through this whole period was sitting at home watching this whole drama played out on 24-hour news channels think to himself undoing this I'm controlling this I'm going to try and get away with this Steve Wright the man dubbed the Suffolk Strangler had earned his place as one of the world's most evil killers foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] T is one of Britain's most prolific serial killers in the space of just six weeks during the winter of 2006. he murdered five young women who were working as prostitutes on the streets of Ipswich as the girls disappeared one by one the world's media descended upon Suffolk there was an inevitability with each breaking news report that another body would be found two bodies have been found near Ipswich this is breaking news and we're giving it to you as we get it but Steve Wright's Story begins over 40 years before Wright was born in the Norfolk Village of erpingham in 1958 one of four children he grew up in a military family living on RAF bases around the world with his father Conrad a retired corporal you normal child I mean no aggression typical boy that just wanted to play but family life was far from happy and Wright's mother left when he was just eight years old right of his siblings stayed with their father who went on to remarry whilst he was living with me there was never a problem never you know never see one even happy and little Barneys I suppose with his stepmother at times when he weren't a bit mischievous if you like but it was nothing that you would sort of think about an hour later Steve was not a particularly Bright Young Man but cheery enough in his own way left school at 16 without any qualifications to speak of and got a job working as a chef on the Ferries which sailed from felixstowe to the continent by the early 1980s Wright had become a steward on the cruise ship the QE2 and it was during this time he reportedly spent money on sex workers during trips to Thailand which some experts believe May of altered his perception towards the opposite sex I think he's got an expectation of women women are there to perform a service for him to to play a particular role they serve a function for him and that's something that we continually see throughout the rest of his life he would often return home from sea penniless well he's a bit of a loner like in a way he didn't mix that much but he did come up with me at the weekends when you lived here especially because he looked after the dogs when I had two then a couple of beers down the end of the road normal so Steve Wright was a performer he was performing a role as a guy he was interested in playing golf and going to the pub and going on holiday he appeared to be somebody who was normal somebody who fitted in but behind that there was something all together different going on right married twice but both ended in divorce with rumors of domestic violence he struggled to hold down a job and ran up large gambling debts I knew he'd put money on horses because when he got his wage from the bingo hall he used to take his wages off and believe it or not and I said I'll give you enough to see you through the week because I wanted him to build up a kidney to sort himself out right continued to gamble and was eventually declared bankrupt unable to see a way out of his debts he tried unsuccessfully to take his own life for him to want to gas himself in the car it must have been something that I will not aware of for him to get pushed to that limit you know whether he was trying to befriend young females I think the girls that he was getting that were younger than him and whether they in the end they turned him down and he couldn't face it or something and he felt rejected or whatever I don't I don't know when he was here there weren't a problem where did he get done did he get so much in the debt that I pressurized him so much that he just broke I think Steve Wright's alleged suicide attempts are quite significant so what does suicide represent it represents somebody trying to get control back somebody whose life has kind of gone beyond their grip and they're desperately trying to reel that that power back in and I think for Steve Wright if we look at some of his earlier experiences this is somebody who came to Crave control he wasn't in control of his his life as a child the family were moving around it was quite transient it was quite chaotic and as an adult I think he felt an intense need to be in control and that was what he was essentially doing here he was internalizing so he was being violent towards himself in 2002 while working as a Barman right now age 44 was arrested for stealing 80 pounds from the pub till to pay off his escalating debt this petty theft would later contribute to his downfall he'd been to court because he'd take money from the till but he kept that from me anyway so again if we can keep one thing from you can he keep others by October 2006 48 year old Wright was living with a new girlfriend on London Road in the heart of ipswich's red light district in the same month nineteen-year-old Tanya Nichol went missing from her home became round her mind of about eight o'clock at night something like that and she wanted to lift home so I gave a lift I didn't want to tell her offer anything you know but we knew as far as I was concerned she was taking cannabis or whatever and I didn't know that she was into drugs so heavily you see you don't know we just talked like like friends when we got there and she just got out of the car one of the things I noticed was she just walked straight into the house whereas you know you might turn around give a little wave let's just walked straight in so I suppose that's sort of like um this drug stuff it it dulls your senses to a lot of things so Rob's of you of your of your life really and that was the last time I saw the family was unaware that Tanya was living a double life as a prostitute to fund her addiction to heroin I didn't know that until afterwards obviously she was doing that to fit to feed her habit isn't it that's what I that's what I've been told you know before 2006 Ipswich like many Market towns of this size in the UK experience problems with drugs we had a a quite Vivid and and Lively Street prostitution scene there was around in 2000 Summer of 2006 we've done some research and identified around 70 odd women that were working on the streets of Ipswich as prostitute the main issue obviously why they're out on the streets in the first instance all these women were out there to feed a drug happen they were all Class A headaches another young woman working on the streets of Ipswich in 2006 was Jade Reynolds um every morning I wake up you know um I have a heroin addiction to fund you know so unless you've probably save money from working on the streets the night before you even got to lay there not very well for the morning and for the day and then I'd get up of a night time put on makeup and clothes and pretty much go and sell myself down on the street you know it was cold dark you know very dangerous but you don't think about the danger are you really just go out there and do what you've got to do but it wasn't a good lifestyle it wasn't an easy lifestyle really there is a lot of emotion that would go with it and you have to learn to switch off or let it overrun you you know and heroin is an easy way to switch off all your emotions after Tanya Nichols family hadn't heard from her for 48 hours they reported her as missing police began to investigate but it appeared she just vanished off the face of the Earth we possibly thought she went with a load of people down to London somewhere and just stayed in the house or something like that prostitutes go missing all the time change cities That's Not Unusual very seldom do they have many relatives who will identify their appearance sometimes they do sometimes they don't As Time passed Jim became increasingly concerned about his daughter your terror attack you're worried Beyond you you just go out your head you know you you just don't you just you can't think straight you know you're so worried it really hits you a sex and I think after about two or three weeks it was sheer hell not not know where she was and um by then you know that's something something's up while Jim waited desperately for any news about his daughter Tanya on November the 15th another young woman was reported missing 25 year old Gemma Adams for Janna to go missing that's when you worry because Gemma would never go missing you know she's not like that you know she's always certain times certain place this that that you know yeah so that was when Gemma went that's when you knew something was wrong the Police Stopped nearly 2 000 people and over 500 cars traveling through ipswich's red light district to see if anyone recognized photos of Tanya and Gemma but they drew a blank and it was a similar story when they spoke to the local sex workers you don't report every attack but there's loads of times where we get people trying to steal our handbags or like trying to accost us you know because we're saying no to them you know you are worried and you are scared thinking hang on Jenna's gone now I didn't know Tanya but she's gone where are they and you think yeah it could be me I could be next but I've got to go and get my money for my drugs you know and you have to go out there you have to learn to put emotions to the back of your mind while you're out on the street I can then go home and be really scared but if I was going to be scared that the girls are going missing I'm not going to be able to earn the money for my drug addiction then on December the 2nd 2006 the police got the call they'd been dreading a body had been found in a brook on the outskirts of town right on the bend right on the corner with a head this end fighting Upstream her legs Downstream arms beside her body saw the hair flowing and the Golden Earring and the head was on its side and my immediate thought was one of the missing girls Tanya's Father Jim Jewell feared the worst by this time I concluded that she's gone quite honestly I concluded that that she was dead that's what I concluded because by this time she would have found a mother because she always phones her mother if she's going to be back late or anything she was good but it wasn't Tanya police identified the body as that of 25 year old Gemma Adams there was no sign of a sexual assault but her naked body had been dumped in flowing water so finding any DNA evidence was going to be difficult when someone dies then there will be all sorts of evidence on the body in the body that tells you all sorts of information if you leave a body in running water then the water will quite literally wash away evidence equally the water will bring other things onto the body that can contaminate it so you've got a double problem really of things being lost and things being brought to the body which makes interpretation more difficult unsurprisingly the media was starting to take notice including Paul Harrison of Sky News my boss said to me that I should go to Ipswich at the weekend one body had been discovered to him something didn't seem quite right he wanted me to get under the surface of what was happening in the red light district because we knew that two prostitutes had gone missing so what was this all about was this going to be something bigger for a week forensic teams scoured nearby Woodlands for Clues and divers explored the brook then just when they were about to call off the search divers found another body this time it was Tanya nickel well when I got the actual news I can't remember my reaction because it was something like well that's you know I knew already [Music] just like Gemma Adams there was no sign of sexual assault and the Rushing Water had stripped Tanya's body of any DNA evidence Suffolk Police called on Commander David Johnston from Scotland Yard a homicide expert so I joined the investigation around the time the second victim body had been discovered and that that initially meant I went to Suffolk to speak to the chief officer team to assess the situation I'm not sure I would say they were overwhelmed and I think they recognized the need to bring additional resources in to avoid that situation and that's what they did and Suffolk and all had probably a hundred to 200 people initially engaged in this inquiry but that number quickly grew it and suffered suddenly found themselves of course at the center of a huge incident with significant media interests globally [Music] so by the time they discovered the body of Tanya nickel we had already begun to spend a bit of time in the red light district late in the evening early in the morning just to see how prevalent prostitution was in Ipswich and it wasn't difficult to find girls on the streets very late at night we spoke to a number of them they were aware that two girls had gone missing we were almost delivering them the news that a second body had been found we were almost telling many of these girls for the very first time that the body of a a second woman almost certainly a prostitute and almost certainly Tanya Nichol had been discovered in copdock their reaction they weren't phased by it it seemed it's scary every night going out on the streets it's scary every night you could get attacked every night you know to be honest doesn't matter how scary anything is really you've still got to go out there and do it that tears at your heart and you think oh God you know what's happening who's next you know but even though you're discussing what if it could be me you're still out there on the streets and you're still selling yourself because you still have a drug addiction feed you've got to put all them worries through back in your mind police were at a dead end they had no clues and nothing to link the two murders they watched hours of CCTV footage from ipswich's red light district and finally found something of significance Tanya had been caught getting into a dark car on the night of her disappearance could the driver of the car be the Killer Hanford Road Burlington Road theirselves a place you would stand there which went out at night on that corner and they they found a footage of a just a brief clinics the CCTV was captured outside of a supermarket on London Road the same street where Steve Wright was living unfortunately the footage wasn't clear enough to reveal the number plate or identify the driver point of view is professionally very frustrating um the whole emphasis of our rule is to protect the public and we take that very seriously and so each day when we're carrying out the investigation and trying to identify this offender it's very concerning to us when we still don't have an identification made it had been eight days since Gemma Adams had been found murdered as the police continued with their investigation they received some more shocking news on December the 10th just two days after the discovery of Tanya nickel the body of a third woman was found in a woodland in nearby nacton the 10th was a a huge day really I had literally driven out of Ipswich for about 10 miles when I got a phone call from the news desk and the blood really felt like it drained from my face from my body because it shivers down the spine we were now into serial killer territory I think it would be fair to say yes there was extreme concern uh being expressed in Ipswich not just amongst sex workers or women involved in that lane of work but across the whole of the community this was a significant event completely unparalleled as far as I know in the history of Ipswich in that area which is normally a very quiet rural town we were now dealing with a serial killer almost certainly and also whilst the national media the UK media were all over it by now this is when you began to see the beginnings of the international interest in it as well distinctive tattoos on the third body led the police to identify her as Anna Lee alderton who'd not been reported missing she'd also been working as a prostitute in Ipswich she was a 24 year old mother of one she was a mad kind of happy-go-lucky crazy chick you know I lived in my first squat with Anna Lee really nice girl I would say she's like a free spirit you know she's like you know great like I'm Annie you know this is me you know so she's kind of cool like to hang around with you know the media's focus on Ipswich intensified even further I'd raced back to the scene in nacton where the body of Anna the alderton was discovered we knew very little at that stage about in what position it lay but what we did know was that it was on dry land and this was a Twist in the story because the two previous victims had been deposited in water so the police for them it was very exciting that in terms of DNA this could be something that they could work with the autopsy showed that Anna Lee had been strangled and tragically revealed she'd been three months pregnant so the evidence that you'd see in a strangulation you'd see bruising on and in the neck you'd often see fine pinpoint hemorrhages in the eyes these things really point you very directly towards that cause of death she'd been left in the crucifix position with her arms outstretched there is a tendency to want to attach a lot of meaning to that many people were looking at this as it unfolded saying well this there's some religious motivation here but I don't think it was about that at all it was about essentially getting attention even serial killers get bored they want to mix things up a bit they want to try something new the police still had no DNA no clues and no leads the pressure to catch the killer was mounting there's always pressure because you have the media who are consistently requiring information because the 24-hour media and they want to know what's happening there's anxiety being expressed in the community and of course the police themselves want to catch this man as quickly as possible I'm losing my friends well I don't want to keep losing my friends I don't want to lose my own life you do think about stuff like that it's not something that you don't think about the world's media descended on Ipswich and the cameras were all pointed at the police I think this case was one that attracted so much attention because it was unfolding in front of our eyes this was the era of reality television when when that started to become very popular we were seeing it as it unfolded on 24-hour rolling news and you never knew what was going to happen from one day to the next detectives told prostitutes to stay off the streets but their warnings were largely ignored a local news crew interview viewed one of the girls anonymously why have you decided to come out tonight because I need the money I need the money you know despite the dangers well that has made me a bit wary about getting into cars you know because you will do that tonight well probably the woman interviewed was Paula clonell Paula Cornell she had children and she was always trying quite hard to change her life you know she was happy when saw you know a nice girl but yeah she tried quite hard you know to get out of it you know because it's a very hard thing to get out of the addiction if you still live generally in the same town but yeah she was trying you know to get away from it and change your life lesson just six days after that news report aired Paula Cornell was missing in December 2006 the police in Ipswich were under mounting pressure to catch a prolific serial killer the bodies of three dead prostitutes had been found in just 10 days they had no clues or potential suspects and the killing wasn't about to stop two more young women had gone missing 24 year old Paula Cornell who'd been interviewed on the news just days before and now police receive reports of a fifth missing woman 29 year old Annette Nichols the best friend of fellow prostitute Jade Reynolds was a girl for me that I was so humbled to know you know she always took time for me she'd want to know if I was all right there's anything she could do she'd do anything for anybody else she was always well kept she'd greet you with a smile and a happiness you know you felt all right when he was with a net I did I could think oh yeah Wicked there she is you know I kind of it was a relief because I know that I could talk to her she'd understand my problems she said when she went missing that's kind of like tearing out a piece of my heart as the police searched for Paula and Annette there was a Macabre inevitability in the air amongst the massive International journalists who'd gathered in Ipswich there was almost certainly going to be another discovery where was it going to be who was it going to be it was nail biting and whilst it wasn't it can't be described as fear it was really palpable you you sensed that from the people in the town you sensed it from your colleagues but also from other colleagues from other media organizations and the police as well on December the 12th another body was found in levington just a mile away from nacton in the same Woods where Annalee alderton had been discovered days before while somebody was out walking their dog they stumbled upon the body of a fourth victim just a few meters away from the main road in levington in the undergrowth also this time not in water again the DNA was important in you know in this case but what seemed quite strange about this one is that it almost had an appearance of a rushed approach that this body was deposited by the side of the road albeit a few meters off the main road it had the appearance or it seemed as if it was had been done quickly the police sent a helicopter up to survey the Woodland for evidence as it circled the area they made a further gruesome Discovery another body was lying in the woods only a hundred yards away the naked bodies were those of the missing women 24 year old Paula Cornell and 29 year old Annette Nichols I don't think I'll ever get back what I had with Annette with another girl you know this is the most beautiful woman that I'd ever known that become quite important to me that I could trust you know and now it's not there I didn't go out after that I was quite sensible because like I couldn't I emotionally couldn't go out and work on the streets after a note was found five women had been murdered in Ipswich in just six weeks the Press had named the killer the Suffolk Strangler older to the clennall they were both asphyxiated that was the cause of their death in the other cases the changes after death really prevented pathology giving a definitive answer although I think it's reasonable to assume that someone who's killing five people in a short space of time probably use similar methods interestingly none of the five victims showed any sign of sexual assault so it isn't a rape murder it's not oh I've satisfied myself now I'm going to kill you murder it is a targeted murder without a sexual element he is very much feeding off the media frenzy that's been created around his crimes and he's increasingly feeling even more in control of what's going on so he's changing the way that he's doing things and he's looking at the reaction from the media when he does that and he's absolutely loving it he believes he's fulfilling something maybe he's convinced himself that he's clearing the world of prostitutes they're all dumped very really quite close to each other demonstrates that he thinks he's doing something in his own fantasy world that is cleansing the world of evil or cleansing the world of dirt or cleansing the world of inappropriate sexual appetite we'll never know I don't think right probably knows now all I do know is that he had to be caught because he wouldn't stop until he was on December the 15th Tanya Nichols dad Jim Jewell made an emotional plea for the killer to turn himself in Tanya has been taken by someone who needs to be found we ask for anyone who knows this person or persons to come forward and contact the police with increasing pressure to make an arrest police decided to question a local 37 year old man he was identified because he had spent considerable time in a radio car talking to a radio journalist and other TV journalists I spent a bit of time with him to try and get to know his relationship with the girls there was a kind of a an understanding between them that you scratched my back and I'll scratch yours he was loosely associated as a friend of one or more of the girls who were murdered and at that stage he became of significant interest to the inquiry it was a very strong feeling from some of the media people present that this man was the right man and should be looked at more seriously with a suspect in custody detectives received a lead from the forensics lab the three bodies that were found on dry land did have DNA evidence on them in a one in a a billion chance the DNA found on all three women was the same but whose was it the DNA was run through the National Database and police got a match but to their surprise it wasn't the man they had in custody at that time and as it still stands that every person is arrested or convicted of inundatable offense or serious offense they can have their DNA taken and held on the database the DNA matched that of a local man who'd been convicted of stealing 80 pounds from a pub till in 2002 48 year old Steve Wright and it was that match which led to significant additional work including then the CCTV evidence which showed a vehicle be used by Right Moving between some of the locations around the relevant times so he became a major suspect in the inquiry over just six weeks five prostitutes had been murdered in Ipswich the police finally believed they'd found the killer 48 year old Steve Wright whose DNA had been found on three of the bodies Wright had not been a suspect at any point during the police investigation even though he had been stopped during routine checks of the red light district whilst the world's media was focusing on a local man who police currently had in custody right was put under surveillance once the police had discovered the DNA it matched Steve Wright immediately although from a distance making quite a brave move actually not by arresting him straight away but watching him seeing his movements what was he doing where was he going just for a 24-hour period and ultimately as we were all elsewhere looking at somebody else another suspect bang they had made an arrest they'd arrested Steve Wright it was a huge shock to Wright's father Conrad I didn't believe it simple as that two people come to my door to say your son has been arrested and I didn't believe it I think the only emotion that Steve Wright would have felt upon getting arrested was annoyance this has stopped the media circus that I've been at the center of and I think also self-pity yeah oh terrible yeah I'm I'm now gonna gonna be in prison or I'm gonna be in a police station I'm not going to be able to do the things I want he would never have had any kind of expressed empathy for his victims or their families because they just didn't matter to him at the time I split up with my partner moved into my mum's house and I woke up one morning with a the world media on my doorstep to pull it bluntly and I said did you know Steve Wright was like a client to your daughter blah blah blah blah blah and I didn't even know my mum didn't even know you know but then it all came out you know that it turned out he's actually my first punter which was shocking you know and I thought oh my God I was right with him right there right then you know and uh yeah I was kind of shocked really really shocked to be honest thinking I was that close to him man feels sick during eight hours of interrogation Wright made no comment the no commenter at police interviews is indicative of that power and that control so I have all of this knowledge and all of this information I know everything about these crimes and you want that knowledge so I'm going to use this to my advantage he knows everything that the police wants to know and is he going to tell them is he not going to tell them that gives him a massive sense of control although Wright didn't confess to the killings on the 21st of December 2006 the police charged him with all five murders based on the forensic evidence they'd so far found the other suspect was released from custody without charge prosecutors now began the arduous task of building a solid case against right for the upcoming trial Michael crimp was part of the legal team of the five bodies that were recovered two of them had been immersed for some time in water and if there had been any DNA on their bodies it had long since gone and so in terms of DNA evidence there was nothing to link Steve Wright with them detectives impounded Wright's car in it they found fibers from a fake fur jacket owned by Annette Nichols and more significantly traces of Paul the Cornell's blood right really didn't do very much to conceal his movements he drove his own car he dumped the bodies from his own car he wasn't very forensically aware of so many determined killers are these days he didn't know about DNA and fiber analysis and Trace and all the other things we've all become so familiar with as a result of television series and the rest right pretty much did as he pleased and thought he could get away with it and he thought he could get away with it because he thought that no one was going to miss a prostitute forensic experts also examined Wright's home they found the blood of Paula Cornell and Annette Nichols on a high-vis jacket more conclusive proof than his encounter with the women had taken a Sinister turn but there was no link between right and the deaths of Tanya nickel and Gemma Adams the two women whose bodies had been found immersed in running water investigators re-watched the CCTV from the night Tanya nickel went missing and they were now certain the car that she got into was rights blue Ford Mondeo forensic teams painstakingly analyzed microscopic debris found in the women's hair remarkably they found fibers from Wright's tracksuit bottoms sofa and carpet fiber from his Mondeo both fibers in their hair and fibers in on gloves and other items that belong to Steve Wright clearly linked him to those two as well the game was up this was a case that involved a lot of experts and a lot of expertise and what it came down to was that they were able to place fibers from the bodies at rights property they were able to trade Place blood on articles of clothing and in his car we call it low cards exchange principle you go and interact with somebody you leave something of yourself there and you take something away from it and as clever as you may try and be you're always going to leave evidence of that interaction Steve Wright was now linked to all five women his trial began at Ipswich Crown Court on the 16th of January 2008. right pleaded not guilty to me he looked pretty cool about it all he didn't seem particularly a motive about the evidence as it was being put to him well he had to explain the scientific evidence in this case which linked him very closely with all five of the victims and so his explanation was that he'd been in close association with all five of them and obviously not long before they disappeared off the street Wright argued he'd picked up the women for sex and that was why there was evidence of them in his car the defense were arguing that it might have been a coincidence but no more but his case began to fall apart under intense questioning it was an odd picture that he portrayed because there was just too much coincidence in this case that the evidence provided more than just coincidences that it provided the evidence that that damned him we put to him various bits of evidence and said well was that just a coincidence and to each each question like that all that Steve Wright said was something like well so it would seem or it appears so and he just couldn't deal with the questions that he was being asked about how all these apparent coincidence existed on February the 21st 2008 after only six hours of deliberation the jury found right guilty of all five murders and he was sentenced to a whole life term he was immediately sent to belmarsh prison he will never be released I think the thing is striking about this case is the speed with which right moved from being a relatively unknown minor offender involved in a minor theft to killing five women in a very short period of time and I am strongly of the belief that had he not been arrested he would have continued to kill this was a man who was desperate to be known desperate to be someone and by killing those five women the notoriety that he achieved effectively made him into someone we talked about the Suffolk Strangler this man who nobody really knew suddenly everyone knew him he was world famous for being the Suffolk Strangler I find it very difficult to call write a truly evil man deeply Wicked deeply with no sense of remorse to this day he has maintained his innocence he says he did not kill those five women he goes even further to write to his father who in his father's eyes he did what he did and it hurts Steve Wright actually that his father doesn't believe him when Steve Wright says I didn't do it his father looked in his eyes turned and walked out of prison when he said look into my eyes do you think I did it and it wouldn't make me feel any different whether I forgive him or not I mean indeed is done and I'm in a way responsible for him being out there you know I brought him into the world life will never be the same for the friends and families of those who were killed you know I got to uh to a resting place and uh sand and have a little conversation like you would you know and say I've come up and see you dear you know and uh and have a little bit of emotion going there you know but there you are it's love isn't it it's always in our memory of course she is I'm trying to be clean and I'm trying not to let my mom make me but there's so many things that I see and I think oh yeah net would love that I still I'll find it hard now and I'll find it hard like 20 years time you know that she's not here anymore it tore a piece of me out that I won't get back something positive has happened in Ipswich I have such a tragic turn of events and that that is for me is that there's no longer any street prostitutes in account in Ipswich if I wanted a legacy for the five women that would be it that no other women have put themselves in such perilous and Stark and dangerous situations [Music] I think Ipswich will never forget those terrible times those few weeks in December 2006 where the world's eyes were on them for all the wrong reasons and they will take the vital lessons learned during that period forward they won't forget the women they won't forget the girls who were killed but they will move forward and try to not allow that period to effectively dictate their future we may never know why Wright carried out these friends in attacks or if there are other victims that have perished at his hands Maine's one of the UK's most prolific serial killers for six weeks the whole world watched in shock as the body count in Ipswich continued to grow but eventually the forensic evidence brought Justice for the families of all five victims and put pay to The Killing Spree of Steve Wright the Suffolk straggler on the 8th of February 1983 a maintenance worker was called out to a house in London to investigate some unusual smells coming from the property's Block drains he was about to make a grisly discovery three or four pieces of Flesh and three little bones with a knuckle at each end and I thought these bones had probably come from a human hand right under the noses of his neighbors 37 year old Dennis Nilsson had secretly been killing young men and butchering their bodies he would get rid of the bones and other bits of the organs by flushing them down the loop it sounds in many ways like a very dark horror film Nelson had complete disregard for all the lives he'd taken he knew of course that it was wrong to kill people but he didn't know why it matters so much why are people making fuss about it Dennis Nilsson had carved a Sinister place for himself in history as one of the world's most evil killers [Music] [Music] Dennis Nielsen is one of Britain's most prolific serial killers over the course of five years during the late 1970s and early 80s he killed at least 12 men confessing to as many as 15. the majority of whom have never been identified [Music] Nilsson thought his crimes were simply being flushed from existence by dissecting the body's piece by piece boiling them and then disposing of them down the toilet but a routine drain inspection at his London home in 1983 would lead to his downfall we found a number of interesting items which can only be established once uh pathologist is at Denver are you satisfied that they are in fact human bodies this is a possibility yes as the Public's fascination with the case began to unfurl at a rapid speed author Brian Masters was determined to understand the man at the heart of the story like everybody else I read in the newspaper that the man had been arrested it was obviously going to be a very interesting case there was a likelihood that somebody might write about it in a sensational way whereas what it really demanded required was a sober assessment of the State of Mind of such a person Brian contacted Nilsson in Brixton prison where he was on remand I didn't know that you weren't allowed to write to a prisoner awaiting trial on the murder charge so I wrote to him in innocence complete ignorance really and said that I am interested in the case in which you find yourself involved and I would like to do a study of it but I would not do so without your cooperation and permission his first letter to me the first out of about 2 000. said dearest about us I passed the burden of my life onto your shoulders a life that began almost 40 years previously Dennis Andrew Nielsen was born on the 23rd of November 1945 in fraserburgh Scotland he spent the early years of his life in this house according to his mother he was a quiet boy little if anything marked him out from the ordinary after his parents marriage broke down he spent the majority of his childhood living in the nearby Village of stricken father was was largely absent his mother and his siblings and his grandparents and and his family reformed and his mother remarried so he had a lot of disruption he had a lot of Chaos lots of children have that he was isolated from an early age and the isolation found solace in representations of people who weren't alive like peaches in the storybook he cut the picture off and take it home that's what he liked because that picture couldn't argue with him it couldn't find out to him his mother has actually talked about the way that she would cuddle and have you know physical warmth with her other children but she felt repelled by Dennis she was quite cold towards him and this was even when he was just a little child so right from the beginning he's learning from his mum that he's different and and that he's kind of repulsive in a way due to the absence of his father and the distant relationship with his mother Nielsen grew particularly close to his grandfather who worked as a North Sea fisherman where he came back from she the grandfather would take him down to the beach and they'd walk up and down the beach and he'd tell him stories of what happened at Sea his grandfather was the one person he could relate to this was the one tactile relationship he had the only person who touched him but in 1951 Nilsson lost the one family member that he looked up to the most I firmly hold to this view the death of his grandfather profoundly affected him his mother kind of skirted around the topic and said yeah your grandfather's just not very well and he'll be back and and then when the funeral came around and the body was laid out in in the front room of the house as it often is in in these communities at this time he he kind of thought his grandfather was just asleep so you've got this really traumatic event going on in in his life and he's really struggling to to make sense of what's going on and he's feeling pretty rejected really because he's got this really close relationship with his grandfather one minute he's there and one minute he's not I'm absolutely convinced that he's ideal of death and his idea of Love refused at that point and after that he could only love people who were dead the traditional Community he was born into would go on to shape Nelson and in particular the way he felt about his own emerging homosexuality he came from an incredibly masculine Community where men were alpha males and they were tough and and they got married and they had children and and that was just what you did so I think to come from those Beginnings really did kind of shape that sense of Shame he felt about his sexuality Keen to remove himself from Family Life in September 1961 fifteen-year-old Nielsen enrolled in the army he'd had a difficult childhood and had wanted always to be in uniform it would seem he joined the army he was in the ARG Island Sutherland Islanders in the time that Nelson served in the Army he worked as a cook and during this time he learned how to to Butcher and dismember the carcasses of animals and unfortunately this is something that he came to Door upon again while serving in the Army Nilsson began to show signs of unusual and disturbing behavioral traits he got interested in photography he would get soldiers that he was in the army with to pretend they were dead I mean he'd photograph them then he said it's a slow progression towards disaster but anybody with a trained mind in psychological Behavior could have spotted very very early on the development that was going forward by December 1972 age 27 Nilsson had left the Army and moved to London he enrolled with the Metropolitan Police as a constable but only lasted a year before joining the Civil Service and settling in the north of the city unlike the traditional communities in aberdeenshire where he'd grown up London had an emerging gay community and Nelson found himself confronted by the urges that had caused him turmoil in his adolescence Dennis Nelson's home healthy became legal during his lifetime there was still quite a considerable stigma attached to it Nelson moved to London a very vibrant very busy part of the UK and this is perhaps the place where he feels loneliest he's a gay man he's a frequency and gate bars and pubs and and is part of that scene but he can't form anything more than a one-night stand and I think that really does affect him quite badly in November 1975 30 year old Nielsen did manage to settle down and moved in with a man called David gallican but after 18 months the relationship began to fizzle out I think this is really significant because I think he's come to the conclusion that he quite likes having somebody else around the flat he likes having a companion to spend time with and Nielsen's a bit of a narcissist so he likes having someone around who will kind of Pander to him and and reinforce him and support him in that way so what he's got now is a void there's a gap in his life he's had a relationship and he wants another one but unfortunately he's not the kind of person who can develop a relationship at a normal pace so so this is where we see things start to go spectacularly wrong lonely and desperate for affection Nielsen's lust for company would soon turn deadly on December the 29 1978 he met a 14 year old boy called Stephen Holmes and Nelson knew there was only one way to guarantee his latest lover would never be able to leave him Stephen Holmes was a very young boy and he was trying to get himself something to drink at a pub in cricklewood Nilsson offered to to help out with the drink and then brought him back to his flat Stephen Holmes was never seen again in a desperate attempt to stop him from leaving Nilsson murdered the 14 year old boy by strangling him with a tie before drowning him in a bucket of water it was the beginning of a familiar pattern for Nelson essentially he would frequent the gay pubs and gay bars and would meet men that he found attractive he would meet men that he wanted to form relationships with and they would go back to Nelson's place his chosen victims had not necessarily all homosexual but all vulnerable I think you could say or susceptible to somebody offering them a bit of comfort or or a meal or a drink or whatever but he obviously had a tendency to go for handsome young men or people who made themselves available to at least just hang out with them for a while but he didn't have pain a send people rather the hills so the only way to keep people there was to kill them with Stephen Nelson initiated what would go on to become a familiar ritual for him modus operandi of Dennis Nilsson was very similar for most of his victims they would be plied with drink he would have a tie by the time the victim was now drunk almost comatose go to sleep he would put the tie around his neck and strangle him that way and if they were unconscious but not dead then he would drown them in a bath or a bucket after that he would get himself a drink light a cigarette and then spend the next few hours looking after the body he would get them out and he would sit and watch television with them he would clean up the bodies he would clean it dry it dress it put it comfortably in a chair he would speak to the corpse in the chair these were his pretend friends so what we've got going on here that there isn't like massive sexual depravity what he was creating was a picture of Domesticity he would sit there and watch television with them um so he's killing for for company but in in the most grotesque way it sounds in many ways like a very dark horror film the way that he behaved and I think that was part of the fascination with him which exists to this day Dennis nilsson's murderous career would continue undetected for five years I think one of the reasons Dennis Nilsson got away with it for so long was that even at that time which is post the legalization of homosexuality The Disappearance of young men who were gay was not treated with the same amount of respect and energy as the police I think would treat it nowadays when we look at the time that Nelson's in London I think homosexuality still is very much in the shadows at that time so there are particular parts of London where the gay scene is happening but it's still quite underground it's still something that's seen as a seedy Nelson's private social life was in stark contrast to his public one working as a civil servant all the time that he's carrying out these killings he's holding down a perfectly normal job and occasionally he has to take a day off work to dismember the body his colleagues at work would have no idea that Dennis Nielsen taking a day's sick leave was actually carrying out the hiding of a crime all of us to some extent are two people there's the one we display we show to even family and friends and there's a secret one which we only ever admit to ourselves and we try to give it well well hidden when the other self came to the fore it took possession of him he was possessed by this other self and he could not prevent that other self-behaving the way he wanted to there are quite a lot of different factors factor that influence Journey towards serial murder but I think it was all rooted essentially in a sense of Shame he didn't like who he was the person that he was wasn't someone who was socially acceptable so he spent his entire life trying to become somebody else and and I think that's what's at the root of all his problems by February in 1983 37 year old Nielsen had moved home and was living in a top floor flat on cranley Gardens in muswell Hill North London after residents complained about the drains being blocked a plumber was called in to investigate and they found what looked like bits of Flesh Nilsson suggested that it could be somebody had flushed their Kentucky Fried Chicken out or something like that and that would be the explanation for little bones and flesh but the plumber wasn't so sure and the following morning February the 9th 1983 he called the police detective Chief Inspector Peter J remembers that day well my phone rang and it was Peter slay the uniform inspector in charge that particular day and he said to me could you possibly come up here he said I've got a bit of a problem I'm not sure what I've got but I'd like you to see it and he showed me a a drain with a an inspection plate cover open and he pointed out that some bits of Flesh had been hauled out of the drain at the bottom so I said well let's have another hole around inside the train get some anything else that's in there and the scenes of crime officer that I had with me managed to pull out three or four pieces of Flesh each about four inches long an inch wide and three little bones with a knuckle at each end and when I looked at them I thought these bones had probably come from a human hand Peter took the remains to Charing Cross hospital where resident pathologist Professor David Bowen confirmed their suspicions he said it is it's human and um he said by pure luck you've brought me a piece of neck off the neck and your victim has been strangled he said there's a clear ligature mark on this piece of Flesh most of us think of hair as being hair but different parts of the body the hair is quite different when you look at it down the microscope and so the pathologist in the Nielsen case was identifying that this piece of skin had hair that fitted with being from someone's neck so despite the difficulties of fragments of tissue being found in a situation like a drain identifying the characteristic ligature mark on it it's pointing you very strongly towards strangulation and I looked at him and I said sure you've not been watching too much TV Prof and he said no it's as clear as a bell he said this is human so that only meant one thing to me that somebody must have been murdered and flushed down the toilet astounded Peter drove back to cranley Gardens and waited outside the flat all day until Nilsson returned home from work my first introductory words to him were I'm detective Chief Inspector Jay from hornsey police station I've come about your dreams and he looked at me and he said since when have police been interested in Block trains I said will you take me up in your flat and I'll tell you and you could smell immediately the um decomposing flesh I said to him look your drains were blocked with human remains and he looked at me and he said oh my God how awful and I just pushed my face a little bit nearer to his and said don't mess about where's the rest of the body and he said okay it's in plastic bags in the front bedroom even at that point his demeanor didn't change at all he was just as he was when he came in the front door it was okay maybe the game's up um and he was relaxed about it so we walked him down to the car I told him I was arresting him so I drove the car back and then Steve mccuska was obviously thinking to himself about all the body parts that were in so many different bags and he popped the question to Nielsen are we talking here about one body or two and Nielsen said neither so I think it's 15 or 16. and I can remember the steering wheel sort of shaking in my hands and it was just the shock of hearing that instant response well Dennis he was found out he was very calm and very very cool and very collected because he was an intelligent man he knew that that one day he would be found out that this would all come to light and I think he kind of made his peace with that long before he was actually caught describe the day of his arrest as the day help arrived and I don't think most criminals would describe being finally stopped from their murders or whatever as the day helped arrived on February the 9th 1983 Dennis Nelson had been taken into custody when remains had been found flushed down the toilet of his North London flat author Brian Masters made contact with Nielsen whilst he was on remand the police had given him permission to visit Nelson's home in cranley gardens shortly after his arrest after I'd made connection with him I saw the grocery kitchen which was really ghastly and the wardrobes and in the wardrobes were plastic bags or had beam plastic bags I think what I remember most was a squalid nature of the kitchen because the pots had Grease around the edges and of course one now knows what that grease was it was human flesh that showed me the depths of depravity at which human beings are capable news of the arrest and rumors of what had been discovered in Nielsen's flat began to make headlines across the country we had the Press descending on us from all different angles even though we had a blackout in the police station which caused chaos the Press at the front door the back door on the phones they were up on my first floor window at my office they had a metal bar up against the window with a microphone on it it just brought everything to a standstill anyway we had a press conference a very very brief one we just told them something to get rid of them if we possibly could then we were able to sort of placate them and promise that we would release what we could when we could and then we were able to get on with our first proper interview with Nelson with limited evidence relating to the victim's identities the only way to discover that truth would be to unlock the secrets that lay inside Nelson's mind we had a murderer in custody serial killer we didn't know who it killed we've got a clue and we weren't going to find out unless we got the truth out of him we knew that the Clock Was ticking and that we had to charge him within 48 hours forensic teams searching Nelson's home had taken fingerprints from one of the victims hands it belonged to 20 year old Stephen Sinclair who hadn't been seen since disappearing after a night out with friends on January the 26 1983 37 year old Nielsen was formally charged with murder on February the 11th 1983. it was precisely 10 o'clock when Dennis Andrew Nielsen was led into the dock to face the bench of three magistrates the charge a single charge of murdering Stephen Neal Sinclair was read over to him there were objections to bail and no application was made and he was reminded in police custody until Wednesday the 16th of February at just one minute past 10 he was taken down to be driven away at some speed in a police van Nelson immediately began to confess to his crimes one by one he gave us a very very brief description in in an hour or so of what had happened we had told him that we were going to go through one victim at a time one victim per interview because we knew it was going to take at least two hours to a victim because we had to get everything possible from him so that we could identify the bodies or identify the victims a lot of them we didn't have bodies for so he was able to tell us nicknames occasionally he would give us a name Nielsen talked about his first victim 14 year old Stephen Holmes whom he'd murdered in December 1978. he told officers he'd kept Stephen's body under the floorboards of his home in Melrose Avenue for eight months before it began to decay so the problem that somebody like Dennis Nelson would have is not so much the murder it's what do you do with the body afterwards you have to try and dispose of it somehow and that's not easy it's not easy to burn them it's not easy to dismember them it's not easy just to leave them somewhere and hope they're not found he had to find a way to make sure these bodies weren't found so he could carry on with what he was doing Nielsen cut Stephen's body into pieces and then constructed a makeshift bonfire in the garden where he burned the remains of the young boy he got away with it at Melrose Avenue because he was disposing of the bodies in-house um and having these bonfires in the middle of the night like funeral pyres and on the top of those bonfires he'd put rubber tires to destroy the possibility of the smell of Flesh after disposing of Stephen Holmes's body Nelson went out looking for company once more he confessed to murdering 23 year old Canadian tourist Kenneth ockendon on December the 3rd 1979. and six months later in May 1980 he struck for a third time killing 16 year old homeless runaway Martin Duffy Nilsson kept both Kenneth and Martin's bodies in his flat together for as long as he could storing them under the floorboards he would keep them in different parts of his house or the bath and that's in complete contrast to the normal killer who wants to get rid of the body as quickly as possible who doesn't want to be associated with it who doesn't want any traces of it around one of the 16 interviews that we did on him he was talking about putting yet another body under the floorboards in Melrose Avenue and I interrupted and I said hold on a minute how many bodies did you have under the floor at any given time and he looked me up and down he said I don't know he said I never did a stock check Nilsson confessed to killing at least five other men in 1980 however only one of them 27 year old Billy Sutherland has ever been identified as Nielsen's confession continued he admitted to another four killings in 1981. the last of which was 23 year old Malcolm Barlow in September relying on the Killer's memory of events May the investigation very difficult Nielsen would tell us that he had murdered a young man of about 20 years old who had a tattoo around his neck and he'd strangled him and he'd give us a full detailed account of how it all happened but we had absolutely no idea at all as to who he was talking about you can't really charge a prisoner with killing a person unknown we had to be absolutely sure that when we named a victim it couldn't possibly be anybody else that was a mammoth undertaking when he was telling the police confessing some of them he identified by strange Memories One he described as a skinhead that he met in the West End another was a young man from Northern Ireland The Omelette boy this is the man who cooked an omelette for before he killed him one of these victims was identified 27 year old Graham Allen went missing in September 1982. his son Shane Levine remembers the day his dad didn't come home I was only seven years old my father was a drug addict he wanted money for drugs and there was a bit of a fire but for notification and my father was screaming for money through the window my mother said no and my mother's last words was to tell him to never come back again and he left that night and he never came back my mother she was sure that something could happen it was quite a violent relationship and they would often split up or have arguments he would disappear but he would always make contact and this has gone on for weeks months there was no contact and my mother fought the worst at that moment Graham had met Dennis Nelson on shaftesbury Avenue in London's West End Nielsen invited him back to his flat and cooked Graham an omelet before strangling him from behind as he ate parts of Graham's body were recovered from Nelson's drains I heard my mother screaming as I came down the road going back from school and and when I got home the police were inside our house and they told my mother some bad news my mother was very upset and they told my mother that they had found a skull in North London in This House of Horrors and that the dental records I'd identified it as my father the murder of Graham Allen took place at Nielsen's new flat on cranley Gardens in muswell Hill Nelson had moved there in late 1981 but because his new home was on the top floor he had no way of setting a bonfire so he needed a new way of disposing of his victims he took to cutting up the body pieces boiling them in water and then flushing the remains down the toilet to dismember a body on your own is a very difficult task and it's far easier if you happen to have some skill and knowledge of the anatomy and how to do it I think it's very interesting that he was trained in the Army and Butchery and that sort of skill being able to Joint meat would probably be very helpful in identifying the best places to cut into a body to dismember it with the minimum effort possible he was going to Great Lengths to dispose of the bodies for instance he had a massive sized saucepan he could get a whole head in a saucepan boiling it and then breaking up the bones and of course all the flesh was going down the drain getting flushed away never to be found again with the way that Dennis Nielsen disposed of the remains it obviously created challenges for identification but often if you find a part of a skull or a part of a bone that's clearly human then it points you towards the body being that of a person and identifying characteristics such as teeth maybe old healed fractures can give you an idea of who it is if you compare that to a missing person we needed his assistance if we came up with an idea as to the possibility of the identity of one particular Chapel we've got a a photograph we needed Nielsen to look at it and say yes or no Wilson eventually confessed to 15 murders 12 at his first home in Melrose Avenue where he burnt and buried the remains of his victims and three at his flat in cranley gardens where he boiled and flushed them down the drain but he certainly said to us I think if you hadn't caught me now it wouldn't have been 15 it would have been 150. and I think it was probably right actually Peter and his team had the arduous task of preparing for a trial and they had a new problem Nielsen's defense team were going to plead insanity if investigators couldn't prove that Nelson knew exactly what he was doing there was a good chance that he may get away with murder as the grizzly facts surrounding the story hit the press the British public were left stunned we found a small piece of the jaw and and some teeth attached to it in the rear Garden of the premises at Melrose Avenue and this morning I found a significant amount of property in particular a quite a large Consignment of human bones in particular a large a piece of thigh bone in the region of about six inches once it became clear exactly what Dennis Nielsen had done there was inevitably a lot of horror first of all these vulnerable young men being taken to his house and killed that was horror enough then there was keeping the bodies for so long another horrific thing then there was boiling up body parts and disposing of bits of them down the toilet and so on another horror thing then there was the sheer scale of the number of murders that he carried out anything that is found is given to one of my exhibit officers and then the item concerned will then go to the laboratory for scientific examination is it very small remains that have been discovered so far my new one Jess I remember the crime I remember everyone was following that and you know there's a huge story that was breaking throughout Britain off these murders that were happening in North London everyone was glued to those gory headlines uh they wanted to know more and more details Dennis Nilsson was something out of a completely different world seemed so the the Press reaction the public reaction was one of revulsion but also a kind of horrible Fascination as well people often ask me how the country reacted to Nielsen and you know what I don't really know I was so busy I was so absorbed in this case but for nine months I was having to eat sleep and drink it I had to focus on it because there was so much there was so much to it and we had a big trial coming up at the Old Bailey we've got the world's press looking at us we had to get it right and do you know what I think we did get it right in a committal hearing on May the 26 1983 Dennis nilsson's trial date was set for October the defense were building a case to prove that Nelson was insane but the enhanced media coverage had produced a trio of key Witnesses for the prosecution three young men Douglas Stewart Paul knobs and Carl stotter came forward to say they'd been attacked by Nilsson starter had met Nelson in May 1982 and went back to his flat in cranley gardens for some drinks I fell asleep and I woke up and he was strangling me and I passed out um I have to sort of thinking I actually I thought that I'd got caught up in the sleeping bag which she'd warned me about and I thought he was helping me out but he wasn't and anyway I passed out from that and I remember vaguely hearing water running and being carried and I felt very cold and I realized I was in the bath and he was trying to drown me after trying unsuccessfully to murder him Nelson eventually spared Carl's life and let him leave the flat two days later it's likely there were many more unreported attacks by Nielsen sometimes the people concerned don't report it to the police or say for the very good personal reasons that they don't want it pursued and as a result of that the Killer then gets to believe that they can get away with stuff and and they carry on and it gets worse and worse and I think Dennis Nielsen is somebody who might have been caught earlier had people been able to say yes we want to pursue charges but for understandable reasons did not decide to do so Gathering evidence from both Melrose Avenue and cranley Gardens Police were able to bring charges against Nilsson for six of the murders the trial began at the old bayley on the 24th of October 1983. even after the lengthy confessions Nelson's defense team had decided to plead not guilty to all the charges against him the defense wanted to plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility when we got to the Old Bay league but we weren't happy about that at all because we had tried to find some sort of Personality Disorder we had a psychiatrist from King's College in London who look at him in depth and he said he couldn't find any evidence of a personality disorder at all but when we look at Insanity please essentially we're looking at how much control that person had over their behavior now when you look at some of Nielsen's Behavior you would think you know automatically well this is the behavior of somebody who isn't normal it's somebody who is a little bit mad but actually he knew what he was doing he was somebody who was not laboring under some kind of psychosis he was intelligent he was articulate he wrote Reams and reams of pages about his crimes so so he was very much conscious of what was going on Brian Masters was not only in the courtroom every day but also had a chance to see how Nilsson was coping first hand I went to see him every day during the trial in the cells underneath the Old Bailey and the one thing which struck me most about him was this disorder this imbalance that he had no idea that what he'd done was important he knew of course that it was wrong to kill people but he didn't know why it matters so much why are people making fuss about it psychiatrists on both sides gave their opinions on Nielsen's State of Mind the court also heard extracts from the extensive interviews conducted by police with nilsen and testimony from the survivors it was left to the jury to decide whether or not he had the capability to form an intention to kill and he was found guilty murder on all counts when the jury came back into the box and the foreman of the jury stood up to give his verdict um there was a feeling in the courtroom that thank goodness that's over we we can go home and be cleansed now we've listened to so much squalid evidence that we feel contaminated slightly so everybody wanted to go home and wash on the 4th of November 1983 sir David Croom Johnson sentenced Dennis Nilsson to life imprisonment he would have to serve at least 25 years before he'd be considered for parole in 1994 the Home Secretary made the decision to change Nielsen's sentence to a whole life tariff he died in full Sutton prison on the 12th of May 2018. he was 72 years old he knew perfectly well he would be found guilty and he knew he deserved it he knew he should be I think he was secretly relieved that he didn't have to make decisions anymore all the decisions he'd made in the last few years were wrong now in prison decisions would be made for him I just don't understand how this could go on and nobody knowing anything I mean I don't know anybody these 10 years of his life I can't see what was happening to him something must have happened to him because it's not my dentist that's doing it not the boy I knew that's doing these things it's always my son that's why I want them to know that we're all concerned about him and I just hope he'll get some help to cope with the situation he said Justice had finally been served for the family members of Nielsen's victims he lost his life in those crimes as well he's not there but he's imprisoned enough freedom is all we ever have you know we live once in this universe in The Eternity of time we live just once and Dennis Nielsen spent more than half his life in prison over 30 years on it still seems incomprehensible that Nelson was able to operate seemingly unnoticed hidden behind a veneer of normality I think it was probably terrifying about this case is the fact that Nielsen was so ordinary you begin to think to yourself how many more of them are there around how many more Dennis Nielsen's are there around who are disposing of the bodies of their victims never to be found again the vulnerable young man Nelson specifically targeted slipped from this world almost unnoticed and most tragically we may never fully understand why Nilsson stole their lives and in many cases their identities a lot of the names of Dennis nilsson's victims remain completely unknown to most people today and it was that anonymity that allowed him to continue I did ask him why he did it but he had no answer he said I'm sorry all I can tell you is what happened I can't tell you why it happened I've tried I got closer than anybody else I suspect but in the end human behavior is a mystery he was just very very different I've never met anybody like him before in my life I couldn't really get to understand him I mean you deal with people as police officers and you you mentally you stick them in the um evil books or they'd sort of Cry for Help box there's always a box you can stick them in in your own mind you you make up your own mind about people when you deal with them in the police but Nielsen I never got to the bottom of I couldn't understand at all Nelson was a lonely man who appeared to kill for company his murders were purely selfish acts to satisfy his Lust For affection the crimes took place almost entirely unnoticed and in a final Twist of Cruelty many of his victims identities may never come to light the manner in which he desecrated the bodies of his victims denying the families a chance to bury their loved ones is what makes Dennis Nielsen one of the world's most evil killers when 81 year old Kathleen Grundy was found lifeless in her home in Hyde greater Manchester England on the 24th of June 1998 no one could have foreseen that her death would lead to the unearthing of one of the world's most prolific serial killers this is not a man who's hiding in the Woodshed with an ax in his hand this is a man who is pretending to be helpful and consoling and compassionate a popular local doctor 52 year old Harold Shipman had been killing his elderly and vulnerable patients for over 25 years but somehow he'd remained completely undetected that generation particularly trusted doctors held them in great esteem and would have done anything they asked Shipman would eventually be found guilty of 15 murders but an inquiry after his incarceration would estimate the true number of victims to be well over 200. you know he was a doctor he had power over life and death and somehow he seemed to get some kick from exploiting that it's very hard to imagine Harold Shipman the man nicknamed Dr Death had been unmasked as one of the world's most evil killers [Music] [Music] when Dr Harold Shipman was found guilty of killing 15 women in January 2000 the nation was in shock but investigators had merely scratched the surface of his murderous career who respected general practitioner who was once a pillar of the community in Hyde greater Manchester England had been christened doctor death by the British tabloids a 2002 inquiry into shipments crimes estimated that the number of deaths he was responsible for was at least 215. detective burn Apostles led the investigation into Britain's most prolific serial killer of all time I don't think that the Shipman's victims knew that they were going to die as far as they were concerned quite often Dr Shipman was treating them so people would willingly roll up the sleeve and offer their arm to him and would probably be in the process of chatting to him whilst he was actually either administering the injection or taking a blood sample but in actual fight what he was doing was he was a ministering morphing in sufficient quantities to kill them journalist Michaela sitford was working for the Manchester Evening News when she first heard about the investigation into the family GP she went to visit him at his surgery when I first met Shipman I remember thinking how reading weak his voice was and how small he was physically he wasn't imposing at all and and I knew from talking to people later on that he could be quite arrogant and high-handed he knew the effects he was having on people he was actually enjoying it at times and I just thought that was evil and cruel and he just broke the heart of a whole community as the inquiry went further because we started to investigate more deaths it was becoming Beyond what I could ever have believed it was going to become which is the largest serial killer this country has ever known Story begins on January the 14th 1946 in Nottingham England the middle child of three grew up on a council estate in a working-class neighborhood Harry Chapman was one of the post-war Baby Boom generation and this was a real age of opportunity where working-class kids could become middle class professionals so when he passed the 11 plus exam and went to grammar school his mother was very proud of him and she pushed him incredibly hard and I think the world's the expectation that Harold was the family's gateway to a middle-class life and I think that pressure that was always there for him really bore down on him quite heavily because he wasn't naturally clever he had to work incredibly hard to get where he got Shipman was particularly close to his mother Vera when we look back at the childhoods of serial killers we look at their relationships with their parents and very often we see an awful lot of abuse an awful lot of neglect but in this case it seems to be completely the opposite Harold Shipman seems to have been targeted by his mother for excessive praise and and really becoming very enmeshed and invested in him he identified with being her blue-eyed boy and I'm sure that Vera said to him persistently you're the one that's going to make the shipment name famous which in fact he did but for perhaps not the right reasons but when he was in his teens she developed lung cancer and she would sit in the window waiting for him to return from school and he'd come in and make her cup of tea and you know they'd have a sit in the chats about their day and she just looked forward to that moment in June 1963 43 year old Vera Shipman succumbed to cancer her doting son was devastated Harry Chapman's mother died when he was 17 and this was an incredibly traumatic event for him because his mother had played a very significant role in his life she was quite controlling she was quite domineering and she would always tell him what he should be doing and suddenly she's not there [Music] but significantly Shipman saw how the local GP administered diamorphine to his mother to help her pain it's also possible that and this is rather a gruesome way of putting it that shipment became fascinated with watching his mother die so you've got this this all-powerful GP who's come into the family home and taken control of the situation and I think that perhaps did plants a bit of a seed for Harold Shipman there the fact that there's this individual who who comes in they have status they have power they have authority and nobody questions them and I think that's something that really did Lodge in his mind by the mid-60s shipment had left Nottingham and headed to Leeds to study medicine while living in Yorkshire the young student met his future wife Primrose was Shipman's landlady's daughter and he got her pregnant and so they had to get married in Shipman's Carefree student days were over in 1970 Harold Shipman graduated from Leeds medical school and got a job at the pontefract general infirmary in West Yorkshire he was relatively recently married had one child and the other one was on the way but what no one knew at that point was that Shipman had a completely different agenda from the Hippocratic Oath he wanted to do harm after learning his trade in pontefract 28 year old Shipman moved out of a hospital environment to take a role as a general practitioner Shipman joined the todmund and group practice and his first job as a GP in 1974 and he was like a breath of fresh air he was young enthusiastic modern they've had all these great ideas and they thought the world of him but there were concerns raised by a pharmacy nearby about the amount of pathogene that was being prescribed by him when an investigation was launched and Shipman was confronted he claimed to be suffering from depression and said he'd become reliant on injecting himself with pethidine an addictive opiate-based painkiller it is not at all uncommon for health care providers Physicians nurses and others that might have access to drugs to become addicted because it's right there shipment was basically writing and forging prescriptions for himself but what he would do would be make prescriptions out in the name of some of his patients when the natural fact they didn't need it and he would go and take the prescription to the to the pharmacy himself and draw it and use it himself when Shipman's addiction was discovered he resigned from the medical center where he worked he was fined 600 pounds by the General Medical Council but he wasn't struck off all he had to do was go and partake in in some drug rehabilitation and that was it and there was never really any follow-up to that so it was almost swept under the carpet I think the view was that he had a personal problem and that he wasn't actually a danger to anyone which was clearly wrong by 1977 31 year old Shipman was back practicing medicine across the penins in Hyde greater Manchester he spent the next 15 years as a GP at Donnybrook house surgery where he built up a reputation as a trusted family physician he got a very good bedside manner a good ability to make people feel good about themselves and as a result he had a lot of patience they thought so much of him that when he moved from the Donnybrook group practice in Hyde to start his own single handy practice he poached 3 000 of them and there was a waiting list shipment began his new Venture at 21 Market Street just across the road from Donnybrook house in August 1992. it was literally a pillar of the local community everybody knew who Harold Shipman was because he would go the extra mile with his patients he would spend time with them he would sit with them and have a cup of tea he didn't mind doing home visits so he gave off the impression that he was a GP who genuinely cared and I think that's what makes it all the more chilling when we look at what he went on to do for the next six years Shipman would continue to win praise from his patients as a well-respected and well-liked doctor despite being a killer disguised as a savior he forged an unblemished reputation as one of the most trusted GPS in Hyde greater Manchester England however by March 1998 suspicions had been raised about the 52 year old by another nearby doctor's surgery there was a new GP Linda Reynolds who joined the group practice across the road from shipmans and she'd noticed that they were signing many more death certificates for shipment than any other GP and when she researched it further she found that his death rate was three times that of any other doctor in town as a result of that the matter was reported to the coroner the coroner reported it to the police and an investigation took place this first opportunity to stop Harold Shipman failed due to a lack of incriminating facts to support the allegations the police investigation only lasted for four weeks and it found that there was no evidence of wrongdoing on Dr Shipman's part so that was that it was to prove a tragedy because had they investigated shipment more carefully they would have at least have found more evidence that things were not exactly as they seemed the abandonment of that investigation was the Catalyst that saw shipment take that one step too far Shipman had escaped unpunished for now but it was only a temporary reprieve his real downfall began with the death of the former mayor s of Hyde Kathleen Grundy just like Shipman the sprightly 81 year old was well known and popular in the small town cutting Grundy was found dead on the 24th of June 1998 my two friends who called after she didn't turn up to the lunch Club she ran with them the door was shut but not locked and they walked in a Founder lay on the settee fully dressed on the day of her death Harold Shipman had visited Kathleen to carry out a blood test the news of her passing came as a total shock to Kathleen's family including her daughter Angela and son-in-law Phil Woodruff she distorted by expectation of how an 81 year old should be because she was just incredibly fed she was remarkably energetic Kathleen had spoken to her son-in-law about Dr Shipman during visits to Angela and Phil's Home in Warwickshire she thought she was a very good doctor she'd I think consciously moved herself onto his list and encouraged various people other people to do so after Kathleen's death Phil finally got to meet this celebrated doctor but was far from impressed with shipment I mean when we went to see Shipman immediately after she died he he inferred that she'd been very frail and infirm and not well and that she died from old age and we knew that was complete nonsense he was not very sympathetic he was rather um I I don't know exactly know how to describe it but you know on the basis of Kathleen's report of him as such a nice chap um he seemed sort of rather cold and rather um detached should I say so it was a bit strange despite the family's concerns Shipman had already filed Kathleen's death certificate it was clear that Chipman was trying to avoid an autopsy I was naive enough to think that that was for our benefit not for his so we're rather stupidly we went along with that and then of course upturns this this so-called will which was just ridiculous I mean I mean not only the content but but the way it was done it was it was badly typed on typewriter on a a pro former you know the sort of thing you buy from the stations and it just was not Kathleen style at all she had a much more kind of professional approach if she'd really wanted to produce a will that we didn't know about and that would be very hard to imagine she would have probably handwritten it because she had beautiful handwriting not only did the scruffy looking document appear hurried it also omitted Angela and Phil the will instead instructed that all of Kathleen Grandy's assets should be left to Harold Shipman Angela I mean obviously she was destroyed I mean she was going to say well look um he can have it he can have it you know and I said that's ridiculous that's not your mother's will in the world Kathleen said that she wanted to leave all of her money and her belongings to her GP to reward him for all of the care that he's given to me and the people of Hyde now that really didn't ring true with Kathleen's family and also in the will it said my family don't need this money they don't have a kind of urgency for it so it really was highly suspicious we initially looked at the signature and compared it with a signature on I think we had a driving license of hers it was similar but clearly not the same the alignment of the capital G was was wrong Phil and Angela decided to play detectives they were certain something was amiss with the will their initial Port of Call was to the witnesses who'd countersigned the document both of whom were patients of Dr Harold Shipman we showed her the signature and so on and she said well it looks like my signature but that's not the way I write my address and she said she didn't know what the document was she could just send the document it was a similar story with a second apparent Witness I showed him not the whole document but just the bit but the signature on his wife or partner so looked over his shoulder and she said well that's not the way you sound your name um because it was a big flourish underneath the signature and as I understood it that was all not what you would normally have done so we realized that there was something seriously wrong despite second guessing themselves Phil and his wife Angela a solicitor had begun to believe not only that Shipman had forged Kathleen's will but that he may well have murdered her at that point we realized that we needed to involve police but we didn't really think he was terribly realistic to sort of wander into high police station and say oh by the way we think that Dr Shipman has killed her mother-in-law so on to the talk to one of her Partners who did criminal work and he of course had contacts in the police in Warwickshire after putting their concerns in writing and handing it over to the local authorities the complaint soon found its way to Greater Manchester police having received the report of concern at greater Manchester police launched an inquiry what they quickly established was that the signatures on the will and on the letter were forgeries forensic scientists were able to tell just by the way that the signature didn't flow that it was a forgery in itself they were also able to say the same about the signature on the letter that accompanied the will that purported to have been made by somebody called Jay Smith again because the signature didn't flow it was possible to say that that was a forgery the will and accompanying letter was sent off for forensic testing and the results link Shipman to the documents what we did find was that the letter and the will had been typed on a typewriter a portable typewriter and when we began the inquiry and executed a warrant at Dr Shipman's surgery we seized a typewriter from there it turned out that the typewriter from Dr Shipman's surgery had been the one that had been used to type the letter in the will when they asked shipment about the typewriter and the will he said that Kathleen grundier borrowed the typewriter off him and yet there were no fingerprints on there from her and this was was somewhat incredulous wasn't it really the the thought that the GP is lending the typewriter to a patient he really is clutching at straws at this point in time but he's so arrogant that he thinks people will believe him Shipman was still free to practice medicine as the investigation continued around him the police knew they needed some hard evidence to prove Kathleen Grundy's death was suspicious which led to a difficult decision being made no post-mortem had taken place before she had been buried because Dr Shipman had issued a death certificate which would therefore preclude the need for it but the concerns about the beneficiary of the well-being Dr Shipman the timing of the well-being coming to light all led me to suspect that something wasn't right here and so on the 29th of July I went to see the local coroner John Pollard and made application for a warrant to exhume the body of Kathleen Grande detectives broke the news to Angela and Phil they both sat on the sofa over behind me and side by side and told us what was what which is basically that they've been talking to the coroner and got this permission to exhume Kathleen's body [Music] and in Shipman's mind after he gave him the drugs and after the person died and after the person was buried he thought he's home free who's going to exhume the body it almost never happens but they did in this case and that's how they got him on the 1st of August 1998 Kathleen Grundy's body was exhumed the post-mortem findings by Pathologists stunned investigators at first they said that they believed that there were opiates in the body but with some more sophisticated testing they were able to say that it would have been morphine that had been found in cutling Grande's body that in itself was a surprise to us Kathleen Grande had not been suffering from any condition which necessitated her being prescribed dimorphine and she had been Fit and Well up until the days before her death the post-mortem results were staggering but they were only possible due to Kathleen's family going against their late mothers apparent wishes to fake whale had a box ticked where um Kathleen Grundy and seemingly stated she wanted to be cremated and obviously this would have removed any physical evidence that shipment had killed her but Angela wanted Kathleen to be buried near her brother and her parents and it's because of this that she was buried rather than cremated if Kathleen Grande had been cremated then of course there would have been no remains to be exhumed there would have been no opportunity to examine tissue and we would not have discovered that she had died from a a massive dose of dimorphine the net was closing in on Shipman but he remained a free man detectives at greater Manchester police were trying to keep the investigation Under Wraps but the Press were about to discover what was happening I first heard Harold Shipman in August 1998 our news desk at the Manchester TV news had got a call overnight and that Kathleen Grundy had died and her doctor has been investigated for her murder so I rang the police to see if we could get some background on this there is no doubt that the reporter who raised those queries Michaela siffford had most of the story and she then embarked on publishing that story as a result of the public becoming aware then they raised concerns by ringing the police about the circumstances of the death of their loved ones as well in some cases they'd Harvard these concerns for years but had been reluctant to raise them with the police because they didn't want to challenge what their GP said but once this came to light we started to investigate those deaths as well with this statement saying they were investigating 20 deaths and if those 20 deaths were all true that made shipment Britain's biggest serial killer time was running out for the popular doctor with evidence mounting up against him the police finally decided to take action five weeks after the exhumation of Kathleen Grundy on the 7th of September 1998 Shipman was ordered to speak with Detectives Shipman was arrested by appointment which sounds like a strange thing to do Harold Shipman was aware of our inquiry there was no surprise element here there was no early morning raid like you see on films and the television until consequently he came to the police station with a solicitor to answer questions there's no doubt that he was confident that he was going to walk out of that police station after a few hours on the day Shipman was arrested my colleague Chris gleeve and I waited outside Ashton police station where he was due to turn up to be interviewed and as we're walking along shipment turned back and faced us and he held his arms out almost you know like Christ on the cross and said go and then take my picture and and Chris did and that was the last time shipment was seen outside of custody detectives questioned shipment about the death of 81 year old Kathleen Grundy part of the interview involved Dr Shipman telling outright lies he sought to um bamboozle the interviewing officers with medical terms he tried to put a cross that he was intellectually superior to the officers but as far as I was concerned this was a fairly simple issue who'd been the last person that had been in the presence of Kathleen Grande what condition was she in when he left her what was the cause of death and who was most likely to have administered that cause of death and with every one of those questions you boil down to the answer being Dr Shipman the interviewing officers presented shipment with evidence of the will tampering Dr Shipman denied that he'd ever seen the will he'd ever been in its presence but what we did find was that his fingerprint was on the back of the will which made it difficult for him to continue with that claim detectives knew that Shipman had visited Kathleen on the day of her death to carry out a blood test but there appeared to be no proof of it ever taking place Kathleen Grundy's blood sample that he's had to take didn't exist it had never been received at the Pathology Lab it still wasn't lying in his surgery weeks and weeks later where was it and he couldn't explain those types of things we concluded at the end of the interview that there was sufficient evidence to charge him with Kathleen Grundy's murder and that's what we did the police knew they had a strong case against Shipman but they were certain that if he'd killed Kathleen Grundy it was possible he'd killed others in order to build the case against shipment the police needed to get a different type of evidence and that would involve exhuming some of the bodies of Harold Shipman's recent victims to see whether there was substances in those bodies that really shouldn't be there the exhumations began on the 21st of September 1998. we then exhumed the three bodies of Bianca Pomfrey Winifred Miller and John Melia over three days we got Dr Rutherford to conduct post-mortem examinations on each of them and we sent samples off for examination on each of those people Dr Shipman had issued a death certificate and each of those death certificates suggested that they had died from heart attacks but there was no evidence of that when doctors Rutherford carried out the examination between October and December 1998 another five bodies were exhumed making nine in total Kathleen Grundy may have been killed for financial gain but it was becoming apparent that Harold Shipman had used his position of power to murder the people who trusted him the most just because he could quite often Dr Shipman would turn up out of the blue people had not sent for him and within a very short time after they've been in his presence they were found dead and they were found dead in odd places they were set up in chairs fully dressed not in a scene of disarray as if they'd fallen over as if they'd knocked anything over most of Shipman's victims were found sitting in the chair a cup of tea by the side almost recreating the scene that used to greet shipment when he came home from school with his mother waiting in the window while he made her a cup of tea and looking for him and waiting him to come home from school Shipman is not a doctor doctors are people that try to heal others that try to cure others Shipman's a murderer his goal for the greater part of his career was to kill patients and he did it for his own gratification and that's what makes it so chilling this was a man who was destroying people's lives for his own amusement as if you were catching butterflies or crushing insects one of the exhumed victims 73 year old Winifred Miller had supposedly died of heart related problems but Pathologists found no proof of that in the post-mortem as inquiries developed it proved that an examination of the computer showed that Dr Shipman in actual fact had created a false record to indicate that she had been suffering from angina over a period of time in order for him to cover up the fact that he had administered an injection tour which had resulted in her death I don't think Shipman's victims would have suffered I'm not sure they would have understood that they were dying and the drug he used and the strength he used it out would just send them very quickly to sleep and you know that's what you would hope but I think the last words might have been thank you doctor doctoring medical records became a common theme in the investigation into shipment so for example Maureen Ward who he killed when she was just 57 he changed her medical records to make her look like she had cancer when she'd actually became the all clear by Hospital doctors and although on first appearance it would appear that he'd made these weeks before computer expert that we utilized when he had a look at them he was able to examine the transaction logging within the computer system and he was able to determine that they'd actually been made after he'd been along and murdered these people by the 5th of October 1998 Shipman had been in custody for almost a month as detectives continued to interview the doctor cracks in his coal demeanor began to show at the end of the second interview when the computer records showed what Shipman was really up to in no one's certain detail Shipman asked for a break in the interview and as soon as the police left he fell to his knees sobbing he knew it was over there's no doubt that he had come to realize that virtually the game was up that he had got no answers to these questions where we were presenting him with documents and he just couldn't explain things away by February 1999 53 year old Harold Shipman had been charged with the murder of 15 women ranging in age from 49 to 81. post-mortem some nine exhumed bodies confirmed they were poisoned while circumstantial evidence linked the doctor to six other victims all of whom were cremated despite all the evidence that suggested Shipman was a callous killer it was difficult to comprehend even for a seasoned Detective no doubt that on a day-to-day basis myself and my Deputy questioned ourselves about whether we were interpreting this evidence in the correct way did we have this wrong was there another explanation for this but the more evidence we uncovered the more it corroborated previous evidence and there was only one answer that we could come to and that was the fact that Dr Shipman had killed these people the trial of Dr Harold Shipman began on the 5th of October 1999 at Preston Crown Court a nation wanted Justice served upon the man the papers were calling doctor death the 53 year old general practitioner pleaded not guilty to 15 counts of murder and one count of forging the will of Kathleen Grundy the earliest killing that of 81 year old Maria West dated back to March 1995. important that all cases that go courts have a realistic chance of a conviction so the threshold for evidence even for a charge to be bought is quite high and we have to remember that in this case some of these murders were years and years old the quality of the evidence would have declined to such a degree that it would be very very difficult to secure a conviction for murder so there were only 15 counts of murder in this particular trial but that was just the tip of the iceberg of the 15 counts of murder nine of the bodies had been exhumed but prosecutors were confident they could still get a guilty verdict on the others six of Shipman's victims were cremated but the police were still able to prove that Shipman killed them this again is down to the computerized medical records being changed added to which there were witness statements and one of the most moving things about the court case was that there were so many ordinary people who'd never seen the inside of a court room in their lives and they were having to stand there and give their evidence and remember their last moments with their loved ones and it was because of their strength and their ability to give that evidence and remember what they needed to remember that Shipman was caught and stopped Phil Woodruff the son-in-law of Shipman's final victim Kathleen Grundy was often in the courtroom during the three-month trial he did come over it's very arrogant yes he was very full of himself and I think that I mean that that was obviously part of his image that he created and hide that he was a wonderful doctor and I think he took great pleasure in in presenting himself this in this way so so yeah he had a high opinion of himself it was an attitude that would be his undoing when Shipman came under intense questioning from head prosecutor Sir Richard henriquez he buckled it was a worm wriggling on the end of a hook because with each question that was put to him he was really uncomfortable at trying to find answers to some of the questions and some of the answers that he gave were pretty ridiculous and he appeared to be thinking of some of the answers whilst he was stood in the witness box it was another example of his arrogance he appeared to decide that he was going to go toe-to-toe with one of the lead embarrasses in the contract and it wasn't it wasn't a good idea on the 31st of January 2000 Harold shepman was found guilty of all 15 murders and of forging the will of Kathleen Grundy he was sentenced to life in prison much to the relief of his victims family members as each verdict of guilty was read out there'd be like a fresh wave of soft sobbing or gasps and it kind of built up it was really fill in the air of the the courthouse it's one of the most moving things I've ever seen Harold Shipman was convicted of all 15 murders and was sentenced to life in prison and you would say to to a degree justice has been done here but actually for all of the other victims whose murders were not um having charges associated with them this is is something that it is kind of incomplete I think that the families of these victims don't feel that they got Justice in September 2000 an investigation was ordered to delve deeper into the career of Harold Shipman high court judge Dame Janet Smith led the inquiry I think the shipment inquiry was a brilliant Legacy for the families of Shipman's victims they worked really hard they fought for a public inquiry because for years a doctor had been able to carry on unnoticed killing people because of the secrecy and the reverence around the medical profession it was important to them that somebody carried out that examination and came to some sort of verdict about what had happened and that's exactly what the public inquiry did and I think that in itself gave some families the reassurance that they'd done what they could to to find out what the true circumstances were the results of the initial inquiry were released in July 2002 and the findings stunned the world the shipment inquiry has found that he is definitely responsible for 215 murders but there could be as many as 260. having said that not every death will have been picked up and I think there are many more than 260. with so many victims in such a small area it was perhaps inevitable that the inquiry would reveal some families had lost several relatives at the hands of Shipman Phil Woodruff lost three members of his extended family one of them had only signed on to Shipman's patients list after a glowing recommendation from Kathleen Grundy I don't exactly know how many people she recommended him to but she certainly recommended him to her sister-in-law Elsie glad I remember when Angela said to me about her mother well you know old people don't die just like that and I said well they do look at Auntie Elsie right so my example was actually of somebody else killed by human the inquiry discovered it was not just women but men who were victims of shipment too as a result of the report Shipman was given a whole life tariff which meant he would never be released from prison although given a chance to confess to his numerous murders Shipman rejected the opportunity to speak with Detectives so they went to interview him they decided to video that interview and what that video depicts is Dr Shipman standing up turning his chair away from them and just turning his back to them so that although they ask him the questions he refuses to answer and he also refuses to look at them and he never actually disclosed what had occurred in relation to many of those offenses before his his death in a heartless move Shipman decided to take all his secrets to the Grave Shipman committed suicide and by hanging in prison on the 13th of January 2004 and it was the day before his 58th birthday so again it was Shipman being in control and doing what he wanted and playing God deciding who lived and who died and when and when you have someone like Shipman with his arrogance in prison I'm not surprised at all that he committed suicide I I would be shocked if he was going to live in prison living the life of an inmate he couldn't do it he was two grandiose too narcissistic way too arrogant and he just killed himself Harold Shipman never showed any remorse for the murder of all these people he never discussed his involvement in the deaths he never apologized to any of the families and he decided to take the circumstances and what had happened with him when he committed suicide even in death Shipman continued to haunt the country a sixth and final report was published by the inquiry in January 2005. the shipment inquiry found that he'd begun killing as early as 1971 while he was still training as a doctor he'd not even become a doctor and he was already killing the inquiry found that he was responsible for as many as 15 deaths at pontefract General infirmary possibly including that of a four-year-old girl Shipman suicide in January 2004 means that hundreds of family members may never know what happened to their loved ones it was the final callous act in a callous career it's always his problem about the word evil isn't that how you attach that to somebody but um if if anybody is evil I think he's evil yes right foreign killing people in Cold Blood apparently just for the pleasure of it it was a doctor a doctor who's supposed to look after you who's supposed to care for you supposed to save your life not take it and I think you know as a nation that really resonated [Music] a family still living together and looked after each other then it can happen anywhere [Music] probably there aren't many people who lived in Hyde for a generation who who didn't know somebody who'd been killed by him [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] it is hard to picture Harold Shipman as a cold-blooded killer but that's exactly what he was he was meant to care for people but instead he was murdering them for no other reason than his own self-gratification his insatiable appetite for death spurred shipment on to take the lives of over 215 innocent and vulnerable victims he is without doubt one of the world's most evil killers [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Absolute Crime

Views: 871,081

Keywords: Absolute Crime, Crime Documentaries, True Crime, True Crime Documentaries, Murder documentaries, True Crime Stories, True Crime Youtube Channel, True Crime Documentary, full documentary channel, full length documentary 2022, prison documentaries

Id: OL971sPbcZU

Length: 219min 2sec (13142 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 05 2023