The Rampage of Stephen Wright | Real Crime

you in 2006 a campaign of murder was carried out on the streets of Suffolk something's happening you know every 24 hours the discovery of five bodies in ten days would leave the community stunned and authorities overwhelmed this was a story which was completely unprecedented as the clock ticked the body count rose might may wonder know him anymore are they going to find and with it the question what had driven Steve Wright this quiet middle-aged man to commit his killing spree more than a million years you think he's ever capable of that why did this happen I mean that's the $65,000 question [Music] Sunday the 10th of December 2006 the tranquil market town of Ipswich was gearing up for the holiday season it was late night shopping and Christmas parties and yeah very much the lead-up to the the festive period however despite the festive cheer there was an undercurrent of unease [Music] in early November two girls had been reported missing from the streets of the red-light district by the 8th of December both their bodies had been found dumped in a nearby Brook the disturbing discoveries separated by just six days senior investigating officer Roy Lambert would receive a phone call that would thrust him to the center of the newly unfolding drama on arriving of the location on the edge of the nearby village of nekton he would encounter a haunting scene I remember when I arrived it's about just after 4 o'clock it was it was then dark it was really really windy and the rain was absolutely lashing down [Music] although the scene of this sinister crime gave no immediate clues to the identity of the killer that of the victim was soon established quite early on we we could see from the scene some there were some tattoos which gave us an indication who this person may be it wasn't a formal identification this early on the Sunday evening but we sent some family liaison officers to the mother of this young woman who turned out to be Anna Leon sir when I looked at the video which had been taken by the the crime scene investigator of what's the position on how the body was I was actually shocked sir to see the image of Anna Lee lying naked and posed in in the middle of these these woods The Killers public display would give investigators an insight into the disturbed mind of the man responsible for this sadistic spree she clearly been laid out by the offenders she was in a cruciform position so her arms were out wide and her hair at she had long peroxide blonde hair that had been pulled back in a conical form and she was pristine she was very clean and she was naked but clearly the offender had spent some time laying her out I was thinking what are we in the middle of here this is the third girl taken off the streets of Ipswich found online now in Woodland so we didn't know what was happening really the uncovering of a third body in only 8 days would prove unnerving it was almost the public display by the by the killer because her body was left so close to the road it was clear that she'd be found pretty soon it seemed at that time almost as if the killer was perhaps taunting the police things wrapped me so quick it was actually difficult to sort of comprehend and get get handle on what in fact was happening to us in Suffolk the genuine shock and fear in hips which was ramped up a hundred times pretty early on we found that Anna Lee was living in Colchester with a boyfriend initially we sort of said to him well why haven't you report her missing and he did say well Annalise sometimes would go missing for two or three days at a time he wasn't concerned about it they the last time he saw her they were on good terms and in fact he said she said she was going to go and see her mother that afternoon and take some Christmas presents to her son and in fact when we relayed that to her mother her mother did confirm that [Music] when we found out from Annelise boyfriend we were going to that she was going to go to here'sh see her mother on the train obviously a lot of trains have CCTV these days and so we we looked at in fact we did obtain some footage of her actually on the train coming back from parents towards Manningtree on that Sunday night the 3rd of December it gave us a starting point from when she was lost one of the time she was last seen alive I also gave us a description what she was wearing and what she was carrying which is important her asked if we found any clothing subsequently and in fact we got her not only on the train we found further CCTV over at the railway station and also later on the outskirts of the red-light area later on that Sunday the 3rd of December well the inquest into Anneliese death continued the results of the autopsy would provide police with a new piece of the puzzle the pathologist was able to give us a cause of death and he described he described it as an interference with the airway either 6ei tion or strangulation news of the discovery of Anneliese body would travel fast I'm scared of always thinking who's it gonna be next who's it gonna be next the media interest just went into the stratosphere suddenly resources were right around the country were coming to it switch to really try and nail down who was doing this yet the killer was closer than anyone could have dared imagine in 2006 tips which will be struck by a killing spree in only six weeks five girls disappeared from the streets of the red-light district their bodies found over just ten days [Music] the first of October 2006 London Road dipswitch 48 year old forklift truck driver Steve rice moved into a flat in the heart of Apes witches red-light area [Music] Wright's younger brother Keith recalls a quiet life in their early years I suppose my earliest memories I can sort of really remembers committees or Walker's or to school and stuff I was probably only about five or six I and Steve must be you've had 14 I mean that's always good I mean it was always quite close as a family's that way he had obviously had arguments where you've seen stepmom and stepchildren all the way though Steve Wright's natural mother had left the family home in 1965 I think his parents divorced when he was quite young and he didn't see his mother particularly was brought up by his father at Conrad who was in the services his father would have lived by strict rules and he would have expected his son to do so so if he ever stepped out of line then he would have been very quickly and strongly put back into life and so I think Steve's childhood was spent moving around in different parts of the country as his dad was dispatched to different parts of the UK to work what he did become quite adept at was putting on a persona an easygoing affable almost every man persona so that people could get along with him easily that may not have necessarily been the real Steve Wright so his early years for ones where he clearly learned to talk the talk and those were skills did he use to lethal effect later on the exceptional story began in earnest on the 1st of November nineteen-year-old Tania Nicol had disappeared without trace and Tania was first reported missing I think it was the first of November 2006 when she's reported missing by her mum she caught the bus into town at just after 11 p.m. Monday evening clearly with the intention of operating as a Street prostitute Roy Lambert will be called upon to review the facts of the case Tonya would stand down here on this corner of this Junction and cars would would come round and they would stop and speak to the girls they would discuss services the girls were getting the car and off that we're going to do whatever they were going to do but this was very uncharacteristic and Tonya's mum subsequently reported hers and the scene with detectives puzzled by the disappearance concerns would grow for Tanya's safety and the alarm bells began to ring at that early stage and Tanya literally disappeared off the face of the earth just two weeks later on November the 15th concerns were raised for the safety of a second missing girl 25 year old Gemma Adams she too had been last seen in the area surrounding London Road initially it was only one girl gone missing so there's nothing so really as a force to get to concern about it was when the second one was reported missing the 14th or 15th of November we thought this is a bit unusual Gemma Adams was reported as missing to us during the early hours of that morning her boyfriend had taken her down into the Red Lion Area to to do some work and he was anticipating seeing her after after a period of time and I think what happened was that she didn't come back you know to Salk else he would just go away and not come back for days and there's like old they've just gone on a bender they're doing whatever but you need a girl's who was sensible had their partners away but they wouldn't just that's not their normal routine to do that Friends of Gemma were becoming worried for her safety no no Gemma was a really kind person she was a really nice person to talk to she went a person who would double cross y'all who would like being proper like nasty towards your backstab you steal off y'all or anything like that she went out sole person she was the opposite purloined oiz as the authority has gathered more evidence their concern would grow also because of her lifestyle and the fact that she might have gone off with a client initially there was not great concern for that first couple of days but then when phone went off completely off the network I mean that was the big indication that something serious Maya Mantua [Music] the 2nd of December 2006 11:40 a.m. in tulum the developing story would open a haunting new chapter the weather was exceptional for that time of the year everywhere was in flood I got into the lakes and because the floods had receded the first thing I read and was were not the first thing I just checked the Grahams check the lights then got me waders on and then patrolled the brook and I suddenly noticed like a mannequin yeah a dressmakers dummy upon closer inspection Trevor would find himself horrified at the true nature of his discovery there's not until I'd got into the brook and got up right beside her and just moved the hair a little bit moved the debris away from her hair then that is when I suddenly knew who was realized that now his young body and me first thought was it's one of the missing girls well at first a shock and so maybe jump back a little bit and then I had to sort of take control of myself and got straight ahead a Brook still shaking and found the police out you know that you know the exact time where I found them 11:44 when I found them they just phoned them up and said who I was where I was and that I've just found the body of a young girl facedown in the brook police would descend on the scene and begin their efforts to determine the identity of the unfortunate victim when the report first came in because of the the body had been in the water that long we didn't initially know who this was not until we taken the body out of the water and got them back to hospital and starts to conduct our our examinations did we identify who it was the body was that of Gemma Adams who had last been seen some two weeks earlier on the 15th of November friends had long suspected the worst German when she first witnessed when I first moved it had been a murder because she'd have never just gone off that weren't her style she wouldn't have just left and the her boyfriend full adore about every night so if you saw a boyfriend you knew she was out because he'd be couple of steps behind her and for her not to come back that one no way don't going to happen I'll never forget it I should never forget that day or sure never forget the timings of that day I shall never forget the night when I it's something that's never gonna go away with detectives now on the trail of a killer they began looking closely at the emerging pattern people say if you find out about the victim you might find out how they've died the clues and list of likely suspects however were few and far between when you get into this area of the sex industry dealing with men you travel from a long way away there's also some really interesting individuals that they were starting to look at clients friends and victimology of GEMA to find out and how she lived who she associated with there was no indications at this stage of who was responsible for her death since moving to London Road only a matter of months before Steve Wright was already known as a regular client of the girls who work the streets surrounding his home his history of indulging in the world of the sex industry was long-established Steve Wright wasn't somebody who just suddenly woke up one morning and wanted to explore the sex trade or go to a massage parlor to see what it was like this is a man had been dipping his toe in and out of that life his whole life we saw the first example of that when he was traveling around the world working on the qe2 two places that opened his eyes to these sorts of things right would join the crew of the famous cruise liner in 1980 working as a steward and traveling the world when he was on this little qe2 you thought there must be quite a smart old job you tell us all the things they were traveling they got to obviously a hard work place like that even that kind of job one's got to be affable and one defers to the customer he'd do anything for everybody he had always helped anyone else if you want anything it'd try and help you out with it I'm very confident that he would have learned how to be a ladies man he would have learned how to be sociable he would have learned how to make people feel at ease and relaxed about him I bet Steven Wright probably in the summer of 81 there was at this sort of green like I looked his eyes it was laughing inside and I was always a bit uneasy around him he kind of fancied himself 2° bit of us of a ladies man I don't think he's dated any any on board with me because there was you know very few ladies on there anyway so whatever female company he wanted he made use of it when was that on a short a lot of the ports of call that we used to go to we're all in the less salubrious path of a town sort of thing so the ladies that he met the ladies who wanted their payment as he worth ladies of the night the strains of a life at sea would eventually take their toll on right having divorced his wife he would return to England in 1987 some 19 years later as the news of the grim discovery of Gemma Adams body broke the story began to gather momentum initially when the two girls were missing the the interest locally certainly with the media was mixed they were two girls from the Sex English league got missing but course when one was found murdered now the interest with the media particularly was Hind local crime reporter Josh Marek would be assigned to cover the case it was a Saturday morning and police got in touch to say that her body had been found any murder is headline news in the in the local press and so for two guys to be missing one of whom had been found by that stage was was really frightening and really shocking however few could have prepared themselves for the next term in this twisted tale we then started to search the Bell State Brook we use the police dive team to do this and on the 8th of December the police dive team would work their way from hint ocean towards cop dock which is down downstream towards the river or well and they unfortunately came across the body of another white naked female and this later turned out to be Tanya [Music] Tania had been missing for nearly six weeks the discovery of her body leading detectives to believe that they were now looking for one man on a killing spree so we now quickly move from what was to missing vulnerable young women to a double murder inquiry I heard about it as soon as she'd been feigned because the police had their incident bans and the rest of it at our place at the fisheries and when I got down the next morning they'd all disappeared and that's when I found out that they had found Tonya a few miles downstream just six days on from the discovery of Gemma Adams the revelation of a second body being found would make ways across the country got a phone call from the news desk my news editor said look you know this doesn't look good don't pack for a night you know I would pack for the best part of a week we don't know where this is going so I arrived up in cop doc to the scene of where this second body had been found Tania Nicol it was pouring with rain through the sort of windshield of the car you could see in the distance the police car lights the blues and twos but the flashing the road was blocked off and suddenly what had once felt like perhaps a very short trip for an isolated very tragic death of a young woman now took on a slightly more sinister angle [Music] as Christmas approached in 2006 hips which would be plagued by a killer on a ruthless spree beginning with the disappearance of 19 year old Tony nickel in early November by the 8th of December Tonya's body and that of Gemma Adams had been found in a brook on the outskirts of Ipswich while the town came to terms with the grave situation an ominous atmosphere began to envelop the area a little bit of honey started to creep in like not wanting to walk it on your own at the nighttime when she got that and making sure your children were okay and escorting them everywhere there was a culture of fear in many respects there were more police on the streets handing out rape alarms the women friends of the street girls noticed the increased police presence was not welcomed to be honest girls pissed off about it because you couldn't get the money so with the police being there they can go and get what they needed to get anyway so yeah you felt a bit safe but at the same time they're all showing because I want him to go away because they won't you know I mean they want people to be driving around so he's overweight you're not gonna you going out there for nothing really then on the 10th of December just two days on from finding the body of Tania Nicol a third horrifying discovery was made when I got a call from the force control room to say that a motorist had driven through the street and this motorist reported finding what appeared to be the naked body of her of a female my mind was racing when I got this call because you immediately thinking who is it and as we now know that was the body of an allele Alderton found laid out and posed in a cruciform position the disturbing ritual demonstrated that the killer was becoming ever bolder unlike Tonya and Gemma before her 24 year old Anna Lee had not been reported missing making the revelation of their untimely end all the more shocking I got a phone call from the news desk and they said something on the lines of you know you know you're not gonna believe it but the police have just announced that they've found the body of a third woman suddenly attention raised several notches I'll be now talking about a serial killer are we talking about somebody picking off young women right from under the police's noses living in the heart of the area from where the girls were disappearing Steve Wright had a history of violent behavior towards women he had a track record for being a brutal for being violent against his two previous wives we've got an individual who would would would batter his partners and we know that that's usually a hallmark symptom of men who feel inadequate who feel they can't cope who feel they're not in control of the relationship and they don't feel terribly manly that they lack something in their machismo Steve life was all about trying to be something he wasn't trying to live out or find excitement in his life and it was pretty tough it's tough for a lot of people to to find excitement he found it in prostitution he also found it in gambling it meant that he built up the debts by the year 2000 Steve Wright's life was in steady decline with drinking and gambling taking their toll Wright had accrued 40,000 pounds of debt yet he continued his habit of paying for sex graduating from the massage parlors he would formally frequent rights began to take his fantasies out into the open money gets tight you have responsibilities bills to pay suddenly it makes more sense to be out on the streets where you can turn a trick for 20 quid rather than 50 60 70 pounds in a massage parlor and so that's how we find eventually Steve Wright coming out onto the streets rather than doing what he did to get his kicks behind closed doors later that same year Wright would hit the bottom of his spiraling depression tried to top himself at one time just for everything forgot to him and then he sort of came back like they have done whenever get in trouble and normally come back home to see the dad no and he came back here that's all same up this was a man either crying out hoping he'd get caught or being an attention-seeker on the one hand all this was a man who genuinely felt that his life was that tragic that he just needed to be here no longer after working in a succession of small time jobs right eventually took employment at the Felixstowe docks when he calls to come back here he just went more and more silent about things and he wouldn't sort of chat about nothing really he went more into himself and quiet and non confrontational to anybody dad set him up at his then he got the job down on the docks everything was going well I'm Sean Moore that's him saw sailed for now he was now involved in another long-term ish relationship and she has a normal job where the evenings all spent together but then there's a change in job suddenly his partner is now working night shifts so Steve Wright finds himself sitting in London Road in the middle of the red-light district with an opportunity to fulfill his fantasies while Wright struggled with his personal life the pace of the unfolding story playing out on the streets of Suffolk continued to accelerate by this stage three women had been found in the space of little over a week that speed at which things were developing just meant there was a shock upon shock upon shock the 12th of December 2006 Levington six weeks on from the disappearance of Tania Nicol the first girl to go missing just 24 hours after uncovering the body of third victim Annalee Alderton detectives will be struck by a sickening double discovery I became aware that another sex work of Pawlik Linnell had been reported missing by her boyfriend he was concerned because headon actually heard what's on the radio and see what was on the television and then what happened again there was another sex worker reported missing Annette Nicholls was reported missing by her mother she'd been trying to get all of her net by her phone no reply so she became very very concerned about why she can go love a net so she reported missing I can remember going to the police headquarters after Annalee eldest uns body had been found and identified and it was a press conference we were handed a press release which we weren't expecting telling us there were two more women had been reported missing and I can just remember phoning the news desk and saying this is not just about the third girl who his body's been found there are two more missing what is going on here what are we involved with this is like a a whirlwind of all these incidents keep happening I mean something was happening was horrible you know every 24 hours close friend Sara Grimwood had been one of the last people to see Paula before she disappeared me another friend and Paula and at a time my boyfriend we were all in a house together I thought she was staying in I didn't think she was gonna go out and then I said to her you gonna stay in tonight no she did say yeah but then when her stuff was gone and she changed her mind and then the next day she didn't come around mine and knock on the door like she does every day eager to locate the newly missing girls the police would appeal offer information and I can remember peeling certainly throughout that Monday for anybody that knew of the whereabouts of her neck tore Paula to make contact with us they quickly ascertained that certainly as it turned out both Paula and an air I think they both been last seen alive about the 8th of December so we're now the 12th of December so this for sort of days there which this window we're going to sort of try and close down and probably know Eve I thought that they'd made contact with us or somebody would their appeals however would prove futile it's well for December a member of the public is walking along the old a 14 at Levington which isn't far from natin and he sees in the foliage about seven or eight yards in from the road what he believes is the body of a white naked female we've got a force helicopter and in major crimes like this it's it's good practice they ask the helicopter to have a fly over the scene and have a look around so they went the helicopter was put up were quickly able to see video downlink on-screen and I can remember seeing the crumpled the body of a the naked female and as it turned out that was the body of Pawlik lay off the helicopter goes up and sees where the member of the public is and sees that first body and then they naturally they they then start to slowly work their way out from there and what happened then he's unbelievable to go all right and I can remember turning away from the screen and speaking to the inspector and then turning back to the screen and a second image caught my eye and I could see that it was the image of a naked female but it was in a different form to that of Paula and this female was in a cruciform position much like Anna Lee had been found and it takes a few seconds for the brain to catch up with what the eye is seeing and of course it quickly dawns on me that this is a second body and as we know no that was the body of Nick Nichols I mean I've never known anything like this you know over 40 years of being in the in in place [Music] so Paul was that in fact the first one to be found on the 12th from Tuesday the 12th and this was the one that remember public found and Paul was found just to seven or eight yards in I didn't cry at first because I didn't I didn't believe it do you know I mean I didn't you didn't believe it at first because you're so scared yourself you don't want to believe it you know I mean because there's a big thing as a big part of my life which is really hard really in Elena's too big the boat that's where the tributes after where and that no and that was found not obviously right by the side of the road but about ten yards in detectives were faced with the reality of chasing down an increasingly reckless killer one believed to be responsible for the murder of five young women it was almost seemed audacious you know it was almost a killer mocking the police in a way and saying I can get away with this Ryan deer noses well the offender offenders were they enjoying this or were there being panicked into some sort of activity was it all coming to a crescendo whoever this was he was losing control pressure on the police was enormous we just didn't know what was gonna happen next with the states of this savage spree escalating ever higher the killers deadly designs would be undone by his previous sins the only way they were able to track him down was through DNA evidence of a crime that he committed you know dozens of years prior in December 2006 an elusive killer stalked the streets of Ipswich his red-light district preying on the girls who plied their trade disappearing over four weeks the bodies of five vulnerable young women have been found in only ten days with detectives under increasing pressure to close their net around this violent predator DNA evidence would prove the key that would crack the murderous code we'd managed to obtain some DNA from the Annalee scene and when the forensic scientist had processed this through and looked on the national DNA database this same DNA profile came up as being Steven Wright he'd been dealt with for theft whilst employed as a barman at a hotel in Felixstowe in 2001 I think it was so who we are five years later and all the indications are that he's a serial murderer that DNA sample was his big downfall had he never taken that money had he never got into debt then the police quite possibly would never ever have found him with Steve right now firmly in the police's sights they would move to get their man with regard to the arrest of Steve Wright he was arrested in the early hours of the 19th of December was about about 5:00 a.m. he was arrested at his home address he was up he was getting prepared to go to work so he was arrested and taken into custody it was interesting his reaction he he didn't he didn't say much at all was was quite shocked and in fact he needed to be given some time to recover the prime suspect would maintain a steadfast silence in the face of questioning certainly never said you've got it all wrong I'm innocent he was he didn't hardly say he was taken to a police station in Suffolk he was interviewed with it with a solicitor by trained officers but he made no comment all the way through we've got the last go missing with your DNA and the one before with your DNA focused on their naked bodies how can that be Clarinda here was a guy had been arrested on suspicion of five murders he was refusing to comment which didn't fit with the kind of profile of an innocent man wrongly arrested as news spread of the arrest Steve Wright's family would be astounded by the accusations well it's total shock too because something does work the night before we were all talking about it to wake up solve it that morning to find out that your father had been sort of arrested I suppose unbelievable is the only way didn't think that from just having a run-of-the-mill normals or family setup as such so now though no one of your family was suspected of this serial killers with people who do remember her used as the face of the so-called Suffolk strangler made the front pages people were surprised by the vision of a man who appeared to be the very image of ordinary pictures began to emerge and he didn't look like perhaps the killer that we'd imagined he would look like a middle-aged man slightly overweight slightly balding fairly regular looking guy one of the reasons why Wright was able to operate efficiently in the way he did is that he didn't look act or seemed to be a serial murderer he had a job he had a partner he had a domestic life that ordinariness is what allows him to literally get right up close and next to the girl and persuade them to get into the car it's the banality of evil the police would begin to gather evidence and build a case against a man they believed responsible for the slayings of five young women and of course you know for the police the arrest was almost the easy bit it was the work that would come after that that was the real challenge for them you know to prove that they had got the right man beyond all reasonable doubt was no smoking gun and I think the prosecution admitted that but there was a real picture that was painted by the prosecution there was DNA evidence it was fiber evidence taken from his car I had a dark blue Ford Mondeo z-tech which we took possession of and conducted forensic examination of that this vehicle did in fact become relevant was seen on CCTV in different parts of the red-light area during sort of November December 2006 it was confident enough and believed he was clever enough that some risks such as using his own car were acceptable risks but it was CCTV that got him I mean that is that his error 101 in your serial murderers handbook his CCTV so when you put all this together we had always evidence which linked all the girls and Steve right and like closed the circle the trial would be keenly awaited yet right would offer little defense in answer to the prosecutors probing questions I remember really clearly in the trial when Wright took to this stand to give evidence under cross-examination there were dozens of questions the evidence was put to him me you know is this just a coincidence all his answer was it appears so yes he said it 20 or 30 times and it just continued to kind of paint this image of somebody who was he was guilty after more than five weeks at trial the jury would deliver a unanimous verdict finding Steve Wright guilty of the murders of Tania Nicol Gemma Adams Anna Lee Alderton Paula Glenelg and Annette Nicholls he would receive a sentence of life imprisonment with a recommendation that he spend the rest of his days behind bars when the five guilty verdicts came back there was there was clearly a huge relief on the part of the police definitely the members of the public but I think probably most of all family members would just so relieved that justice had been done although the man responsible had been sentenced questions about the motivations of this most complex of characters remained the five murders that Wright was convicted of were all committed in his late 40s which is statistically speaking a very late age for a serial killer there is a possibility that he could have a very long offending history going back many years I think my god you know I drank this guy went on the shore leave with him and now he's a serial killer you know just killed five women in within four weeks you know don't just do that you know I mean when your mind goes back and races back do you think was it possible that he started when he was on the ships and then you think well my feelings I had towards him with the uneasiness was he was he doing it there and then it could be that living out these sexual fantasies he'd held for a long time could be the the one last roll of the dice he might have of achieving something of doing something interesting that most men couldn't possibly imagine doing despite his conviction the mystery of why Steve Wright chose to take the lives of five innocent women in just six weeks remains a riddle only he can answer because he's never made any common we don't actually still know to this day how this all happened how did he get control of these girls how did he manage to isolate them and murder them and get away with it until he decides to tell his side of the story and tell us what happened I don't think we're ever going to know [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Real Crime

Views: 1,363,573

Rating: 4.6263051 out of 5

Keywords: mystery documentary, conspiracy documentary, crime documentary, serial killer documentary, psychopath, gun violence, real stories, true crime, real crime

Id: uzQCk6MpKKg

Length: 45min 17sec (2717 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 20 2019