[music playing] NARRATOR: In late January
2005, 25-year-old Ellen Frith, a vulnerable and
transient person, was with friends at
a squat in Nottingham City Center in England. She's gone to a disused block
of flats called Marple Square to take drugs, basically. It's a safe-ish place,
but she's not alone. NARRATOR: The last
people to see her alive were Mark Martin, John
Ashley, and Dean Carr. The three men were known and
feared amongst the city's homeless community. They were also the men
that callously killed her. Martin strangled
her, and then Ashley finished her off to use-- his own terminology. NARRATOR: Mark Martin,
the leader of the pack was a violent,
aggressive bully, who was hungry for power and fame. You've got that scenario,
someone who brazenly wanted to be Nottingham's
first serial killer, and then goes and does it. NARRATOR: The investigation
into Ellen's murder led police to discover
two further bodies, that, of Katie Baxter
and Zoe Pennick, both had been strangled. There are lots of
words that I could use to describe Mark Martin,
but I would say that he is-- he's very definitely evil. There's no doubt in my mind
that had Martin not been caught by the police, he would
have continued killing for as long as he could, if only
to burnish his own reputation as a serial killer. NARRATOR: Mark Martin
was a volatile man with an explosive temper. He terrorized Nottingham's
homeless community and preyed on
vulnerable young women to satisfy his ultimate ambition
to become a notorious murderer, making Mark Martin one of the
world's most evil killers. [music playing] January the 25th, 2005, Marple
Square, Nottingham, England. The burnt body of
26-year-old Ellen Frith was found by firefighters
after putting out a blaze at a squat
in a housing estate in the center of Nottingham. Court reporter Rebecca
Sherdley covered the story. I first heard about the case,
and as the body of Ellen Frith was found and the flats at
Marple Square in St. Helens were sealed off
with police tape. And there'd been a fire there. So a woman's body was found. Obviously, there was forensics
and police investigation. NARRATOR: The
post-mortem quickly confirmed Ellen's identity. It also confirmed her
death was no accident. So Ellen was
murdered in a squat. She was strangled. She was set on fire. It really was a
horrendous crime. NARRATOR: Ellen's barbaric
death sent shockwaves amongst the homeless community
and witnesses willingly gave information to the police. They gave them the
names of three men-- Mark Martin, also known as
Reds, John Ashley, nicknamed Cockney John, and Dean Carr. What we'd start
to learn from very early on in the investigation
into the murder of Ellen was that Mark Martin
had been talking fairly openly about what he'd done. He'd been bragging about it for
want of a better expression. He'd been talking
about how he'd killed and that he'd set the fire. NARRATOR: But Ellen's murder
was only the beginning of a much darker tale. The police
investigation revealed the ringleader of the three-- Reds Mark Martin-- had
a much bigger plan. Martin wanted to become
Nottingham's first serial killer. That was in his mind
from the very beginning. Long before the
eventual killings, that was his ambition, and that
just underlines how evil a man he was. NARRATOR: Martin had callously
strangled to death not one, but three young local women-- Katie Baxter, Zoe
Pennick, and Ellen Frith in just under a month-- and became known as
The Sneinton Strangler. He targeted
vulnerable victims. He targeted women
who had some issues in their lives,
some difficulties, some troubles, and some trauma. He didn't have
any alcohol or drugs issues, which can be a catalyst
for offenses like that. And he just became this person
that he had boasted that he wanted to become,
and it happened in such a short space of
time and involved three completely innocent victims. NARRATOR: The bodies
of 18-year-old Katie and 26-year-old Zoe
were found shortly after his arrest, buried at
the Great Northern Warehouse, an abandoned 19th
century packing factory in Nottingham, England. I think the reason that Martin
dumps the bodies in the place that he does is because
he is so brazen. He actually wants to say
something to the homeless. It's a, look what I can do. Look at how powerful I am. Look at how dangerous I am. This is all about his
status, all about his control of this community. NARRATOR: This
killer's story begins on the 18th of October 1979. Mark Martin was born in
Ilkeston, Derbyshire, England. He was an only child, and
he was very temperamental. NARRATOR: Martin had a
relatively normal upbringing and lived with
his mother, but he found it hard to
fit in at school as a result of his appearance. Mark Martin was somebody
who experienced quite a lot of bullying at school. He had a birthmark under his
eye, and the kids at school would call him Reds because of
the color of that birthmark. So from a relatively
early age, he's got these feelings of shame,
these feelings of inadequacy, and I think, within him,
this builds up a, kind of, resentments and a desire
for revenge, essentially. And he's also come to learn
through that experience of being bullied that fear
is something that is helpful if you're trying to obtain power
and control over other people. NARRATOR: By the time Martin
reached his mid-teens, he was no longer the victim. He was the aggressor. He also turned to petty crime. We know that until
about the age of 16, his life had been
relatively uneventful. But around that time, he started
to get involved in lower level criminality, so he
started with shoplifting, some disorderly behavior. And it's seemingly escalated. There was violence. There was aggressive behavior,
threatening behavior. He was literally a
volcano of anger. There was no sense
of calm about him. There was no sense of him being
someone with whom you could have a rational conversation. This is quite revealing
about the person that he's turning into. So he's come to learn
that being violent is a way of getting things done. It's a way of
achieving the outcomes that you want to achieve. It's a form of
communicating your will and your power
over other people. So he has internalized
violence of something that is integral to his everyday life. Violence isn't the exception. It's the rule. NARRATOR: Despite
his volatile nature, Martin finds love
and gets married. But the couple's
happiness was short-lived. In 2002, Martin lashed
out at his wife. He was abusive to her
throughout their relationship. His wife was pregnant when
he first attacked her. He was then very early 20s. He attempted to strangle her. He threatened her
with a Stanley knife. NARRATOR: The offense wasn't
reported to the police. But that same year, he wrote a
letter to his probation officer about the incident. He admitted to
probation officer that had been violent towards his wife. He loved her, and he
didn't want to lose her. NARRATOR: But in the
same correspondence, Martin's manipulative
character is revealed. So lots of things are
going on in this letter. He's basically trying to remove
the responsibility from himself for the things that he does. He's saying that
when his father died, it turned him into
this evil person. So it's almost as
if he's saying, I have no control
over my behavior. I am inherently evil. But he's also saying to
the probation officer, I'm a person who might kill. So he's reversing that
power dynamic between him and the probation
officer, and he's trying to get the probation
officer to fear him. NARRATOR: However,
Martin's words failed to get him the
recognition that he desired. Instead, he continued to
violently abuse his wife. By 2004, Martin's
marriage had broken down, and the couple separated. Separation is a
period, where there is a very high risk of the
escalation of further violence. Because by leaving him,
she would have compromised his feelings of control. That would have resulted in him
wanting to take back control. So when a perpetrator
of domestic abuse can't control their
partner by keeping them in the relationship,
they will seek to control them
by destroying them for leaving the relationship. NARRATOR: In October
2004, Martin savagely attacked his wife again. When Martin attacked his wife,
she was left with red marks around her neck. So there was clearly an
attempted strangulation, a non-fatal strangulation here. NARRATOR: Martin was
arrested and held overnight. After he was released from
custody the following morning, he made a disturbing phone call. He rang the police
himself and said, I was locked up
last night, and I'm afraid I might kill somebody. Martin may, at that point,
simply have been bragging, but there's no doubt
whatsoever that he was capable of the
most extreme violence in an unexpected setting. Also, there's a sense in
which he is quite surprised that there haven't been
more serious consequences for the attack on his wife. And the fact that there weren't
those consequences, kind of, invalidates his
behavior a little bit. He wants the recognition
for his violence. So this is a very, very
significant red flag. It's a real warning sign,
firstly, for his wife and also for other women. Because non-fatal
strangulation, especially of intimate partners, is a
way of saying to somebody, I could kill you if I wanted to. If I chose to do this,
I could carry out. NARRATOR: Unbeknownst to the
authorities, Martin's threats were real. And before long, he
would have the notoriety he desperately wanted. Winter 2004, Nottingham
City, England. Shortly after
attacking his wife, 25-year-old Mark Martin had
left his home in Derbyshire and relocated to the neighboring
County of Nottinghamshire, where he was sleeping rough. So Mark Martin had
a home in Ilkeston and then started to mix
with the homeless community in Nottingham. What was unusual
about that, really, was that he was
very smartly dressed and had a home, which a lot of
the people who was mixing with had the misfortune
of not having. And he pitched up a tent on the
edge of Nottingham City Center near a place called
the Great Northern Warehouse, which is named after
the Great Northern Railway. It's an old packing factory. And then, it was
ravaged by fire. And the homeless
people knew they could go there and take
drugs and drink, out of the sight of the people. NARRATOR: Martin, often
referred to by his nickname, Reds, immersed himself in
the homeless community. He clearly stood out. Martin was quite an
intimidating presence. He's very largely
built, quite tall, rough shaven, short coast hair. But yeah, I would say that
he's got an air about him. He's really quite airy
and quite intimidating even without saying anything. NARRATOR: He quickly gained
a fearsome reputation. Martin was part of a
community, which he terrorized. He would steal their money. He would steal their benefits. He preyed upon them. And indeed, before very long
and towards the end of 2004, the homeless community were
aware that they had someone very dangerous in their midst. So they are very, very
wary, and they think, well, who is this, this
guy, who's just literally turned up and
inserted himself into our lives? He's somebody they were
very, very fearful of. A homeless
person, at the time, said that if Reds was in the
area and he knew you had money, he'd come looking for you. And so, they would
stay on the other side of town because of the
type of person that he was. So he was building
up this bravado, and he also was building
up this brazen reputation. NARRATOR: Martin used the
vulnerabilities of the homeless to his advantage. Martin didn't have any
problems with drugs or alcohol, in terms of substance
abuse or dependency. But a lot of the people
within the homeless community, that he associated with, did. So they have a vulnerability
that he doesn't have, and that enables him to wield
significant power over them. So they are people,
who are living a very dangerous and very
precarious existence, but he isn't really. He knows that he has the option
of going and living in a house if he wants to. He knows that he
has more than them. So this is a way in which
he elevates his status. He feels better
than these people. He feels superior to them. NARRATOR: Martin also made
no secret of his ambitions. Martin was a
deranged man, and he had boasted about
being Nottingham's his first serial killer. And this really is
testament to his narcissism. He wanted to be somebody
by killing other people. NARRATOR: Despite his violent
and aggressive nature, Martin wasn't a lone wolf. He formed firm friendships with
two other men also associated with the homeless community. One was a man called
John Ashley, known locally as Cockney John because
of his London accent, who was a good
deal older, almost 10 years older than Martin. And another one was Dean
Carr, again, from Nottingham. So the three of them became
a sort of triumvirate. But Martin, even though
he was the youngest, was always the most aggressive
and the most violent. The other two more peripheral. But he was the driving
force in this trio of men, who were to prey
on the homeless community in Nottingham. NARRATOR: The formation of this
trio, Martin, Ashley, and Carr, proved to be deadly. On the night of the
24th of January 2005, all three were at a squat
in Nottingham City Center with 25-year-old Ellen Frith. Ellen Frith was itinerant. She'd started on drugs young. She'd moved around the Midlands. She didn't have a proper home
in that sense by the time she encountered Martin,
and Ashley, and Carr. Mark Martin, and Ellen
Frith, and John Ashley had all gone back to a flat in
Marple Square to smoke drugs, had all been hanging
out together. And during that time, Ellen
had bitten into an apple. And for some reason,
he'd actually grabbed her by the throat as she had
the apple in her mouth and stuck two fingers there
and began to strangle her. And it was John Ashley,
who'd finished her off. To try and throw the
authorities off the scent, Martin stuck a hypodermic needle
into the leg of Ellen Frith. They load her onto a sofa bed in
the squat and set fire to her. NARRATOR: Once the
fire was alight, Martin, Ashley, and
Carr fled the scene. In the early hours of
the 25th of January, the fire brigade and the police
were called to the flat on 55 Marple Square. Detective Chief
Inspector Robert Griffin was a member of the
Nottinghamshire Police Major Crime Unit, who
worked on the case. They'd obviously been a
really, really serious blaze. It took a good while
to put the fire out. And when the fire
was eventually out and the scene examination
started, we found a body. Obviously, the circumstances
were overtly suspicious. And so, a criminal investigation
started on that morning. NARRATOR: Senior Crime Scene
Investigator John Betts was called in to coordinate
the forensic evidence at Marple Square. In this case, we've got
to clear areas of work. We've got the fire scene
with the body inside it. And we've got the materials
that could well have been used by people involved in it. So you do a sequential
examination. Fire would take precedence,
and the recovery of the body. Because if there were
signs of assault, the only way we
would establish it is through a post-mortem
examination carried by a home office pathologist. So that's basically
what happened. NARRATOR: The body was
recovered and was immediately sent for a post-mortem. Whilst police
waited for results, local enquiries provided them
with some vital information. We were able to locate
a council worker, who, by coincidence, had been
out to Marple Square to do some checks
the night before. And whilst there, he'd actually
spoken to a man standing at the doorway to number 55. Perhaps more significantly
was that council worker spoke to another man, who was
living in another squat just across the way. What he told us was that a man
who was known locally as Reds was the man who was living
in 55 Marple Square. And that he, the
witness, had indeed been in the flat on the
night before the fire and was able to tell us that
a lady called Ellen was there and a man called Cockney John,
who we now to be John Ashley, and indeed, Reds,
who is Mark Martin. So we started immediately
to search for Mark Martin and John Ashley. We found John Ashley first. NARRATOR: On the afternoon
of the 25th of January, police arrested John Ashley
and brought him in to be questioned. He was interviewed
at length and actually spoke to us throughout. So he was interviewed
for hours by detectives, and he was the first
person, really, who told us the first
version of what had happened. He tried to put himself
up as a witness, saying that he had been present
on that night in the flat, where Mark Martin alone
had strangled Ellen, and then set fire to the
bedding around Ellen. And in turn, the flat. But what John Ashley did was
confirm for us the man that we were looking for, who would
known until that point as Reds, was indeed Mark Martin. And so, from that
time on, we then went in search of Mark Martin. NARRATOR: On the
27th of January 2005, less than two days
into their search, Martin made a surprising move. Martin, ever bragging,
rings the police and says, I think you want me for murder. NARRATOR: Mark Martin had
finally got the authorities' attention, but his
hunger for fame wouldn't be satisfied
until the true extent of his murderous
actions were uncovered. Nottingham, January 27,
2005, 25-year-old Mark Martin surrendered himself to
Nottinghamshire Police and was held in custody
on suspicion of the murder of 25-year-old Ellen Frith. So having surrendered
himself, and calling the police, and telling us that he thought
he was wanted for murder, he attended the police station. We interviewed him
over several days. So he was at the police
station for three days and into countless times. And all of the evidence
that we'd gathered was put to him, put
throughout that. He elected to
answer, no comment. Martin was somebody
who kept very quiet in his police interviews. When he gets into the
criminal justice system, there are a lot of issues
that he can't control. He loses quite a
bit of his power. And by holding onto all of that
knowledge about the murders, that is the way of maintaining
that power and that control. He wants to appear
to be this mystery character, who we're trying
to get inside the mind of. So by just revealing absolutely
everything in interviews, he destroys that mystery,
and that's what he wants. He wants to present
as this enigma, as this, kind of, genius killer. And that's what he's
trying to achieve here. NARRATOR: Within days,
police receive confirmation from the forensics team
that the body in the fire was indeed that of
25-year-old Ellen Frith. But scientists weren't able
to find any forensic evidence at the scene or on
Ellen's body that directly linked Mark Martin
and John Ashley to her death. Forensic scientist Craig
Davis, who specializes in the interpretation of
bodily fluids and DNA, analyzed the evidence. DNA can persist
for decades if it's left in the right conditions. Lots of conditions
aren't very good for DNA, and they can break down
into great DNA quickly. So things like environmental
factors, humidity, and bacteria will break down DNA. And extreme heat will break
down DNA really rapidly. So if a body is
exposed to a fire, a lot of the DNA on the
body can be broken down and deteriorate, such that
we may not be able to obtain any DNA profiles at all. Because of the way
that Ellen Frith died, it would be very
difficult to find any trace evidence
in and around where she was because of the fire. So it'd be very
difficult to find something that was
substantial and said, yes, this person did this. So that's why the
postmortem was important. During the post-mortem
examination, one of the key areas to
look at is the lungs. If there's smoke in
the lungs, then someone is alive and inhaled in
smoke during the fire. If there's no smoke in the
lungs, it tells the tale. NARRATOR: Ellen's post-mortem
examination was inconclusive. But her death was believed to
be consistent with compression to the neck, which indicated
she had been manually strangled. The autopsy results
also indicated that the fire at
55 Marple Square had been started
after Ellen's death. I think this was a very
deliberate ploy on their part because fire is a very effective
way of destroying quite a lot of forensic
evidence and muddying the waters as to who is
responsible for this particular murder. NARRATOR: Despite the
lack of forensics, the mounting evidence against
Martin and Ashley was strong. The autopsy report, the fact
the fire had been started deliberately, Ashley's accounts,
and the numerous witness statements provided by
associates of the two men confirmed to the police that
both Martin and Ashley were responsible for Ellen's death. On the 29th of January 2005,
just days after their arrest, Mark Martin and John
Ashley were charged with Ellen Frith's murder. So from the moment
that Mark Martin was arrested for
the murder of Ellen, he is never from that moment
being outside of custody. So he arrived at
the police station, was then charged,
went before the court, was remanded into
prison custody, and has never been out of
prison custody since then. NARRATOR: Martin
was behind bars, but the investigation
wasn't over. The investigation
almost worked in reverse. Ellen is killed. And then because of
the discovery of Ellen, things start to unravel,
and we realize that there are two other murders. Martin start to indicate that
to, quote, "there were others." And he started to talk
about his involvement in the killing of other girls. And witnesses were able to give
the first names of those girls, and we very quickly
were able to work out that there were
indeed two girls from the homeless community-- Zoe Pennick and Katie Baxter-- that were indeed missing. And we start to get
the sense that these were the girls that Martin
had been talking about. NARRATOR: Katie Baxter, aged
18, and Zoe Pennick, age 26, were both known to associate
with the homeless community. Both had been missing since
the end of December 2004. So Katie was 18, and her
family came from Cotgrave, and she grew up in the area. And then she started to sleep
rough and stay in the YMCA in Nottingham, and
her friends had said that she was doing that
because of other friends were doing that. But she was from
a good background and had a good family. She was a very young
woman, but she was somebody who saw the good in everybody. And she got involved in a lot
of different community projects to help people who
were less fortunate. And this is how she comes onto
the radar of Martin and Ashley. NARRATOR: Katie was
said to have been in a tumultuous romantic
relationship with Ashley. Shortly after Christmas 2004,
Ashley attacked Katie so badly that she needed medical help. She went to the
local medical center and had cuts in her mouth
and nose stitched up. Katie Baxter's parents saw her. They went to the medical center. And indeed, she
went home with them and slept that night on
the sofa in their house. She loved him very much. It was a close relationship. But Martin, probably
seizing the opportunity and knowing that Ashley
and she had fallen out, has now targeted her. NARRATOR: Despite her
itinerant lifestyle, Katie was always in regular
contact with her family. She'd started to come
a little bit more distant from her family as
she got closer to John Ashley and his associates. But what she'd always
done was continue to go to the ice hockey, which
was one of her loves and one of her family's loves. And they used to
go there together. They last actually saw her
on the 29th of December, so just after
Christmas when she left the family house on that day. But over the course of
the next couple of weeks, she didn't turn up with
the ice hockey anymore, and it was that that caused
them to be concerned. And so in early
January, they did actually report Katie missing. NARRATOR: During the course
of Ellen Frith's investigation in late January 2005, members of
Nottingham's homeless community expressed their
concerns to the police that Katie and Zoe had also
been murdered by Martin. So the police were obviously
speaking quite extensively with the homeless community. And there were different
rumors on the street due to what Mark
Martin had been saying, snippets of information. And it was that ring of
the homeless community and the different rumors
running that helped them to piece it together. NARRATOR: Court reporter
Rebecca Sherdley recounts what happened the
night Katie Baxter was murdered. Mark Martin decided to live,
and frequent, and hang around with different individuals. It got chatting to
her in town, and then invited her back into the tent,
and just snapped and strangled her, and buried her
body under some debris in the old warehouse, and left
it there in the shallow grave by an old wall heater. When somebody commits
a murder like this, they do it because they
make a decision to do it. They choose to do it. And taking somebody to an
abandoned site like this, where there aren't a lot
of people around, that suggests, to me, that there
is a degree of premeditation. There's a degree of planning. There is an intention
to do harm to her. And I think almost the
relationship with Ashley is something that he
uses to get to her, to access her because
she knows him. She feels, I think, a
degree of trust around him. So he has access to the victim. He has opportunity
to harm her, and this is all very sinister indeed. NARRATOR: It was believed
that Martin sought out his next victim,
26-year-old mother of two, Zoe Pennick, just days later. Zoe Pennick, she had
been described by a family as being really bright
and bubbly person. And then, I think,
drugs changed her. She had a son, so that
stabilized things. And she did actually
have a flat of her own. But she started to mix with
the homeless community. And then, she'd seen her father
around the Christmas time in 2004, and that's when he
started to get quite concerned about her whereabouts. He hadn't heard from
her for a while. And then, he
reported her missing. NARRATOR: The last reported
sighting of Zoe Pennick was on the 31st
of December 2004. She was never seen alive again. Martin encountered
Zoe Pennick, who is 26, and this time,
tempts her to come to the tent. Because he tells her,
I've got 2,000 cigarettes that you can sell on. And you can take a
bit of the profit, and I'll take a
bit of the profit. She duly goes to the tent. And again, Martin, for
reasons that we do not know, he strangles her. And again, buries
her or, at least, covers her body
with this rubble, and debris, and
foliage, not that very far from Katie Baxter's. Martin was very
deliberate in the victims that he targeted
because he wanted to go after vulnerable women,
because he had access to them. He had the opportunity
to kill them, and he knew that he
could get away with it, I think, for longer
than had he targeted another group of victims. He knows that people who
have issues with homelessness tend to go off the radar. They tend to go
missing for a few days and then turn up again. And he knows that that, kind
of, thing buys him time. It allows him to
accumulate more victims. NARRATOR: In February 2005,
from witness statements, police knew that
Martin's tent was pitched at a disused packing
factory called the Great Northern
Warehouse on the outskirts of Nottingham City Center. That's really where we start
to focus our search, given that we knew that
Katie was missing and given that Mark Martin
had been openly talking about killing other the girls. We knew that Katie was the
girlfriend of John Ashley. And so, in effect, we were
searching for Katie Baxter. Zoe Pennick, at the
same time, but there was this obvious
association with this area. NARRATOR: 11th of February
2005, police were confident they had the correct location. But with such a
large area to cover, they needed to pinpoint
an exact area to search. Just part of that
examination strategy, we brought in the body dogs. Body dogs, specially
trained dogs, that pick up on the
scent of human decay, for want a bit of the phrase. So the dogs came in, thinking
they got little booties on, and they were put in through the
first clear area, which enabled them to get further down. And I think, after
a period of time, one gave a positive result. And through the
use of those dogs, we identified the
warehouse, which was at the side of the disused
land, where Martin tend to be. And inside that warehouse
and under some rubble, we found the body
of Katie Baxter. What they didn't
know, at that stage, was that Zoe Pennick's
body lay 2 meters away. NARRATOR: Nottingham,
February 11, 2005, with information
provided by witnesses and the help of cadaver
dogs, Nottinghamshire Police made a grim discovery-- the remains of
18-year-old Katie Baxter, another of Mark
Martin's victims. When we'd found
Katie we needed to ensure that we gathered
all the forensic evidence. We took Katie away, dealt with
that as a scene forensically. And then only after
that was complete did we continue with the search. NARRATOR: On February the
16th, the cadaver dogs were deployed once again. A dog came in, gave a positive
response about 2 meters away. So I did a little
bit of excavation, and he was quite clear. And unfortunately, Zoe
was under some rubble. Closed the scene down again
and go through the same process the next day of body recovery. NARRATOR: The discovery
of all three victims-- first, Ellen, then
Katie and Zoe-- in such a short space of
time attracted intense media attention. This one was a huge
case for the city. One of the first serial killings
to happen here, a massive shock to the community. It sent shock waves amongst
the homeless people. It was obviously
feared that there was a serial killer
on the loose, and that this man had
finally been caught. And people wanted answers
for why he'd killed all these women so needlessly. NARRATOR: The bodies
of Katie and Zoe were immediately sent for
post-mortem examinations. Due to the level of
decomposition of the remains, the precise cause of
death of both women could not be ascertained. However, the results
were believed to be consistent with
manual strangulation. And by using
forensic entomology, they could determine
when they were killed. When the bodies' found,
the biological evidence that's there, the insects
and the different stages of the life cycle that are there
can be recovered and preserved. And this information can
be used by an entomologist to interpret what's there
and use data from things, like weather conditions
and temperatures, to make a calculation as
to when those flies are likely to have landed on
the body in the first place. And they're pretty
accurate in establishing when that person died. NARRATOR: The results prove
that Katie and Zoe were killed between December 30, 2004
and January the 6th 2005, approximately three
weeks before Martin's third victim, Ellen Frith. Pathologists also discovered
that Katie Baxter's fingertips had been burnt. With Katie Baxter,
because she'd fought back and he was conscious of
that forensic evidence, he burnt her fingers. So not only if the demoralizing
and being strangled, he then had burned
her fingers to destroy any forensic evidence. NARRATOR: In light
of this evidence and the strong
witness statements of all three murders, the
police filed further charges. On February 19,
2005, Dean Carr was also arrested and
charged in connection with Ellen Frith's murder. Dean Carr was charged
with Ellen's murder only, and the evidence indicated
that he had been there, too, and that he had been involved
in her strangulation as well. And that's something
that he had admitted, so confessed to witnesses
who came forward and spoke about what he had said. NARRATOR: March 10, 2005,
while still remanded in custody for the murder of Ellen Frith,
Mark Martin and John Ashley were jointly charged with the
murders of both Katie and Zoe. It was an unusual
investigation because, you know,
we rely so heavily on things like CCTV, and
phone, and forensic evidence, and none of that was really
available in this case. This was a witness case. And in that respect,
we were fortunate that Mark Martin wanted to tell
the world about what he'd done, and also, the witnesses,
the vast majority of whom, much of them were
from the homeless community, wanted to come forward
and talk to us. I think Martin wanted
recognition for the crimes that he'd committed, and I think
that the way in which he went about the killings themselves
and the disposal of the bodies was a way of trying
to achieve that. It's all about getting that
validation as a serial killer. This idea of people
going missing, of the being a serial
killer on the loose, it all adds to the
drama, and that's exactly what Martin wanted. NARRATOR: On January
16, 2006, Martin Ashley and Carr
were tried together at Nottingham Crown Court. All three men were tried for
the murder of Ellen Frith, but only Martin and Ashley are
tried for the murders of Katie Baxter and Zoe Pennick. All three plead not guilty,
presumably banking on the fact that the homeless community
won't turn up as witnesses. NARRATOR: But they
were mistaken. Lots and lots of witnesses
came to give evidence, essentially about confessions
that would be made by each of these defendants. Now, the vast majority
of those witnesses were from the homeless
community, and many of them had issues and challenges
associated with drug use and with alcohol. And I honestly think that
Mark Martin, in particular, probably relied on them
being frightened of him, him having intimidated them. And because of those
challenges, them not wanting to come to
court and give evidence. But remarkably, every
single one of them did, and every
single one of them came up to proof,
by which, I mean, what they said in their
witness statements is the evidence
that they gave when they went in the witness box. And despite challenge,
as is expected in a cross-examination, they all
absolutely told their stories. And because of the result,
as we now know it to be, the jury were really
convinced by it. NARRATOR: On February
24, 2006, all three were found guilty as charged. Carr is sentenced to life
with a minimum of 14 years and is only convicted of
the murder of Ellen Frith. Ashley is sentenced to a life
with a minimum of 25 years, but is only convicted
for the murders of Katie Baxter and Ellen Frith. Martin is given a whole
life term of imprisonment, and he's convicted
of all three murders. Ironically, thereby confirming
him as a serial killer. The police, after the
verdicts, called Martin a very dangerous man indeed. And also, add that he
was highly likely to kill again if he were ever to
be released from prison. In fact, he never will be. NARRATOR: Martin will
never be released, but the city of Nottingham
hasn't forgotten how he terrorized and callously
killed vulnerable members of their community. You've got that scenario,
someone who brazenly wanted to be Nottingham's
first serial killer, and then goes and does it at the
time that had been this fear. And I think it must have been a
huge relief for the people who did give evidence and
the people in the streets that they knew that this danger
really was off the streets, and he was going to be locked
up for the rest of his life. What makes Martin one of
Britain's most evil killers is that, here, we have a man
who is a nobody, essentially, and he's trying to
become somebody. And the only way he thinks
that he could achieve that is through
killing other people, is through violence and
fear and intimidation. What we mustn't
forget about this case, because they are at the center
of it, are the three victims. Ellen, Katie, and Zoe,
three really young girls. Katie was 18 years old. And they all became
involved in this community, a community in which they
were all really liked. Everybody talks really
fondly about them. They were each from
really nice families, and all three girls
are described as really bubbly and really friendly. And to think that they had their
life snatched away from them by this evil man, Mark Martin,
because they had the misfortune to bump into him during
their young lives is absolutely tragic. NARRATOR: Mark Martin was a
power hungry narcissist who inserted himself into
the homeless community to control them by using fear. He ruthlessly preyed on
their vulnerabilities to satisfy his need
for recognition and went on to take the lives of
three unsuspecting young women, making Mark Martin one of the
world's most evil killers. [music playing]
