Did Police Ignore a Serial Killer? | Forensic Files

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23-year-old Anthony Wgate lived and breathed fashion. It was his dream to be a famous designer and in 2010 he took
the first steps to make that happen. Anthony left his hometown of Hull in northeastern England to study fashion in
London. With his clever intellect, natural talent, and sense of humor, it didn't take him long to settle into life
in the big city and develop some solid friendships. free to be himself. His mother described
the move as transforming Anthony from a sicknet to a swan. Although he was committed to achieving
his career goals, finances were an ongoing issue for Anthony. He mostly survived off his governmentbacked
student loan. While this helped cover the basics, it didn't stretch very far, and Anthony found himself looking for
other ways to make ends meet. By 2014, Anthony, who was openly gay, started turning to occasional escort
work. He was picky about his clientele, most of whom were older, well-off men he
met online, and who treated him with respect. Anthony was also very safety conscious. When organizing a date with a
new client, he always asked them for a photograph and an address ahead of time. He'd then send this information to a
close friend so that someone always knew where he was going and with whom. He typically organized to meet his
clients in a public place before joining them at their home or a hotel, looping his friends in on his movements as he
went. He also carried a pair of scissors or a small knife as a form of protection.
By June 2014, Anthony was busy with exams and down to his last 40 lb. He logged into his account on Sleepy Boy,
an online directory for male escorts and sex workers, and responded to a message
from a man named Joe Dean. Joe offered to pay Anthony £800 for a full night of his services.
Anthony was a little suspicious. He typically charged between £200 and £400 for 2 hours. So he was unsure why Jod
Dean had offered such a high rate without even trying to negotiate. Joe also said he lived in Barking, a
Riverside town in East London that is considered the least prosperous area in the entire capital and has some of the
highest poverty rates in the UK. It didn't make much sense to Anthony that someone who lived in Barking would
offer to pay so much. Thinking it sounded too good to be true, Anthony asked Jodine how he could afford
such an offer. Joe explained that he was simply housesitting for a friend who was
overseas. Satisfied with that explanation, Anthony asked Joe to send through his photo,
address, and date of birth. The two then arranged to meet at Barking Station on the evening of Tuesday, June
17. Anthony texted all of the details through to a friend, followed quickly by another text that explained, "In case I
get killed. 10 weeks later, on the morning of Thursday, August 28, 2014, a woman named
Barbara Denim was walking her dog through the historic St. Margaret's Churchyard in central Barking.
The churchyard stands on the side of the ancient Barking Abbey ruins and is one of the oldest Christian sites in
England. It features monuments from medieval times as well as the graves of many
prominent residents who lived in the area between the 17th and 19th centuries. It was a route Barbara took often as she
enjoyed the peace and quiet of its weaving pathways and surrounding greenery. But as Barbara made her way through the
back of the churchyard at around 9:00 that morning, she noticed something out of the ordinary.
Sitting up against the wall was a young man. He was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses, but they weren't on
properly, and his legs were stretched out straight with one leg draped over the other.
At first, Barbara thought the man must have had a big night and was sleeping it off. She'd walked her dog through the
same area the previous evening, and he hadn't been there then. But something about the way he was
positioned didn't seem right to Barbara. If the man had passed out, surely he would be lying on the ground instead of
sitting in such a way. Barbara approached the man and noticed that his clothes looked slightly
disheveled. She reached out to touch him. His skin was cold. Barbara called emergency services and
the police. Paramedics promptly arrived at the scene, declaring the man to be deceased. A search of his body didn't
immediately indicate a cause of death. There were no visible injuries, and the officers didn't think he looked like a
typical drug user. With him were two black bags containing various possessions, including
toiletries, medication, paperwork, and an empty bottle of vodka. He was also carrying a wallet which
identified him as a 22-year-old Slovakian citizen named Gabriel Cavari. Although Gabrielle wasn't in possession
of a mobile phone, the fact that he had other items of value with him indicated to the police that he hadn't died as a
result of assault or robbery. They declared his death to be unexplained, but not suspicious. His
body was sent to be autopsied while the police examined the paperwork in Gabrielle's bag.
They discovered that he had only arrived in England around 6 weeks earlier, and there was only one name and address they
could link him to. 35-year-old John Pepe was working from home at his flat in South London when
the police knocked on his door and announced that Gabriel Cavari had been found dead in a barking cemetery.
John was flabbergasted. He had met Gabrielle on a gay networking site only weeks earlier. Knowing
Gabrielle was new to the country and looking for a place to live, Jon had offered his spare room while he found
his feet. Gabrielle warmly accepted with the intention of staying just a couple of
weeks. During that time, the two got along well. They went for drinks at the local
pub and watched DVDs at home. John found Gabrielle to be sweetnatured and intelligent. A recent university
graduate who spoke fluent English and was learning Arabic, Gabrielle hoped to work as an interpreter for the UK's
National Health Service or the police. In the meantime, he accepted a job in a shop and John helped him set up a bank
account so he could receive pay. The two week stay quickly turned into six. But John's flat was small and
undergoing building work. So Gabrielle started looking for somewhere else to live. On Thursday, August 21, 2014, he
suddenly announced that he found a flat chair embarking and would be moving out the next day.
John was a little takenback, but he didn't pry. The two had a farewell drink together and Gabrielle moved out on
Friday, August 22, with John letting him know he was welcomed back if things didn't work out at the new place.
After he left, Gabrielle sent Jon a friendly text message from an unknown number.
3 days later, on Tuesday, August 26, Jon messaged Gabrielle to see how he was settling in. There was no reply.
John Pepe couldn't tell the police much about Gabriel. He knew that he'd previously lived in Spain with his
boyfriend and that his Facebook account was under the slightly different name of
Gabriel Klene, but Jon couldn't shed any light on how Gabrielle might have died.
He still had a key to Jon's flat, which made it unlikely that he died of exposure.
Besides, it was still summer and the weather had been warm. And as far as John was aware, Gabrielle wasn't
suicidal and he didn't use drugs. After the police left, John struggled to wrap his head around Gabriel's death.
Feeling unsettled and wanting to know what had happened, he sent a text to the unknown phone number that Gabriel
contacted him from shortly after moving out and asked the recipient to call him back.
The owner of the phone was a man named Cosmo. He called John and explained that he'd
met Gabrielle online a couple of years earlier and that the two had caught up a few times after Gabriel moved to the UK.
When John broke the news that Gabriel was dead, Cosmo sounded genuinely shocked and upset.
He said he'd last seen Gabrielle after he left at John's place, dropping him off in Upton Park so he could travel on
to his new flat in Barking. Cosmo didn't know where exactly Gabriel had moved to or with whom, but he did
recall that Gabrielle used his phone to send a message to his new flatmate. Cosmo checked his phone, but couldn't
find the message, concluding that Gabrielle must have deleted it. Sharing J's concerns, Cosmo contacted
his phone provider and obtained the number that Gabrielle had texted. Jon then messaged it asking the
recipient to contact him regarding Gabrielle. He never heard back. On Wednesday, September 10, a message
appeared on Gabrielle's Facebook page from someone called John Luck. According to Lux's profile, he was a
21-year-old former porn actor from Los Angeles who was currently living in the next town over from Barking.
Gabrielle's ex-boyfriend, Thierry, who lived in Spain, saw the post from John Luck and messaged him privately to let
him know that Gabrielle had died. "Am so, so sorry," Luck responded. "He was such a nice guy."
Luck told Thierry that he was the person Gabriel had gone to stay with after moving out of John Pepe's place on
August 22. He said they'd gotten along well and had slept together, but that Gabrielle spent
a lot of time on the gay dating app Grinder. He began talking to an older man named
Tony, who seemed desperate for Gabrielle to go and stay with him, even offering him money to do so.
Luck said that on the morning of Sunday, August 24, he was getting ready to leave
for uni when Tony arrived at his place. Tony and Gabrielle went for a walk, and when they returned 45 minutes later,
Tony started packing Gabrielle's things into his car, and they then left together.
John Luck didn't know much about Tony other than the fact that he drove a green Toyota, had white hair, and spoke
with an Irish accent. He told Thierry he'd try and find out some more details about him.
Meanwhile, Gabriel's post-mortem examination indicated that his death was caused by a drug overdose.
There was no evidence of bruising, wounds, or any other injuries. Samples were taken for toxicological
testing and the result confirmed that Gabrielle had taken a fatal dose of gamma hydroxybutyrate or GHB.
GHB is an illegal and potent central nervous system depressant used primarily as a recreational drug known for its
euphoric and seditive effects. It is also considered to be a date rape drug due to being hard to detect if slipped
into a drink. There is a very fine line between what constitutes a recreational dose of GHB
and a potentially fatal one, especially if mixed with alcohol or other drugs, as
it was in Gabrielle's case. Testing had also revealed a low blood alcohol reading as well as high levels
of mephadone, a synthetic stimulant that is often described as being like a mix between speed, ecstasy, and cocaine.
Based on those findings, the police declared Gabriel's death to be from a mixed drug overdose.
The Barking area had a high incidence of drug use, and drugrelated deaths weren't
uncommon. Plus, in the police's view, Gabrielle was essentially unhoused and therefore
more vulnerable. But what was initially considered to be a fairly opensh case soon became
something else entirely. Just after 11:00 on the morning of Saturday, September 20, 2014, barking
resident Barbara Denim took her dog on their usual walk through St. Margaret's Churchyard.
Undeterred by the grizzly discovery of Gabrielle Cavari's body just 23 days earlier, Barbara once again followed the
paths that weaved through the back of the churchyard. But when she got to the spot against the
wall where Gabrielle's body had been found, she froze. "I don't believe this," Barbara thought.
"This can't be." Sitting in the same L-shaped position as Gabrielle was another young man.
Barbara approached the man. He was tall and thin with short, dark hair. A blue bed sheet was draped over him and there
was a black table mat underneath his legs. He was cold to the touch and it was obvious that he'd been dead for some
time. On his chest was a plastic envelope with a messy handwritten note inside. I am sorry to everyone, mainly my
family, it read. But I can't go on anymore. I took the life of my friend Gabrielle. We was just having some fun
at a mate's place, and I got carried away and gave him another shot of G. I didn't notice while we were having sex
that he had stopped breathing. I tried everything to get him to breathe again, but it was too late. It was an accident,
but I blamed myself for what happened, and I didn't tell my family I went out. I know I would go to prison if I go to
police, and I can't do that to my family. At least this way I can be with Gabrielle again. I hope he will forgive
me. Please do not blame the guy I was with last night. We only had sex then I left.
He knows nothing of what I have done. I have taken what g I had left with sleeping pills.
Feeling dizzy now. So hoping you understand my writing. I dropped my phone on way here. So should be in grass
somewhere. Sorry to everyone. Love always, Daniel. P.W. Barbara called the police and they
promptly arrived at the scene. In Daniel's pockets, they found a small brown bottle containing GHB as well as
some white powder, an unused syringe, and a toric. There was no visible cause of death, but
based on the evidence at hand, the police assumed they were dealing with an intentional overdose.
While Daniel's body was taken away to be autopsied, the police got to work tracking down his family to deliver the
news. Adam Witworth was at home when the police knocked on his door to tell him that his son had died.
Adam couldn't believe what he was hearing. 23-year-old Daniel was his only child,
and the two had an incredibly tight bond. Adam had raised Daniel as a single parent, and he'd always been the apple
of his father's eye. 6 years earlier, Adam met his partner, Amanda, and she too fell in love with
Daniel, proudly taking on the role of stepmother. The idea that Daniel could have taken
his own life was unbelievable to Adam and Amanda. Although Daniel had struggled a bit
growing up and had some ongoing issues with his mental health, life had been going well for him recently.
He was in a stable, long-term relationship with his live-in boyfriend, was close to his family, and had a
talent for cooking that had led to a career as a chef. Having worked for a catering company for
some time, Daniel had recently been offered a position working at a spa resort in Kent, which was much closer to
where he lived, and he was looking forward to the shorter commute. He and his boyfriend had plans to move
and had even been talking about marriage. Adam told the police that Daniel had a
very reserved personality and that while he could sometimes go overboard with alcohol, he never touched drugs.
He also had no connection to barking and Adam couldn't think of any reason for him to be there.
The police didn't tell Daniel's parents about the contents of his purported suicide note. Instead, they emailed
through a copy of the bottom of the note, which contained his final goodbye, and asked if they recognized the
handwriting. Adam and Amanda couldn't be sure. The sample was only short, and the digital
copy wasn't very clear. Also, the vast majority of their recent written communication with Daniel had
been via text. Without seeing more of the letter, they couldn't make an accurate judgment as to
whether or not the writing was his. The police told them not to worry. They would have a handwriting expert analyzed
the letter against some birthday cards from Daniel that the Witworths had provided.
As for the letter, the police said that only Adam could see it in its entirety and only in due course.
Meanwhile, Daniel's autopsy provided no clear cause of death until toxicological
testing confirmed what investigators presumed from the get-go. Like Gabrielle Cavari before him, Daniel
Witworth had died from a fatal overdose of GHB. Daniel's parents were desperate to see
the note for themselves, not to ascertain whether or not he had written it, but to see if it offered any clues
as to why he'd taken his life. No matter which way they looked at it, they just couldn't believe that Daniel
would ever kill himself. The police eventually told them how Daniel had said that he was riddled with
guilt after accidentally killing someone, but his parents didn't believe that either.
Just days before Daniel's death, the Witworths held a small family gathering at their place. Daniel had been his
usual self, showing no signs of distress or upset. Daniel's parents knew him to be a caring
person. If he'd been responsible for someone's death, he wouldn't have been able to keep that hidden.
Likewise, Daniel's boyfriend hadn't noticed anything about his behavior to indicate that something was wrong. nor
could he think of a time when Daniel's whereabouts were unaccounted for for long enough to have committed the
alleged crime. Weeks later, the police took the Witworths to see the spot where Daniel
was found. Standing in St. Margaret's Churchyard, they found themselves asking even more
questions. Daniel wasn't religious, so if he was going to kill himself, why do it in a
churchyard? and why in barking of all places. Daniel had a slight build. How then, his
parents wondered, had he physically carried a grown man out of a mate's house, as the letter claimed, and all
the way to this spot without raising any alarms. After visiting the site, Adam and Amanda
were finally shown the full suicide note. They prepared themselves for an emotional onslaught, but were instead
surprised to find that the note was oddly cold and clinical. Nothing about it sounded like Daniel's
voice, and it seemed strange that he hadn't mentioned any specific family members.
They were also struck by the strangeness of the line, "I didn't tell my family I
went out." Daniel hadn't lived at home for years, and his parents had no idea of his daily
comingings and goings, so why write that? And who was the man he said he'd been with on the night that he died?
The Witworth shared their concerns with the police, who told them to remember that Daniel had been under the influence
of drugs, which could have affected how he wrote. As for the man he'd been with, they
didn't know who that was and said they probably never would. While all this was going on, Gabriel
Cavari's ex-boyfriend, Thierry, received another Facebook message from John Luck,
the man who claimed Gabrielle had mysteriously gone off with someone he'd met on Grinder in the days before he
died. "Hey, mate," Luck wrote. have managed to find the guy Gab left with. His name is
Tony Ferry. He lives in Kilburn Park. Luck explained that he'd messaged Tony to ask what had happened to Gabrielle.
Tony told him that Gabrielle only spent one night with him. During that time, he
said Gabrielle had been chatting to a young guy named Dan on Grinder. Dan invited Gabrielle to a sex party in
Barking and Gabrielle agreed to go. Dan went to Tony's house and the three had a drink together and chatted for a
while before Gabrielle grabbed all his stuff and left for the party with Dan. When Luck told Tony that Gabrielle was
dead, Tony told him to leave him alone, saying that he wanted nothing to do with
it. Over time, John Luck managed to obtain some further information, which he also
shared on Facebook. Apparently, the party Gabriel had gone to was what was known as a chemex party,
a gathering where guests use drugs to facilitate and enhance long sexual sessions with multiple partners.
These sessions can last for days and often involve unprotected, high-risk sexual activity.
Luck said that during these parties, older men were known to ply the younger ones with the drugs and then take
advantage of them once they passed out. They gave them shots with the dope inside, he wrote. And coke, all kinds of
[ __ ] Tierry shared everything he knew with Gabriel's former flatmate, John Pape,
who was still struggling to make sense of Gabriel's death. Unsatisfied with the police version of
events and convinced there was more to Gabriel's overdose than met the eye, John sat at his computer in the days
following Gabriel's death and tried to find some answers. Into a search engine, he typed
unexplained deaths embarking. As he scrolled through the most recent links, a newspaper article from just 2
months earlier left him stunned. It was 4:05 on the morning of Thursday, June 19, 2014, when a call came through
to 999, the UK's National Emergency Services Line, requesting an ambulance on Cook Street in Barking.
There's a young boy, the mail caller said. Looks like he's collapsed outside. I don't know. Looks like he's collapsed
or had a seizure or something or he's just drunk. The operator asked the man for the phone
number he was calling from. The man mumbled something about having to get into his car before the call abruptly
disconnected. An ambulance quickly arrived on Cook Street, a short stretch of road housing
several blocks of multi-story flats and parking spaces, but was unable to locate
the collapsed individual. The 999 operator traced the number and called the man back, asking him to
confirm the incident's location. Oh, I've just driven away now," the man said, adding that he'd only seen the
collapsed person while driving past, but that he'd looked about 20 years old. He
didn't know if he was still breathing or not. Eventually, at 4:18 a.m., the ambulance
officer located the individual sitting on the ground outside a block of flats at 62 Cook Street.
He was propped up against the wall with his t-shirt scrunched up as though he'd been pulled along. He was extremely cold
to the touch, and the officer could tell that he'd been deceased for quite some time.
The ambulance officer covered the man's body with a blanket and phoned the police.
The first two attending police officers searched the man's belongings and identified him as 23-year-old Anthony
Walgate, a fashion design student from Golders Green in Northwest London. Anthony was in possession of a small
carry all, his bank card, his public transport card, several prescription medications, and a small brown bottle
containing white powdery residue. He had no mobile phone and the fly on his jeans was undone and broken.
The officers also noticed what looked like a footprint on Anony's chest. Coupled with the positioning of his body
and the fact that the caller who reported finding him had been described as being unsure and apprehensive, they
wondered if they were dealing with a suspicious death. The police inquired as to whether there
were any CCTV cameras in the area, but no relevant footage was found. They traced the phone number of the 999
caller and identified him as 39-year-old Steven Port. They also discovered that he lived in
the very building that Anony's body was found in front of. Police knocked on his door, but there
was no answer. A forensic medical examiner arrived on the scene and declared that Anthony had
likely been dead for around 8 hours, possibly longer, with rigor mortise having already set in. However, they
dismissed the apparent footprint on his chest, identifying it as hypothesis, a natural part of the decomposition
process where blood or fluid accumulates in the body. They also noted that epilepsy should be
looked into as a possible cause of death and deemed that whatever had happened to
Anthony, it didn't look suspicious. But the crime scene manager was concerned about the positioning of
Anony's body, as the location where he was found didn't seem like a place where somebody would be sitting.
She also noted that his underwear was on backwards and inside out, and the t-shirt he was wearing looked much too
big for his slender frame. Finding no obvious wounds or signs of trauma, she arranged for his body to
undergo a special post-mortem. She suspected they were likely dealing with a drugrelated death, but couldn't
rule out the possibility of third-p party involvement. Meanwhile, the flatmate of Steven Port,
the man who had called 999, came home and let the police inside. They found Port asleep in bed and woke
him up. Port explained to the police that he'd arrived home at around 4:00 a.m. after working a night shift to find
the young man lying on the ground blocking the communal entrance to the building.
In an attempt to wake him up, Port slapped the man in the face. This caused him to make a gurgling
sound, but it didn't wake him up. Port then dragged the man by the armpits and propped him up against the wall before
going inside, calling an ambulance, and going straight to sleep. Port's account that Anthony had made a
gurgling sound at around 4:00 a.m. was at odds with the medical examiner's finding that Anthony was already
deceased hours before the discovery of his body. But Port's dragging of Anthony did
explain why his t-shirt was tucked up and why the special postmortem conducted the next day found signs of bruising.
Anony's cause of death couldn't be ascertained, but the findings were consistent with a drug overdose.
Samples were sent away for further toxicological testing. With the results not expected back for a
couple of months, the police spoke to some of Anony's friends and learned that the fashion student moonlighted as an
occasional escort. They were also told that on Tuesday, June 17, 2014, Anthony had left to spend
the night embarking with a client named Jodine. According to a friend of Anony's named
China, Anthony had taken some poppers with him on this visit, short acting recreational drugs, which are inhaled to
give the user a mild euphoric rush and enhance sexual experience. But China was adamant that beyond the
use of poppers, Anthony didn't take any drugs and would never do so with a client.
If he had died of an overdose, she insisted that his drink must have been spiked or something else untoward had
happened. Anthony had shown China a photo of Jodine and later sent her his birth date
and address, which he gave as being on St. Tan's Road just meters from the Cook Street flat where Anthony was found.
Although Jodine's date of birth made him 9 years younger than Steven Port, the police were still suspicious about
Port's version of events. They showed China a photo of Steven Port. She said she was 97% sure that he
and Jodine were one and the same. While all of this had been going on, Anony's mother, Sarah, was holidaying
overseas with her phone switched off, rendering her uncontable. 3 days after Anony's body was found, she
turned her phone back on and discovered the tragic news of her son's death. Sarah immediately rushed back to England
and was horrified to discover that the police believed Anthony had died of a drug overdose.
To Sarah, that was simply not possible. She and Anthony had always been close, and she was certain he would never take
illegal drugs. She was flumxed as to why the police weren't making a bigger deal about him
not being in possession of his phone, which she told them Anthony was practically glued to. He'd also been
mugged somewhat recently and had been incredibly safety conscious ever since. Sarah was convinced that Anthony had
fallen victim to foul play. She asked the police to track his phone or check his laptop's activity, but according to
her, they said that was too expensive. However, they did run a background check on Steven Port and discovered that he
had previously been accused of rape. On New Year's Day of 2013, a young man called Jacob Flynn, not his real name,
phoned the police to report that Port, his on andoff boyfriend of 2 years, had plied him with alcohol and poppers, then
raped him once he was incapacitated. According to Jacob, it wasn't the first time that Port used drugs and alcohol to
take advantage of him. Jacob was homeless at the time, having gone through a bad breakup, and was
described as being acutely vulnerable. Port was arrested that same day, but Jacob quickly withdrew his complaint.
While he maintained that the sex was non-consensual and he was uncomfortable about the amount of substances Port had
given him, Jacob said he'd been too scared to tell Port this, writing in his statement.
Steven would not have known that I did not want to do these sexual acts as I never said anything to indicate this.
The police took a sample of Port's DNA, but didn't press charges or pursue further action.
On Thursday, June 26th, one week after Anthony Walgate's body was found, the police arrested Steven Port for lying to
them, and he agreed to be interviewed. Port gave the police two more bogus stories before admitting that he had
invited Anthony over to his place for paid sex on the night of Tuesday, June 17, 2014.
He said that the two had slept for most of the next day and that he then left Anthony alone in his flat while he went
to work a night shift. Port said that when he came home at around 3:45 the next morning, he found
Anthony in his bed, naked and unconscious, but still alive from what he assumed to be a self-administered
drug overdose. In a state of panic and fearing that the police might mistakenly think he had
something to do with it, Port said that he dressed Anony's body and then dragged
him outside before calling 999. When asked by one of the interviewing officers why he didn't just leave
Anthony in bed before calling for help, Port replied that he thought it would quote look suspicious like last time.
The police formally charged Port with attempting to pervert the course of justice, but Anony's death was still
officially considered unexplained, and no charges were laid against Por in that regard.
He was released on bail while the investigation into Anony's unexplained death continued.
A little over 2 months after Anony's death, the results of his toxicological tests came back, confirming that Anthony
had died from a fatal overdose of GHB. The powder in the bottle found in his pockets was also confirmed to be GHB.
By this point, Gabriel Cavari's former housemate, John Pepe, was still trying to make sense of Gabrielle's death.
When an online search for other unexplained deaths in Barking took him to an article about Anthony Walgate's
death two months earlier, John couldn't believe what he was reading. He typed the Cook Street address where
Anthony was found into Google Maps and was stunned to find that it was just a couple of blocks away from St.
Margaret's Churchyard, a mere 5 or 6 minute walk. For John, the similarities between
Gabrielle and Anony's deaths were too striking to be ignored. Here were two young gay men of similar
age, both found dead in similar circumstances, just 400 m from one another. The day that Anony's toxicology results
came back was the same day that Daniel Witworth's body was found in St. Margaret's Churchyard.
John Pepe was aware that a man called John Luck had been telling stories on Facebook about Gabriel going to a chemex
party with a man named Dan. Thinking this information could be helpful to the investigation, John Pape
went to the police to tell them everything he knew. However, he was surprised to find that the police seemed
more or less uninterested. An officer said that someone would get back to him, but they never did.
Unsure what to do next, John reached out to two organizations that he knew had close links with the police. One, a news
site focusing on LGBTQ plus issues, and the other a support group for LGBTQ plus
survivors and victims of abuse. Both organizations contacted the police to relay the information Jon had
provided and to let them know that he was willing to help if needed. Police said that wouldn't be necessary
because none of the deaths were being treated as suspicious. But John's initial curiosity had turned
to genuine concern. As he later told a documentary released by the BBC with the death count rising
to three men, he was worried that his connection to Gabrielle could mean his own life was in danger.
John called the police and told them about his safety concerns, demanding, "If this is murder, you have to tell
me." The police told him not to worry. What they were dealing with was unusual, but
it wasn't homicide. Just under a year later, in June 2015, an inquest was held to examine the
circumstances of Daniel Witworth's death. During their dealings with the police,
Daniel's family had been clear that they couldn't be certain that the handwriting
on the supposed suicide note was Daniels. The police had assured them that the writing would be examined by an expert.
They were therefore shocked to learn during the inquest that this expert assessment had never taken place.
Yet, the police said that the handwriting had been positively identified as Daniel's by comparing it
to writing from his diary. This wasn't the only detail that Daniel's family was now hearing about
for the first time. They were told that bruising had been found on Daniel's chest as well as under
his armpits, which the pathologist attributed to him being moved prior to his death.
While the police acknowledged this possibility, they reasoned that the bruising could have been caused during
consensual rough sex, citing Daniel's reference in his suicide note to spending the night with another man.
One officer claimed that Daniel clearly led a double life that his partner knew nothing of.
The police told the coroner that attempts had been made to find the man mentioned in Daniel's suicide note with
no success. It was also the first time that Daniel's family heard his body had been found on
a blue bed sheet. The detective told the coroner that the sheet hadn't been tested for DNA because
they didn't think an external party was involved in Daniel's death. The bottle of GHB found in Daniel's
pockets wasn't tested for fingerprints for the same reason. The coroner was critical of these
decisions, saying that the failure to test these items or identify the man Daniel mentioned in his note meant there
were many aspects of his death that hadn't been answered by the police investigation.
She ultimately recorded an open verdict, concluding that she couldn't rule out the possibility of third-p partyy
involvement. This didn't mean that the police were required to reopen the investigation.
As far as they were concerned, the open finding essentially was a conclusion. Daniel's parents were bitterly
disappointed by this. In addition to being unsettled by the new information that had come to light,
they did their best to move forward. Still struggling with the idea that Daniel could have taken his own life,
they sought help from suicide support organizations to accept the unacceptable. 2 months after the inquest on Monday,
September 14, 2015, the family of 25-year-old Jack Taylor, was starting to worry.
Jack, a forklift driver and warehouse operative for a champagne company, lived with his parents in Dagnum, the
neighboring suburb to Barking. That Saturday night, he had gone out drinking with some friends before
returning home at around 1:00 a.m. He chatted briefly with his dad and then went to bed, or so his parents thought.
When they woke up the next morning, Jack wasn't there, and he didn't return home
for their regular Sunday lunch. Although Jack had had girlfriends in the past, his parents suspected he might be
gay or bisexual. They convinced themselves he had likely gone to meet up with someone and would
reappear at any moment. But when there still wasn't any word from him by Monday afternoon, their
anxiety spiked. Jack was a caring and considerate young man who always looked out for his
family. It was completely out of character for him to stay away this long without letting someone know what he was
up to. Just as Jack's mom was phoning one of his sisters to see if she had heard
anything, the police knocked on her door. Without so much as asking her to sit down, one of the officers announced that
Jack was dead. Several hours earlier, a groundskeeper had been walking through St. Margaret's
Churchyard embarking when they found his body propped up against a wall. Police had found Jack to be in
possession of an unused syringe, a small brown bottle, and some white powder. With no obvious signs of injury, their
presumption was that Jack had died of a drug overdose. He had his wallet with him, but no
mobile phone. Jack's parents were beside themselves. Nothing about what they were hearing
made any sense. Jack was not into drugs and due to his job as a forklift operator, he was subject to regular drug
testing at work. He'd never once come back with a positive result. He was also in the process of obtaining a security
license and wouldn't do anything to jeopardize his ambitions. But the subsequent autopsy revealed a
needle mark in his right arm, supporting the theory that Jack had died of a drug
overdose. A further search of his clothing also revealed that he was carrying a toric
and antiseptic wipes. Samples were sent for toxicological testing along with the bottle and powder
found at the scene. Jack's two sisters, Jenny and Donna, were highly suspicious of the police
version of events. Although Jack was the youngest of the three siblings, he had always looked out
for Jenny and Donna as though he was the oldest. Funny, caring, and considerate,
he was considered the life and soul of the Taylor family, and in their view, there was simply no way that he could
have died of a voluntary drug overdose. Setting aside the fact that Jack was opposed to drugs, there was a notable
problem with the autopsy findings. Jack was right-handed and the needle mark was found on the same side.
If he'd really injected himself, it stood to reason that the needle mark should have been in his left arm.
Furthermore, Jack always carried his wallet in his right pocket. When his body was found, it was in his left.
The fact that he didn't have his phone with him was also suspicious. Jack never went anywhere without it and
even carried a separate charging case around so that he never ran out of battery.
10 days passed with the Taylor family hearing nothing else from the police. On the 11th day, Jenny and Donna called
the police themselves to see what was going on. They were shocked to learn that no
further investigation was being conducted. The sisters couldn't believe it. They
had been conducting their own research online, and it hadn't taken them long to discover that the bodies of Gabrielle
Cavari and Daniel Witworth had also been found in St. Margaret's Churchyard just
one year earlier in the abbey on the opposite side of the wall from where Jack was found.
According to their research, the area had a reputation for being a gay beat, a place where men could meet for anonymous
sexual encounters. With three young men in their early 20s, all dying of drug overdose within meters
of one another, Jenny and Donna brought the information they'd found to the police and asked if there could be a
connection between the three deaths. The answer was a firm no. Daniel, they were told, died by suicide,
while Gabrielle had been homeless and killed by accident. Undeterred, the Taylor sisters continued
with their own investigation, staying up late into the night to see what they could piece together.
When they learned about Anthony Walgate's death on nearby Cook Street, their suspicions only grew.
They discovered that Gabrielle Cavari had been using Grinder in the leadup to his death and wondered if Jack could
have met up with someone using the same dating app. Jenny had seen Jack using an app with a
yellow icon like Grinder had, and she suggested this possibility to the police. They palmed it off, saying the app was
likely Snapchat, which had a yellow white on too. The Taylor sisters continued to raise
questions, so the police eventually agreed to take them to the site where Jack's body was found.
Upon seeing it for themselves, Jenny and Donna were more convinced than ever that
Jack, who was an impeccably neat and tidy person, would never have ventured to such a dirty area alone.
Much to their surprise, the police then told them that they had found CCTV footage from the early morning hours of
Sunday, September 13, that confirmed Jack had met up with an unidentified man. The pair met at Barking Station before
walking down the street together, then parted ways once they reached Barking Town Square.
The police said that after that, Jack was captured in the footage alone heading towards the churchyard where his
body was later found. Jenny and Donna found this hard to believe. In their view, it made much
more sense that Jack had met up with the unidentified man for sex and the two had
gone off somewhere together. Wondering if the man seen walking into the churchyard could have been someone
else entirely, they pushed for the CCTV footage to be reviewed. Eventually, the police relented.
Upon closer inspection, they realized that the Taylor sisters were right. The man walking towards the churchyard
wasn't Jack Taylor, and Jack never parted company with the unidentified man he'd met at Barking Station.
At around the same time, the preliminary results of Jack's toxicological testing
came back, confirming that he had died of an overdose of GHB. The tailor were convinced that the man
Jack met up with had played a role in his death. But when they saw the CCTV footage for themselves, they couldn't
identify him. Although the police were initially hesitant to release an image of the man
to the public, eventually they agreed to do so. On Wednesday, October 14, 2015, 1 month
after Jack Taylor's death, an officer had the CCTV footage up on his computer. A detective who happened to be walking
past caught a glimpse of the screen. What he saw gave him goosebumps. He had worked on Anthony Walgate's case
and he recognized the man right away. It was Steven Port. As soon as Steven Port was identified as
the last person seen with the Jack Taylor, the police realized the gravity of the situation.
The detectives who led the investigations into the deaths of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Cavari, Daniel
Witworth, and Jack Taylor were all called into an urgent meeting. Each of the files were compared, and the
suspiciously similar circumstances were laid out in detail. By the end of the meeting, the police
had no doubt they were dealing with a serial killer. By Steven Port's admission, they already
knew that Anthony had died in his flat. With CCTV footage now confirming that Port was the last man seen with the Jack
Taylor, police had concrete evidence linking him to two of the four victims. While there was nothing connecting him
to Gabriel or Daniel, the fact that their bodies were found just meters away from where Jax was discovered and that
they'd both died from GHB overdoses left police with little doubt that Port was behind those deaths, too.
On Thursday, October 15, Steven Port was brought to the police station for questioning over the four deaths.
The 40-year-old had lived in East London for most of his life, having moved out of his parents' house and into the flat
on Cook Street 8 years earlier. He'd been bullied at school and dropped out early to study art before working as
a chef when art school proved too expensive. Like many of his dating profiles proclaimed, Port was tall and athletic.
But while his profile pictures showed him with a head of strawberry blonde hair, Port was actually bald.
The blonde hair was a toupe that he typically wore when out in public. His hair wasn't the only thing he lied
about on the apps. Some of Port's profiles claimed that he was a TV chef. While Port had appeared in a single
episode of the popular reality cooking show Celebrity Master Chef, in reality he worked in the kitchen of a bus depot.
He also commonly lied about his age in a bid to appeal to young men. Port was open about the fact that he preferred
twinks, a slang word used by the gay community to describe men in their teens or 20s who are typically slim,
younglooking, and somewhat effeminate. He described the type of man he typically went for to the police and
said he sometimes invited these young men to parties where guests participated in group sex.
He admitted that Gabriel Cavari stayed at his flat for a couple of days back in late August 2014 after they met online.
During this time, he'd taken him to one such party, and that was the last he saw
of him. Port outright denied that he'd given Gabrielle any drugs, but said there was
a person at the party who had. While Port didn't know the man personally, he said his name was Daniel.
The police asked where this party had been held. Port said he didn't remember, nor did he
know whose house it was. Asked if he'd ever gone into the abbey behind St. Margaret's church. Port said
that he'd been to the church itself one Christmas, but never explored its surrounding grounds.
He was then told that three of the four men whose deaths police were investigating were found propped up
against the wall in the graveyard. Port began looking increasingly uncomfortable and said he hadn't been
aware of that. Steven, this is really serious. The detective said, "It's really important
that you tell us the absolute truth." Port fiddled nervously with his hands and fixed his gaze downward.
When shown a picture of Jack Taylor, Port studied it intently before saying he didn't recognize Jack and had never
met him. In fact, Port said Jack wasn't really his type as he looked older than the men
he typically went for. The interviewing detective asked Port outright if he had anything to do with
the Jack Taylor's death or if he'd administered him with any drugs. I did not know, Port replied. Definitely
not. No. Not buying his story for a second, police arrested Port on suspicion of
four counts of murder while a full-scale investigation titled Operation Lilford began.
In comparison to the previous investigations which were overseen by local police teams, Operation Lilford
was led by specialist homicide detectives and described as swift, painstaking, and thorough.
Experienced officers reviewed the available evidence and began looking into Port, starting with a review of his
computer and phone records. What they found quickly painted a harrowing picture.
Anthony Walgate was Port's first suspected victim. On June 13, 2014, just days before the pair met, Ported a
friend to say that he'd recently had sex with a man who was high on GHB and that
it had been quote like [ __ ] a rag doll. Seemingly inspired by this, Port had spent the day conducting online searches
for terms including sleeping pills, drugs, date rape, drug porn, boys being [ __ ] on G, and gay boys drugfucked
sleeping. That night, he logged into his sleepy boy account using his Jodine profile and
reached out to eight different male escorts, one of whom was Anthony Wolgate. Port asked each of the men for photos
and queried whether they would be available to spend that coming Tuesday night in barking.
By June 14, he was exchanging messages with Anthony while simultaneously searching for pornography that showed
young men being drugged and raped. This carried on until the evening of June 17 when Anthony arrived for the
overnighter as planned. Port, posing as Joe Dean, had offered Anthony £800 for one night of his
services. Police checked Port's financial records and discovered that he didn't have
anywhere near that much money in his account at the time, which suggested he never had any intention of paying.
Anthony last used his phone at around 1000 p.m. on Tuesday, June 17, when he met Port at Barking Station.
By 2:57 a.m. on Thursday, June 19, Port disconnected his laptop from the internet and then 1 hour later called
999 to report Anony's death. This was where the police made their first big mistake. A forensic examiner
on the scene had declared that Anthony had been dead for around 8 hours, possibly longer.
This completely contradicted Port's account that he'd found Anthony unconscious but alive in his bed upon
his return from work. However, this information hadn't been passed on to the attending detective and
therefore didn't trigger further investigation. Reviewing the evidence of Operation
Lilford, investigators believed that Port had likely administered an overdose of GHB to Anthony sometime on Wednesday,
June 18, with the intention of raping him while he was unconscious. Whether intentionally or not, Anthony
died as a result. Port then went to work before calling 999 upon his return and fabricating the
story about finding Anthony unconscious from a self-administered overdose. Then came the next big mistake for
barking police in the UK. There are two distinct information systems used by law
enforcement. The first is the police national computer or PNC, a real-time system that
features records on convictions, cautions, reprimands, warnings, and arrests. The other is the police national
database, which keeps a record of soft local police intelligence, such as the details of allegations or investigations
that didn't lead to any further action or arrests. When Steven Port spoke to the police in
the wake of Anthony Walgate's death, a check of the PNC revealed the recent allegation from Port's ex-boyfriend,
Jacob Flynn, in which he claimed that he'd been drugged and raped by Port. Not only did the police not speak to
Jacob in the wake of Anony's death, if they had run a more thorough check on port using the PND, they would have
found that Jacob wasn't the only one who had accused him of drugging and sexual assault.
On Wednesday, June 4, 2014, 2 weeks before Anthony died, transport police responded to a call that a young man was
being assaulted at Barking Station. They arrived to find 20-year-old Ashton, not his real name, violently ill and in
a distressed state. He was incoherent, disoriented, unsteady on his feet, and vomiting green liquid.
But Ashton wasn't alone. Steven Port was with him, rifling through his bag. Port explained to the transport police
that he knew Ashton from an online dating site. He said they'd met up a couple of times before, but on this
particular night, he'd arrived home to find Ashton standing outside of his flat under the influence of GHB.
Port said that he'd taken Ashton to the station to try and get him home safe and
explained that he was going through his bag in an attempt to find his phone. According to Ashton, this wasn't the
case at all. He said that after meeting Port online, the two hung out a few times, and Ashton found Port to be a
very nice guy. But on this occasion, everything had changed. Ashton told the police he'd been at
Port's flat when Port gave him what he believed to be poppers to inhale. After that, Ashton said he fell asleep for
several hours. Upon waking, Port gave him something to drink that was clear and had a harsh taste.
It knocked Ashton out immediately. Ashton said that when he woke up, he was naked on the floor with an erection and
no memory of what had transpired. He said he needed to get home, which was when Port helped him to the station.
Ashton didn't press any charges because he was worried that his parents would find out, but the incident was recorded
on the police national database. Had the police bothered to run a PND check on port after they found Anthony
Walgate's body outside of his flat, they would have seen that he had a clear recent history of drugging and sexually
assaulting young men. Interestingly, they had run such a check on Anthony, but not on Port.
Even after they charged Port with attempting to pervert the course of justice for the initial lies he told
about Anthony, he still wasn't investigated further when it came to Anony's death.
Police had confiscated Port's computer as part of their investigation into his charge of perverting the course of
justice. But this was 10 months after Anony's death. And even then, the report submitted was lacking in relevant
detail. Had a full-scale search been conducted when Anony's body was found, Port's
online history would have revealed his disturbing and dangerous obsession, and as many later pointed out, three lives
could have been saved. When it comes to unexplained deaths, it is a foundational principle of forensic
science and criminal investigation that the case should be investigated as a homicide until the evidence proves
otherwise. It quickly became apparent to Operation Lford detectives that this hadn't been
followed when it came to any of the barking deaths. If the local police hadn't been so quick
to dismiss Gabriel Cavari as homeless and vulnerable, they might have discovered what Operation Lford
investigators did. That shortly after moving out of John Pepe's flat, Gabrielle texted a friend to say that
he'd moved into a new place in Barking. He shared a pinrop to Port's address on Cook Street, as well as some photos of
the inside of Port's flat. Port had even introduced Gabrielle to one of his neighbors, a man named Ryan,
texting him to come over and meet his quote, "New Slovakian twink flatmate." Ryan liked Gabriel and later texted Port
to see how things were going. Port responded suggestively, "I am taking good care of him." He He
Ryan had known Steven Port for years and described him to the BBC as having an insatiable thirst for young men.
Ryan lived across the street from Port and often saw men come and go from Port's flat, one after the other.
The last message sent from Gabriel's phone had been on the morning of August 25 when he texted a friend to say, "I am
fine." accompanied by a smiley face emoji. The next day, Port changed his phone number and sent Ryan a message saying
that Gabrielle had moved out to stay with some soldier guy who he'd been chatting with online.
Port wrote, "Shame, as I really liked him." A few days later, after Gabrielle's body
had already been found in the churchyard, he texted Ryan again asking if he'd seen Gabriel around, saying that
his phone had been off for the past few days. "Miss him," Port wrote. "Shame he went
off with other guy." As the days went by, Port added to this story, telling Ryan that Gabrielle had
apparently gone back to Spain to be with his boyfriend. As Gabrielle's death was initially
treated as a drug overdose, Ryan never heard anything about it in the news or through the grapevine and therefore
never had the opportunity to go to the police with this information. Eventually,
Port sent him a text that read, "I've got some really sad news, neighbor." Gabrielle has gone back home
and has picked up a mysterious illness and he's died. Whatever you do, don't mention this on Facebook to the friends
and family because obviously they're upset enough as it is. Meanwhile, Port used a fake Facebook
profile under the name of John Luck to contact Gabriel's boyfriend in Spain. He dripfed him information about
Gabrielle going off with an Irishman named Tony Ferry and later said he'd gone to a sex party in Barking with a
man called Dan whom he'd met on Grinder. Investigators confirmed the John Luck account belonged to Port by matching the
IP address used and comparing the grammar and spelling in Lux's messages to that of ports.
This was information John Pepe took to local police shortly after Gabriel died, which raised questions about how
different the outcomes might have been if police had taken his concerns seriously.
Investigators also discovered that just one week after Gabrielle died, Port began chatting with Daniel Witworth on a
gay dating site called Fitlads. He invited Daniel for dinner at his flat, saying they should meet for a
drink first. Quote, "So you know I'm not some psycho." The two continued chatting back and
forth until eventually deciding to meet on the afternoon of September 18. Daniel left work early and sent his
boyfriend a message to say that he'd be home late, marking the last contact he'd
had with anyone. At 10:30 the next morning, Port deleted his FitLad's account. Investigators concluded that Daniel was
likely already dead at this point and that Port later carried his body to the churchyard under the cover of darkness.
An expert compared Port's handwriting to the purported suicide note found on Daniel's body and confirmed without a
doubt that the note had been written by Steven Port. It was clear that he'd fabricated a
connection between Gabriel and Daniel to deflect attention from himself and it had worked.
Barking police had never so much as looked at a possible connection between Daniel and any other local men, despite
the note explicitly saying, "Please do not blame the guy I was with last night."
4 months after Daniel's death, Steven Port pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice in relation to the
initial lies he told about finding Anthony Walgate's body. On Monday, March 23, 2015, he was
sentenced to 4 months in prison, but was released on license just 2 months later
on Saturday, June 4. He immediately got back on the dating apps, and within 3 months, he met Jack
Taylor. Operation Lilford detectives discovered that shortly after Jack returned home
from a night out with friends in the early morning hours of Sunday, September 13, he went online and started chatting
to Steven Port on Grinder. At around 2:30 a.m., the two agreed to meet at Barking Station.
Jack set up the find my iPhone feature on his phone, called a cab, and arrived at their meeting place at 2:48 a.m.
CCTV cameras then tracked the two men as they walked towards Cook Street before disappearing from view.
This was the last confirmed sighting of Jack Taylor, and he had no further contact with anyone else from that point
on. 35 hours later, his body was found in St. Margaret's Churchyard. When detectives checked Steven Port's
phone and computer, they discovered that at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, September 13, he
blocked Jack Taylor's account on Grinder, effectively deleting the series of messages they'd exchanged.
Later that morning, Port deleted his Grinder account entirely, then texted his flatmate, who was out at the time,
discouraging him from returning home. Based on this series of events, the police believed that Port killed Jack
shortly after they'd arrived at his flat. He likely kept his body there all day before taking him to the churchyard
that night, planting the GHB and other supplies in his pockets to make it look like Jack overdosed while on his own.
He then disposed of Jack's phone to destroy any evidence of contact between them, just as he'd done with the three
men before. Based on the information gathered by Operation Lilford, Steven Port was
promptly charged with the murders of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Cavari, Daniel Witworth, and Jack Taylor.
But the investigation was far from over. Police were convinced that Port likely had other victims who hadn't been
identified. On his mobile phone, they'd found 83 homemade sex videos, six of which showed
him engaged in sexual activity with young men who appeared unconscious. They reviewed hundreds of previously
reported attacks for connections to port and partnered with LGBTQ plus charities
and support groups, appealing for any survivors of his abuse to come forward. Toby Irwin, not his real name, had never
forgotten something that happened to him back in 2012 when he was 19. Toby had been chatting with Steven Port
on Grinder and accepted an invitation to visit his flat. At first, everything seemed totally normal. Port was polite
and friendly, and nothing raised any red flags. He gave Toby a glass of red wine, and by
the time Toby finished it, he noticed that there was congeled powder in the bottom of the glass.
Suspecting his drink had been spiked, Toby began feeling dizzy and disoriented. Unable to think straight and barely
conscious, he realized he was being moved into the bedroom, but was powerless to do anything about it.
Port then undressed and raped him. Afterwards, Toby confided in a friend and sought medical advice, but didn't
report the incident to the police. A 22-year-old man who was suffering long-term effects of a head injury
caused by a criminal assault told the police that he'd visited Port's flat in January 2015, around the time that Port
was convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice. The man said that Port had spiked his
drink, rendering him unconscious. The next day, Port showed him a video of what had happened while he was blacked
out. The man had been raped. Shortly after Port was released from prison, he met Eric, not his real name,
on Grinder. Eric went to Port's flat for consensual sex, but made it clear that he was not interested in using any type
of drug. He agreed to let Port apply some lubricant inside his anus using a syringe type device, which Port called
an applicator. But as soon as the applicator was inserted, Eric felt a burning sensation
followed by numbing. He suspected that whatever port had inserted hadn't been a lubricant, but
some type of drug. Another man told the police a strikingly similar story, saying that he'd
eventually lost consciousness from whatever port had inserted and that he'd been penetrated while in this condition.
Another man who was also subject to the lubrication ruse told police he'd felt drunk, but managed to keep his bearings
and leave before anything further took place. Police read a series of text messages
sent between Port and one of his long-term partners. Their exchanges made it clear that around the time all of
this was going on, Port was experimenting with administering GHB anally, claiming it led to quicker
absorption time. Jacob Flynn, Port's ex-boyfriend, who'd previously reported him for sexual
assault, told the police that Port had once injected something into his anus under the pretense of applying
lubrication. whatever it was rendered him unconscious, at which point Port then penetrated him without his consent.
These reports, coupled with Port's sinister online search history, painted a clear picture about what had likely
happened to the four deceased men. After meeting each of them online and luring them to his flat, he pied them
with the GHP, likely without their consent, to fulfill his own desire of having sex with them while they were
unconscious. Whether he intended to kill the men or not, Port knew the risks involved,
especially after Anony's death, yet continued to offend in the same way. Operation Lulford detectives were able
to ascertain this information in a timely manner and with relative ease, which raised serious questions about
what the barking police missed along the way. It appeared that the only death that had
been investigated with any real vigor was Anthony Walgates, and even that was peppered with failures from the get-go,
along with failing to run a proper background check on port, not conducting a thorough search of his online history,
or double-checking the story he gave against Anony's post-mortem findings. There were other missed opportunities,
too. Anony's mother had insisted that Anthony never went anywhere without his mobile
phone. Convinced that he had been murdered, she'd encouraged the police to check
Anony's computer and retrieve his phone data, but her insistence was seemingly ignored.
Gabrielle Cavari's body was found 10 weeks later, and the police barely looked into his death, despite the many
similarities between what had happened to him and Anthony Wolgate. When Daniel Witworth's body was found 2
weeks after that, the staged suicide note claiming responsibility for Gabriel's overdose seemed to satisfy the
police. They dismissed the insistence of Daniel's family that none of it added up
and Daniel would never take his own life. The police hadn't even bothered to confirm whether or not Gabrielle and
Daniel knew one another. Inquiries made as part of Operation Lilford indicated there wasn't a single
piece of evidence suggesting the two men had ever met. Furthermore, on the night that Gabrielle
was believed to have been killed, phone records confirmed that Daniel brought some cakes home to his boyfriend before
going to the pub. He was nowhere near barking at the time. Had the police interviewed his boyfriend
after Daniel's body was found, they would have discovered this discrepancy right away.
During the inquest into Daniel's death, the police told the coroner that unsuccessful attempts were made to find
the man mentioned in Daniel's suicide note. This was actually false. No such attempts had been made.
Various people involved with the investigation claimed to have recommended that the bed sheet found
with Daniel be checked for DNA and the bottle of GHB be tested for fingerprints, but no such checks were
ever made. Despite these being basic routine steps in any investigation, Steven Port's DNA was already in the
police database at the time, and had these items been tested, they would have revealed an immediate connection.
Tests made as part of Operation Lilford confirmed that Port's DNA and fingerprints were on the bed sheet, the
suicide note, and the bottle of JHB planted on Daniel. The bottle was almost identical to the
one found on Anthony Walgate. Despite the fact that some of the same officers worked on several of the
Barking cases, none of these similarities were ever raised. When the families of the four deceased
men learned of all these missed opportunities, they believed prejudice and institutional homophobia was to
blame. In their view, the police made an assumption about the gay community that
impacted their judgment of the victims and their lifestyles. This allowed the police to accept their
deaths at face value. Peter Tatchel is a human rights activist best known for his work with the LGBTQ
plus community. He publicly condemned the police handling of the case, calling it
appalling that the four deaths were labeled unusual but not suspicious. If they'd been properly investigated,
then a public alert could have been issued to the gay community warning that a serial killer might be on the loose.
The police appeal for public information came in October 2015, a year too late. Tatchel stated
four young men were already dead. This appeal should have been made in August 2014 after the first two
killings. If the police had done this, further deaths may have been prevented. Two of these men might still be alive.
Tatchel said such investigative failures echoed those of other serial killings of
gay men, including the crimes of Dennis Nilson, as covered in episode 144 of Case File.
In an article for the Guardian, Tatchel said, "Although police relations with the LGBT community are vastly better
than two decades ago, this case is a wake-up call regarding the continued inadequate attitudes and behavior of
some officers." By the time Steven Port's trial commenced at London's Old Bailey in
October 2016, the 41-year-old faced a total of 29 charges. In addition to the four murder charges
for Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Cavari, Daniel Witworth, and Jack Taylor, he also faced seven counts of rape, four
counts of assault by penetration, and 10 counts of administering GHB to stupify for a sexual purpose.
Port pleaded not guilty to all charges, maintaining that all sexual activity between him and the complainants was
entirely consensual and that any drug was done voluntarily and without his administration.
Port took the stand in his own defense, telling the jury that on August 26th, 2014, he had taken Gabrielle to a party
where they'd met Daniel Witworth. He claimed that Gabrielle and Daniel then had sex together in front of around
11 other people before deciding they wanted some privacy. Port told them they could go back to his
flat and it was from there that the two had gone to the nearby churchyard to have sex.
Port claimed he had no idea what happened after that until 2 weeks later when Daniel confessed to him that he'd
accidentally administered a fatal drug overdose to Gabrielle. Daniel was allegedly worried that he'd
be caught by his DNA. Port said he encouraged Daniel to go to the police with the truth, but suggested
they have some fun first by taking drugs and having sex. It was after that, unbeknownst to him,
that Daniel went to the churchyard and took his own life. The prosecution told Port that it was
confirmed that Daniel had been at a pub with friends on the night that Gabrielle
was thought to have died. They asked how it was possible that he could have been in two places at once.
Port replied, "I have no idea. I just know it was as I remember it." When the prosecution pointed out that
the handwriting expert had proven beyond doubt that Port had written a suicide note, Port eventually conceded that he
had written it, but claimed he'd only done so at Daniel's request. He said he yed the line, "Do not blame
the guy I was with last night," after joking that he might be blamed himself. Backtracking on his previous claim that
he'd never met Jack Taylor, Port admitted that he had invited Jack to his flat and said that they had then gone to
the churchyard to have sex. He claimed that Jack had administered drugs to himself and Port then left him
alone, at which point he had been alive and well. Several of the men Port had been accused
of drugging and raping also bravely took the stand or provided victim impact statements.
Jacob Flynn said he couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible for the deaths of the four men as he believed he could
have done something to stop Port. The trial ran for 7 weeks before the jury delivered their verdict. For the
murders of Anthony, Gabriel, Daniel, and Jack, the outcome was the same. Guilty on all counts.
All up, Port was convicted of 22 offenses against 11 men. In handing down his sentence, the judge
was scathing of Port's version of events. He said that the stories Port fabricated
about Daniel being responsible for Gabrielle's death were wicked and monstrous lies, which must have caused
immense distress to Daniel's family. While the judge accepted that Port had likely only intended to harm his victims
rather than cause death, he pointed out that Port must have realized there was a
high risk of death, particularly after Anthony Walgate died. Besides, his intention to only cause
harm didn't mitigate the severity of what he'd done both to his victims and their berieved loved ones.
The judge added that it wasn't up to him to assess the competency and adequacy of
the police investigations, saying that was a matter to be examined by others. Sentencing Steven Port to life in
prison. The judge stated, "The defendant has been convicted of the murders of four young men. Each murder was
committed in the course of satisfying his lust for penetrating young men whom he had rendered unconscious by the
surreptitious administration of drugs. I have no doubt that the seriousness of the offending is so exceptionally high
that the whole life order is justified. Indeed, it is required. I decline to set a minimum term. The
result is a whole life sentence and the defendant will die in prison. Cheers and applause erupted from the
relatives of Port's victims. From the public gallery, someone shouted, "I hope you die a long, slow death, you piece of
shit." Investigators were pleased with the outcome with one senior officer describing Port as one of the most
dangerous individuals he'd encountered in almost 30 years on the job. Life in prison was the only appropriate
punishment. Outside court, Jack Taylor's sister, Donna, who had been instrumental in
unveiling Port as a serial killer, told reporters, "We finally have justice for Jack and the other boys. A sick and
twisted scumbag will never be able to hurt or destroy any other family's life. While Steven Port's conviction was
welcome news for his victim's loved ones, the indisputable evidence against him raised serious questions about how
the police had missed the connections between the four deaths. Before Port sentence was even handed down, London's
Metropolitan Police referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct over potential vulnerabilities
in its response to the deaths. All up, 17 officers were examined for potential misconduct.
While the commission identified systemic failings within the Metropolitan Police,
it confirmed that none of the highlighted officers were found to have breached professional standards and
therefore none would be disciplined for their handling of the case. The loved ones of Port's victims were
outraged, but hoped that upcoming inquests would shed further light. Coronial inquests had already been
conducted into the deaths of Gabriel Cavari and Daniel Witworth. And after Port's conviction, the high court
ordered that these conclusions be quashed and fresh inquests held to examine each of the deaths and highlight
any police failings. 5 years after Port's trial, the inquests finally went ahead in October 2021 with
evidential hearings running for 8 weeks at the Barking Town Hall. During this time, the missed
opportunities to catch Steven Port were laid out in full. Numerous friends and family members of the victims also came
forward to express their disappointment in the police handling of the case as well as the way they were treated as
next of kin. The inquests heard that the Met police failed to carry out basic checks, send
evidence for forensic examination, and exercise professional curiosity. The jury found that all of the four men
had been unlawfully killed and fundamental failures by the Met police allowed Steven Port to continue his
killing spree over a 16-month period. While the judge accepted that insufficient leadership and workload
pressures contributed to a complete breakdown of investigational oversight, she concluded that the failings had
probably contributed to the deaths of Gabriel Cavari, Daniel Woodworth, and Jack Taylor.
She said that she would be preparing a prevention of future deaths report. A statement released on the family's
behalf read, "We welcome today's conclusions. The jury has obviously taken great care and considerable time
to return these clear failings. We feel thoroughly vindicated by their findings.
The inadequate investigations by the Metropolitan Police into the deaths should be on public record as one of the
most widespread institutional failures in modern history. The family said that if the police had
done their job properly from the start, Gabrielle, Daniel, and Jack wouldn't have been killed, and other young men
wouldn't have been drugged and raped. While the law prevented the jury from considering whether homophobia,
prejudice, or discrimination were factors in the mishandled investigations, the families were
resolute. Their statement continued, "Our position remains unchanged based on the treatment we received. Our firmly
held belief is that the Metropolitan Police's actions were in part driven by homophobia.
Had four white heterosexual girls being found dead in the same manner as Anthony, Gabriel, Daniel, and Jack, then
the police's actions and the likely outcomes would have been different." Human rights advocate Peter Tatchel was much
more blunt in his assessment of the inquest findings, stating, "Evidence given at the Stevenport
inquest revealed the police to be incompetent, negligent, unprofessional, and homophobic.
Every gay person who expressed concerns about the deaths was ignored, dismissed,
and treated with contempt, even the partner of one of the victims. That's institutional homophobia.
The officers involved must face disciplinary action. By this point, seven of the 17 police
officers who had been investigated as part of the 2019 inquiry by the Independent Office for Police Conduct
had been promoted. The IOPC said they would consider reopening their findings in light of the
inquest. And in November 2023, it was announced that eight former and current Met police officers were being
investigated for gross misconduct regarding their failures in the investigations into the four deaths.
While this was welcome news for the victim's families, they were told that disciplinary proceedings wouldn't
automatically follow. A spokesperson for the Met Police gave their heartfelt apologies for the
mistakes made in the case, while a spokesperson for the mayor of London said, "It is vital that London's LGBTQ
plus community has confidence in our police and the Met are able to gain the trust and confidence of all the
communities it serves, so that every Londoner, regardless of background or postcode, can feel safe, protected, and
served. It has not been publicly revealed if any of those eight individuals faced
disciplinary proceedings. In 2022, the Met announced they had settled compensation claims with several
of the victims families, but further details about these payouts have not been released.
A lawyer for the families stated that the police had blood on their hands for their mishandling of the case, and many
agree. Gabriel Cavari's former flatmate, John Pape, who'd tried to raise his concerns
to the police, told the Guardian he wishes he'd listened to his instincts more instead of trusting the police were
doing a good job. Anthony Walgate's mother told a documentary for the BBC she believes
that the police who investigated the deaths were homophobic. She said, "I genuinely believe had
Anthony been a girl left outside like trash, they would have put more effort into it." As they were young gay boys,
the police did nothing. Jack Taylor's sisters agreed, telling the documentary that in their view, the
police were just as guilty as Steven Port. Donna stated, "They should be held accountable for Jack's death because
they could have prevented it, and we have to live with that for the rest of our lives."
As far as Daniel Witworth's parents were concerned, the police hadn't cared about
Daniel at all. Daniel's stepmother told the BBC, "How can I put into words how let down I
feel by an establishment that is there to protect the community? I can't. While the entire ordeal was incredibly
painful for the families involved, the police failings were just one aspect. More than anything, they grieved for
their loved ones and their promising lives that were cut short. In their joint statement following the
inquest, the families concluded. Finally, but most importantly, we want to say to Anthony, Gabrielle, Daniel,
and Jack that you will never be forgotten. We feel your loss every minute of every
day. We will forever wonder how your lives would have turned out. But you live on strongly in our cherished
memories.

Over a 16-month period between 2014 and 2015, four young men—Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor—each died under unusual circumstances in the East London suburb of Barking.

While the police initially palmed the deaths off as isolated incidents, the families of the four men believed something suspicious was at play. All of the men had been found near or in a churchyard, all had died from dangerously high levels of GHB, and none had a reason to be in the area. When CCTV footage forced detectives to revisit the evidence, what they uncovered was shocking.

CREDITS Narration – Anonymous Host Research & writing – Elsha McGill Production & music – Mike Migas Audio editing – Anthony Telfer

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RESOURCES

Brief Summary

Four young men died of drug overdoses in Barking, revealing a serial killer and police failures in their investigations.

Key points

A Chilling Discovery. Barbara Denim finds a young man dead in the churchyard, leading to a police investigation.
A Fatal Overdose. Gabrielle Cavari's death is ruled a drug overdose, raising questions about his final days.
Gabrielle's Last Night. Gabrielle agreed to go to a sex party after meeting Dan.
Suspicious Death. Anthony Walgate's body was found under mysterious circumstances.
Toxicology Results. Anthony died from a fatal overdose of GHB, raising questions about his death.
Jack's Mysterious Death. Jack Taylor was found dead under suspicious circumstances, raising family concerns.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

His mother described the move as transforming Anthony from a sicknet to a swan.

Describing Anthony's transformation after moving to London.

1:10WatchJul 4, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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