Forensic Files - Season 2, Episode 2 - The Dirty Deed - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[suspenseful music] REPORTER 1: Derrick Severs and his wife Eileen, who are in their 60s--
REPORTER 2: --a mile and a half away from the home of Derrick and Eileen Severs, who disappeared
about three weeks ago. REPORTER 3: --resumed their search for Derrick and Eileen
Severs, who vanished without trace from their home in Hambleton-- PETER THOMAS: Despite a detailed search for a missing couple
by police and hundreds of volunteers, it was the information found in some dirt which led
police to their whereabouts. [theme music] Derrick and Eileen Severs were a wealthy retired couple
who lived a life of English leisure in Hambleton, a small village about a two-hour drive
from London. The village sits on a narrow peninsula that juts out into Rutland Water, one of Europe's
largest man-made lakes. The woods and the lake make it a popular vacation destination.
And the Severs had been living here for the past 20 years in a home known locally as "The Bungalow."
Derrick Severs had been retired for the past few years and was well known and well liked among neighbors
of the small village. Doug Clements lived next door to the Severs. DOUG CLEMENTS: I'd never met a better man than Derrick Severs.
He liked a bit of horse racing, and he loved a pint of beer. PETER THOMAS: Derrick's wife Eileen was equally well known
not only as a volunteer for many local charities, but also as a kind and generous friend and neighbor.
BAHRAT PATEL: Mrs. Severs was one of those people who spend all her time visiting people,
doing things for charity. She was always seen. Everybody liked her. PETER THOMAS: Saturday afternoon,
November 13, 1993, was the last time friends saw Derrick Severs. He was having lunch and a few pints of ale
here at The Finch's Arms Pub. Friends said Derrick left the pub around 3:30 that afternoon,
got into his car, and was headed straight home. Eileen Severs was last seen on that same afternoon.
She left this church after attending a charity bazaar she helped organize. Eileen told friends she too was headed home.
Five days later, after the Severs both missing some previously scheduled appointments,
friends called the police. This is the sort of place where if you're missing for a couple of hours,
people want to know why. PETER THOMAS: Police immediately drove out to the Severs' home.
The missing couple's 37-year-old son Roger answered the door. --as to the whereabouts of Derrick and Eileen Severs.
No, mom and dad are on holiday in London. OFFICER: Would you mind if I had a look around then?
PETER THOMAS: Police took a quick look around the house. - No, come in. - Thank you.
There's no sign of a break in. There's no sign of anything wrong inside the house.
REPORTER: By which you mean there's no sign of a struggle or anything? No, nothing at all.
PETER THOMAS: But friends weren't convinced that everything was all right. The Severs had never gone away without first canceling
their scheduled appointments. MICK PALMER: It was not in their nature to go away without making arrangements,
to talk-- telling people they were going away. BAHRAT PATEL: They weren't the sort
of couple who would disappear without telling friends. They would always say, look, we're popping out.
Look after our house. Because that's the sort of village that it was. DOUG CLEMENTS: There-- at times he did go away,
he used to leave me in charge. He'd say, look after the garden. PETER THOMAS: And neighbors said it
was unusual for Derrick and Eileen Severs to ask their son Roger to house sit. Roger was a disappointment to his parents.
He was unemployed and had the reputation of being a con man, once telling a girlfriend that he was a gynecologist.
When police heard these stories, they decided to take a closer look around the Severs home.
[suspenseful music] Six days after friends last saw Derrick and Eileen Severs, the police decided to make a second visit to the Severs'
home, this time in daylight. The officers noticed that the backyard had recently been excavated and there were
signs of a fire in the garden. MICK PALMER: And looking through the windows, we could see this kitchen carpet was missing.
But it didn't add up. So we decided that we'd use the police powers to go into the bungalow to have a further search.
[camera flashing] PETER THOMAS: Roger Severs told police that his parents left for London from the Peterborough train
station. Police went to the train station armed with a photograph of the Severs.
They asked the employees and regular passengers if they had seen the couple. JOHN KAVANAGH: Mr. Severs was this very big man
who walked very badly with the aid of a stick. And we thought that if anybody had seen them,
they would remember them. PETER THOMAS: But no one at the train station recalled seeing the Severs, and police found no evidence
they even made it to London. Already, local newspapers ran headlines about the Severs'
mysterious disappearance. The police suspected foul play and decided to conduct a forensic search for blood inside the Severs' home.
Detectives noticed some suspicious dark stains on the side of the bathtub and performed a Kastle-Meyer test.
A damp cotton swab is used to wipe the stain and then some phenolphthalein and hydrogen
peroxide are added. The sample of the stain found on the bathtub turned a bright pink--
a positive presumptive test for the presence of blood. MICK PALMER: The fact we'd found blood didn't
necessarily prove conclusively that it'd come from a violent action. They could have-- one of them could have
cut themselves in the bathroom. Anything could have happened. PETER THOMAS: Police also noticed
a blood smear on the back seat of Derrick Severs' automobile. And the Kastle-Meyer test confirmed
that stains on the garage door were indeed blood spatter. Police noticed something else that was suspicious.
They found a large number of green fibers in the hallway inside the house in the trunk of Mr.
Severs' automobile and on a pair of trousers believed to be Roger's. The fibers were an important clue because they did not match
any items inside the house. This was an indication that the source of the fibers
had recently been removed. The actual item itself was missing, so the-- as were the two Severs, Mr. and Mrs. Severs.
So logic tells you that it's gone with the two. It's part of the crime scene. PETER THOMAS: The police were convinced that the Severs had
been the victims of foul play and suspected that Roger Severs knew more about his parents' whereabouts
than he was telling them. [suspenseful music] Investigators believed that Roger Severs was involved
with his parents' disappearance, but they had no proof that a crime had been committed
and had no hard evidence suggesting where their bodies might be. The search for that Severs began in their own backyard,
since it appeared that the gardens had recently been excavated and there had also been some kind of fire.
MICK PALMER: You would need a very, very big fire to dispose of bodies. And there's no way they could've been disposed of on there.
PETER THOMAS: The police didn't find any human remains, but they did find small bits of carpet and clothing
in the ashes. BAHRAT PATEL: It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Because all around there is rural--
this huge expanse of water, lots of forest, trees, woods, open fields. How on Earth do you find a body there?
PETER THOMAS: Just when all of these searches turned up no clues, police finally got a break.
[suspenseful music] They learned of a strange event which occurred before the Severs were even reported missing.
A police officer on patrol recalled seeing a man in an isolated area called the Exton Avenue Woods.
Is there something wrong, sir? PETER THOMAS: The man matched Roger Severs' description.
I just needed to relieve myself. And then I decided to gather some [inaudible] for the garden.
Well, then, move along when you're ready. Will do so, Officer. Goodnight. PETER THOMAS: The officer said the man acted suspiciously.
Well, any guard or any older horticulturist will tell you, you don't want leave mold at the end of--
in November. It's not the time of year you're going to collect it, and certainly not half-past 6:00 at night.
So we assume something had occurred up in the Exton Avenue Woods there. So off we went to have a look.
[suspenseful music] PETER THOMAS: When they returned to the area a few days later,
they found a bloody towel near the spot where the man was seen collecting leaves.
But the police could find no evidence that the bodies were buried there. We did a fingertip search of the entire area.
And we never, ever recovered any further evidence from that scene. PETER THOMAS: The towel matched those in the Severs' house.
But without blood samples from Mr. And Mrs. Severs, it was difficult to know to whom the blood belonged.
It was challenging, rather than frustrating. When we-- we wanted to find the bodies for two reasons.
One, evidential, obviously, and secondly, of course, I think it's only right and proper, if there's
been a murder, we want the bodies for the relatives and everyone else. But you know, it's only right that we
should be able to find them. PETER THOMAS: Late one night, Inspector Palmer studied the photographs of the Severs' automobile.
As he flipped through the photographs, something unusual caught his eye-- something suspicious about the dirt
and mud on Mr. Severs' car. The color of the mud just didn't look right. This staining was a lot lighter in color
than you would expect from a vehicle on road usage. Generally speaking, a vehicle on road usage
is a very dark black, dark gray, dirty color. This was a lot lighter color. PETER THOMAS: Was it possible that an analysis
of the dried mud on the car might give police some idea of where the car had been?
To find out, detectives called in Dr. Tony Brown, a geologist at the University of Exeter.
Dr. Brown began his examination by collecting the soil, dirt, grass, and debris from the wheel wells
of Derek Severs' automobile. Under a microscope, Dr. Brown analyzed the samples and discovered tiny bits of vegetation
mixed in with the mud, including minute pieces of moss, leaves, and grass. There was even a small piece of fishing line.
TONY BROWN: It told us that it was a mixed, deciduous woodland, probably oak-dominated, but with also
several other species. It was clearly quite shady. The moss could only come from a little shaded woodland.
And there was also a fair amount of grass. And at first, that might seem to contradict the woodland.
But that's likely to occur either at the edge of a clearing in a woodland or towards the edge of a woodland.
And of course, the fishing line suggested it was the-- somewhere that fishermen parked.
PETER THOMAS: And Dr. Brown discovered another microscopic clue. More than 20 different types of pollen
were mixed in with the mud from the wheel well. Pollen is a fine powder-like material which is produced
by trees and plant life. It functions as the male seed in fertilization. To identify the pollen, Dr. Brown
needed to isolate the microscopic pollen granules from the soil first by using a series of filters
and then by adding hydrochloric acid, a chemical so powerful it can dissolve glass.
The acid dissolves away all remaining materials, leaving just the pollen. Dr. Brown was able to identify most
of the pollen in the sample-- oak, elm, and pollen from Hawthorns were easy to identify just by sight.
However, he noticed one type of pollen he had never seen before. I knew that I didn't know what it was.
[laughs] And then after that, of course, we run through the normal process of identifying
an unknown pollen type. PETER THOMAS: There are millions of different species of pollen.
Dr. Brown looked closely at the number and placement of the tiny slits and compared them
to the thousands of photographs of pollen samples in his library. After looking through scores of samples,
Dr. Brown found a match. The pollen was from an unusual specimen-- from a tree not terribly common in England.
It was pollen from a horse chestnut tree, a tree native to Asia. In my whole career of looking at samples from the East
Midlands, I'd never actually seen horse chestnut pollen from a sample. PETER THOMAS: And there was something
else unusual about the pollen from the horse chestnut tree. It's a heavy pollen.
And because of its weight, it's too heavy to travel far through the air. It tends to float straight down to the ground,
very close to the tree itself. Since Dr. Brown found horse chestnut pollen in all four
of the Rover's wheel arches, he was convinced that the car had recently been parked
near a horse chestnut tree. [suspenseful music] Police asked Dr. Brown to identify possible locations
that had horse chestnut trees, as well as other vegetation matching the samples found
in the Severs' wheel wells. Dr. Brown identified five possible locations to search.
The first woodlands searched was this one, the closest to the Severs' home. But an entire day of looking here turned up nothing.
Next, they searched the second area Dr. Brown identified, a larger woodland near the lake.
Specially trained search teams worked their way down this hill. When an officer poked a stick into one of the mounds,
he found it to be unexpectedly soft. He cleared away some leaves and loose soil to reveal
a patch of human skin. Police slowly uncovered the bodies of Eileen and Derrick Severs.
Ironically, they were found lying on a bed of horse chestnuts. Just a few feet away stood a horse chestnut tree.
CLIVE BOUCH: They were lying side by side, and both of them were wrapped in green blankets.
PETER THOMAS: Fibers in the green blanket matched the green fibers found in the Severs' hallway
and on the trousers that belonged to Roger Severs. The top layer of leaves and soil was similar to the soil found
at the Exton Avenue Woods, where Roger Severs had been seen by police. Another layer of soil matched the soil
in the Severs' backyard. There was even a layer of roof tiles to stabilize the grave.
The tiles matched the roof tiles on the Severs' home. Roger was then tied into every step of the progression
from the murder to the burial. PETER THOMAS: All of the evidence pointed to the Severs'
only son, Roger, who had a history of personal and financial difficulties. He was basically penniless, certainly hard up.
And we believe that he had turned up at The Bungalow and maybe for the first time-- we don't know--
had been refused help by his parents. What-- What do you mean, too much? PETER THOMAS: On Saturday afternoon, November 13,
while his father was at the pub, Roger argued with his mother in the kitchen. [suspenseful music]
He followed her to the bathroom and attacked, striking her eight times to the head,
causing the blood spatter found on the bathtub. Roger then wrapped his mother's body in a green blanket,
dragged her body to the kitchen, leaving a trail of green fibers found in the hallway
and on Roger's trousers. Derrick Severs arrived home shortly afterwards. And when he did, Roger was waiting.
He struck his father 10 times in the head, causing the blood spatter onto the garage door.
Roger placed his father's body into the back seat of the car, where police later noticed the blood smear.
And he put his mother's body in the trunk, where green blanket fibers were later discovered.
Roger drove his father's car to a deserted location in the woods, parked under a horse chestnut tree
in an area used by fishermen, and then dragged the bodies into the woods. Roger wanted to limit the time he spent at the scene.
So instead of digging a grave, he placed the bodies into a ravine and covered them with roofing
tiles, fertilizer, and leaves. But the most important piece of evidence came as Roger was driving away.
Pollen from the nearby horse chestnut tree flew up into the wheel wells of the automobile.
Roger Severs could never have imagined that this pollen would lead police to his parents' grave.
Roger Severs was charged in the murder of his parents and, during the trial, took the witness stand and confessed.
His plea for leniency failed, and he was sentenced to life in prison. The wife and I, we lost two good friends.
And life's never been the same since. [bells chiming] MICK PALMER: I embarked on something
which I saw as being rather simplistic-- link this vehicle with those man-made roads.
That was all I wanted. I got a lot more, a lot more. And hopefully that's going to help
a lot of people and investigators in the future. Well, I think that the police now are certainly
far more aware of the value of what otherwise might just be described as mud. [music playing]

In this classic episode of Forensic Files, the longest running true crime series in television history, Eileen and Derrick Severs disappeared from their home in the small village of Hambleton in Great Britain, and police found evidence which suggested foul play. Careful analysis of a soil sample would tell investigators not only what happened to the couple, but who was responsible for the dirty deed. Originally aired as Season 2, Episode 2.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Derrick and Eileen Severs disappeared, leading to their son's arrest for murder after forensic evidence revealed their burial site.

Key points

The Disappearance of Derrick and Eileen Severs. A wealthy couple vanishes without a trace, prompting a massive search effort.
Suspicion Falls on Their Son. As evidence mounts, police suspect Roger Severs may know more than he admits.
The Gruesome Discovery. The bodies of Derrick and Eileen Severs are found in a wooded area, wrapped in blankets.
Roger Severs Confesses. During the trial, Roger Severs confesses to the murder of his parents.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I'd never met a better man than Derrick Severs.

Doug Clements reflects on Derrick Severs.

1:41WatchMay 27, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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