Jeffrey Howe | Truth About My Murder | FilmRise True Crime | Forensic Files

[dramatic music] - When a murder's committed, it's always a race against time to find the truth,
to separate fact from fiction, to catch the killer, and to make sure that justice is served.
[dramatic music] What happens when the truth vanishes with the victim? I'm Dr. Richard Shepherd.
And I've spent my entire career as a forensic pathologist, performing nearly 23,000 autopsies, including on some
of the most high profile cases of recent times. I've learned that the dead don't hide the truth.
And they never lie. Through me, you'll be hearing directly from the victim. From a state-of-the-art laboratory
with groundbreaking technology that uses digitally scanned sample bodies, I'll be investigating a series of intriguing murders where,
from the victim's bodies, I'll be revealing to you the truth behind those horrific crimes.
[camera shuttering] [birds chirping] [ominous music] On the 22nd of March, 2009,
a human leg severed at the hip was found in a sports bag on farmland. Who did the leg belong to?
And where was the rest of the body? [ominous music] - [Narrator] Could this single body part give any clues
as to what had happened to the victim? [ominous music] - I was the on-call detective sergeant
for Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire major crime team. I was at home. And I received a report of a body part,
what they believed to be a body part, being found in a rural location in a village called Cottered
over in East Hertfordshire. [dramatic music] - [Narrator] A farmer had spotted a green bag
at the edge of his field. [dramatic music] When he looked inside, he was concerned by what he found and called 999.
[dramatic music] - Uniform officers turned up at the scene, examines the object further,
and suspected it to be some form of human body part. The murder team were contacted.
I was phoned at home. And I went across to the scene. But by the time I actually got there,
they'd moved the body part to the local hospital, to the mortuary. [ominous music]
The leg was initially examined. And it was in a green Gulliver's holdall, wrapped in heavy blue polythene,
and wrapped with gaffer tape. [ominous music] - So when the leg and its wrappings are brought
into the mortuary, the first thing that's gonna happen is we're going to take off all of the wrappings very carefully
'cause they're crucial bits of forensic science evidence. And we don't deal with those.
What we look at is the leg. So looking at the sample leg on the digital table, the first assessment is,
is it an adult leg or a child's leg? And we can see that it's a size that's going
to fit much better with it being a male adult left leg. The next thing is, is it Caucasian or a different ethnic group?
And here, once again, the skin is white. So it's likely to be a Caucasian person that it's come from.
Then we are looking for other features. Like are there any marks that might be identifiable on the legs?
So are there any tattoos? Any marks of surgery? Any evidence of implants? Like knee implants and things of that sort
that might actually help us to get an identity. None of those things were present.
However, there were signs of eczema. And then we'd be looking at are there any injuries?
Are there any marks of it being tied? Any bindings, any stabbings, any shooting.
Anything that would give us a clue as to what may have gone on. And finally, the one thing we'd look
for is the actual site of amputation. Is this something that's surgical? Is this a clinical specimen that somebody's just dumped?
But here, there's no tying off of any of the major veins or arteries. So clearly, this leg has been removed by an amateur.
Was it removed when they were alive or dead? We simply don't know. [ominous music]
- It was an unusual call. And so therefore, it's all about keeping an open mind as to why.
What was this left leg doing in Cottered and why? Was it a stolen body part from a mortuary or something like that?
Or was it indeed some macabre murder? We weren't to know at that stage. And the most important part of my role
that night was just to make sure that our scene was secure so that come first light the following morning,
our forensic teams and our crime scene managers could get in and do a proper forensic search of that crime scene.
[dramatic music] - The news turned up on the wires that a body part had been found in a field in Hertfordshire.
Initially, we thought it might be somebody who has died of natural causes. And perhaps their body had been spread by wildlife.
That was the first thing. [ominous music] - The first lines of any inquiry, really,
are the golden hour principles. You know, you must secure your scene. You're looking at house-to-house inquiry
and appeal for witnesses. Did anybody see the deposition of that body part? Were they driving past in their car?
Did anyone see anything suspicious? Anyone loitering? Anything out of place? Being mindful that this was a very, very rural location.
So we'd be looking for key witnesses. We'd be looking for CCTV. Of course, we'd have the whole area cordoned off
so that our forensic team could come in and do a fingertip search of the deposition site
and the surrounding area. And it's about keeping an open mind as to how did that body part
and why did that body part arrive at that bizarre location? [ominous music] - [Narrator] But the leg still had more truths to tell.
- It clearly wasn't a surgical amputation. But it's been done by someone who has some knowledge of anatomy.
It's not simply been hacked off. There's been some dissection around the joint to remove the leg from the rest of the body.
Quite often, in cases such as this, the individual would try and saw through the bone of the thigh.
And this is the femur. It's one of the thickest, strongest bones of the whole body.
And that's incredibly hard. But that's not what's happened here. What's happened is that someone
with some knowledge has actually dissected around the joint to remove the leg from the rest of the body.
But what the pathologist is doing now is going to be taking a sample. Gonna be taking a sample of muscle
so that the DNA of the leg can be analyzed. And that's what happened. And the police compared it with their own database.
But there was no match. So the owner of this leg was not known to the police and remained, at that point, unidentified.
[ominous music] - Whoever that body was, whoever the deceased was, had never come into contact with the police
and weren't registered on the national database. [ominous music] - [Narrator] Even though they didn't know the cause
of death, the police felt they had to treat it as a murder inquiry. But uncovering the truth wasn't going to be easy.
- The crux of the matter is we had a left leg. That's all we had at that stage. You know, we needed to identify
who did that left leg belong to? As soon as you identify who your victim is, it naturally follows on
that you are gonna identify who the offenders are. [ominous music] - [Narrator] But it would be another three weeks
before the body of the victim was able to tell the truth about what had happened.
- Once the police had declared that it was a murder investigation, it took it to a new height.
This was a very big case. It was a real whodunit. [ominous music] [dramatic music]
[dramatic music] - An unknown person's severed leg discovered in a hedgerow and a killer who appears to know how to take a body apart.
- [Narrator] In time, would the victim's body give away the truth of what had happened?
- A murder investigation was now in full swing. [ominous music] - We focused quite heavily on missing persons inquiries.
But we didn't have a lot to go on. That was a big problem. All we had was a left leg.
We couldn't give the deceased an age. We couldn't really. We knew their ethnicity.
So all we knew they were probably a white male. An interesting thing was, on the left leg,
he had quite severe eczema on his left leg. So, of course, that was always gonna be a method,
hopefully, for us to identify our victim. You know, was a missing person gonna be reported
who suffered with severe eczema on their legs? You know, so anything like that was gonna be really useful
for us to sort of focus our investigation to identify who is this victim. [dramatic music]
- [Narrator] But then a discovery was made, which would blow open the investigation.
A week after the severed leg was found, dog walkers uncovered a forearm in Wheathampstead,
25 miles away from the first discovery. - That really did catapult the investigation
to the fore, really, into the media. And it was crucial for us to identify who is our victim.
Personally, I believe that the left forearm had to have come from the same body as the left leg.
But, of course, you could assume nothing. So it was key that we had that postmortem.
That we were able to submit, again, to national DNA database. Could we match the left forearm to the left leg?
Was it the same deceased or were we talking about two victims? - A second body part is found.
In fact, it's a left forearm. It's brought to the morgue. And immediately, it's apparent that it's been removed
with the same level of skill as the left leg. Amputating a forearm is really quite complicated,
cutting through the elbow joint. And a lot of people would try and simply saw through the bone.
But this bone is really hard and would take a long time. However, if you have the skill
to dissect through the joint, it's much neater, quicker, and simpler. It's also clear the hand has been taken off.
Presumably with an attempt to hide the identity of the individual. The key question though is does it match the leg?
The sample of DNA is taken from the arm. And it matches that from the left leg. So both limbs are from the same person.
But, of course, the police still don't know who that person is. [ominous music] - The discovery
of one body part was obviously sinister enough. But the discovery of a second body part
some considerable distance away from where the first body part was, that was really concerning for us.
[ominous music] - From that moment, we felt that, oh, you know, this is something very, very serious.
- Well, we didn't know what we were dealing with. Was the offender, was the murderer playing games with us?
Was he trying to avoid detection? Why these particular deposition sites? [ominous music]
- I think the general sense amongst the public at the time was that they were terrified.
Because I think at that stage, they didn't know whether this was the beginning of a serial killer.
[ominous music] - The fact that it was, you know, one in East Hert. The next one in Central Hertfordshire.
Where was the next body part gonna be? [dramatic music] - Then over a hundred miles away,
a head appears in Leicestershire. [dramatic music] - [Narrator] Like all the other body parts,
the head was found in open countryside. This time, by a farmer on his land in Asfordby,
near Melton Mowbray. - I mean, this was a truly shocking discovery. The killer had gone to great lengths
to make sure that the victim was not identified. [dramatic music] - A decapitated head is found.
But lying in the middle of a field. Not wrapped up. Not contained in any way. When it was brought to the mortuary,
it was quite clear that there'd been a lot of activity taking place around the skull.
Most of the skin was missing. The tongue was missing. Eyes, ears, nose had all been taken off.
Presumably in an attempt to hide the identity of the individual. Further examination confirmed there was no evidence
of any injury to the head or the face that could have caused the death of this individual.
So we still don't know how or why he died. Two teeth were missing. But that has happened a long time ago
and wasn't associated directly with the death. Next thing is, is the skull matching the arm
and the leg that have already been found? Well, it does. It matches very well indeed.
Because the strong eyebrow ridges and the solid bits of bone, the mastoid processes that can be seen
at the back all fit with this skull belonging to a male. And DNA analysis showed
that the head matched the other body parts. So all of those things are fitting together.
Now, how had it been removed from the body? Well, removing the skull by cutting through the spine is really quite complicated.
'Cause the vertebra aren't flat plates that just fit together. They actually interdigitate.
They fold together. And it requires skill, care, and knowledge to be able to cut between them.
And that's what had happened here. So the same person had removed the skull, had removed the arm,
and had removed the leg. [dramatic music] - So Leicestershire contacted us to say,
"Look, we found this skull in a field. But it's in Leicestershire. Is it gonna be connected?"
I, for one, believed it would be. And I think the rest of the inquiry team were of the same vein.
That how often do we find body parts scattered around rural locations of England?
This had to be connected. [dramatic music] We dispatched the team up to Leicestershire
to liaise with their murder inquiry team. And as a result of the DNA confirmation that,
indeed, the skull, the left leg, and the left forearm were all from one and the same body,
that really did throw us in the mix, really. You know, why Leicestershire? Why Central Hertfordshire?
Why East Hertfordshire? Who's doing this? What are the link to all these areas? [dramatic music]
- I think the body parts being strewn all over was not what you would expect of somebody
who has gone through such great lengths to kill someone and dismember them. Usually, you would expect the body parts to be buried.
But these were very much easy to be found. Amongst reporters, the general feeling was
that this was somebody who was almost taunting the police. This was the person who was very proud of what they had done
and, you know, wanted the publicity. - It was very high profile in the media. And I think the British public,
I think it certainly caught their attention. I think it was more concerning for the residents of Cottered,
for Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire, and for Leicestershire. Those local communities must have been concerned.
Why our location? What's going on here? So we were mindful that the communities would be concerned.
But we, of course, we hadn't identified who's our victim. There's a victim's family out there that need our help.
But we couldn't identify them at that time. [ominous music] - [Narrator] While identifying their victim
was the main focus of the inquiry, police were trying everything to solve this case.
- The discovery of every body part, and every deposition site, and every crime scene,
therefore, gave us potential to possibly identify who are our offenders. So things like all of the wrappings
that the body parts were found in, they were submitted for DNA profiling, for fingerprinting, and so on and so forth.
So no stone was left unturned, really. [ominous music] - Well, the interesting thing
about items that have been wrapped up as part of the commission of the crime is that the wrappings are often just as important
as the actual item that they can contain. It's really important to understand as much as you can about them.
So you could look for the source of them, who they were manufactured by, in case there are more of them.
If you do identify a suspect's house to go and have a look at, there might be some more of these sacks.
But then in terms of the traces that will be on the outside of them, well, there can be almost anything.
And, obviously, DNA and fingerprints are really important. But also things like textile fibers from clothing
or from other soft furnishings. From car seats, car boots, and any other tiny particulate traces
that might turn out to be relevant in this particular case. And so here, a lot of attention was paid
to the wrappings themselves. The blue plastic and the sticky tape. And, of course, sticky tape is very good in a way
'cause it picks up things. So they would've formed a really important part of this case.
[dramatic music] - [Narrator] There was no DNA or fingerprint evidence on the wrappings.
But embedded in the tape of all the fines were distinctive green and blue fibers.
[dramatic music] Despite this, over a week into the investigation, police weren't any closer
to finding out who the perpetrator was. The victim's story was yet to be told. - We needed a little bit of luck.
And it's often said in police investigations that you make your own luck. But when was our break gonna come?
Our next port of call was gonna be, well, you know, if we can find the hands, were we gonna identify that person via fingerprints?
[dramatic music] - [Narrator] However, the killer had already made one crucial mistake.
- With the deposition of the head, this is where the offenders made their first faux pas.
It was, of course, they left the teeth in the skull. [dramatic music] [ominous music]
- Three times, body parts have been found strewn around the English countryside in the case that was now known as the Jigsaw Murder.
[ominous music] - [Narrator] The more body parts that were discovered, the more the body was able to speak its truth
about what had taken place. - Forensics had identified the body as being that of a white or Asian middle aged male.
But for the police, there were many unanswered questions. And the killer was still on the loose.
- The coverage at the time was huge. This was a very big case. The body parts turning up
at various locations in the countryside. You know, it was almost like a jigsaw. I think there was pressure on the police at the time.
I mean, there's always pressure on the police in a murder investigation. But this one, you know,
people really wanted the person responsible caught. [dramatic music] - [Narrator] And yet more pieces
of the jigsaw were about to turn up. [dramatic music] - [Richard] A week after the skull was found,
the right leg was discovered, dumped in a layby on the A10 near Puckeridge, Hertfordshire.
- The right leg cutting too, wrapped in the blue polythene, identical to that of the left leg.
But we were obviously hoping the hands would naturally follow. Hopefully, at some point.
[dramatic music] - [Narrator] Four days later, a farmer in nearby Standon found a suitcase lying
in a small ditch in his field. But the police weren't going to get fingerprint identification for this latest discovery.
- Saturday the 11th of April, 2009 was the discovery of the torso and the remaining part
of the left arm and right arm. - So the torso is found. And once again, clearly that of an adult male,
fitting together with what had gone on. But crucially, crucially, there's significant injuries in the back.
There were two stab wounds to the back, which had penetrated through into the lung.
A knife blade at least four inches long. And in fact, the lungs are very, very close
to the skin surface. Just one stab wound into the lung can cause death. And they could easily have resulted
from a knife that was four inches long. The victim's body had revealed the truth.
And the cause of death finally had been established on this body. There was no evidence of any struggle.
No evidence of any fight. No evidence of any other injury. So it looks as though two stab wounds
in the back had been delivered when the person was either lying down or simply from behind them.
[ominous music] - So we now knew that, yes, this was murder. That we'd recovered nearly all
of our body parts other than the hands. And that it was two stab wounds to the back.
Now, it was crucial for us to identify exactly who that victim was. And then we had a case for murder.
[dramatic music] - [Narrator] Three days later and three weeks since the first body part was found,
the police made an appeal to the public. - I'm dealing with horrific murder here.
I need the public's help to help me identify who the victim is. We can now confirm the cause of death,
which was a stab wound to the back. The man is believed to be of white, Asian, or of mixed heritage
between the heights of 5'6" and 5'10". - It was a direct result of our press appeal.
From that conference, we received a telephone call from a gentleman who stated that his brother had been missing for some weeks.
And his brother was Jeffrey Howe. [ominous music] He fit the criteria. He was the right age,
the right ethnicity, the right weight. He had eczema. And we knew that from the eczema on our left leg
that was first discovered at Cottered. And as soon as we started making our initial inquiries
into Jeffrey Howe, we soon established that he'd been missing since March of that year.
That no one had seen him. And just hadn't turned up for work one day. [ominous music]
- Jeffrey Howe was a kitchen salesman. And his family said sometimes, he did have like, a little bit of a temper at times.
But generally, everybody who knew him spoke warmly about him. We knew that he lived in Southgate,
which is in an area of North London. [ominous music] - He had lived in a two-bedroom flat.
Initially, alone. But then we'd established from our sort of early inquiries that he had a male and a female living with him.
And they'd moved in some weeks or months previously. And they were friends of his.
And the name Stephen Marshall came up in the investigation. I was shocked to hear that
because I knew of a Stephen Marshall from my early policing days, who was quite a, he was a criminal.
Quite a concerning character. Quite a formidable character in his own right. At that stage, I thought,
well, it can't be one and the same. But a few further inquiries established that it was indeed the same Stephen Marshall.
[dramatic music] - Stephen Marshall was very much an imposing figure. Very much a man mountain of a character.
And, you know, he used to boast that he had a 52 inch chest. He was so big. And anybody who ever met him knew they were in his presence.
- He was quite an intimidating character. Very imposing. Very well built. Very fit.
And would come across as very charismatic and very friendly at first. But was without doubt,
I would probably describe him as a bully. Would probably really aptly describe Stephen Marshall
as a nasty bully of the criminal fraternity. [ominous music] - [Narrator] Stephen Marshall had moved into Jeffrey's flat,
along with his girlfriend, Sarah Bush. [ominous music] - Sarah Bush was a very petite figure.
She'd also worked as a sex worker. And she'd managed to meet Marshall. Apparently, he stopped paying.
And then he was very much a big, imposing figure on her life and pretty much controlled her.
- Steve and Jeffrey had met through the kitchen business. Through kitchen sales.
Both were very successful in kitchen sales. I think Stephen Marshall probably had the gift
of the gab as it were. And they seemed to hit it off. Sarah Bush and Stephen Marshall had moved
into Jeffrey Howe's flat, just for a short term initially. And Jeffrey Howe, which appears to be typical of Jeffrey,
was just doing them a favor. Just being a good friend to them. But, no. They exploited that friendship.
And initially, they were paying a small amount of peppercorn rent. But eventually, stopped paying any money to Jeffrey at all.
[dramatic music] - [Narrator] After a week of gathering intelligence, police decided to investigate Jeffrey Howe's address
in person. [dramatic music] - I took a team of officers to Southgate where Jeffrey Howe lived.
[ominous music] [bell ringing] As soon as I knocked on the door, it was answered by none other than Stephen Marshall.
I obviously immediately recognized Stephen. [dramatic music] He's quite an intimidating character.
But he was very friendly with us. Invited us into the premises. And we sat down at the kitchen table.
[ominous music] Both Stephen and Sarah portrayed themselves as good friends of Jeffrey
but really couldn't offer any firm explanation as to why he'd gone missing. Why he'd just left and not been in contact with them.
They were very sketchy about any detail, which as a detective, is always a, rings the alarm bells for us.
And they weren't at all concerned about him. [ominous music] So we just asked if we could have a look around the flat,
as we would do on a routine missing person inquiry. And it was then that we saw the number plates
for Jeffrey Howe's vehicle. He had a private number plate. And those number plates were in the master bedroom,
which was unusual because obviously, the car wasn't outside the address. And they'd said that he'd taken the car
when they'd last time they'd seen him. Nothing was ringing true. There was no master bed in the bedroom.
There was a blue inflatable blow up mattress on the floor. Things just weren't right.
And things they were saying, explanations they were giving about their last sightings
and about their relationship to Stephen just, were clearly just weren't ringing true
and were a pack of lies. [ominous music] So I just made an excuse to leave. Went outside.
I immediately phoned the detective superintendent. [ominous music] Just explains my gut feeling, really,
and the rationale around it. We had options. We put them onto some form of surveillance
or were we gonna let them run and just see what happens? But the risk was too extreme for us
as far as we were concerned. And the decision was rightly made that we should arrest them there and then.
So that's what we did. We took the other officers back into the flat. And that's when I arrested Sarah Bush
and Stephen Marshall for the murder of Jeffrey Howe. [ominous music] - [Narrator] This was a bold move,
considering they hadn't even confirmed that it was Jeffrey Howe's body strewn across the country.
They had 24 hours to charge them or let them go. [ominous music] - They were both interviewed under caution.
Both had solicitors, as is their right. - [Detective] That is Jeffrey Howe. Do you deny or confirm that's Jeffrey Howe?
- No comment. - [Detective] Do you recognize that person to be Jeffrey Howe? - No comment.
- [Detective] I believe he was a friend or an associate of yours. - No comment. - [Detective] My understanding is he has been quite kind
to you in the past by letting you stay at his home address. - No comment. - Stephen Marshall went, "No comment"
to all questions asked of him. Now, bearing in mind that he portrayed Jeffrey Howe
to be one of his best mates, that they lived together, we were suggesting, and it was our suspicion
that Stephen Marshall was responsible for his murder. And we were accusing Stephen Marshall
of murdering Jeffrey Howe. - [Detective] Are you responsible for the killing and of dismembering of your friend, Jeffrey Howe?
- No comment. - [Detective] If so, why did you kill and dismember Jeffrey Howe? - No comment.
- If he was an innocent man, you would expect him to shout from the rooftops that,
you know, that I'm an innocent man. I've not done this. He would do everything possible to try
and help us identify who had. - [Detective] And do you feel upset by the fact that not only has he been murdered,
but someone's chosen to dismember him and place parts of his body around the countryside?
- No comment. - [Detective] How does that make you feel? - No comment. - But no.
Stephen Marshall refused to help us in any way. - No comment. [ominous music] - [Narrator] With time not on their side
and Marshall not cooperating, the police needed concrete evidence, or their suspects would have to be released.
- While Sarah Bush and Stephen Marshall were in police custody at Hatfield, our fast track inquiry was
to send Jeffrey Howe's dental records to an expert along with the teeth from the skull
that had been recovered from Leicestershire. [ominous music] - It was interesting that despite all the effort
that had been taken to remove the nose, the ears, the tongue, the teeth had been left in the skull.
And teeth can often be used to identify someone. And so the police asked a specialist forensic dentist,
a forensic odontologist to come in and to have a look in the hope that a positive identification could be made.
[ominous music] - [Narrator] If police couldn't find a match and confirm the victim as Jeffrey Howe,
they'd have to release their suspects the next morning. [ominous music] - We only have them for 24 hours.
So time was of the essence. [ominous music] [dramatic music] [ominous music] - After body parts had been found strewn
across the countryside, a man called Jeffrey Howe was reported missing. And police arrested his lodgers,
Sarah Bush and Stephen Marshall. [ominous music] - [Narrator] Even dismembered, the body had given the truth of what had happened
with the discovery of stab wounds in the torso. - But the police still had to positively identify the victim.
Fortunately, they had his teeth. - We had fast tracked Jeffrey Howe's dental records
to an expert and also fast tracked the dental impressions of the recovered skull from Leicestershire.
And that dental expert was able to confirm, 100%, that, yes, our victim was Jeffrey Howe.
And that was the first time in the investigation and a big breakthrough for us. - So now, almost all of the body had been recovered.
The only significant things that were missing were the two hands. And the torso had given evidence
of the two stab wounds to the back, which undoubtedly were the cause of death. One had penetrated right through into the lungs
and would've caused extensive bleeding into the chest cavity itself. Interestingly, stab wounds
to the chest often don't bleed much externally. All the bleeding is contained. But when the body was dismembered,
when the head was cut off and the limbs were removed, their major blood vessels would've been cut through.
And blood would've leaked passively out of the body, causing extensive blood staining of the area.
[dramatic music] - It is extremely difficult to clean up a crime scene of all blood,
especially where quite a lot has been shed. Blood spatter because it goes everywhere.
You could easily miss tiny, tiny spots, which forensic scientists will find with their powerful lamps and,
you know, chemical tests and all the rest of it. So it is really difficult to clean up.
And then, of course, if you try to use water or anything like that, you know, sloshing it all over the place, you are diluting it.
And while you might not be able to see it, we will still be able to detect it. So it's really difficult.
[ominous music] - The flat was locked down as a crime scene. And our forensic team spent many, many days there,
carrying out a very thorough search of the address. And albeit that Sarah Bush and Stephen Marshall had tried
to do a very, very good cleanup job, when we took up the carpets, the underlay, the floorboards, the skirting boards,
and so on and so forth, we found a significant amount of blood. [ominous music] - They found a lot of blood in the bedroom.
But then there was also blood in the bathroom. And it's more difficult to control blood
in somewhere like a bedroom than it is in the bathroom. And the pattern of blood staining
that they found told them exactly what had gone on where. [ominous music] - The key line of inquiry was to match
that blood to that of Jeffrey Howe. DNA analysis confirms that the DNA we found in significant volumes inside the flat was a positive match,
100%, that of the body parts found scattered around the rural locations. And it was a result of
that forensic examination that we identified that the master's bedroom was indeed the scene of the murder
and indeed was the scene of the dismemberment. [dramatic music] - [Narrator] Police could now charge Stephen Marshall
and Sarah Bush for the murder of Jeffrey Howe. [dramatic music] - Within days of their arrest,
police announced that they had been charged with murder, which was a real shock.
The two appeared in magistrates' court on the Saturday morning. And they were then remanded in custody to face trial.
[slow music] I think there was some relief from the public. Two people had been charged with his murder.
And perhaps this was the conclusion of the case. I think there were a lot of unanswered questions
about why would somebody kill Jeffrey Howe, who had only shown kindness by allowing these two people to stay in his flat?
[dramatic music] - [Narrator] To build a case that would stand up in court, there was still a lot of investigation needed.
- For every crime, it's imperative that we prove beyond all reasonable doubt, what is the motive for this crime?
Is it jealousy? Is it greed? Is it drug-related? Is it crime-related in any way?
And very, very quickly, we established that, in actual fact, the murder of Jeffrey Howe was simply
about finances and greed. We established that within hours of Jeffrey Howe's murder,
Stephen Marshall had started writing checks from Jeffrey Howe's checkbook. Taking out cash and monies from Jeffrey's bank account.
They sold his car. They'd set up online shopping accounts. They'd purchased takeaway pizzas.
And basically, just as soon as they'd got rid of Jeffrey, just plundered his assets
and plundered his bank accounts to their own ends. Stephen Marshall had even gone to the extent
of utilizing Jeffrey Howe's personalized car number plates to put over the top of his number plates
on his car to carry out a theft of petrol at a local petrol station. The private number plates that are seen
in the flat on the day of Stephen Marshall's arrest. [ominous music] - [Narrator] The evidence was overwhelming.
And crucially, all the forensics gathered from the body parts also matched up. - The fibers evidence was particularly powerful.
Some of the links with the actual house itself involved three mattresses that were there.
They had this flopped surface. It's like peach skin. It's very soft to the touch.
A bit like very short velvet. And some of the fibers on the wrappings and body parts are related to that.
These three mattresses. And then there was some really powerful evidence to link,
again, the body parts and the wrappings with a green polo shirt that belonged to Stephen Marshall,
one of the defendants. And they were of two different kinds. So they were green polyester fibers and green cotton fibers.
And so that immediately makes the evidence more powerful. [ominous music] - [Narrator] A clear image finally emerged
of what had actually happened. [ominous music] On the night of the murder, Stephen Marshall entered Jeffrey Howe's bedroom,
stabbed him in the back, and left him to bleed to death. [ominous music] He later returned to dismember the body.
[ominous music] - We couldn't have had a stronger case, really. We had our motive.
And we have evidence that Sarah Bush and Stephen Marshall had plundered all of Jeffrey Howe's finances.
Stephen Marshall's fingerprints were on a receipt that he supplied to the man who brought Jeffrey Howe's car.
We proved the fact that Stephen Marshall was in that flat at the time and the fact that the flat was indeed the murder scene
and the scene of the dismemberment. We had extensive fiber evidence to show that Stephen Marshall's T-shirts must have been
in that room at the time that the dismembered body parts were being wrapped up in those blue rubble sacks.
We couldn't have been in a stronger position. [slow music] - [Narrator] On the 12th of January, 2010,
Stephen Marshall and Sarah Bush were tried at St. Albans Crown Court. [slow music]
- What was quite interesting was, Marshall and Bush, who were sat next to each other in the dock,
barely spoke a word to each other. Considering they were lovers, why were they so cold towards each other?
[slow music] - At the time of Jeffrey Howe's murder, we don't actually believe that Sarah Bush was present at the flat at the time.
She had actually extracted herself away from the premises and gone to visit a friend.
Nevertheless, it was always our case that Sarah Bush was complicit in everything that happened.
Was involved in the planning, the preparation, and, of course, the disposal of all the body parts
with Stephen Marshall. - Both Marshall and Bush pleaded not guilty, despite the weight of the evidence against them.
Stephen Marshall had admitted chopping up Jeffrey Howe's body, but denied murder.
[ominous music] The details of the case were truly grizzly. But Marshall and Bush showed absolutely no remorse.
No upset. [ominous music] As the trial proceeded, Marshall and Bush started to blame each other.
Very much turning in on each other over who killed Jeffrey, who had dismembered him,
who'd got rid of the body parts. And it was very much the first emotion that we'd seen,
which literally, to blame each other. [slow music] - [Narrator] But no one was prepared
for the next turn of events. [slow music] - Three weeks into the trial, we were all called into court in the morning.
And Marshall asked for the charge to be put to him again. And this time, he pleaded guilty.
[ominous music] I mean, that's really shocking. To admit murder when you are going
to get a life sentence is like signing your life away. [ominous music] I think he's open to different theories
why he decided that he was gonna plead guilty at the very last minute. Was this him deciding that he wanted
to completely clear the slate? Was this him playing the system? Pleading guilty at the very last minute
once he'd seen the overwhelming case against him, knowing that he also gets a discount in his sentence?
Or was there some pressure put on him to plead guilty by people in the criminal underworld?
[ominous music] - [Narrator] Then came perhaps the biggest revelation of all. - Stephen Marshall didn't just leave it there.
You know, after pleading guilty, he then decided that he was gonna get his QC to stand up in court during his sentencing
and confess that he'd cut up four more bodies. [dramatic music] Not only that, but he'd worked for one
of the biggest crime families in London, the Adams family. And he had been disposing of people
who had double-crossed them. I mean, it was truly a shocking revelation. [dramatic music]
- [Narrator] On Monday, 1st of February, 2010, Stephen Marshall was convicted of the murder of Jeffrey Howe
and given a life sentence. [slow music] He would have to serve at least 36 years
before he could apply for parole. [slow music] Sarah Bush was sentenced to three and a half years
for perverting the course of justice. [slow music] - It was a difficult investigation.
But I'm immensely proud of not just my work, but that of the team 'cause it really was a team investigation
that resulted in that successful outcome. - It was certainly one of the most disturbing,
you know, court cases that I think I've ever covered. - So immensely proud. And so glad that we managed
to get justice for the family, really. [slow music] - With the case concluded and the killer in jail,
the last piece of the puzzle was in place. The autopsy had provided the information they needed.
The stab wound to the back, the teeth, and even the eczema on the leg. [slow music]
- [Narrator] In the end, Jeffrey Howe's body had revealed the truth. And the jigsaw was complete.
[dramatic music] [dramatic music]

Forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd investigates the murder of Jeffrey Howe, whose body was found dismembered and strewn across the UK by Stephen Marshall and Sarah Bush, all for money.

In The Truth About My Murder, Dr. Richard Shepherd showcases a state-of-the-art digital autopsy table featuring digitally scanned sample bodies to investigate a series of intriguing murders where the victims' bodies help reveal the truth behind horrific crimes.

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Brief Summary

The Jigsaw Murder investigation reveals Jeffrey Howe's dismemberment by Stephen Marshall and Sarah Bush, driven by financial motives.

Key points

The Jigsaw Murder Begins. A severed leg found in a field sparks a complex murder investigation.
Crucial Breakthrough. The discovery of a second body part leads to a significant breakthrough in the case.
Identifying the Victim. Forensics identify the body as a white or Asian middle-aged male, but many questions remain.
The Discovery of Body Parts. Multiple body parts are discovered across different locations, heightening the investigation's urgency.
The Investigation Intensifies. As more body parts are found, the investigation escalates, drawing public attention.
Murder Confirmed. The investigation confirms the victim was murdered with two stab wounds to the back.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The dead don't hide the truth.

Dr. Richard Shepherd on forensic pathologists' insights.

0:34WatchFeb 5, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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