The Killer Step Brother | World's Most Evil Killers | True Crime | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: 2013, Crown Hill, Bristol, England. It was Angie and Darren's big day.
After four years together, they were making it official, celebrating with their newly blended family.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: The most chilling picture of this wedding is forever imprinted on my mind.
There is Nathan Matthews, dressed up for the wedding. NARRATOR: The bridesmaids were Matthew's
girlfriend, Shauna Hoare, and his stepsister, Becky Watts. KERRI NIXON: The stepsister that he's had an obsession with
but also hates is now 16. NARRATOR: Matthews controlled his girlfriend Shauna, and together they wanted to control Becky.
I knew they didn't particularly like each other. I wouldn't say they hated each other.
NARRATOR: Matthews wanted to teach Becky a lesson. Obviously I didn't want that to be read to someone.
[sobbing] NARRATOR: That lesson led to murder and much worse. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Matthews quite coolly and calmly
purchases a circular saw, which he then uses to dismember his stepsisters body. He cuts it into eight pieces.
NARRATOR: Nathan Matthews was a callous, cruel man with a deviant fascination for teenage girls.
Consumed with jealousy and lust, he brutally took Becky's life and destroyed his family, making Nathan
Matthews one of the world's most evil killers. [theme music] On the morning of Thursday the 19th of February,
2015, 16-year-old Becky Watts was home alone. Her stepmom Anjie had gone to a hospital appointment.
It wasn't unusual for her stepbrother Nathan Matthews and his girlfriend Shauna Hoare to drop in
with their young child, even though Becky and Nathan weren't always the best of friends.
COURTNEY BICKER: I don't know if Nathan hated Becky, but I know he had resentment towards her and jealousy.
And particularly, I feel like he must have been jealous of Becky's relationship with his mother
because they were very close. NARRATOR: Matthews and Hoare had carefully planned for this day.
Matthews went upstairs to Becky's room, and she was never seen alive again. For 12 long days, only the couple
knew what they'd done to Becky. Her family and the community believe she was missing, and clung to the hope
that she was still alive. JULIAN DRUKER: Obviously all of these people searching
for Becky didn't know her, but they knew lots of teenagers like her. She was someone they were so desperately hoping
would return home, and this girl they knew was the angel of Bristol. Everybody was praying for a positive outcome to this story.
JOHN GLASWORTHY: We're not giving up hope, anyway. Absolutely. This family won't ever, ever do that.
We'll bring this to a conclusion whatever way the ball bounces, you know. So we have to just continue now strengthening each other.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Becky was just 16 years of age. It doesn't bear thinking about what actually
happened to Becky Watts. We can't be sure. But we do know that Becky was killed.
NARRATOR: This killer story begins on the 9th of January, 1987. Nathan Charles Matthews was born to his mother
Anjie and an unknown father. KERRI NIXON: Not having his father in his life at all and no mention about his father-- he
wasn't even on his birth certificate-- so he would have had a sense of, what's my identity?
Who am I? NARRATOR: As a child, Matthews lived with his grandmother, only a few miles away from his mom's home.
KERRI NIXON: The fact that he lived so close to his mom but didn't live with his mom would
have had an additional impact of rejection. Yes, they were close, but a young child
would be confused as to why he didn't live with his mom like his friends in school would have lived with their parents.
NARRATOR: From an early age, Matthews was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a chronic condition which
causes pain all over the body. KERRI NIXON: His friends report that he was in pain,
and as a consequence of that, he suffered with depression and anxiety. And it had a profound impact on how he saw himself apparently.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: It didn't make for a comfortable, happy, settled child. He was a troubled boy.
KERRI NIXON: He felt almost useless and weak and not as strong as his friends, so that definitely
would have had an impact on how he saw himself as a young man growing up. NARRATOR: By 1999, Matthew's mom Anjie
was in a new relationship with a man called Darren Goldsworthy. Darren had two young children, one-year-old Becky
and her four-year-old brother. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Nathan grew closer and closer to Darren.
They did things together. You know, the father that Nathan had never really had.
NARRATOR: Darren's children lived with their mother during the week, and 12-year-old Nathan stayed
at his grandmother's, but the new blended family spent every weekend together. KERRI NIXON: Darren would spend time with Matthews,
and they would, you know, they'd fix cars together. They'd do things, and there was lots of bonding between them.
So maybe this was something-- a positive, you know, change in his life. This could have been something that he'd
always been searching for. NARRATOR: In January 2002, when Darren was awarded custody
of his children, Becky and her brother moved in with their dad and Anjie. KERRI NIXON: Suddenly two children arrive and move
in with his mom, and move in with his mom that he hasn't lived with. So that must feel really confusing and difficult
for a teenager to accept. That, hang on, mom. I've never lived with you, but now two other children
move into your house? That could have generated some anger inside him. And yes, it seems like they got on quite well initially,
but I think there could have been underneath some resentment there. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Nathan joined the Army Training Corps, where
he learned some more skills, and he also trained to become an electrician. So you have a young man apparently growing
up in a conventional way. Darren, his stepfather, paid for his driving lessons because he thought his son should be able to drive,
and indeed, eventually, he bought him a car. It was an act of remarkable generosity and indicative
of the closeness of their relationship. But what Darren didn't reckon with was that there was a completely separate side to Nathan.
JULIAN DRUKER: We know that Nathan Matthews had an unhealthy interest in the most extreme types
of pornography, kidnappings, and rapes, and really, really graphic material that he would look
at on an almost daily basis. KERRI NIXON: The effects of extreme pornography is really quite damaging.
What it does is it desensitizes the young male brain. When they are watching such extreme sexual content,
it makes them fantasize about extreme sexual content, and it makes them seek out sexual behavior
that isn't normal. And we can see the things that he was addicted to wasn't what the average teenage boy is
addicted to. It wasn't just pornography. It was borderline legal. He was looking at teen sex, very young teen sex,
girls dressed in school uniform. There was explicit and worrying sexual content in the things
that he was looking at. NARRATOR: He had his first serious girlfriend at the age of 18.
After a couple of months, she ended their relationship, claiming Matthews was abusive
and controlling. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: We see that he has a lot of difficulty when relationships come to an end.
He doesn't want to accept it that his ex-girlfriend reports some quite troubling behavior from him
after that relationship broke down. He would show up at her house. He wasn't prepared to let her go.
So we've got some really significant issues here. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Not that long afterwards, at the age of 19,
Nathan turned up at the family house in his car with four young girls, all aged about 12.
Here's that fantasy playing out again, young girls. Darren, the stepfather, sees Nathan arrive with the girls,
goes out the house and says, take them back home, wherever you found them. He won't let them in the door.
NARRATOR: In 2008, at the age of 21, Matthews met 14-year-old Shauna Hoare. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She was technically still
a child when she started her relationship with him, and she does have quite a troubled background.
She was moved from foster care to foster care, different families. She never had a real sense of stability and security
and continuity, and I think when she meets Matthews, that opportunity is there. KERRI NIXON: So he is going to be attracted
to the power, the control. It makes him feel like a man when he hasn't felt like a man in his childhood.
So that would have been really intoxicating for him that he had this young girl looking up to him.
JULIAN DRUKER: A few years after the start of their relationship, Shauna was living in a hostel.
She broke the rules there by allowing Nathan Matthews to come and live with her, and that's
what they did for some time. But Nathan Matthews had caused a rift between Shauna
and her mother, and in fact, he'd told her mother that she wouldn't see her daughter anymore.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Shauna was later to maintain that he totally took over her life.
He dominated her. Told her what she could do, when she could do it, whether she could have a cigarette or not.
But nevertheless, she was to bear him a child. NARRATOR: The relationship wasn't enough for Matthews.
He still harbored dark, sexual desires, and he lured Shauna into them. GEOFFREY WANSELL: The relationship between them
became more and more sexual, and they would fantasize together, and they would text each other.
They would watch porn together, and Nathan would urge her to find young girls for him.
NARRATOR: By 2011, 24-year-old Nathan Matthews, his girlfriend Shauna Hoare, age 17, and their young baby
had moved into their own house in Barton Hill, not far from where his mother Anjie was
living with Darrren, stepsister Becky, and her brother in Crown Hill. JULIAN DRUKER: The relationship between Matthews and Hoare
was turbulent. There were reports from her that he was often violent towards her, but this was an often stormy relationship
that they had. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Nathan Matthews had instinctively found the ideal apprentice, the person that would help him live
out his own fantasies, and they were extremely explicit sexual fantasies. JULIAN DRUKER: Hoare and Matthews
both had an interest in teenage girls or girls younger than that. They would message each other if they'd seen a girl
who they found attractive. We've seen texts where she messaged him, saying she'd seen a girl in the supermarket,
and they joked about kidnapping her and bringing her home. So this was often the subject of their conversations.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This is yet more evidence of her wanting to be accepted by him.
She is prepared to say anything, to do anything that will give her that acceptance.
She doesn't want to let go of this relationship, no matter how dysfunctional it is because it
gives her a sense of belonging. It gives her a sense of identity, and that's something she hasn't had before.
NARRATOR: Being young parents didn't get in the way of their lifestyle. KERRI NIXON: This baby seems to have absolutely
no impact on their lives. It doesn't create a positive change in him, and it doesn't create a change in Hoare's behavior
in terms of protecting her baby and not being involved in the behavior that he wants her to.
So they have a threesome. They have these very extreme fantasies, and then they start to put those fantasies into reality
by sending explicit messages to each other about kidnap, about having sex with young girls at the time
that they've had a child together. NARRATOR: Matthews and Hoare were always welcomed
into Anjie and Darren's home. Along with Matthew's step siblings, Becky and her brother, they appeared
to be a normal loving family. JULIAN DRUKER: So to all intents and purposes, Nathan Matthews and Becky were brother and sister.
That is how they saw their relationship. Her first word was Nathan. So even though they weren't living together,
they were extremely close. It was only as they became older that this relationship
became more strained. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Matthews family was a blended family, which is nothing out of the ordinary,
and also Becky is part of this family unit. So there is a sense in which they do feel like a family.
They do things together. They go on holiday together. But I do feel that there is that underlying sense of envy
towards her because she is part of this family unit that he's always felt a little bit separate from.
COURTNEY BICKER: There were times where they would seemingly get along, and I think she kind of did
want to get along with him because that was somebody who she'd known since she was about two that she saw as a brother
despite their relationship issues. But she always felt like he disliked her. NARRATOR: At the age of 12, Becky
began to struggle with severe anxiety, which led to her becoming anorexic. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Becky almost certainly drew the attention
of Darren and Anjie away from Nathan, and she occupied a lot of their mind. She was ill, and at the same time,
she was developing into an adolescent. KERRI NIXON: Becky starting to present as a troubled young girl.
She was anxious. She didn't like to go out. There's lots of social anxiety. And eventually, that developed into an eating disorder.
But from Matthews' perspective, here's the little girl that walked into his mom's house, and now
here's this 12-year-old yet again getting all the attention. And I think that potentially could
have just further angered him and added to his resentment of Becky. TEELA MAE JONES: I stayed around Becky's one night,
and we were-- we were in the kitchen making a pizza. And he was just stood there staring at us.
He wouldn't smile or he wouldn't make conversation. He would just stare at me. Made me feel really uncomfortable.
KERRI NIXON: We've got a man here that is already fixated, not just with Becky, but young girls generally.
So he spends his time obsessively watching extreme pornography involving girls of a similar age.
And then there's his stepsister of that age group, the same age of girls that he's sexually attracted to and obsessed with,
and there's a girl right in front of him. But he also hates this girl, because she took his mom.
NARRATOR: Two years later in 2013, things were looking up for the family. 14-year-old Becky was in a much better place,
and everyone was looking forward to a much-needed and long-awaited celebration. Anjie and Darren were getting married.
In August, the blended family became official. GEOFFREY WANSELL: There is Nathan Matthews
dressed up for the wedding. There's Darren as the groom. There's his mother Angie wearing a white wedding
dress, carrying a bouquet. NARRATOR: Becky and Matthew's 19-year-old girlfriend Shauna
were both bridesmaids. The day looked picture-perfect. Even Nathan was beaming. KERRI NIXON: It's interesting when
we look at his behavior with his family, and actually on the day that his mom marries Darren.
It looks like a happy, blended family. And if everybody else would assume that they'd managed to successfully
blend this family together. So this was a young man that was able to put on that presentation that everything is OK
when actually within him something very different was going on. COURTNEY BICKER: At the wedding, he was getting really angry
about the shirt he had to wear for the wedding, and he didn't want to wear it, and he
got into a massive argument about it with the family. And that was just over a shirt.
NARRATOR: Sadly the honeymoon period didn't last long. Anjie's health deteriorated, and in March 2014,
20-year-old Shauna Hoare became Anjie's registered carer. Hoare and Matthew spent even more time
at the house in Crown Hill. COURTNEY BICKER: I would say Becky did like Shauna because she would always let Shauna get some of her clothing
when she didn't want it anymore, because she used to get a lot of new clothes. So Shauna would get her pick of her older clothes,
and she would always come round. And whenever she was around and Nathan was in there,
they would talk, and they would have conversations because it was kind of nice. It was almost, like, when Nathan was there,
they didn't talk as much. It was more like a nice breath of fresh air kind of conversation to not have him there,
because it was almost, like, he had a problem with them too even talking. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When I look at the dynamic between Matthews
and Hoare, I think what we've got going on here is coercive control. I think there is a sense in which
Matthews very slowly chipped away at Hoare's sense of identity. When he met her, she was a child.
She hadn't known stability or security or continuity in any relationship before,
and he offered her that. NARRATOR: Matthews didn't want Shauna and Becky to be friends.
KERRI NIXON: I think Matthew's had a simmering, building rage inside him, and I think that came from feelings of jealousy,
resentment, rejection. And he looked at this young girl, and he put all of that rage onto her.
How dare you take the attention of my mom? How dare you live in my family when I didn't have that?
And he might not have actually been able to think clearly like I'm explaining it.
He would have just experienced these feelings. COURTNEY BICKER: The last time I saw Becky was the Sunday I
walked her home, and I said, "Bye, May." And she went, "Bye." And she gave me a hug, and we did a fist bump.
And then I walked home as soon as the sun was setting, and that was the last time I actually
saw her in-person alive. NARRATOR: On Thursday the 19th of February, 2015, Anjie returned from a hospital appointment
to find that 16-year-old Becky was not at home. Nathan Matthews and Shauna Hoare explained that they
had heard her leave the house. COURTNEY BICKER: I think it must have been 11:00 in the morning.
I sent her a message on WhatsApp, and it went through with two texts, but it wasn't read.
And then I sent her another message about 15 minutes later just to see if she got the first one,
and it came back with one tick, meaning undelivered, meaning her phone was switched off
between that period of time. It was unusual for her phone to be off. And then I just didn't think much of it.
I just stayed at home for that day. And then later that day, I was still sending her messages,
and they weren't going through. So I kind of just thought, oh, maybe she's going to bed early,
maybe she was too busy to reply. TEELA MAE JONES: I did find it strange that she wasn't texting back, because she would
always text back straight away. I didn't get too worried because I know sometimes people just get distracted doing other things.
NARRATOR: It wasn't out of the ordinary for Becky to stay over at a friend's house,
so her family weren't concerned when she didn't return that night. The following morning, however, there
was still no word from Becky, and that wasn't normal. COURTNEY BICKER: When I called around all
the other friends that we had, they hadn't heard from her, hadn't seen her. And that's when I rang her house phone and her family.
Anjie picked up, her stepmom, and she said that she hadn't heard from her either.
And I was then very concerned, and that's when I just kept ringing the house phone every now and then, saying
is she back home yet? Whereas she? And that's when everyone kind of realized something really bad
was going on. TEELA MAE JONES: I just remember all of us being so worried about Becky.
I think we were just so upset and stuff that she had gone missing. It just didn't really make sense to us.
NARRATOR: With no news, her dad Darren decided to call the police. OPERATOR: Police, how can I help you?
DARREN: It seems my daughter has gone missing OPERATOR: No one has seen her now?
DARREN: No. We've phoned around the family. All her friends have contacted us and asking where she is,
and none of them know. OPERATOR: What's her name? DARREN: Rebecca Watts NARRATOR: As the police began their investigation,
Becky's family set about spreading word of her disappearance. JULIAN DRUKER: They were looking for any way possible for people
to be contacted about where Becky might be. They chose to go on Facebook. They put out an appeal.
Becky's dad needed help to do that, so he enlisted Nathan Matthews to put that message online.
NARRATOR: The community joined forces to search for the missing 16-year-old. COURTNEY BICKER: Her whole family came out,
and everyone from our school was there. We were just trying to find her because, at this point,
there was no updates. We didn't have a clue what was going on, and it's you just didn't want to sit
there and twiddle your thumbs. You wanted to do something, even though it might not amount to anything.
It was better than doing nothing. NARRATOR: Days went by with still no sign of Becky.
JULIAN DRUKER: The search became more and more extensive. This big pond in the area was dredged by police.
Scores of officers were involved by this point. A huge operation for the force in this area.
Plus you had the social media presence as well. This FindBecky hashtag was being spoken about all
across the country, and by this point, millions would have known that she had gone missing.
TEELA MAE JONES: My worst fear was maybe just thinking that something seriously bad had happened to her.
Like, she had been killed or raped or something, and she was just in a ditch somewhere, anywhere.
I did think that sometimes. NARRATOR: The police turned their attention to the two people who'd heard Becky leaving the house
on the day she disappeared. Her stepbrother Nathan Matthews and his girlfriend Shauna
Hoare. JULIAN DRUKER: The questioning of Nathan Matthews was a really slow process.
There was not much information coming from him for many, many hours. NARRATOR: Unlike Matthews, Hoare was
only too willing to talk through the last time they'd heard from Becky. I think we got there about 11:00-ish.
The door was locked, so obviously we use the key from underneath the recycling bin.
Got in. Heard music upstairs, wishing Becky had been in then. I went into the kitchen to get a cigarette.
We went to go outside to have a cigarette. Probably it was about 15, 20 minutes.
Then we came back up. I went into the kitchen to get a drink. I think I was washing my hands, then
I heard the front door slam. NARRATOR: Although Matthews hadn't said much, he did corroborate Hoare's version of events.
INTERVIEWER 1: When you heard a virgorous knock, you're thinking that's the front door of the sound?
Yeah. INTERVIEWER 1: Yeah, OK. And who did you think that was then? Not Becky. INTERVIEWER 1: OK.
INTERVIEWER 2: Immediately before this sound of the door slamming, what could you hear then?
I was kind of more trying to make sure that everything's back and getting my drink.
INTERVIEWER 2: Yeah. No, I heard stomping down the stairs. That's what made me think that Becky left in a mood.
I said to Angie, I said the door slammed. But I wasn't sure if that was the wind.
I took it because there was like quite stump, stump, stump down the stairs. I assumed, you know, she was in a bit one of her tantrums.
[laughs] INTERVIEWER 2: Yeah. NARRATOR: There was no evidence to connect them to Becky's disappearance.
But the police were left with an uneasy feeling about the couple. Something was off.
The following day, they were brought in for further questioning. INTERVIEWER 2: Does Nathan have any, some concerns
about speaking to us? Not that he told me, no. INTERVIEWER 2: No. If he does, I wouldn't know that.
INTERVIEWER 2: Yeah. How is he finding it? I mean, he's find it quite hard actually.
Again, he's kind of more thinking like, God, if it-- or again, knowing how hard it'd be for his mom at the moment.
Yeah, because Becky was almost like a daughter-- a daughter to her. INTERVIEWER 2: Yeah.
You know what I mean? INTERVIEWER 1: And then over the weekend, you find her, you and Nathan been involved in searching
for Becky or doing any-- No I was not worried they were doing a search. I didn't realize until I think it was yesterday.
I went on my Facebook and obviously, there was news articles and pictures popped
up about they did the search. But we weren't told about it until-- NARRATOR: While the police continued their questioning,
the forensics team made a breakthrough. There's a point in any missing persons investigation where
close family members of the person who's gone missing have to be looked at by police unfortunately.
And this was, the case here, they did a search of Becky's home. And it was during that that they found an absolutely key detail.
They found her blood in the door frame of her bedroom. And they found a fingerprint within that.
NARRATOR: The bloody print was sent for analysis. And the thumbprint belonged to Nathan Matthews.
NARRATOR: It was a huge piece of evidence which placed Matthews in the house with Becky
at some point when she'd been bleeding. That pointed to him being the prime suspect
in her disappearance. NARRATOR: On the 28th of February 2015, Nathan Matthews and Shauna Hoare were arrested on suspicion
of kidnapping Becky Watts. Four days later on the 2nd of March, Matthews submitted a written statement
through his legal team, in which he confessed to killing his own stepsister. INTERVIEWER 1: Can you tell me then, Nathan, because if we
work through what you told us in this written statement, this idea that-- You have seem--
I think you like more detail. INTERVIEWER 1: Yeah. Is that-- [sighs deeply] Obviously, I should be able to go into more detail.
INTERVIEWER 1: Mm-hmm. [inhales] [exhales] This is harder than normal. [sniffs] [exhales]
INTERVIEWER 1: There are a couple of ways-- Are you going to have to-- are you going
to have to read that statement? INTERVIEWER 1: No. There are a couple of ways we could get around this.
Obviously, I don't want that to be read to someone. [sobs] Nathan Matthews eventually admitted
to killing Becky Watson. He told police that his plan had gone wrong. But Shauna Hoare had nothing to do with it.
In fact, she was downstairs at the time that all this happened . And she was having a cigarette in the kitchen.
NARRATOR: Matthews seemed unwilling to talk about his girlfriend in connection to the events.
Oh, she said something about, um, something about Shauna, can you rephrase that.
So you can include basically everybody in it and not use her name. Like-- INTERVIEWER 1: Do you want me to say--
Like-- INTERVIEWER 1: --the other person? Is it you're saying the name? I-- [exhales] we simply hit everybody.
And then like, obviously she's in-- obviously would be included in it, but include everybody,
don't say her name. INTERVIEWER 1: OK. OK. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think what he's doing here
is trying to keep the police away from Hoare, not because he wants to protect her.
He's trying to maintain control here. He's pleading with the police to leave her name
out of this because the information that she knows is dynamite. NARRATOR: Hoare too claim she played
no part in Becky's death. INTERVIEWER 1: How do I know that you weren't involved?
Again, I shouldn't have any DNA reason to be involved in it. Again, especially when one looks at my past,
to think that I could allow him to come to somebody else like that, it's highly unlikely.
And again the fact that, as far as I knew, he was, you know, changing. He wasn't as violent anymore.
NARRATOR: But Matthews was violent, and investigators were working hard to prove it.
They discovered CCTV footage from the day after Becky disappeared. It showed Nathan Matthews visiting a DIY store.
Matthews quite coolly and calmly purchases a circular saw, which he then uses to dismember
his stepsister's body. He cuts it into eight pieces. So the idea that he can do this without completely
breaking down tells us a lot about the kind of person he is. KERRI NIXON: I don't think anybody
can even begin to imagine what that would have been like. It is not easy to cut up a body.
It would have taken great force. The amount of blood would have been horrific. And he was able to do that to his stepsister.
JULIAN DRUKER: So where do you hide body parts? Well, Hoare and Matthews went to a friend in Barton Court.
They offered them 10,000 pounds to store these packages inside a shed. But they told them not in any way to look inside them.
NARRATOR: The friends agreed to take a suitcase from Matthews. Following his confession, the police recovered Becky's
remains from their garden shed. INTERVIEWER 1: I suppose the question is, why Becky?
I don't know. Again, I knew they didn't particularly like each other. I wouldn't say they hated each other,
I'd never seen him have an argument. NARRATOR: As the questioning went on, Matthews claimed that he'd never intended to hurt Becky.
She'd leave things out on the floor of my mom to trip over and obviously would talk to her like she's
saying nasty comments and talked to her like dirt on the floor. And I thought if I was able to scare her and obviously her not
be harmed and obviously be released, I was thinking when she got back-- [exhales] she obviously would have
been scared and more appreciative of things as people are. Even when he's confessed to her murder,
he is painting her as the aggressor. He's saying she was the one who was badly behaved.
She was treating my mother horrendously. So he's trying to basically say, she deserved it essentially.
INTERVIEWER 1: So when did you think all of this up? I can't be certain. I'm no good with dates.
I've said this repeatedly and date muddle into other days. If it was a plan to just kidnap her and scare her,
how did he possibly think he was going to get away with that? What was the purpose?
I think there was more behind that plan. I think he planned to do harm to Becky.
NARRATOR: Matthews and Hoare were brought to court together to face charges. I felt sick looking at him, knowing what he did.
And yeah, I didn't always like Becky. But she was a nice enough girl. She was so young.
[sobbing] I don't understand how he could he have done that to us. NARRATOR: Gradually from Matthew's account
and the evidence they gathered, investigators were able to piece together what happened on that fateful day.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: When they arrived on the morning of the 19th of February 2015 at Angie's house,
it was that they were also carrying among the many other things, two stun guns. Now what was that about?
Was it to take Becky prisoner and whisk her back to their own house? Was it to subdue her while they did whatever they wanted to do?
What it does is precisely underline the premeditation that Matthews brought to the killing of Becky Watts.
JULIAN DRUKER: It was just after 11:00. It's not entirely clear what happened but Matthews went upstairs.
He was wearing a mask. He went into Becky's room. Some sort of fight ensued. His mask slipped but ultimately, Becky ended up being murdered.
At any point within this altercation, he could have chosen to stop. He could have chosen to step back, to walk away
and to leave Becky with her life. But that was not what he wanted here. He wanted to destroy her.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: And Becky had suffered. She had cuts and bruises on her face. She had 15 stab wounds inflicted after she died.
It is horrifying. JULIAN DRUKER: What happened happened fairly quickly. But Becky was put into a suitcase.
Becky's stepmom arrived home around an hour or so later walking past the car that Becky was
in the boot of at this point. And she found Hoare and Matthews acting normally. They're actually watching TV when she returned home.
NARRATOR: The couple remained at the family home, keeping up the pretense of normality until 7:00 PM
that evening, around eight hours after Becky had been killed. During this time, the 16-year-old's body
lay hidden just meters away. GEOFFREY WANSELL: They take the child back home. They leave Becky in the boot of the car.
They order a takeaway. And they act as though nothing has happened at all. It was so matter of fact that it defies belief.
We don't see this in the majority of murder cases. Generally, especially this is the first time
they've taken a life. You know, they're not serial murderers here. That's-- it's shocking to take the life of another person.
So most people, even if they've taken a life, will have some element of a shock response.
But that's not here. NARRATOR: On the 4th of March 2015, Nathan Matthews was charged with the murder of Becky Watts.
Hoare, who along with Matthews claims she'd been completely unaware of Becky's death, was charged
with attempting to pervert the course of justice. But that was before CCTV began to emerge of the couple buying
the bags and the things to dispose of the body, plus the discovery of Hoare's DNA.
So in June 2015, Hoare too is charged with murder. KERRI NIXON: And I think that's where any empathy that we have
for Hoare in that she was this abused vulnerable girl who was controlled by him.
And yes, I absolutely agree that she was. But her actions now post-murder are just unforgivable,
the fact that she goes along with the way that he treats Becky's body. NARRATOR: On the 6th of October 2015,
Nathan Matthews and Shauna Hoare stood trial. Although Matthews admitted killing Becky,
he and Hoare both denied murder and conspiracy to kidnap. The prosecution presented their case
as a sexually-motivated murder based on Matthews and Hoare's joint fixation on teenage girls.
KERRI NIXON: There was definitely elements of a sexually-motivated murder. However, I think it's a factor.
And I think it is quite simplistic to just look at that. And I think the hatred that he had,
the love-hate obsession that he had with Becky is absolutely crucial. And that's why it was Becky and not a random teenage girl
that he killed. NARRATOR: Hoare's defense claim that she'd been subjected to years of physical and emotional abuse
at the hands of Matthews. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think many people have quite a difficulty
in making sense of Hoare. Because looking at this from the outside, how on earth
could you go along with this kind of thing? How on earth could you tolerate the kind of behavior
that Matthews was engaged in? But that kind of judgment is made without an awareness of what coercive control actually is.
It's taking away someone's identity. It's taking away their capacity for independent thought.
Everything that Hoare was, she was for Matthews. She was enmeshed with him. She was embedded with him.
And by the time that she extracted herself from that, Becky had already been killed.
NARRATOR: On the 11th of November 2015, Nathan Matthews was found guilty of the murder of Becky Watts.
He was sentenced to a minimum of 33 years in prison. Shauna Hoare was found guilty of the lesser
charge of manslaughter and sentenced to 17 years. I've covered lots of murders in Britain unfortunately.
But this case really stands out because of that family relationship. It is so unusual for someone to kill someone
who's essentially a sibling. And for them to dismember them as well, absolutely horrific.
But almost exceptional really that someone would do that to someone so close in their family.
COURTNEY BICKER: It's also hard because sometimes I think about her and I'm like, oh, Becky
would have liked to do this. Like, if we go to-- like if I go to the beach or I go to a theme park, I'm like,
she would have loved this. And she really wanted to go on holiday for her 18th birthday.
Go to somewhere like Magaluf or something. And so when I went to Spain myself, it was kind of bittersweet because like, I'm
doing this for you, but also, you don't get to experience this. NARRATOR: Nathan Matthews sadistically
killed his little stepsister in the cruelest way possible. Then he sat back and watched as an entire community desperately
searched for the missing teenager. He brutalized Becky in life and death, condemning his whole family to a lifetime of pain,
making Nathan Matthews one of the world's most evil killers. [music playing] [audio logo]

Season 7, Episode 6

A family's worst nightmare occurs when 16-year-old Becky Watts goes missing from her home and is found dead a few days later. The family is shocked when they discover she was murdered by her own stepbrother, Nathan Matthews.

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Brief Summary

Nathan Matthews murdered his stepsister Becky Watts, leading to a shocking trial and community tragedy.

Key points

The Wedding Day. Angie and Darren's wedding day marks a chilling turning point in the family's story.
Nathan's Dark Obsession. Nathan Matthews harbored dark desires and a troubling obsession with young girls.
The Day Becky Went Missing. On February 19, 2015, Becky Watts was home alone, and then she vanished.
Becky Watts Goes Missing. Darren Watts reports his daughter Rebecca missing, igniting a frantic search.
Community Joins the Search. Becky's family and friends rally together, spreading the word of her disappearance.
Key Evidence Found. Police discover blood and a fingerprint at Becky's home, pointing to Nathan Matthews.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Becky was just 16 years of age.

GEOFFREY WANSELL reflects on Becky's youth.

3:40WatchJan 19, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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