World's Most Evil Killers - Season 1, Episode 1 - Steve Wright - Full Episode | Forensic Files

-During the winter of 2006, Ipswich in Suffolk was paralyzed with fear. The bodies of five missing prostitutes
had been found by police, sparking the biggest-ever manhunt in the east of England.
-And he's targeting these women because they are vulnerable, because they are easy for him
to access and easy for him to control. -As the horror began to unravel, it became a race against time to catch the killer.
The police questioned over 2,000 motorists with no success. -He had to be caught because he wouldn't stop until he was.
-Steve Wright, through this whole period, was sitting at home watching this whole drama played out
on 24-hour news channels, thinking to himself, "I'm doing this. I'm controlling this.
I'm gonna try and get away with this." Steve Wright, the man dubbed the Suffolk Strangler,
had earned his place as one of the world's most evil killers. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Steve Wright is one of Britain's most prolific serial killers.
In the space of just six weeks during the winter of 2006, he murdered five young women
who were working as prostitutes on the streets of Ipswich. As the girls disappeared one by one,
the world's media descended upon Suffolk. There was an inevitability with each breaking news report
that another body would be found. -Two bodies have been found near Ipswich. This is breaking news, and we're giving it to you as we get it.
-But Steve Wright's story begins over 40 years before. ♪♪ Wright was born in the Norfolk village of Erpingham
in 1958, one of four children. He grew up in a military family, living on RAF bases around the world
with his father, Conrad, a retired corporal. -He's a normal child, I mean, no aggression.
He's your typical boy -- just wanted to play. -But family life was far from happy,
and Wright's mother left when he was just 8 years old. Wright and his siblings stayed with their father,
who went on to remarry. -While Steve was living with me, there was never a problem. Never -- You know?
Never see one, even. He's happy. He'd had little bounties, I suppose, with his stepmother
at times when he went a bit mischievous, if you like, but it was nothing that you'd sort of think
about an hour later. -Steve was not a particularly bright young man but cheery enough in his own way.
Left school at 16 without any qualifications to speak of and got a job working as a chef on the ferries,
which sailed from Felixstowe to the continent. -By the early 1980s, Wright had become a steward
on the cruise ship the QE-2, and it was during this time, he reported he spent money on sex workers
during trips to Thailand, which some experts believe may have altered his perception towards the opposite sex.
-I think he's got an expectation of women. Women are that who perform a service for him,
to play a particular role. They serve a function for him, and that's something that
we continually see throughout the rest of his life. -He would often return home from sea penniless.
-He was a bit of loner-like, in a way. He didn't learn to mix that much, but he did come over to me on the weekends when he lived here,
especially 'cause he looked after the dogs, and I had two then, couple of beers down at the end of the road, normal.
-So Steve Wright was a performer. He was performing a role as a guy who was interested in playing golf
and going to the pub and going on holiday. He appeared to be somebody who was normal,
somebody who fitted in, but behind that, there was something altogether different going on.
-Wright's married twice, but both ended in divorce with rumors of domestic violence.
He struggled to hold down a job and ran up large gambling debts. -Well, I knew he put money on the horses
because when he got his wage from the Langham Hall, I used to take his wages off him,
believe it or not, and I said, "I'll give you enough to see you through the week,"
'cause I wanted him to build up a kitty to escort himself out. -Wright continued to gamble
and was eventually declared bankrupt. Unable to see a way out of his debts, he tried, unsuccessfully, to take his own life.
-For him to want to gas himself in the car, it must've been something I wasn't aware of,
for him to get pushed to that limit, you know? Whether he was trying to befriend young females,
I think the girls that he was getting were younger than him, and whether they...
in the end, they turned him down, and he couldn't face it or something, and he felt rejected or whatever.
I don't know. When he was here, it wasn't a problem. Where did he get it, then? Did he get so much into debt that it pressurized him
so much that he just broke? -I think Steve Wright's alleged suicide attempts are quite significant.
So, what does suicide represent? It represents somebody trying to get control back,
somebody whose life has kind of gone beyond their grip, and they're desperately trying to reel that power back in.
And I think for Steve Wright, if we look at some of his earlier experiences, this is somebody who came to crave control.
He wasn't in control of his life as a child. The family were moving around, it was quite transient,
it was quite chaotic, and as an adult, I think he felt an intense need to be in control,
and that was what he was essentially doing here. He was internalizing, so he was being violent towards himself.
-In 2002, while working as a barman, Wright, now age 44, was arrested for stealing 80 pounds from the pub till
to pay off his escalating debt. This petty theft would later contribute to his downfall.
-He'd been to court because he'd taken money from the till, but he kept that from me, anyway.
So, again, if he can keep one thing from you, can he keep others? -By October 2006, 48-year-old Wright
was living with a new girlfriend on London Road, in the heart of Ipswich's red-light district.
In the same month, 19-year-old Tania Nicol went missing from her home. -She came out around maybe about 8:00 at night --
It was something like that -- and she wanted a lift home, so I gave her a lift. Well, I didn't want to tatter off about anything, you know,
but we knew... Far as I was concerned, she was taking cannabis and whatever, and I didn't know that she was into drugs so heavily.
You see, you don't know. We just talked like friends. When we got there, she just got out of the car.
One of the things I noticed was she just walked straight into the house, whereas, you know...
you might turn around and give a little wave, but she just walked straight in, so I suppose that's the sort of, like...
This drug stuff, it dulls your senses to a lot of things, so it robs you of your life, really,
and that was the last time I saw her. -The family was unaware that Tania was living
a double life as a prostitute to fund her addiction to heroin. -I didn't know that until afterwards.
Obviously, she was doing that to feed her habit. Isn't it? That's what they -- That's what I've been told, you know?
-Before 2006, Ipswich, like many market towns of this size in the U.K., experienced problems with drugs, and we had a quite vivid
and lively street prostitution scene. It was around... In summer of 2006, we'd done some research
and identified around 70-odd women that were working on the streets of Ipswich as prostitutes.
The main issue, obviously, why they're out in the streets in the first instance, all these women were out there
to feed their drug habit. They were all Class A addicts. -Another young woman working on the streets of Ipswich in 2006
was Jade Reynolds. -And every morning, I'd wake up, you know, and I have a heroin addiction to fund, you know?
So, unless you've probably saved money from working on the streets the night before, you worked out late,
and you're not very well for the morning and for the day, and then I'd get up at the nighttime,
put on makeup and clothes and pretty much go and sell myself down on the street, you know?
It was cold, dark, you know, very dangerous, but you don't think about the danger.
All you really just -- go out there and do what you got to do, but it wasn't a good lifestyle.
It wasn't an easy lifestyle, really. There was a lot of emotion that goes with it,
and you'd have to learn to switch off or let it overrun you, you know? And heroin is an easy way to switch off all your emotions.
-After Tania Nicol's family haven't heard from her for 48 hours, they reported her as missing.
Police began to investigate, but it appeared she'd just vanished off the face of the Earth.
-We possibly thought she went with a load of people down to London somewhere and just stayed in a house or something like that.
-Prostitutes go missing all the time, change cities. That's not unusual. Very seldom do they have many relatives
who will identify their disappearance. Sometimes, they do. Sometimes, they don't.
-As time passed, Jim became increasingly concerned about his daughter. -You're terribly -- You're worried beyond --
You just go out your head, you know? You just can't think straight, you know, you're so worried,
and it really hits your mistakes. And I think after about 2 or 3 weeks, it was sheer hell not knowing where she was,
and by then, you know that something's up. -While Jim waited desperately for any news
about his daughter, Tania, on November the 15th, another young woman was reported missing --
25-year-old Gemma Adams. -For Gemma to go missing, that's when you worry 'cause Gemma would never go missing, you know?
She's not like that, you know. She's always certain time, certain place, this, that, that, you know?
Yeah, so, that was -- When Gemma went, that's when you knew something was wrong.
-The police stop nearly 2,000 people and over 500 cars traveling through Ipswich's red-light district
to see if anyone recognized photos of Tania and Gemma, but they drew a blank, and it was a similar story
when they spoke to the local sex workers. -You don't report every attack, but there's loads of times
where we get people trying to steal our handbags or, like, trying to accost us, you know,
because we're saying, "No," to them, you know? You are worried, and you are scared thinking,
"Hang on. Gemma's gone now. I didn't know Tania, but she's gone. Where are they?"
And you think, "Yeah. It could me. I could be next, but I've got to go and get my money for my drugs," you know?
And you have to go out there. You have to learn to put emotions to the back of your mind while you're out on the street.
I can then go home and be really scared, but if I was gonna be scared that the girls had gone missing,
I'm not gonna be able to earn the money for my drug addiction. -Then on December the 2nd, 2006,
the police got the call they'd be dreading. A body had been found in a brook on the outskirts of town.
-Right on the bend, right on the corner was a head, this end, facing upstream, her legs downstream,
arms beside her body. I saw the hair flowing and a golden earring, and the head was on its side, and my immediate thought was,
"One of the missing girls." -Tania's father, Jim Duell, feared the worst. -By this time, I concluded that she'd gone, quite honestly.
I concluded this, that she was dead. That's what I concluded 'cause by this time,
she would've phoned her mother 'cause she always phones her mother if she's gonna be back late or anything.
She was good. -But it wasn't Tania. Police identified the body as that of 25-year-old Gemma Adams.
There was no sign of a sexual assault, but her naked body had been dumped in flowing water,
so finding any DNA evidence was going to be difficult. -When someone dies, then there will be all sorts of evidence on the body,
in the body, that tells you all sorts of information. If you leave a body in running water,
then the water will quite literally wash away evidence. Equally, the water will bring other things onto the body
that can contaminate it, so you've got a double problem, really, of things being lost and things being brought to the body,
which make interpretation more difficult. -Unsurprisingly, the media was starting to take notice,
including Paul Harrison of Sky News. -My boss said to me that I should go to Ipswich at the weekend.
One body had been discovered. To him, something didn't seem quite right. He wanted me to get under the surface
of what was happening in the red-light district because we knew that two prostitutes had gone missing,
so what was this all about? Was this going to be something bigger? -For a week, forensic teams
scoured nearby woodlands for clues, and divers explored the brook. Then just when they were about to call off the search,
divers found another body. This time, it<i> was</i> Tania Nicol. -Well, when I got the actual news,
I can't remember my reaction 'cause it was something like, "Well, that's..." you know...
I knew in me heart. I knew already. -Just like Gemma Adams, there was no sign of sexual assault,
and the rushing water had stripped Tania's body of any DNA evidence. Suffolk Police called on Commander David Johnston
from Scotland Yard, a homicide expert. -So I joined the investigation around the time
the second victim's body had been discovered, and that initially meant I went to Suffolk
to speak to the Chief Officer team to assess the situation. I'm not sure I would say they were overwhelmed,
and I think they recognized the need to bring additional resources in to avoid that situation,
and that's what they did, and Suffolk, I know, had probably 100 to 200 people initially engaged in this inquiry,
but that number quickly grew, and Suffolk suddenly found themself, of course, at the center of a huge incident
with significant media interest, globally. -So by the time they discovered the body of Tania Nicol,
we had already begun to spend a bit of time in the red-light district late in the evening
and early in the morning, just to see how prevalent prostitution was in Ipswich,
and it wasn't difficult to find girls on the streets very late at night. We spoke to a number of them.
They were aware that two girls had gone missing. We were almost delivering them the news
that a second body had been found. We were almost telling many of these girls, for the very first time,
that the body of a second woman, almost certainly a prostitute and almost certainly Tania Nicol,
had been discovered in Copdock. Their reaction -- They weren't fazed by it, it seemed.
-It's scary every night, going out on the streets. It's scary every night. You could get attacked every night, you know?
To be honest, it doesn't matter how scary anything is, really. You've still got to go out there and do it.
That tears at your heart, and you think, "Oh, God," you know, "what's happening?
Who's next?" You know? But even though you're discussing, "What if it could be me,"
you're still out there on the the streets, and you're still selling yourself because you still have a drug addiction to feed.
You've got to put all them worries to the back of your mind. -Police were at a dead end.
They had no clues and nothing to link the two murders. They watched hours of CCTV footage
from Ipswich's red-light district and finally found something of significance. Tania had been caught getting into a dark car
on the night of her disappearance. Could the driver of the car be the killer? -Handford Road, Burlington Road, that was her place.
She would stand there when she went out at night, on that corner, and they found footage of her -- just a brief glimpse.
-The CCTV was captured outside of a supermarket on London Road, the same street where Steve Wright was living.
Unfortunately, the footage wasn't clear enough to reveal the number plate or identify the driver.
-From my point of view, it's professionally very frustrating. The whole emphasis of our role is to protect the public,
and we take that very seriously. And so, each day, when we're carrying out the investigation
and trying to identify this offender, it's very concerning to us when we still don't have an identification made.
-It had been eight days since Gemma Adams had been found murdered. As the police continued with their investigation,
they receive some more shocking news. On December the 10th, just two days after the discovery of Tania Nicol,
the body of a third woman was found in a woodland in nearby Nacton. -The 10th was a huge day, really.
I had literally driven out of Ipswich for about 10 miles when I got a phone call from the news desk,
and the blood really felt like it drained from my face, from my body because... Shivers down the spine.
We were now into serial-killer territory. -I think it'd be fair to say yes, there was extreme concern being expressed in Ipswich
and not just amongst sex workers or the women involved in that line of work but across the whole of the community.
This was a significant event, completely unparalleled, as far as I know, in the history of Ipswich
and that area, which is normally a very quiet, rural town. -We were now dealing with a serial killer almost certainly
and also was the national media -- the U.K. media were all over it by now. This was when you began to see the beginnings
of the international interest in it, as well. -Distinctive tattoos on the third body
led the police to identify her as Anneli Alderton, who'd not been reported missing.
She'd also been working as a prostitute in Ipswich. She was a 24-year-old mother of one.
-She was a mad, kind of happy-go-lucky, crazy chick, you know? I lived in my first squat with Anneli, really nice girl.
I would say she's like a free spirit, you know? She's like, mm, you know, "Great," like,
"I'm Annie," you know? "This is me," you know? So, she's kind of cool and liked to hang around with, you know?
-The media's focus on Ipswich intensified even further. -I'd raced back to the scene in Nacton
where the body of Anneli Alderton was discovered. We knew very little at that stage about
in what position it lay, but what we did know was that it was on dry land, and this was a twist in the story
because the two previous victims had been deposited in water. So the police, for them, it was very exciting
that, in terms of DNA, this could be something that they could work with. -The autopsy showed that Anneli had been strangled
and tragically revealed she'd been 3 months pregnant. -So, the evidence that you'd see in a strangulation,
you'd see bruising on and in the neck, you'd often see fine pinpoint hemorrhages in the eyes.
These things really point you very directly towards that cause of death. -She'd been left in the crucifix position
with her arms outstretched. -There is a tendency to want to attach a lot of meaning to that.
Many people were looking at this, as it unfolded, saying, "Well, there's some religious motivation here,"
but I don't think it was about that at all. It was about, essentially, getting attention.
Even serial killers get bored. They want to mix things up a bit. They want to try something new.
-The police still have no DNA, no clues, and no leads. The pressure to catch the killer was mounting.
-There's always pressure because you have the media who are consistency requiring information
because it's 24-hour media, and they want to know what's happening. There's anxiety being expressed in the community,
and, of course, the police themself want to catch this man as quickly as possible.
-"I'm losing my friends. Well, I don't want to keep losing my friends. I don't want to lose my own life."
You do think about stuff like that. It's not something that you don't think about.
-The world's media descended on Ipswich, and the cameras were all pointed at the police.
-I think this case was one that attracted so much attention because it was unfolding in front of our eyes.
This was the era of reality television, when that started to become very popular.
We were seeing it as it unfolded on 24-hour rolling news, and you never knew what was gonna happen
from one day to the next. -Detectives told prostitutes to stay off the streets, but their warnings were largely ignored.
A local news crew interviewed one of the girls anonymously. -Why -- Why have you decided to come out tonight?
-Well, 'cause I need the money. I need the money, you know? -Despite the dangers?
-Well, that has made me a bit wary about getting into cars, you know? It has. -But you will do that tonight.
-Well, probably. -The woman interviewed was Paula Clennell. -Paula Clennell, she had children,
and she was always trying quite hard to change her life, you know? -She was happy when you saw her, you know, a nice girl,
but, yeah, she tried quite hard, you know, to get out of it, you know, 'cause it's a very hard thing to get out of--
the addiction -- if you still live, generally, in the same town. But, yeah, she was trying,
you know, to get away from it and change her life, bless her. -Just six days after that news report aired,
Paula Clennell was missing. In December 2006, the police in Ipswich were under mounting pressure to catch a prolific serial killer.
The bodies of three dead prostitutes had been found in just 10 days. They had no clues or potential suspects,
and the killing wasn't about to stop. Two more young women had gone missing -- 24-year-old Paula Clennell,
who'd been interviewed on the news just days before. And now, police receive reports of a fifth missing woman --
29-year-old Annette Nicholls, the best friend of fellow prostitute Jade Reynolds.
-Annette was a girl, for me, that I was so humbled to know, you know? She always took time for me.
She'd want to know if I was all right, if there was anything she could do, she'd do anything for anybody else,
she was always well-kept, she'd greet you with a smile and a happiness, you know?
You felt all right when you was with Annette. I did. I could think, "Aw, yeah, wicked.
There she is," you know? It was a relief 'cause I know that I could talk to her,
she'd understand my problems. So when she went missing, that's kind of like tearing out a piece of my heart.
-As the police search for Paula and Annette, there was a macabre inevitability in the air
amongst the massive international journalists who'd gathered in Ipswich. -There was almost certainly going to be another discovery.
Where was it gonna be? Who was it going to be? It was nail-biting, and it can't be described as fear.
It was really palpable. You sensed that from the people in the town. You sensed it from your colleagues
but also from other colleagues, from other media organizations, and the police, as well.
-On December the 12th, another body was found in Levington, just a mile away from Nacton, in the same woods
where Anneli Alderton had been discovered days before. -While somebody was out walking their dog,
they stumbled upon the body of a fourth victim just a few meters away from the main road in Levington,
in the undergrowth, also, this time, not in water. Again, the DNA was important in this case.
But what seemed quite strange about this one is that it almost had an appearance of a rushed approach,
that this body was deposited by the ride of the road, albeit, a few meters off the main road.
It had the appearance, or it seemed as it had been done quickly. -The police sent a helicopter
up to survey the woodland for evidence. As it circled the area, they made a further gruesome discovery.
Another body was lying in the woods only 100 yards away. The naked bodies were those of the missing women --
24-year-old Paula Clennell and 29-year-old Annette Nicholls. -I don't think I'll ever get back
what I had with Annette with another girl, you know? This is the most beautiful woman that I'd ever known
that had quite important to me that I could trust, you know? And now, it's not there? I didn't go out after that.
I was quite sensible because, like, I couldn't -- I emotionally couldn't go out and work on the streets
after Annette was found. -Five women had been murdered in Ipswich in just 6 weeks.
The press had named the killer the Suffolk Strangler. -Alderton and Clennell, they were both asphyxiated.
That was the cause of their death. In the other cases, the changes after death really prevented pathology giving a definitive answer,
although I think it's reasonable to assume that someone who's killing five people in a short space of time
probably used similar methods. -Interestingly, none of the five victims showed any sign
of sexual assault, so it isn't a rape-murder. It's not, "Oh, I've satisfied myself.
Now I'm gonna kill you," murder. It is a targeted murder without a sexual element.
-He is very much feeding off the media frenzy that's being created around his crimes,
and he's increasingly feeling even more in control of what's going on, so he's changing the way that he's doing things,
and he's looking at the reaction from the media when he does that, and he's absolutely loving it.
-He believes he's fulfilling something. Maybe he's convinced himself that he's clearing the world of prostitutes.
They were all dumped very -- really, quite close to each other. It demonstrates that he thinks he's doing something
in his own fantasy world that is cleansing the world of evil or cleansing the world of dirt
or cleansing the world of inappropriate sexual appetite. We'll never know. I don't think Wright probably knows, now.
All I do know is that he had to be caught because he wouldn't stop until he was.
-On December the 15th, Tania Nicol's dad, Jim Duell, made an emotional plea for he killer to turn himself in.
-Tania has been taken by someone who needs to be found. We ask for anyone who knows this person or persons
to come forward and contact the police. -With increasing pressure to make an arrest,
police decided to question a local 37-year-old man. -Well, he was identified because he had spent
considerable time on a radio car talking to a radio journalist and other TV journalists.
-I spent a bit of time with him to try and get to know his relationship with the girls.
There was kind of an understanding between them that, "You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours."
-So he was loosely associated as a friend of one or more of the girls who were murdered, and at that stage,
he became of significant interest to the inquiry. There was a very strong feeling
from some of the media people present that this man was the right man and should be looked at more seriously.
-With a suspect in custody, detectives received a lead from the forensics lab. The three bodies that were found on dry land
did have DNA evidence on them. In a one-in-a-billion chance, the DNA found on all three women was the same, but whose was it?
The DNA was run through the National Database, and police got a match, but to their surprise, it wasn't the man they had in custody.
-At that time, and as it still stands today, if a person is arrested or convicted of an indictable offense or a serious offense,
they can have their DNA taken and held on the database. -The DNA matched that of a local man
who'd been convicted of stealing 80 pounds from a pub till in 2002 -- 48-year-old Steve Wright.
-And it was that match which led to significant additional work, including, then, the CCTV evidence,
which showed a vehicle being used by Wright moving between some of the locations around the relevant times,
so he became a major suspect in the inquiry. -Over just six weeks, five prostitutes had been murdered in Ipswich.
The police finally believe they'd found the killer, 48-year-old Steve Wright, whose DNA had been found on three of the bodies.
Wright had not been a suspect at any point during the police investigation, even though he had been stopped
during routine checks of the red-light district. Whilst the world's media was focusing on a local man
who police currently had in custody, Wright was put under surveillance. -Once the police had discovered the DNA,
it matched Steve Wright. Immediately, although from a distance, making quite a brave move, actually,
not by arresting him straightaway but watching him, seeing his movements... "What was he doing? Where was he going?"
...just for a 24-hour period, and ultimately, as we were all elsewhere looking at somebody else,
another suspect, bang, they had made an arrest. They'd arrested Steve Wright. -It was a huge shock to Wright's father, Conrad.
-Well, I didn't believe it, as simple as that. Two people come to my door to say,
"Your son has been arrested," and I didn't believe it. -I think the only emotion that Steve Wright would've felt
upon getting arrested was annoyance. "This has stopped the media circus that I've been at the center of,"
and I think also self-pity. Yeah, "Oh, terrible. I'm now gonna be in prison," or, "I'm gonna be in a police station.
I'm gonna be able to do the things I want." He would never have had any kind of expressed empathy
for his victims or their families 'cause they just didn't matter to him. -At the time, I split up with my partner,
moved into my mom's house, and I woke up one morning with the world media on my doorstep,
to put it bluntly, and they said, "Did you know Steve Wright was, like, a client to your door?"
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I didn't even know. My mom didn't even know, you know?
But then it all came out, you know, that it turned out he's actually my first partner,
which was shocking, you know? And I thought, "Oh, my God. I was right with him right there, right then," you know?
And, yeah, I was kind of shocked, really -- really shocked, to be honest, thinking that I was that close to him.
Made me feel sick. -During eight hours of interrogation, Wright made no comment.
The no-comment police interviews is indicative of that power and that control, "So, I have all of this knowledge
and all of this information. I know everything about these crimes, and you want that knowledge,
so I'm gonna use this to my advantage." He knows everything that the police want to know,
and is he gonna tell them? Is he not gonna tell them? That gives him a massive sense of control.
-Although Wright didn't confess to the killings, on the 21st of December, 2006, the police charged him with all five murders
based on the forensic evidence they'd so far found. The other suspect was released from custody without charge.
Prosecutors now began the arduous task of building a solid case against Wright for the upcoming trial.
Michael Crimp was part of the legal team. -Of the five bodies that were recovered,
two of them had been immersed for some time in water, and if there had been any DNA on their bodies,
it had long since gone, and so in terms of DNA evidence, there was nothing to link Steve Wright with them.
-Detectives impounded Wright's car. In it, they found fibers from a fake-fur jacket
owned by Annette Nicholls and, more significantly, traces of Paula Clennell's blood.
-Wright really didn't do very much to conceal his movements. He drove his own car.
He dumped the bodies from his own car. He wasn't very forensically aware as so many determined killers are these days.
He didn't know about DNA and fiber analysis, trace, and all the other things we've all become so familiar with
as the result of television series and the rest. Wright pretty much did as he pleased
and thought he could get away with it, and he thought he could get away with it because he thought
that no one was gonna miss a prostitute. -Forensic experts also examine Wright's home.
They found the blood of Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls on a Hi Vis jacket, more conclusive proof that his encounter with the women
had taken a sinister turn, but there was no link between Wright and the deaths of Tania Nicol and Gemma Adams,
the two women whose bodies had been found immersed in running water. Investigators rewatch the CCTV
from the night Tania Nicol went missing, and they were now certain the car that she got into
was Wright's blue Ford Mondeo. Forensic teams painstakingly analyzed microscopic debris found in the women's hair.
Remarkably, they found fibers from Wright's tracksuit bottoms, sofa, and carpet fiber from his Mondeo.
-Both fibers in their hair and fibers on gloves and other items that belonged to Steve Wright
clearly linked him to those two, as well. -The game was up. -This was a case that involved
a lot of experts and a lot of expertise. And what it came down to was that they were able to place
fibers from the bodies at Wright's property. They were able to trace, place blood
on the articles of clothing and in his car. We call it Locard's exchange principle.
You go and interact with somebody, you leave of yourself there, and you take something away from it,
and as clever as you may try and be, you're always going to leave evidence of that interaction.
-Steve Wright was now linked to all five women. His trial began at Ipswich Grand Court
on the 16th of January, 2008. Wright pleaded not guilty. -To me, he looked pretty cool about it all.
He didn't seem particularly emotive about the evidence as it was being put to him.
Well, he had to explain the scientific evidence in this case, which linked him very closely with all five of the victims,
and so his explanation was that he'd been in close association with all five of them
and, obviously, not long before they disappeared off the street. -Wright argued he'd picked up the women for sex,
and that was why there was evidence of them in his car. -The defense were arguing
that it might've been a coincidence, but no more. -But his case began to fall apart under intense questioning.
-It was an odd picture that he portrayed because there was just too much coincidence in this case
that the evidence provided more than just coincidences, that it provided the evidence that damned him.
-We put to him various bits of evidence and said, "Well, was that just a coincidence?"
And to each question like that, all that Steve Wright said was something like, "Well, so it would seem," or, "It appears so,"
and he just couldn't deal with the questions that he was being asked about -- how all of these apparent coincidences existed.
-On February the 21st, 2008, after only six hours of deliberation, the jury found Wright guilty of all five murders,
and he was sentenced to a whole life term. He was immediately sent to Belmarsh Prison.
He will never be released. -I think the thing that's striking about this case is the speed with which Wright moved
from being a relatively unknown and minor offender involved in a minor theft to killing five women in a very short period of time.
And I am strongly of the belief that had he not been arrested, he would've continued to kill.
-This was a man who was desperate to be known, desperate to be someone, and by killing those five women,
the notoriety that he achieved effectively made him into someone. We talked about the Suffolk Strangler,
this man who nobody really knew. Suddenly, everyone knew him. He was world-famous for being the Suffolk Strangler.
-I found it very difficult to call Wright a truly evil man -- deeply wicked, deeply,
with no sense of remorse. -To this day, he has maintained his innocence. He says he did not kill those five women.
He goes even further to write to his father who, in his father's eyes, he did what he did,
and it hurts Steve Wright, actually, that his father doesn't believe him when Steve Wright says, "I didn't do it."
His father looked in his eyes, turned, and walked out of prison when he said, "Look into my eyes. Do you think I did it?"
-And it wouldn't make me feel any different whether I forgive him or not. I mean, the deed is done, and I'm, in a way,
responsible for him being out there, you know? I brought him into the world. -Life will never be the same for the friends and families
of those who were killed. -You know, I got to her resting place and stand and have a little conversation,
like you would, you know, and say, "I've come up to see you, dear," you know, and have a little bit of emotion going there, you know?
But there you are. It's love, isn't it? 'Cause she's always in our memory. Of course she is.
-Even now, 10 years later, I can still... I'm sitting here, and I'm trying to be clean,
and I'm trying not to let my emotions get the better of me, but there's so many things that I've seen,
I think, "Oh, yeah. Annette would love that." I still -- I'll find it hard now, and I'll find it hard, like, 20 years' time, you know,
that she's not here anymore. It tore a piece of me out that I won't get back. -Some positive has happened in Ipswich
when we have such a tragic turn of events, and that is, for me, is that there's no longer
any street prostitution occurring in Ipswich. If I wanted a legacy for the five women,
that would be it -- that no other women are putting themselves in such perilous and stark and dangerous situations.
-I think Ipswich will never forget those terrible times, those few weeks in December 2006
where the world's eyes were on them for all the wrong reasons, and they will take the vital lessons learned
during that period forward. They won't forget the woman, they won't forget the girls who were killed,
but they will move forward and try to not allow that period to effectively dictate their future.
-We may never know why Wright carried out these frenzied attacks or if there are other victims
that have perished at this hands. He remains one of the U.K.'s most prolific serial killers.
For six weeks, the whole world watched in shock as the body count in Ipswich continued to grow,
but eventually, the forensic evidence brought justice for the families of all five victims
and put pay to the killing spree of Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler.

Steve Wright killed five women over a six-week period in the winter of 2006 without motive or explanation.

An in-depth look at the lives and crimes of some of the world's most evil killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez, Cary Stayner, Leonard Lake, Dorothea Puente and more.

Brief Summary

The episode details the Suffolk Strangler case, focusing on Steve Wright's murders of five prostitutes in Ipswich and the ensuing investigation.

Key points

The Suffolk Strangler Unveiled. Steve Wright, the Suffolk Strangler, emerges as one of the world's most notorious killers.
The Tragic Fate of Tania Nicol. Tania Nicol's disappearance marks the beginning of a horrifying series of events.
A Community in Fear. The discovery of bodies sends Ipswich into a state of panic and urgency.
Anneli Alderton's Discovery. The discovery of Anneli Alderton's body raises the stakes in the investigation.
The Pressures of Investigation. Police face mounting pressure as the media and community demand answers.
A Shocking Discovery. The bodies of Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls were found in the woods.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

"You just can’t think straight, you know, you’re so worried.".

A father’s anguish over his missing daughter.

10:59WatchJul 8, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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