World's Most Evil Killers - Season 2, Episode 7 - Tracie Andrews - Full Episode | Forensic Files

-On December the 1st, 1996, Tracie Andrews and her fiancé, Lee Harvey, were driving home after a night out,
when suddenly, they began to be pursued by another car. It was a chase that would end in Lee's murder.
-He was stabbed in the throat, back, front repeatedly, viciously, and continuously.
-Just two days later, 27-year-old Tracie gave a heart-wrenching press conference,
appealing for the public's help to find her partner's killer. But all was not what it seemed.
-When you get behind the wheel of a car, sometimes you change personality. -And we all kind of looked at each other and thought,
"You know, this enormous story just got 10 times bigger again if she is the killer."
-There had been no car chase. There had been no random attack. Tracie Andrews had stabbed her own fiancé to death
and was trying to get away with murder. -This is a woman of cunning, of deceit, and with a vicious temper.
-Tracie Andrews had deceived a nation and become one of the world's most evil killers.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ It was a press conference that shocked Britain, when 27-year-old Tracie Andrews
defiantly appeared in front of the world's media on December the 3rd, 1996. She wept over the murder of her fiancé, Lee Harvey.
She claimed a stranger had stopped the couple in their car before stabbing her 25-year-old partner to death
in a savage attack. -I just tried to stop the bleeding, really, and comfort him as much as I could.
-But it was all a lie. In reality, Andrews had killed Lee in the most brutal of manners.
At her trial, Andrews continued to try and sell her fabricated story. The media were fascinated by her.
Daily Mirror journalist Rod Chaytor managed to interview the wannabe model at Birmingham Crown Court on the day of her conviction.
-I'm sat next to Tracie. I didn't feel threatened, obviously. She's a killer, but we're not in any kind of environment
in which she's likely to suddenly launch an attack on me. So I said, "Well, you know, do you stick to your story?"
"Yes, I stick to my story." "Did you kill him?" "No. I didn't." -Just minutes later,
Tracie Andrews was given a life sentence for the murder of her own fiancé. -I worked as a national newspaper journalist
for many years. I covered thousands of stories, dozens of murders. Some stories just stay with you,
and this is one of the ones that stays with me. ♪♪ -It's a story that begins over 45 years ago.
Tracie Andrews was born on the 9th of April, 1969, in the West Midlands. -Well, Tracie was brought up just outside Birmingham
in Redditch and Alvechurch, and she was the middle child. She had an older sibling and a younger sibling
and several half siblings. And her parents broke up when she was around about 6 years old
because they'd had quite a volatile relationship. -The separation of her parents in 1975
had a lasting effect on young Tracie. -Well, Tracie's parents split up, and her mother got married to another man.
And when we look at our parents' relationships, they are quite important, because they inform
our expectations of other people, our expectations of the relationships that we go on to have.
-Kids need attention, you know? They need to be loved and cuddled and everything,
and a lot of kids that come from those kinds of broken homes, and the case of Tracie,
they want to be loved by mother, father, or somebody. So that is definitely, in my opinion,
one of the things that pushed her into always wanting the attention of other men.
-Tracie left school in 1986, and age 21, she had a baby daughter. But the relationship with her partner lasted barely a year,
and they soon went their separate ways. -What we've got here is a woman who doesn't like
her partners having a life that doesn't involve her. She doesn't like her partners going out without her.
She gets very jealous. She's very possessive. -She certainly had a temper. Everybody who knew her said she had a temper,
and when she lost her temper, everybody knew about it. She would shout at the top of her voice.
The whole street would hear. -By 1994, 25-year-old Tracie was living in a council flat in Alvechurch
and working as a barmaid. But her aspirations went far beyond pouring pints. -She had visions.
She had dreams of becoming a model, and, you know, she was very photogenic. She looked good on camera, and she knew it.
And she had some pictures taken and a photo album put together, but that never really took off, either.
-Well, she became a barmaid working in a pub, but she still dress provocatively,
and she still loved talking to men and chatting to men, again, seeking the attention
that she wanted to get as a model, 'cause, obviously, when you're that pretty and you're a model,
you do get a lot of attention. -Living nearby to Tracie was 23-year-old Lee Harvey.
He also had a daughter from a previous relationship. -Lee Harvey was a young man from a very close family,
and he worked as a bus driver for the West Midlands Travel. So this was a job that involved, you know,
meeting many people on a daily basis. He was very outgoing. He was interested in cars and was always very well turned out,
so he was your typical young Birmingham lad, essentially. Very close to his mum, very close to his sister.
-The paths of the two young, single parents would soon cross. -Well, Lee and Tracie met in October 1994,
in Ritzy's nightclub in Birmingham, and this relationship really did develop at a lightning pace.
They had moved in with one another only around three months into the relationship.
So this was going very, very fast, and their relationship was quite a volatile one.
They were both quite possessive, quite jealous when it came to the other's relationships
with the opposite sex. You often find this in relationships that develop very quickly.
You haven't got that foundation of trust that's been built. You're always a little bit kind of suspicious
as to what the other person's up to 'cause you don't really know them. -And they would row,
and they would fight like cat and dog, and neighbors would report how voices would be raised
at all hours of the day and night and would go on and on for hours and then stop and then start again.
-The couple got engaged after just six months. But their volatile relationship would often see them break up,
only to get back together again soon after. -It was maybe almost a carbon copy of what Tracie grew up with in her house.
She had a very explosive temper, and Lee Harvey also, in a way, wouldn't, like, just bow down to her screaming,
so he would scream back. -She was forever throwing him out into the street, and she would throw his clothes out of the window
or in a black bin bag and chuck him out the front door, change the locks. And then they would have reconciliations.
Lee would go back. More violence, Lee would leave. Lee would go back, more violence.
♪♪ This went on for a period of about two years. -Their explosive relationship finally came to a head
on December the 1st, 1996. -So, they'd been rowing all day. Lee tended to be the peacemaker,
and it was probably Lee's suggestion -- "Why don't we go for a drink? Why don't we just get
a change of scene, a breath of fresh air? Let's get out of here. Let's just go and, you know, relax
and have a drink," and that's what they did. -But Lee Harvey would never make it home again.
By 11:00 p.m., he would be dead. The only witness to the fatal altercation was his fiancée,
Tracie Andrews, and her version of events would soon make it one of the most talked-about murders of the decade.
♪♪ On December the 1st, 1996, 27-year-old Tracie Andrews and her 25-year-old fiancé, Lee Harvey,
were at a pub in Bromsgrove in the West Midlands. After arguing all day, the couple were trying to patch things up.
But their night was about to turn deadly. -Tracie claimed that, after they'd left the pub
and that Lee was driving, that they'd become involved in a road-rage incident essentially,
that a man in a dark Ford Sierra -- There'd been some kind of altercation, and he'd started following them.
-And she's suddenly aware that this car is behind, lights flashing, right on their tail.
Lee starts to accelerate. They're snaking together through the lanes. The other car then effectively draws Lee to a halt.
-Tracie later told detectives that the man following the couple along rural Coopers Hill
got out of his car, and Lee did the same. A confrontation was inevitable. -The driver then has said what he wants to say, apparently.
He gets back in the car. Lee is still outside of his car. And then the passenger gets out,
a fat man with staring eyes, and he goes up to Lee and attacks Lee in a way that Tracie doesn't quite see.
♪♪ Then she piles in, she says, to go to Lee's defense, because she says she's not the kind of girl
to just sit there and see her man being attacked, at which point she gets smacked by the fat man in the eyes
and repeatedly gets up and is knocked down. And then she says, "It all gets a bit hazy from that point,"
and then she kind of comes to almost, and Lee is there, and he's covered in blood, and she's cradling him,
and it all goes very vague. -Lee's car had ended up right outside a house called Keepers Cottage.
The commotion in the road had alerted one of the residents. -The guy made his way down the little path to the road
and there sees, in poor light, just shown by the security light, but there's a woman standing there with her back to the car.
There's a body, prone body on the floor. He instantly runs back into the house saying,
"Call the police. Call the police. Call the ambulance." -The case was immediately given
to Detective Superintendent Ian Johnston. -I received a call from West Mercia Constabulary
Operations Room, which directed me to the scene at Coopers Hill where I met with divisional representatives.
Present at that time was Lee's car, Lee's body, and Tracie Andrews was inside Keepers Cottage,
having been found in the road outside. I could see Lee's vehicle. It was pulled in on the near side of the road,
traveling towards Alvechurch, and it didn't appear to have been stopped in any great hurry.
It looked as though it had been fairly neatly parked to the side. -Detectives at the scene spoke to Tracie
to find out exactly what had happened. -The incident appeared to have started from the Marlbrook Public House.
There'd been a road situation down the A38 towards the N42 motorway. Lee's car had been stopped,
and then an altercation had taken place between a member of that chasing vehicle and Lee.
Lee collapsed, and then the other vehicle made its escape. -Lee Harvey died at the scene.
It was clear that he'd been the victim of a savage and frenzied attack. -This is a severe, sustained,
brutal attack with a penknife. Now, the estimates of how many wounds Lee suffered vary.
Some local reports said 42. What is clear -- He was stabbed in the throat, back, front,
repeatedly, viciously, and continuously. -To produce 42 stab wounds, it's a sustained assault.
It's 42 movements of your hand. This is not something that you can do in a second
or two seconds in a moment of madness. You have to keep going, and it is not easy.
In Lee Harvey's case, the fatal stab wound was a stab wound to the carotid artery.
That is a large artery in the neck. And a stab wound to an artery of that size is going to cause very rapid, very heavy bleeding.
Without prompt medical attention, it's most likely to be a fatal injury. -With an initial statement taken,
a bruised and bloodied Tracie Andrews was whisked away in an ambulance. -And she's treated for those injuries
and for shock in hospital and cared for and tended for while police launch a massive murder hunt
for whoever has done this terrible thing to Lee. -Tracie had told us that the following vehicle,
which had followed them from the Marlbrook, was a dark-colored Ford Sierra, F-registered.
And obviously, we started a vehicle inquiry with the DVLA for the owner details of any vehicle that might fit that description.
-As reports of the apparent road-rage murder reached news desks across the country,
journalists immediately headed to the West Midlands. -From the very first moment, it was clear
that this was going to be a huge story, an absolutely huge story. Just the idea of a road-rage murder
made it already a big story. And as the first morning progressed, everything we discovered made it a bigger story.
Photographs began to emerge of Tracie. She looked an attractive young woman. Photographs began to emerge of Lee, the victim --
handsome young man. And so more and more of the elements that make a big story --
young, attractive, bizarre, unimaginable circumstances -- all started slotting into place.
-Detectives knew that the best way to try and find the killer was to make an appeal through the media.
A press conference was arranged for Tuesday, December the 3rd, two days after the fatal attack.
-I met Tracie somewhere 'round about 10:00 a.m., I believe, just before we were going to do the press conference.
I asked her if she was content to do the press conference, if it was something that she wanted to do.
She said that she was. She said she really wanted to do it. -This hugely hiked up the media interest,
because we were going to have put in front of us, it was said, the key witness and someone -- We'd all seen the pictures by this time,
an attractive blond, and she was going to sit there in front of us and answer our questions.
There was massive media interest in this. -As the press conference began, all the focus
was on 27-year-old Tracie. [ Camera shutters clicking ] -The noise of the cameras,
the motor drives going off as Tracie walked in the room, was absolutely deafening.
And appearing in front of us -- I don't think we'd all thought what would appear, really,
but we'd all seen these glamorous shots. Here was a woman, red-eyed, haggard, completely unmade up,
two black eyes, cut on her nose. -And Tracie did look like a victim. She had the injuries to her face.
She looked incredibly distressed and incredibly upset. -But Tracie seemed very comfortable
when faced with all the camera flashes and questions from the journalists. -The press really wanted to hear from Tracie,
and so, you know, I became a bit of a sideline really, which was fine. You know, it was about the story.
It was about the situation. And the press were interested in Tracie, and she was quite happy to deal with the press.
-Both Lee and the other person were... like, playing cat and mouse with each other for a while.
When they overtook us, I was shouting at Lee to, you know, "Slow down. Just ignore them. Stop the car," but he --
I don't know. I don't know if a lot of men are like it, and a lot of women like it,
but when you get behind the wheel of a car, You know, sometimes, you change personality.
-During the press conference when talking about the alleged killer, there was a moment when, suddenly,
her eyes came up. And she was mostly downcast throughout the press conference, but her eyes came up, and they flashed fiercely.
And her mouth dropped open a bit with that famous slightly jutting jaw, and she looked really angry.
And at that point, again, all the motor drives went off. Every press photographer reacted to that.
It was a crash of noise as every camera was hit. -It was just the way he looked, his eyes.
He had staring eyes. He just didn't seem normal. I saw the man hit Lee. I don't know what with.
I didn't see anything. -And suddenly she starts appealing to the driver of the car,
saying, "You're not in any trouble. You know, come forward and tell the police what it's all about."
-And whoever this person is that was with you, you obviously know him, but he's ruined my life.
Please just tell us who he is. You won't get in any trouble at all. It was not your fault.
-And I'm thinking, "Well, that's not strictly true, is it? You've driven your friend to a murder scene.
He's killed someone, and you've driven him away, so you are in trouble," but...okay.
-And as the questioning progressed, Tracie seemed to contradict her original statement.
-I said, "Tracie, sorry, but I clearly understood the police to say that it was about 10 past 10:00 when you left the pub."
And she kind of looked at me, sort of head down under her lashes, and said, "No. It was 10 to 10."
And sat on her left was Superintendent Johnston. And I just saw him react to that answer from Tracie.
And very slowly, his head turned to the right, and he just looked at her in a kind of assessing way,
a kind of appraising way. And at that moment, I thought, "Wow. There's something going on here."
-I just tried to stop the bleeding, really, and comfort him as much as I could. -The inconsistency in Tracie's story
surprised a majority of reporters in the room. -The press conference finished, and the national newspaper journalists scattered outside
in a bit of a pack, as we would tend to do, or friends or know each other, work against each other.
And somebody said, "What do you think?" And I said, "I think she did it." And we all kind of looked at each other and thought,
"You know, this enormous story just got 10 times bigger again if she is the killer."
-Was it really conceivable that Tracie Andrews had been lying all along? As the investigation continued, new evidence suggested
that maybe there was no road-rage incident at all. Andrews would go from the only witness
to the number-one suspect in the murder of Lee Harvey. ♪♪ On December the 3rd, 1996, 27-year-old Tracie Andrews
appeared at an emotionally charged press conference in an appeal to find the passenger of a Ford Sierra
who she claimed had stabbed her fiancé, Lee Harvey, to death. But unbeknownst to Andrews,
the police were beginning to work out the truth -- that she had been the one responsible
for the murder of 25-year-old Lee. -It's self-preservation. That's what's driving her behavior at this point in time.
She's got absolutely no empathy whatsoever for Lee or for Lee's family or indeed for her own family,
who were also going to be really badly affected by this. So she's thinking, "How do I best preserve myself?
I'm going to take that role of the victim, and I'm going to put myself in it." -Andrews claim that she and Lee had been the victim
of a road-rage incident didn't seem to add up. A witness statement from a child staying in a house on Coopers Hill
put her version of events in doubt. -It was December. The windows were closed, but she could clearly hear a row going on.
What she remembered was that one was a distinctly male, baritone voice. The other voice was much softer,
and she said it was much more like a woman's voice. -Forensic searches of the road had discovered more clues
into what really happened. -We couldn't get anywhere near the scene on the first morning or indeed for a few days afterwards.
The police completely sealed it off. They drafted in officers to carry out a fingertip search of the area.
What they found, we later discovered, were a couple of bits and pieces, including a tiny spring and another element
from a multifunction penknife. What police didn't find was any trace of a car overtaking another car
on the soft December winter verges of this pretty narrow road. -Police had also found a black beanie hat in the hedgerow
next to where Lee's car had been parked. -So our assumption was, "Well, this has maybe fallen out of the assailant's pocket,
and he's not realized it." So, of course, that went to the laboratory fairly quickly with a view towards DNA
and from hair samples, that sort of thing. And we had the report back by the Wednesday
that this was animal hair, and it was cat hair, black-and-white cat hair. Well, there's a black-and-white cat at Tracie's.
And so we went down and took a sample of hair from the cat, and it was the cat hair.
And then, as I understand it later on, it was accepted that this was Lee's hat that had been in Tracie's pocket
prior to the events taken place. -Andrews' lie about the hat was just one of many inconsistencies in her story.
-In Lee's hand, they found between 80 and 100 strands of Tracie's hair that have been pulled from Tracie's head
as Lee has tried to defend himself. Now, if Lee had been murdered by this fat man with staring eyes,
why would he have Tracie's hair in his hand? -Well, the pathologist's evidence was that
this was more than just a death-grasp stroking, that it was a reasonable clump that did have a good pull.
But, of course, Tracie's view was, "Well, this must have been when he was going,
and he got his hand in my hair, you know?" So it came as a sort of -- As Lee was passing away,
he pulled some hair from her head. -It was beginning to look more and more likely
that Andrews had killed Lee in a fit of rage. -I mean, if you attack somebody that you're supposed to be in love with
and stab them 42 times, then that's pretty out of control. -She wasn't thinking to herself
as she set off from the pub that evening, "Oh, tonight's the night I think I'm going to kill Lee."
She just exploded like a volcano. Over a matter of minutes, literally, she went from mildly angry to obsessively angry,
and that, therefore, he had to die. -When we talk about premeditated murder, we tend to assume that it's something that's days,
weeks, or months in the planning, but actually, premeditation only takes seconds.
You only need to have a few seconds to decide that you are going to end somebody's life,
and she made that decision on this evening. -And it seemed that Andrews' guilty conscience
was beginning to get the better of her. On Wednesday, December the 4th, the day after the telltale press conference,
she tried to kill herself. -Tracie takes an overdose. And I think this is a very deliberate,
a very determined act on her part. I think she was absolutely set on ending her own life,
because, over the past few days, the situation has spiraled completely out of her control.
She's trying to keep the story together. She's trying to present this face as the victim,
and it's all getting a bit too much, 'cause it's starting to unravel. So I think this is an attempt to take back control, to say,
"Actually, I'm going to decide to do something now that I'm fully in control of," and that's what this was.
-On the same evening, detectives were given their biggest steer yet. Two people had seen Lee's distinctive white Ford Escort
on the night of his murder. -Two witnesses who said, "We've seen it in the local paper.
I know I've seen this white car. We were driving from Alvechurch in the opposite direction.
We came through Coopers Hill past Keepers Cottage. We came down the hill, and as we came to the junction at the bottom,
I saw this car go past." And he said, "It's a white Escort, G-reg, spoked wheels," everything that it was,
and he said that, you know, there is no doubt that was the car. He said, "And from that point to when we got into Bromsgrove,
we saw no car that fits any description of what you've been told, and there certainly wasn't any car chasing that car
in the vicinity of Coopers Hill." So we'd got the confirmation that we were looking for,
that the road-rage incident had not occurred, and so that changed the way that we looked at the investigation.
-Her story really was starting to crumble at that point in time, and combined with her suicide attempt,
I think the police decided, "That's enough evidence. We can now move in and arrest her."
-On Saturday, December the 7th, 1996, six days after Lee's murder, Tracie Andrews was arrested in hospital
and taken into custody. -The 27-year-old woman was arrested at 11:00 today, but so far, detectives have released no further details.
Until this development, the police had been looking for two men who they believed may have escaped from the scene
in a dark Ford Sierra. -The evidence from the two witnesses who'd seen Lee Harvey's vehicle
through the junction that night was extremely impactive. And realistically, without a following vehicle,
without a dark-colored Ford Sierra chasing that car, then the whole being of that explanation from Tracie
just didn't stand up. -Further evidence pointed towards Andrews being the killer
after the clothes she was wearing on the night of the murder were forensically tested.
-The forensic scientist who had examined one of Tracie's zip-up boots -- She had a pair of ankle boots on.
And within that, he'd found a mark in the leather which had a rounded top on it and seemed to bear all the impression
of the outside shape of the knife. And that's the hypothesis -- that she carried the knife away from the scene in her boot
and that, as soon as she got to the hospital, she was able to dispose of it. -She could've easily just, like,
thrown the knife into the grass or into the forest, whatever it was, and hoped the police wouldn't find it.
But she even thought, "No. These guys are going to bring dogs. They're going to search the whole area.
They will probably find something." -Tracie Andrews was officially charged with the murder of Lee Harvey
on December the 19th, 1996. Her trial was set for July, and she was going to plead not guilty.
Andrews was sticking to her story. The prosecution would have to prove that she was a liar,
or she could walk away free. ♪♪ On July the 1st, 1997, the trial of Tracie Andrews
began at Birmingham Crown Court. The 28-year-old was pleading not guilty to the murder of her fiancé, Lee Harvey,
exactly seven months earlier. The media attention surrounding Andrews and the trial was huge.
♪♪ -I was at the trial every day at Birmingham Crown Court. It was compelling, unmissable,
and was being widely reported in all the media every day and every evening on the TV news bulletins.
-The prosecution team, led by David Crigman, were confident that they had a strong case against Andrews.
As well as the two witness statements that contradicted her road-rage story, the blood-pattern analysis of her orange jumper was key.
-She was covered in blood, which she claimed had come onto her clothing when she was comforting him as he died,
as she held him in the road. But a lot of this blood was sprayed blood. It was arterial blood
that had come out of the carotid in a fountain and sprayed like a waterfall down the front of her clothing.
-In a lot of cases of stabbing, particularly to the chest or the abdomen, a lot of the bleeding is internal,
because the large organs and blood vessels are deep within the body. The carotid artery is very close to the surface,
so if it's breached, it will spray blood under pressure from the heart out of that wound, out into the air,
and it will land on things next to it -- in particular, in this case, Tracie Andrews, the assailant.
-The evidence may have appeared to be compelling, but Andrews herself had already proved
to be extremely convincing when under intense scrutiny. -I thought she'd done it. I thought she was the killer.
But bearing in mind how she'd handled the press conference a couple of days after the murder,
I thought that she stood a good chance of getting away with it. But as ever, as is always the case,
everything would hinge on the cross-examination of Tracie in the witness box should she choose to give evidence
once the defense began. -On Monday, July the 14th, Tracie Andrews took the stand to give her testimony.
-There was genuine apprehension in the prosecution camp that a jury may be persuaded by not only the story
but the skill, I would say, the skill with which she was able to advance what she had to say.
-Tracie stood in the witness box now, having moved from the dock, and gave her account,
which largely followed the account that she'd been giving to the police all along
through her statements -- the road-rage story, the chase through the lanes, and the stabbing and the road-rage attack.
And she gave it calmly and, in some senses, convincingly. -Prosecutors knew that the cross-examination of Andrews
would be their best chance at cracking her veneer of lies. -And it went on and on and on.
It went on for hours. It not only took the whole of that afternoon, it took the whole of the next day and into a third day.
And in that time, the highly intellectual David Crigman just took her story apart.
He just deconstructed it around her. She was left there effectively naked in the middle of her story in shreds on the floor.
-I came to the view that the only way you could dissect her story was piece by little piece
by little piece, detail by detail. It was the accumulation of a large number of details
where she could shown not to be telling the truth that could break her down. It was only within the finest of detail,
as one mounted on top of the next, that you began to see the story as a pack of lies.
-And she was reduced to standing there saying, "I don't know. I can't remember. I don't know. I can't remember."
And at every point, her credibility diminished. And at that point, I thought, "Okay. I think she's going to get found guilty."
-On July the 29th in an unprecedented move, Andrews agreed to be interviewed by a newspaper journalist
as the jury retired to make a decision on her fate. She met with Rod Chaytor in a private room at the court.
-And there was Tracie, sat there, made up, composed, sat at a table, her lawyers.
And I sat down, and I interviewed her. It was absolutely bizarre. Never in 35 years on Fleet Street,
never did it before, never did it again, interview the accused while the jury's out.
Extraordinary. So, I started to ask her questions. -Rod had to work fast to get all the information he could.
-The basic message that she was giving was, "I didn't do it, I'm innocent, and I'll love him till the day I die."
And that was the message from the exclusive Mirror interview that I did. And I'd been there about 20 minutes
and was just beginning to come to the end of the story, just beginning to kind of think, "Okay.
Well, what's the next question?" and the Tannoy went. And the Tannoy went, "All parties to Court Nine.
All parties to Court Nine." You just felt, "Wow. The jury are back. There's a verdict."
-Rod headed back to his seat in the press box. -We kind of went our separate ways
and ended up a few feet from each other in court. And the judge came in. Everyone stood up.
The foreman of the jury, "Will you please stand? Do you have a verdict on which you are all agreed?"
"Yes, we do." "What is that verdict?" "Guilty." -Despite the strain that Tracie Andrews must have felt
during four weeks in the dock, she didn't even flinch as the jury foreman told her that she was guilty.
Even though she kept her head bowed, her face remained impassive even as the judge said to her,
"Only you know precisely what happened that night, but we all saw the awful consequences."
He said he had no option but to send her to prison for life. ♪♪ -She showed almost no emotion.
She shook her head once, like that, just as in, "No," or, "I don't agree," whatever, but that was the only reaction.
♪♪ And she was then led down the steps from the dock into the cell area below. She saw her family briefly before she was taken away.
They were allowed brief access to her. At that point, she did break down in tears.
At that time, she was completely tearful and terrified about what was going to happen to her
and what awaited her in prison from other inmates. In public, she had maintained
her composure to the last, really. In private, she was terrified. -On the 29th of July, 1997,
Judge Mr. Justice Broccoli sentenced Tracie Andrews to life in prison for the murder of Lee Harvey.
She was ordered to serve a minimum of 14 years. -Well, when we ask the question,
"Why do we think Tracie Andrews stabbed Lee Harvey?" it was because she felt that Lee was hers.
He was her possession. This wasn't a relationship that was about love. It was a relationship that was about control and ownership.
And in ending somebody's life, you are completely possessing them, and that was what was going on on that evening
when she chose to take Lee's life. -In April 1999, Andrews finally admitted that her story about a mysterious road-rage killer
had been completely made up. -21 months after her conviction in a letter to her solicitor,
Tracie Andrews confessed for the first time that she had indeed killed Lee Harvey
but that it was entirely in self-defense. Now, how she could maintain that given that he had stab wounds in his back
and he was bigger than she was, I find that very difficult to believe. But nevertheless, that's what she insisted.
-Tracie Andrews had gone from a wannabe model to a model prisoner. In July 2011, after serving her 14 years,
she was released back into society and ordered not to go within 25 miles of Lee Harvey's family.
-I think it is absolutely possible for Tracie Andrews to live a normal life. I think if she's come to terms with her offense,
if she's addressed those underlying behavioral traits and characteristics, if she's prepared to just keep her head down
and get on with her life, then, yes, very much, she can do that. And I think she should appreciate the fact
that she's able to do that, because murder casts a long shadow, and there are many people
who have been affected by this crime, who continue to be affected by it. But she has the opportunity now
to ensure that she doesn't cause any more harm to people and that she can make a contribution to society.
-It's been over 20 years since Tracie Andrews took away the life of her fiancé in a brutal and vicious attack.
It remains one of the most infamous murders of the 1990s. -Violence on this occasion was not the first occasion
she had used violence. This is a woman of cunning, of deceit, and with a vicious temper.
-It's often described as a crime of passion, and I tend not to use that term, because I think what we're implying there
is that she wasn't in control of her actions. She didn't know what she was doing.
This rage came over her, and she couldn't help herself. I think she knew exactly what she was doing.
When you stab somebody 42 times, you are deciding to continue doing this. Your arm is going to be tired.
There are going to be opportunities for you to stop, and you decide to keep going.
-That is prolonged ferocity. That's going on and on and on and on. That's not a momentary flash of anger.
That's uncontrollable rage lasting a significant period of time. It's a shocking, shocking thought,
and the fact that a woman has done it makes it twice as shocking. -Tracie Andrews' case
will always remain in the public psyche due to her persistent lying, first to the police,
then the world's media, and finally in a court of law. But although she'll forever be remembered
for her crocodile tears, it should never be forgotten that she killed Lee Harvey
in a horrific and frenzied attack without a shred of remorse, which undoubtedly makes her
one of the world's most evil killers. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

On December 1st, 1996, Tracie Andrews had stabbed her own fiancé Lee Harvey to death and was trying to get away with murder.

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

Tracie Andrews murdered her fiancé Lee Harvey and lied about it, leading to her conviction in a highly publicized trial.

Key points

The Fatal Chase. Tracie Andrews and Lee Harvey's night out ends in tragedy when they are pursued by another car.
The Shocking Truth. Investigators uncover that Tracie Andrews was responsible for Lee's murder, not a random attacker.
The Press Conference. Tracie Andrews appears on camera, appealing for help in finding her fiancé's killer, but all is not as it seems.
The Murder Investigation. Evidence mounts against Tracie Andrews as inconsistencies in her story are revealed.
Suicide Attempt. Tracie Andrews attempts to take her own life as the investigation intensifies.
Trial Begins. The trial of Tracie Andrews begins with intense media scrutiny and a strong prosecution case.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This enormous story just got 10 times bigger again if she is the killer.

A journalist's realization after Tracie's press conference.

0:50WatchJul 20, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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