World's Most Evil Killers - Season 4, Episode 7 - Stephen Seddon - Full Episode | Forensic Files

- MALE NARRATOR: 6th of July, 2012. Sale, near Manchester, England. Pensioners Robert and Patricia Seddon
were found shot dead. At first glance, the police thought Robert had killed his wife, then committed suicide.
But forensic evidence revealed a more sinister plot. - ANDRE: Bob could not have shot himself.
It was not self-inflicted. Somebody else had been there who was responsible. - NARRATOR: The real killer was their son,
45-year-old Stephen Seddon. He mercilessly murdered his parents for money. - PATRICK: Stephen was basically a parasite
on his parents. Whatever they gave him, it was never enough. He had an insatiable thirst for their money.
- NARRATOR: He'd also tried to kill his parents and nephew in a car crash three and a half months earlier.
But when they survived, Seddon even boasted about saving them on local news. - STEPHEN: I said, "I'm going down here, Dad."
He went, "No!" and he grabbed me and held on to me, and I held on to the car, and I got me second breath back.
- DR. YARDLEY: They loved Seddon unconditionally. What makes him despicable is this determination
that he wasn't going to stop until he'd killed his parents. - NARRATOR: He was a convicted fraudster who conned people
out of thousands of pounds. He thought nothing of murdering his family for pure greed.
That makes Stephen Seddon one of the world's most evil killers. - ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: When 68-year-old Robert Seddon
and his 65-year-old wife, Patricia, were found dead in their home, it sent shockwaves throughout the community.
The quiet tree-lined suburbs of Sale in Greater Manchester had never seen anything like it.
Patrick Hurst was one of the first reporters on the scene. - PATRICK: The neighbors were just in shock, really.
There was a lot of elderly neighbors on that road. They all knew each other. Bob and Pat had lived there for more than 20 years.
And the neighbors just couldn't believe that this had happened and that they're both dead.
- NARRATOR: Even more shocking was the news that came six days later: their son, Stephen, had been arrested for their killing.
Only three and a half months before their murders, he'd been hailed a local hero for saving his parents' lives.
But it was an accident that he'd staged. - Then at that point then, I decided the only way out
of here is--is, uh, me smashing our way out. - GEOFFREY: Painting himself as this kind of heroic figure
who put all his own cares to the side so that he could act as, uh, the guardian angel to his parents and his nephew.
- DR. YARDLEY: People felt that they were taken in by Seddon because he was hailed as this hero.
Everybody believed this story about him having saved his family from a car that was submerged in a canal.
And then to find out that was all an elaborate plan, people feel really, really deceived by this evil killer.
- NARRATOR: Seddon had murdered the loving mother and father who'd raised him. - DR. YARDLEY: What's so unique about this case is the fact
that it's a parricide--and this refers to the killing of your parents, and this is one of the rarest
forms of homicide. - PATRICK: Stephen Seddon's a wicked and evil man who'd like to portray himself as a--
as a beloved son and a caring individual. But in fact, he'd actually murdered his parents in a really violent, brutal way
just to get his hands on their money. - NARRATOR: This killer's story begins on the 31st of August, 1966,
in the village of Timperley, near Manchester. Seven months after Robert and Patricia Seddon
got married, they brought a son, Stephen, into the world. - LOUIS: They were reasonably middle class type people.
They wanted the best for their son, and it was really nothing extraordinary about Seddon's background
or childhood. - DR. YARDLEY: His dad worked as an engineer for one of the great British institutions-- British Airways.
His mum was a stay-at-home mum. This was, for all intents and purposes, a normal family--
a traditional nuclear family. There's nothing untoward here going on whatsoever.
- PATRICK: His mother and father were a loving, unassuming, quiet couple who'd given him as much as they can
throughout his life. - NARRATOR: On the 19th of November, 1967, young Stephen was joined by a baby sister, Leslie.
- I think they were a perfect, upright little family. In 1975, Leslie got ill. She started to have convulsions,
and she was diagnosed as an epileptic. That skewed the balance of the family quite radically.
Suddenly, all the attention, both from Bob, the father, and Pat, the mother, was focused on Leslie.
- DR. YARDLEY: She required a lot of care and support from her mum and dad. I think that Seddon really didn't like that because
he felt that that detracted from him. - NARRATOR: At the age of 13, young Seddon became difficult
at home, and out on the streets, he was a petty thief. - When Seddon enters his teenage years,
he starts engaging in some low-level crime. He gets involved with, uh, a rough gang of kids.
And I think what he's doing there is saying, "Hey, look at me," you know, "I can do whatever
the hell I like." And I think part of it was attention-seeking. - Stephen felt that he wanted to get his father,
Bob's, attention, and one way of getting it was to have the police turn up at the door or to get called
to the police station. So, we have the first of a string of brushes with the law as a juvenile.
Every kind of bad boy behavior, he was up to anything. - NARRATOR: The petty crimes escalated until, in 1989,
at Bolton Crown Court, Seddon was jailed for obtaining guns by deception and theft.
When he was released, he made the decision to turn his life around, starting a career in sales.
- GEOFFREY: Seddon had, without question, the gift of the gab. He could put on a suit, he could smile the smile,
certainly walk the walk, and definitely talk the talk. He went in with a partner, and started a company
which was essentially offering small businesses a guarantee that they would get funding
from international European bodies in exchange for a one-off fee of 300 pounds. What happened was that Stephen Seddon
and his partner pocketed the 300 pounds, didn't approach anybody. - NARRATOR: Seddon's sales skills were so impressive
that more and more businesses fell for his scam. And unbelievably, within two years,
the company was worth five million pounds. - And this enabled Seddon to enjoy this high-flying lifestyle.
He drove a Bentley, he stayed at very expensive hotels, so that gave him a taste for the high life.
And this is an individual who's always had a sense of entitlement, always felt like he deserves
particular things in life. - GEOFFREY: Seddon at this point is flashing the cash.
He's got what he'd always wanted: "Draw attention to me. Look at me, haven't I done well?"
- LOUIS: What comes to mind is narcissism. He seemed to have an incredible need to be admired by other people.
He wanted to be a big shot, he wanted the other people to look at him, and say, "Whoa, he drives a Bentley.
He has a boat." He couldn't go through life as an ordinary person or even a mildly successful person,
he had to be extraordinary, and he'd do anything to achieve that goal. - NARRATOR: Robert and Patricia were proud that their son
had made it as a multimillionaire. In 1996, he married and settled down to have a family.
- DR. YARDLEY: Seddon is the master of performance. He's very good at painting a particular picture.
You have to crack beneath that veneer and see what's going on underneath it, because people like Seddon are incredibly manipulative.
They are incredibly charming. They give the appearance of--of being a likeable individual.
But underneath it, there's something incredibly toxic. - NARRATOR: Seddon's house of cards was about to collapse.
A Trading Standards investigation exposed his company as a sham, and in March 2000,
the 33-year-old was sentenced to 1 year in prison for fraud. - GEOFFREY: The wheels have come off
Stephen Seddon's con trick. The great edifice that has been created is crumbling in front of his eyes.
He goes to jail, but now his desire to recapture the high life really does kick in,
in every conceivable way. - NARRATOR: 2002, Seaham in the Northeast of England. Stephen Seddon had served a 12-month sentence for fraud
and had lost his millions. His wife had just given birth to their third child, a son,
so he had another mouth to feed. - DR. YARDLEY: Seddon really did have a massive slide
very, very quickly downhill. He's gone from having millions in the bank and driving sports cars to having literally nothing.
So, he comes out of prison, and he's unable to really ever hold down a job properly after that point because
this is an individual who isn't just going to settle. He isn't just going to take a job in a supermarket.
He's someone who thinks he deserves that life that he once had. - NARRATOR: On the 7th of September, 2008,
Robert and Patricia were hit with the most devastating news: their epileptic daughter, Leslie, had suffered
an extremely severe seizure. - Unfortunately, at the age of 40, she died at the family home.
And she had a son who had learning difficulties, who Bob and Pat basically became the parents of.
- Bob and Pat were two very loving, giving individuals. They cared for Leslie's son-- their grandson--
and did the best by him. They would make sacrifices for their family. - NARRATOR: Their son, Stephen, had tried a string of jobs,
even using his experience in the hard sell as a car salesman. But by 2011, the cash-strapped Seddon was unemployed.
So he turned to his parents for help. - GEOFFREY: Seddon is not capable of holding down
a job now. In his mind, he's been hard done by. Bob and Pat are really generous to their son, Stephen.
They help him buy a home in northeast of England, they help him with the mortgage, they give him cash.
They could not have been more generous. - NARRATOR: Robert and Patricia even dug into the equity
of their own home to give their son nearly 46,000 pounds worth of loans. - DR. YARDLEY: But you know what?
It's never enough for him. It's not what he deserves, it's not what he's entitled to.
He always wants more. - NARRATOR: A year after Leslie's death, Robert and Patricia change their will.
Seddon was made the sole beneficiary of his parents' 230,000-pound property. - He eventually would have gotten the money
through inheritance, but he wasn't gonna wait 10, 15, 20 years 'til his parents die.
He wasn't gonna do that. He wanted the money now, he wanted to be a big shot now.
- He's gonna get that inheritance any way he can, by hook or by crook. Perhaps typically for a conman,
he decides on the most ludicrous plan. He's going to kill Bob and Pat. And he comes up with the most extraordinary scheme.
- NARRATOR: After carefully studying a TV survival show on how to escape from a car submerged in water,
Seddon hatched a cunning plan. On the 20th of March, 2012, he'd stage a tragic accident
that would kill both parents and his 17-year-old nephew, then he would claim his inheritance.
- DR. YARDLEY: Under the guise of saying thank you to his parents for giving him money and having a belated
Mother's Day celebration, he invites everybody out for a meal, and he picks them up in a car that he's hired.
- NARRATOR: In the car, Seddon had tools on standby to make good his own escape.
- GEOFFREY: Not only has he brought with him a sharp knife to cut his seatbelt so that he can get out
of the car's window, but he's also brought a crook lock. This car's new, BMW, doesn't need a crook lock.
It has all sorts of automatic safety devices. He's brought the crook lock to break the window so that
he can get out of the car while the others drown. - NARRATOR: Seddon drove alongside Temperley's
Bridgewater Canal with his mum, dad, and nephew. When he reached a stretch of water with no crash barrier,
he suddenly put his plan into action. - DR. YARDLEY: During this drive, he's driving
a bit erratically, he's saying that he's got chest pains, and this ends up in him
driving the car into a canal. He used that crook lock to smash his way out of the vehicle
when it was sinking in the canal. - PATRICK: Stephen was able to get out. But he got on top of the car,
and he was actually trying to sink the car. But then a crowd appeared on the canal side.
- NARRATOR: Despite Seddon's best attempts, things were not going according to plan.
People had started to notice that he wasn't doing anything to help his family inside the car.
- Many of the witnesses to this said, "Get off the roof, it's making the car sink quicker."
It really does start to look very, very concerning. - NARRATOR: With witnesses on the riverbank now watching
his every move, he had to abort his murderous plan. - He accepts what is now inevitable,
that they've called the ambulance and the fire brigade because there's a car in the canal.
So now he's got to live out this fantasy. - GEOFFREY: He breaks the window, rescues his nephew
from the front seat, who plunges into the canal, not able to swim. Stephen Seddon is able to swim, finally gets his nephew
out of the canal onto the bank. He also manages to get his father, Bob, out of the backseat of the car.
By now, this car is progressively sinking into the canal. - NARRATOR: With the car now under water,
65-year-old Patricia was still stuck in the backseat and had run out of air. Her heart had stopped beating.
The fire brigade arrived just in time. - GEOFFREY: Miraculously-- and it is truly miraculous--
they managed to extract Pat from the back of the BMW, get her onto the bank, and they give her CPR.
They bring her back to life, literally. She had stopped breathing. It was an extraordinary rescue, of which, of course,
Stephen then decides to, uh, paint himself as hero. - NARRATOR: To avoid any blame for the crash, Seddon indulged
in some more amateur dramatics. - PATRICK: When the police turned up, he feigned some sort of cardiac event again.
He started clutching at his chest and collapsed. - DR. YARDLEY: So, he was sent to hospital
and tests were carried out. And those tests came back negative. There was no issues detected whatsoever.
So he's playing this role of a victim himself, essentially, and it works, unfortunately.
- PATRICK: I went to the scene of the canal crash. And it was apparent that it was the only part of the road--
the only stretch of the road where there wasn't a crash barrier on the side of the canal.
But at the time, no one thought it was suspicious. - DR. YARDLEY: Seddon hadn't achieved the outcome
that he wanted. His parents were still alive, he didn't have access to their money.
But he did have an awful lot of attention, and the narcissistic element of his personality
was really enjoying that. - NARRATOR: The press hailed the man who saved his family's lives a local hero.
Stephen Seddon also appeared on BBC TV News. Reporter Stuart Flinders interviewed him
two days after the crash. - STUART: On the face of it, this was a dramatic rescue story.
A couple drowning in their car, their son hauls them out, drags them to safety. He's the hero.
- NARRATOR: Seddon seemed keen to put his fake heroics on the record. - I said to Dad, "Wait," and I swam back.
Got back to him then, but Dad had run out of steam a little bit, and it was, like, 200 yards' swim in cold water,
doing what we got to do with the exertion. And I--I just looked at his face like that, and I said,
"I'm going down here, Dad," and he went, "No!" And he grabbed me and held on to me,
and I held on to the car, and I got me second breath back. - STUART: He was a good talker from our point of view.
He was very animated, he told a very dramatic story about how the whole car had tumbled into the water,
and as it was sinking, he managed to get on the roof, and he hauled his parents out. He got them to safety.
- She was going, "Please, get me out, get me out." I said, "Mummy, you'll be alright, you'll be alright."
- STUART: He was very much a sort of chatty lad, and very talkative and communicative,
and perfect for what we needed as a storyteller. I took it at face value, I thought the story was genuine,
and I had no reason to believe otherwise. - STEPHEN: I'm not the hero. I saved people who I loved, you know what I mean?
That's what you do-- - STUART: But the-- - The firefighter dove in and saved a complete stranger.
- NARRATOR: While Seddon the salesman told a tall story, his father, Robert, reflected on his lucky escape.
- Seddon and his father sat side by side on a sofa opposite me. Seddon's father said very little.
Occasionally, he would beam across and pat his son on the knee, and say, "If it wasn't for this guy, I wouldn't be here today."
- STEPHEN: When we tried the doors, that was not happening. It was nothing with the doors. At that point then,
I decided the only way out of here is, uh, me smashing our way out. - GEOFFREY: Once again, that used car salesman ability
to spin a line, to pull the wool over people's eyes, that conman trick, that gift of the gab
saw him through. It was never regarded as anything except an accident. It was one of those things.
But it was the first sign-- the first positive sign-- that Stephen Seddon was absolutely determined
to lay his hands on his parents' money. - NARRATOR: Everyone had hailed Seddon a hero
for rescuing his family from the crash in a canal. But after initially falling for his son's heroics,
Seddon's father, Robert, soon began to realize the horrifying truth. - DR. YARDLEY: He'd found at Seddon's house
a saved video of how to escape a submerged vehicle, which was rather suspicious.
So I think there was that realization that, "Actually, my son might be trying to kill me."
- GEOFFREY: He went to see his local GP. And he told his doctor that he'd become convinced
that his son, Stephen, had attempted to kill him, had attempted to murder them all.
- NARRATOR: Robert's worst fears would be realized. Seddon had succeeded in telling a convincing lie,
but he'd failed at getting his hands on his inheritance. Now, Seddon had to go back to the drawing board
and work out a plan B. - DR. YARDLEY: When we look at Seddon's motivation, it comes down to one thing: greed.
He wants their money. He doesn't feel that the money that they've given him is enough.
He's probably burnt through it by now, and he wants more. He feels that he's entitled to it.
So that's all he sees his parents as. They are a barrier in between him and the money that he wants,
and that really is quite cold. - GEOFFREY: Stephen Seddon puts into practice a premediated plan to murder-- some might say execute--
his mother and father. - NARRATOR: Seddon had already failed once in killing his parents,
so this time he was determined to carry it through by shooting them dead. He turned to his connections
in the Northeast's criminal underworld. - GEOFFREY: He'd been around, and he'd been on the edge of the law for a long time now.
He knew enough people. A hot sawn-off shotgun was supplied to him. - NARRATOR: After securing the weapon,
Seddon made plans for the perfect murder. He took his wife and children on holiday
to the family caravan in Fleetwood, Lancashire. - To all intents and purposes, a family week away,
except he's remembered that he's gotta go back to sign on at the job center at 10 o'clock the next morning.
- NARRATOR: The next day, Seddon was up early. At 5:24 a.m, he left his sleeping family at the caravan park,
and drove two and a half hours back home to Seaham. On arriving home, the exhausted Seddon fell fast asleep,
purposely leaving his car behind his electric garage door. - This day, he knows that the power
is going to be out in his house because he's had a letter from the electric company telling him of this.
And so what he does is he deliberately leaves his car in the garage, so there's no way on earth that he could possibly
be using his car to drive from his home to his parents' home. He leaves his phone so, obviously,
the mobile phone tracking technology that's used can't say that he was not at home.
So he's creating this alibi for himself. - NARRATOR: At 9:57 a.m., Seddon appears to only just
make his appointment at the job center. He arrives seemingly out of breath, having supposedly run all the way from home
because he didn't have access to his car. - PATRICK: He went to the job center. He was seen in and around the town.
Seddon made a point of being visible on local CCTV in Seaham, so that gave him an alibi to say that he's
in the northeast, obviously hundreds of miles away from Sale. - NARRATOR: In reality, Seddon had borrowed
his brother-in-law's BMW to make his appointment at the job center. Then he picked up the sawn-off shotgun
from his criminal acquaintance. Next, he hightailed it 145 miles south from Seaham
to his parents' home in Sale. - LOUIS: I think he thought that this was a fool-proof plan.
He had an expectation of impunity. Keep in mind, he got away with an attempt once,
he didn't get caught. And so he became emboldened and he thought, "What could go wrong?
"Who would think that I'm killing my parents "to get their money? What child would kill their parents?"
- DR. YARDLEY: At any point during that drive from his home to his parents' home-- which would have taken him
quite some time--he could have decided not to go through with this, but he didn't, and he was
absolutely determined. - It's now about 20 to 2 in the afternoon of the 4th of July, 2012.
Bob has just been quite recently to the local fish and chip shop, and brought lunch for he and Pat.
Lunch is over. Bob's sitting in the front room, and Pat is Hoovering up stairs. - NARRATOR: With the shotgun at the ready,
Seddon snuck in through the back door. His father, Robert, was sitting on the sofa watching TV.
- GEOFFREY: He walks into the sitting room. His father must have been rather surprised to see him.
Well, the surprise would've turned to horror within a matter of seconds, because Stephen was holding
a sawn-off shotgun, which he was pointing down at his father. - [gun firing] - GEOFFREY: Pat obviously hears the explosion.
I mean, it's a sawn-off shotgun, it's gonna be noisy. Rushes downstairs to find her son brandishing a shotgun.
- DR. YARDLEY: You just can't imagine the terror that his mother must have been feeling at that time
to discover that her son has shot his father--her husband-- and that he-- he wants to kill her, too.
So this was the most horrendous set of circumstances. - GEOFFREY: She tries to force the gun out of his hand.
In the end, it doesn't work, and he shoots her, killing her instantly. - PATRICK: For both Robert and Pat,
the final moments would have been one of just unimaginable horror that their beloved son
had turned into such a cold-blooded killer and a monster. - NARRATOR: Seddon then reloaded his weapon
with a third cartridge. - GEOFFREY: I think he kept the third cartridge on the assumption that there might well have been
his nephew to kill as well. I don't believe that he knew his nephew wasn't there when he arrived at the house.
I think he thought he was. - NARRATOR: Luckily, he was away in respite care on that fateful day. Bob and Pat had been alone.
Seddon, however, still had work to do. - GEOFFREY: He put the shotgun, when he'd killed Pat,
into his father's hands; laid it across his lap, effectively, seeking to persuade the police
that this was a murder-suicide-- that Bob had killed Pat and then turned the shotgun on himself.
- NARRATOR: After carefully staging this murder-suicide scene, Seddon then drove the two and a half-hour journey
back home to Seaham, picked his own car up from his house, now the electricity was back on,
then went to buy some beers to celebrate. - LOUIS: There you go, he had an alibi of everything,
he had it all planned out. He had exactly where he would be at what time, doing what, it was all an act.
- NARRATOR: As his parents lay dead at home, Seddon drove back to join his wife and children
on holiday in Fleetwood. - DR. YARDLEY: This is really, really appalling, you know,
the people who give you life, the people who support you and give you their last penny, that you are prepared
to so ruthlessly execute them for your own greed really is despicable. - NARRATOR: Robert and Patricia's bodies
lay undiscovered for two days, until their grandson's respite carer turned up at the door.
- GEOFFREY: They would always have the front door open or Bob would be standing in the driveway.
They were very particular because they cared a lot about the boy. And that's why the carer was amazed that they weren't
there to sweep him up and back into the house. - NARRATOR: Concerned that the grandparents
had failed to answer the door, the carer made his way around the back of the house to see if he could see
any sign of them. - He looks through the window to see a body. - NARRATOR: Following the shocking discovery,
their grandson's carer called the police straight away. - MAN: His grandparents are not answering the door.
I've just been around the back, and I've seen his grandfather, and he appears to have a gun in his hand.
- NARRATOR: The police rush to the scene, and broke in through the back door. - PATRICK: When the bodies were found, it was clear
that both had died from gunshot wounds. It looked like Robert had murdered his wife,
and then killed himself. So the initial information from the police was that it may have been a murder-suicide.
- When the police first told Stephen Seddon that his parents were dead, and they suspected it might be
a murder-suicide, he must've let out an inner cry of delight. It looked as though he might just have got away with it.
There must have been a moment when he thought, "It's worked, and I'm gonna have the money."
- NARRATOR: As news broke of the shootings in a leafy Manchester suburb, the community was in shock.
It even took reporters who'd followed the canal crash story by surprise. Stuart Flinders had met Robert a few months earlier.
- I was about to head to the airport to go on holiday, and I saw a copy of "The Manchester Evening News."
And on the front cover was a photograph of that house I'd been in, and the headline saying that's the couple
had been shot. And I was really shocked, because they'd struck me as a very decent family.
I particularly liked the father. He seemed a very nice man. And as the details came out, it was really quite shocking
to imagine that this could have happened. - NARRATOR: In the hours that followed,
the press as well as the police fell for Seddon's staging of the crime scene, reporting the killings of Robert
and Patricia Seddon as a murder-suicide. But when forensics experts swept through their home,
there would be many questions raised over this accepted theory. Ballistics expert Andre Horne was called
to the scene of crime as soon as the bodies were discovered. - ANDRE: The information that I was given was
that it appears to be a murder-suicide. Prior to entering the scene, I had a briefing
from the crime scene manager who told me that the family had gone through a difficult time.
Bob and Patricia were grandparents, they were looking after a grandson with disabilities
because his--his mom had died. They were struggling to cope with their circumstances.
And so I was told there probably was motivation for them to have taken this action.
- NARRATOR: Even the press had reported the police's initial belief that Robert and Patricia's deaths
were a murder-suicide. But as Andre Horne entered the scene, he started having doubts over this theory.
- Patricia was lying in the hallway next to the stairs, and there was a devastating gunshot wound
to her left temple. She was lying on her back. And I found the position or the location where she was quite strange
for a murder-suicide. So I think that's when I started having some doubts about whether it was in fact a murder-suicide.
Why would she be lying in the hallway? - NARRATOR: But when Andre Horne saw Robert
sitting on his couch with the gun in his lap, he had even more concerns. - ANDRE: The way that he was sitting there holding
the gun didn't make sense. Shotguns produce a lot of recoil when they are discharged,
and if you invert a shotgun and point the muzzle to yourself, you haven't got any support for the recoil of the shotgun.
- [gun firing] - ANDRE: It would fly across the room. So I was not expecting to see a shorn-off shotgun
in the hands of a person who had shot himself. So that was a massive red flag for me.
- NARRATOR: When the forensics team opened up the weapon, they found something even more puzzling--
only one fired cartridge case. - ANDRE: We know that two shots had been discharged at the scene
but there was only one fired cartridge case. Where was the other cartridge case?
The whole house was searched-- upstairs, downstairs, even the workshop-- and the other fired cartridge case was never found.
- NARRATOR: Later that evening at the postmortem, Andre Horne examined the gunshot wound to Robert's neck.
There was only one possible conclusion. - After all the blood was cleared away, and I could
see the size of the pattern and the size of the wound, whoever had shot Bob was at least about
1 and 1/2 meters from him when the shot was discharged. I could tell the senior investigating officer
that this had definitely not been a self-inflicted wound. - NARRATOR: Now the murder-suicide theory
had been blown apart, the case turned rapidly into a more sinister investigation: a double murder.
The police now knew a killer was on the loose, but who would want to shoot two caring grandparents?
They started looking for someone with a motive. - They wanted to see who stood to benefit
from the deaths of Robert and Patricia, so they start looking at the family. Obviously, the daughter died back in 2008,
which leaves Seddon as the sole beneficiary of anything that they might leave, so they begin
to investigate his whereabouts on this particular day. - NARRATOR: But when he was questioned about his movements
on the day of the shooting, Seddon appeared to have proof that he was at home in Seaham.
- DR. YARDLEY: Initially, it looks like he's got a fairly water-tight alibi, so they have quite a lot
of difficulty placing this together. - GEOFFREY: The 4th of July was particularly important
to Seddon because he knew that the power was going off in his local area. And so he couldn't have used
his own car, it was trapped behind the garage door. He wouldn't have been able to get it out.
Seddon maintains the fantasy throughout. "I was at Fleetwood, I went back to the job center.
"The car was locked in the garage. I could not be more innocent." - NARRATOR: So detectives poured over Seddon's seemingly
water-tight alibi to see if they could find any holes in it. After wading through hours of CCTV,
the police hit the jackpot. Seddon had claimed that he didn't have access to a car
on the day of the shooting, but a few frames of video they found told a different story.
- DR. YARDLEY: This is good old-fashioned police work. They accessed the CCTV from the job center.
And they see him entering the job center, and they see in the edge of the frame that there's a car
in the background that he appears to have come out of. They can't make out what make the car is, let alone
the registration plate, but they notice a bus go past on the CCTV. - NARRATOR: Next, the police went to painstaking efforts
to track the bus that passed Seddon as he left the car. - DR. YARDLEY: They're able to catch the footage that the bus
had taken, and that's when they identify the car. It's a 3 series blue BMW. And they make some further investigations and find out
that a relative of Seddon's actually owns a 3 series BMW. So now they have the number plate,
they can start looking at the AMPR-- the Automatic Number Plate Recognition data.
And they're able to locate him in his parents' area on the day that they were killed.
- NARRATOR: Seddon's alibi continued to unravel when detectives looked at his mobile phone data.
It did show his cell phone was in Seaham that whole day as he claimed, but the police could prove Seddon himself
never answered it. - PATRICK: They found a number of missed calls on his mobile phone from loan companies that Seddon
had been trying to get cash from, and one phone call from a local was answered by one of his relations.
- NARRATOR: Now the police had proved that, despite his phone having remained in Seaham,
Seddon wasn't with it. - NARRATOR: On the 12th of July, 2012, he was charged with the murders of both his parents,
Robert and Patricia... to the shock of neighbors and the press, not least BBC journalist Stuart Flinders,
who'd spent time with Seddon and his father. - I'm surprised, because I must say,
I had had no suspicions at all. I took the story at face value. They seemed to be quite a close family.
The son and father seemed to get on very well. As it was, I was just surprised at how good he'd been
at conning us, as well as his parents. It is very cold and calculating to even think
of killing your parents, and then to devise such an elaborate scheme. - NARRATOR: But to convict him, detectives now needed
enough evidence to convince a jury. Next they turn their attention to the murder weapon
found in Robert's hands to see if they could somehow link it to the killer. Again, his mobile phone records yielded more evidence.
- PATRICK: On the day of the murders, Stephen Seddon had made two telephone calls to a criminal associate
in the northeast--a man who had previous convictions for firearms offenses. And the gun that was used
had actually been stolen in a burglary not far from Seddon's house in the northeast.
- NARRATOR: The police also discovered new evidence when they reexamined the suspect crash
three and a half months earlier. They learned that Seddon had taken out additional accident insurance on the car he'd hired
to take his family out for their celebratory meal-- the car that ended up at the bottom of the canal.
- GEOFFREY: Two days before, he's hired yet another car, which he doesn't take out accident insurance.
Significant, you might think? Turns out it's extremely significant. - [tires screeching]
- NARRATOR: Detectives found out about the steering wheel lock and knife that Seddon had taken with him on the night of the accident
to smash his way out of the sinking car. - PATRICK: Before, just suppose it was just seen as fortunate
that these items were in the car, and no one asked any questions why-- why he chose to take them with them and have them
in a hired car on that night. Obviously, it's suspicious anyway that you would have those items.
- NARRATOR: Most damning of all, the police uncovered Robert's conversation with his GP.
He confided in him that he believed his son was trying to kill him. They also found Seddon had met a local landlady
about buying her pub. - GEOFFREY: Where was he gonna get more than 230,000 pounds
to buy this pub? Our answer was: in that house in Sale. The irony of this braggart, Stephen Seddon,
pretending that he's got enough money to buy a pub in the northeast is remarkable, because
when it was finally discovered how much he actually had in his bank account, it was 5 pounds and 45 pence.
He was absolutely broke. - He told people before he carried out the murders, and when his mother and father were still alive
that he was gonna come into some money, an inheritance. - NARRATOR: On the 20th of February, 2013,
the case against Stephen Seddon was finally brought to Manchester Crown Court. Seddon pleaded not guilty to the murders of his parents,
Robert and Patricia, and their attempted murders in the canal crash. - DR. YARDLEY: This is an individual who's always
making up these very tall stories. And I think there was a real concern on the part
of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, that if you stuck this guy in front of a jury,
he could manipulate them, because this guy was a conman. I think there was really a level of fear that he could
walk away from this. - NARRATOR: Despite the fact that his nephew was also involved in the crash, Seddon was not charged
with his attempted murder. In court, he claimed that he had nearly died saving the boy.
Throughout the five-week trial, Seddon continuously protested his innocence. Newspaper reporter Patrick Hurst
was in the courtroom. - PATRICK: When he was cross-examined, his demeanor was one of self-indignance.
"How dare you ask me or accuse me of murdering my own parents?" And I think he thought his sales patter would see him
through it, and he would be able to pull the wool over the jury's eyes. - NARRATOR: But after 18 hours of deliberation,
the jury returned their verdict. - They were confronted with a perfectly obvious conclusion
that the only person who could've killed Bob and Pat Seddon was their son, Stephen,
who had the opportunity and the motive. - PATRICK: He shouted, "I'm an innocent man,"
and shook his head, and again looked indignant and had his hands out, saying, "I--I'm innocent,"
and protested that they got the wrong person. - NARRATOR: Seddon was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
- DR. YARDLEY: This is akin to a whole life sentence for someone of Seddon's age.
He's very unlikely to ever get released from prison, and I think this is a sentence which is wholly deserved.
There's absolutely nothing that Robert and Patricia could've have given their-- their son over and above
what they'd already given him. And he so remorselessly killed them just simply because of his own greed.
- NARRATOR: At his sentencing, Mr. Justice Hamblen remarked, "In Greek mythology, someone who killed a parent
would be pursued until death by the Furies." - GEOFFREY: The judge went on to say, "One can only imagine
"the horror of your parents' last moments in this life "when they realized what a monster their son,
who they loved, had become." It is a precise description of Stephen Seddon. - LOUIS: He wasn't abused, there wasn't a fight.
They didn't do things to hurt him in some way. All they had was money. He wanted it.
This guy was really evil. - NARRATOR: He attempted to kill his parents and nephew
in a car crash he staged, then cynically sold himself as the hero who saved them.
He mercilessly executed his elderly parents, who'd loved and cherished him throughout his whole life.
That makes Stephen Seddon one of the world's most evil killers. - ♪ ♪

45-year-old Stephen attempted to kill his parents and nephew in a car crash. After the plan failed, the ruthless killer mercilessly executed his elderly parents with a shotgun.

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

Brief Summary

Stephen Seddon murdered his parents for money, initially staged a car accident, and was later convicted of their murders.

Key points

The Shocking Discovery. Pensioners Robert and Patricia Seddon were found shot dead, leading to a sinister investigation.
The Descent into Greed. Stephen's insatiable thirst for money leads him to plot against his own parents.
A Hero Turned Villain. Stephen Seddon, initially hailed as a hero for saving his family, is revealed to be their murderer.
The Failed Murder Plot. Stephen's plan to drown his family in a canal fails when witnesses intervene.
The Premeditated Murder. Stephen Seddon secures a weapon and plans to execute his parents for their money.
A Sinister Alibi. Seddon creates an elaborate alibi to cover his tracks, but is it foolproof?

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Bob and Pat had lived there for more than 20 years.

Narrator describing the Seddons' long-standing presence in the community.

2:29WatchAug 12, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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