World's Most Evil Killers - Season 5, Episode 11 - Colin Pitchfork - Full Episode | Forensic Files

FRED DINENAGE: In November 1983, the village of Narborough in Leicestershire, England, was gripped with fear.
The body of 15-year-old Lynda Mann had been found next to a quiet country path, but the police had few clues that could identify her killer.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: He flashed her. He then dragged her into a bush. He raped her and ultimately strangled her.
FRED DINENAGE: Over 2 and 1/2 years later, in July 1986, the killer struck again.
Another 15-year-old girl from the nearby village of Enderby was raped and murdered just a mile away from Lynda.
BHARAT PATEL: As soon as Dawn Ashworth happened, the police were fairly quickly convinced that the two
murders were linked. It's heartbreaking really when you think that they can be snuffed out so easily and so
callously by that. FRED DINENAGE: The killer was a local baker named Colin Pitchfork.
Had it not been for a combination of science and luck, the man who brought terror to two villages
may never have been caught. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: To this day, those communities in Leicestershire live with the ghosts of these crimes
because the lives of Lynda and Dawn, these are lives that are unlived. So to have this horrible kind of shadow in the background
is something that I think is ever-present. FRED DINENAGE: Sexual predator Colin Pitchfork had been exposed as one of the world's
most evil killers. [THEME MUSIC] FRED DINENAGE: In January 1988, 27-year-old baker Colin
Pitchfork pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of two schoolgirls in Leicestershire.
He became the first man in Britain to be convicted on the basis of a revolutionary scientific innovation
known as DNA fingerprinting. Pitchfork's first victim, 15-year-old Lynda Mann, was killed in the small village of Narborough
in Leicestershire in November 1983. The murder left the community in fear, a feeling
that local news reporter Bharat Patel remembers well. Lynda Mann's body was found here behind this fence.
She may well have been using this path, which is a popular shortcut between the main Leicester
to Coventry road ahead, and the village of Narborough to the right. BHARAT PATEL: I remember doing an interview with one
of the policemen who said, well, it could be your daughter next because the killer is
in our midst. And people started to suspect each other, their neighbors. And there was generally a very strained atmosphere
both in Narborough, which was where the first murder was and then in Enderby. FRED DINENAGE: 15-year-old Dawn Ashworth
was attacked by Pitchfork in July 1986, leaving a second community terrified. The police concentrated their inquiries very locally,
and that, of course, led to an atmosphere of fear because people were sitting around in pubs thinking
the murderer could be here. FRED DINENAGE: Local police Constable Neil Bunny was stunned when Pitchfork, a married father of two,
finally confessed his crimes in detail to detectives in September 1987. To take your child in the back of the car
and leave them in the car while he committed the first murder, it's just totally unbelievable.
What kind of a person? You know, it's just a pure, pure evil. FRED DINENAGE: Just like his murders,
this killer's story begins in a small Leicestershire village. Colin Pitchfork was born in Newbold Verdon in March 1960.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He was the middle child, and he's often described himself as the black sheep
of the family. He was one of those children who blended into the background. But that didn't match up to his self-deception.
He thinks that he's something special. He really does have that sense of grandiosity and entitlement.
He was a boy scout who became a scout leader. He was bright, ordinary. His parents were perfectly respectable.
There was nothing to indicate in his childhood, not one, none of those classic indicators, whether it's
cruelty to animals, arson, petty crime, nothing, not one single indicator of what he would go on to do.
FRED DINENAGE: When he was a teenager, Pitchfork took up an apprenticeship and never looked back.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: He left school at 16 and went to work in a bakery. And he stayed in that job for the next 11 years.
FRED DINENAGE: The apparently upstanding young baker met his wife while volunteering for a children's
charity in August 1979. But all was not what it seemed. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He wasn't what you might
describe as a loyal husband. And indeed, when his wife was pregnant the first time,
he certainly conducted an affair with an 18-year-old. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This is not a picture-perfect marriage.
But what it does give is a veneer of respectability. It makes him appear to be quite average and quite harmless.
FRED DINENAGE: As well as an extramarital affair, Pitchfork has begun a perverse pastime,
flashing at young women. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: In relation to indecent exposure, Pitchfork had two arrests, one before his marriage, one after.
Now, that suggests to me, that here's somebody who feels a real sense of entitlement
to do what he wants. FRED DINENAGE: In spring 1983, 23-year-old Pitchfork was arrested and referred for psychiatric counseling,
but the treatment didn't last long. GEOFFREY WANSELL: I suppose it was the attitude of the day.
He was informed that it's not really very much to worry about. How many times have we heard that?
How many times have we listened to stories about men who go on to commit terrible crimes being told, well, it's nothing
to worry about, it'll be fine, you're no longer a danger to society? It is a terrifying thought.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He thinks that women are there for men. He thinks they are there to be subservient.
They are there to be docile and compliant. So when he starts offending, those initial offenses,
that indecent exposure, that is a real opportunity to intervene here. And it's a shame that that was missed.
FRED DINENAGE: In late 1983, Colin Pitchfork and his wife were living in the Leicestershire village
of Littlethorpe. On the 21st of November, just half a mile away in Narborough, 15-year-old Lynda Mann was reported missing at 11:00 PM.
The schoolgirl had failed to return home after a babysitting job. NEIL BUNNEY: Lynda Mann's, unfortunately,
just a young early teens girl living a normal life, and she was returning home to her house in Narborough
along a place called Black Pad. In the early hours of the following day, she was discovered, and obviously, the murder
was reported. FRED DINENAGE: Lynda's body had been hidden behind a bush just off the quiet country pathway.
Lynda Mann was a very bright girl. She had lots of prospects. I know it's a cliche and people talk like this
as soon as somebody dies, but there were lots of people saying she was bright, bubbly, really nice.
You know, again, these things always happen to the people who are least deserving.
And she was as least deserving as anybody you could find. GEOFFREY WANSELL: A police investigation is launched,
but there's no witnesses. Nobody happened to be walking along that path at that particular time.
It's quite dense. FRED DINENAGE: The forensic examination revealed that 15-year-old Lynda had been
raped before being murdered. It seems that Lynda was attacked, sexually assaulted,
and then strangled with her scarf, and that's how she was found. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: On Lynda's body,
the police found some semen. And running the tests that were available to them at the time, which were pretty basic,
it showed them that the blood type of the person who had given this sample of semen was around about 10%
of the male population. So this was nowhere near narrow enough to actually identify an individual.
So I think this shows, at this time, how kind of unsophisticated the forensic techniques were
in terms of investigating murders. FRED DINENAGE: Lynda's attack shocked the local community.
The police were determined to bring a swift conclusion to the case. NEIL BUNNEY: When this kind of tragedy hits your area,
the police are not just intent on doing their job, they're intent on solving that incident
and bringing justice and justice to the families. Policemen work the streets to keep a community secure.
If you have somebody who's killing in your area on your watch, you feel you're not doing your job.
FRED DINENAGE: But with minimal evidence and zero witnesses, the search for Lynda's attacker would
be far from straightforward. Local news reporter Bharat Patel went to Narborough
looking for answers. He visited the Mann family home. BHARAT PATEL: I recall knocking on her parent's door,
and her mum answered, and she was in a huge state of shock. Something I can only now grasp as a parent.
But at the time, I was very young, and I said to her, look, you don't need to speak to us, but it might help for somebody
to come forward, which is the usual sort of journalistic trope. I feel sort of vaguely guilty about using it,
but I remember she said, much to my surprise, come in. What sort of a girl was Lynda?
She was very quiet. She loved-- she did a lot of homework studying for her GCSEs and O-levels.
She babysat for the local people with the children. She loved all the children. And she was just a happy teenager.
She loved music and danced. And she just-- she was happy. BHARAT PATEL: Lynda's mother has this message
for her daughter's killer. I would just like to tell him to get himself caught as soon as he can.
Just give himself up. FRED DINENAGE: Although she didn't know it at the time, the killer, who Kath Eastwood was appealing to,
lived just under a mile away from the site of her daughter's murder. 23-year-old Colin Pitchfork had approached Lynda Mann
on the 21st of November 1983. The known flasher had taken his perversion a deadly step
further. Now he exposes himself to her, but not only does he do that, he forces her off the path
into a nearby field. He forces her to strip naked below the waist. He rapes her, and he strangles her.
This must have been an absolutely terrifying experience for this victim. And this marks a real gear change
in Pitchfork's offending. FRED DINENAGE: Pitchfork had dropped his wife off at an evening class just prior to killing Lynda.
And chillingly his three-month-old son had come along for the ride. BHARAT PATEL: He parked the car, left the baby in the car,
committed the murder, came back to the car, took the baby home. And that really shows you the cold face of a killer
because it's difficult to imagine. It really is difficult to imagine that your baby
is yards away from you as you're committing this horrendous act. Now, this seems utterly incredulous to anybody who's
a parent that they would leave their child in this way and that they would leave their child to go and commit
a horrendous offense like this. But Colin Pitchfork does not think and feel like the rest of us do.
He is very much following his own wants, his own desires. He is his priority. Most parents put their children's
well-being ahead of their own. Pitchfork doesn't do that. It's very much about him and getting what he wants.
FRED DINENAGE: Colin Pitchfork had taken a life for the first time. But the local police were no nearer to learning the identity
of Lynda Mann's killer. They have no firm leads whatsoever. It becomes literally a mystery and a terrifying one too.
Knowing a 15-year-old girl has lost her life in a leafy English village in the County of Leicestershire
is tragic. No one who lives in Leicestershire village should expect when they're cycling one day to come
across the body of a young woman who has been strangled to death. It's almost like a television drama rather than real life.
FRED DINENAGE: The police turn to the terrified community for assistance. Very quickly, it became apparent people were really,
really scared because the police were trying to get people to talk, trying to get
witnesses to come forward. So they were saying things like we think the killer is
in your midst, and it could be your daughter next, so please help us. FRED DINENAGE: Bharat took to the streets
to interview local residents. I think young ladies should be very scared because we haven't found him.
So we don't really know what's happening at all. Yes, I've made an extra point of keeping my back door locked
now whenever I'm in on my own. Well, any time, really, just in case. You know, just to be on the safe side.
People started taking self-defense classes. And I remember lots and lots of women signed up.
And I remember the men saying to their wives don't go out on your own and to their daughters,
and only go out when it's light and stick to the main road, and try to be accompanied by somebody.
This was generally a village that was very quiet, nothing ever happened there, and suddenly, it was
hit by this massive tragedy. FRED DINENAGE: While the investigation continued, Colin Pitchfork laid low for almost two years.
In October 1985, Pitchfork attacks a girl again. This is not flashing. This is a genuine attack.
He threatens her with a screwdriver, and he performs oral rape on her, and all the time, he's threatening her with a knife.
Now, there are quite a few elements of this attack which are interesting. He has a screwdriver on him.
He has a knife on him. He's out and about at 10:30 at night, you know, despite the fact that he's a husband and a father.
So this suggests to me that he is stalking. He's actually going out there and following women
and looking for victims and prowling around. So this is somebody who was planning an attack.
And unfortunately, this girl is the one who ends up falling into his net. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Now, is he building up to killing again?
That's what that would indicate to me. He isn't arrested or nothing like that for that attack.
And so I suppose, and it would certainly be reasonable to expect that he thought
he'd got away with it again. FRED DINENAGE: In January 1986, Pitchfork became a father for the second time.
It had been over two years since the murder of Lynda Mann, and the police were no closer to catching the elusive killer.
And so to some extent, the investigation of Lynda's death goes cold. It drops away.
There's nothing to hold onto. It did instill a sense of fear. And as the investigation was getting further and further
along and nothing coming from it, it was that sense of frustration from the team
that they weren't getting a result, and obviously, a sense of trepidation from the public
that still nobody had been held to answer. And then, unfortunately, the second murder occurred.
FRED DINENAGE: On the 31st of July 1986, Pitchfork killed for a second time, less than half a mile
from where he murdered Lynda Mann over 2 and 1/2 years previously. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He attacks a 15-year-old schoolgirl called
Dawn Ashworth who is walking in another fairly secluded part of that bit of Leicestershire, Ten Pound Lane.
He is walking behind her. And I think any woman can identify with that feeling of having somebody walking behind you
and feeling incredibly uncomfortable. He then jogs past her. And I think at this time, Dawn was
probably actually quite apprehensive as to what was going on. But when he gets ahead of her, there's probably a sense
in which she's quite relieved. It's just a guy who's on his way somewhere. But then he turns around, and he exposes himself to her.
And I think that horrible kind of dreaded realization then sinks into her that this is not a relief.
This is something very serious. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He flashes at her, but he doesn't stop there.
This time he goes further again and launches a full-scale attack on her. He rapes her, but she fights back.
But sadly, she pays with her life. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He strangles her in a very similar way
to the way in which he killed Lynda, so he's got his offending down to a T here.
He knows that this works. He gets pleasure from it. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Unlike Lynda, he
actually goes to some trouble. He puts Dawn's body in a bed of stinging nettles and covers it with a log which means
that she isn't found at once. FRED DINENAGE: Two days later, on the 2nd of August,
a dog handler searching for Dawn Ashworth found her body in a field just off Ten Pound Lane.
The 15-year-old had been walking home to the village of Enderby after visiting a friend.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This is a very familiar story. These are the kinds of victims that Colin Pitchfork targets.
These girls are familiar with the area. They feel comfortable in the area. It feels like it's a safe place for them,
and he completely violates that. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Again, a crime committed in a village in Leicestershire.
A 15-year-old girl has lost her life, had her body treated like rubbish. It's such an extraordinary contrast.
Beautiful countryside, a dreadful ugly murder. What an extraordinary juxtaposition.
FRED DINENAGE: Two murders, three years, and less than a mile apart. The police would soon link the killings.
But it would take a new groundbreaking scientific development to finally bring Colin Pitchfork to justice.
The second rape and murder of a schoolgirl in the area in less than three years have devastated the local police.
NEIL BUNNEY: It's heartbreaking really when you think that they can be snuffed out so easily and so
callously like that. FRED DINENAGE: Dawn's murder was eerily similar to that of 15-year-old Lynda Mann near the Black Pad
in November 1983. It was only a mile away. And there was a complete carbon copy of what had happened.
The same sort of fear. The same sort of suspicion. The same sort of could it be that person sitting
over there having a drink? Could it be my next-door neighbor? Could it be the chap across the road?
And of course, these things aren't pleasant to live with, and I think people found it very difficult.
Well, this time, it's again a police investigation, but now we have a prior to go back to.
We have Lynda three years earlier, and we have Dawn. Very similar locations, paths, woodland, very similar attacks.
Both women are strangled. Both have clearly been raped. Now we have what looks like a modus operandi.
FRED DINENAGE: The police were soon convinced they had a double murderer living in the local area.
As soon as Dawn Ashworth happened, it became very clear that the two murders could be linked.
And the police were fairly quickly convinced that the two murders were linked. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She was naked from the waist down,
and she'd been strangled, and there was some semen on her body. So you've got another similarity there with the murder of Lynda.
You've got that semen on the body. But in terms of the testing that's available to police at this point in time,
there's very little that they can actually do with that evidence. FRED DINENAGE: Police Constable Neil Bunney
worked on both Lynda Mann's and Dawn Ashworth's murder investigations. He was determined to catch the killer.
My own personal feeling was we got the same person who done it again. It was a repeat murder.
And then I started to think we've got to solve this. We've got to solve this for the people
of Enderby and Narborough. We've got to solve this for the two girls' families. I got to solve this for my peace of mind.
At that time, I had got two young daughters. At the end, it was going to be a lengthy inquiry once again.
FRED DINENAGE: This part of the investigation into the latest murder, Neil was charged with questioning residents
in the neighboring village. NEIL BUNNEY: When we were doing the house-to-house inquiries
for the Dawn Ashworth, it was being extended further out. And one of the villages that were involved is Littlethorpe.
Now one of the houses that we went to was the home of Colin Pitchfork. His wife answered the door.
She seemed a perfectly normal lady. We explained who we were. She went into the house, invited us in to sit down.
It was quite a while before Pitchfork came into the room. FRED DINENAGE: Neil had no reason to suspect that he just
entered the home of a double murderer even in spite of Pitchfork's demeanor. When he came in, he sat down.
He wasn't nervous. He gave me a bit of the creeps really, strange feeling you had.
There's just something about him that you wouldn't make him a friend. Well, I wouldn't make him a friend.
He wouldn't be somebody I'd want to be mixed with. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When most of us
hurt somebody or make somebody feel bad, we get that guilt feeling out of that. We feel remorseful.
We feel terrible. It affects our ability to actually carry on about our day. Now the fact that Pitchfork is able to compartmentalize
in this way, shows me that this is quite a significant psychopathic trait. He's somebody who doesn't feel bad about hurting other people.
FRED DINENAGE: Neil questioned Pitchfork on his whereabouts on the night of Dawn Ashworth's murder.
NEIL BUNNEY: He came up with a story that he was been alone. His wife's working late.
And again, he couldn't be alibied out of it, so we did a further send back into the system
for a further visit by the CID. FRED DINENAGE: But detectives working on the case
were already looking at another suspect, 17-year-old local Richard Buckland. NEIL BUNNEY: Buckland was a young lad
who appeared a couple of times where we had a mobile incident room. And he always used to hang around that area talking
to the policemen who were in the vehicle, asking how the investigation was going.
FRED DINENAGE: Richard's questionable background and fascination with the case led police to arrest
him on the 8th of August. Richard Buckland had a string of convictions for minor sexual issues of all sorts.
And so he came under the radar very quickly. The police picked him up, and much to their surprise,
he confessed straightaway to one of the murders. But he said he'd only committed the one.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Buckland confesses to killing Dawn but not to killing Lynda. Well, I think had I been the senior investigating officer
on the case, I might have been tempted to take that with something approaching a pinch of salt. He was only 17
at the time of Dawn's killing. He would have only been 14 at the time of Lynda's.
FRED DINENAGE: But the police were convinced they had captured the killer. Richard Buckland was charged with both murders on
the strength of his confession. This seems to be something that's incredulous. Not many of us kind of comprehend
why somebody would admit to a killing that they hadn't done. But I think there's a sense of drama around murder.
There's a sense of a kind of status around the character of the murderer. And there's also a sense in which there are some people who
when they are in front of a police officer, a person in authority, they want to people-please.
They want to be helpful. They want to make the police's lives easier. So they will spin a narrative that follows that trajectory.
FRED DINENAGE: While Richard Buckland was in custody, pioneering technology was being developed
just seven miles away. By one of the great ironies of this extraordinary story, at the local University of Leicester,
there was research going on into what was known as genetic fingerprinting, the early stages of DNA analysis by a talented research
scientist Dr. Alec Jeffreys, who was trying to work out if there was a way in which you could match
an individual to their genetics in the same way as you could match an individual from their fingerprints.
FRED DINENAGE: For three months, Richard Buckland remained in custody until the newly discovered science
was introduced to the police. When Richard Buckland was tested, his DNA testing,
it categorically 150% proved he was innocent of those two girls' deaths. They found the DNA on Dawn did not match Richard Buckland,
but it did match the semen found on Lynda. So one theory is disproved. It wasn't Richard Buckland.
But the other theory is proved that it's the same man. FRED DINENAGE: Leicestershire police made the decision
to adopt the scientific breakthrough into their double murder investigation. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Detective Chief Superintendent David
Baker, who's leading the inquiry, decided that the only thing he could do given the fact that he now had at least a bit of evidence
that he would test the DNA of all the males between 13 and 30 in the three Leicestershire villages nearby.
It was the first time in this country that a mass DNA test had been taken place.
And it was in many ways remarkable. FRED DINENAGE: Over 5,000 men across Narborough, Enderby, and Littlethorpe
were invited to provide a blood sample to rule them out of the investigation. As was the case with thousands of men in this local area,
Colin Pitchfork received a letter inviting him to go and take a DNA test, and he just ignored it.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Colin Pitchfork is not a fool. He realizes that before long, someone
is going to come knocking on his door and ask him for a DNA sample. But he also knows that he is guilty of killing
both Lynda and Dawn. What is he to do? Well, he tries to get somebody else to take the DNA test for him.
FRED DINENAGE: Pitchfork lied to his bakery co-workers in an attempt to escape the blood test
that would reveal his guilt. He's explained this in terms of he'd already taken the test to protect somebody else,
so he's presenting himself as this helpful guy who's really helped out a mate, and now he needs
somebody else to help him out. Eventually, he found a colleague at the bakery where he worked, Ian Kelly,
who is prepared to go in. And I think he paid him a couple of 100 pounds. And they doctored the passport photograph
so that Kelly's photograph replaced Pitchfork's photograph. He went in. The test was done.
Colin Pitchfork's name was marked off, and he was cleared because obviously, Ian Kelly was innocent.
FRED DINENAGE: By early 1987, 27-year-old Colin Pitchfork was seemingly invincible.
His fake DNA test had enabled him to escape justice for the murder of two 15-year-old schoolgirls.
The police were still no closer to catching the killer. GEOFFREY WANSELL: What's gone wrong?
As far as the police know, no one's refused the test, or at least, no one's refused it without a perfectly good acceptable explanation.
What's happened? Yet again, the investigation seems to have hit a dead end. Six months pass until one night in the pub,
Ian Kelly brags to a few mates, clearly after having had a drink or two, that he'd actually
taken a test for somebody else. FRED DINENAGE: But Kelly had been overheard by a concerned
local, and she decided she should make the information known to the police. NEIL BUNNEY: I've been in the pub.
I've heard this spoken about. Colin Pitchfork hasn't given a specimen. Which was then handed straight to the major inquiry team,
and Bob's your uncle, he's finally caught. FRED DINENAGE: On the 19th of September 1987,
Colin Pitchfork was arrested. He became the 4,583rd male to be blood tested. He would also be the last.
The police had found their killer. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Pitchfork really doesn't deny it.
He confesses almost at once because, in every way, he's bang to rights. He knows perfectly well that his semen
will match the semen found at the scene of Dawn and of Lynda. He also knows perfectly well that Ian Kelly
did take the DNA test for him. FRED DINENAGE: Pitchfork was charged with both murders, as
well as an assault in October 1985, and various other charges that were discovered during his interrogation by detectives.
Colin Pitchfork's confession was really a story. It was his sanitized version of these murders.
And some of the claims that he made were absolutely incredulous. He claimed that the victims had removed their own underwear.
So he's trying to say something about the kind of women his victims were. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He gives them what you might
describe as the highlights. Yes, yes, I flashed at them, but I flashed at 1,000 girls
over the years. Yes, yes, I'm a flasher. But the only reason I killed these two women is
because they reacted so badly. It wasn't that I went out to deliberately kill them.
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He's saying, well, I killed them because I had to kill them because they
would have identified me. And in placing focus on the victim, he's removing the focus from himself.
And this is a tactic that we see in a lot of killers. It's a diversionary tactic.
Don't look at me. Look at them. FRED DINENAGE: A court date was set for January 1988.
Pitchfork's defense barrister David Farrer already had prior knowledge of the investigation.
Strangely, my first contact with the case was a phone call, which told me that I had been instructed
to prosecute the young man called Buckland, who was initially charged following what looked like a confession to one of the two murders.
And then some quite substantial time later, to my surprise, the brief for the defendant Mr. Pitchfork arrived at my desk.
So I finished up by not prosecuting the guy who didn't do it and defending the one who did.
FRED DINENAGE: David met with Pitchfork while he was on remand. He came across as rather cold.
One might instinctively draw that impression from somebody admitting to murders of this kind.
But I think also the fact was that I'm pretty sure his main interest was getting
the whole thing over with. He knew perfectly well that there were pretty strict limits
to anything that any lawyer could do for him at that stage. So he certainly, he wasn't a client
you could really engage with in any sense. FRED DINENAGE: The 27-year-old killer made no attempt to deny
the charges he was facing. NEIL BUNNEY: It was a remarkably lengthy and very full
confession, that I do remember. I don't recall him ever seeking to explain it away.
I mean, in a sense, how could you? He was playing more to the image of the family man
with two kids. He was actually confessing to the murder of two young women, both 15-year-olds,
remember, not women in their 20s. These were young women who barely had a chance to begin their lives,
and he'd snuffed both life out. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: And we have to be very cautious when
an offender starts to spill the beans because this is their version of events. At this point, they are able to control the narrative.
The victims have been silenced, so we need to look very carefully at the evidence
that's left behind because that is how the victims speak to us. FRED DINENAGE: As the court case neared,
David struggled to justify a defense for the killer. The only issue, as far as I recall that ever really arose
from our point of view, was whether it might be possible to show there was some mental abnormality, which
might enable us to give a defense of diminished responsibility a run. But it became pretty clear that was not the case
because they were both quite carefully planned murders. And when you add to that the very sophisticated way in which
he evaded the screening by setting up another man with a really quite skillfully forged passport
photograph, it didn't fit with somebody who was so completely out of control. FRED DINENAGE: On the 22nd of January 1988,
Pitchfork was in the dock at Leicester Crown Court. Colin Pitchfork pleads guilty to both murders,
which would appear to be quite a strange thing to do. But actually, it's a useful thing because it
prevents a trial going ahead. It enables him control of the narrative. It stops any details about these murders coming out
that he doesn't want out there in the public domain because he's a narcissist. He's really concerned about what other people think of him.
He receives two life sentences for the murders, and he's also sentenced for sexual assault
and for the conspiracy around the DNA test. BHARAT PATEL: And what was ironic was that DNA
fingerprinting had been used to try and eliminate people or catch the killer, and when the trial came,
he pleaded guilty, so they didn't need to use the DNA evidence. So in the first case, which is famous for DNA,
the DNA was never actually technically used in the trial to convict him although it led to everything
that led to his conviction. FRED DINENAGE: Pitchfork was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison.
It was welcome news to the local community. NEIL BUNNEY: When we finally heard that it was Pitchfork who
had committed both murders, you have a sense of real relief that justice had been finally done for the families
was the overwhelming feeling. Oh, it was an immense sense of relief. You could sense it as soon as you went into the village.
There was a sort of spring in people's steps. They weren't sort of walking around like this.
You could actually see it. FRED DINENAGE: Over 20 years later, in 2009, Colin Pitchfork was back in front of a judge,
hoping to be freed sooner than his sentence recommended. NEIL BUNNEY: When I heard that Pitchfork had appealed
against his sentence, I thought how can a person appeal when not only have you confessed to two horrific murders,
but you know that you've committed these horrific murders, and you've only been given
a nominal sentence of life? How can you appeal your sentence when you know you've been
so evil and done such wrongs? I was angry. FRED DINENAGE: During his time behind bars,
the killer had been transcribing printed music into Braille format, which reflected favorably on him.
Well, in recognition of his exemplary behavior in prison, his sentence of minimum term of 30 years
was reduced to a minimum term of 28 years. It still didn't make release imminent,
but nevertheless, I suppose, you could call it a small victory for Pitchfork. FRED DINENAGE: Colin Pitchfork's successful appeal means he
is now applicable for release. He's applied for parole several times. In 2018, he applied, and it was blocked.
He's applied again more recently, and I think it's quite likely that he will be paroled.
But I think we should be incredibly careful before a decision like that is made.
Has he addressed those underlying values that drive his offending? What are his views of women of who they
are, how they should behave? That is the kind of question I'd be asking. FRED DINENAGE: Colin Pitchfork killed two schoolgirls
and brought misery to the lives of many others across Leicestershire. If it had not been for good fortune and great science,
he may never have been caught. This is a killer who would still be walking around
were it not be for DNA fingerprinting. DNA fingerprinting really came to the fore
here in Leicestershire, of all places. And this, of course, has led to the conviction
of literally millions of people across the world. NEIL BUNNEY: We had to succeed for the families
of Dawn and Lynda, and fortunately we managed it. But it was DNA that clinched it at that time.
I'm sure we would have got him in the end. But would it have involved somebody else's death?
FRED DINENAGE: Pitchfork was a sexual predator targeting vulnerable girls who felt safe in the surrounding
of their peaceful villages. To ensure their silence, he killed a pair of 15-year-olds for whom life was just beginning
and manipulated others to cover up his guilt. The shadow he cast over his community will always
ensure that Colin Pitchfork is remembered as one of the world's most evil killers.
[THEME MUSIC]

Colin Pitchfork is a child murder who killed fifteen-year-olds Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth in the 1980s. He was the first person in the UK to be convicted of murder using DNA evidence.

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

Colin Pitchfork murdered two schoolgirls in Leicestershire, caught through groundbreaking DNA fingerprinting technology.

Key points

The Murders of Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth. In 1983 and 1986, two 15-year-old girls were brutally murdered in Leicestershire, sparking fear in the community.
Colin Pitchfork's Confession. In January 1988, Pitchfork pleaded guilty to the murders, becoming the first man convicted via DNA evidence.
Pitchfork's Pattern of Offending. Pitchfork's attacks escalated from indecent exposure to murder, revealing a disturbing pattern.
The Investigation's Challenges. With minimal evidence and no witnesses, the police faced significant challenges in solving the murders.
Community in Fear. The murders left the local communities terrified and suspicious of each other, leading to a strained atmosphere.
The Arrest of Colin Pitchfork. On September 19, 1987, Colin Pitchfork was arrested after a long investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What kind of a person? You know, it's just a pure, pure evil.

Reflecting on Pitchfork's actions and character.

4:15WatchAug 27, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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