World's Most Evil Killers - Season 5, Episode 13 - Kenneth Regan & William Horncy - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: On the 13th of February 2003, 46-year-old Anil Chohan, a successful businessman from Hounslow
in London, England, vanished after a mysterious meeting at Stonehenge. Two days later, his wife, two young sons and mother-in-law
also disappeared. PAUL CHESTON: The Chohan case is truly remarkable, and chilling,
and savage, and shocking like few other cases I have ever covered in my life. NARRATOR: The killers were 54-year-old career
criminal Kenneth Regan, and his longtime associate William Horncy. Small-time criminal, 38-year-old Peter Rees was also brought
on board to help with the plan. Regan was plotting to seize control of Anil's business
by any means necessary. DAVID LITTLE: He had no legitimate buyer or no money to buy the company.
So for him to do that, Anil effectively had to disappear. NARRATOR: Regan remained brazen throughout the investigation,
feeding the police false information and fleeing the country after Anil's body was found.
DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This was the systematic annihilation of a multigenerational family.
The amount of harm that these offenders have caused, it really is very significant.
NARRATOR: Cold and calculated, Regan and Horncy methodically wiped out members from three generations
of the Chohan family, including two young children, for the sole purpose of getting rich quick.
This makes them two of the world's most evil killers. [THEME MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: On the 1st of July 2005,
one of the Uk's longest murder trials to date came to a dramatic conclusion at the Old Bailey in London.
Paul Cheston was a court correspondent at the time, and followed the trial from the very beginning.
They had been charged with not one, but with five murders. An entire family. In my experience of 23 years being in the courts,
I've never known anything quite like that. NARRATOR: The cold brutality of these merciless crimes
shocked detectives assigned to the case. Andy Baker was commander and head of homicide for London's Met Police
when the family were first reported missing. ANDY BAKER: You do think, perhaps something has happened to them.
Hopefully, you're going to find them alive, and this is something where they've just gone away for a while.
Sadly, that wasn't the case. NARRATOR: The investigation gained national attention,
but the road to conviction was not easy. David Little was the senior investigating officer
when the case came to court. This was a very complicated case, made more so by the actions of Regan from the outset.
He wove lies throughout the investigation, which is not unusual, but the way that he did so was very explicit,
and he did a very good job. NARRATOR: The killer's story begins in 1948, in Ealing, West London.
Kenneth Regan was born Kenneth Avery. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He was, from an early age, a thug.
There's no two ways about it. He wasn't particularly tall, but he was broad, broad shoulders,
and could fix you with an intimidating stare. NARRATOR: As an adult, Kenneth Avery
put his intimidating stare to dangerous and lucrative uses. Kenneth's described as a career criminal.
He is at the top end of the most brutal and the highest echelon of criminals in this country.
He actually has the nickname of Captain Cash, because he was very heavily involved in drugs at that time,
and moved a lot of money. He really fancied himself as a bit of a criminal entrepreneur.
So he carried a load of cash around in his car. He felt that he was entitled to a really lavish lifestyle
without the hard, legitimate graft that went with it. He was also involved in another conspiracy, which
was conspiracy to obtain British passports with a guy called William Horncy. NARRATOR: Born in Windsor in 1952,
William Horncy was five years the junior of Avery, but no less dangerous. William's also a career criminal,
but not in the same league. He was more of a DIY criminal. William Horncy had quite a legitimate cover.
He was a qualified accountant, so he has this veneer of respectability. But he was very much involved in the passport scam.
He would give homeless people 50 pounds in order to use their details on applications.
So he was part and parcel of all of this. NARRATOR: Despite his respectable cover,
Horncy soon found himself in trouble with the authorities. In 1998, the extensive criminal enterprise Avery and Horncy
had built came crashing down. The whole plot revolves around being arrested with 25 kilograms of heroin.
It was in the boot of his Mercedes car when he was stopped by the police, along with hundreds
of thousand pounds of cash. He was looking at a 20 year sentence. NARRATOR: Desperate to escape a lengthy prison term,
Captain Cash sought to strike a deal with the police. After his arrest, he became a so-called supergrass,
and he fed a lot of information to the authorities about criminal activities. Now this isn't out of a sense of morality.
This is somebody who is looking out for his own interests. He decides that he's going to cut his losses.
And supplying the police with a whole range of information on major drug dealing operations,
he informed on providing evidence and names and information, including, strangely, his mate, Horncy.
NARRATOR: In June 1998, after whistleblowing on one of his closest associates, Avery awaited his fate.
When he came before the courts, instead of a 20 year sentence, he received eight years.
And in fact, on that, he served less than half because of his informant role. NARRATOR: William Horncy also received
a 21 month sentence for his part in the passport racket. Kenneth Avery was released early from prison in June 2002,
despite the severity of his crimes. So here, we have a man who's only served four years in jail.
Goes to live with his dad in a little bungalow near Salisbury. And he wants to get back to the big time.
He is determined to become Captain Cash again. He decided to revert his name from Avery to Regan.
His given name was Kenneth Avery. In fact, his mother's maiden name was Regan. He did that because, obviously, he
wanted to reinvent himself and almost kind of cleanse himself of his past. NARRATOR: With his new identity, Regan started
planning his rise to power. Kenneth Regan, as he was now, found work as an HGV driver,
moving the pallets and the fruit about at CIBA. CIBA Freight was a very large import export
company working in West London. The suggestion is it's up to 4 million pound turnover per annum.
So it was a multimillion pound enterprise, and had been built up over some time.
CIBA Freight was owned by 46-year-old Amarjit Chohan, known to his friends as Anil.
Anil Chohan was a very successful businessman in West London. He owned CIBA Freight.
He also had other dealings throughout the world, really, and he had property in India.
But behind all that, there was a degree of a Jack the Lad. He was a chancer to put it mildly,
and a small-time criminal, to put it slightly more harshly. He did have a history of an incident of tax evasion,
and that is exactly the kind of thing that criminals like Regan will prey upon. Because that damages somebody's respectability.
Because that was very helpful in creating a narrative around Anil, which was a wholly false one.
You know, that he was a dodgy guy. NARRATOR: Despite his past, Anil was a successful and respected
businessman. He was also a devoted father and a loving husband. Anil married Nancy, and had a very delightful family life.
They had two small children, Ravinder, who was just three or four months old, and Devinder, who was 18 months old.
We know that the grandmother flew over to be with her daughter and grandchildren.
The husband and wife, Anil and Nancy, spoke more than once a day, always in Punjabi.
Nancy would speak to her brother, Ankha, who lived in New Zealand, on a daily basis as well.
So it just shows you how close they were. NARRATOR: Whilst at CIBA, supergrass and convicted
drug dealer 54-year-old Kenneth Regan started to work his way into Anil's trusted inner circle.
Regan somehow managed to get himself trusted by Anil Chohan, possibly through the way that he portrayed
himself and his contacts that he said he had. NARRATOR: Whilst at CIBA, Regan reached out
to his old associate, William Horncy. Horncy remained a friend of Regan, even though Regan had passed his name on to the police.
And sometimes, criminal bonds are stronger than you would imagine. And he went to his friend, Horncy, and said,
this is what I've got planned. Come on board. CIBA Freight was perfectly situated for his purposes,
because he was so close to Heathrow. He knew that Chohan was interested in selling, so it
was over a period of months, he worked out how he was going to take the company.
He wasn't going to buy it. He was going to take it. NARRATOR: In February 2003, Regan put his plan
into action, and with the help of Horncy, started his takeover bid. He told Anil that he had a buyer that
was going to buy the company. So I think Anil trusted him and thought he was going to be a good middleman to sell the company.
Regan went to him and said, look, we may have a man from Holland who would like to buy your business.
A Dutch buyer who actually turned out to be Peter Rees. NARRATOR: Far from being an upstanding businessman
from Holland, Peter Rees was a 38-year-old small-time criminal and associate of Horncy.
Rees was a part car salesman, part roofer, part this, that, engineer, all that sort of stuff.
Very low-level crime. He had a long history of criminal offenses, but they were all lower-end.
But he was willing, and he was naive. NARRATOR: With the key players in place, Regan set about luring Anil into the trap.
On the 13th of February, Regan asked Anil to come to a meeting at Stonehenge, where he was due to meet the people
purporting to buy the company. So he went, prepared to discuss the sale of his company,
and that was the last time Anil was ever seen alive by anybody other than Regan, Horncy and Rees.
NARRATOR: On the 13th of February 2003, the day of this meeting, 46-year-old Anil Chohan
vanished. His disappearance was immediately noticed by his devoted wife, Nancy, who became concerned
when he didn't return home. There's no doubt Nancy would have been distraught. She was concerned that he didn't come home.
And when eventually, he did say, he did telephone her, he spoke in English, which concerned her.
Anil Chohan made a voicemail to allay Nancy's fears that anything bad had happened.
And effectively, Anil said that he's running away from the authorities. He left that message in English.
And Nancy immediately realized that he would not have done so. He would have spoken to her in Punjabi.
So the first thoughts that she had was that, although she knew it was Anil speaking,
she was worried about him. NARRATOR: Two days later, on the 15th of February, Nancy, her mother, and two young sons
also vanished. She had been speaking to her brother in New Zealand, Ankha, on a daily basis.
And those phone calls stopped just after Valentine's Day. Nancy's contacts with her brother,
who lives in New Zealand, are very close indeed. They speak to each other almost every day on the phone.
So when Nancy stops calling him, he's very suspicious indeed. NARRATOR: In the wake of the disappearances,
Kenneth Regan assumed control of CIBA. Regan arrives at CIBA Freight, brandishing
this power of attorney and saying, this is my company. I've now taken over it. Chohan has legged it.
He's disappeared, taken his family with him. Goodness knows where they've gone. I am now in charge.
NARRATOR: Claiming he was now the legal owner, Regan and Horncy convinced the employees
at CIBA that all was well. The people at CIBA Freight were actually instructed that Anil Chohan had gifted
the company to Kenneth Regan. So they thought, oh well. OK, you're in charge now.
Away we go. So at this stage, no one had reported the Chohans missing, because they
didn't think they were missing. And no one had suspected that a crime had been done.
However, the Chohans were nowhere to be seen. NARRATOR: One person who refused to believe the family
would simply vanish was Nancy's brother, Ankha. So no crime had been reported until Nancy's brother flew
from New Zealand to the UK, convinced that his sister wouldn't just go missing. Something must have happened to her.
He was convinced that his sister would not just run away without telling him. She would not disappear.
NARRATOR: With concern mounting from Ankha, on the 19th of February, a missing persons investigation was launched.
The initial investigation was a normal missing persons investigation, in that somebody has been
reported missing to police. There are no suspicious circumstances at that time. It's just the fact that people have disappeared.
NARRATOR: As part of the missing persons inquiry, police searched the family home in Hounslow
and made a troubling discovery. There was wet washing in the washing machine, which is really unusual.
Whilst there was no sign of a disturbance, it looked as if it was a quick leave.
And you know, a mother and a grandmother of small children, they wouldn't have left wet washing in the washing machine.
And the most important factor at the time, was Mrs Kaur was a very religious lady.
And she'd left her version of her religious book at the premises, which she certainly
would never have done. NARRATOR: The unusual circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the Chohan family
alerted commander Andy Baker to the idea that something sinister might have happened.
I'd decided, together with the local team, that it should become a major inquiry.
The Detective Chief Inspector, the senior investigating officer was appointed on the 21st of February,
so days after they were reported missing. NARRATOR: With warning bells ringing, the police started to take a closer
look at CIBA Freight and those now controlling the company. Howard Pickard was a Detective Sergeant brought in
to help with the case. HOWARD PICKARD: We had information coming from Regan himself, who came forward saying,
yes, he was going to take over the company. And he had various documents purportedly
signed by Anil Chohan, saying that this was the case and everything was above board.
NARRATOR: It didn't take long for the police to realize not all was well at CIBA Freight.
So of the three people that were involved in the takeover at CIBA, and that was our main line of inquiry,
you had Kenneth Regan, a lady called Belinda Bruin, and a third person who, let's call Mike.
We found out that Belinda Bruin and Kenneth Regan had met some time before, on the fifth floor
at Harvey Nichols, a well-known bar in Central London. NARRATOR: Gregarious socialite Belinda Bruin
had met Regan in 1997, before he was convicted of drug smuggling. Initially, she was intrigued by Regan's lavish lifestyle.
She was an extraordinarily different character to Regan. Belinda Bruin is a PR executive at Chelsea Girl.
Very well connected, which put her high up in the sort of glamorous West End world.
NARRATOR: As part of the take over at CIBA, Regan duped Belinda into helping him run the company.
Little did she know, she was to become the acceptable face of the business. She was the granddaughter of a millionaire,
[INAUDIBLE] Pierre, and had lived on a massive, 50 acre estate near Tiverton in Devon.
NARRATOR: The police began to make inquiries around the various parties running CIBA Freight.
Kenneth Regan had been very clever in the way that he put a veil of lies around what had happened,
and how it happened. So he made it very much look like Anil Chohan had run away from tax problems or others, and had left the country,
and left the company in his hands. NARRATOR: Despite the police's intense interest in him,
54-year-old Kenneth Regan remained cool, calm, and collected throughout the investigation.
During his interviews, he was extremely helpful. Tried to tell the police as much information as he could.
But what he was telling the police was false information that was purely to divert attention from him.
And did so, initially. His lies were very, very clever lies, and they were backed up
by documentary evidence. NARRATOR: But it wouldn't be long before Regan and Horncy's
story started to unravel. At the same time, we obviously made some inquiries of a covert nature.
So we would have been looking at their telephones, when they were last used, what messages they were
on, what texts were on them. We were beginning to see that the phones had gone to somewhere in Salisbury, and then
we then started tying that up with other phone inquiries of people that we thought were
a bit too close for comfort. And that took us, then, to other inquiries, which led to Tiverton.
NARRATOR: Tiverton in Devon was the location of Belinda Bruin's country estate. On the 19th of February 2003, the phones of Kenneth Regan,
William Horncy, and Peter Rees were all in the idyllic countryside town. We obviously made inquiries to find out why they were there,
what they were doing there. And during those inquiries, it transpired that they'd
purportedly dug a drainage ditch in the fields where Belinda Bruin kept her horses.
Belinda Bruin had no knowledge of this. She said that it was a surprise present from Regan
to her, to dig a ditch and make the drainage better, and she certainly not asked him to do it.
So police were drawn to the farmyard in Tiverton. The senior investigating officer approached me and said,
we'd like to get a digger and dig a ditch. And I had no hesitation in saying, yeah, we must do this.
NARRATOR: Shortly before the police were due to start digging, an urgent new lead came in.
Regan and Horncy told police that they were having a meeting with Anil Chohan in Newport
over the Easter weekend. They were going to give him passports so he could leave the country.
NARRATOR: The meeting was due to take place next to the bronze pig statue in Newport.
We obviously covered that potential meeting, and I have no doubt that Regan or Horncy covered
us covering that meeting. The police investigation at Tiverton was delayed whilst they went to Newport
to find Anil Chohan, where he was meant to be, according to Regan. NARRATOR: Anil never arrived for the meeting,
and there were no further sightings of Anil or the Chohan family. In April 2003, police finally started excavation work on
the drainage ditch at Tiverton. REPORTER (VOICEOVER): A tip off led police to this farmland in Stoodley, near Tiverton
in Devon. After five days of excavations, police have found evidence that one or more bodies were
buried here and then removed. They were there for a good week, in appalling weather.
It had been very wet and raining. And they shifted and tried to sift the tons and tons of soil,
looking for all sorts of exhibits. We, in fact, recovered nearly 90 exhibits, including bits
of jewelry, hair, plastic gloves, rope, et cetera, a lot of which had been burnt.
But the hair, obviously, was very important, and that was later submitted to the forensic science service.
DR. STUART HAMILTON: Gravesites are actually very distinctive. The way that the ground is cut, the way that it's disturbed,
even when you fill it in, it's still apparent. If they are excavated properly, it's even possible
to identify what sort of tool was used to actually cut it, whether it was a spade or some sort of digger.
NARRATOR: Police were convinced they were dealing with a burial site, but where were the bodies?
Two months later, on the 22nd of April, two canoeists made a terrible discovery.
They found the body near the pier. One of them stayed with the body and made sure it didn't float away or sink,
and the other went and called the police. It was found to have had bite marks on the wrist.
It was clothed, but gagged as well. So very suspicious circumstances. If somebody's been dead for a while
before they're put in the water, there's probably no air in it. The body will then only really resurface
when decomposition proceeds to the point where the body becomes gassy and bloats.
NARRATOR: Crime scene manager DS Howard Pickard remembers being dispatched to the South Coast.
I went down with the SIO to Bournemouth, where we spoke to the Dorset place, and a couple of days
later, we had a special postmortem, where we eventually identified Mr Chohan. So we knew we now had a murder inquiry,
and things went into full motion. NARRATOR: The forensics team discovered Anil's body had only been in the water for two days
before it was found. But he and his family had been missing for over two months.
When his body was recovered from the sea, it was months after he had been murdered.
His face was still taped up with tape. There were two small holes in the nose, so he could breathe.
At a special postmortem, which we conducted with the home office pathologist down in Boscombe,
I think we came to the conclusion that he had died of asphyxia. The postmortem did show that the body had, in fact,
traces of drugs, GHB in the bloodstream, and there was a wound to the head, which could
have contributed to the death. NARRATOR: The forensic examination suggested 46-year-old Anil Chohan had been beaten,
drugged, and asphyxiated. Suddenly, the new owner of CIBA Freight, 55-year-old Kenneth Regan, and his associates
looked more suspicious than ever. We had this covert work that had been going on,
this technical work of identifying footprints of where the people that were key people, the victims
and the perpetrators, had been. The movements of Regan, Horncy, and Rees, over the next few days after they had kidnapped
Anil were quite complex and very, very difficult to put together. Forensically, there was an awful lot
of work done in different areas, and also on different vehicles and with CCTV. NARRATOR: The mobile phone data led police
to believe Anil had actually been held at Forge Close for several days. When Anil Chohan was taken, he was
actually taken prisoner and taken to Regan's father's house. And that's where we-- well, we know he was actually detained
there for some period of time. Peter Rees, I think he was actually told what to do,
told when to do it. He, initially, was in Regan's father's home, guarding Anil Chohan whilst the other two, Regan and Horncy,
went to London. NARRATOR: With Regan, Horncy, and Rees nowhere to be found, crime scene investigators descended on the small house
looking for clues. When we first, obviously, arrived at Forge Close, it was sealed off completely.
And, obviously, we went in and assessed it. And it was quite clear that some of the walls
had been newly painted. There was a smell of fresh paint. And there seems to be a couple of new carpets
in various rooms. So, internally, there was a great lack of evidence. However, there was a spot of blood
from one of the children, Devinder, outside the address. So we were able to place one of the children,
certainly, at the address as well. We know that, not only from information received,
but certainly, the telephone footprint records, that Regan and Horncy, who had been in Forge Close
in Salisbury, Wilkshire, also went to Hounslow, to the home where Nancy, the mother, and the two children
were. NARRATOR: A horrifying picture was now starting to emerge around the family's last movements.
My suspicion is that they took the family hostage to try and use as leverage. I don't know how the sequence of events--
I don't know who was killed first, and who was killed last. Certainly, they would have had to kill the whole family
at some stage if they were going to get away with the fact that Anil had left the country and left the business to them.
Because there's no way that Anil would have left the business to somebody else, and leave Nancy with nothing.
NARRATOR: Cold and merciless, 54-year-old Regan, along with his accomplices, Horncy and Rees,
were prepared to go to extreme lengths for control of the multimillion pound company, CIBA.
Whether or not they'd been murdered in front of Anil, Anil still would have been under pressure.
I have no doubts that Regan would have joyfully said to him that his wife and children were in danger.
No doubts at all. It was all part of this torture and this pressure that they put on Anil to sign over his business.
Whilst Regan was keeping Anil Chohan in his father's house, he forced him, or coerced him, or somehow
got him to sign blank pages with his signature, and letters basically saying that he was going to hand
over the company to him. They put him under the most extreme duress. I mean, torture of the worst kind.
Basically, they get him to sign a false power of attorney, putting everything he owns into the hands of Regan.
NARRATOR: Police continued to track all three suspects movements via their historic telephone
signals. It was then that they made a gut-wrenching discovery. It was that weekend, the bank holiday weekend, that Regan,
Horncy and Rees excavated the bodies and took them out to the [INAUDIBLE] and dumped them in the sea.
NARRATOR: Whilst the police were on a wild goose chase, waiting for Anil Chohan back in April 2003, Regan, Horncy
and Rees were in Tiverton, exhuming the bodies of the Chohan family. Regan's ruse meant police missed the discovery
by a matter of days. Regan, Horncy, and Reese hired a van and boat to take-- well, effectively take the bodies out to sea.
We were able to get CCTV footage of them hiring a vehicle and driving from Tiverton down to the South Coast,
and so we were ready to follow them both on mobile phone traffic and by their movements on CCTV.
NARRATOR: Detectives were now more determined than ever to catch the killers. They contacted the hire companies who own the vans.
By the time police seized those vans and treated them as a crime scene, they'd been hired out on numerous occasions.
So the chance of forensically getting anything from these vans, again, was low. But we painstakingly took the vans apart.
We found blood and hair, again, identified as that belonging to Anil Chohan, in one of the two vans,
and also on one of the boats that we recovered. And linking that all in with the mobile phone evidence showing
the suspects at all the different addresses at the right times really put the case well and truly to bed.
NARRATOR: On the 30th of April 2003, as police started to close in on Regan and Horncy,
the pair made their escape. Regan and Horncy realized that after the bodies have been dumped at sea, that the game was up.
So they both fled the country. They knew they were wanted. And whilst fleeing the country's not evidence of what you've
done, it's obviously there's a reason for fleeing the country and not making contact with the people
you should make contact with. Police were aware that Regan and Horncy had got a ferry to the continent.
From that moment on, we don't know where they went. NARRATOR: Unlike these two hardened criminals,
Rees did not leave the country. Police located him on the 14th of May 2003. Rees was the first to be arrested.
He was arrested in a pub in the southwest. He denied it. He just said he'd helped out Regan.
He gave us all the history, but just enough to say, I'm innocent of everything. Peter Rees has been described as a foot soldier in this case.
And I think there is a real attraction for him to this case, because he's involved
with these exciting London gangsters. This is an opportunity for him to be a somebody.
And I think that's quite intoxicating for him. NARRATOR: Two months after the arrest of Rees,
whilst Regan and Horncy were still hiding in Europe, a boat trawling in Pool Bay, Dorset,
made a harrowing discovery. A fishing boat picked up a package or baggage, didn't know what it was, from the seabed,
and it was brought on board and brought back to shore. Then it was obviously taken to the mortuary
and DNA proved that she was in fact Nancy Chohan. She had been buried for two months,
and in the sea for three months. We are looking at somebody who is going to be significantly decomposed.
But in her case, it was quite clear that she'd been struck on the head with a hammer.
NARRATOR: The police knew they were dealing with two extremely violent individuals.
Finding Regan and Horncy was now a top priority. It turned out that Rees had actually arranged an apartment
for both of them in Spain. And we worked with international police agencies, particularly in Spain and elsewhere,
to identify where they were. Regan was arrested in Ghent in Belgium in August of 2003.
Apparently in a very disheveled state, no money, no way of looking after himself, basically.
And then was extradited to the UK. And a month later, Horncy gave himself up to police,
obviously having had enough time on the run. They had a significant amount of evidence,
and they were confident they had their men. But one thing they were short of, still,
was the bodies of the two youngest children, really just months old. NARRATOR: Along with the two children,
police still hadn't found the body of Mrs Kaur, Nancy's mother. Despite this, almost a year after Anil's body
was discovered, all three men were charged with murder. DS Howard Picard was gathering all the evidence
when he made a vital breakthrough with an unlikely piece of evidence. Anil Chohan's socks.
And I said, well, we've got his socks here, which Dorset had bagged up. Would you like me to submit them?
She said, yes. Send them to me. So the socks were duly submitted to the forensic science
service, and then I think a week later, she rang me and said, well, we've opened up the socks and inside is a very
tightly folded piece of paper. And on it, still visible because it's been really tightly
folded, is details of a building society in the name of Regan at Forge Close in Wiltshire.
NARRATOR: This extraordinary piece of damning evidence was the final nail in the coffin for Kenneth
Regan, William Horncy, and their associate, Rees. The building society letter would have arrived the day
that Anil had traveled to Stonehenge and was kidnapped, taken hostage. So we believe that Anil had come across that piece of paper
when he was in Forge Close. He folded it inwards, put it in his sock in the belief that he'd been kidnapped,
and the belief that he was going to come to some harm. The only reason he put that letter into his sock
was as an indication of something that might happen later on. He wanted to use it as a clue to solve his own murder.
So we know that he realized what was going to happen. But not only that, he took steps to actually
help the police catch his killer before he'd even been killed. NARRATOR: In a desperate attempt to maintain his innocence,
Regan claimed the letter had been planted by the police to frame him. And of course, when we forwarded this evidence
to the defense, it's not surprisingly, they all shouted, foul play. This had been planted in the sock by Dorset or the Mets
or the scientist. And obviously, that was a main bone of contention, where everyone was accused of a huge conspiracy
to put this item in the sock. NARRATOR: On the 15th of November 2003, police made another horrifying discovery.
Nancy's mother, Mrs Kaur, was found washed up on the Isle of Wight in November, in a very, very
bad state of decomposition. As the body decomposes and ligaments and muscles break down, the body will fragment.
If that is in a tide or moving water, it will separate out. So I think the simple process of decomposing and water
has led the body to become separated. NARRATOR: The only part of her body to be found was her skull.
The two children have never been found. I think what makes this case exceptional is
the very clinical and detached way in which these victims were killed and disposed of.
There were many opportunities for them to decide not to kill other members of the family.
But they literally followed it through like a plan, from start to finish. The only potential sighting of the children
was when Nancy Chohan was actually trawled up from the bottom of the sea, and as she was actually
lifted and remained in the net, there was another bundle fell from the net which was noticed
by the fisherman falling. And the supposition is that they were the children, but that is the only potential sighting of the children,
subsequently. This is worthy of the mafia. It's worthy of that kind of grotesque brutality.
We've sent them to the fishes. You know, we are literally in Godfather land. This is just extraordinary, depraved behavior.
NARRATOR: The trial of Regan, Horncy, and Rees began on the 8th of November 2004.
Nancy's brother Ankha flew from New Zealand to attend. The trial took place at the Old Bailey,
and it was the center of attention. A trial involving the murder of an entire family, including
two of the smallest children you could imagine, was a big story. And the savagery and brutality which had gone into it,
involving such hardened, hardened criminals was the stuff that made headlines. NARRATOR: All three of the accused pled
not guilty, weaving a web of lies to prove their innocence. Once the jigsaw had been put together,
the evidence was overwhelming against them. Even during the trial, Regan came up with an ambush defense.
That he said an Asian gang run by somebody called Nav had been dealing with Anil Chohan,
it was they who had killed him, and they who forced him into disposing of the body.
NARRATOR: Throughout the trial, Regan maintained that the letter found in Anil Chohan's sock
had been planted there by police. I gave evidence at the end of it, and I think it's fair to say that the defense gave me
a hard time, because they were obviously suggesting the sock evidence was a conspiracy between Devon and Cornwall
police, the Dorset police, the Met place, the forensic science service, the CPS, that were all in it
together, which, you know, I mean, it's complete rubbish. NARRATOR: As the trial continued,
cracks started to appear between Regan, Horncy, and Rees. Regan and Horncy gave an air of, we've seen all this before.
That the prosecutor got to prove this. We don't have to prove anything. We've been inside before.
You're not telling us anything new. Whereas Rees, who has certainly seen the inside of a court on many occasions,
but never of such gravity, was a frightened man. He was doing his best to try and keep a distance between him
and the two older, hardened ringleaders of the plot. NARRATOR: On the 1st of July 2005,
all three men were found guilty of murder. Regan and Horncy were convicted of all five murders,
and they received whole life sentences. So in effect, they're not coming out of prison.
Rees was only convicted of the murder of Mr Chohan, because we had evidence that he was holding him at Forge Close.
Life means life sentences on Regan and Horncy. First time in my career that two life means life sentences been
handed out in the same trial. They are very rare. There's only barely between 50 and 60 people
in this country, at present, serving life means life sentences. The totally unnecessary, brutal killing
of utterly innocent children and women, as well as the torture of Anil, it is utterly despicable.
There is nothing they could possibly forgive it, and it's entirely proper that Regan
and Horncy were given whole life terms of imprisonment. NARRATOR: Peter Rees was convicted of the murder of Anil
Chohan, and received a life sentence with a minimum of 23 years behind bars. He was cleared of the other four murders.
And it was at that moment that Peter Rees, the shock of what he now faced came home to him.
And he turned to his right, to Horncy in particular, a person he thought he could trust, and the look on his face
was, what have you done to me? It was the most extraordinary shock, like this. You know, knowing you two are going
down the rest of your life. I am going to get something almost as bad. And what have you done to me?
It was an extraordinary moment of realization that his life, now, would be in a prison.
But you have a choice in life, and to watch a man being tortured and killed over three days,
you are going to have to face the consequences. NARRATOR: Despite their arrogance and continuous lies,
Kenneth Regan, William Horncy, and Peter Rees had all been brought to justice. Richard Holwell was the prosecutor,
and he told the jury in words which will live with anyone who heard them because they were so fitting,
he told them that this was a case that was horrific beyond belief. And in those three words, it sums up the case exactly.
I've dealt with many murders over the years, if not hundreds of murder scenes, and there's probably half a dozen that stick in my mind
pretty much all the time. And this one is right up there. I think even the defense said that you would
have to be mad to kill a whole family just to take over a company. Well, they were quite mad, so he sort of
ate his own words, really. I mean, they were just despicable, and carried out this appalling act on five innocent people.
NARRATOR: Career criminal Kenneth Regan was a skilled liar and ruthless killer. He, along with his accomplice, William Horncy, systematically
planned the cold-blooded killing of the Chohan family for the sole purpose of financial gain.
Fearing the police were onto them, Regan, Horncy, and their associate, Rees, exhumed the bodies from their grave site in Tiverton
and dumped them in the sea. The bodies of the two children have never been found.
Regan and Horncy showed no remorse for their crimes. This makes them, forever, two of the world's most evil killers.
[MUSIC PLAYING]

In 2003, Kenneth Regan and William Horncy murdered a millionaire and his young family. The killers wiped out three generations of the Chohan family, including two young children.

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

The Chohan family was murdered by Kenneth Regan and associates for business control, leading to a shocking trial and convictions.

Key points

The Mysterious Disappearance. Anil Chohan vanishes after a meeting at Stonehenge, leading to a chilling family disappearance.
A Family Annihilated. Regan and Horncy methodically wiped out three generations of the Chohan family for profit.
The Investigation Begins. The police launch a missing persons investigation after the Chohan family's sudden disappearance.
Digging for Evidence. Police excavate a drainage ditch in Tiverton, uncovering potential evidence of a burial site.
A Gruesome Discovery. Two canoeists find a body near the pier, leading to shocking revelations.
Murder Inquiry Launched. The discovery of Anil Chohan's body leads to a full murder investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This was the systematic annihilation of a multigenerational family.

Dr. Elizabeth Yardley discusses the brutal nature of the crimes.

1:10WatchAug 27, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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