“They genuinely see themselves as soldiers fighting a war. They do not see themselves as criminals and they do not see themselves as psychopaths. They see themselves as soldiers fighting a war...between good and evil. This is a genuine belief. I’ve interviewed many jihadi terrorists and at the time that their engaged in violence they genuinely believe they are doing the right thing...” Professor Andrew Silke – Programme Director for Terrorism studies, University of East London.

By the middle of June 2013, both Adebowale and Adebolajo were released from hospital and charged with Lee Rigby’s murder. Their police interviews would reveal the true evil behind their actions. Adebelajo sat with a blue blanket. At one point he said, ‘the soldier is the most fair target’. He added: “When he crossed the road in front of me, it was almost as if I was not in control of myself. I accelerated, I hit him...We wished to fulfil our promise to Allah, we did not wish to give him much pain. I could see he was still alive...I’m not sure how I struck the first blow. The most humane way to kill any creature is to cut the jugular. May be my enemy but he is a man, so I struck at the neck and attempted to remove the head.”

In the Lee Rigby case, the investigation wasn’t to find who the killers were. It was to ascertain if the two killers were mentally fit to stand trial. “Adebowale had mental health problems...he had effects from that attack he witnessed from the age of 16. He still heard the voice of his attacker. He had also problems associated with the use of skunk...He heard sometimes voices...he talked about in his assessments about hearing spirits called ‘Jinns’. So he had pretty clear mental health problems but was still responsible for his actions. Adebolajo on the other hand, the more dominant...of the two, is assessed to be absolutely sane.” Vikram Dodd - Crime Reporter, The Guardian Detectives interviewed him. After weeks of assessment, a trial date was set.

The Manchester Bombing: Six years on

On 22 May 2017, a pop concert was abruptly transformed into a waking nightmare when a suicide bomber detonated a home-made explosive in the lobby

The awful truth comes out

On 24 February 1994, a warrant was obtained to search 25 Cromwell Street and dig up the garden. During the excavation, an unexpected question by a journalist to Fred West suggested his daughter wasn’t simply missing; “A local reporter had got to the scene and had shouted out, ‘What’s happened to your daughter, Heather?’ And there was an unusual response to that by Fred West...it wasn’t, ‘I don’t know’ or, ‘I’m as concerned as anyone else’...What he said was...’I haven’t murdered my daughter.” Paul Stokes, Journalist. 

On the afternoon of the 26 February, a human femur – the thigh bone - was discovered under the patio; then human hair; then other human remains. When the Home Office pathologist investigated further, he found two more femurs. Three human femurs meant there was more than one person buried there. That evening, after intensive questioning, Fred West claimed responsibility for murdering not just Heather, but two other women. His confessions were confusing and contradictory. At one stage he tried to suggest that a lot of the killings were simply sex games that went wrong; He admitted that one of the women was Shirley Robinson. He said that despite Shirley being a lesbian, and unbeknownst to Rose, he got her pregnant. But he knew Rose would never let Fred and Shirley become a family, so he killed her. This was just one of many of Fred’s stories that would evolve and change - the only constant being that Fred always maintained Rose was innocent.

INNOCENT ROSE 

On this one issue, Rose was always consistent. She maintained she was not involved in the murders. But the discovery of Heather’s body cast doubt on Rose’s position. How could she have not noticed her husband murder, dismember and dispose of her own daughter under the patio? But proving that beyond all reasonable doubt would be difficult:

“That was a challenge for the investigation; just because the bodies were found in the house doesn’t mean to say she had anything to do with it.” 

Tony Butler, Former Chief Constable, Gloucestershire Constabulary.

Fred then signed a note saying that there were another nine victims: Among them - Linda Gough, missing since 1973 - and Rena and Charmaine, Fred’s first wife and daughter. The West house was methodically and forensically taken to pieces. Between 26 February and 8 March, nine sets of remains were found and removed in black plastic boxes. The remains of Shirley Robinson’s unborn child were found with her bones. But despite Fred claiming responsibility for his daughter Charmaine’s murder, detectives worked out he must be lying. In November 1970 Fred was sent to Leyhill Prison to serve 10 months for theft. 

Charmaine was dead before he was released. The discovery of her body, on 4 May, allowed a forensic comparison of the teeth with a photograph taken of the child before her disappearance. The forensic evidence provided a timeline that proved Fred was lying.

Rena’s body was discovered in a field some fifteen miles from Gloucester. Nearby were the remains of Ann McFall. She was a former girlfriend of Fred’s. Ann was six months pregnant with Fred’s child when she was killed. She had been buried in some old curtains. As for Rose, she severed all contact with Fred. She didn’t write to him or reply to his letters. Her defence would be that she was just another victim of Fred West.

The Investigation

The formal investigation put the time elapsed, from the instant of collision at 1.46 a.m. to complete immersion at close to 30 seconds. Witnesses quoted in the investigation described the Bowbelle as "hitting it [the Marchioness] in about its centre then (mounting) it, pushing it under the water like a toy boat."

The Captain of the Bowbelle, Douglas Henderson and his Second Mate were immediately put under arrest and taken to a nearby police station for questioning. At the time it was assumed (albeit wrongly) that the Marchioness had steered into the path of the Bowbelle as both vessels were using the centre of the river. This allegation was disputed by survivors’ testimonies many which stated that the dredger collided with the Marchioness.

CELEBRITY WITCH-HUNT?

Operation Yewtree was set up to investigate allegations arising from the Jimmy Savile scandal. Sexual predators were now themselves being pursued. And though the two had met, the investigation into Harris was not connected to the late DJ. The massive publicity around the Savile scandal caused more and more victims to come forward. Among them, were the victims of Harris.

The first to come forward was the one he abused the longest – his daughter’s friend. She was spurred on by the appearance of Harris in June 2012 at the Queens Golden Jubilee. She was furious that Harris, now in his eighties, was still revelling in the spotlight, when he had destroyed her life while she was just a teenager.

Detectives took her testimony and then gathered more and more evidence. In November 2012, just after receiving his Bafta fellowship - the crowning moment of his career - the police, after searching his home, questioned Harris.In March 2013, they charged him.But with Harris so beloved by so many, some asked whether those coming forward to name and shame Harris were simply joining the celebrity witch-hunt that seemed to attack every entertainer from the seventies.

And this trial by media did have an effect. Channel 5 removed two programmes featuring him from it’s schedules.Rolf Harris was slowly but surely being exorcised from the world of entertainment.

In March 2015, Harris was arrested.

“We can’t be in a world in which somehow, if it happened, 20, 30 years ago...they can get away with it. That impact, that pain, didn’t just happen in 1968 or 1969 – in Rolf Harris case – it’s happening now for the victims. That’s why they went to court...to look him in the eyes again...because he wouldn’t admit his guilt. That’s why they did it: Because they are still feeling the pain today; and they wanted justice.” - Peter Watt, National Services Director, NSPCCI

n May 2015, a police report revealed that they were looking at 1,400 men – of them 261 were high profile individuals such as celebrities and politicians. 

First to raise the alarm is her manager. He contacts her mother, Diana, and alerts her to her daughter’s disappearance. That evening at 6.45pm he contacts the police. Initially Suzy’s disappearance is logged as a missing person’s enquiry. But as the facts start to emerge, the police begin to fear she’s been abducted.

“Within the Sturgis Estate agency nobody really knew who (Mr Kipper) was. He wasn’t a regular customer. That night we stepped up what would have been a normal missing person to a very high risk missing person inquiry.” Mick Jones, Retired Detective Constable.

One of the first places the police visit is Suzy’s flat. Having to break into the apartment they discover nothing of any consequence. It’s clear she hasn’t returned home. The hope of a breakthrough comes when her company car, a white Ford Fiesta is discovered on Stevenage Road, about 1.5 miles from where she was last spotted. It’s 10.01pm and it’s been found badly parked and unlocked with the keys missing. Due to the position of the driver’s seat, it’s clear she wasn’t the last person to drive the vehicle.

Needing help fast, “Superintendent Carter goes public very quickly on this case and the help of the media is massive.” Mick Jones, Retired Detective Constable. But the large influx of information means the police are struggling to process all the lines of enquiry. By the beginning of August the police have had over 700 calls regarding information about Suzy. One hundred of these are from people who claim to have seen Suzy on the day she vanished. The public interest in this case continues to grow. When shops start to sell out of personal alarms, it’s clear fear is gripping the nation.As police exhaust all lines of enquiry, the trail goes cold. The Lamplugh’s are without their daughter and without answers. In 1987, a year later the police wind down their investigation.

Is this simply a case of a missing person, or has a murderer managed to escape justice?

Abused children neglected agin and again

ily starts meeting with a sexual health worker from Rochdale’s Crisis Intervention Team. “…they was the only people that was ever consistent in my life, they was the only people that never judged me.” When Lily describes the sex she’d had with Freddy, the worker tells Lily she has been raped. “In Rochdale there were certainly workers….who were recognising what was happening and desperately trying to raise awareness of it…they really were lone voices.” Adele Gladden, Safeguarding Children’s Consultant  

In November 2008, 15 year old Lily, still under the age of consent, is taken to see a Rochdale police officer. She is there to give a statement about her abuse by Freddy Kendakumana. She does not feel she gets a sympathetic audience.“…it was a male police officer. And he was kind of like, sighing - and had his head in his hands - and just looked really disinterested.”This encounter and a lack of any sustained follow up convinces Lily that either she is ‘over reacting’ or that the authorities believe her to be ‘just some stupid kid’.  “I can’t imagine anything worse as a victim of abuse than finally realising you’re being abused, plucking up the courage to tell somebody that you’ve been abused and then nothing being done and you being abandoned to your abuser. I can’t imagine a situation that leaves you more terrified and more vulnerable.”Adele Gladden, Safeguarding Children’s ConsultantNearly the same substandard lack of care and investigation is given to another child, to Girl A. In August 2008, police are called to a kebab takeaway restaurant in Rochdale. A young girl is said to be causing criminal damage. She’s arrested and taken for questioning. Asked why she tried to trash the takeaway, she explains; “It’s not what happened at the end. It’s what...it’s been going on for ages.” The child’s ordeal began weeks earlier when she started visiting two local Rochdale takeaways.Girl A knew an older girl who she believed was a trusted best friend. This ‘friend’ showed her a teenage life of smoking and late night drinking. So Girl A wasn’t suspicious when her friend suggests they go to a takeaway for free food. But the food, like the cigarettes and alcohol will come with a heavy price tag.

one afternoon, one of the takeaway workers, 55-year old Shabir Ahmed, explains he expects to be repaid for all the freebies. He takes her upstairs:“…she was reluctant but felt she had no option…she’s very much a child. He’s in his 50s…suddenly she realises it’s payback time.”Nigel Bunyan, Journalist & Ghost Writer of ‘Girl A: My Story'On a bare mattress, he rapes her.  After the ordeal, the 14 year old girl starts crying and won’t stop. So Shabir Ahmed tells her he loves her. That night, he takes this 14 year old girl to another man. This other man also rapes her.It is almost impossible to imagine how frightened, broken and trapped this little girl must have felt. But to her abusers, she is simply property, to be traded, bartered and abused:“Very early on in the abuse of Girl A she was handed over by Shabir Ahmed to his supposed nephew Kabeer Hassan - simply as a birthday present.”Nigel Bunyan, Journalist & Ghost Writer of ‘Girl A: My Story'Frustrated and confused, a few weeks later, on the 6th August 2008, Girl A, lashes out and tries to trash a takeaway where she’d met her abuser. She’s arrested for criminal damage. And then she tells the police who the real criminals are.  Greater Manchester Police spend the next 11 months investigating Shabir Ahmed and the person who called the police on her, Kabeer Hassan. Both are arrested. But they deny the allegations and are bailed pending further forensic results.  Girl A, meanwhile, is charged with criminal damage. Feeling betrayed and trapped, she now fell victim to a 37 year old local taxi driver Abdul Aziz, the ringleader of a large grooming gang:“She got caught up in a world where if she was going to school, she would be texted or rung, men would turn up in vehicles, off then back to the house, out of school uniform and off to be raped.”Nigel Bunyan, Journalist & Ghost Writer of ‘Girl A: My Story’“…we’d get to the place…and there’d just be different men there waiting. Towards the end it was like, it could be up to five different men in a day.”Girl AHer escape came through her getting pregnant. Her abusers no longer want her. It has taken them just four months to destroy and discard a young child. Eleven months after reporting her rape to the police, the Crown Prosecution Service states she wouldn’t be deemed a credible witness in court. The police believe that ‘given the unreliability’ of Girl A, the investigation cannot proceed and the case of the 14 year old girl that claimed to be raped by older men is marked, “no further action”.“…the most shocking element is that the people who should have been looking after these girls…were completely failing in their duty; effectively turning a blind eye to rape.”Nigel Bunyan, Journalist & Ghost Writer of ‘Girl A: My Story’ ​​​​​​​

Finally this abuse is taken seriously

In December 2010 Greater Manchester Police form a specialist team of officers to specifically investigate sexual abuse cases.They call their investigation Operation Span. Even though the police are now willing to listen to victims of sexual abuse, investigators have multiple hurdles.The abused girls have often already been let down once by the police and some are now reluctant to come forward. If and when they do, their accounts are often hampered by the drink and drugs with which they were often plied. And even when facts are recalled, they’re often not actual names but the nicknames by which the abusers called themselves.

Despite this, the police begin to uncover what appears to be a large and complex web of criminal abusers and their multiple victims. “Once police forces…started actively looking for child sexual exploitation, what shocked them was the scale of it.”Adele Gladden, Safeguarding Children’s Consultant.Increasingly, in Rochdale, it looks like the perpetrators are mainly British Pakistani men working in the night time economy.In May 2011, Nazir Afzal becomes the chief prosecutor for the North West of England. He’s keen to see if grooming gangs are operating in his area and within days, his colleagues bring him the case of Girl A. But the initial decision to class her as an unreliable witness against Shabir Ahmed, both her rapist and the alleged ringleader of a larger grooming gang, is a massive impediment to investigating any of the alleged abusers:“…without reversing that decision it would have undermined the cases against all the other men because they could turn round to a jury and say, ‘Well, why am I here when he, alleged ringleader, is not here?’…like a pack of cards, it would have just fallen over.”Nazir Afzal, Former Chief Crown Prosecutor, NW EnglandSo, in June 2011, Nazir Afzal does something very rarely seen. He overturns the original Crown Prosecution Service ruling. Now the Greater Manchester Police have the power to bring charges against eleven members of the gang, including 58 year old Shabir Amend and 24 year old Kabeer Hassan. By the time of their arrests, a sickening 50 young girls, aged between 12 and 16 are believed to have been abused by members of the gang. “One of those was was a girl of 13 who had convinced herself that she was in love with a 42-year-old taxi driver. What was love for her was simply a passport of abuse for him.”Nigel Bunyan, Journalist & Ghostwriter ‘Girl A: My Story’The 50 girls police identify are just the number the police can find. The number of actual victims is thought to be much higher.  

Finally the truth

'Abusers often are most credible and charming people that you could meet. They’re often very hard working. They often hold positions within authority, within society of some standing...He had friends in the very highest echelons of society .”Peter Saunders Chief Executive, National Association for People Abused in Childhood

INSTITUTIONALLY INVISIBLE

From the NHS to the BBC, Savile was able to use institutions to secure him victims. His membership of Mensa – the high IQ society – showed his intelligence. And he used his natural cunning to manipulate and influence everyone around him with either promises of rewards - or retribution.When a psychiatric nurse at Broadmoor reported patients’ allegations of abuse, police and senior medical staff dismissed her concerns. Instead she was reprimanded and her job threatened.In 1994 two former pupils of Duncroft approached the Sunday Mirror newspaper. The women alleged abuse. But however desperate they were to expose his hypocrisy, the cost, not least emotional, of the inevitable libel trial was too much. They did not proceed:

'The second woman...said, and I’ll never forget this because I think it reflects the theme that we now know was common around Savile’s victims, she said "Who’s going to believe me?" An ex approved school girl against Jimmy Savile, with all his fame, all his money and being a houseguest of Margaret Thatcher at Number Ten and Chequers.’

Paul Connew, Former Editor, ‘Sunday Mirror

Operation Yewtree: How Jimmy Savile groomed the nation

In October of 2012, the formal criminal investigation into the allegations of child abuse committed by Savile was launched.

For those not directly within his sphere of influence, he played on what damage might be done to his charity work. Savile threatened the tabloids and other investigators that any expose would mean they were responsible for ending his charitable fundraising.

In 2009 allegations of abuse again at Duncroft School finally forced the Police into action.Savile was interviewed under caution at his office at Stoke Mandeville hospital:

'When the police are investigating somebody about a serious crime...the suspect would generally surely always be taken to a police station where they would be interviewed under caution. So that made it unusual immediately and again probably emphasised that the person in control of that interview was Jimmy Savile. It was not the police.'Peter Saunders, Chief Executive, National Association for People Abused in Childhood'... the transcript of his interview with Surrey Police...The tone of the interview is one of almost, ‘I’m sorry I’ve got to ask you this again but we’ve had these allegations made to us’, which is not really a very confident way of putting an allegation to get a structured response.'

Tony Butler, Former Chief Constable, Gloucestershire Police.

During the interview Savile intimates that it will be the officers who will find themselves in court facing an expensive defamation case if they weren’t very, very careful.

Due to a lack of evidence, Savile was not pursued. Savile lived for 84 years and never once faced justice. But even in death, it seemed the true Savile story could not be told:

'In mid-December 2011 I got a call from a BBC contact of mine who told me that there were various people working at the BBC who were unhappy about the fact that a Newsnight investigation into Savile had been axed in what were described to me as mysterious circumstances. So I did some digging over a period of about a week and I discovered that indeed there had been a BBC Newsnight investigation into Savile and it had been axed. It was made clear to me that several witnesses, middle aged women, had come forward and some of them had spoken on the record about abuse that they had suffered at the hands of Savile on BBC premises. So I put this to the BBC press office about three or four days before Christmas 2011. It took them twenty-four hours but they did confirm that they had conducted this investigation. They told me it had been dropped for editorial reasons. I therefore had confirmation that the investigation had taken place, I knew what its contents were and I tried to sell that story to seven national newspapers over the next two weeks.'

Miles Goslett, Journalist.

But despite now having the evidence, none of the newspapers would touch the story so Goslett tried another route:

'...there was one person who not only might have had some knowledge of Savile as an individual but who was sure to run the story because he has a reputation as a mischief maker...Richard Ingrams, the Editor of The Oldie magazine; he’d previously edited Private Eye for about twenty-five years. I rang Richard Ingrams and within thirty seconds he said that he wanted to take the story and he did indeed publish the allegations in full in the February 2012 issue of The Oldie.

The Oldie article was the first occasion when any of the allegations against Savile were published in full.”On 3 October 2012, ITV broadcast ‘Exposure – The Other Side of Jimmy Savile.’The next day, every newspaper carried the story.And that same day, the Metropolitan Police launched Operation Yewtree. Over 450 people have come forward alleging Savile abused them. Most were under eighteen when he abused them.For these victims there is some modicum of justice. In October 2012, an independent review was undertaken of the culture and practices of the BBC during the years that Jimmy Savile worked there. Over 50 health and education institutions were also put under investigation over their links with Savile.

40 years on: Catching the Yorkshire Ripper

Peter Sutcliffe was eventually caught after a routine check of his car registration number.

“I think the temptation is to look at some of these guys as something particularly horrific or something particularly unusual but the reality is quite often they’re from a long line of particularly uninteresting, inadequate people...the reality is if they were more bizarre or strange then they would stand out and would have come to the attention of the authorities a lot earlier.”

Laurence Alison, Forensic Psychologist

ANNA

The police investigation into the attack on Anna Rogulskyj soon winds down. With no money or rape, the motive is unclear. With all the usual suspects such as the boyfriend cleared, the only lead was the neighbour’s vague description of a five foot eight man in his late twenties. The only distinct detail is that the attacker wore a check sports jacket.

OLIVE

When Olive Smelt is attacked, the same process repeats itself. It will take three years for the police to identify Olive’s attacker as the Ripper.

TRACY

As Tracy Browne walked with Sutcliffe for over 30 minutes, she’s able to give a very accurate description to the police.“I even mentioned the gap between his teeth and his insipid voice – a little man with a high-pitched voice.

”The ID picture appears in the papers. It’s such a good likeness that Sutcliffe jokes to his mother-in-law about the resemblance. The police never connect this attack with those of the Yorkshire Ripper.

WILMA

The Wilma McCann murder inquiry is headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Dennis Hoban. His pathologist tells him that Wilma was struck twice on the back of the head. She was then stabbed on her front 15 times. Traces of semen are found. It’s the first forensic evidence. As Wilma had been seen trying to hitch lifts from lorry drivers, 6,000 are interviewed. A further 7,000 are processed, including householders along her route home, associates, friends and family. It amounts to nothing.‘murder by person or persons unknown.’The coroner verdict of Wilma McCann.

EMILY

At 8am on 21 January 1976, Emily Jackson’s mutilated body is found. On top of her stab wounds, there is an imprint of a Wellington boot on her leg. Checks reveal it’s a size 7 Dunlop Warwick Wellington boot.Because she was so mutilated, Detective Chief Superintendent Hoban connects Wilma’s murder with Emily’s.

MARCELLA

Marcella Claxton, like Wilma McCann was hit over the head with a hammer. She is also able to give Hoban some key details about her attacker namely that he is bearded.But she is a prostitute and she is black. In 1976, that means there is little sympathy from the public and scant political pressure on the police to track down her assailant.

IRENE

Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Hobson replaces Hoban. He sees his first ‘Ripper’ victim on 6 February 1977. Irene Richardson’s intestines have spilled onto the street.Vaginal swabs indicate sexual activity by the assailant. He had masturbated over his victim, rather than raping her.Tyre tracks nearby offer hope. But laborious hand checking of every possible vehicle reveals 100,000 possible matches.

‘TINA’Patricia Atkinson had last been seen out on Saturday 23 April 1977. Inside her flat, next to her battered and bloodied body, is a size 7 Dunlop Warwick boot print.

JAYNE

The murder in June of Jayne MacDonald, an ‘innocent’, brings the press and public down in full force on the police. Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield is now in charge. The investigation is run from the Milgarth station in the centre of Leeds.

The task is monumental. Police process through punch cards, paper statements and transfer everything in longhand.“I would say we were sort of still not quite in the bronze age with regards to paper but that’s how we worked....there was something up to 4 tonnes of paperwork held at Millgarth police station which caused the floors to creak and of course that had to be reinforced. But there was no other system.”Andrew Laptew, Detective ConstableThe largest manhunt in British history is gearing up.Police will question Sutcliffe nine times. Every time, the police will accept his alibi.

MAUREEN

Maureen Long should be dead from the injuries she sustains on 10 July 1977. Assistant Chief Constable Oldfield pleads to speak to her before surgery. She gives a brief description of a white 35-year-old man.

After her operation, she remembers nothing.But a night watchman tells police he saw a white car with black roof leaving the scene. This is Sutcliffe’s car. But the guard wrongly says it’s a Ford Cortina Mark II. This is the favoured model of thousands of taxi drivers. One taxi driver is placed under 24-hour surveillance. Meanwhile, over 300 police interview nearly 200,000 people.At the end of August, Sutcliffe replaces his white Corsair car with a red one.“When the murders broke in Manchester we thought well, he’s spreading his territory, his hunting ground. And there was a fear that, where’s it gonna end, where’s he gonna extend these boundaries? Really, you couldn’t predict where it was going to be.”Andrew Laptew, Detective Constable

JEAN

On 15 October, the police find Manchester mum of two Jean Jordan’s missing handbag. They also find the hidden compartment where she’d secreted Sutcliffe’s £5 note. Exhaustive investigations narrow potential interviewees down to 8,000 men. They interview Sutcliffe at home. Sutcliffe calmly convinces them he was home the night of Jean’s murder. On the later date, when her body was nearly decapitated, he says he had a housewarming party. His wife confirms his alibis.

MARILYN

Another survivor of Sutcliffe, Marilyn Moore, gives police a now familiar description of a white, bearded thirty-something man. Tyre tracks match those at the scene of Irene Richardson.

YVONNE

Yvonne Pearson’s body is only discovered in March, two months after her murder. As Sutcliffe had been disturbed, he hadn’t stabbed her. Police aren’t sure to connect her to the Ripper victims.

HELEN RYTKAA

Police dog discovers her body on 3 February 1978. The hammer and stab wounds are frighteningly familiar.

VERA

At 8:10am on Wednesday 17 May, the mutilated body of Vera Millward is found. Tyre tracks nearby match those found at Marilyn and Irene’s crime scenes.Police are stumped as to why the killings stop for the next 11 months.

JO

The hammer and stab wounds on Josephine Whitaker confirm the return of ‘The Ripper’ in April 1979.On 16 April, Oldfield announces a new lead. Letters sent to him claiming to be from the Ripper postmarked Sunderland, have forensic matches to previous cases. Despite the predictions in the letters having been wrong as often as they’re right, Oldfield is convinced of their authenticity when an audiotape later arrives.“I’m Jack. I see you are still having no luck catching me. I have the greatest respect for you George but Lord, you are no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started.”

Experts say it’s a Wearside accent and the speaker becomes known as “Wearside Jack”. Police attention is diverted wholly to the search for this person. When the voice is played at a press conference, 50,000 calls are made to the police. It is the last thing an investigation buried in paperwork needs.

The voice taunts Oldfield. He becomes obsessed by finding that voice.“…what you often get in police investigations that are of this magnitude is what psychologists call confirmation bias, where a certain piece of information looks quite attractive and when you have that attractive information and you want to solve the case and you want it to end. Your mind tends to fixate on that piece of information and fail to question it, fail to consider alternatives and fail to look at all the reasons why that information is not helpful to you.”

Laurence Alison, Forensic Psychologist

Police interview 40,000 suspects and a £1million publicity campaign launches. Wearside Jack’s letters are reproduced on posters and billboards.

On 29 July 1979, police visit Sutcliffe about his vehicle being in the red light districts of Manchester, Leeds and Bradford.But Sutcliffe’s handwriting doesn’t match ‘Jack’’s and his softly spoken accent isn’t Geordie. And crucially, the police interviewing him aren’t aware that he’s been spoken to four times before. One of those times was to do with the ‘£5 note’ inquiry.

Despite being unaware of all of this, Detective Constable Andrew Laptew is deeply suspicious of Sutcliffe. He compiles a report and takes it to a senior officer. The officer dresses Laptew down for ignoring the lack of accent match and the insistence on matching photo fits.Sutcliffe is again discounted.

This is one of the nine times that Sutcliffe is interviewed before being arrested.Three more women will die after Laptew’s report on Sutcliffe.The stress takes down Oldfield who suffers several heart attacks and is hospitalised.

Police officers become objects of derision for their inability to get their man.

“You know, you’d go for a drink somewhere to your local and they’d ridicule you.”

Andrew Laptew, Detective Constable

BARBARA

On 2 September 1979 the body of another victim is found. Barbara Leach isn’t a prostitute, she’s a student. Vigilante groups now patrol the streets.

The police publicity campaign reminds people to be on the lookout for men with a Geordie accent.

Finally, a new computer programme is used to track the registration numbers of vehicles sighted near the attacks. But if anything, it just adds to the information overload.

Police narrow down the list of suspects who received the new £5 note found in Jean Jordan’s handbag to just 300. Sutcliffe is on this list, has a beard, a gap in his teeth and his car has repeatedly been seen in red light districts.

But Sutcliffe’s wife provides him with alibis and he doesn’t have a Geordie accent.

MARGUERITE

Because Sutcliffe strangles Marguerite Walls in August 1980, she isn’t initially included as a Ripper victim.BANDARADr Bandara Upadhya is walking the suburban streets on 24 September when she’s attacked. A neighbour comes out because of the noise and the doctor lives. Despite being hammered and describing the attacker as having a beard, police don’t connect her attack.

THERESA

Theresa Syke’s boyfriend hears the screams and is watching through the window of their home as the hammer goes through her skull. He shoots out and Sutcliffe speeds off. Police again don’t connect her attack.

JACQUELINE 

Jacqueline Hill’s handbag is found by another student. He takes it home and shows it to his flatmate who, remarkably, is an ex-Hong Kong policeman. Seeing that nothing has been stolen and there’s blood on it, he calls the police.Again, police are reluctant to call Jacqueline a Ripper victim.When they do, middle England erupts. Feminist marches demand curfews for men. Panic and paranoia spreads and thousands of anonymous letters are sent to the police naming hundreds and hundreds of suspects.Sutcliffe’s cruising partner, Trevor Birdsall informs on him. He recounts a night in 1969 when Sutcliffe had returned from a prostitute saying he’d tried to kill her with a brick in a sock. Only the tearing of the sock had saved her.The constable he tells it to files the report. It is just yet more paperwork being fed into the system.The investigation is now out of control. Oldfield is replaced by Jim Hobson. He tells police not to discount suspects based on their accent.Finally, Sutcliffe is caught by simple, solid policing. 

Cracking the case

In the case of Peter Tobin, his sentencing to life in jail is far from the end of the story. The police have set up Operation Anagram to pursue the outstanding 14,000 separate lines of inquiry. It is the largest investigation of its kind ever set up in the UK. While Tobin will still not talk to the authorities, it’s been reported that he boasted to an inmate that he was responsible for nearly 50 killings.

The BBC’s Crimewatch put out a new appeal for information on Tobin in December 2009 and updated again in January 2010. They are appealing both for specific information and with help identifying the unclaimed mementos, such as jewellery, that were in Tobin’s possession. Does each one of these unclaimed rings, watches and necklaces represent yet another victim of Tobin? Unsolved CasesPeter Tobin is suspected to be involved in the following murders:

The most prolific British serial killers

The UK has had its fair share of notorious serial killers who have all needlessly taken the lives of multiple innocent people.

Barbara Mayo, 24, a teacher who left her London home in October 1970 to hitchhike north. Six days later, her raped and strangled body was found in a wood near Chesterfield. The murder sparked one of the then biggest UK manhunts but no one was ever caught. Soon after Tobin was jailed, police contacted one of Mayo’s surviving sisters.

Then there is law student Pamela Exall, 22, who disappeared in 1974 while holidaying in Norfolk. Norfolk was Tobin’s usual destination for his holidays.

Jessie Earl, 22, rang her parents to say she would soon visit but who instead went missing from her place in the seaside town, Eastbourne, East Sussex, in 1980. Tobin lived 25 miles from her. Her bones and bra were found nine years later and forensics indicated that the bra had been used to tie her wrists. (The same method used in the killing of Dinah McNicol.) After Tobin was sentenced for his second murder, police visited her surviving parents and took oral swabs and some of her personal items for DNA matching.

The same year as Jessie Earl went missing, 1980, Patsy Morris, 14, was strangled on Hounslow Heat, West London.

Another Eastbourne connection is the missing Louise Kay. She was 18 when she disappeared in June 1988. She’d last been seen driving her father’s Ford Fiesta. Police believe that Tobin was working at a nearby hotel at the time.

True crime anniversaries in May

From one of the worst terrorist bombings in modern British history, to a tragic arson attack that claimed 6 young lives.

'Bible John’

But it’s thought that Peter Tobin’s killing spree could stretch back to the late 1960s. When a retired detective superintendent, Joe Jackson, saw Tobin’s photograph, heard his MO, and made the religious link over the killing of the Angelika Kluk, he remembered the suspect he had been after as a detective constable.In the dying days of the sixties, over a 20 month period, three women were picked up from dance halls. For each woman, it was their last ever Saturday night.

They were Patricia Docker, 25, Jemima McDonald, 32, and Helen Puttock, 29. It is their ages that some believe destroy the connection because all of Tobin’s victims have since been much younger. But Joe Jackson believes that the photo-fit of ‘Bible John’ bears a striking resemblance to photographs of Tobin from that time. Some have even speculated that the fact that all three women were menstruating and might have refused sex as being the stressor that caused him to start killing.

But with no help from Peter Tobin, the true extent of his crimes may never be known. Estimates vary but even conservative estimates believe he is responsible for at least twelve deaths.If the thrice married father knows, he’s not telling."The problem with psychopaths is that they tend to be stuck at the cognitive and psychological level of three or four-year– olds. They don't mature past that egocentric, self-centred, narcissistic, all-powerful stage when they don't feel they are to blame for anything."Ian Stephen(Scottish profiler who inspired TV show ‘Cracker’, quoted in Scotland on Sunday)

Who are the 10 most prolific serial killers ?

Many of the world’s most prolific serial killers are relative unknowns, despite racking up some truly horrifying kill counts | Image: Shutterstock

Investigation

Knowing the police have found their man, they need to build a watertight case to ensure this crazed killer is taken off the streets. They begin to investigate his past. Mark Phillip Dixie was born on 24 September 1970 in Streatham, London. At 18 months old, his parents separated and aged eight his mother remarried. He starts using cannabis from 14 and not long after this at 16, his criminal record begins. In 1986 his first crime is to rob a woman in Stockwell. He puts a knife to her throat, demands money and gropes her. He’s sentenced to six weeks detention. Aged 17, and after the birth of his stillborn son, he attacks a Jehovah's Witness, hitting her in the face he then attempts to rape her. Police uncover that Dixie has been apprehended for burglary, robbery, indecent assault and exposure over a seven year period. During the early 90’s his trail goes cold in the UK. It becomes clear to police that he’s a very dangerous man. What they don’t yet realise is how prolific Dixie has been, not only in Britain, but across the world.

AUSTRALIAIn 1993 he moves with his partner Sandra Beckhaus to Australia. They have two children. In 1996 the Claremont serial killer strikes in which three young women, all blonde, are murdered. One girl has her handbag stolen and another is bitten. Dixie is linked to the case, as it holds several similarities with Sally Anne’s murder. However the authorities clear him of any involvement. In 1998, a young Thai student living in Perth is stabbed eight times by a brutal monster that breaks into her home. Convinced she is dying he rapes her leaving a vital DNA sample that will later confirm his identity as Mark Dixie. He’s finally deported from Australia due to another sex crime, where yet again he indecently exposes himself to a female jogger and asks her to perform a sex act. Regrettably, offences in Australia are not passed on to the British authorities.

CROYDONBy 2003 Dixie is back in Croydon, with Stacey Nivet and their baby son, after living in Spain for a short time. They move into 36 Blenheim Crescent and remain there until 2004. Police discover that Stacey has a strained and stormy relationship with Dixie. His habitual drug taking is spiralling out of control, which leaves him very moody and aggressive. Arguing constantly Stacey finds he gets extremely angry at the slightest thing. She recalls that while high on drugs Dixie would bite her on the neck after rough sex. On 1 September 2005, Stacey has enough and leaves him.BIRTHDAYDixie celebrates his 35th birthday with friends. Hoping this may be his chance to patch things up with Stacey he asks her to join the party. When she refuses he’s furious. He continues his drink and drugs binge. His friends comment that despite usually being the life and soul of the party, this episode has aggravated him and brought on a mood swing. The next day he murders Sally Anne Bowman.

By focusing on Colin Stagg, the police miss vital clues. In the summer of 1989, there was a brutal rape in Plumstead, South East London. A woman was getting her children ready for school with the back door left open. She turns around after drying her hair to see the offender with a knife threatening her and her kids if she didn’t comply. It was the first of many such attacks by the same man over the next four years.

THE GREEN CHAIN RAPES

In August that year, the rapist, Robert Napper confesses all to his mother. She believes him and rings the police. But her call and the crime are tragically not matched. Robert Clive Napper is one of a very unusual and mercifully small group of sexually sadistic serial killers. His mother was concerned about him from the start and sent him for assessment. He returned and said,"The psychiatrist thinks I’m mad". There’s some suggestion that Robert was abused as a child by someone quite close. (One report alleges he was raped, tellingly, during the day, in the woods near his home.) He also suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome and grows up increasingly isolated, though he does manage to secure work as a warehouseman at the Ministry of Defence.

After his first attack on a woman, he often hunts around the Green Chain Walk, a string of leafy pathways linking a lot of South East London. Just weeks before he kills Nickell, he attacks a woman with a child. He jumps out, pushes her to the ground and strangles her as he rapes her in front of her child. The similarities between this and the Nickell murder are obvious, but they’re not connected. Napper’s psychosis means he believes he’s untouchable. Police mistakes mean that for too long a time, this will be the case. When the police release a photofit of the Green Chain rapist, two sets of neighbours positively identify him. On both occasions, he doesn’t turn up at the police station to give blood samples. Incredibly, he’s never pursued. 

THE PLUMSTEAD RIPPER

16 months after Nickell’s murder, in November 1993, London is shocked by another vicious killing. Samantha Bisset had adopted the ‘New Age Traveller’ lifestyle in her youth, but had since become a very focused caring mother. Her four-year-old, Jazmine, melts everyone’s hearts. Napper stalks them both. Samantha doesn’t have curtains in her basement flat and has no problem with walking around inside naked. When she thinks she sees a man at the window, her attitude changes. It’s too late. She tries to resist Napper as he enters her home but just one of the knife wounds severs her spinal cord.

Samantha’s boyfriend is the first to discover the aftermath. He sees a stain on the carpet. Elsewhere, it’s carpeted with clothes. Under some of them, is Samantha. Her body has been cut open from her chest to her genitals. Her rib cage has been pulled back to expose her internal organs, and each one has been stabbed. Someone has attempted to slice off her leg and a piece of her abdomen has been taken as a trophy. The boyfriend enters Jazmine’s room hoping she’s survived. But she too is covered. The murdered four year old has also been raped. A police photographer who later records these scenes is unable to ever work again.

Detective Superintendent Micky Banks leads ‘The Plumstead Ripper’ investigation. And he links it with ‘The Green Chain Rapist’ and the Rachel Nickell murder. Unbelievably, the profiler Paul Britton is on all three cases, but he fails to make this connection. And the Green Chain investigators have already discounted Napper because, at 6ft 2in, he’s too tall for their suspect, and the Nickell squad are convinced that Colin Stagg is their man.

Forensics find Napper’s fingerprints at the Bissett murder scene. Napper’s fingerprints are on record from eight previous police meetings. One, in 1992, saw him arrested for stalking a civilian police employee who lived in Plumstead. At Napper’s flat, they find a book of maps of the London area with several markings around Plumstead and comments about how women should be wrapped in cling film and be abused. They don’t make any links.The Bissett detectives do and place Napper under surveillance on 20th May 1994. They arrest and interview him. Napper remains stone cold calm throughout. A knife found on the Common the previous August, is matched to Napper. But despite a knife with his fingerprints being found, no connection is made to the Nickell case, and the possibility that Colin Stagg is innocent. 

The Usual Suspects

Fortunately for the police, the gang members involved were well known to them and already under surveillance for their suspected roles in a number of unsuccessful armoured vehicle robberies. Wenham was the first to exhibit an unusual interest in the diamond display at the Dome and when partners in crime Betson and Cockram were also observed loitering around the same exhibition and taking video footage, in early September 2000, police began to suspect that the display was to become yet another of their targets.At this point, surveillance of the men was increased substantially and the Dome itself was placed under close watch. Police were able to narrow down the number of likely days an attack might take place and the Dome management, as well as De Beers, were alerted to the likelihood of an attempted robbery. As a precaution, crystals of the same size and shape as the genuine Millennium Jewels were created, so that the real stones could be stored elsewhere.

As the surveillance net was extended, with up to 100 officers involved in the operation, the other members of the gang became known to the police, and included convicted felons Terry Millman, entrusted with procuring the getaway speedboat, Aldo Ciarrocchi, and Bob Adams, who was the last to join the gang. Kevin Meredith, the boat pilot, who did not have a criminal record, later claimed that Millman had coerced him into assisting with the heist.

Police: We have got the last girl to go missing with your DNA and the one before with yourDNA, both on their naked bodies. How can that be?Steve Wright:  No comment.Extract from Suffolk police interview from 20 December 2006Guardian Online, 21 February 2008After the disappearance of a second prostitute working in Ipswich’s red light area in the winter of 2006, Suffolk Police link the killings and launch a double murder investigation codenamed Operation Sumac.

Despite a team which includes officers from nearly every police force in the country, a record number of calls from the public and nearly 10,000 interviews, detectives are unable to find anyone who’d seen the bodies being dumped or the weapons used to kill the victims.Steve Wright is careful to try to dispose of all evidence linking him to his five victims, cleaning his car and his clothes. However, detectives would find enough traces remaining for forensic examiners to establish a link. Ray Palmer, a lead forensic scientist is one of the hundred experts used in the Suffolk investigation. Palmer and his team find Wright's DNA on three of the women's bodies, while microscopic fibres from his clothing, car and home were discovered on all five.Another challenge facing investigators was to establish a link between Wright and the missing woman. The answer is to view footage from the many CCTV cameras used in Ipswich and its red light area. Inspector Steve Griss from the specialist CCTV Unit uses surveillance systems and an automatic car number plate reader to identify Wright’s Ford Mondeo car. Suffolk officers wade through up to 10,000 hours of footage to find answers to their questions. Eventually they discover footage showing Wright was in the red light area at the key times when each of the five women had disappeared.After the one of the largest and most intense police investigations ever undertaken, Wright was finally caught by tireless police work and extraordinary forensic evidence.

An eight year old girl has died despite being seen by dozens of social workers, nurses, doctors and police officers before she dies. All failed to spot and stop the abuse as she was slowly tortured to death.

In April 2001, the government announces a public inquiry. It is the first in Britain to use special powers to look at everything from the role of social services to police child protection arrangements.

A former chief inspector of social services, Lord Laming, heads the public inquiry into a case he calls the worst case of neglect of which he’s ever heard. Victoria’s parents fly over and attend almost every day of his inquiry. As witnesses in the criminal trial, they’ve been excluded from much of the evidence of how their daughter died. The details of their daughter’s injuries are sometimes too hard to bear.In the first phase, it takes the testimony of more than 230 witnesses and in an unprecedented move it recalls the killers, Carl and Marie-Therese.

'It was an absolute pantomime from the minute she walked into the room.'Margo Boye-Anawomah, Barrister for Mr and Mrs Climbié

Marie-Therese shrieks at the top of her voice, refusing to sit down, and when she does, despite being a convicted murderer, she denies any blame. Unbelievably, she tries to shift that onto those most undeserving. She turns on the parents of Victoria accusing them of not being properly married.

The barrister Neil Garnham exposes incompetence at every level as he interrogates the witnesses.

One of those witnesses is Lisa Arthurworrey, Victoria’s social worker. She is obviously in a very fragile state. The press has spent the intervening time demonising her. Lisa was responsible for Victoria for the last seven months of her life. In this time, Lisa saw her for a total of just 30 minutes. But she has been made a scapegoat for a complete system failure.

Victoria’s Haringey social worker wasn’t evil. The truth was, she was young, inexperienced, overworked, and incompetently managed.

And two experienced senior doctors are also found to have failed Victoria. When Victoria’s child minder first admitted her to hospital, fearing abuse, it was Consultant Paediatrician, Dr Mary Schwartz who decided her cuts were due scabies. Two weeks later, when Victoria returned to hospital, the consultant, Dr Mary Rossiter did think Victoria was being abused, but confused colleagues by writing, ‘able to discharge’ on her notes.

In total there were 12 missed opportunities where professionals could have acted to save Victoria. Warning phone calls never followed up on, checks not made on stories told by Victoria’s great aunt, medical misdiagnoses and throughout, a total failure to engage with the little girl who should have been the centre of everybody’s concern. Her views were never sought.

There were also management failings. Middle ranking and senior staff did not have in place proper systems to monitor, support and supervise inexperienced subordinates. Haringey social services are described as shambolic, underfunded, and mismanaged.

Lord Laming’s inquiry identifies social services departments at four London boroughs, two police forces, two hospitals, and a specialist children’s unit who all failed to act when presented with evidence of abuse. The failings were he believed, ‘a disgrace’.“In most cases, nothing more than a manager reading a file, or asking a basic question about whether standard practice had been followed, may have changed the course of these terrible events”Lord LamingAfter two years, Lord Laming concludes that a radical reform of child protection services is needed and especially that there should be a children’s commissioner to head a national agency. He concludes that it’s not a lack of law, but a lack of its implementation that has allowed the tragedy.

Over the course of the next year, pressure mounted on the police to find the perpetrator of the brutal murders. They interviewed 9,000 people, took 1,000 statements, and identified a number of suspects. One person was arrested but was later released without charge.

Josie and her father Shaun had moved from Kent to start a new life in North Wales in December 1996. Her injuries left her with speech problems, and she had little to no memory of the attack. On 1st May 1997, she had recovered enough to give an interview to the police. However, leads were unpromising or non-existent.

On 6th February 2022, more than 25 years after the murders, notorious killer Levi Bellfield allegedly admitted to the attack. Michael Stone's lawyers received a written statement that included details about what he was wearing and how he made his escape.

Bellfield is currently serving a life sentence for murdering a 13-year-old girl in 2002, and has also been found guilty of another murder and attempted murder.

A missing shoelace was found in police storage in 2020 that could provide important DNA evidence and link Bellfied to the scene of the Russell attack.

Did Levi Bellfield kill Lin and Megan Russell?

There has long been speculation that serial killer, Levi Bellfield was involved in the slayings

Hot off the Press

One of the largest teams of detectives for such an enquiry was pulled together at Wimbledon police station. Meanwhile Alick, his daughter Diane and her husband appealed to the kidnappers on national television.On New Year’s Day the kidnappers called once again asking for £1 million and dismissing Alick’s pleas that he could not raise that amount of money. In desperation he asked an old friend, Eric Cutler, to fly to Utrecht to consult a Dutch clairvoyant who had helped police solve other crimes.

"Natural Mystic"

Gerard Croiset told Cutler that Muriel could be found in a white farmhouse in the north or northeast of London. Nearby to where Muriel was being held was another farm and a disused aerodrome and that if she was not found within 14 days, she would be dead.While police searched locally, others scoured the Hertfordshire and Essex borders, but found nothing.More calls demanding the money came, but no instructions as how to deliver it. In an attempt to motivate the kidnappers into giving instructions, the McKay’s doctor went on television claiming that Muriel needed urgent medication and if she did not receive it, she could die.

"The Killers are likely to be children"

May 1968, in a run-down inner city suburb; a little boy goes missing while playing outside his home. His body is found in a derelict house and although he is rushed to hospital, doctors pronounce him dead on arrival. The police hoping for answers from the post mortem on four-year-old Martin Brown find none; the pathologist could find no cause of death.It would take the death of another child for the police to make the link and come to the conclusion that Martin could have been murdered. The pathologist who examines the body of dead toddler Brian Howe, tells police that the killers are likely to be children.

The police hear from a young boy who saw what had happened to Brian Howe. He tells them what he saw Mary doing. She tells her victim that he has a sore throat and gives it a massage. Then she tightens her grip about his throat and doesn’t let go.With the violent attacks on her schoolmates, bizarre obsession with questioning the relatives of the dead boys, and her obvious interest in the case, the investigation narrows in on Mary and her friend Norma Bell. Incriminating, semi-confessional notes found at the local Woodlands Crescent nursery, initially dismissed by the police as nonsense were shown to handwriting experts, and are proved to written by both girls. Mary and Norma are brought in in for questioning.

Clues in the autopsy

The autopsy was conducted by the Office of the Boulder County Coroner. JonBenet’s underwear was stained with urine and she had ligature marks on her neck from the garrote, which was a piece of white cord tightened by winding a broken paintbrush. She had also suffered trauma to the head resulting in a fractured skull and a brain haemorrhage. It is unknown which came first, the strangulation or the blow to the head. There was no evidence of rape or sexual abuse, however, there were abrasions around her vaginal area consistent with being scraped or wiped roughly. There were also abrasions on her body consistent with being dragged on the floor. Traces of digested pineapple were present in her small intestine.Meanwhile, the Ramseys moved swiftly to hire their own legal representation, after a search warrant affidavit for the Ramsey house was filed. A partner of the foremost criminal defence firm in Colorado was retained to represent John and a former assistant state attorney general to represent Patsy. This was founded on their belief that the Boulder police immediately saw them as the prime suspects, even though it is standard procedure to concentrate on immediate family in murder cases. The fact that kidnap victims’ bodies are rarely found in their home was also unusual.The hostility steadily mounted against the Ramseys, fed by the media coverage. Besides hiring legal representation, they refused to go to police headquarters for questioning. They wanted to be questioned together rather than separately but the police refused. The Ramseys would later insist that police submit their questions in writing. Once more the police refused, as this would allow the suspects to carefully craft a reply and would avoid spontaneous follow-up questions. The Ramseys also demanded that they be given all police investigative reports concerning the statements by and behaviour of the couple prior to questioning.The ransom note was the first point of interest, especially as Patsy was initially suspected to have written it. It was written using pen and paper in the Ramsey home, meaning that the alleged kidnapper-murderer would have had to take the time to draft and write a two-and-a-half page ransom note, one of the longest in history, and even replace the pen and pad neatly where they had found it. Normally, ransom notes are terse and pre-prepared and are usually not written by hand. The $118,000 ransom figure demanded also corresponded exactly to the bonus John Ramsey received in 1996.

The language used in the note showed a decidedly feminine touch, for example, “The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested”. Moreover, the writer of the note started out addressing the note to “Mr Ramsey” but in the latter stages addressed him as “John”. Finally, the writer attempted to disguise their identity by misspelling simple words like “bussiness” and “posession”. However there was incongruence in the writing with more difficult words spelled correctly, such as “deviation” and putting the accent on the ‘e’ in “attaché”.However, there was a vast difference of opinion between handwriting experts who analysed the ransom note. Those favourable to Patsy largely decided that the evidence could not support the conclusion that she had written the note, although most of them did not rule her out at its writer. In contrast, some of the ‘experts’ who came to the opposite conclusion, that Patsy did write the note, turned out to have questionable qualifications. The reliable experts were hampered in that they did not have access to the original ransom note, relying instead on facsimiles. Prevailing opinion in the field of graphology is that studying the originals reveals nuances and subtleties, such as pen pressure, that copies will lack.The best evidence in favour of the ‘intruder theory’ are the fact that neither the duct tape nor the rope used on JonBenet were found in the house or linked to the Ramseys. Also, a Caucasian “pubic or auxiliary” hair was found on JonBenet’s body, which did not match the Ramseys nor has its owner ever been found. Fibres and hairs found on the body and the duct tape did not match anything found in the house. There was debris and a shoeprint in the basement where the murder likely took place, the shoeprint not matching anything that the Ramseys wore.The pineapple found in JonBenet’s small intestine is cited as evidence against a stranger intruder, which points more towards either the Ramseys or an acquaintance intruder. The Ramseys had asserted that JonBenet was asleep by the time they returned from the Christmas party at the Whites the night before, which was at about 10 pm; they then put her to bed without feeding her anything. Although transit of ingesta is unreliable and varies from person to person, it is said that JonBenet ate the pineapple an hour and a half to two hours before her death.Further evidence against the stranger intruder is the lack of signs of struggle, both in the house and on the body. Normally, a body shows signs of distress when being strangled or asphyxiated, such as protrusion of tongue and skin cells under the fingernails when fighting for life. No such signs were found on the body. The duct tape had a perfect set of lip prints with no signs of tongue resistance, indicating it was placed after death or unconsciousness. This leads to the belief that the blow to the head came first.Some partial and degraded traces of DNA were collected from JonBenet’s underwear and fingernails. It was later determined to be male DNA, however, due to the damage and fragmentation in the samples collected, it was impossible to trace its origins. Indeed, the presence of DNA may be innocuous, as demonstrated by investigators who tested new underwear bought from a department store and who also found trace DNA, possibly from contamination at the plant.The incompetence of the Boulder Police Department contributed significantly to the uncertainty surrounding the case. Firstly, during initial searches of the house, detectives managed to miss the wine cellar where JonBenet’s body lay; earlier discovery of the body would have resulted in a more accurate timeframe of her death. Some accounts report that John Ramsey dissuaded police from investigating the wine cellar, saying that the door was painted shut but these accounts are unverified. An experienced unit would have brought dogs in to locate the body almost immediately.The failure to seal off and secure the crime scene was fatal, as was the mishandling of the body. People were allowed to walk in and out of the house at will, which at the worst could have led to removal of evidence and at the very least, contaminated the forensic integrity of the crime scene. The finding and removal of the body by two men untrained in forensics meant that no photographs of the scene were accurate and any resulting conclusions drawn from fibres, hair and DNA evidence should have been treated with caution.

Who Killed Jill Dando

The Dando murder investigation was conducted by the Metropolitan Police and continued for more than a year. It was named Operation Oxborough and led by Detective Chief Inspector Hamish Campbell. The inquiry involved three teams of detectives, and numerous criminologists, psychologists and forensic experts. At the scene of the crime, a single Remington brand bullet cartridge was found. It was of the type used by a rare 9mm semi-automatic Browning pistol. One criminologist working on the case described this to the BBC news on 27 April 1999, as the type of gun used by drug dealers and professional criminals.There was much speculation as to the motive for her murder, not least that, due to her work with ‘Crimewatch UK’, she had possibly angered someone in the criminal underworld. There was also the fact that it was a single shot to the head, favoured by professional assassins. Chief Inspector Campbell made a statement to the press in which he said that the killer could either be a stalker or a hit man. CCTV footage of Dando’s journey to her home on 26 April 1999, suggested that she had not been followed and no one knew what her movements that morning would be.

In a sad twist of fate, Dando’s murder was reconstructed on ‘Crimewatch UK’ in an attempt to help police find her killer. It resulted in the BBC receiving over 500 calls. After a month, the Dando case was re-examined and Chief Inspector Campbell was replaced by Detective Chief Superintendent Brian Edwards. In the last week of July 1999, Campbell made a statement that the forensic experts had discovered distinctive markings on the bullet casing found at the scene of the crime. The markings were thought to have been made in order to both hold the bullet in place and to reduce the sound made when it was fired.Six months into the murder investigation, police had interviewed over 2,500 people and taken more than 1,000 statements but were still no closer to finding the suspect. Rewards were offered for further information leading to the capture of Dando’s killer, with the Sun and Daily Mail newspapers offering £100,000 each and the anonymous telephone hotline ‘Crimestoppers’ offering £50,000.

The hunt is on

A Christmas murder hunt captured the imagination of the British press who were eager to help find her killer. The police needed their help. They were baffled because important items such as her coat, boots, keys, purse and mobile had all been found within the flat. Forensics had also revealed there was no sign of a struggle or forced entry. This led the police to believe that the killer could be known to Joanna. They again appealed for anyone with information to come forward.Joanna’s landlord Chris Jefferies was reported to have told police he saw three people, including Joanna, leave her flat on the night she vanished. On 30 December he was the first man to be arrested on suspicion of murder. The British press believed he was the killer and began a campaign to vilify him. His silver Chrysler car was taken by the police as part of their investigation. This appeared to verify his guilt. On New Years Eve the police were given more time to question him. But on New Years Day, he was released on bail. It took the police until 4 March to finally release Jefferies from police bail without charge.

Searching for clues, or any leads, the police noticed similarities between Joanna’s murder and the murder of Glenis Carruthers in 1974. She was strangled after leaving a party in Clifton. But they found nothing to link the cases together.Finally on 5 January the police released news that they were trying to locate a grey sock missing from Joanna’s body. They still believed that the sock and pizza could hold vital clues in solving the case.Already reaching out to the public via the internet using Facebook and YouTube, the police turned to BBC’s Crimewatch on 18 January to help solve the case. A month since her death, Joanna’s final footsteps were being retraced by an actress. Events of the previous day had seen Joanna’s parents make an emotional appeal for “armchair detectives” to come forward with any information.

Artistic styleings that gave him away

Police investigating the dismembered bodies of two young women are presented with a particular gruesome challenge; the bodies were missing their heads and hands, making identification an almost insurmountable problem. It would take years of detective work in the UK and the Netherlands, forensic advances and the discovery of Sweeney’s macabre confessional artwork to establish the truth.Detective Chief Inspector Norman McKinlay from the Metropolitan police had led a successful investigation against Sweeney for the attacks in 1994 against his ex-girlfriend, Delia Balmer. Delia had survived the murderous attack in London but lost a finger and suffered horrendous scars to her chest.When Sweeney is arrested in 2001 for his attack on Delia Balmer, police discover gruesome artwork that links him to the murders of Melissa Halstead and Paula Fields. Detectives begin to build their case against Sweeney.

It is a remarkably tough investigation: no forensics, no confession, and no witnesses. However, police are convinced that the court would be persuaded that Sweeney’s artwork can be viewed as a confession of sorts.With Sweeney refusing to co-operate with the police, his artwork and poems tell the police all he isn’t saying about his crimes. He had drawn a picture of Melissa, naked, headless and handless with the ankles and wrists bound.One painting featured Miss Halstead’s gravestone – but Sweeney had covered it with correction fluid. Once investigators treat it with ultra-violet light, it reveals the inscription: ‘RIP Melissa Halsted born on 12th December 56’ (sic). The word ‘died’ is followed by a dash.There was one significant feature the Fields and Halstead cases had in common: both women had been in a relationship with Sweeney at the time they went missing.

On Thursday 18 February the arresting officers start to interview the two boys. Thompson has been taken to Walton Lane Police Station and Venables has found himself in Liverpool’s Lower Lane Police Station. Both boys have samples of their blood, hair and fingernails taken.

The police are entering new territory with this investigation as no-one has ever interviewed child murder suspects before. To ensure their testimonies will stand up in court, it’s important that the two boys understand the implications of telling lies and telling the truth and know the differences between right and wrong. Asking specific questions to prove these facts, they both pass. So the questioning commences.

Both young boys have their mothers present along with legal representation. However, they are both coping very differently with the police questioning. Venables acts his young age - he’s hysterical and extremely scared of the investigators. He keeps revealing his deep-rooted fears of being sent to prison. Thompson on the other hand is controlled and mostly composed throughout the whole process.

Venables is quick to reveal that he had been in the area on the day that James disappeared, but doesn’t mention the Strand shopping centre. Thompson eventually reveals that they were both at the Strand and goes on to describe in detail the clothes that James was wearing. The police are perplexed as to why a young boy of 10 would know that information. This is one of Thompson’s major slip-ups as it reveals James had been with the boys for a very long time. Thompson later confesses that the two boys had taken James Bulger from the shopping centre.

The most shocking police confessions

One way in which a murder case can turn on a dime is via a tell-all confession

THE BREAKTHROUGH

The police are having a hard time, as getting the story straight is proving tricky. Both boys are blaming each other for things and doing their best to hide the truth. Thompson’s testimony changes on five separate points over the course of two days of questioning. It’s when Venables asks if you can get fingerprints off skin, that alarm bells start ringing for the police. The boys are obviously hiding something.

Police start to notice a pattern in Thompson’s chatter. Whenever he starts talking about James, his anxiety causes his legs to shuffle. By lunchtime on Friday 19 February, Thompson admits they had taken James to the railway line. During the investigation, there’s an eerie moment when Thompson imitates a wailing James asking for his mother. The investigating officers find it unnerving.

Nearing 1pm, Venables finds himself alone with his parents. It’s at this point that he can’t take any more. He breaks down and confesses to being involved in the murder. The police are listening to everything. With this revelation they can now interrogate Thompson. He refuses to admit his guilt in James’ death but police feel they have enough evidence against both suspects. On Saturday 20 February 1993, the boys are charged with the abduction and murder of James Bulger.

The perfect crime

The Glasgow-to-London mail train comprised of 12 carriages pulled by a single diesel locomotive. It was a mobile mail sorting office that carried general mail items and large amounts of cash en route to London from various banks and financial institutions in Scotland. The cash and other valuable items was stored and sorted in the 'High Value Package' coach, two carriages back from the locomotive.These were the carriages in which Reynolds’ gang were primarily interested. From his research Reynolds deduced that the amount of cash carried was considerably larger following a bank holiday. One such holiday fell on Monday 5 August 1963. Reynolds set the tentative date of the robbery for 6 August 1963.The robbers were to board the train, disconnect the locomotive and the first two carriages from the rest and drive them to a safe location where the valuables could be transferred to waiting trucks. The main problem was how to stop the train without creating too much suspicion.Cordrey, an emotional neurotic, was also a skilled electrician and knew about trains. He would ‘fix’ the signals, forcing the train to stop as required. The best location for this was Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire. The train would reach Leighton Buzzard at 3:30 am, which would give the robbers sufficient time to stop the train, unload the money and make their getaway under cover of darkness. Reynolds suggested that they procure a nearby farmhouse some 27 miles from the planned site of the robbery.“The purchasing of the farmhouse was to be one of the gang’s biggest mistakes.”Reynolds’ usual talent for meticulous planning clearly abandoned him as he negotiated the deal by using a known associate to act as the purchaser under his real name and also acquired the services of a bona fide law firm, without covering his tracks.On Tuesday 6 August 1963, the gang members left their various homes and headed to the farm to wait for confirmation that the money was on the way. All the gang members had concocted stories explaining their absences from their wives and partners, in order not to arouse suspicion. Then they all met up at the farmhouse, having travelled in a variety of ways.Charlie Wilson and Roy James arrived in a stolen Land Rover followed by Roger Cordrey on a bicycle. Gordon Goody was at the home of Brian Field, waiting for a call from an Irishman known as the ‘Ulsterman’, whose job it was to confirm when the money was to be sent.While they waited they played cards and Monopoly. The men were no doubt pleased that Bob Welch had brought several bottles of beer with him but the considerate gesture was to have huge repercussions during the investigations.The gang spent the day reviewing the plan over and over again before preparing to leave at midnight. Their intention was to masquerade as an army unit on night manoeuvres. They had army vehicles, uniforms and fake official papers in order to look the part. At 10 pm they got word from the Ulsterman that a large consignment of money was on its way.In the early hours of Thursday 8 August, the vehicles were loaded and the convoy headed for Leighton Buzzard.

After arriving at the distant signal, they dropped off John Daly and Roger Cordrey to take care of the signals and continued on to Bridego Bridge, where they donned blue coveralls to mask their army uniforms. The team split up and took up their pre-assigned posts.Tapes were unfurled across the track to indicate where the train was to be stopped for unloading and the phone lines at the emergency call box beside the tracks were cut. The gang also cut the overhead phone lines that serviced the district.It was pitch black and just after 3 am the Glasgow to London mail train was nearing the site. Using a portable radio, Reynolds gave the word and the false signals were activated. The mail train slowed and pulled up to where the men lay waiting.The train's fireman got out of the cabin and made his way to the emergency call box to phone ahead. Finding the phone dead, he turned back to the train and saw Buster Edwards in overalls next to the tracks. The fireman assumed Buster was a line worker and walked towards him but was soon overpowered by two of Buster’s accomplices in balaclavas, who pushed the terrified man down the embankment, where he was handcuffed.‘Number 3’, the burliest of the gang, entered the cabin. Jack Mills, the driver, was startled at being confronted and tried to resist. During the struggle he was hit on the head but sustained a more severe injury when he fell against the side of the cabin. While he was bleeding, Mills was dragged away and replaced by gang member ‘Number 3’.Despite his injury, Mills, under threat of a further beating, was required to release a vacuum break that prevented the train from being moved after it had been uncoupled from the mail cars.Postal workers in the High Value coach were alerted by the sound of the uncoupling but before they could do anything, the gang smashed into the coach and overpowered them. They were bound, gagged and left lying face-down as the gang began unloading the booty.The gang formed a human chain leading from the carriage to the embankment and finally to the truck, where the bulky mailbags were offloaded. Forty minutes later, and leaving seven mail bags behind in the coach, the gang made their getaway.It took three hours to unload the bags and view the spoils, over £2,631,784.00, far more money than then they had expected.

Why?

Police described Dunblane Primary’s Head Teacher, Ronald Taylor, as a hero in the aftermath of the shooting, for the calm handling of the shocked and distraught pupils and staff in his 700-strong school. The two teachers, Mary Blake and Eileen Harrild, who had shielded children whilst being seriously wounded themselves, were also commended for their heroic actions.Five days later, on 18th March 1996, the United Kingdom observed a minute’s silence in commemoration of the victims of the Dunblane massacre. It marked the beginning of a week of funerals, with many of the deceased being buried in a dedicated area of the Dunblane cemetery, which has a memorial statue for the 17 victims. There is also a cenotaph in the Dunblane cathedral. Queen Elizabeth travelled with Princess Anne to Dunblane to meet with the families of the victims and survivors, weeping openly as she expressed her sympathy.

The carnage seemed so senseless and with the killer dead, police had only two options. Firstly they could investigate, via post mortem examination, if any physical reasons existed for Hamilton’s behaviour. Secondly, they could delve into his past, in an effort to gain some insight into his character and possible motives.Anthony Busuttil, pathologist in charge of examining the dead victims, reported that they had each suffered between one and seven gunshot wounds, which were some of the most horrific he had ever seen. He also conducted a post mortem on Hamilton, specifically searching for physical hints as to why the man had committed such an atrocity. Busuttil looked for evidence of drugs, alcohol, a brain tumour, viral infection and lead poisoning, without result. He concluded that there was no physical cause for Hamilton’s behaviour, thus it could only have been due to psychological factors.A public inquiry, led by Lord William Cullen, a senior member of the Scottish Judiciary, was held in response to the public’s plea to further investigate the shootings. Hoping they could help prevent future incidents of the same nature, police resorted to investigating Hamilton’s past. Central Scotland Police, under the direction of Mr John Miller, undertook the painstaking and detailed examination of Hamilton’s life over many years.

With the help of people who had known him, they drew up a profile. Thomas Hamilton was born in Glasgow, Scotland on 10 May 1952. His mother, Agnes Hamilton, a hotel chambermaid, was already divorced from his father, Thomas Watt, by the time he was born. He never knew his father and grew up in Glasgow’s East End with his mother’s adoptive parents, thinking they were his biological parents. They legally adopted him at age two. He also thought his biological mother was his sister until he was told the truth when he was 22-years-old, in 1974.The family moved to Stirling when Hamilton was 12. He attended local schools and achieved well academically. His fascination with guns and boys began in his teens when he joined a rifle club and the Boys Brigade. They were youthful hobbies that were to become adult obsessions.At the age of 20, in 1973, Hamilton became an Assistant Scout Leader. Before long, he was investigated by two councils for alleged misconduct towards boys at the scout camps, after some of them and their parents complained. No official reports were filed, as there was no hard evidence of Hamilton having acted in a paedophilic way.Following further complaints from the boys on summer camp, of Hamilton teaching them to use rifles and handguns, and forcing them to engage in perverted activities and then paying them to keep quiet, he was asked to leave the Scouts in 1974."He sort of crept, he was very head-down."Infuriated, Hamilton tried many times to gain acceptance back into the Scouts, but each time was rejected. He protested by writing letters of complaint to the authorities saying he had been victimised; to the families and teachers of the boys who had spoken out, discouraging them from attending his clubs; and even to the Queen, maintaining he had been unfairly treated. He ultimately claimed there was a conspiracy against him.Having obtained a firearm certificate in his mid-20s, Hamilton began collecting guns. In 1974 he bought and sold five firearms, buying progressively more as the years went by. He joined several gun clubs to improve his firearm skills and practiced diligently. Detective Sergeant Paul Hughes, former head of Central Scotland’s Police child protection unit, had even written a report recommending Hamilton’s firearm licence be revoked due to his “unsavoury character” and “unstable personality”. Unfortunately no action was taken in response to this, due to the lack of any concrete evidence of wrongdoing.Hamilton applied as a voluntary worker for Dunblane Primary School but was turned down. Between the 1970s and mid-1990s, he ran approximately 16 boys clubs, one of which was held in the very school gymnasium where he eventually wreaked so much havoc and ended his own life. The clubs were for boys aged 7 to 11 years and the activities included target practice, swimming, gymnastics and football. The clubs proved popular and membership grew, with some having as many as 70 boys. Over time however, numbers declined due to Hamilton’s increasingly strange behaviour. It later transpired that not only was Hamilton unqualified to instruct the boys in many of the activities he had offered at the clubs but that all the activities had gone unsupervised.

During the investigation, Central Scotland Police found numerous photographs of young boys, many in bathing suits, all over Hamilton’s house, but they could not technically be considered pornographic as the boys were not naked. However, many of the pictures focussed on the groin area and Hamilton had insisted upon the boys wearing particularly scanty swimsuits.Not only had Hamilton regularly bought firearms for over 20 years, he was legally licensed to own the weapons and ammunition he had used in the Dunblane massacre. When this was revealed in the press, there were immediate calls from the public for greater security at schools, along with a campaign to tighten existing gun laws and ban the private ownership of firearms. In April 1996, a group of concerned citizens went to Downing Street to discuss the issue with then-Prime Minister, John Major, and to hand him a petition, signed by 428,279 people.“People who had known him described him as deceitful, intolerant and suffering from delusions of grandeur.”A few months later, the government passed legislation banning ownership of all handguns over .22 calibre in the United Kingdom. The law was amended in 1998 to include smaller calibre handguns, with the offer of full monetary compensation if owners handed their firearms in to the government. The new gun laws also required anyone applying for a firearm, to nominate two referees to testify in support of their having a licence. As a direct result of the Dunblane massacre, the United Kingdom had some of the strictest gun laws in the world.A loner, Hamilton never formed any close relationships with adults of either sex and seemed particularly uncomfortable around women. People who had known him described him as deceitful, intolerant and suffering from delusions of grandeur. He was abusive, domineering and often used attack as a form of defence. He was anti-establishment and had a persecution complex.A neighbour described him as strange in the way he walked and talked. “He sort of crept, he was very head-down” and he spoke very softly, slowly and precisely but with no expression in his voice. Unusual and effeminate, he was too polite and never laughed or joked. Others spoke of him as “a very shy, lonely person… a very quiet, kind individual”; generous and “quite an intelligent man… interesting enough to talk to”. The general view of Hamilton however was that he was weird.It emerged during the inquiry that Hamilton must have been planning the Primary School massacre for quite some time. In the six months prior to 13 March 1996, he had stepped up his rate of purchase of firearms and ammunition, as well as his attendance at gun clubs, working particularly on his shooting accuracy.According to the written testimony of an anonymous nine-year-old boy from Dunblane Primary, Hamilton had been questioning him weekly for two years about the school routine and the layout of the gymnasium. The questions had continued until a week before the massacre. Police also believed that he had planned to shoot as many as four classes of children.According to the people with whom Hamilton had spoken in the days prior to the shooting, he had not acted out of character. His mother, whom he had visited the night before the massacre, claimed her son had seemed all right and had given no indication of his intentions for the following day.Funds raised in the massacre’s aftermath were used to build a new community centre for the town. In commemoration, Australian band The Living End’s lead singer, Chris Cheney, wrote a song about the massacre, entitled ‘Monday’ (1998).

The investigation went on for over 30 years but the police never really came close to Dennis Rader. Paradoxically, the closest they come to his methodology, if not the man, is during a lull in his killings in the early 80s. The killings are considered a cold case but all the information is computerised. This was still a novelty back then. It fails to identify a killer but does reveal comfort kill-zones indicating BTK planned his murders only in geographical locales familiar to him.

The key to uncovering BTK was through his need to communicate. He contacted the local media and police repeatedly, sending letters (containing anagrams and poetry), phoning (but not of voice recognition quality), and dropping packages (one had a blow up doll with a plastic bag over its head). The purpose of these communications for Rader is both to terrorise the community in which he lives and to make sure that his greatest accomplishments are credited to him. His effect is pernicious. The first thing that Wichita women check on entering their homes is that there’s a dial tone on their phones.

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It’s through one of these communications that the unsolved murder of Vicki Wegerle is ascribed to him. This lifted nearly 20 years of suspicion from the husband, Bill, that he had killed his wife. Rader sends photos of Vicki and a photocopy of her driving license to the local paper. The initials of the supposed sender, ‘Bill Thomas Killman’, are ‘B.T.K’. A thorough search of recently released prison inmates is made in the belief that jail might explain the killer’s near decade absence but like other ideas, it comes to nothing.

But the police are patient. It doesn’t matter how much false information Rader feeds them, for example, he sends them a fake autobiography, the police never criticise him publicly in the hope that just once, he will slip up. They are helped in 2003 when a local lawyer announces he’s going to write a biography of BTK. This precipitates Rader to make more and more contacts to ensure his story is written properly.

And it’s when he leaves his latest communication that he’s filmed driving a black Jeep Cherokee. The quality of the film isn’t enough for face or number plate recognition but it’s a start. And then Rader asks in correspondence if a computer disc can be deleted of all previous information. The police lie. The computer disk that Rader sends next is forensically examined and reveals his church and his name. A check reveals that he owns the same type of jeep seen on the film.

A DNA test obtained via Rader’s daughter ties him to the semen he left at the crime scenes and ends more than 30 years of speculation over the identity of the BTK killer. It still grates some on the police that Rader had stopped killing three years before Kansas reintroduced capital punishment. This means the state will never be able to execute its most infamous killer.

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A Community living in fear

One of the first detectives at the Peter Walker murder scene was Martin Finnegan:

'Peter was laying on the bed covered by a duvet which had some teddy bears on top arranged in a 69 position...There was the ligature marks on his wrists and his ankles and there’s no ligatures at the scene...whoever had killed him had taken away the ligatures.'

The police also found Peter’s bank card was missing and that it had been accessed after he died.

But due to Ireland’s efforts, there was little forensic evidence.

Ireland’s phone call to ‘The Sun’ strongly indicated the murder was, if not premeditated, carried out by someone capable of killing again. So Finnegan did a TV appeal.

But police requests to the gay community were not helped by a recent ruling making S&M between consenting adults illegal. Any witnesses could be liable for prosecution. And many in the gay community believed the police to be institutionally and individually homophobic. Raids on gay pubs were said to be performed by officers wearing rubber gloves fearful of catching AIDS.

Ten weeks passed with no police progress. The investigation was effectively shelved.

On 30 May 1993 the police were called to the flat of Christopher Dunn. This time, the police assumed it was a sex game that had accidentally turned fatal.

'The pathologist who examined the body said that he wasn’t quite sure of the cause of death; it could’ve been manual strangulation through a homosexual sex act that’s gone wrong.' Albert Patrick, Detective Superintendent

Despite Dunn and Walker drinking in the same pub, they weren’t linked because they lived in different parts of London. They were therefore investigated by the police from their respective areas. The Dunn murder barely made a paragraph in the local paper.

So Ireland was free to return to the Coleherne. Again, the victim went willingly to what they thought was a night of sexual gratification.

'I think the gay community are sitting ducks in that respect. The lifestyle lends itself to exploitation. Clearly there is a certain element of trust that needs to go on between consenting people and in this case this trust was betrayed. Possibly Colin saw the people as easy pickings.' Martin Finnegan, Detective Inspector.

The senior investigating officer for Ireland’s third victim was Brian Edwards:

'The way the body was arranged and laid out it was clearly a little bit unusual and we were a little bit surprised when we contacted the family and found that there was no apparent history of homosexuality.'

Due to the high profile nature of the victim, the murder made headlines. But to protect his family, Bradley’s homosexuality was not revealed. So no immediate links were made between Bradley, and the previous two murders.

The Met police now had three separate murder teams investigating the three murders. But when they realised Bradley had visited the Coleherne, links began to emerge. Like Walker, Bradley had been robbed.With the Collier crime scene, detectives immediately noticed similarities. And then Detective Superintendent Albert Patrick made a breakthrough. In looking for witnesses he found a serious fight had broken out nearby in the early hours.

'What would you do if you heard noise at one o’clock in the morning? You’d get out of bed and have a look out the window...and between the glass pane...there was a finger mark facing downwards and that’s the mark that was lifted.'

But this would only prove useful in proving the killer was there. Without a computerised database, they couldn’t link that fingerprint to Ireland’s previous more minor crimes.

Brian Edwards noticed similarities in their cases and contacted Albert Patrick about Collier. And Martin Finnegan was aware of links between the Collier and Walker case. But at the exact time investigating officers were brought together and decided to redo all the forensics, it was found Dunn’s body was being cremated.

Confirmation the four murders were linked was, in fact, made by Ireland himself.

On 12 June, Ireland put in an anonymous phone call. He scolded the police for not connecting the murders as the victims of a serial killer:

'Doesn’t the death of a homosexual man mean anything?'

Three days later, Spiteri’s landlady rang the police to report she’d discovered his body. The police went public. A midnight press conference warned the gay community they were being targeted. It was hoped that if Ireland was in the flat of another potential victim and they were watching the television, that victim might just be saved.

'People became really paranoid; there was this real sense of fear within the community.' Paul Burston, Author, ‘Queens’ Country’.

The police traced Spiteri’s most likely route home from the Coleherne. His train journey home went through Charing Cross station, a station that had just been fitted with one of London’s first CCTV cameras. There was 450 hours of footage to shift through.

'After about ten hours of viewing we got the victim Spiteri with an image in the background and that ended up being Colin Ireland.' Albert Patrick

GAY SLAYER

Psychologist Dr Mike Berry was approached by the police to draw up a profile of the killer. He maintained the killer was fuelled by violent fantasies. But each murder was never as good as the fantasy. So he was driven to kill again. He also believed that the killer was not HIV positive and was not committing the murders as an act of revenge. Another psychologist, Dr Jonas Rappeport, agreed. He added his belief that the killer was not himself homosexual, but posing as a gay man in order to attract his victims. He was well organised, probably of large build and physically strong, which made him confident in his ability to overpower his victims. The police gained further advice from criminal psychologists Paul Britton and Dick Walter, as well as ex-FBI Agent and serial killer specialist, Robert Ressler.

On 24 June 1993, the police issued a description of a man who had been seen with Spiteri on the train. The description was of a white male, age 30-40, over 6 feet tall, clean shaven, a full to fattish face, short dark brown hair and dirty, discoloured teeth. They produced an E-Fit (Electronic Facial Identification Technique), a computer-generated likeness.

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A week later, on 2 July 1993, police released a picture of the man with Spiteri, taken on the train’s security camera, and he was very similar to the man on the E-Fit. The following day, police received over 40 calls, some of which were from men saying they had seen or talked to the man in the Coleherne pub.

On 19 July 1993, Ireland went to his solicitor. He said he was with Spiteri, that he was on the CCTV but that he had not killed Spiteri. He claimed to have arrived at Spiteri’s flat to find there was another man. Explaining that he didn’t want a threesome, he said he had made his excuses and left.

The police came to Southend and arrested him.

With the Collier fingerprint left on the window ledge, the police were able to charge Ireland with Collier’s murder on 21 July 1993. Two days later, they charged him with Spiteri’s murder.

'We decided to charge him initially, I think just with the two murders because what he wanted was the notoriety of being a serial killer and we felt with him just being charged with the two murders it would cause him quite a bit of frustration and so that’s what we did and we waited to see how things developed.' Brian Edwards.

Ireland was remanded in custody. His frustration with being connected with only two murders built.

After returning from magistrate’s court, he said he wanted to confess.

'I am the gay serial killer.'

After the massacre there was a flurry of debate about what had motivated the killers and whether anything could have prevented the crime. The obvious problems lay with the fact that both boys had committed suicide and could not be questioned. No arrests could be made and there was no way for the victims to find any kind of justice through a trial. Some high schools began special programmes to expose and put a stop to school bullying, which was suggested as a prime motivating factor for Harris and Klebold’s actions.

Both Harris and Klebold were fans of video games such as Doom and they supported ‘dark’ music groups such as Marilyn Manson and KMFDM. Documentary-maker Michael Moore made a film entitled 'Bowling for Columbine' (2003) after the massacre, which focused on America’s obsession with gun culture. The film won a Best Documentary Academy Award.

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In a VH1 interview Marilyn Manson explained that he had cancelled three concerts in memory of the Columbine tragedy and when asked what he would have said to the killers, replied: “I wouldn't say a thing. I would just listen to them... and that's what nobody did."

In July 1999, the FBI organised a major summit on school shooters in Virginia. It was attended by psychologists, psychiatrists and representatives from each of the recent school shootings, including a large Columbine contingent. The FBI subsequently published a major report, although it steered clear of suggesting motives in any individual case.

On the fifth anniversary of the massacre, the FBI's lead Columbine investigator, along with several psychiatrists, went public in a news feature on their conclusions for the shootings. They stated that Harris was a clinical psychopath and Klebold was depressive. They believed the plan was masterminded by Harris, who they thought had a superiority complex and wanted to highlight his authority to the world.

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In response to the devastation of the Columbine and other school massacres, many schools instituted new anti-bullying policies as well as ‘zero tolerance’ approaches to weapons and threatening behaviour. In 2000 more gun control measures were called for and federal and state legislations were introduced that would require safety locks on firearms. A ban was placed on the importation of high-capacity ammunition magazines.

On 21st September 2007 a memorial was dedicated in Clement Park, where immediate memorials were held after the shooting.

Killer on the rampage

"I don’t have much time for the Human Race"Griffiths during police interviewIt takes the police three days to interview Griffiths despite his initial confession because of his rambling. His confession alludes to his alter ego, Ven Pariah.Griffiths: I, or part of me, is responsible for killing Susan Rushworth, Shelley Armitage and Suzanne Blamires, who I know as Amber...Police: Why did you feel the need to kill her?Griffiths: ...Like I say, you just...sometimes you kill someone to kill yourself or kill part of yourself. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s like deep issues inside of me.He also indicates in an interview that he’s killed six women in total.He appears depressed but is initially helpful with the police. However, he won’t reveal the location of Susan Rushworth’s body.

Then the press obtain the CCTV footage of Griffiths killing Suzanne Blamires, and release it. Seeing her daughter’s last moments made into a spectacle is devastating to her mum.The police are able to build up a detailed picture of what happened to Shelly Armitage partly because, sickeningly, Griffiths records it some of it on his phone.After dragging Shelley back into his flat, he ties her up in the bath. On her back, sprayed in black paint are the words, ‘My Sex Slave’.As he films, he provides his own voiceover:"I am the Ven Pariah, I am the Bloodbath Artist. Here’s a model who is assisting me."He then dismembers her in his bathroom, his self styled slaughterhouse. He uses knives and power tools. He places parts of her in a rucksack and then leaves the flat with it. He catches a train, and is captured on camera at one of the stations. He dumps the rucksack and then is filmed again returning home.Once home, he tries to disinfect surfaces and eradicate all evidence of his kill.A small piece of Shelley’s spine is found in the same stretch of river as Miss Blamires’ remains. In total, the police recover 81 different pieces of Miss Blamires from the river.The police conclude that all of his victims entered the flat of Griffiths willingly, as seen on the footage showing the last moments of Suzanne Blamires. The approximate cost of a gram of heroin is around £50. Street prostitutes can sometimes charge as little as £20 for sex. Their need to fund their addiction makes them easy prey to predators like Griffiths.To further put them at ease, and along with offers of drugs and money, Griffiths tells police that he pretended to the women that he was a photographer. He tells them they will need to lie on the bed with their backsides in the air so he can take ‘portraits’ for a new art gallery exhibition. In fact, he photographs them dead and the photos become part of his trophies collection.Professor of Criminology David Wilson is brought in to advise police on the prosecution approach if Griffiths doesn’t confess at trial.He suggests the reason that Griffiths was so careful in covering up evidence of his first kill, and so brazen with his third, is that to be defined as a serial killer, a person must have killed three times, and over a period of time. As a student of criminology, Griffiths would have been well aware of this.

Connecting the dots

On 4 April 1970, four days after Susan and Gary disappear, police arrest Ronald Jebson.But the arrest is for the indecent assault of a boy in Nottingham.The police twice interview Jebson about Susan and Gary. Jebson lives locally to them, and has just been released for sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl.But he was in no way a prime suspect:“What you also have to bear in mind; this was one person out of possibly hundreds that were suspects at the time. There was no technology that you have now, to put things into a computer, to what I would say, to join up the dots. What you were working on was...a card system...you would have cards with, ‘there’s a vehicle seen there’...’There’s a witness who’s been interviewed there.’... There’s something we must follow up’, and this is on another card.”Detective Chief Inspector Declan DonnellyIn much the same way that the Yorkshire Ripper investigation was overwhelmed with information, the hunt for Jebson was hindered, not helped by the sheer volume of paperwork.And Jebson denies any involvement. His alibi is that he was down the job centre and then back with the Papper family. The police move on.On 17 June, the bodies of Susan and Gary are found in woodland. The exact spot where they’re found had been searched two months before on the 9 April by three officers and their dogs. This was just ten days after they’d disappeared. Vital forensic evidence has been lost in the intervening period. The bodies have since been attacked by animals and insects. It’s now impossible to determine if they’ve been sexually assaulted.

nspector Read is furious - these mistakes will in time lead to a fundamental change in training methods for police dogs - that is of no use to Read.The autopsies confirm that the extent of decomposition means they must have died soon after going missing. This fits with the explanation of them dying from exposure on their first night.Inspector Read believes that a criminal act has been perpetrated. But he has precious few facts to support his theory.The inquest in September ends with an open verdict. Forensic science isn’t advanced enough to determine whether the children died naturally or at the hands of another. The coroner states that though some of Susan’s underclothes (her bra, pants and tights) were missing, they could have been taken by an animal in the woods.Her mother Muriel knows different:“The only animal that could remove Susan’s bra, pants, and tights is a human animal.”

The parents of both children believe their children were murdered. After her disappearance, Susan’s dog Blackie constantly claws the floor. Her mother believes something doesn’t fit with the exposure explanation:“I just knew they didn’t go up there and die. What two children would go up and lay in a copse for days on end, hungry, starving, frightened of the dark. You knew damn well it wasn’t right.”But the police aren’t so sure. Double abductions are extremely rare.The one policeman who is certain it was murder is Read. He also believes it unlikely that two children would ignore the electric lights of home clearly visible from the hide where they were found and instead huddle together in the cold and dark. The idea that wild animals would take Susan’s underclothes, but not her overcoat seemed unlikely. So he conducts experiments using 12 pairs of trousers similar to Susan’s to see if an animal could have damaged them in the way they were left. He concludes they were ripped by a rapist fighting a resistant child. But other Scotland Yard detectives ridicule Read and his notions of a double child killer. Some believe he’s got too close to the family. Some say he’s lost perspective.And in a 40 year career, the ‘Babes’ case was the only murder that the Chief Superintendent failed to solve.Nowadays his suspicions would look better founded. The pre-meditated building of a hide would potentially indicate ‘a killing ground’ had been prepared. The embrace of the children could be considered as ‘posing’ by a predator and the missing underwear indicative of trophies taken.But back in 1970, Read has never even heard the word ‘paedophile’. He just knows they didn’t die from the cold. Defiantly, in his final report, Read concludes the cause of death as murder.But he also adds that he doesn’t believe it would be possible to prove it.The date on which the children had gone missing, 31 March was Read’s birthday. For the next thirty years, his every birthday is a grim reminder of his one outstanding case.And worse, because the ‘Babes’ case is never classed as a murder inquiry, none of the physical evidence is protected.So, short of a confession from the killer, it looks unlikely that Read or the victim’s families will ever find answers.

The Police can't catch him but Science can...

When the attacks started back in the 1980s, there was no standard street CCTV and DNA was in its infancy. But by geographically profiling the first two rapes, the police suspected the attacker lived nearby to his victims.There were no witnesses to the attacks. But because the surviving victims noted the curtains were closed, the attacker hid his face, or covered theirs; the police thought they were probably looking for ‘a distinctive looking person’. And amazingly, despite being badly injured, the first victim helped detectives draw up an image of the suspect. She added he smelt of alcohol and stole cigarettes.A young PC, Bob Meade, started knocking on doors. He attempted to find out on a day to day basis who might have been hanging around the flats and draw up a list of suspects. He was also trying to identify areas where they could set up surveillance operations. Police coverage was comprehensive."If you were a young man out in the streets in Southwark in the early hours of the morning, by yourself and wandering aimlessly around… you would definitely get stopped."Bob Meade

From her hospital bed, the second victim was able to give a photo-fit of what she thought the rapist looked like. She described a white man with short dark hair in his twenties or thirties.But due to the severity and suddenness of the attack, the age of the witnesses and the poor lighting, the police couldn’t rely on this. They worked out that the attacker wasn’t an opportunist. He must have carefully planned and selected his victims. He would have also done periods of surveillance to gather more details. The police tried to establish occupation or activities that would have meant the attacker was around on the days he decided to actually to follow through.They searched back and found the victims had been victims of burglaries beforehand. The attacker was using the burglary as an opportunity for reconnaissance. Once inside, he could confirm the person lived alone, was elderly, and most importantly, was vulnerable. He particularly targeted those with walking sticks and Zimmer frames.When the attacks moved to Rotherhithe, the police suspected it was because of press appeals. Press and public attention had forced him away from his home base. The next victim was able to give an artist’s impression. Some patterns began to emerge.The attacker had a distinctive hairstyle. He wore his hair with a fringe. One victim said he had a crooked or broken nose; another that he had a lot of moles on his back. One said that he had long fingers like a pianist. He was also said to have worn a pale green tracksuit.The police took the press appeal from local newspapers onto national television. But despite a ‘Crimewatch’ appeal for information on the rapist of three elderly women, no progress was made. The police believed they were after a 25 year old, 5ft 6in tall man of stocky build. They were on the right track. But it wasn’t enough to stop another attack two months later.Although DNA technology was just beginning to become a practical tool in 1990, detectives did start to gather scientific evidence. Each crime scene gave up various bits of the attackers DNA. Blood, saliva and semen were found on the victim’s clothes and around the scene. A genetic fingerprint of the attacker was being put together which one day would unlock the case.But with no DNA database with which to compare their findings, the offender remained at large. Then Irene Grainey was killed. Had the ‘Southwark Rapist’ moved from sexual sadism to homicide? Everything apart from the fact that she was murdered seemed similar to the previous attacks.But as the police commenced a large scale murder enquiry, the crimes suddenly stopped. There were no more rapes. And no more attacks on elderly women. Had their man moved? Or had he been jailed for another crime?With no new crimes, and despite numerous appeals, the trail went cold.

Justice catches up

“I was working in my office in the middle of Sheffield and received a call to say that some bodies had been found in a house by workmen who had returned to remove a marquee following a wedding function.”-Mick Burdis, Detective Chief Inspector, South Yorkshire PoliceThe marquee workmen had arrived to dismantle and pack up. Instead, they find a young woman in a state of near total psychological collapse and evidence of a bloodbath:“...when eventually we did find the three bodies they had suffered very, very severe and very savage injuries.”-Mick BurdisThe father’s body is found by the stairs. Upstairs, they find the body of his wife by the side of the bed. Their son is nearby.On one of the beds, the forensics team find a bloodstain that looks like it has seeped through the criss-cross of a bandage.Alongside the forensic investigation, the police use the relatively new technology of videoing to capture the scene.But the list of potential suspects is huge:“We had about four hundred people connected with the actual wedding...And the people involved in catering and in photography and all the rest of the trappings that go on with weddings. So we had very, very rapidly developed an enormous enquiry.”-Mick Burdis

News of the wedding killings spread quickly: The fact that the man responsible isn’t known spreads fear. An incident room is set up in the village hall. Forensic officers expand their search in the hope of finding anything that might indicate the killer.The only surviving witness is in severe shock. But as the only eyewitness, her description of the killer is crucial. Vic Brough, an artist, is brought in to get a likeness of the killer:“She was really traumatised. Sometimes you have to switch off...And I just got my head into the drawing. And that was it. I just did it.”The portrait he draws shows a man with curly hair and a slightly bent nose.The woman also adds that the killer drunk and ate from the leftover food.From the bed, the police have the killer’s blood. Now from the champagne bottle, they have a print. And from the cheese, they have a bite mark.But without a computerised database, such forensic evidence is only useful to secure a conviction.The police still needed a suspect with which to match the forensics.Then a police colleague from North Yorkshire rings Mick Burdis to say he thinks they’re looking for the same man. The detective says a rapist in Selby had escaped while attending court. The man’s name: Arthur Hutchinson.Hutchinson’s mug shot matches the artist’s impression.The police now have detailed knowledge of who they were after.But knowing who he is doesn’t mean they’re any closer to knowing where he is.“We’d now got a man who’d been on the run for a few weeks. We’d no idea where his connections were and his locations were.And where he was hiding.”-Mick BurdisSo the police take the unusual step of releasing Hutchinson’s picture:“It was almost like the Wild West. You had the police issuing a photograph of Hutchinson...stressing how dangerous he was...Suddenly he was catapulted from being a small time petty crook to being the most wanted man in England.”-Alan Whitehouse, Reporter Yorkshire Post

BRITAIN’S MOST WANTED

But becoming public enemy number one doesn’t scare Hutchinson. He loves the attention. But the realisation that a sadistic killer and serial rapist is at liberty creates a siege mentality in some communities:“The fear spread like a ripple.... You saw women afraid to go out by themselves. Changing their routines, changing their habits. Having boyfriends and husbands pick them up from work. Exactly as happened during the hunt for Peter Sutcliffe.”-Alan WhitehouseSouth Yorkshire Detectives believe Hutchinson’s bolted from their area. Now every policeman is on the lookout.

“I, THE FOX...”In case Hutchinson doubles back and seeks refuge in the woods near the housing estate where he grew up, Cleveland’s Detective Chief Inspector Dick Copeman sets up surveillance.Copeman and his colleagues have caught Hutchinson the petty criminal many times before. But now they’re trying to catch a killer. And as Copeman knows, Hutchinson is more than capable of fending for himself:“He always had this thing about survival training, hiding himself out in the countryside.”In fact, being a keen allotment user in the past, Hutchinson takes to stealing other people’s produce from their plots and gardens rather than fending for himself off the land. And rather than sleep rough, he uses disguises, and stays at pubs and guesthouses.The public are asked to ring in if they suspect anything or come across any hideouts. The hunt is on.But instead of keeping a low profile, Hutchinson goads the police by writing a letter to the press. Hutchinson denies the allegations against him and tells the media to stop reporting on the hunt through the countryside for him.In it, he also starts referring to himself as, ‘I, The Fox...’“This nickname that he gave himself, ‘The Fox’...For someone to give themselves a nickname, that’s just so unusual...this is clearly important to him. This aura, this identity that he’s building around himself...you were dealing with...somebody who perhaps wasn’t entirely in touch with the real world.”-Alan WhitehouseThe letter is sent to behavioural psychologist Diane Simpson. She has extensive experience of analysing the writings of some of Britain’s most dangerous killers. Simpson suggests that the force with which he presses the pen into the paper shows he clearly loves the attention:“This was a letter constructed to parade himself...This is someone totally focused on what he wants to do...with no thought of repercussions. Only focused on what he wants to do. Like a missile.”And then Hutchinson rings the newsdesk of the Yorkshire Post and speaks to a reporter. Hutchinson says he’s able to come and go at will and had been in and out of Doncaster four times.Hutchinson is building on his self-image of being untouchable, almost invisible.“I sleep by day and I travel at night. So I’m not going to give myself up.”Arthur Hutchinson 

ACHILLES KNEE?

Hutchinson thinks the police are no closer to catching him. They are, in fact, laying the perfect trap for ‘The Fox’.First, they play on Hutchinson’s fears that the knee injury he’d sustained in his escape could be serious:“During one of the broadcasts that we gave to the media we indicated that this injury to his leg may well be tingling, may well be causing him trouble, and it could well become gangrenous. And then he could lose the limb and probably die."Mick BurdisSecond, they play on Hutchinson’s attachment to his mother:“He did seem to gravitate back towards his mothers whenever he was in trouble.”Dick Copeman, Detective Chief InspectorAnd now Hutchinson is in real trouble.The police tap his mother’s phone.At 4 o’clock in the morning, the police listen to him saying he’s coming home.The fox had gone for the bait. Now 400 police officers close in.

When the police arrived at the Northcott ranch, they found that Gordon and his mother Sarah had already fled. It later transpired that they had made their way to Canada. Northcott was a British Columbia native but had moved to Los Angeles with his parents in the 1920s. On the ranch, police found blood soaked earth, three empty graves, and “a toenail, two finger bones, nine bits of flesh, two clumps of hair on a piece of scalp, a knee cap and a piece of skull”. A .22 automatic gun, bloodstained axes and cleavers were also found.The three empty graves had recently contained bodies which had been covered with quicklime, supposedly to make them decompose more rapidly. It was speculated that the bodies had been hurriedly moved upon Clark’s escape/disappearance. They were never located and it is most likely that they were buried out in the Mojave desert.Pieces of clothing were identified by the Winslow parents as belonging to their sons, while a library book from Pomona Public Library that was checked out to one of the Winslow boys was recovered. A note written by the Winslow boys, addressed to their parents saying that they were fine, was also found. This conclusively placed the kidnapping of the Winslow boys at the door of Northcott.

Using the description of the car in which Hoffa was last seen by the lorry driver, FBI investigators were able to trace the maroon Mercury to its owner, Joe Giacalone, the son of mobster Anthony Giacalone. Giacalone claimed that on the day Hoffa was last seen, he had loaned the car to a friend, a teamster named Charles 'Chuckie' O'Brien, who was close to the Hoffa family and had actually lived with them at one time.The car was soon located and O'Brien's fingerprints were found on a ‘7-UP’ soft drink bottle and a piece of paper recovered from the car. Investigators believed that Hoffa would have felt comfortable enough with O'Brien, whom he regarded as a son, to get into the Mercury without force.The next step was for FBI agents to check on the whereabouts of the two men Hoffa was supposed to be meeting that day. 'Tony Jack' Giacalone claimed that he was at the gym, where he went every day. Witnesses confirmed they had seen him at the Southfield Athletic Club at the time of Hoffa's disappearance. 'Tony Pro' Provenzano said he has been in New Jersey playing cards with friends. Both suspects claimed they knew nothing about a scheduled meeting with Hoffa.Chuckie O'Brien, who had apparently been driving the car in which Hoffa was last seen, claimed that he had delivered frozen salmon to the home of a Teamster International vice president and then helped the man's wife cut the fish into steaks on the morning of 30th July. While Hoffa had been waiting at the restaurant, O'Brien said he was also at the Southfield Athletic Club with Anthony Giacalone. O'Brien then said he had taken the loaned car to be washed because fish blood had leaked onto the back-seat. Unlike Giacalone's alibi, no one at the gym or the car wash could corroborate his story.Specially trained German shepherds were flown in from Philadelphia eight days after Hoffa's disappearance. The dogs were given a pair of the labour leader's Bermuda shorts and a pair of his moccasins. They picked up Hoffa's scent in the back-seat and trunk of Joe Giacalone's maroon Mercury but with no body, there was nothing on which to base an arrest.There have been many theories about what happened to Hoffa that fateful day in 1975. One theory was that Hoffa’s body was put into a 55-gallon steel drum and driven away in a truck. The drum was subsequently buried in the grounds of a toxic waste site in New Jersey. Another theory was that Hoffa’s body was mixed into the concrete that was used to construct the New York Giant’s football stadium in New Jersey. Some suggested that Hoffa was buried in a gravel pit in Michigan, which was owned by his brother William Hoffa. Perhaps one of the most gruesome theories was that Hoffa had been ground up at a meat processing plant and then dumped in a Florida swamp or disintegrated at a fat-rendering plant.

The note on the windowsill was dusted for fingerprints, revealing no useful information, and the envelope contained a ransom note, written in very poor English. It warned Lindbergh not to contact the police, and demanded that a $50,000 ransom in $20, $10 and $1 notes be prepared, for a delivery that would be advised within the next 2 to 4 days. The letter was signed with a drawing of two interlocking circles, with three holes punched into the design, to enable Lindbergh to distinguish genuine kidnap correspondences from any potential hoaxers.News of the kidnap spread quickly, and the estate was soon overrun with police and reporters. Lindbergh contacted his close friend, and lawyer, Colonel Henry Breckinridge, who arrived to assist with the investigation. The police were in awe of Lindbergh and, to a large extent, allowed him to control the development of the case, which would have been unthinkable in almost any other circumstances.On 4 March a second ransom letter, postmarked from the Bronx in New York, was received, complete with the interlocking circles signature, upping the ransom demand to $70,000, on the basis that Lindbergh had ignored the instruction not to contact the police. A copy of this letter was also sent to Colonel Breckinridge's office, to be delivered to Lindbergh.Lindbergh favoured the belief that his son was in the hands of professional kidnappers. The police, however, believed that a family employee might be involved, taking into account the relatively small ransom, and the apparent insider knowledge such as the location of the nursery, and the Lindberghs last-minute decision to extend their weekend stay. Lindbergh and Breckinridge discouraged the police from active investigation, believing that meeting any demands that the kidnappers might make would be the best way to secure the release of baby Charles.The most significant indirect participant to enter the picture was 72-year old Dr. John F. Condon, known as ‘Jafsie’ who, on 8 March 1932, offered his services as a go-between for Lindbergh and the kidnappers. He contacted his local Bronx newspaper with an offer to add $1,000 of his own money to the ransom being demanded, if the kidnappers would contact him directly. According to Condon, they did so, sending a ransom letter directly to him the next day, which contained a note for him, as well as one for Lindbergh, in which the kidnappers accepted Condon’s offer to act as intermediary.Condon telephoned Lindbergh, who accepted that the correspondence was genuine, once he realised that it contained the interlocked circle signature, and he arranged to meet with Condon at his New Jersey home. They agreed that Condon would place an advertisement in a newspaper advising that the ransom money had been prepared. On 12 March, Condon received written instructions from the kidnappers to meet at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. It was decided that he would not take the money, insisting first on seeing the baby alive before any ransom would be paid.When Condon arrived at the cemetery, he met a man who identified himself as the kidnapper, calling himself John. He spoke with a Germanic accent, and refused to produce the baby as demanded, although he agreed that Condon would be sent proof that they were the real kidnappers, in the form of the baby’s sleeping suit.After Condon's initial meeting with “Cemetery John” in Woodlawn Cemetery, the child's sleeping suit was mailed to Condon, as John had promised, and Lindbergh made arrangements to have the ransom money prepared; the numbers of the individual notes were noted so that they could be traced later, but were not marked in any way.On the night of 2 April 1932, Lindbergh drove Condon to the designated drop point, another cemetery in the Bronx area called St. Raymond's. “Cemetery John” summoned Condon with a shout of “Hey, Doctor!” which was heard by both Condon and Lindbergh, and Condon exchanged the box of money for a note which, John claimed, contained the whereabouts of baby Charles: a boat called Nelly, situated near Martha’s Vineyard. Lindbergh piloted an airplane for more than two hours over the area described in the note, and again the next day, but saw no sign of the boat, and he was forced to admit that he had been tricked. They were back to square one.

Given that Lindbergh was in control of the investigation amidst a huge media circus, and had made it clear that he would meet the demands of the kidnappers, it is unsurprising that hoaxers attempted to take advantage of the situation. A number of attempts were made to extract funds from Lindbergh over the weeks and months following the kidnapping.Lindbergh had been convinced, initially, that the kidnapping was a professional job by organised crime, and he recruited a small-time crook called Rosner, who in turn provided two other hoodlums, Salvatore Spitale and Irving Bitz, whom Rosner claimed had the contacts to set up negotiations with the kidnappers. Instead of helping, they arranged a lucrative deal with a newspaper to provide classified information not available to the press, like the original ransom note with the secret signature, which quickly became common knowledge. It offered a possible explanation of how Condon had the information about the interlocking circles signature that had convinced Lindbergh to trust him, suggesting that Condon himself might have been a hoaxer. Despite this, Lindbergh remained supportive of Condon and his efforts to help, even when the treachery of Spitale and Bitz came to light.A definite hoaxer was a Virginia boat builder named Commodore John Hughes Curtis, who made a credible case for his own direct connections with the kidnappers, through his close contacts within the Morrow family. Curtis exploited Lindbergh’s vulnerability after the failed ransom drop in St. Raymond’s, leading Lindbergh on a wild-goose chase for the kidnappers, claiming that he was in constant contact; even claiming on one occasion that he had seen baby Charles alive.The discovery of a child’s body, on 12 May 1932, soon revealed the ruse, however, and Curtis admitted the fraud, pleading extreme financial hardship as his motivation. He received a $1,000 fine, and a one-year suspended jail sentence, for obstruction of justice.Conman and former F.B.I. agent, Gaston B. Means, who attempted to extort ransom money from a wealthy Washington D.C. socialite, Evalyn Walsh McLean, perpetrated another, less direct, hoax. He convinced her to give him $100,000, which he would exchange in return for the Lindbergh child. She became suspicious of Means, however, when he claimed that the kidnappers had taken the money without returning the child, and she contacted the police: he eventually received a fifteen-year jail sentence for larceny, in June 1932.On 12 May 1932, a truck driver named William Allen pulled over at the side of a road, about 4 miles from the Lindbergh home, intending to relieve himself in the trees next to the road.Here he discovered the decaying corpse of a young child, and immediately alerted the police. The body was found face down, and had been severely damaged by animal activity, missing part of the left leg and hand, and was so badly decomposed that it was not possible to identify initially whether the victim was male or female.It was transported to a morgue in Trenton, New Jersey, and the next day identified by Lindbergh and the baby’s nanny, Betty Gow, as Charles Lindbergh Jr. The identification took less than three minutes, and was based upon a small deformity of the toes of the right foot, and an item of clothing found with the body. Interestingly, the baby’s paediatrician, who also saw the body, claimed he couldn’t possibly be certain that it was baby Charles, given the extent of decomposition.The autopsy conducted was cursory, offering less than a page of detail, and no photos were taken at the time. It concluded that the child had died from a blow to the head. The advanced state of decomposition meant that baby Charles may well have died the night of his abduction, perhaps as a result of being dropped when the ladder, used to reach the nursery window, had broken. The body was cremated less than 24 hours later, at the instruction of Charles Lindbergh.Because Lindbergh and Breckinridge had restrained the investigative agencies during the attempt to retrieve the child, very little progress had been made in the search for the kidnappers. Although Lindbergh now gave the investigators free rein to pursue the killers, they had very little evidence, apart from the broken ladder and ransom notes, to proceed with.With the assistance of a wood expert, Arthur Koehler, the ladder was examined and determined to be of a variety of wood types, and from widely different sources, but some of the wood was eventually traced to a lumber merchant in the Bronx, tying it to the ransom note posting area and the ransom drops. Kohler also believed that it had been expertly modified at some point, most likely by a skilled carpenter.Police still considered the participation of family employees highly likely, given the intimate knowledge of the house and travel plans, and suspicion fell on a 28-year old Morrow estate maid, Violet Sharpe, who had failed to provide a believable alibi for the night of the kidnapping. Intense questioning by the police led to her committing suicide, but later investigation confirmed her alibi for the 1st March 1932, and police concluded that her suicide was probably due to the threat of losing her job, rather than an admission of complicity in the kidnapping plot. There was widespread condemnation of the heavy-handed police tactics that had led to her suicide.Dr Condon was also questioned vigorously, as police blindly sought another viable suspect after the Sharpe fiasco, and his home was searched, and but he was eventually released without charge. Lindbergh continued to publicly support Condon for his assistance during the ordeal, and Condon was never found in possession of any of the ransom money.Fortunately Lindbergh had allowed the serial numbers of the ransom notes to be recorded, so they proved the only substantial lead in an ongoing investigation that was otherwise going nowhere.The notes began to surface shortly after the 2nd April ransom delivery, after details of the serial numbers were distributed to banks nationwide, but usually in such small numbers that tracing their source was impossible.