Killers: Behind the Myth (2013–2015): Season 2, Episode 4 - The Videotape Killer/The Sidewalk Strangler - full transcript

The
most notorious killers

hide in plain sight, freeto kill and kill again.

But most are not the criminalmasterminds of fiction.

In their minds, theycommit the perfect murder.

In reality, it is their foolishmistakes that get them caught.

In the town of Ipswich inthe rural East of England,

murders are rare.

The average number of murderswithin Suffolk was about seven

a year.

But
in the winter of 2006,

that would change.



2nd of December, the
rivers around Ipswich

are bursting their banks.

As a government official
checks water levels,

he makes a horrific discovery--

the body of a young womantrapped amongst flood debris.

Police comb the brook forclues as to how she died.

A mere six days
later, they discover

another woman's body upstream.

The bodies are identified asthose of two local women, Gemma

Adams, 25, and Tania Nicol, 19.

For us to have two at thatstage in very close proximity,

probably linked,
was very unusual.

And so we didn't know whatwas going to happen next.

There was afeeling of shock and fear.



And of course, the big questionthat everybody was asking

was, how many more?

The sleepyEnglish town finds itself

in the grip of a nightmare.

No woman is safe.

This is a murder
mystery played out

before the media in an usuallyhorrific and intimate manner.

Janet Humphrey is a memberof the Suffolk Constabulary.

She knew the two dead women.

It was horrific.

It was a really scary time.

I think the whole of
Ipswich and Suffolk

were holding their breath.

We're a very small, littleforce in a rural area.

And this kind of thing doesn'thappen in a small county town.

For crimewriter Mark Billingham,

it is one of the
most intense murder

mysteries of recent times.

I remember being
very aware of it

and following it on the news.

Not just in a sort of
professional, you know,

I write about this
kind of thing,

but it was just deeply shocking.

The crimescene poses a major challenge.

Detective SuperintendentAndy Henwood is at the center

of the investigation.

We did everything we couldin respect to those bodies,

those victims, to try
and find any evidence

that might be helpful
in establishing

who the murderer was.

But
there is no obvious clue

to who is doing the killing.

So you start to think youare dealing with somebody

very organized, very clever.

And what that means is someonevery difficult to catch.

On
the 3rd of December,

the day after the
first body is found,

26-year-old Anneli Aldertonis preparing for Christmas.

She has a small child and isexpecting her second baby.

But later that
day, she vanishes.

Her body was discovered
a week later.

On the 10th of Decemberwhen Anneli's body was found,

I actually was at my
son's birthday party.

And I got a phone call.

And I have to say, my
heart actually sunk.

One minute I'm with myfamily at a birthday party.

The next minute I know that
we've got a third body.

The body wasvery carefully laid out, posed

in a sort of cruciform shape,which, again, started to lead

the police to gather thatthey were dealing with a very

particular kind of killer.

Thecruciform, or Christ-like,

pose of the bodies leadscriminal psychologist David

Holmes to suspect the killer ismimicking something they have

seen on TV or in the cinema.

I would probably go forthe idea that he'd just been

watching some very kind
of high-impact film,

some kind ofHannibal-type film, where

this kind of cruciform imagerywas very important in the film.

And he thought of tying itin with the kind of killings.

The killer'sidentity is still a mystery.

But the police soon realizehe's no stranger to the town.

Anneli's body was found downa road which I would be pretty

confident that it is not aroad that you would just happen

across unless you were local.

So putting the two
together made us

think that this was someone whowas local to the Ipswich area.

With
the police reeling

from the discovery of threebodies in only eight days,

a major investigation begins.

There wasn't anybody
at this early stage

that was specifically
at the top of the pile.

Two dayslater, two more bodies

are found on the sameday, Annette Nicholls, 29,

and Paula Clennell, 24.

In 10 days, five dead
women have been found.

Police have a serial
killer on their hands.

The level of violence,
the number of bodies,

would be far less shockingin the center of London,

in the back streets
of Manchester.

A local supermarket

worker who claims to know thewomen is brought into custody.

A local manwho was very open about the fact

that he knew the girls--

you know, there's something verycreepy about this character who

said, well, I have knowledgeof all these girls,

so you should be
questioning me--

and quite rightly, came
under a lot of suspicion

and was arrested.

Thesuspect's name is Tom Stephens.

His comments about the
dead women in the media

lead to his arrest.

But little do the policeknow, they have the wrong man.

With five women murdered,
the Suffolk police

are under pressure to putthe murderer out of business.

They've got a
suspect in custody,

but he's not
admitting to anything.

To assemble the
case against him,

the police join forces withthe finest forensic scientists

in the country.

Ray Palmer leads one
of the forensic teams

assigned to the case.

The
atmosphere certainly

was intense at the time.

Here was somebody who waskilling very frequently

and, in fact, under
the very noses

of the police investigation.

The investigators

know that the best evidence,like telltale traces

of the killer's DNA,
is usually found

at the scene of the crime.

With a conviction hingingon a positive DNA match,

forensic teams examine the cluesthat were gathered at the scene

of each gruesome crime.

But finding answers from
the first two victims

will be a serious challenge.

Tania Nicol and Gemma Adamswere reported missing one

month before they were found.

Both worked as prostitutesin the center of Ipswich.

Gemma Adams had enjoyed acomfortable middle-class

childhood.

But heroin addiction
led to a grim life,

selling her body on the street.

Crime reporter Josh
Warwick recalls

the dark side of Ipswich.

Before the murders in Ipswich,there was a sort of acceptance

on one level, perhaps
by the authorities,

that prostitution
happened in Ipswich.

It had done for years.

Let's turn a blind eye to it,and let them get on with it.

WhenAdams' body is discovered,

it is trapped alongside flooddebris in a swollen brook.

With the torrential
rain, it has been rinsed

repeatedly by the floodwaters.

Gemma Adams' autopsyreveals hyperinflated lungs.

They show that she
had been fighting

for breath in the last
moments of her life.

So we treated it
as a homicide right

from the word go, which meantthat we recovered the body

in a certain way
so that we could

preserve any evidence
that would still

be left upon Gemma's body.

Adams had gone missing

on the 15th of November.

The other prostitute,
Tania Nicol,

had been missing
for even longer.

Desperate for clues, policeconduct an intensive search

of the brook.

We employed the
services of a dive team.

And that dive team wadedthe depths of that brook.

And the next body, which
was Tania Nicol's body,

was found some mile and a halfdown the stream some six days

later.

19-year-old Tania

was found on the
8th of December,

five weeks after she
was reported missing.

The fact that the bodies
are found in water

is bad news for the police.

The first two bodies

were discovered in water.

Water damages the
body but, also,

destroys any DNA evidence.

In respect
of Gemma and Tania,

who've been in
water for some time,

we didn't hold out
a great deal of hope

in terms of obtaining any DNA.

Back in the lab,

investigators have
no luck finding

DNA on the first two bodies.

It was December.

It was really inclement weather.

It was lots of
rain, lots of wind.

And the river in which two ofthe women had been deposited

was in full spate.

So really, conditions thatthey had been deposited in

made the potential
for recovering

any forensic evidence
virtually zero.

Whoever was doing this
was depositing them

in that particular environmentto try and literally minimize

any forensic evidencethat might link him or her

to that particular crime.

For the police,

the situation is challenging.

They have two
bodies and a killer

who knows how to
kill without leaving

behind a trace of evidence--

a killer who will kill again.

The police badly
need firm evidence

to bring the killer to justice.

On the 10th of
December, everything

changes for the case.

The third victim,24-year-old Anneli Alderton,

is discover to the
southwest of the town.

Anneli's body wasfound in woods at Nacton,

just outside Ipswich.

A passerby in their car had seenwhat they thought, initially,

was a mannequin in the woodsbut, knowing what was going on

locally, went back and checkedand discovered her body, which

was reported to the police.

At that stage, of
course, we then

realized we had a third victim.

The likelihood at that
stage was that her body

was linked to the other two.

Unlike
the first two bodies,

Alderton is found on dry land.

The police get a break.

As far as gathering
forensic evidence goes,

that's a huge plus for a case.

And that was the point
at which the case really

moved into top gear and thepolice really started to think,

now we're going
to get something.

And we're going to get this guy.

Nowthey are able to retrieve

DNA from Alderton's body--

DNA that could lead them
straight to the killer.

Discovering DNA on the thirdvictim is a major breakthrough.

Until now, the police have beenunable to zero in on a suspect.

But a DNA match to an individualwould move the investigation

into high gear.

That thirdbody is significant for a number

of reasons--

the way the body
was laid out, posed,

the fact that it was going tobe a body that would hopefully

yield DNA evidence, and thefact that it was a third victim,

which meant that,
strictly speaking,

they were now dealing
with a serial killer.

Very shortly after thethird body had been found,

that's when they have thefirst big press conference.

Media interestsurges with the discovery

of the third body.

Two bodieshave been found near Ipswich

and... can confirm
that this afternoon,

at 3:05 PM today,
police received a call

from a member of the public.

He saw what appeared to be thenaked body of a female about

20 feet off the road.

And that is when the
media start to go crazy.

Thepeople of Ipswich are fearful.

All three women
worked as prostitutes.

All three were found naked.

Thepolice admit they could be

dealing with a serial killer.

Cases like this don'thappen in places like Suffolk.

That was what I thought.

But I was very much aware ofthe pressure that was starting

to build in terms of,
can the constabulary

find who this person is?

Can they prevent the
murders happening?

I actually tried to ignore themedia coverage and the media

scrum, if you like,
that was occurring

outside of police headquarters.

As the true horror

of the situation hits
home, a feeling of dread

descends on the town.

- I
- can still remember

going to collect my own
son from a school disco

and walking back in the dark--

and even concerned, myself.

And I think the local womenwere concerned that it--

yes, it was street sex workersthat were being targeted.

But we didn't know who it was.

And could a different woman orsomebody from a different area

be targeted?

So it was the fact that allwomen may well be concerned.

And we all were.

The Ipswich murder

investigation steps up a gear.

300 fresh officers arebrought in from across the UK

to swell the ranks
and begin a dragnet.

We had police officersfrom all over the country

helping with the investigation.

We had some 600 people
involved at the peak

of the investigation.

The policeare under intense pressure.

I will need you,
at some point, to go.

All right?

But
behind the scenes,

they had made a breakthrough.

Swabs from the body of thethird victim, Anneli Alderton,

give up a DNA sample.

It will take two days for theDNA to be analyzed and compared

to the DNA database.

But DNA is not the onlyline of the investigation

the police have.

The actual location
of the bodies

provides data for
another detection tool.

Samantha Lundrigan is an experton geographical profiling.

Geographic profiling
is used to predict where

an offender might
live based on where

he's committed his crimes.

Offenders have what's
called a criminal range,

sort of a safe distance,
because you can

actually be too close to home.

And that could be too risky.

But they'll also have
a maximum distance

where they won't move beyond.

And that's usually tied upwith this idea of familiarity

because beyond
that distance, they

don't know what
the opportunities

are either for victimsor for disposal location.

All
the women were last seen

near the red-light district.

The first two bodies werefound to the southwest.

The third body was found tothe southeast of the town.

For Lundrigan, a criminalrange for the killer

is coming into focus.

Because wehad these two small clusters,

one on one side of thecity, or beyond the city,

and one on the other
side, either it's

the red-light districtthat's acting as this anchor,

or he's traveling in to goto that red-light district

and then moving out in
this radial pattern,

or he has some sort
of base himself

in that red-light district.

Either way, he knows boththe red-light districts

and these disposal
locations well enough

to be comfortable or feel ableto dispose of a victim's body

there.

Policebelieve the killer is local.

Now geographical
profiling narrows

the location down even further.

It suggests that
the killer probably

lives in the center of Ipswichnear the red-light district.

The killer is still atlarge on the very streets

the sex workers ply their trade.

Ipswich, December 2006,the Suffolk murders spread

fear throughout the community.

It was ahorrific time for all of us.

I was concerned about thewomen's welfare on the street.

And I think you'll find
with Paula Clennell,

she's a fine example of that.

Despite thefact that a predatory serial

killer was roaming the
streets of Ipswich,

sex workers like Paula Clennellstill walk the streets.

The 26-year-old mother ofthree is addicted to drugs.

She needs up to 500 poundsper day to fund her habit.

She is faced with
a grim choice--

stay off the streets, endurewithdrawal and be safe,

or sell her body to
pay for another hit.

Clennell's harsh choice wascaught quite by accident

by one of the dozens ofreporters covering the story.

I need the money, you know?

Despite the dangers?

Well, that has made me a bitwary about getting into cars,

you know?

Presumably, you
will do that tonight?

Well, probably.

Fivedays after this interview,

Clennell disappears.

Alongside another missingprostitute, Annette Nicholls,

there are now two local
women unaccounted for.

On the 12th of December,
Nicholls naked body

is discovered by a roadsideto the southeast of Ipswich.

She too is laid out in
a cruciform position.

Our force control
room had had a call

from a member of the
public who'd seen a body

laying close to the roadside.

And we had our force helicopterup and over the scene.

And the helicopter couldclearly see, from the downlink,

the body of a naked female.

And I'd looked away from
the screen for a moment

and looked back.

And I looked back at the
screen and then saw what

I thought was the same body.

But actually, I did
a bit of a double

take because it was a bodylaying in a different position.

And it was very
clear very quickly

that this was a second body thathad been found at that scene.

My heart absolutely
fell through the floor.

There are two bodies.

The second is Paula
Clennell, the woman

who had been interviewed onthe streets a few days earlier.

She knew she was
risking her life

and paid the ultimate price.

Within two days, the
total number of victims

has risen to five.

By the time the fifth bodyis found, it becomes clear

that you're dealing
with a killer who is

killing at a phenomenal rate.

The fifth victim turns
out to be a woman

called Paula Clennell, whohas already been interviewed.

She's somebody who's
been interviewed

on the local TV station.

And it's almost as if thekiller is looking at them

on television himself, pickingthem off the next night,

it seems.

There really is a growingsense of horror and panic.

Just six days later,

Tom Stephens is arrested.

We had one particularperson who was being seen

very closely--

talking to the media,
was known to women

who worked in the red-lightdistrict, and who, if you like,

was putting himself front andcenter and became of interest.

Tom Stephens,a local supermarket trader,

seems to tick all the boxes.

It's odd.

He's the sort of character that,were this a film or a book,

you'd go, it's him.

With
Stevens in custody,

there was a major
forensic breakthrough.

The sample taken
from the third victim

has produced a DNA sequence.

The police now
compare the sample

with the National DNA Database.

They have a DNA match.

And of course, the
natural assumption

is that it's going to beStephens, the man in custody.

But it isn't.

It turns out to be acompletely different local man,

a man named Steve Wright.

48-year-old
Steve Wright looks

an unlikely serial killer.

After a brief period
of surveillance,

the police swoop on Wright'sflat in the red-light district

of Ipswich.

Steve Wright was arrestedearly on the 19th of December.

Steven Wright,we're arresting you for murder.

And
a team of officers

went to his house to arrest him.

And he was very
surprised at that time.

And in fact, such that
his legs gave way,

and he had to besupported by the officers.

Now what caused
that, we don't know.

Wright
is brought into custody.

So interview
commences at 3:00 AM.

But he
is giving nothing away.

This
is Steven Wright.

And
he was interviewed

over a number of hours and overthe course of a couple of days.

in custody, he declined
to answer any questions.

the last girlto go missing with your DNA,

and the one before
with your DNA,

both on their naked bodies.

How can that be?

No comment.

Once Wright is brought
in for questioning,

his reaction is one of a manwho is used to being invisible.

Essentially, his reaction iscompletely bland, completely.

He just looks at them andsays, no comment, no comment,

no comment.

There's nothing.

He is a blank page.

He's giving nothing away.

Policebelieve they have their man.

But there is a problem.

All five murdered
women are prostitutes.

Wright admits to knowingthem and paying them for sex.

So the fact that his DNA
is found on their bodies

does not necessarilymean that he killed them.

To convict Wright,
the case needs

meticulous forensic
evidence to convince

the jury that Wright
is a killer, not

just a user of prostitutes.

At first glance, nothing
in Wright's background

stands out as unusual.

I think, outwardly,Wright is somebody who was

not particularly noticeable.

His outward persona, in general,was that of the ordinary chap.

So he could always blend in.

It's not a deliberate thing.

It's just how he was.

His
life was characterized

by low-key jobs that neverseemed to go anywhere.

He wasn't
particularly good at,

perhaps, pursuing anything.

He left school early.

He did not particularly
get good jobs.

He took any old job.

And that changed quiteregularly throughout his life,

as did his relationships.

And he was not particularlygood within relationships.

Behind
the facade of normality

lurks an unusually
salacious private life.

Despite being married, Wrightis a red-light regular.

He uses prostitutes.

With Wrightand his use of prostitutes,

it actually did kind
of coincide with him

having just got married.

And perhaps he's
looking for something

where he is in control, wherehe can get sex when he wants it

in the manner that
he chooses as opposed

to the rather kind of mundaneregularity of a relationship.

Wright'sunspectacular career

also includes a spell working ata hotel in Felixstowe, Suffolk,

in 2000.

Here, he was to make a
mistake that would bring

the police to his doorstep.

Addicted to gambling, he stolemoney from the till of the inn.

When he is arrested,
his DNA is taken and put

on the National DNA Database.

It's only because his
DNA is on this database

that it is possible
to match it to the DNA

found on the murder victims.

The DNA was particularlyimportant to us in that

it focused us on Steve Wright.

For criminalpsychologist David Holmes,

Wright's collapse
when is arrested

is an insight into
his state of mind.

Wright's behavior
when he was approached

by the police, when hewas arrested and charged,

was rather strange.

He didn't overreact as manykind of guilty parties would.

And he didn't massively
protest his innocence

as many innocent people would.

Whether the shock was guilt orwhether the shock has one of,

why are you accusing me?

It is difficult for
us to determine.

Mark Billingham

sees clues to Wright's motivesin his unusual reaction.

The reaction of Wright whenhe's arrested, almost as if he

is innocent, suggests thatthis life he has been leading,

this life of picking up sexworkers and murdering them,

is something that's
done by somebody else.

It's something that he's sortof dissociated himself from.

It's a fantasy life.

It's a life of risk andpower, and sex and killing,

that is almost something
he's observing.

So that when that
comes crashing in,

and the police knock on hisdoor and arrest him for murder,

that reaction is understandable.

Steve Wright's past

has come back to haunt him.

But the DNA evidence onlypoints the finger at Wright.

Alone, it will not be
enough to convict him.

The good news for the cops,in terms of the DNA evidence,

quickly turns out to be notquite as good as they thought

it was because Wright freelyadmits to using prostitutes,

to having slept
with these women,

to having had these
women in his car.

So of course, his defenseis, well, yes, of course,

you have my DNA
evidence because I

have had sex with these women.

So that presents the policewith an enormous problem

is they have to find that keypiece of evidence that is going

to prove that he did
rather more than simply

have sex with these women.

Ray Palmerbegins a meticulous analysis

of other forensic evidence.

Once Steve Wright hadbeen identified through DNA,

I was requested to
look at the surface

debris tapings
which had been taken

from each of the dead women.

Surface debris tapings aretaken at the crime scene.

It involves using Sellotapestrips to actually recover

surface debris that is presenton the skin or clothing

of a homicide victim.

While
Palmer and his team

look for fiber evidence
on the women's bodies,

CCTV footage is
analyzed in the hope

that it might connect Wrightto the women on the day

of their disappearance.

This
evidence was looked

at by an expert from theTransport Research Laboratory.

He was able to look
at Steve Wright's car,

his own personal car, andthen look at the CCTV images

that we had.

And he could draw a
conclusion looking

at the shape of the vehicle.

The tax disc was in a particularlocation on the windscreen.

There was an air freshenerhanging inside the car which

was in a particular position.

Putting all of those
things together gave

confidence to the
expert that this was

actually Steve Wright's car.

The
CCTV is compelling

and links Wright to
the women but, again,

is no evidence of murder.

But then Palmer's forensicteam make a breakthrough.

Samples from the three bodiesof the women found on dry land

reveal a particular type
of polyester material,

a dark-colored microfiber.

Such fibers
are very, very commonly

used in things like sportswear.

Garments that are
constructed of them

tend to have a verydistinctive texture, will

tend to feel like peach skin.

So the information we gave
the police at that time

was we were looking for
something that would be

labeled polyester
and would likely have

a label saying microfibers.

And it would have thispeach-skin texture to it.

Unfortunately, nothing of thisnature turned up at that time.

Palmer'steam then look at the interior

of Wright's car.

In the frontdriver's seat of Steve Wright's

car, these microfiber collectorswere present in huge numbers.

But at that time, we had no ideawhat the garment was, in fact,

or where it was.

The fiberfound on the car seats

is the same as thatfound on the dead bodies.

They need to find the
source of these fibers.

Palmer and the police return tosweep Wright's house once more.

I remember turningup and walking into this house

and straight into
the living room.

And my initial
surprise was I saw

this pair of tracksuitbottoms sitting on the settee

and neatly folded up.

And when I touched it,
it had this distinctive

peach-skin feel to it.

And the color was right.

And it was clear that thisitem that been packaged

up, ready to go to the
laboratory, and somebody

had overlooked it.

Microfiberfrom Wright's tracksuit bottoms

are all over the
women and his car.

It's yet more evidence that tiesWright to the murdered women,

but it's no smoking gun.

His defense could
explain the fibers

away by saying that he hadsimply been with the women,

not killed them.

The police need more proof.

Even with the mounting
circumstantial evidence,

there was another problem.

Serial killers have motives.

But for Holmes, Wright
is a blank canvas.

There was no reason for
him to kill like this.

One of the curiousfeatures about Wright's killing

is he appears not to haveany other motive than to just

simply kill these people.

Because most killers
get some pleasure

either from the killing
itself or perhaps

from some aspect of it, sadisticbehavior, with these people.

This seems to be absent
in the case of Wright.

Wright is a man
who would appear

to be a motiveless killer.

But I think there's
something else going on.

Steve Wright might

have been linked to the bodiesthrough forensic evidence.

But because he uses
prostitutes, most clues

linking him to the women
can be explained away.

The pressure is on thepolice to assemble a case

that will put him behind bars.

The feeling was that thiswas something really serious

and how difficult
it was going to be

for us, as a small,
provincial force,

to deal with a serial killer.

Despite the DNA match,

the police are still in
search of a killer clue.

The prosecution needs
something unusual

that couldn't be explainedby a straightforward sexual

encounter between
Wright and the women.

And they were about to find it.

Palmer's team find
a new kind of fiber

that is present on the bodies.

It is short, wiry, and red.

It belongs to a garment thatis being held by the police,

a reflective workman's
jacket that had

been found in Wright's flat.

One of thegarments that we identified was

a yellow fluorescent jacket.

Shining a spotlight

on the reflective jacketreveals another tantalizing

piece of evidence.

A subsequentexamination of that jacket

revealed there was blood onthe right sleeve which matched

Annette Nicholls, blood
on the left shoulder

which matched Paula Clennell.

But
the tiny drops of blood

could come from a nosebleedor menstrual fluid,

not necessarily
from a violent act.

The
police were using

every single procedure thatthey had for the gathering

of forensic evidence.

There were, of course,
scrapings for DNA,

all that sort of stuff, tapingsfor fibers, hairs, anything

was being analyzed tryingto find that killer

piece of evidence-- the
killer piece of evidence

in a fragment of dust.

Palmer ispresented with a problem.

He has helped identify clothingthat ties Wright to the victims

and has even pointed the fingerat a garment that betrays

blood from some of the women.

Despite all of thediscoveries, none of the clues

point to actual violence.

He turns to the first victims
to see if their bodies

are still holding any secrets.

Palmer looks at the hair
of Adams' and Nicol's.

He's searching for evidencethat the women suffered violence

at the hands of Steve Wright.

After five weeks in ariver, Tania Nicol's hair

is filled with debris.

Palmer decides toseparate out the elements

caught within it
using a technique

borrowed from paleontology.

This involved
us taking the hair

and washing it in receptacles.

The idea being that
the water would allow

any of the hard
particulates to sink

to the bottom and
any fiber evidence

to rise to the surface.

As theyfilter these particulates off,

they strike forensic gold.

They discover a tiny
synthetic fiber.

The investigation
really moves up

a gear when the
forensic examiners

find a synthetic fiber deepin the scalp of Tania Nicol.

And it's very easy
to match those fibers

with particular types of carpet.

The forensicteam scour Wright's flat

and his car,
searching for a match

to the fiber from Nicol's hair.

This particular fiber
matched the fibers

comprising the carpet
of Steve Wright's car.

And
there was only one

way this fiber could
have got broken

off deep in Nicol's hair.

Now Wright, of course, issaying, yes, she was in my car.

But now the police
are thinking, well,

why has her head made
very violent contact

with the floor of your car?

And that's when they reallyknow they've got their man.

The
discovery of the fibers

and link to the floor ofWright's car is a vital clue.

It is a powerful addition tothe evidence put to the jury.

In court,the evidence was presented.

And there was forensic
evidence of fibers.

There was forensicevidence in respect to DNA.

We had CCTV evidence
which placed

Steve Wright at thescenes at the right time.

We had ANPR, Automatic NumberPlate Recognition, evidence

which put him travelingalong a main road at a time

when one of the victim's
body was deposited.

Wright is bombarded withthe evidence, piece of it

after piece of it.

And all he can do is claim thatit's all just a coincidence.

He's somebody who was in thewrong place at the wrong time.

Yes, I happen to
know these women

and used these women sexually.

But, you know, this evidenceis purely coincidental.

He's got nothing.

And to everyquestion the prosecution

counsel put to him,
they would say,

is this coincidence, Mr. Wright?

And every answer
would be the same.

"It would seem so."

Very impassive, unemotional,very cold responses.

So
there is no smoking gun.

What there is is just aphenomenal amount of damning,

circumstantial
forensic evidence.

And faced with that
evidence, the jury

have no choice but to find SteveWright guilty on all counts.

Despitethe guilty verdict,

Wright remains an enigma.

For Holmes and Billingham,Wright's sheer normality

is the key to unlock the
mystery of his motive.

The
Steve Wright case,

in general, is a very odd one.

You do not have acharacteristic serial killer.

You do not have someonewho is clearly someone who

has, you know, got
kind of psychopath

written across their forehead.

Steve Wright appeared to haveone characteristic that did

set him apart from his peers.

And that was his
need for taking risk.

ForBillingham, Wright's life story

shows a steady increase
in the amount of risk

he takes with a
tragic end result.

He is a man who isdeeply disappointed at just

how ordinary and
uneventful his life is.

So what starts off
as a bit of theft

because he's got into somefinancial difficulties

escalates into the risk
of using prostitutes.

That escalates still
further into the risk

of murdering prostitutes.

And that becomes his escape.

That becomes the way he
can stop being ordinary.

But if you
look across his life,

the one thing that SteveWright seemed to crave and be

motivated by was simplytaking risk, and taking risks

that were greater and greater.

For Andy Henwood,

temptation ultimately
played a part.

We know that he'd
moved into that area

literally weeks beforehand.

It was an area which wasfrequented by sex workers.

Potentially, he's perhapslooked out of the window,

and he's seen the women working.

And it's become too
much of a temptation.

Sadly, until such time
as he chooses to tell us

why he did this, we
just don't know really

why he went on this spree.

On the
21st of February, 2008,

Wright is found guilty
of all five murders

and sentenced to life
with a recommendation

that he is never released.

The Suffolk Strangler is
finally off the streets.

Remarkably, there has
been a positive effect

after Wright's reign of terrorfor the town of Ipswich.

The one really positivething that has come out of it

is the way that prostitutionhas been tackled in Ipswich.

When you look atIpswich today and the area that

was blighted by street
sex-working, now

compared to 2006, it is acompletely different place.

Ipswich nowhas the most effective scheme

in place to protect
and support sex

workers in the United Kingdom.

And
so those young women's

deaths weren't in vain
because, in a sense,

they've saved many other women.

I think it's been an
absolutely positive

effect from something horrific.

There are no women

on the street for a killerlike Wright to strike down.