Dead Men Walking (True Crime) by Bill Wallace Page A
Authors: Bill Wallace
Tags: nonfiction
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been forced to take to the streets. Her mother had no idea she was a prostitute, believing her to be working as a barmaid or in a hairdressers.
Twenty-five-year-old Gemma Adams disappeared in West End Road in Ipswich just after midnight on 15 November, after last being seen outside a BMW dealership. Her partner reported her missing later that day. Gemma, a heroin addict since her teenage years, was found on 2 December in a river at Hintlesham, naked, but not sexually assaulted. She had once worked at an insurance company but had lost the job because of her drug habit.
Twenty-nine-year-old mother of one, Annette Nicholls was last seen in Ipswich on 8 December. Anyone connected with the world of prostitution was beginning to become edgy and her family, concerned at her absence, called in the police. She was found on 12 December, near the village of Levington. She was naked, like the others but also like them had not been sexually assaulted. There was one important difference, however, in that her body was laid out in the shape of a cross. Police were unsure how she died but believed that her breathing had somehow been hampered. An addict since about 2000, her son, Farron, was looked after by her mother.
Anneli Alderton was a twenty-four-year-old drug addict from Colchester in Essex, who was in the early stages of pregnancy. She was last seen on 3 December on the 5.53 p.m. train from Harwich to Manningtree, where she got off the train at 6.15 p.m. that evening to catch another train for Ipswich. Seven days later her asphyxiated naked body was found in woodland in front of Amberfield School near the village of Nacton, just outside Ipswich. She was laid out, like Annette Nicholls in a cruciform position.
The stories of the Suffolk prostitute murders were now headline news in the media. A local Ipswich business offered a reward of £25,000 for information leading to the arrest of the killer, a sum it later increased to £50,000. The Sunday newspaper, the News of the World offered £250,000 for information.
The strangler’s fifth and last victim was a twenty-four-year-old mother of three, Paula Clennell, who disappeared on 10 December and was found on the same day as Annette Nicolls, also close to the village of Levington, southeast of Ipswich. Again naked but not sexually assaulted, she had been strangled. Also a drug addict, Clennell had moved to Ipswich from Northumberland ten years previously following the break-up of her parents’ marriage. Ironically, she gave an interview about the disappearances and murders to Anglia Television News just days prior to her own death. She confirmed that like all the girls she was wary of climbing into strange cars, but she did it simply because she needed the money.
The police enquiry made little headway even though a huge task force, called Operation Sumac, had been assembled to investigate. Officers from neighbouring constabularies were drafted in and two hundred and fifty of the two hundred and seventy scientists employed at the Forensic Science Service in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire worked full-time on the case, undertaking painstaking analysis of fibres, clothing and anything else that was found at the scenes of the murders. It was soon clear that the women had been killed elsewhere before being dumped in the locations where their bodies were found.
The DNA analyses provided rich rewards. By 17 December, the scientists had constructed a good DNA profile of the person they believed could be the murderer. Just before 8 p.m., it was sent to the national DNA database in the Midlands and thirty minutes later, a police officer waiting by a computer at Suffolk police headquarters received the information they had been waiting for. The DNA had matched a name on the database – Steven Gerald James Wright. The DNA obtained on his conviction five years earlier for stealing £80 from the pub in which he worked at the time would send him to jail for the rest of his life.
A surveillance
Twenty-five-year-old Gemma Adams disappeared in West End Road in Ipswich just after midnight on 15 November, after last being seen outside a BMW dealership. Her partner reported her missing later that day. Gemma, a heroin addict since her teenage years, was found on 2 December in a river at Hintlesham, naked, but not sexually assaulted. She had once worked at an insurance company but had lost the job because of her drug habit.
Twenty-nine-year-old mother of one, Annette Nicholls was last seen in Ipswich on 8 December. Anyone connected with the world of prostitution was beginning to become edgy and her family, concerned at her absence, called in the police. She was found on 12 December, near the village of Levington. She was naked, like the others but also like them had not been sexually assaulted. There was one important difference, however, in that her body was laid out in the shape of a cross. Police were unsure how she died but believed that her breathing had somehow been hampered. An addict since about 2000, her son, Farron, was looked after by her mother.
Anneli Alderton was a twenty-four-year-old drug addict from Colchester in Essex, who was in the early stages of pregnancy. She was last seen on 3 December on the 5.53 p.m. train from Harwich to Manningtree, where she got off the train at 6.15 p.m. that evening to catch another train for Ipswich. Seven days later her asphyxiated naked body was found in woodland in front of Amberfield School near the village of Nacton, just outside Ipswich. She was laid out, like Annette Nicholls in a cruciform position.
The stories of the Suffolk prostitute murders were now headline news in the media. A local Ipswich business offered a reward of £25,000 for information leading to the arrest of the killer, a sum it later increased to £50,000. The Sunday newspaper, the News of the World offered £250,000 for information.
The strangler’s fifth and last victim was a twenty-four-year-old mother of three, Paula Clennell, who disappeared on 10 December and was found on the same day as Annette Nicolls, also close to the village of Levington, southeast of Ipswich. Again naked but not sexually assaulted, she had been strangled. Also a drug addict, Clennell had moved to Ipswich from Northumberland ten years previously following the break-up of her parents’ marriage. Ironically, she gave an interview about the disappearances and murders to Anglia Television News just days prior to her own death. She confirmed that like all the girls she was wary of climbing into strange cars, but she did it simply because she needed the money.
The police enquiry made little headway even though a huge task force, called Operation Sumac, had been assembled to investigate. Officers from neighbouring constabularies were drafted in and two hundred and fifty of the two hundred and seventy scientists employed at the Forensic Science Service in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire worked full-time on the case, undertaking painstaking analysis of fibres, clothing and anything else that was found at the scenes of the murders. It was soon clear that the women had been killed elsewhere before being dumped in the locations where their bodies were found.
The DNA analyses provided rich rewards. By 17 December, the scientists had constructed a good DNA profile of the person they believed could be the murderer. Just before 8 p.m., it was sent to the national DNA database in the Midlands and thirty minutes later, a police officer waiting by a computer at Suffolk police headquarters received the information they had been waiting for. The DNA had matched a name on the database – Steven Gerald James Wright. The DNA obtained on his conviction five years earlier for stealing £80 from the pub in which he worked at the time would send him to jail for the rest of his life.
A surveillance
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