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Ipswich serial murders

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Location of Suffolk within England
Location of Ipswich within Suffolk

In December 2006, the bodies of five murdered women were discovered at different locations near Ipswich in Suffolk, United Kingdom. All five murder victims were prostitutes working in Ipswich. Suffolk Police have linked the killings in their murder investigation. A 37 year old supermarket worker named Tom Stephens has been arrested on suspicion of murder.[1][2]

Confirmed victims

On 2 December 2006, the body of Gemma Adams, a 25-year-old prostitute working in Ipswich, was discovered in Belstead Brook near Hintlesham.[3] She had been missing since leaving home on 15 November, just over a fortnight before.[4] A member of the public spotted the body in the water at Thorpe's Hill, and it was identified as Adams. The police treated the death as suspicious.[5] After growing up in Kesgrave, she studied for a General National Vocational Qualification (GNVQ) in health and social care at Suffolk College, before gaining a job at a local insurance company. She had a heroin addiction, and after losing her job, Adams started working in prostitution to pay for her habit.[6] There is no evidence that Adams was sexually assaulted.[7]

The bodies of victims were found at various locations around Ipswich.

Six days later, on 8 December 2006, the body of 19-year-old Tania Nicol, a friend of Adams, who had been missing since 30 October, was discovered in water at Copdock Mill just outside Ipswich.[8] She was also a prostitute. There was no evidence she had been sexually assaulted.[7]

On the following Sunday, 10 December 2006, a third victim was found dead in an area of woodland by the A14 road by a member of the public near Nacton village which is a short distance outside the town. She was later identified as 24-year-old Anneli Alderton and, according to a police statement, was asphyxiated.[9] She was around three-months-pregnant when she died.[10]

On 12 December 2006, Suffolk police announced that the bodies of two additional women had been found.[11] On December 14, 2006 police confirmed one of the bodies to be that of Paula Clennell, 24.[12] She went missing on 10 December and was last seen in Ipswich.[13] In Suffolk Police's words she died from compression of the throat.[14] On 15 December, the police confirmed that the other body is that of Annette Nicholls, 29, who went missing on 5 December.[15] These bodies were also found in Nacton near the Levington turn-off of the A1156, in the vicinity of where Anneli Alderton was found. A member of the public had seen one of the bodies just 20 feet (6 m) from the main road, and the police discovered the second body by helicopter whilst conducting their initial investigation.

Details of victims

  • Gemma Adams aged 25, from Ipswich, went missing on Wednesday 15 November 2006 at approximately 01.15am (GMT). She was wearing red top, blue jeans, black jacket with hood and white trainers.[citation needed] Her naked body was found 17 days later on Saturday 2 December 2006 in a river at Hintlesham, Suffolk. Adams was the first of his victims to be found. There was no evidence that she was sexually assaulted.
  • Tania Nicol aged 19, from Ipswich, went missing on Monday 30 October 2006 at 10.30pm (GMT). Her mother reported her missing on Wednesday 1 November 2006. Nicol was the first prostitute to go missing and was found naked 39 days later on Friday 8 December 2006 near Copdock Mill in a river. There was no evidence of sexual assault. She was last reported to be wearing blue jeans, pink high heels and a light blue top.
  • Annette Nicholls aged 29, from Ipswich. She was a single mother of a 1 year old and was wearing grey leggings, black top, bomber jacket and boots at the time she went missing on Tuesday 5 December 2006 at 9.50pm[citation needed]. Her body was found on a week later on Tuesday 12 December 2006 near Levington. She was found naked but was not sexually assaulted.
  • Anneli Alderton aged 24, mother of a 5-year-old boy. She had blonde hair tied in a ponytail and was wearing blue jeans, grey top and a black jacket black bag and white footwear. She was 3 months pregnant at the time she vanished and had been living at a temporary address in Colchester, Essex. She went missing on Sunday 3 December 2006 and was first seen on the 5.53pm train from Harwich to Colchester, she got off the train at Manningtree at 6.15pm before going on to Ipswich via a train, arriving at 6.43pm. Her body was found on Sunday 10 December 2006 near Nacton in woodland behind Amberfield school. She had been strangled and left naked but not sexually assaulted. Police think she was at this final location sometime on Tuesday 7 December 2006 as confirmed by a man who had mistaken her body for a mannequin (BBC News 24 reports on cable TV).[citation needed]
  • Paula Clennell aged 24, mother of 3 children. Born in Newcastle but was living in Ipswich she was known to be wearing a blue anorak and jeans, grey top and trainers when she vanished on Sunday 10 December 2006 in Ipswich around 12.20am. Her body was found on Tuesday 12 December 2006 near Levington on the same day as Annette Nicholls. She was also found naked but was not sexually assaulted. Her autopsy reported that she was killed by a compression to her throat.[14]

The police investigation

Suffolk police have linked the killings and have launched a murder investigation.[16] At a press conference on 10 December, detectives from the Suffolk Constabulary issued a warning to all women in Ipswich not to work the streets, and revealed they had received offers of assistance from neighbouring police forces, particularly Norfolk, in their hunt for the killer or killers.

Chief Constable Alastair McWhirter has also acknowledged that the Suffolk force will be reliant on external assistance due to the magnitude of the investigation. A senior investigator with the Metropolitan Police, Commander Dave Johnston was reported to have been drafted into the murder inquiry team from Scotland Yard in London, to advise the Suffolk force.[17] The day-to-day investigation is being conducted by Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull. Police have not ruled out a possible link between the current investigation and the 1992 killings in Suffolk. Furthermore, links are being sought with a number of other disappearances.[18]

At subsequent press conferences on 13 December and 14 December, DCS Gull revealed that police believe the locations where the five corpses were found to have been 'deposition sites' not murder scenes - that the victims were all killed elsewhere and transported to the locations where they were later found - although he was unable to indicate where the women had been murdered, nor whether the crimes took place at a single location or at multiple sites. He also revealed that some items of women's clothing and accessories including a handbag and jacket had been recovered and were being subjected to forensic tests to establish whether they belonged to any of the murdered women.[19][20]

During the course of the press briefings, DCS Gull stated that over 200 police officers were involved in the investigation, and some 400-450 calls were being received daily by detectives.

On 15 December Suffolk Constabulary website revealed that a total of 7,300 telephone calls had been made to police regarding the investigation, and that over 250 police staff were working on the cases, with support from 26 other police forces. [21] As of 18 December, the number of officers involved in the investigation had increased to 500, a further 350 officers from 30 other police forces had assisted in the inquiry, which involved detectives trawling through 10,000 hours of CCTV footage. The number of calls recieved regarding the case had also increased to around 10,000.[22]

Police have contacted 300 registered sex offenders in Suffolk regarding the attacks[23]

A friend of Gemma Adams, who also works as a prostitute in Ipswich has revealed that she was interviewed by the police on Sunday 17 December, after volunteering information about 'strange' conversations that Gemma mentioned having with an unknown regular client in the weeks before she went missing. This man is said to have repeatedly told Gemma things like, "I will make you famous." and, "How would you like to be on TV?" Police are apparently not ruling out the possible undertones of these words in the light of Gemma's murder.[citation needed]

On 17 December, British newspaper the News of the World reported that police were investigating a senior officer from another force after Paula Clennell named him as one of her regular clients in an interview with detectives. She also revealed that the officer was also a regular client of one of the other victims. At the time of the interview, Gemma Adams' body had been found and Tania Nichol was missing. DCS Stewart Gull, who is heading the investigation into the murders, is quoted as saying "Regardless of whether he's a police officer, I am not going to be drawn on a particular individual. He won't be treated any differently because of who he is. This is a murder investigation". [24]

Arrest of suspect

File:Tom stephens.jpg
A photo of suspect Tom Stephens, taken from his MySpace page.

On Monday, 18 December, Suffolk Police reported that they had arrested a 37-year-old man on suspicion of murdering all five women. The man was arrested at 7.20am in his house at Trimley St. Martin near Felixstowe.[25]

The man was later named by media sources as a local man called Tom Stephens [26] who had given an interview in the Sunday Mirror on the previous day, claiming that he had befriended all of the five women who were killed. [27] He also gave a recorded interview to the BBC in which he claimed to be "the closest thing Tania [Nicol] had as a boyfriend".[28]

Location of Norfolk, immediately north of Suffolk

Officers are also trying to establish whether the deaths of the five women in Suffolk are linked to the murders or disappearances of six other women and teenage girls in East Anglia, over the past 13 years [7] These include:

  • Natalie Pearman, aged 16, from Norwich, Norfolk. Disappeared in November 1992. Her body was found at Ringland Hills near Norwich. She had been strangled and was found partially clothed. [29]
  • Johanna Young, aged 14, from Watton, Breckland District, Norfolk. Reported missing on 23 December 1992, she was found in a nearby freezing pond half naked on Boxing Day (26 December). [29]
  • Mandy Duncan, aged 26, from Woodbridge, Suffolk. Disappeared in 1993 in Ipswich; her body has never been found.
  • Vicky Hall, aged 17, was from Trimley St. Mary in Mid Suffolk. Vanished on 19 September 1999. Her body was found 5 days later 25 miles away in a river at Creeting St. Peter near Stowmarket. A local businessman was later tried and acquitted of her murder.[30]
  • Kellie Pratt, aged 29, from Norwich. Disappeared in 2000 in Norwich; her body has never been found.
  • Michelle Bettles, aged 22, from Norwich. Reported missing on 28 March 2002, she was found dead 3 days later near Dereham in woodland at Scarning, Breckland District, Norfolk. Her body was found clothed.[31]
  • Molly Jean Dilts, 20; Kim Raffo, 35; Tracy Ann Roberts, 23; and Barbara V. Breidor, 42. All were known prostitutes and were found murdered in Atlantic City in the month prior to the first recent Ipswich murder.[32]

Media coverage

Before the bodies started to be recovered, coverage was mostly confined to the local media. The national BBC news began to report the investigation following the discovery of the remains of Tania Nicol, and after the discovery of the body of Anneli Alderton, the story started getting major exposure on a national and international level, with the British 24-hour-news channels Sky News and BBC News 24 devoting little time to any other events.

The murders are said to have raised memories of Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper" who murdered 13 women, mainly those who worked in prostitution, over a period of five years in northern England;[33] and to "Jack the Ripper" the infamous Victorian serial murderer who also targeted prostitutes.[34]

As with many previous serial killers dating back to Jack the Ripper, many sections of the media have attempted to coin a name for the presumed murderer, using the terms "Ipswich Ripper"[35], "Suffolk Strangler",[36], "Suffolk Ripper"[37] and "East Anglia Ripper"[38] to refer to the case. Local Ipswich press have also referred to them as the "Brook Murders"[citation needed], after the locations where the first two victims were found. In Australia, the media has referred to the killer as the "Red Light Ripper"; in reference to Red-light districts, which prostitutes frequent.[39]

Television news broadcasts have been presented from outside Suffolk Police headquarters, exemplified by the December 13 news conference including questions from well-known presenters such as Fiona Bruce and Kay Burley rather than the usual reporters. Extensive coverage was provided by BBC's early evening regional programme Look East.

An ITV News Anglia Tonight reporter interviewed Paula Clennell about the initial murders just days before she went missing.[40] She spoke of being wary of getting into cars with clients but continuing to work on the streets as she needed the money to fund her drug habit.[40]

A reward was offered, first by local business Call Connection, who initially offered £25,000, but was subsequently raised to £50,000. Shortly after this offer had been made, The News Of The World offered a £250,000 reward for leads to a direct arrest and conviction of the murderer/murderers bringing the total reward on offer to £300,000.[41]

The murders have re-focused press attention on a number of controversial issues in British politics.

The first is that of prostitution in the United Kingdom. The laws concerning this have long been criticised.[42][43][44] The Blair government had proposed changes to legislation related to prostitution in January 2006[45] but has not proceeded with them.[46] Prostitution in itself is not illegal in the UK, but living off the proceeds of prostitution is. The murders have highlighted the vulnerability of prostitutes and the lack of action taken by the government (whether this were to be more punitive in the hope of reducing the numbers of prostitutes on the streets, to move towards legalised brothels and other measures thought to improve the safety of the women) or to target the demand for prostitution through prosecution of the clients, as is done in Sweden[citation needed].

The second is that of drug use and whether it should be legalised or decriminalised, provided on prescription to registered addicts, or penalised more harshly.[citation needed] High numbers (95% according to the Home Office[47]) of prostitutes in the United Kingdom are known to have a history of substance abuse, and prostitution is one means of funding addiction.

A third area of debate relates to possible restructuring of police forces in Britain. During 2005, the government proposed merging smaller police forces in England and Wales (of which Suffolk Constabulary is one) with their neighbouring counterparts with the stated aims of improving the ability to pursue major inquiries (such as anti-terrorism, drug-trafficking and other similar complex investigations) and making efficiency savings.

Local response to events

In response to the killings, a minute's silence was held before the football match between Ipswich Town F.C. and Leeds on 16 December, 2006. A Reclaim the Night march is being organised for Friday, 29 December.

Timeline of events

Alderton on a train in Essex the night she disappeared
  • 30 October - Tania Nicol goes missing.
  • 7 November - Nicol's mother issues an appeal for information.
  • 15 November - Gemma Adams goes missing, police appeal for information.
  • 2 December - Gemma Adams's body is found near Hintlesham west of Ipswich.
  • 3 December - Anneli Alderton goes missing.
  • 5 December - Annette Nicholls goes missing.
  • 8 December - Tania Nicol's body is found near Copdock southwest of Ipswich.
  • 9 December - Police confirm "obvious similarities" between the deaths of Nicol and Adams.
  • 10 December - Anneli Alderton's body is found near Nacton. Paula Clenell goes missing.
  • 12 December - Two bodies of Nicholls and Clenell, are found in close proximity to one another near Levington to the southeast of Ipswich.
  • 13 December
    • Police in Suffolk reveal that there has been a large public response in aid of the investigation.
    • Clothes of two women were found. [48]
  • 14 December - Police confirm that one of the bodies found on December 12 near Levington is that of missing prostitute Paula Clennell.
  • 15 December
    • Police confirm that the second of the bodies found on December 12 is that of missing prostitute Annette Nicholls.[15]
    • Sky News reports that a woman has been reported missing but she is later found safe.[49]
    • Nicol's father makes public appeal to help solve her murder. [50]
  • 16 December
    • Police release CCTV footage of Alderton on the day she vanished.
    • Police state that Anneli Alderton was three months pregnant. [51]
  • 18 December
    • Detectives arrest a 37-year-old man, believed to be Tom Stephens of Trimley Saint Martin, on suspicion of the five counts of murder. The arrest took place at approximately 7.20am(GMT).[1] The man was not named by police, but media sources later stated him to be Tom Stephens, a local supermarket worker. [52]

See also

Wikinews has related news:

Media resources

Newspaper editorials

References

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