Serial Killer in Ipswich

(also, they haven't released full details of how they died, I've only seen one of them confirmed as having been strangled)

re - strangulation, maybe I've misheard then.

-- DJ Martian (altmartinu...), December 12th, 2006. (djmartian)

dj martian on the case

A theory Sky News were peddling too, I notice. 24 hour news channels are loving this - hours and hours of wheeling out real-life CSI dudes to explain, erm, nothing.

Just to clarify for the benefit of anyone following this on this thread rather than actually going with the stuff reported as fact, the first victim actually went missing over a month ago. The first body was found ten days ago. It's still a short timescale, but it's not quite hacking down a couple of prostitutes a day.

Just to clarify for the benefit of anyone following this on this thread rather than actually going with the stuff reported as fact, the first victim actually went missing over a month ago. The first body was found ten days ago. It's still a short timescale, but it's not quite hacking down a couple of prostitutes a day.

Here's a timeline of the killings.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6171319.stm

and a map too but I forget how to post pics (if someone could post that map that would be great)

bbc anchorman responded with "yes, i suppose they've all got drug habits, haven't they"

xp

What, you DON'T think the 24 hour news channels ever so slightly exploit dramatic situations for ratings?

btw to post pictures you do (img src="blahblahblah.jpg") but with pointy brackets rather than round ones.

Lex, yes, there are more factors, but (and I'm trying to back this up somewhere - I heard this at a seminar last year) it's something like 80% of prostitutes in the UK who have a drug dependency and I'm guessing that it's those women who need to keep working to support their habit.

*You can imagine the tabloids(esp Daily Mail) complaints at the very thought.

Forcing women onto the streets generally, yes.
But forcing them out onto the streets of Ipswich tonight - is drugs.

I hope some way is found to provide for their 'needs',without them having to go out, until this man is caught.

Regardless of the fact that many places already have unofficially tolerated brothels - at the moment enforcement of the law depends entirely on the attitude of the local police.

The problem is getting people to access these services when they have (Lex-baiting stereotype approaching) pimps/boyfriends (often the same person) wanting more and more money off them to feed their drug habit too. Getting prostitutes off the streets is a long and complicated process, but things are being done to address it. But it can't happen, forcibly, overnight, and some people will always be willing to take the risk to carry on. Grimmest T/S ever - possible run in with murderer vs kicking at hands of smack-addicted pimp when you fail to come home with enough money for his drugs, let alone your own.

again, maybe so, but mentioning it offhand like that in a NEWS programme subtly shifts the blame on to the women - almost like saying it's their fault if they get murdered, and if they have to go out to fuel their drug habit then that's their fault too

And those that do, do you think they wouldn't think that if the BBC didn't mention it?

Ailsa, you will no doubt have heard of the Glasgow case the other month where a prostitute was attacked by someone she thought was a client, and lost an arm - but was back on the streets working within the week.

(Glasgow, for those of you who didn't know, has had a prostitute-murdering serial killer on the loose for a few years now; there's a good chance it was him involved in that case)

She's very far from the only one who would do the same.

The bodies are all turning up very close to the A14 which runs from the Midlands to the port of Felixstowe, so perhaps it's someone who regularly uses that route for the cross channel ferries - perhaps not a local man, but maybe a Belgian lorry driver?? Though leaving the bodies all so near this road seems to suggest such a link far too obviously, so maybe the killer is playing deliberate games.

Did she lose the arm when shoved out of the car on the motorway or had she already been attacked and she was just dumped on the road later? I never did see anything mentioned about that.

Has anyone linked these girls to the Glasgow ones yet?

With regard to the finer details of the attack, she can't actually remember because she was fucked out of her head on valium. She wasn't thrown out on the motorway though, she walked down there to flag down help after somehow getting out of the car in a graveyard about half a mile off the motorway.

Would it make you feel better if it was a foreigner? And a lorry driver? (why specifically a Belgian one?)

(xxpost)

The Record had paid her for an earlier article where her and the boyfriend were all "yes, this is dreadful and we love each other very much and this is the thing we need to make Gillian get off the streets" - I think, in as much as I think any intrusion into anyone's life is justified, that the Record were right to go "well, now she has our money and they aren't exactly making a go of putting their lives back on track". What more do you expect them to do?

Presumably because Belgium is at the far end of the A14

(as far as ro-ro ferry routes go, at any rate. There is an awful lot of container traffic on other shipping routes, but that would be handled by British drivers)

The road leads to Felixstowe, which is a busy port - thus I thought perhaps a cross-continent lorry driver might be a possible option. Maybe someone living nowhere near the murder sites, but with cause to travel that was frequently. And I thought of Belgian, because ferries from Felixstowe cross to Zeebrugge.

* because we don't know it's a man, do we?

Yes - well, a lot of streetwalking areas aren't necessarily in the town centre. The main area in Ipswich is near the football ground, apparently.

xpost, fair enough, but how are they transporting the bodies out of the pick-up place and into the arse-end of nowhere?

What is strange is that they were asking the authorities if they could work in an industrial part of town, away from residences - they said they'd be safer there. And they were rebuffed! Isn't that what everyone would want??!

Good question Ailsa - I have no idea! also : the killer strips the girls, so where is all their clothing? He must be disposing of that somewhere (burning it, I suppose).

Surely (despite having dumped three of the bodies in water) there must be some residual DNA for the police to work with?

Is it that people are just so overwhelmed by what's happening that they can't process it and are carrying on as normal?

xpost - stiff upper lip, innit? It's not going to happen to nice 13 year old carol singers, just those nasty prostitutes...

So far two bodies have been found near to each other, twice. Presumably the killer didn't murder both girls at the same time, so the bodies must have been transported together to the place where they were dumped.

Lorry drivers mostly don't stay in B&Bs, they sleep in their cabs don't they?

Surely someone will spot a big artic winding through the country roads rather than straight to the port? Also, isn't it equally likely to be a British lorry driver heading Continent-wards, rather than the other way around?

xpost, I'm still intrigued by the murdered girl who said on the news that she would be wary of who she got into a car with. What's intrinsically trustworthy about whoever she got in the car with? A woman? An accompanied man? Someone she knew? A support worker? A police officer?

I'm interested in what you think makes this more depraved than Sutcliffe's actions. Sutcliffe killed 13 women and attacked at least 7 others we know about. His MO included such niceties as smashing heads in with a ball-pein hammer and post-mortem mutilation.

What has this latest nutjob done that's worse?

(*yes, I realise the ironing given my contributions to this thread)

Yorkshire Ripper murders were fairly random and spaced out over area and time though, this is (at the moment) concentrated in a small area on a small section of a small community.

"You know," he said, "a few years ago they had a serious drugs problem in China. So they rounded up 6,000 drugs dealers and shot them in the back of the head. Result: they don't have a drugs problem."

Er...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/12/13/do1301.xml

More concentrated != more depraved.

Many reports since Sutcliffe's conviction have speculated that the "quiet" periods between his attacks were simply periods when stuff wasn't reported or was misreported or wasn't attributed to him at the time.

I'm gonna stop looking at the newspapers now...

which would only encourage girls to go into that line of business, with all the squalor and misery that entails.

yes Heff nothing girls love better than all that squalor and misery. so alluring!

Depraved was probably the wrong word to use. As if one person being killed is any less depraved than 5 or 10 or 20, it was the shock of 5 going missing in a space of a few days, which I now know is several weeks, which led me to use the term.

I still find the idea that someone could kill 5 people in a month more shocking than Sutcliffe killing 13 over the space of 5 years. It's illogical I know, it should be no more or less shocking than any other murder but it just seems worse.

xpost to CJ, what if they're reading this?

We don't really know, though, do we? The police are telling us very little and I suspect it will remain that way until (if) it all comes out in court. With Sutcliffe's murders we have the 'benefit' of all the evidence they were able to release during and after the trial, as well as the work of various hack investigators who've dug up additional juicy titbits and reproduced them in their Real Crime books.

That would make a great name for a newspaper actually.

WTF? Do these people even listen to themselves?

The Mail is also using "The Suffolk Strangler". BBC using "Ipswich Ripper".

Someone on the news has suggested that it's a result of the over sexualisation of society - presumably just like it was in Whitechapel in the 1880s. Where do they get these people?

In other news "Detectives say they are determined to find the person responsible" followed by a detective saying "we are determined to find the person reposible" - thank god for that - i thought they were just gonna give up.

* Brian Cant - Children's TV Presenter (Notably Camberwick Green and Trumpton)

* Kieron Dyer - Midfielder for Newcastle United (1999-Present) and ex-Ipswich Town player (1996-1999)

* Sir Trevor Nunn CBE - Stage and Film Director. Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company for 18 years (1968-1986)

* Jenny Platt - Actress best known for her role as barmaid Violet Wilson in the long running ITV soap, Coronation Street

[edit] Ipswich serial killer

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/6175411.stm

Is this what they meant by the eighties revival?

which might be a step in the right direction towards civilization

I know it's not quite the same.

It is a bit the same though.

Choosing to still work as prostitutes as opposed to trying to free themselves of the things (drugs, pimps, etc) that keep them there when they could have treatment to help with drug use, support in refuges, etc. These things are there to get people off drugs, off the streets, back into "society". But not everyone accesses them. No-one wants to be a prostitute when they grow up. Not everyone has to stay a prostitute for life. No-one HAS to be working the streets in Ipswich tonight, they could have a wake-up call and get the fuck out of their lifestyle. But they aren't all doing so.

There are programmes and support available to provide long terms routes out of prostitution. Anyone can access them IF THEY CHOOSE TO. Yes, there's a lot more to be done to make it not even a viable lifestyle choice.

We've been over this before. It was school-age mums the last time we had this argument and you refused to believe that there were a stack of girls who would willing choose to be knocked up at 15 rather than have a real life with a job and stuff.

I was about to say the same thing.

They do have a choice, but that doesn't mean they realize this.

I'm kind of wary of using choice/choose in this context, because there are other influencing factors and it does sound too "you can either do this or you can't" and like it's cut and dried which is the obvious way to go and going the other way is WRONG OH NOES! But I thought the qualifications I'd put on my arguments were enough to show that I recognised this. Apparently not.

Short term solution = prostitute commuter belt between Ipswich and Norwich, clearly.

surely if you're not a serial killer, you're only protecting the prostitutes by hiring them... it's like adopting african babies

Huh? Are they killing the punters? No. So why should they stop visiting the prostitutes? Also, I don't understand why it's so bad to visit prostitutes? They crave sex, so visit someone who charges money for it. I'm being a bit simplistic here but, really, I don't see anything that wrong with it...

I'd say "set up a Park and Ride system" but perhaps now is not the time.

Umm, possibly the fact that they are directly contributing to the already considerably levels of fear and misery that these women must be going through? Am I being Victorian by stating this?

xpost

news24 is now all suffolk, all prostitutes, all the time.

I am aware that there's a massive problem, not just in Ipswich - as pointed out upthread, there's been a spate of murders/attacks in Glasgow over the last ten years or so - but all across the country. This is just highlighting on a great big scale the desperate lengths that these people are going to to earn money to stay on drugs, and I hope that more is done to try and help, support and educate people as to their options so that they can make an informed decision to change their lives and get help to do so.

maybe. it's not necessarily the punters (how awful a name) but the general SKEWED view of the public and how they are treated by the public at large? (ok, blame my migraine for building such a crap sentence. can't think straight but still want to post away. heh)

please note; this costs extra.

omg that answers mattdc and eyeballkicks' question i think. double ho' heaven.

Damn, I just registered here (at the sandbox, not ilx in general) only to sound like some rabid family-values type with my first post, even though that couldn't be further from the truth!

narrowing it down nicely...

The comment from Paula Clennell's friend on telly last night that "she never expected she'd live long, considering the sort of life she led - she always said she'd be dead by the time she was 25" made me sad.

Police arrested a 37-year-old man on Monday on suspicion of murdering five prostitutes in Suffolk.

(...)

Police declined to name the man but said he had been arrested at around 7:20 a.m. and was in custody at a local police station, where he was to be questioned later on Monday.

Supermarket worker Tom Stephens, 37, told the Sunday Mirror he had been questioned four times by police and feared he could be arrested as he had known all the women and had no alibis. But he strenuously denied any involvement in the deaths.

Mmmm. Who in his right mind would say of that to a newspaper except someone who wants people to think he's innocent?

or someone who, if he hadn't spoken, would have been called creepy by the papers.

if i get dead, "slacker admin clerk murdered" will not be the scroller.

xpost

haha!

Yes, and that's despite them cutting two hours of it from the transcript!

On Monday they were unable to confirm Mr Stephens would be questioned about Miss Hall's murder.

xpost to myself

xpost to everybuddy

*shivers*

Anyway - would it still matter if they had really good proof he did it? (I hope they're not just holding him because they wouldn't want the paper-reading public to think they were forgetting about him or something)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/6189409.stm

If you take the initial letters of the five murdered girls - Gemma Adams, Paula Clennell, Anneli Alderton, Tania Nicol and Annette Nicholls - and rearrange them, they spell out AN ACT PAGAN.

(I really, really, need to go and do some proper work now)

fair point but in this case at least it seems these women are being murdered because of their job or that is what is connecting the murders, so you can excuse it that way (if you want to).

xxpost

Just found him. Looks like the BBC got their photo there.

x-post bugger

... your cleverness can get you into more trouble than you can imagine.

xpost Whaddya mean, if he didn't do it?

EEEAAAAGGGHRHHRHRHRHRHR

Our newsreaders do not say that. They say "women working as prostitutes", which I think is better.

FAIL

(if that's an attempted "waiting for godot" joke)

http://clackamaschristian.com/images/ed_goddoh.jpg

Ewing knows him? My god he might have posted here. If only we could search.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/6189409.stm

xpost

je3u3 = jeeue

(xxxpost)

ha xp

xpost

MICHAEL DUFFY: Your name has cropped up in the investigation because you know the girls.
TOM STEPHENS: I'm going to cry.
MD: That's OK mate.

MD: Police have shown an interest in you. Are you worried that you could end up in the frame for the murders?
TS: I could get arrested. That is quite likely, let's not say likely, let's say possible.

MD: You seem an intelligent guy, you're a good-looking bloke. Why spend time with drug-addicted prostitutes? Why not find yourself a nice girl.
TS: On paper I should be attractive, but there is something about me women do not like. Mostly, it's on account of me killing them.

(x-post)

i've asked stet to de-index this thread anyway :)

It is the best message board thread ever, it's like every joker on the internet has their own open mic spot.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/6192085.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6191983.stm

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=exclusive--he-begged-me-for-sex---4-hours-later-he-was-arrested&method=full&objectid=18284634&siteid=94762-name_page.html

Personally I feel conflicted - firstly I want whoever this maniac is in custody as quickly as possible, secondly, you just know that time and again the police (with press collusion) have fcked up at this stage and I don't want to see someone locked up for 20 years because he knew some people who got murdered, At least they didn't shoot him as he came out of his house.

I did chuckle a little at that Mirror article which Stan posted the link to : "Another neighbour, who would only give her name as Mrs Wynel....."

The Suffolk constabulary and the media both need to take great care not to turn this into an excuse for locking up the local misfit, Barry George/Stefan Kiszko-style.

Lesley-Anne Barber, 50, said he had been spotted in his garden wearing tight Lycra shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt despite the chilly winter temperatures.."
Plasterer Paul Bridges, 37, said: "He's one of those blokes who is very much a keep-fit fanatic. I see him out running a lot and on his bike."

erm, and the sky is blue and the grass is green?

People just love to chime in with their two penn'orth. "Oooh yes, I always knew there was something funny about him".

They just love the attention.

There's an article on the BBC website which was pretty much "according to his MySpace page he works at Tescos" etc. The Pretty much everything else people know about him seems to be be stuff he told the Daily Mirror. I haven't learned anything new from skimming reports since his arrest. I nipped into a petrol station earlier today and the front of one of the tabloids was questioning whether he was just a fantasist rather than the murderer, so they aren't all "hang the bastard" quite yet.

(note for overseas viewers, the headlines of The Sun and The Star and The Mail and The Express go a frighteningly long way to influencing the Great British Person On The Street)

I only have about seven friends on Friendster. I spent too long posting crap on teh interwebs. Imagine what they'd be saying about me!

Is there anything more on the 'we have narrowed the list of suspects down to 50' line?

That's too depressing to even think about.

true story.
Then he took the bobbies to the local pub and got them pissed.

*rings Max Clifford*

(xpost, haha, they'd both be jailed for ages for that now, like all those wacksters who get nicked at airports and cause major security scares for saying things like "no, officer, you can't look in my bag because you'll find my bomb, haha, lolz, aren't I funny?"

it's nothing to do with how "restrained" we're being. contempt is contempt is contempt, and as soon as someone's charged we need to STFU quite quickly.

yes, it's very unlikely ILX would even show up on the radar ... but we were talking about this at work the other night, and one day either a) a trial is going to collapse because internet chatter is deemed to have prejudiced it; or b) some judge somewhere will snap and there'll be court orders flying about at every pissant little chat site on the web.

old ILX (and indeed nu-ILX) are very arguably not british: they're not hosted here, and i doubt myspace is either. thehold, however, is. so can we just keep it sensible? (which, in fairness, it pretty much is.) thank you.

anyway: now that this second bloke has been arrested, it's all got very bizarre. i imagine stephens was arrested, as ed and others have suggested, simply because the police had no choice: i mean, if he's going around giving these - let's face it - fucking weird interviews to the press and they didn't arrest him, there'd no doubt be an outcry. and yes, given the amount he's has already said, the police have done a superb job keeping a lid on things. i don't imagine we'll find out shit about this second guy (unless he's released without charge, natch).

will that happen? hmm.

because IT'S THE LAW? :(

re. the law: semi-hilarious that the government that wants to get rid of juries can't see how googlecache is changing everything.

in the case of the paper i work for, yes: it's a scottish national paper that is sold (in small numbers) in england, so it counts as publishing there, and needs to watch what the fuck it says etc.

i'm intrigued, though, as to what the case might be for - say - the scottish edition of the daily mail, which obviously doesn't sell in england. hmm.

that said, i think any media lawyer's advice would be the same: don't fuckin' risk it, sonny :)

semi-hilarious that the government that wants to get rid of juries can't see how googlecache is changing everything

so OTM.

but wasn't there a case recently where someone won a libel action against someone who defamed him/her in a chatroom

not sure, but i really can't see how this couldn't have happened yet. i need to bring myself up to speed with internet law; or, rather, with how the UK's creaking and antiquated judicial system is being applied to this brave new world.

like we were saying at work the other night: the problem is that many of the existing laws affecting the media are absolutely useless when it comes to policing the internet, and trying to simply impose them would be a dreadful cludge. but, you know, in the middle of a soi-disant "war on terror" i guess we've got rather more important legal issues to worry about :/

That'll be why Neil Lennon sued the Daily Record in an English court over the "Thugs & Thieves" thing a couple of years back.

tell you what: you and i should try suit and counter-suit over that grammar thread ;)

xpost: you poor sods.

http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/room/view_article.asp?name=../articles/Defamation%20on%20chatrooms.htm

Also while googling I found a recent case where the New York Times blocked its report on the perpetrators of the failed tube bombings to UK readers, for fear of falling foul of contempt laws.

Ailsa, we were just kidding! (at least, I was) :-)

(if ailsa suddenly calls herself ailsa_xxi and I don't post here anymore, well, I'm just saying...)

:-)

... issued a claim for libel after being called a “nazi”, “racist bigot” and “nonce” during a debate in an internet forum on the war in Iraq. Although accusations like these are common on the internet ...

"commmon"? "so devalued as to be meaningless", i'd argue.

Tell that to Jeremy Clarkson

* especially to people watching Jeremy Clarkson, who is not exactly your sensitive PC-correctness-gone-mad type of presenter

You're comparing apples and bigoted cuntish albeit occasionally funny tv presenters

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=423549&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=322

xpost, yeah, that too.

I notice he's managed to squeeze in a wee dig at his old pal Will Self

xpost

- Chris S, Tallinn Estonia

exactly. even on this minuscule microcosm of ILX, i bet a few spins of the "random" button would unearth a handful of potentially actionable posts.

which is MADNESS.

we should go underground, encrypt everything and electrocute anyone who even attempts to google us :)

xposts: woah, hang on. i need to go read this littlejohn thing.

What does Martin Mere of Irlam have to say on this matter?

They weren't going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur.

And this also applies to Richard Littlejohn.

That's it.

We do not share in the responsibility for either their grubby little existences or their murders. Society isn't to blame.

i'm surprised you're not with maggie on the very nature of society, you fucking distended penis.

now come on, you vile shit-for-brains waste of oxygen. fucking sue me :)

(this doesn't excuse Littlejohn for being a cock of the highest order, obviously)

Women who go on the game in small towns and cities are often trapped in the cycle by their own trepidations, and are intimidated away from the help they need because they've been involved with illegal activity and think they will get 'in trouble' from authority or from physical or psychological abuse at the hands of pimps and johns. Drug use is not even the half of it; it is perhaps more realistic to point to a whole cohort that keeps these women in one place and uses them like man-sized Kleenex, and that includes people like LJ who seem to believe that if they're dirty girls that's all they're good for.

(spotted last weekend)

In theory those papers would be barred a la Spycatcher but in practice, not really.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/6192085.stm

His best friend has just been on the BBC 10 o'clock news telling everyone how Wright is a very nice quiet chap.

http://growabrain.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/steven_wright_jokes.gif

ihttp://www.sidthemanager.co.uk/graphics/wpic10.gif

http://images.thesun.co.uk/picture/0,,2006590015,00.jpg

shock news!!!!

Maybe that's why two men are in custody?

oh wait. givesell, right? :-/

oops, I look a bit like a murder suspect roffle.

Police said the first man arrested Tom Stephens, 37, has been released on police bail pending further inquiries.

"There have been significant ongoing inquiries and interviews during the period that these men have been in custody.

"As a result of these inquiries, the 37-year-old man from Trimley was this evening released on police bail pending further inquiries. Police will not name this man at this stage.

"The second man, Stephen Wright, from Ipswich, has been charged with the murder of all five women."

Before the hearing Mr Wright's solicitor, Paul Osler, said: "Of course, anybody accused of these sorts of offences is going to experience trauma, but he is bearing up well."

Phew. At least he is doing well.
(WTF?)

I guess I'm oldfashioned, but these are the kind of journalistic ethics I miss these days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wright_(
suspect)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wright_%28suspect%29

Strangle a few Wii characters and you'll be FAMOUS!

In response to the investigation, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, Todd Spencer, said "Truckers are just absolutely outraged that various media sources or the FBI would draw the conclusion that truckers are over-represented in the ranks of serial killers".[52]