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In twenty twenty, pregnant Nicole McGregor disappeared from Lemington Spa.
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Her frantic boyfriend Chris searched for her, helped by a
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new friend. He had no idea that his friend was
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stone cold killer Anthony Russell.
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Chris saw a newspaper and realized that Anthony was the
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person that the police were looking for in connection with
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the team murders in Coventry.
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The last person to see Nicole alive was wanted for
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the brutal murders of Julie Williams and her son David,
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and now Anthony Russell had killed a third victim.
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He was saying things to Nicole's boyfriend like, oh, he
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must be really looking forward to becoming a father. He
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knew that Nicole was dead.
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Anthony Russell went on the run, sparking a huge manhunt.
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This wasn't a that of madness was calculated, and that
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calculation had cost three people their lives.
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Had Russell murdered three innocent people and destroyed the lives
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of those left behind.
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Daniel didn't want to live without his mom, or up
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without his brother.
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His week long murderer's rampage left a trail of death
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and destruction, making twisted Anthony Russell one of the world's
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most evil killers. The search for thirty nine year old
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Anthony Russell was one of the largest in West Midland's
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police history.
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We launched a huge manhunt. I think we had two
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hundred officers that were working on it. We've got a
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responsibility to protect the public. That's our number one responsibility.
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And you've got someone who's already been prepared to kill,
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who's on the loose.
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The police put in the papers a photograph of him.
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Can it come on the radio every half hour? This
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man is dangerous, Do not approach him. So the police
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already knew what he'd done and they were frightened for
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the public.
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Over the course of a week, Anthony Russell killed three people.
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This was a murderer without mercy.
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This wasn't just enough violence to kill somebody. This is
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what we call over kill. So that's way more violence
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than is needed to kill that person.
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The carnage that Anthony Russell left behind will stay with
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his victims loved ones forever.
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You never expect something like that ever to happen to
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your family. Ever. He might watch on the television, read
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about it in a book, but to actually have it
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happen to you absolutely ripped our families apart.
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This killer's story begins in the West Midland city of Colentry.
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Anthony was born on the sixteenth of April nineteen eighty two.
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He'd got a number of siblings, had a difficult childhood
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and he grew up mainly in care. He used to
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regularly go missing when he was in care and he
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was often difficult to find, so he would be reported
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missing on a regular basis and it would take quite
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a long time to find him.
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As he entered adulthood, bad behavior became criminal behavior.
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Anthony Russell had a track record of low level crime theft, burglary,
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possessing weapons.
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There was a bit of violence in there. I think
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he was convicted of a robbery, crimes that are often
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associated with people that have.
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Substance issues.
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It's pretty clear that Anthony Russell had a very big
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heroin addiction.
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In twenty twenty, Russell was thirty eight years old and
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living in a flat in Riley Square in the Belgreen
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area of Coventry.
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It was a nineteen sixties development. It's sort of precinct
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type design. It was built in a quadrant, so you
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have shops all around the bottom of the quadrant, and
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then I think there's about four or five stories above
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that which contains flats, so a very sort of urban
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area with local shops. So it was quite a close
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knit community.
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On that same estate, living in a one bedroom flat
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was fifty eight year old Julie Williams, widowed, young, raised
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her sons alone.
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Julie was my brother's partner, the love of my brother's life.
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My brother unfortunately passed away when he was thirty nine.
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Julie and her eldest son, David shared a close bond.
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David is my nephew. David didn't have along with my brother,
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which is a great shame because his dad absolutely adored him.
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He and his brother Daniel, he absolutely adored his mom.
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They lived together and they went out together. He lived
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for his mom. He was very family orientated. He had
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lots of cousins that he got on with everywhere. Everybody
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absolutely loved him because he was such a happy chappie.
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On Wednesday, the twenty first of October twenty twenty, thirty
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two year old David did not come home as planned.
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Three days later, Julie still hadn't managed to get in
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touch with David.
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My daughter Fomi or and she said there's something on
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the internet. She says that Julie's looking for David. She
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put out on the local radio. Has anybody seen David?
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But we just thought always crashed out at one of
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his friend's houses, you know, and he'll be back in touch.
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She first came to the attention of police on Saturday,
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the twenty fourth of October twenty twenty, and that was
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a report made by Julie to say that her son
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David had gone missing.
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Police will always do a kind of a victimology when
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they get a missing person report, and that will be
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largely around vulnerabilities and how unusual it was for this
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person to go missing.
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This daily routine involved him being in the local area
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and associating with friends and spending time with his mother,
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so it was really unusual for him not to be
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in contact with her or to come back home.
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We have a dedicated team that deal with missing persons.
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Inquiries were started to be made around house to house
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inquiries looking at CCTV to see when they could see
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his last sighting.
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West Midlands Police identified David as a man struggling with addiction.
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He didn't want to do drugs, but all those around
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him were, and unfortunately David got into that way of living,
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which changed him as a person. And I think that's
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why his mum always kept an eye out for him
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all the time.
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He'd been using drugs, it seems for some considerable time,
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and all his connections were in the world of people
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who had similar addictions.
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We knew he regularly visited the chemists for medication, so
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they started to look at to see when the last
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time it was that he picked his medication.
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To work around his phone, see when that was last active.
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The police obtained David's phone records. Amongst the people that
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he called friends, there were some that worried his mother.
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She mentioned one person that she was concerned that he
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owed some money for drugs, and she'd also received a
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text from David that said he was potentially having to
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get out of the area because he owed money for drugs.
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I think she thought that was unusual because David could
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often know money for drugs, but that wouldn't cause him
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to go missing.
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The circumstances surrounding David's disappearance were unclear. Police kept an
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open mind about what may have happened, but on the
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afternoon of Sunday, October the twenty fifth, just twenty four
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hours after Julie Williams reported David missing. There was an
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unbelievable twist in the investigation.
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Julie herself is report did missing by one of her sisters.
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Julie kept in touch with her sisters and her brothers
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every single day, so when she wasn't around, that's why
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her sister then reported it to the police because she
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knew that that was out of character.
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Once we've done all the background checks into the fact
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that David was missing, then it became a real concern.
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So at this point they went to Julie and David's
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address and they couldn't go a response there.
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The police said, at eleven o'clock that Sunday evening, break
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into Julie's flat and they find her dead.
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The scene that met them was one of carnage. In
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the center laid Julie's blooded body.
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Julie been subjected to this episode of prolonged beating, essentially
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punching and blunt force injury.
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Julie had an enormous number of injuries, something like one
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hundred and thirteen injuries to her body, so that suggests
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a rage fueled attack.
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The final act which caused her death was the application
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of a ligature. The ligature which was used in Julie's
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case was an electric flex from an electric fan.
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The case was allocated to the homicide team, with Detective
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Inspector Jim mun put in charge.
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I am that senior investigating officer, which means that I
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am the lead investigator for any serious crime. I went
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there in the middle of the night. It's dark, it's gloomy,
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so just even the inquiries around, just trying to establish
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who was going in and out at the time, was
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going to be really really challenging.
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Julie's family woke to the news of her murder.
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We heard about Julie and that was from the papers
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telling us that they'd found a woman's body. It was
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so final, It was so traumatic. It is so evil
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frightening that somebody could do that to another human being,
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and straight away then I think that's when we felt
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something bad's happened to David.
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We obviously then had immediate concerns about the welfare of
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David because he was still a missing person, but now
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Juliet had been killed, so it just really ramped up
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in terms of one trying to identify who the killer
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was and secondly try and find where David was.
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There were many questions and no answers to what.
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May have happened.
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Investigators needed to find David Williams fast on the twenty
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sixth of October twenty two and see. The investigation into
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the murder of fifty eight year old Julie Williams in
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Coventry had just begun.
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At this point we were in the evidence gathering stage.
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There was some blood and what looked like a fingerprinting
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blood on the radiator. There was only a bedroom and
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a living room in the flat. David would sleep on
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a bed in the living room and Julie would sleep
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in her bedroom and watch Telly there. Julie was dead
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on the floor in the room that David occupied her
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Telly was still on in the bedroom. The neighbors had
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heard someone approach Julie's flat the night before, but they
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couldn't really hear what was being said. The person that
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had killed Julie had taken the keys and had locked
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the door behind them, so was probably known to Julie
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for her to have let him into the house.
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For the family, not only the horror of Julie's death,
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the worry of David's whereabouts, but also the rumors surrounding
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the murder.
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People were saying, Davis and that has gone disappearing, and
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David's gone and killed his mother. And I said, no,
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he wouldn't do that. He loves her too much. He
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definitely wouldn't do that. And he hasn't got a bad
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bone in his body.
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We didn't have a suspect at all. The main focus
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then was on this fingerprinting blood. Now, that might have
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been Julie's fingerprint, but if it wasn't, then.
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It's most likely to be the killer.
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That became the sort of priority submission to take a
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photo and then see if we can match it to
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the fingerprint database to somebody on it.
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Whilst the forensic investigations were underway, the search for David intensified.
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Accessing his phone records provided police with vital information.
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When we examined david phone, we saw that he was
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in regular contact, quite a lot of contact with an
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individual that, when we checked him out on our police systems,
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was known to supply Class eight drugs. That phone activity
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dropped off at the point where David had been reported missing,
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so there was an assumption there that that person knew
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that David was no longer going to be using his phone,
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and the Sunday night we had that individual identified, located
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and arrested and brought into custody, and he protested his
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innocent straight away and provided an alibi.
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Part of David's routine included regular visits to the Riley
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Square pharmacy where he collected his methodone prescription.
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What we found out as our inquiries went through on
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the Monday was that David had been seen going in
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and out of the chemist with an individual called Anthony Russell.
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There were both.
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Drug users, they lived near each other. They used to
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beg in the area for money, so we were quite
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keen to trace Anthony. He was the last person than
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Julie that had seen David alive.
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Five days after David Williams had been reported missing. Police
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had a name, thirty eight year old local men Anthony Russell.
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We realized that he was a close associate of David
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and he lived in the area. He would hang around
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Riley Square or around the local supermarkets that surrounded the
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area and would beg for money with other people in
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that community and then once they've got enough money. They
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tended to head towards each other's flats and new drugs.
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He was a well known figure in the area and
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one with a reputation for trouble.
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He was unhinged. He wasn't normal, you know, his behavy
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wasn't normal. But people were always frightened of him. So
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he got moved on, but nobody ever did anything about it.
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He used to go up to the hospital and annoy them.
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My daughter works at the hospital and she said that
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00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:04.120
security'd had to move him on several times.
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00:16:07.399 --> 00:16:11.000
We tried to locate him. We went to his flat,
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00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:16.159
couldn't get any response on the flat. We forced entry
254
00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:19.919
into his flat to try and search for Anthony and David.
255
00:16:20.600 --> 00:16:25.799
Anthony Russell's sparsely furnished flat was spattered with blood. A
256
00:16:25.840 --> 00:16:28.320
brief search uncovered the sauce.
257
00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:32.720
On that Monday evening, we found David's body hidden underneath
258
00:16:32.759 --> 00:16:38.320
Anthony's bed. What was evident was that he had been
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00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:41.039
quite savagely beaten, so it had been quite a lot
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00:16:41.080 --> 00:16:45.519
of brute force used on David.
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00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:50.240
Either those injuries were defensive and came as a result
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00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:55.120
of a full out fight with his attacker, or again
263
00:16:55.639 --> 00:16:59.600
they could have been about the rage that the attacker
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00:16:59.639 --> 00:17:00.159
was feeling.
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00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:05.240
My daughter firred me up and she was screaming down
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00:17:05.279 --> 00:17:11.119
the phone at me, She says. They found David. We
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00:17:11.160 --> 00:17:16.960
was devastated. I couldn't eat or sleep, and every time
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00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:19.319
I closed my eyes, I kept thinking about what David
269
00:17:19.400 --> 00:17:22.680
must have gone through. He must have been so scared,
270
00:17:23.319 --> 00:17:25.880
because he probably wouldn't have believed it. You know, if
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00:17:25.920 --> 00:17:28.200
somebody went to attack him, he'd probably just laugh, thinking
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00:17:28.240 --> 00:17:30.400
it's a joke. He wouldn't have realized until it was
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00:17:30.440 --> 00:17:30.920
too late.
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00:17:33.319 --> 00:17:38.160
David's death meant the police faced an entirely different investigation.
275
00:17:39.480 --> 00:17:43.000
It had gone from a missing person on Saturday, a
276
00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:45.920
murder and a missing person on Sunday. We've now got
277
00:17:45.920 --> 00:17:51.559
two murders. This now is where the investigation really really
278
00:17:51.640 --> 00:17:57.160
ramped up. David had suffered from eighty one external injuries,
279
00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:02.240
some including a knife, had been stabbed. It'd got some
280
00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:04.440
severe wounds and bangs to his head.
281
00:18:06.839 --> 00:18:10.519
Also, there was a lanyard around his neck which was
282
00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:14.960
causing neck compression, which would be very similar to Julie.
283
00:18:16.319 --> 00:18:20.480
The lanyard ordinarily held David's keys, but they were not
284
00:18:20.839 --> 00:18:25.559
with his body. Detectives believed his and his mother's deaths
285
00:18:25.960 --> 00:18:26.599
were linked.
286
00:18:26.839 --> 00:18:30.079
The fact that I could see similarities between Julie's body
287
00:18:30.200 --> 00:18:33.920
and David's body supported the notion that was likely to
288
00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:37.279
be just one person, and I could see that the
289
00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:41.359
changes in which were present in David's body would suggest
290
00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:44.839
that he was in fact the first victim, with Julie
291
00:18:44.839 --> 00:18:46.440
following on afterwards.
292
00:18:50.200 --> 00:18:53.599
We've got two crime scenes that were working through, working
293
00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:56.039
through all the phone evidence, working through who were the
294
00:18:56.119 --> 00:18:59.920
last people to see everyone alive, and understanding their background.
295
00:19:00.200 --> 00:19:02.680
But the main priority is we've got someone who's killed
296
00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:05.400
two people on the loose and is a real danger
297
00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:06.000
to the public.
298
00:19:07.319 --> 00:19:11.960
The double murder investigation was code named Operation in Shore,
299
00:19:12.519 --> 00:19:16.160
and detectives had one person at the top of their list,
300
00:19:16.640 --> 00:19:17.519
Anthony Russell.
301
00:19:21.079 --> 00:19:23.720
Anthony Russell is a person of considerable interest in the
302
00:19:23.759 --> 00:19:25.319
killing of David and Julie Williams.
303
00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:29.799
When we spoke to his family, we found that he
304
00:19:30.200 --> 00:19:33.599
had left the area, but he never had a phone.
305
00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:35.720
He never had his own mobile phone, so we had
306
00:19:35.720 --> 00:19:38.559
no way of tracking his phone or understanding who he
307
00:19:38.640 --> 00:19:41.799
was in contact with, and it just disappeared from Coventry,
308
00:19:41.880 --> 00:19:43.839
So we'd got a big man hunt on the go,
309
00:19:44.119 --> 00:19:45.480
but we had no idea where he was.
310
00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:48.039
At this point where.
311
00:19:47.799 --> 00:19:52.519
They suspected double murderer at large, every precaution.
312
00:19:52.279 --> 00:19:53.200
Had to be taken.
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00:19:54.079 --> 00:19:58.200
The alert on Russell was put out nationwide.
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00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:00.759
They put it on the in and in the Common
315
00:20:00.839 --> 00:20:05.400
Chieving Telegraph. They were showing you photos of this Anthony
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00:20:05.480 --> 00:20:07.839
Russell saying do you not approach him? He is very,
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00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:08.799
very dangerous.
318
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:12.759
We were getting sightings all over the country and we
319
00:20:12.799 --> 00:20:15.599
couldn't ignore these sightings because we had no way to
320
00:20:15.640 --> 00:20:18.680
confirm whether that sighting was correct or not, so we
321
00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:20.559
had to link in with all the different police forces
322
00:20:20.559 --> 00:20:21.839
to try and do those inquiries.
323
00:20:23.599 --> 00:20:25.839
He didn't have a vehicle of his own, so they
324
00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:29.519
weren't using the usual AMPR tracking that kind of thing,
325
00:20:29.960 --> 00:20:34.960
but they would have been looking at all public transport.
326
00:20:36.039 --> 00:20:38.599
What we did find as we moved through the tracking
327
00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:41.279
on the CCTV, so we'd got some points where people
328
00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:45.400
who knew him had last seen him. He'd certainly been
329
00:20:45.400 --> 00:20:47.920
to a supermarket, which allowed us then to track him
330
00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:50.079
on the supermarket, which captured him getting on a bus.
331
00:20:50.839 --> 00:20:52.960
Now this bus then we were able.
332
00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:55.759
To track him going into Commentary City Center, but then
333
00:20:55.759 --> 00:20:58.160
we lost him within the sort of bus station area
334
00:20:58.200 --> 00:21:02.519
which wasn't covered by CC so we assumed he'd gone
335
00:21:02.519 --> 00:21:04.759
into the city center to then travel on with We
336
00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:06.319
had no idea where he would have come.
337
00:21:08.440 --> 00:21:13.400
Anthony Russell had been running away since childhood. By twenty twenty,
338
00:21:13.640 --> 00:21:17.000
he was a man skilled in staying under the radar.
339
00:21:17.839 --> 00:21:22.279
Anthony Russell took it upon himself to adopt various disguises.
340
00:21:23.680 --> 00:21:25.960
He was a man who hadn't lost his senses. He
341
00:21:26.039 --> 00:21:28.920
was extremely aware that he was a focus of interest
342
00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:30.039
by the police.
343
00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:31.599
Or the CCTV.
344
00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:35.559
When you put together each still of what he looked like,
345
00:21:35.799 --> 00:21:37.559
he was changing his appearance all the time.
346
00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:38.960
He was stealing glasses.
347
00:21:39.039 --> 00:21:42.240
He'd wear different hats, he'd wear hoods, His clothing was
348
00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:43.519
changed quite regularly.
349
00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:50.200
Russell was as organized as he was brutal. On Monday,
350
00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:54.119
twenty sixth of October, just hours since Julie's body was
351
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:58.319
discovered and David still lay dead in his flat, Anthony
352
00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:01.119
Russell was already thinking ahead.
353
00:22:02.680 --> 00:22:05.079
He needed cash and he needed a phone.
354
00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:09.680
He attacks a seventy eight year old man stealing his
355
00:22:09.799 --> 00:22:16.240
mobile phone. He goes to Kenilworth, where, believe it or not,
356
00:22:17.079 --> 00:22:20.400
Russell attacks a seventy one year old woman and steals
357
00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:25.599
two hundred pounds. He drags the poor lady along the ground,
358
00:22:25.640 --> 00:22:26.319
injuring her.
359
00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:28.359
Once again.
360
00:22:28.400 --> 00:22:32.160
The actual man who has absolutely no concern for anyone
361
00:22:32.200 --> 00:22:32.839
but himself.
362
00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:39.079
Anybody coming into this man's path at this time is
363
00:22:39.119 --> 00:22:39.720
in danger.
364
00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:44.039
On the run from the police.
365
00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:48.680
Wanted for two murders, Anthony Russell was a desperate man
366
00:22:48.839 --> 00:22:54.000
with nothing to lose, and his murderous rampage was far
367
00:22:54.039 --> 00:23:06.160
from over. By the twenty seventh of October twenty twenty,
368
00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:10.960
Coventry double murder suspect Anthony Russell had been on the
369
00:23:11.079 --> 00:23:12.400
run for two days.
370
00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:14.559
Twelve miles away.
371
00:23:14.519 --> 00:23:18.559
In the town of Lemington Spa, Waisha, Police received a
372
00:23:18.599 --> 00:23:20.039
missing person alert.
373
00:23:21.039 --> 00:23:24.000
A man reported that his girlfriend had gone missing. They
374
00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:27.480
were begging in Lemington Spa. They had a different spot
375
00:23:27.799 --> 00:23:30.759
in the town where they would beg and when he
376
00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:32.880
went to see where she was when they finished begging,
377
00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:37.200
she'd just gone. He made that report on the Tuesday,
378
00:23:37.359 --> 00:23:41.000
so Warwickshire Police started a missing person inquiry into a
379
00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:42.200
girl called Nicole.
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00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:48.400
Nicle McGregor. At this point is five months pregnant and
381
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:49.640
extremely proudly.
382
00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:53.759
She got a boyfriend called Chris. They lived in a
383
00:23:53.799 --> 00:23:57.960
flat in Lemington. They were both drug users, but they
384
00:23:58.000 --> 00:23:59.160
were trying to get off drugs.
385
00:24:00.519 --> 00:24:04.079
Nicole had not been seen since the previous day, when
386
00:24:04.079 --> 00:24:06.680
she had spent the morning with her partner and a
387
00:24:06.720 --> 00:24:11.880
new friend. By Tuesday afternoon, Chris was frantic with worry.
388
00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:15.400
Chris wasn't the sort of person really to interact with
389
00:24:15.480 --> 00:24:18.440
the police. I don't think he was particularly fond of
390
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:21.319
the police, but he got so worried by that evening
391
00:24:21.400 --> 00:24:23.960
that he actually approached the uniform police officer and said,
392
00:24:24.279 --> 00:24:28.880
I'm really concerned that my girlfriend's missing. When the police
393
00:24:28.920 --> 00:24:32.279
started to get the information from Chris, he started to
394
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:35.960
disclose that the day before they'd befriended a person called Anthony.
395
00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:37.440
He was from Coventry.
396
00:24:38.200 --> 00:24:40.960
It was at that point when the realization came in
397
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:42.640
that this might be Anthony Brussell.
398
00:24:43.640 --> 00:24:47.680
That same evening, the investigation into the double murder of
399
00:24:47.799 --> 00:24:52.039
Julie and David got a result. The blooded fingerprint from
400
00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:56.440
Julie's flat found a match on the national database. It
401
00:24:56.519 --> 00:24:58.400
belonged to Anthony Russell.
402
00:24:59.279 --> 00:25:02.599
The fingerprint was the confirmation that Anthony was the suspect
403
00:25:02.680 --> 00:25:03.519
that we were looking for.
404
00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:08.440
The chilling revelation that Nicole McGregor had been in the
405
00:25:08.440 --> 00:25:12.119
company of a man suspected of murdering two people in
406
00:25:12.279 --> 00:25:17.599
cold blood was one police took very seriously. They knew
407
00:25:17.640 --> 00:25:19.759
that time was of the essence.
408
00:25:20.839 --> 00:25:24.799
We scoured Lemington for CCTV and seized all the CCTV
409
00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:28.920
of the town center. Were able then, with the information
410
00:25:29.079 --> 00:25:32.880
from Chris to piece together where Nicole was.
411
00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:39.000
Then the story dark although it already is, begets even
412
00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:44.680
darker because for some reason known only really to Anthony Russell,
413
00:25:44.839 --> 00:25:46.480
he targets Nicole McGregor.
414
00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:50.880
What we saw was that Anthony Russell had approached her,
415
00:25:51.160 --> 00:25:52.920
he'd been begging over the other side of the road,
416
00:25:53.200 --> 00:25:54.640
and they had walked away together.
417
00:25:56.440 --> 00:26:01.559
Anthony Russell invites Nicole McGregor to join him in a
418
00:26:01.640 --> 00:26:06.880
place called Newbold Common, a wooded area in Leamington spa
419
00:26:07.960 --> 00:26:14.640
quite quiet, quite secluded. Suggested that she'd taken up the
420
00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:19.160
invitation because she thought that he could supply more drugs.
421
00:26:20.519 --> 00:26:25.519
CCTV showed Nicole and Anthony Russell entering the woods together.
422
00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:29.480
Forty minutes later, Russell emerged alone.
423
00:26:30.279 --> 00:26:33.839
That gave us then the last sighting of Nicol McGregor
424
00:26:34.319 --> 00:26:36.720
and we were able to go through the woodland in
425
00:26:36.799 --> 00:26:39.119
the area where he could have got to on foot.
426
00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:40.839
In that forty minute period.
427
00:26:41.119 --> 00:26:46.039
The CCTV cameras captured Russell walking the short journey back
428
00:26:46.279 --> 00:26:47.359
to the town center.
429
00:26:47.960 --> 00:26:51.720
He goes to seek out Nicole's boyfriend, the father of
430
00:26:51.759 --> 00:26:52.839
her unborn child.
431
00:26:53.799 --> 00:26:56.200
What we were able to do then was track Anthony Russell,
432
00:26:56.519 --> 00:26:59.359
and what we found was that he spent the Tuesday
433
00:27:00.079 --> 00:27:06.319
with Chris Nichole's boyfriend going around Leamington looking for her.
434
00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:11.400
He was like sympathetic to him and he was inserting
435
00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:15.440
himself into an investigation as a good guy. He was
436
00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:18.279
saying things to Nicole's boyfriend like, you know, oh, you
437
00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:21.799
must be really looking forward to becoming a father.
438
00:27:22.839 --> 00:27:26.480
On the twenty ninth of October, three days after Nicole
439
00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:29.920
was last seen, police searched Newbold Common.
440
00:27:30.799 --> 00:27:33.440
We knew Anthony had already killed two people. We've got
441
00:27:33.519 --> 00:27:38.000
a girl going missing with Anthony, so you know, our
442
00:27:38.039 --> 00:27:45.160
biggest fear was that she was dead. On the Thursday,
443
00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:48.200
there was a specialist police teams that are trained to
444
00:27:48.279 --> 00:27:53.039
search wooded difficult areas, do a methodical search to make
445
00:27:53.079 --> 00:27:55.839
sure that they search every area and they take it
446
00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:59.240
piece by piece, storm Barbera was hitting the UK.
447
00:27:59.839 --> 00:28:03.400
The river was riding quite high, so the terrain was
448
00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:04.960
really really difficult.
449
00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:10.880
Her body was found in some bushes and she had
450
00:28:10.920 --> 00:28:13.359
been strangled with her own leggings.
451
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:17.960
I received another phone call from the police to inform
452
00:28:18.119 --> 00:28:22.880
me that they had found another victim and this victim
453
00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:27.720
was Nicole McGregor. Nicole's body was found with her face
454
00:28:27.799 --> 00:28:30.640
down and what I could see was that there was
455
00:28:30.759 --> 00:28:35.160
vegetation within Nicole's mouth, which is likely to have been
456
00:28:35.319 --> 00:28:38.319
when she was face down on the floor but alive.
457
00:28:40.680 --> 00:28:43.480
The sheer terror that she must have felt when she
458
00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:46.079
was being attacked by this man she thought she trusted.
459
00:28:48.160 --> 00:28:51.680
The position in which she was found was very suggestive
460
00:28:51.759 --> 00:28:54.119
that she was likely to have been the subject of
461
00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:55.519
a sexual assault as well.
462
00:28:56.400 --> 00:29:00.119
Both Nicole and the baby she'd look forward to bringing
463
00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:01.960
into the world were dead.
464
00:29:03.279 --> 00:29:06.480
It can be a very sobering experience when you perform
465
00:29:06.519 --> 00:29:10.799
a post mortem examination or an expectant mother when you
466
00:29:11.240 --> 00:29:15.240
find the unborn child lying peacefully inside.
467
00:29:15.160 --> 00:29:16.000
The mum's womb.
468
00:29:17.759 --> 00:29:22.880
This woman who was excited about the prospect of being
469
00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:25.799
a mum has had that taken away from her.
470
00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:31.559
The death of Nicole McGregor meant police suspected Anthony Russell
471
00:29:31.880 --> 00:29:35.799
of killing three innocent people in a period of less
472
00:29:35.799 --> 00:29:39.640
than a week. Their biggest concern was what he would
473
00:29:39.680 --> 00:29:40.319
do next.
474
00:29:41.480 --> 00:29:48.440
Russell is becoming more and more dangerous, so he's committed murders.
475
00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:54.079
He then is attacking people, taking their money, taking their phones.
476
00:29:54.359 --> 00:29:57.440
But again there's a kind of a logical reason for
477
00:29:57.519 --> 00:30:00.960
doing that, even if the methods are brutal an awful.
478
00:30:01.160 --> 00:30:04.640
But now he's escalated to kill in for the sake
479
00:30:04.680 --> 00:30:07.720
of it, because it pleases him. So at the end
480
00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:10.720
of this seven days he's about as dangerous as he
481
00:30:10.759 --> 00:30:11.640
can possibly get.
482
00:30:14.319 --> 00:30:18.240
Once again, Russell went on the run. A wanted man.
483
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:21.720
He was prepared to do whatever it took to make
484
00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:23.039
his escape.
485
00:30:24.039 --> 00:30:26.519
He left Lemington. He'd walked away on foot.
486
00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:29.160
We saw that on CCTV and lost the tracking of
487
00:30:29.240 --> 00:30:32.839
him as he disappeared. We then found that there'd been
488
00:30:32.839 --> 00:30:35.240
a robbery just outside Lemington.
489
00:30:35.359 --> 00:30:36.319
Old man called Roy.
490
00:30:37.359 --> 00:30:39.720
He'd had a brick smashed over the top of his head.
491
00:30:40.839 --> 00:30:44.039
The attacker was a man with a plan, a man
492
00:30:44.279 --> 00:30:45.279
without mercy.
493
00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:47.519
He steals the car.
494
00:30:48.359 --> 00:30:50.960
He leaves the seventy eight year old with a fractured
495
00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:54.599
skull in his own front door, takes the car and leaves.
496
00:30:56.920 --> 00:30:59.960
He only survived because there were some people that were
497
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:03.599
doing gardening that turned up to help with his garden
498
00:31:03.799 --> 00:31:06.039
that actually found him there or were able to get
499
00:31:06.079 --> 00:31:08.799
paramedics there and do first aid to keep him alive.
500
00:31:10.160 --> 00:31:15.240
Police suspected the attacker was Anthony Russell, a fugitive hell
501
00:31:15.359 --> 00:31:18.400
bent at getting away no matter what the cost.
502
00:31:19.400 --> 00:31:23.039
Russell is what I would call on a spree one
503
00:31:23.599 --> 00:31:28.279
emotional event. He's not coming down. He's gone up into
504
00:31:28.319 --> 00:31:30.880
that rage when he's killed the first person, and he
505
00:31:31.039 --> 00:31:35.799
kind of stayed there. Spree killers don't stop until they stopped.
506
00:31:37.839 --> 00:31:43.079
Preventing Russell from killing again was the police's number one priority.
507
00:31:43.920 --> 00:31:48.160
So we're working closely with Warwickshire Police to locate Anthony
508
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:51.079
Russell as soon as possible. But i'd appeal to the
509
00:31:51.240 --> 00:31:53.799
public if they've got any information as to where he
510
00:31:53.920 --> 00:31:56.839
might be, if they see him at all, make sure
511
00:31:56.880 --> 00:31:57.559
that they call us.
512
00:31:57.559 --> 00:32:03.000
On nine nine nine, they put out alerts on the
513
00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:05.440
red Ford c Max he'd stolen.
514
00:32:06.400 --> 00:32:09.680
It was picked up on some AMPR cameras and it
515
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:13.160
had headed towards the Staffordshire Police area. But it had
516
00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:16.640
pretty much disappeared into the countryside and it hadn't been
517
00:32:17.079 --> 00:32:19.400
hitting any AMPR cameras from that point.
518
00:32:20.799 --> 00:32:24.839
In October twenty twenty, there was a large police presence
519
00:32:24.920 --> 00:32:29.000
in rural Staffordshire due to a recent spike in theft there.
520
00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:33.880
In the early hours of the thirtieth of October, one
521
00:32:33.920 --> 00:32:37.359
of the patrol cars made an unexpected find.
522
00:32:38.759 --> 00:32:41.000
They came across the vehicle and when they did the
523
00:32:41.079 --> 00:32:42.839
check on the vehicle they realized that it had been
524
00:32:42.880 --> 00:32:44.359
stolen in a violent robbery.
525
00:32:44.839 --> 00:32:46.720
It might have been linked to our murder suspect.
526
00:32:47.200 --> 00:32:48.000
There's the car.
527
00:32:49.559 --> 00:32:50.319
Sec sax Sack.
528
00:32:51.400 --> 00:32:52.200
They approached the.
529
00:32:52.160 --> 00:33:00.200
Car found Antony.
530
00:33:02.559 --> 00:33:03.640
That's where he was arrested.
531
00:33:04.440 --> 00:33:08.680
Anthony Russell, you're under arrest for the murder of three people.
532
00:33:09.599 --> 00:33:11.519
You do not have to say but my army defense.
533
00:33:11.599 --> 00:33:13.039
You do not mind to a question something with you
534
00:33:13.119 --> 00:33:15.359
later around court ath you do say, maybe given Everett.
535
00:33:17.039 --> 00:33:21.279
At four seventeen am on Friday thirtieth of October, the
536
00:33:21.279 --> 00:33:24.920
man suspected of killing three people was taken to penny
537
00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:28.720
Bar Police station in Birmingham.
538
00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:30.119
He refused to be interviewed.
539
00:33:30.160 --> 00:33:32.799
He wouldn't leave his cell, so he was eventually asked
540
00:33:32.799 --> 00:33:35.039
the questions at his cell and he just put a
541
00:33:35.079 --> 00:33:36.839
blanket over his head and ignored.
542
00:33:36.559 --> 00:33:39.240
All the all the questions, refused to make any comment.
543
00:33:41.359 --> 00:33:44.839
Having caught their fugitive, the police would now need to
544
00:33:44.960 --> 00:33:48.319
use all their skills to link Russell to all three
545
00:33:48.480 --> 00:33:54.720
murders and make sure a suspected triple killer didn't escape justice.
546
00:34:02.119 --> 00:34:06.440
On Monday, the tewond of November twenty twenty, Anthony Russell
547
00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:11.199
appeared via video link from Birmingham Magistrate's Court, charged with
548
00:34:11.280 --> 00:34:15.840
the murders of David Williams, Julie Williams and Nicole McGregor.
549
00:34:16.639 --> 00:34:20.519
Nichole's unborn baby was too young to be classed as
550
00:34:20.519 --> 00:34:22.400
a victim.
551
00:34:22.599 --> 00:34:26.159
He killed Julie, he killed David, he killed Nichola, but
552
00:34:26.199 --> 00:34:28.840
they didn't say he killed the baby because she wasn't born.
553
00:34:31.280 --> 00:34:36.840
I don't understand how that baby was not even classified
554
00:34:36.960 --> 00:34:40.639
as a body.
555
00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:43.880
The violent robberies Russell had carried out whilst on the
556
00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:46.719
run were added to the list of offenses.
557
00:34:48.039 --> 00:34:51.800
The team that works on it were brilliant. The real
558
00:34:51.880 --> 00:34:54.519
fear there is that you can find him within a week,
559
00:34:54.559 --> 00:34:57.400
but if you've not got the evidence hand, he could
560
00:34:57.400 --> 00:34:59.440
be back out the door again. So it was really
561
00:34:59.519 --> 00:35:01.920
really that the team worked as hard as they did
562
00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:03.400
to make sure that they got that evidence.
563
00:35:04.559 --> 00:35:09.760
Whilst Russell awaited trial, another charge was brought against him.
564
00:35:10.159 --> 00:35:13.480
We also charged him with rape of Nicole because we
565
00:35:13.559 --> 00:35:18.280
found evidence that he'd had sexual intercourse with her. We
566
00:35:18.599 --> 00:35:21.440
knew that Nicole wouldn't have willingly gone with him to
567
00:35:21.480 --> 00:35:24.280
have sex, so we charged him with the rape.
568
00:35:26.079 --> 00:35:30.760
In the leader to trial, the Williams family suffered further heartbreak.
569
00:35:31.599 --> 00:35:35.559
For Julie's son, David's brother Daniel. The loss was too
570
00:35:35.599 --> 00:35:36.360
great to bear.
571
00:35:38.079 --> 00:35:40.480
Daniel didn't want to leave without his mum or without
572
00:35:40.480 --> 00:35:44.079
his brother, which is why he decided to hang himself,
573
00:35:45.239 --> 00:35:48.400
which is heartbreaking the thing that he is in that
574
00:35:48.519 --> 00:35:51.320
much pain that he thought that was the best outcome.
575
00:35:56.039 --> 00:35:59.159
As far as I'm concerned, Anthony Russell should be charged
576
00:35:59.159 --> 00:36:01.000
with Daniel's mud. As well.
577
00:36:03.679 --> 00:36:07.880
As the team prepared for the court case, investigators put
578
00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:12.079
together an account of that fateful week in October.
579
00:36:13.239 --> 00:36:17.239
We did piece together some things from Anthony's associates and
580
00:36:17.360 --> 00:36:22.719
David's associates, and we realized that Anthony thought that David
581
00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:25.039
had slept with his girlfriend. So we think that was
582
00:36:25.039 --> 00:36:26.400
the motive for killing David.
583
00:36:27.119 --> 00:36:30.119
It was all lies, but all this was going on
584
00:36:30.159 --> 00:36:33.679
Facebook saying Anthony Russell's looking for David because he's been
585
00:36:33.719 --> 00:36:34.760
seeing his girlfriend.
586
00:36:36.360 --> 00:36:41.519
Police believe that Julie's murder was directly related to her sons.
587
00:36:42.679 --> 00:36:45.400
Anthony's never really given us a full account as to
588
00:36:45.639 --> 00:36:50.760
exactly what happened, so we've never understood the real motives.
589
00:36:50.840 --> 00:36:55.320
But we think Julie reporting David missing was the potential
590
00:36:55.360 --> 00:36:56.679
motive for killing Julie.
591
00:36:58.239 --> 00:37:03.440
Russell calculated that he couldn't keep up the charade of
592
00:37:03.559 --> 00:37:08.679
David having disappeared and decided in a cold bloody, premeditated
593
00:37:08.760 --> 00:37:11.639
manner to kill David's mother, Julie.
594
00:37:12.599 --> 00:37:17.360
The police said that Auntie Russell probably knocked on Julie's
595
00:37:17.360 --> 00:37:21.599
door because she wasn't shutting up and she weren't going away.
596
00:37:22.079 --> 00:37:25.199
My heart breaks thinking she's just been told that a
597
00:37:25.280 --> 00:37:28.000
son's dead and now you're next.
598
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:32.800
In the case of Nicol McGregor, the evidence suggested Russell
599
00:37:32.920 --> 00:37:36.280
had raped her then killed her to cover his tracks.
600
00:37:37.079 --> 00:37:40.480
The team put together a case which the Crown Prosecution
601
00:37:40.719 --> 00:37:43.159
Service felt confident of winning.
602
00:37:43.880 --> 00:37:46.880
It was really really challenging because we used to dealing
603
00:37:46.920 --> 00:37:51.079
with one murder, one crime scene, and then suddenly we
604
00:37:51.079 --> 00:37:54.719
were finding murder, murder, murder scene, seeing scene.
605
00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:02.559
The investigation gathered almost nine thousand hours of CCTV footage
606
00:38:02.840 --> 00:38:06.119
and put together a timeline which shon light on the
607
00:38:06.159 --> 00:38:10.679
message Julie had received from David about leaving town due
608
00:38:10.719 --> 00:38:11.960
to drug debts.
609
00:38:12.920 --> 00:38:15.599
We believe that that text message had actually been sent
610
00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:19.400
by Anthony after David had been killed, to Julie to
611
00:38:19.440 --> 00:38:21.880
try and put her off the center of it being
612
00:38:21.920 --> 00:38:26.280
Anthony that had killed him.
613
00:38:26.480 --> 00:38:30.760
It was fourteen months after the murders before Anthony Russell
614
00:38:31.199 --> 00:38:34.880
was tried for his crimes. On the fourteenth of February
615
00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:39.119
twenty twenty two, his trial began at Warick Crown Court.
616
00:38:41.199 --> 00:38:43.480
Everyone was there and it was before the jury was
617
00:38:43.480 --> 00:38:46.679
sworn in, so we were expecting quite a lengthy trial.
618
00:38:46.719 --> 00:38:50.800
But then he pleaded guilty on the first day. They
619
00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:52.960
pleaded guilty to everything apart from the ray.
620
00:38:54.400 --> 00:38:58.880
That's not unusual actually, because murdering somebody has some kind
621
00:38:58.880 --> 00:39:01.199
of machismo to it. You can hold your head up
622
00:39:01.239 --> 00:39:03.840
in the prison when you get your sentence, You're much
623
00:39:03.880 --> 00:39:06.960
more likely to get sympathy because you can say I
624
00:39:07.039 --> 00:39:08.960
thought this and I thought that and I was being
625
00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:11.960
treated badly. You can't say anything like.
626
00:39:11.960 --> 00:39:15.119
That about a rape. So that left us with a
627
00:39:15.199 --> 00:39:17.320
decision then whether we were going to proceed just with
628
00:39:17.480 --> 00:39:21.159
the rape or not, and we decided we would try
629
00:39:21.199 --> 00:39:23.960
him for the rape.
630
00:39:26.039 --> 00:39:29.360
Julie's sister went to the court every single day. I
631
00:39:29.400 --> 00:39:32.039
couldn't go because I kept thinking, if I go and
632
00:39:32.119 --> 00:39:34.760
I see something, I won't be able to unsee it.
633
00:39:36.239 --> 00:39:39.280
The thing she's seen in the photos she's seen and
634
00:39:39.320 --> 00:39:42.400
what she heard that never come out in the papers.
635
00:39:42.760 --> 00:39:46.280
I think people would be very, very shocked if they'd
636
00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:48.519
known just how bad he was.
637
00:39:49.760 --> 00:39:54.039
The jury heard the testimonies of those involved in the case.
638
00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:57.920
The focus of the trial was whether or not Anthony
639
00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:03.480
Russell had raped Nicole prior to her death. The fact
640
00:40:03.519 --> 00:40:06.440
that she was found in a state of undress, the
641
00:40:06.440 --> 00:40:10.639
position in which her body was found would suggest to
642
00:40:10.679 --> 00:40:14.679
me that she had been subject to a sexual assault.
643
00:40:15.239 --> 00:40:20.320
Called to give evidence for the prosecution was Nicole's boyfriend Chris,
644
00:40:20.599 --> 00:40:21.719
who'd searched for.
645
00:40:21.679 --> 00:40:24.239
Nicole with the very man who'd killed her.
646
00:40:25.079 --> 00:40:27.199
It was the first time he had seen Anthony since
647
00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:30.199
Anthony had been with him. He was unable to give
648
00:40:30.679 --> 00:40:34.039
any evidence in a calm way. Because he reacted so
649
00:40:34.119 --> 00:40:37.440
badly to seeing Anthony in the courtroom and that resulted
650
00:40:37.480 --> 00:40:39.960
in a jury failing to reach a verdict.
651
00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:43.119
A new trial date was set for the following month,
652
00:40:43.519 --> 00:40:46.840
and on the seventh of March twenty twenty two, at
653
00:40:46.880 --> 00:40:51.039
Way Crown Court, Russell returned to face the charge of
654
00:40:51.159 --> 00:40:52.679
raping Nicole McGregor.
655
00:40:53.599 --> 00:40:56.960
We ran exactly the same trial and the second time round.
656
00:40:57.639 --> 00:41:00.480
I think because Chris had actually seen Anthony, he had
657
00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:03.519
faced him, he was able to stand and give evidence.
658
00:41:04.679 --> 00:41:06.760
Chris's evidence was quite compelling.
659
00:41:08.079 --> 00:41:11.320
When the jury came back, they found him guilty after
660
00:41:11.440 --> 00:41:14.719
only deliberating for eighty three minutes of the rape of
661
00:41:14.800 --> 00:41:15.679
Nicole McGregor.
662
00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:21.800
At his arrest and during the trial, Russell had remained
663
00:41:22.079 --> 00:41:27.519
relatively silent. When the time came for sentencing, he declined
664
00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:28.719
to leave his cell.
665
00:41:29.880 --> 00:41:34.320
Russell is so uncooperative he isn't even prepared to leave
666
00:41:34.639 --> 00:41:38.239
his jail cell to go to court to hear his sentence.
667
00:41:39.639 --> 00:41:42.320
Got a whole life term, which means he will never
668
00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:45.239
ever be released, and that is reserved for the most
669
00:41:45.280 --> 00:41:48.960
serious offenders. I think there's less than one hundred people
670
00:41:48.960 --> 00:41:51.400
that have received that sort of sentence in the UK.
671
00:41:52.920 --> 00:41:56.480
It was the result everyone had hoped for, but there
672
00:41:56.519 --> 00:41:58.519
was little cause for jubilation.
673
00:42:00.079 --> 00:42:02.400
The families are the ones that are doing the sentence,
674
00:42:02.480 --> 00:42:06.079
not Russell. He's got the easy bit to do, but
675
00:42:06.159 --> 00:42:08.159
the people that have to live with what he's done
676
00:42:08.840 --> 00:42:10.199
is unbearable.
677
00:42:13.639 --> 00:42:16.599
It's really difficult to feel any good feeling from it
678
00:42:16.679 --> 00:42:20.239
because it's just is so horrific. But the only satisfaction
679
00:42:20.320 --> 00:42:23.280
you get is that he's in prison now, he won't
680
00:42:23.320 --> 00:42:25.360
come out and he won't hurt anybody else.
681
00:42:27.039 --> 00:42:31.960
The bodies weren't released until after the court cases. David
682
00:42:32.039 --> 00:42:36.360
and Julie has a funeral together at the Hanley Crematorium
683
00:42:36.559 --> 00:42:41.000
and they also had a picture of Daniel and his
684
00:42:41.079 --> 00:42:44.639
ashes were there so that they could include the three
685
00:42:44.679 --> 00:42:48.159
of them. And we're all sat there, all looking at
686
00:42:48.159 --> 00:42:52.599
each other like everything's surreal. Because you might see on
687
00:42:52.679 --> 00:42:55.039
the television, you might read about it in the newspaper,
688
00:42:55.039 --> 00:42:57.079
but that doesn't happen to people like her, as just
689
00:42:57.239 --> 00:43:01.559
ordered me people. If only he Julie hadn't opened the
690
00:43:01.559 --> 00:43:05.440
door to Anthony Russell, if David had realized what an
691
00:43:05.960 --> 00:43:10.639
evil person's friend was, you know, story would be completely different.
692
00:43:13.880 --> 00:43:17.119
Anthony Russell was a man who took what he wanted
693
00:43:17.440 --> 00:43:22.639
and gave nothing back in return, A man motivated only
694
00:43:22.719 --> 00:43:27.000
by serving his own needs, who terrified the elderly victims
695
00:43:27.039 --> 00:43:31.320
he brutalized and stole from. Who subjected three people who
696
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:36.320
trusted him to sadistic and tortuous murders. To this day,
697
00:43:36.440 --> 00:43:41.119
he's refused to explain or apologize for his actions, making
698
00:43:41.199 --> 00:44:20.719
Anthony Russell one of the world's most evil killers.
1
00:00:06.559 --> 00:00:11.679
In twenty twenty, pregnant Nicole McGregor disappeared from Lemington Spa.
2
00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:15.919
Her frantic boyfriend Chris searched for her, helped by a
3
00:00:16.039 --> 00:00:20.760
new friend. He had no idea that his friend was
4
00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:23.280
stone cold killer Anthony Russell.
5
00:00:23.719 --> 00:00:27.440
Chris saw a newspaper and realized that Anthony was the
6
00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:29.559
person that the police were looking for in connection with
7
00:00:29.600 --> 00:00:30.879
the team murders in Coventry.
8
00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:36.159
The last person to see Nicole alive was wanted for
9
00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:40.240
the brutal murders of Julie Williams and her son David,
10
00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:45.560
and now Anthony Russell had killed a third victim.
11
00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:48.920
He was saying things to Nicole's boyfriend like, oh, he
12
00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:53.119
must be really looking forward to becoming a father. He
13
00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:55.119
knew that Nicole was dead.
14
00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:01.320
Anthony Russell went on the run, sparking a huge manhunt.
15
00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:06.200
This wasn't a that of madness was calculated, and that
16
00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:08.799
calculation had cost three people their lives.
17
00:01:13.079 --> 00:01:17.920
Had Russell murdered three innocent people and destroyed the lives
18
00:01:17.959 --> 00:01:19.200
of those left behind.
19
00:01:19.760 --> 00:01:21.840
Daniel didn't want to live without his mom, or up
20
00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:22.599
without his brother.
21
00:01:23.159 --> 00:01:26.760
His week long murderer's rampage left a trail of death
22
00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:31.519
and destruction, making twisted Anthony Russell one of the world's
23
00:01:31.599 --> 00:01:57.480
most evil killers. The search for thirty nine year old
24
00:01:57.560 --> 00:02:01.040
Anthony Russell was one of the largest in West Midland's
25
00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:02.040
police history.
26
00:02:03.719 --> 00:02:07.319
We launched a huge manhunt. I think we had two
27
00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:09.400
hundred officers that were working on it. We've got a
28
00:02:09.439 --> 00:02:13.120
responsibility to protect the public. That's our number one responsibility.
29
00:02:13.360 --> 00:02:15.360
And you've got someone who's already been prepared to kill,
30
00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:16.520
who's on the loose.
31
00:02:17.719 --> 00:02:21.000
The police put in the papers a photograph of him.
32
00:02:21.039 --> 00:02:23.319
Can it come on the radio every half hour? This
33
00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:27.159
man is dangerous, Do not approach him. So the police
34
00:02:27.199 --> 00:02:30.199
already knew what he'd done and they were frightened for
35
00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:30.719
the public.
36
00:02:31.960 --> 00:02:35.919
Over the course of a week, Anthony Russell killed three people.
37
00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:39.680
This was a murderer without mercy.
38
00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:46.120
This wasn't just enough violence to kill somebody. This is
39
00:02:46.120 --> 00:02:50.080
what we call over kill. So that's way more violence
40
00:02:50.199 --> 00:02:52.680
than is needed to kill that person.
41
00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:58.479
The carnage that Anthony Russell left behind will stay with
42
00:02:58.599 --> 00:03:00.800
his victims loved ones forever.
43
00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:04.319
You never expect something like that ever to happen to
44
00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:07.800
your family. Ever. He might watch on the television, read
45
00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:10.319
about it in a book, but to actually have it
46
00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:14.039
happen to you absolutely ripped our families apart.
47
00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:21.439
This killer's story begins in the West Midland city of Colentry.
48
00:03:22.919 --> 00:03:25.719
Anthony was born on the sixteenth of April nineteen eighty two.
49
00:03:26.159 --> 00:03:29.280
He'd got a number of siblings, had a difficult childhood
50
00:03:29.319 --> 00:03:32.639
and he grew up mainly in care. He used to
51
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regularly go missing when he was in care and he
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was often difficult to find, so he would be reported
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missing on a regular basis and it would take quite
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a long time to find him.
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As he entered adulthood, bad behavior became criminal behavior.
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Anthony Russell had a track record of low level crime theft, burglary,
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possessing weapons.
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There was a bit of violence in there. I think
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he was convicted of a robbery, crimes that are often
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associated with people that have.
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Substance issues.
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It's pretty clear that Anthony Russell had a very big
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heroin addiction.
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In twenty twenty, Russell was thirty eight years old and
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living in a flat in Riley Square in the Belgreen
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area of Coventry.
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It was a nineteen sixties development. It's sort of precinct
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type design. It was built in a quadrant, so you
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have shops all around the bottom of the quadrant, and
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then I think there's about four or five stories above
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that which contains flats, so a very sort of urban
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area with local shops. So it was quite a close
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knit community.
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On that same estate, living in a one bedroom flat
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was fifty eight year old Julie Williams, widowed, young, raised
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her sons alone.
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Julie was my brother's partner, the love of my brother's life.
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My brother unfortunately passed away when he was thirty nine.
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Julie and her eldest son, David shared a close bond.
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David is my nephew. David didn't have along with my brother,
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which is a great shame because his dad absolutely adored him.
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He and his brother Daniel, he absolutely adored his mom.
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They lived together and they went out together. He lived
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for his mom. He was very family orientated. He had
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lots of cousins that he got on with everywhere. Everybody
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absolutely loved him because he was such a happy chappie.
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On Wednesday, the twenty first of October twenty twenty, thirty
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two year old David did not come home as planned.
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Three days later, Julie still hadn't managed to get in
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touch with David.
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My daughter Fomi or and she said there's something on
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the internet. She says that Julie's looking for David. She
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put out on the local radio. Has anybody seen David?
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But we just thought always crashed out at one of
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his friend's houses, you know, and he'll be back in touch.
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She first came to the attention of police on Saturday,
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the twenty fourth of October twenty twenty, and that was
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a report made by Julie to say that her son
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David had gone missing.
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Police will always do a kind of a victimology when
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they get a missing person report, and that will be
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largely around vulnerabilities and how unusual it was for this
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person to go missing.
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This daily routine involved him being in the local area
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and associating with friends and spending time with his mother,
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so it was really unusual for him not to be
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in contact with her or to come back home.
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We have a dedicated team that deal with missing persons.
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Inquiries were started to be made around house to house
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inquiries looking at CCTV to see when they could see
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his last sighting.
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West Midlands Police identified David as a man struggling with addiction.
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He didn't want to do drugs, but all those around
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him were, and unfortunately David got into that way of living,
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which changed him as a person. And I think that's
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why his mum always kept an eye out for him
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all the time.
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He'd been using drugs, it seems for some considerable time,
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and all his connections were in the world of people
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who had similar addictions.
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We knew he regularly visited the chemists for medication, so
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they started to look at to see when the last
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time it was that he picked his medication.
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To work around his phone, see when that was last active.
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The police obtained David's phone records. Amongst the people that
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he called friends, there were some that worried his mother.
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She mentioned one person that she was concerned that he
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owed some money for drugs, and she'd also received a
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text from David that said he was potentially having to
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get out of the area because he owed money for drugs.
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I think she thought that was unusual because David could
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often know money for drugs, but that wouldn't cause him
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to go missing.
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The circumstances surrounding David's disappearance were unclear. Police kept an
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open mind about what may have happened, but on the
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afternoon of Sunday, October the twenty fifth, just twenty four
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hours after Julie Williams reported David missing. There was an
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unbelievable twist in the investigation.
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Julie herself is report did missing by one of her sisters.
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Julie kept in touch with her sisters and her brothers
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every single day, so when she wasn't around, that's why
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her sister then reported it to the police because she
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knew that that was out of character.
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Once we've done all the background checks into the fact
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that David was missing, then it became a real concern.
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So at this point they went to Julie and David's
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address and they couldn't go a response there.
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The police said, at eleven o'clock that Sunday evening, break
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into Julie's flat and they find her dead.
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The scene that met them was one of carnage. In
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the center laid Julie's blooded body.
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Julie been subjected to this episode of prolonged beating, essentially
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punching and blunt force injury.
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Julie had an enormous number of injuries, something like one
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hundred and thirteen injuries to her body, so that suggests
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a rage fueled attack.
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The final act which caused her death was the application
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of a ligature. The ligature which was used in Julie's
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case was an electric flex from an electric fan.
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The case was allocated to the homicide team, with Detective
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Inspector Jim mun put in charge.
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I am that senior investigating officer, which means that I
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am the lead investigator for any serious crime. I went
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there in the middle of the night. It's dark, it's gloomy,
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so just even the inquiries around, just trying to establish
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who was going in and out at the time, was
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going to be really really challenging.
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Julie's family woke to the news of her murder.
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We heard about Julie and that was from the papers
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telling us that they'd found a woman's body. It was
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so final, It was so traumatic. It is so evil
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frightening that somebody could do that to another human being,
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and straight away then I think that's when we felt
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something bad's happened to David.
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We obviously then had immediate concerns about the welfare of
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David because he was still a missing person, but now
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Juliet had been killed, so it just really ramped up
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in terms of one trying to identify who the killer
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was and secondly try and find where David was.
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There were many questions and no answers to what.
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May have happened.
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Investigators needed to find David Williams fast on the twenty
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sixth of October twenty two and see. The investigation into
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the murder of fifty eight year old Julie Williams in
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Coventry had just begun.
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At this point we were in the evidence gathering stage.
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There was some blood and what looked like a fingerprinting
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blood on the radiator. There was only a bedroom and
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a living room in the flat. David would sleep on
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a bed in the living room and Julie would sleep
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in her bedroom and watch Telly there. Julie was dead
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on the floor in the room that David occupied her
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Telly was still on in the bedroom. The neighbors had
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heard someone approach Julie's flat the night before, but they
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couldn't really hear what was being said. The person that
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had killed Julie had taken the keys and had locked
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the door behind them, so was probably known to Julie
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for her to have let him into the house.
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For the family, not only the horror of Julie's death,
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the worry of David's whereabouts, but also the rumors surrounding
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the murder.
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People were saying, Davis and that has gone disappearing, and
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David's gone and killed his mother. And I said, no,
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he wouldn't do that. He loves her too much. He
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definitely wouldn't do that. And he hasn't got a bad
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bone in his body.
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We didn't have a suspect at all. The main focus
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00:13:26.279 --> 00:13:29.159
then was on this fingerprinting blood. Now, that might have
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00:13:29.200 --> 00:13:33.320
been Julie's fingerprint, but if it wasn't, then.
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It's most likely to be the killer.
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That became the sort of priority submission to take a
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photo and then see if we can match it to
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the fingerprint database to somebody on it.
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Whilst the forensic investigations were underway, the search for David intensified.
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Accessing his phone records provided police with vital information.
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When we examined david phone, we saw that he was
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00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:05.200
in regular contact, quite a lot of contact with an
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individual that, when we checked him out on our police systems,
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was known to supply Class eight drugs. That phone activity
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dropped off at the point where David had been reported missing,
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so there was an assumption there that that person knew
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that David was no longer going to be using his phone,
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and the Sunday night we had that individual identified, located
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and arrested and brought into custody, and he protested his
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innocent straight away and provided an alibi.
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Part of David's routine included regular visits to the Riley
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Square pharmacy where he collected his methodone prescription.
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What we found out as our inquiries went through on
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the Monday was that David had been seen going in
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and out of the chemist with an individual called Anthony Russell.
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There were both.
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Drug users, they lived near each other. They used to
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beg in the area for money, so we were quite
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keen to trace Anthony. He was the last person than
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Julie that had seen David alive.
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Five days after David Williams had been reported missing. Police
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had a name, thirty eight year old local men Anthony Russell.
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We realized that he was a close associate of David
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and he lived in the area. He would hang around
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Riley Square or around the local supermarkets that surrounded the
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area and would beg for money with other people in
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that community and then once they've got enough money. They
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00:15:30.919 --> 00:15:35.399
tended to head towards each other's flats and new drugs.
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He was a well known figure in the area and
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one with a reputation for trouble.
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He was unhinged. He wasn't normal, you know, his behavy
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wasn't normal. But people were always frightened of him. So
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he got moved on, but nobody ever did anything about it.
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He used to go up to the hospital and annoy them.
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My daughter works at the hospital and she said that
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security'd had to move him on several times.
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We tried to locate him. We went to his flat,
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couldn't get any response on the flat. We forced entry
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into his flat to try and search for Anthony and David.
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Anthony Russell's sparsely furnished flat was spattered with blood. A
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brief search uncovered the sauce.
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On that Monday evening, we found David's body hidden underneath
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Anthony's bed. What was evident was that he had been
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quite savagely beaten, so it had been quite a lot
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of brute force used on David.
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Either those injuries were defensive and came as a result
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of a full out fight with his attacker, or again
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they could have been about the rage that the attacker
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was feeling.
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My daughter firred me up and she was screaming down
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the phone at me, She says. They found David. We
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was devastated. I couldn't eat or sleep, and every time
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I closed my eyes, I kept thinking about what David
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must have gone through. He must have been so scared,
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because he probably wouldn't have believed it. You know, if
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somebody went to attack him, he'd probably just laugh, thinking
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it's a joke. He wouldn't have realized until it was
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too late.
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David's death meant the police faced an entirely different investigation.
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It had gone from a missing person on Saturday, a
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murder and a missing person on Sunday. We've now got
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two murders. This now is where the investigation really really
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00:17:51.640 --> 00:17:57.160
ramped up. David had suffered from eighty one external injuries,
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00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:02.240
some including a knife, had been stabbed. It'd got some
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severe wounds and bangs to his head.
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Also, there was a lanyard around his neck which was
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causing neck compression, which would be very similar to Julie.
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00:18:16.319 --> 00:18:20.480
The lanyard ordinarily held David's keys, but they were not
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with his body. Detectives believed his and his mother's deaths
285
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were linked.
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The fact that I could see similarities between Julie's body
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and David's body supported the notion that was likely to
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be just one person, and I could see that the
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changes in which were present in David's body would suggest
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that he was in fact the first victim, with Julie
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following on afterwards.
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We've got two crime scenes that were working through, working
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through all the phone evidence, working through who were the
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last people to see everyone alive, and understanding their background.
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But the main priority is we've got someone who's killed
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two people on the loose and is a real danger
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to the public.
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The double murder investigation was code named Operation in Shore,
299
00:19:12.519 --> 00:19:16.160
and detectives had one person at the top of their list,
300
00:19:16.640 --> 00:19:17.519
Anthony Russell.
301
00:19:21.079 --> 00:19:23.720
Anthony Russell is a person of considerable interest in the
302
00:19:23.759 --> 00:19:25.319
killing of David and Julie Williams.
303
00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:29.799
When we spoke to his family, we found that he
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00:19:30.200 --> 00:19:33.599
had left the area, but he never had a phone.
305
00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:35.720
He never had his own mobile phone, so we had
306
00:19:35.720 --> 00:19:38.559
no way of tracking his phone or understanding who he
307
00:19:38.640 --> 00:19:41.799
was in contact with, and it just disappeared from Coventry,
308
00:19:41.880 --> 00:19:43.839
So we'd got a big man hunt on the go,
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00:19:44.119 --> 00:19:45.480
but we had no idea where he was.
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00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:48.039
At this point where.
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00:19:47.799 --> 00:19:52.519
They suspected double murderer at large, every precaution.
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Had to be taken.
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00:19:54.079 --> 00:19:58.200
The alert on Russell was put out nationwide.
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00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:00.759
They put it on the in and in the Common
315
00:20:00.839 --> 00:20:05.400
Chieving Telegraph. They were showing you photos of this Anthony
316
00:20:05.480 --> 00:20:07.839
Russell saying do you not approach him? He is very,
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very dangerous.
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00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:12.759
We were getting sightings all over the country and we
319
00:20:12.799 --> 00:20:15.599
couldn't ignore these sightings because we had no way to
320
00:20:15.640 --> 00:20:18.680
confirm whether that sighting was correct or not, so we
321
00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:20.559
had to link in with all the different police forces
322
00:20:20.559 --> 00:20:21.839
to try and do those inquiries.
323
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He didn't have a vehicle of his own, so they
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00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:29.519
weren't using the usual AMPR tracking that kind of thing,
325
00:20:29.960 --> 00:20:34.960
but they would have been looking at all public transport.
326
00:20:36.039 --> 00:20:38.599
What we did find as we moved through the tracking
327
00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:41.279
on the CCTV, so we'd got some points where people
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who knew him had last seen him. He'd certainly been
329
00:20:45.400 --> 00:20:47.920
to a supermarket, which allowed us then to track him
330
00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:50.079
on the supermarket, which captured him getting on a bus.
331
00:20:50.839 --> 00:20:52.960
Now this bus then we were able.
332
00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:55.759
To track him going into Commentary City Center, but then
333
00:20:55.759 --> 00:20:58.160
we lost him within the sort of bus station area
334
00:20:58.200 --> 00:21:02.519
which wasn't covered by CC so we assumed he'd gone
335
00:21:02.519 --> 00:21:04.759
into the city center to then travel on with We
336
00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:06.319
had no idea where he would have come.
337
00:21:08.440 --> 00:21:13.400
Anthony Russell had been running away since childhood. By twenty twenty,
338
00:21:13.640 --> 00:21:17.000
he was a man skilled in staying under the radar.
339
00:21:17.839 --> 00:21:22.279
Anthony Russell took it upon himself to adopt various disguises.
340
00:21:23.680 --> 00:21:25.960
He was a man who hadn't lost his senses. He
341
00:21:26.039 --> 00:21:28.920
was extremely aware that he was a focus of interest
342
00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:30.039
by the police.
343
00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:31.599
Or the CCTV.
344
00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:35.559
When you put together each still of what he looked like,
345
00:21:35.799 --> 00:21:37.559
he was changing his appearance all the time.
346
00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:38.960
He was stealing glasses.
347
00:21:39.039 --> 00:21:42.240
He'd wear different hats, he'd wear hoods, His clothing was
348
00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:43.519
changed quite regularly.
349
00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:50.200
Russell was as organized as he was brutal. On Monday,
350
00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:54.119
twenty sixth of October, just hours since Julie's body was
351
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:58.319
discovered and David still lay dead in his flat, Anthony
352
00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:01.119
Russell was already thinking ahead.
353
00:22:02.680 --> 00:22:05.079
He needed cash and he needed a phone.
354
00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:09.680
He attacks a seventy eight year old man stealing his
355
00:22:09.799 --> 00:22:16.240
mobile phone. He goes to Kenilworth, where, believe it or not,
356
00:22:17.079 --> 00:22:20.400
Russell attacks a seventy one year old woman and steals
357
00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:25.599
two hundred pounds. He drags the poor lady along the ground,
358
00:22:25.640 --> 00:22:26.319
injuring her.
359
00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:28.359
Once again.
360
00:22:28.400 --> 00:22:32.160
The actual man who has absolutely no concern for anyone
361
00:22:32.200 --> 00:22:32.839
but himself.
362
00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:39.079
Anybody coming into this man's path at this time is
363
00:22:39.119 --> 00:22:39.720
in danger.
364
00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:44.039
On the run from the police.
365
00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:48.680
Wanted for two murders, Anthony Russell was a desperate man
366
00:22:48.839 --> 00:22:54.000
with nothing to lose, and his murderous rampage was far
367
00:22:54.039 --> 00:23:06.160
from over. By the twenty seventh of October twenty twenty,
368
00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:10.960
Coventry double murder suspect Anthony Russell had been on the
369
00:23:11.079 --> 00:23:12.400
run for two days.
370
00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:14.559
Twelve miles away.
371
00:23:14.519 --> 00:23:18.559
In the town of Lemington Spa, Waisha, Police received a
372
00:23:18.599 --> 00:23:20.039
missing person alert.
373
00:23:21.039 --> 00:23:24.000
A man reported that his girlfriend had gone missing. They
374
00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:27.480
were begging in Lemington Spa. They had a different spot
375
00:23:27.799 --> 00:23:30.759
in the town where they would beg and when he
376
00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:32.880
went to see where she was when they finished begging,
377
00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:37.200
she'd just gone. He made that report on the Tuesday,
378
00:23:37.359 --> 00:23:41.000
so Warwickshire Police started a missing person inquiry into a
379
00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:42.200
girl called Nicole.
380
00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:48.400
Nicle McGregor. At this point is five months pregnant and
381
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:49.640
extremely proudly.
382
00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:53.759
She got a boyfriend called Chris. They lived in a
383
00:23:53.799 --> 00:23:57.960
flat in Lemington. They were both drug users, but they
384
00:23:58.000 --> 00:23:59.160
were trying to get off drugs.
385
00:24:00.519 --> 00:24:04.079
Nicole had not been seen since the previous day, when
386
00:24:04.079 --> 00:24:06.680
she had spent the morning with her partner and a
387
00:24:06.720 --> 00:24:11.880
new friend. By Tuesday afternoon, Chris was frantic with worry.
388
00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:15.400
Chris wasn't the sort of person really to interact with
389
00:24:15.480 --> 00:24:18.440
the police. I don't think he was particularly fond of
390
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:21.319
the police, but he got so worried by that evening
391
00:24:21.400 --> 00:24:23.960
that he actually approached the uniform police officer and said,
392
00:24:24.279 --> 00:24:28.880
I'm really concerned that my girlfriend's missing. When the police
393
00:24:28.920 --> 00:24:32.279
started to get the information from Chris, he started to
394
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:35.960
disclose that the day before they'd befriended a person called Anthony.
395
00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:37.440
He was from Coventry.
396
00:24:38.200 --> 00:24:40.960
It was at that point when the realization came in
397
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:42.640
that this might be Anthony Brussell.
398
00:24:43.640 --> 00:24:47.680
That same evening, the investigation into the double murder of
399
00:24:47.799 --> 00:24:52.039
Julie and David got a result. The blooded fingerprint from
400
00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:56.440
Julie's flat found a match on the national database. It
401
00:24:56.519 --> 00:24:58.400
belonged to Anthony Russell.
402
00:24:59.279 --> 00:25:02.599
The fingerprint was the confirmation that Anthony was the suspect
403
00:25:02.680 --> 00:25:03.519
that we were looking for.
404
00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:08.440
The chilling revelation that Nicole McGregor had been in the
405
00:25:08.440 --> 00:25:12.119
company of a man suspected of murdering two people in
406
00:25:12.279 --> 00:25:17.599
cold blood was one police took very seriously. They knew
407
00:25:17.640 --> 00:25:19.759
that time was of the essence.
408
00:25:20.839 --> 00:25:24.799
We scoured Lemington for CCTV and seized all the CCTV
409
00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:28.920
of the town center. Were able then, with the information
410
00:25:29.079 --> 00:25:32.880
from Chris to piece together where Nicole was.
411
00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:39.000
Then the story dark although it already is, begets even
412
00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:44.680
darker because for some reason known only really to Anthony Russell,
413
00:25:44.839 --> 00:25:46.480
he targets Nicole McGregor.
414
00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:50.880
What we saw was that Anthony Russell had approached her,
415
00:25:51.160 --> 00:25:52.920
he'd been begging over the other side of the road,
416
00:25:53.200 --> 00:25:54.640
and they had walked away together.
417
00:25:56.440 --> 00:26:01.559
Anthony Russell invites Nicole McGregor to join him in a
418
00:26:01.640 --> 00:26:06.880
place called Newbold Common, a wooded area in Leamington spa
419
00:26:07.960 --> 00:26:14.640
quite quiet, quite secluded. Suggested that she'd taken up the
420
00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:19.160
invitation because she thought that he could supply more drugs.
421
00:26:20.519 --> 00:26:25.519
CCTV showed Nicole and Anthony Russell entering the woods together.
422
00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:29.480
Forty minutes later, Russell emerged alone.
423
00:26:30.279 --> 00:26:33.839
That gave us then the last sighting of Nicol McGregor
424
00:26:34.319 --> 00:26:36.720
and we were able to go through the woodland in
425
00:26:36.799 --> 00:26:39.119
the area where he could have got to on foot.
426
00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:40.839
In that forty minute period.
427
00:26:41.119 --> 00:26:46.039
The CCTV cameras captured Russell walking the short journey back
428
00:26:46.279 --> 00:26:47.359
to the town center.
429
00:26:47.960 --> 00:26:51.720
He goes to seek out Nicole's boyfriend, the father of
430
00:26:51.759 --> 00:26:52.839
her unborn child.
431
00:26:53.799 --> 00:26:56.200
What we were able to do then was track Anthony Russell,
432
00:26:56.519 --> 00:26:59.359
and what we found was that he spent the Tuesday
433
00:27:00.079 --> 00:27:06.319
with Chris Nichole's boyfriend going around Leamington looking for her.
434
00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:11.400
He was like sympathetic to him and he was inserting
435
00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:15.440
himself into an investigation as a good guy. He was
436
00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:18.279
saying things to Nicole's boyfriend like, you know, oh, you
437
00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:21.799
must be really looking forward to becoming a father.
438
00:27:22.839 --> 00:27:26.480
On the twenty ninth of October, three days after Nicole
439
00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:29.920
was last seen, police searched Newbold Common.
440
00:27:30.799 --> 00:27:33.440
We knew Anthony had already killed two people. We've got
441
00:27:33.519 --> 00:27:38.000
a girl going missing with Anthony, so you know, our
442
00:27:38.039 --> 00:27:45.160
biggest fear was that she was dead. On the Thursday,
443
00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:48.200
there was a specialist police teams that are trained to
444
00:27:48.279 --> 00:27:53.039
search wooded difficult areas, do a methodical search to make
445
00:27:53.079 --> 00:27:55.839
sure that they search every area and they take it
446
00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:59.240
piece by piece, storm Barbera was hitting the UK.
447
00:27:59.839 --> 00:28:03.400
The river was riding quite high, so the terrain was
448
00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:04.960
really really difficult.
449
00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:10.880
Her body was found in some bushes and she had
450
00:28:10.920 --> 00:28:13.359
been strangled with her own leggings.
451
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:17.960
I received another phone call from the police to inform
452
00:28:18.119 --> 00:28:22.880
me that they had found another victim and this victim
453
00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:27.720
was Nicole McGregor. Nicole's body was found with her face
454
00:28:27.799 --> 00:28:30.640
down and what I could see was that there was
455
00:28:30.759 --> 00:28:35.160
vegetation within Nicole's mouth, which is likely to have been
456
00:28:35.319 --> 00:28:38.319
when she was face down on the floor but alive.
457
00:28:40.680 --> 00:28:43.480
The sheer terror that she must have felt when she
458
00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:46.079
was being attacked by this man she thought she trusted.
459
00:28:48.160 --> 00:28:51.680
The position in which she was found was very suggestive
460
00:28:51.759 --> 00:28:54.119
that she was likely to have been the subject of
461
00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:55.519
a sexual assault as well.
462
00:28:56.400 --> 00:29:00.119
Both Nicole and the baby she'd look forward to bringing
463
00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:01.960
into the world were dead.
464
00:29:03.279 --> 00:29:06.480
It can be a very sobering experience when you perform
465
00:29:06.519 --> 00:29:10.799
a post mortem examination or an expectant mother when you
466
00:29:11.240 --> 00:29:15.240
find the unborn child lying peacefully inside.
467
00:29:15.160 --> 00:29:16.000
The mum's womb.
468
00:29:17.759 --> 00:29:22.880
This woman who was excited about the prospect of being
469
00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:25.799
a mum has had that taken away from her.
470
00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:31.559
The death of Nicole McGregor meant police suspected Anthony Russell
471
00:29:31.880 --> 00:29:35.799
of killing three innocent people in a period of less
472
00:29:35.799 --> 00:29:39.640
than a week. Their biggest concern was what he would
473
00:29:39.680 --> 00:29:40.319
do next.
474
00:29:41.480 --> 00:29:48.440
Russell is becoming more and more dangerous, so he's committed murders.
475
00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:54.079
He then is attacking people, taking their money, taking their phones.
476
00:29:54.359 --> 00:29:57.440
But again there's a kind of a logical reason for
477
00:29:57.519 --> 00:30:00.960
doing that, even if the methods are brutal an awful.
478
00:30:01.160 --> 00:30:04.640
But now he's escalated to kill in for the sake
479
00:30:04.680 --> 00:30:07.720
of it, because it pleases him. So at the end
480
00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:10.720
of this seven days he's about as dangerous as he
481
00:30:10.759 --> 00:30:11.640
can possibly get.
482
00:30:14.319 --> 00:30:18.240
Once again, Russell went on the run. A wanted man.
483
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:21.720
He was prepared to do whatever it took to make
484
00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:23.039
his escape.
485
00:30:24.039 --> 00:30:26.519
He left Lemington. He'd walked away on foot.
486
00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:29.160
We saw that on CCTV and lost the tracking of
487
00:30:29.240 --> 00:30:32.839
him as he disappeared. We then found that there'd been
488
00:30:32.839 --> 00:30:35.240
a robbery just outside Lemington.
489
00:30:35.359 --> 00:30:36.319
Old man called Roy.
490
00:30:37.359 --> 00:30:39.720
He'd had a brick smashed over the top of his head.
491
00:30:40.839 --> 00:30:44.039
The attacker was a man with a plan, a man
492
00:30:44.279 --> 00:30:45.279
without mercy.
493
00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:47.519
He steals the car.
494
00:30:48.359 --> 00:30:50.960
He leaves the seventy eight year old with a fractured
495
00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:54.599
skull in his own front door, takes the car and leaves.
496
00:30:56.920 --> 00:30:59.960
He only survived because there were some people that were
497
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:03.599
doing gardening that turned up to help with his garden
498
00:31:03.799 --> 00:31:06.039
that actually found him there or were able to get
499
00:31:06.079 --> 00:31:08.799
paramedics there and do first aid to keep him alive.
500
00:31:10.160 --> 00:31:15.240
Police suspected the attacker was Anthony Russell, a fugitive hell
501
00:31:15.359 --> 00:31:18.400
bent at getting away no matter what the cost.
502
00:31:19.400 --> 00:31:23.039
Russell is what I would call on a spree one
503
00:31:23.599 --> 00:31:28.279
emotional event. He's not coming down. He's gone up into
504
00:31:28.319 --> 00:31:30.880
that rage when he's killed the first person, and he
505
00:31:31.039 --> 00:31:35.799
kind of stayed there. Spree killers don't stop until they stopped.
506
00:31:37.839 --> 00:31:43.079
Preventing Russell from killing again was the police's number one priority.
507
00:31:43.920 --> 00:31:48.160
So we're working closely with Warwickshire Police to locate Anthony
508
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:51.079
Russell as soon as possible. But i'd appeal to the
509
00:31:51.240 --> 00:31:53.799
public if they've got any information as to where he
510
00:31:53.920 --> 00:31:56.839
might be, if they see him at all, make sure
511
00:31:56.880 --> 00:31:57.559
that they call us.
512
00:31:57.559 --> 00:32:03.000
On nine nine nine, they put out alerts on the
513
00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:05.440
red Ford c Max he'd stolen.
514
00:32:06.400 --> 00:32:09.680
It was picked up on some AMPR cameras and it
515
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:13.160
had headed towards the Staffordshire Police area. But it had
516
00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:16.640
pretty much disappeared into the countryside and it hadn't been
517
00:32:17.079 --> 00:32:19.400
hitting any AMPR cameras from that point.
518
00:32:20.799 --> 00:32:24.839
In October twenty twenty, there was a large police presence
519
00:32:24.920 --> 00:32:29.000
in rural Staffordshire due to a recent spike in theft there.
520
00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:33.880
In the early hours of the thirtieth of October, one
521
00:32:33.920 --> 00:32:37.359
of the patrol cars made an unexpected find.
522
00:32:38.759 --> 00:32:41.000
They came across the vehicle and when they did the
523
00:32:41.079 --> 00:32:42.839
check on the vehicle they realized that it had been
524
00:32:42.880 --> 00:32:44.359
stolen in a violent robbery.
525
00:32:44.839 --> 00:32:46.720
It might have been linked to our murder suspect.
526
00:32:47.200 --> 00:32:48.000
There's the car.
527
00:32:49.559 --> 00:32:50.319
Sec sax Sack.
528
00:32:51.400 --> 00:32:52.200
They approached the.
529
00:32:52.160 --> 00:33:00.200
Car found Antony.
530
00:33:02.559 --> 00:33:03.640
That's where he was arrested.
531
00:33:04.440 --> 00:33:08.680
Anthony Russell, you're under arrest for the murder of three people.
532
00:33:09.599 --> 00:33:11.519
You do not have to say but my army defense.
533
00:33:11.599 --> 00:33:13.039
You do not mind to a question something with you
534
00:33:13.119 --> 00:33:15.359
later around court ath you do say, maybe given Everett.
535
00:33:17.039 --> 00:33:21.279
At four seventeen am on Friday thirtieth of October, the
536
00:33:21.279 --> 00:33:24.920
man suspected of killing three people was taken to penny
537
00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:28.720
Bar Police station in Birmingham.
538
00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:30.119
He refused to be interviewed.
539
00:33:30.160 --> 00:33:32.799
He wouldn't leave his cell, so he was eventually asked
540
00:33:32.799 --> 00:33:35.039
the questions at his cell and he just put a
541
00:33:35.079 --> 00:33:36.839
blanket over his head and ignored.
542
00:33:36.559 --> 00:33:39.240
All the all the questions, refused to make any comment.
543
00:33:41.359 --> 00:33:44.839
Having caught their fugitive, the police would now need to
544
00:33:44.960 --> 00:33:48.319
use all their skills to link Russell to all three
545
00:33:48.480 --> 00:33:54.720
murders and make sure a suspected triple killer didn't escape justice.
546
00:34:02.119 --> 00:34:06.440
On Monday, the tewond of November twenty twenty, Anthony Russell
547
00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:11.199
appeared via video link from Birmingham Magistrate's Court, charged with
548
00:34:11.280 --> 00:34:15.840
the murders of David Williams, Julie Williams and Nicole McGregor.
549
00:34:16.639 --> 00:34:20.519
Nichole's unborn baby was too young to be classed as
550
00:34:20.519 --> 00:34:22.400
a victim.
551
00:34:22.599 --> 00:34:26.159
He killed Julie, he killed David, he killed Nichola, but
552
00:34:26.199 --> 00:34:28.840
they didn't say he killed the baby because she wasn't born.
553
00:34:31.280 --> 00:34:36.840
I don't understand how that baby was not even classified
554
00:34:36.960 --> 00:34:40.639
as a body.
555
00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:43.880
The violent robberies Russell had carried out whilst on the
556
00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:46.719
run were added to the list of offenses.
557
00:34:48.039 --> 00:34:51.800
The team that works on it were brilliant. The real
558
00:34:51.880 --> 00:34:54.519
fear there is that you can find him within a week,
559
00:34:54.559 --> 00:34:57.400
but if you've not got the evidence hand, he could
560
00:34:57.400 --> 00:34:59.440
be back out the door again. So it was really
561
00:34:59.519 --> 00:35:01.920
really that the team worked as hard as they did
562
00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:03.400
to make sure that they got that evidence.
563
00:35:04.559 --> 00:35:09.760
Whilst Russell awaited trial, another charge was brought against him.
564
00:35:10.159 --> 00:35:13.480
We also charged him with rape of Nicole because we
565
00:35:13.559 --> 00:35:18.280
found evidence that he'd had sexual intercourse with her. We
566
00:35:18.599 --> 00:35:21.440
knew that Nicole wouldn't have willingly gone with him to
567
00:35:21.480 --> 00:35:24.280
have sex, so we charged him with the rape.
568
00:35:26.079 --> 00:35:30.760
In the leader to trial, the Williams family suffered further heartbreak.
569
00:35:31.599 --> 00:35:35.559
For Julie's son, David's brother Daniel. The loss was too
570
00:35:35.599 --> 00:35:36.360
great to bear.
571
00:35:38.079 --> 00:35:40.480
Daniel didn't want to leave without his mum or without
572
00:35:40.480 --> 00:35:44.079
his brother, which is why he decided to hang himself,
573
00:35:45.239 --> 00:35:48.400
which is heartbreaking the thing that he is in that
574
00:35:48.519 --> 00:35:51.320
much pain that he thought that was the best outcome.
575
00:35:56.039 --> 00:35:59.159
As far as I'm concerned, Anthony Russell should be charged
576
00:35:59.159 --> 00:36:01.000
with Daniel's mud. As well.
577
00:36:03.679 --> 00:36:07.880
As the team prepared for the court case, investigators put
578
00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:12.079
together an account of that fateful week in October.
579
00:36:13.239 --> 00:36:17.239
We did piece together some things from Anthony's associates and
580
00:36:17.360 --> 00:36:22.719
David's associates, and we realized that Anthony thought that David
581
00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:25.039
had slept with his girlfriend. So we think that was
582
00:36:25.039 --> 00:36:26.400
the motive for killing David.
583
00:36:27.119 --> 00:36:30.119
It was all lies, but all this was going on
584
00:36:30.159 --> 00:36:33.679
Facebook saying Anthony Russell's looking for David because he's been
585
00:36:33.719 --> 00:36:34.760
seeing his girlfriend.
586
00:36:36.360 --> 00:36:41.519
Police believe that Julie's murder was directly related to her sons.
587
00:36:42.679 --> 00:36:45.400
Anthony's never really given us a full account as to
588
00:36:45.639 --> 00:36:50.760
exactly what happened, so we've never understood the real motives.
589
00:36:50.840 --> 00:36:55.320
But we think Julie reporting David missing was the potential
590
00:36:55.360 --> 00:36:56.679
motive for killing Julie.
591
00:36:58.239 --> 00:37:03.440
Russell calculated that he couldn't keep up the charade of
592
00:37:03.559 --> 00:37:08.679
David having disappeared and decided in a cold bloody, premeditated
593
00:37:08.760 --> 00:37:11.639
manner to kill David's mother, Julie.
594
00:37:12.599 --> 00:37:17.360
The police said that Auntie Russell probably knocked on Julie's
595
00:37:17.360 --> 00:37:21.599
door because she wasn't shutting up and she weren't going away.
596
00:37:22.079 --> 00:37:25.199
My heart breaks thinking she's just been told that a
597
00:37:25.280 --> 00:37:28.000
son's dead and now you're next.
598
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:32.800
In the case of Nicol McGregor, the evidence suggested Russell
599
00:37:32.920 --> 00:37:36.280
had raped her then killed her to cover his tracks.
600
00:37:37.079 --> 00:37:40.480
The team put together a case which the Crown Prosecution
601
00:37:40.719 --> 00:37:43.159
Service felt confident of winning.
602
00:37:43.880 --> 00:37:46.880
It was really really challenging because we used to dealing
603
00:37:46.920 --> 00:37:51.079
with one murder, one crime scene, and then suddenly we
604
00:37:51.079 --> 00:37:54.719
were finding murder, murder, murder scene, seeing scene.
605
00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:02.559
The investigation gathered almost nine thousand hours of CCTV footage
606
00:38:02.840 --> 00:38:06.119
and put together a timeline which shon light on the
607
00:38:06.159 --> 00:38:10.679
message Julie had received from David about leaving town due
608
00:38:10.719 --> 00:38:11.960
to drug debts.
609
00:38:12.920 --> 00:38:15.599
We believe that that text message had actually been sent
610
00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:19.400
by Anthony after David had been killed, to Julie to
611
00:38:19.440 --> 00:38:21.880
try and put her off the center of it being
612
00:38:21.920 --> 00:38:26.280
Anthony that had killed him.
613
00:38:26.480 --> 00:38:30.760
It was fourteen months after the murders before Anthony Russell
614
00:38:31.199 --> 00:38:34.880
was tried for his crimes. On the fourteenth of February
615
00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:39.119
twenty twenty two, his trial began at Warick Crown Court.
616
00:38:41.199 --> 00:38:43.480
Everyone was there and it was before the jury was
617
00:38:43.480 --> 00:38:46.679
sworn in, so we were expecting quite a lengthy trial.
618
00:38:46.719 --> 00:38:50.800
But then he pleaded guilty on the first day. They
619
00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:52.960
pleaded guilty to everything apart from the ray.
620
00:38:54.400 --> 00:38:58.880
That's not unusual actually, because murdering somebody has some kind
621
00:38:58.880 --> 00:39:01.199
of machismo to it. You can hold your head up
622
00:39:01.239 --> 00:39:03.840
in the prison when you get your sentence, You're much
623
00:39:03.880 --> 00:39:06.960
more likely to get sympathy because you can say I
624
00:39:07.039 --> 00:39:08.960
thought this and I thought that and I was being
625
00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:11.960
treated badly. You can't say anything like.
626
00:39:11.960 --> 00:39:15.119
That about a rape. So that left us with a
627
00:39:15.199 --> 00:39:17.320
decision then whether we were going to proceed just with
628
00:39:17.480 --> 00:39:21.159
the rape or not, and we decided we would try
629
00:39:21.199 --> 00:39:23.960
him for the rape.
630
00:39:26.039 --> 00:39:29.360
Julie's sister went to the court every single day. I
631
00:39:29.400 --> 00:39:32.039
couldn't go because I kept thinking, if I go and
632
00:39:32.119 --> 00:39:34.760
I see something, I won't be able to unsee it.
633
00:39:36.239 --> 00:39:39.280
The thing she's seen in the photos she's seen and
634
00:39:39.320 --> 00:39:42.400
what she heard that never come out in the papers.
635
00:39:42.760 --> 00:39:46.280
I think people would be very, very shocked if they'd
636
00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:48.519
known just how bad he was.
637
00:39:49.760 --> 00:39:54.039
The jury heard the testimonies of those involved in the case.
638
00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:57.920
The focus of the trial was whether or not Anthony
639
00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:03.480
Russell had raped Nicole prior to her death. The fact
640
00:40:03.519 --> 00:40:06.440
that she was found in a state of undress, the
641
00:40:06.440 --> 00:40:10.639
position in which her body was found would suggest to
642
00:40:10.679 --> 00:40:14.679
me that she had been subject to a sexual assault.
643
00:40:15.239 --> 00:40:20.320
Called to give evidence for the prosecution was Nicole's boyfriend Chris,
644
00:40:20.599 --> 00:40:21.719
who'd searched for.
645
00:40:21.679 --> 00:40:24.239
Nicole with the very man who'd killed her.
646
00:40:25.079 --> 00:40:27.199
It was the first time he had seen Anthony since
647
00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:30.199
Anthony had been with him. He was unable to give
648
00:40:30.679 --> 00:40:34.039
any evidence in a calm way. Because he reacted so
649
00:40:34.119 --> 00:40:37.440
badly to seeing Anthony in the courtroom and that resulted
650
00:40:37.480 --> 00:40:39.960
in a jury failing to reach a verdict.
651
00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:43.119
A new trial date was set for the following month,
652
00:40:43.519 --> 00:40:46.840
and on the seventh of March twenty twenty two, at
653
00:40:46.880 --> 00:40:51.039
Way Crown Court, Russell returned to face the charge of
654
00:40:51.159 --> 00:40:52.679
raping Nicole McGregor.
655
00:40:53.599 --> 00:40:56.960
We ran exactly the same trial and the second time round.
656
00:40:57.639 --> 00:41:00.480
I think because Chris had actually seen Anthony, he had
657
00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:03.519
faced him, he was able to stand and give evidence.
658
00:41:04.679 --> 00:41:06.760
Chris's evidence was quite compelling.
659
00:41:08.079 --> 00:41:11.320
When the jury came back, they found him guilty after
660
00:41:11.440 --> 00:41:14.719
only deliberating for eighty three minutes of the rape of
661
00:41:14.800 --> 00:41:15.679
Nicole McGregor.
662
00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:21.800
At his arrest and during the trial, Russell had remained
663
00:41:22.079 --> 00:41:27.519
relatively silent. When the time came for sentencing, he declined
664
00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:28.719
to leave his cell.
665
00:41:29.880 --> 00:41:34.320
Russell is so uncooperative he isn't even prepared to leave
666
00:41:34.639 --> 00:41:38.239
his jail cell to go to court to hear his sentence.
667
00:41:39.639 --> 00:41:42.320
Got a whole life term, which means he will never
668
00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:45.239
ever be released, and that is reserved for the most
669
00:41:45.280 --> 00:41:48.960
serious offenders. I think there's less than one hundred people
670
00:41:48.960 --> 00:41:51.400
that have received that sort of sentence in the UK.
671
00:41:52.920 --> 00:41:56.480
It was the result everyone had hoped for, but there
672
00:41:56.519 --> 00:41:58.519
was little cause for jubilation.
673
00:42:00.079 --> 00:42:02.400
The families are the ones that are doing the sentence,
674
00:42:02.480 --> 00:42:06.079
not Russell. He's got the easy bit to do, but
675
00:42:06.159 --> 00:42:08.159
the people that have to live with what he's done
676
00:42:08.840 --> 00:42:10.199
is unbearable.
677
00:42:13.639 --> 00:42:16.599
It's really difficult to feel any good feeling from it
678
00:42:16.679 --> 00:42:20.239
because it's just is so horrific. But the only satisfaction
679
00:42:20.320 --> 00:42:23.280
you get is that he's in prison now, he won't
680
00:42:23.320 --> 00:42:25.360
come out and he won't hurt anybody else.
681
00:42:27.039 --> 00:42:31.960
The bodies weren't released until after the court cases. David
682
00:42:32.039 --> 00:42:36.360
and Julie has a funeral together at the Hanley Crematorium
683
00:42:36.559 --> 00:42:41.000
and they also had a picture of Daniel and his
684
00:42:41.079 --> 00:42:44.639
ashes were there so that they could include the three
685
00:42:44.679 --> 00:42:48.159
of them. And we're all sat there, all looking at
686
00:42:48.159 --> 00:42:52.599
each other like everything's surreal. Because you might see on
687
00:42:52.679 --> 00:42:55.039
the television, you might read about it in the newspaper,
688
00:42:55.039 --> 00:42:57.079
but that doesn't happen to people like her, as just
689
00:42:57.239 --> 00:43:01.559
ordered me people. If only he Julie hadn't opened the
690
00:43:01.559 --> 00:43:05.440
door to Anthony Russell, if David had realized what an
691
00:43:05.960 --> 00:43:10.639
evil person's friend was, you know, story would be completely different.
692
00:43:13.880 --> 00:43:17.119
Anthony Russell was a man who took what he wanted
693
00:43:17.440 --> 00:43:22.639
and gave nothing back in return, A man motivated only
694
00:43:22.719 --> 00:43:27.000
by serving his own needs, who terrified the elderly victims
695
00:43:27.039 --> 00:43:31.320
he brutalized and stole from. Who subjected three people who
696
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:36.320
trusted him to sadistic and tortuous murders. To this day,
697
00:43:36.440 --> 00:43:41.119
he's refused to explain or apologize for his actions, making
698
00:43:41.199 --> 00:44:20.719
Anthony Russell one of the world's most evil killers.
