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On December 1st, 1996, Tracy Andrews and her fiancé Lee
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Harvey were driving home after a night out when suddenly
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they began to be pursued by another car. It was
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a chase that would end in Lee's murder.
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He was stabbed in the throat, back, front, repeatedly, viciously
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and continuously.
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Just two days later, 27-year-old Tracey gave a heart-wrenching press
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conference appealing for the public's help to find her partner's killer.
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But all was not what it seemed.
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You get behind the wheel of a car. Sometimes you
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change personality.
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And we all kind of looked at each other and thought,
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this enormous story just got ten times bigger again if
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she is the killer.
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There had been no car chase. There had been no
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random attack. Tracey Andrews had stabbed her own fiancé to
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death and was trying to get away with murder.
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This is a woman of cunning, of deceit, and with
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a vicious temper.
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Tracey Andrews had deceived a nation and become one of
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the world's most evil killers. It was a press conference
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that shocked Britain when 27-year-old Tracey Andrews defiantly appeared in
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front of the world's media on December 3rd, 1996. She
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wept over the murder of her fiancé Lee Harvey. She
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claimed a stranger had stopped the couple in their car
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before stabbing her 25-year-old partner to death in a savage attack.
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I just.
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Tried to stop the bleeding, really.
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And comfort him as much.
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As I could.
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But it was all a lie. In reality, Andrews had
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killed Lee in the most brutal of manners. At her trial,
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Andrews continued to try and sell her fabricated story. The
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media were fascinated by her. Daily Mirror journalist Rod Chater
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managed to interview the wannabe model at Birmingham Crown Court
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on the day of her conviction.
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I'm sat next to Tracy. I didn't feel threatened, obviously.
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She's a killer, but we're not in any kind of
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environment in which she's likely to suddenly launch an attack
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on me. So I said, well, you know, do you
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stick to your story? Yes, I stick to my story.
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Did you kill him?
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No, I didn't.
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Just minutes later, Tracy Andrews was given a life sentence
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for the murder of her own fiancé.
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I worked as a national newspaper journalist for For many years,
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I covered thousands of stories, dozens of murders. Some stories
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just stay with you, and this is one of the
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ones that stays with me.
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It's a story that begins over 45 years ago. Tracey
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Andrews was born on the 9th of April 1969 in.
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The West Midlands.
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Well, Tracey was brought up just outside Birmingham in Redditch
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and Althchurch, and she was the middle child. She had
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an older sibling and a younger sibling and several half-siblings,
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and her parents broke up when she was around about
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6 years old because they'd had quite a volatile relationship.
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The separation of her parents in 1975 had a lasting
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effect on young Tracey.
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Well, Tracy's parents split up and her mother got married
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to another man. And when we look at our parents' relationships,
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they are quite important because they inform our expectations of
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other people, our expectations of the relationships that we go
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on to have.
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Kids need attention, you know. They need to be loved
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and cuddled and everything. And a lot of kids that
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come from those kind of broken homes, in the case
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of Tracy, they want to be loved by mother, father
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or somebody. That is definitely, in my opinion, one of
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the things that pushed her into always wanting the attention
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of other men.
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Tracy left school in 1986, and aged 21, she had
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a baby daughter. But the relationship with her partner lasted
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barely a year, and they soon went their separate ways.
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What we've got here is a woman who doesn't like
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her partner's having a life that doesn't involve her. She
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doesn't like her partners going out without her. She gets
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very jealous. She's very possessive.
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She certainly had a temper. Everybody who knew her said
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she had a temper. And when she lost her temper,
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everybody knew about it. She would shout at the top
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of her voice. The whole street would hear.
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By 1994, 25-year-old Tracy was living in a council flat
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in Alfchurch and working as a barmaid. But her aspirations
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went far beyond pulling pints.
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She had visions, she had dreams of becoming a model,
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and she was very photogenic. She looked good on camera
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and she knew it, and she had some pictures taken
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and a photograph. album put together, but that never really
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took off either.
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She became a barmaid working in a pub, but she
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still dressed very provocatively and she still loved talking to
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men and chatting to men. Again, seeking the attention that
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she wanted to get as a model, because obviously when
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you're that pretty and you're a model, you do get
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a lot of attention.
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Living nearby to Tracy was 23-year-old Lee Harvey. He also
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had a daughter from a previous relationship.
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Lee Harvey was a young man from a very close family,
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and he worked as a bus driver for West Midlands Travel.
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So this was a job that involved meeting many people
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on a daily basis. He was very outgoing. He was
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interested in cars and was always very well turned out.
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So he was your typical young Birmingham lad, essentially, very
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close to his mum, very close to his sister.
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The paths of the two young single parents would soon cross.
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Well, Lee and Tracy met in October 1994 in Ritzy's
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nightclub in Birmingham, and this relationship really did develop at
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a lightning pace. They had moved in with one another
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only around three months into the relationship, so this was
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going very, very fast. And their relationship was quite a
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volatile one. They were both quite possessive, quite jealous, when
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it came to the other's relationships with the opposite sex.
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And you often find this in relationships that develop very quickly.
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You haven't got that foundation of trust that's been built.
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You're always a little bit kind of suspicious as to
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what the other person's up to because you don't really
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know them.
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And they would row, and they would fight like cat
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and dog, and neighbors would report how voices would be
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raised at all hours of the day and night and
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would go on and on for hours. and then stop,
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and then start again.
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The couple got engaged after just six months, but their
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volatile relationship would often see them break up, only to
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get back together again soon after.
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It was maybe almost a carbon copy of what Tracy
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grew up with in her house. She had a very
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explosive temper, and Lee Harvey also, in a way, wouldn't
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like just... to her screaming, so he would scream back.
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She was forever throwing him out into the street, and
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she would throw his clothes out of the window or
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in a black bin bag and chuck him out the
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front door, change the locks, and then they would have reconciliations.
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Lee would go back, more violence, Lee would leave, Lee
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would go back, more violence. This went on for a
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period of about two years.
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Their explosive relationship finally came to a head on December
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the 1st, 1996.
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So they'd been rowing all day. Lee tended to be
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the peacemaker, and it was probably Lee's suggestion, why don't
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we go for a drink? Why don't we just get
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a change of scene, a breath of fresh air? Let's
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get out of here. Let's just go and relax and
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have a drink. And that's what they did.
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But Lee Harvey would never make it home again. By
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11 p.m., he would be dead. The only witness to
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the fatal altercation was his fiancée, Tracy Andrews. And her
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version of events would soon make it one of the
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most talked-about murders of the decade. On December the 1st, 1996,
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27-year-old Tracey Andrews and her 25-year-old fiance Lee Harvey were
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at a pub in Bromsgrove in the West Midlands. After
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arguing all day, the couple were trying to patch things up,
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but their night was about to turn deadly.
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Tracy claimed that after they'd left the pub and that
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Lee was driving, that they'd become involved in a road
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rage incident, essentially, that a man in a dark Ford Sierra,
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there'd been some kind of altercation, and he'd started following them.
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And she's suddenly aware that this car is behind, lights
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flashing right on their tail. Lee starts to accelerate. They're
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snaking together through the lanes. The other car then effectively
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draws Lee to a halt.
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Tracy later told detectives that the man following the couple
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along rural Cooper's Hill got out of his car and
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Lee did the same. A confrontation was inevitable.
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The driver then said what he... He wants to say, apparently.
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He gets back in the car. Lee is still outside
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of his car. And then the passenger gets out, a
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fat man with staring eyes, and he goes up to
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Lee and attacks Lee in a way that Tracy doesn't
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quite see. Then she piles in, she says, to go
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to Lee's defence, because she says... She's not the kind
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of girl to just sit there and see her man
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being attacked, at which point she gets smacked by the
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fat man in the eyes and repeatedly gets up and
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is knocked down. And then she says, it all gets
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a bit hazy from that point and then she kind
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of comes to almost and leaves there and he's covered
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in blood and she's cradling him and it all goes
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very vague.
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Lee's car had ended up right outside a house called
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Keeper's Cottage. The commotion in the road had alerted one
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of the residents.
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The guy made his way down the little path to
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the road and there sees in poor light, just shown
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by the security light, but there's a woman standing there
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with her back to the car. There's a a body,
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prone body, on the floor. He instantly runs back into
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the house, saying, call the police, call the police, call
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the ambulance.
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The case was immediately given to Detective Superintendent Ian Johnston.
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I received a call from West Merseyside Constabulary Operations Room,
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which directed me to the scene at Cobless Hill, where
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I met with divisional representatives. Present at that time was
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Lee's car, and Tracey Andrews was inside Keeper's Cottage, having
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been found in the road outside. I could see Lee's vehicle.
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It was pulled in on the near side of the road,
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traveling towards Alfchurch, and it didn't appear to have been
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stopped in any great hurry. It looked as though it
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had been fairly neatly parked to the side.
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Detectives at the scene spoke to Tracey to find out
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exactly what had happened.
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The incident appeared to have started from the Marlbrook Public House.
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There'd been a road situation down the A38 towards the
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M42 motorway. Lee's car had been stopped, and then an
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altercation had taken place between a member of that chasing
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vehicle and Lee. Lee collapsed, and then the other vehicle
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made its escape.
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Lee Harvey died at the scene. It was clear that
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he'd been the victim of a savage and frenzied attack.
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This is a severe, sustained, brutal attack with a penknife. Now,
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the estimates of how many wounds Lee suffered vary. Some
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local reports said 42. What is clear, he was stabbed
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in the throat, back, front, repeatedly. viciously and continuously.
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To produce 42 stab wounds, it's a sustained assault. It's
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42 movements of your hand. This is not something that
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you can do in a second or two seconds in
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a moment of madness. You have to keep going and
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it is not easy. In Lee Harvey's case, the fatal
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stab wound was a stab wound to the carotid artery.
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That is a large artery in the neck, And a
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stab wound to an artery of that size is going
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to cause very rapid, very heavy bleeding. Without prompt medical attention,
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it's most likely to be a fatal injury.
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With an initial statement taken, a bruised and bloodied Tracy
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Andrews was whisked away.
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In an ambulance.
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And she's treated for those injuries and for shock in
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hospital and cared for and tended for. while police launch
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a massive murder hunt for whoever has done this terrible
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thing to Lee.
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Tracy had told us that the following vehicle, which had
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followed them from the Marlbrook, was a dark-colored Ford Sierra,
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F registered. And obviously, we started a vehicle inquiry with
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the DVLA for the owner details of any vehicle that
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might fit that description.
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As reports of the apparent road rage murder reached news
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desks across the country, journalists immediately headed to the West Midlands.
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From the very first moment, it was clear that this
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was going to be a huge story, an absolutely huge story.
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Just the idea of a road rage murder made it
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already a big story. And as the first morning progressed,
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everything we discovered made it a bigger story. Photographs began
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to emerge of Tracy. She looked an attractive young woman.
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Photographs began to emerge of Lee, the victim. Handsome young man.
246
00:16:08.899 --> 00:16:13.419
And so more and more of the elements that make
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00:16:13.470 --> 00:16:19.990
a big story young, attractive, bizarre, unimaginable circumstances all started
248
00:16:20.049 --> 00:16:21.169
slotting into place.
249
00:16:21.909 --> 00:16:24.929
Detectives knew that the best way to try and find
250
00:16:24.950 --> 00:16:27.669
the killer was to make an appeal through the media.
251
00:16:28.149 --> 00:16:31.580
A press conference was arranged for Tuesday, December the 3rd,
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00:16:32.039 --> 00:16:34.240
two days after the fatal attack.
253
00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:38.379
I met Tracy somewhere around about 10 a.m., I believe,
254
00:16:38.419 --> 00:16:40.519
just before we were going to do the press conference.
255
00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:43.379
I asked her if she was content to do the
256
00:16:43.419 --> 00:16:45.820
press conference, if it was something that she wanted to do.
257
00:16:46.710 --> 00:16:48.850
She said that she was. She said she really wanted
258
00:16:48.889 --> 00:16:49.299
to do it.
259
00:16:50.870 --> 00:16:55.419
NISP. hugely hiked up the media interest because we were
260
00:16:55.460 --> 00:16:58.720
going to have put in front of us, it was said,
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00:16:58.740 --> 00:17:03.100
the key witness and someone, we'd all seen the pictures
262
00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:06.039
by this time, an attractive blonde, and she was going
263
00:17:06.059 --> 00:17:08.880
to sit there in front of us and answer our questions.
264
00:17:08.900 --> 00:17:11.180
There was massive media interest in this.
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00:17:11.940 --> 00:17:15.220
As the press conference began, all the focus was on
266
00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:15.660
27-year-old Tracey.
267
00:17:20.940 --> 00:17:26.440
The noise of the cameras, the motor drives going off
268
00:17:27.119 --> 00:17:32.509
as Tracy walked in the room was absolutely deafening. And
269
00:17:32.569 --> 00:17:35.990
appearing in front of us, I don't think we'd all
270
00:17:36.710 --> 00:17:39.710
thought what would appear really, but we'd all seen these
271
00:17:39.769 --> 00:17:47.069
glamorous shots. Here was a woman, red-eyed, haggard, completely unmade up,
272
00:17:47.529 --> 00:17:49.640
two black eyes, cut on her nose.
273
00:17:50.559 --> 00:17:53.799
And Tracy did look like a victim. She had the
274
00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:57.720
injuries to her face. She looked incredibly distressed, incredibly upset.
275
00:17:58.420 --> 00:18:01.640
But Tracy seemed very comfortable when faced with all the
276
00:18:01.720 --> 00:18:04.900
camera flashes and questions from the journalists.
277
00:18:05.940 --> 00:18:09.119
The press really wanted to hear from Tracy. And so,
278
00:18:09.380 --> 00:18:11.779
you know, I became a bit of a sideline, really,
279
00:18:11.819 --> 00:18:13.890
which was fine. You know, it was about It was
280
00:18:13.970 --> 00:18:17.789
about the story, it was about the situation. And the
281
00:18:17.829 --> 00:18:20.329
press were interested in Tracy and she was quite happy
282
00:18:20.390 --> 00:18:22.309
to deal with the press.
283
00:18:22.509 --> 00:18:28.839
Both me and the other person were playing cat and
284
00:18:28.859 --> 00:18:35.099
mouse with each other for a while. And they overtook us.
285
00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:40.059
I was shouting at me to slow down, just ignore them,
286
00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:43.200
stop the comedy. I don't know. I don't know if
287
00:18:43.220 --> 00:18:44.259
a lot of men are like it. I know a
288
00:18:44.259 --> 00:18:46.460
lot of women are like it. You can get behind
289
00:18:46.480 --> 00:18:49.920
the wheel of a car. Sometimes you change personality.
290
00:18:50.710 --> 00:18:55.109
During the press conference, when talking about the alleged killer,
291
00:18:56.849 --> 00:19:04.140
there was a moment when suddenly her eyes came up,
292
00:19:04.579 --> 00:19:07.359
and she was mostly downcast throughout the press conference, but
293
00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:12.349
her eyes came up, and they flashed fiercely. and her
294
00:19:12.410 --> 00:19:15.829
mouth dropped open a bit with that famous slightly jutting draw,
295
00:19:16.910 --> 00:19:21.970
and she looked really angry. And at that point, again,
296
00:19:22.549 --> 00:19:26.410
all the motor drives went off. Every press photographer reacted
297
00:19:26.430 --> 00:19:29.349
to that. There was a crash of noise as every
298
00:19:29.390 --> 00:19:30.930
camera was hit.
299
00:19:30.950 --> 00:19:35.349
It was just the way he looked. His eyes, he
300
00:19:35.990 --> 00:19:40.890
had starey eyes. He just didn't seem normal. I saw
301
00:19:40.930 --> 00:19:41.170
the man.
302
00:19:42.630 --> 00:19:43.029
Hit me.
303
00:19:44.539 --> 00:19:47.180
I don't know what with. I didn't see anything.
304
00:19:48.380 --> 00:19:52.680
And suddenly she, starts appealing to the driver of the car, saying,
305
00:19:53.299 --> 00:19:55.779
you're not in any trouble, you know, come forward and
306
00:19:56.519 --> 00:19:57.960
tell the police what it's all about.
307
00:19:58.779 --> 00:20:01.220
Whoever this person is that was with you, you obviously
308
00:20:01.240 --> 00:20:07.390
know him. But he's ruined my life. Please just tell
309
00:20:07.430 --> 00:20:09.250
us who he is because you won't get in any
310
00:20:09.289 --> 00:20:11.109
trouble at all. It was not your fault.
311
00:20:12.049 --> 00:20:14.569
And I'm thinking, well, that's not strictly true, is it?
312
00:20:14.589 --> 00:20:17.910
You've driven your friend to a murder scene, he's killed
313
00:20:17.950 --> 00:20:21.779
someone and you've driven him away, so you are in trouble,
314
00:20:21.819 --> 00:20:23.779
but OK.
315
00:20:24.579 --> 00:20:28.839
And as the questioning progressed, Tracey seemed to contradict her
316
00:20:28.960 --> 00:20:30.180
original statement.
317
00:20:31.039 --> 00:20:35.099
I said, Tracey, sorry, but... I clearly understood the police
318
00:20:35.140 --> 00:20:38.319
to say that it was about ten past ten when
319
00:20:38.359 --> 00:20:40.299
you left the pub. And she kind of looked at me,
320
00:20:40.920 --> 00:20:44.170
sort of head down under her lashes, and said, no,
321
00:20:44.230 --> 00:20:50.930
it was ten to ten. And sat on her left
322
00:20:52.049 --> 00:20:56.630
was Superintendent Johnston. And I just saw him react to
323
00:20:56.670 --> 00:21:03.049
that answer from Tracey. And very slowly his head turned
324
00:21:03.069 --> 00:21:05.970
to the right and he just looked at her in
325
00:21:06.009 --> 00:21:11.089
a kind of assessing way, a kind of appraising way.
326
00:21:12.049 --> 00:21:16.019
And at that moment I thought, wow, there's something going
327
00:21:16.079 --> 00:21:16.410
on here.
328
00:21:17.119 --> 00:21:22.900
I just tried to stop the bleeding really and comfort
329
00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:23.779
him as much as I could.
330
00:21:24.750 --> 00:21:29.950
The inconsistency in Tracey's story surprised the majority of reporters
331
00:21:30.150 --> 00:21:30.759
in the room.
332
00:21:31.390 --> 00:21:36.880
The press conference finished and the national newspaper journalists gathered
333
00:21:36.940 --> 00:21:40.519
outside in a bit of a pack, as we would
334
00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:43.359
tend to do, all friends, all know each other, work
335
00:21:43.400 --> 00:21:46.440
against each other, and somebody said, what do you think?
336
00:21:47.880 --> 00:21:52.460
And I said, I think she did it. And we
337
00:21:52.500 --> 00:21:56.900
all kind of looked at each other and for this
338
00:21:56.960 --> 00:22:00.940
enormous story just got ten times bigger again if she
339
00:22:01.039 --> 00:22:01.579
is the killer.
340
00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:06.089
Was it really conceivable that Tracey Andrews had been lying
341
00:22:06.289 --> 00:22:11.430
all along? As the investigation continued, new evidence suggested that
342
00:22:11.490 --> 00:22:15.789
maybe there was no road rage incident at all. Andrews
343
00:22:15.829 --> 00:22:18.650
would go from the only witness to the number one
344
00:22:18.769 --> 00:22:26.549
suspect in the murder of Lee Harvey. On December the 3rd, 1996,
345
00:22:26.529 --> 00:22:33.369
27-year-old Tracy Andrews appeared at an emotionally charged press conference
346
00:22:33.769 --> 00:22:36.170
in an appeal to find the passenger of a Ford
347
00:22:36.230 --> 00:22:40.410
Sierra who she claimed had stabbed her fiancé Lee Harvey
348
00:22:40.690 --> 00:22:44.970
to death. But unbeknownst to Andrews, the police were beginning
349
00:22:45.019 --> 00:22:47.880
to work out the truth, that she had been the
350
00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:50.480
one responsible for the murder of 25-year-old Lee.
351
00:22:52.809 --> 00:22:55.930
It's self-preservation. That's what's driving her behavior at this point
352
00:22:55.950 --> 00:22:59.910
in time. She's got absolutely no empathy whatsoever for Lee
353
00:23:00.049 --> 00:23:02.670
or for Lee's family or, indeed, for her own family,
354
00:23:02.690 --> 00:23:05.710
who are also going to be really badly affected by this.
355
00:23:05.789 --> 00:23:09.250
So she's thinking, how do I best preserve myself? I'm
356
00:23:09.269 --> 00:23:11.230
going to take that role of the victim and I'm
357
00:23:11.250 --> 00:23:12.359
going to put myself in it.
358
00:23:13.470 --> 00:23:16.329
Andrew's claim that she and Lee had been the victim
359
00:23:16.349 --> 00:23:19.450
of a road rage incident didn't seem to add up.
360
00:23:20.180 --> 00:23:23.029
A witness statement from a child staying in a house
361
00:23:23.150 --> 00:23:27.130
on Cooper's Hill put her version of events in doubt.
362
00:23:28.210 --> 00:23:32.349
It was December, the windows were closed, but she could
363
00:23:32.470 --> 00:23:38.130
clearly hear a row going on. What she remembered was
364
00:23:38.230 --> 00:23:44.680
that one was a distinctly male baritone voice. The other
365
00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:49.779
voice was much softer. And she said it was much
366
00:23:49.900 --> 00:23:51.359
more like a woman's voice.
367
00:23:51.960 --> 00:23:55.960
Forensic searches of the road had discovered more clues into
368
00:23:56.019 --> 00:23:57.319
what really happened.
369
00:23:57.900 --> 00:24:02.000
We couldn't get anywhere near the scene on the first morning,
370
00:24:02.099 --> 00:24:04.859
or indeed for a few days afterwards. The police completely
371
00:24:04.900 --> 00:24:07.859
sealed it off while they drafted in officers to carry
372
00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:11.660
out a fingertip search of the area. What they found,
373
00:24:12.039 --> 00:24:15.059
we later discovered, were a couple of bits and pieces,
374
00:24:15.140 --> 00:24:20.849
including a tiny spring and another element from a multifunction penknife.
375
00:24:21.589 --> 00:24:27.710
What police didn't find was any trace of a car
376
00:24:27.809 --> 00:24:33.559
overtaking another car on the soft December winter verges of
377
00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:35.140
this pretty narrow road.
378
00:24:36.190 --> 00:24:39.769
Police had also found a black beanie hat in the
379
00:24:39.809 --> 00:24:42.970
hedgerow next to where Lee's car had been parked.
380
00:24:44.359 --> 00:24:48.420
So her assumption was, well, this has maybe fallen out
381
00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:52.519
of the assailant's pocket and he's not realized it. So,
382
00:24:52.539 --> 00:24:56.220
of course, that went to the laboratory fairly quickly with
383
00:24:56.259 --> 00:24:59.759
a view towards DNA and from hair samples, that sort
384
00:24:59.799 --> 00:25:02.819
of thing. And we have the report back by the
385
00:25:02.859 --> 00:25:06.180
Wednesday that this was animal hair, and it was cat hair,
386
00:25:06.319 --> 00:25:08.799
black and white cat hair. Well, there's a black and
387
00:25:08.819 --> 00:25:12.000
white cat at Tracey's. And so we went down and
388
00:25:12.019 --> 00:25:14.640
took a sample of the hair from the cat, and
389
00:25:14.660 --> 00:25:18.119
it was the cat hair. And then, as I understand
390
00:25:18.160 --> 00:25:22.829
it later on, it was accepted that this was Lee's hat,
391
00:25:23.390 --> 00:25:28.009
but had been in Tracey's pocket prior to the offence
392
00:25:28.049 --> 00:25:28.589
taking place.
393
00:25:29.740 --> 00:25:32.900
Andrew's lie about the hat was just one of many
394
00:25:33.019 --> 00:25:35.400
inconsistencies in her story.
395
00:25:36.160 --> 00:25:39.190
In Lee's hand, they found between 80 and 100 strands
396
00:25:39.269 --> 00:25:42.309
of Tracy's hair that have been pulled from Tracy's head
397
00:25:42.750 --> 00:25:45.809
as Lee has tried to defend himself. Now, if Lee
398
00:25:45.849 --> 00:25:48.529
had been murdered by this fat man with staring eyes,
399
00:25:48.609 --> 00:25:51.230
why would he have Tracy's hair in his hand?
400
00:25:52.029 --> 00:25:54.900
Well, the pathologist's evidence was that this was more than
401
00:25:54.940 --> 00:25:59.299
just a death-grasp stroke in Lee's hand. that it was
402
00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:03.150
a reasonable clump, that it had a good pull. But,
403
00:26:03.170 --> 00:26:06.690
of course, Tracey's view was, well, this must have been
404
00:26:06.730 --> 00:26:11.750
when he was going and he got his hand in
405
00:26:11.789 --> 00:26:14.289
my hair, you know? So it came as a sort of,
406
00:26:15.259 --> 00:26:17.539
as Lee was passing away, he pulled some hair from
407
00:26:17.579 --> 00:26:17.920
her head.
408
00:26:18.960 --> 00:26:22.059
It was beginning to look more and more likely that
409
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:25.279
Andrews had killed Lee in a fit of rage.
410
00:26:25.299 --> 00:26:27.329
I mean, if you.
411
00:26:27.779 --> 00:26:30.380
attack somebody that you're supposed to be in love with
412
00:26:30.700 --> 00:26:34.660
and stab them 42 times and that's pretty out of control.
413
00:26:35.619 --> 00:26:37.980
She wasn't thinking to herself as she set off from
414
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:40.680
the pub that evening, oh, tonight's the night I think
415
00:26:40.700 --> 00:26:44.950
I'm going to kill Lee. She just exploded like a volcano.
416
00:26:46.049 --> 00:26:51.069
Over a matter of minutes, literally, she went from mildly
417
00:26:51.150 --> 00:26:56.170
angry to obsessively angry and that therefore he had to die.
418
00:26:57.349 --> 00:27:00.079
When we talk about premeditated murder, we tend to assume
419
00:27:00.130 --> 00:27:02.980
that it's something that's days, weeks or months in the planning,
420
00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:07.299
but actually premeditation only needs to take seconds. You only
421
00:27:07.319 --> 00:27:09.680
need to have a few seconds to decide that you
422
00:27:09.740 --> 00:27:12.529
are going to end somebody's life, and she made that
423
00:27:12.569 --> 00:27:13.890
decision on this evening.
424
00:27:14.829 --> 00:27:18.049
And it seemed that Andrew's guilty conscience was beginning to
425
00:27:18.089 --> 00:27:22.130
get the better of her. On Wednesday, December 4th, the
426
00:27:22.170 --> 00:27:25.920
day after the Telltale press conference, she tried to kill herself.
427
00:27:26.819 --> 00:27:29.910
Tracy takes an overdose, and I think this is a
428
00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:32.970
very deliberate, a very determined act on her part. I
429
00:27:33.009 --> 00:27:36.269
think she was absolutely set on ending her own life
430
00:27:36.630 --> 00:27:40.069
because over the past few days, the situation has spiraled
431
00:27:40.150 --> 00:27:43.359
completely out of her control. She's trying to keep her
432
00:27:43.390 --> 00:27:47.220
story together. She's trying to present this face as the victim,
433
00:27:47.660 --> 00:27:49.640
and it's all getting a bit too much because it's
434
00:27:49.660 --> 00:27:52.400
starting to unravel. So I think this is an attempt
435
00:27:52.440 --> 00:27:55.740
to take back control, to say, actually, I'm going to
436
00:27:55.779 --> 00:27:58.660
decide to do something now that I'm fully in control of,
437
00:27:58.720 --> 00:27:59.740
and that's what this was.
438
00:28:00.859 --> 00:28:04.680
On the same evening, detectives were given their biggest steer yet.
439
00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:09.619
Two people had seen Lee's distinctive white Ford Escort on
440
00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:10.880
the night of his murder.
441
00:28:12.160 --> 00:28:15.980
Two witnesses who said, we've seen it in the local paper.
442
00:28:16.900 --> 00:28:19.529
I know I've seen this white car. We were driving
443
00:28:19.569 --> 00:28:23.700
from Half Church in the opposite direction. We came through
444
00:28:24.359 --> 00:28:27.119
Coopers Hill, past Coopers Cottage. We came down the hill.
445
00:28:28.019 --> 00:28:30.460
And as we came to the junction at the bottom,
446
00:28:30.559 --> 00:28:33.990
I saw this car go past. And he said, it's
447
00:28:34.069 --> 00:28:38.750
a white Escort G Reg, spoked wheels, everything that it was.
448
00:28:39.829 --> 00:28:41.690
And he said, you know, there is no doubt that
449
00:28:41.730 --> 00:28:44.950
was the car. He said, and from that point to
450
00:28:45.019 --> 00:28:48.599
when we got into Bromsgrove, we saw no car that
451
00:28:48.680 --> 00:28:51.849
fits any description of what you've been told. And there
452
00:28:51.890 --> 00:28:55.710
certainly wasn't any car chasing that car in the vicinity
453
00:28:55.750 --> 00:28:59.430
of Cooper's Hill. So we'd got the confirmation that we
454
00:28:59.450 --> 00:29:03.809
were looking for, that the road rage incident had not occurred.
455
00:29:05.210 --> 00:29:08.630
And so that changed the way that we looked at
456
00:29:08.670 --> 00:29:09.539
the investigation.
457
00:29:10.150 --> 00:29:13.099
Her story really was starting to crumble at that point
458
00:29:13.119 --> 00:29:16.039
in time. And combined with her suicide attempt, I think
459
00:29:16.059 --> 00:29:18.960
the police decided that's enough evidence. We can now move
460
00:29:19.039 --> 00:29:19.849
in and arrest her.
461
00:29:21.019 --> 00:29:26.480
On Saturday, December 7th, 1996, six days after Lee's murder,
462
00:29:26.859 --> 00:29:31.140
Tracey Andrews was arrested in hospital and taken into custody.
463
00:29:31.640 --> 00:29:35.329
The 27-year-old woman was arrested at 11 o'clock today, but
464
00:29:35.390 --> 00:29:40.349
so far detectives have released no further details. Until this development...
465
00:29:40.279 --> 00:29:43.000
the police had been looking for two men who they
466
00:29:43.059 --> 00:29:45.619
believe may have escaped from the scene in a dark
467
00:29:45.700 --> 00:29:46.420
Ford Sierra.
468
00:29:47.109 --> 00:29:50.930
The evidence from the two witnesses who'd seen Lee Harvey's
469
00:29:50.970 --> 00:29:59.210
vehicle through the junction that night was extremely impactive. And realistically...
470
00:29:59.779 --> 00:30:04.190
without a following vehicle, without a dark-colored Ford Sierra chasing
471
00:30:04.230 --> 00:30:08.210
that car, then the whole being of that explanation from
472
00:30:08.250 --> 00:30:09.579
Tracy just didn't stand up.
473
00:30:10.690 --> 00:30:14.730
Further evidence pointed towards Andrews being the killer after the
474
00:30:14.769 --> 00:30:17.009
clothes she was wearing on the night of the murder
475
00:30:17.349 --> 00:30:18.650
were forensically tested.
476
00:30:19.190 --> 00:30:24.220
The forensic scientist who had examined one of Tracy's zip-up boots,
477
00:30:24.240 --> 00:30:27.440
she had a pair of ankle boots on, and within that,
478
00:30:27.480 --> 00:30:30.440
he'd found a mark in the leather, which had a
479
00:30:30.460 --> 00:30:34.369
rounded top on it, and seemed to bear all the
480
00:30:34.420 --> 00:30:38.630
impression of the outside shape of the knife. And that's
481
00:30:39.970 --> 00:30:42.930
the hypothesis, that she carried the knife away from the
482
00:30:43.009 --> 00:30:46.029
scene in her boot, and that as soon as she
483
00:30:46.069 --> 00:30:48.349
got to the hospital, she was able to dispose of it.
484
00:30:48.990 --> 00:30:52.329
She could have easily just thrown the knife into the
485
00:30:52.369 --> 00:30:55.849
grass or into the forest, whatever it was, and hoped
486
00:30:55.869 --> 00:30:58.759
the police wouldn't find it. She even thought, no, these
487
00:30:58.779 --> 00:31:01.200
guys are going to bring dogs, they're going to search
488
00:31:01.240 --> 00:31:03.019
the whole area, they'll probably find something.
489
00:31:04.769 --> 00:31:08.569
Tracy Andrews was officially charged with the murder of Lee
490
00:31:08.630 --> 00:31:14.069
Harvey on December the 19th, 1996. Her trial was set
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00:31:14.109 --> 00:31:17.210
for July, and she was going to plead not guilty.
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Andrews was sticking to her story. The prosecution would have
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00:31:21.960 --> 00:31:23.460
to prove that she was a liar later.
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On December 1st, 1996, Tracy Andrews and her fiancé Lee
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00:00:11.970 --> 00:00:16.170
Harvey were driving home after a night out when suddenly
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00:00:16.250 --> 00:00:20.059
they began to be pursued by another car. It was
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00:00:20.120 --> 00:00:22.800
a chase that would end in Lee's murder.
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He was stabbed in the throat, back, front, repeatedly, viciously
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and continuously.
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Just two days later, 27-year-old Tracey gave a heart-wrenching press
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conference appealing for the public's help to find her partner's killer.
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But all was not what it seemed.
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You get behind the wheel of a car. Sometimes you
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change personality.
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And we all kind of looked at each other and thought,
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this enormous story just got ten times bigger again if
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she is the killer.
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There had been no car chase. There had been no
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random attack. Tracey Andrews had stabbed her own fiancé to
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death and was trying to get away with murder.
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This is a woman of cunning, of deceit, and with
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a vicious temper.
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Tracey Andrews had deceived a nation and become one of
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the world's most evil killers. It was a press conference
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that shocked Britain when 27-year-old Tracey Andrews defiantly appeared in
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front of the world's media on December 3rd, 1996. She
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wept over the murder of her fiancé Lee Harvey. She
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claimed a stranger had stopped the couple in their car
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before stabbing her 25-year-old partner to death in a savage attack.
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I just.
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Tried to stop the bleeding, really.
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And comfort him as much.
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As I could.
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But it was all a lie. In reality, Andrews had
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killed Lee in the most brutal of manners. At her trial,
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Andrews continued to try and sell her fabricated story. The
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media were fascinated by her. Daily Mirror journalist Rod Chater
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managed to interview the wannabe model at Birmingham Crown Court
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on the day of her conviction.
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I'm sat next to Tracy. I didn't feel threatened, obviously.
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She's a killer, but we're not in any kind of
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00:02:54.419 --> 00:02:57.860
environment in which she's likely to suddenly launch an attack
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00:02:57.939 --> 00:03:02.300
on me. So I said, well, you know, do you
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00:03:02.340 --> 00:03:04.360
stick to your story? Yes, I stick to my story.
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Did you kill him?
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No, I didn't.
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00:03:08.389 --> 00:03:12.550
Just minutes later, Tracy Andrews was given a life sentence
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00:03:12.750 --> 00:03:14.990
for the murder of her own fiancé.
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00:03:15.870 --> 00:03:20.590
I worked as a national newspaper journalist for For many years,
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00:03:21.129 --> 00:03:26.780
I covered thousands of stories, dozens of murders. Some stories
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00:03:26.879 --> 00:03:30.819
just stay with you, and this is one of the
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ones that stays with me.
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It's a story that begins over 45 years ago. Tracey
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Andrews was born on the 9th of April 1969 in.
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00:03:42.250 --> 00:03:42.629
The West Midlands.
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00:03:47.930 --> 00:03:51.710
Well, Tracey was brought up just outside Birmingham in Redditch
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00:03:51.909 --> 00:03:56.090
and Althchurch, and she was the middle child. She had
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an older sibling and a younger sibling and several half-siblings,
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00:04:00.280 --> 00:04:02.840
and her parents broke up when she was around about
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00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:06.699
6 years old because they'd had quite a volatile relationship.
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The separation of her parents in 1975 had a lasting
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00:04:12.599 --> 00:04:14.300
effect on young Tracey.
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Well, Tracy's parents split up and her mother got married
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to another man. And when we look at our parents' relationships,
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they are quite important because they inform our expectations of
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other people, our expectations of the relationships that we go
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on to have.
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Kids need attention, you know. They need to be loved
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and cuddled and everything. And a lot of kids that
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come from those kind of broken homes, in the case
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00:04:39.660 --> 00:04:43.180
of Tracy, they want to be loved by mother, father
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or somebody. That is definitely, in my opinion, one of
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the things that pushed her into always wanting the attention
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of other men.
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Tracy left school in 1986, and aged 21, she had
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00:04:57.430 --> 00:05:02.029
a baby daughter. But the relationship with her partner lasted
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00:05:02.129 --> 00:05:05.889
barely a year, and they soon went their separate ways.
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What we've got here is a woman who doesn't like
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00:05:10.230 --> 00:05:13.649
her partner's having a life that doesn't involve her. She
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00:05:13.689 --> 00:05:16.550
doesn't like her partners going out without her. She gets
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00:05:16.610 --> 00:05:18.370
very jealous. She's very possessive.
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00:05:19.029 --> 00:05:22.209
She certainly had a temper. Everybody who knew her said
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00:05:22.250 --> 00:05:25.050
she had a temper. And when she lost her temper,
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00:05:25.250 --> 00:05:28.629
everybody knew about it. She would shout at the top
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00:05:28.810 --> 00:05:31.180
of her voice. The whole street would hear.
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00:05:32.029 --> 00:05:37.189
By 1994, 25-year-old Tracy was living in a council flat
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00:05:37.250 --> 00:05:42.029
in Alfchurch and working as a barmaid. But her aspirations
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00:05:42.089 --> 00:05:44.329
went far beyond pulling pints.
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00:05:46.269 --> 00:05:49.730
She had visions, she had dreams of becoming a model,
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00:05:51.009 --> 00:05:54.829
and she was very photogenic. She looked good on camera
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00:05:55.709 --> 00:05:59.240
and she knew it, and she had some pictures taken
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and a photograph. album put together, but that never really
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00:06:03.279 --> 00:06:03.899
took off either.
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She became a barmaid working in a pub, but she
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still dressed very provocatively and she still loved talking to
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men and chatting to men. Again, seeking the attention that
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she wanted to get as a model, because obviously when
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you're that pretty and you're a model, you do get
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a lot of attention.
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Living nearby to Tracy was 23-year-old Lee Harvey. He also
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00:06:26.899 --> 00:06:29.470
had a daughter from a previous relationship.
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00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:35.060
Lee Harvey was a young man from a very close family,
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00:06:35.079 --> 00:06:39.420
and he worked as a bus driver for West Midlands Travel.
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So this was a job that involved meeting many people
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on a daily basis. He was very outgoing. He was
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interested in cars and was always very well turned out.
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So he was your typical young Birmingham lad, essentially, very
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close to his mum, very close to his sister.
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The paths of the two young single parents would soon cross.
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Well, Lee and Tracy met in October 1994 in Ritzy's
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nightclub in Birmingham, and this relationship really did develop at
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00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:14.620
a lightning pace. They had moved in with one another
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only around three months into the relationship, so this was
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going very, very fast. And their relationship was quite a
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volatile one. They were both quite possessive, quite jealous, when
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it came to the other's relationships with the opposite sex.
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And you often find this in relationships that develop very quickly.
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You haven't got that foundation of trust that's been built.
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You're always a little bit kind of suspicious as to
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what the other person's up to because you don't really
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know them.
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And they would row, and they would fight like cat
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and dog, and neighbors would report how voices would be
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raised at all hours of the day and night and
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would go on and on for hours. and then stop,
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and then start again.
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The couple got engaged after just six months, but their
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volatile relationship would often see them break up, only to
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get back together again soon after.
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It was maybe almost a carbon copy of what Tracy
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grew up with in her house. She had a very
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00:08:17.379 --> 00:08:22.959
explosive temper, and Lee Harvey also, in a way, wouldn't
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00:08:22.980 --> 00:08:26.480
like just... to her screaming, so he would scream back.
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She was forever throwing him out into the street, and
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she would throw his clothes out of the window or
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in a black bin bag and chuck him out the
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front door, change the locks, and then they would have reconciliations.
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Lee would go back, more violence, Lee would leave, Lee
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would go back, more violence. This went on for a
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period of about two years.
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Their explosive relationship finally came to a head on December
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the 1st, 1996.
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So they'd been rowing all day. Lee tended to be
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the peacemaker, and it was probably Lee's suggestion, why don't
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we go for a drink? Why don't we just get
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a change of scene, a breath of fresh air? Let's
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00:09:11.879 --> 00:09:15.090
get out of here. Let's just go and relax and
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have a drink. And that's what they did.
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But Lee Harvey would never make it home again. By
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00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:25.500
11 p.m., he would be dead. The only witness to
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00:09:25.539 --> 00:09:30.049
the fatal altercation was his fiancée, Tracy Andrews. And her
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00:09:30.129 --> 00:09:33.190
version of events would soon make it one of the
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00:09:33.289 --> 00:09:43.029
most talked-about murders of the decade. On December the 1st, 1996,
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27-year-old Tracey Andrews and her 25-year-old fiance Lee Harvey were
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at a pub in Bromsgrove in the West Midlands. After
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arguing all day, the couple were trying to patch things up,
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00:09:56.570 --> 00:09:59.240
but their night was about to turn deadly.
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Tracy claimed that after they'd left the pub and that
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00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:07.639
Lee was driving, that they'd become involved in a road
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00:10:07.679 --> 00:10:12.269
rage incident, essentially, that a man in a dark Ford Sierra,
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there'd been some kind of altercation, and he'd started following them.
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00:10:15.889 --> 00:10:19.830
And she's suddenly aware that this car is behind, lights
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00:10:19.929 --> 00:10:24.529
flashing right on their tail. Lee starts to accelerate. They're
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00:10:24.830 --> 00:10:28.870
snaking together through the lanes. The other car then effectively
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00:10:28.909 --> 00:10:30.370
draws Lee to a halt.
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Tracy later told detectives that the man following the couple
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along rural Cooper's Hill got out of his car and
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Lee did the same. A confrontation was inevitable.
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The driver then said what he... He wants to say, apparently.
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He gets back in the car. Lee is still outside
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of his car. And then the passenger gets out, a
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fat man with staring eyes, and he goes up to
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00:10:59.899 --> 00:11:04.379
Lee and attacks Lee in a way that Tracy doesn't
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quite see. Then she piles in, she says, to go
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00:11:11.990 --> 00:11:14.769
to Lee's defence, because she says... She's not the kind
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of girl to just sit there and see her man
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being attacked, at which point she gets smacked by the
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fat man in the eyes and repeatedly gets up and
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is knocked down. And then she says, it all gets
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a bit hazy from that point and then she kind
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00:11:32.519 --> 00:11:37.519
of comes to almost and leaves there and he's covered
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in blood and she's cradling him and it all goes
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00:11:41.919 --> 00:11:42.340
very vague.
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Lee's car had ended up right outside a house called
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Keeper's Cottage. The commotion in the road had alerted one
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of the residents.
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The guy made his way down the little path to
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00:11:58.169 --> 00:12:04.750
the road and there sees in poor light, just shown
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00:12:04.789 --> 00:12:08.389
by the security light, but there's a woman standing there
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with her back to the car. There's a a body,
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00:12:12.129 --> 00:12:17.899
prone body, on the floor. He instantly runs back into
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the house, saying, call the police, call the police, call
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00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:20.759
the ambulance.
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The case was immediately given to Detective Superintendent Ian Johnston.
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00:12:28.320 --> 00:12:31.480
I received a call from West Merseyside Constabulary Operations Room,
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which directed me to the scene at Cobless Hill, where
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I met with divisional representatives. Present at that time was
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00:12:39.789 --> 00:12:45.799
Lee's car, and Tracey Andrews was inside Keeper's Cottage, having
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00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:50.980
been found in the road outside. I could see Lee's vehicle.
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It was pulled in on the near side of the road,
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traveling towards Alfchurch, and it didn't appear to have been
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00:12:57.000 --> 00:12:58.840
stopped in any great hurry. It looked as though it
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00:12:58.879 --> 00:13:01.320
had been fairly neatly parked to the side.
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Detectives at the scene spoke to Tracey to find out
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00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:07.480
exactly what had happened.
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00:13:08.379 --> 00:13:11.720
The incident appeared to have started from the Marlbrook Public House.
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00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:17.740
There'd been a road situation down the A38 towards the
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00:13:17.860 --> 00:13:21.799
M42 motorway. Lee's car had been stopped, and then an
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00:13:21.840 --> 00:13:25.590
altercation had taken place between a member of that chasing
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00:13:25.649 --> 00:13:30.629
vehicle and Lee. Lee collapsed, and then the other vehicle
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00:13:31.669 --> 00:13:32.409
made its escape.
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00:13:33.340 --> 00:13:36.919
Lee Harvey died at the scene. It was clear that
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00:13:36.960 --> 00:13:40.179
he'd been the victim of a savage and frenzied attack.
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00:13:41.730 --> 00:13:49.269
This is a severe, sustained, brutal attack with a penknife. Now,
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00:13:49.309 --> 00:13:54.970
the estimates of how many wounds Lee suffered vary. Some
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00:13:55.049 --> 00:13:58.450
local reports said 42. What is clear, he was stabbed
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00:13:58.509 --> 00:14:05.029
in the throat, back, front, repeatedly. viciously and continuously.
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00:14:05.929 --> 00:14:09.929
To produce 42 stab wounds, it's a sustained assault. It's
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00:14:09.929 --> 00:14:14.409
42 movements of your hand. This is not something that
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00:14:14.429 --> 00:14:16.490
you can do in a second or two seconds in
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00:14:16.529 --> 00:14:20.529
a moment of madness. You have to keep going and
219
00:14:20.549 --> 00:14:25.240
it is not easy. In Lee Harvey's case, the fatal
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00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:27.740
stab wound was a stab wound to the carotid artery.
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00:14:28.500 --> 00:14:31.269
That is a large artery in the neck, And a
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00:14:31.370 --> 00:14:34.590
stab wound to an artery of that size is going
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00:14:34.610 --> 00:14:40.200
to cause very rapid, very heavy bleeding. Without prompt medical attention,
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00:14:40.649 --> 00:14:42.500
it's most likely to be a fatal injury.
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00:14:44.259 --> 00:14:48.779
With an initial statement taken, a bruised and bloodied Tracy
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00:14:48.940 --> 00:14:50.980
Andrews was whisked away.
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00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:51.799
In an ambulance.
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00:14:53.240 --> 00:14:57.710
And she's treated for those injuries and for shock in
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00:14:57.759 --> 00:15:02.370
hospital and cared for and tended for. while police launch
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00:15:02.950 --> 00:15:07.269
a massive murder hunt for whoever has done this terrible
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00:15:07.549 --> 00:15:08.090
thing to Lee.
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00:15:09.169 --> 00:15:12.100
Tracy had told us that the following vehicle, which had
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00:15:12.899 --> 00:15:16.559
followed them from the Marlbrook, was a dark-colored Ford Sierra,
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00:15:17.460 --> 00:15:22.200
F registered. And obviously, we started a vehicle inquiry with
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00:15:22.220 --> 00:15:27.250
the DVLA for the owner details of any vehicle that
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00:15:27.289 --> 00:15:28.389
might fit that description.
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As reports of the apparent road rage murder reached news
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00:15:33.970 --> 00:15:38.820
desks across the country, journalists immediately headed to the West Midlands.
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00:15:40.279 --> 00:15:43.000
From the very first moment, it was clear that this
240
00:15:43.059 --> 00:15:45.679
was going to be a huge story, an absolutely huge story.
241
00:15:45.919 --> 00:15:48.720
Just the idea of a road rage murder made it
242
00:15:48.899 --> 00:15:53.139
already a big story. And as the first morning progressed,
243
00:15:54.409 --> 00:15:58.799
everything we discovered made it a bigger story. Photographs began
244
00:15:58.899 --> 00:16:03.919
to emerge of Tracy. She looked an attractive young woman.
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00:16:04.360 --> 00:16:08.139
Photographs began to emerge of Lee, the victim. Handsome young man.
246
00:16:08.899 --> 00:16:13.419
And so more and more of the elements that make
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00:16:13.470 --> 00:16:19.990
a big story young, attractive, bizarre, unimaginable circumstances all started
248
00:16:20.049 --> 00:16:21.169
slotting into place.
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00:16:21.909 --> 00:16:24.929
Detectives knew that the best way to try and find
250
00:16:24.950 --> 00:16:27.669
the killer was to make an appeal through the media.
251
00:16:28.149 --> 00:16:31.580
A press conference was arranged for Tuesday, December the 3rd,
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00:16:32.039 --> 00:16:34.240
two days after the fatal attack.
253
00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:38.379
I met Tracy somewhere around about 10 a.m., I believe,
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00:16:38.419 --> 00:16:40.519
just before we were going to do the press conference.
255
00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:43.379
I asked her if she was content to do the
256
00:16:43.419 --> 00:16:45.820
press conference, if it was something that she wanted to do.
257
00:16:46.710 --> 00:16:48.850
She said that she was. She said she really wanted
258
00:16:48.889 --> 00:16:49.299
to do it.
259
00:16:50.870 --> 00:16:55.419
NISP. hugely hiked up the media interest because we were
260
00:16:55.460 --> 00:16:58.720
going to have put in front of us, it was said,
261
00:16:58.740 --> 00:17:03.100
the key witness and someone, we'd all seen the pictures
262
00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:06.039
by this time, an attractive blonde, and she was going
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00:17:06.059 --> 00:17:08.880
to sit there in front of us and answer our questions.
264
00:17:08.900 --> 00:17:11.180
There was massive media interest in this.
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00:17:11.940 --> 00:17:15.220
As the press conference began, all the focus was on
266
00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:15.660
27-year-old Tracey.
267
00:17:20.940 --> 00:17:26.440
The noise of the cameras, the motor drives going off
268
00:17:27.119 --> 00:17:32.509
as Tracy walked in the room was absolutely deafening. And
269
00:17:32.569 --> 00:17:35.990
appearing in front of us, I don't think we'd all
270
00:17:36.710 --> 00:17:39.710
thought what would appear really, but we'd all seen these
271
00:17:39.769 --> 00:17:47.069
glamorous shots. Here was a woman, red-eyed, haggard, completely unmade up,
272
00:17:47.529 --> 00:17:49.640
two black eyes, cut on her nose.
273
00:17:50.559 --> 00:17:53.799
And Tracy did look like a victim. She had the
274
00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:57.720
injuries to her face. She looked incredibly distressed, incredibly upset.
275
00:17:58.420 --> 00:18:01.640
But Tracy seemed very comfortable when faced with all the
276
00:18:01.720 --> 00:18:04.900
camera flashes and questions from the journalists.
277
00:18:05.940 --> 00:18:09.119
The press really wanted to hear from Tracy. And so,
278
00:18:09.380 --> 00:18:11.779
you know, I became a bit of a sideline, really,
279
00:18:11.819 --> 00:18:13.890
which was fine. You know, it was about It was
280
00:18:13.970 --> 00:18:17.789
about the story, it was about the situation. And the
281
00:18:17.829 --> 00:18:20.329
press were interested in Tracy and she was quite happy
282
00:18:20.390 --> 00:18:22.309
to deal with the press.
283
00:18:22.509 --> 00:18:28.839
Both me and the other person were playing cat and
284
00:18:28.859 --> 00:18:35.099
mouse with each other for a while. And they overtook us.
285
00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:40.059
I was shouting at me to slow down, just ignore them,
286
00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:43.200
stop the comedy. I don't know. I don't know if
287
00:18:43.220 --> 00:18:44.259
a lot of men are like it. I know a
288
00:18:44.259 --> 00:18:46.460
lot of women are like it. You can get behind
289
00:18:46.480 --> 00:18:49.920
the wheel of a car. Sometimes you change personality.
290
00:18:50.710 --> 00:18:55.109
During the press conference, when talking about the alleged killer,
291
00:18:56.849 --> 00:19:04.140
there was a moment when suddenly her eyes came up,
292
00:19:04.579 --> 00:19:07.359
and she was mostly downcast throughout the press conference, but
293
00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:12.349
her eyes came up, and they flashed fiercely. and her
294
00:19:12.410 --> 00:19:15.829
mouth dropped open a bit with that famous slightly jutting draw,
295
00:19:16.910 --> 00:19:21.970
and she looked really angry. And at that point, again,
296
00:19:22.549 --> 00:19:26.410
all the motor drives went off. Every press photographer reacted
297
00:19:26.430 --> 00:19:29.349
to that. There was a crash of noise as every
298
00:19:29.390 --> 00:19:30.930
camera was hit.
299
00:19:30.950 --> 00:19:35.349
It was just the way he looked. His eyes, he
300
00:19:35.990 --> 00:19:40.890
had starey eyes. He just didn't seem normal. I saw
301
00:19:40.930 --> 00:19:41.170
the man.
302
00:19:42.630 --> 00:19:43.029
Hit me.
303
00:19:44.539 --> 00:19:47.180
I don't know what with. I didn't see anything.
304
00:19:48.380 --> 00:19:52.680
And suddenly she, starts appealing to the driver of the car, saying,
305
00:19:53.299 --> 00:19:55.779
you're not in any trouble, you know, come forward and
306
00:19:56.519 --> 00:19:57.960
tell the police what it's all about.
307
00:19:58.779 --> 00:20:01.220
Whoever this person is that was with you, you obviously
308
00:20:01.240 --> 00:20:07.390
know him. But he's ruined my life. Please just tell
309
00:20:07.430 --> 00:20:09.250
us who he is because you won't get in any
310
00:20:09.289 --> 00:20:11.109
trouble at all. It was not your fault.
311
00:20:12.049 --> 00:20:14.569
And I'm thinking, well, that's not strictly true, is it?
312
00:20:14.589 --> 00:20:17.910
You've driven your friend to a murder scene, he's killed
313
00:20:17.950 --> 00:20:21.779
someone and you've driven him away, so you are in trouble,
314
00:20:21.819 --> 00:20:23.779
but OK.
315
00:20:24.579 --> 00:20:28.839
And as the questioning progressed, Tracey seemed to contradict her
316
00:20:28.960 --> 00:20:30.180
original statement.
317
00:20:31.039 --> 00:20:35.099
I said, Tracey, sorry, but... I clearly understood the police
318
00:20:35.140 --> 00:20:38.319
to say that it was about ten past ten when
319
00:20:38.359 --> 00:20:40.299
you left the pub. And she kind of looked at me,
320
00:20:40.920 --> 00:20:44.170
sort of head down under her lashes, and said, no,
321
00:20:44.230 --> 00:20:50.930
it was ten to ten. And sat on her left
322
00:20:52.049 --> 00:20:56.630
was Superintendent Johnston. And I just saw him react to
323
00:20:56.670 --> 00:21:03.049
that answer from Tracey. And very slowly his head turned
324
00:21:03.069 --> 00:21:05.970
to the right and he just looked at her in
325
00:21:06.009 --> 00:21:11.089
a kind of assessing way, a kind of appraising way.
326
00:21:12.049 --> 00:21:16.019
And at that moment I thought, wow, there's something going
327
00:21:16.079 --> 00:21:16.410
on here.
328
00:21:17.119 --> 00:21:22.900
I just tried to stop the bleeding really and comfort
329
00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:23.779
him as much as I could.
330
00:21:24.750 --> 00:21:29.950
The inconsistency in Tracey's story surprised the majority of reporters
331
00:21:30.150 --> 00:21:30.759
in the room.
332
00:21:31.390 --> 00:21:36.880
The press conference finished and the national newspaper journalists gathered
333
00:21:36.940 --> 00:21:40.519
outside in a bit of a pack, as we would
334
00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:43.359
tend to do, all friends, all know each other, work
335
00:21:43.400 --> 00:21:46.440
against each other, and somebody said, what do you think?
336
00:21:47.880 --> 00:21:52.460
And I said, I think she did it. And we
337
00:21:52.500 --> 00:21:56.900
all kind of looked at each other and for this
338
00:21:56.960 --> 00:22:00.940
enormous story just got ten times bigger again if she
339
00:22:01.039 --> 00:22:01.579
is the killer.
340
00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:06.089
Was it really conceivable that Tracey Andrews had been lying
341
00:22:06.289 --> 00:22:11.430
all along? As the investigation continued, new evidence suggested that
342
00:22:11.490 --> 00:22:15.789
maybe there was no road rage incident at all. Andrews
343
00:22:15.829 --> 00:22:18.650
would go from the only witness to the number one
344
00:22:18.769 --> 00:22:26.549
suspect in the murder of Lee Harvey. On December the 3rd, 1996,
345
00:22:26.529 --> 00:22:33.369
27-year-old Tracy Andrews appeared at an emotionally charged press conference
346
00:22:33.769 --> 00:22:36.170
in an appeal to find the passenger of a Ford
347
00:22:36.230 --> 00:22:40.410
Sierra who she claimed had stabbed her fiancé Lee Harvey
348
00:22:40.690 --> 00:22:44.970
to death. But unbeknownst to Andrews, the police were beginning
349
00:22:45.019 --> 00:22:47.880
to work out the truth, that she had been the
350
00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:50.480
one responsible for the murder of 25-year-old Lee.
351
00:22:52.809 --> 00:22:55.930
It's self-preservation. That's what's driving her behavior at this point
352
00:22:55.950 --> 00:22:59.910
in time. She's got absolutely no empathy whatsoever for Lee
353
00:23:00.049 --> 00:23:02.670
or for Lee's family or, indeed, for her own family,
354
00:23:02.690 --> 00:23:05.710
who are also going to be really badly affected by this.
355
00:23:05.789 --> 00:23:09.250
So she's thinking, how do I best preserve myself? I'm
356
00:23:09.269 --> 00:23:11.230
going to take that role of the victim and I'm
357
00:23:11.250 --> 00:23:12.359
going to put myself in it.
358
00:23:13.470 --> 00:23:16.329
Andrew's claim that she and Lee had been the victim
359
00:23:16.349 --> 00:23:19.450
of a road rage incident didn't seem to add up.
360
00:23:20.180 --> 00:23:23.029
A witness statement from a child staying in a house
361
00:23:23.150 --> 00:23:27.130
on Cooper's Hill put her version of events in doubt.
362
00:23:28.210 --> 00:23:32.349
It was December, the windows were closed, but she could
363
00:23:32.470 --> 00:23:38.130
clearly hear a row going on. What she remembered was
364
00:23:38.230 --> 00:23:44.680
that one was a distinctly male baritone voice. The other
365
00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:49.779
voice was much softer. And she said it was much
366
00:23:49.900 --> 00:23:51.359
more like a woman's voice.
367
00:23:51.960 --> 00:23:55.960
Forensic searches of the road had discovered more clues into
368
00:23:56.019 --> 00:23:57.319
what really happened.
369
00:23:57.900 --> 00:24:02.000
We couldn't get anywhere near the scene on the first morning,
370
00:24:02.099 --> 00:24:04.859
or indeed for a few days afterwards. The police completely
371
00:24:04.900 --> 00:24:07.859
sealed it off while they drafted in officers to carry
372
00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:11.660
out a fingertip search of the area. What they found,
373
00:24:12.039 --> 00:24:15.059
we later discovered, were a couple of bits and pieces,
374
00:24:15.140 --> 00:24:20.849
including a tiny spring and another element from a multifunction penknife.
375
00:24:21.589 --> 00:24:27.710
What police didn't find was any trace of a car
376
00:24:27.809 --> 00:24:33.559
overtaking another car on the soft December winter verges of
377
00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:35.140
this pretty narrow road.
378
00:24:36.190 --> 00:24:39.769
Police had also found a black beanie hat in the
379
00:24:39.809 --> 00:24:42.970
hedgerow next to where Lee's car had been parked.
380
00:24:44.359 --> 00:24:48.420
So her assumption was, well, this has maybe fallen out
381
00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:52.519
of the assailant's pocket and he's not realized it. So,
382
00:24:52.539 --> 00:24:56.220
of course, that went to the laboratory fairly quickly with
383
00:24:56.259 --> 00:24:59.759
a view towards DNA and from hair samples, that sort
384
00:24:59.799 --> 00:25:02.819
of thing. And we have the report back by the
385
00:25:02.859 --> 00:25:06.180
Wednesday that this was animal hair, and it was cat hair,
386
00:25:06.319 --> 00:25:08.799
black and white cat hair. Well, there's a black and
387
00:25:08.819 --> 00:25:12.000
white cat at Tracey's. And so we went down and
388
00:25:12.019 --> 00:25:14.640
took a sample of the hair from the cat, and
389
00:25:14.660 --> 00:25:18.119
it was the cat hair. And then, as I understand
390
00:25:18.160 --> 00:25:22.829
it later on, it was accepted that this was Lee's hat,
391
00:25:23.390 --> 00:25:28.009
but had been in Tracey's pocket prior to the offence
392
00:25:28.049 --> 00:25:28.589
taking place.
393
00:25:29.740 --> 00:25:32.900
Andrew's lie about the hat was just one of many
394
00:25:33.019 --> 00:25:35.400
inconsistencies in her story.
395
00:25:36.160 --> 00:25:39.190
In Lee's hand, they found between 80 and 100 strands
396
00:25:39.269 --> 00:25:42.309
of Tracy's hair that have been pulled from Tracy's head
397
00:25:42.750 --> 00:25:45.809
as Lee has tried to defend himself. Now, if Lee
398
00:25:45.849 --> 00:25:48.529
had been murdered by this fat man with staring eyes,
399
00:25:48.609 --> 00:25:51.230
why would he have Tracy's hair in his hand?
400
00:25:52.029 --> 00:25:54.900
Well, the pathologist's evidence was that this was more than
401
00:25:54.940 --> 00:25:59.299
just a death-grasp stroke in Lee's hand. that it was
402
00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:03.150
a reasonable clump, that it had a good pull. But,
403
00:26:03.170 --> 00:26:06.690
of course, Tracey's view was, well, this must have been
404
00:26:06.730 --> 00:26:11.750
when he was going and he got his hand in
405
00:26:11.789 --> 00:26:14.289
my hair, you know? So it came as a sort of,
406
00:26:15.259 --> 00:26:17.539
as Lee was passing away, he pulled some hair from
407
00:26:17.579 --> 00:26:17.920
her head.
408
00:26:18.960 --> 00:26:22.059
It was beginning to look more and more likely that
409
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:25.279
Andrews had killed Lee in a fit of rage.
410
00:26:25.299 --> 00:26:27.329
I mean, if you.
411
00:26:27.779 --> 00:26:30.380
attack somebody that you're supposed to be in love with
412
00:26:30.700 --> 00:26:34.660
and stab them 42 times and that's pretty out of control.
413
00:26:35.619 --> 00:26:37.980
She wasn't thinking to herself as she set off from
414
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:40.680
the pub that evening, oh, tonight's the night I think
415
00:26:40.700 --> 00:26:44.950
I'm going to kill Lee. She just exploded like a volcano.
416
00:26:46.049 --> 00:26:51.069
Over a matter of minutes, literally, she went from mildly
417
00:26:51.150 --> 00:26:56.170
angry to obsessively angry and that therefore he had to die.
418
00:26:57.349 --> 00:27:00.079
When we talk about premeditated murder, we tend to assume
419
00:27:00.130 --> 00:27:02.980
that it's something that's days, weeks or months in the planning,
420
00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:07.299
but actually premeditation only needs to take seconds. You only
421
00:27:07.319 --> 00:27:09.680
need to have a few seconds to decide that you
422
00:27:09.740 --> 00:27:12.529
are going to end somebody's life, and she made that
423
00:27:12.569 --> 00:27:13.890
decision on this evening.
424
00:27:14.829 --> 00:27:18.049
And it seemed that Andrew's guilty conscience was beginning to
425
00:27:18.089 --> 00:27:22.130
get the better of her. On Wednesday, December 4th, the
426
00:27:22.170 --> 00:27:25.920
day after the Telltale press conference, she tried to kill herself.
427
00:27:26.819 --> 00:27:29.910
Tracy takes an overdose, and I think this is a
428
00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:32.970
very deliberate, a very determined act on her part. I
429
00:27:33.009 --> 00:27:36.269
think she was absolutely set on ending her own life
430
00:27:36.630 --> 00:27:40.069
because over the past few days, the situation has spiraled
431
00:27:40.150 --> 00:27:43.359
completely out of her control. She's trying to keep her
432
00:27:43.390 --> 00:27:47.220
story together. She's trying to present this face as the victim,
433
00:27:47.660 --> 00:27:49.640
and it's all getting a bit too much because it's
434
00:27:49.660 --> 00:27:52.400
starting to unravel. So I think this is an attempt
435
00:27:52.440 --> 00:27:55.740
to take back control, to say, actually, I'm going to
436
00:27:55.779 --> 00:27:58.660
decide to do something now that I'm fully in control of,
437
00:27:58.720 --> 00:27:59.740
and that's what this was.
438
00:28:00.859 --> 00:28:04.680
On the same evening, detectives were given their biggest steer yet.
439
00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:09.619
Two people had seen Lee's distinctive white Ford Escort on
440
00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:10.880
the night of his murder.
441
00:28:12.160 --> 00:28:15.980
Two witnesses who said, we've seen it in the local paper.
442
00:28:16.900 --> 00:28:19.529
I know I've seen this white car. We were driving
443
00:28:19.569 --> 00:28:23.700
from Half Church in the opposite direction. We came through
444
00:28:24.359 --> 00:28:27.119
Coopers Hill, past Coopers Cottage. We came down the hill.
445
00:28:28.019 --> 00:28:30.460
And as we came to the junction at the bottom,
446
00:28:30.559 --> 00:28:33.990
I saw this car go past. And he said, it's
447
00:28:34.069 --> 00:28:38.750
a white Escort G Reg, spoked wheels, everything that it was.
448
00:28:39.829 --> 00:28:41.690
And he said, you know, there is no doubt that
449
00:28:41.730 --> 00:28:44.950
was the car. He said, and from that point to
450
00:28:45.019 --> 00:28:48.599
when we got into Bromsgrove, we saw no car that
451
00:28:48.680 --> 00:28:51.849
fits any description of what you've been told. And there
452
00:28:51.890 --> 00:28:55.710
certainly wasn't any car chasing that car in the vicinity
453
00:28:55.750 --> 00:28:59.430
of Cooper's Hill. So we'd got the confirmation that we
454
00:28:59.450 --> 00:29:03.809
were looking for, that the road rage incident had not occurred.
455
00:29:05.210 --> 00:29:08.630
And so that changed the way that we looked at
456
00:29:08.670 --> 00:29:09.539
the investigation.
457
00:29:10.150 --> 00:29:13.099
Her story really was starting to crumble at that point
458
00:29:13.119 --> 00:29:16.039
in time. And combined with her suicide attempt, I think
459
00:29:16.059 --> 00:29:18.960
the police decided that's enough evidence. We can now move
460
00:29:19.039 --> 00:29:19.849
in and arrest her.
461
00:29:21.019 --> 00:29:26.480
On Saturday, December 7th, 1996, six days after Lee's murder,
462
00:29:26.859 --> 00:29:31.140
Tracey Andrews was arrested in hospital and taken into custody.
463
00:29:31.640 --> 00:29:35.329
The 27-year-old woman was arrested at 11 o'clock today, but
464
00:29:35.390 --> 00:29:40.349
so far detectives have released no further details. Until this development...
465
00:29:40.279 --> 00:29:43.000
the police had been looking for two men who they
466
00:29:43.059 --> 00:29:45.619
believe may have escaped from the scene in a dark
467
00:29:45.700 --> 00:29:46.420
Ford Sierra.
468
00:29:47.109 --> 00:29:50.930
The evidence from the two witnesses who'd seen Lee Harvey's
469
00:29:50.970 --> 00:29:59.210
vehicle through the junction that night was extremely impactive. And realistically...
470
00:29:59.779 --> 00:30:04.190
without a following vehicle, without a dark-colored Ford Sierra chasing
471
00:30:04.230 --> 00:30:08.210
that car, then the whole being of that explanation from
472
00:30:08.250 --> 00:30:09.579
Tracy just didn't stand up.
473
00:30:10.690 --> 00:30:14.730
Further evidence pointed towards Andrews being the killer after the
474
00:30:14.769 --> 00:30:17.009
clothes she was wearing on the night of the murder
475
00:30:17.349 --> 00:30:18.650
were forensically tested.
476
00:30:19.190 --> 00:30:24.220
The forensic scientist who had examined one of Tracy's zip-up boots,
477
00:30:24.240 --> 00:30:27.440
she had a pair of ankle boots on, and within that,
478
00:30:27.480 --> 00:30:30.440
he'd found a mark in the leather, which had a
479
00:30:30.460 --> 00:30:34.369
rounded top on it, and seemed to bear all the
480
00:30:34.420 --> 00:30:38.630
impression of the outside shape of the knife. And that's
481
00:30:39.970 --> 00:30:42.930
the hypothesis, that she carried the knife away from the
482
00:30:43.009 --> 00:30:46.029
scene in her boot, and that as soon as she
483
00:30:46.069 --> 00:30:48.349
got to the hospital, she was able to dispose of it.
484
00:30:48.990 --> 00:30:52.329
She could have easily just thrown the knife into the
485
00:30:52.369 --> 00:30:55.849
grass or into the forest, whatever it was, and hoped
486
00:30:55.869 --> 00:30:58.759
the police wouldn't find it. She even thought, no, these
487
00:30:58.779 --> 00:31:01.200
guys are going to bring dogs, they're going to search
488
00:31:01.240 --> 00:31:03.019
the whole area, they'll probably find something.
489
00:31:04.769 --> 00:31:08.569
Tracy Andrews was officially charged with the murder of Lee
490
00:31:08.630 --> 00:31:14.069
Harvey on December the 19th, 1996. Her trial was set
491
00:31:14.109 --> 00:31:17.210
for July, and she was going to plead not guilty.
492
00:31:17.930 --> 00:31:21.920
Andrews was sticking to her story. The prosecution would have
493
00:31:21.960 --> 00:31:23.460
to prove that she was a liar later.
