The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers (57 page)

After a trial lasting six weeks, on Thursday, 21 February 2008, the jury finally retired to consider their verdicts. It took them just eight hours to return with unanimous guilty verdicts against Wright on all five counts of murder. The judge deferred sentence until the following day.

On Friday, 22 February 2008, Mr Justice Goss sentenced Steve Wright to the maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The judge said, ‘This was a targeted campaign of murder. It is right you should spend your whole life in prison … Drugs and prostitution meant these women were at risk. But neither drugs nor prostitution killed them. You did. You killed them, stripped them and left them … Why you did it may never be known.’

Wright sat emotionless as prosecutors asked the judge to ensure that he would never be allowed out of jail. The judge said, ‘the case met the legal requirements for a whole life sentence because the murders involved a “substantial degree of premeditation and planning”’.

Wright’s defence team said they would be considering whether there were grounds for an appeal, but said this was routine in all criminal cases.

At the time of writing, police had undertaken to check the outstanding cases previously mentioned to see whether there could be links to Wright. Despite the lengthy investigation conducted by the police, they were never able to put forward a clear motive for Wright killing the five victims. Could Wright have killed before? This should not be discounted, as it is unusual for someone to suddenly become a serial killer at the age of 40.

On 25 February 2009 Wright made an application to the Court of Appeal for leave to challenge his conviction on the grounds that his trial was unfair and therefore the conviction was unsafe. The appeal was heard by Lord Justice Hughes, who sat with two other judges. After careful deliberation the judges rejected the appeal. Lord Justice Hughes, when announcing the decision of the court, said Wright had raised ‘no arguable grounds of appeal’.

A
s you will have seen from reading about all of the aforementioned crimes, there have often been questions asked as to whether some of the murders could have been prevented, often by the families of the victims.

These questions tend to suggest that, in some cases, the police did not act quickly enough to arrest the offender or offenders. Others suggest that police departments were blinkered in their approach as they collected, assessed and evaluated evidence. It is worth bearing in mind, though, that many of the serial killers discussed here committed their crimes long before DNA technology, coupled with new investigative methods, became available. Had all of these been available to law enforcement officers at the time, perhaps these monsters would have been apprehended and brought to justice much sooner and more lives could have been saved. The sad fact is that there are mothers and fathers out there who still do not know what fate befell their missing sons and daughters. Many murders remain unsolved and the bodies of some victims have never been recovered. Serial killers, for various reasons, very rarely confess to all their crimes. Despite the police often having strong suspicions about other
murders individuals may have committed, without supporting evidence or a full confession they are powerless to prosecute. One can only hope that, at some time in the future, some of the serial killers already convicted will choose to unburden their consciences further.

Trevor Marriott is a retired British Police murder squad detective who joined the service in 1970 and was soon promoted to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), where he was involved in the investigation of numerous murders as well as assisting in the investigation of many other major crimes throughout his long and distinguished career. He is the author of
Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation
, and a new book on Jack the Ripper entitled
Jack the Ripper – The Secret Police Files
, to be published to mark the 125th anniversary of the Whitechapel Murders.

To contact the author, to arrange press and media interviews, speaking engagements or any other personal appearances please email [email protected] or contact him via his website: www.trevormarriott.co.uk.