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The Victims

Crime Files

The Victims

Tania NicolThe youngest of Wright’s victims, the body of 19-year-old Tania Nicol is found on 8 December, after she disappeared on 30 October 2006. She disappears from her usual area of work as a prostitute in Ipswich’s red light area.Tania grew up on a housing estate on the outskirts of Ipswich, living there with her mother, Kerry, and her younger brother. She had dreams of being a pop star while a pupil of Chantry High School but ended up in a series of low-paid jobs.When she disappears, her devastated father, Jim Duell, makes an appeal to the public to help catch the killer of his "loving and sensitive" daughter."Unfortunately drugs took her away into her own secret world, a world that neither of us were aware of." said Mr Duell.Tania is reported missing by her mother, after she has not heard from her for 48 hours.Kerry Nicol was the first relative to give evidence at the trial of Steve Wright, telling the court her daughter had left home at the age of 16 to live in a hostel and began using heroin there but had asked for helped to get off drugs.In common with lots of the victims’ relatives, Kerry is unaware her daughter was a prostitute, believing she worked in a bar or hairdresser.Tania Nicol is the first to go missing but her body was the second to be found, in Belstead Brook, at Copdock Mill, near Ipswich. The prosecution says her body could have been in the water for five weeks and a post-mortem examination could not establish unequivocally how she died.Gemma AdamsGemma Adams's body is found on 2 December 2006. She was just 25.Her partner reported her missing on 15 November, having walked with her into Ipswich town centre, where she had gone to work as a prostitute. Gemma lived in a suburb of the town and she grew up in Kesgrave, a village close to Ipswich.During her childhood, she enjoyed horse riding and learning the piano. She left school at 16 and did a course in health and social healthcare at Suffolk College, Ipswich.But about a year later, she was using heroin and became estranged from her family who attempted to get her into treatment for her drug use. It is thought she turned to prostitution to fund her drug habit.Gemma’s father Brian said his daughter had lost her job at an insurance company before drifting into prostitution.Her naked body was the first to be found, in Belstead Brook - the stream in which Tania Nicol's body was found in six days later.Annelli AldertonAnneli Alderton is found dead on 10 December, one week after going missing. Suffolk Police say she had been asphyxiated. The police also reveal that she is three months pregnant.A passing motorist reports seeing her naked body in an area of woodland at Nacton, three days after another motorist mistook it for a mannequin and failed to report it.The court heard her body had been left in a crucifix pose, with her arms outstretched.The 24-year-old was known to work in Ipswich as a prostitute.She had been a popular student at Copleston High School with ambitions of being a model. Her behaviour began to worry friends when her father, Roy, a computer programmer, died of lung cancer.Annelli, who has a son, had lived in Cyprus and spoke fluent Greek. She had been jailed three times for persistent theft.Annelli is last seen on the 17:53 train going from Harwich to Colchester on 3 December, before boarding another from Manningtree to Ipswich.

Paula ClennellPaula Clennelll's body is discovered on 12 December in woodland near Ipswich, in a manner the prosecution says has been "hurriedly dumped".The 24-year-old had not been seen since very early on the morning of 10 December.A post-mortem examination revealed she had been strangled "in association with opiate intoxication".Paula's parents divorced in 1996 and she was educated in a pupil referral unit. Her father Brian, who lives in Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, says he didn’t know his daughter worked as a prostitute.Paula is last seen late at night on a train on 10 December 2006.A police helicopter is called to the scene, just off the Old Felixstowe Road, in Suffolk, after a pedestrian spots her body. Annette Nicholls's body is also discovered nearby.Annette Nicholls29-year-old Annette Nicholls worked as a prostitute. She is found dead on 12 December.At the opening of Steve Wright's trial, the prosecution said she had been missing since 8 December when she was seen in the centre of Ipswich. Her body was discovered by a police helicopter a few hundred yards from the body of Paula Clennelll.Like Anneli Alderton she had been placed in a crucifix position. A definite cause of death could not be established because of decomposition, but pathologists determine that her breathing had been hampered.Annette’s family say she had wanted to be a beautician but began taking heroin in 2003, three years before her death.She was reported missing by her family, who had become concerned after seeing the publicity surrounding the murders of Tania Nicol and Gemma Adams.