The Heather Barnett inquiry was the most extensive, complex and sustained investigation ever carried out by Dorset Police. It lasted nine and a half years and cost millions of pounds. During this time police collected over 700 statements, 6,200 exhibits and 7,300 documents.At first, the investigation into Heather’s brutal death focussed on her ex-partner, David Marsh, but routine enquiries in the local area began to reveal some suspicious behaviour of Danilo Restivo.Police had footprint evidence from the crime scene. They asked to see Restivo’s shoes: he had bleached them. Concerns were further raised when it was discovered after at an earlier visit Restivo made to Heather’s home her house keys had mysteriously disappeared.In 2004, without any solid leads to go on, the Bournemouth investigators decided to visit Restivo’s home town in Italy to find out more about the Elisa Claps case, which he was questioned about over 20 years before. It seems opportunities to stop Restivo may have been missed at the time. Italian detectives went to his house for the clothes he was wearing on the day Elisa disappeared but were told by his father to return with a warrant. This, it transpires, never happened. And assumptions were made that Elisa had left the church alive so it was never thoroughly searched.On their return, the Dorset Police made an appeal for women to come forward that had their hair cut off while travelling by bus in the Bournemouth area. Several responded to the appeal: it seems Restivo’s hair fetish had created many victims in both England and Italy.In May 2004, police watched Restivo at secluded locations observing or following women. On one occasion, he was stopped by officers who found weapons and disguises in his belongings.In 2008, scientists finally made a link between DNA material found on a green towel recovered from Heather Barnett's house and Restivo. Still it was not judged strong enough to charge him.Body found in Italy The breakthrough the UK police desperately sought came in March 2010. A worker investigating a leak discovered the mummified body of Elisa Claps in the church in Potenza were she had met Restivo. Her remains had been hidden in the loft beneath a pile of old tiles. Another piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into place. Elisa had been stabbed and, most significantly, strands of her own hair cut from her head shortly after her death had been placed in each hand and locks of hair had been placed near her body. Further tests find DNA evidence which linked Restivo to Elisa.

The First Raid

At around 9am on 28th February 1993, the ATF began an elaborate advance on the complex, which included the use of Texas National Guard helicopters and two large covered cattle trailers that actually contained 76 heavily armed ATF agents. The helicopters were employed in an attempt to divert attention away from the trailers, which drove into the compound. However, the Branch Davidians were amply prepared for the assault, and a fierce gun battle ensued. Both sides denied having fired the first shot. There were later claims that the helicopters had also fired on the residential complex, but these were denied by the authorities.

The gun battle raged for over an hour and resulted in the death of four ATF officials, the wounding of 20 others, as well as the death of two Branch Davidians, and the wounding of five others. During the attack, ATF officials were in contact with Koresh but continued to fire on the complex whilst trying to negotiate a surrender simultaneously.

There appeared to be no one in overall control of the operation. The local police who attended the scene did not know how to contact the ATF command and requested that local media crews call for ambulances on their mobiles. Sources within the ATF had tipped off the media about the impending raid, yet ATF agents were recorded assaulting members of the assembled media when they realised that cameramen were close enough to be filming their defeat. Despite taped evidence showing the brutal assault, no ATF agents were ever prosecuted.

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An uneasy cease-fire was negotiated, largely because the ATF agents had run out of ammunition. The entire raid was a disaster for the ATF and the other federal agencies involved, and the loss of life to federal law enforcement agencies was the worst on record.

The next day, 1st March 1993, the ATF handed official control of the situation to the FBI, and this marked the beginning of a siege that would last for the next 51 days.

The Siege

Shortly after assuming control of the operation, the FBI made telephonic contact with Koresh who stipulated that he would be prepared to surrender if the authorities would agree to facilitate a national radio broadcast to spread his religious message. Despite arranging for Koresh’s tape to be broadcast on the Christian Broadcasting Network, Koresh failed to cooperate, claiming that God had instructed him to wait a while before surrendering.

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Within a week of the broadcast, Koresh allowed 23 of his followers to leave the complex. The adults were immediately arrested and the children placed with social services. The FBI requested that Koresh make a videotape of the children still within the complex, to prove that they were not in danger, and sent in camera equipment. However, Koresh used the opportunity to make a pro-Davidian recording, outlining details of the attack and the wounds suffered by Davidian members during the gun fight. The FBI decided not to release the footage publicly, for fear of increasing public sympathy towards Koresh and his followers.

By 15th March, all ATF officials were forbidden from speaking publicly about the abortive raid on threat of dismissal, in an attempt to keep full details concealed. However, within two weeks, agents who had taken part in the attacks were speaking anonymously to the press about the grave errors they had witnessed during the raid. When questions were raised about why Koresh had not simply been arrested while outside the fortified complex, it became clear that no intensive surveillance of his movements was ever carried out. The authorities had expected their own firepower to prevail in any arrest scenario.

Meanwhile, the siege continued, with Koresh agreeing to, and then reneging on, numerous agreements to surrender. The FBI viewed the other Davidians as Koresh’s hostages, despite a number of videos which seem to imply that the members were there of their own free will.

Psychological warfare tactics were deployed, such as the playing of loud music and other noise through amplifiers on a round-the-clock basis, in an attempt to disorient the occupants. By 30th March 1993, the FBI had allowed a criminal defence attorney, Dick DeGuerin, to enter the complex unescorted, to discuss Koresh’s possible legal defence in the event of his surrender, but still Koresh refused to cooperate.

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The Second Raid

Finally, the newly appointed US Attorney General, Janet Reno, frustrated at the lack of progress in the midst of a media maelstrom, decided that a second armed raid would have to be mounted in order to end the siege. At the time she claimed that this was prompted by the belief that the children were in danger, although she later admitted that she had no proof to support this belief. At approximately 6:00am on 19th April 1993, armoured tanks, equipped with CS gas dispensers smashed through the walls of the Mount Carmel residence, distributing CS gas throughout the building. Although Davidian members had gas masks, they were too large for children, and it was hoped that parents would surrender, rather than see their children suffer.

Again, this proved a vain hope and no Davidians left the building over the next four hours. FBI agents continued to launch teargas canisters into the building sporadically using grenade launchers. At around noon it appeared that fire had broken out in a number of different areas within the building.

The cause of this fire was disputed later. Some claimed that the authorities had started the fire through the delivery of the CS gas and teargas canisters, whilst others maintained that Koresh had orchestrated the fires deliberately in an intentional mass suicide bid. The latter view was supported by the official investigation. Whatever the cause, the entire building was quickly engulfed in flames.

The FBI refused permission for fire-fighting teams to tackle the blaze, due to the risk of gunfire from within the building, and the blaze claimed the lives of 76 Branch Davidians, including 27 children and leader David Koresh. The majority were later found to have died from smoke-related causes. Twenty Davidians also had gunshot wounds but it was difficult to determine whether these were self-inflicted, or caused either by the authorities outside or exploding ammunition within the building.

The clue that was to link all the crimes was found easily enough at the first crime scene. At the cemetery where the first killings occurred, police found eight .22 –calibre shell casings by the car.But with six years gap between the first and second double murders, no link was made between the cases and the similar bullet casings.When the connection was made with the third double murder, ballistics showed that the same distinctive copper-jacketed bullets, manufactured in Australia in the 1950s, were used in both cases and came from the same box of 50 Winchester bullets. And it was the same .22-calibre Beretta automatic pistol had been used in the second killings. But the weapon has never been recovered.The investigation was hampered by the fact that more than one person confessed to the killings when they were in fact innocent. Precious time was wasted on dead ends in a investigation that had very few leads due partly to an almost complete lack of witnesses to the killings.After the last killing in 1985, over a hundred thousand people were questioned over the next eight years. By 1991, the investigation has started to focus on just one man.

Scotland Yard Flying Squad Chief Commander Frank Cater was appointed to lead the hunt for the thieves. Given the boldness and highly skilled nature of the operation, the police were quickly able to narrow down the list of potential suspects to McAvoy and Robinson, who had not been particularly secretive about recruiting participants for a rumoured 'inside job' that they had planned. Robinson, whose nickname was 'The Colonel', was already well known to the police, while McAvoy was considered to be one of South London's most prolific armed robbers.

Quickly realising that the sheer knowledge available to the gang pointed to an insider participant, the police soon came across Anthony Black, who had been late to work on the day of the robbery and who had missed the entire heist. The connection to Robinson’s sister led to a swift confession by Black, who gave up the names of the newly wealthy McAvoy and Robinson.

Neither McAvoy nor Robinson helped themselves by 'laying low'. Within weeks of the heist, both moved from humble South London council houses to a grand estate in Kent, paid for in cash. Rumours that McAvoy had bought two Rottweiler dogs to protect his mansion and named them 'Brinks' and 'Mat', did not win him any awards for subtlety.

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Police are left guessing as to why this apparently quiet, upstanding member of the community would not only murder 12 people in cold blood, and injure 11 more in a deadly shooting spree but also then take his own life. Answers are needed. At the inquest, on 1 March 2011 in Workington, further details emerge hinting at what could have caused this tragic course of events.Checking through his employment history police discover that Bird worked as a joiner at Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria. But in 1990 he’s caught stealing from his employer and is promptly sacked. Convicted of his crime, but scared of going to jail, he’s given a 12-month suspended sentence. The fact that a few of Bird’s victims worked for Sellafield may not have been a coincidence.His conviction doesn’t affect his ability to own guns. Theresa May (Home Secretary) confirms that Derrick Bird was a legal licensed owner. This comes as a shock to the neighbourhood, who had no idea. It’s later revealed that the guns were left to Bird in a will when his father died. Bird renews his shotgun license in 1995 and again in 2007 for his .22 rifle.After losing his job in the early nineties, Bird takes up employment as a local taxi driver. He’s known to be a quiet guy, so some friends find this an odd career choice. In 2007 he’s assaulted by a passenger trying to dodge his fare at night. This leaves Bird both physically and mentally scarred and ruins his self-confidence. The other taxi drivers play upon this and he becomes the butt of their practical jokes. In an incident while on holiday in Thailand with Terry Kennedy, a practical joke is played. Knowing that Bird enjoys raiding the fridge after a night out, soap blocks are put in a bowl. Bird returns and happily munches on them until he realises what they are. Unfortunately for Terry, Bird is a man who can hold a grudge. The jokes go too far when his tyres are slashed, he’s drenched in coffee and milk is poured in his taxi. According to witnesses they also wind Bird up by jumping the queue to take his fares. Two days before the shootings John McDonald remembers Bird saying “They are going to get it big style. You just watch.”The police are particularly perplexed by the murder of Bird’s twin brother and family solicitor, Kevin Commons. But answers are soon forthcoming. It begins to emerge that Bird is being investigated for tax evasion by HMRC. Neil Jaques, Bird’s best friend, reveals that Bird hasn’t paid tax for 15 years since becoming a taxi driver, and is absolutely petrified of going to jail. Noticing his anxiety, Kevin Commons puts Bird in contact with accountant, Peter Ellwood, who can help with Bird’s tax issues. A meeting is set up between Bird and Ellwood on 21 May 2010. It’s here that Ellwood warns Bird that the maximum amount the HMRC will ask for is £25,000 if they trawl back 15 years to when he first started as a taxi-driver. He also makes it clear that Bird has over £50,000 in savings, so the debt can easily be paid. This is also corroborated by Detective Constable Catherine Rogerson who confirms that Bird is financially secure. The meeting ends with Bird feeling extremely concerned that he might lose his house. This is despite Ellwood trying to reassure him that this isn’t the case. He feels that Bird has stopped listening to him.Another meeting is then scheduled for the morning of 2 June, but by this point Bird’s paranoia has persuaded him that his brother David and solicitor Kevin Commons are plotting against him. Bird is not only convinced that the meetings are being taped, but that he will be arrested on 2 June and sent to prison. It transpires that in 1997 David Bird was in financial difficulty. A year before their dad Joseph died, he gave David £25,000 on the understanding that it was paid back. After their father’s death, David never paid the money back. This left Derrick Bird with a grudge, especially as now he was the one in financial difficulties and also his ailing mum’s full-time carer.By early 2010 Bird becomes depressed by his elderly mother’s ill health and terrified he will be sent to prison for tax evasion. It’s obviously all playing on his mind. Peter McLean a member of Bird’s sub-aqua club remembers Bird chillingly saying a month before the shootings that “Whitehaven will be as famous as Dunblane – you will see soon enough”. At the time Peter has no idea what he’s talking about. During the inquest Dr David Rogers comments that there was no history of Derrick Bird ever being diagnosed with mental health issues.Psychologist Dr West sums up his analysis of Bird and believes that he shot 12 people dead because he wanted revenge for his own failings. He feels that Bird was ordinary but held grudges. As to why he targeted his own brother and family solicitor, Dr West announces that it was because of his mistaken belief that they were conspiring against him. His attacks against the taxi drivers were probably due to the fact he felt humiliated, and he went on to shoot random strangers because he wanted to gain notoriety and put Whitehaven on the map.The jury returned 12 verdicts of unlawful killing on Bird’s victims and a verdict of suicide for Derrick Bird.

On Friday, 3 August 2012, Tia’s grandma, Christine, returns home from work. Her boyfriend Hazell is sprawled on the sofa watching television. He tells her that Tia’s gone to Croydon to buy some flip-flops. When Tia doesn’t return home at 6pm that night, Christine calls her mother, Natalie. They both search for Tia. Natalie will later blame herself for not calling the police earlier. But by then, it’s already too late. Their little girl’s murderer accompanies them to the police station. Hazell tells police he last saw Tia at around midday before she left for Croydon. A phone call from a neighbour seems to corroborate Hazell’s story – so instead of a possible murder inquiry, it remains far longer a missing persons investigation.The police search Hazell and Christine’s flat as part of their missing person’s investigation. Tia’s body is not found:“A simple human error, from an officer who was inexperienced and perhaps not properly trained for that role, had led to the body not being found. Knowing that the house had been searched without any result, it clearly helps you shape your investigative strategy. You look for lines of enquiry that points away from the house.” Nick Scola, Detective Chief Inspector“I found it physically hard to believe that Tia had gone missing and not one person saw her...(it’s) such an entwined estate. It was just like she walked out the door and fell down a hole.” Natalie SharpAs the local story of a little missing girl goes national, Hazell leads the search wearing a T-shirt with her photo on it. At one point, he looks directly into the camera and says: “Tia, come home babe.”The police search his house again: This time, with dogs. Christine has to excuse a bad smell in the house, blaming her cat. Still no body is found. The police search through 800 hours of CCTV footage. They exhaustively examine the 55 sightings reported by members of the public. But after Hazell – and the sighting by the neighbour - the trail goes cold. Feeling like he’s the main suspect, Hazell gives an interview to ITV news stating his innocence. He consoles and supports Christine: “When I collapsed, he held me. He was there constantly, everywhere I went.” Christine BicknellWhen the couple went home, however, they were sitting just 12 feet below the decomposing body of Tia. And when she’s not there, Hazell returns to his online viewing of indecent pornography.But with police searches inside the house, and the media permanently outside, and Tia’s body decomposing upstairs, Hazell is trapped. He needs to move her body. On 10 August, early Friday morning, Hazell wakes early and leaves the house. “I got up and the smell was really intense. Once again, I was looking and I just couldn’t find it, and I was pulling everything out, but I just could not find the smell. And then, when the police turned up, that’s when they just said to me, can we leave the house?” Christine BicknellOn 10 August, a week after she’d been reported missing, Metropolitan Police find the body of missing 12 year old, Tia Sharp. She had all along been in the loft of her grandmother’s house, in New Addington, South London.  The hot weather has accelerated decomposition. Dental records are needed to confirm it is Tia. And the decomposition means it now will never be possible to identify how she was killed.

On 8th June 1968, a funeral mass was held for Robert Kennedy at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. In his eulogy, his grieving brother Edward asked that Kennedy be remembered as “a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it”.Following the mass, Kennedy's body was transported by train to Washington DC, where he was buried near his brother, John, in Arlington National Cemetery.Following Kennedy’s death, Sirhan was charged with his murder, as well as the attempted murders of the five other individuals wounded during the attack.The gunman was not identified immediately, as he had no criminal record, and he was kept in maximum-security lock-up for his own safety. He continued to be calm, compliant and courteous, but seemed confused by his part in the crime which had been committed. It took the intervention of two of his brothers, who presented themselves at a police station in Pasadena, to effect the identification.The gunman was 24-year-old Sirhan Bishar Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant who had lived in the United States for 12 years, and was residing with his family in Pasadena. Within an hour, investigative authorities were searching the family home, where they found a notebook in Sirhan’s bedroom, which contained specific remarks about Robert Kennedy, one of which read “RFK Must Die”. His family appeared utterly shocked by the events, and seemed to have no fore knowledge of the assassination plan. The investigation of Sirhan revealed an unhappy childhood, erratic employment history and changing religious allegiances, but no discernible political conviction beyond the anti-Kennedy sentiments found in his personal notebooks.Having occurred so soon after the assassination of his brother, John, there was widespread belief that the attack was part of a deeper conspiracy. When it appeared that Sirhan’s motivation was Kennedy’s pro-Israeli stance, specifically his support for the June 1967 Six Day War, which saw the occupation of Palestinian territory by Israel, rumours began to surface of a clandestine extremist terrorist organisation whose aim was to undermine ‘The American Way’. The investigating authorities were determined that mistakes made by previous authorities, in the investigations of the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, would not be repeated, and a special task force, called Special Unit Senator, or SUS, was established, to concentrate on any conspiracy theories that might surface, with a view to addressing public unease.Following Kennedy’s death, Sirhan was charged with his murder, as well as the attempted murders of the five other individuals wounded during the attack.During the course of the investigation by the SUS, a number of conspiracy theories were proposed, investigated and discounted and, in October 1968, both the prosecution and defence agreed that the case against Sirhan would proceed on the basis that he had acted alone in commission of the crime.

On 5 June 2005 Aruban police detained Antonius ‘Mickey’ John and Abraham Jones, former security guards for the nearby Allegro Hotel, which had been closed at the time of Holloway's disappearance.The two were well-known locally for hanging around hotels and picking up women. After being interrogated by police for several days, they were released without charge on 13 June 2005.

Large numbers of women started disappearing off the streets of Vancouver in the 1980s. But they were mainly prostitutes, drug addicts or aboriginal women who operated in Downtown Eastside, ‘Canada’s poorest postcode.’ With no public pressure, and without any bodies to start a murder case, the police refused for years to treat the women as anything but missing, let alone connect them to becoming prey to a single predator.

But then an aboriginal group provided a list of missing women to the police and Detective Dave Dickson officially started an investigation in 1998. The first Vancouver policeman to suspect a serial killer was at work was Kim Rossmo. He would later become a criminology professor and originator of ‘geographic profiling’. He speculated that the killer was deliberately targeting women who would be ‘invisible’ to the authorities. Even when the police realised they had a serial killer, and that Pickton was a suspect, he was not placed under surveillance.

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It seems that despite the worldwide media furore that followed the events on 26th March, no lessons were learned by the survivors of the Heaven’s Gate cult or people intrigued by the group’s ethos.In fact, since the mass suicide, the media coverage only served to draw attention to the group’s cause with new members joining and the cult attempting a revival. A website boldly proclaimed their return titled Heaven's Gate Lives: Apocalypse Now, which clearly shows that the delusion is still strong and, by default, just as dangerous.A couple of the surviving members of the 1997 group who did not ‘leave’ in the mass suicide in have been maintaining the ‘official’ Heaven’s Gate web site and distributing materials and information that the group left behind.During the 1980's Heaven’s Gate made over 500 audio tapes of their secluded classroom teachings and 11 videos. The survivors today have digitized over 200 hours of those audio tapes, and about 20 hours of Video material to store the entire archive on three CD-ROMs for the PC. They are also making the CDs available at no charge, only requesting that the shipping charges be covered by the recipient.Ultimately the cult lives on...

Investigations into the robbery became inevitably entangled in the political uncertainty of the time. After a meeting with the Policing Board in January 2005, Chief Constable Hugh Orde of the Police Service of Northern Ireland announced at a news conference in Belfast that the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) was responsible for the raid. He added that all the main lines of police inquiry being undertaken at the time were in this direction, not due to any pressure to place blame but because it made ‘operational sense’. He refused to comment on any potential political repercussions this announcement could cause.“These cases are extremely complicated. The robbery itself was carried out by a competent group of criminals. …This was a particularly brutal crime, people were extremely badly treated and assaulted by the gang.” - Sir Hugh OrdeThe Government and other major political figures, with the exception of Sinn Féin, supported this accusation. The IRA denied any involvement in the Northern Bank robbery. Sin Féin MP Martin McGuinness countered that Orde’s allegations were politically biased and more to do with hampering the drive for change to a power-sharing Northern Ireland government, supported by Sin Féin, than anything to do with the robbery. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, made it clear that a complete end to all criminal and paramilitary activity was necessary for political institutions to be restored. Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, said that trust and confidence in the peace process had been damaged. It was confirmed that the Independent Monitoring Commission would investigate the matter in due course.A month later, the IRA was accused of the murder of Robert McCartney, a Catholic father of two small children, on 31 January 2005. These combined accusations put immense pressure on the IRA to sever its criminal links, which led ultimately to the group’s pledge in July 2005 to down arms.During the investigation, it was revealed that Northern Bank had made no record of the serial numbers of £900,000 worth of the new £100 notes and £250,000 of new £50 notes that were stolen in the raid. In a bid to prevent the gang using all their stolen cash, Northern Bank decided to withdraw its banknotes and re-issue them in a different style and colour, thus eventually making the old currency invalid. On 14 March 2005, in a major security operation, £240 million worth of Northern Bank notes were replaced.

Initially the Portuguese police launched a missing person hunt but within days it became a kidnapping investigation. The police said they were pursuing two lines of investigation. The first possibility being abduction by an international paedophile network and the second being abduction by an adoption network.

When the search revealed no trace of Madeleine, police used information from 30 witnesses to put together a sketch of the person they believed had snatched her.The McCanns made appeals to the person they believed had taken Madeleine and asked for an end to the bitterness from families of other missing children, who claimed detectives were working harder to find Madeleine than their own loved ones.

About two weeks after the youngster went missing, police identified Robert Murat as an ‘arguido’, a suspect, who has thus far not been arrested or charged but is being treated by police as more than a witness. Murat, a 33-year-old estate agent, was described by friends as someone whose over-enthusiasm could lead to him being misunderstood. He was first reported to police by British journalists, who became suspicious of the way he was hanging around the investigation.

The following week a Russian man, Sergei Malinka, who was linked to Murat, was also helping police with enquires.By the end of May 2007, after she had been missing for about three weeks, the detective leading the investigation, Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa, told journalists they had a suspect.

"He is a Caucasian man, 35 to 40 years old, medium build, 5ft 10in tall, hair mainly short, wearing a dark jacket, light or gold trousers and dark shoes."

The McCanns, both doctors from Leicestershire, originally steered clear of media. However, their tactic soon changed and they launched an incredibly high profile, worldwide campaign to find their daughter. A website set up specifically for the toddler received more than 50 million hits in just over 24 hours.

At the same time, the McCanns spoke of their guilt for leaving their children alone at the resort and said, at the very least, they hoped she had been taken by someone who desperately wanted a child of their own rather than an by an abuser.

By June they had an audience with the Pope, who prayed for their daughter and blessed a photograph of her. They also appeared on Spain’s version of ‘Crimewatch’ to make another emotional appeal.

Madeleine’s face was broadcast at the FA Cup Final, which was seen by an estimated 500 million people. Following on from this, a short video about the toddler was shown at the UEFA and Heineken cup finals, while Liverpool players posed with a banner that read, “Bring Maddie Home”.

All this media attention invited criticism of the couple, who were forced to compose themselves at a press conference and were grilled about whether they had anything to do with their daughter’s disappearance.

In the middle of June it looked like there had been a breakthrough in the case, when an anonymous letter was sent to a Dutch newspaper allegedly identifying where Madeleine’s body had been buried.

Dutch police said the letter was being taken seriously because it was similar to one sent to the same newspaper the previous year, which identified the hiding place of the bodies of two missing children. However, the letter turned out to be useless.

Similarly, sightings of blonde girls bearing a resemblance to Maddy McCann were reported, all of which came to nothing.

It was not long before the McCanns become suspects in the investigation. In August, blood samples from the Portuguese apartment where Madeleine had been sleeping were sent to a British laboratory for DNA testing. The blood did not match but did little to stop rumours that the McCanns had themselves been implicit in their daughter’s disappearance.

By September 2007, both parents had been declared formal suspects. Kate McCann was reportedly told she could make a deal with police if she admitted to accidentally killing her daughter, while husband Gerry faced similar interrogation.

The family's spokesman, Justine McGuinness, said Kate McCann was also asked about traces of blood found in a car, hired by the couple four weeks after Madeleine's disappearance, as well as about DNA evidence allegedly found on clothing.

Gerry McCann's sister, Philomena McCann, told reporters, "They are suggesting that Kate has in some way accidentally killed Madeleine, then kept her body, then got rid of it. I have never heard anything so utterly ludicrous in my entire life".

The McCanns flew back to England and Portuguese police admitted that confusion and disagreements in the early stages of the case meant that they found it extremely difficult to prove their suspicion that her parents were somehow involved in Madeleine's disappearance and presumed death. The McCanns strongly and repeatedly denied any involvement.

Meanwhile, sightings of blonde girls continued to flood in from various countries. Journalists flocked in late September 2007 to Morocco after a picture, showing a small blonde girl being carried, was passed to Interpol.

The investigation appeared to face further setbacks after two senior Portuguese police on the case were either removed or requested a leave of absence.

By this stage, both the media and the general public were hooked on the story and were reporting any new evidence that surfaced. One newspaper claimed that traces of Madeleine McCann's body were found on a Portuguese beach, a story later revealed to be untrue. Other front page headlines included, “We can prove parents did it - Portuguese police”; “Kate faces ten years in jail - now parents could be charged with abandoning their children”; “Syringe found in Madeleine's apartment”; “Madeline was 'killed by sleeping pills' - sensational new claim”; “McCanns or a friend must be to blame” and “Parents' car hid a corpse - Portuguese police”.

By November 2007, Gerry McCann had returned to work, although life was far from back to normal. Another newspaper report suggested that the couple had sold their daughter, while yet others said they had sold film rights to the story and that the couple had split up in the face of the enquiry.

Some relief came for the couple in February 2008 when Portugal's most senior police officer suggested that detectives may have been too hasty in making the McCanns official suspects in the investigation into the disappearance of their daughter.

Alípio Ribeiro, the national director of the Polícia Judiciária, conceded that police potentially acted too soon. He said the naming of the parents last September as official suspects might have dissuaded people from coming forward with information that could have helped. By now the case was eight months old and police were no closer to finding the missing girl. The case was beginning to wind down.Free from suspicion, the McCanns were able to take on the terrible reports and libel that had sprung from their plight. In March 2008, Madeleine's parents won a libel settlement and apology from Express Newspapers for suggesting they had been responsible. On that occasion the newspaper group paid £550,000 to the Find Madeleine campaign.The McCanns decided to hire a Spanish detective agency to run a 24-hour confidential telephone line in the hope that new information would be forthcoming, targeted at Spain, Portugal and Morocco, countries they believe may hold leads about Madeleine.

In July 2008, Robert Murat, the first official suspect in the case, accepted a £600,000 damages settlement over allegations in UK newspapers that he had been involved in Madeleine's disappearance. His suspect status was subsequently removed. Several months later, Sky News apologised to Murat and agreed to pay substantial damages over a libellous web story that likened him to a high profile child murderer.

In October 2008, it was ruled that Express Newspapers would pay £375,000 in libel damages to the friends of Kate and Gerry McCann, who were on holiday with them when Madeleine McCann vanished. The money will be donated by the group, known as the Tapas Seven, to the Find Madeleine Fund. Articles published in some of the British newspapers suggested that some of the seven had been identified as potential suspects by the Portuguese authorities.

Amidst the thousands of media reports and millions of pounds worth of publicity and campaigning, to this day Madeleine has still not been found.

In addition to Sir Harry Oakes, who was knighted by King George in 1939 in recognition of his achievements, there were also other notable characters living on the island. The most famous being the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The couple had been exiled to the island by the British government after the Duke’s abdication. They lived a privileged and indulgent life on the island while Europe was in the throes of war. It was the Duke who made sure that any news of Oakes’ death was held back for several days while investigations proceeded. The Duke also enlisted the services of the Miami police rather than the local Nassau police force. It was to prove to be one of the most botched crime investigations of all time. Miami detectives Captain James Barker and Captain Edward Melchen were assigned the task of leading the investigation into the murder. Despite the fact that the two detectives were supposed to be fingerprint experts they were responsible for incredibly inept actions that ruined potential vital evidence. The most glaring oversight was when they forgot to pack an important piece of equipment, a latent-fingerprint camera, en route to Nassau. They also allowed prominent local residents into the Oakes’ house to see where the body had been found. No attempts were made to stop the visitors from handling objects and artefacts at the scene of the crime. What was found at the scene of the crime that revealed that this was a murder case and not a suicide. Investigators found a single bloody handprint on the wall next to Oakes’ bed and there were also several muddy footprints leading up the stairs from the main floor and to the bedroom.

In 1999, as a direct result of the public accusations, from several aspiring singers, of slavery, violence and sexual abuse at the hands of Andrade and his accomplice, Trevi, the Mexican authorities wasted no time in reacting.They accused Sergio Andrade, Gloria Trevi, and choreographer/backup singer, Maria Raquenel Portillo (also known as Mary Boquitas), of corrupting minors, sexual abuse and kidnapping. The three, who were all over the news, denied the charges and managed to escape from Mexico, with about a dozen girls. They were officially declared as fugitives by the Mexican judicial system.

Fourniret requested that the female jurors in his trial prove that they were virgins at the time of their marriage. Like his request to have the media removed, this was refused. Fourniret was uncooperative throughout his two month trial in Charleville-Mezières, in eastern France. He often refused to speak and never showed any emotion or remorse. He was briefly enraged, however, to find that his subservient wife was, according to IQ tests, more intelligent than him.

The state prosecutor described him as a ‘necrophiliac monster’ and the pairing of Fourniret and Monique as a ‘devil with two faces’. Monique did show remorse but the state prosecutor criticised her ‘deafening silence’ to the screams of the victims she’d secured. Perhaps she was glad to be an observer to physical abuse and not the victim of it. Whatever her motivations, she was found guilty of being her husband’s accomplice in at least five of the murders and was sentenced to serve at least 28 years of her life sentence.He was found guilty of murdering seven girls and said he will not appeal his sentence.

Fourniret will die in jail.

Female accomplices: Women who helped their partners kill

Arguably the most notorious of all female accomplices, Myra Hindley helped her partner Ian Brady carry out the notorious ‘Moors Murders’

Detective Yuri Melich of the Orange County Sherriff’s Department found several discrepancies in Anthony’s statement. The first was her allegation that Caylee had been kidnapped by a nanny called Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzales and that she had been too scared to report this. The family members told Melich that none of them had ever met Zeniada. Anthony also claimed that she had been working at Universal Orlando Resort, but when detectives took her there, she could not identify her office and admitted that she had been fired five years before.

Although Anthony was arrested the day after Caylee was reported missing, it was only five months later that the decomposed body of her daughter was found. The five-month delay could have been prevented if the police had reacted more diligently to the reports of a meter reader, who claimed to have seen something suspicious in the forest near the Anthony home, scarcely a month after Caylee’s disappearance.

Before Lee Harvey Oswald was assassinated himself by Jack Ruby, he had told Secret Agents that he was a ‘patsy’ and had nothing to do with killing of the president or officer Tippit.The Warren Commission was initiated by President Lyndon B Johnson. It was established on 29th November 1963 to investigate the assassination. It concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in killing John F Kennedy. The findings have since been found controversial.The FBI was the first authority to complete an official investigation. On 9th December 1963, it issued a report to the Warren Commission stating that only three bullets were fired by Oswald during the assassination; that the first shot hit President Kennedy, the second shot hit Governor Connally, and the third shot hit Kennedy in the head, killing him.However, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that four shots had been fired during the assassination of the president.The Warren Commission agreed with the FBI investigation that only three shots were fired, but disagreed with the FBI report on which shots hit Kennedy and which hit Governor Connally.To this day there is still a great deal of contention concerning why New Orleans DA Jim Garrison was convinced that businessman Clay Shaw, a respected liberal and popular local figure, who had been decorated for his war efforts, was the mastermind behind the plot to kill President Kennedy.Garrison’s contentious belief, which is supported by Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie ‘JFK’, stated that Clay Laverne Shaw was the same man as Clay Bertrand, a bisexual man who had been seen with Oswald and another man David Ferrie, and heard plotting to kill the president. Shaw, who had an impeccable war record but was a noted liberal, also happened to be a gay man. Garrison was convinced that he and Bertrand were the same and that Shaw was the main mastermind behind the assassination.

At the post mortem, it was established that Christine was killed first, then Helen. But this was one of the few certainties detectives could establish. “When you look back to 1977 it’s almost looking back to a dark age. Forensic science was very much still the same as it had been in the early part of the century...We didn’t really have that much more in terms of technique or knowledge than the Victorian detectives had who investigated the original Jack the Ripper murders… forensically, it was all about hairs, fibres and blood and not much else really.  We didn’t have any knowledge of DNA at that time. What we had was very, very good, Crime Scene Technicians.”Tom wood, Former Det. Chief Constable, Lothian & Borders Police These technicians would scrupulously select, seal and label the evidence from the bodies, from their clothes and from the crime scene. And one of the best forensic scientists back at the lab was Lester Knibb.“We were involved in the examining of every item that had been recovered from the scene...every bit of clothing...the ligatures and vaginal swabs and other swabs from parts of the body were all submitted...Our initial job was to examine the clothing and recover any trace evidence that might be present on it, particularly fibres that might have been transferred during the initial assault...in other words the last things that they might have been touching while they were wearing these items.” “We had in these forensic samples a kind of, a code, a kind of a Rosetta Stone, if you like...we knew there was something very important but we just couldn’t read it. We didn’t have the knowledge, we didn’t have the science to decipher it, yet.”Tom Wood In a pre-computer age, where murders were still recorded on cards, it was this almost prescient preservation of evidence that would be the killer’s undoing. But until forensic science caught up with the evidence, the police were reduced to trying to trace everyone who had been in the World’s End pub. To help those whose memories might have been affected by alcohol, it was decided to risk using an identikit picture.“Identikit pictures are dangerous because if the victim’s recollection of someone they’ve seen is inaccurate you end up looking for someone who doesn’t exist.”Tom WoodThis lead to hundreds of thousands of man-hours as the police followed up thousands of leads. But after the biggest manhunt in Scottish police history, the police had nothing. As former Detective Chief Constable, Tom Wood put it;“...the enquiry didn’t close down. It closed itself down because we didn’t have any other leads.” Throughout the following decades new leads were followed up and statements rechecked but all with the same lack of results. 

2 November 2007 The police arrive at the student flat to find Knox and Sollecito outside. The couple tell them that that there’s been a burglary. But when the Italian flatmate, Filomena, enters her room she notices that the broken glass is on top of the clothes strewn around her room. As she left the room tidy, the clothes must have been chucked on the floor after the entry and then the glass smashed onto them, meaning that entry came first, the stone through the window, second.The door to Meredith’s room is forced open.The murder scene looks less like a human being has been murdered and more like an animal has been messily slaughtered.The police initially think it’s a heroin addict robbery gone wrong as the place wasn’t far from a known dealing spot. The lead investigator arrives but doesn’t enter the crime scene till after the forensic team finish (four days later) because he’s worried his hair was too dirty and it might contaminate the scene. There is indeed blood everywhere that needs to be examined including blood on the door handles and a bloody footprint on the bathroom mat. Knox later says she never noticed this blood which is why when she went to wash, she touched the blood and left a bloody fingerprint in the bathroom.The media descend and one of the first images they seize upon is film of Knox and Sollecito kissing. They’re questioned but give conflicting statements. Knox says they were both at his place watching the French film, ‘Amelie’. Sollecito says that he was there, and on his computer, but is unsure if Knox was there all night or not. Knox says she’s shocked to be a suspect but not as shocked as a detective who sees her doing a cartwheel and splits. This is later explained away as a Yoga stress relief exercise but, combined with her inappropriate kiss, many are starting to draw conclusions about the American abroad.Knox then claims that Italian police mistreat her over 41 hours of questioning which culminates in a 14 hour interrogation. She alleges that a policewoman hit her twice on the head during interrogation, a claim that leads to a defamation case being taken by the Italian Police. The result of the interview is that she changes her story at 1:45am and at 5:45am and now indicates that Lumumba is the murderer. She says he killed her when Knox was in the kitchen. He’s soon cleared with an alibi by a customer and joins the police in seeking a defamation case.

2 November 2007 The police arrive at the student flat to find Knox and Sollecito outside. The couple tell them that that there’s been a burglary. But when the Italian flatmate, Filomena, enters her room she notices that the broken glass is on top of the clothes strewn around her room. As she left the room tidy, the clothes must have been chucked on the floor after the entry and then the glass smashed onto them, meaning that entry came first, the stone through the window, second.The door to Meredith’s room is forced open.The murder scene looks less like a human being has been murdered and more like an animal has been messily slaughtered.The police initially think it’s a heroin addict robbery gone wrong as the place wasn’t far from a known dealing spot. The lead investigator arrives but doesn’t enter the crime scene till after the forensic team finish (four days later) because he’s worried his hair was too dirty and it might contaminate the scene. There is indeed blood everywhere that needs to be examined including blood on the door handles and a bloody footprint on the bathroom mat. Knox later says she never noticed this blood which is why when she went to wash, she touched the blood and left a bloody fingerprint in the bathroom.The media descend and one of the first images they seize upon is film of Knox and Sollecito kissing. They’re questioned but give conflicting statements. Knox says they were both at his place watching the French film, ‘Amelie’. Sollecito says that he was there, and on his computer, but is unsure if Knox was there all night or not. Knox says she’s shocked to be a suspect but not as shocked as a detective who sees her doing a cartwheel and splits. This is later explained away as a Yoga stress relief exercise but, combined with her inappropriate kiss, many are starting to draw conclusions about the American abroad.Knox then claims that Italian police mistreat her over 41 hours of questioning which culminates in a 14 hour interrogation. She alleges that a policewoman hit her twice on the head during interrogation, a claim that leads to a defamation case being taken by the Italian Police. The result of the interview is that she changes her story at 1:45am and at 5:45am and now indicates that Lumumba is the murderer. She says he killed her when Knox was in the kitchen. He’s soon cleared with an alibi by a customer and joins the police in seeking a defamation case. 

“Victoria crescent incident. Avoid the area.” Tweet from Andre Thorpe, Jersey Resident One of the first emergency responders is Acting Inspector Mark Coxshall. He attempts to establish command and control. The sprawling and chaotic nature of the crime scene means it’s not clear who has done what. One witness, Martyn Maguire, is on his way to see his daughter’s new flat. She phones Martyn to say she thinks there’s been a stabbing. As he goes up to her flat, he notices medical staff doing compressions in order to keep a victim breathing. Being an off duty fire man, he offers help. The victim he attends to is making gurgling noises. He checks for a pulse and assesses the number and severity of the wounds. He finds nine stab wounds, most are probably fatal. He also finds the knife still stuck in the victim’s back. The knife is causing massive internal injuries. But removing it will create catastrophic bleeding. Martyn checks again for a pulse. The decision to leave the knife in or out has become academic. The man is dead. The male victim was Izabela’s father, Marek. Mark Coxshall hears the first death declared. This is now a murder enquiry. Martyn moves onto help the next victim. Baby Kacpar is not even two years old. He has been stabbed thirteen times. There is blood everywhere. He states the horrifically obvious. “I think the baby’s gone.” Mark realises he’s still not accounted for the attacker. Until he does, everyone, including the emergency staff attending, is in mortal danger. Martyn searches for survivors. In the small back bedroom he sees a man face down. This time, there’s movement. He races to rescue him. Covered in blood and stab wounds, he looks like the other victims. In fact, it’s Damian Rzeszowski. Martyn turns him over. Damian is half naked from the chest down. He’s still conscious and is moaning. As Damian moves, Martyn notices that Damian has slit his wrists. They do not look like defensive wounds. Martyn realises he may be attending to the killer. He asks Damian if there’s anybody else in the house. When he’s told there are six others, Martyn tells the policeman to continue searching for survivors. Four victims are taken to hospitals. All the survivors are female. Baby Kacper and his grandfather Marek are already dead. The only other survivor is the perpetrator. Damian is in a critical condition. Professionally, the emergency services treat him like the rest and do their very best to save his life. They dress his multiple self inflicted wounds. They chair lift him out and Martyn conveys his suspicion that Damian is the attacker to the police. Only Rzeszowski will survive.

“The sadness is of course that we know who committed this crime.” Ronnie Flanagan, Chief Constable, Royal Ulster ConstabularyThe Real IRA (RIRA) claim responsibility 72 hours after the bombing and issue an apology for the civilian casualties. They claim the intended targets were ‘commercial’ and are justified as ‘part of the on-going war against the Brits.’ Many believe the founder of the RIRA is fifty year old Michael McKevitt. He sets it up as a splinter group in November 1997 after Sinn Fein enter into talks with the British Government over the Good Friday Agreement. He is not from Northern Ireland but his wife is. She’s the sister of Bobby Sands, the hunger striker. (Bobby Sands was the IRA prisoner, and elected British MP, who starved himself to death at the age of 27. He died attempting to make the British government recognise him and other convicted terrorists not as criminals, but as political prisoners).GROUND ZERO Back at the blast area, forensics teams meticulously examine eight tonnes of rubble. It’s the largest ever murder investigation in Northern Ireland history. Nearly 80 suspects are questioned, 2,000 people interviewed and 3,000 statements taken. The investigation establishes the detonator was housed in a child’s lunch box and that the timer used was similar to other ones used by the RIRA. The car is identified as having been stolen in the Republic of Ireland and later, it had its numbers plates replaced with false Northern Ireland ones.Six million phone records are searched. This establishes that mobile phones were used by a scout car to make sure the bomb carrying car had a clear path. One report suggests young children are brought along in the scout car to deflect attention from the security forces. Using triangulation, Special Branch is able to plot the route of the bombers via their mobile phones. The bombers drove up from the Irish Republic and crossed the border to Omagh on the day of the bombing.The warning phone calls are traced to phone-boxes in South Armagh, a stronghold for the IRA, also known as bandit country. The caller’s voice is identified as having a ‘thick northern country accent’ and sounding like he was 50-55 years old. The phone boxes used are sealed and are lifted off by helicopter for forensic analysis.The police appeal to the public and new legislation and offences, such as ‘directing terrorism’ are introduced to make it easier to arrest terrorist suspects. On 22 September 1998, the RUC and Gardai (the Irish police) arrest twelve men in connection with the bombing. They’re arrested under existing laws rather than using the new Omagh initiated legislation. All are released without charge because of a lack of evidence. On 22 February 1999, seven suspects are questioned. And three days later, Colm Murphy is charged with conspiracy to cause an explosion and with membership of the RIRA. Now 48, Murphy has been involved in fighting the British since he was a teenager. Recently, however, his main activities appear to be as a builder and a pub owner in Dundalk, a town close to the Northern Ireland border.On 9 October 2000, the BBC’s Panorama programme alleges the police have other prime suspects. It names suspected RIRA leader, Michael McKevitt and also suspected RIRA member Liam Campbell. Liam, a farmer, lost his brother in 1975 when explosives he was preparing to use against the British blew up. Liam’s brother Michael is also an IRA member. The BBC programme also names Seamus Daly. Seamus, the youngest of the suspects, is an unemployed republican in his late twenties from County Monaghan, in Ireland.It’s suspected the police leak the information to the BBC because their evidence is too circumstantial to be used in court. But the programme also alleges that GCHQ, the government’s communications monitoring agency, has the capacity to listen to mobile phone calls and so could have been aware of the bombers mobile phone calls, monitored them, and possibly prevented the attack.THE UNDERCOVER INFORMANT There’s growing criticism of the investigation from all quarters. Many feel there are two separate investigations, one by the RUC, north of the border, and one by the Gardai, south of it. And both are being denied vital information by the intelligence services. And in July 2001, an undercover agent who has infiltrated the IRA for the British army, codenamed, Kevin Fulton, alleges he passed on the possibility of a bomb being prepared:“There’s something big going down because they’re mixing at night.”He claims he informed his special branch handlers of where and who was preparing the bomb three days before Omagh (though Kevin doesn’t name Omagh as the intended target.)In August 2001 Nuala O’Loan, the police ombudsman is brought in to investigate these and other claims of incompetence and cover up. As she herself admits, her presence receives mixed results:"While we got co-operation from some officers, we didn’t get co-operation from others”The following years would be as much about investigating the investigators as putting on trial the actual suspects.

“It was a bizarre and depraved murder.” John Penycate, author of Psychopath: Case of Patrick MackayEven at an early stage in the investigation into the murder of Father Crean, the trail of evidence leads to one man: Patrick Mackay.He had left his name and address at the train station when he had wanted to get back to London; he had asked for a glass of water at a house after leaving the scene of the murder and he had spoken to a local police officer as he walked through the village.Two officers are assigned to hunt down Mackay before he kills again. They have one important lead – Mackay is known to have regular contact with another priest in London.Officers begin contacting priests in the London area and eventually find the man who knows Mackay. He directs them to a hostel near Lewisham, and when they arrive the manager of the hostel is talking on a payphone – to Patrick Mackay. Police search his room and make some alarming discoveries. There are a number of Nazi symbols on the wall – swastikas, pictures of Hitler and Nazi uniforms. Valuable jewellery is hidden under a cushion and police determine that it comes from burglaries committed around Chelsea and Belgravia.Residents of the hostel tell officers that Mackay also sometimes stays with a family in South West London and within 24 hours they have traced them. Unfortunately, in that time Mackay commits another crime.On Saturday night – the day after he kills Father Crean – Mackay targets a retired nurse walking home alone. He follows her back to her flat and he forces his way in. He robs his victim, but fortunately she doesn’t anger him and she remains alive.

“In his own mind – he was doing them a favour” David Holmes – Criminal Psychologist

Operation Minstead was set up in 1998 and was the largest and most controversial investigation that Britain had ever seen. DNA evidence found in 1992, matched with DNA evidence found at a crime in 1998, but disappointingly, no link was found on the DNA National Database.

In 2001 Detective Superintendent Simon Morgan took charge. There were already 73 cases linked to the Night Stalker. Looking through the case notes he realised that the perpetrator had a distinctive method. From flattened grass found in the victims’ gardens, police could see that the Night Stalker was prepared to wait for hours until he knew for certain that the victim had gone to bed.

He’d attack by carefully and quietly removing the whole window in one piece to gain entry, moving any ornaments away from window sills to avoid making noise as he entered. He’d switch off the electricity supply at the mains, cut telephone wires and unscrewed light bulbs around the house. He also mobile phones above cupboards, making them harder to find.

The brutality of his attacks on the elderly left the police with little to go on. Most victims were so traumatised; they were unable to recall any details. It was left to behavioural profilers to help shine some light. They detected that he must have worked with the elderly at some point, as he used similar techniques when lifting and moving his victims. They also worked out that he must have worked at night as his comings and goings didn't arouse suspicion. In nearly every case the police were astounded at just how clean and tidy he was. It was believed the person they were hunting must have had an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

In order to move forward with the case, the police decided to use a pioneering new technique called Ancestral DNA profiling. It proved the man they were looking was of Caribbean descent, allowing them them to reduce their number of suspects by several thousand.

In 2007 the police saw the Night Stalker’s pattern of behaviour changing. He became more focused on stealing money. More importantly his careful planning was beginning to falter, and mistakes were being made.

“If the police had done their job properly, I would have spent the last 18 years grieving for my son rather than fighting to get his killers to court.”

Doreen Lawrence, 2012

The police who arrive at the scene don’t give Stephen First-Aid. They won’t ask Duwayne to give an efit (a computer generated description of the attackers) for 11 days. Over 20 people name the suspects within 48 hours of the killing, and one walks into a police station to name them. The suspect names are also left on notes, one tucked under a police windscreen wiper. Those named include Gary Dobson, 17, David Norris, 16, Luke Knight, 16 and brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt, aged 17 and 16 respectively. Operation Fishpool is launched. But nearly two weeks pass before three of the suspects are arrested.It’s now become standard to believe the original investigation was so riddled with errors because of endemic police racism and individual incompetence. There were, however, several obstacles in their way, for example, the influence of David Norris’ father, Clifford.He was a notorious drug smuggler, and he may have been on the run from the police at the time of the murder, but his presence was still felt around the Brook estate.

“Police officers...believed that the influence or fear of Clifford Norris infected the investigation of the murder, in that potential young witnesses...held back because they knew of Clifford Norris’ existence and close interest in his son’s welfare.’ (The Macpherson Report)

And not all the police were racist. When Stephen’s younger brother Stuart cycled out to see where his brother was, he came across the cordoned off murder scene. Two policemen, wanting to shield him from what had happened, put his bike in the boot of their car, and drove him home.

But over the next 17 years, there’ll be 16 arrests, over 800 house calls and nearly 1,400 statements taken, with no result. But amidst this activity, it’s the taking of two of the suspects’ clothes as evidence that will eventually lead to convictions.In ID parades, Duwayne Brooks identifies Neil Acourt and Luke Knight as being part of the gang responsible for the murder. They’re charged and both deny the charges.And in July 1993, the Crown Prosecution Service drops the case. Forensics find nothing and the key witness, Duwayne, is considered unreliable. Investigating officers’ relationship with him is, by his own admission, ‘poor’. (His relationship with the Lawrence family also breaks down at this point as well). A senior officer reviews the investigation, or lack of it, but concludes it’s being ‘correctly pursued’.In late 1994, the police place undercover cameras in Dobson’s flat. The recordings of his racist rants will later help seal his fate. (The only chief suspect not recorded is Jamie Acourt as he’s in custody over other unrelated matters).

In 1997, the Police Watchdog effectively investigates the police investigation. After nine months, it concludes there were "significant weaknesses, omissions and lost opportunities". The head of the Met Police apologises to the Lawrence family the next year, but refuses to resign.

In February 1999, Operation Athena Tower launches. A top detective, John Grieve is given free rein to get convictions. His surveillance operation is described as ‘pure James Bond’. An undercover officer purchases a property and moves in nearby to befriend Dobson. The police even bug the golf trolleys of the suspects when they holiday in Scotland. But in May 2004, the Crown Prosecution Service announces there’s insufficient evidence to prosecute murder charges.

Then in 2006, police launch a cold case four year review, staffed by 32 officers at a cost of nearly £8m. Roughly half of that is spent on the scientific re-examination of the evidence. Scientists working at LGC Forensics find clothing fibres and hair from the Stephen on the clothes of Dobson and Norris. And crucially, they go over the jacket magnifying it 40 times. They find a microscopic (0.5mm x 0.25mm) speck of his blood on Dobson’s jacket. It’s the start of a four year cold case review. A tiny drop of Stephen’s blood was found on a jacket belonging to Dobson. Two strands of his hair were found on jeans belonging to Norris.New charges are brought against Dobson and Norris.

“He’s a calculating individual with a plan for everything” Evil Up Close: Crusader for Death – Anders Behring BreivikThe police have Breivik in custody but they need to understand what caused a Norwegian national to murder his own people. They begin to investigate and Breivik’s own 1,500 page manifesto holds the key.It emerges that in the eleven years leading up to the attacks Breivik changes from a shy quiet teenager to a muscle-bound lone activist eager to enforce his extreme views on the world. But what causes this change?At 20-years-old he joins Norway’s Fermskrittspartiet - The Progress Party. It’s the largest far-right group in the country. Breivik holds several political posts in the party's youth league. Several people remember him as being a normal well-dressed and modest young man. However, he mainly lives an online existence with no dealings with the real world. He’s careful to keep his own political beliefs and his manifesto secret, especially from his friends. He’s meticulously careful not to reveal too much information that might upset his grand plans. He does however start to post more controversial opinionsAround this time he starts to improve his physique by getting up at 6am every day and enduring a harsh training regime, involving steroids. It’s also alleged that he’s undergone cosmetic procedures on his face to achieve the ultimate Aryan look. He believes he’s a Knights Templar, the Christian sect that vowed to destroy Islam.From 2002 to 2006 Breivik puts all efforts into raising funds. He sets up a computer programming business. It’s successful but eventually Breivik declares himself bankrupt and the company is closed. At this point he’s forced to move back in with his mother. He’s becoming increasingly critical of multiculturalism. His hatred of Muslims stems from the fact he believes them to be a threat to Norwegian society.In 2009 Breivik withdraws from society and stays in his room at his mother’s house playing computer games. He’s taken a year out to study World of Warcraft and improve his marksmanship. It’s also a good cover story to help him write his manifesto and to find contacts from the online world that are sympathetic to his cause.His manifesto is really a guide for anyone wishing to follow in his footsteps and details every issue and problem he faces in his crusade. It exposes how cold and calculating he really is and also reveals the scientific approach he takes with his work. Worryingly Breivik appears to be two people. To his friends he’s just a normal average guy.Around this time he also creates a new business called Breivik Geofarm. It’s a vegetable farm set up to help him legally buy fertiliser that he’ll use to make his bomb.In 2010 he tries to buy illegal weaponry in Prague but this trip proves fruitless. Instead he uses legal channels in his own country, and due to Norwegian law he has to attend a local shooting club in order to own a gun. He’s licensed to hold a semi-automatic 9mm Glock 17 pistol and a semi-automatic Ruger Mini-14 rifle for shooting deer.By 2011 he’s moved to a farm in the small rural town of Rena, north east of Oslo. He’s hoping that he won’t draw attention to himself in the countryside, as the final phase of his deadly plan approaches. However, a local farmer has concerns for his new neighbour, as he knows the land is not suitable for vegetables and is seeing an awful lot of fertiliser arriving. Unfortunately the neighbour doesn’t alert the authorities.

“Based upon forensic information late Tuesday afternoon that linked the .22 handgun owned by Joseph Materazzo both to Neil Entwistle and to Rachel, we believed we had probable cause to seek an arrest warrant for Neil Entwistle’s arrest."

Middlesex County District Attorney Martha Coakley told a press conference after Entwistle’s arrest. Boston Globe, Feb 9 2007

With a loving wife and new baby daughter at his side, good-looking and successful and living the American dream, it looked to the outside world as if Neil Entwistle had it all. But he was living a lie.

At a press conference after Entwistle’s arrest, Middlesex County District Attorney, Martha Coakley tells the waiting press about the lead up to the police’s move on Entwistle,

"On Thursday night (19 January 2006), Rachel was alive and had spoken with family members.At some time on Friday morning, Neil Entwistle — with a firearm we believe he had secured at sometime before that from father-in-law Joseph Materazzo — shot Rachel Entwistle in the head and then proceeded to shoot baby Lillian, who was lying on the bed next to her mother. We believe possibly this was intended to be a murder-suicide, but we cannot confirm that. Obviously the murder was affected, but the suicide was not.”

On 9 February, the Extradition Unit of London's Metropolitan Police arrests Neil at the Royal Oak underground station in London. When police make the arrest, Entwistle has three things on him which prove helpful to the prosecution: a one-page eulogy to Rachel, a draft of his bid to sell his story to the newspapers and third is a page torn from the Daily Sport, advertising the services of prostitutes and escort agencies.

On 15 February, Entwistle is taken into the custody by US police and flown back to the United States after he waives his right to fight extradition.

On 28 March, US police indict Entwistle on two counts of murder.

Why did Chris Watts murder his wife and young daughters?

Shanann Watts and her two daughters were reported missing by a friend, and it wasn't long until suspicion started to fall on her husband.

“At least five people have died and another is in a critical condition after a knife attack.” Local news reportOnce all the casualties are cleared from the scene, the police investigation takes precedence. Their first priority is to preserve the scene and the evidence. The first moments are always the most vital.“It’s often referred to as the golden hour in police speak...You only get one chance at a crime scene.” Detective Superintendent Stewart Gull - States of Jersey PoliceThe police have begun the first of 50 forensic examinations. They’re so thorough that its two days before two of the bodies are even moved. The police quickly establish that Damian is a lone assailant.The surrounding area is put into lock down. But before the press can broadcast the incident, Facebook and Twitter carry the first reports. Social media explodes with speculation. A phone call is made to Jersey policewoman DC Karen Sykes. Like many islanders, she’s barbecuing. The family liaison officer is told to return to the office. The only information she’s given is that there’s been an incident and that it involves knives and possibly children.On her arrival at the hospital she is greeted by chaos. It is in shut down. Only professionals are allowed in. Karen is asked to assist the doctor. In the first room, they pronounce life extinct on four victims. With that done, their injuries are documented. Next, they try to identify the bodies. None have identification.One of the victim’s mobile keeps ringing and receiving messages. A colleague of Karen’s establishes it’s a relative. They call them in order to establish who might have been at the crime scene. The phone caller is Craig De La Hay. He is trying to locate his wife Marta and his daughter Julia. They should have been home at 6 o’clock that evening. He is very worried. He has been checking Facebook. He knows there’s been an incident at Victoria Crescent and knows that’s where Marta and Julia were going. The police wait for Damian to regain consciousness. They need him awake to both arrest and question him.But he’s been heavily sedated due to the severity of his self inflicted injuries.On Monday, he comes round. He is arrested on suspicion of six murders. He is kept under guard in the hospital for the next ten days.It is the start of a year of investigation for the States of Jersey Police. Experts from the Devon and Cornwall police force are seconded in. Hundreds of witness statements will be taken.

“…he had already been interviewed about the Christine Darby murder…” Former Detective Constable Joseph, Birmingham Mail, May 2011

All three murder victims - Margaret, Diane and Christine - lived near the A34, within 17 miles of each other. Cannock Chase is on the A34. Increasingly this geographical link becomes significant in the investigation.The inquiry is led by Sir Stanley Bailey, Staffordshire’s Assistant Chief Constable, and involves 150 officers visiting 39,000 homes, interviewing 80,000 people and trawling some 1.4 million car records. Close to 25,000 vehicles, including every Austin A55 and A60 in the Midlands, are checked.

In 1965, Morris’s brother walks into Cannock police station and states that he believes Raymond was capable of murdering Margaret and Diane, because of his unnatural interest in young girls. His claim is investigated but Morris appears to have alibis for both murders and as a married father of two he is not considered to be a likely suspect for such horrible crimes.

On the night of 4 November 1968 the police receive their breakthrough. At 8.28pm an emergency call is answered by Detective Constable Conrad Joseph. He interviews both Mrs Lane and Margaret Aulton, the intended victim. Their accounts match but unfortunately the registration number that Mrs Lane gives for the car she saw doesn’t match the make and model of the vehicle she describes.

DC Conrad Joseph perseveres with this line of enquiry with his colleague DC Atkins. They wake the local Vehicle Tax Officer to access the vehicle records at the Walsall office. The registration given by the witness is 429 LOP but this isn’t registered to a green and white Ford Corsair. Instead of giving up they painstakingly search through documents one by one, for similar registration numbers. Transposing the numbers 29 to 92 they discover 492 LOP is a matching vehicle and owned by Raymond Morris.

They visit Morris at work and invite him to be interviewed. Morris, remaining calm and co-operative, agrees. Chatting on the way to the station, he mentions he used to own an Austin A55.

An Austin A55 is the type of vehicle linked to Christine Darby’s unsolved murder and this information will prove vital to the investigation.

At Cannock police station Morris is also interviewed by Detective Sergeant John Farrell and Detective Constable James Speight. The witness doesn’t pick him out during an identity parade, later confessing she is too scared. Without a positive identification, Morris is allowed to walk free.

Remaining convinced of Morris’s guilt, DCs Joseph and Atkins seek permission from DCI George Read to stay on the case. He agrees and they delve into Morris’s past, looking for information on the vehicles he had owned or had access to through his job and his whereabouts at the time of the girls’ abductions.

DCs Joseph and Atkins are repeatedly told by the incident room at Cannock that Morris has been eliminated as a suspect because he has an alibi, given by his wife. But their investigations uncover evidence that connects Morris to the attack on Julia Taylor and the disappearances of Margaret Reynolds and Diane Tift. It seems he was in the right place, at the right time, in the right kind of car.

"Looking back on it, I don't know why - why I did things how I did,'' said Entwistle.”Once I kind of realized what happened ... you think in those situations I would just look and break down, but that's not what went through my head. Well, the first thing I wanted to do was to do something to myself.''' Neil Entwistle speaking about finding his wife and child bodies to Sergeant Robert Manning of Massachusetts State police. The Telegraph, 21 June 2008His wife and child were dead and Neil Entwistle was nowhere to be found. Initially, Neil is not a suspect, just a person of interest. This quickly changes as the police investigation gains momentum.Detective Sgt. Robert Manning is the lead officer investigating the case for Massachusetts police. Finding Neil is missing, he phones the Entwistle’s home in Nottingham. It proves to be an odd telephone call. During the conversation, which is later played at his trial, the police ask Entwistle for his version of events surrounding the deaths. He explains how he returned from doing chores around 11am on the 20 January and found his wife and child dead in their home. He maintains he no idea who has killed them. His first thought was to kill himself. In a confusing move, he neglects to call police for help.During the phone call, Entwistle tells police how unable to kill himself with a knife, he seeks a gun at his in-laws house. Intrigued by this disclosure, the police speak with his step-father, Joe Materazzo, who confirms they have taught Neil to shoot their Colt .22 handgun. The investigation makes a breakthrough discovery, the gun found at in-laws house is the murder weapon. Forensic tests reveal that Neil’s fingerprints are on the gun.The investigation looks into Entwistle’s personal circumstances and finds he is unemployed and has been since 2005 plus he has racked up has $30,000 of credit card debt. Authorities suspect there could be a financial motivation for the killings. Even more concerning to the police were his recent activities online: a search of Entwistle's computer reveals that days before the murders, he looked at a website that described "how to kill people" and escort services.Establishing links being between Entwistle and the murder weapon plus his poor finances and promiscuous behaviour are casting doubt on Entwistle claim of a perfect family life. The police decide they have the enough evidence to build a case against Enwtistle for the double murder of Rachel and Lillian.

"Hardy is a dangerous, devious and manipulative man. He took his victims to his flat where he murdered all three vulnerable women.” Detective Chief Inspector Ken Bell, The Guardian, 26 November 2003Around 1999, Anthony Hardy turns his home into a satanic shrine to death as he brings the same terror to the Camden area of north London as Jack the Ripper had inflicted on the women of London's Whitechapel over 100 years before. A search of the flat uncovers vital evidence which will help to convict Hardy of the three horrific murders.In an attempt to uncover what had happened in the flat, police use a cutting edge forensic system called luminol, a process which reveals blood stains that can’t be seen by the human eye. This uncovers blood stains all over Hardy’s home, including in the bathroom and marks made when he dragged the bodies to the ‘dismemberment room’.Other finds would include the tolls used for dismemberment, pornographic films and masks used to in photos to cover the faces of the dead women.CCTV footage from the local area shows Hardy dumping bin bags near in Plender Street in Camden, on the site where police would later discover human remains. It is at this stage in the investigation that police re-examine the suspicious death of Sally White. With the wealth of forensic evidence, the CCTV and victims identified, the police finally have evidence to charge Hardy with the brutal murders of all three women.

"a cold-blooded assassination" Advocate Depute Brian McConnachie, BBC, 17 June 2008

It was the kind of crime that nobody ever thought could happen in Orkney and put the island in the national news headlines.Police investing the seemingly random killing – the first murder on the Orkneys for 25 years - are hampered by a lack of evidence, as well as by a member of the investigation team itself. Eddie Ross, Kirkwell policeman and Michael’s father, fails to tell his colleagues he owns a box of bullets of the type used in the shooting.

As the local firearms expert, Eddie Ross is given the task of checking all 9mm guns on the island but he concludes that none were capable of firing the bullet and nowhere could he find the same type of ammunition.A range of motives are examined for the murder - is it racially motivated, drug related, a crime of passion, or a contract killing?

The police have one other line of enquiry - the sighting on the afternoon of 19 May 1994 of a male in Papdale Woods, Kirkwall, wearing a balaclava and dressed similarly to the killer in the restaurant. A schoolgirl, Lynn Railston, and a friend, notice this individual crouching behind a wall by the wood as they walk home. When she reaches home she mentions it to her mother, Margaret Railston. They watch the individual from their home for about twenty five minutes. Lynn Railston watches him through binoculars.

They observe him removing some of his clothing, including the balaclava and a distinctively patterned white coloured T-shirt. The subsequent E-FIT bears a striking similarity to the killer as described by the witnesses in the restaurant.

On 8 September 1994 Lynn Railston sees the same male from the wood. She is able to point him out in the street and he is identified as15-year-old Michael Ross.

Investigating officer, DI Chisholm, interviews Michael several times over the following months, trying to pin-point his movements on the day of the murder.Michael’s explanation is that he is in the wood lying in wait for another youth, Jamie Weatherill, who, he had been told, had been physically abusing an ex-girlfriend of Michael’s. He was "going to give him a fright to...stop him from hurting her again". Jamie Weatherill had in the event not come that way that day. Michael admits to wearing a white top with blue and red stripes and a blue tracksuit top with a hood. He had disposed of the balaclava by putting a stone in it and throwing it into the sea.

After the end of exhausting rounds of interviews with Ross the evidence is purely circumstantial and no prosecution is instigated. The enquiry into the murder stalls.

All police can do is put Eddie Ross on trial in 1997 for attempting to pervert the course of justice by hiding his knowledge of the opened box of bullets in his home. He receives a four-year jail sentence after the ex-soldier who gave him the bullets comes forward to police.

But Eddie Ross is not the gunman.