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[Music] Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at
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any time you need support, please contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers, for
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confidential support, and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this
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episode on your app or on our website. It was just after 6:00 on the evening of Saturday, February 3, 1990, when married
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couple Frank and Audrey Roberts realized they still hadn't heard from their friend, Dr. David Burkett.
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David lived next door to them in Lynthorp, a small neighborhood in the industrial portside town of
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Middlesbrough in England's northeast. The trio along with some other neighbors often got together to socialize on
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Saturday nights. They had discussed attending the Middlesbrough Little Theater Club later
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that evening, but the minutes continued to tick by without David contacting the couple to confirm their plans.
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Audrey called David's home phone at around 6:30 p.m., but there was no answer. When they still hadn't heard
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from David by 7:50, Audrey decided to duck over to his house and leave a note asking him to get in touch with them by
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9:00. 56-year-old David Burkett was a recently divorced father of three who lived alone
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in a large two-story home on Cornfield Road, a treelined residential street in an affluent part of town. As Audrey
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approached, she noticed that the curtains to David's Bay windows, which were typically kept open, were closed.
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She knocked on the door. There was no answer. Audrey slipped the note under David's
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front door and then turned down the laneway that ran alongside his house. She caught a glimpse of his kitchen and
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noticed that the windows were fogged up and it smelt like burnt potatoes. Thinking David might be busy cooking
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dinner, Audrey returned home to await his call. But 9:00 came and went with no word. So
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the group decided to go to the theater without him. By 4:00 the next afternoon, there was
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still no word from David, and his curtains remained closed. His pet cats were also waiting by the front door,
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eager to be fed. Concerned for David's welfare, Audrey Roberts, decided to call his youngest
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daughter, 16-year-old Laura, who lived with her mother nearby. David's other two children, aged 23 and
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26, no longer lived at home. Ever since their parents divorced 2 years earlier, Laura had felt sorry for
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her father living all alone in that big house. She made every effort to visit him as
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often as possible. As soon as Laura received Audrey's call, she immediately felt that something was
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wrong. She rushed over to Cornfield Road where some of David's neighbors had gathered outside.
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Fearful of what Laura might find inside, they tried to stop her from entering, but Laura pushed her way through and
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unlocked the front door. The scene she found would haunt her for years to come. David was lying face down in the
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hallway, the walls and carpet covered in blood. As Laura later recalled to the telegraph, it was as if I could see
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myself going into the house. I was on the outside looking in. Someone called the police and an
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ambulance. And then the nightmare of it all began. [Music] Although Middlesborough had its fair
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share of crime, Dr. David Burkett's house on Cornfield Road was not the kind of place police expected to find a
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murder. The brutal scene inside the six-bedroom semi- detached home was at complete odds
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with the dignified reputation of the neighborhood and with the David himself. David was an eminent and highly
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respected dermatologist who primarily worked at the Carterquest Hospital in Middlesborough.
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He also had a deep fascination with bones and worked as a consultant paleopathologist for the government
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helping to identify ancient diseases. So prized were his skills that people sent him bones to examine from all over
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the world. Despite his incredible intellect, David was a modest man who took quiet pride in
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his talents, never talking about himself unless asked. He was described by one acquaintance as
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a gentleman in every sense of the word. This made it all the more shocking for police as they entered the home and
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found what had clearly been a savage and brazen attack. Crime scene examiners determined that
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the killer had most likely struck as David answered the front door. David had an alarm system and there were
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no signs of forced entry, meaning that he had likely willingly let them inside and maybe even knew them.
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As David opened the door, the killer had hit him multiple times in the head with
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a blunt object, probably a hammer. A lack of defensive injuries indicated David hadn't seen the attack coming.
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Two pieces of green cord had been tied around his arms and used to drag him further down the hallway towards his
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study, where the asalent launched a second assault. In total, David had sustained
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approximately 17 ferocious and fatal blows to the front, sides, and back of his head.
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In his kitchen, the oven was still on, and there were two pots of burnt vegetables inside, suggesting the killer
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had attacked while David was in the middle of cooking. The initial assumption was that the
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murder must have been motivated by theft. David's wallet and a small fob watch were missing from the inside
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pocket of his jacket, while some drawers and cupboard doors had been left open throughout the house.
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The police wondered whether the asalent could have been looking for cash, drugs,
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or jewelry, but it didn't really look like David's things had been ransacked or rifled through.
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Nothing else appeared to be missing, and overall, everything was neat and tidy. With the burglary angle not quite
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checking out, police turned to David's friends and colleagues, seeking information about who could have
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possibly wanted him dead. But nobody had a bad word to say about him. By all accounts, David Burkett was
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well-liked. He had always been a private and reserved person who was most often at
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work, but he'd recently made an effort to spend more time with his neighbors. They all knew him to be nothing but kind
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and friendly, often stopping to chat with towns folk whom others wouldn't give the time of day. He frequented the
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Middlesbrough Bowling Club, which was just across the street from his home, testing his general knowledge skills in
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the weekly quiz night. Fellow members described him as an unassuming and polite gentleman.
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They couldn't fathom who would want to hurt him. With David's murder starting to look
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more like a random attack, fears were high that the killer could strike again. Pressure was on for the police to make a
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quick arrest. 70 officers were assigned to the case, led by Detective Chief Inspector Brian
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Leonard. They door-nooked houses in the area, distributed posters about the crime
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around town, and set up a police caravan at the end of Cornfield Road, where potential witnesses could provide
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information. They were particularly eager to speak to anyone who might have seen David Burkett
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on Saturday, February 3, 1990, and could help piece together a timeline of his movements.
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A travel agent who worked in Linthorp Village recognized the David from one of the police posters and recalled that he
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had come into the travel agency at around 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. He had picked up a brochure for an
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upcoming trip to the United States that he was planning with his daughter. The travel agent knew David as he was a
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regular customer and noted nothing out of the ordinary about his behavior. Later that evening at 5:20 p.m., a
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Linthorp resident had been cycling down the laneway that ran alongside David's house when he noticed a David sitting
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alone at his kitchen table. As David had failed to answer phone calls from around 6:30 on, and Audrey
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Roberts visited the house at 7:50 to find the curtains drawn, police deduced that the murder must have been committed
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sometime between that last sighting of David and when Audrey stopped by. This was confirmed by a post-mortem
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examination, which found that David had died between 6:00 and 7:00 on Saturday evening.
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DCI Brian Leonard told reporters, "We can't rule out the possibility that the murderer may have been in the house
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when the neighbor called and might have left sometime later, so we would still like to appeal to witnesses from
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Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon at 400 p.m. Cornfield Road was a quiet place, and
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there was little reason to be in the area unless you lived there or were visiting someone who did.
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However, a football game between Middlesborough and Aston Villa had taken place that evening, and spectators were
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known to park their cars around the neighborhood. An evening mass had also been held at
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the Holy Name of Mary Church located at the top of Cornfield Road. Police appealed for anyone who might
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have parked or passed through the area to think back and remember if they had seen anything at all that could help
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with the investigation. It had been a very messy crime scene, and whoever was responsible had likely
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been covered in blood. David's house was protected from the road by a high fence and large trees.
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It was also positioned in a slight curve, placing it just out of sight of the bowling club.
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While no one had seen anything suspicious on David's property, it was reported that a scruffily dressed man
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with long straggly black hair had been seen in the Lynthorp area earlier that day asking for directions to Cornfield
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Road. At around the same time that David was spotted through his kitchen window,
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witnesses reported seeing two young men standing on the street outside his home.
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They were both white and aged around 18 to 20 years old. One was approximately 5'9 with fair hair and the other was
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around 5'11 with longish dark hair. DCI Leonard appealed for the men to come forward even if they had no information
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to share to eliminate themselves from the inquiry. He also sought further information about
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two men who reportedly ran out onto the dark street in front of a car at around 7:20 p.m.
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When emergency services operator Pauline Collins heard about David Burkett's murder, she recalled a strange phone
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call that she'd received on the night of Saturday, February 3. Pauline was just about to knock off work
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for the evening when a call had come through to 999 just before 900 p.m. Police said an unidentified man 26
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Cornfield Road. He then hung up. The connection had been poor, but the man's voice came through clearly enough
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for Pauline to notice that he sounded odd. Most people who called 999 were obviously panicked and anxious, but this
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man sounded calm and steady. Pauline patched the call through to the police. As the man hadn't said which
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town he was calling from, the police asked Pauline to get a trace on the call. It came back as having been made
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from a pay phone on the corner of Union Street and Parliament Road in Central Middlesbrough, roughly 1.4 4 miles from
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David Burkett's home. Because the man hadn't provided any further information or mentioned any type of crime, the call
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had ultimately been brushed off as a hoax. It was only in the wake of David's murder that police realized its
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importance. Because the call was made no more than 3 hours after David had been killed and 12
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hours before his body was discovered, they wondered if the caller knew the killer or perhaps he was the killer and
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had been trying to direct police to the crime. Officers went to the pay phone on Union
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Street and conducted a forensic examination, but found nothing of use to the investigation.
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They appealed for the caller or anyone else who had been in the vicinity of the pay phone at the time of the call to
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come forward. David's eldest son, Simon, also made an emotional plea for the caller to phone
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again. DCI Leonard told reporters, "I am convinced now that the caller has knowledge of the murder and knows the
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identity of the killer. We have not ruled out the possibility that he may have even been the killer.
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I believe the man has a conscience and is shocked and disturbed by the brutality of this vicious killing.
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With no immediate suspects coming to light, police focused on three potential clues found at the crime scene.
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The first was a handwritten note found on David's hallway table which appeared to have come from a 24-hour motorcycle
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courier service called Demon Dispatches. Mr. Burket, it read a dispatch rider called today with a parcel. Phone the
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above number as soon as possible to arrange a convenient time for delivery. David often received parcels from
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courier services, so there was nothing overtly unusual about this note. However, police considered the
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possibility that someone could have used this as a guise to lure David to his front door before launching an attack.
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The phone number on the dispatch note wasn't connected to an office, but to the pay phone on Union Street, where the
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999 call had been placed on the night of David's murder. Police were unable to determine whether
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or not David had called the number, but their theory gained traction when they discovered a motorcycle tire track in
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David's driveway. Furthermore, they looked into Demon Dispatches and discovered that the
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company had actually ceased operations 2 years prior. Investigators tracked down the company's
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former director, a man named Alan Thompson. Allan couldn't shed any light on the
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situation, but he willingly handed over all of the company's old files, including employment records and
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delivery receipts. All up, Demon Dispatches had 49 former employees on its books.
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Police were able to track down about half of them with relative ease. It turned out that only one of them had
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used a motorcycle for their deliveries, and it just so happened that he lived less than a 5-minute walk from David
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Burkett's home. Police paid a visit to the man whose name was Jim Lee. Asked for his
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whereabouts on Saturday, February 3, Lee said he couldn't recall. A recording of his voice was sent to a
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local expert to be analyzed against the 999 call made on the night of David's murder.
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They determined it wasn't the same person. Lee also provided a handwriting sample
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which was compared to the note pretending to be from Demon Dispatches. That wasn't a match either.
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Jim Lee eventually provided an alibi which was checked out and confirmed by police, putting them back at square one.
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Their next step was to sort through all of Demon Dispatch's delivery receipts, of which there were about 250,000.
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They were on the lookout for anything that had been sent to David Burkett's home and the name of the courier who
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delivered it. The police believed that David's murder hadn't been random after all, but a
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targeted and carefully orchestrated attack. They just had to figure out who would want to hurt him and why.
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After two arduous weeks, they finished sorting through the receipts, but didn't find a single record that led them back
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to David or to Cornfield Road. Alan Thompson, the former director of Demon Dispatchers, also recalled that
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his house had been broken into about a year before David Burkett's murder and some papers featuring the company's
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letterhead were stolen. It was therefore possible that the killer wasn't connected to the company in any way, but
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perhaps had a history of breaking and entering. The note was sent to a handwriting
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expert who determined that the author was right-handed and hadn't tried to mask their natural handwriting.
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They noted distinct characteristics to the letters B, P, and D, which could be helpful to compare against any further
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samples. The second clue found at the scene of David Burkett's murder was a white
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plastic bag that was lying in the hallway, not far from his body. David's cleaner said she'd never seen
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the bag in the house before, leading police to believe that the killer had brought it with him. It had come from a
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co-op supermarket and was marked with a distinctive red and blue print advertising a tea promotion.
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Police made inquiries with the supermarket chain and discovered that the bag had been distributed by all
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stores in the region 2 years prior. With multiple outlets, there was no way of determining which location it had
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come from, but there was no doubt about its significance. Blood stains on the outside of the bag,
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coupled with small tears at the bottom, indicated that the killer might have used it to conceal the murder weapon
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during the attack. Its handles were also stretched, as though they'd been wrapped around
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something. Police appealed to anyone who recognized the bag or had noticed a similar one
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missing from their home to come forward. While the bag itself was sent for forensic analysis,
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scientists conducted numerous experiments by placing a hammer inside a similar plastic bag and wrapping the top
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of the bag around the handle of the hammer before using it to bash a test object.
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When using a cross peen hammer, one with a wedged shaped blade that runs perpendicular to the handle, the bag
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tore in exactly the same way as the co-op bag found in David's house. They then tested the cross pane hammer
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against the damage to a patch of carpet at the crime scene, which had a semicircle shaped cut on it.
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It was a perfect match. Because the co-op bag was made of plastic, it couldn't be tested for
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fingerprints using the standard powdering technique. Instead, forensic scientists used an
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advanced method that required the bag to be placed inside a heated cabinet along
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with a container of superglue. If any fingerprints were present, the fumes from the glue would create white
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chalky deposits along their ridges, which would then become visible after the bag was placed in a tub of yellow
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dye. The scientists completed this process and then placed the bag inside a special
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machine that acted as a high energy light source. They viewed the bag through a series of
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filters that aimed to highlight any fingerprint ridges present. Near the handle of the bag, there it
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was, a partial right-hand thumb print. Although this was a solid lead, the plastic bag could have changed hands
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many times over the years, and police couldn't be sure that the print had come from the killer.
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They sent it off to be checked. while turning their focus to the third and final clue.
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The two pieces of thin green cord that had been tied around David Burkett's arms didn't appear to have come from
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inside his home. This not only suggested that the killer had brought the cord with him, but that
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he also knew a thing or two about forensic procedures. The asalent had used the cord to drag
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David down the hallway, presumably to avoid touching him and transferring any identifiable fibers in the process.
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If police could identify where the cord came from, it could put them one step closer to finding the killer. The
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problem was they couldn't even be sure what type of cord it was. Upon initial inspection, it looked as
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though it could have come from an item of sportsware, such as a snow jacket or something similar.
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Inquiries were made with numerous sports stores, but no one recognized the cord.
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Police sought help from various rope and cord manufacturers, making inquiries with companies as far away as Pakistan,
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but nothing brought them any closer to locating the green cord's origin. Meanwhile, checking the partial
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thumbrint found on the plastic bag was proving to be a slow and painstaking process.
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Back in 1990, there was no national fingerprint database with searches only done regionally and by hand.
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The job was assigned to a senior fingerprint expert named Judith Kirby. She spent the first two weeks of the
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investigation manually comparing the partial thumbrint to the 20,000 files of active criminals in Middlesborough.
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There were no matches. Her next task was to compare the print to every criminal file in England's
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northeast. There were about 300,000 all up, and it could take Judith months with no
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guarantee of an outcome. Police were growing frustrated with the lack of progress in the investigation.
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It took 3 weeks alone just to conclude their meticulous search of the crime scene, during which family members
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realized that something else was missing from David's house after all. In one of his back bedrooms, he'd kept
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an ancient skull. It had come from a monk who had been beaten to death several hundred years prior, and David
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used it when conducting lectures on the study of ancient man. The skull was no longer there.
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David's son, Simon, provided a sketch of the skull that he' drawn years earlier for a school assignment. Interestingly
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enough, the injuries the monk had sustained bore some resemblance to David's head injuries.
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Police wondered whether there was any significance to this or if it was merely a coincidence.
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While it was possible that David's killer had taken the skull, it was just as possible that David had lent it to a
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colleague or one of his pupils. Police initially withheld the details about the skull from the public while
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appealing for people to be on the lookout for David's missing fob watch or wallet.
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They said the wallet would likely have been discarded under a bush or in a bin, while the watch might have made its way
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to a jewelry store or secondhand dealer. David's funeral was held in his hometown, and more than 250 mourers
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attended to pay their respects. The service was led by a reverend who'd known David personally and commended his
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humbleness. He told those gathered. David wasn't one to talk about himself. He didn't speak about his profession or
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his achievements. One thing he did talk about was taking part in the London Marathon, which he
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ran and finished and raised money for his favorite charity. It was worth more to him than any of his
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medical qualifications. Police who attended the funeral became more eager than ever to make an arrest.
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DCI Leonard told reporters, "Someone knows the killer and is shielding him. It may be a wife, mother,
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girlfriend, relative, or friend. He may have spoken to them about what happened. He was bound to have had
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bloodstained clothing, and they may have washed the clothes. he would have been in a very shaken and shocked condition
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when he came home. I would urge them to contact me. With 100 officers still working the
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case, the investigation was bogged down as letters trickled in from people claiming to be responsible for David's
00:27:35
murder. The inaccurate details they provided proved these confessions were false, but
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it was a waste of valuable police time and resources. Nonetheless, DCI Leonard and his team were disgusted.
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From the outset of the investigation, they'd been disappointed by what they felt was a general lack of concern from
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the public. Despite their extensive public inquiries, they realized that people weren't coming forward with information
00:28:05
that later came to light through different means. The head of the county's criminal
00:28:11
investigation department told reporters, "The death of any human being other than
00:28:17
by natural causes should be of great concern to us." Detectives investigating these offenses
00:28:25
often come to the conclusion that very few people care. Using David Burkett's murder as an
00:28:32
example, he said, "When Detective Chief Inspector Leonard appeals for anyone who
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was in the vicinity of Cornfield Road at a particular time, he means everyone." Many people conclude that because they
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cannot recall anything from say driving down Cornfield Road, they have nothing to offer.
00:28:54
That is totally wrong. It is important to identify every person who was in the vicinity of the scene between the
00:29:01
material times because one thing is certain, Dr. Burkett's killer was there. Appealing to the public directly, he
00:29:13
said, "When you read, see, or hear on television a policeman asking for help in an investigation of a serious crime,
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please take notice. He is talking to you. He isn't Tagot or Berserak or Sherlock Holmes. He is working for you,
00:29:31
and with your help, he can be successful." By March, almost a month had passed since David Burkett's death, and police
00:29:42
still hadn't identified a prime suspect. Then they received a call from a local man, Ray Benson, not his real name.
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Rey had cast his mind back to the night of Saturday, February 3, and recalled that he'd been waiting for a bus on the
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corner of Union Street and Parliament Road at about 900 p.m. He'd glanced over at the nearby pay
00:30:07
phone and noticed that an agitated man was loitering around it. The man walked up to the phone a couple of times and
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picked up the receiver before hanging it up without making a call. He walked across the street and stood in
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the doorway of a bedding shop, muttering to himself before crossing back over to
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the pay phone. This time, he picked up the receiver and placed a call before walking off down
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Parliament Road. For the police, this was a significant breakthrough. The timing of Ray's reported sighting
00:30:45
matched perfectly with the suspicious call made to 999 on the night of David Burkett's murder.
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Ry was also able to provide a clear description of the man. He was white between the ages of 35 and 45 and 6 ft
00:31:02
tall with a medium build. He had a round face with a high forehead and short sandy colored hair that was receding at
00:31:10
the sides. A sketch of the man was drawn and distributed with the DCI Leonard telling
00:31:17
reporters, "He may be our man, but if not, we want to eliminate him from our inquiries."
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Around 30 people called in to report the names of individuals they believed matched the sketch, but all of these
00:31:34
leads went nowhere. Then an envelope arrived at the police station. [Music] addressed to Detective Chief Inspector
00:31:48
Brian Leonard and marked as urgent. The envelope contained a slightly disjointed
00:31:53
and fragmented letter that had been neatly written using a stencil. It read, "Hello, chums. Pigshit Leonard.
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You have me wrong. I have no conscience. Smashing his head in gave me a buzz better than smack. could get addicted to
00:32:11
it. If I did, you'd soon know. Believe me, this is no wind up. I done the business on his head. He was a skin
00:32:22
expert, eh? When I'd finished, he didn't have much skin. Not on his head, anyway.
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That was a little test I set myself. Passed with flying colors, wouldn't you say?
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I'm writing this cuz you won't get any nearer to me to talk. and walk away. Know what I've done. I'm facing life.
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Who gives a [ __ ] Not me. Letting you know I've kn to lose. No, the way I like it. Tread carefully, pig
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and Joe public. Get too warm and you burn. Phoned the pigs for fun so I could laugh
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at you. Know your every move, pig. You're barking up the wrong tree with theft. More like fun.
00:33:14
Do I sicken you, pig? You ain't seen nothing yet. At the bottom of the letter, the writer
00:33:23
had stopped using the stencil and had written in regular handwriting the words, "One has to live by the chosen
00:33:30
way or not at all." This was followed by what looked like a Japanese symbol and the words, "Death is
00:33:38
release." The second page of the letter was also handwritten and contained what appeared
00:33:45
to be a poem. It read in part, "If my karma is to conquer, I shall conquer. If my karma is
00:33:55
to be conquered, I shall be conquered." What difference does it make? Heaven and
00:34:01
earth are my parents. Psychot tandem is my home. Stoicism is my body. Flash of lightning my eyes.
00:34:11
I can throw my life away at an instant. Can you? While the police had already received
00:34:20
their fair share of bogus letters in relation to David Burkett's murder, this one was different.
00:34:27
The others had all been filled with obvious falsities and incorrect details, but this one contained something that
00:34:34
made investigators freeze in their tracks. In the stencileled portion of the letter, the author had written.
00:34:43
Who else would know about the hamster cage in the back bedroom? During the search of David's home, the
00:34:52
police had indeed found an empty hamster cage in the back bedroom. The hamster belonged to David's
00:34:59
daughter, Laura. She explained that the hamster had been eating things in her room, so David had
00:35:05
moved it into the back room. This had happened just a few days before he was killed either on the Thursday or
00:35:13
the Friday. The only people who knew about it were David, Laura, and David's house cleaner.
00:35:21
The police had never released this detail to the public. Meaning that whoever wrote the letter had to have
00:35:28
been in the house around the time that David died. The letter provoked mixed reactions for
00:35:36
investigators. On the plus side, they now had a solid clue, as well as something to compare to
00:35:42
the handwriting from the demon dispatchers note. But the letter also confirmed what
00:35:48
they'd feared all along, that the killer was a dangerous, sadistic man who had targeted David with no logical motive,
00:35:57
and that he intended to strike again. [Music] The letter was analyzed by a forensic
00:36:07
psychologist who concluded that David's killer likely felt powerless in his day-to-day life. He might have been
00:36:14
abused or rejected, and fantasizing about violence was a way for him to escape. Acting on that violence had restored a
00:36:23
sense of power for him, and that feeling became addictive. The forensic psychologist had seen
00:36:30
similar traits in serial killers, and he believed there was a high chance that the killer would strike again if not
00:36:36
caught. The fact that the killer had singled out Detective Chief Inspector Brian Leonard
00:36:43
specifically, coupled with his clear hatred of police sparked fears that the detective could be his next target.
00:36:52
DCI Leonard was on edge. He had a family of his own and worried about their safety. He began checking outside his
00:37:01
house at night to make sure nobody was there while keeping his fears to himself so that his family didn't worry.
00:37:08
Not wanting to take any chances, DCI Leonard decided that anyone who was arrested in Middlesborough from that
00:37:15
point on would have their fingerprint compared to the one found on the plastic bag in David Burkett's home, regardless
00:37:22
of the crime they were being arrested for. Police also expanded their search countrywide.
00:37:30
Because David Burkett had attended conferences all over England, a questionnaire was created and sent out
00:37:36
to hundreds of his business associates, investigators hoped that one of them might know something about his lifestyle
00:37:44
or provide some kind of clue that could propel the investigation forward. By early May, leads continued to crop up
00:37:54
locally, but the police still hadn't identified any prime suspects. Wanting to draw national attention to
00:38:01
the case, they sought help from BBC's Crime Watch, a television program that produced reconstructions of unsolved
00:38:08
crimes in the hopes of generating leads from the public. An episode about David Burkett's murder
00:38:16
aired on Thursday, May 10, 1990, with a focus on key aspects of the case, including the stolen skull, the plastic
00:38:24
bag, the strange man seen at the phone box, and the partially stencled letter. DCI Leonard believed there was a high
00:38:34
possibility that the killer would call into the program. He told viewers, "It would appear the letter was written
00:38:43
by an intelligent person who possibly has some knowledge of both the murder of Dr. Burkett and also the house where he
00:38:50
lived. I am anxious to speak to anyone who can give me information about the anonymous
00:38:56
letter." The host looked directly into the camera and said, "Remember, this killing is a very brutal
00:39:06
and very weird one, and the killer might strike again. Please help if you can." The segment generated roughly 50 leads
00:39:19
with several people calling in to say they recognized the poetry in the letter. It was from The Mo, a novel by American
00:39:28
author Eric Van Lusbader that told a tale of revenge and deadly games amongst Japan's samurai.
00:39:36
As police followed up these new lines of inquiry, fingerprint expert Judith Kirby
00:39:41
continued the painstaking job of comparing the partial thumbrint against every print on record, as well as those
00:39:48
of recent arrestes. After 18 fruitless weeks, Judith went on leave. Her colleague John Bainbridge
00:39:57
took over the task in her absence. John was in his first day of the laborious job when he came upon the file
00:40:06
of a man who had recently been arrested in Middlesborough for the suspected theft of a motorcycle.
00:40:13
He had prior convictions, too, having only recently been released from a youth correction facility after serving 5
00:40:20
years for robbery, wounding with intent, and a breach of probation. John compared the man's print to the one
00:40:28
from David Burkett's murder. There was no mistaking it. It was a match. [Music] John felt conflicted. On one hand, he
00:40:41
was over the moon to have finally made a major breakthrough in the case. On the other, he felt bad for Judith, later
00:40:48
telling Crime Watch, "After all this hard work, she had actually missed this moment, which comes
00:40:56
once in a lifetime." Detective Chief Inspector Brian Leonard and his team immediately got to work
00:41:09
learning everything they could about the motorcycle thief. It turned out that on the same night
00:41:15
that the Crime Watch episode aired, two Middlesborough police officers had been patrolling Oxford Street when they drove
00:41:22
past a dark alleyway and noticed a man loitering on a motorcycle. Suspicions aroused, they went to
00:41:29
question him, but as soon as the man noticed them, he sped off down the narrow laneway.
00:41:37
The officers chased him on foot and came across his abandoned motorcycle in the middle of the alley. It looked like the
00:41:44
driver had accidentally crashed into the wall before fleeing the scene. The officers gave chase, but because of
00:41:52
how quickly everything happened, they hadn't had time to grab their torches and could barely see anything through
00:41:57
the dark. The officers called for backup, and within minutes, the area was swarming
00:42:04
with police. Officers jumped the alley's fence, which took them to a residential area. They
00:42:11
searched the surrounding gardens until eventually they found a man hiding in the bushes.
00:42:17
He rire of petrol. The man, who was white with a shaved head and facial tattoos, was placed
00:42:25
under arrest for suspicion of stealing the motorcycle and taken to the police station to be formally charged.
00:42:33
He was identified as Reginald Wilson, a 25-year-old with a proclivity for violence and prior for theft, robbery,
00:42:40
and burglary. On the right side of his face was a large tattoo of a serpent and on his
00:42:47
forehead were the words psychopath and chaos. Wilson had his fingerprints and mugsh
00:42:54
shot taken as a matter of routine and was then released on bail with none of the officers giving it any more thought.
00:43:03
with the discovery of the matching print, Reginald Wilson was propelled into the position of prime suspect in
00:43:09
the murder of David Burkett. While he'd never worked for Demon Dispatches, he was known to ride a motorcycle and was
00:43:17
clearly no stranger to breaking and entering. But police couldn't find any connection
00:43:23
between the suspect and victim. Back in the early 1980s, Wilson had been a drug user, and he'd sometimes
00:43:31
frequented the laneway that ran alongside David's house. Investigators theorized that David could have once
00:43:39
chased Wilson away, and he'd held a grudge ever since, but there was nothing to support this theory.
00:43:51
A background check revealed that Reginald Wilson's problems with authorities started when he was a
00:43:57
teenager. Issues at home led to poor attendance and bad conduct at high school. He was
00:44:04
removed from his family on a place of safety order, then placed in a boarding school for boys run by social services.
00:44:12
A full care order was made for Wilson in 1977, and from that point on, he moved between various residential institutions
00:44:21
and had numerous run-ins with the law. At the age of 19, Wilson entered a general store wearing a black mask and
00:44:30
attacked the shop owner with a blunt object. The owner's wife heard the commotion and tried to intervene, but
00:44:37
she too was attacked. The husband and wife were treated for head injuries and Wilson was eventually
00:44:44
identified after blood stains on his clothes were matched to his victims. He spent 5 years in youth custody where
00:44:52
he was denied parole due to disruptive behavior. He was released in August 1988, 18
00:45:00
months before David Burkett's murder. A police surveillance team was tasked with watching Reginald Wilson around the
00:45:09
clock to learn more about him. They discovered that he lived with his girlfriend Sharon in a two-story
00:45:16
two-bedroom home in the Winnie Banks area of Middlesbrough just a mile west from David Burkett.
00:45:23
Sharon went to work as a cleaner at a local restaurant each day, while Wilson himself appeared to be unemployed.
00:45:31
He mostly spent his time wandering around alone, dressed in a camouflage print jacket and listening to what
00:45:38
looked like a Walkman. They soon discovered it wasn't a Walkman at all, but a police radio scanner.
00:45:47
At one point, the surveillance team watched Wilson as he stole a motorcycle off the street in broad daylight. On
00:45:54
another occasion, he made his way down Union Street and entered what appeared to be an abandoned building.
00:46:01
It was located right on the main street and just around the corner from the phone booth used to make the 999 call on
00:46:09
the night of David Burkett's murder. After Wilson left, the team went inside to check the building out. It looked
00:46:18
like he'd been using it as some kind of hideout. Graffitied across the walls was a
00:46:24
picture of a skull along with the words up yours and 13 years of hell. Now it's my turn, pig.
00:46:33
Soon. The police had no doubt that Reginald Wilson was a dangerous man. After surveilling him for 3 days, they decided
00:46:45
it was time to make their move. But they needed to be smart about it. They didn't know what kind of weapons
00:46:52
Wilson might have, and given his clear hatred for police, it was far too dangerous to try and arrest him at home.
00:47:01
Instead, on Friday, June 22, 1990, 4 and 1/2 months after David Burkett's murder,
00:47:08
a team of undercover officers watched Wilson as he rode his bike along the street.
00:47:14
When he stopped to use a pay phone, the officers barricaded him in and arrested him on suspicion of murder.
00:47:24
Meanwhile, a search warrant was executed at Wilson's house. It was clear that he'd worked hard to
00:47:31
cultivate a macho image for himself. In the backyard were four guard dogs, an Alatian, two pitbull terriers, and a
00:47:40
Rottweiler. Police searched to Wilson's bedroom and found walkie-talkies turned to the
00:47:46
police radio frequency as well as an axe and a small notebook. In the notebook was stencled writing
00:47:54
that looked just like the stencil used in the taunting letter sent to police. Wilson also kept what appeared to be a
00:48:03
hit list featuring the names of several senior police officers. In his attic were torn up pieces of
00:48:10
paper with passages of writing similar in tone to the letter. The handwriting was an exact match to the writing on the
00:48:18
fake demon dispatchers note found at David Burkett's home. Because of Wilson's previous
00:48:26
convictions, he'd been banned from owning firearms. The search team used a telescopic sensor
00:48:32
to check the walls behind the stairs. Hidden inside the plaster board, they found a lethal cache of weapons,
00:48:40
including a Sornoff shotgun, a Premier shotgun, a combat 8mm handgun, 73 shotgun cartridges, a crossbow, hammers,
00:48:50
a collection of knives, knuckle dusters, and even a rocket launcher. There was also a pair of black woolen
00:48:59
gloves that had a hole in the right thumb. the same thumb that had left a partial print on the plastic bag found
00:49:06
in David Burkett's hallway. Although Wilson didn't have a telephone, he did own a phone book.
00:49:15
Investigators flipped through it and found that the names and addresses of several people had been circled.
00:49:22
One was David Burkett. Another was Alan Thompson, the former director of Demon Dispatches, whose house had been broken
00:49:30
into the year before David's murder. Thirdly was the home address of Detective Chief Inspector Brian Leonard.
00:49:42
[Music] At the police station, Reginald Wilson denied having anything to do with the
00:49:49
David Burkett's murder. He also denied writing the taunting letter to the police and said he'd never even owned a
00:49:56
stencil. When shown the stencileled writing found in his notebook, Wilson said he'd penned that freehand.
00:50:05
Police searched his parents' home and found a Helix brand stencil that was an exact match to the writing in his
00:50:11
notebook as well as the letter sent to the police. In another room, police questioned
00:50:18
Wilson's girlfriend, Sharon. She was reluctant to answer any questions, saying that Wilson had threatened to
00:50:25
kill her if she ever spoke out against him. Sharon was clearly scared of Wilson, but she said it hadn't always
00:50:33
been that way. The two had met through mutual friends and began dating in November 1988.
00:50:41
At first, Wilson was caring and attentive, taking Sharon out for drinks and celebrating special occasions like
00:50:48
her birthday and Valentine's Day. But after they moved into their house in Winnie Banks, he started to change.
00:50:57
Sharon said Wilson became obsessed with motorbikes, dogs, and guns, and complained that he was having severe
00:51:04
headaches. He became increasingly withdrawn, spending weeks at a time practically
00:51:10
living in their attic, reading obscure books and writing dark pros. He developed a deep interest in physical
00:51:18
fitness and survival techniques. He often spent time on the Yorkshire Moors fending for himself.
00:51:28
While Sharon said that Wilson could be extremely violent, she insisted he'd never physically assaulted her. She also
00:51:35
claimed to know nothing about David Burkett's murder. It was only when the police showed her
00:51:41
the evidence they'd collected that she began to let her guard down. Sharon recalled that Wilson had acted
00:51:48
strangely on the night that the Crime Watch segment about David's case had aired. While he had never shown any
00:51:55
interest in the show before, he had asked Sharon to tape the segment before going out for the night.
00:52:03
Sharon admitted that Wilson's behavior had been increasingly bizarre of late. She said he had recently acquired two
00:52:10
Doberman puppies, but he became so enraged by their constant whining that he had smashed both of their heads
00:52:17
against the back wall. The police searched the dog run in the backyard and found pieces of green cord
00:52:25
that resembled the cord that had been used to drag David Burkett's body. Sharon said she'd never seen the cord
00:52:32
before because she was too scared to go into the backyard, but she thought it looked like part of a stretchy dog leash
00:52:39
that Wilson owned. Sharon said that Wilson had recently sold one of his pit bulls, but had
00:52:45
obtained the home address of the woman he'd sold it to. He'd sneaked over to her house a few weeks later and stole
00:52:53
the dog back along with the green leash. The green cord found at the crime scene
00:52:59
was microscopically compared to the cord found at Wilson's home. Both of them had been made using a
00:53:06
distinct type of nylon with the same unique color signature, proving they were a match.
00:53:13
Blank pieces of paper seized from Wilson's home were also examined using electrostatic detection apparatus, a
00:53:20
forensic technique that reveals writing impressions left when one piece of paper
00:53:25
is placed on top of another. Clear indentations from the stencileled letter that had been sent to the police
00:53:33
proved that Reginald Wilson was the author. Further indentations also confirmed that
00:53:40
law enforcement's suspicions about further attacks were correct. Written in Wilson's handwriting was a
00:53:48
note that read, "Plan to kill as many pigs as I can before they kill me. Idea is to put as much fear into the police
00:53:58
as possible. Kill one, frighten a hundred." He wrote that he would call 999 and say
00:54:07
he'd just come home from work to find his rear window had been forced open or that the window to the garage had been
00:54:13
broken. He could say that property was damaged or someone had been assaulted or that
00:54:20
his child was missing. Wilson continued, "Nine times out of 10, when someone phones the police with a complaint or
00:54:28
report similar to the above, only one copper comes to take notes. If more than one comes, depending on the escape route
00:54:37
and place of ambush," he wrote. "If good, still go ahead with plan. If not 100% sure, abort."
00:54:49
Sharon told the police that a few weeks earlier, Wilson had left the house with a gun, telling her he was going out to
00:54:56
kill a policeman. Police checked their incident books from the night in question and discovered
00:55:02
that someone had called 999 to report a domestic dispute. The address they gave was the abandoned
00:55:10
building on Union Street that Regginald Wilson had been using as a hideout. Two officers had attended the address
00:55:18
and then left without incident. Based on Wilson's writings, police believed that Wilson had lured the
00:55:25
police there, then lay in wait, intending to ambush an officer. He had aborted his plan when two
00:55:32
officers arrived instead of one. DCI Leonard later remarked, "They will probably never know just how
00:55:41
lucky they were. If one had gone, Wilson would almost certainly have killed him.
00:55:49
The police had amassed concrete evidence placing Reginald Wilson at the scene of
00:55:54
David Burkett's murder, but they still didn't have a motive for anything that connected the two men to one another.
00:56:02
It emerged that the previous December, David had placed his prized ancient skull in the front window of his home
00:56:08
with a sprig of holly coming out of it as a bit of a Christmas joke. The police believed that the skull might
00:56:16
have caught Wilson's eye as he was passing by, inadvertently putting a target on the unsuspecting David's back.
00:56:24
As one detective who worked the case later remarked to UK true crime show Murder Town
00:56:31
to murder without motive. If he hadn't have dropped that carrier bag, we would probably have never traced him ever. He
00:56:40
was trying to commit obviously the perfect murder. Reginald Wilson pleaded not guilty to
00:56:50
the murder of David Burkett and was held in custody awaiting trial while also facing other smaller charges including
00:56:57
possession of a shotgun. In July 1990, he was being transferred to the magistrate's court via a prison
00:57:05
bus when he attacked a prison officer with a homemade knife, slashing the side of his face and neck.
00:57:13
Three guards managed to fight Wilson off, and the officer survived the attack, leaving Wilson with additional
00:57:20
charges for attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm. A forensic psychiatrist assessed Wilson,
00:57:28
finding that while he was suffering from a psychiatric disorder, he was still fit
00:57:33
to stand a trial. Based on Wilson's history of offending, the psychiatrist concluded that he had
00:57:40
considerable potential to cause harm to others, stating he is less impulsive and more
00:57:47
calculating than most psychopaths, rendering him more of a liability. Wilson's murder trial went ahead in July
00:57:57
1991. The prosecution case was that Wilson had been motivated by nothing more than his
00:58:04
desire to kill and to see if he could outsmart the police. He'd planned the attack against David
00:58:11
carefully, disguising himself as a motorcycle courier, not only because it would give him easy access to David, but
00:58:18
also because wearing a helmet allowed him to hide his distinctive facial features.
00:58:24
Once David let him inside, Wilson bludgeoned him to death with a hammer wrapped in a plastic bag.
00:58:31
It was possible that the phone calls from David's neighbors checking if he'd be joining them at the theater had
00:58:37
temporarily interrupted Wilson. He then searched the house for the ancient skull, staging a ransacking
00:58:45
before attacking David a second time. Wilson took the stand in his own defense, but this did nothing to help
00:58:54
his case with reports deeming his behavior on the stand as psychopathic. After 18 days of hearings, it didn't
00:59:02
take the jury long to declare Reginald Wilson guilty. The judge praised the work of
00:59:09
detectives, stating, "The quality of the investigation, in my view, could not have been better. It reflects highly on
00:59:18
the officer in charge and his whole team. The investigation itself was one of complexity and difficulty.
00:59:26
It required cooperation from a number of different arms both at police level and
00:59:32
the level of forensic scientists. Since this man's arrest, it is clear that the case has been prepared with the
00:59:39
utmost skill and presented to the court in the same fashion. I wish to commend all those officers,
00:59:46
especially the senior officer in the highest terms. Turning his attention to the killer, the
00:59:54
judge said, "Regginald James Wilson, you have been convicted on what, in my view
01:00:00
is clear evidence of a most appalling murder. I regard you as a result of what I've
01:00:06
heard during the course of this trial as an exceptionally dangerous man. The sentence of the court is one of life
01:00:14
imprisonment. I propose to recommend to the home secretary that in your case a sentence
01:00:20
of life imprisonment will be one that should be served in its entirety. Life, I will recommend should mean life.
01:00:33
At the time, very few prisoners in England had been given a whole life sentence.
01:00:39
Reginald Wilson became one of them before being led out in handcuffs attached to police officers flanking
01:00:47
him. Wilson shouted, "You may contain me, but you'll never control me." [Music] The life sentence came as a relief to
01:01:01
the investigators who had worked on the case. One detective told reporters, "He set out to kill and he did it. If he
01:01:09
ever gets out, I'm sure he will kill again." DCI Leonard said that Reginald Wilson
01:01:17
was the most evil, dangerous, and cunning criminal he'd encountered in his 27-year career. He praised the
01:01:24
painstaking detective work that brought Wilson to justice, telling reporters, "We are just relieved he is behind bars.
01:01:33
He was so confident he would never be caught, but he made mistakes." No one was more relieved than David
01:01:42
Burkett's loved ones. Reginald Wilson unsuccessfully appealed his conviction with the home secretary
01:01:50
declaring that in his case, quote, "Life would mean life." In 1996, Wilson was caught attempting to
01:01:59
break out of prison after he cut through the bars of his cell and tried to escape
01:02:04
over the jail wall via a makeshift ladder he'd fashioned out of old furniture. 3 years later, he tried to stab a prison
01:02:12
officer for the second time and was transferred to the prison's close supervision center unit where he was
01:02:18
deemed an exceptional risk. For David Burkett's family, the fact that Wilson would be behind bars for the
01:02:26
rest of his natural life was the only thing that gave them some sense of solace.
01:02:32
However, they received a terrible shock 17 years after Wilson's conviction in 2008.
01:02:40
An officer who had worked on the case knocked on the door of David's ex-wife to let her know that Wilson had been
01:02:46
granted a hearing to apply for a review of his whole life sentence. David's family learned that in 2003
01:02:55
changes had been made to the UK's Criminal Justice Act that allowed convicted murderers to apply for
01:03:01
judicial reviews of their sentences. While the power of this decision had previously gone to the home secretary,
01:03:09
the responsibility had shifted to the high court and the parole board. The officer assured David's family they
01:03:17
had nothing to worry about. But 2 days later, it was announced that Wilson's sentence had been reduced to a minimum
01:03:25
of just 18 years. David's family were horrified. They objected to the decision in a
01:03:34
letter to the attorney general, writing, "How can a life meaning life sentence, which could be anything up to 70 years
01:03:42
considering Wilson's age at the time of the murder, be so dramatically and inexplicably reduced? Is our father's
01:03:49
life worth less now than it was then?" The attorney general immediately referred the case to the Court of
01:03:57
Appeal, where a panel of judges found the 18-year sentence to be manifestally lenient for a crime of such a serious
01:04:05
and sadistic nature. It turned out that the judge who'd been tasked with reviewing Wilson's sentence
01:04:12
had not been given adequate paperwork, nor had David's loved ones been invited to submit representations.
01:04:21
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice apologized for this oversight and said changes would be made to the
01:04:27
process to ensure the same thing didn't happen to another family. The Court of Appeal overturned the
01:04:34
reviewed ruling, re-sentencing Reginald Wilson to a minimum term of 30 years, making him eligible for parole in 2020.
01:04:45
After the decision, David's daughter, Laura, spoke to the Telegraph about how distressing the process had been for her
01:04:52
family. Wilson was 25 when he murdered dad. If he is out in another 12 years, he'll still be younger than dad when he
01:05:01
was killed. No one can ever fully comprehend what this man has done to us. Although we
01:05:08
took comfort from the decision, it has been horrendous to drag up all these awful memories again.
01:05:18
The criminal justice system was criticized again in November 2022 after it was publicly revealed that the parole
01:05:25
board had approved Reginald Wilson's request to be transferred to an open prison.
01:05:32
An open prison is a minimum security prison where inmates are permitted greater freedom to work, study, or visit
01:05:38
family to help them reintegrate into society. There are no walls, bars, or guards in the traditional sense.
01:05:46
The board stated that there had been a major improvement in Wilson's behavior since 1999.
01:05:53
He had taken therapeutic and behavior offending courses in which he had quote developed exceptional levels of personal
01:06:01
responsibility, life skills, resilience, and maturity. Wilson said an open prison would allow
01:06:09
him to work with professionals to develop release plans. The parole board's recommendation was
01:06:16
sent to the Secretary of State for approval, but in February 2023, Justice Secretary Dominic Rob denied the
01:06:24
transfer. Wilson, now going by the name of Reginald Zenshen, disputed the rejection
01:06:31
in the High Court later that year, arguing that Rob's decision had been unlawful.
01:06:37
As he had served his minimum sentence of 30 years, the High Court judge clarified
01:06:42
that Wilson had completed the punishment portion of his sentence and therefore the only question that remained was
01:06:49
whether he continued to pose any risk to the public. While acknowledging the severity of
01:06:56
Wilson's crime, the judge stated, "The fact is that the claimant is not serving a whole lifetime, and thus the
01:07:04
prospect remains of his being released into the community at some point." Transfer to open conditions allows the
01:07:12
testing of compliance and the efficacy of relapse prevention strategies along with an informed assessment of how best
01:07:19
to manage the individual in the community. Thus, the parole board recommendation in
01:07:25
this case was nothing to do with being soft on a person convicted of murder. It was a difficult and responsible decision
01:07:33
made by a properly constituted statutory body based on the unanimous evidence of
01:07:38
experts and professionals with a view to maximally protecting the public going forward.
01:07:46
explaining his decision in a detailed 26-page judgment, the judge concluded that Rob had acted unlawfully in his
01:07:54
rejection and ordered that he remake his decision in accordance with the law. As of 2025, Reginald Wilson remains in
01:08:04
high security prison. [Music] For David Burkett's loved ones, one of the hardest things to reconcile was that
01:08:14
someone as kind and harmless as David could be the target of such a horrific and senseless crime.
01:08:21
Still baffled by the case decades later, a fellow member of the Middlesbrough Bowling Club told Murder Town.
01:08:29
David was one of ours. He was part of our community. He was such a nice person for it to happen to. It was brutal and
01:08:38
it was utterly pointless. David's murder had a long and lasting effect on his daughter Laura. She had
01:08:46
always planned to follow in her father's footsteps by becoming a doctor. But after the discovery of his body, she
01:08:53
took a year off from her studies to recover from the trauma. If David's murder had taught her one
01:09:00
thing, it was that anything could happen behind closed doors without anyone else
01:09:05
realizing what was going on. Because of that, Laura no longer felt safe being home alone.
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She couldn't even go into an empty room of a house. In 2008, Laura told the Telegraph, "I
01:09:21
couldn't even go to the bathroom on my own. I would sit outside my home in the car, waiting for hours until someone
01:09:28
came to accompany me inside. I couldn't go out after dark by myself or sleep by myself.
01:09:36
I lost all the friends I'd grown up with because they couldn't cope with the horror of the situation.
01:09:43
That was hard for me because I am a social person. It took years and years to build any kind of normality.
01:09:53
Laura said that her father's murder impacted her family in different ways. Her dreams of becoming a doctor were
01:10:00
quashed and she fell heavily into debt after buying a house with her father's inheritance when she was too young to
01:10:07
properly manage her finances. She told the Telegraph, "The murder damaged our ability to flourish and be
01:10:15
happy. There was no counseling at the time, no victim support scheme. Over the years, I've had therapy of every kind.
01:10:27
After being plagued by nightmares and flashbacks for over a decade, Laura was just beginning to heal when Reginald
01:10:35
Wilson's sentence was unexpectedly reduced, and she felt herself reliving the trauma all over again. Her saving
01:10:43
grace was how quickly the courts had acted to overturn that decision. Laura found a moment of solace during
01:10:50
one of the high court hearings when the presiding judge made the unprecedented request of asking the court to pause for
01:10:57
a moment to remember David Burkett. Finding comfort in that small act of humanity, Laura said,
01:11:06
"It was lovely to have that little bit of silence for Dad. [Music] [Music]