00:00:07
Derek Severs and his wife Eileen who are
00:00:09
in their 60s.
00:00:10
>> Half away from the home of Derek and
00:00:12
Eileen Severs who disappeared about 3
00:00:14
weeks ago.
00:00:15
>> Resumed their search for Derek and
00:00:16
Eileen Severs who vanished without trace
00:00:19
from their home in Hamilton. Despite a
00:00:21
detailed search for a missing couple by
00:00:24
police and hundreds of volunteers, it
00:00:27
was the information found in some dirt
00:00:29
which led police to their whereabouts.
00:00:34
[Music]
00:00:58
Derek and Eileen Severs were a wealthy
00:01:01
retired couple who lived a life of
00:01:03
English leisure in Hamilton, a small
00:01:06
village about a 2-hour drive from
00:01:08
London.
00:01:10
The village sits on a narrow peninsula
00:01:12
that juts out into rutland water, one of
00:01:16
Europe's largest man-made lakes.
00:01:19
The woods and the lake make it a popular
00:01:22
vacation destination, and the severs had
00:01:24
been living here for the past 20 years
00:01:26
in a home known locally as the bungalow.
00:01:30
Derek Severs had been retired for the
00:01:32
past few years and was well known and
00:01:35
well-liked among neighbors of the small
00:01:37
village. Doug Clemens lived next door to
00:01:40
the Severs.
00:01:41
>> I'd never met a better man than Derek
00:01:44
Severs. He liked a bit of horse racing
00:01:46
and he loved a pint of beer. Derek's
00:01:49
wife Eileene was equally wellknown not
00:01:52
only as a volunteer for many local
00:01:54
charities, but also as a kind and
00:01:57
generous friend and neighbor.
00:01:59
>> Mrs. Se was one of those people who
00:02:03
spent all her time visiting people,
00:02:05
doing things for charity. She was always
00:02:07
seen. Everybody liked her.
00:02:09
>> Saturday afternoon, November 13th, 1993,
00:02:14
was the last time friends saw Derek
00:02:16
Severs.
00:02:18
He was having lunch and a few pints of
00:02:21
ale here at the Finch's Arms Pub.
00:02:26
Friends said Derek left the pub around
00:02:29
3:30 that afternoon, got into his car,
00:02:32
and was headed straight home.
00:02:36
Eileen Severs was last seen on that same
00:02:39
afternoon. She left this church after
00:02:42
attending a charity bazaar she helped
00:02:44
organize. Eileen told friends she too
00:02:48
was headed home.
00:02:52
5 days later, after the severs both
00:02:55
missed some previously scheduled
00:02:57
appointments, friends called the police.
00:03:00
This is the sort of place where if
00:03:02
you're missing for a couple of hours,
00:03:03
people want to know why.
00:03:07
>> Police immediately drove out to the
00:03:09
sever's home.
00:03:14
>> The missing couple's 37year-old son,
00:03:16
Roger, answered the door.
00:03:18
>> Derek and Eileen Severs. Well,
00:03:20
>> mom and dad are on holiday in London.
00:03:23
>> Would you mind if I had a look around
00:03:24
then?
00:03:24
>> Police took a quick look around the
00:03:26
house.
00:03:27
>> Thank you.
00:03:28
[Music]
00:03:33
There's no sign of a breakin. There's no
00:03:36
sign of uh anything wrong inside the
00:03:38
house.
00:03:39
>> By which you mean there's no sign of a
00:03:40
struggle or anything?
00:03:40
>> No, nothing at all.
00:03:42
>> But friends weren't convinced that
00:03:44
everything was all right. The severs had
00:03:47
never gone away without first cancelling
00:03:50
their scheduled appointments.
00:03:52
>> It was not in their nature to go away
00:03:54
without making arrangements to talk,
00:03:55
telling people they were going away.
00:03:57
They weren't the sort of couple who
00:03:58
would disappear without telling friends.
00:04:00
They would always say, "Look, we we're
00:04:02
popping out. Look after our house."
00:04:04
Because that's the sort of village that
00:04:05
it was.
00:04:07
>> Derek at times he did go away. He used
00:04:10
to leave me in charge. He'd say, "Look
00:04:12
after the garden."
00:04:14
>> And neighbors said it was unusual for
00:04:16
Derek and Eileen Severs to ask their son
00:04:19
Roger to housesit. Roger was a
00:04:22
disappointment to his parents. He was
00:04:25
unemployed and had the reputation of
00:04:27
being a con man. Once telling a
00:04:30
girlfriend that he was a gynecologist.
00:04:34
When police heard these stories, they
00:04:37
decided to take a closer look around the
00:04:40
Severs home.
00:04:45
6 days after friends last saw Derek and
00:04:48
Eene Severs, the police decided to make
00:04:51
a second visit to the Severs home. This
00:04:54
time in daylight, the officers noticed
00:04:58
that the backyard had recently been
00:05:00
excavated and there were signs of a fire
00:05:04
in the garden.
00:05:05
>> And looking through the windows, we
00:05:07
could see this kitchen carpet was
00:05:08
missing, but it didn't add up. So, we
00:05:11
decided that we'd use the police powers
00:05:13
to go into the bungalow to have a
00:05:14
further search.
00:05:16
>> Roger Severs told police that his
00:05:18
parents left for London from the
00:05:20
Peterbar train station.
00:05:23
Police went to the train station armed
00:05:25
with a photograph of the severs. They
00:05:27
asked the employees and regular
00:05:30
passengers if they had seen the couple.
00:05:32
>> Mr. Seis was this very big man who
00:05:34
walked very badly with the aid of a
00:05:36
stick. And we thought that if anybody
00:05:38
had seen them, they would rem
00:05:41
>> But no one at the train station recalled
00:05:43
seeing the severs. And police found no
00:05:47
evidence they even made it to London.
00:05:50
Already local newspapers ran headlines
00:05:52
about the sever's mysterious
00:05:54
disappearance. The police suspected foul
00:05:57
play and decided to conduct a forensic
00:06:00
search for blood inside the sever's
00:06:03
home. Detectives noticed some suspicious
00:06:07
dark stains on the side of the bathtub
00:06:10
and performed a castle meer test. A damp
00:06:14
cotton swab is used to wipe the stain
00:06:17
and then some pheninoalene and hydrogen
00:06:21
peroxide are added. The sample of the
00:06:24
stain found on the bathtub turned a
00:06:27
bright pink, a positive presumptive test
00:06:31
for the presence of blood.
00:06:32
>> The fact we'd found blood didn't
00:06:34
necessarily prove conclusively that it
00:06:37
come from a violent action. They could
00:06:39
have Ro, one of them could have cut
00:06:42
themselves in the bathroom. Anything
00:06:43
could have happened.
00:06:44
>> Police also noticed a blood smear on the
00:06:47
back seat of Derek Sever's automobile
00:06:50
and the Castlemeer test confirmed that
00:06:52
stains on the garage door were indeed
00:06:56
blood spatter. Police noticed something
00:06:59
else that was suspicious. They found a
00:07:02
large number of green fibers in the
00:07:05
hallway inside the house in the trunk of
00:07:08
Mr. Sever's automobile and on a pair of
00:07:11
trousers believed to be Rogers.
00:07:14
The fibers were an important clue
00:07:16
because they did not match any items
00:07:19
inside the house. This was an indication
00:07:23
that the source of the fibers had
00:07:25
recently been removed.
00:07:27
>> The actual item itself was missing. So
00:07:30
that if it as were the two severs, Mr.
00:07:32
and Mrs. Severs. So logic tells you that
00:07:36
it's gone with the two. It's part of the
00:07:40
crime scene.
00:07:42
>> The police were convinced that the
00:07:45
severs had been the victims of foul play
00:07:48
and suspected that Roger Severs knew
00:07:51
more about his parents' whereabouts than
00:07:54
he was telling them.
00:08:00
Investigators believed that Roger Severs
00:08:03
was involved with his parents'
00:08:05
disappearance, but they had no proof
00:08:07
that a crime had been committed and had
00:08:10
no hard evidence suggesting where their
00:08:13
bodies might be. The search for the
00:08:16
severs began in their own backyard since
00:08:19
it appeared that the gardens had
00:08:21
recently been excavated and there had
00:08:23
also been some kind of fire. You need a
00:08:27
very, very big fire to dispose of
00:08:29
bodies, and there's no way they could
00:08:31
have been disposed of on there.
00:08:32
>> The police didn't find any human
00:08:35
remains, but they did find small bits of
00:08:38
carpet and clothing in the ashes.
00:08:42
>> It was like looking for a needle in a
00:08:43
hay stack because all around there is
00:08:46
rural. There's huge expanse of water,
00:08:48
lots of forest, trees, woods, um, open
00:08:51
fields. How on earth do you find a body
00:08:53
there?
00:08:55
Just when all of these searches turned
00:08:58
up, no clues, police finally got a
00:09:01
break.
00:09:05
They learned of a strange event which
00:09:08
occurred before the severs were even
00:09:11
reported missing.
00:09:15
A police officer on patrol recalled
00:09:18
seeing a man in an isolated area called
00:09:22
the Xton Avenue Woods. Is there
00:09:25
something wrong, sir?
00:09:26
>> The man matched Roger Sever's
00:09:28
description.
00:09:29
>> I just needed to relieve myself and then
00:09:31
I decided to gather some leaf over to
00:09:33
the garden.
00:09:33
>> Well, then move along when you're ready.
00:09:35
>> We'll do so, officer. Good night.
00:09:38
>> The officer said the man acted
00:09:40
suspiciously.
00:09:41
>> Well, any gardener, any autoiculturist
00:09:43
will tell you, you don't want leaf mold
00:09:45
the end in November. It's not the time
00:09:48
of the year you're going to collect it
00:09:49
and certainly not half past 6 at night.
00:09:52
So we we assumed something had occurred
00:09:53
up in in the Exton Avenue woods there.
00:09:56
So off we went to have a look.
00:10:00
[Music]
00:10:04
When they returned to the area a few
00:10:06
days later, they found a bloody towel
00:10:09
near the spot where the man was seen
00:10:12
collecting leaves,
00:10:14
but the police could find no evidence
00:10:17
that the bodies were buried there.
00:10:20
We uh did a fingertip search of the
00:10:23
entire area and we never ever recovered
00:10:25
any further evidence from that scene.
00:10:27
>> The towel matched those in the Sever's
00:10:30
house, but without blood samples for Mr.
00:10:33
and Mrs. Severs, it was difficult to
00:10:35
know to whom the blood belonged.
00:10:38
>> It was challenging rather than
00:10:39
frustrating. We we we wanted to find the
00:10:42
bodies for two reasons. one evidential
00:10:46
obviously and secondly of course we you
00:10:48
know I think it's only right and proper
00:10:50
if there's been a murder we want the
00:10:51
bodies for the relatives and everyone
00:10:52
else you know it's only right that we
00:10:55
should be able to find them
00:10:57
>> late one night inspector Palmer studied
00:11:00
the photographs of the sever's
00:11:02
automobile as he flipped through the
00:11:04
photographs something unusual caught his
00:11:06
eye something suspicious about the dirt
00:11:10
and mud on Mr. Sever's car. The color of
00:11:13
the mud just didn't look right.
00:11:16
>> This staining was a lot lighter in color
00:11:19
than you would expect from a vehicle on
00:11:21
road usage. Generally speaking, a
00:11:23
vehicle on road usage, it's a very dark
00:11:26
black, dark gray, dirty color. This was
00:11:29
a lot lighter color.
00:11:30
>> Was it possible that an analysis of the
00:11:33
dried mud on the car might give police
00:11:36
some idea of where the car had been? To
00:11:40
find out, detectives called in Dr. Tony
00:11:43
Brown, a geologist at the University of
00:11:45
Exit. Dr. Brown began his examination by
00:11:49
collecting the soil, dirt, grass, and
00:11:52
debris from the wheel wells of Derek
00:11:54
Sever's automobile.
00:11:56
Under a microscope, Dr. Brown analyzed
00:12:00
the samples and discovered tiny bits of
00:12:03
vegetation mixed in with the mud,
00:12:06
including minute pieces of moss, leaves,
00:12:10
and grass. There was even a small piece
00:12:13
of fishing line.
00:12:14
>> It told us that it was a mixed deciduous
00:12:17
woodland, probably oak dominated, but
00:12:20
with also what several other species. It
00:12:23
was clearly quite uh shady. the moss
00:12:26
could only come from a a little shaded
00:12:28
woodland and there was also a fair
00:12:31
amount of grass. Uh and at first that
00:12:34
might seem to contradict the woodland,
00:12:36
but that's likely to occur either at the
00:12:39
edge of a clearing in a woodland or
00:12:42
towards the edge of a woodland. And of
00:12:44
course, the the fishing line suggested
00:12:47
it was the somewhere that fishermen
00:12:50
parked.
00:12:51
>> And Dr. Brown discovered another
00:12:53
microscopic clue. More than 20 different
00:12:56
types of pollen were mixed in with the
00:12:58
mud from the wheel well. Pollen is a
00:13:02
fine powder-like material which is
00:13:04
produced by trees and plant life. It
00:13:07
functions as the male seed in
00:13:10
fertilization.
00:13:11
To identify the pollen, Dr. Brown needed
00:13:14
to isolate the microscopic pollen
00:13:16
granules from the soil. First by using a
00:13:20
series of filters, and then by adding
00:13:23
hydrofluoric acid, a chemical so
00:13:26
powerful it can dissolve glass. The acid
00:13:29
dissolves away all remaining materials,
00:13:33
leaving just the pollen. Dr. Brown was
00:13:36
able to identify most of the pollen in
00:13:39
the sample. Oak, elm, and pollen from
00:13:43
hawthors were easy to identify just by
00:13:46
sight. However, he noticed one type of
00:13:50
pollen he had never seen before.
00:13:53
>> I knew that I didn't know what it was.
00:13:55
And then after that, of course, we we
00:13:57
run through the the normal process of of
00:14:00
identifying an unknown pollen type.
00:14:02
>> There are millions of different species
00:14:04
of pollen. Dr. Brown looked closely at
00:14:08
the number and placement of the tiny
00:14:10
slits and compared them to the thousands
00:14:13
of photographs of pollen samples in his
00:14:16
library. After looking through scores of
00:14:19
samples, Dr. Brown found a match. The
00:14:22
pollen was from an unusual specimen from
00:14:26
a tree not terribly common in England.
00:14:30
It was pollen from a horse chestnut
00:14:34
tree. a tree native to Asia.
00:14:38
>> In my whole career of looking at samples
00:14:40
from the East Midlands, I'd never
00:14:43
actually seen horse chestnut pollen from
00:14:46
a sample.
00:14:47
>> And there was something else unusual
00:14:49
about the pollen from the horse chestnut
00:14:51
tree. It's a heavy pollen. And because
00:14:54
of its weight, it's too heavy to travel
00:14:57
far through the air. It tends to float
00:15:00
straight down to the ground very close
00:15:03
to the tree itself. Since Dr. Brown
00:15:06
found horse chestnut pollen in all four
00:15:09
of the rover's wheel arches, he was
00:15:11
convinced that the car had recently been
00:15:14
parked near a horse chestnut tree.
00:15:21
Police asked Dr. Brown to identify
00:15:24
possible locations that had horse
00:15:27
chestnut trees as well as other
00:15:29
vegetation matching the samples found in
00:15:32
the sever's wheel wells. Dr. Brown
00:15:35
identified five possible locations to
00:15:38
search. The first woodland searched was
00:15:41
this one, the closest to the sever's
00:15:43
home, but an entire day of looking here
00:15:46
turned up nothing. Next, they searched
00:15:49
the second area Dr. Brown identified a
00:15:53
larger woodland near the lake. Specially
00:15:56
trained search teams worked their way
00:15:58
down this hill. When an officer poked a
00:16:02
stick into one of the mounds, he found
00:16:05
it to be unexpectedly soft. He cleared
00:16:08
away some leaves and loose soil to
00:16:11
reveal a patch of human skin. Police
00:16:15
slowly uncovered the bodies of Eileene
00:16:18
and Derek Severs. Ironically, they were
00:16:22
found lying on a bed of horse chestnuts.
00:16:26
Just a few feet away stood a horse
00:16:30
chestnut tree.
00:16:31
>> They were lying side by side. Uh, and
00:16:34
both of them were wrapped in a green
00:16:38
blankets.
00:16:39
>> Fibers in the green blanket matched the
00:16:42
green fibers found in the Severs hallway
00:16:45
and on the trousers that belonged to
00:16:48
Roger Severs. The top layer of leaves
00:16:51
and soil was similar to the soil found
00:16:53
at the Exton Avenue woods where Roger
00:16:56
Severs had been seen by police. Another
00:17:00
layer of soil matched the soil in the
00:17:03
Sever's backyard. There was even a layer
00:17:05
of roof tiles to stabilize the grave.
00:17:09
The tiles matched the roof tiles on the
00:17:12
Sever's home. Roger was then tied into
00:17:15
every step of the progression from the
00:17:17
murder to the burial.
00:17:19
>> All of the evidence pointed to the
00:17:21
sever's only son, Roger, who had a
00:17:24
history of personal and financial
00:17:26
difficulties.
00:17:27
>> He was basically penniless,
00:17:30
certainly uh hard up and we believe that
00:17:35
he had turned up at the bungalow and
00:17:38
maybe for the first time, we don't know,
00:17:39
had been refused help by his parents.
00:17:42
What? What? What do you mean too much?
00:17:44
>> On Saturday afternoon, November 13th,
00:17:47
while his father was at the pub, Roger
00:17:49
argued with his mother in the kitchen.
00:17:56
He followed her to the bathroom and
00:17:58
attacked, striking her eight times to
00:18:01
the head, causing the blood spatter
00:18:03
found on the bathtub.
00:18:06
[Music]
00:18:08
Roger then wrapped his mother's body in
00:18:11
a green blanket, dragged her body to the
00:18:13
kitchen, leaving a trail of green fibers
00:18:16
found in the hallway and on Roger's
00:18:18
trousers.
00:18:22
[Music]
00:18:27
Derek Severs arrived home shortly
00:18:29
afterwards,
00:18:32
and when he did, Roger was waiting.
00:18:40
He struck his father 10 times in the
00:18:42
head, causing the blood spatter onto the
00:18:45
garage door.
00:18:50
Roger placed his father's body into the
00:18:52
back seat of the car, where police later
00:18:55
noticed the blood smear, and he put his
00:18:57
mother's body in the trunk, where green
00:19:00
blanket fibers were later discovered.
00:19:03
[Music]
00:19:11
Roger drove his father's car to a
00:19:14
deserted location in the woods, parked
00:19:16
under a horse chestnut tree in an area
00:19:20
used by fishermen, and then dragged the
00:19:23
bodies into the woods.
00:19:33
Roger wanted to limit the time he spent
00:19:36
at the scene. So instead of digging a
00:19:39
grave, he placed the bodies into a
00:19:42
ravine and covered them with roofing
00:19:45
tiles, fertilizer, and leaves. But the
00:19:48
most important piece of evidence came as
00:19:51
Roger was driving away.
00:19:54
Pollen from the nearby horse chestnut
00:19:56
tree flew up into the wheel wells of the
00:19:59
automobile. Roger Severs could never
00:20:02
have imagined that this pollen would
00:20:05
lead police to his parents' grave.
00:20:10
Roger Severs was charged in the murder
00:20:12
of his parents and during the trial took
00:20:16
the witness stand and confessed.
00:20:20
His plea for leniency failed and he was
00:20:24
sentenced to life in prison. The wife
00:20:27
and I, we lost two good friends.
00:20:31
And life's never been the same since.
00:20:42
I embarked on something which I saw as
00:20:44
being rather simplistic. Link this
00:20:46
vehicle with those man-made roads. That
00:20:49
was all I wanted. I got a lot more. A
00:20:52
lot more. And hopefully that's going to
00:20:54
help a lot of people, investigators in
00:20:55
the future.
00:20:56
>> Well, I think that the police now are
00:20:58
certainly far more aware of the value of
00:21:01
what otherwise might just be described
00:21:03
as mud.
00:21:05
[Music]
00:21:16
[Applause]
00:21:20
[Music]
