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[suspenseful music] REPORTER 1: Derrick
Severs and his wife Eileen, who are in their 60s--
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REPORTER 2: --a mile and
a half away from the home of Derrick and Eileen
Severs, who disappeared
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about three weeks ago. REPORTER 3: --resumed their
search for Derrick and Eileen
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Severs, who vanished
without trace from their home in Hambleton-- PETER THOMAS: Despite a detailed
search for a missing couple
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by police and hundreds
of volunteers, it was the information
found in some dirt which led
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police to their whereabouts. [theme music] Derrick and Eileen Severs
were a wealthy retired couple
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who lived a life
of English leisure in Hambleton, a small village
about a two-hour drive
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from London. The village sits on
a narrow peninsula that juts out into Rutland
Water, one of Europe's
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largest man-made lakes. The woods and the lake make it
a popular vacation destination.
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And the Severs had
been living here for the past 20
years in a home known locally as "The Bungalow."
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Derrick Severs had been
retired for the past few years and was well known and
well liked among neighbors
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of the small village. Doug Clements lived
next door to the Severs. DOUG CLEMENTS: I'd never met a
better man than Derrick Severs.
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He liked a bit of horse racing,
and he loved a pint of beer. PETER THOMAS: Derrick's wife
Eileen was equally well known
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not only as a volunteer
for many local charities, but also as a kind and
generous friend and neighbor.
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BAHRAT PATEL: Mrs. Severs
was one of those people who spend all her
time visiting people,
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doing things for charity. She was always seen. Everybody liked her. PETER THOMAS:
Saturday afternoon,
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November 13, 1993,
was the last time friends saw Derrick Severs. He was having lunch
and a few pints of ale
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here at The Finch's Arms Pub. Friends said Derrick left the
pub around 3:30 that afternoon,
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got into his car, and
was headed straight home. Eileen Severs was last seen
on that same afternoon.
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She left this church
after attending a charity bazaar she helped organize. Eileen told friends she
too was headed home.
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Five days later,
after the Severs both missing some previously
scheduled appointments,
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friends called the police. This is the sort
of place where if you're missing for
a couple of hours,
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people want to know why. PETER THOMAS: Police immediately
drove out to the Severs' home.
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The missing couple's 37-year-old
son Roger answered the door. --as to the whereabouts of
Derrick and Eileen Severs.
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No, mom and dad are
on holiday in London. OFFICER: Would you mind if
I had a look around then?
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PETER THOMAS: Police took a
quick look around the house. - No, come in.
- Thank you.
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There's no sign of a break in. There's no sign of anything
wrong inside the house.
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REPORTER: By which you
mean there's no sign of a struggle or anything? No, nothing at all.
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PETER THOMAS: But
friends weren't convinced that everything was all right. The Severs had never gone
away without first canceling
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their scheduled appointments. MICK PALMER: It was
not in their nature to go away without
making arrangements,
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to talk-- telling people
they were going away. BAHRAT PATEL: They
weren't the sort
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of couple who would disappear
without telling friends. They would always say,
look, we're popping out.
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Look after our house. Because that's the sort
of village that it was. DOUG CLEMENTS: There--
at times he did go away,
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he used to leave me in charge. He'd say, look after the garden. PETER THOMAS: And
neighbors said it
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was unusual for Derrick
and Eileen Severs to ask their son
Roger to house sit. Roger was a disappointment
to his parents.
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He was unemployed and had the
reputation of being a con man, once telling a girlfriend
that he was a gynecologist.
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When police heard these stories,
they decided to take a closer look around the Severs home.
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[suspenseful music] Six days after friends last
saw Derrick and Eileen Severs, the police decided to make a
second visit to the Severs'
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home, this time in daylight. The officers noticed
that the backyard had recently been excavated
and there were
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signs of a fire in the garden. MICK PALMER: And looking
through the windows, we could see this kitchen
carpet was missing.
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But it didn't add up. So we decided that
we'd use the police powers to go into the bungalow
to have a further search.
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[camera flashing] PETER THOMAS: Roger
Severs told police that his parents left for London
from the Peterborough train
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station. Police went to the train
station armed with a photograph of the Severs.
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They asked the employees
and regular passengers if they had seen the couple. JOHN KAVANAGH: Mr. Severs
was this very big man
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who walked very badly
with the aid of a stick. And we thought that if
anybody had seen them,
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they would remember them. PETER THOMAS: But no
one at the train station recalled seeing the Severs,
and police found no evidence
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they even made it to London. Already, local newspapers ran
headlines about the Severs'
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mysterious disappearance. The police suspected
foul play and decided to conduct a forensic search for
blood inside the Severs' home.
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Detectives noticed some
suspicious dark stains on the side of the bathtub and
performed a Kastle-Meyer test.
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A damp cotton swab is
used to wipe the stain and then some
phenolphthalein and hydrogen
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peroxide are added. The sample of the stain
found on the bathtub turned a bright pink--
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a positive presumptive test
for the presence of blood. MICK PALMER: The fact
we'd found blood didn't
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necessarily prove
conclusively that it'd come from a violent action. They could have-- one
of them could have
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cut themselves in the bathroom. Anything could have happened. PETER THOMAS:
Police also noticed
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a blood smear on the back seat
of Derrick Severs' automobile. And the Kastle-Meyer
test confirmed
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that stains on the garage door
were indeed blood spatter. Police noticed something
else that was suspicious.
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They found a large number of
green fibers in the hallway inside the house
in the trunk of Mr.
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Severs' automobile and
on a pair of trousers believed to be Roger's. The fibers were an important
clue because they did not match
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any items inside the house. This was an indication that
the source of the fibers
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had recently been removed. The actual item itself
was missing, so the-- as were the two Severs,
Mr. and Mrs. Severs.
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So logic tells you that
it's gone with the two. It's part of the crime scene. PETER THOMAS: The police were
convinced that the Severs had
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been the victims of foul play
and suspected that Roger Severs knew more about his
parents' whereabouts
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than he was telling them. [suspenseful music] Investigators believed that
Roger Severs was involved
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with his parents'
disappearance, but they had no proof that a
crime had been committed
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and had no hard
evidence suggesting where their bodies might be. The search for that Severs
began in their own backyard,
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since it appeared
that the gardens had recently been
excavated and there had also been some kind of fire.
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MICK PALMER: You would
need a very, very big fire to dispose of bodies. And there's no way they could've
been disposed of on there.
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PETER THOMAS: The police
didn't find any human remains, but they did find small
bits of carpet and clothing
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in the ashes. BAHRAT PATEL: It
was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Because all around
there is rural--
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this huge expanse of
water, lots of forest, trees, woods, open fields. How on Earth do you
find a body there?
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PETER THOMAS: Just when
all of these searches turned up no clues, police
finally got a break.
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[suspenseful music] They learned of a
strange event which occurred before the Severs
were even reported missing.
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A police officer
on patrol recalled seeing a man in an isolated area
called the Exton Avenue Woods.
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Is there something wrong, sir? PETER THOMAS: The man matched
Roger Severs' description.
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I just needed
to relieve myself. And then I decided to
gather some [inaudible] for the garden.
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Well, then, move
along when you're ready. Will do so, Officer. Goodnight. PETER THOMAS: The officer said
the man acted suspiciously.
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Well, any guard or any older
horticulturist will tell you, you don't want leave
mold at the end of--
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in November. It's not the time
of year you're going to collect it, and certainly
not half-past 6:00 at night.
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So we assume something had
occurred up in the Exton Avenue Woods there. So off we went to have a look.
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[suspenseful music] PETER THOMAS: When they returned
to the area a few days later,
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they found a bloody
towel near the spot where the man was seen
collecting leaves.
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But the police could find
no evidence that the bodies were buried there. We did a fingertip
search of the entire area.
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And we never, ever recovered
any further evidence from that scene. PETER THOMAS: The towel matched
those in the Severs' house.
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But without blood samples
from Mr. And Mrs. Severs, it was difficult to know
to whom the blood belonged.
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It was challenging,
rather than frustrating. When we-- we wanted to find
the bodies for two reasons.
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One, evidential, obviously,
and secondly, of course, I think it's only right
and proper, if there's
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been a murder, we want the
bodies for the relatives and everyone else. But you know, it's
only right that we
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should be able to find them. PETER THOMAS: Late
one night, Inspector Palmer studied the photographs
of the Severs' automobile.
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As he flipped through
the photographs, something unusual
caught his eye-- something suspicious
about the dirt
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and mud on Mr. Severs' car. The color of the mud
just didn't look right. This staining was a
lot lighter in color
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than you would expect from
a vehicle on road usage. Generally speaking, a
vehicle on road usage
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is a very dark black,
dark gray, dirty color. This was a lot lighter color. PETER THOMAS: Was it
possible that an analysis
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of the dried mud on the car
might give police some idea of where the car had been?
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To find out, detectives called
in Dr. Tony Brown, a geologist at the University of Exeter.
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Dr. Brown began his examination
by collecting the soil, dirt, grass, and debris
from the wheel wells
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of Derek Severs' automobile. Under a microscope, Dr.
Brown analyzed the samples and discovered tiny
bits of vegetation
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mixed in with the mud,
including minute pieces of moss, leaves, and grass. There was even a small
piece of fishing line.
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TONY BROWN: It told us that
it was a mixed, deciduous woodland, probably
oak-dominated, but with also
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several other species. It was clearly quite shady. The moss could only come from
a little shaded woodland.
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And there was also a
fair amount of grass. And at first, that might seem
to contradict the woodland.
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But that's likely to
occur either at the edge of a clearing in a woodland or
towards the edge of a woodland.
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And of course, the fishing
line suggested it was the-- somewhere that fishermen parked.
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PETER THOMAS: And
Dr. Brown discovered another microscopic clue. More than 20 different
types of pollen
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were mixed in with the
mud from the wheel well. Pollen is a fine powder-like
material which is produced
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by trees and plant life. It functions as the male
seed in fertilization. To identify the
pollen, Dr. Brown
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needed to isolate the
microscopic pollen granules from the soil first by
using a series of filters
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and then by adding
hydrochloric acid, a chemical so powerful
it can dissolve glass.
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The acid dissolves away
all remaining materials, leaving just the pollen. Dr. Brown was able
to identify most
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of the pollen in the sample-- oak, elm, and pollen
from Hawthorns were easy to identify
just by sight.
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However, he noticed
one type of pollen he had never seen before. I knew that I didn't
know what it was.
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[laughs] And then
after that, of course, we run through the normal
process of identifying
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an unknown pollen type. PETER THOMAS: There are millions
of different species of pollen.
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Dr. Brown looked closely
at the number and placement of the tiny slits
and compared them
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to the thousands of
photographs of pollen samples in his library. After looking through
scores of samples,
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Dr. Brown found a match. The pollen was from
an unusual specimen-- from a tree not terribly
common in England.
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It was pollen from a
horse chestnut tree, a tree native to Asia. In my whole career of looking
at samples from the East
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Midlands, I'd never
actually seen horse chestnut pollen from a sample. PETER THOMAS: And
there was something
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else unusual about the pollen
from the horse chestnut tree. It's a heavy pollen.
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And because of its
weight, it's too heavy to travel far through the air. It tends to float straight
down to the ground,
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very close to the tree itself. Since Dr. Brown found horse
chestnut pollen in all four
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of the Rover's wheel
arches, he was convinced that the car had
recently been parked
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near a horse chestnut tree. [suspenseful music] Police asked Dr. Brown to
identify possible locations
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that had horse chestnut
trees, as well as other vegetation matching
the samples found
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in the Severs' wheel wells. Dr. Brown identified five
possible locations to search.
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The first woodlands searched
was this one, the closest to the Severs' home. But an entire day of looking
here turned up nothing.
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Next, they searched
the second area Dr. Brown identified, a
larger woodland near the lake.
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Specially trained
search teams worked their way down this hill. When an officer poked a
stick into one of the mounds,
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he found it to be
unexpectedly soft. He cleared away some leaves
and loose soil to reveal
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a patch of human skin. Police slowly
uncovered the bodies of Eileen and Derrick Severs.
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Ironically, they
were found lying on a bed of horse chestnuts. Just a few feet away stood
a horse chestnut tree.
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CLIVE BOUCH: They were lying
side by side, and both of them were wrapped in green blankets.
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PETER THOMAS: Fibers in
the green blanket matched the green fibers found
in the Severs' hallway
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and on the trousers that
belonged to Roger Severs. The top layer of leaves and soil
was similar to the soil found
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at the Exton Avenue
Woods, where Roger Severs had been seen by police. Another layer of
soil matched the soil
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in the Severs' backyard. There was even a layer of roof
tiles to stabilize the grave.
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The tiles matched the roof
tiles on the Severs' home. Roger was then tied into
every step of the progression
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from the murder to the burial. PETER THOMAS: All of the
evidence pointed to the Severs'
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only son, Roger,
who had a history of personal and
financial difficulties. He was basically
penniless, certainly hard up.
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And we believe that he had
turned up at The Bungalow and maybe for the first
time-- we don't know--
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had been refused
help by his parents. What-- What do
you mean, too much? PETER THOMAS: On Saturday
afternoon, November 13,
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while his father was at the pub,
Roger argued with his mother in the kitchen. [suspenseful music]
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He followed her to the
bathroom and attacked, striking her eight
times to the head,
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causing the blood spatter
found on the bathtub. Roger then wrapped his mother's
body in a green blanket,
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dragged her body to
the kitchen, leaving a trail of green fibers
found in the hallway
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and on Roger's trousers. Derrick Severs arrived
home shortly afterwards. And when he did,
Roger was waiting.
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He struck his father
10 times in the head, causing the blood spatter
onto the garage door.
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Roger placed his father's body
into the back seat of the car, where police later
noticed the blood smear.
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And he put his mother's
body in the trunk, where green blanket fibers
were later discovered.
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Roger drove his father's
car to a deserted location in the woods, parked under
a horse chestnut tree
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in an area used by
fishermen, and then dragged the bodies into the woods. Roger wanted to limit the
time he spent at the scene.
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So instead of
digging a grave, he placed the bodies into a ravine
and covered them with roofing
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tiles, fertilizer, and leaves. But the most important
piece of evidence came as Roger was driving away.
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Pollen from the nearby
horse chestnut tree flew up into the wheel
wells of the automobile.
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Roger Severs could
never have imagined that this pollen would lead
police to his parents' grave.
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Roger Severs was charged in
the murder of his parents and, during the trial, took the
witness stand and confessed.
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His plea for leniency
failed, and he was sentenced to life in prison. The wife and I, we
lost two good friends.
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And life's never
been the same since. [bells chiming] MICK PALMER: I
embarked on something
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which I saw as being
rather simplistic-- link this vehicle with
those man-made roads.
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That was all I wanted. I got a lot more, a lot more. And hopefully
that's going to help
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a lot of people and
investigators in the future. Well, I think that the
police now are certainly
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far more aware of the
value of what otherwise might just be described as mud. [music playing]