00:00:04
-Swindon, England,
March 19th, 2011. At 2:53 AM,
CCTV showed 22-year-old Sian O'Callaghan
leaving a nightclub,
00:00:16
then later getting into a taxi. Little did she know her cab
driver was a ruthless killer.
00:00:24
-It was a perfect cover for
a man who wanted to kill women. What could be more innocuous
than a minicab driver?
00:00:32
-Sian never returned home. In the days that followed,
hundreds of locals joined the desperate hunt
to find her.
00:00:40
-She could've been anyone's
sister, daughter, friend. She just had that sort of look
about her.
00:00:45
We really felt for her
and her family. -But Sian had been murdered. 47-year-old
Christopher Halliwell
00:00:53
had brutally stabbed
and strangled her, then dumped her body. -His murders didn't come
out of the blue.
00:00:59
They were a long time
in the making. -It turned out the friendly
cabbie had killed before.
00:01:05
He led a double life,
prowling the streets at night to indulge his addiction
to depraved sexual violence.
00:01:13
That makes Christopher Halliwell one of the world's
most evil killers. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ When Sian O'Callaghan's body
was found
00:01:42
in Uffington, Oxfordshire,
on March 24th, 2011, it brought the 5-day hunt
for her to a heartbreaking end.
00:01:52
She'd been savagely murdered
by local cab driver Christopher Halliwell. It was a devastating blow
for her hometown of Swindon,
00:02:02
as local reporter
Scott D'Arcy remembers. -It struck a chord, I think,
with me and people around me
00:02:10
because it was like, you know, this could have been
a young woman I know, and I think that's why
it resonated
00:02:15
with the rest of the town. It really, really did rock
the community in a way that I haven't seen
before or since.
00:02:24
-When Halliwell was
finally arrested, he shocked the town by leading
police to another body,
00:02:31
20 year old
Becky Godden-Edwards. He'd strangled her 8 years
previously, then dumped her in nearby
Gloucestershire.
00:02:40
Now Swindon had learned they had
a killer living amongst them. -The community in Wiltshire,
and in Swindon in particular,
00:02:48
were desperately upset by
the killing and certainly felt that Halliwell was
a monster in their midst.
00:02:54
There could be no doubt
about that. -He didn't look like a monster,
you know? He just looked like
a normal guy.
00:02:59
You would walk past him in the
street and not think about it. He would get in his cab,
and I think that's
00:03:04
what sticks with me really
is the normality of that evil. -He was able to maintain
this double life, essentially,
00:03:12
the devoted family man,
the nice neighbor. But underneath that,
he really was evil.
00:03:21
-This killer's story
begins in 1964. Christopher Halliwell was born
in Swindon but then moved north
00:03:29
to the Stewartry region
of Scotland. His family life
was not a happy one. His mother was
violent and abusive.
00:03:39
-He endured a awful lot
of abuse, a lot of beatings. So here was a young lad who was
basically learning
00:03:47
that home is not
a safe place to be. Violence was normal. Violence was expected, and this
is something that we see often
00:03:55
in the cases of serial killers. -Time after time,
that's a signal in the upbringing that points to
someone who is truly disturbed,
00:04:04
and there's no doubt
whatever that Halliwell had a very,
very disturbed childhood.
00:04:09
-It was the abuse
from his mother that seemed to hit
the young Halliwell hardest.
00:04:14
-The most salient aspect
of Halliwell's childhood is the relationship
he has with his mother.
00:04:19
It unquestionably is the seed
of his relationship with women
for the rest of his life.
00:04:24
Halliwell's
mother was a sadist. She was brutally punishing,
including physically punishing,
00:04:30
repeatedly,
over long periods of time, but more important
than being brutally punishing,
00:04:37
she enjoyed it. What his mother would do, would press a hot iron
against his hand
00:04:43
while looking at him
and smiling. -Halliwell later claimed that his mother's
sadistic punishments
00:04:49
had a lifelong impact on him. -What we know about
sadistic mothers is that they are not
bonded to their children.
00:04:58
They view their children
as a burden. They view the duties of care
as an enslavement.
00:05:04
They're looking for an excuse
to be rid of their children who they resent for existing
00:05:09
because the children
cramp their style. He makes a resolution
to get his revenge,
00:05:16
and if you look at Halliwell's
life and his homicides, it's a life dedicated to getting
revenge for his mother,
00:05:24
and so his mother
was the seed, the beginning and the end
of his relationship with women
00:05:29
who, in his core, he hated
for the rest of his life. -Young Halliwell built up a seething resentment
towards women,
00:05:37
but for now, he only had
defenseless insects to inflict his anger upon. -Halliwell really did take
his time when he was a child
00:05:46
in terms of pulling
the wings off butterflies and the legs off insects. He really kind of relished this.
00:05:52
-Long ago, it was discovered
as a commonality in the history of people who
commit serious violent crimes
00:05:59
that there is a history of
torture and cruelty to animals, and I suspect that
what that's all about
00:06:06
is that people who are
victims of torture seek to be victimizers, and at some point
when you're small,
00:06:13
the only thing smaller than
you is a helpless animal. -This is something
that children will often do
00:06:19
when they've
experienced neglect, when they've experienced abuse,
because there's not very much
00:06:24
over which
they can have control. -This was a kid who was
practicing as a child to be an adult sadist.
00:06:33
-His mother's ultimate
rejection came at the age of 15 when she placed the teenage
Halliwell in a foster home.
00:06:41
When he eventually left
the care of the state, he fell into a life of crime. At 19, he had his first
criminal conviction --
00:06:50
4 years for burglary. In prison, he had plenty of time
on his hands to indulge in dark,
sadistic thoughts.
00:06:59
-He finds himself in Her
Majesty's Prison on Dartmoor. While he's there, he talks
to a fellow inmate,
00:07:04
cellmate, about how
many people you have to kill to be called
a serial killer, and his fantasy about
strangling a woman
00:07:13
while having sex with her. Whether or not that was
in fact what he had in mind, we will probably never know.
00:07:25
-One would hope that those
who've been the victim of sadism would be a part
of the march against it,
00:07:33
not part of
the continuation of it. What makes what he did horrible
is that, as a victim, he knew enough
to know how horrible it was.
00:07:45
-After leaving prison, Halliwell struggled
to commit to a steady job. -Halliwell's early adult life
was one of drifting,
00:07:54
was one of rootlessness, so he had a range
of different jobs. He was a chauffeur,
a window cleaner, a binman.
00:08:02
He didn't really stick
at one thing for any particular
period of time, and this is something that is
quite characteristic of those
00:08:09
who have psychopathic
traits and behaviors. They're quite kind of prone
to boredom.
00:08:13
They have that need
for stimulation, so he really was just living
by his own rules.
00:08:18
-By this time,
he's quite a tall man. He's got staring,
sharp blue eyes. He's not unattractive, you know?
00:08:26
He's got a way with him. He's quite chatty,
but he's also a villain. -Halliwell was very much
a predator,
00:08:36
and if you look at a lot
of the jobs that he did, these are jobs that involved
working unsupervised,
00:08:41
spending periods of time
on his own ruminating, fantasizing. -Halliwell realized
that he needed
00:08:49
to keep his twisted
fantasies to himself and began to develop
a veneer of respectability.
00:08:56
-Halliwell got married
and had children, so he's got this kind
of facade of normality.
00:09:02
-After settling in Swindon
with his wife and children in the year 2000
at the age of 36,
00:09:10
he set up his own
private-hire minicab business. -So I think he realizes
that being seen
00:09:17
as the devoted family man is something that's
quite important for the way that other people perceive him.
00:09:23
-I specifically remember
talking to neighbors, and I think this is
what stuck with me,
00:09:26
my impression of him
throughout, really, is that one of the neighbors,
I remember,
00:09:30
describing him
as a smashing bloke. You know, he used to say hello
to him all the time.
00:09:34
He was always washing his car,
you know, the kind of model of a neighbor you wouldn't think
anything of them
00:09:41
if you saw them in the street. Another neighbor, I think, said,
"I wouldn't think anything
00:09:45
to let my daughter
get in a taxi with him." -But soon, the cracks in this
facade of normal family life
00:09:52
began to show. He began cheating on his wife
with other women. -This is incredibly revealing.
00:09:58
He's doing this on his own
doorstep, and that shows that he's only
concerned about himself
00:10:04
and getting what he wants
and what he needs. -But extramarital affairs
weren't enough for Halliwell.
00:10:11
He was also leading
a double life out on the streets at night, searching for women willing
to satisfy his darker fantasies.
00:10:21
-At some point,
he becomes bored, and he begins having sexual
liaisons with other women,
00:10:26
particularly prostitutes who,
at his particular point in life, are the easy access
to sexual gratification
00:10:34
outside of the marriage. And I have to say,
this is not a characteristic that is particular
to killers or sadists.
00:10:43
It's a characteristic
that's fairly common in a large percentage
of males in our culture,
00:10:48
but what we find out is, in the course of his
relationship with prostitutes, he wants something
more from them.
00:10:56
-This something more
that Halliwell wanted would even sicken
the prostitutes he paid.
00:11:02
His twisted fantasies
about sex and strangulation would eventually lead him
on a path to murder.
00:11:13
At the age of 38,
Christopher Halliwell seemed the pillar
of respectability. He was married with children
00:11:20
and ran his own minicab
business, but there was another
dark side to Halliwell, one who saw prostitutes
to satisfy his insatiable
00:11:31
need for rough sadistic sex. -Halliwell's murders did not
just come out of the blue.
00:11:37
He didn't go from being
a normal, healthy, functioning individual one
minute into a murderer the next.
00:11:42
He had a violent reputation. He was known amongst the sex
workers of Swindon for this.
00:11:48
-Some of them were later
to describe him as liking rough sex,
very, very rough sex,
00:11:53
which some felt was creepy
and weird and worrying. -It is not surprising at all
that a man
00:12:02
with a violently sadistic mother would be violently sadistic
with sex workers. In some ways, they're the safest
people to be this way with.
00:12:11
-Halliwell had found an outlet
to indulge his sadistic urges without fear of detection.
00:12:18
-Halliwell's treatment
of sex workers was very much characteristic
of his treatment
00:12:22
of women in general. They were there for him
to use and abuse and to fulfill his wants
and his needs.
00:12:28
So he has a reputation,
but it's the idea that this reputation
isn't one that's come on
to the police's radar,
00:12:34
and I think Halliwell
is very well aware of the fact that sex workers
are going to be highly unlikely
00:12:39
to go to the police
and report being abused or manhandled
by one of their clients.
00:12:46
-Sex workers are in a very
difficult position with men because what they're doing
is technically illegal,
00:12:51
and in order for them
to report a crime, an assault, they have to go to the police
and, in essence,
00:12:59
describe themselves as regularly
committing illegal acts. That's problem number one.
00:13:04
Problem number two --
if a sex worker in a relatively
small community is reporting people
to the police,
00:13:11
they're an unemployed
sex worker very quickly. -No one in the local
community suspected
00:13:18
that Christopher Halliwell
was harboring this dark, sadistic side. -So he's somebody who's
balancing this quite well.
00:13:27
It's something
that a lot of men do, but when you look at how
Christopher Halliwell
00:13:30
does it, it does become
quite sinister. -Here you come
to something I think is truly
interesting about Halliwell.
00:13:38
He could present to the neighbor
as quite a nice man. That was one Halliwell. The other Halliwell who had
issues with women,
00:13:50
one was hiding
within the other. They were two, but you didn't
always see the fierce one.
00:13:57
-But the fierce side
of Halliwell would soon rear its head
with fatal consequences.
00:14:05
His occupation allowed him
to stalk the Swindon streets
at night under the radar.
00:14:12
-Being a taxi driver
is the perfect cover for a murderer
like Christopher Halliwell
00:14:18
because taxi drivers
are not an unusual sight in the nighttime economy.
They're the good guys.
00:14:23
They're the ones
that take us home. They're the ones that look
after us, but they're also the ones who
see us at our most vulnerable
00:14:30
when we're tired,
when we're intoxicated. So he would trawl the streets
for victims.
00:14:35
-One sex worker Halliwell regularly met
on the streets was 20-year-old Becky Godden-Edwards.
00:14:42
Becky had fallen
into prostitution to support her heroin habit. -Becky was somebody
who had a lot of problems.
00:14:49
She was a very vulnerable
individual, but also, she was
very self-aware. She was incredibly smart.
00:14:55
And she wanted to save her
family the trauma of seeing her when she was addicted to drugs,
00:14:59
so she'd basically
taken herself away from them and vowed that one day
she'd get clean,
00:15:04
and she'd go back to them, and they'd pick up
where they left off. Halliwell is well aware
of her vulnerability,
00:15:11
and that's something
that he preyed on. -But it seemed Becky was more
than a prostitute
00:15:16
he paid for sex. She was an obsession. Halliwell was absolutely
besotted with her.
00:15:23
-This is the fascinating thing.
He doesn't want a prostitute simply to be
a paid sexual partner.
00:15:30
He wants to actually have
a relationship with the prostitutes, and what I suspect from this
is something very telling,
00:15:38
that he hates his mother and
wants revenge upon his mother. I think secretly what he really
wanted is for her to love him.
00:15:49
-Halliwell very much saw Becky
as his. He wanted to own
and possess her. She was his and only his.
00:15:57
-On the 3rd of January, Becky had been out with friends
at one of Swindon's nightclubs.
00:16:04
As she left in the early hours,
Christopher Halliwell was waiting in his cab outside.
00:16:11
-It's one of the most poignant
moments, for me, in her story, is the nightclub she was leaving
was called Desire and Destiny,
00:16:20
for Becky's destiny was to be
in the hands of Halliwell. -Her friends saw her arguing
with a taxi driver,
00:16:27
then walking away,
before she decided to return and get into his car. It was a decision
that would seal her fate.
00:16:36
-Becky clearly didn't want to
get into Halliwell's taxi because the two had something
of an altercation
00:16:41
before she did get in, and I think this shows
how manipulative Halliwell is, that he was able to coerce her
to go with him.
00:16:49
-That night, Halliwell finally
gave in to his darkest of fantasies. He strangled Becky to death,
then dumped her body.
00:17:00
-Whether he attacked her
sexually or not, whether he strangled her
in the act of sex
00:17:07
in the back of his cab,
we will never know because her body wasn't to be
discovered for years.
00:17:15
-So this really is complete
ownership, possession, and control. This is, "I'm going to do
what I want to do to you
00:17:21
because I have a right
to do that because
I'm entitled to do that." -She was killed, ultimately,
because, to him,
00:17:31
she was not a prostitute,
and she was unprepared, unable, and didn't know that
what was required of her
00:17:39
to be with him
was to actually be a mate, and for this,
she paid with her life. -Halliwell needed
to hide his guilt.
00:17:49
He drove Becky's body 20 miles
to the deepest and remotest part of the nearby
Gloucestershire countryside,
00:17:58
Eastleach, near Cirencester. -Halliwell disposed
of Becky's body. He buried it in a shallow grave
in a field.
00:18:08
His disposal method
was very...pragmatic -- simply stick the body
in a hole in the ground,
00:18:18
cover it over,
and hope nobody finds it. -Halliwell's cunning plan
seemed to work.
00:18:26
Days became weeks, weeks became
months, and months became years. No one had realized
Becky was missing.
00:18:34
Her friends assumed
she'd moved on. -She was somebody who was
very much off the radar.
00:18:40
She was one of what we call
the missing missing, and that made her
very easy prey
00:18:46
for someone
like Christopher Halliwell. -Halliwell now had
a dark secret, and he seemed to relish in it.
00:18:56
-Halliwell would actually go
back to the burial site at regular intervals. Here's somebody for
whom control is very important.
00:19:04
He wants to make sure that this
site hasn't been discovered. He wants to make sure
that nobody else
00:19:08
knows where Becky's body is because that knowledge
is a source of power to him. -So poor Becky just disappeared
off the radar
00:19:17
as though
she'd never been there, and Halliwell got away
with murder. -Four years later, in 2007,
after being unable to trace her,
00:19:31
Becky's mother contacted the
National Missing Persons line. There was still no word
for another 4 years,
00:19:39
so she launched an appeal. -One of the great tragedies of
this case is that, by that time,
00:19:44
her daughter had been dead
for 8 years, although she didn't know it. -Becky's disappearance
00:19:51
was never properly
investigated at the time because her family believed that
she was actually in Bristol,
00:19:56
and I think that was
the impression that many people
who new Becky were under, and they thought that one day
she would just come back,
00:20:03
but unfortunately,
that never happened. -Eight years had passed
since Christopher Halliwell
00:20:09
had succumbed to his
darkest fantasies, strangling 20-year-old
Becky Godden-Edwards.
00:20:16
By 2011, he was divorced, and his minicab business
had gone bust, but 47-year-old Halliwell found
work with another taxi firm
00:20:27
to continue roaming the streets
at night unnoticed. In the early hours of Saturday,
March 19th,
00:20:35
he was on the prowl past
Swindon's pubs and nightclubs. -I think he was very much
in the mood
00:20:43
for picking up
a victim this night, and he was cruising the streets,
he was looking for somebody,
00:20:48
looking for somebody
on their own, looking for somebody vulnerable. -That somebody was 22-year-old
Sian O'Callaghan.
00:20:59
-Sian O'Callaghan
was a very clever, very attractive young woman who was working as
an administrator in Swindon.
00:21:06
Now, she'd just moved in
with her boyfriend. This was very kind of
exciting time of her life.
00:21:11
She's just starting out, and she
goes out with her girlfriends on an evening
out in the town center.
00:21:20
-Sian and her friends ended up in the town's
Japanese-themed nightclub, SUJU. Just before 3:00 AM, she decided
to make her excuses and leave.
00:21:32
CCTV showed Sian on her way out,
down the nightclub stairs. Unbeknownst to Sian, killer
cab driver Christopher Halliwell
00:21:42
was lying
in wait nearby. -She leaves the club
on her own. Now, Christopher Halliwell
spots her,
00:21:49
and he essentially decides that he's going to take
advantage of this opportunity.
00:21:54
-Sian was last seen on CCTV
at 2:57 AM getting into a green
Toyota Avensis taxi.
00:22:03
The car belonged
to Christopher Halliwell. -Halliwell should have been
a trustworthy citizen.
00:22:10
After all, he was driving
a minicab, perfectly respectable
thing to do, except Halliwell was not
a respectable man,
00:22:18
and he certainly
wasn't trustworthy. Halliwell may have pretended
to offer a ride.
00:22:25
We don't quite know exactly
what the subterfuge was, but what we do know is that Sian never got back
to her boyfriend's.
00:22:34
-Once Halliwell had his second
victim safely in his cab, he then drove Sian 15 miles
00:22:42
to the remote Savernake Forest where he sexually assaulted her
and stabbed her. -Stab wounds to the scalp
or any injury to the scalp
00:22:54
tend to bleed very heavily. There will be a lot of blood
produced from those injuries.
00:23:01
They will be painful. -Sian was stabbed twice
in the neck and in the head. -Stab wounds to the head
are the sort of things
00:23:11
that we really see when somebody
is very, very angry. They are directing their anger
towards the head,
00:23:19
which is often a site of attack
when you're angry, but to stab in the head is not an effective way
to kill somebody.
00:23:30
It suggests that there's just
an act of anger going on there. -Halliwell ended Sian's life
by strangling her.
00:23:41
He hid her body in the forest
before returning to Swindon, to the home he shared
with his girlfriend.
00:23:48
As a local cabbie, he could keep
up the pretense that he'd had a normal,
uneventful night shift,
00:23:56
but for Sian's boyfriend, her
no-show was out of character. His text messages
went unanswered.
00:24:05
-When she doesn't appear, he immediately contacts
the police, who immediately
launch a manhunt.
00:24:11
-Kevin reported Sian missing
9:45 in the morning. News of her disappearance spread quickly through the
close-knit community of Swindon.
00:24:21
-Sian's disappearance became
a cause célèbre, particularly in Wiltshire. Everyone was anxious
to find her.
00:24:27
She was well-liked,
lots and lots of friends. -Before we knew it,
there was a full-scale
00:24:33
missing persons
investigation going on, and for me,
this is really interesting in terms of the contrast
with Becky's case.
00:24:42
-Reporter Claire Hayhurst
had a press release from Wiltshire police about
a missing 22-year-old woman
00:24:50
and immediately headed to
Swindon to cover the story. -As time progressed, her family
were trying her mobile phone.
00:24:57
It was ringing out, ringing out,
and then, suddenly, it went dead. The battery had run out,
and I think, for them,
00:25:04
that was really significant
because they knew that she wouldn't have let
her phone run out of battery.
00:25:10
-Her boyfriend made an emotional
appeal for her return. -I just want to say how
very worried we are about Sian.
00:25:19
-Desperate to find her
still alive, police managed to trace her
last mobile phone signal
00:25:26
to Savernake Forest
near Marlborough. -The community in Swindon
really rallied round
00:25:31
as soon as Sian O'Callaghan
went missing, and I remember there being
lots of posts up on Facebook
00:25:36
with people desperately trying
to reunite her with her family, giving any bits of information
they thought were relevant.
00:25:42
-Police organized
a search of the area, making a public request
for volunteers. More than 400 people
responded.
00:25:51
Swindon journalist Scott D'Arcy
was at the scene. -People just came out
of everywhere,
00:25:57
really, to try
and help and support. Friends were walking around
putting up posters,
00:26:02
coachloads of people were
arriving at Savernake forest to help with sort of
fingertip searching
00:26:08
through what was a vast,
vast area. So it was unprecedented,
I think, for the town.
00:26:12
That really struck
a chord with them, and they felt like they had
to get out and help.
00:26:18
-Meanwhile, seeing the scale
of the search, Halliwell panicked and returned
to the murder scene at night.
00:26:27
-Halliwell immediately drives
back to Savernake Forest and moves her body
not all that far away
00:26:34
but a good distance away,
in an effort, clearly, to conceal his crime. -Halliwell drove Sian's body
00:26:41
another 20 miles away to Uffington, in Oxfordshire, where he dumped her in a ditch,
00:26:49
but unbeknownst to Halliwell, CCTV had captured his taxi,
seen circling Swindon at the time
Sian left the nightclub.
00:26:59
The suspect had also
crossed paths with a patrolling police car, and records showed this
had automatically
00:27:07
captured the license plate. The net was closing in
on the killer. -So the first thing
we found out
00:27:14
about the person
suspected of kidnap, as it was then, of kidnapping
Sian O'Callaghan,
00:27:19
was that they were a taxi driver
or a private-hire driver. Wiltshire police
had put out an appeal
00:27:25
asking for anyone
with information about a green Toyota Avensis
which had been seen driving
00:27:29
between Swindon
and the Savernake Forest, where Sian O'Callaghan's
mobile phone last pinged.
00:27:36
-Once they ran the number
plate a few times, they saw that
he moved several times.
00:27:39
He'd gone out to Uffington. It was a bit of telephony
and a bit of ANPR, which is automatic number-plate
recognition cameras,
00:27:47
that managed, I think,
to get him on the suspect list. -Within 3 days
of Sian's disappearance,
00:27:53
police now had
their prime suspect, taxi driver
Christopher Halliwell. they started watching
his every move.
00:28:01
-Once Halliwell was placed
under surveillance, he was doing some
rather interesting things,
00:28:07
which just confirmed for the
police that they had their man. They just needed
to collect the evidence.
00:28:13
-Halliwell attempted to
keep up the appearance at being a concerned citizen. -In the days following
Sian's murder,
00:28:20
Halliwell is just going
through the motions. He's acting very much as normal,
but he's adapting his behavior
00:28:29
to that heightened sense of fear
in his local community. So he's putting up missing
posters of Sian in his own taxi.
00:28:37
He's also basically trying
to get rid of evidence. He's burning items from his car
00:28:44
out in the countryside
in the middle of the night. He's removing seat covers, and he's being very systematic
and very methodical.
00:28:52
These are not the actions
of an innocent man. -He's trying to look like,
you know,
00:28:58
a concerned member of the public
who's trying to help the appeal even though he knows
full well where Sian is.
00:29:04
-On March 24th, 5 days
after Sian's disappearance, Halliwell was seen buying a huge
overdose quantity of pills.
00:29:15
As the surveillance operation
hadn't led police to Sian, they had to act now
before it was too late.
00:29:22
-Just after 11 o'clock
in the morning, the police pounce on Halliwell. They have the number plate.
00:29:29
They have the surveillance, and they have Halliwell
now arrested on suspicion. -Halliwell was apprehended
in broad daylight
00:29:39
in a supermarket car park
by a team led by Detective Superintendent
Stephen Fulcher.
00:29:45
-Because Detective
Superintendent Fulcher believes that Sian might
possibly be alive, he offers
00:29:52
Halliwell a deal -- "I won't take you
to the police station if you'll show me
where she is."
00:29:59
-They have this 9-minute
face-off where Steve Fulcher
is pleading with Halliwell
00:30:03
to, "Tell me where Sian is.
Tell me where Sian is," and tries to plead to
his humanity, really, to say,
00:30:10
"Look, you know,
you where Sian is. You're the only person
who knows where Sian is.
00:30:14
Please tell us." -The game was finally up
for Halliwell, but he still had the police
under his power.
00:30:23
Only he knew where Sian was. Now he had to decide whether
to reveal his sinister secret.
00:30:33
Serial killer
Christopher Halliwell's cover story as the friendly
local cabbie was unraveling.
00:30:40
When Detective Superintendent
Stephen Fulcher begged Halliwell to reveal
Sian's whereabouts,
00:30:47
he finally broke
and admitted to her murder. -Fulcher and Halliwell drive to
Uffington, to the White Horse.
00:30:57
In the end,
Fulcher persuades Halliwell to show him
where Sian's body is. The poor young woman is found
naked from the waist down,
00:31:07
facedown in the undergrowth. -DS Fulcher had gone
against procedure. He hadn't taken Halliwell
to the police station
00:31:16
to see a solicitor
or read him his rights. The killer, though, had revealed
his darkest secret.
00:31:23
Now he had another one to offer that he knew police
couldn't refuse. -Christopher Halliwell is quite
enjoying being in control,
00:31:34
and I think he wants to maintain
that sense of power, that sense of control, and he's also concerned for
himself at this point in time,
00:31:41
and he would quite
like a cigarette. So he says to DS Fulcher,
"Would you like another one?"
00:31:46
I'm going to trade
some information about the whereabouts
of a body for a cigarette.
00:31:52
-He says, "Give me
another cigarette, and I'll give you another body." The coldness, the callousness
of that is truly shocking.
00:32:04
-Steve Fulcher later said,
"I had him talking. I needed to keep him talking. Here was potentially a murder
that we knew nothing about,
00:32:11
and he was going to
give it to me on a plate. I've got to take it." -And Fulcher makes
another mistake,
00:32:18
compounds the first,
and drives Halliwell to the site in which
Halliwell has buried
00:32:27
Becky's body,
some 20, 25 miles away. -DS Fulcher had uncovered
another murder, but once again, he'd ignored
procedure by failing to read
00:32:39
Halliwell his rights. He finally took his suspect
back to the police station. Halliwell seemed to enjoy
his newfound notoriety.
00:32:50
-So here's somebody who is
not growing a conscience, feeling bad
about the victim's family.
00:32:55
He's enjoying the sense of power and that being control
of this whole circus, this drama,
and he doesn't want that to end.
00:33:03
-Even if they don't
feel guilty, a part of people feel burdened
by the holding of a secret,
00:33:09
by all the tension that's around
holding the secret, and so there's an element
of release to confession
00:33:14
that doesn't have to do with
salvation or God or repentance. It has to do with just being
00:33:20
free of the tension
of the secret itself. -The town of Swindon
was devastated. Now they'd learnt two
young women
00:33:31
had been brutally slaughtered
in their midst. -After Sian's body
was discovered,
00:33:36
the outpouring of grief across
Swindon was absolutely huge. I remember she was referred
to as Swindon's Angel,
00:33:42
and there were murals
painted across the city with that on them, and I also have
very vivid memories
00:33:48
of the blanket
of scented candles. Even for people
who didn't know Sian, they would just stand there
and look at all these tributes
00:33:59
because they felt so touched
by her story and affected by her death. -Becky's mother, Karen,
00:34:07
had started a campaign
to find her. Now she'd learnt
the awful truth. -Here was her daughter,
who she assumed
00:34:15
or hoped was still alive, even though she hadn't seen her
for more than 8 years.
00:34:20
Her hope had gone, you know? Becky was never going to walk
back through the door again.
00:34:26
-On March 28th, 2011, Halliwell finally
appeared in court, charged with Sian O'Callaghan's
murder.
00:34:36
-When Christopher Halliwell
first came to court, he was brought before
Swindon Magistrates' Court
00:34:41
charged with Sian O'Callaghan's
murder, and I remember very clearly there was a huge mob of people
that had turned out,
00:34:49
and as the police van containing
Halliwell was brought in, they attacked it
and shouted abuse at it,
00:34:56
and when he got
into the Magistrates' Court, again, there was more
abuse from the public gallery,
00:35:02
and as the police van
drove away from that courtroom, people tried to chase
the van down the street.
00:35:08
I think that illustrates
the level of feeling that people had about what Halliwell had done to Sian
and to Becky, as well.
00:35:16
-Throughout the following
court hearings, Halliwell maintained
his innocence, but when the case eventually
reached Bristol Crown Court
00:35:24
on October 19th, 2012,
he decided to plead guilty. Halliwell seemed to relish
his time on the stand,
00:35:33
trying to blame Sian's death
on his victim. -Christopher Halliwell's account was that Sian
had been very drunk.
00:35:41
She'd been aggressive. It was extraordinary because
this was a man who'd pleaded guilty to murder,
00:35:45
and it sounded like he was
giving a self-defense argument, and what was very striking
about Christopher Halliwell
00:35:51
is that he tried
to maintain eye contact with members of the press. So I remember very clearly him
looking directly into my eyes
00:36:00
as he sat there
during this hearing. I found that very chilling,
and I've covered
00:36:04
many very disturbing cases. It was a very striking moment. -Christopher Halliwell finally
received a 25-year sentence
00:36:13
for the murder
of Sian O'Callaghan, but the result for investigators
and the public was bittersweet.
00:36:21
As DS Fulcher had failed
to follow police and criminal evidence
act procedure, Halliwell's confession
to Becky's killing
00:36:29
had been ruled inadmissible, so there was no justice
for his first victim. -I think many people
in the town
00:36:36
felt that sense of injustice
and were incredulous. -I remember Becky's mother,
Karen,
00:36:41
came outside Bristol Crown Court
and stood on the steps and gave a very passionate plea
to the media
00:36:46
to help secure justice
for her little girl, for Becky. -Our family's fight for justice
for Becky has only just begun.
00:36:56
I would like to thank
everyone... [Voice breaking]
...for their continued support
00:37:01
in striving
for justice for Becky. -The failure of justice
for Becky caused ructions.
00:37:13
DS Stephen Fulcher faced
disciplinary proceedings and later resigned in 2014. Meanwhile, his force had to go
back to the drawing board
00:37:26
to find more evidence linking
Halliwell to the killing. -The police do not give up
hope
00:37:32
on pinning Becky's murder
on Halliwell. In particular, they search
his house and find soil on a shovel
that puts him close,
00:37:42
very, very close
to Becky's body, which he'd buried
in a shallow grave. -Forensic soil scientist
Professor Lorna Dawson
00:37:51
was brought in
to put the earth particles found on Halliwell's tools
under the microscope.
00:37:58
-These tools were examined, and any soil that was on them
was carefully recovered.
00:38:05
It was an interesting case because the samples
were very small, so it was very challenging.
00:38:11
-Lorna's work helped confirm
police suspicions. -The soil information showed
that there was a high degree
00:38:19
of comparability between
the soil on a couple of items found in the garden shed and the soil where Becky
was recovered from.
00:38:31
-Police found further evidence
to make their case against Halliwell watertight. A call to a roadside
rescue service
00:38:38
placed him close
to the murder scene. -On the night
Halliwell murdered Becky, he ran out of fuel just maybe
6 miles away from the field
00:38:46
where he'd left her remains,
and later that day, he went to his doctor
with a hand injury,
00:38:51
which he said had been sustained
during a fight with a customer. When police went back
through his work logs,
00:38:57
they found that
Christopher Halliwell had not been
working that day, so his story about a fight
with a customer did not add up.
00:39:06
-Killer Christopher Halliwell
finally faced trial for Becky's murder a second
time, on September 5th, 2016,
00:39:14
at Bristol Crown Court. This time,
he pleaded not guilty, and he had
another surprise in store.
00:39:23
-Halliwell sacked his
defense team and set about
representing himself, and there's an old
saying that goes,
00:39:30
"Anybody who
represents them self has a fool for a client,"
but I'd say, in this case,
00:39:35
they've got a narcissistic
egomaniac for a client. -At the beginning,
he dressed smartly,
00:39:40
you know, to look the part,
but he began to get more and more disheveled
throughout the week.
00:39:45
His shirt became untucked.
His sleeves were rolled up. It was a performance, really.
00:39:49
The families said that they felt
like it was a show. He was trying to manipulate
them from the dock.
00:39:53
He was trying to get into
their heads, that sort of thing. So that's what it was, really.
00:39:57
It was almost a show trial
for him for his own ego. -As Halliwell reveled
in this performance,
00:40:05
he even got to cross-examine
his nemesis, the man who tracked him down,
DS Stephen Fulcher.
00:40:13
-It was a gripping exchange
between these two men -- the police detective
who had caught Halliwell
00:40:19
but effectively lost his career
in the process and Halliwell, who was now standing here,
accused of a second murder,
00:40:26
with evidence
that Stephen Fulcher had helped secure against him. The exchanges between the two
men were fascinating to watch.
00:40:35
Stephen Fulcher, at one point,
made reference to the fact he believed
Christopher Halliwell
00:40:40
had killed other women, whereas, at the end
of his evidence, Christopher Halliwell
had to have the last word,
00:40:46
and he told Stephen Fulcher, "It was a pleasure ruining your
career, you corrupt bastard."
00:40:51
♪♪ -Two weeks into the trial, Halliwell was found guilty
of Becky's murder, to the relief of Swindon
and his victims' families.
00:41:08
He was sentenced by
Sir John Griffith Williams to a whole life term
in prison. Halliwell's response?
He laughed at Becky's relatives
00:41:18
from the dock
before being led away. -Halliwell will never see
freedom again, and I have to say, I think
the world is a much safer place
00:41:27
without him in it. If anyone deserved
a whole life term, it was certainly Halliwell.
00:41:33
-Christopher Halliwell is
a deeply controlling man who has shown no remorse
or regret for his actions.
00:41:39
The prosecution said
that the lies just dripped off his tongue, and that's certainly impression
that stayed with me.
00:41:44
He came across as a remarkably
cold and calculating man. -Although Halliwell has never
been charged
00:41:51
for any other murders, former Detective Superintendent
Stephen Fulcher suspects he has more victims.
00:41:58
A pond connected to the killer
was searched by police in 2014. They uncovered Sian's boots
and Becky's cardigan
00:42:08
but also found other clothes
belonging to unidentified women. No one can explain
the 8 year gap
00:42:16
between Becky
and Sian's killings. -Eight years passed
before Halliwell killed again.
00:42:25
Do I really believe that?
No. I believe that Halliwell
committed other murders of other women
in intervening years
00:42:34
between 2003 and 2011. I do not believe for one moment that Halliwell
became a changed man.
00:42:43
I think he nurtured his hatred
of women like a flame. -The town of Swindon was rocked
00:42:50
by the cold-blooded murders
of two young women with their whole lives
ahead of them.
00:42:57
They were sickened by
the senseless brutality of the killings
and how, through them,
00:43:02
the man who ended their lives
enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame. This is what makes
Christopher Halliwell
00:43:10
one of the world's
most evil killers. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪