00:00:08
-Christmas Day, Bristol, 2010. A couple walking their dog
along a country lane made a startling discovery.
00:00:17
It was the body of a 25-year-old
woman called Joanna Yeates. She'd been missing
for eight days.
00:00:24
-When Joanna Yeates's body
was discovered, it was partially
covered in snow, and she is partially undressed.
00:00:31
-She is found to have
43 injuries, focused on the head and neck. Her ultimate cause of death
is manual strangulation.
00:00:40
-A nationwide hunt for
the missing landscape architect had come to a tragic end,
and the prime murder suspect
00:00:48
was Joanna's landlord and
neighbor, Christopher Jefferies. -When you're confronted
with police telling you
00:00:56
that you're under arrest
on suspicion of murder, the shock is so great
that really,
00:01:03
it's a question of feeling numb. -But the police had arrested
the wrong neighbor.
00:01:10
The real killer was 32-year-old
Dutch national Vincent Tabak. -But he takes one life
in a terrible way,
00:01:18
and then proceeds to try
and convince the world that he could not possibly have
had anything to do with it.
00:01:24
It is an act of gross depravity
in my mind. -Vincent Tabak
killed Joanna Yeates to satisfy his sexual urges.
00:01:35
Despite trying
to cover his crimes and frame an innocent man,
he was caught. The police proved him to be
00:01:42
one of the world's
most evil killers. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -December 25, 2010,
Clifton, Bristol,
00:02:11
in the southwest of England. The city should have been
celebrating Christmas day,
00:02:17
but the news of a murdered woman stunned the local community
and the nation. -It's thought
Joanna must have crossed
00:02:25
or been taken across the bridge to the point
where her body was found. Police are still searching
that road,
00:02:31
which runs beside a golf course,
but no details have been disclosed
of how or when she died.
00:02:38
The police say they're treating
Joanna's death as suspicious, but it is not yet
a murder inquiry.
00:02:47
-I think one of the most
heartbreaking elements of this case
is the fact that it turned
00:02:50
from a missing persons inquiry
into a murder investigation. It was Christmas day.
00:02:56
There was snow on the ground. It was quite an exciting time, and we all wanted a happy ending
to this case.
00:03:03
-Joanna's killer was 32-year-old
Vincent Tabak, a Dutch engineer who had
an obsession with hard-core sex
00:03:11
and violent pornography. -He was obsessed with
sado-masochistic pornography. He would watch, at length,
pornography that was dedicated
00:03:23
to the proposition
of binding women, torturing women,
humiliating women. -After Joanna rejected
his advances,
00:03:32
Tabak strangled the 25-year-old
to death in her own flat and then dumped her body
in a country lane
00:03:40
3 miles away
from where they both lived. Reporter Claire Hayhurst
worked on the case.
00:03:47
-The disappearance
of Joanna Yeates became front-page news
very quickly. I think part of that was because
people were looking forward
00:03:54
to celebrating with their
loved ones at Christmastime, and everybody was thinking
of this woman
00:04:00
who was missing from her family at such an important
time of year. -The police, in their attempt
to try and find the killer,
00:04:07
arrested the wrong man, Joanna's landlord,
Christopher Jefferies. -The worst part
of the experience
00:04:15
was when I started to read the sort of reports
in the press, the sort of hideously
distorted image
00:04:27
of somebody purporting to be me. That was the image which had
been projected nationally
00:04:36
and, indeed, to a degree,
internationally. -Eventually, Tabak was arrested, but the calculated killer
continued to deny
00:04:45
that he had anything to do
with the murder. -His own family, his girlfriend,
his girlfriend's family
00:04:51
were absolutely convinced
that he was innocent, so he was able to maintain
this façade of normality,
00:04:58
this idea that he was
this gentle giant, this innocent person. And I think when you can fool
those closest to you,
00:05:04
you're potentially
a very dangerous person. -He's never perpetrated
a sexual assault.
00:05:10
He's never attacked anyone. He's never raped another woman. He seems to have moved
from law-abiding citizen
00:05:18
to calculated, first-degree, premeditated murderer,
all in one step. -This killer's story
begins in 1978.
00:05:28
Vincent Tabak was born on
the 10th of February in Veghel in the south of the Netherlands.
00:05:34
He grew up in the town of Uden
near Eindhoven and was the youngest
of five children.
00:05:40
-His parents were
quite a bit older than the parents of his peers, and he had quite
a solitary upbringing.
00:05:46
And his relationships with
his fellow pupils at school, the kids in the community,
they weren't that great.
00:05:52
So he was a bit of a loner. -He wasn't desperately
gregarious. He kept himself to himself.
00:05:59
He didn't play
with other children. He was kind of reserved,
but he was undoubtedly clever.
00:06:06
-Tabak came from a good,
caring family. The only thing that we know
about him psychologically
00:06:11
as a child was he was a bit of a loner,
and that is very common for people
who have sexual pathology,
00:06:17
especially if it's what I would
call secretive sexual pathology. So, no indications
of a traumatic event
00:06:24
being the cause
of his disturbance. -I think one of the things
about Tabak that emerges
through his adolescence
00:06:34
is that he was probably
fascinated by pornography from a very early age. -Young Vincent struggled
to fit in with his peers,
00:06:44
but he was an exceptionally
bright child. -The thing is, he was developing
quite quickly intellectually.
00:06:51
He did incredibly well
in school. But those social skills
that we all have to develop,
00:06:56
he wasn't developing those
as quickly as he was developing his aptitude
for academic subjects.
00:07:01
So there was something that was
a little bit odd about him. -Nevertheless, Tabak continued
to excel academically,
00:07:09
and in 1996, aged 18, he went to study architecture,
building, and planning at the prestigious Eindhoven
University of Technology.
00:07:19
It was here that he was exposed to the city's
Red Light District. -Well, when Tabak
was at university,
00:07:26
he lived in an area
opposite the Red Light District. I think there was a fascination
that he had with these women,
00:07:34
because he hadn't really
been exposed to intimate relationships. He was quite socially stunted
in terms of his development.
00:07:42
-Tabak thrived
in higher education and went on to earn his PhD. -No question a talented
young man, if a bit --
00:07:52
How do I put it politely? -- removed from the world. -Even in his late 20s, Tabak continued to struggle
with forming relationships,
00:08:02
especially with those
from the opposite sex. -He certainly found
relationships with women
00:08:08
very difficult. There is very little evidence
that he had any girlfriends. I think he saw women as objects
00:08:17
and had done so
from quite an early age. -In 2007, while studying
for his PhD, Tabak found work at Burohappold,
00:08:27
an engineering company
in Bath, England. -So, he's working for a company
that specialized in exploring
00:08:34
how people move
through public spaces -- sports stadiums, schools,
places like that.
00:08:40
There's a lot of science
behind it, so I think it suits Tabak
down to the ground.
00:08:45
-A year later in 2008,
tragedy struck for Tabak when his father,
also an engineer, died.
00:08:54
The 30-year-old
continued to work for the same company in Bath. -I think Tabak's first real job
00:09:01
was a learning experience
for him. So, he's spending time
with people who perhaps haven't had
the same experience
00:09:08
that he has, being at
university for nearly a decade, living a rather
kind of solitary life.
00:09:14
He's being exposed
to new people, new behaviors, and he's looking at how people
behave in social situations.
00:09:21
And because he's very bright,
he's picking up on this. He's realizing
what's appropriate,
00:09:25
what's not appropriate,
in particular circumstances, and he's starting to mirror
the behavior of other people.
00:09:31
-And in November 2008,
he even met a woman, and they began dating. -The couple met through the
Guardian's online dating site,
00:09:42
perhaps predictable, in a way,
given the fact that Tabak was very reserved
when it came to women.
00:09:50
-Now, bear in mind
that he's 30 at this point, so his development
is a little bit behind
00:09:55
what would be considered
normal and average. And he meets his first
girlfriend online.
00:10:00
And that for me is actually
quite interesting, because you don't have that same
kind of social pressure
00:10:05
that you do
in a face-to-face environment. -The relationship flourished,
and after just seven months,
00:10:11
the couple decided
to move in together. In June 2009, the couple moved
to Clifton in Bristol
00:10:20
to an up-market, hilltop suburb and rented a flat
from Christopher Jefferies, a retired English teacher.
00:10:28
-Well, one of the garden flats
became vacant, and a letting agent told me that they had signed up
this couple.
00:10:37
-Christopher recalls
the first time he met Tabak. -He was physically quite tall
and imposing,
00:10:45
but in manner,
comparatively gentle and fairly deferential, quite reserved. He always struck me
00:10:56
and, I think, other people
in the building, as very, very pleasant, very respectful in his manner.
00:11:05
-Life for Tabak was going well.
He'd secured a reputable job. He was in a stable relationship
and had settled into a new city.
00:11:15
-He lived in
a delightful part of town. He had a very good job,
and he was on his way up.
00:11:20
He had a good social life.
He vacationed. -But the 31-year-old engineer
was hiding something sinister.
00:11:28
He was leading a double life. Whilst he was away
on business trips, Tabak was interested in women,
soliciting sex.
00:11:36
-There was one trip to Newcastle
in the northeast of England, and there were records of him
looking up the local sex trade,
00:11:43
looking up escorts,
looking up sex workers. So this was something
that he would indulge in
00:11:49
when he was away. -So this is a person
who has lived in the world, at least in his fantasy,
of sexual domination.
00:11:59
-Tabak was also
a regular consumer of online hard-core pornography. -A man who took a great interest
in escort agencies,
00:12:09
in pornographic websites, some of them involving
the abduction, torture of women.
00:12:16
And indeed, some of the others
involving the abuse of children. -I think that there is
very often that connection made
00:12:23
between consuming
violent pornography and being a sexual predator
and being a violent individual.
00:12:28
But I think for Tabak, this didn't cause
his violent behavior. I think when he was consuming
this violent pornography,
00:12:35
it simply reinforced
these existing values and attitudes and beliefs
that he had about women.
00:12:43
-So what we have
is a hidden man. We have the man on the surface
who goes to Bristol
00:12:49
and gets on the train to Bath
and comes home, in a steady relationship,
and you have the secret Tabak,
00:12:54
the Tabak who is hidden
beneath the surface, who exists on the web, and who exists in front
of his computers.
00:13:03
Here is the Tabak
that is about to come out. The genie in the bottle,
if you prefer,
00:13:09
in the twilight world in which his girlfriend
knows nothing about. -On October 25, 2010,
another young couple
00:13:19
rented a garden flat
from Christopher Jefferies. -Now, this flat was located
in the same house
00:13:25
as the flat occupied by Vincent
Tabak and his girlfriend. -The new tenants were
25-year-old Joanna Yeates,
00:13:33
a landscape architect who was
originally from Hampshire, and her boyfriend,
27-year-old Greg,
00:13:39
also an architect,
from Sheffield. They both worked at
the same firm in Bristol and started dating in 2008.
00:13:49
-They were living together
for the first time. They were obviously very much
in love with each other.
00:13:57
-Joanna Yeates was
a very clever, very ambitious woman, and she was working
as a landscape architect,
00:14:03
and her work
took her to Bristol. -Jo struck me as being
a slightly nervous young woman.
00:14:13
She was very, very attractive. Again, very pleasant
to deal with, but a little bit nervous
in manner.
00:14:22
She was a sort of person,
for example, if I had to go and speak to her, would hesitate for a little
00:14:30
before deciding whether or not
to invite me in. -Although they were neighbors,
Tabak and Joanna Yeates
00:14:38
didn't have any interaction
with each other. -Now, I believe
that Tabak was fascinated
00:14:46
by his next-door-neighbor and increasingly
fascinated by her. She represented the figured
that he'd seen on the Net.
00:14:54
He would like to have some kind
of sexual relationship with her. She, however, was entirely
unaware of his interest in her.
00:15:01
-On the 6th of November, Tabak went on another business
trip, this time to America.
00:15:08
And once again, he was looking
at adult escort websites. -So he's playing the role
of the committed partner,
00:15:16
the devoted boyfriend at home, and then there's this
other side to him, the real side to him that
comes out when he's on his own,
00:15:24
and he doesn't have those
controls over his behavior. -Unable to control
his sexual fantasies,
00:15:30
Tabak made contact
with an escort. -Goes to a motel
in San Luis Obispo, about 150 miles north
of Los Angeles,
00:15:40
and hires a girl
and pays her $200. Again, he's ostensibly working,
and yet, in that twilight world
that he inhabited,
00:15:51
he's making contacts
with escorts, prostitutes. -I would say that Tabak
had an obsession
00:15:59
with what sex represented. I think for him,
it represented power. It represented control.
00:16:05
It represented
an opportunity for him to see himself as important, because these women
were there to serve him.
00:16:12
And I think that's a value that he continued to develop
over many years. -After five weeks away,
Tabak returned to Bristol.
00:16:23
-The 11th of December in 2010, Tabak comes back
from California, back to his girlfriend.
00:16:29
On the surface,
nothing has altered one iota, except something has. -Tabak's secret addiction
to violent pornography and sex
00:16:38
was escalating by the day. -I think that Tabak
was essentially a bomb waiting to go off,
00:16:47
a bomb fueled by an addiction
to pornography. Not fueled by alcohol or drugs, but simply the addictions
of pornography,
00:16:57
which I've always believed is potentially
every bit as dangerous. -Across the hallway,
new tenants Joanna Yeates
00:17:06
and her boyfriend Greg had now settled
into their new life in Bristol. They'd made friends
00:17:12
and were preparing
for the festive period. -During the day
of December the 17th,
00:17:18
Jo had gone out to lunch
with her boyfriend, Greg. He was going away to Sheffield
for the weekend.
00:17:23
-Greg kissed Joanna goodbye
and then made his way to the north of England
to see his family.
00:17:29
Little did they know,
it would be the last time they would see each other. Joanna was now home alone.
00:17:36
-I gather she had told friends that she was
a little bit nervous about spending the weekend
on her own without Greg.
00:17:45
And I think she had been
intending to do some cooking or some baking in preparation
for Christmas.
00:17:53
-Coincidentally, Tabak's
girlfriend tells Vincent Tabak that she's going to be
going to a work's party,
00:18:00
and it won't finish
until the early hours of the following morning. -It was agreed that Tabak
would pick his girlfriend up
00:18:08
after her party. At approximately 6:00 p.m.
that same evening, his neighbor Joanna left work
00:18:15
and made her way
to see some friends for some Christmas drinks. -Perfectly innocently,
Joanna goes out for a drink
00:18:22
with some friends
in the Ram pub in Bristol. -She was there for about
two hours,
00:18:27
and she then made her way back
up to Clifton where she lived. -At around 8:10 p.m.,
00:18:33
Joanna went into a supermarket but didn't buy anything. Approximately 20 minutes later,
she called her friends
00:18:41
before heading
to two other shops, where she bought
pizza and cider. With her shopping done,
Joanna then made her way home.
00:18:50
-In one of the most
chilling moments in this case, Joanna Yeates encounters
a priest walking his dog
00:19:00
and then conducts
a conversation. It was a week before Christmas. It was a very uplifting,
cheerful time.
00:19:09
People were looking to celebrate
and to celebrate the season. -After talking briefly about
the weather with the priest,
00:19:16
Joanna then headed to her flat. -The last sighting of her
is from some CCTV footage
00:19:24
from a pub just 600 yards
from her home, and it shows her
walking home alone. -Joanna made it back to her flat
at approximately 8:37.
00:19:34
Her neighbor Vincent Tabak
was also home alone and decided to pay her a visit. But he wasn't there
to be neighborly,
00:19:42
as Joanna would soon find out. -I presumed she opened
the door willingly, and there was her neighbor,
00:19:50
though they were not,
by any means, friends. -Now, at some point during this
evening, Tabak enters her flat.
00:19:57
We're never gonna know
exactly what happened here, but it's likely
that the entry wasn't forced.
00:20:02
Joanna probably let him in. He was one of her neighbors. She was a trusting individual.
00:20:09
-It was to prove
a terrible mistake. -Once inside the flat,
Tabak made sexual advances
00:20:16
towards the 25-year-old. -And at some point
during that interaction, Joanna Yeates realizes,
"Oh, crikey,
00:20:25
this is turning nasty." -Joanna rejected the unwanted
attention from Tabak, something that only angered him
further, and he attacked her.
00:20:36
-At about 10 to 9:00
that evening, a couple attending a party
near Jo's flat at Canynge Road
00:20:41
in Bristol heard
a woman scream twice. -Now, those screams almost certainly
came from Joanna Yeates.
00:20:49
-As Joanna tried
to fight Tabak off, the 32-year-old placed his hands
around her neck
00:20:55
and started to strangle
the defenseless woman. -Most people know what it feels
like to choke on something,
00:21:02
to find it difficult to breathe. For that situation to be
suddenly inflicted on you
00:21:08
out of the blue
by another human being would be terrifying,
confusing, distressing.
00:21:16
-And she ends up with over
40 injuries to her body. -It's a horrifying,
horrifying thought
00:21:29
that a young woman just back from celebrating
the coming of Christmas with her friends
00:21:35
should be snuffed out
by this loner next door who is hiding
another individual, hiding Mr. Hyde in plain sight
of Dr. Jekyll.
00:21:49
-And literally,
in one fell swoop, he's wiped out the life
of this individual who had so much hope
and so much promise.
00:21:58
-Shortly after killing Joanna, Tabak sent his girlfriend
a text message. He then went about covering up
the murder
00:22:07
in a seemingly calm
and calculated fashion. -After Tabak murdered
Joanna Yeates,
00:22:13
he starts to clean up
very quickly. -He carries --
and this must have taken quite a considerable effort --
00:22:21
he carries the body
of Joanna Yeates out and puts it into the boot
of his Renault Menage car.
00:22:28
-He sets about constructing
an alibi for himself, so he drives to a local
Asda supermarket,
00:22:34
where I think he knows
he's gonna be seen on CCTV. -Tabak wandered around
the supermarket
00:22:41
but left without
buying anything. CCTV footage then captured him
returning to buy crisps, beer,
00:22:47
and rock salt. -And I think probably
he bought those items because he was hungry
and because he wanted a drink.
00:22:53
Here's somebody who is
very self-obsessed, so he's going to do
the things that he wants
00:22:58
when he wants to do them. -With Joanna's body still
in the boot of his car, Tabak casually sent his
girlfriend another text message
00:23:07
at 10:30 p.m. -And bored is a word that tends to come up
quite a lot with Tabak.
00:23:12
He's bored quite often, and for me,
that's quite interesting, because that's one of the key
characteristics of psychopathy,
00:23:19
that proneness to boredom, that need for stimulation. -By now, he's in Asda with the Megane
parked in the car park
00:23:28
with the dead body
of Joanna Yeates in it. -Most people,
when they commit murder,
00:23:33
are absolutely horrified
by what they've done. They are not able to function
normally whatsoever,
00:23:38
but Vincent Tabak is something
just altogether different. -With his shopping complete,
the sadistic killer
00:23:46
left the supermarket
to dispose of Joanna's body. -At some point
later that evening,
00:23:53
he drives the car about 3 miles to a lane in Failand. He parks beside a stone wall
guarding a quarry.
00:24:05
He opens the boot,
gets Joanna's body out, and he lifts her out and tries
to throw her over the wall,
00:24:12
but he finds he can't
quite manage it. So in the end,
he dumps her on the roadside,
00:24:19
covers her with leaves and snow. -Tabak then drove 3 miles
to his flat. -The way he goes about covering
up this murder is so systematic.
00:24:31
He's literally going through
the problem and the solution process. So he goes away
from the supermarket.
00:24:38
He dumps her body,
covers it with snow, and then just drives home and gets on with the rest
of his festive period.
00:24:46
He's just got absolutely no
regard for her as a human being. -Once home, Tabak turned
on his computer.
00:24:55
-He began almost immediately
doing two things -- Watching more pornography,
much of it related and similar
00:25:01
to what he'd perpetrated
that night, and doing legal research. -And he starts
looking up sentences
00:25:09
for murder versus
manslaughter -- which sentence is going
to be more severe? What's the difference
between the two?
00:25:15
So he's very much concerned for
himself at this point in time. -He was already beginning
to plot out, if he was caught,
00:25:24
how he would twist the facts in
order to make it a manslaughter. He researched the temperature
rate of body decomposition.
00:25:31
In short, he did
everything conceivable to plan for an escape,
because he was aware
00:25:37
that getting caught
was a real possibility. -Joanna's boyfriend, Greg,
unaware of her tragic fate,
00:25:44
tried calling her at 10:30 p.m., but there was no response,
and he left her a text message,
00:25:49
asking her if she'd had
a good time in the pub. Just after 1:30 a.m.,
the brazen killer Tabak
00:25:57
continued to play the role
of the doting boyfriend and went to pick
his girlfriend up
00:26:02
from her work's Christmas party. -And guess what?
They go and collect a takeaway.
00:26:08
What she doesn't know
and can't know is that he'd taken the life of their next-door neighbor
Jo Yeates.
00:26:15
-With several unanswered
messages and calls, Joanna's anxious boyfriend
drove back to Bristol
00:26:21
on the evening
of the 19th of December, but there was no sign of her
in the flat.
00:26:26
-But Joanna's keys, purse, mobile phone, they're all there, as are two undrunk
bottles of cider.
00:26:39
Put yourself in his shoes. You walk in expecting
to see your girlfriend, and the place is empty.
00:26:46
It must have been
a most dreadful shock. -Greg called Joanna's parents, but they had no idea
where she was.
00:26:54
Concerned for her safety, they
drove to Bristol that evening. Next, Greg then dialed 999,
00:27:01
and at 4:15 a.m.,
along with a policeman, they knocked on Tabak's door, asking if he'd seen Joanna.
00:27:08
-Tabak brushes it off. No idea. Haven't seen her. His girlfriend, of course,
knows nothing at all
00:27:14
because she wasn't there. There is an element
to this story that I think is chilling,
00:27:23
and that is
Tabak's capacity to deceive. Here is a man
who knows full well that he has just taken
his neighbor's life
00:27:33
but presents to his girlfriend, who is clearly fond of him, as if butter
wouldn't melt in his mouth.
00:27:44
-The police found the receipt
for the pizza that Joanna had bought less than
hour before she was murdered.
00:27:50
But bizarrely, the pizza
and the packaging were nowhere to be seen. With no leads, a missing persons
inquiry was launched
00:27:58
nearly three days
after Joanna had disappeared. Her frantic family had
a painful wait ahead of them.
00:28:05
The killer was hiding
in plain sight, and his behavior after
the murder was peculiar.
00:28:11
-In the days after Tabak
committed the murder, looking at his Internet history
is quite interesting.
00:28:16
He was continuing to watch
violent pornography. He was following developments in the Joanna Yeates
missing person case.
00:28:23
So he wants to stay
on top of what's happening, 'cause for Tabak, staying in control
is very important to him.
00:28:29
He needs to know
exactly what's going on. -With no news of their daughter, Joanna's concerned parents
appeal for her safe return
00:28:38
four days after she was missing. -When I got to the first
press conference, I remember her family
coming in the room
00:28:45
as well as her boyfriend, Greg,
and it immediately struck me just how distraught
and upset they were.
00:28:52
-Over the next few days,
with no sign of Joanna, the police continued
to search her flat.
00:28:58
And on the 23rd of December, the searched the other flats
in the building, including Vincent Tabak's,
but found nothing.
00:29:07
-There were fairly detailed
searches of the gardens around the property,
all the flats.
00:29:14
In the end, sniffer dogs
were brought in to see if they could find
any traces of anything
00:29:23
that might be connected with Jo. -The killer continued
with the façade and went to spend time
with his girlfriend's parents
00:29:32
in Cambridge. On Christmas Eve, the police
contacted Tabak again, asking where he was on the night
of Joanna's disappearance.
00:29:41
He claimed that he was home
all evening. With the media pressure
mounting, the police had no other leads
on Joanna's disappearance.
00:29:50
-I remember the parents
of Jo Yeates, I think her dad,
said how she loved Christmas.
00:29:56
And I know the feeling
at the time across the country, probably across the world was,
00:30:01
people were just willing her
to come home, to be reunited with her family
in time for Christmas.
00:30:07
-But sadly, that wasn't to be. At approximately 9:00 a.m.
on Christmas day, two dog walkers found a body
00:30:15
nearly 3 miles
from Joanna's flat. -Joanna's body is discovered in its shallow grave of leaves
and twigs and snow
00:30:25
in the lane. -The search to find
Joanna's killer became one of the largest
police operations in Bristol.
00:30:34
Over 100 hours of surveillance
footage was examined, and 293 tons of rubbish near Joanna's flat was seized.
00:30:44
A national newspaper even
offered a reward of £50,000, but there were no leads. The police then turned
their attention
00:30:53
to the night Joanna disappeared. With no signs of forced entry
into Joanna's flat,
00:31:00
the police were certain
that Joanna knew her killer, and they thought that person
had to be her landlord.
00:31:07
-I had gone away
to spend Christmas with one of my cousins. As I was on my way
back to Bristol,
00:31:16
the following morning,
there was a loud knock on the door of my flat with the police saying
that they needed to talk to me.
00:31:28
It came completely
out of the blue. I had no idea
that I might be a suspect, but when you're confronted
with police
00:31:38
at 7:00 in the morning, telling you that
you're under arrest on suspicion of the murder
of one of your tenants,
00:31:49
the shock is so great
that, really, it's a question of feeling numb. There isn't, I think,
any opportunity
00:31:58
to feel anything else. -Christopher was arrested five days after
Joanna's body was found,
00:32:06
and the news broke quickly. -People were very, very quick
to assume that Christopher Jefferies
was guilty.
00:32:12
This really was trial by media, and the outcome was decided
very, very quickly. And this guy had his reputation
00:32:19
absolutely ruined
literally overnight. People had decided that this was
what a murderer looked like,
00:32:25
and when that has been
put out there, when the public have kind of
got on board with that,
00:32:31
it's very, very difficult
to gain your reputation back. -One person watching the news
with great interest
00:32:38
was Vincent Tabak, who had
traveled to the Netherlands to spend New Year
with his family.
00:32:43
Tabak had seemingly
got away with murder, but he was about
to make a vital mistake.
00:32:50
-Well, Vincent Tabak,
after Christopher Jefferies was arrested,
saw a narrative developing.
00:32:56
He saw that
Christopher Jefferies had been labeled as a murderer, and he literally
could not help himself.
00:33:01
He wanted to help
this story line along. So he called the police,
and he said, "Well, yeah, actually,
I remember now that my landlord
00:33:10
was out and about on the evening
that Joanna Yeates disappeared. And I saw that his car
was parked the other way 'round
00:33:16
the next morning,
and wasn't that strange?" -Keen to hear his version of
events, on the 31st of December,
00:33:24
a detective flew out
to Amsterdam to speak to him. But for Tabak,
it didn't quite go to plan.
00:33:31
-The detective arrives
at the hotel and spends around
six hours with Tabak, and she becomes very,
very suspicious of him,
00:33:38
because he's very curious
about the investigation. He wants to know an awful lot
about it,
00:33:43
especially when it comes
to the forensic tests that have been carried out. And she cottons onto the fact
00:33:48
that he's taking
this information, and he's then using it
in particular ways. So, he starts to give a slightly
different version of his story.
00:33:56
He starts to say, "Well,
actually, I didn't just go out once on the evening
that Joanna disappeared.
00:34:01
I went out twice.
I went out to Asda, and then I went out
to take pictures of the snow."
00:34:06
And she thinks
this is quite bizarre. And he's also starting to say, "Oh, I may have been inside
Joanna Yeates's flat
00:34:15
at some point," and he'd never
said this before. -She becomes convinced
that there is far more to this
00:34:21
and to Tabak than meets the eye, and crucially, she asks him
if she can take a DNA swab.
00:34:28
-This is a very
experienced detective. She knew exactly what was
going on here, and she got DNA,
00:34:33
and she got fingerprints
from him, and he gave those willingly. But he seemed
a little bit concerned,
00:34:40
and I think this did
seal his fate. -On the 1st of January, 2011,
Christopher Jefferies
00:34:47
was released on bail,
and the following day, a slightly anxious Tabak
returned to Bristol.
00:34:54
The police now had
his DNA on file, and saliva had been found
on Joanna's body. It was only a matter of time
00:35:02
before they traced
the results back to him. By the 20th of January,
the police had now gathered
00:35:09
enough evidence
to arrest Vincent Tabak for the murder of Joanna Yeates. -Vincent Tabak's DNA was found
on Joanna Yeates's body,
00:35:19
and traces of her blood
were found in his car. So this is very,
very compelling evidence.
00:35:25
Now, Tabak's reaction to this
when he was arrested was to basically construct
himself as the victim and say,
00:35:31
"These forensic scientists,
they're all corrupt. They've been taking bribes. They've set me up here.
00:35:37
Christopher Jefferies
has been wrongly accused. Now I've been wrongly accused,
as well."
00:35:42
-The calculated killer continued
playing the innocent victim, even manipulating
those close to him.
00:35:49
-He had convinced his girlfriend
and his girlfriend's family that he was completely innocent
00:35:53
to the extent that they set up
a fund to pay for his defense. Here was this gentle giant,
00:35:59
this intellectual, quiet,
introspective guy who wouldn't hurt a fly. -With Tabak now in custody,
the police searched his flat
00:36:09
and seized his four computers. What they would find
would give them an insight into the mind of the killer
00:36:15
and his sadistic
sexual fantasies. -They find the pornography.
They find the bound women.
00:36:23
They find the women being
bundled into the boot of a car. -Some of the images
that Tabak had on his computer
00:36:30
stood out for the police because of their similarity
to Joanna Yeates and the way in which
her body was found.
00:36:37
-One in particular of the
pornographic sites he visited contained an image
of a blond-haired woman
00:36:47
pulling up her top
to expose her breasts. Now, chilling though
it may sound, Joanna's top had been lifted up,
00:36:56
and part of her
right breast exposed, exactly like the website
that Tabak had accessed.
00:37:04
-On the 21st of January,
Vincent Tabak was charged with the murder
of Joanna Yeates.
00:37:11
He had fooled everyone, even the man
he'd tried to frame. -I was absolutely astonished.
00:37:18
My first reaction
was that probably the police were again
grasping at straws, and here was somebody else
00:37:27
who would turn out to be
entirely innocent because, certainly, absolutely
nothing in his manner,
00:37:34
in his behavior, would lead me to have
any inkling of suspicion that he might be capable of that
in the slightest.
00:37:45
-Tabak was sent
to Bristol Prison, then Long Lartin
in Worcestershire whilst he was waiting
for his trial.
00:37:52
By now, his girlfriend had
withdrawn her support for him. Realizing that he was
now on his own,
00:37:59
on the 8th of February,
19 days after his arrest, the killer gave a chilling
confession to a prison chaplain.
00:38:08
-Now, he hasn't suddenly
grown a conscience overnight. He's had a couple
of weeks inside.
00:38:13
He's become aware of the strength
of the evidence against him. He realizes that he needs to
change his version of the story
00:38:19
to secure the best possible
outcome for himself. So he admits that he's responsible
for her death,
00:38:28
but he doesn't admit to murder. He says this was manslaughter, and he starts
to twist the story.
00:38:33
So he says,
"She was flirting with me. She was coming onto me. Poor me. I'm the victim.
00:38:40
And she freaked out when I tried
to kiss her, and I just reacted. I couldn't help it."
00:38:47
-The original suspect,
Christopher Jefferies, was released from police bail
on March 4th
00:38:53
and cleared of all charges, just over two months after
he was originally arrested.
00:38:59
Two months later,
on the 5th of May, Vincent Tabak admitted to the
manslaughter of Joanna Yeates
00:39:05
in court,
but denied the charge of murder. His trial took place
on the 4th of October, 2011,
00:39:12
at Bristol Crown Court. During the course
of his testimony, Tabak gave his version of events
from that fateful night.
00:39:21
-Vincent Tabak told
Bristol Crown Court that he had gone into Jo's flat after spotting her
through the window.
00:39:28
She'd apparently
had her blind up. He said they'd both chatted
about the fact that their partners were away,
and they were bored.
00:39:36
-He claims that Joanna
came onto him. She'd been leading him on.
She'd been encouraging him.
00:39:41
She'd been flirting with him, and that he'd gone
to kind of follow up on that. -And he said that Jo then made
a flirty comment about her cat,
00:39:51
and he made a pass at her. He grabbed her
and tried to kiss her. And he said it was then that
she started to scream loudly.
00:39:59
And he asked her to stop,
and she wouldn't. And he said that he then put
his hands around her throat
00:40:05
and started to strangle her
in an attempt to control her. And he said that suddenly,
after about 20 seconds,
00:40:12
she had gone limp
and fallen to the ground. There was a moment in the trial
that I think will stay
00:40:18
with everybody in that courtroom
for a long period of time. Vincent Tabak's defense
barrister asked him
00:40:24
to act out effectively
the period of time in which he'd spent
strangling Jo. And I remember us counting
together those 20 seconds,
00:40:34
and it feeling like
an awfully long time. -Tabak's defense was that
it was manslaughter, not murder.
00:40:52
To inflict 43 injuries
upon a person takes time, takes effort. It is physically demanding,
00:41:00
and the length of time that pressure
has to be applied to the neck after a person is unconscious,
00:41:07
you have minutes to realize that the person
is not responding. But yet, Tabak is maintaining
that pressure
00:41:16
long after it would be necessary
just to subdue somebody. To suggest that he wasn't
intending for her to end up dead
00:41:24
is just entirely implausible. -The notion that he would think
a jury would be naive enough
00:41:32
to believe that story
while the autopsy indicated that she had 43 wounds
on her body,
00:41:39
most of which around her neck, would tell anyone
this was a strangulation. -On the 28th of October,
after 4 days of deliberating,
00:41:50
the jury found Vincent Tabak guilty of murdering
Joanna Yeates. -In sentencing him,
Mr. Justice Field said,
00:42:00
"I think there is a sexual
element to this killing. In my view,
you are very dangerous.
00:42:07
In my opinion,
you are thoroughly deceitful, dishonest, and manipulative." And I think those words
are very helpful
00:42:16
to describe Vincent Tabak. -Tabak was given a life sentence
with a minimum of 20 years.
00:42:25
Justice was finally served
for Joanna and her family. In addition to the charge
of murder, in March 2015,
00:42:34
Tabak was also charged
with possessing over 140 indecent images
of children, and 10 months
were added to his sentence.
00:42:43
He remains at HMP Long Lartin. -Vincent Tabak is somebody
who is duplicitous. He is cold,
and he's calculating,
00:42:53
and he's incredibly
narcissistic. It's about me, myself, and I. I think what I can say for sure
is that he would definitely
00:42:59
have gone on
to harm other people. It's all about pursuing his own
desires and his own wants.
00:43:05
If he had gotten away with this,
then there would have been absolutely no impetus on him
to change his behavior,
00:43:12
to address
those underlying values and attitudes and beliefs. He still would
have been misogynistic.
00:43:17
He still would have been violent
and entitled, and somebody would have
been harmed by him.
00:43:23
-He had every opportunity
in life, and he forsake that
and destroyed his life, Yeates' life,
her boyfriend's life,
00:43:32
and the life
of his own girlfriend. -He only takes one life, but he takes it
in a terrible way,
00:43:40
and then proceeds to try
and convince the world that he could not possibly
have had anything to do with it.
00:43:47
It is an act of gross depravity
in my mind. -Tabak killed
a bright young woman who had her whole life
ahead of her
00:43:57
just because he couldn't control
his depraved urges. He deceived those closest to him
00:44:03
and let an innocent man
take the blame for a murder he didn't commit. Undoubtedly, Vincent Tabak
00:44:11
is one of the world's
most evil killers. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪