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World's Most Evil Killers - Season 6, Episode 3 - Trimaan Harry Dhillon - Full Episode

August 10, 2022 / 45:31

This episode discusses the tragic murder of Alice Ruggles by her ex-boyfriend, Trimming Harry Dylan, in Gateshead, England. Key topics include stalking, domestic abuse, and the psychological manipulation involved in their relationship.

Alice Ruggles, 24, was murdered on October 12, 2016, just 12 days after contacting the police about Dylan's harassment. The episode details how Dylan's controlling behavior escalated, leading to Alice's tragic end.

Listeners learn about the timeline of their relationship, starting from their online connection while Dylan was serving in Afghanistan. The episode highlights the warning signs of Dylan's possessive nature and Alice's struggle to regain control of her life.

The narrative includes insights from Alice's family and friends, who observed her decline due to Dylan's manipulation. The episode emphasizes the importance of recognizing stalking behaviors and the impact of domestic abuse.

Finally, the episode covers Dylan's arrest, trial, and conviction for Alice's murder, as well as the aftermath for her family, who established the Alice Ruggles Trust to raise awareness about stalking.

TLDR

Alice Ruggles was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, Trimming Harry Dylan, after enduring his stalking and manipulation in Gateshead, England.

Episode

45:31
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on october the 12th 2016 24 year old alice ruggles left work with a colleague who drove her home to
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her apartment in gateshead near newcastle england she would never be seen alive again it
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was just 12 days between her calling the police and her being murdered when alice
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arrived home from work someone was waiting for her her ex-boyfriend trimming harry dylan
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a man she had rejected she said no and that proved to be fatal this wasn't a case of an assault that escalated to
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murder this was always going to be a murder this was pre-planned alice thought she was finally free of dylan
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and could move on with her life i can't forget this he's said i always get what
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i want you know i always get my own way i've been like that since i was a little
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child coming home from work alice's flatmate found her in the bathroom lying
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in a pool of blood getting back to my flat in the doorway so i crawled through the window and my back needs covered in
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blood in the bathroom harry dylan forced his way in and he was armed with a knife
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and inside the bathroom he attacked her with that knife with such force and such
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severity that the knife made contact with a spine at the back of her throat trimming harry dylan didn't love alice
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ruggles he wanted to possess her control her and ultimately destroy her the only way he could stop her leaving
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him was to brutally murder her making trimming harry dylan one of the world's
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most evil killers [Music] so october the 11th 2015 25 year old lance corporal truman dillon
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or halle to his friends was serving as a signaler with his regiment in afghanistan when he saw a photograph of
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23 year old alice ruggles on facebook harry instantly reached out and his friend request was accepted
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the two of them hit it off and begun an intense social media relationship and that went on for two or three months
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while he was posted out in afghanistan so we first heard about it or i first heard about it on
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christmas that year when alice came home and she was talking about him then and um
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we got the impression he was her boyfriend but actually at that point they'd never
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met i think at the time if i'd known alice hadn't met him and had said he was
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her boyfriend i would have been quite shocked but i didn't discover that unfortunately till after she'd been
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murdered the speed and intensity of dylan's relationship with alice was nothing new
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for him he would meet a woman profess almost immediate love for her that a very intense relationship would develop
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that he would seek to control that relationship and control his partner all the time cheating on them behind
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their backs dylan's possessive controlling behavior began to take its toll on alice well it became obvious
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that alice was becoming unhappy the fact that she was she was losing weight she looked physically different
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um she lost her verve and vigor for life she was losing friends all over the place
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the cheating and dylan's lying was the final straw for alice leaving a relationship can be a very high risk
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time for violence and for homicide because by leaving by making the decision to go um you're compromising
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the perpetrator's control over you and no woman was allowed to walk away from trimming harry dylan
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if he couldn't have her nobody else could this killer's story begins in 1990 in
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india dylan was the only child born into an affluent devout sikh family trim and dylan is something of an enigma
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we don't know a lot about his background we know that he's from india we know
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that his father was quite high ranking in the army we know that his mother was a graduate of a high profile university
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in india as a boy truman received a first class education he went on to study strategy
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management at university which involves spending two years overseas at the queen
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margaret university near edinburgh in scotland you know he has quite a traditional
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nuclear family background there beyond that we don't know very much but i think we can say that what is
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important to him are things like hierarchy and status and power and tradition and he might have some quite
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fixed ideas of what relationships look like in september 2010 at the age of 19 truman dylan arrived in the uk
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he became known as harry amongst his fellow students in december while still at university
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harry applied to join the british army which you i suppose you would expect son of an army lieutenant colonel
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probably always thought of himself certainly as a an army type liked something about it
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dylan's uk citizenship was not complete so he couldn't apply to become an army
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officer he trained at caterick in north yorkshire and passed out in may 2012 as a private
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he was posted with the royal regiment of scotland to canterbury in kent so you can see inside this young man
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quite handsome when he wants to be relatively charming but also there's something odd you know that's
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that's something about him i think one or two of his army colleagues described him as not really
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one of us it was just something slightly off it was in kent in september 2012 that harry dylan met an 18 year old
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bulgarian student who later became his girlfriend and this was a relationship that had
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proceeded at an incredibly fast pace and that's something that we see very often
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in these abusive situations where somebody like dylan is taking control of somebody else in the spring of 2013
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dylan proposed delighted with his engagement the next day he returned to india alone to visit his family for a
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few weeks this break however gave his young fiancee time to reconsider their relationship
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she dumped him on skype which absolutely infuriated him um and he flew back from india early
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and really lost his temper in in every way to add insult to injury dylan's now
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ex-fiance had a new boyfriend dylan doesn't take it lying down and one of his characteristics is he can't stand
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rejection he absolutely hates it he believes he's entitled to things i was entitled as a child i'm entitled as an
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adult if you're the woman i've chosen then i'm entitled to you dylan started stalking
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her and harassing her with derogatory and unpleasant texts telling her he wanted to make her cry
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she's on her way to meet her new partner and there's an incident where he spits
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in her face he acts very aggressively towards her new partner and he uses language like what are you doing with my
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girlfriend this is my girlfriend it's all possessive language so he sees this
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ex-partner as something that he owns and no other man has the right to take that
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away from him after the assault his ex-fiance reported dylan to the police but no criminal
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charges were brought against him he was later issued with a restraining order to stay away from her it's
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incredibly common for people like dylan to assault ex-girlfriends more than once
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to engage in any kind of behaviour to take that control back so this is not a flash in the pan this is not a one-off
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this kind of behavior is part of a course of conduct it was easy for dylan to comply with the
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restraining order against him shortly after the incident in kent he was deployed almost 500 miles away to
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glenn course barracks in edinburgh scotland dylan was a signaler in the british army
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with ambitions to join the special reconnaissance regiment of the sas by now he's a lance corporal he's been
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promoted you can see a sort of swagger in him in his step and you can see impressionable
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perhaps younger women being rather taken with him 25 year old dylan regularly used dating
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sites apps and social media to hook up with women he was clearly uh highly motivated when
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it came to female company i think he fancied himself as a bit of a gigolo actually
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that he thought i can have any woman i want i think there was a lot of that about him
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in september 2015 harry dylan was deployed with his regiment to afghanistan he was not a
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combat soldier his role was essentially in communications far from the front line
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on the 11th of october 2015 while serving in afghanistan harry dylan saw a facebook post from an old
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university friend dylan first saw alice on social media she was a friend of one of his friends on social media and i
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think dylan sees this platform as a bit of a shopping catalog for new girlfriends he's literally going on
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there liking the look of alice and saying i want that one the post dylan saw was a selfie snap of
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his friend on holiday in sri lanka with a girlfriend the girlfriend was 23 year old alice
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ruggles a northumbria university graduate who lived in gateshead near newcastle just over 100 miles from
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edinburgh it really does reinforce that extent to which he sees women as objects as
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possessions that he can just select so he gets in touch with alice's friends
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and says this is one of the most beautiful women i've ever seen i have to meet her words to that effect and this
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is how they they first come to meet and i think this really does set the tone for the relationship i'm in control
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i am choosing you i'm the one that has power trimming harry dylan had found his
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new obsession october the 11th 2015 sri lanka alice ruggles was on holiday when she
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received a facebook friend request from trimmin harry dylan alice was careful with her social media
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accounts but harry was a friend of a friend and she happily accepted his request
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it wasn't that she was desperate for somebody to go out with she just she you know she liked meeting people um
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she probably had lots of people who wanted to go out with her but she wasn't someone who would lead
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people on she just you know if it was the right thing that's what she do dylan
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and alice began chatting and hit it off from then on they were in constant communication
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and by the time we got to about december alice was telling telling everyone she was in a
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relationship with this person she put it on facebook that she was in a relationship and she told me that he was
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her new boyfriend but there was one thing alice didn't make clear to her mum
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i actually didn't realize that she'd never met him he was a soldier serving in afghanistan
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so obviously they couldn't meet up but but i think you know moving forward at that pace and describing yourself as
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partners is wrong really if you haven't met each other it's you're just friends to me but
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it's a sort of sign that somebody is a controlling person if they make the relationship move faster than
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it naturally should i think this is where the control had started to come in so offenders like
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dylan are able to control from a distance you don't need them to be physically present to be exerting quite
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a lot of power over their partners in january 2016 just over three months since they'd
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met on facebook dylan came home on leave and the couple finally met in person and they had a lovely time and alice um
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alice was so taken by him she said he was kind and thoughtful and he paid for things and he he just wanted to keep her
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happy that was how she saw it and she said mom i think he's he is the one he's
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just wonderful and they spent a week in newcastle together and then they spent a week in
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edinburgh together after two wonderful weeks dylan returned to afghanistan to finish his tour and the couple continued
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their intense social media relationship but one of the problems about the whole facebook thing was
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that he was some he was quite controlling about that and he wanted to know where she was
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and who she was going out with what she was wearing and all those all those things that
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sort of can be disguised as being really caring and thoughtful you know like i really want to know what you're wearing
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and i want to know where you are and i want to know who you're with but if you look at them from the other
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side actually they're really quite sinister unfortunately i don't think alice saw
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them as sinister at all at the time in april 2016 dylan's tour in afghanistan ended
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and he was deployed back to barracks in edinburgh once back in the uk dylan was keen to
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meet alice's family we first met him and then it was maybank holiday weekend so they came down for
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the weekend and i i remember thinking that i mean looking back on this there was nothing at the
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time and this is one of those scary things nothing at the time that made me think i
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don't like this guy there's something you know not not not right about this guy really nothing i
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mean yes i could tell him i could tell that he was giving the answers to to questions you know that he wanted me
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to hear and this sort of thing but i'm guessing a lot of lads could have done
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that so there was nothing that that i picked up at that time that led me to think there
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was anything worrying about him things don't start off in an abusive way things start off with
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this individual being everything that the ideal boyfriend is supposed to be because if abusers were abusive all of
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the time nobody would go out with them nobody would date them nobody would marry them so he's got that initial
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charm offensive down to a real t it wasn't long before alice's family and
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friends began to notice changes in her behavior one of the things that had happened
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was that alice had fallen out with the boys she shared a house with which was really unusual for her she
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didn't tend to fall out with people like that he just sort of amplified everything that was happening to make it
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an unhappy um atmosphere in the house and then he started saying to alice um that he he had some money and he would
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buy a flat in newcastle and she could live in the flat this talk about possibly um buying how so she could live
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in it and this sort of thing you know they've only been seeing each other for a couple of months
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is is pushing things worryingly fast alice's demeanor also began to change and there were sort of
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attempts to undermine her confidence and make her feel that she was not really a worthy person which is
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it's not really how she felt i mean she was quite secure in how she was about
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herself and and he managed to make her feel more insecure which is unfortunately something we didn't really
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notice creeping on [Music] there were several tactics that dylan used when he was essentially breaking
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down alice's self-confidence because this is what this is all about it's it's
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a liberty crime it's about taking away somebody's sense of self and he starts
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off with these little criticisms and they're they're kind of veiled criticisms because very often they're
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presented as something that i only have your best interests at heart or i'm only trying to
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help you this is just a suggestion and then you start with the criticisms becoming you know a little bit more
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cutting and then it descends into to even more you know humiliation and control alice started to become isolated from
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her friends even the best friend who'd introduced her to dylan on facebook just six months
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ago and i was really shocked by that because that's you know i'm quite feminist and that's
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not be told what to do and i said well why is that and and she said oh well because we had a bit of an argument
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about something and and he said that she's a poisonous person and he doesn't
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want me to be around anybody who's so poisonous and horrible when we look at alice we don't see
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somebody who we might consider to be a stereotypical victim of abuse she's somebody who's independent she's
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go-getting she's gregarious she's got a really good network of friends and i
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think there's a sense in which dylan saw her as a bit of a challenge to be honest
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um he thought if i can break this person you know i really am fantastic over the next couple of months she
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started to to lose weight a bit and she started to well she was starting to lose confidence and
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as we discovered she was starting to lose friends dylan was an incredibly controlling
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person and he he set in place a lot of rules around relationships he was very critical of alice talking to male
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friends engaging with male colleagues at work he had this paranoia that she was cheating on him and he would constantly
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be sharing these views with her but alice wasn't the one doing the cheating but all the time he was doing
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all of this stuff behind alice's back so he was contacting other women online he
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was arranging to meet up with them he was having casual sex with them so there's an awful lot of double standards
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going on and that's because he feels completely entitled to behave in this way and this is the the very essence of
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misogyny this is it's one set of rules for me and it's a whole other set of
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rules for you one of the women dylan was in contact with messaged alice and told her what
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her boyfriend was up to and this is the final straw for her because alice has a very clear line and
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sand when it comes to relationships clearly and she's not going to tolerate this kind of behavior i think this is
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testament to alice's strength of character and her moral compass despite dylan's denial that he was cheating on
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her alice didn't believe him there had been too many lies in a tearful phone call to her mum alice
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told her that she'd ended their relationship i don't think he actually knows what the truth is i don't think he
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knows what being honest is all about but alice honesty was such an important thing that she really felt
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uncomfortable about that but dylan being dylan never takes no for an answer he goes into full manipulative mode
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he can't have his masculinity questioned by some mere woman it's a very misogynist
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it's a very male dominant attitude and it unfortunately extends to the worst possible outcome
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in early august 2016 much to the relief of her family and friends 24 year old alice ruggles
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had told harry dylan that she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with him she moves out of a house that she's been
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sharing housemates who've seen this decline in her character she moves in with a friend
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she's working for a media hub in newcastle and she moves in with someone who works
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there and they have a ground floor flat in gateshead which they share alice was trying to regain control of
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her life at this point dylan is very much of the mindset i will get what i want i am
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going to get alice back because she is mine so he starts bombarding her with phone calls
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[Music] what's going on here is this is a fully grown adult man essentially having a
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tantrum you know drawing on these different tactics out of desperation in the hope
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that one of them is going to work i don't even know if you're getting wise
00:23:03
mrs please can you call me back thank you dylan was relentless and bombarded alice
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day and night her phone was constantly pinging and and it was always him and she wanted him to move on of course he
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became the boyfriend who wouldn't go away she wanted him to move on but this isn't a guy who's love sick
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who's missing his ex-girlfriend this is somebody who's had something taken away
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from him that he feels entitled to alice blocked dylan's phone number though she could still hear his
00:23:41
voicemails and his particular technique was the veiled threat so he'd never say i'm
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going to do this to you he would say if i was a bad guy i'd do this to you but
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i'm not so i won't it was always framed like that alice tried to block dylan on facebook and
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found that her account had been hacked he was controlling her her social media so he'd actually
00:24:05
um got control of her facebook account i'm guessing she she left her phone or
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laptop around um with it still switched on so he took the password and and she knew that he had the password and he
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then um meant that he could control what was on the account monitoring and surveillance behaviors
00:24:25
are something we come across a lot in cases like this and very often the victim won't be aware of the fact that
00:24:32
the perpetrator is essentially spying on them the availability of spyware and this kind of technology is is really
00:24:40
quite widespread now dylan claimed to have intimate photographs of alice and threatened to release them on her social
00:24:47
media accounts she had no idea what those photographs were and she was really anxious about it
00:24:56
she didn't tell me about this till quite a little while later because i think she felt that it was some it was
00:25:02
embarrassing thing to talk about it's embarrassing to talk to your mum about
00:25:05
it and i suspect she would have been embarrassed to go to the police about it and so that was perhaps the reason why
00:25:11
she didn't go to the police needing a break alice went to visit her sister in germany who introduced her to
00:25:19
a new man she really liked him and they arranged to meet soon back in england the only people who knew about alice's
00:25:29
new friend was her family nowhere on social media or anything was was this mentioned
00:25:36
but of course alice was whatsapping him and we knew all about this in the family whatsapp
00:25:42
we had a a family whatsapp going so wherever we all were in different corners of the world even or whatever we
00:25:48
were always in communication so we knew about this alice was finally beginning to enjoy her
00:25:54
life again she was reconciling friendships um she was exploring a new relationship this
00:26:02
should have been the start of something really good for her but unfortunately dylan was not going to tolerate that
00:26:12
saturday the 1st of october 2016 alice was at home in her ground floor apartment in gateshead
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so alice was on her own in the flat and then there's this knock on the front
00:26:23
door and when alice looks out of the little peephole there's no one there and obviously that's worrying and it
00:26:31
happened two or three times at intervals during the course of the evening and then she goes to bed and then after
00:26:37
she's gone to bed there's this knock on the window right behind her bed and when she opens the curtains he's
00:26:44
there he's jumped in over that wall and he's left flowers and chocolates on the windowsill
00:26:49
he's backing off as if to say okay i'm going now after leaving the flowers and chocolates
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dylan left alice a chilling voicemail he really loved alice he'd never ever thought about killing her and he left
00:27:05
the flowers and chocolates there because he didn't want to kill her and and he kept mentioning killing her i
00:27:11
think it was about seven or eight times in the conversation this is is language which really does
00:27:18
set my radar off and alice is the best judge of her level of risk so she knows dylan incredibly well she knows that the
00:27:27
patterns of his behavior and this incident is serious enough to have her calling the police she really does feel
00:27:35
in danger at this point in time hi there and i just need a bit of advice really and more than anything i split up
00:27:45
with my boyfriend about three months ago he's hacked into my facebook and also my
00:27:50
phone tonight he's um well i had a knock at my door and well he sent me a message saying
00:27:58
i've been in the garden since five i had to knock at my door and then and he's
00:28:03
come around the back knocked on my bedroom window he's like left um some flowers and chocolates my
00:28:10
friends have been telling me to call the police well it's being noted the incident number which is 59
00:28:16
59 brilliant thank you [Music] alice was comforted by the police response and a police information notice
00:28:33
or pin was issued against dylan in theory the pin would stop dylan from approaching alice again
00:28:42
at the time alice thought that that she was protected and so she felt much better and for three or four
00:28:48
days after that then um she went to work and and people at skye said that she was was was
00:28:56
almost back to her old self and she was happy again [Music] dylan is somebody to whom the rules
00:29:04
don't apply he thinks he's above the law he's not going to be told by anybody
00:29:08
else what to do and this is a characteristic that we see a lot in abusers like him
00:29:14
four days after the pin had been issued to dylan alice received a parcel in the parcel were some personal items
00:29:22
of alice's and a letter from dylan and he said uh you don't need to worry i
00:29:27
i um i will never come near you again um i know you've got a new man and that was that in that last bit was
00:29:39
horrifying in itself because alice had met someone new about two or three weeks earlier alice had gone to great lengths
00:29:49
to keep her new romance off social media the only people who knew were her family
00:29:55
we believe he must have installed software on her phone um spyware um so that he was actually spying on the
00:30:04
whatsapp conversations which is a scary thought looking back um but we there was no other way he
00:30:11
could have known of the existence of her new boyfriend alice called the police again hoping to
00:30:17
talk to the same officer who had previously helped her but unfortunately when alice phoned the police she got a
00:30:25
call back from somebody who was quite unsympathetic and they made alice feel that she was
00:30:31
making a fuss about nothing and they asked her if she wanted him arresting but unfortunately the way they asked it
00:30:40
was you know what you want us to do about it arrest him as if it was the most ridiculous thing in the
00:30:47
world so alice said well well no i suppose not alice was completely deflated alice um rang me and told me about this
00:30:59
second approach from the police and she was so unhappy because she said you know she said on the phone
00:31:07
she said mom it's just never gonna stop he is never ever gonna leave me alone
00:31:12
and uh so difficult as a parent to know what to say because i really naively and stupidly just wanted
00:31:22
to make her feel better so i said well yeah well alice if you just keep ignoring him just keep ignoring him he
00:31:28
will eventually go away and leave you alone october the 12th 2016. alice's flatmate maxine mcgill came home
00:31:40
from work she'd forgotten her keys but knew alice was there unable to get alice to answer the door
00:31:48
she climbed through an open window please i'm just i've just come back to
00:31:57
my flight and the door was locked so rolling roads you're doing really well maxine
00:32:38
i don't know what to do october the 12th 2016 alice ruggle's flatmate maxine had found
00:33:01
her lying motionless in the bathroom of their flat in a pool of blood paramedics
00:33:07
pronounced 24 year old alice ruggles dead as maxine had told the emergency services in her opinion there was only
00:33:15
one suspect maxine mcgill knew exactly what had happened to alice because she knew just how scared she was
00:33:22
of harry dylan and just what he was capable of and that 999 call haunting 999 call
00:33:29
of maxine telling the police that her friend was dead and telling them straight away
00:33:35
harry dylan has done it he's a psychopath senior forensic scientist michelle
00:33:41
walton was the lead scientist at the crime scene there was lots of blood staining within
00:33:47
the scene and this painted a picture of what in my opinion had happened to alice within
00:33:54
that room in my opinion the distribution suggested that she had been positioned over the shower tree at the time she had
00:34:02
sustained the significant injury to her throat the distribution of blood within the
00:34:07
bathroom itself and on herself would suggest that perhaps she'd attempted to get to her feet having been
00:34:14
on her knees but fundamentally she hadn't been upright having sustained the injury to
00:34:19
her throat before she came to rest in front of the bathroom door there was one man the police wanted to
00:34:26
question within five hours trimming harry dylan was apprehended at his barracks and
00:34:33
brought to the station in newcastle for questioning officers were also dispatched to alice's
00:34:40
parents home in leicestershire england they basically told us that the alice was was dead
00:34:50
i think we immediately looked at each other and said his name we knew instantly who'd done it
00:34:56
i knew that there was no way i could stand up and let the policeman out i just there's just no way i could stand
00:35:05
up because i just all the blood had stopped circulating and i you know it's just like the worst thing you could
00:35:11
possibly imagine when dylan was first questioned by the police he denied having made any contact
00:35:22
with alice that evening at this point his objective is self-preservation and he's just sitting
00:35:29
there he's keeping calm because i think he is that arrogant that he thinks he's
00:35:32
got away with this a few days before the murder we discovered that he'd made a
00:35:38
reconnaissance trip down to newcastle because we found a photograph on his phone of the rear bathroom window at
00:35:46
alice's flat he plainly been down to see how he might be able to get into the property when
00:35:52
presented with cctv evidence that his vehicle was seen traveling from edinburgh to newcastle on the day of the
00:36:00
murder and that his mobile phone had pinged off several mars along that route his story changed
00:36:08
i drove down towards newcastle and because i was i just i just wanted answers so i drove down to speak to her
00:36:24
[Music] he was then shown dash cam footage of his vehicle parked near alice's
00:36:30
apartment within the time frame of the murder he then stated it had all been an accident which he would continue to
00:36:37
claim throughout she'd accidentally stabbed herself through the nose with the knife
00:36:43
she'd accidentally cut her own forehead with the knife and she'd accidentally
00:36:48
slashed her throat open at least six times causing that terrible and fatal injury
00:36:56
when he's being interviewed he is just kind of responding in the moment and his stories don't stack up
00:37:03
that there's not evidence to support the version of events that he's putting
00:37:07
across the evidence was mounting against dylan the police now needed the forensic
00:37:13
evidence to place him in the bathroom where alice was murdered in terms of an offender they might often
00:37:22
discard the clothing that they're wearing but they don't usually get rid
00:37:25
of things that are personal to them such as watches jewelry or even footwear some
00:37:30
people might only have one pair of shoes so we suggested that if he had anything on him
00:37:36
such as jewelry or a watch or wool glasses or his footwear then we could examine those relatively quickly
00:37:43
he did actually have a helpful hero's wristband and a silver bracelet that were recovered from him at the time of
00:37:50
the arrest so these were fast-tracked to the laboratory so there was a small amount of blood that could be seen
00:37:55
microscopically um it was caught in the recess of the lettering it was present in the o of the heroes
00:38:03
and the r of the organization part of the wristband but there was only two small blood stains present so they were
00:38:09
sampled onto a swab and then they were sent for dna analysis and we were able to obtain a profile that matched the dna
00:38:16
profile of alice ruggles this placed dylan in the apartment and in contact with alice's blood
00:38:24
a bloody fingerprint on the steering wheel of his car was also a match to alice no murder weapon was found and alice's
00:38:33
phone was missing at the time i did not believe that he was capable of doing what he did but if i knew
00:38:42
then everything i know now about stalking and controlling behavior it was so obvious so that was what he
00:38:52
was going to do within 36 hours on friday the 14th of october the police had enough evidence
00:38:59
to charge dylan for the murder of alice ruggles april 2017 the trial of truman harry dylan for the
00:39:10
murder of alice ruggles was at newcastle crown court the case for the prosecution was
00:39:17
presented by richard wright qc we could prove that harry dylan had been inside the
00:39:24
flat with alice at the time that she died we could prove that he was obsessive that he'd stalked her
00:39:32
[Music] but we had to prove that he'd also murdered her that is he had caused those terrible injuries
00:39:41
we all react in different ways so i think some some of us had the anger i never had that i think i was just
00:39:49
numbed it's almost as if some part of the time you're you're you almost feel as if
00:39:55
you're looking in on this and then then you know in waves you realize no this is
00:40:00
really really happening to me and this this guy is really he's just killed our daughter and he's
00:40:05
just standing there in front of us well the story that he gave at trial was quite incredible
00:40:14
he said that having got into her flat she was terrified and that she had armed herself with a knife
00:40:23
that he had simply been trying to calm her down and remove the knife from her and he gave this story that she had
00:40:32
inflicted all of these injuries on herself accidentally with the knife what i hadn't been prepared for was the
00:40:41
fact that he was trying to be controlling even in that courtroom and he basically presented his version of
00:40:51
events it just kept coming back to me what alice had said to me he doesn't know what the truth is
00:40:57
and you know he was he was changing his story every time a little bit of different
00:41:03
evidence came up his story changed to try and accommodate that evidence and it was all
00:41:11
it's complete nonsense even at one point as he was describing alice bleeding to death on the bathroom
00:41:18
floor he turned to the public gallery in a moment i'll never forget looked alice's dad
00:41:24
straight in the eyes and said to him that it was a shame he couldn't protect
00:41:31
his daughter i mean he tried to claim that alice's dying words were that she hated her
00:41:40
sister which was just completely weird i i just don't i just don't understand how anyone could
00:41:50
be so evil and horrible within two hours dylan was convicted unanimously by the jury for the murder
00:42:00
of alice ruggles at her home in gateshead on the evening of october the 12th 2016.
00:42:09
i don't think the verdict really mattered to harry dylan what mattered to him was that he'd had
00:42:14
the stage he'd had two or three weeks when the whole world was focused on him which was
00:42:20
something that he loved [Music] truman harry dylan was sentenced to life in prison to serve a minimum of 22 years
00:42:31
a further 10-year tariff would have been added but the judge dismissed that the murder was premeditated because it
00:42:38
didn't appear that dylan had arrived at alice's apartment with a knife he has
00:42:43
been given you know the the sentence he deserved in law um but of course for us we have a a a life
00:42:52
sentence because um alice will never be back with us dylan appealed the sentencing decision
00:42:59
which was never brought before the court and finally abandoned since losing alice sue clive and their
00:43:09
family have set up the alice ruggles trust and dedicated their lives to raising the awareness of and putting an
00:43:16
end to stalking i feel that we've got to raise a generation in 10 or 15 years time when today's
00:43:25
teenagers tomorrow's young professionals and tomorrow's young society we need to
00:43:30
raise a generation for whom mention of the word stalking shocked and shocks people and we've got to bring
00:43:37
about that change the police later apologized admitting lessons have been learned everybody who
00:43:44
alice had asked for advice felt i could have made better advice i could have done this differently
00:43:49
and i think you know it is it's a sort of common grief reaction that you know i wish i had had done
00:43:56
things differently but i think for all of ours we could have done things differently
00:44:02
and if we'd spotted that stalking earlier could have kept alex alive and i think
00:44:07
you know you we're never gonna we're never gonna recover from that because
00:44:12
it would have made a difference truman harry dylan terrorized alice ruggles to fulfill his own twisted
00:44:20
misogynistic ego he believed he could have any woman he wanted and that women should worship him
00:44:28
and be flattered to receive his attention he took the life of alice ruggles because she had the audacity to
00:44:35
say no to him making truman harry dylan one of the world's most evil killers
00:44:43
[Music] [Music] you

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 95
    Most heartbreaking
  • 90
    Most shocking
  • 85
    Most intense
  • 85
    Most surprising

Episode Highlights

  • The Fatal Rejection
    Alice Ruggles rejected Harry Dylan, leading to a premeditated murder.
    “This was always going to be a murder.”
    @ 00m 41s
    August 10, 2022
  • The Intense Online Relationship
    Alice and Dylan's relationship began with a Facebook friend request while he was in Afghanistan.
    “Dylan saw this platform as a bit of a shopping catalog for new girlfriends.”
    @ 10m 45s
    August 10, 2022
  • Alice's Decline
    Alice's friends noticed changes in her behavior as Dylan's control intensified.
    “Alice started to become isolated from her friends.”
    @ 18m 15s
    August 10, 2022
  • The Final Straw
    Alice discovered Dylan's infidelity through another woman, leading her to end the relationship.
    “Alice didn't believe him; there had been too many lies.”
    @ 20m 54s
    August 10, 2022
  • Alice's Escape
    Alice moved out to regain control of her life, but Dylan was relentless.
    “Dylan starts bombarding her with phone calls.”
    @ 22m 30s
    August 10, 2022
  • Alice's Struggle with Dylan
    Alice faced relentless harassment from Dylan, leading her to block him and seek help.
    “He became the boyfriend who wouldn’t go away.”
    @ 23m 22s
    August 10, 2022
  • The Chilling Voicemail
    Dylan left a voicemail filled with veiled threats, alarming Alice about her safety.
    “He kept mentioning killing her.”
    @ 27m 03s
    August 10, 2022
  • Alice's Tragic End
    Alice was found dead in her apartment, leading to a police investigation.
    “Maxine knew exactly what had happened to Alice.”
    @ 33m 01s
    August 10, 2022
  • Dylan's Arrest and Trial
    Dylan was arrested and later convicted for Alice's murder, revealing his manipulative nature.
    “He was trying to be controlling even in that courtroom.”
    @ 40m 43s
    August 10, 2022
  • Family's Mission Against Stalking
    Alice's family established a trust to raise awareness about stalking after her death.
    “We’ve got to bring about that change.”
    @ 43m 37s
    August 10, 2022

Episode Quotes

  • I can't forget this, he's said, 'I always get what I want.'.
    World's Most Evil Killers - Season 6, Episode 3 - Trimaan Harry Dhillon - Full Episode
  • If he couldn't have her, nobody else could.
    World's Most Evil Killers - Season 6, Episode 3 - Trimaan Harry Dhillon - Full Episode
  • He is never ever gonna leave me alone.
    World's Most Evil Killers - Season 6, Episode 3 - Trimaan Harry Dhillon - Full Episode
  • He’s a psychopath.
    World's Most Evil Killers - Season 6, Episode 3 - Trimaan Harry Dhillon - Full Episode
  • This is really happening to me.
    World's Most Evil Killers - Season 6, Episode 3 - Trimaan Harry Dhillon - Full Episode
  • I just don’t understand how anyone could be so evil.
    World's Most Evil Killers - Season 6, Episode 3 - Trimaan Harry Dhillon - Full Episode

Key Moments

  • Alice's Last Day00:19
  • Premeditated Murder00:41
  • Online Connection02:25
  • Isolation Begins18:15
  • Final Breakup20:51
  • Chilling Voicemail27:02
  • Dylan's Arrest34:30
  • Trial and Conviction41:57

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown