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FRED DINENAGE: In November 1983, the village of Narborough in Leicestershire, England, was gripped with fear.
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The body of 15-year-old Lynda Mann had been found next to a quiet country path, but the police had few clues that could identify her killer.
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GEOFFREY WANSELL: He flashed her. He then dragged her into a bush. He raped her and ultimately strangled her.
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FRED DINENAGE: Over 2 and 1/2 years later, in July 1986, the killer struck again.
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Another 15-year-old girl from the nearby village of Enderby was raped and murdered just a mile away from Lynda.
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BHARAT PATEL: As soon as Dawn Ashworth happened, the police were fairly quickly convinced that the two
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murders were linked. It's heartbreaking really when you think that they can be snuffed out so easily and so
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callously by that. FRED DINENAGE: The killer was a local baker named Colin Pitchfork.
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Had it not been for a combination of science and luck, the man who brought terror to two villages
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may never have been caught. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: To this day, those communities in Leicestershire live with the ghosts of these crimes
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because the lives of Lynda and Dawn, these are lives that are unlived. So to have this horrible kind of shadow in the background
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is something that I think is ever-present. FRED DINENAGE: Sexual predator Colin Pitchfork had been exposed as one of the world's
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most evil killers. [THEME MUSIC] FRED DINENAGE: In January 1988, 27-year-old baker Colin
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Pitchfork pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of two schoolgirls in Leicestershire.
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He became the first man in Britain to be convicted on the basis of a revolutionary scientific innovation
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known as DNA fingerprinting. Pitchfork's first victim, 15-year-old Lynda Mann, was killed in the small village of Narborough
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in Leicestershire in November 1983. The murder left the community in fear, a feeling
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that local news reporter Bharat Patel remembers well. Lynda Mann's body was found here behind this fence.
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She may well have been using this path, which is a popular shortcut between the main Leicester
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to Coventry road ahead, and the village of Narborough to the right. BHARAT PATEL: I remember doing an interview with one
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of the policemen who said, well, it could be your daughter next because the killer is
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in our midst. And people started to suspect each other, their neighbors. And there was generally a very strained atmosphere
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both in Narborough, which was where the first murder was and then in Enderby. FRED DINENAGE: 15-year-old Dawn Ashworth
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was attacked by Pitchfork in July 1986, leaving a second community terrified. The police concentrated their inquiries very locally,
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and that, of course, led to an atmosphere of fear because people were sitting around in pubs thinking
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the murderer could be here. FRED DINENAGE: Local police Constable Neil Bunny was stunned when Pitchfork, a married father of two,
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finally confessed his crimes in detail to detectives in September 1987. To take your child in the back of the car
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and leave them in the car while he committed the first murder, it's just totally unbelievable.
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What kind of a person? You know, it's just a pure, pure evil. FRED DINENAGE: Just like his murders,
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this killer's story begins in a small Leicestershire village. Colin Pitchfork was born in Newbold Verdon in March 1960.
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ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He was the middle child, and he's often described himself as the black sheep
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of the family. He was one of those children who blended into the background. But that didn't match up to his self-deception.
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He thinks that he's something special. He really does have that sense of grandiosity and entitlement.
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He was a boy scout who became a scout leader. He was bright, ordinary. His parents were perfectly respectable.
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There was nothing to indicate in his childhood, not one, none of those classic indicators, whether it's
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cruelty to animals, arson, petty crime, nothing, not one single indicator of what he would go on to do.
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FRED DINENAGE: When he was a teenager, Pitchfork took up an apprenticeship and never looked back.
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GEOFFREY WANSELL: He left school at 16 and went to work in a bakery. And he stayed in that job for the next 11 years.
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FRED DINENAGE: The apparently upstanding young baker met his wife while volunteering for a children's
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charity in August 1979. But all was not what it seemed. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He wasn't what you might
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describe as a loyal husband. And indeed, when his wife was pregnant the first time,
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he certainly conducted an affair with an 18-year-old. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This is not a picture-perfect marriage.
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But what it does give is a veneer of respectability. It makes him appear to be quite average and quite harmless.
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FRED DINENAGE: As well as an extramarital affair, Pitchfork has begun a perverse pastime,
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flashing at young women. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: In relation to indecent exposure, Pitchfork had two arrests, one before his marriage, one after.
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Now, that suggests to me, that here's somebody who feels a real sense of entitlement
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to do what he wants. FRED DINENAGE: In spring 1983, 23-year-old Pitchfork was arrested and referred for psychiatric counseling,
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but the treatment didn't last long. GEOFFREY WANSELL: I suppose it was the attitude of the day.
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He was informed that it's not really very much to worry about. How many times have we heard that?
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How many times have we listened to stories about men who go on to commit terrible crimes being told, well, it's nothing
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to worry about, it'll be fine, you're no longer a danger to society? It is a terrifying thought.
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ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He thinks that women are there for men. He thinks they are there to be subservient.
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They are there to be docile and compliant. So when he starts offending, those initial offenses,
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that indecent exposure, that is a real opportunity to intervene here. And it's a shame that that was missed.
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FRED DINENAGE: In late 1983, Colin Pitchfork and his wife were living in the Leicestershire village
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of Littlethorpe. On the 21st of November, just half a mile away in Narborough, 15-year-old Lynda Mann was reported missing at 11:00 PM.
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The schoolgirl had failed to return home after a babysitting job. NEIL BUNNEY: Lynda Mann's, unfortunately,
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just a young early teens girl living a normal life, and she was returning home to her house in Narborough
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along a place called Black Pad. In the early hours of the following day, she was discovered, and obviously, the murder
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was reported. FRED DINENAGE: Lynda's body had been hidden behind a bush just off the quiet country pathway.
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Lynda Mann was a very bright girl. She had lots of prospects. I know it's a cliche and people talk like this
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as soon as somebody dies, but there were lots of people saying she was bright, bubbly, really nice.
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You know, again, these things always happen to the people who are least deserving.
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And she was as least deserving as anybody you could find. GEOFFREY WANSELL: A police investigation is launched,
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but there's no witnesses. Nobody happened to be walking along that path at that particular time.
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It's quite dense. FRED DINENAGE: The forensic examination revealed that 15-year-old Lynda had been
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raped before being murdered. It seems that Lynda was attacked, sexually assaulted,
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and then strangled with her scarf, and that's how she was found. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: On Lynda's body,
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the police found some semen. And running the tests that were available to them at the time, which were pretty basic,
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it showed them that the blood type of the person who had given this sample of semen was around about 10%
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of the male population. So this was nowhere near narrow enough to actually identify an individual.
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So I think this shows, at this time, how kind of unsophisticated the forensic techniques were
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in terms of investigating murders. FRED DINENAGE: Lynda's attack shocked the local community.
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The police were determined to bring a swift conclusion to the case. NEIL BUNNEY: When this kind of tragedy hits your area,
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the police are not just intent on doing their job, they're intent on solving that incident
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and bringing justice and justice to the families. Policemen work the streets to keep a community secure.
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If you have somebody who's killing in your area on your watch, you feel you're not doing your job.
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FRED DINENAGE: But with minimal evidence and zero witnesses, the search for Lynda's attacker would
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be far from straightforward. Local news reporter Bharat Patel went to Narborough
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looking for answers. He visited the Mann family home. BHARAT PATEL: I recall knocking on her parent's door,
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and her mum answered, and she was in a huge state of shock. Something I can only now grasp as a parent.
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But at the time, I was very young, and I said to her, look, you don't need to speak to us, but it might help for somebody
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to come forward, which is the usual sort of journalistic trope. I feel sort of vaguely guilty about using it,
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but I remember she said, much to my surprise, come in. What sort of a girl was Lynda?
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She was very quiet. She loved-- she did a lot of homework studying for her GCSEs and O-levels.
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She babysat for the local people with the children. She loved all the children. And she was just a happy teenager.
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She loved music and danced. And she just-- she was happy. BHARAT PATEL: Lynda's mother has this message
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for her daughter's killer. I would just like to tell him to get himself caught as soon as he can.
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Just give himself up. FRED DINENAGE: Although she didn't know it at the time, the killer, who Kath Eastwood was appealing to,
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lived just under a mile away from the site of her daughter's murder. 23-year-old Colin Pitchfork had approached Lynda Mann
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on the 21st of November 1983. The known flasher had taken his perversion a deadly step
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further. Now he exposes himself to her, but not only does he do that, he forces her off the path
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into a nearby field. He forces her to strip naked below the waist. He rapes her, and he strangles her.
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This must have been an absolutely terrifying experience for this victim. And this marks a real gear change
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in Pitchfork's offending. FRED DINENAGE: Pitchfork had dropped his wife off at an evening class just prior to killing Lynda.
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And chillingly his three-month-old son had come along for the ride. BHARAT PATEL: He parked the car, left the baby in the car,
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committed the murder, came back to the car, took the baby home. And that really shows you the cold face of a killer
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because it's difficult to imagine. It really is difficult to imagine that your baby
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is yards away from you as you're committing this horrendous act. Now, this seems utterly incredulous to anybody who's
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a parent that they would leave their child in this way and that they would leave their child to go and commit
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a horrendous offense like this. But Colin Pitchfork does not think and feel like the rest of us do.
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He is very much following his own wants, his own desires. He is his priority. Most parents put their children's
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well-being ahead of their own. Pitchfork doesn't do that. It's very much about him and getting what he wants.
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FRED DINENAGE: Colin Pitchfork had taken a life for the first time. But the local police were no nearer to learning the identity
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of Lynda Mann's killer. They have no firm leads whatsoever. It becomes literally a mystery and a terrifying one too.
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Knowing a 15-year-old girl has lost her life in a leafy English village in the County of Leicestershire
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is tragic. No one who lives in Leicestershire village should expect when they're cycling one day to come
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across the body of a young woman who has been strangled to death. It's almost like a television drama rather than real life.
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FRED DINENAGE: The police turn to the terrified community for assistance. Very quickly, it became apparent people were really,
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really scared because the police were trying to get people to talk, trying to get
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witnesses to come forward. So they were saying things like we think the killer is
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in your midst, and it could be your daughter next, so please help us. FRED DINENAGE: Bharat took to the streets
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to interview local residents. I think young ladies should be very scared because we haven't found him.
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So we don't really know what's happening at all. Yes, I've made an extra point of keeping my back door locked
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now whenever I'm in on my own. Well, any time, really, just in case. You know, just to be on the safe side.
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People started taking self-defense classes. And I remember lots and lots of women signed up.
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And I remember the men saying to their wives don't go out on your own and to their daughters,
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and only go out when it's light and stick to the main road, and try to be accompanied by somebody.
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This was generally a village that was very quiet, nothing ever happened there, and suddenly, it was
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hit by this massive tragedy. FRED DINENAGE: While the investigation continued, Colin Pitchfork laid low for almost two years.
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In October 1985, Pitchfork attacks a girl again. This is not flashing. This is a genuine attack.
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He threatens her with a screwdriver, and he performs oral rape on her, and all the time, he's threatening her with a knife.
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Now, there are quite a few elements of this attack which are interesting. He has a screwdriver on him.
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He has a knife on him. He's out and about at 10:30 at night, you know, despite the fact that he's a husband and a father.
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So this suggests to me that he is stalking. He's actually going out there and following women
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and looking for victims and prowling around. So this is somebody who was planning an attack.
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And unfortunately, this girl is the one who ends up falling into his net. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Now, is he building up to killing again?
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That's what that would indicate to me. He isn't arrested or nothing like that for that attack.
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And so I suppose, and it would certainly be reasonable to expect that he thought
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he'd got away with it again. FRED DINENAGE: In January 1986, Pitchfork became a father for the second time.
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It had been over two years since the murder of Lynda Mann, and the police were no closer to catching the elusive killer.
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And so to some extent, the investigation of Lynda's death goes cold. It drops away.
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There's nothing to hold onto. It did instill a sense of fear. And as the investigation was getting further and further
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along and nothing coming from it, it was that sense of frustration from the team
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that they weren't getting a result, and obviously, a sense of trepidation from the public
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that still nobody had been held to answer. And then, unfortunately, the second murder occurred.
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FRED DINENAGE: On the 31st of July 1986, Pitchfork killed for a second time, less than half a mile
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from where he murdered Lynda Mann over 2 and 1/2 years previously. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He attacks a 15-year-old schoolgirl called
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Dawn Ashworth who is walking in another fairly secluded part of that bit of Leicestershire, Ten Pound Lane.
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He is walking behind her. And I think any woman can identify with that feeling of having somebody walking behind you
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and feeling incredibly uncomfortable. He then jogs past her. And I think at this time, Dawn was
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probably actually quite apprehensive as to what was going on. But when he gets ahead of her, there's probably a sense
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in which she's quite relieved. It's just a guy who's on his way somewhere. But then he turns around, and he exposes himself to her.
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And I think that horrible kind of dreaded realization then sinks into her that this is not a relief.
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This is something very serious. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He flashes at her, but he doesn't stop there.
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This time he goes further again and launches a full-scale attack on her. He rapes her, but she fights back.
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But sadly, she pays with her life. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He strangles her in a very similar way
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to the way in which he killed Lynda, so he's got his offending down to a T here.
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He knows that this works. He gets pleasure from it. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Unlike Lynda, he
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actually goes to some trouble. He puts Dawn's body in a bed of stinging nettles and covers it with a log which means
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that she isn't found at once. FRED DINENAGE: Two days later, on the 2nd of August,
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a dog handler searching for Dawn Ashworth found her body in a field just off Ten Pound Lane.
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The 15-year-old had been walking home to the village of Enderby after visiting a friend.
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ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This is a very familiar story. These are the kinds of victims that Colin Pitchfork targets.
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These girls are familiar with the area. They feel comfortable in the area. It feels like it's a safe place for them,
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and he completely violates that. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Again, a crime committed in a village in Leicestershire.
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A 15-year-old girl has lost her life, had her body treated like rubbish. It's such an extraordinary contrast.
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Beautiful countryside, a dreadful ugly murder. What an extraordinary juxtaposition.
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FRED DINENAGE: Two murders, three years, and less than a mile apart. The police would soon link the killings.
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But it would take a new groundbreaking scientific development to finally bring Colin Pitchfork to justice.
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The second rape and murder of a schoolgirl in the area in less than three years have devastated the local police.
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NEIL BUNNEY: It's heartbreaking really when you think that they can be snuffed out so easily and so
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callously like that. FRED DINENAGE: Dawn's murder was eerily similar to that of 15-year-old Lynda Mann near the Black Pad
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in November 1983. It was only a mile away. And there was a complete carbon copy of what had happened.
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The same sort of fear. The same sort of suspicion. The same sort of could it be that person sitting
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over there having a drink? Could it be my next-door neighbor? Could it be the chap across the road?
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And of course, these things aren't pleasant to live with, and I think people found it very difficult.
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Well, this time, it's again a police investigation, but now we have a prior to go back to.
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We have Lynda three years earlier, and we have Dawn. Very similar locations, paths, woodland, very similar attacks.
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Both women are strangled. Both have clearly been raped. Now we have what looks like a modus operandi.
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FRED DINENAGE: The police were soon convinced they had a double murderer living in the local area.
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As soon as Dawn Ashworth happened, it became very clear that the two murders could be linked.
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And the police were fairly quickly convinced that the two murders were linked. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She was naked from the waist down,
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and she'd been strangled, and there was some semen on her body. So you've got another similarity there with the murder of Lynda.
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You've got that semen on the body. But in terms of the testing that's available to police at this point in time,
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there's very little that they can actually do with that evidence. FRED DINENAGE: Police Constable Neil Bunney
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worked on both Lynda Mann's and Dawn Ashworth's murder investigations. He was determined to catch the killer.
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My own personal feeling was we got the same person who done it again. It was a repeat murder.
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And then I started to think we've got to solve this. We've got to solve this for the people
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of Enderby and Narborough. We've got to solve this for the two girls' families. I got to solve this for my peace of mind.
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At that time, I had got two young daughters. At the end, it was going to be a lengthy inquiry once again.
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FRED DINENAGE: This part of the investigation into the latest murder, Neil was charged with questioning residents
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in the neighboring village. NEIL BUNNEY: When we were doing the house-to-house inquiries
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for the Dawn Ashworth, it was being extended further out. And one of the villages that were involved is Littlethorpe.
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Now one of the houses that we went to was the home of Colin Pitchfork. His wife answered the door.
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She seemed a perfectly normal lady. We explained who we were. She went into the house, invited us in to sit down.
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It was quite a while before Pitchfork came into the room. FRED DINENAGE: Neil had no reason to suspect that he just
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entered the home of a double murderer even in spite of Pitchfork's demeanor. When he came in, he sat down.
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He wasn't nervous. He gave me a bit of the creeps really, strange feeling you had.
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There's just something about him that you wouldn't make him a friend. Well, I wouldn't make him a friend.
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He wouldn't be somebody I'd want to be mixed with. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When most of us
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hurt somebody or make somebody feel bad, we get that guilt feeling out of that. We feel remorseful.
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We feel terrible. It affects our ability to actually carry on about our day. Now the fact that Pitchfork is able to compartmentalize
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in this way, shows me that this is quite a significant psychopathic trait. He's somebody who doesn't feel bad about hurting other people.
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FRED DINENAGE: Neil questioned Pitchfork on his whereabouts on the night of Dawn Ashworth's murder.
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NEIL BUNNEY: He came up with a story that he was been alone. His wife's working late.
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And again, he couldn't be alibied out of it, so we did a further send back into the system
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for a further visit by the CID. FRED DINENAGE: But detectives working on the case
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were already looking at another suspect, 17-year-old local Richard Buckland. NEIL BUNNEY: Buckland was a young lad
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who appeared a couple of times where we had a mobile incident room. And he always used to hang around that area talking
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to the policemen who were in the vehicle, asking how the investigation was going.
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FRED DINENAGE: Richard's questionable background and fascination with the case led police to arrest
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him on the 8th of August. Richard Buckland had a string of convictions for minor sexual issues of all sorts.
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And so he came under the radar very quickly. The police picked him up, and much to their surprise,
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he confessed straightaway to one of the murders. But he said he'd only committed the one.
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GEOFFREY WANSELL: Buckland confesses to killing Dawn but not to killing Lynda. Well, I think had I been the senior investigating officer
00:27:07
on the case, I might have been tempted to take that with something approaching a pinch of salt. He was only 17
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at the time of Dawn's killing. He would have only been 14 at the time of Lynda's.
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FRED DINENAGE: But the police were convinced they had captured the killer. Richard Buckland was charged with both murders on
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the strength of his confession. This seems to be something that's incredulous. Not many of us kind of comprehend
00:27:37
why somebody would admit to a killing that they hadn't done. But I think there's a sense of drama around murder.
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There's a sense of a kind of status around the character of the murderer. And there's also a sense in which there are some people who
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when they are in front of a police officer, a person in authority, they want to people-please.
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They want to be helpful. They want to make the police's lives easier. So they will spin a narrative that follows that trajectory.
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FRED DINENAGE: While Richard Buckland was in custody, pioneering technology was being developed
00:28:15
just seven miles away. By one of the great ironies of this extraordinary story, at the local University of Leicester,
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there was research going on into what was known as genetic fingerprinting, the early stages of DNA analysis by a talented research
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scientist Dr. Alec Jeffreys, who was trying to work out if there was a way in which you could match
00:28:43
an individual to their genetics in the same way as you could match an individual from their fingerprints.
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FRED DINENAGE: For three months, Richard Buckland remained in custody until the newly discovered science
00:28:57
was introduced to the police. When Richard Buckland was tested, his DNA testing,
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it categorically 150% proved he was innocent of those two girls' deaths. They found the DNA on Dawn did not match Richard Buckland,
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but it did match the semen found on Lynda. So one theory is disproved. It wasn't Richard Buckland.
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But the other theory is proved that it's the same man. FRED DINENAGE: Leicestershire police made the decision
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to adopt the scientific breakthrough into their double murder investigation. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Detective Chief Superintendent David
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Baker, who's leading the inquiry, decided that the only thing he could do given the fact that he now had at least a bit of evidence
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that he would test the DNA of all the males between 13 and 30 in the three Leicestershire villages nearby.
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It was the first time in this country that a mass DNA test had been taken place.
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And it was in many ways remarkable. FRED DINENAGE: Over 5,000 men across Narborough, Enderby, and Littlethorpe
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were invited to provide a blood sample to rule them out of the investigation. As was the case with thousands of men in this local area,
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Colin Pitchfork received a letter inviting him to go and take a DNA test, and he just ignored it.
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GEOFFREY WANSELL: Colin Pitchfork is not a fool. He realizes that before long, someone
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is going to come knocking on his door and ask him for a DNA sample. But he also knows that he is guilty of killing
00:30:58
both Lynda and Dawn. What is he to do? Well, he tries to get somebody else to take the DNA test for him.
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FRED DINENAGE: Pitchfork lied to his bakery co-workers in an attempt to escape the blood test
00:31:14
that would reveal his guilt. He's explained this in terms of he'd already taken the test to protect somebody else,
00:31:22
so he's presenting himself as this helpful guy who's really helped out a mate, and now he needs
00:31:28
somebody else to help him out. Eventually, he found a colleague at the bakery where he worked, Ian Kelly,
00:31:35
who is prepared to go in. And I think he paid him a couple of 100 pounds. And they doctored the passport photograph
00:31:43
so that Kelly's photograph replaced Pitchfork's photograph. He went in. The test was done.
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Colin Pitchfork's name was marked off, and he was cleared because obviously, Ian Kelly was innocent.
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FRED DINENAGE: By early 1987, 27-year-old Colin Pitchfork was seemingly invincible.
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His fake DNA test had enabled him to escape justice for the murder of two 15-year-old schoolgirls.
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The police were still no closer to catching the killer. GEOFFREY WANSELL: What's gone wrong?
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As far as the police know, no one's refused the test, or at least, no one's refused it without a perfectly good acceptable explanation.
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What's happened? Yet again, the investigation seems to have hit a dead end. Six months pass until one night in the pub,
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Ian Kelly brags to a few mates, clearly after having had a drink or two, that he'd actually
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taken a test for somebody else. FRED DINENAGE: But Kelly had been overheard by a concerned
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local, and she decided she should make the information known to the police. NEIL BUNNEY: I've been in the pub.
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I've heard this spoken about. Colin Pitchfork hasn't given a specimen. Which was then handed straight to the major inquiry team,
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and Bob's your uncle, he's finally caught. FRED DINENAGE: On the 19th of September 1987,
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Colin Pitchfork was arrested. He became the 4,583rd male to be blood tested. He would also be the last.
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The police had found their killer. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Pitchfork really doesn't deny it.
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He confesses almost at once because, in every way, he's bang to rights. He knows perfectly well that his semen
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will match the semen found at the scene of Dawn and of Lynda. He also knows perfectly well that Ian Kelly
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did take the DNA test for him. FRED DINENAGE: Pitchfork was charged with both murders, as
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well as an assault in October 1985, and various other charges that were discovered during his interrogation by detectives.
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Colin Pitchfork's confession was really a story. It was his sanitized version of these murders.
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And some of the claims that he made were absolutely incredulous. He claimed that the victims had removed their own underwear.
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So he's trying to say something about the kind of women his victims were. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He gives them what you might
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describe as the highlights. Yes, yes, I flashed at them, but I flashed at 1,000 girls
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over the years. Yes, yes, I'm a flasher. But the only reason I killed these two women is
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because they reacted so badly. It wasn't that I went out to deliberately kill them.
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ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He's saying, well, I killed them because I had to kill them because they
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would have identified me. And in placing focus on the victim, he's removing the focus from himself.
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And this is a tactic that we see in a lot of killers. It's a diversionary tactic.
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Don't look at me. Look at them. FRED DINENAGE: A court date was set for January 1988.
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Pitchfork's defense barrister David Farrer already had prior knowledge of the investigation.
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Strangely, my first contact with the case was a phone call, which told me that I had been instructed
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to prosecute the young man called Buckland, who was initially charged following what looked like a confession to one of the two murders.
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And then some quite substantial time later, to my surprise, the brief for the defendant Mr. Pitchfork arrived at my desk.
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So I finished up by not prosecuting the guy who didn't do it and defending the one who did.
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FRED DINENAGE: David met with Pitchfork while he was on remand. He came across as rather cold.
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One might instinctively draw that impression from somebody admitting to murders of this kind.
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But I think also the fact was that I'm pretty sure his main interest was getting
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the whole thing over with. He knew perfectly well that there were pretty strict limits
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to anything that any lawyer could do for him at that stage. So he certainly, he wasn't a client
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you could really engage with in any sense. FRED DINENAGE: The 27-year-old killer made no attempt to deny
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the charges he was facing. NEIL BUNNEY: It was a remarkably lengthy and very full
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confession, that I do remember. I don't recall him ever seeking to explain it away.
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I mean, in a sense, how could you? He was playing more to the image of the family man
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with two kids. He was actually confessing to the murder of two young women, both 15-year-olds,
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remember, not women in their 20s. These were young women who barely had a chance to begin their lives,
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and he'd snuffed both life out. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: And we have to be very cautious when
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an offender starts to spill the beans because this is their version of events. At this point, they are able to control the narrative.
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The victims have been silenced, so we need to look very carefully at the evidence
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that's left behind because that is how the victims speak to us. FRED DINENAGE: As the court case neared,
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David struggled to justify a defense for the killer. The only issue, as far as I recall that ever really arose
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from our point of view, was whether it might be possible to show there was some mental abnormality, which
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might enable us to give a defense of diminished responsibility a run. But it became pretty clear that was not the case
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because they were both quite carefully planned murders. And when you add to that the very sophisticated way in which
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he evaded the screening by setting up another man with a really quite skillfully forged passport
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photograph, it didn't fit with somebody who was so completely out of control. FRED DINENAGE: On the 22nd of January 1988,
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Pitchfork was in the dock at Leicester Crown Court. Colin Pitchfork pleads guilty to both murders,
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which would appear to be quite a strange thing to do. But actually, it's a useful thing because it
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prevents a trial going ahead. It enables him control of the narrative. It stops any details about these murders coming out
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that he doesn't want out there in the public domain because he's a narcissist. He's really concerned about what other people think of him.
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He receives two life sentences for the murders, and he's also sentenced for sexual assault
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and for the conspiracy around the DNA test. BHARAT PATEL: And what was ironic was that DNA
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fingerprinting had been used to try and eliminate people or catch the killer, and when the trial came,
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he pleaded guilty, so they didn't need to use the DNA evidence. So in the first case, which is famous for DNA,
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the DNA was never actually technically used in the trial to convict him although it led to everything
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that led to his conviction. FRED DINENAGE: Pitchfork was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison.
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It was welcome news to the local community. NEIL BUNNEY: When we finally heard that it was Pitchfork who
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had committed both murders, you have a sense of real relief that justice had been finally done for the families
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was the overwhelming feeling. Oh, it was an immense sense of relief. You could sense it as soon as you went into the village.
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There was a sort of spring in people's steps. They weren't sort of walking around like this.
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You could actually see it. FRED DINENAGE: Over 20 years later, in 2009, Colin Pitchfork was back in front of a judge,
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hoping to be freed sooner than his sentence recommended. NEIL BUNNEY: When I heard that Pitchfork had appealed
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against his sentence, I thought how can a person appeal when not only have you confessed to two horrific murders,
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but you know that you've committed these horrific murders, and you've only been given
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a nominal sentence of life? How can you appeal your sentence when you know you've been
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so evil and done such wrongs? I was angry. FRED DINENAGE: During his time behind bars,
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the killer had been transcribing printed music into Braille format, which reflected favorably on him.
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Well, in recognition of his exemplary behavior in prison, his sentence of minimum term of 30 years
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was reduced to a minimum term of 28 years. It still didn't make release imminent,
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but nevertheless, I suppose, you could call it a small victory for Pitchfork. FRED DINENAGE: Colin Pitchfork's successful appeal means he
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is now applicable for release. He's applied for parole several times. In 2018, he applied, and it was blocked.
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He's applied again more recently, and I think it's quite likely that he will be paroled.
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But I think we should be incredibly careful before a decision like that is made.
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Has he addressed those underlying values that drive his offending? What are his views of women of who they
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are, how they should behave? That is the kind of question I'd be asking. FRED DINENAGE: Colin Pitchfork killed two schoolgirls
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and brought misery to the lives of many others across Leicestershire. If it had not been for good fortune and great science,
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he may never have been caught. This is a killer who would still be walking around
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were it not be for DNA fingerprinting. DNA fingerprinting really came to the fore
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here in Leicestershire, of all places. And this, of course, has led to the conviction
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of literally millions of people across the world. NEIL BUNNEY: We had to succeed for the families
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of Dawn and Lynda, and fortunately we managed it. But it was DNA that clinched it at that time.
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I'm sure we would have got him in the end. But would it have involved somebody else's death?
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FRED DINENAGE: Pitchfork was a sexual predator targeting vulnerable girls who felt safe in the surrounding
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of their peaceful villages. To ensure their silence, he killed a pair of 15-year-olds for whom life was just beginning
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and manipulated others to cover up his guilt. The shadow he cast over his community will always
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ensure that Colin Pitchfork is remembered as one of the world's most evil killers.
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