00:00:05
- MALE NARRATOR:
23rd of October, 1983, Dore, South Yorkshire, England,
Basil Laitner, his wife, Avril,
00:00:13
and their children, Richard
and Nicola, had settled in for the night. They'd been hosting their
eldest daughter's wedding
00:00:20
earlier that day. Unbeknownst to them,
a stranger armed with a knife had broken into their house.
00:00:29
- GEOFFREY: He creeps up
the stairs and mistakenly thinks that Nicola is in
the room with the
00:00:34
bridesmaid's dress on the door
and goes in. He discovers that it's not
Nicola, it's Richard.
00:00:42
He wastes no time in killing
Richard Laitner with a series of vicious knife wounds.
00:00:49
- NARRATOR: The deadly
commotion woke father Basil who went to investigate,
he too was stabbed to death.
00:00:57
The killer was 42-year-old
Arthur Hutchinson, a violent criminal and rapist who was
on the run from the police.
00:01:05
After murdering Basil
and Richard he made his way to mother Avril's bedroom,
where he stabbed her
00:01:11
repeatedly. - ELIZABETH: She had
26 marks of violence on her body, it was much more
violence than he needed
00:01:19
to actually end her life. - NARRATOR: The killer then
made his way to 18-year-old Nicola's bedroom,
he raped the teenager
00:01:27
multiple times before going
on the run once again. - ALAN: You'd had this
very happy occasion,
00:01:33
this big family wedding,
and then 12 hours later the world's being turned on its
head and poor Nicky Laitner,
00:01:39
her life changed forever. - NARRATOR: His history
of violence culminated in an unthinkable attack,
a sadistic rape of an
00:01:48
18-year-old girl, having just
murdered her parents and elder brother in cold blood.
00:01:55
This makes Arthur Hutchinson
one of the world's most evil killers. - ♪ - NARRATOR: On the morning
of October the 24th, 1983
00:02:24
workmen made their way
to Basil Laitner's house to dismantle the marquee
in the garden, they made
00:02:31
a startling discovery. - MICHAEL: They found Nicola
in a most dreadful state, totally traumatized.
00:02:40
They call the police and they
realize the horrific nature of the crime. The major incident team
were called out and I was
00:02:47
part of that. - He wreaked utter devastation
in a matter of minutes, he took out three prominent
members of the local
00:02:56
community and raped
a young woman. - NARRATOR: News of the
Wedding Day Massacre hit the headlines and spread
fear across the whole
00:03:05
of the nation. The killer, Arthur Hutchinson,
had been on the run for 26 days and quickly became
Britain's most wanted man.
00:03:15
- It's only a few years after
the arrest of Peter Sutcliffe for Yorkshire Ripper and you'd
seen a reign of terror.
00:03:22
People remembered very
quickly. And you've got a knifeman
on the loose, a man who's
00:03:27
been prepared to kill
three people in cold blood. So, very quickly, people
changing their patterns
00:03:32
of behavior and women
wouldn't go out at night unaccompanied. - NARRATOR: As fear gripped
the nation, the brazen killer
00:03:39
who had a history of violent
and sexual offenses, even taunted the police
whilst on the run
00:03:46
and gave himself the nickname
The Fox. - He wants to be recognized,
he wants infamy, he wants
00:03:58
to develop a brand, he wants
people to fear him. - He's sadistic, he's cruel,
he has no empathy for anyone.
00:04:16
- NARRATOR: This killer's
story begins on the 19th of February, 1941. Arthur Hutchinson was born
in Hartlepool in the
00:04:27
northeast of England. - GEOFFREY: Arthur
Hutchinson was born into an extraordinary family,
in fact it was two families
00:04:35
in the end. His mother Louise had a
husband called Cuthbert, with whom she had six
children, but they also had
00:04:44
a lodger called Arthur
Hutchinson, with whom Louise had two further children,
the first of which was
00:04:50
Arthur Hutchinson,
named after his father. - NARRATOR: Mother Louise
eventually set up home
00:04:56
with Arthur Hutchinson, senior. For their son, Arthur, growing
up wasn't easy. - His siblings didn't like him,
they made fun of him,
00:05:06
he was an illegitimate child
and they were legitimate children. So right from the word go,
he was an outsider,
00:05:13
he was excluded, he was
marginalized even within his own family. - NARRATOR: But young
Hutchinson was close
00:05:21
to his mother, and would
often seek comfort from her. - There's not a lot of doubt
in my mind that
00:05:27
Arthur Hutchinson was
Louise Reardon's favorite child. This was probably exacerbated
by the fact he caught
00:05:35
meningitis as a small boy
and would therefore have been extremely ill, it was a nasty
disease to catch
00:05:40
as a young child. And then he rode into
a lampost on his bicycle, fracturing his skull.
00:05:47
- And he was in a coma
for three days, he had quite a significant injury
to his head.
00:05:53
- And what happens in things
like head injuries, in some cases, it weakens
inhibitory controls
00:05:59
and then you act out more
impulsively than you might otherwise do. - I don't think that head
injury led him to become
00:06:07
a murderer, I think it might
be a factor in the background. Because we can see when
we study convicted killers
00:06:14
that there are higher rates
of traumatic brain injury in them than there are in
the general population,
00:06:20
but it's certainly not
a causative reason and it's not an excuse. - NARRATOR: At school,
Hutchinson struggled
00:06:27
academically and was often
teased by his five sisters. - That type of bullying,
and teasing, and humiliation
00:06:35
as a child stays with people,
and it harbors an enormous amount of anger. They just build up so much
resentment of people
00:06:44
that they want to get back at
who hurt them. - Hutchinson's anger with his
sisters, who were making
00:06:50
his life a misery, was to
display itself very forcefully at the age of seven, when he
stabbed one of them
00:06:56
with a pair of scissors. - NARRATOR: As he grew
older, Hutchinson became disruptive, and his behavior
towards the opposite sex
00:07:05
was disturbing. - From a very, very early age,
Hutchinson was interested in sex, and he took the most
00:07:13
profound interest in it. - At age 11, he finds himself
in juvenile court for indecent assault, now this is a
really, really serious crime
00:07:25
for an 11-year-old
to be committing. And these crimes do not
just emerge out of the blue,
00:07:30
there tends to be an
escalation of behavior. So this suggests to me
that you have a child here
00:07:35
who doesn't care about
harming other people. - He must have only just
hit puberty, but I think
00:07:42
the moment he did, every
kind of hormone in the young Hutchinson took off. - This is an opportunity
to intervene.
00:07:53
And for somebody to be
committing this serious an offense at this age
tells me that they are capable
00:07:58
of much, much worse. - NARRATOR: In his late teens,
he got involved in petty crime,
00:08:05
and would steal cars and
switch their license plates. - He was a classic case of
a bad lad gone worse,
00:08:13
you know, he started out
being a bit of a handful as a boy, graduated into
petty crime, got involved
00:08:19
with the police, and had an
unhealthy attitude towards women. - NARRATOR: Despite his
reputation as a bad boy,
00:08:25
he was popular with women. - He was obviously very
attractive, he lived in a comparatively small area,
his reputation must have
00:08:33
preceded him, but he was
one of those ultimate bad boys that girls want to
change.
00:08:38
- ALAN: I think Arthur's
attitude to women was that they all fancied him,
it was as simple as that.
00:08:43
He had this unquenchable
belief that women wanted to be with him,
wanted to be around him,
00:08:49
wanted to sleep with him. - NARRATOR: Throughout
his teens, Hutchinson had 19 appearances in front of
the magistrates, including
00:08:58
four charges of sexual
intercourse with girls under the age of 16. After leaving school,
Hutchinson joined the
00:09:06
National Coal Board as a
trainee miner. - He's soon sacked from
that job because he
00:09:11
breeches safety regulations. He's somebody who doesn't
respect rules, he doesn't think
they apply to him.
00:09:17
- He went into a number
of professions, he'd worked as a farm laborer,
he traveled with gypsies,
00:09:23
he worked with the circus. - These are jobs that involve
him kind of going off the grid,
00:09:29
they're not regular jobs,
and I think he's got that kind of proneness to boredom,
that need for stimulation.
00:09:36
- NARRATOR: Eventually
he did settle down, and in 1960, aged 18,
he married his neighbor
00:09:42
in Hartlepool, and they had
a child together. But Hutchinson quickly
went back to his thieving ways,
00:09:49
and he lost his job as
a milkman for stealing wages. - He was incorrigible,
whatever job he took,
00:09:56
he couldn't keep,
he wanted to break the law, that's the only thing he really
knew about.
00:10:01
- NARRATOR:
The marriage became strained and the couple split up. Not long after, he met a
teenager who quickly
00:10:07
became pregnant,
but again, this relationship didn't last either, and it
wouldn't be long before
00:10:14
Hutchinson's deviant desires
would surface. A year later, in 1963,
aged 22, he was jailed
00:10:22
for unlawful sexual intercourse
with an underaged girl. - There are no filters,
there are no boundaries,
00:10:28
there are no moral brakes
on his behavior that stand in his way. He's one of these people,
when he wants to do
00:10:35
something, he will simply
go and do it, when he wants to attain something,
he will go and take it.
00:10:41
This is somebody who is
potentially very, very dangerous. - NARRATOR: With the
charges now mounting
00:10:46
against sexual predator
Hutchinson, he showed no signs of stopping. The crimes he would go on
to commit would be more
00:10:54
violent and soon turn deadly. After his release from prison,
Hutchinson found work
00:11:02
in a chicken factory,
where he met his second wife. The couple married just
months later, and moved in
00:11:08
with his mother. - The second wife was only
16, and he was 27. She was rapidly pregnant,
and he beat her.
00:11:19
She once said anything could
provoke him no matter what. She also said that at one point,
she saw him knock his mother
00:11:27
halfway across the room
from her chair. - He felt that he was invincible
and that he could charm
00:11:32
his way to anybody,
and the other side of him, he was a very savage individual
and could turn very,
00:11:39
very quickly. He had this sort of split
personality that enabled him to get through his type
of life.
00:11:46
- This is a person who enjoys
controlling women, he enjoys having women look after him,
have a roof over his head
00:11:53
and dinner on the table,
and this marriage is one that is violent, it's one that's
abusive, his wife describes
00:12:00
how he was promiscuous
and controlling. - NARRATOR: Unsurprisingly
after just three years,
00:12:06
this marriage also failed. - The day he left her, he
beat her up in the street, knocked her to the ground,
kicked her.
00:12:15
This was a man of violent
tendency. - This is a pattern of behavior
with him, this man is a parasite
00:12:22
who feeds off the women
in his life, gets what he wants, and then discards them.
00:12:27
- NARRATOR: Hutchinson's
appetite for sex continued, and in 1972, he was convicted
of unlawful sexual intercourse
00:12:36
and received another prison
sentence, this time for three
and a half years. By 1978, Hutchinson was
being investigated for
00:12:46
suspected Social Security
fraud. He was adamant that his
half-brother Dino had tipped
00:12:53
the authorities off. - He set off after his
half-brother with a sawn-off shotgun determined
to end his life.
00:13:02
Dino, thankfully, escaped,
and Hutchinson was caught and indeed imprisoned. - NARRATOR: Hutchinson
was sentenced to yet more
00:13:11
time behind bars, this time
a five-year sentence in Leeds Prison for attempted
murder and for carrying
00:13:18
a firearm. - Hutchinson is somebody
who loves being in control. Now, when he is sentenced
to a custodial term
00:13:28
that takes away a lot of his
power. I think he would be feeling
very resentful, he'd be
00:13:33
ruminating, he'd be fantasizing
about what he was going to do when he was eventually
released.
00:13:39
- NARRATOR: Alone with
his thoughts, Hutchinson's deviant sexual desires were
once again ignited.
00:13:46
He read in a newspaper about
a woman in the north of Selby who'd recently come into
money, she quickly became
00:13:53
his next target. - For some reason,
he became fixated on, became obsessed with. She was divorced, she had
a new boyfriend, she had
00:14:01
a lot of money, throughout
the course of his day, he's looking at different people
to see who he could get
00:14:06
over on, how he could go
about it. - And she moved to live
somewhere just north of Selby
00:14:13
in a bungalow right on the
edge of a field, and Hutchinson had read
this story and had made
00:14:20
drawings and sketches
of what this bungalow would be like in the back
of this paperback book.
00:14:25
And on his release from
Leeds Prison, he was allowed to take the book with him. - NARRATOR: In September,
1982, six months after
00:14:34
his release, Hutchinson
made his way to the woman's bungalow and broke in. He stole her checkbook
and attempted to withdraw
00:14:43
cash from a local bank,
but was refused. Penniless, he came up with
another plan.
00:14:50
- And he then decided that
he would follow this lady and present himself to her,
and she was bound to
00:14:56
fall for his charm and want
to marry him. He planned very, very
carefully, he set up a hideaway
00:15:03
in a field near to the bungalow,
watching the lady and her male friend. - He saw the woman in the
house making love to her
00:15:13
boyfriend, he waits for the
boyfriend to leave. - When the male friend left
on the second night,
00:15:20
he then presented himself
absolutely naked to this lady. - NARRATOR: Hutchinson
made his advances, which were
00:15:28
quickly rebuked by the
horrified woman. Unable to accept the rejection,
Hutchinson raped her.
00:15:35
- Hutchinson is a misogynist
and he feels entitled to use and abuse women. He hasn't had access
to women in the time
00:15:43
that he's been in custody,
so by the time his release comes around, he feels
entitled to go and take
00:15:50
what he wants. - There was a struggle,
and he was wearing a St. Christopher medal
on a chain around his neck,
00:15:57
and that was broken. The very sensible lady
advised him to take the medallion to a jeweler's shop
to be repaired, and he did that.
00:16:07
And of course the first thing
she did was to drive to the police station and report
the horrendous attack.
00:16:13
They dispatched police officers
and caught him just coming out of the jeweler's
and arrested him.
00:16:18
They took him back to
Selby Police Station and of course as he walked in,
there she was in the
00:16:24
entrance foyer, and there was
a huge battle with officers. - NARRATOR: Just months
after his release, Hutchinson
00:16:32
found himself back in
police custody. He was determined not to be
sent to prison for the rape,
00:16:38
and decided to take action. - Hutchinson is to have
appeared at Selby Magistrate's
00:16:44
Court, which is actually part
of the police station, they were joined, so he's
taken to it.
00:16:49
He persuades the two
officers to uncuff him because he wants to go
to the lavatory.
00:16:56
They make this mistake of
uncuffing him, he jumps through the window,
cutting himself in the process,
00:17:03
but then lands on a mesh
which is protected by barbed wire. He cuts his leg really seriously
on the barbed wire,
00:17:12
but doesn't stop, jumps over
the barbed wire onto the pavement, and sprints off.
00:17:21
- Here's a potentially
dangerous man, certainly somebody who should be
under lock and key,
00:17:25
pending investigations,
and he is now roaming Yorkshire free and
unfettered. Nobody knows quite where
he is, nobody has the first
00:17:33
clue of how to find him again,
and he goes to ground, he just disappears. - The police, not surprisingly,
launch a manhunt,
00:17:40
he's an extremely dangerous
prisoner. - NARRATOR: Hutchinson
lived rough for the next
00:17:45
three days. But with his leg badly cut,
on the 2nd of October, he decided to seek help.
00:17:52
- He made his way the 19
miles to Doncaster and was treated at
Doncaster Royal Infirmary.
00:17:59
- He's obviously disheveled,
he's been living on dandelion roots and whatever
he can forage for the last
00:18:05
three days, mud all over him
because he's had to crawl along gutters, his trousers
are ripped to shreds,
00:18:12
nobody in A&E thinks to say,
"Well, how did all this happen?" or if they did,
he had a very clever way
00:18:19
of describing it. - NARRATOR: Unaware
that he was a wanted man, medical staff tended to his
wound.
00:18:26
- And they treated it,
dressed it, and gave him certain instructions that the
dressing needs changing,
00:18:32
and you need antibiotics,
you need to come back. - NARRATOR: Hutchinson
returned to the hospital
00:18:38
two days later before going
on the run again. During this time, he committed
a number of burglaries
00:18:45
to obtain cash. - Nobody has a clue where
to find him, and he's been on the run for about
three and a half weeks
00:18:52
before he finally washes up
in Sheffield in Dore, a suburb just to the south
of the city center.
00:18:57
He would have been getting
a bit desperate by this point. He's been living, almost
literally, in hedge bottoms.
00:19:03
He's chanced upon this
wedding party in this prosperous part of Sheffield, a
large, expensive-looking house,
00:19:09
marquee tacked on the side. - NARRATOR: The owners
of the house were hosting a wedding reception for their
eldest daughter.
00:19:17
Hutchinson crept onto the
grounds of the property and hid. - The house is owned by
a local solicitor,
00:19:25
59-year-old Basil Laitner,
along with his wife who is 55, Avril,
she's a doctor.
00:19:30
Also attending the wedding
is their son, Richard, who's 28, and their younger
daughter, Nicola, who is 18
00:19:38
and is a bridesmaid
at the event. - NARRATOR: Over 200 guests
gathered on the 23rd of October to help
celebrate what should
00:19:47
have been one of the
happiest days of their life. - A lavish affair in Sheffield,
a lot of champagne,
00:19:53
a lot of food, and a very,
very happy day. Sort of draws to a close,
it gets past seven,
00:19:58
or thereabouts,
it's getting dark. Hutchinson is still hiding
in the garden. Bride and groom depart
for a local hotel.
00:20:07
Basil, Avril, and their son,
Richard, depart for dinner with a relative not far away,
but Nicola decides to stay.
00:20:16
- And at that time, unknown
to everyone, of course, Hutchinson had made his
way into the back garden
00:20:24
of the house, and had been
observing what had taken place. And he stayed like that,
in that area, for quite
00:20:31
some time because the family
had returned home, probably about 11 o'clock,
and then they retired to bed.
00:20:40
- NARRATOR: Under the cover
of darkness, Hutchinson broke into the Laitners' house.
00:20:45
Armed with a knife,
he was about to carry out the next stage in his
sadistic plan.
00:20:52
- The motivation was sexual
in this case. And in this particular case,
he saw the young girl,
00:20:59
he became fixated on her,
like he has done before, and his goal was to rape her.
00:21:05
- Hutchinson creeps up
the stairs and mistakenly thinks that Nicola is in the
room with the bridesmaid's dress
00:21:11
on the door and goes in. He discovers that it's not
Nicola, it's Richard. - And Richard's out of bed
in a flash and fights back,
00:21:23
but Hutchinson has the knife,
so he prevails. - NARRATOR: Richard was
stabbed multiple times
00:21:30
in the chest, the impact
was so brutal that one stab wound cut through
four of his ribs.
00:21:38
The commotion woke
the rest of the family. - Mr. Laitner had obviously
gone to investigate,
00:21:44
their bedroom was on
the ground floor and the guest bedrooms
were upstairs. And he was actually
climbing up the stairs
00:21:51
when he was attacked. - GEOFFREY: Now you have
Hutchinson who has already killed Richard, stabs Basil
in the throat twice,
00:22:00
killing him, and he stabs him
again in the back. Now he's only got two women
in the house, and he knows it.
00:22:08
- Mrs. Laitner, hearing some
noise, went out of her bedroom on the ground floor,
and Hutchinson went down
00:22:15
the stairs again
and attacked her. She tried to put her hands
out to stop the assault
00:22:20
on her and then grabbed
hold of the knife, it was a huge knife, probably one
of the biggest bowie knives
00:22:25
I've ever seen. - NARRATOR: Again
Hutchinson overpowered his victim and killed her.
00:22:33
- There were three dead
bodies in this house, in Dore in Sheffield, and one
terrified 18-year-old.
00:22:40
- You can't really imagine
how it must have been in that house for those
awful, awful few minutes.
00:22:47
And within a few minutes,
both Nicky's parents are dead too. She's the last person alive
in that house.
00:22:55
- NARRATOR: The merciless
killer then made his way up the stairs once again. - He sets his sights on Nicola,
she was what he wanted
00:23:03
to get to, essentially. He went into her bedroom,
he put the light on, he threatened to kill her if she
didn't do what he wanted
00:23:12
her to do. He marched her out
to the marquee in the garden, where the family had been
celebrating a wedding
00:23:19
earlier on that day,
and he raped her. - Hutchinson takes her
back upstairs again,
00:23:25
past the body of Basil,
back into the bedroom, where he proceeds to rape her
not once more, but twice more.
00:23:33
- NARRATOR: With her family
lying dead around her, Nicola's survival instincts
kicked in.
00:23:40
- She pretended to enjoy it
when Hutchinson was raping her. Hutchinson was an incredibly
narcissistic individual.
00:23:47
I think Nicola's behavior
towards him and the performance that she was
able to put on kind of
00:23:53
pacified him a little bit,
validated him, and actually saved her own life. - NARRATOR: The heartless
killer showed no signs
00:24:01
of emotion towards the
deadly and bloody chaos he'd created. - After Hutchinson had
murdered the family,
00:24:09
after he'd raped Nicola,
he went and drank some of the family's champagne
and ate some of their cheese.
00:24:15
Now, this appears to be
completely bizarre behavior, somebody's gone from
murder and rape one minute
00:24:22
to eating and drinking the
next, but Hutchinson is somebody who simply
follows his own wants
00:24:27
and his own desires. He's hungry and he's thirsty,
it is as simple as that. He is so unaffected by what
he's done.
00:24:36
- NARRATOR: It's almost
dawn, and for some mysterious reason he ties
Nicola up again, covers her
00:24:42
in the coverlet, there's blood
from his knee on her bedclothes, and says,
"Don't suffocate", and leaves.
00:24:50
- As the dawn broke,
he made good his escape and then went on the run. - NARRATOR: The following
day, workmen arrived
00:24:59
at the Laitners' house to
dismantle the marquee. - They realized something
was wrong, you know,
00:25:05
they could get no response,
went into the house, saw signs of disturbance,
came across the bodies.
00:25:12
- And then they discover
Nicola. Nicola is clearly traumatized,
I mean, it's been the most
00:25:19
terrible, terrible experience,
there can be nothing that could have prepared
any 18-year-old for that
00:25:24
sort of ordeal at the hands
of a monster. - NARRATOR:
The workmen call the police
00:25:31
and Michael Burdis was part
of the major incident team. 18-year-old Nicola Laitner
was now their key witness.
00:25:40
- She was extremely
traumatized. We assigned officers to work
with her, they produced
00:25:47
an artist's impression,
and we used a local artist, and he produced a picture. - NARRATOR: The police now
had a good idea
00:25:55
what the killer looked like. They just didn't know
who he was. - At this stage, no one had
actually joined the dots
00:26:02
between Selby and Sheffield. At this point, nobody was
saying the man who escaped
00:26:07
from Selby three and a half
weeks ago is the man who's committed these
murders. - NARRATOR: The police
set up an incident room
00:26:15
in the local village hall,
and forensic teams quickly set about trying to gather
any evidence that might
00:26:22
lead them to the killer. - We got probably 300
different people that we needed to identify to see
whether they had seen
00:26:31
or heard anything that might
have given us some clues as to who was responsible.
00:26:36
We discovered a champagne
bottle on the kitchen table, and on that bottle, we
discovered a palm print
00:26:46
and some fingerprints. And we were able to discover
a fairly large piece of cheese
00:26:52
in the refrigerator which had
bite marks in it, and we managed to get an impression
of the teeth
00:26:59
that had made them. - NARRATOR: News of the
murders hit the headlines, and the city of Sheffield
was gripped by fear.
00:27:07
- Not surprisingly, the people
of Yorkshire, and particularly those around Sheffield,
were devastated that
00:27:14
three people should be killed
on their doorstep in one night, on the evening
of a wedding.
00:27:21
The tremble that would have
gone through the whole community, it was literally
extraordinary.
00:27:25
And what's more,
the perpetrator has not been caught, there is a man
on the loose.
00:27:30
- NARRATOR: Two days
after the murder, the police had a major breakthrough
with the help of
00:27:35
Nicola Laitner's description
of the murderer. - We received a call from
North Yorkshire Police,
00:27:42
from Selby, to inform me
that they had experienced a man escaping from their
police station, and he'd been
00:27:50
arrested and charged
originally with a very serious case of rape. And it seemed to be the
same type of crime that had
00:27:58
occurred in our circumstances. And we were able to compare
the picture with a photograph
00:28:04
taken only a few weeks
earlier by Selby Police Station, and it was almost
a carbon copy,
00:28:09
it was an amazing likeness. We were able to get his
fingerprints from the North Yorkshire Police,
and our fingerprint experts
00:28:17
compared them and
immediately said, "This is the man." So, we knew within two days
that we were looking
00:28:25
for Arthur Hutchinson. - NARRATOR: Desperate
to catch their man, on the 27th of October,
four days after the attack,
00:28:34
the police took the unusual
steps of releasing information on their number one suspect
to the press.
00:28:41
- MAN: It was from Selby
Magistrate's Court a month ago that Arthur
Hutchinson escaped from
00:28:46
police custody. He got out through a
toilet window. Hutchinson, said to be a
physical fitness fanatic,
00:28:53
then climbed onto the roof
of a police van which was parked in the backyard,
climbed over a back wall,
00:28:58
and ran off. - It's a very rare event
that the police will actually name who they're looking for.
00:29:05
But on this event, we took
the decision that the public were at danger,
and at risk from this man
00:29:11
being at large in the
surrounding area. It was important we should
say to the public,
00:29:17
"Look out for this man,
but if you have seen him, keep away from him." - And those posters went up
everywhere, you know,
00:29:23
they made a big, big impact. - There was a major
front-page story in a Northeastern newspaper
which announced that
00:29:32
Arthur Hutchinson was our
number one suspect, and prime suspect, and that's
who we were looking for.
00:29:40
- NARRATOR: The terrified
public were keen to help the police with their search
for the killer.
00:29:46
- It also brought with it
additional problems. We had over 3,000 calls,
1,000 calls in the first day,
00:29:54
from members of the public
thinking that they'd seen him, and some of them probably had,
but a good number hadn't.
00:30:02
- NARRATOR: Hutchinson
had now fled nearly 40 miles away,
as far as Nottinghamshire.
00:30:08
His name and face was all
over the news, so on the 30th of October, he decided
to call The Yorkshire Post.
00:30:45
- He tried to put people
off the scent, in fact he'd been traveling a great deal
more than he let on
00:30:50
in the phone call with
The Yorkshire Post. - And in these calls, this is
just a narcissistic monologue,
00:30:56
this is all "me, me, me"
there is no mention whatsoever about his victims, if anything,
he's taken the victim role
00:31:02
for himself. - NARRATOR: Hutchinson
reveled in the media spotlight. - ALAN: He started writing
letters to The Yorkshire Post
00:31:13
taunting the police, that's
when he gave himself the ludicrous nickname
The Fox.
00:31:19
Because he could slip in
and out unseen, and the police couldn't catch him. And he boasted of having
been in and out of Doncaster
00:31:27
four times without being
caught. - LOUIS: When you look at
someone like Jack the Ripper,
00:31:32
for example, Jack the Ripper
didn't give himself the name, the media gave him the name.
00:31:37
But in this case, Hutchinson
gave himself the name, he's The Fox, he wants
to present himself in
00:31:43
a certain way to other people,
sly, cunning. - The police hired in
a behavioral psychologist,
00:31:51
and she put a finger on it
straight away and said, "This is a man bigging
himself up, this is about him,
00:31:57
"his reputation, and his
self image: the master criminal "that the police couldn't
possibly catch."
00:32:04
- The context is really
important here, only a few years prior to this, we'd seen
the conviction of the
00:32:09
Yorkshire Ripper, and we saw
the kind of celebrity status that was attached to
Peter Sutcliffe.
00:32:16
And I think Arthur Hutchinson
wanted a piece of that, he felt like he deserved
that kind of recognition.
00:32:21
- NARRATOR: Hutchinson
had now been on the run for six days since murdering
three members
00:32:26
of the same family. The police had deployed
all of their resources into finding him.
00:32:33
Nine forces joined in the hunt,
spotter planes and helicopters scanned the Peak District,
but there was no sign
00:32:40
of the deadly fugitive. - Hutchinson is intent on
evading capture, he starts to alter his appearance,
starts to use disguises,
00:32:49
he moves around a lot,
mostly on buses. There were sightings of him
at various points, particularly
00:32:55
at the end of October,
about eight days after the killings, in a pub. But nothing happens.
00:33:02
- NARRATOR: The brazen
killer thought he was invincible but the police were closing in
on him.
00:33:08
- We were fortunate enough
to know that a brooch had been manufactured
specifically to give to
00:33:15
Avril Laitner, and that brooch
was missing. And it was quite obvious
that Hutchinson had stolen it,
00:33:23
and so we were able to
circulate pictures into jewelers in surrounding towns. And we were able to trace
some of his movements
00:33:30
into Nottinghamshire,
Mansfield, Worksop, before he then moved further
back north.
00:33:37
- NARRATOR: With the media
frenzy and the killer's taunting messages,
the pressure was mounting
00:33:43
to catch the killer, and the
police had come up with a plan to lure Hutchinson in
by leaking information about
00:33:51
the killer to the media. - Mick Burdis was aware
that Hutchinson had injured his knee on a piece of barbed
wire when he escaped from
00:33:59
Selby Police Station, and used
this very cleverly by playing at the injury. That it might be worse
than Hutchinson suggested,
00:34:09
and that he was highly likely
to find he'd got an infected wound that might even turn
gangrenous.
00:34:16
And he planted that thought
knowing that Hutchinson would get to know about it. - NARRATOR: Michael
and the team also decided
00:34:24
to exploit another of
Hutchinson's weaknesses. - Well, he was close to his
mother, and eventually
00:34:30
we persuaded his mother
to allow us to broadcast the fact that she was
seriously ill, which was true,
00:34:37
she did have a heart
condition, and we arranged for her to be moved from
her house by ambulance.
00:34:44
And that was well publicized,
we thought that that would attract Hutchinson to the
area, which it did.
00:34:50
- NARRATOR: Concerned
about his mother's health, Hutchinson made his way
back to Hartlepool.
00:34:56
- He knows the police are
going to be keeping a watch on his mother's house,
and he makes the mistake
00:35:01
of ringing her, and the police
have tapped the phone. And he says,
"I'm coming tonight,
00:35:07
I'll be with you at four A.M." And the police have got
the information, they now
00:35:11
know the time he's going
to arrive at the house, and they also crucially know
the likely route
00:35:17
that he's going to take. So they flooded the area
with police and tracker dogs, and waited, and waited,
and waited.
00:35:26
- NARRATOR: Nearly 400
police officers and dogs lay in wait for the killer
to appear.
00:35:32
- And they got a lucky break,
a farmer out feeding his stock late at night came back
in the house, his wife had been
00:35:39
watching him through
the window, and she said, "Did you see him?" And the farmer said,
"Did I see who?"
00:35:44
And she said, "Arthur
Hutchinson, I'm sure that was Arthur Hutchinson." And of course it was,
so they rang the police.
00:35:52
This draws the net in a little
bit tighter still. - NARRATOR: Eventually,
on the 5th of November,
00:35:58
Hutchinson was spotted by
police aircraft near a farmhouse near Dalton Piercy, Cleveland.
00:36:05
Police dog handlers quickly
closed in. - He sees them, brandishes
a knife, and also wraps
00:36:12
his jacket around his arm
in case the dogs bite him, and runs. He's not gonna outrun
two police dogs and two
00:36:19
police officers, he realizes
that and sits down holding the knife. Now, some speculated
that Hutchinson was intent
00:36:26
on taking his own life
at that point, he's pointing the knife towards his stomach,
00:36:31
the reality was
I don't think he was. I've always believed that that
was bravado, he was a coward.
00:36:37
- NARRATOR:
After 39 days on the run, across nine counties,
the deadly game was finally up
00:36:43
for Arthur Hutchinson. - The dog handlers were able
to make that arrest, it was a long wait.
00:36:52
- NARRATOR: With Hutchinson
now in custody, further evidence was
discovered from during
00:36:58
his time on the run. - He made a recording
on a little portable tape recorder, and he referred
to himself as The Fox there,
00:37:06
and how he would overcome
all the difficulties that he was experiencing, and it gave
us clues as to how we might
00:37:14
use that knowledge of his
mentality and his state of mind to our advantage, really.
00:37:21
- NARRATOR: The trial took
place on the 4th of September, 1984 at Durham Crown Court.
00:37:28
Nicola Laitner would have to
face her attacker. - The judge, Mr. Justice McNeil,
decides that Nicola Laitner
00:37:36
can be identified because
it was local knowledge that she had been attacked. Which meant that the
Laitners were also
00:37:45
public knowledge. - NARRATOR: It was the
first time in British history that they police used
video footage to show
00:37:52
the crime scene. - For the first time, here
were the police shooting a video moving around the
house, piecing together
00:38:00
the story in the order that
they understood from the forensic evidence
that events had happened.
00:38:05
And the jury was shown it
which was another first. - NARRATOR: Hutchinson
took to the stand, but he
00:38:12
denied any role in the murders
or the rape. - I remember a fairly slight
figure, unkempt, but with
00:38:20
that slightly cocksure--
just the way he held himself. A man who fancies himself
a bit.
00:38:25
And when he was giving
evidence, almost everything he said,
he was spinning a yarn.
00:38:31
- NARRATOR: As the delusional
killer continued to deny any responsibilities for the
murders and the rape,
00:38:38
the overwhelming evidence
was presented. Blood samples that
Hutchinson had left at the scene were also
analyzed.
00:38:46
- Now, the police had very
convincing evidence that he has a very rare blood group,
one of only 50,000 in Britain,
00:38:55
and his blood group is on
Nicola Laitner's bed. - NARRATOR: The police
also had impressions of
00:39:02
the bite marks from the
cheese left at the Laitner's house. - And we were able to link
them to Hutchinson,
00:39:09
because he'd had
dental treatment whilst he was in prison. So we were able to match
the dental records with the
00:39:15
teeth marks in the cheese,
which was quite a unique feature of any inquiry, really.
00:39:22
- It is pretty clear that they
have a lot of evidence, as the police point out to him,
"Look at this, and how do you
00:39:31
"explain your blood group? "And how do you explain
these teeth marks? And how do you explain
this palm print?"
00:39:35
Gradually he turns the story,
he says, "I'd met Nicola "the night before in a pub,
and she said why don't you
00:39:45
"come round after the
reception and we'll have consensual sex?" It was an absolutely bizarre
story.
00:39:52
- It doesn't surprise me at all
that he would come up with this, a guy like Hutchinson,
and any other type of
00:39:58
career criminal,
all they do is lie, they don't know
how to tell the truth. - NARRATOR: As the trial
went on, Hutchinson
00:40:06
continued to fabricate his
version of events on that fateful night. - The way he seemed to
operate was that when
00:40:14
caught out in one story,
he just segued into the next stories. And when this story began
to unravel, he pointed to
00:40:23
a man called Mike Baron
who reported with the Sunday Mirror and said,
"He did this, you should
00:40:27
"ask him about these
murders, he's the man who committed them." Poor Mike Baron was sitting
there looking absolutely
00:40:36
dropped-on, you know,
gobsmacked. - He is literally plucking stuff
out of thin air at this point
00:40:42
in time, and obviously this
does not stand up whatsoever. But what it does do, it creates
a distraction, it creates
00:40:49
a sideshow, it diverts people's
attention away from what he has actually done. - NARRATOR: On the 14th
of September, the jury of
00:40:58
six men and six women
took just four hours to reach their guilty verdicts
for all three murder counts,
00:41:05
the rape charge, and the
charge of aggravated burglary. He was given three
life sentences for the murders
00:41:13
of Basil, Avril,
and Richard Laitner. In addition, eight years
for the rape of Nicola Laitner,
00:41:20
and another five years for
aggravated burglary. - When he was first convicted,
he received a minimum
00:41:26
sentence of 18 years, which
was later upgraded to a whole life order by the
home secretary, Liam Britain,
00:41:33
now these are not sentences
that are given out just like that, they are
reserved for the most
00:41:38
dangerous offenders
in society. So I think this is testament
to the evil things that this
00:41:45
individual did and the desire
to protect the public from him. - NARRATOR: In 2008,
Hutchinson appealed his
00:41:52
life tariff, claiming it was
a breach of his human rights, he was the first British
prisoner to do so.
00:41:59
His appeal was rejected,
and subsequent appeals were also denied in 2015
and 2017.
00:42:07
- I think this determination
to challenge the sentence really is testament to his
character, he's not taking
00:42:15
responsibility for his actions,
and for me that indicates that this is an individual
who has not changed.
00:42:21
So, as far as I'm concerned,
Hutchinson is exactly where he needs to be. - Hutchinson was so arrogant,
so conceited, that he committed
00:42:30
a crime that never, never
needed to have been committed. It was a monstrous act
to take the lives of three
00:42:36
completely innocent people,
in what? In the pursuit of a rape,
it defies belief, it literally
00:42:43
sends a shiver down my spine. This is a man of the most
deep depravity. - NARRATOR: Hutchinson
was a sadistic sexual predator
00:42:52
who preyed on the vulnerable
and defenseless, even trying to kill his half-brother.
00:42:57
His life as a career criminal
culminated in a brutal triple murder of three
members of the same family,
00:43:04
along with raping the
teenage daughter at knifepoint. To this day, he has denied
his guilt, and refuses to take
00:43:13
responsibility for his crimes. Undoubtedly,
that makes Arthur Hutchinson one of the world's most evil
killers.
00:43:21
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