00:00:07
- MALE NARRATOR:
6th of July, 2012. Sale, near Manchester, England. Pensioners Robert
and Patricia Seddon
00:00:17
were found shot dead. At first glance,
the police thought Robert had killed his wife,
then committed suicide.
00:00:25
But forensic evidence
revealed a more sinister plot. - ANDRE: Bob could
not have shot himself.
00:00:32
It was not self-inflicted. Somebody else had been
there who was responsible. - NARRATOR: The real
killer was their son,
00:00:39
45-year-old Stephen Seddon. He mercilessly murdered
his parents for money. - PATRICK: Stephen
was basically a parasite
00:00:48
on his parents. Whatever they gave him,
it was never enough. He had an insatiable thirst
for their money.
00:00:55
- NARRATOR: He'd also tried
to kill his parents and nephew in a car crash three and
a half months earlier.
00:01:01
But when they survived,
Seddon even boasted about saving them on local news. - STEPHEN: I said,
"I'm going down here, Dad."
00:01:09
He went, "No!"
and he grabbed me and held on to me, and
I held on to the car, and I got me second
breath back.
00:01:15
- DR. YARDLEY: They loved
Seddon unconditionally. What makes him despicable
is this determination
00:01:20
that he wasn't going to stop
until he'd killed his parents. - NARRATOR: He was a convicted
fraudster who conned people
00:01:27
out of thousands of pounds. He thought nothing of
murdering his family for pure greed.
00:01:35
That makes Stephen Seddon one of the world's
most evil killers. - ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: When 68-year-old
Robert Seddon
00:02:04
and his 65-year-old wife,
Patricia, were found dead
in their home, it sent shockwaves
throughout the community.
00:02:12
The quiet tree-lined suburbs
of Sale in Greater Manchester had never seen anything like it.
00:02:19
Patrick Hurst was one
of the first reporters on the scene. - PATRICK: The neighbors
were just in shock, really.
00:02:25
There was a lot of elderly
neighbors on that road. They all knew each other. Bob and Pat had lived there
for more than 20 years.
00:02:32
And the neighbors just couldn't believe
that this had happened and that they're both dead.
00:02:36
- NARRATOR: Even more
shocking was the news that came six days later: their son, Stephen, had been
arrested for their killing.
00:02:44
Only three and a half months
before their murders, he'd been hailed a local hero
for saving his parents' lives.
00:02:51
But it was an accident
that he'd staged. - Then at that point then,
I decided the only way out
00:02:57
of here is--is, uh,
me smashing our way out. - GEOFFREY: Painting himself
as this kind of heroic figure
00:03:03
who put all his own cares
to the side so that he could act as, uh, the guardian angel
to his parents and his nephew.
00:03:12
- DR. YARDLEY: People felt that
they were taken in by Seddon because he was
hailed as this hero.
00:03:17
Everybody believed this story
about him having saved his family from a car that
was submerged in a canal.
00:03:23
And then to find out that
was all an elaborate plan, people feel really, really
deceived by this evil killer.
00:03:31
- NARRATOR: Seddon had murdered
the loving mother and father who'd raised him. - DR. YARDLEY: What's so unique
about this case is the fact
00:03:38
that it's a parricide--and
this refers to the killing of your parents, and
this is one of the rarest
00:03:43
forms of homicide. - PATRICK: Stephen Seddon's
a wicked and evil man who'd like to
portray himself as a--
00:03:50
as a beloved son
and a caring individual. But in fact, he'd actually murdered his parents in
a really violent, brutal way
00:03:58
just to get his
hands on their money. - NARRATOR: This killer's
story begins on the 31st of August, 1966,
00:04:05
in the village
of Timperley, near Manchester. Seven months after
Robert and Patricia Seddon
00:04:11
got married, they brought a son,
Stephen, into the world. - LOUIS: They were reasonably
middle class type people.
00:04:20
They wanted the best for
their son, and it was really nothing extraordinary
about Seddon's background
00:04:25
or childhood. - DR. YARDLEY: His dad worked
as an engineer for one of the great British institutions--
British Airways.
00:04:32
His mum was a stay-at-home mum. This was, for all intents
and purposes, a normal family--
00:04:37
a traditional nuclear family. There's nothing untoward here
going on whatsoever.
00:04:43
- PATRICK: His mother and father
were a loving, unassuming, quiet couple who'd given
him as much as they can
00:04:48
throughout his life. - NARRATOR: On the 19th of
November, 1967, young Stephen was joined by a baby sister,
Leslie.
00:04:58
- I think they were a perfect,
upright little family. In 1975, Leslie got ill. She started to have convulsions,
00:05:10
and she was diagnosed
as an epileptic. That skewed the balance of
the family quite radically.
00:05:18
Suddenly, all the attention,
both from Bob, the father, and Pat, the mother,
was focused on Leslie.
00:05:25
- DR. YARDLEY: She required
a lot of care and support from her mum and dad. I think that Seddon really
didn't like that because
00:05:32
he felt that
that detracted from him. - NARRATOR: At the age of 13,
young Seddon became difficult
00:05:39
at home, and out on the streets,
he was a petty thief. - When Seddon
enters his teenage years,
00:05:46
he starts engaging in
some low-level crime. He gets involved with,
uh, a rough gang of kids.
00:05:52
And I think what he's
doing there is saying, "Hey, look at me," you
know, "I can do whatever
00:05:57
the hell I like." And I think part
of it was attention-seeking. - Stephen felt that
he wanted to get his father,
00:06:06
Bob's, attention, and one
way of getting it was to have the police turn up at
the door or to get called
00:06:13
to the police station. So, we have the first of a string of brushes
with the law as a juvenile.
00:06:20
Every kind of bad boy behavior, he was up to anything. - NARRATOR: The petty crimes
escalated until, in 1989,
00:06:31
at Bolton Crown Court, Seddon
was jailed for obtaining guns by deception and theft.
00:06:38
When he was released,
he made the decision to turn his life around,
starting a career in sales.
00:06:46
- GEOFFREY: Seddon
had, without question, the gift of the gab. He could put on a suit,
he could smile the smile,
00:06:52
certainly walk the walk,
and definitely talk the talk. He went in with a partner,
and started a company
00:06:59
which was essentially offering
small businesses a guarantee that they would get funding
00:07:04
from international
European bodies in exchange for a one-off fee
of 300 pounds. What happened
was that Stephen Seddon
00:07:13
and his partner
pocketed the 300 pounds, didn't approach anybody. - NARRATOR: Seddon's sales
skills were so impressive
00:07:19
that more and more
businesses fell for his scam. And unbelievably,
within two years,
00:07:25
the company was worth
five million pounds. - And this enabled
Seddon to enjoy this high-flying lifestyle.
00:07:34
He drove a Bentley, he stayed
at very expensive hotels, so that gave him a
taste for the high life.
00:07:41
And this is an individual
who's always had a sense of entitlement,
always felt like he deserves
00:07:47
particular things in life. - GEOFFREY: Seddon at this point
is flashing the cash.
00:07:53
He's got what he'd always
wanted: "Draw attention to me. Look at me,
haven't I done well?"
00:08:01
- LOUIS: What comes
to mind is narcissism. He seemed to have
an incredible need to be admired by other people.
00:08:09
He wanted to be a big shot,
he wanted the other people to look at him, and say,
"Whoa, he drives a Bentley.
00:08:14
He has a boat." He couldn't go through
life as an ordinary person or even a mildly
successful person,
00:08:21
he had to be extraordinary,
and he'd do anything to achieve that goal. - NARRATOR: Robert and Patricia
were proud that their son
00:08:29
had made it as
a multimillionaire. In 1996, he married and
settled down to have a family.
00:08:38
- DR. YARDLEY: Seddon is
the master of performance. He's very good at painting
a particular picture.
00:08:43
You have to crack
beneath that veneer and see what's going on
underneath it, because people like Seddon
are incredibly manipulative.
00:08:51
They are incredibly charming. They give the appearance of--of being
a likeable individual.
00:08:56
But underneath it, there's
something incredibly toxic. - NARRATOR: Seddon's house
of cards was about to collapse.
00:09:04
A Trading Standards
investigation exposed his company as a sham,
and in March 2000,
00:09:10
the 33-year-old was sentenced
to 1 year in prison for fraud. - GEOFFREY:
The wheels have come off
00:09:18
Stephen Seddon's con trick. The great edifice
that has been created is crumbling
in front of his eyes.
00:09:28
He goes to jail,
but now his desire to recapture the high life
really does kick in,
00:09:35
in every conceivable way. - NARRATOR: 2002, Seaham
in the Northeast of England. Stephen Seddon had served
a 12-month sentence for fraud
00:09:47
and had lost his millions. His wife had just given birth
to their third child, a son,
00:09:54
so he had another mouth to feed. - DR. YARDLEY: Seddon really
did have a massive slide
00:10:02
very, very quickly downhill. He's gone from having
millions in the bank and driving sports cars
to having literally nothing.
00:10:10
So, he comes out of prison,
and he's unable to really ever hold down a job properly
after that point because
00:10:17
this is an individual who
isn't just going to settle. He isn't just going to take
a job in a supermarket.
00:10:22
He's someone who thinks
he deserves that life that he once had. - NARRATOR:
On the 7th of September, 2008,
00:10:29
Robert and Patricia were hit
with the most devastating news: their epileptic daughter,
Leslie, had suffered
00:10:36
an extremely severe seizure. - Unfortunately,
at the age of 40, she died at the family home.
00:10:44
And she had a son who
had learning difficulties, who Bob and Pat basically
became the parents of.
00:10:51
- Bob and Pat were two very
loving, giving individuals. They cared for Leslie's son--
their grandson--
00:10:58
and did the best by him. They would make sacrifices
for their family. - NARRATOR: Their son, Stephen,
had tried a string of jobs,
00:11:09
even using his experience
in the hard sell as a car salesman. But by 2011, the cash-strapped
Seddon was unemployed.
00:11:21
So he turned
to his parents for help. - GEOFFREY: Seddon is not
capable of holding down
00:11:27
a job now. In his mind,
he's been hard done by. Bob and Pat are really
generous to their son, Stephen.
00:11:35
They help him buy a home
in northeast of England, they help him with the
mortgage, they give him cash.
00:11:41
They could not have
been more generous. - NARRATOR: Robert and Patricia
even dug into the equity
00:11:48
of their own home
to give their son nearly 46,000 pounds
worth of loans. - DR. YARDLEY:
But you know what?
00:11:56
It's never enough for him. It's not what he deserves,
it's not what he's entitled to.
00:12:00
He always wants more. - NARRATOR: A year
after Leslie's death, Robert and Patricia
change their will.
00:12:08
Seddon was made
the sole beneficiary of his parents'
230,000-pound property. - He eventually
would have gotten the money
00:12:17
through inheritance,
but he wasn't gonna wait 10, 15, 20 years
'til his parents die.
00:12:22
He wasn't gonna do that. He wanted the money now,
he wanted to be a big shot now.
00:12:27
- He's gonna get that
inheritance any way he can, by hook or by crook. Perhaps typically for a conman,
00:12:35
he decides on
the most ludicrous plan. He's going to kill Bob and Pat. And he comes up with the most
extraordinary scheme.
00:12:47
- NARRATOR: After carefully
studying a TV survival show on how to escape from a car
submerged in water,
00:12:54
Seddon hatched a cunning plan. On the 20th of March, 2012,
he'd stage a tragic accident
00:13:02
that would kill both parents
and his 17-year-old nephew, then he would
claim his inheritance.
00:13:10
- DR. YARDLEY: Under the guise
of saying thank you to his parents for giving him
money and having a belated
00:13:16
Mother's Day celebration,
he invites everybody out for a meal, and he picks them
up in a car that he's hired.
00:13:25
- NARRATOR: In the car,
Seddon had tools on standby to make good his own escape.
00:13:31
- GEOFFREY: Not only has he
brought with him a sharp knife to cut his seatbelt
so that he can get out
00:13:36
of the car's window, but
he's also brought a crook lock. This car's new, BMW,
doesn't need a crook lock.
00:13:42
It has all sorts of
automatic safety devices. He's brought the crook lock
to break the window so that
00:13:47
he can get out of the car
while the others drown. - NARRATOR: Seddon drove
alongside Temperley's
00:13:54
Bridgewater Canal with
his mum, dad, and nephew. When he reached a stretch of
water with no crash barrier,
00:14:02
he suddenly put his plan
into action. - DR. YARDLEY: During
this drive, he's driving
00:14:07
a bit erratically,
he's saying that he's got chest pains,
and this ends up in him
00:14:13
driving the car into a canal. He used that crook lock to
smash his way out of the vehicle
00:14:22
when it was sinking
in the canal. - PATRICK: Stephen
was able to get out. But he got on top of the car,
00:14:29
and he was actually
trying to sink the car. But then a crowd appeared
on the canal side.
00:14:35
- NARRATOR: Despite Seddon's
best attempts, things were not going
according to plan.
00:14:40
People had started to notice
that he wasn't doing anything to help his family
inside the car.
00:14:47
- Many of the witnesses
to this said, "Get off the roof, it's
making the car sink quicker."
00:14:53
It really does start to
look very, very concerning. - NARRATOR: With witnesses on
the riverbank now watching
00:15:00
his every move, he had to
abort his murderous plan. - He accepts what
is now inevitable,
00:15:07
that they've called the
ambulance and the fire brigade because there's a car
in the canal.
00:15:12
So now he's got to
live out this fantasy. - GEOFFREY: He breaks
the window, rescues his nephew
00:15:18
from the front seat, who plunges into the canal,
not able to swim. Stephen Seddon is able to
swim, finally gets his nephew
00:15:27
out of the canal onto the bank. He also manages to
get his father, Bob, out of the backseat of the car.
00:15:35
By now, this car
is progressively sinking into the canal. - NARRATOR: With the car
now under water,
00:15:43
65-year-old Patricia was
still stuck in the backseat and had run out of air. Her heart had stopped beating.
00:15:51
The fire brigade
arrived just in time. - GEOFFREY: Miraculously--
and it is truly miraculous--
00:15:58
they managed to extract Pat
from the back of the BMW, get her onto the bank,
and they give her CPR.
00:16:05
They bring her back
to life, literally. She had stopped breathing. It was an extraordinary rescue,
of which, of course,
00:16:15
Stephen then decides to,
uh, paint himself as hero. - NARRATOR: To avoid any blame
for the crash, Seddon indulged
00:16:22
in some more amateur dramatics. - PATRICK:
When the police turned up, he feigned some sort
of cardiac event again.
00:16:31
He started clutching
at his chest and collapsed. - DR. YARDLEY: So, he
was sent to hospital
00:16:36
and tests were carried out. And those tests
came back negative. There was no issues
detected whatsoever.
00:16:42
So he's playing
this role of a victim himself, essentially, and it
works, unfortunately.
00:16:49
- PATRICK: I went to the scene
of the canal crash. And it was apparent that it was
the only part of the road--
00:16:55
the only stretch of the road
where there wasn't a crash barrier
on the side of the canal.
00:16:59
But at the time, no one
thought it was suspicious. - DR. YARDLEY: Seddon
hadn't achieved the outcome
00:17:05
that he wanted.
His parents were still alive, he didn't have access
to their money.
00:17:11
But he did have
an awful lot of attention, and the narcissistic
element of his personality
00:17:16
was really enjoying that. - NARRATOR: The press
hailed the man who saved his family's lives a local hero.
00:17:24
Stephen Seddon also
appeared on BBC TV News. Reporter Stuart Flinders
interviewed him
00:17:30
two days after the crash. - STUART: On the face of it, this was
a dramatic rescue story.
00:17:37
A couple drowning in their car, their son hauls them out,
drags them to safety. He's the hero.
00:17:44
- NARRATOR: Seddon seemed
keen to put his fake heroics on the record. - I said to Dad,
"Wait," and I swam back.
00:17:52
Got back to him then, but
Dad had run out of steam a little bit, and it was, like,
200 yards' swim in cold water,
00:17:59
doing what we got to
do with the exertion. And I--I just looked at
his face like that, and I said,
00:18:03
"I'm going down here, Dad,"
and he went, "No!" And he grabbed me
and held on to me,
00:18:08
and I held on to the car,
and I got me second breath back. - STUART: He was a good talker
from our point of view.
00:18:13
He was very animated,
he told a very dramatic story about how the whole car
had tumbled into the water,
00:18:18
and as it was sinking, he
managed to get on the roof, and he hauled his parents out.
He got them to safety.
00:18:24
- She was going, "Please,
get me out, get me out." I said, "Mummy, you'll be
alright, you'll be alright."
00:18:29
- STUART: He was very
much a sort of chatty lad, and very talkative
and communicative,
00:18:33
and perfect for what
we needed as a storyteller. I took it at face value,
I thought the story was genuine,
00:18:39
and I had no reason
to believe otherwise. - STEPHEN:
I'm not the hero. I saved people who I loved,
you know what I mean?
00:18:45
That's what you do--
- STUART: But the-- - The firefighter dove in
and saved a complete stranger.
00:18:51
- NARRATOR: While Seddon
the salesman told a tall story, his father, Robert,
reflected on his lucky escape.
00:18:58
- Seddon and his father
sat side by side on a sofa opposite me. Seddon's father
said very little.
00:19:04
Occasionally,
he would beam across and pat his son
on the knee, and say, "If it wasn't for this guy,
I wouldn't be here today."
00:19:12
- STEPHEN: When we tried the
doors, that was not happening. It was nothing with the doors.
At that point then,
00:19:16
I decided the only
way out of here is, uh, me smashing our way out. - GEOFFREY: Once again, that
used car salesman ability
00:19:24
to spin a line, to pull the wool
over people's eyes, that conman trick,
that gift of the gab
00:19:31
saw him through. It was never regarded as
anything except an accident. It was one of those things.
00:19:40
But it was the first sign--
the first positive sign-- that Stephen Seddon
was absolutely determined
00:19:47
to lay his hands
on his parents' money. - NARRATOR: Everyone had
hailed Seddon a hero
00:19:53
for rescuing his family
from the crash in a canal. But after initially falling
for his son's heroics,
00:20:01
Seddon's father, Robert,
soon began to realize the horrifying truth. - DR. YARDLEY: He'd
found at Seddon's house
00:20:09
a saved video of how to
escape a submerged vehicle, which was rather suspicious.
00:20:15
So I think there was that
realization that, "Actually, my son might be
trying to kill me."
00:20:23
- GEOFFREY: He went
to see his local GP. And he told his doctor
that he'd become convinced
00:20:30
that his son, Stephen,
had attempted to kill him, had attempted to
murder them all.
00:20:35
- NARRATOR: Robert's worst
fears would be realized. Seddon had succeeded in
telling a convincing lie,
00:20:41
but he'd failed at getting
his hands on his inheritance. Now, Seddon had to go
back to the drawing board
00:20:47
and work out a plan B. - DR. YARDLEY: When we look
at Seddon's motivation, it comes down to
one thing: greed.
00:20:55
He wants their money. He doesn't feel that the money that they've given
him is enough.
00:21:00
He's probably burnt
through it by now, and he wants more. He feels that
he's entitled to it.
00:21:05
So that's all he sees
his parents as. They are a barrier in between
him and the money that he wants,
00:21:11
and that really is quite cold. - GEOFFREY: Stephen Seddon
puts into practice a premediated plan to murder--
some might say execute--
00:21:22
his mother and father. - NARRATOR: Seddon had
already failed once in killing his parents,
00:21:28
so this time he was
determined to carry it through by shooting them dead. He turned to his connections
00:21:35
in the Northeast's
criminal underworld. - GEOFFREY: He'd been around, and he'd been on the edge of
the law for a long time now.
00:21:42
He knew enough people. A hot sawn-off shotgun
was supplied to him. - NARRATOR:
After securing the weapon,
00:21:51
Seddon made plans
for the perfect murder. He took his wife and
children on holiday
00:21:56
to the family caravan
in Fleetwood, Lancashire. - To all intents and purposes,
a family week away,
00:22:04
except he's remembered that
he's gotta go back to sign on at the job center
at 10 o'clock the next morning.
00:22:12
- NARRATOR: The next day,
Seddon was up early. At 5:24 a.m, he left his sleeping
family at the caravan park,
00:22:20
and drove two and a half hours
back home to Seaham. On arriving home, the exhausted
Seddon fell fast asleep,
00:22:28
purposely leaving his car
behind his electric garage door. - This day,
he knows that the power
00:22:35
is going to be out in his house
because he's had a letter from the electric company
telling him of this.
00:22:40
And so what he does is he
deliberately leaves his car in the garage, so there's no way
on earth that he could possibly
00:22:47
be using his car to
drive from his home to his parents' home. He leaves his phone
so, obviously,
00:22:53
the mobile phone tracking
technology that's used can't say that
he was not at home.
00:22:59
So he's creating this
alibi for himself. - NARRATOR: At 9:57 a.m.,
Seddon appears to only just
00:23:07
make his appointment
at the job center. He arrives seemingly
out of breath, having supposedly run
all the way from home
00:23:16
because he didn't have
access to his car. - PATRICK: He went
to the job center. He was seen in
and around the town.
00:23:25
Seddon made a point
of being visible on local CCTV in Seaham, so that gave him
an alibi to say that he's
00:23:33
in the northeast, obviously
hundreds of miles away from Sale. - NARRATOR: In reality,
Seddon had borrowed
00:23:39
his brother-in-law's BMW
to make his appointment at the job center. Then he picked up
the sawn-off shotgun
00:23:46
from his criminal acquaintance. Next, he hightailed it
145 miles south from Seaham
00:23:53
to his parents' home in Sale. - LOUIS: I think he thought
that this was a fool-proof plan.
00:23:58
He had an expectation
of impunity. Keep in mind, he got away
with an attempt once,
00:24:03
he didn't get caught.
And so he became emboldened and he thought,
"What could go wrong?
00:24:08
"Who would think that
I'm killing my parents "to get their money? What child would
kill their parents?"
00:24:14
- DR. YARDLEY: At any point
during that drive from his home to his parents' home--
which would have taken him
00:24:18
quite some time--he could
have decided not to go through with this, but
he didn't, and he was
00:24:22
absolutely determined. - It's now about 20
to 2 in the afternoon of the 4th of July, 2012.
00:24:33
Bob has just been
quite recently to the local fish and chip shop, and
brought lunch for he and Pat.
00:24:41
Lunch is over.
Bob's sitting in the front room, and Pat is Hoovering up stairs. - NARRATOR: With the shotgun
at the ready,
00:24:48
Seddon snuck in
through the back door. His father, Robert, was sitting on the sofa
watching TV.
00:24:57
- GEOFFREY: He walks
into the sitting room. His father must have been
rather surprised to see him.
00:25:01
Well, the surprise
would've turned to horror within a matter of seconds,
because Stephen was holding
00:25:08
a sawn-off shotgun,
which he was pointing down at his father. - [gun firing] - GEOFFREY: Pat obviously
hears the explosion.
00:25:18
I mean, it's a sawn-off shotgun,
it's gonna be noisy. Rushes downstairs to find
her son brandishing a shotgun.
00:25:26
- DR. YARDLEY: You just
can't imagine the terror that his mother must have
been feeling at that time
00:25:31
to discover that her son has
shot his father--her husband-- and that he--
he wants to kill her, too.
00:25:38
So this was the most horrendous
set of circumstances. - GEOFFREY: She tries to
force the gun out of his hand.
00:25:44
In the end, it doesn't
work, and he shoots her, killing her instantly. - PATRICK: For both
Robert and Pat,
00:25:56
the final moments
would have been one of just unimaginable horror
that their beloved son
00:26:02
had turned into such
a cold-blooded killer and a monster. - NARRATOR: Seddon then
reloaded his weapon
00:26:10
with a third cartridge. - GEOFFREY: I think he
kept the third cartridge on the assumption that
there might well have been
00:26:18
his nephew to kill as well. I don't believe
that he knew his nephew wasn't there when he
arrived at the house.
00:26:24
I think he thought he was. - NARRATOR: Luckily, he
was away in respite care on that fateful day.
Bob and Pat had been alone.
00:26:33
Seddon, however,
still had work to do. - GEOFFREY: He put the shotgun,
when he'd killed Pat,
00:26:43
into his father's hands; laid
it across his lap, effectively, seeking to persuade
the police
00:26:51
that this was a murder-suicide--
that Bob had killed Pat and then turned
the shotgun on himself.
00:26:58
- NARRATOR:
After carefully staging this murder-suicide scene, Seddon then drove
the two and a half-hour journey
00:27:04
back home to Seaham,
picked his own car up from his house, now
the electricity was back on,
00:27:11
then went to buy some
beers to celebrate. - LOUIS: There you go, he
had an alibi of everything,
00:27:17
he had it all planned out. He had exactly where
he would be at what time, doing what, it was all an act.
00:27:24
- NARRATOR: As his
parents lay dead at home, Seddon drove back to join
his wife and children
00:27:30
on holiday in Fleetwood. - DR. YARDLEY: This is really,
really appalling, you know,
00:27:35
the people who give you life,
the people who support you and give you their last
penny, that you are prepared
00:27:40
to so ruthlessly execute
them for your own greed really is despicable. - NARRATOR: Robert
and Patricia's bodies
00:27:48
lay undiscovered for two days, until their grandson's respite
carer turned up at the door.
00:27:56
- GEOFFREY: They would always
have the front door open or Bob would be standing
in the driveway.
00:28:00
They were very particular
because they cared a lot about the boy. And that's why the carer
was amazed that they weren't
00:28:06
there to sweep him up
and back into the house. - NARRATOR: Concerned
that the grandparents
00:28:11
had failed to answer the door,
the carer made his way around the back of the house
to see if he could see
00:28:17
any sign of them. - He looks through
the window to see a body. - NARRATOR: Following
the shocking discovery,
00:28:26
their grandson's carer called
the police straight away. - MAN: His grandparents
are not answering the door.
00:28:33
I've just been around the back,
and I've seen his grandfather, and he appears to have
a gun in his hand.
00:28:39
- NARRATOR: The police rush
to the scene, and broke in through the back door. - PATRICK: When the bodies
were found, it was clear
00:28:47
that both had died
from gunshot wounds. It looked like Robert
had murdered his wife,
00:28:53
and then killed himself. So the initial information
from the police was that it may have been
a murder-suicide.
00:29:01
- When the police
first told Stephen Seddon that his parents were dead,
and they suspected it might be
00:29:07
a murder-suicide, he must've let
out an inner cry of delight. It looked as though he might
just have got away with it.
00:29:16
There must have been a moment
when he thought, "It's worked, and I'm gonna have the money."
00:29:22
- NARRATOR: As news broke
of the shootings in a leafy Manchester suburb,
the community was in shock.
00:29:29
It even took reporters
who'd followed the canal crash
story by surprise. Stuart Flinders had met
Robert a few months earlier.
00:29:39
- I was about to head
to the airport to go on holiday, and I saw a copy of
"The Manchester Evening News."
00:29:44
And on the front cover was
a photograph of that house I'd been in, and the headline
saying that's the couple
00:29:50
had been shot. And I was really shocked, because they'd struck me
as a very decent family.
00:29:55
I particularly liked the father.
He seemed a very nice man. And as the details came out,
it was really quite shocking
00:30:01
to imagine that this
could have happened. - NARRATOR: In the
hours that followed,
00:30:05
the press as well as the police
fell for Seddon's staging of the crime scene, reporting
the killings of Robert
00:30:12
and Patricia Seddon
as a murder-suicide. But when forensics experts
swept through their home,
00:30:19
there would be many
questions raised over this accepted theory. Ballistics expert
Andre Horne was called
00:30:28
to the scene of crime as soon
as the bodies were discovered. - ANDRE: The information
that I was given was
00:30:35
that it appears
to be a murder-suicide. Prior to entering the scene,
I had a briefing
00:30:38
from the crime scene manager
who told me that the family had gone through
a difficult time.
00:30:44
Bob and Patricia
were grandparents, they were looking after
a grandson with disabilities
00:30:49
because his--his mom had died. They were struggling to cope
with their circumstances.
00:30:55
And so I was told there
probably was motivation for them to have
taken this action.
00:31:01
- NARRATOR: Even the press
had reported the police's initial belief that Robert
and Patricia's deaths
00:31:06
were a murder-suicide. But as Andre Horne
entered the scene, he started having
doubts over this theory.
00:31:15
- Patricia was
lying in the hallway next to the stairs, and there
was a devastating gunshot wound
00:31:21
to her left temple. She was lying on her back.
And I found the position or the location where
she was quite strange
00:31:29
for a murder-suicide. So I think that's when
I started having some doubts about whether it was
in fact a murder-suicide.
00:31:36
Why would she be
lying in the hallway? - NARRATOR: But when
Andre Horne saw Robert
00:31:41
sitting on his couch
with the gun in his lap, he had even more concerns. - ANDRE: The way that he
was sitting there holding
00:31:49
the gun didn't make sense. Shotguns produce a lot of recoil
when they are discharged,
00:31:55
and if you invert a shotgun and
point the muzzle to yourself, you haven't got any support
for the recoil of the shotgun.
00:32:03
- [gun firing] - ANDRE: It would
fly across the room. So I was not expecting
to see a shorn-off shotgun
00:32:09
in the hands of a person
who had shot himself. So that was a massive
red flag for me.
00:32:16
- NARRATOR: When the forensics
team opened up the weapon, they found something
even more puzzling--
00:32:21
only one fired cartridge case. - ANDRE: We know that two shots
had been discharged at the scene
00:32:29
but there was only one
fired cartridge case. Where was the other
cartridge case?
00:32:34
The whole house was searched--
upstairs, downstairs, even the workshop-- and the other fired cartridge
case was never found.
00:32:42
- NARRATOR: Later that
evening at the postmortem, Andre Horne examined the
gunshot wound to Robert's neck.
00:32:49
There was only one
possible conclusion. - After all the blood was
cleared away, and I could
00:32:56
see the size of the pattern
and the size of the wound, whoever had shot Bob
was at least about
00:33:03
1 and 1/2 meters from him
when the shot was discharged. I could tell the senior
investigating officer
00:33:09
that this had definitely not
been a self-inflicted wound. - NARRATOR: Now the
murder-suicide theory
00:33:16
had been blown apart,
the case turned rapidly into a more sinister
investigation: a double murder.
00:33:23
The police now knew a killer
was on the loose, but who would want to shoot
two caring grandparents?
00:33:29
They started looking for
someone with a motive. - They wanted to see
who stood to benefit
00:33:36
from the deaths of
Robert and Patricia, so they start looking
at the family. Obviously, the daughter
died back in 2008,
00:33:46
which leaves Seddon as
the sole beneficiary of anything that they
might leave, so they begin
00:33:52
to investigate his whereabouts
on this particular day. - NARRATOR: But when he was
questioned about his movements
00:33:58
on the day of the shooting,
Seddon appeared to have proof that he was at home in Seaham.
00:34:05
- DR. YARDLEY: Initially, it
looks like he's got a fairly water-tight alibi, so
they have quite a lot
00:34:11
of difficulty placing
this together. - GEOFFREY: The 4th of July
was particularly important
00:34:17
to Seddon because he knew
that the power was going off in his local area.
And so he couldn't have used
00:34:26
his own car, it was trapped
behind the garage door. He wouldn't have been
able to get it out.
00:34:32
Seddon maintains
the fantasy throughout. "I was at Fleetwood, I went
back to the job center.
00:34:38
"The car was locked
in the garage. I could not be more innocent." - NARRATOR: So detectives
poured over Seddon's seemingly
00:34:45
water-tight alibi to see if
they could find any holes in it. After wading through
hours of CCTV,
00:34:53
the police hit the jackpot. Seddon had claimed that he
didn't have access to a car
00:34:58
on the day of the shooting,
but a few frames of video they found told
a different story.
00:35:03
- DR. YARDLEY: This is good
old-fashioned police work. They accessed the CCTV
from the job center.
00:35:09
And they see him
entering the job center, and they see in the edge of
the frame that there's a car
00:35:14
in the background that he
appears to have come out of. They can't make out what
make the car is, let alone
00:35:20
the registration plate,
but they notice a bus go past on the CCTV. - NARRATOR: Next, the police
went to painstaking efforts
00:35:29
to track the bus that passed
Seddon as he left the car. - DR. YARDLEY: They're able to
catch the footage that the bus
00:35:35
had taken, and that's when
they identify the car. It's a 3 series blue BMW. And they make some further
investigations and find out
00:35:44
that a relative of Seddon's
actually owns a 3 series BMW. So now they have
the number plate,
00:35:50
they can start
looking at the AMPR-- the Automatic Number
Plate Recognition data.
00:35:54
And they're able to locate
him in his parents' area on the day that
they were killed.
00:36:00
- NARRATOR: Seddon's
alibi continued to unravel when detectives looked
at his mobile phone data.
00:36:06
It did show his cell phone
was in Seaham that whole day as he claimed, but the police
could prove Seddon himself
00:36:13
never answered it. - PATRICK: They found
a number of missed calls on his mobile phone from
loan companies that Seddon
00:36:21
had been trying to get cash
from, and one phone call from a local was answered
by one of his relations.
00:36:28
- NARRATOR: Now the police
had proved that, despite his phone having
remained in Seaham,
00:36:32
Seddon wasn't with it. - NARRATOR: On the 12th of
July, 2012, he was charged with the murders of
both his parents,
00:36:40
Robert and Patricia... to the shock
of neighbors and the press, not least BBC journalist
Stuart Flinders,
00:36:49
who'd spent time with
Seddon and his father. - I'm surprised,
because I must say,
00:36:54
I had had no suspicions at all. I took the story at face value. They seemed to be
quite a close family.
00:37:01
The son and father seemed
to get on very well. As it was, I was just surprised
at how good he'd been
00:37:07
at conning us,
as well as his parents. It is very cold
and calculating to even think
00:37:14
of killing your parents,
and then to devise such an elaborate scheme. - NARRATOR: But to convict
him, detectives now needed
00:37:22
enough evidence to
convince a jury. Next they turn their
attention to the murder weapon
00:37:27
found in Robert's hands
to see if they could somehow link it to the killer. Again, his mobile phone records
yielded more evidence.
00:37:38
- PATRICK: On the day of
the murders, Stephen Seddon had made two telephone calls
to a criminal associate
00:37:45
in the northeast--a man who
had previous convictions for firearms offenses. And the gun that was used
00:37:51
had actually been stolen
in a burglary not far from Seddon's house
in the northeast.
00:37:57
- NARRATOR: The police also
discovered new evidence when they reexamined
the suspect crash
00:38:02
three and a half months earlier. They learned
that Seddon had taken out additional accident insurance
on the car he'd hired
00:38:10
to take his family out for
their celebratory meal-- the car that ended up at
the bottom of the canal.
00:38:18
- GEOFFREY: Two days before,
he's hired yet another car, which he doesn't take
out accident insurance.
00:38:22
Significant, you might think? Turns out
it's extremely significant. - [tires screeching]
00:38:27
- NARRATOR:
Detectives found out about the steering wheel
lock and knife that Seddon had taken with him
on the night of the accident
00:38:34
to smash his
way out of the sinking car. - PATRICK: Before, just suppose
it was just seen as fortunate
00:38:41
that these items
were in the car, and no one asked
any questions why-- why he chose to take them
with them and have them
00:38:47
in a hired car on that night. Obviously, it's suspicious
anyway that you would have those items.
00:38:56
- NARRATOR: Most damning of
all, the police uncovered Robert's conversation
with his GP.
00:39:01
He confided in him that
he believed his son was trying to kill him. They also found Seddon
had met a local landlady
00:39:09
about buying her pub. - GEOFFREY: Where was he gonna
get more than 230,000 pounds
00:39:15
to buy this pub? Our answer was:
in that house in Sale. The irony of this braggart,
Stephen Seddon,
00:39:25
pretending
that he's got enough money to buy a pub in the northeast
is remarkable, because
00:39:32
when it was finally discovered
how much he actually had in his bank account, it was
5 pounds and 45 pence.
00:39:38
He was absolutely broke. - He told people before
he carried out the murders, and when his mother and
father were still alive
00:39:45
that he was gonna come into
some money, an inheritance. - NARRATOR:
On the 20th of February, 2013,
00:39:52
the case against Stephen
Seddon was finally brought to Manchester Crown Court. Seddon pleaded not guilty to
the murders of his parents,
00:40:01
Robert and Patricia, and
their attempted murders in the canal crash. - DR. YARDLEY: This is
an individual who's always
00:40:09
making up these
very tall stories. And I think there was
a real concern on the part
00:40:14
of the police and
the Crown Prosecution Service, that if you stuck this
guy in front of a jury,
00:40:19
he could manipulate them,
because this guy was a conman. I think there was really
a level of fear that he could
00:40:25
walk away from this. - NARRATOR: Despite the fact
that his nephew was also involved in the crash,
Seddon was not charged
00:40:33
with his attempted murder. In court, he claimed
that he had nearly died saving the boy.
00:40:40
Throughout
the five-week trial, Seddon continuously
protested his innocence. Newspaper reporter
Patrick Hurst
00:40:47
was in the courtroom. - PATRICK: When he was
cross-examined, his demeanor was one
of self-indignance.
00:40:55
"How dare you ask me or accuse me of murdering
my own parents?" And I think he thought his
sales patter would see him
00:41:03
through it, and he would
be able to pull the wool over the jury's eyes. - NARRATOR: But after
18 hours of deliberation,
00:41:11
the jury returned their verdict. - They were confronted with
a perfectly obvious conclusion
00:41:18
that the only person
who could've killed Bob and Pat Seddon was
their son, Stephen,
00:41:23
who had the opportunity
and the motive. - PATRICK: He shouted,
"I'm an innocent man,"
00:41:29
and shook his head,
and again looked indignant and had his hands out,
saying, "I--I'm innocent,"
00:41:35
and protested that they
got the wrong person. - NARRATOR: Seddon was
sentenced to 40 years in prison.
00:41:43
- DR. YARDLEY: This is akin
to a whole life sentence for someone of Seddon's age.
00:41:46
He's very unlikely to ever
get released from prison, and I think this is a sentence
which is wholly deserved.
00:41:55
There's absolutely nothing
that Robert and Patricia could've have given their--
their son over and above
00:42:01
what they'd already given him. And he so remorselessly
killed them just simply
because of his own greed.
00:42:09
- NARRATOR: At his sentencing,
Mr. Justice Hamblen remarked, "In Greek mythology,
someone who killed a parent
00:42:16
would be pursued until
death by the Furies." - GEOFFREY: The judge went on
to say, "One can only imagine
00:42:24
"the horror of your parents'
last moments in this life "when they realized what
a monster their son,
00:42:31
who they loved, had become." It is a precise description
of Stephen Seddon. - LOUIS: He wasn't abused,
there wasn't a fight.
00:42:43
They didn't do things
to hurt him in some way. All they had was money.
He wanted it.
00:42:49
This guy was really evil. - NARRATOR: He attempted to
kill his parents and nephew
00:42:55
in a car crash he staged,
then cynically sold himself as the hero who saved them.
00:43:02
He mercilessly executed his
elderly parents, who'd loved and cherished him
throughout his whole life.
00:43:08
That makes Stephen Seddon one of the world's
most evil killers. - ♪ ♪