00:00:00
[audio logo] [unsettling music] narrator: On the 3rd
of October, 2012, Natalie Jarvis left her family
home in Kent for a late night
00:00:13
rendezvous with Adam Whelehan. - It was a casual relationship. If anyone asked whether
Adam was her boyfriend,
00:00:23
she would say no. narrator: That cold
autumn night, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
00:00:29
- "Shlaters," she used to say,
which meant see you later. Love you. Bye. And that was the last
thing she said.
00:00:38
narrator: Just 30 minutes
later, Natalie Jarvis was dead. - A member of the public
driving down the road
00:00:48
saw her body face
down on the pavement. narrator: Natalie's
violent death made no sense to her loved ones.
00:00:57
Mark Jarvis: Why
would it be Natalie? She loved everybody,
and everybody who knew her loved her.
00:01:02
narrator: When
the devastating facts of Natalie's final
moments were revealed,
00:01:06
her so-called friend,
Adam Whelehan, would be exposed as one of
the world's most evil killers.
00:01:14
[theme music] ♪ ♪ [somber music] In October 2012, 22-year-old
Adam Whelehan walked
00:01:40
into Bexleyheath police station
in Southeast London with blood on his face and hands
and a well-rehearsed
00:01:48
story ready to tell. Khaleda Rahman: Adam
Whelehan turned himself in at Bexleyheath
police station at about
00:01:56
3:00 AM on October the 4th. He said that he thought
he had killed someone. narrator: Whelehan insisted
he had not been the aggressor.
00:02:08
Ian Acheson: He said
she brought the weapon and she produced it
and she'd attacked him.
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And whatever happened to her
was self-defense on his part. narrator: It was
a story full of holes,
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told by a man who seemed
completely unmoved by the part he'd played in his friend's
violent and lonely death.
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Geoffrey Wansell:
This is a man who appears to have no concept
of a conscience, no concept
00:02:35
that he might be
doing something that is utterly wrong. It makes him a very
remarkable killer.
00:02:43
narrator: Though he believed
he could get away with murder, a jury of Adam Whelehan's peers
would see through his facade.
00:02:52
This killer's story
begins in February 1990. Adam John Whelehan was born
in the borough of Bexley
00:03:00
in Southeast London. Living in the area through
his childhood and youth, by his early 20s, he seemed to
be an ordinary young man with
00:03:11
a normal suburban lifestyle. Geoffrey Wansell: Adam Whelehan
had worked in a supermarket,
00:03:17
but was now training
as a BT engineer for the telecom company. Ian Acheson: He'd always
been in employment.
00:03:24
He'd never been in trouble
in all of his adult life. He'd been in work. narrator: Nothing about Adam
Whelehan and his closest
00:03:32
friends raised eyebrows
or caused concern for the people who knew them. Khaleda Rahman: Adam
Whelehan had a very
00:03:40
close group of male friends. His best friend, Tom
[muted], he had known since he was five years old.
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Rather than friends, they
saw each other as brothers. They had a very close bond.
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He and his other
male friends all spent time together regularly. He messaged them on social
media and in text messages
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very regularly. Ian Acheson: These were normal
people in their early 20s. They'd go and meet down
the pub, chat to each other,
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and they'd do what youngsters
with jobs who got money do in the pub, they'd drink.
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narrator: In this
atmosphere of revelry is where a young woman called
Natalie Jarvis first crossed
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paths with Adam Whelehan. Geoffrey Wansell: She'd first
met Adam Whelehan in 2008
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in a local pub, but they were
both in other relationships, and so there was no connection.
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Khaleda Rahman: They didn't
begin their relationship until four years later,
in the summer of 2012,
00:04:41
after she noticed on Facebook
that he had become single. After that, they
began communicating.
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narrator: In June 2012,
23-year-old Natalie was living with her parents in Swanley,
Kent, just four miles from
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Whelehan's home in Sidcup. She was born on the 28th
of April, 1989, to mom, Adele.
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Adele Jarvis: Natalie's
my youngest daughter. Gemma was four or nearly
four when Natalie was born.
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There's nearly four
years between them. And she loved having
a little sister. They grew up very close.
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Gemma Jarvis: Even though there
was four years between us, we were just always together.
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Whenever I came out, me
and my sister came as a pair. She was just fun,
outgoing, bubbly, loving.
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And whenever
Natalie was around, you would hear her
before you saw her. narrator: When Natalie
and Gemma were still small,
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their family was completed
by Adele's new partner, Mark. - I came into Natalie's life
when she was four years old.
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And she was one
of those children that you just
looked at and fell in love with straight away.
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She was a larger-than-life
character, and more friends than you
could shake a stick at.
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narrator: As she headed
towards adulthood, Natalie's zest for life
showed no sign of abating.
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Adele Jarvis: Natalie was all
about makeup and modern clothes and looking good
and dressing good.
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Gemma Jarvis: When Nat was old
enough to come out with me, we'd go to bars and stuff.
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She'd spend a lot of time
on the gay scene with me, so we'd go, like, in and out
of clubs, Brighton, London.
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When we were out,
we'd be dancing, we'd be chatting, just
be enjoying ourselves.
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And like, everything was fun. It was always fun. It was loud. We'd get up to mischief.
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narrator: In 2011,
Natalie suffered a heartbreak that
challenged her usually sunny, optimistic outlook.
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Adele Jarvis: Natalie
was in a relationship, a serious relationship
with a guy. And he got her
pregnant, but he didn't
00:07:05
want her to have
the baby, so we obviously spoke to her about
it and she made the decision.
00:07:12
She didn't want
to be a single mom. And she chose
to have an abortion. - They split up, they got back
together, they split up again.
00:07:21
Adele Jarvis: He
broke her heart. The relationship broke up. After that, we supported
her as much as we could.
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She appeared to be going
out and enjoying herself, but she wasn't the same
person that she was.
00:07:35
- We said, come on, Nat, you've
got to move on from this. And she did. Or she appeared to move on.
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She started meeting
other people. We thought she'd eventually
got over this guy.
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narrator: It was around this
time that Natalie reconnected with 22-year-old
Adam Whelehan, whom
00:07:55
she'd first met back in 2008. - I think she was very
vulnerable when she met Adam.
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And I think she
saw him as someone to help her through the pain
that she was going through.
00:08:07
- In the early summer of 2012,
they were both unattached. And a relationship began.
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Adele Jarvis: His
name was being mentioned quite regularly. And he was picking
her up from the house,
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taking her out,
going to the cinema, eating out, doing
those type of things. I'd ask her numerous times,
is he your boyfriend, Nat?
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And she goes, no, mom,
he's just a friend. We're just friends. But I know there
was more to it.
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I know they were
being intimate. narrator: Though Natalie said
she was happy with the status
00:08:42
quo, there were signs
she may have wanted more from the relationship. - I don't think he was
as serious about her
00:08:50
as she might have
been about him. narrator: There appeared
to be an imbalance in Natalie
00:08:57
and Whelehan's
ongoing relationship. Jane Monckton-Smith:
In what's called a situationship
suggests that this
00:09:06
is an agreement
between two people that they're only going to hook
up now and again, probably
00:09:12
for sex, and then just
go about their lives and not be in any kind
of committed relationship.
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That's all very well and good. But in a lot
of cases, one party wants the situationship
and the other party
00:09:27
wants something more committed. narrator: Natalie's family
had little opportunity
00:09:32
to get to know the young man
she was spending time with. Adele Jarvis: To be
honest with you,
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I don't really know
a lot about Adam at all. I would love Natalie to have
brought Adam home so that we
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could meet him properly. But because she
said there wasn't a label
on their relationship, perhaps
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he was reluctant to meet us. I know he came to our house
when we weren't here, but we never actually met him.
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Mark Jarvis: He didn't
come to the door when he came to collect her. Natalie'd say, I'm off out.
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And off she'd go. Adele Jarvis: There was
nothing that Natalie ever said about Adam that made me
think there was anything wrong
00:10:06
with him, dodgy about him. She was very confident
woman and trustworthy. And I trusted what she said.
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Gemma Jarvis: I think
one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't know
anything about him.
00:10:22
Because if I had known
a bit more about him, I may have been
a bit more like Nat,
00:10:26
you know, a bit more hesitant,
like, watch what you're doing. Be careful. narrator: Natalie
Jarvis's family
00:10:35
had no reason to worry
about her safety when she spent time
with Adam Whelehan.
00:10:40
They had no way of knowing
that the man Natalie was seeing had another personality,
a dark and dangerous side
00:10:47
that would eventually
be revealed with devastating consequences. [dramatic music]
00:10:58
In the summer of 2012,
23-year-old Natalie Jarvis was a happy-go-lucky
young woman living
00:11:05
with her parents in the town
of Swanley in Kent. - Natalie got a job
at McDonald's and
00:11:15
seemed very happy there. That, for her, was like a
social life as well as her job.
00:11:21
Gemma Jarvis: I don't think she
really aspired to be anything. She just wanted to have fun.
00:11:26
To be honest, I
think she probably would still be working
at McDonald's now if she was still alive.
00:11:30
I would imagine she'd be
a manager of some sort, but I think she would
have stayed where she
00:11:35
was because people liked her. Mark Jarvis: When she
walked into a room, it was like a social
hand grenade.
00:11:41
Everything stopped
because Natalie had walked in. And the noise
levels went up, and
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the population went
up as well when she was around, because people
just flocked to her.
00:11:53
narrator: While Natalie
was popular with customers, her family, and her
many friends,
00:11:58
the one person who seemed not
to appreciate her was the man she was in a casual
relationship with,
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22-year-old Adam Whelehan. Khaleda Rahman: Adam Whelehan
did not seem to think very highly of Natalie.
00:12:12
He and his friends
would refer to her as JC, which was
a cruel reference to the actor, James
Corden, who they seem
00:12:22
to think that she resembled. narrator: Whelehan's
friend, Tom, first came up with the jibe.
00:12:28
- It was something like,
yeah, she looks like JC, and I'd rather shag
James Corden than her.
00:12:36
And that set the tone
for what were grotesque series of boys saying
dreadful things about girls
00:12:45
that they never
imagined would be seen. Jane Monckton-Smith:
Natalie was spoken about and treated
as if she was
00:12:53
of no importance to anyone. Ian Acheson: I imagine
that many of those texts were sent when she
was just sitting
00:13:00
over there waving at them. It was just callous, laddish,
uncaring offensiveness.
00:13:10
narrator: Natalie had
no inkling of the way Adam Whelehan and his
friends talked about her
00:13:16
in their private messages. But in July 2012, she
got her first taste of how unpleasant he could be.
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Khaleda Rahman: Just a few
days after they first slept together, Natalie
texted Adam Whelehan
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to say that she was pregnant. He did not react well. narrator: Despite
the revelation via text,
00:13:39
no one is sure whether
or not Natalie really had been pregnant in July 2012. Jane Monckton-Smith:
When Natalie told him
00:13:49
that she thought
she was pregnant, I think we have
to consider, one, that maybe she thought she
was; two, that she was testing
00:13:58
to see if the things that
he was saying to her, are they true or not? Where one person wants
something different
00:14:08
from the relationship
to the other person always creates an imbalance. The person who doesn't
want the relationship
00:14:15
always has far more power. And they could be
quite manipulative. He may have been
giving her messaging
00:14:22
that he liked her a lot
more than he actually did. narrator: If Natalie
was hoping to discover
00:14:28
Whelehan's true
feelings for her, she may have been
disappointed by his response.
00:14:34
Ian Acheson: He wasn't
happy about the idea. I think that was the first
point at which a sour note
00:14:40
came into his text messages. He sent the sort
of ugly messages that young men
in that situation
00:14:49
can send, namely, well,
it's nothing to do with me, you'll have to prove it, and,
I don't want it, et cetera.
00:14:55
narrator: Though it was
perhaps not the response she was hoping for, Natalie
pursued her relationship
00:15:01
with Adam Whelehan. Ian Acheson: There were
the best part of a thousand texts sent by Natalie to Adam.
00:15:09
And he either ignored
them or sent a rebuff. narrator: Instead, Whelehan
sent frantic messages
00:15:17
to female friends, asking
how he could find out if Natalie was telling
the truth about the pregnancy,
00:15:23
and text to his male
friends complaining about the bind he was in. - It started, and this
is not uncommon,
00:15:32
with the bloke
complaining to his friends that she's just badgering him
and she's a blight on his life.
00:15:41
It's getting him down. And then he starts
claiming that it's getting him so down that he's
ideating suicidal thoughts.
00:15:52
Jane Monckton-Smith:
For people like Whelehan who believe that they are
in charge of the relationship,
00:16:00
he is the type
of person who's going to respond really badly
when that control is
00:16:04
taken away from him. narrator: For Professor
Jane Monckton-Smith, an expert on violence and
control within relationships,
00:16:12
Whelehan's reaction to
Natalie's news, though extreme, was not uncommon. Jane Monckton-Smith: If she's
saying she's pregnant,
00:16:21
that's a massive challenge to
his control over his own life, over that relationship,
over everything.
00:16:28
Very often, actually,
in those circumstances, somebody like
Whelehan's thoughts are going to go
straight to death.
00:16:37
Quite often, this
does start with, well, I'm going to kill myself. And that can move to,
I'm going to kill you.
00:16:48
For me, Whelehan is showing
me exactly who he is. And he is the type of person
that, in his relationships,
00:16:56
he's going to become dangerous. narrator: And while
Adam Whelehan never got a firm answer on whether
or not Natalie really
00:17:03
was pregnant, it's clear
that his thoughts about her began to take a dark
and violent direction.
00:17:11
Geoffrey Wansell:
On the 23rd of July, about 10 days after Natalie
had told Adam she was pregnant,
00:17:18
Adam tweeted, "It's
all right to kill someone these days, isn't it? Think I might just do that."
00:17:25
It is an extraordinary
reaction, and one which is indicative of
a lack of any kind of empathy.
00:17:33
- Just about a week
later, he tweeted again, ♪ "I think I might do it,
hashtag #murderousmind.
00:17:40
narrator: As the summer
of 2012 went on, Whelehan's dark musings
about killing Natalie Jarvis
00:17:47
continued. And before long, his
friends, the ones who'd exchanged misogynistic
messages about Natalie,
00:17:54
were also drawn
into the fantasy. Geoffrey Wansell: On the 6th
of September, Adam's friend,
00:17:59
Tom, texted him,
saying, why don't you just get on and kill her? So they'd obviously
been talking about it
00:18:06
throughout the summer. On the 17th
of September, Tom sent another message to Adam
on Twitter saying,
00:18:14
"The end is nigh for JC. The end is nigh." - His friends seem to goad
him and encourage him.
00:18:23
Some of them would ask him
whether he had killed anyone. And he would respond
saying only in his mind.
00:18:30
- On the 19th
of September, Adam texted another friend saying,
"I'm going to do JC tomorrow."
00:18:38
narrator: Whatever
Whelehan meant by that, nothing happened. But the exchange
of messages fantasizing
00:18:44
about Whelehan harming
Natalie continued. Ian Acheson: I don't
recall at any stage
00:18:52
any of the male friends putting
in a dissenting text saying, hold on, Adam, what are you
talking about, you idiot?
00:19:03
Khaleda Rahman: If anything,
they seem to encourage him. Jane Monckton-Smith: Quite
probably, they didn't believe
00:19:12
that he would actually do it. This was just more misogynistic
banter that they were all
00:19:18
getting involved in together. And they probably really
believed that he wouldn't
00:19:23
take it to the next step. narrator: As summer
turned to autumn, Whelehan and his
friends continued
00:19:31
to exchange sinister messages
about Natalie Jarvis's fate. She, in the meantime,
was oblivious to
00:19:39
Whelehan's true
intentions, intentions that were coming closer
and closer to being realized.
00:19:46
Khaleda Rahman:
On the 1st of October, Adam Whelehan had driven
Natalie and a friend
00:19:51
to go to visit a Burger King. Afterwards, the friend
was dropped off, and Whelehan
and Natalie drove around
00:19:59
for a few hours in the car. narrator: Whatever the two
of them talked about, something seemed to have
happened during that drive
00:20:06
to spook Natalie. Adele Jarvis: Natalie posted
something on Facebook, saying that she was being kidnapped.
00:20:13
But I didn't really use
Facebook a lot back then and I hadn't seen it. I think he took her
somewhere that she may
00:20:20
have not known where she was. And she may well have said
to him, I want to go home.
00:20:26
Khaleda Rahman: When her
sister messaged her about it, she made light of the situation
and said it was just a joke.
00:20:32
narrator: Whether Natalie's
post was in jest or in earnest, it seems to have
saved her life.
00:20:39
For that day at least. - Natalie didn't seem
to know how close she had come to death that evening.
00:20:45
Adam Whelehan messaged
a friend that he had been close to doing
it, but what stopped him
00:20:50
was Natalie's Facebook post. He said that he had his
knife ready and everything.
00:20:56
narrator: Once again,
Whelehan's friends might have taken his words as a joke. But in fact, he was deadly
serious, and next time there
00:21:08
would be no backing down. On the 3rd of October 2012,
Adam Whelehan suggested another late night liaison
with Natalie Jarvis in Swanley,
00:21:24
Kent. Around 6:30 PM on that
Wednesday evening, Adam Whelehan met friends for
after-work drinks in Sidcup,
00:21:32
Southeast London. - Adam and his friend, Tom, are
drinking in a local golf club.
00:21:41
They leave the golf club
and go to another pub. narrator: At a third pub, by
this time, several drinks in,
00:21:48
Whelehan set the wheels
in motion for what was to come. At 9:40 PM, he sent
a message to Natalie Jarvis.
00:21:57
[phone notification] - He asked if she wanted to
meet up and talk and have sex. Ian Acheson: There
was an exchange
00:22:05
between him and Natalie,
where she expressed, well, how am I to believe you? You've been mugging
me off all this time.
00:22:14
And he went, no, no, we'll go
and talk and we'll have fun. narrator: At the same
time as Natalie
00:22:20
was agreeing
to Whelehan's plan, his friends were
exchanging cryptic messages about what might happen next.
00:22:27
[phone notification] - The spiral of text exchanges
where no one's throwing a spanner in the works.
00:22:34
I genuinely don't
think they thought he was telling the truth. narrator: As Adam Whelehan
and his friend, Tom,
00:22:42
left the pub
on Sidcup High Street, Natalie Jarvis was coming to
the end of her shift at work.
00:22:49
Mark Jarvis:
Natalie was working at the local McDonald's. About halfway
through the evening,
00:22:53
she rang Adele and said,
I'm finishing early. Can mom come and get me? Adele Jarvis: When she came
home from work, had a shower,
00:23:02
and she didn't bother to put
clothes on again because it was like 10:30 at night.
00:23:05
So she put pajamas
on and a pink dressing gown and her slippers. Had a cuddle and a chat
with me and said,
00:23:11
I'm going out
for a fag for a bit. narrator: At 10:32 PM, Whelehan
messaged Natalie, "Outside."
00:23:19
- And she texts Adam
Whelehan, "Two mins." Adele Jarvis:
And basically, she said,
00:23:26
bye and "shlaters,"
as she used to say, which meant see you later.
Love you. Bye.
00:23:31
And that was the last
thing she said. [somber music] Mark Jarvis: She shouted up
the stairs to me, love you.
00:23:38
And that was it. And obviously, I shouted down. And thank Christ I did. ♪ ♪ narrator: Carrying just
her phone and keys,
00:23:51
Natalie got into the passenger
seat of Adam Whelehan's car. Geoffrey Wansell: What
Natalie doesn't know
00:23:57
and what Adam hasn't told
her is that his friend, Tom, is concealed in the boot.
00:24:04
Jane Monckton-Smith: I think
it's really frightening that Whelehan
manipulated Natalie
00:24:10
to get in the car
with him and there's a second male in the boot. That, to me, is
a terrifying situation.
00:24:20
Why was that
person in the boot? There's no reasonable
explanation. Ian Acheson: He was in the boot
of the car sending messages
00:24:28
to a girl who knew
everyone from the pub saying, oh, my goodness,
I'm in the boot of the car.
00:24:36
He can't be about to do it,
but he might be about to do it. Words to that effect.
00:24:41
And he tried to send
her a photograph of his hand in the black,
the darkness of the boot of the car.
00:24:49
Adele Jarvis: And Natalie
just sat in the car with him and they drove
to Swanley Village.
00:24:53
I believe they've been there
before where they parked up. And she might have
just thought that they
00:24:58
were just going for a chat. The radio was on and everything
was just normal. Khaleda Rahman:
During the drive,
00:25:04
she seemed to be aware that
a warning light was on, indicating that
the boot was open.
00:25:10
Mark Jarvis: And by the time
they got to Burton Street in Swanley Village, Natalie
insisted he stopped the car.
00:25:16
And she got out of the car
and she goes to the boot of the car to chuck it shut.
00:25:26
narrator: This was the moment
the sick joke between friends became a reality. In a secluded country
lane, Adam Whelehan
00:25:34
had carried out
the horrific act he'd been boasting about for weeks. - He just started stabbing
her in the throat.
00:25:42
Geoffrey Wansell: In the end,
he inflicts 20 stab wounds on her neck, one of them four
and bit inches deep, almost
00:25:49
severing her carotid artery. Khaleda Rahman:
She fought back. The evidence shows that she had
defensive wounds on her hands
00:25:56
and on her arms. narrator: Natalie staggered
towards a lit window in the village,
but fell to the ground
00:26:02
before she made it there. Adam Whelehan pursued
her and carried out one final devastating
act against her.
00:26:14
- Natalie said
to him, I'm dying. Please ring my mom. And he threw her phone away.
00:26:21
- He simply took it out
and threw it over a hedge. - So that she had
no way of contacting
00:26:31
anyone, of getting herself to
safety, or saving her own life. - She just died on the road,
and he got back in the car
00:26:39
and drove off with his friend. - Adam Whelehan returned
to the car covered in blood.
00:26:49
Tom, at this point, was in
the driver's seat of the car. narrator: Together, they drove
in the opposite direction
00:26:55
from where Natalie lay alone. As they headed back towards
Whelehan's hometown, he messaged his friends, "Done.
00:27:03
Not lying. Covered in blood. So sorry I let you boys down." Just a few minutes
later, a driver
00:27:11
spotted Natalie Jarvis lying
at the side of the road in Swanley Village. - Realizes that she's
been brutally attacked,
00:27:19
calls the paramedics. Khaleda Rahman:
The passerby gave her CPR and tried his best to keep her
alive until paramedics arrived.
00:27:29
Geoffrey Wansell:
They get there quite quickly at about 11:25. But sadly, they
cannot revive her and
00:27:36
she's declared dead at 11:30. narrator: Seven minutes later,
Whelehan and his friends
00:27:45
were eight miles away in
Eltham, buying beer and cigars. Khaleda Rahman: They went and
picked up a friend of theirs.
00:27:55
Together, they drove
to a Tesco Express. Adam Whelehan
stayed in the car. He was covered in blood.
00:28:02
But he gave his credit
card to his friend. They bought
alcohol, cigarettes, cigars, lottery scratch cards.
00:28:11
narrator: While
Natalie Jarvis's family slept, oblivious
to the fact their lives were
00:28:16
about to be forever changed,
Whelehan told his friends he really had done
what the four of them
00:28:22
had been discussing for weeks. Jane Monckton-Smith:
After the murder, Whelehan joined up
with his friends,
00:28:30
smoking cigars, drinking,
bragging about what he's done. Geoffrey Wansell: It
absolutely defies belief.
00:28:37
You're sitting around
in a house with a man who is covered in blood,
who's just admitted
00:28:42
that he's killed
his girlfriend, and you all just
have another drink. narrator: But before long, the
camaraderie turned to horror
00:28:50
for Whelehan's friends. They urged him
to go to the police and admit what he'd done.
00:28:57
Khaleda Rahman: Adam
Whelehan turned himself in at Bexleyheath
police station at about
00:29:01
3:00 AM on October the 4th. He said that he
thought he had killed someone in the Swanley area.
00:29:09
At the time, he did not
know if Natalie was dead, but he told officers that
he had slashed her neck
00:29:15
and left her. [dramatic music] Jane Monckton-Smith:
That was definitely an act of self-preservation.
00:29:25
It was going to take
the police five minutes to link Natalie to him. Loads and loads
of people knew anyway.
00:29:35
So the best thing
for him really is to say, yes, it was me,
but I was defending myself.
00:29:44
Ian Acheson: He was
interviewed under caution, and he set out what
was his defense,
00:29:50
namely that she'd
attacked him with a weapon that she'd brought,
and he disarmed her.
00:29:57
And that was how she'd
come to be stabbed 20 odd times in the throat. Geoffrey Wansell: When
the forensic team searched
00:30:07
Adam's car, they found
the multitool sheath with his fingerprints on it. And they also found his
bloody tracksuit bottoms.
00:30:18
narrator: Natalie's phone was
recovered from a field close to where her body lay.
00:30:23
As Adam Whelehan sat in a
police cell in Bexleyheath, just seven miles
away in Swanley,
00:30:29
Natalie Jarvis's
family were waking up to discover their daughter
was nowhere to be found.
00:30:42
[birds chirping, sad tune] - The 3rd of October
is when Natalie died. But the day my world
come crashing down was
00:30:51
actually the 4th of October. It was waking up
on that morning and she wasn't in her bed.
00:30:58
The worst thing
going through my head was that she might have been
involved in an accident.
00:31:02
And she'd gone out
with her phone and keys in her pajamas and dressing
gown, so no ID on her.
00:31:10
- I was getting ready
for work as well at the time, said I'll try ringing her.
I left her a message.
00:31:15
Nothing. Gemma Jarvis: I phoned 999. And I said, I want
to know if there have been any
reports of a woman
00:31:21
being involved in an accident. And she asked me,
how tall was she and what color was her hair?
00:31:29
And no alarm bells were
going off in my head at all. And then she said, someone
would be around to see
00:31:34
us in about an hour. And still no alarm
bells were going off. narrator: Just minutes
later, a detective
00:31:42
was knocking on the door of
Adele and Mark Jarvis's home. Adele Jarvis: This man came in.
00:31:49
It was just so normal. And he was telling
us to sit down. And I'm like, oh,
no, it's all right.
00:31:53
I don't need to sit down. Mark Jarvis: And he said, I
need to tell you something.
00:31:58
We found a body. And we believe
it's your daughter. The impact was just like
being punched by Mike Tyson.
00:32:08
You just-- what? Adele Jarvis: And I
remember screaming at him, how dare you come into my house
and tell me my daughter's dead?
00:32:16
You don't know her. You don't even know
what she looks like. narrator: Natalie's sister
Gemma, at work that morning,
00:32:23
had been making phone
calls to try to find out where Natalie might be. - The next thing I know, I
got a phone call from Mark
00:32:33
and he was crying,
and he was like, Gemma, you need to come home. And I went downstairs
and spoke to the manager
00:32:39
that was in charge. And I said to her,
I need to go home. My sister's dead. I didn't know how
or why, but I knew
00:32:48
something horrible
had happened and I was never going to see her again. [sobbing]
00:33:01
Adele Jarvis: We
weren't allowed to see her till the Friday. So between Wednesday
and the Friday,
00:33:05
it felt like I was
just not believing it. It's not Natalie. It's not Natalie. It can't be Natalie.
00:33:13
Ringing her phone. And obviously,
she didn't answer. But we still didn't
believe it was her until we
00:33:20
were taken to the mortuary. Mark Jarvis: When they
pull the curtains back, that's when reality hits you.
00:33:27
And you know that you've been
praying in a forlorn hope because it was Natalie. Adele Jarvis: She had
a towel right up to her chin
00:33:39
that was hiding injuries
that he'd inflicted on her all around her neck. And we could touch her.
00:33:47
They let us in. We could only touch
her face and her hair. And we were kissing
her and crying.
00:33:53
But it was the worst image. You just-- you just
don't want to ever see that, your child lying there
stone cold, hard. [sobbing]
00:34:05
I can't tell you how bad it is. It's just something that
I'll never get over. [somber music]
00:34:13
[dramatic music] narrator: The next
days and weeks passed in a blur for Natalie's
shocked and grieving family.
00:34:23
By this time, both Whelehan
and one of his friends had been charged with murder.
00:34:28
Both defendants could request
their own separate post-mortem, so it was some time
before Natalie's body
00:34:35
could be released. - Natalie's funeral was
on the 19th of November. - Natalie's funeral
was amazing.
00:34:45
It was so big. She was in this
beautiful white coffin. We wanted a rainbow on it
because Natalie's life
00:34:53
was very colorful. Adele Jarvis: She would have
seen it as one big party. And it was.
00:35:00
It was very emotional. We all wrote little notes. And we were able
to put them in a jar.
00:35:07
And they were going
to get put in her coffin. It was very sad,
as you can imagine.
00:35:13
But it was big. Nat would have loved it. Gemma Jarvis: There
must have been upwards of 300 people there,
people from all walks of life
00:35:21
who we'd never seen that
Natalie had had an impact on. It was just phenomenal. narrator: Five months after
Natalie Jarvis's funeral,
00:35:33
her family attended
the trial of the men charged with her murder. The trial at Maidstone
Crown Court began
00:35:41
on the 3rd of April, 2013. Gemma Jarvis: I was there
every single day of the trial.
00:35:47
We had a lot of people. I think most days, there
was about 30 or 40 people on our side in terms
of family and friends
00:35:54
that wanted to be there
to support us during it. It was about
justice for Natalie.
00:35:58
Khaleda Rahman: Adam Whelehan
and Tom were both charged with Natalie's murder. Both pleaded not guilty.
00:36:04
Geoffrey Wansell:
Tom was, after all, in the car hiding in the boot,
and then drove Adam away.
00:36:11
Ian Acheson: Tom was
properly tried and properly acquitted, in my view. He was acquitted because even
at the very last minute,
00:36:20
I don't genuinely
think he thought anything other than, well,
this really can't be happening.
00:36:30
narrator: Mark and Adele Jarvis
had never before laid eyes on Adam Whelehan, the man
their daughter had liked
00:36:37
and who stood accused
of taking her life. Adele Jarvis: The first
day of the court,
00:36:43
we got a proper look at him. To me, he looked
like a little boy. He didn't look
like he was sorry.
00:36:52
Gemma Jarvis: We were
filled with rage. Oh, it was just so surreal. All we wanted to know was why.
00:37:00
narrator: Accused
of murdering Natalie Jarvis in cold blood, Whelehan
stuck to his claim
00:37:06
that he had killed her
in self-defense after she'd lunged at him with a knife. For Natalie's loved ones,
it was an outlandish claim.
00:37:15
Gemma Jarvis: The idea that she
would go out to attack someone was shocking. We were just like, you're
having a laugh, mate.
00:37:21
My sister was just-- she would kill
you with kindness. Like, that was it. narrator: Prosecutor
Ian Acheson
00:37:29
presented forensic
evidence that demolished Whelehan's
claims, starting with the pathologist
description of the injuries
00:37:37
to Natalie's neck. - A hole where her
larynx might be, that injury was the combination
of so many knife wounds
00:37:47
that the forensic
pathologist was unable to quantify how
many separate blows had
00:37:53
caused that injury. All he could say
about it was that the depth of the blows
to that injury
00:38:01
was 11 and 1/2 centimeters. That sort of furious
stabbing to the most vulnerable part of the body,
that's not self-defense.
00:38:12
Jane Monckton-Smith: He
stabbed her more than 20 times in the neck and the chest.
00:38:18
It takes quite
a long time to stab somebody that number of times. He didn't stab her
and then suddenly think,
00:38:26
oh, my god, what have I done? He kept going and kept going
because he was rage-fueled.
00:38:36
Geoffrey Wansell: There
was about 150 meters of blood spatter
from the car to where
00:38:40
her body was eventually found. Ian Acheson: She
managed to walk 35 meters after the first
plainly fatal spurt of blood.
00:38:54
And then as each pulse
came, it was less blood, and it went a shorter
distance as the life
00:39:02
literally ebbed out of her. narrator:
The prosecution contended that the attack was
of a savagery that
00:39:09
couldn't be explained
by Whelehan's claim of defending himself. They also drew on hundreds
of text messages
00:39:16
to prove it had
been premeditated. - We had incontrovertible
text message evidence of him expressing
the desire to kill her.
00:39:29
We have a month
where he demonstrates absolutely no interest
in seeing her again.
00:39:36
And then when he
tells his mates, right, tonight's the night, for
the first time in a thousand
00:39:42
text messages, he said,
all right, Natalie, why don't we go out together? I'll come and pick you up.
00:39:47
And then, lo and behold, within
seconds of them getting out of the car, she is face
down on the pavement
00:39:54
with horrendous fatal injuries. narrator: If Whelehan's
premeditated, rage-fueled
00:40:03
attack had been
in response to believing Natalie was
expecting his child, the post-mortem findings
were especially poignant.
00:40:12
Natalie had not been
pregnant at the time that she was killed. Geoffrey Wansell: On the 24th
of April 2013, the jury retire
00:40:23
to consider their verdict. It takes them less
than four hours to come back and convict
Adam Whelehan
00:40:30
of Natalie Jarvis's murder. Mark Jarvis: The whole
family were, yes. Nothing else.
No gloating.
00:40:39
Nothing. Whilst we're satisfied
that he was found guilty, there's no elation in it.
00:40:46
It's just that the system
that we believe in has proven that
you were guilty. Geoffrey Wansell: That same
day, the judge sentences Adam,
00:40:57
of course, to life imprisonment
with a minimum term of 26 years. Gemma Jarvis: The judge
said in court,
00:41:05
Whelehan could have
got rid of his phone, could have changed his number
if all this talk of harassment
00:41:10
was true. He didn't have to come
and pick her up. He didn't have to do anything.
00:41:15
He wasn't forced into this. He could have walked away. The senselessness is
just the loss of life
00:41:22
and a life of such
a vibrant person. It just beggars belief. It just doesn't add up.
00:41:30
Ian Acheson: He
didn't have a soul. I recall clearly asking
him, "Did you feel anything
00:41:36
for her before this happened?" "No." "And once it had happened,
she'd been your friend,
00:41:44
did you feel anything about her
lying on a slab in a morgue?" "No." "Do you feel anything
about her now?
00:41:56
Her mother's
sitting over there. Do you have any
feelings for them?" "No." And it was as if he wasn't
the same species as us.
00:42:06
narrator: With her
killer behind bars, Natalie Jarvis's
family have been left to pick up the pieces of
their lives as best they can,
00:42:15
and to remember
the 23 years they enjoyed with a beloved
daughter and sister. - When I think of Natalie,
I just think fun.
00:42:24
Boom. There she is. She was just amazing. I am so thankful
and I'm so lucky that I
00:42:32
had such a perfect sister. Adele Jarvis: She was special. She was beautiful, happy,
always had a smile on her face.
00:42:43
She lit up the room. She was my world. Her and her sister, Gemma,
are everything and more to me.
00:42:51
I'm born to be
their mom and privileged and honored to be their mom. narrator: What started
as a simple story of two
00:43:02
young people enjoying
each other's company descended within months
to a callous murder plot
00:43:09
hatched by a man whose
friends did nothing to change his course of action. Natalie Jarvis was
a loving young woman
00:43:18
who brought only joy
to the people who knew her. In taking her
life, Adam Whelehan
00:43:24
has proved to be one of the
world's most evil killers. [theme music] ♪ ♪ [audio logo]