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[dramatic music] [gunshot bangs] - When a murder's committed, it's always a race against time
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to find the truth, to separate fact from fiction, to catch the killer, and to make sure that
justice is served.
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But what happens when the
truth vanishes with the victim? I'm Dr. Richard Shepherd
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and I've spent my entire career as a forensic pathologist performing nearly
23,000 autopsies.
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I've learned that the
dead don't hide the truth and they never lie. Through me, you'll be hearing
directly from the victim.
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With the aid of a
state-of-the-art laboratory using groundbreaking technology, I'll be investigating a
series of intriguing crimes
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where, from the victim's bodies, I'll reveal to you the
truth behind these murders.
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[camera clicking] [dramatic music] On the day before
Valentine's Day 2011, West Yorkshire police
searched a house
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in the village of Holmfirth. It was the home of missing
mother of two, Marie Stewart,
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and what they found
was truly shocking. The sleepy Yorkshire
town of Holmfirth was home to 30-year-old Marie,
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who lived in a quiet cul-de-sac. But police had been tipped off, that she hadn't been
seen for some time.
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[intense music] - To start with, this
is a welfare check. She's been missing
nearly two months.
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No one seems to
know where she is. Last seen early December and we're now in
February the 13th.
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- [Richard] In December, Marie had unexpectedly told
people she needed time alone
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and was going to the
Canaries for a break. - Marie has had two babies in
a very short period of time.
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One's 1-year-old and
one's 3-year-old, and she's keeping home. She's very, very busy.
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Her work life balance
was difficult. Marie was possibly suffering
from postnatal depression.
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[dramatic music] - [David] The family had started to receive text
messages on Facebook,
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telling the family that
she'd gone off abroad and was very happy
having fun in the sun.
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- [Richard] But
something seemed amiss. - Marie's sister had found
her passport in the address.
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So if she'd gone abroad, how could she do that
without her passport? - Some of the
messages, you know,
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"Go away, I'm enjoying herself." That was a catalyst for people to start thinking
this is not right.
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[intense music] Where is this lady? - [Richard] When Marie failed
to make contact at Christmas
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or on her son's first
birthday in January, the family raised their
concerns with the police.
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- Marie loved her children, so it would've been
very out of character for her to have missed her
child's first birthday.
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Such a family loving mother, why would she not be
around at Christmas to be with her children?
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Why had she not been in
contact with them at all? [intense music] - There's something
really not right here.
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That was what prompted
the welfare check. The police were generally going because they had a real
concern about her welfare,
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not just that,
how are you doing? You know, it was a real
concern about her welfare.
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- I think they
probably had suspicions that maybe this wasn't
your usual kind of,
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maybe missing person case. - The neighbors
had been reporting some smells coming
from the address
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and this would
probably have led them straight to the garage area. - When the police
went round there
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and they went into the garage, they found a body in a bag. - A body was found. It was in a Virgin
Atlantic flight bag
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with a carpet tucked
over the top of it. And now we have a
murder investigation.
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[intense music] Police would've then withdrawn, cordons would be put into place,
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front and rear of the house. This is now a major crime scene. - [Richard] Forensic
teams rushed to the home.
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- All we know at this
point is we've got a body. We don't know whose body it is,
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but obviously the family
needs to be outta the house and an examination
can then begin.
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So we do an initial crime
scene assessment of the house, just, but bearing in mind,
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this is seven, eight
weeks down the line just to see what
looks out of place. Are there any signs of
any cleanup of blood?
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Anything along those lines? - It's the pain
staking examination to say what happened here.
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You would be looking
at the scene, you know, what is the evidence in the
top floor, the middle floor,
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the bottom floor, the garage. It's the bit which
is the hardest part, which is the really methodical
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going through every
part of that house. What's it telling you? What is this scene telling me?
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- [Richard] Both
house and garage appeared clean,
tidy, and normal, but experts were looking
for potential clues
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invisible to the naked eye. - People think that they
can cover up a crime scene,
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but it's very, very difficult. - The next stage to deal
with the garage area
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and removal of the body is a record photography
of the garage area. [camera clicking]
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We don't know if this
is the attack site, deposition site,
or what's gone on.
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The carpet over the
bag would be exhibited and then we'd have
to deal with the bag
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before moving it
to the mortuary. So probably do
some contact swabs around the handles for DNA.
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We need to identify
as soon as we can who that person is, and obviously what
the cause of death is.
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- Though the body
was badly decomposed, dental records
confirmed it was that of missing mom of
two, Marie Stewart.
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[intense music] One of the main tasks
of the pathologist is to determine
the time of death,
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and that gets
increasingly difficult the longer a body
lies undiscovered. Marie's body showed
advanced decomposition
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and the rate a body decomposes is influenced by many factors including temperature,
humidity, insects.
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When someone dies, each of our cells goes
into self-destruct mode. They're full of enzymes
that destroy proteins
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and break down the
structures of the body from the inside out. Determining the exact time of
death is almost impossible,
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but it is always
possible to give a window for the likely time of death. And in Marie's case,
it was possible to say
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that she had been dead
for about two months. Crucially, for
the investigation, this matched the timeframe
for Marie going missing
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and her body being
found in the garage. The race was now on to work out Marie's movements
leading up to her death.
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So her life was put
under the microscope. [gently eerie music] - Marie was an
incredibly kind woman,
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loved her children,
lots of friends, very popular, very
friendly lady, great mother, just generally
a very nice person.
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- She'd worked with
children with special needs, worked in a care
home with children,
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and then became a
teaching assistant where she was very
valued, very good, and the children
really loved her.
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- [Clive] Now her life seemed
to be a giving, a giving back. - She was a lovely girl.
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She had all her
future ahead of her and things were
looking very good. - [Richard] Marie lived with
her 28-year-old fiancee,
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Andrew Lindo, and
their two kids. - Andrew Lindo was
born in Newcastle. He had a musical background,
came from a good background.
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Father was a property developer. - He was a music teacher. He appeared to be a family man.
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He was in a band. - He was a very bright fella,
very popular with friends. [dramatic music]
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[gentle music] - [Richard] Andrew and Marie met at Huddersfield University where they became friends.
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- He was studying music, she was doing
healthcare, childcare, but it appears that she already
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was in a fairly
steady relationship and went on to
marry the gentleman. - [Richard] Marie's husband
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and Andrew Lindo
were close friends. Despite this Lindo
pursued Marie romantically
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after graduating. She turned him down, but Lindo remained close
mates with the married couple.
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[dramatic music] - They referred to him as
a womanizer in university. - Lindo was very friendly
with Marie's husband.
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There was jealousy
involved there. He would perhaps have been
jealous of the husband
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and wanted what he had,
and he set out to get it. - [Richard] As their
friendship deepened,
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Marie opened up to Andrew about her marriage frustrations
and unspoken desires. He offered a shoulder to cry on.
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- She said, oh, he
made me feel wonderful and he made me feel like I was
the only person in the world.
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- [Richard] It led to a
passionate moment between them, which left her marriage
hanging by a thread
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and Andrew's pursuit
of Marie intensified. - Very soon the two
became involved.
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He'd kind of worked
his charm on Marie and she was very taken with him, completely falling
in love with him.
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And when he suggested
them moving in together, she left her husband to the
shock of all family and friends
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because she was a very reliable, very honest, very
kind young person. She set up home with
Lindo and moved away.
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- [Richard] In 2007, after moving in with Lindo, Marie divorced her husband. - It seemed to be very
quick and very intense
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and very passionate, and she appeared to make
almost an instant decision to end the one relationship
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and move everything
in with Lindo. [dramatic music] - Together they began a family,
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and within a few years
they had two babies. - In 2010, they
moved into an address
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in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. They seemed to live
a perfect life. Marie and Lindo seemed
totally happy and in love.
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She wore his engagement ring and Lindo even went as
far as asking her father for permission to marry her.
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And why wouldn't he give it? - [Richard] But by the
time they moved house, another side to the seemingly
happy couple was emerging.
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- Marie started
becoming suspicious of some of the things
that Lindo was saying.
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He'd been caught out cheating. Quite correctly, Marie was actually asking
difficult questions.
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Marie suddenly realized
that all was not right. [intense music] [dramatic music]
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- [Richard] In
Holmfirth, West Yorkshire police had uncovered the
badly decomposed body
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of missing 30-year-old
Marie Stewart at the home she shared
with her fiance, Andrew Lindo, and
their two children.
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Police forensics
confirmed Marie's body had been kept in a
flight bag under a carpet
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in her garage before
she was found. - This will now lead to
house to house inquiries
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being made by the neighbors. See when they'd last saw Marie, had they seen anything
else going on,
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CCTV inquiries. Ring doorbells,
they'd be looking at just to see other comings and
goings there might have been.
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- The first suspect
when a woman is killed, especially in her own home, is going to be the
partner or the ex-partner
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because statistically
they are more likely to have done it
than anybody else, probably in 80% of cases.
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- This will now lead to Lindo being arrested and questioned as to his possible
involvement in this murder.
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- But police in
that kind of inquiry will look at all reasonable
lines of inquiry.
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They will look at other
potential suspects as well. So it's not just
about, was it him,
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but he would have been
the number one suspect until they could eliminate him. - [Richard] The race was
on to find Marie's killer.
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[intense music] So police first
needed to establish what exactly had
happened to her.
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And in the pathology lab, her body started
to provide answers. - There was extensive
bruising around Marie's head,
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evidence of some
blunt force trauma. But had she fallen
and hit her head or was she hit with something?
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Now the bruising extended
to the deep tissues and revealed a number
of separate heavy blows.
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You wouldn't get injuries
like this from a simple fall, and this proves
she was attacked.
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The pattern of injuries
on Marie's body revealed that she'd
been struck repeatedly
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by a complex object. Injuries caused by a stick will produce parallel
linear bruises.
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Objects like the
head of a hammer produce a circular bruise, but patterned bruises
shaped like a T
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or a right angle indicate
a more complex object that has different parts that
have been joined together.
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A fingertip and forensic
search of the family home was already underway. - At the back of the
premises there's a chair,
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child's chair, Winnie
the poo chair, found. They'd all be
submit fingerprints,
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DNA, blood, hairs, fibers. - [Richard] The chair looked
clean to the naked eye, but forensic analysis
found otherwise.
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- On the leg of the chair
there had been blood. - The pattern of
bruising on Marie's body
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showed that she'd been
repeatedly hit by a small chair, one that had belonged
to her daughter.
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[dramatic music] But the attack with the
chair hadn't killed her. It was one part of
a sustained attack.
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- She'd had her throat cut. She had blunt false
trauma injuries and she'd been stabbed.
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She must have been so
frightened, it's unbelievable. [dramatic music] - [Richard] One by one
suspects were eliminated.
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Marie's ex-husband had an alibi. Inquiries with friends,
family, and neighbors,
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along with CCTV analysis ruled
out an intruder or stalker. The only consistent person
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going in and out
of the family home around the time of the murder was Andrew Lindo and
an unknown woman.
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- Obviously Lindo is
a person of interest, lives at the address. Their phones
would've been seized
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and downloaded and
searched, along with laptops and any other electronic
devices they owned.
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- [Richard] And police
made a shocking discovery on Lindo's devices. - It was found out Lindo was
having a number of affairs
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with a number of
different women. [intense music] - He had two going
on at the same time
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at the school that
he was teaching at. - Multiple relationships,
multiple women.
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And he managed to keep,
for the best part, these women from knowing
about each other.
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- [Richard] These
affairs had started when Marie was pregnant with
her second child in 2009,
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and at the time she
was blissfully unaware. - Lindo is very much
a high risk taker,
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and he's gambling
with these women. [upbeat music] He's still able to
continue living this lie
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and doing exactly
what he wants to do, which is to have all these women pandering to this massive ego.
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[gentle music] While Marie was away, going to visit her
parent and her friends, he would bring some
of these women back
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that he was having
relationships with. But he would obliterate
every sight or sound
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of Marie from that house so
that when they came round they would think it
was the bachelor pad.
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- He was clearing
out the premises as though no one
else lived there and he was on his own,
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giving a sob story about
being single parent. His wife had gone off
with somebody else.
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- So having picked
up different lovers, he didn't ever give
them his address,
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but he would take
them to the house and simply drive
around very long routes to completely disorientate them
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so that they wouldn't
know where he lived. They would arrive there,
presumably not knowing
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where they were and not
find their way back, which gave him sort
of carte blanche
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to do what he wanted
while Marie was away, knowing that they wouldn't
come round when she was back.
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He was a fantasist and a liar. - He was actually, he was
living, I'd say a double life.
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He's probably leading a treble and a, you know, quatro life. [dramatic music]
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- [Richard] Months
before Marie's murder, Lindo, the seemingly
respectable school teacher,
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even had an illegal relationship
with a 15-year-old pupil. - That's reckless.
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That's reckless and
it's ego driven. He was, you know, probably
trying to make her think
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that he was some kind
of rock star musician and she was just a young girl. - This is very much
indicative of a narcissist.
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Everything is about him. Me, me, me, see me, attention, wanting to be the
center of attention.
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- [Richard] But it was one other illicit romance in particular that caught the
police's attention.
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[intense music] - Lindo had met his
next lover in a shop when he'd gone to
cash a works check
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and soon they were chatting. He said he was a single father. He was giving her such a
story about the children
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and how awful his previous
girlfriend had been. - [Clive] He was a bachelor doing his best
with two children.
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And it's a hook line
almost, isn't it, to get people to
feel sorry for you.
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- [Richard] Under
police questioning, the woman revealed
she was suspicious that Lindo hadn't
actually left Marie
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and wouldn't be convinced until she spent a
night in the house. - Lindo took the children
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and went to pick up a woman that he was having an
affair, a relationship with, and brought her
back to the house.
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- He was reinventing life. He was started up
with this new female, he was almost
grooming his children
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to have this new
female in their life. [dramatic music] - When his new girlfriend
was there at Christmas day,
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firstly, he said, "This is
the best Christmas ever." And then, when she commented
on the nice Christmas tree
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with the decorations and
the little girl said, "Oh, mommy helped me with that",
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Lindo jumped in and said, "Don't be silly, I
helped you do that." What must have that felt
like for that little girl?
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But clearly he has no care
for anybody else's feelings, even his own children.
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It shows the kind of
mindset of this man that he's prepared to lie
in front of his children
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and play with
their mind, really. [intense music] - Lindo carried on inviting Marie's father and sister
over for Christmas dinner,
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acting as if nothing
untoward had occurred. - [Richard] Lindo
had told the family
00:21:49
Marie had left him
for another man, but when they phoned
her over Christmas, she never answered.
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She only ever sent texts and did so for the
next two months. - Why had she not been in
contact with them at all?
00:22:10
The family were becoming
more and more suspicious about what had gone on. Also, Lindo claimed
to be the only person
00:22:16
who was still speaking to her. And if she'd gone off, why would she not
speak to her family?
00:22:21
Why speak to him? So things weren't
adding up whatsoever. - [Richard] Police
analyzed local phone masts
00:22:28
and mobile phone activity around the time of
Marie's disappearance. - We learnt through phone
work that both phones
00:22:37
had actually been more or less at the same address
at the same time, rather than her
phone being abroad.
00:22:43
It was determined, obviously, that Lindo was
sending these messages on Marie's phone
from the home address
00:22:48
and not coming from
abroad whatsoever. - He was making
a trail of deceit with text messages
and a Facebook page.
00:22:57
He fundamentally made
some errors there because people know
people, don't they?
00:23:02
Parents know their daughters, friends know their friends. - He was posting messages
on Facebook acting as Marie
00:23:09
and sending texts to the family saying that she was having fun, but it was using a language
that Marie wouldn't use.
00:23:20
- He's supremely confident that he's not going
to get caught. - [Richard] The only
people at the house
00:23:28
on the suspected
night of the murder were Lindo and his
new girlfriend. But forensic evidence eliminated
her from the investigation.
00:23:38
And during questioning, she revealed why she hadn't
suspected anything sinister
00:23:43
in the weeks that followed. - He'd actually placed candles, aromatic kind of candles,
00:23:51
to kill the smells
in strategic places and one over the garage, which presumably he
would've been lighting
00:23:59
quite often when
he had women round because the body remained
in the flight bag zipped up for the
next seven weeks.
00:24:07
[dramatic music] - [Richard] Under arrest and confronted
with the evidence, Lindo confessed
to killing Marie.
00:24:17
- When the police
found Marie's body, there is no way that Lindo would've been
able to explain that.
00:24:25
- He came clean to the police in admitting what had
gone on to a point, admitted to manslaughter
and not murder.
00:24:34
- [Richard] But
would Marie's body reveal a different story? [intense music]
00:24:49
The sleepy village of Holmfirth, scene of a brutal crime
in December, 2011. Police in Yorkshire
suspected Andrew Lindo
00:25:01
of murdering his
fiancee, Marie Stewart. He had already
confessed to hitting her
00:25:06
over the head with
a child's chair. But Lindo claimed it
was spur of the moment,
00:25:14
manslaughter, not murder. [dramatic music] - They'd had an
argument one night
00:25:24
and he just lost
control, were his words. Basically it just
went from there. [chair banging]
00:25:33
- It was a sustained attack over three floors of a house, which certainly started
on the top floor,
00:25:39
the bedroom area. - And all this is going on while their own
children are asleep.
00:25:45
- [Richard] The
postmortem revealed Marie had been repeatedly beaten with a child's chair.
00:25:50
And despite efforts
to clean the scene, forensics proved this
happened upstairs.
00:25:56
Lindo's girlfriend
corroborated this. - She noticed like
stains and like Vanish
00:26:02
or some product had been used
to sort of clear these stains. - [Richard] But
this violent beating
00:26:09
didn't account for
all the injuries on Marie's broken body. The postmortem revealed more
of the horror of that night.
00:26:18
As well as the blunt force
injuries to her head, there was also evidence that
Marie had been strangled.
00:26:24
Evidence of strangulation is found in the
larynx in the neck. The larynx is a group
of three cartilages
00:26:31
that form the Adam's apple, and they provide the structure for the muscles of
speech and swallowing.
00:26:37
When force is
applied to the neck, the delicate spikes get broken and evidence of strangulation
can be identified.
00:26:45
Below the larynx
is the windpipe, and this is kept open
by hoops of cartilage so it's very strong and
very difficult to compress,
00:26:54
to stop air passing through it. More usually, strangling compresses the
vagus nerve in the neck
00:27:02
and the vagus nerve passes
from the brain to the heart and helps control the heartbeat.
00:27:08
So compression of the neck
compromises that nerve, making the heart slow
down and beat irregularly
00:27:15
and can cause people
to lose consciousness. So he may have thought he
killed her, but he hadn't.
00:27:26
Under police interview, Lindo
gave his version of events. - He was sitting on top of
her, she spat in his face.
00:27:35
He got incredibly angry and just started to
manually strangle her. - Strangulation is very, very
common in controlling people.
00:27:45
It's very personal. It's very stare into your eyes. I'm doing this to you
00:27:52
and I want you to know
I'm doing this to you. It's an incredibly
personal violence,
00:27:59
but it does take a
little bit of time. It's not quick, and
Marie would've fought.
00:28:04
[dramatic music] - He had rendered
her unconscious, wrapped her into a rug,
put her into a suitcase,
00:28:14
started to take her downstairs, but she started making
the noise in the suitcase.
00:28:19
Got her out again, attacked her with a
Winnie the Pooh chair, causing injuries to the head
00:28:25
and used his belt to try
and strangle her again. Again, rendered her unconscious.
00:28:32
- [Richard] Police recovered
the suitcase and rug and forensics found Marie's
blood and DNA on them.
00:28:39
But it took further
analysis of Marie's body to lead them to the belt. - At the post-mortem,
00:28:47
Marie's neck was clearly had
bruising on it from fingers, and then we know
that a belt was used.
00:28:55
The markings may not have been
totally clear at the time, but you can use something
called light source,
00:29:00
which is a spectrum of light, which enhances what the
naked eye can't see. This can then be
photographed, measured,
00:29:09
and then you've got an idea
of the width for the belt that you'd be looking
for in the address.
00:29:15
They found his DNA,
her blood on it. - [Richard] The
evidence against Lindo was strong and building.
00:29:24
- The attack came as a
total shock to Marie. She was not expecting
this level of violence.
00:29:30
Cannot imagine what she
must have feeling like at this time to be
attacked in the bedroom.
00:29:37
She's put up an incredible fight
to be attacked twice there. She must have been
so frightened,
00:29:41
but she was still
alive at this point. Took her down three
flights of stairs. Next thing she finds
herself in the garage,
00:29:50
fighting for her life,
fighting for her children. It's unbelievable. In the garage, he wrapped
her head in bubble wrap,
00:29:58
stabbed, slit her throat
and stabbed her 12 times. - The most ferocious
attack, you could argue,
00:30:05
with the bubble wrap and then
the knife was downstairs. So you know, this was like
the end of a sustained attack.
00:30:19
- [Richard] After the attack, evidence from Lindo's
phone and new girlfriend
00:30:24
revealed his next
calculating steps. - After the attack, Lindo has text his
current girlfriend
00:30:33
that he may be a little
bit late picking her up, which is absolutely
so cold and calm
00:30:39
in his manner about this. He then wakes up his two
children who are fast asleep,
00:30:44
puts them in the car to
go and get his girlfriend who stays the night three floors up from
where the body is.
00:30:55
- This is some person that could actually kill
the mother of his children while the children
are asleep in bed,
00:31:03
go and pick up his latest lover, take her to his house,
and have sex with her. - His behavior tells us
quite a lot about him.
00:31:15
He's somebody who doesn't suffer with shame or remorse or guilt. He doesn't question
his own behaviors.
00:31:25
[dramatic music] - [Clive] It's macabre. [intense music] - [Richard] The two month gap
00:31:36
between the murder and
the discovery of the body gave Lindo plenty of time
to try and cover his tracks.
00:31:47
- He's had seven
weeks now to clean up nothing obvious in blood maybe, but so hard to clean
every piece of blood.
00:31:54
With the action of a
knife constantly stabbing, you're gonna have blood
flicking off the knife
00:31:59
landing on items,
whether it be the wall, the ceiling of the garage, other items that are in there.
00:32:05
May have been quite
a bit on the floor that he has tried to clean. - [Richard] What's known
as luminol examination
00:32:12
took place in the garage. - Luminol is a chemical
that reacts with blood spray it along all
items and walls
00:32:21
and in a dark area
it fluoresces blue. This can then be photographed and tested to see
if it is blood.
00:32:29
- [Richard] This
confirmed the garage as the final murder
and deposition scene. [intense music]
00:32:37
But despite having
admitted to manslaughter, Lindo kept lying to the police, trying to justify
the murder of Marie.
00:32:46
- He's got to do
anything, say anything, that's going to
mitigate him being found
00:32:52
with the body in the house. He's really in a
difficult place. So he starts to denigrate Marie.
00:33:04
All he can say really is, I was annoyed with her about the way she
treated the children.
00:33:09
Let's try and blacken
her character in
any way that we can. - The fact that
he could kill her,
00:33:18
deprive the children
of their mother, shows the kind of person
we're dealing with,
00:33:21
as well as the
method that he used. And then the victim
blaming and shaming, which he did all the way along.
00:33:28
Oh, she belittled me, you know. And that in itself, you know, picking on flaws in her,
00:33:36
is kind of like dehumanizing her before he actually murders her. So he doesn't see her
as this person anymore.
00:33:48
- It could be he
enjoyed violence, he actually enjoyed
meting out the violence. You know, a lot of
these type of people
00:33:55
will strangle and then
let you breathe again so they can do it all again. - So this was like the work
of a psychopath, basically.
00:34:10
How could he do this? Well, that's exactly
why I've said, he could only do that because
he was able to do that,
00:34:19
and that says a lot about
his psychopathology. Clearly he has no care for
anybody's else's feelings,
00:34:27
even his own children. [intense music] - [Richard] Andrew
Lindo was charged with killing his fiancee, Marie.
00:34:43
But was this really manslaughter or could Marie's body prove it was cold blooded,
calculated murder?
00:34:52
- He was absolutely determined
that Marie was going to die. [dramatic music] - [Richard] In 2011,
Yorkshire police had arrested
00:35:11
and charged 28-year-old
Andrew Lindo with the brutal
murder of his fiancee and mother of their two young
children, Marie Stewart.
00:35:23
Her body revealed
she'd been beaten, then strangled and more. Her body showed
multiple stab wounds
00:35:32
suggesting a sustained attack. - He wanted her dead and he
was going to achieve that.
00:35:49
- [Richard] Marie's
decomposing body was found in a flight
bag in the garage
00:35:53
seven weeks after the murder. Evidence proved that Lindo had created a
false digital trail
00:36:01
to throw people off the scent. - I can't imagine how
cruel and how awful this must have
been for the family
00:36:08
sending text messages
and Facebook messages to try and back up
his tissue of lies.
00:36:15
- [Richard] The truth was
that Lindo was a serial cheat who'd had a string
of illicit affairs.
00:36:21
- He's somebody
who doesn't suffer with shame or remorse or guilt. He doesn't question
his own behaviors.
00:36:31
- [Richard] Police
believed he'd killed Marie to carry on a new life
with a new partner.
00:36:37
- He probably would've
presented to other people during that time as
perfectly normal.
00:36:43
- But Marie's post-mortem showed his actions had
been anything but normal. In the garage, Lindo
stabbed Marie 12 times.
00:36:54
But the blow that killed her was this stab wound to the neck. The neck is a very
complex area of the body,
00:37:03
full of major blood vessels and nerves and other structures. The carotid arteries pass up
00:37:08
carrying blood to the brain and the jugular
veins pass back down, returning that
blood to the heart.
00:37:15
Severing any one of these
major blood vessels, causes immediate
severe blood loss.
00:37:20
And within minutes, the
heart will be unable to pump enough blood around
the body to sustain life.
00:37:27
After everything her body had
been put through and survived, it was this stab
wound to the neck
00:37:33
that finally sealed
Marie's fate. Lindo had confessed
to the killing, but claimed it was spur of
the moment manslaughter,
00:37:45
not murder, which carried
a much higher sentence. - If you look at the
way that she died,
00:37:53
it seems completely
disorganized. That doesn't mean it
wasn't planned in some way.
00:38:00
- [Richard] It would now
be for a court to decide. Seven months after his arrest,
00:38:12
Lindo finally faced justice
in Bradford Crown Court. He pleaded not guilty
to Marie's murder.
00:38:20
- He showed absolutely no
remorse at all in court and the family had to sit and listen to everything
that had gone on in that case
00:38:31
because he didn't plead guilty. So they were forced
to sit through it and then he would come on
00:38:39
with these mock crocodile tears as if he was really upset. Sympathy, sympathy, look at me,
00:38:49
while all the time
putting her family through the awful detail
of what had happened
00:38:56
of her murder, was
utterly sickening. - [Richard] The prosecution team put forward their theory
that Lindo had killed Marie
00:39:04
after she uncovered
his infidelity. - She was thinking
about leaving him and she probably told him that.
00:39:12
And we know that in most
intimate partner homicides, that is the trigger. You know, over 90% of
cases, that is the trigger.
00:39:22
Unlike the other
women in Lindo's life, Marie was living with him. She was the mother
of his children.
00:39:31
And that puts her in a much more dangerous
position than them because he thinks he
actually owns her.
00:39:41
At the point that Marie says, "You don't own me, I'm leaving', that's when she is in
00:39:51
the most danger she's
ever been in her life, but she probably
didn't know that.
00:40:02
[intense music] And when he realized
she was not budging, that's when he
would've killed her.
00:40:12
- [Richard] In court, Lindo
didn't take the stand, but his defense argued
he'd lost control
00:40:18
after being provoked by Marie. - This chap's saying that this
was just a one-off really.
00:40:25
Don't know, lost me temper
for about 10 seconds and well now, hold up. That evidence shows a
sustained, a very planned,
00:40:32
a very cold, a very
methodical attack. - At the trial Lindo's
fighting for his life.
00:40:39
He's trying, at the very least, to get a manslaughter charge
rather than a murder charge.
00:40:45
So he's just throwing everything
at this now, everything. It's really, really common.
00:40:49
How do I get out of this? This is survival now. - [Richard] Lindo claimed he was acting to
protect his daughter.
00:40:58
- Lindo basically tried
to put up a defense that he was worried about
Marie attacking his daughter.
00:41:05
- So he starts denigrating Marie and saying she's a bad mother and that, you know,
she's this flaky person
00:41:12
and she couldn't be trusted. - Lindo's basically blamed
Marie for her own death
00:41:18
because he said she was being
very cruel to their daughter, which was completely untrue.
00:41:24
She was a very,
very good mother. - [Richard] There was
no physical evidence
of child cruelty,
00:41:29
no reports to social services. And everyone who knew
Marie could testify that this was a wicked lie.
00:41:38
- Everyone who knew her knew
that she would never do that. If he was cleverer, if
he was more intuitive,
00:41:45
he would've chosen
an explanation that actually fitted
with Marie's personality.
00:41:52
He couldn't do that, and he dug his own
grave, as it were. [dramatic music] - [Richard] Marie's
battered body
00:41:58
proved this was
no flash of anger. He'd planned to kill her, strangling, beating,
suffocating, stabbing.
00:42:07
At each stage he
could have stopped and saved her life,
but he didn't. - That's where the
pathology report
00:42:15
basically becomes
very important, It's the powerful evidence that this wasn't just
a one-off attack.
00:42:26
[intense music] - [Richard] After
a two week trial, the jury took just 55 minutes
to return their verdict.
00:42:39
Lindo was found guilty of
Marie Stewart's murder. [gavel thumps] - Lindo was sentenced
to 22 years in prison
00:42:50
before parole could
be considered. It was a sustained,
brutal, terrible attack on a kind, loving woman.
00:43:04
- I really hope that Marie will be remembered
for what she was, which was a very
kind, loving person
00:43:13
who was a credit to our society. And I hope that Lindo
will be condemned forever
00:43:19
as the wicked
manipulator that he is. - There are eight
stages in this journey towards an intimate
partner homicide.
00:43:32
So the first stage is about
the controlling person, 'cause this is
all about control.
00:43:40
Second stage is when this person meets somebody they want to
be in a relationship with.
00:43:47
Generally that relationship
will start very, very quickly and it will be
very, very intense.
00:43:55
Third stage is when
these two people are in a committed relationship and that will be dominated
by controlling patterns.
00:44:03
Now the next stage
is where things start to get more dangerous. We call the fourth
stage the trigger stage.
00:44:10
Something happens to make
the risk suddenly shoot up. Well, this person imagines
this person might leave them.
00:44:17
Stage five is when they
escalate all of their behaviors to try and claw the control back
00:44:24
so that this person doesn't
leave or cannot leave. Stage six, this is where
they start to think,
00:44:31
right, I can't get
the control back, so I'm gonna punish this
person for daring to leave me.
00:44:39
Stage seven is the
planning stage. How am I gonna do this? And stage eight is the homicide.
00:44:48
When I think about Marie
and what happened to her, I can see those stages
playing out in her life
00:44:57
and her relationship in, well, in almost the classic way. - This is clearly a
very dangerous man.
00:45:08
If he hadn't been
caught at this point, I have absolutely no doubt that he'd have been able
to continue murdering.
00:45:19
- Lindo killed his fiancee Marie in a series of brutal assaults that began in their bedroom
00:45:25
not far from where their
young children slept and continued down
to the garage. Not only had he tried
to strangle Marie
00:45:33
and hit her over the
head with a blunt object, he'd also stabbed
her multiple times
00:45:38
with a wound to the neck
finally proving fatal. While Andrew Lindo tried to
cover up this terrible crime
00:45:46
by hiding Marie's
body in the garage, in the end, he
couldn't escape justice
00:45:51
because her body revealed
the truth about her murder. [dramatic music]