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on a warm Summer's evening in 1993 police in East London made a tragic Discovery at the home of two elderly
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siblings they found Annie slumped in an armchair in the living room and Billy lying on the floor pretty much in front
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of her a beloved grandmother and a World War II veteran killed in a V ENT attack
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there's no obvious suspect Annie and Billy haven't got any obvious enemies
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with no Killer caught for years the victim's family search for answers that was my life just constantly
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trying to find out what had happened finally a forensic breakthrough LED police to Danville Neil a sexually
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deviant career criminal with a taste for brutality he was actually what you call
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a vient prolific burglar that kind of criminal is not that common after almost 30 years Danville Neil was finally
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unmasked as one of the world's most evil killers [Music] [Music] in 1993 the East London community of Bethel
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green was no stranger to Crime there was violence there was a lot of burglaries drugs heroin Wars at the top of its game
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but the brutal attack on pensioners Annie castle and her brother Billy Brian was a far cry from everyday criminal
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activity not only does it cause moral revulsion it also causes panic in the community
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people don't want to think that they're not safe in their own home the police
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would have been under a huge amount of pressure to to solve this only when Danville Neil was convicted could this
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community feel Justice had been done for Annie and Billy this killer Story begins in the
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London bur of lewisham Danville nil was born in September 1957 he was actually what you
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would describe as a South London boy we don't know a great deal about Danville
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Neil's background we can guess or at least speculate that he must have had a
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difficult childhood Because by the age of 16 in 1973 he gets his first conviction for
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burglary Neil started offending at quite a young age and acquisitive crime like theft and that's not actually abnormal
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for that age of young men but you know it's something that they pass through
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and you know forget about as they get older this was not the case with Danville Neil as he entered adult hood
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his path in life seemed very much set Danel Neil was a career criminal he was a petty Thief um and a burglar and he
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used to fence stolen items around the South London area where he mainly operated also by his own admissions was
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involved in um Distributing cannabis much of what is known about Danville Neil's early adult life comes
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from his lengthy rap sheet he had a number of conviction I think was something like 15 convictions for
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burglary between 1973 and 1998 but Neil was not simply interested in stealing people's property Danville
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Neil was a man with proclivity to violence uh sexual violence psychological violence he had not only
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broken into people's houses but he specifically targeted people um who he thought had stashes of cash or valuables
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in their homes and he would threaten them tie them up and beat them and during the course of some of these
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burglaries in 1984 he and an accomplice committed two violent burglaries which were to set a pattern for his later
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crimes One Night in June 1984 26-year-old Danville Neil and a fellow Ker criminal William norrris traveled
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the five miles from lewisham to the middle class suburb of pen and the first occasion he broke into
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a home where the family were at home Neil wakes up the sleeping couple mom and dad and tells them that they've
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already killed one of the children your girl's dead Neil and his accomplice beat
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both mom and dad with an iron bar and tried and smother the father and rape the woman he tried to rip rings off her
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fingers and I think at one point she said to him what you going to do with these rings they're not even worth 30
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Bob there's also a suggestion that there was some kind of sexual humiliation of
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the husband as well as a rape of the wife it was a terrifying ordeal for the couple Neil had played on their worst
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fears but he was bluffing thankfully their three children were asleep upstairs and they weren't woken
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but um the couple at the time didn't know what was going on they didn't know
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that the children were okay he starts with theft which is pretty normal way to to start a criminal career if you like
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but then he moves to burglary and he moves to burglaries that are violent now that is one hell of a development this
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is the kind of offender we need to be really worried about in August 1984 Neil had his familiar accompanist William
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Norris attack another house this time in Norwood also in southeast London where a
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woman is alone asleep it's another home invasion a really really frightening
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experience for this woman who's woken up in the middle of the night by this guy
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in a bedroom again threatening again use of violence they threatened her they smothered her in actual fact and they
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raped her and in that instance he only made off with I think £15 and a music system so really very very low low value
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items but uh the level of violence used was extreme and gratuitous and designed to cause you know maximum fear and alarm
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of his victim we might think that the motivation is only to take things that they can sell or or or take money but
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these crimes are not all about what they can acquire during that burglary the sexual violence has absolutely nothing
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to do with the acquisitive part of this burglary in my opinion the overriding motivation here is that Joy of Domina
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and the power and the humiliation of the people in the home and that is incredibly
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dangerous these two burglaries just a couple of months apart in the summer of 1984 were violent and sadistic but
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Danville Neil and his accomplice did not Escape Justice for long he didn't wear a balac clava he
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didn't wear a ski mask well it's perfectly obvious by this point that Danville Neil is a person of interest to
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the police and it doesn't take them very long and track him down and the two men
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are brought to trial and indeed convicted of these aggravated burglaries with burgary with sexual
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violence and other violence in June 1985 Danville Neil and his accomplice were found guilty at
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London's Old Bailey and sentenced to 12 years in jail but just just 7 years later Neil was a free man once
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again Danville Neil is released in August 1992 and he effectively goes back to his
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old ways pretty much straight away he really doesn't know any other life than
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the criminal life so you know he goes back to his old stomping ground in syum getting a real job was the last thing on
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Danville Neil's mind in 1992 now almost 35 years old he simply picked up where he left off resuming the
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life of crime he' pursued since he was in his teens 7 miles away in bethl green
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pensioners 74-year-old Annie castle and 71-year-old Billy Brian were enjoying their well-earned retirement and looking
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back on a life well- lived Annie castle and her brother had lived in the East End of London all
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their lives Bal green is really you know very much in the center of the East End
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quite a sort of workingclass community very close-knit so the neighbors all knew each
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other in 1993 Annie and Billy were living in a flat on the manura estate somewhere
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they'd called home for almost 50 years Annie had moved in with her husband shortly after the end of the war when
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these Flats had recently been constructed Annie was a lovely pillar of the community and she had five children and
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I think 13 grandchildren and went on to have 15 great grandchildren when her brother Billy was
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invalided out of the army at the end of the second world war he got tuberculosis
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so he was sort of released from from the Army and and was really taken in by Annie and her husband and the rest of
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the family and he lived with them from then on Annie's husband Jim died in 1987 but she and brother Billy continued
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to live together an his grandson Mark remembers the bethl green flat as a Lively hub for the entire family we
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would be around nanni's every Saturday you'd get there and Nanny would be up making a
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f of Y and then another member of the family turn up with their kids and then we'd all go down and play football and
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then someone else would turn up and then one of the moms would go oh there's a
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jumo cell over to church couple other moms would go all the dads would be sitting there the moms would be walking
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around Nanny would be making teas toast Billy was cooking it was just great fun Annie and Billy's warmth extended
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beyond their family to their neighbors and acquaintances in the local area the neighbors all knew each other and would
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socialize together so for example Annie would go to the local Social Club every week with a friend uh I think it was
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Winfred Nanny was an and a bat type of person uh bingo going to all people's
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little get together and she looked a million dollars when she W she was looking walking down the
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street and I actually see her once and she looked a million dollar with nice long coat on allir done makeup and was
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also described as being very generous so she would help people in her community she' often give money to people to
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support them if she could help them out bil would because of his illness was you
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know day sort of quite place to the house but he was very interested in the local community he had a pair of
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binoculars but he used to use them to spy on the local fruit and veg stall down the road so he could check what
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they had in on that day to see if he wanted anything as well as being a close-knit
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community the layout of the estate meant residents were often aware of one another's comings and goings there were
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number of blocks of flats but it was on quite a open sort of green area and he lived on the first floor but it wasn't a
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highrise floor it was just a few steps up onto um her Landing where there were several other flats along that
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particular Landing the Flat's front doors were accessed from shared walkways
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along the fronts of the buildings while at the back some of the flats had enclosed concrete balconies the blocks
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face one another across communal Lawns as neighbor Anne Ambrose remembers I lived opposite them so you could have
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a chat across the grass cuz we got great big grass expanse so you could actually
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chat if you needed to when the Peace of this settled Community was brutally shattered One
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Night in August 1993 it would be the neighbors who noticed something was a miss the 22nd of August
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1993 Billy and Annie are at home in their flat in the mid after afternoon about 5:30 I think Annie goes out to her
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um weekly trip to the Social Club on a Sunday with a friend Winfred they did this regularly every Sunday so they met
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at around about 5:30 and then they returned at about 8:30 now according to Winfred Billy
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would very often be standing in the communal balcony waiting for Annie to return home from in the social club and
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he would usually prepare a hot drink like a coffee and a and a sandwich for her for when she returned and that does
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seem to be what had happened in that particular day although when Annie returned home the front door was shut
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there was no sign of Billy much of what happened after Annie Castle entered her flat that evening is
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unknown other residents would later help police piece the story together neighbors recall hearing
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screams that evening but no one paid much attention at around 1:30 a.m. Anne Ambrose was getting ready for bed in the
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flat opposite Annie and Billy's I just looked over and I noticed the lights were on but you don't think you don't
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think that's any problem at all you know you think well naturally they're just
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not going to bed yet and the lights were still on when she got up to go to the L
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at about 4:00 in the morning and then I noticed that the back door was open slightly cuz so we've got back back
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balconies but even then I don't I don't think anything suspicious went through
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my mind and then she got up in the morning and she left at Monday morning um to go
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to work she said she noted again that the lights were on and then it was when I got back home that I noticed that
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nothing had changed across the way and I thought that cannot be right she got back about 10:30 that night and when she
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saw that uh the lights were still on and the back door was still open she decided
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that she would U make a phone call to Annie and uh she didn't get any reply to
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her call so she goes around and knocks on Annie Billy's door no answer she looks through the letter
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box can't see anything so at that point she decided that she was going to call
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the police when a police officer responded to an's call that night he recognized
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immediately that this was an emergency the elderly siblings were nowhere to be seen and their normally pristine flat
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was in disarray he looked through the window and what he could see were the lights were still on the fridge door was
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open there were cupboards and doors open you could see that there's been something that's been rans sa went round
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to the back of the uh the FL looked up at the balcony area and they saw that the door was open at about 10 midnight
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the fire brigade arrive and a ladder is erected and the police enter the flat through the back and unfortunately what
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he saw there was quite um an awful sight what the police officer found when he entered Annie castle and Billy
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Bryan's flat on the the night of the 23rd of August 1993 shocked the local community and
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devastated Annie and Billy's close and loving family I was working with my father in
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the thr Market night workers and um got we got home went to bed phone was ringing downstairs and
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ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing they go off didn't ring again and straight away I know
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something went right so I went down it was my father he said Nanny and bil been found dead in the flat and I was like oh
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my God the police officer who entered Annie and Billy's home just before midnight on
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August the 23rd had found the two pensioners in the living room Annie was slumped in a chair um with her head down
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and uh Billy was laying on his side directly in front of um he had his hands tied together and uh
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with a cord and he had some s of cloth tied around his feet it was neighbor Anne Ambrose who'd
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raised the alarm that evening about unusual activity at the older couple's flat it wasn't too
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long before the police came back out and I said to them how are they and he said they're dead it was such a shock
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the whole house was in in complete disarray um in the lounge area cushions had been upended a vase had been smashed
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and there was glass all over the floor cupboards open drawers open a screwdriver is found in the lounge and a
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hammer is found outside the flat one of their pairs of glasses was just sort of chucked on the floor or fallen on the
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floor somehow and Annie handbag was lying on the floor with the content strewn all over the
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place shabnam chry was one of the detectives assigned to investigate the Unexplained deaths and to piece together
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exactly what had befallen Annie and Billy and why once a detective has attended what you call a senior
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investigating officer that now becomes an official murder investigation and a crime scene for evidence to be gathered
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when they looked at the scene they could see that Annie's fingers had areas of
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sort of white where she would normally have worn her her rings so she was wearing um two gold wedding rings and
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she also had two diamond rings that she would habitually wear so it was clear that they had been ripped off her
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fingers um either when she was alive or or after she died it's it's not a very
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thorough burglary given the fact that a lot of things are missed for example more than £4,000 in cash hidden in socks
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in the flat you don't know what has actually happened you don't know for
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sure whether it is actually a burglar you don't know for sure whether somebody's known to those individuals
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there were no signs of a Breaking of that particular uh flat you got to keep an open mind one of the first tasks for
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the investigation team was to work out exactly when Annie and Billy had been attacked no one had seen them since
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Annie had arrived home from the social club at around 8:30 on the Sunday evening there was a half drunk cup of
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coffee and the remnants of a meat sandwich So within about half an hour something has happened to interrupt
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their usual routine and we did have plenty of witnesses that came forward but nobody that would
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actually saw anything that happened so everybody gave a picture which we were able to draw up a timeline of events
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that likely took place one neighbor had heard a scream at around 9:30 p.m. while
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Anne Ambrose had seen lights and movement at around 1:30 a.m. there was a 6-year-old boy living nearby who was
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woken up in the night and heard someone saying repeatedly get out out of here get out of here he was awoken during the
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early hours of the morning and he became very scared he went into his mother and
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he told her what he'd heard um and then she puts him back to bed so when you
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combine all of that information and all of that evidence together what you can work out is that there would have been a
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timeline of between around 9:30 p.m. when the first scream Was Heard to around about 4:30 early hours of the
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following morning on the 23rd when both Annie and Billy were subjected to that violent uh attack uh being tied up and
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actually been murdered in their own homes the postmortem examinations confirm suspicions that Annie and Billy
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had indeed died during a prolonged violent incident Annie Castle's postmortem was
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interesting because Annie actually had a history of um heart disease and and angina the fact that she was placed in
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such a stressful situation would have caused her to have a heart attack physical examination of her body found
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that there were bruises to her arms which were consistent with her being restrained physically with hands so we
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straight away realized that Nanny was beaten and so B been beaten up as well Billy's post BM War was more complex in
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actual fact because he too also did have a history of heart disease um and of heart problems but he was subjected to
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more violence subjected to severe violence the evidence showed that he'd been not just restrained but he'd been
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beaten and beaten by somebody probably wearing a ring that did cause not just bruising but sort of some cuts from you
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know small puncture wounds from being hit by someone wearing a prominent ring he had injuries inflicted to one of his
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eye sockets um he had injuries under his chin some abrasions under his chin he'd
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also been assaulted on both of his arms on his body and also within on his thighs despite the horrific number of
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injuries Billy had suffered it was not the beating that had killed the 71-year-old
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veteran he had been suffocated affixiated and that was the cause of death it caused him to have a heart
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attack as well but the the cause of death itself was asphixiation hearing that his beloved
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grandmother and great uncle had endured such a violent death was devastating for
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Mark castle and for their extended family I just was like numb numb shock shock who done it older people
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statistically are actually highly unlikely to suffer this kind of crime especially you know if they they
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don't go out very often and they they live in Secure homes and we can't conceive of the type of person
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that would Target the vulnerable in that way immediately the first place your head it's going to go to is that there's
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an evil predator on the loose these people don't share your values they don't share your moral code that can be
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terrifying for a community you do get scared because you think well who in that is there anyone in our community
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would do that to these people and uh obviously we were just living hope that um they'd catch whoever this person was
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the investigation team followed every line of inquiry at their disposal this is not an entrylevel offense so they
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would have started looking through who their local criminals were and who was most likely to have committed this type
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of offense we would Target individuals who we might think might have been responsible for this particularly in the
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bethnal green area because we did have a number of prolific burglars in that area
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none of The Usual Suspects were linked with the crime and no fingerprints were found at the scene that could be match
00:27:05
with known criminals on the National Database there was nothing that came from that particular investigation in
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those very early stages in 1993 that could actually put anybody at that scene of that murder at that time
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by 1999 6 years later no one has been charged for these heus crimes in spite of the fact that a reward of £5,000 has
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been offered nothing absolutely nothing in 1999 police investigating the murders of
00:27:43
Annie castle and Billy Brian achieved a small but frustrating step forward Billy was tied with a black cord
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that later transpired to be um the cord from a or binoculars that came from the same property in 1996 new Advanced
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Scientific Technology was introduced and then in 1999 what actually happened was
00:28:09
that Scientific Technology was allowed to be used in casework the black cord was submitted to the scientific lab uh
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an actual fact it had been preserved all that time within the same packaging never been
00:28:23
removed there was DNA extracted and they put it through the uh DNA database and they got more than 300
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posses in the early '90s we didn't have a DNA database we do now but we did not
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then and what's what has happened o over the years is that since the introduction
00:28:49
of DNA identification it has developed really quite quickly the list of suspects had been narrowed
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down and one of them had a long record for violent offenses unfortunately it was 308 names within that list came
00:29:09
Danville Neil Danville Neil had been convicted of yet another burglary in 1998 and in 1999 was believed to have
00:29:20
been serving time for this offense as he's kept on offending over the years and DNA has been developing a
00:29:28
alongside him his DNA profile has been taken and it is now on the database so that any crimes that he committed before
00:29:39
and after are now going to leave him open to being arrested the problem was he was number 136 on that list and
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therefore it wasn't enough for them to profile him as being responsible police
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didn't have enough evidence at the time to single Danville Neil out from the 308
00:30:01
potential culprits for Annie and Billy's devastated loved ones the news brought
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hope but no resolution we had regular meetings with these detectives where they were telling
00:30:13
us what had gone on and that they had a little bit of DNA but it wasn't Advanced
00:30:20
as it is now so it was really really tough to get a suspect and again it went Qui after that for a number of
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years it was a devastating time for the families of Annie castle and Billy Brian
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and as the years went by and the years became decades the case remained unsolved but as forensic science
00:30:44
continued to advance Danville Neil's name wouldn't remain hidden on a list
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for long and Justice would soon be done [Music] in 2017 there have been some new techniques
00:31:03
uh in DNA identification by 2020 the techniques had been approved for police to apply to
00:31:11
unsolved crimes as before the focus of the investigation was Billy's binocular
00:31:16
strap which had been used to bind the 71y old's hands before his murder the strap was actually knotted where the
00:31:24
perpetrator had tied the knots in order to secure Billy's hands and tie them up
00:31:30
and for the first time ever those knots were undone and therefore they used the um DNA from those knots and the
00:31:42
DNA comes back as identifiable to one Danville Neil Danville Neil was already very very well known to the police as a
00:31:53
prolific burglar and he had a history of violence as well so not only is he a onein a billion match to the DNA he also
00:32:05
absolutely fits the profile of the kind of person who would have done this it was an unbelievable breakthrough almost
00:32:13
three decades after the crime eager to build a case officers obtained a warrant to search Danville Neil's home now it
00:32:22
might seem unusual that they're going to search his premises because 30 years
00:32:26
have passed but the fact remain s that there was jewelry outstanding from that burglary and whilst they were searching
00:32:33
the premises Danville nil came back home the officers arrested Danville for the double murder of Annie castle and Billy
00:32:43
Ryan Neil by now 63 years old denied any knowledge of the victims or the crime he
00:32:51
clearly stated he'd never ever been to that uh flat he'd never been to Bethal
00:32:56
green and he didn't know anything about that particular burglary though the search of Neil's
00:33:03
home hadn't turned up any of Annie or Billy's belongings it had given police
00:33:09
another piece of evidence in their case against the suspected killer they discovered that Danville
00:33:19
Neil owned a pair of white Hightech training shoes they brought Danville Neil in for for an interview and they
00:33:29
asked him about his shoes and they said oh what about your trainers so these the
00:33:34
kind of trainers that you wear all the time and he spoke about those trainers quite candidly that uh back in the '90s
00:33:41
and still to this date of his age at 63 he always wore the same type of trainers
00:33:47
which were high-tech squash type trainers they were a very particular kind of Trainer sneaker they very
00:33:54
particular pattern on the souls unb announced to Neil in 1993 scene of crime officers had
00:34:02
recovered Footprints from the home of Annie castle and Billy Brian the exhibits officer and the the crime scene
00:34:10
manager uh would have lifted all forms of different types of um evidence and within that came some footprints on
00:34:17
newspaper articles that were found on the floor these were in the shape of um high-tech
00:34:24
trainers it was another important piece of evidence to link Neil with the Fatal attack in
00:34:31
1993 finally on the 6th of July 2021 the police not only arrest Danville Neil but
00:34:39
they charge him with the murders of Annie and Billy in the summer of 2021 the team now
00:34:49
investigating the murders were able to share with Mark castle and his family the news they had waited 28 years for
00:34:58
we got a phone call to attend um a meeting with some detectives and said Delight to tell you we've got a viable
00:35:07
suspect no names were mentioned no area nothing about him whatsoever I remember leaving there in a bit of a
00:35:18
trance really and I sobed hope was on the horizon in the family's Quest For Justice Danville Neil
00:35:27
was Ed in custody 16 months after he was charged he stood trial for the double murder and the trial was heard at the
00:35:36
Old Bailey in November 2022 journalist Emily Penning attended the trial at London's most famous
00:35:46
Criminal Court people have been waiting for years to see someone in the dock for Annie and Billy's death um so
00:35:56
you know you really feel the weight of that the weight of the crime the level the brutality the callousness um that
00:36:04
they were treated with he pleads not guilty I had nothing to do with it I don't know anything
00:36:12
Danville Neil is now 65 years old he's escaped Justice for many many years more than a
00:36:20
quarter of a century when I first saw him he was on screen from where I could see he looked
00:36:28
smart tired shirt on then when we went to trial it was a fragile all men gray ha
00:36:38
could hardly walk lasses unshaven gray which was as I know is an actor playing a sympathy card my initial
00:36:51
impressions of Danville Neil though was he looked exactly what he is a career criminal someone
00:37:02
who doesn't care about the hurt that he causes to other people he didn't exude a feeling of
00:37:13
someone who is innocent everything he said I think just seemed like a lie to my mind he seemed cold and callous which
00:37:22
is exactly what he was the prosecutions case centered on the DNA found on the court that had bound
00:37:35
Billy's hands this proved that they claimed that Danville Neil could be the only person responsible for attacking
00:37:43
and killing Annie and Billy in their home that night in August 1993 the most crucial part of that
00:37:52
evidence was linking him solely him directly to that murder scene and that uh was in the form of the DNA on the
00:38:01
strap he never really gave an explanation as to how his DNA his bodily fluids were placed on that knot Danville
00:38:11
Neil insists that the only reason there's DNA on the binocular strap is that he happened to have sold a
00:38:21
pair of binoculars to Billy at a car boot sale that would have made more sense had it been simply somewhere on the
00:38:31
binocular straps but the the DNA evidence was found on the knot that was used to subdue Billy it was an unlikely
00:38:42
story and one the police had been able to disprove they spoke to Billy's nephew
00:38:48
and he said oh no Billy was very proud of his gadgets he was really into them and he would have bought them new and
00:38:56
actually when the police looked into it even further they discovered that this particular type of binocular would had
00:39:04
only started to be imported into Britain in 19991 so they would have been pretty
00:39:13
much brand new when they were acquired by Billy the court was also told about the
00:39:20
shoe prints found in the flat so similar to the trainers habitually worn by Neil
00:39:26
and about some of the similar crimes he'd been convicted of in the past all of that added together to a pretty
00:39:34
compelling case against danvil now when the jury retired to consider their verdict Annie and Billy's loved ones
00:39:41
faced a tense weight to he if after 29 years Justice would be served and I thought he was going to walk the
00:39:50
day of the verdict there was 12 of us upstairs went to go in the gallery and I lost it sobbed and sobbed and
00:40:01
sobed I was so scared he was going to walk because once he walks we got nothing and then the jury went out came
00:40:11
back relatively quickly I think went in and I'd never been so scared in my life
00:40:17
the first count was the murder of Billy and that came back guilty of murder the second count came came back not guilty
00:40:28
of murder so it's was a bit of a heart stopping moment oh my goodness they're
00:40:33
going to quit on the second murder and then they said how do you find the defendant on the count two of
00:40:41
manslaughter and they said guilty soon they come out with a guilty it's like gone everything had come out of me
00:40:53
steam Pine had gone and everyone was grabbing me and pulling me and kissing this one shaking that one
00:41:03
Mrs Justice CH M gr sentenced Danville Neil to life in prison and she said that he would have to stay in prison for at
00:41:14
least 32 years in passing sentence the judge says you dodged Justice for nearly 30
00:41:25
years now justice has caught up with you she said it was an absolutely appalling
00:41:31
crime um not least because of the Frailty of the victims but because there were two victims involved
00:41:41
in his crime so not only had he effectively tortured Billy in a failed attempt to find the valuables his
00:41:49
actions had also led to the death of Annie the judge's sentence means that Danville Neil was will almost certainly
00:41:58
die in jail it would mean he'd be over 97 before he could even be eligible for
00:42:04
parole and that must be regarded as a very distant possibility given Neil's violent history the idea he'll never be
00:42:12
released will be a comfort to those who suffered at his hands I don't think he was solely
00:42:19
motivated by greed if that's the case he was a very poor burglar he never seemed
00:42:24
to make real money out of burglary but I think he was motivated by violence of all kinds there was nothing else to
00:42:33
kneel except this need to be cruel and controlling and domineering and that makes him really
00:42:45
evil the conviction of Danville Neil brought a measure of closure not only to the family of Annie castle and Billy
00:42:53
Brian but also to all of the victims who survived his violent attacks throughout
00:42:59
his criminal career a career that had begun when he was still in his teens with Annie and Billy's deaths likely to
00:43:07
be the last entry on his lengthy rap sheet Danville Neil has finally been recognized as one of the world's most
00:43:15
evil killers [Music]