00:00:03
[suspenseful music] NARRATOR: January the 7th, 2016,
helm shore Lancashire England.
00:00:13
60-year-old Sadie
Hartley was home alone around 9:00
PM in the evening when she answered the doorbell.
00:00:21
Standing there with
a bunch of flowers was Katrina Walsh, a
woman Sadie had never met.
00:00:27
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Sadie asked
her who the flowers were from, and Walsh just kind
of uttered something
00:00:31
like, I don't remember,
and then scuttled away. NARRATOR: This was a dry run
for a murder plot meticulously
00:00:38
planned by two women. And all the while,
Sarah Williams was hiding behind a parked
car, watching her prey.
00:00:45
NARRATOR: Seven days later when
Sadie answered the doorbell again, 500,000
volts of electricity
00:00:52
knocked her to the floor. NAZIA PARVEEN: Essentially,
there was no chance that she would survive it.
00:00:58
NARRATOR: Sadie Hartley lay
helpless as she was stabbed to death by Sarah Williams.
00:01:04
GEOFFREY WANSELL: It was a crime
of obsession, of arrogance, of barbarity. But above all, it was
a crime of pure evil.
00:01:16
NARRATOR: In four
minutes and 40 seconds, Sarah Williams had
dispensed of Sadie Hartley.
00:01:22
She calmly left the scene and
returned to her accomplice, Katrina Walsh. After 17 months of planning,
an innocent woman lay dead--
00:01:33
a woman Sarah Williams
and Katrina Walsh didn't even know, making
them two of the world's
00:01:40
most evil killers. [theme music] 1993, The Wirral,
North West England. 12-year-old Sarah Williams
was passionate about horses
00:02:13
and a very good
equestrian sportswoman. GEOFFREY WANSELL: She met a
riding instructor much older
00:02:20
than she was-- a good
20 years or more, older than she was,
called Katrina Walsh
00:02:25
at a local riding stables. NARRATOR: Despite the
age gap, the two women bonded through their
shared love of horses
00:02:32
and became firm friends. Over the next few years, they
formed an intense, almost
00:02:39
inseparable relationship. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When people
saw the friendship, the very
00:02:45
close friendship, between
Williams and Walsh, because they spent
so much time together
00:02:50
in and out of each other's
houses, in each other's pockets all the time, I think there
were some suspicions that they
00:02:57
were more than just
friends, that this was an intimate relationship. NARRATOR: As
Williams grew up, she
00:03:02
became known as an
incorrigible flirt and had a series of male lovers. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
I think Williams
00:03:09
does very much see
men as a challenge, especially married men. I think this idea of going
out and turning on the charm
00:03:18
and having somebody
fall for you, it's something that she
finds quite appealing.
00:03:22
NARRATOR: When Sarah Williams
set her sights on a man, no one was going
to get in her way.
00:03:28
Her best friend, Katrina Walsh,
was only too willing to help her get what she wanted.
00:03:34
And what Sarah
Williams wanted was a man called Ian Johnston, whom
she was in a relationship with.
00:03:41
NAZIA PARVEEN: He describes
having really friendly and then getting
on straight away.
00:03:47
And then one night, after
they'd known each other for a few months, she turns up
at his house in a short skirt,
00:03:56
red heels, and the
intimacy was immediate, and the relationship was
physical straight away.
00:04:04
NARRATOR: Williams had met
the man she wanted to marry, but Ian Johnston had a long-term
partner called Sadie Hartley.
00:04:13
Williams and Walsh decided that
Sadie Hartley was a problem that needed to go away.
00:04:19
This didn't happen in
the heat of the moment. This was a murder plot
that these two women
00:04:25
had spent 17 months planning. And I think that's what
makes it so horrific. This wasn't a crime of passion.
00:04:35
This was a crime of obsession. She was obsessed
with Sadie Hartley's partner, Ian Johnston.
00:04:42
She wanted to get rid
of her, and she did. NARRATOR: Williams and
Walsh thought they'd
00:04:48
committed the perfect murder. They were in it together,
until they were caught. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Williams
maintains her innocence
00:04:55
steadfastly, and Walsh
confesses but doesn't confess to killing Hartley herself.
00:05:03
She says Williams did it. The friendship is fractured. Williams absolutely, brazenly
fronts it up, and says,
00:05:14
nothing to do with me. Williams is still living in
her own parallel universe. NARRATOR: These killers
stories begin in 1960.
00:05:28
Katrina Walsh was born on
February the 4th in Middlesex. Sarah Williams was born 21 years
later on the 8th of May 1981
00:05:39
in Merseyside. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Sarah Williams
was an only child, daughter of an electrician,
perfectly reasonable,
00:05:49
apparently, as a girl, had
a lazy eye which saw her get bullied a bit at school.
00:05:55
She went to private school,
well-educated and capable, very capable. But when she got into her
teens as she grew older,
00:06:06
she realized that she was
quite attractive to men. And this was something that
she really seized upon.
00:06:12
So those feelings of
shame and inadequacy that she'd had when
she was younger, they were counteracted
by this-- this validation
00:06:21
that she got from
the attention of men. NARRATOR: Sarah Williams and
Katrina Walsh met in 1993.
00:06:30
Williams loved horses and
went to the riding school where Walsh stabled
her own horse
00:06:36
and was a riding instructor. They became firm and
enduring friends. Was there a
sexual relationship
00:06:43
between Sarah Williams and
Katrina Walsh, a woman much, much older than her, who
suffered from terrible alopecia
00:06:49
and almost no hair? She was almost always wearing
a bandanna, or a hat, or a cap.
00:06:55
If you look at the
pictures of them both, they couldn't be more different. But there was
something very strong,
00:07:02
something very powerful keeping
that relationship together. When Williams
was 13 years old,
00:07:09
she claimed to have
been assaulted by a man who had stopped to fix his car. And this was an allegation that
the police took very seriously,
00:07:19
and they investigated it. There were appeals
for information from the public put
out at the time.
00:07:26
So this is a very pivotal
moment in Williams's life, whether or not this
story was a true one.
00:07:34
NARRATOR: Nobody was ever
charged with the abduction, and there were
suspicions that Williams
00:07:39
had made the whole story up. In 1999, when Sarah Williams
was 17 years old and still
00:07:49
at school, she met 57-year-old
married father, David Hardwick, at the riding school.
00:07:57
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Hardwick
is a shadowy figure throughout this story. Hardwick is her benefactor,
her sugar daddy.
00:08:03
He gives her enormous amounts
of money over the years. He's married to someone
much more of his own age.
00:08:09
They never divorced. Williams knows from
a very early age that the power her
sexual drive has,
00:08:16
and she uses it to
her full advantage. NARRATOR: Sarah Williams
left school at the age of 18,
00:08:24
from 2005 to 2013,
she worked for a bank selling personal insurance. In 2006, she moved
away from home
00:08:35
and bought her first
house, largely bankrolled by David Hardwick, who also
paid her a weekly allowance
00:08:43
of 320 pounds. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Hardwick is a
consistent support to Williams throughout her life.
00:08:52
Now, you can
speculate about why, you can speculate about what
was Hardwick getting out of it.
00:08:58
On the surface, not very
much, apart, I suspect, from a great deal of sex. NARRATOR: William's best
friend, Katrina Walsh,
00:09:11
married her husband
Kevin in 1984, nine years before she met Sarah Williams. Walsh was quite an
eccentric character.
00:09:22
She was somebody who shared
William's love of horse-riding, and that is how they met.
00:09:28
She was into tarot cards. She was quite heavily
tattooed, and she was a biker. She was interested
in motorbikes.
00:09:36
And these were some
passions that she shared with her husband, Kevin. GEOFFREY WANSELL: And Kevin and
Katrina, and then, believe it
00:09:44
or not, Hardwick and Williams,
develop a sort of foursome, and they go on
expeditions together.
00:09:52
In a horse box, they
take their horses. He's got sleeping accommodation. It's a very big horse box.
00:09:59
And at one point, Kevin
Walsh, Katrina's husband, describes it as a
purple passion wagon.
00:10:05
And then in 2008, Katrina
Walsh and Kevin divorced. He's had an affair
with somebody else.
00:10:11
He goes off, he moves to
Catterick in North Yorkshire, leaves The Wirrall
all behind him.
00:10:16
NAZIA PARVEEN: He felt
that the relationship between Sarah Williams
and Katrina Walsh
00:10:21
was dysfunctional. There was always
this thing where he felt like, if
he hadn't had left,
00:10:28
Katrina would never have
got as close as she did with Sarah because he
would have been there
00:10:33
to stop that from happening. But Williams was also a long
way from being monogamous.
00:10:39
I think she had a
great many affairs, probably to the
consternation, or perhaps,
00:10:44
to the amusement of Hardwick. He certainly didn't
seem to object. NARRATOR: The day before her
30th birthday, Sarah Williams
00:10:53
was driving on the M60
motorway in Manchester when she passed the
unique structure
00:10:59
of the city's indoor ski
center, the Chill Factore. She now knew what she
wanted as a birthday present
00:11:07
from her boyfriend
David Hardwick. Hardwick was not
as enthusiastic about Williams' new hobby as she was,
because he was slightly older,
00:11:18
perhaps less inclined to
engage in-- in this kind of vigorous physical activity.
00:11:22
But Williams dragged him along. And I think part of her
enjoyed the attention that she got from men
at the Chill Factore,
00:11:31
but also that the
jealousy, I think, that Hardwick would
have felt when he saw these relationships developing.
00:11:38
NARRATOR: Williams
and Hardwick became regulars at the Chill Factore. Williams love being
there so much,
00:11:45
she left her job to
join a ski travel company based in the
complex as a sales advisor.
00:11:52
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Williams, who
is by now rather an athletic woman-- she's more than
5' 10", she's strong,
00:11:59
big shoulders, muscular body-- rapidly becomes a really
rather good skier. She really enjoys it.
00:12:07
And she-- it becomes
her second home, almost. Selling insurance,
it's not quite as
00:12:13
much fun as the dry ski slopes. NARRATOR: While working
at the Chill Factore, Sarah Williams had
several romantic affairs,
00:12:22
mainly with married men
who were ski instructors. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
The affairs that she
00:12:27
has with married men,
they only end when she decides that they have ended. And when the men decide
that they've had enough,
00:12:34
she reacts very badly indeed. NARRATOR: In August
2013, Sarah Williams met 57-year-old retired
fireman, Ian Johnston,
00:12:47
an expert telomere skier who
was working as an instructor at the Chill Factore. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He's
actually been in a relationship
00:12:56
for some time at this
point for a number of years with a businesswoman,
tiny bit older
00:13:02
than he is, in her later
50s at this point, called Sadie Hartley. But it's-- it's been on
and off, and Johnston--
00:13:10
well, he falls for the-- for the flirt. He falls for the-- the femme fatale, or as
she was later to describe
00:13:18
herself, the she-devil. NARRATOR: Sarah Williams and Ian
Johnston's illicit relationship
00:13:27
was developing rapidly. Williams began
telling her friends that she'd met her
ideal man, and she
00:13:35
was determined to keep him. GEOFFREY WANSELL: We have
an extraordinary series of relationships.
00:13:44
We have Williams and Walsh,
closer now that Kevin Walsh has gone off, we have
Williams and Hardwick,
00:13:52
we have Williams and
Johnston, and we have Johnston and Sadie Hartley. A great amalgam
of relationships.
00:14:02
All of them, in a way, driven
by Williams's sexual desire. NARRATOR: Sarah Williams was
besotted with Ian Johnston.
00:14:11
Although he was no longer seeing
Sadie when he met Williams, they remain close. He was definitely
somebody who, you know,
00:14:22
was very confident
with women, was used to getting
lots of attention, enjoyed that attention.
00:14:29
And so the fact that he ended
up having this affair with Sarah Williams felt like
it could easily
00:14:39
have happened with his
sort of personality type. Sarah Williams would watch
for when Ian Johnston would
00:14:46
come to the Chill Factore. She would get
colleagues to tell her if his car was in the car park.
00:14:52
Ian Johnston was
her perfect man. He was a man that
she wanted to marry. So I guess she saw Sadie
Hartley as the obstacle to that.
00:15:01
She was the enemy, and
she had to be got rid of. NARRATOR: Sadie Hartley lived
in the village of Helmshore
00:15:11
in Lancashire. She was a divorced mother
with two adult children. A successful woman who ran
her own medical conference
00:15:21
business. And she also loved
riding her horse that she kept at a local stable. In September 2014,
Sarah Williams
00:15:32
sent a letter to Sadie Hartley. NAZIA PARVEEN: In this
letter, Sarah Williams personally attacks
Sadie Hartley and adds
00:15:43
in that the sex with
Ian is fantastic, and they can't get
enough of each other, and essentially said they
were having sex all the time.
00:15:55
And it was the best-- that, like, the best sex
she'd-- she'd ever had. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: And what is
actually said within the letter
00:16:05
is very revealing about the
kind of person that Williams is. She is not putting the
responsibility onto Ian,
00:16:12
she is putting all of the
responsibility onto Sadie. This isn't about Ian's
continual decision to engage
00:16:19
in an affair with her. This is about Sadie
acting as a barrier to her having a more full
relationship with Ian Johnston.
00:16:28
MEL BARHAM: But the letter
didn't work to split them up because it was just a few weeks
later that, in fact, Sadie
00:16:36
and Ian moved in together. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
She thinks that she's justified in
behaving in this way.
00:16:43
She feels entitled to this man. So all of the behavior that
she engages in, she thinks
00:16:48
is perfectly reasonable. NARRATOR: The letter did
not deter Sadie Hartley or disrupt her relationship
with Ian Johnston.
00:16:57
GEOFFREY WANSELL:
Well, that just makes Williams even more furious. She hasn't managed to split
up Hartley and Johnston
00:17:03
to get Johnston back. In fact, rather the opposite. I think, probably Johnston felt
more loyal now to Sadie Hartley
00:17:13
than he had done before. NARRATOR: In October 2014,
before moving in with Sadie Hartley, Ian Johnston officially
ended his relationship
00:17:23
with Sarah Williams. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: What
has just been a bit of fun, I think, on his part, he
decides to call an end to this.
00:17:32
But Williams
doesn't accept this. She's the one who's in
control in her relationship.
00:17:37
She decides when they're over. And-- and she simply does
not accept his decision.
00:17:43
NARRATOR: Johnston's physical
relationship with Williams was over, but they
continue to text
00:17:49
and see each other at the Chill
Factore where they both worked. These text messages were,
like, quite explicit in nature.
00:17:56
There were naked images in them. So although Ian said their
relationship had come
00:18:02
to an end, there was an
aspect of the relationship that was still going on. But she attached meaning
to that communication
00:18:09
that wasn't actually there. So it shows just how
completely at odds both of these
individuals were in terms
00:18:15
of their understanding of what
their relationship really was. At some point, in the
late summer of 2014,
00:18:27
Williams and Walsh begin to have
what are could only be called chilling conversations about
getting rid of Williams'
00:18:39
love rival, Sadie Hartley. Walsh starts to keep a diary
of these conversations. At one point, I
think, she writes
00:18:50
in it, she does sound
like a totally evil bitch, of Sadie Hartley. And nothing could, in fact, have
been further from the truth.
00:18:59
But nevertheless, this
is the venom that is supplied to Walsh by Williams. MEL BARHAM: There were
all sorts of things
00:19:07
that Katrina Walsh wrote in that
diary which really revealed, I suppose, what
her true feelings
00:19:15
were about what was going on. NARRATOR: The
fantasy of dispensing with Sadie Hartley became
an obsessive pastime
00:19:24
for Williams and Walsh. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: For this to
go on for the period of time
00:19:27
that it did, there were
multiple opportunities for Walsh to put the brakes on it, to go
and tell the police, to tell
00:19:34
a friend, to actually get
something done about what was going to happen
to it, to basically
00:19:41
stop this from happening. But she chose not to. NARRATOR: By August 2015, 10
months after Ian Johnston had
00:19:50
officially ended his
relationship with Sarah Williams, a murder
plot that should
00:19:55
have stayed in the
realms of fantasy was becoming ever more real. GEOFFREY WANSELL: In
the late summer of 2014,
00:20:01
Walsh suggests to
Williams that she approach Walsh's ex-husband, Kevin, who
happens to be a keen archer,
00:20:10
to become, would you
believe it, a hit man and kill Sadie Hartley. Well, Kevin Walsh is
absolutely having none of it.
00:20:22
Absolutely turns it down flat. It's ridiculous. By this point, they've begun to
enter what you might describe
00:20:30
as a parallel universe. NAZIA PARVEEN: There were
burner phones acquired. It was something
akin to a plot in--
00:20:38
in a spy novel. And whilst they were planning
all of this, at the same time, Katrina Walsh was
detailing every single part
00:20:50
of their planning in her diary. So literally, every little
thing that they did, she would put a
note in her diary.
00:21:01
So they've got burner phones. Now they know that Johnston,
who moved in with Sadie
00:21:06
Hartley in November
2014, but they don't know where he lives with her. They don't know where
Sadie Hartley's house is.
00:21:13
So they-- believe
it or not, they buy a tracker device
for his car, which Sarah Williams puts on his car.
00:21:21
NARRATOR: Sarah Williams
bought the first tracker on Katrina Walsh's credit card.
00:21:26
The tracker led them to the
house Sadie Hartley now shared with Ian Johnston in Helmshore.
00:21:33
The two women embarked on
several reconnaissance missions to familiarize themselves
with the property
00:21:40
and surrounding location. GEOFFREY WANSELL: So the plan
is escalating quite steadily.
00:21:49
There's been the
poison pen letter, the attempt to hire Kevin. We've got the burner phones.
00:21:56
We have the tracker device
on Ian Johnston's car. We now know where Johnston
and Sadie Hartley live.
00:22:05
So they decide, and I think
this is a time when, perhaps, Katrina Walsh makes a
bigger contribution,
00:22:13
Katrina suggests
to Sarah Williams that it's gonna be much
easier to kill Sadie Hartley
00:22:19
if she has a stun gun. NARRATOR: 2nd of December
2015, Greater Manchester. It was the night of the Chill
Factorises Christmas party.
00:22:33
The first tracker placed on
Ian Johnston's car had failed. While the party
was in full swing,
00:22:40
Sarah Williams left the party
and attached a second tracker to Ian Johnston's car.
00:22:47
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: So she buys
this tracking device that she puts on Ian Johnston's vehicle.
00:22:51
And there are times
when she-- she has to remove it from the vehicle. And when she does,
she's carrying
00:22:56
it around in her own handbag. And what she doesn't realize is
that the company she's bought
00:23:01
the tracker from are also
able to access the data that the tracker is sending out.
00:23:07
So-- so this is a really
ill-conceived plan. It's very badly thought through. The two women,
Williams and Walsh,
00:23:15
spend hours together plotting
what they think and hope will be the perfect murder.
00:23:21
Walsh is overjoyed
at the involvement, and Williams is
utterly determined. They're going to kill Sadie
Hartley come what may.
00:23:31
NARRATOR: On the 9th
of December 2015, Sarah Williams and Katrina
Walsh boarded a ferry
00:23:38
from Hull to Rotterdam and drove
to Germany to buy a stun gun. NAZIA PARVEEN: Then it starts
to really feel like they're
00:23:46
actively thinking about
doing it because now, they're purchasing weapons. [instrumental music]
00:23:53
NARRATOR: Early in the new
year on January the 4th, 2016, Sarah Williams sent
a text to Katrina Walsh.
00:24:02
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Williams says
to Walsh, the time is coming. Go and do your shopping.
00:24:07
And so Walsh goes to Tesco and
buys a considerable kitchen knife and uses her
club card so there
00:24:13
can't be any doubt about who
bought the kitchen knife. NARRATOR: Walsh was
captured on CCTV
00:24:18
at a Tesco supermarket
in Broughton buying a large kitchen knife. The following day
on January the 5th,
00:24:27
Sarah Williams
retrieved the tracker from Ian Johnston's car. Again, she placed the
tracker in her handbag
00:24:35
without turning it off. On January the 6th, Ian
Johnston went to Switzerland on a skiing holiday.
00:24:47
Sadie Hartley was going
to join him 10 days later. Until then, she was
home alone in Helmshore.
00:24:56
Williams and Walsh knew Ian
Johnston was out of the way, safely in Switzerland. They knew where Sadie Hartley
lived, but neither of them
00:25:06
knew her by sight. They decided that a
final reconnaissance mission was needed, a
dry run for the murder.
00:25:16
The pair decided
that they would drive up together to Lancashire. They bought a cheap bunch
of flowers from Tesco.
00:25:28
And the pair drove
up to her road. They got out of the car,
walks up the streets.
00:25:38
And Katrina Walsh walks up
to Sadie Hartley's door, knocked on the
door, and delivered
00:25:47
these flowers in person. And all the while,
Sarah Williams was hiding behind a parked
car, watching her prey.
00:25:57
And when Sadie Hartley asked
who the flowers were from, Katrina Walsh said she couldn't
remember, and she ran off.
00:26:06
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Here, you have this person in front of you
and who is a human being.
00:26:11
Somebody who's asking
you a question. And I think this is the first
time that-- that Sadie becomes
00:26:17
that-- that real
living, breathing person that Walsh has been
writing about quite
00:26:22
abstractly in her diaries. NARRATOR: Sadie Hartley was
unnerved by the delivery of the bunch of flowers
and the strange woman
00:26:32
who delivered them. She contacted Ian
Johnston in Switzerland who knew nothing about
the creepy delivery
00:26:39
as Sadie described it to him. For the practice run,
Katrina Walsh had driven to Helmshore in her own car.
00:26:52
Williams decided it
would be unwise to use their personal vehicles on
the night of the real event.
00:26:59
On Sunday, January
the 10th, 2016, Sarah Williams set about looking
for a suitable second vehicle.
00:27:08
GEOFFREY WANSELL:
So they have to buy a car that won't be identified
as belonging to either of them.
00:27:14
Williams and Walsh
search for one, and eventually purchased
an elderly Renault Clio.
00:27:20
But they do more than that. They also make sure that
the number plate, which is on the Clio, is changed
so it doesn't get recognized
00:27:30
by the automated number
recognition system used by most British police forces. And Walsh does
quite a clever job
00:27:37
of turning the number 3 into
the number 8 with a black tape. NARRATOR: On Tuesday,
January the 12th,
00:27:44
2016, Sarah Williams
made what she thought was another clever move. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Williams
purchased a pair of boots that
00:27:53
were several sizes too large
for her so that that would throw the police off the scent,
and they would think
00:27:59
that the perpetrator
was somebody who was male or, at
least, somebody who was much bigger than she was.
00:28:05
NARRATOR: On the
14th of January, Sarah Williams went to work at
the Chill Factore as normal.
00:28:13
At 3:00 PM, she texted
David Hardwick to tell him she was feeling unwell
and going home early.
00:28:24
An hour later, Hardwick
visited Williams at home and left soon after. A little while later, Hardwick
received a text from Williams.
00:28:36
"Just had another cup of tea. Going to switch light
off and have a nap now. Will ring when I wake
up as long as not late."
00:28:45
Katrina Walsh arrived
at Sarah Williams' home. Several minutes later, the two
women emerged from the house
00:28:54
and walked to the
parked Renault Clio. Walsh returned alone
to Williams' home. On the night of the
14th of January 2016,
00:29:08
Walsh drives to Williams' home
and stays there incidentally to look after Sarah
Williams' dog,
00:29:17
as well as everything else. While Sarah Williams
takes the Renault Clio, which has been hidden
in a car park nearby,
00:29:25
and drives it from there
to Sadie Hartley's house. Sadie Hartley that day has
been at work, in a perfectly
00:29:35
normal way, in her office. She goes home at the end of
the afternoon, and in fact,
00:29:40
goes out to tend to her
horse in the stables. She gets back to the house
about half past seven.
00:29:50
MEL BARHAM: Sarah Williams
parked her car and very calmly walked up to Sadie
Hartley's door.
00:29:59
And as soon as Sadie
Hartley opened the door, she lunged at her with this
stun gun, incapacitating her.
00:30:09
And then, she stabs
her over 40 times. And the whole murder,
the whole attack, took just four minutes
and 40 seconds.
00:30:20
[suspenseful music] NARRATOR: After 17 months
of meticulous planning, Sadie Hartley, the woman
standing between Sarah Williams
00:30:31
and the love of her life,
Ian Johnston, was dead. So in four minutes, she's
ended the life of Sadie Hartley
00:30:40
with 41 stab wounds. It's the most depraved,
disgusting, horrifying crime. You cannot imagine
the brutality of that.
00:30:52
And yet, Sarah Williams
is as cool as could be. She's very careful. She closes the door.
00:30:59
She takes the murder weapon
with her and, of course, the stun gun. Back to the car,
gets in the car,
00:31:07
drives back to Katrina Walsh. NARRATOR: Williams met
Walsh at a designated rendezvous in a car
park at Ellesmere Port.
00:31:17
They abandoned the Renault Clio
and drove home in Walsh' car. Once home, Williams had a
plan to cover their tracks.
00:31:29
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She gave
all of the-- the evidence, all of the
incriminating evidence
00:31:34
to Walsh to get rid of. So she just wants
it off her plate. She doesn't want any
connection with these items.
00:31:41
And she believes that Walsh is
just going to dispose of them. And Williams will
later ensure that there
00:31:47
is no forensic evidence on her. She'll have a bath, she'll
have a bit of a clean up when
00:31:51
she gets home. But all of that really
compelling evidence is now in the hands of Walsh.
00:31:58
NARRATOR: The following
day, Williams went to work at the Chill Factore as normal.
00:32:05
Katrina Walsh also went to
work at Collinge Farm stables, taking the incriminating
evidence with her.
00:32:15
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Most of us when we hurt someone, when
we upset somebody, we feel guilty about it.
00:32:20
We feel bad. We're not quite
ourselves afterwards. But Williams is
completely different.
00:32:25
She's able to just pick up
and get on with her life. And I'm sure she's thinking
about the next stage
00:32:30
of the plan here, of
getting Ian Johnston back. NARRATOR: The day after the
murder on Friday the 15th
00:32:39
of January, a concerned
colleague of Sadie Hartley's called the police, who went
to the house in Helmshore
00:32:46
and found her lying
dead in the hallway. Former Detective
Superintendent David Swindle
00:32:53
has been the attending
senior officer at numerous murder scenes. DAVID SWINDLE: One
of the big things
00:33:00
is looking at the victim is
to find out what there is in the victim's life that would
lead to a possible motive,
00:33:08
and the victim and associates. So the victim's
associate was Johnston. He was in a skiing
holiday at the time.
00:33:18
So he-- he was contacted. And when he was
contacted, he spoke about an obsessive
ex-partner, and the police
00:33:28
identified who that was with
the assistance of Johnston. NARRATOR: Johnston
also told the police
00:33:34
about the strange late night
delivery of flowers Sadie had told him about
the previous week.
00:33:41
The information provided
by Johnston to the police was enough for
them to bring Sarah
00:33:47
Williams in for questioning. On Sunday, the 17th of January
2016, she was arrested.
00:33:56
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Williams
was arrested at 3 o'clock in the morning when she
was at her-- her own home.
00:34:02
Her demeanor was quite calm. It was-- was quite cool. She-- she didn't appear
to be freaking out.
00:34:08
She didn't appear to be overly
upset or overly distressed. And this was a persona
that she maintained
00:34:14
throughout her police interview. She seemed very
unaffected by the fact that she was being
arrested for-- for the most
00:34:21
serious of crimes. NARRATOR: When
questioned, Sarah Williams denied any knowledge
or involvement
00:34:27
in the murder of Sadie Hartley. After four interviews,
she declined to answer any further questions
and only replied, no comment.
00:34:39
The police then
began investigating the strange flower
delivery on the evening of the 7th of January.
00:34:47
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: The UK is
one of the world's most watched nations in terms of the CCTV and
surveillance that we have here.
00:34:54
So every element of the
planning of this murder was captured on CCTV. There was ANPR data,
as well, Automatic
00:35:03
Number Plate Recognition. So there was this digital
trail that these two killers left behind them.
00:35:09
NARRATOR: On the
night of January 7, the night of the dry run, CCTV
from Sadie's neighbor's house
00:35:16
revealed a figure of about 5
foot 6 wearing a baseball cap. It was unclear if this
person was male or female.
00:35:24
Then the police traced the
movements of a silver Vauxhall captured driving
towards Helmshore,
00:35:30
stopping at a Tesco
store in Haslingden, and arriving near
Sadie Hartley's home.
00:35:36
The owner of the car
was Katrina Walsh. On Monday, the 18th
of January 2016, Katrina Walsh was arrested
at the riding stables
00:35:47
where she worked. Unlike Sarah Williams, Katrina
was unable to stay quiet. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Walsh absolutely
00:35:56
spills the beans before she even
gets into the interview room. She's-- she's telling the
custody sergeant absolutely
00:36:02
everything about
what's-- what's happened, to the extent that
the custody sergeant
00:36:06
actually has to
say to her, stop, save this for the interview. So the contrast between
these two suspects
00:36:12
is really striking. She wants to frame me for it,
or kill me and frame me for it.
00:36:17
NARRATOR: Walsh
claimed that Williams had committed the murder
and that she had unwittingly
00:36:21
been caught up in it. She accompanied the
police to the stables where she worked and
revealed where she'd hidden
00:36:28
all the incriminating evidence. NAZIA PARVEEN: Everything that
had been used in the murder
00:36:34
was right there for them. So in the ground,
you had the knife, the stun gun, and the boots--
00:36:42
the boots which had some of
Sadie Hartley's blood on them. And in the eaves, you've got
Katrina Walsh's diaries which
00:36:50
detail in, you know--
minute detail of how they planned Sadie Hartley's murder. NARRATOR: And the police also
discovered that Sarah Williams
00:37:00
hadn't been as clever as
she thought in disposing of incriminating evidence. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
When she got home,
00:37:07
she had a shower or a bath. She cleaned up with bleach. But there were things
that she missed.
00:37:12
So the police were able to
get some-- some trace evidence from the bath where there
were traces of Sadie's DNA.
00:37:22
They found on Sarah's
spectacles some particles of blood that had been
transferred during the murder.
00:37:28
So she thought that she'd
done a good clean up, but she certainly hadn't. Williams is now in
custody under suspicion.
00:37:36
Walsh is now in custody
under suspicion. And Walsh provides
essentially the evidence
00:37:44
to convict Williams. She has always maintained,
throughout the plot that they hatched together, she was never
gonna be at what she called
00:37:52
the sharp end of the killing. She wasn't gonna do the killing. She was just gonna assist.
00:37:57
But of course,
British law insists that if you are
collaborative in a murder, you are equally
guilty of murder.
00:38:08
NARRATOR: January 20,
2016, Sarah Williams and Katrina Walsh were
charged with the murder
00:38:17
of Sadie Hartley. Both women denied murdering her. On August 3, 2016,
the trial of Sarah
00:38:28
Williams and Katrina Walsh
began at Preston Crown Court. MEL BARHAM: They both pointed
the finger at each other.
00:38:36
But of course, the
prosecution gave a motive. Sarah Williams' motive was to
get rid of her love rival, who
00:38:45
she thought was standing
in the way of her being with her perfect
man, Ian Johnston.
00:38:50
And the motive they gave
for Katrina Walsh was to help her friend,
but also that she
00:38:59
found the idea of plotting
this murder very exciting. NAZIA PARVEEN: Just the
salacious nature of it,
00:39:08
everything that
came out in court, the level of planning
that they went through,
00:39:15
and the fact that they
were two women who-- who murdered another
woman, and for what really?
00:39:22
A sordid affair that was, you
know, no longer even happening. And the way that they kind of
viewed it as some kind of game.
00:39:31
And they forgot, in all of
that, that it wasn't a game, and they weren't in a novel,
and they weren't characters,
00:39:38
and that she was
actually a person. NARRATOR: Sarah
Williams decided to take the stand in her defense.
00:39:49
There was absolutely no
sense of remorse there. The prosecution,
I remember, were
00:39:57
trying to talk about Sadie
Hartley's family, her daughter, who had just got
engaged, and trying
00:40:05
to get her to think about
how the family would feel about their murdered mother.
00:40:12
Sarah Williams stood in the dock
very calm, and very arrogant, very nonchalant, and just denied
having anything to do with it.
00:40:24
NARRATOR: Unlike Sarah
Williams, Katrina Walsh chose not to defend herself in court.
00:40:30
Walsh's conduct in
court was quite different from that of-- of Williams. Whilst Williams was
quite confident, quite
00:40:37
self-assured, Walsh just
kind of shrunk into herself. And her conduct was quite
similar to-- to that
00:40:44
of her early police interviews. So she didn't make eye
contact with anybody. She sat with her head down.
00:40:49
And this is a very kind
of childlike response to the situation in
which she finds herself.
00:40:54
She just wants it all
to go away and that if I don't look at people,
they can't look at me.
00:41:01
NARRATOR: The trial
lasted for seven weeks. On August 17, 2016,
Sarah Williams and Katrina Walsh
were found guilty
00:41:11
of the murder of Sadie Hartley. So Sarah Williams was
sentenced to life in prison
00:41:18
with a minimum of 30
years, and another life sentence for Katrina Walsh
but a minimum of 25 years.
00:41:26
And despite Katrina
Walsh not actually being there at the murder scene
on the night of the murder,
00:41:33
she was found to be just as
culpable and just as guilty. NARRATOR: When handing
down the sentences,
00:41:41
the trial judge was
unrestrained in his summation. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Mr Justice
Turner, in his sentencing
00:41:49
remarks, points out
that in contrast to the life-affirming good
spirits of Sadie Hartley,
00:41:59
these are two vile,
despicable women. And he says, and
I quote, "But let no one make the mistake
of thinking this
00:42:10
is a crime of passion. It was a crime of obsession,
of arrogance, of barbarity. But above all, it was
a crime of pure evil."
00:42:29
NARRATOR: When Sarah
Williams wanted a man, no one was going
to get in her way. Any love rival became an enemy.
00:42:38
Katrina Walsh was her
willing accomplice, thrilled by the game
of catching their prey.
00:42:44
Sadie Hartley had no idea she
was part of their sick game when she was ruthlessly
murdered by these two women,
00:42:53
making Sarah
Williams and Katrina Walsh two of the world's
most evil killers. [theme music]