00:00:03
[music playing] NARRATOR: In May 2013,
17-year-old Georgia Williams set out on a short
walk to help a friend
00:00:13
with a photography
project at his house in Wellington,
Shropshire, England. STEPHEN WILLIAMS: She
popped out through the door,
00:00:21
and I remember seeing
a ponytail bobbing. She went and we never
saw her alive again.
00:00:30
NARRATOR: Georgia's
friend was 22-year-old Jamie Reynolds, a young man with
a twisted secret fantasy life.
00:00:39
GEOFFREY WANSELL: He
developed an obsession with viciously sadistic pornography.
00:00:45
Particularly, pornography
that involved killing women. NARRATOR: It wasn't the
first time Reynolds had used
00:00:52
a photo shoot to lure a
young woman to his house, but this was the first
time his sick fantasy
00:00:59
would become a reality. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Reynolds
is a sexual sadist. He wants to dominate a woman.
00:01:06
He wants to have complete
control over her. He enjoys the suffering
of other people.
00:01:13
NARRATOR: All of it
captured on camera. So now she's
hanging in midair, in a hallway, in a house in
Avondale Road, Wellington
00:01:22
in Shropshire, dying. And all the time, Reynolds
is photographing her. He wants to capture every
moment of her distress.
00:01:34
NARRATOR: So brutal and depraved
was the murder of Georgia Williams, Jamie Reynolds will
never be a free man again,
00:01:41
making him one of the
world's most evil killer. [theme music] On May the 26th,
2013, Jamie Reynolds
00:02:09
asked his friend and neighbor,
17-year-old Georgia Williams, to his home in Wellington,
Shropshire, England.
00:02:17
Georgia was keeping a
promise she'd made to help him with a photography project.
00:02:24
Her dad, Detective
Constable Stephen Williams, also knew Reynolds. STEPHEN WILLIAMS: I
took him on face value.
00:02:33
I knew nothing about him from
the police side of things. And he just seemed to
me like an ordinary lad
00:02:41
when I met him and spoke to him. NARRATOR: What
Stephen didn't know was that Reynolds
had a documented
00:02:48
history of assaulting
young women as a minor. GEOFFREY WANSELL: I think he
was a virgin at that point.
00:02:56
He had a very weird
relationship with girls and that comes
increasingly clear during his adolescent years.
00:03:02
NARRATOR: Reynolds
would fixate on a girl and write a sexually
sadistic story about what
00:03:08
he wanted to do to her. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: What makes
Reynolds one of Britain's most evil killers
is that this murder
00:03:15
was years in the planning. When we look at the stories
that he'd been writing, those stories are a link
between thinking and doing.
00:03:24
And they were a real
red flag in his case. NARRATOR: Georgia Williams
was murdered within an hour
00:03:31
of entering Reynolds home. But that was only the first
part of his sick fantasy.
00:03:38
RICHARD WHITTAM QC: He sexually
attacked her as she was dying. And then, I'm afraid, after she
was dead, cut her down, removed
00:03:46
her clothing, and carried
out further sexual acts of indignity upon her. NARRATOR: When Jamie Reynolds
had finished abusing Georgia's
00:03:55
dead body, he threw her
in the back of his van and went on a road trip. It was a miracle that
her body was ever found.
00:04:06
LYNNETTE WILLIAMS: If it
hadn't have been for the family from Wales stepping
up and saying,
00:04:11
look, you know, we think
we saw him because he got stuck in the mud. She would never have been found,
not where she'd been dumped.
00:04:23
NARRATOR: This killer's
story begins in 1991. The youngest of two
children, Jamie Reynolds
00:04:30
grew up in Telford,
Shropshire, England. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Unfortunately, for Reynolds,
00:04:38
his early years were not great. His mother was a victim
of domestic abuse. He witnessed this abuse, so he
was partially a victim of it
00:04:47
himself. NARRATOR: Reynolds' mother left
her abusive partner, taking Jamie and his sister with her.
00:04:55
She remarried, and that family
unit appeared to be a warm, happy, and supportive one.
00:05:01
GEOFFREY WANSELL: The family
lived in a nice street, Avondale Road in
Wellington in Shropshire,
00:05:08
not far from Telford, not
far from the Welsh border. Upright, semi-detached
houses, little gardens,
00:05:15
the picture of normality--
suburban normality. NARRATOR: Reynolds attended
senior school at Ercall
00:05:22
Wood Academy in Wellington. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
And in this community, the-- the young people are
quite kind of close knit.
00:05:30
Everybody tends to
know everyone else, even if it's through a friend. He wasn't a stranger.
00:05:36
He wasn't an outsider. He might have been
considered a bit odd, but he was still very
much one of the community.
00:05:43
NARRATOR: Detective Constable
Stephen Williams knew Jamie Reynolds through his children.
00:05:49
His youngest
daughter Georgia had worked at the local
petrol station with him. And Reynolds had been
in the same school year
00:05:57
as his eldest
daughter, Scarlett. STEPHEN WILLIAMS: I would
speak to him briefly when
00:06:03
I went in there doing--
paying for my petrol, or buying a newspaper,
or something like that.
00:06:09
He was always polite,
and you wouldn't think there was anything about
him that you had to be wary of.
00:06:22
Even as a police officer, I
didn't pick that up from him. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Jamie
was a difficult teenager,
00:06:33
to put it politely. He developed-- and we cannot say
precisely why or where it came
00:06:39
from, he developed an obsession
with viciously sadistic pornography,
particularly, pornography
00:06:47
that involved killing women. NARRATOR: Reynolds kept his
pornography obsession a secret
00:06:53
from his friends, but he'd
created his own sexually twisted fantasy world. GEOFFREY WANSELL: I
suspect Jamie Reynolds
00:07:01
had a very high sex drive. But the trouble was, there
was no outlet for it. He didn't form, quotes,
"natural relationships."
00:07:11
It was all about his demonic
view of what sex meant and what relationships
with young women meant.
00:07:20
NARRATOR: Reynolds
preferred hanging out with his female friends
rather than with the boys.
00:07:27
STEPHEN WILLIAMS: And so
Georgia and her friends got to know Reynolds
really well.
00:07:34
Both Georgia and her friends
described him as a quiet-- quiet lad with only about
two or three regular friends.
00:07:46
They thought that he was
vulnerable in a sense that they used to walk
him home overnight.
00:07:58
They thought, if anyone
was likely to get beaten up on the way home, which would
be rare around this area
00:08:04
in any case, but
it would be Jamie. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Jamie Reynolds
liked to present to his friends
00:08:13
and colleagues in
Avondale Road, Wellington, I was being a little
vulnerable, a little shy
00:08:20
as a way of appealing
to them, perhaps. Nothing could have been
further from the truth.
00:08:28
He certainly gave
Georgia the impression that he was, perhaps,
needed looking after, because he's a little
vulnerable, little oh, dear,
00:08:34
poor-- we need to look after him. There is that nurturing side,
particularly in young women,
00:08:40
I think, that's
absolutely fair to say. And Reynolds played into it. That was the role he played.
00:08:47
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Reynolds is somebody who is not very emotionally complex. Everything is black
and white for him.
00:08:52
There are no shades
of gray in between. But he has this--
this really good understanding of other
people's emotions,
00:09:00
other people's behavior. So with women, he will know
how to turn on the charm. He will know how to present
a particular persona,
00:09:08
how to appear non-threatening. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
All the time, Jamie is building up his own
personal collection
00:09:15
of violent extreme pornography-- 16,800 images, 72
videos, some of them are women actually
being killed, and men
00:09:29
having sex with a dead body. This was Jamie
Reynolds' fantasy. NARRATOR: January 2008,
Reynolds' stepfather discovered
00:09:39
his collection and were so
disturbed by the content, he reported his own
17-year-old son to the police.
00:09:46
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: And I think
they were a really significant warning sign because
they bridged that gap
00:09:51
between thinking and doing. And I think that there was an
opportunity there to intervene,
00:09:57
but-- but it wasn't
taken seriously enough. And this is something
that is very serious
00:10:02
and indicates an individual
is incredibly dangerous. NARRATOR: Reynolds digitally
altered these images
00:10:08
with photos of his
female friends, often adding nooses
around their necks. And he wrote sexually deviant
fantasy stories about them.
00:10:18
GEOFFREY WANSELL:
This was a man who was living his own secret life
in a very dark place, indeed,
00:10:24
because everyone was
potentially a victim. I think it would
always had to be based around terror, around
subjugation, around violence.
00:10:35
NARRATOR: Throughout
his teenage years, Reynolds' fixated on
several young women
00:10:40
who mostly dismissed
him as creepy and weird. But Reynolds wanted his
sex stories and fantasies
00:10:48
to become a reality. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Reynolds' history is littered with examples of
abusive behavior towards women.
00:10:56
This is a young man who
feels entitled to go and take what he wants from women. NARRATOR: In 2008
at the age of 17,
00:11:04
Reynolds persuaded a
redheaded young woman to come to his house to
take part in what he called,
00:11:10
"an artistic photo shoot." GEOFFREY WANSELL: And he
attacked the girl, tried to strangle her effectively.
00:11:17
She was terrified, as you could
well imagine she might be. She screamed, she
fought our way out.
00:11:25
She ran off. She had marks around
her neck where he had his hands around it. NARRATOR: The woman reported
Reynolds to the police,
00:11:33
and he was arrested. When interviewed,
Reynolds minimize the whole episode, as if it
was simply a misunderstanding.
00:11:44
GEOFFREY WANSELL:
Within two years, he's fixated on
another redheaded girl, who completely dismisses him.
00:11:50
This one, his-- the fixation
lasts for some months, but she will not have
anything to do with him.
00:11:57
Nothing. Eventually, in August 2011, he
confronts her in a car park. And she tells him, in
no uncertain terms,
00:12:07
I don't want anything
to do with you, and I'm certainly not taking
part in any artistic scenario
00:12:11
you may have come up with. And in an absolute rage, Jamie
Reynolds gets into his car
00:12:18
and reverses fast across the
car park and bangs into her car. That's how angry he
was, and that's how
00:12:26
much rage there was in there. NARRATOR: This
time, Reynolds told the police that he was
distressed at being
00:12:33
rejected by the woman. And the incident was
treated as an accident. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: So
he's like Teflon guy.
00:12:41
Everything just slides off him. And when you look at the
impact of that on him, he learns that actually,
there are no consequences
00:12:49
for harassing women. There are no consequences for-- for being persistent, and for
being fixated, and obsessive.
00:12:58
NARRATOR: Undeterred by his
run-ins with the police, Jamie Reynolds' mission was
to turn his twisted fantasies
00:13:05
into reality, bringing
to life his lurid stories and their recurring
themes of young women
00:13:11
with red hair and
vivid red lips, strangulation, hanging, and most
disturbing of all, necrophilia.
00:13:23
[music playing] May the 26th, 2013, Wellington,
Shropshire, England, Jamie Reynolds had developed a
twisted sexual obsession
00:13:35
with his friend and neighbor,
17-year-old Georgia Williams. She'd become the
central character
00:13:42
in his latest sordid fantasy. GEOFFREY WANSELL: One of the
targets of his fantasies,
00:13:51
his stories, is a neighbor
in Wellington in Shropshire called Georgia Williams. Bright, red-headed, suits
his obsession, and he
00:14:06
starts to write a story-- one of his many
stories, they were all very peculiar and ugly.
00:14:13
And this one's called "Georgia
Williams in Surprise." ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This
is a fixation on her,
00:14:19
an obsession with her,
and he writes this story about luring her to his house. And it's very detailed
in terms of the lipstick
00:14:29
that she's wearing, in terms of
the clothes that she's wearing. And he's planning to--
to dominate and kill her.
00:14:36
NARRATOR: Although Reynolds was
in Georgia's circle of friends, they had nothing in common.
00:14:42
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Georgia Williams was quite an incredible young woman. She was 17 years old.
00:14:47
She was bright. She had a bright
future ahead of her. And she was an individual
who was quite well known
00:14:53
in her community, somebody who
was going places, someone who this community were proud of.
00:15:00
NARRATOR: Georgia
was a lifelong fan and member of her beloved AFC
Telford United football club.
00:15:08
LYNNETTE WILLIAMS: She'd
started going to the football with my dad when she was eight.
00:15:13
So my dad always say, well she's
my lucky, sort of little mascot to go around because people
would buy more if she was there
00:15:20
and handing out the tickets. They go, oh, no, we'll
have two off Georgia because we might win.
00:15:25
NARRATOR: At 17, Georgia had
her future all mapped out. LYNNETTE WILLIAMS: She couldn't
wait to get to 13 because then
00:15:32
she could join the cadets. And she absolutely
loved the cadets. And that's where
she really thrived.
00:15:37
So she did everything that
they-- they asked of her. She tried everything that
they even didn't ask of.
00:15:43
So in Georgia's
head, it was just, I'm going to join the-- the
RAF, you know, I love it.
00:15:48
And you could tell she loved it. Absolutely loved it. NARRATOR: Reynolds had once
asked Georgia to go out
00:15:54
with him, but Georgia
had a boyfriend and and made it
clear to Reynolds that they were firmly
in the friend zone
00:16:01
and would never
be anything else. STEPHEN WILLIAMS:
Yeah, I remember Georgia telling him straight
that she didn't want to go out.
00:16:09
She said-- but she
told him in a nice way. And that if he was OK
with it, they should
00:16:16
still ought to be friends. NARRATOR: May the 26th,
2013, it was as a friend that Jamie Reynolds asked
Georgia for a favor--
00:16:24
to come to his house and
help him with a photo shoot. GEOFFREY WANSELL: It's a
perfectly ordinary Sunday
00:16:31
afternoon, later
afternoon, Georgia tells her mom and dad that she's
going to see Jamie Reynolds.
00:16:39
I mean, they know him. He's one of the
neighbors, so to speak, and it's not a big place.
00:16:46
What's-- what's the problem? They do not know, of
course, about the attacks on other women.
00:16:53
LYNNETTE WILLIAMS: I knew she'd
already said that she was going up to Jamie's that
night because he wanted
00:16:57
some help with a photograph. But her other friends
were going up, as well. NARRATOR: Just in case
Georgia didn't show,
00:17:05
Reynolds had a backup plan. He'd also invited several
other young women that evening.
00:17:13
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He's
absolutely determined that he's going to kill
somebody on this day.
00:17:18
I think Georgia was very much
at the forefront of his mind. She's the one that he wanted.
00:17:23
But he was prepared to
settle for somebody else. He just wanted to
dominate a woman.
00:17:28
NARRATOR: Reynolds had
told Georgia that the theme of the shoot was biker chick.
00:17:35
LYNNETTE WILLIAMS: I actually
said to her in a bedroom, are you sure that's the
only sort of thing that--
00:17:39
I said, you're not going
up there doing anything-- don't be stupid, she said. I wouldn't do
anything like that.
00:17:44
Because she was quite
self-conscious of her body. She was sort of straight up,
straight down sort of girl,
00:17:53
so she didn't
really like showing herself off in-- in that way. STEPHEN WILLIAMS: She
came down, and she got
00:18:00
a tight pair of black jeans on. I remember a pink socks
with little sweets on. It got her hair in a ponytail,
and she got a baggy T-shirt
00:18:14
on with a big, red
London bus on the front, which I think she'd only
bought that day with her mom.
00:18:23
And she-- she came
out, and I said, oh. You look just like Olivia
Newton-John from "Grease."
00:18:32
NARRATOR: Georgia had
her first driving lesson the following
morning, and her mom
00:18:36
wanted her to rearrange the
photo shoot for another day. LYNNETTE WILLIAMS: So I
said, just stay in, I said--
00:18:43
I said, just tell him. She said, no, 'cause
I can't. 'Cause I feel really sorry for him.
00:18:46
He really wants to sort
of do better in life. And there's a few of
us going up, she said.
00:18:51
So it'll be all right, she said. And I'll see you later. Because then, I'll
be OK for tomorrow.
00:18:57
Um, so we all went out and
waved her off on the front. Have a nice time. STEPHEN WILLIAMS: She
popped out through the door.
00:19:06
And I remember seeing
a ponytail bobbing. I did, actually, think she
looks really nice, as well.
00:19:12
And so, off she went. And-- [clears throat] we
never saw her alive again. NARRATOR: Georgia walked to
Reynolds home on Avondale Road,
00:19:27
arriving around quarter
to 8:00 in the evening. There was no one else there. She was alone with her
friend, Jamie Reynolds.
00:19:37
GEOFFREY WANSELL: I
speculated many times that I'm sure that it wasn't
until the very last moment
00:19:45
that Georgia realized she
was in the gravest danger. NARRATOR: Despite being
the only one there,
00:19:51
Georgia agreed to go through
with the photo shoot. And at first, everything was
innocent and a lot of fun.
00:19:59
GEOFFREY WANSELL: The first
shots are about perfectly inconsequential. There's some in the hall, and
there's some in the kitchen.
00:20:05
But then, things go
a little further. Jamie Reynolds persuades
Georgia Williams to go upstairs
00:20:14
to the place beneath the
attic where he's put an oar, and he's thrown a red rope
over the oar with a noose
00:20:23
at the end of it. And he persuades
Georgia to put the noose around her neck to add
to the artistic scenario.
00:20:32
Reynolds, quite suddenly,
pulls the noose tight, and ties it to the banister,
knees her in the back,
00:20:42
and kicks the box away. So now, she's in a house in
Avondale Road, Wellington in Shropshire, dying.
00:20:54
And all the time, Reynolds
is photographing her. He wants to capture every
moment of her distress.
00:21:06
NARRATOR: May the
26th, 2013, Wellington, Shropshire, England. Less than an hour after
arriving at Jamie Reynolds home,
00:21:16
17-year-old Georgia
Williams was dead. But there was a second part
to Reynolds' sick fantasy.
00:21:26
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Words
sometimes fail me. It's-- it's just so depraved. He indulges his full
necrophiliac preoccupations
00:21:36
on the poor, now dead girl. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When you
look at individuals who engage
00:21:44
in necrophilia, there
is something that's going on underneath here. What you have is a dead body.
00:21:51
A dead body can't reject you. It can't refuse you. You can do whatever
you want to with it.
00:21:56
So for somebody like Reynolds
who enjoys that dominance and who enjoys that mastery
over another person,
00:22:03
this is just another
part of the process that he's really enjoying. NARRATOR: May the 26th,
2013, Reynolds continued
00:22:12
violating Georgia's body
throughout Sunday night into Monday morning. Somehow, he'd obtained the
password to Georgia's phone
00:22:21
and texted her mom, Lynette,
saying, ended up going out. Don't know when I'll be back.
00:22:28
Phone is about to die, too. LYNNETTE WILLIAMS: But
we had a few bits of-- not banter, but messages
go in between us,
00:22:37
me trying to find out
who exactly she was with, where she was going,
and what she was doing.
00:22:43
And her replying,
saying that she was OK. She-- she was going to friends. And I said-- I asked
again, which friends?
00:22:52
In the end, I got a reply back. So basically telling
me that, I'm OK. I'm going to friends.
00:23:00
I'll see you tomorrow. STEPHEN WILLIAMS: And we had
no reason to believe otherwise.
00:23:06
Because we believed that those
messages were from Georgia, and she was fine. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: And when
you look at the actual text
00:23:15
that he's sending, he's
mimicking her texting style because she always puts three
kisses in text to her parents.
00:23:23
And he mimics that. So you can just see how-- how cunning this
individual is in terms
00:23:29
of his attention to detail. NARRATOR: On Monday
morning, Georgia's parents weren't overly concerned
that she wasn't home yet.
00:23:39
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Georgia
was not the type of girl who would disappear
off the radar
00:23:43
and not tell her mom and
dad where she was going. This is not just
some 17-year-old
00:23:47
who's decided to go
off with her mates or go off with a boyfriend. This is something that is
out of character for Georgia.
00:23:55
NARRATOR: On Monday
morning, Stephen and Lynnette called
round Georgia's friends,
00:24:00
but no one had seen her. Stephen decided to call his
colleagues at the police, and an officer
called at their home.
00:24:08
He explained his daughter's
last known whereabouts to the female officer, who
then relayed the information
00:24:15
to the police station. STEPHEN WILLIAMS:
Oh, hang on a second. And she was getting message.
00:24:20
She goes-- right, OK. Right. And then, her face got
a little bit concerned. She's-- she-- they
finished the message,
00:24:34
too, which I couldn't
hear because she was using their phone. And she says, I'm
just gonna have
00:24:40
to pop back to the
station, um, but I'll come back as soon as possible. And she left then.
00:24:48
NARRATOR: 30 minutes
later, another colleague from the police station
telephoned Stephen.
00:24:54
[ominous music] STEPHEN WILLIAMS:
And he said to me, he says, um, this Jamie
Reynolds, this is, um--
00:25:03
I just wanna check,
he says, is he-- is he the one with the
funny hair cut, he says, the-- the floppy
fringe, curly over his eye.
00:25:10
I said, yeah, he's the one. He says, all right. It's just, I'll, um,
I'll get back to you.
00:25:17
And the conversation stops. I then think everything
now with Jamie Reynolds just gotten floppy--
00:25:27
So then I think, he must have
a photograph of Jamie Reynolds for him to be able to
describe him to me.
00:25:37
Because that's the
way he's a-- well, it was his most distinctive,
this floppy fringe and curly--
00:25:45
unkempt, otherwise. So I think to myself, they
must have a photo of him up there for some reason.
00:25:53
Well, once again, being a
policeman I'm not panicking, because I think to
myself, oh, kids,
00:26:01
I wonder if he's had a fight
with somebody, gentlemen. NARRATOR: Monday,
the 27th of May 2013,
00:26:11
sometime after
midday, Jamie Reynolds dumped Georgia's naked
body, her clothes, and any other
incriminating evidence
00:26:19
in the back of his
stepfather's gray Toyota van. He meticulously
cleaned the house
00:26:25
and downloaded the images
from his stepfather's camera onto a hard drive before
deleting the files.
00:26:33
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
So he has that kind of forensic awareness,
or he thinks he does.
00:26:37
But he didn't realize that
actually deleted images can be recovered quite easily.
00:26:42
It's not a difficult
thing to do. NARRATOR: The police arrived at
Reynolds home to find it empty,
00:26:48
no sign of Georgia
or the Toyota van registered to his stepfather. All they knew is that
Reynolds was probably
00:26:56
the last person to see Georgia. She may not be with him, but
the police needed to find him.
00:27:02
A UK-nationwide appeal was
launched to locate the van. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
People who kill,
00:27:09
often their reaction
is one of utter horror after the event itself. They're so horrified
at what they've done,
00:27:17
the enormity of it, of the
effect on them and other people that they cannot
function normally,
00:27:23
than they can't even
move from the spot where it happened in some cases. So looking at Reynolds and
looking at the kind of things
00:27:30
that he was able to do after
he'd killed this young woman was absolutely horrendous.
00:27:37
NARRATOR: Reynolds
drove across the border into North Wales towards
a town called Ruthin.
00:27:42
But en route, he made
a chilling detour. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: So he's
taken Georgia's life away.
00:27:51
He has her body in the back
of his stepfather's van, and he's gone off to the cinema.
00:27:55
This tells us that Reynolds,
he is just reacting to his own wants and needs. So it's just a case of, oh, I
fancy going to see a film now,
00:28:05
so I'm just gonna go and do it. NARRATOR: News of
Georgia's disappearance began to spread through the
local community of Wellington.
00:28:14
The UK-nationwide alert
issued by the police notified West Midland's
press association
00:28:20
journalist Richard Vernalls. RICHARD VERNALLS: And I have
to say that with Georgia,
00:28:24
from the minute on
that Monday morning that we became aware that she'd
been missing over the weekend,
00:28:31
I think we all in--
in the press got the gist there
was something more to this, something untoward.
00:28:39
NARRATOR: After watching
a film at the cinema, Reynolds traveled on to a beauty
spot in the Nant Y Garth Pass
00:28:45
Valley in North Wales
and dumped Georgia's naked body in a shallow stream. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: So he takes
it to quite an isolated area.
00:28:54
But he doesn't bury the body. He doesn't make any more
efforts to try and hide it.
00:29:00
He knows that at some point,
somebody is going to come across Georgia and find her.
00:29:06
NARRATOR: But when Reynolds
returned to the Toyota van, he found it stuck
solidly in mud.
00:29:13
Despite the isolation
of the location, a passing motorist
stopped to help him out.
00:29:20
Reynolds then continued
on his journey, heading north towards Scotland. With CCTV footage, the police
managed to track Reynolds' van,
00:29:30
but there were some blind
spots along the route. He was seen alone at
various gas stations.
00:29:38
At 3:20 in the afternoon, on
Tuesday the 28th May, just over 24 hours after leaving
his home on Avondale Road
00:29:46
in Wellington, Reynolds' van
was spotted in a hotel car park in Glasgow, Scotland,
where cameras
00:29:53
also captured him
happily chatting to staff at the check-in desk. The Scottish police apprehended
Reynolds for questioning
00:30:01
and were able to search his van. He denied any knowledge
of Georgia's whereabouts.
00:30:07
And after an initial
search, only one small item was recovered from
the back of the van.
00:30:14
In Wellington, word of Georgia's
disappearance had spread. RICHARD VERNALLS: So the
community response was--
00:30:20
was strong as you might imagine. Georgia had a lot of friends. Her friends got together
with the family,
00:30:26
and they held a
vigil at the church down in Wellington,
which is sort of lovely community setting.
00:30:33
Leave leaflets here to
try and raise awareness about the disappearance. There were posters.
00:30:39
And it felt like they all
wanted to do something. NARRATOR: Tuesday,
the 28th of May 2013,
00:30:47
in the early hours
of Tuesday morning, less than 72 hours since
Georgia had left home,
00:30:53
the police visited
Stephen and Lynette. STEPHEN WILLIAMS: And
he gets a photograph
00:31:00
out of his pocket, a Polaroid,
which sends a crime use. And he says, do you
recognize this sock?
00:31:12
And I can see that it's taken-- the photo's been taken
with the background what looks like the grooves
in the back of a van.
00:31:22
And I look at the
sock, and I say, yeah, I'm sure that's Georgia sock. This is pink.
00:31:29
With a little sweets on
that she went out in. I says I think that's
Georgia's sock.
00:31:36
NARRATOR: Jamie Reynolds was
detained by police in Glasgow, Scotland but claimed to have no
knowledge of where Georgia was.
00:31:44
There had been no
sightings of Georgia with Reynolds on any
of the CCTV cameras that captured his
journey to Scotland.
00:31:52
Aware that they had an
incomplete picture of Reynolds' route, the police appeal to
the public on a national UK
00:31:59
TV show called "Crimewatch." RICHARD VERNALLS: Jamie Reynolds
knew all along what he'd done,
00:32:06
and he could have
brought closure quickly to Georgia Williams' family. Instead, she was out there
for days, undiscovered.
00:32:16
And Jamie Reynolds seems
to get a kick out of that. NARRATOR: Tuesday,
the 28th of May 2013,
00:32:24
as the police continue
to question Reynolds, a forensic team
moved in to search the house in Avondale Road.
00:32:31
Among the items seized
were Reynolds' computer and his step dad's camera. All the deleted
files were recovered.
00:32:40
The photographic
evidence was conclusive. Jamie Reynolds had
killed Georgia Williams.
00:32:47
[music playing] STEPHEN WILLIAMS: There's
no words (VOICE BREAKING) to explain when somebody says,
your daughter's not coming
00:33:04
back, you know what I mean? And then when you
start to think in what circumstances and
stuff like this,
00:33:15
and, uh, I just don't
know what to do. GEOFFREY WANSELL: I'm
more convinced than ever
00:33:25
that the true victims
of these dreadful crimes are the families of the victim,
because they can never recover.
00:33:35
The Williams family
will never recover from the death of Georgia at
the hands of Jamie Reynolds,
00:33:40
nor will her sister. STEPHEN WILLIAMS: We went
round to the Catholic church around the corner.
00:33:48
We went into their
church, which was open. And we prayed, and we prayed
that they would find Georgia.
00:33:59
We knew Georgia was dead then. So we were praying
that we would find and we could see her one last
time and help her on her way.
00:34:21
NARRATOR: Reynolds continued
to deny any involvement in Georgia's disappearance.
00:34:26
But the "Crimewatch"
UK TV appeal paid off, and the motorist who'd
help Reynolds move his van
00:34:33
came forward with information. On Friday, the 31st
of May, five days after Georgia was murdered,
her body was found,
00:34:44
Jamie Reynolds was
formally charged with murder on the same day. Despite the overwhelming
evidence and the discovery
00:34:51
of Georgia's body, Reynolds
continued claiming no knowledge of her brutal murder.
00:34:58
GEOFFREY WANSELL: And he
insists, I'm pleading innocent. Fully aware that this will
mean Georgia's parents
00:35:07
were put through the ordeal
of a full trial, which will involve the description
in detail of what
00:35:15
he did to their daughter. It is-- it is an
evil thing to do. NARRATOR: After several
delays, Reynolds' trial
00:35:26
was listed for the week
before Christmas 2013 at Stafford Crown
Court in England.
00:35:33
At the very last
moment, Reynolds changed his plea to guilty. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: The function
of changing your plea to guilty
00:35:43
is, there is no trial. So you are the one who is
in control of the narrative. There is not going to be witness
evidence given that contradicts
00:35:51
your version of events. NARRATOR: In the
absence of a trial, Reynolds' case went
straight to sentencing
00:35:58
in late December 2013. During sentencing, the full
horror of what Reynolds had done to Georgia was revealed.
00:36:08
The photographic
evidence was damning. The court also learned of
his previous failed attempts
00:36:16
to carry out his
sick fantasies on other young, red-haired women. STEPHEN WILLIAMS: If the police
officers would have taken
00:36:25
serious note of what the
father was telling us in 2008, that that's what it was--
00:36:35
that was his aim
when he attempted to strangle that girl in 2008. And that-- that was an
obsession that one day,
00:36:47
he'd do everything he could
to achieve that obsession. It was there. It's glaring.
00:36:54
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
He's 22 years old when he commits
this heinous murder, and people don't go from
being psychologically
00:37:01
healthy people one day to
committing a murder the next. It's a process that
takes many, many years.
00:37:06
It's a gradual
escalation of behavior. So he's definitely been
engaging in harmful behavior
00:37:12
towards women for many
years, which suggests that he started very, very young. And that is something
incredibly chilling.
00:37:20
STEPHEN WILLIAMS: The police had
all this evidence at the time, and they decided to give
him, basically, what
00:37:27
amounts to a slap on the wrist. NARRATOR: The judge
concluded that Reynolds was beyond effective
rehabilitation
00:37:34
and sentenced him to
a whole-life term. His crime was so
severe, so sadistic and cruel that he should
never be a free man again.
00:37:45
After reviewing the
photographic evidence, the judge believed
that if Jamie Reynolds
00:37:50
was ever to be
released from jail, he would become a serial killer. After sentencing, a
serious case review
00:37:59
examining Reynolds'
previous contacts with the police and other
agencies was announced.
00:38:06
West Mercia police
force made a commitment to making significant changes
to their working practices
00:38:13
and issued a heartfelt
apology to Reynolds' victims and the Williams family. The worst part
was when he then
00:38:22
decided that he wanted to
appeal because he just got over the fact of going to trial.
00:38:30
And then you-- he'd
been convicted, which we thought was so great. But it is great, if
you know what I mean.
00:38:41
And then he's putting you
through all that pain then of having to wait again to
go through the whole process
00:38:46
again, and then not knowing
what the outcome of that's going to be. NARRATOR: Reynolds'
appeal was heard
00:38:58
a few months later in 2014. The Williams family
were represented by Richard Wittham QC.
00:39:08
RICHARD WHITTAM QC:
He was only age 22, and it's very unusual
for somebody of that age
00:39:13
to get a whole-life term. The law is, you can't be
a borderline decision. It must be a really clear
decision that the offense was
00:39:22
so serious, so bad that
only a whole-life term could be justified. Firstly, Georgia was 17.
00:39:30
That means she's classified
in law as a child. It doesn't matter that she
wasn't a very young child.
00:39:35
Secondly, it was
a sadistic murder, quite clearly it was, killing
somebody in the way he did
00:39:41
and watching them die. Thirdly, it was
sexually motivated. That's a further
aggravating factor,
00:39:47
as was disposal of the
body and the deceit that he exercised on the family
by sending false messages.
00:39:56
NARRATOR: Reynolds'
only defense was one of diminished
responsibility that might reduce his conviction
from murder to manslaughter.
00:40:07
Psychiatric reports declared
Reynolds sane, not suffering from any illness,
and concluded that he
00:40:14
would be a threat to women
for the rest of his life. RICHARD WHITTAM QC: Lord
chief justice and the rest
00:40:21
of the Court of Appeal had
found that there was absolutely no merit in the argument
the judge got it wrong,
00:40:27
and they were utterly persuaded
that the right sentence for Jamie Reynolds
was a whole-life term.
00:40:36
STEPHEN WILLIAMS: The
justice that can be served has been served in this country.
00:40:42
I think he is inhuman. He had no purpose
to murder Georgia other than his own
sexual gratification,
00:40:58
which included
gratification from the act of murdering itself. NARRATOR: Georgia's
family and friends
00:41:11
hosted their final farewell
at the home of her beloved AFC Telford United. The community of Wellington
was shocked to its very core,
00:41:23
but determined Georgia Williams
would never be forgotten. LYNNETTE WILLIAMS: I've
got a mum-- bless her--
00:41:31
to go and find all
blue and orange ribbons from the florists
down in Wellington.
00:41:40
And then we made big bows, and
then we went around the route that the funeral
car was gonna go,
00:41:47
and we tied all
these orange and blue ribbons all through the time. And yeah, [inaudible] where
she'd been with her granddad
00:41:59
for many years. They-- they really
stepped up and let us use their facilities for
everybody to go about there.
00:42:09
And, um-- and they all did. They really did give
her a good sendoff. It was good.
00:42:22
NARRATOR: The Williams
family established The Georgia Williams
Trust in memory of their wonderful daughter.
00:42:29
Its aim is to help young
people achieve their potential and do all the things that
Georgia did in her short life.
00:42:37
LYNNETTE WILLIAMS: I
think a lot of Georgia runs through what we
do with the Trust,
00:42:42
and we always try and portray
that to the students that we go and give out grants to,
and things like that.
00:42:48
So the list is endless. We don't just sort of
pick one or two bits. It's if you're struggling,
or you need financial help,
00:42:56
then we'll help you out. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think the
most concerning thing for me
00:43:05
is that we live in a
culture that to some extent, encourages this
kind of behavior.
00:43:11
There are places that
people like Reynolds can go online where-- where there are
individuals who--
00:43:18
who share similar interests. And whilst we have any kind of
acceptance of this misogyny,
00:43:24
of this hatred of
women, there is always the risk
that this is going to fuel these individuals.
00:43:31
STEPHEN WILLIAMS: Georgia-- Georgia's end was terrified. And she didn't
deserve that at all.
00:43:46
And he probably murdered
probably the best friend he would ever have. And I'm talking
about Reynolds now.
00:44:02
Of course, she went
there because she promised him and didn't
want to let him down.
00:44:10
[music playing] NARRATOR: Jamie Reynolds was
a narcissist and a sadist who had a fixation with a
sexually-motivated murder
00:44:23
of young women. He wasn't mad, he was bad. And he took the life of
a brilliant young woman
00:44:30
in the most brutal, depraved
way possible to fulfill his own sick fantasies. He robbed Georgia
Williams of her future,
00:44:40
ripped a shining star from
the community of Wellington, and destroyed her family,
making Jamie Reynolds
00:44:47
one of the world's
most evil killers. [theme music]