00:00:04
[soft dramatic music] - [Richard] When a
murder's committed, it's always a race against
time to find the truth,
00:00:12
to separate fact from fiction, to catch the killer, and to make sure that
justice is served.
00:00:20
But what happens when the
truth vanishes with the victim? I'm Dr. Richard Shepherd and
I've spent my entire career
00:00:26
as a forensic pathologist, performing nearly
23,000 autopsies, including on some of the
most high profile cases
00:00:33
of recent times. I've learned that the
dead don't hide the truth and they never lie.
00:00:39
Through me, you'll be hearing
directly from the victim. From a state-of-the-art
laboratory
00:00:45
with groundbreaking technology that uses digitally
scanned sample bodies, I'll be investigating a
series of intriguing murders
00:00:53
where from the victim's bodies, I'll be revealing
to you the truth behind those horrific crimes.
00:01:00
[camera clicking] [soft tense music] The start of August, 2019, and it was the height of summer.
00:01:16
In the small Cheshire
village of Padgate, Mark Bradbury is
a popular figure. But it's been a few days
since anyone's seen him.
00:01:25
This is the kind of place where everybody
knows everyone else and it's hard to keep secrets.
00:01:30
So when Mark was found
murdered in his flat, police quickly realized
they had a real mystery
00:01:35
on their hands. Would Mark's body help
them to find out the truth about what really happened?
00:01:47
- [Sarah] Most murders in the
UK are committed by people who are fairly
quickly identified
00:01:52
as gonna be the
person responsible, whether it's domestic
or gang related. Mark's murder was different.
00:02:01
That scenario whereby
somebody's not been seen for a few days and
they're found dead,
00:02:07
we don't know why, we
don't know who they are, what their circumstances are,
what their issues would be,
00:02:12
where to even begin
looking for a suspect, that is really quite rare and presents a
significant challenge.
00:02:22
- [Richard] Mark Bradbury was
retired and lived on his own, but he was by no means a loner.
00:02:28
He was very sociable, with lots of friends
and a close family. - Mark was was a Warrington
man through and through.
00:02:36
He had been born here,
he'd been brought up here, still in touch with
school friends,
00:02:41
still in touch with people
that he'd known for 25 years and really grounded
in this area.
00:02:49
- [Richard] He lived
in a small flat right in the heart of
his local community. - [Hannah] It was
just him on his own
00:02:57
and it was the
ideal spot to be in. Everyone that he knew and
loved was all around the area.
00:03:04
I would go there after
school quite a lot. Treated like a princess. He would bring me
my tea on, [laughs]
00:03:09
on a tray to sit and
watch the television. These little Polaroids
are all just memories.
00:03:18
My dad and his brother Lee. My dad was fun
loving, happy going. He loved to party,
he loved traveling.
00:03:28
My dad used to take
me away on holiday. We went to Paris and Rome,
Barcelona and Prague,
00:03:35
with hope that in 2021
we would go to New York for my 21st and his 60th. This is really how I'd
like to remember my dad,
00:03:47
walking across the
beach with Barney. Everyone trying to persuade
my dad not to get Barney,
00:03:53
a great big golden retriever
for his tiny little flat, he disregarded all that. That was his dog.
00:04:00
And that's really how
I'd like to remember him. Hopefully he is walking on
a beautiful beach somewhere.
00:04:12
- [Richard] Mark's brother
Lee lived on the same road and they ended up
sharing the dog.
00:04:18
- [Hannah] My dad had
a lovely relationship with his brother. Lee was retired as well,
00:04:21
so he had a little bit
more time on his hands. So they just decided that
when my dad was at golf
00:04:27
or he wanted to go
to the rugby match, that Lee would have Barney. They'd always meet
down station roads,
00:04:33
swapping the dog over, and I think that was really nice for them to have
that brotherly bond.
00:04:43
- [Sarah] On the 1st of August, Mark took Barney
through the underpass, met Lee, handed Barney over
00:04:50
with the agreement that
Mark has coming back to take Barney off
him the next day.
00:04:56
- [Richard] But Mark
never turned up. - [Sarah] The next day,
Friday, the 2nd of August,
00:05:04
Mark had a dental appointment. And being the massive
golf player that he was, he'd canceled playing
golf that Friday
00:05:13
to go to this
dental appointment. So the consensus of opinion
amongst his golfing friends was,
00:05:17
this is serious, this
is a real toothache because he would never
cancel golf for anything,
00:05:24
- [Richard] But he didn't
appear at the dentist either. - [Hannah] On the Sunday,
I got in from work,
00:05:32
and my uncle had sent
me a text just to say, "Hi Hannah, have you
heard off your dad?
00:05:38
I've not heard off him. He was supposed to get the
dog, but he never showed up, and let me know if you
get in touch with him."
00:05:45
And I was like, oh for God's
sake, he's probably off in golf and just not wanting
to have the dog.
00:05:50
But I was due to
ring my dad anyway. So I started ringing him
and I just got no answer.
00:05:57
And I thought,
God, that's weird. He used to sleep with his
phone underneath his pillow,
00:06:02
so if he was asleep
and I ever rang, he was always
there to answer it. So yeah, there was no
answer, so I rang again.
00:06:11
There was no answer. And at this point
I'm now starting to become increasingly
concerned.
00:06:21
- [Sarah] Lee and
Mark's friend Paul, they went round to the flat
and they found it locked.
00:06:29
The curtains were drawn and
it was clear that there was, there was nothing happening.
00:06:33
There was no movement there. - So I went down to the vending
machine where I was living
00:06:39
and I was just contemplating
all the reasons why he wouldn't
answer his phone. Nothing was quite making sense.
00:06:48
So typed in the number
of the vending machine and this bottle of pop
fell to the bottom.
00:06:55
And as it did, I
really felt a pain that was kind of indescribable. And I raced back upstairs
and I said to my boyfriend,
00:07:06
I said, "My dad's dead." And he went, "Oh, Hannah,
don't be so ridiculous." I said, "I can feel it."
00:07:13
I said, "I can really
feel that he's gone." - [Sarah] Mark's former
wife had a spare key.
00:07:21
So they contacted her and at the same time
contacted the police to say, look, we're worried.
00:07:27
We're gonna go in and see
what's happening here. - [Hannah] Lee sent me a text. He said, "I'm on the way now.
00:07:33
I've got the spare key." So Lee got there and I
waited about 40 minutes and I said, "Jack,
this is not right.
00:07:41
Something's really going on. I'm not there. I don't know what to do." - Officers arrived pretty much
00:07:55
as they came out
having found Mark, and they were traumatized. - And I rang my mum and
she just burst out crying
00:08:06
and she said they'd
found him on the floor. And my mum just kept on saying, "Thank God you weren't here,"
00:08:14
because my mum was so worried that if I was back
in Warrington, it would've been me that
would've seen the chaos
00:08:21
that was left inside. I went straight
back to Warrington to go and see what was going on.
00:08:32
And at that point
I met Sarah Oliver. And she took me into
her car and she said,
00:08:39
"The police officers that
were first to the scene can't quite work out
how this has happened,
00:08:45
and that's why I
get called out." That's really stuck with me. I felt in that moment
00:08:53
that my life was
gonna totally turn. It was like being in a film. I felt like I was
watching this happen to me
00:09:03
rather than actually
living in it. And when the police left, and still to this day, I
don't know why I did it,
00:09:12
but I rang my dad's phone
and I left him a voicemail just saying, "Can you
please explain to me
00:09:20
how this can possibly happen and how we are
going through this?" Obviously, I was never
gonna get a response,
00:09:28
but that's all I wanted in the
moment, just an explanation. - [Sarah] When I first
walked into Mark's flat,
00:09:39
he was lying on the floor
underneath a loft hatch. There was also some loose
change lying around.
00:09:47
There was TV still present. The premises had been
locked and secured. There was no obvious sign
00:09:53
that this was maybe a
burglary or an intruder. There was a possibility that he might have fallen
out the loft hatch.
00:10:02
And yes, the blood was unusual. It was difficult to explain. But nevertheless, at that time,
00:10:13
it was determined as suspicious
rather than homicide. So it became apparent
that it was going
00:10:20
to be a massive
forensic undertaking. Mark's flat's very small, and at 10 o'clock on the Sunday
night, it was quite gloomy.
00:10:29
You couldn't really make much
of an informed assessment until I'd been able to get
a forensic pathologist out
00:10:35
to the scene in daylight to
have a look at Mark's body. - [Angela] The main thing about
preserving a crime scene is
00:10:48
that you don't let a horde
of people go in there, especially in a small space, and that you know
exactly who went in.
00:10:56
So if you get, for example, an unexplained print
or mark of some kind or trace of some kind,
00:11:04
you can then go back and
get reference samples from the people who were there and just check 'em against them
00:11:10
just in case it was one of them. - [Sarah] The next morning
I went into the scene
00:11:24
with the pathologist. It was light, it was
possible to see Mark. It was possible to see the
injuries that he had sustained.
00:11:41
And that's when it was
escalated to a murder. - [Richard] An
autopsy was performed,
00:11:51
which showed that Mark had
suffered a sustained beating, which I can show you
on this sample body.
00:11:57
He had quite widespread blunt
force trauma to his head, his body, with
lacerations to the scalp.
00:12:04
And as a pathologist, one thing
I would always look for also is whether there were any
injuries that were caused
00:12:11
where Mark tried
to defend himself. These are called
defensive injuries. And in Mark's case,
it was possible to see
00:12:17
that there was bruising on
the outer side of the arm as the hand is raised
to protect the body.
00:12:24
The other thing we'd
need to look at is to see whether Mark had actually
been delivering blows himself.
00:12:29
So we look at the knuckles
and the backs of the hands to see if he had
been punching people.
00:12:34
There were no
obvious marks found, and although some of the
injuries could have been caused
00:12:38
by a weapon, no
weapon was ever found. The evidence was clear, someone was responsible
for Mark's death.
00:12:51
- [Hannah] I was hoping
that there'd be no malice and no ill intentions, and that it might have
just been an accident.
00:13:00
I was now having to not only
go through losing my dad, but it was actually somebody's
fault that he was gone.
00:13:09
- [Richard] But then two
weeks into the investigation, police discovered a crucial
piece of information
00:13:16
that would leave
Mark's family in shock. - [Hannah] No one,
despite what they've done,
00:13:23
deserves to be murdered
as brutally as my dad was. [soft tense music] - [Richard] In August, 2019,
00:13:38
a quiet Cheshire
village was rocked when Mark Bradbury,
a popular local man, was found dead in his flat.
00:13:48
Mark had died after
sustaining a brutal beating. But detectives had no idea
when this attack had happened.
00:13:58
They hoped that at autopsy, Mark's body would
give them some clues about the timeline of events.
00:14:07
The main problem for the
investigators in this case is actually quite simple. Time is against them.
00:14:13
And as part of my role as a
pathologist attending a scene is to begin to make the assessments
as to the time of death.
00:14:21
And we look at various
features of the body. We look at particularly
the muscles,
00:14:25
we look at how stiff
the muscles have become. So rigor mortis is the process
that occurs after death
00:14:30
when the muscles stop
receiving oxygen, and that's a change that
starts immediately someone dies
00:14:36
and is present in the hands and
the feet at about four hours and spreads the whole of
the muscle mass of the body
00:14:42
at about 12 hours and then stays there
for another 24 hours. So 36 hours in all.
00:14:48
And when we examine the body and we look at the arms,
we look at the legs, we look at the mouth,
we look at the jaw,
00:14:54
we assess the stiffness
of all of these areas to get an assessment of
when that person died.
00:15:00
But later on, other
changes can occur and that happens on the skin. Green discoloration of
the skin of the abdomen is
00:15:08
just about the first
thing to happen as decomposition internally
changes the body.
00:15:13
And then other
changes in the eyes. Are they still firm and tense, or are they now beginning
to get a bit cloudy
00:15:20
and a bit soft? And that too gives us
an idea of how long that person has been dead.
00:15:26
And all of these changes
are temperature dependent. The higher the temperature, the faster these changes
are going to take place.
00:15:33
And in Mark's case, he died in the summer
locked into his flat. And so temperature is going
to play a crucial role
00:15:42
in understanding
what has gone on. In the later stages
of decomposition, hairs and fibers and
bloodstains are lost,
00:15:50
and that just makes a
difficult investigation even more challenging. After the post-mortem,
00:15:58
it was concluded that
the murder had happened in the hours between
Thursday evening,
00:16:03
when Mark was last seen
alive, and Friday morning. The police still had no
idea who had done it.
00:16:14
- [Sarah] When Mark
was first found, we were at a total loss as
to who could do this to him.
00:16:19
He was just a guy
who had a white van and lived in a flat in
a quiet part of town.
00:16:24
We didn't know him, we didn't know who
would want to harm him. So until you know him,
00:16:28
you don't know what
the circumstances are that might have led
to that situation.
00:16:33
So that was kind of
the first steps really, is to understand who is this man and why would anybody
want to kill him.
00:16:43
- [Richard] Police started
examining hours of CCTV trying to identify anyone
who'd been near Mark's flat.
00:16:51
- [Sarah] It's a
huge time window. And who was going through, there were hundreds and
hundreds of people on CCTV,
00:16:59
on bikes, on foot. So it was key to us to
get in touch with people and get them to contact us
00:17:06
so we could cross reference
against those people on the CCTV and eventually be left
with the one man standing.
00:17:14
- That went on for what
seems like forever. The phone would ring and my heart rate
would just skyrocket.
00:17:25
Is this gonna be the day? Is this gonna be the police? Am I gonna find
out new evidence?
00:17:30
Is somebody gonna be arrested? It was just living on
the edge all the time and it puts a lot of pressure
on your everyday life.
00:17:41
When is that phone
call going to come? - [Richard] As the weeks passed, police gradually began to
learn more about Mark's life.
00:17:51
- [Sarah] There
wasn't somebody here with a long history of
criminal interactions
00:17:55
who might have enemies
and issues going on. And it took some time to build
up a picture of Mark's life
00:18:02
and start to establish that actually there's
another side to Mark. - [Richard] They discovered
he'd been hiding a dark secret,
00:18:12
which came as a huge
shock to his family. - [Sarah] In the weeks
after Mark's death,
00:18:17
it became apparent
that he used cocaine and he took cocaine
in and distributed it
00:18:24
to cover his own costs. Now Mark had kept
that below the radar. He sold what he needed to
sell to cover his own usage.
00:18:31
He didn't get into
trouble with it, he didn't get involved
with violence, he didn't bring any
attention to himself,
00:18:37
which is how he'd
managed to stay unknown to policing systems for so long. You had that side
of him going on
00:18:48
and a family that knew
nothing about that and friends who knew
nothing about that.
00:18:53
They were shocked. - [Hannah] That was
the hardest thing that immediately it went
from, oh, poor man to,
00:19:06
oh, well, he was a drug dealer,
so that's what he deserved. But that's not the
way that I knew him.
00:19:12
And that was really difficult to merge these two different
men together in my mind
00:19:18
that made up my dad. - [Sarah] They had to come to
terms with not just the loss,
00:19:24
but also they hadn't known him. They'd maybe been
deceived by him, maybe he kept things from them.
00:19:30
And that's hard, that's
hard to deal with. - I was just in total disbelief. I felt like I'd been lied to.
00:19:40
That was really difficult. It hurts me to think that he was potentially
leading a double life.
00:19:47
And I do think that I could probably have
prevented some of this if I knew what was going on.
00:19:56
- [Richard] But
Mark's double life provided the first
real breakthrough in
the investigation.
00:20:02
- Finding out that Mark Bradbury
actually supplied cocaine and was a user himself
really changed things
00:20:09
for the investigation team. It was no longer
likely to be random. It was more likely
to be connected
00:20:16
to a real criminal underworld. - [Richard] Desperate for clues, police began piecing together
Mark's last known movements.
00:20:27
- [Sarah] At six o'clock
on Thursday night, he stopped at Bargain Booze and he bought himself
a case of beer
00:20:33
and a packet of Lambert
& Butler cigarettes. And his van was tracked
back to his flat,
00:20:41
but it never reappeared
on CCTV again. And neither did Mark. As we uncovered details
about Mark's drugs life,
00:20:56
we did start speaking to
some of his customers. And one of those customers
was the last person
00:21:01
to see him alive and gave us absolutely
critical information in relation to the
layout of Mark's flat
00:21:09
and the fact that when she
bought cocaine from him, she'd left some cash. There should have been
some 10 and 20 pound notes
00:21:15
sitting on a coffee table,
and they weren't there. - [Richard] The investigation
team searched for anyone else
00:21:21
who had been buying
cocaine from Mark. They came across another
customer called Dan Shovelton.
00:21:30
- During house to
house inquiries, officers went and
visited Dan Shovelton, and it was the first time
he'd come into the inquiry.
00:21:38
It was early doors, maybe
about three days in. It wasn't far off. But he was very much
00:21:43
just part of the
routine house to house. There was no expectation
or understanding
00:21:47
that he had any issue with Mark. They visited him, they asked
him when he'd last seen Mark,
00:21:53
and he gave what appeared to be a perfectly
reasonable explanation that he'd seen Mark
about a month ago
00:21:59
and he'd bought some
cocaine from him and he'd paid by bank transfer. And I was quite staggered
that in this day and age,
00:22:07
cocaine is bought
with a bank transfer. - [Richard] A former
sergeant in the British army,
00:22:14
Dan was now unemployed and living less than
a mile from Mark. - [Sarah] He'd been
successful in the Army,
00:22:23
spent about 14 years in and
developed quite an expertise as far as I understand it,
00:22:29
in telecommunications and
setting up field stations and that kind of activity. - [Richard] Dan
had left the forces
00:22:37
to be at home with his daughter. He was having counseling and seeking treatment from a
veteran's charity for PTSD.
00:22:48
- [Sarah] There were reports that Dan Shovelton was depressed
at a roundabout this time,
00:22:53
that he'd gone offline,
that he'd disengaged. But he'd left the army, and I think in all honesty,
00:23:00
he expected to be welcomed into
civilian life with open arms and given a well-paid
employment using all that skill
00:23:07
that he'd accumulated. And it didn't happen. And it didn't happen
for a number of reasons.
00:23:14
One was his own raging
cocaine addiction. The relationship
between Mark and Dan,
00:23:25
I think was fairly businesslike. There was probably envy
on the part of Dan. Dan sees himself as educated,
intelligent, capable,
00:23:37
probably saw Mark as beneath
him, wasn't as educated, probably didn't
think he was capable.
00:23:44
The evidence about Dan's drug
habit was that it was enormous and it probably
dictated his existence.
00:23:54
- [Richard] Three
months earlier, Dan had lost his job
with a courier company after being accused of stealing.
00:24:01
At the age of 40, his
home had been repossessed and he'd moved in
with his parents.
00:24:08
- At the time of the murder,
Dan was really desperate. He had lost his house, he
had nothing in the bank.
00:24:17
He had run up debts with
every other drug supplier. By the 1st of August, the day that we believe
Mark was murdered,
00:24:25
Dan Shovelton had
amassed debts everywhere, well over 50,000 pounds. And I think by that
Thursday afternoon,
00:24:34
he would've done
anything for cocaine. [soft tense music] - [Richard] Weeks had passed
00:24:56
since the grim discovery
of Mark Bradbury's body in his flat in Padgate. Police had discovered
00:25:03
that Mark had been a
small time drug dealer. His body revealed that he
had been brutally murdered,
00:25:09
but gave no clue as
to who the killer was. Mark's body still
had secrets to tell.
00:25:20
- [Sarah] It became apparent
as we investigated the scene that there had been a search.
00:25:26
Somebody had been
looking for something. We established that
Mark had probably got
00:25:31
a significant amount of
cocaine in his property at the time of the murder. So we quickly reached the point
00:25:38
that the drugs were the key. They were probably the
reason Mark had been killed.
00:25:45
And it was probably
because somebody wanted what they couldn't afford. - [Richard] While detectives
searched for clues,
00:25:53
Mark's body revealed more
details about how he had died. We know that Mark had
suffered quite extensive blows
00:26:02
delivered to the head, but because of
the decomposition, some of the injuries to the skin
00:26:07
and the body couldn't be seen. But when the neck was examined, deep internal bruising
and injuries were found.
00:26:14
These were seen not only
in the muscles of the neck, but if those
muscles are removed,
00:26:19
and I can do that
digitally on this table, the most important
thing is revealed,
00:26:25
and that's damage to the
thyroid cartilage, the larynx, the Adam's apple, which
showed evidence of a fracture.
00:26:32
And it has spikes sticking up and sticking down the
muscles attached to, and it's these that
get snapped off.
00:26:39
And that showed that Mark
had been strangled as well. But because of
the decomposition,
00:26:45
it wasn't possible to determine if the strangulation was
manual or with a ligature.
00:26:55
- [Sarah] It was quite sadistic. It was a traumatic way to die. But on top of that, the
killer had made sure
00:27:06
that had Mark by any chance
recovered, he couldn't get out. The property was locked and
Mark's phone was switched off
00:27:15
and it was hidden in the
mechanism of the settee. So it was a cruel
and a sadistic killer
00:27:21
that had been able to do that, to kill somebody and
then so calmly, coolly, make sure that they
wouldn't be found
00:27:31
and they'd be there for
some time just left. - [Richard] Detectives
didn't have forensic evidence
00:27:39
to link anyone to the
scene of the murder, but what they did have
was a clear motive.
00:27:47
Dan Shovelton needed
money and drugs and he knew that Mark
Bradbury had both. Dan had told the police
he hadn't seen Mark
00:27:58
for more than a month
before the murder, but CCTV told a different story. - [Sarah] We had a
really good understanding
00:28:07
of his movements from CCTV,
from his phone records. We managed to build a
picture showing that in fact,
00:28:14
on that day he was
circling Mark's house. He was going round
time and time again.
00:28:21
I had in my mind that he
had a question to answer, Dan Shovelton, about why didn't
he tell us he'd seen Mark
00:28:29
on the weekend of the murder. Why did he say he hadn't
seen him for a month? Before Mark's murder, Dan
Shovelton didn't have a penny.
00:28:38
He asked his daughter to
transfer seven pounds or so, so that he could withdraw a 10
pound note from a cash point.
00:28:47
But then after the murder, he was captured on CCTV going
into a large Tesco store
00:28:52
and all of a sudden had money. He was buying scratch cards, he was buying alcohol,
he was buying lemonade,
00:29:00
and he didn't appear to have
the same financial constraints that he'd had four hours before.
00:29:10
- [Richard] Five weeks
after the murder, he was arrested and brought
in for an interview.
00:29:15
- [Sarah] When Dan was arrested, it was pretty standard stuff, search of the suspect's address.
00:29:21
Mum and dad went and stayed
elsewhere, turfed out. Quite devastating
for them, really.
00:29:27
They're private, proud people whose house is now being
searched by the police with all the neighbors watching.
00:29:34
His room in particular was
searched through methodically and within his clothing
was found a gold ring.
00:29:44
So here's somebody that's
having to get his daughter to send him seven quid so that he can take 10 pounds
out of the cash machine,
00:29:50
but he's got a gold ring
sitting in his pocket. - [Richard] Mark's
daughter Hannah confirmed
00:29:57
to the police the ring
had belonged to her dad. - When I was in
Paris with my dad,
00:30:04
we were walking up towards
the Louvre, across a bridge. A man on the street, he was probably a little
bit of a con artist,
00:30:12
but we give him the benefit
of the doubt at the time, he said that he had no
money for his family,
00:30:17
so would we like this gold ring. And my dad not caring really whether it was real gold or not,
00:30:24
he took 20 euros
out of his wallet and passed it to the man
in exchange for the ring.
00:30:30
That was in 2015. - What's that about then, Dan? And then he tries
to think on his feet
00:30:37
and, oh, I've just
been given it by Mark. Really? A guy that has really not
got any money to spare
00:30:44
is not gonna give
you a gold ring. And yet he's trying to
put forward this story
00:30:49
about best mate's
give him a gold ring, you get rid of it, you sell
it, you get some money for it,
00:30:55
and it just didn't make sense. Mark's last purchase
was a case of beer and a packet of Lambert
& Butler cigarettes.
00:31:09
When we found Mark at his house, the case of beer
was still there, but there were two
bottles missing
00:31:18
and the cigarettes were gone. When we had our
search officers go through the suspect's
home address,
00:31:25
Dan Shovelton has an empty box of Lambert & Butler cigarettes. We couldn't forensically
connect those cigarettes
00:31:33
to be the packet
that Mark bought, but it was a
phenomenal coincidence. - [Richard] Meanwhile,
00:31:43
a thorough search of
Dan's internet records revealed something telling. - Interestingly, Dan had
Googled me, which is a first.
00:31:54
I've not been Googled by a
suspect before to my knowledge. He claimed that he was just
curious about the case.
00:32:04
But in the next breath, he
wasn't interested in the case because he didn't
really know Mark
00:32:09
and he had no reason
to be interested and he just
contradicted himself. For the next few days
after the murder,
00:32:18
Dan had been out on the road. He then went on a strange
journey around Warrington,
00:32:26
areas of water,
industrial sites, places where you might
have industrial bins. He nicknamed it his Magical
Mystery Tour himself
00:32:38
and he never really offered a
meaningful explanation for it. Whereas the obvious one is
00:32:44
that he was depositing the
murder weapon, clothing, he was getting rid of stuff.
00:33:03
Mark's flat was a tiny
studio with a double bed, coffee table at the end
of that and then a settee,
00:33:10
and it was never any different. It was as it was every day
to everybody that went there.
00:33:16
But when we attended
the scene that night, the coffee table wasn't
between the end of the bed
00:33:21
and the settee. It had been moved and it
was underneath the TV. And he was asked as
part of that interview
00:33:27
to draw a plan of Mark's flat. He'd been there, tell
us what it's like, how's everything set out.
00:33:33
And he drew the double
bed and he drew the settee and then he put the coffee table
00:33:39
between the bed and the settee and he changed his mind and
he said, "Oh, it's not there."
00:33:45
And he crossed it out and he
moved it to underneath the TV. And at that point
I knew I had my man
00:33:52
and we just needed to prove it. - [Richard] Detectives were
closing in on the killer.
00:34:03
But with no concrete evidence to link Dan to the crime scene, they were left with no
choice but to let him go.
00:34:11
- He was released on
bail at that point with the determination that
you're gonna bring them back
00:34:16
and they'll be charged. And it's a worry. What if they go and
do something else?
00:34:22
So it was a real concern to us that there was a
killer on the loose. [soft tense music]
00:34:40
- [Richard] Police investigating
the murder of Mark Bradbury were certain they knew
who had killed him.
00:34:46
Former soldier Dan Shovelton
was the prime suspect. Mark's body had shown
he'd been strangled
00:34:55
and subjected to a brutal
beating and had also revealed when he was likely
to have been killed.
00:35:03
But police had to piece
together the evidence to prove it was Dan Shovelton
who had murdered Mark.
00:35:11
- The murder of Mark Bradbury was no slam dunk investigation. It was painstaking,
it was laborious.
00:35:18
It involved thousands
of hours of police work, recovering some
14,000 hours of CCTV.
00:35:26
And it involved real
attention to detail, layering up all of the
evidential opportunities,
00:35:33
whether it was forensic,
whether it was CCTV, whether it was sightings
that were made,
00:35:38
whether it was strange activity, but it all to be pieced together to just present
this whole picture
00:35:44
because he was not gonna be
convicted on one piece alone. - [Richard] We know
that Mark had suffered
00:35:51
quite extensive
blunt force trauma, but trauma of that type
has different effects
00:35:55
on different areas of the body. For instance, the
abdomen is quite soft, so blows delivered to
that area are displaced.
00:36:02
The bowel underneath
is pushed out away and there's very
little bruising. On the other hand, when
you look at the skull,
00:36:08
which is solid bone
beneath the skin, the anvil effect of that
blow splits the skin,
00:36:16
causing damage. And because there are
so many blood vessels, that bit of the
body bleeds rapidly
00:36:23
and causes quite extensive
blood loss all around the place. - [Sarah] In Mark's flat,
00:36:33
there was a lot of
blood on the floor, and in the blood there were over a hundred
impressions of footwear.
00:36:41
The killer had spent some time
in that flat moving around and making these
footwear impressions.
00:36:48
It wasn't a popular
brand of footwear, it wasn't immediately recognized
by our footwear expert
00:36:53
as a Nike or an Adidas or one of the brands that
we see quite frequently. It was something
that they'd not seen.
00:37:05
- [Angela] You've got
the pattern itself, you've got the approximate
size of the shoe,
00:37:10
but you've also got things
like the wear to the sole, which can be really important
00:37:14
'cause people walk
in different ways and wear their shoe
in different ways. And even more critical,
00:37:19
if you've got a really good
print for the footwear mark, you can actually see the
tiny little nicks and cuts
00:37:25
and gouges created by
damage that is just, they're picked up in just
the course of everyday wear,
00:37:31
completely at random, that can actually identify
specifically an item of footwear
00:37:37
to a mark and actually
give you that direct link. It's really amazingly
powerful at its best.
00:37:44
And of course, if it's
got blood staining and you find the
mark at the scene and you find blood on the
shoe when you locate it,
00:37:50
blood on the shoe that
matches the victim, then that's a really
lovely two-way link.
00:38:00
- [Sarah] After
some 43,000 records that have been cross-referenced, the Lacoste Benali was
identified as the footwear
00:38:08
that's left that impression, and it's been out
of production now for eight, nine or more years.
00:38:13
But Lacoste made us a
pair of those trainers so that we could
cross reference them
00:38:17
and show that it is
the Lacoste Benali that's left those
footwear impressions. - [Richard] They now
knew the exact make
00:38:28
and model of the shoes
the killer was wearing at the murder scene. And they also knew he
had most likely been
00:38:34
searching for drugs. It was an open secret
amongst his friends that Mark kept his valuables
in a loft above his bed.
00:38:45
- It was accessible to
somebody of a normal height just by standing on the bed. And you could reach up and
you could open the loft hatch.
00:38:53
There were bloody
footwear marks on the bed, indicating that someone
had stood there,
00:38:58
and there was some blood
on the loft hatch itself, which indicated that here's
somebody that they know Mark,
00:39:04
and they know Mark in
the context of his drugs. - My dad's in his own home
and he had no shoes on.
00:39:13
So whatever he was doing, he
was comfortable in his own home and he'd obviously
invited somebody in.
00:39:19
And I think that was the
scariest thing for me, that it could be anybody. - [Sarah] The killer
entered the loft,
00:39:28
and they'd searched to the front and they'd searched the sides. But what they didn't find was
the cocaine was behind them.
00:39:36
- [Richard] Hunting
for the shoes that would link him
to the crime scene, police searched Dan
Shovelton's home.
00:39:44
- [Sarah] We recovered
everything from his house. We meticulously cataloged
it, photographed it,
00:39:51
worked out what was
there, what wasn't there, and clothing fitting the
description that he was wearing
00:39:56
on CCTV on that
day was not there. Every path we took seemed
to lead to a dead end.
00:40:04
- [Richard] But
there was one clue invisible to the naked eye that would finally link
the killer to the scene.
00:40:13
- [Sarah] When we
arrested Dan Shovelton, one of the items that was seized from his address were
the keys to the car.
00:40:20
The car itself was
obviously also seized and subject to meticulous
forensic examination,
00:40:24
which revealed nothing. The key was also subjected
to forensic examination. And in the very hole in the key
00:40:38
that the metal ring
passes through, there was a speck of
Mark Bradbury's blood. - [Richard] DNA analysis
proved beyond doubt,
00:40:48
the speck of blood was Mark's. - [Sarah] And that was the
only tangible forensic evidence
00:40:54
that was recovered
in the entire case. Because there was nothing
found at the house,
00:40:59
there was nothing
found in the car. And there was a lot of
blood at that house. Daniel Shovelton
would have had blood
00:41:06
on his hands literally, and it wasn't to be found
anywhere except for that key. - [Angela] It is
extremely difficult
00:41:17
to get rid of all
traces of evidence, and I think this case is a
very good example of that.
00:41:25
Using the chemical
screening test that we have for blood
is perfectly possible to test tiny little nooks
and crannies on things
00:41:32
for the presence of blood. Even when you can't see it, sometimes you get
a positive reaction
00:41:40
and sufficient to get a DNA
profiling result out of it. So it's really important
to use every kind of tool
00:41:48
at your disposal when you think somebody
might have been trying to destroy evidence.
00:42:00
- [Richard] Months
of painstaking work
had finally paid off. They had literally found the
key that solved the case.
00:42:13
- [Sarah] Dan was arrested
for the second time. He was absolutely dumbfounded, and it was the
probably only point
00:42:22
where you really
saw him flounder and he couldn't come
up with an explanation. So he asked for a
break in his interview
00:42:30
and then when he came back, he offered an explanation of
having just put the key down
00:42:34
and picked up a speck
of blood in transfer, which was farcical really. - [Richard] Finally,
there was enough evidence
00:42:45
and Dan Shovelton was
charged with murder. But in court he
continued to deny it.
00:42:52
- [Hannah] It was really
difficult attending the trial. You have to listen to
both sides of the story
00:42:58
and there was no real
answers from somebody who still pleaded not guilty. - It was clear
that Dan Shovelton
00:43:11
had barely told a
word that was true throughout the
entire investigation and throughout the
entire court case.
00:43:18
I think he'd remained
committed throughout the trial to innate belief
that he'd walk away.
00:43:25
- [Richard] The jury
were having none of it. After 11 hours of deliberation,
they found him guilty.
00:43:33
- I can't really
describe the emotions. You've got this wave of relief that he's been convicted,
00:43:42
that all of that
work has paid off, pleased for Hannah
she'd got an outcome. It makes you feel quite glad,
00:43:52
but then you shouldn't feel glad because somebody's been murdered and somebody's now going
to prison for years.
00:43:57
It was a case that had
tragedy on all sides. - [Richard] Dan
Shovelton was convicted
00:44:03
and sentenced to life in prison. For the investigators
and for Mark's family, there was justice at last.
00:44:13
- I will fight for him
to stay in prison longer. Why did he feel the need
to beat him to an extreme?
00:44:23
I want to know what my dad was
saying in those last moments. I can't help but think that he
was just begging for his life
00:44:33
and that this death
was truly painful. I don't think he ever
doubted for a second
00:44:40
that he still
wasn't the best dad 'cause he gave me everything
that he could have done.
00:44:47
[soft melancholic music] - [Sarah] Investigating
the murder of Mark Bradbury is something that I'll
always be really proud of.
00:44:56
Police officers, civilian staff,
forensic staff, scientists, all of them put heart
and soul into this.
00:45:01
The effort and energy put in by the entire investigation
team was staggering. - [Richard] This was clearly
00:45:12
an enormously
challenging investigation and one that proves that
it's the first hours
00:45:18
after the discovery of a murder that are absolutely critical. Mark's body was able
to tell the truth
00:45:24
about the beating
and strangulation. And the brutal beating he took, especially the blunt
force trauma to the head,
00:45:32
meant that there was too
much blood for Dan Shovelton to be able to clean it all away.
00:45:38
And for Dan Shovelton, it was the discovery of
a single fleck of blood invisible to the
naked eye on a car key
00:45:46
that was to be his downfall. That and the painstaking and determined
police investigation.
00:45:55
[soft dramatic music]