00:00:04
[theme music] [ominous music] NARRATOR: Sitting
on the River Thames in Surrey, near Sunbury Lock
is Donkey Island.
00:00:49
Only accessible
by a single footbridge, it's a favorite
retreat for anglers.
00:00:56
Among them, 48-year-old
Scott Wilkinson. CHRIS MCKEON: Scott
Wilkinson was a family man.
00:01:08
He had been a truck driver,
but had had to give that up, I believe, for health reasons.
00:01:15
He spent a lot of his time
fishing on the River Thames. He'd stay on the island
every so often.
00:01:24
I think it was a kind of a
regular thing for him to go down and fish there
and would kind of camp
00:01:31
overnight, maybe a day or two. He's actually quite isolated. There certainly
were, at the time,
00:01:40
a few derelict buildings
on the island as well. Otherwise, it's just kind
of overgrown yew trees,
00:01:48
bushes, that kind of thing. Scott was engaged to Lisa
Lane, and she would bring him
00:01:56
some food, things like that. And a number of friends
who came and visited him while he was fishing, and it
was just a sort of quiet
00:02:04
place to go and fish
and enjoy his hobby. NARRATOR: But one July morning,
during one of his camping trips
00:02:14
to the island, Scott's fiancée
arrived to find him missing and his campsite in disarray.
00:02:22
She immediately
called the police. PETER FAULDING: When they
arrived, there was blood,
00:02:31
there was tents. There was various items
of fishing gear missing as well, including a knife.
00:02:38
It was chaotic. It had been thrown over. Everything had been
thrown everywhere. NARRATOR: Locals also told
police about a disturbance late
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the previous night. - Witnesses living
on the other side of the river reported hearing 10
to 15 seconds of shouting
00:02:59
chaos from the island. And that was it. NARRATOR: With no sign
of Scott at the campsite,
00:03:06
police turned their attention
to the Thames. [water splashes] - The River Thames is
as dangerous as any other river
00:03:21
in the country, or in the world
for that matter. Obviously, you have
the tidal section,
00:03:27
the lower parts going
through the center of London, which can be quite dangerous
because you get very
00:03:31
strong flows. But even
in the non-tidal parts, such as the area
around Donkey Island,
00:03:37
the flow is still
very dangerous. It has eddies, it has
whirls, it's very easy
00:03:41
to get caught up in those. And in particular,
where we have these weirs which
bypass the locks,
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those weirs can be
absolutely lethal. The locks themselves,
the mechanisms of the locks,
00:03:56
can suck a body in as well. So it's a hazardous area
for a body in the water.
00:04:04
CHRIS MCKEON: On average,
30 bodies a year are found in the River Thames. SIMON BOXALL: The majority
of those, sadly,
00:04:10
are due to suicide. Some will be due to swimmers
getting out of their depths or getting into trouble,
particularly in colder
00:04:18
weather during the winter. And some are murder victims. [theme music] NARRATOR: Fearing the worst,
police called in expert teams
00:04:31
to search the waters
around the island. [water splashes] GILL WILLIAMS: This
particular area is
00:04:41
part of the non-tidal Thames. This means that the natural
flow of the water is only going one way
and that never changes.
00:04:54
This makes it easier
when working out what search patterns to use. If a body has been placed into
the water and it's drifting,
00:05:03
it's only actually going
to flow in one direction. So you're working
in that direction.
00:05:09
NARRATOR: A lack
of rainfall that month also improved their chances
of finding a body closer to where it
might have gone into the water.
00:05:17
- July 2016 saw
a period of drought, relatively low
rainfall, which means that the flow rates
at that period
00:05:25
would have been a little lower
than one might normally expect, which means that
the body wouldn't
00:05:30
have traveled very far. If you add to that,
the chances of being caught up on branches, on obstructions
in the water, piers,
00:05:40
moored boats,
and things, then actually the chances are
the body wouldn't have gone very far at all.
00:05:46
[ominous music] NARRATOR: That same
afternoon, emergency teams searching the area made
a discovery not far
00:05:58
from the banks of the island. - They noticed that
his rod and tackle box were actually
floating just nearby
00:06:06
to where the campsite was. And very shortly after
the search commenced, a body was located quite close
by at the edge of the river.
00:06:20
Even though it was mid-summer
and the water temperatures would have been warm,
because you're only
00:06:25
talking a matter
of hours, it would have been not enough to enhance
decomposition in any way.
00:06:33
And so the body would have
been in very good condition. NARRATOR: It was
identified as missing
00:06:40
fisherman Scott Wilkinson. From evidence both on his
body and the island itself,
00:06:48
police suspected he'd been the
victim of a frenzied attack. - There was a large amount
of blood in his tent
00:06:56
or near his tent. - They believe they
were defensive wounds on the forearms. Mr. Wilkinson always
had a knife with him.
00:07:07
The police believed that
Mr. Wilkinson's injuries to his forearms were
caused by the knife.
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NARRATOR: And although the body
was found in the water, pathologists were
keeping an open mind
00:07:18
about the cause of death. RICHARD SHEPHERD: We don't
just jump in and think,
00:07:26
"body in the river,
it must be drowning." Everything is looked at. Everything is examined.
00:07:32
We also know with
Scott Wilkinson that he had a pacemaker in. So he has some natural heart
disease going on as well.
00:07:40
So there are all of these
possibilities that would have been examined,
considered, and then
00:07:45
the final conclusions reached. NARRATOR: Police launched
an investigation. Forensic search teams were
deployed on land and water.
00:07:56
Their task-- to find evidence. PETER FAULDING: We are
the underwater search team that
00:08:02
covers the southeast at the
time, and we were mobilized and we were there
probably within the hour
00:08:10
on scene and ready
to be briefed by the senior
investigating officer. Crime scene
investigators moved in,
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searched the bloods,
et cetera, took DNA, and it went on from there. NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
the press speculated
00:08:26
that this was a killing. - I think it was
pretty clear early on that this was a murder.
00:08:32
Just the scale
of the investigation. You had police divers cordoned
off the area, and for longer
00:08:39
than they usually would
in cases like this. And then, as we learned later,
the condition in which the body
00:08:49
was found, the injuries
he had sustained, and the chaos at his
campsite, all pretty clearly
00:08:58
indicated that
he'd been murdered. NARRATOR: But who might have
had reason to kill Scott?
00:09:03
Police could find no
obvious motive, suspect, or even murder weapon. - There seemed to be a lot
of uncertainty about what
00:09:13
had happened exactly to him. It was always shock
when somebody is killed. And he didn't seem
like sort of a person
00:09:21
that would be murdered. [tense music] NARRATOR: Police in Surrey
are investigating
00:09:42
after the body of fisherman
Scott Wilkinson was found hidden among reeds
on the shore of Donkey Island
00:09:48
in the River Thames. Police launched an underwater
search believing vital evidence
00:09:55
linked to the attack could have
been disposed of in the river. [ominous music] PETER FAULDING:
The briefing was,
00:10:07
initially, we were searching
for evidence that was missing. There was a large
knife that was missing.
00:10:13
And whether it was
a murder weapon or not, it was just a large knife
because Mr. Wilkinson
00:10:18
had quite vast injuries,
including cuts to his forearms. Mr. Wilkinson always
had a knife with him,
00:10:26
he would cut bait
up and everything. That was part of his
standard fishing equipment.
00:10:32
And there was
an electric drill missing because what he'd actually
done is drill a tree
00:10:39
stump with a drill,
with electric drill, and in that, he
put his rod rests and we couldn't find
no sign of that.
00:10:49
NARRATOR: First, the dive team
had to work out where to start. PETER FAULDING: I remember
walking around and saying,
00:10:56
this is the most likely area. You always have to put your
mind into the killer's mind.
00:11:03
My view was that if they're
going to get rid of a knife, if he was going to come
out of the camping area
00:11:08
where Mr. Wilkinson
was camped, they're very likely to run out
and throw it into the water
00:11:15
where the boats go by. And that's one
of my key focuses. We didn't need to put
our equipment on the island
00:11:23
because we chose to dive
from outside the pub. It was better for us. There's not covered
in lots of undergrowth,
00:11:30
so we could actually
comfortably set our equipment up on the riverbank. And the other thing what
you got to think about
00:11:37
is when you're doing this
sort of search operation, you've got to have
scene guard on.
00:11:41
Because if you're there
for two or three days, could the perpetrators come
back and retrieve the evidence?
00:11:48
NARRATOR: But that wasn't the
only danger Peter and his team faced. [water splashes]
00:12:01
SIMON BOXALL: There are a lot
of hazards in the Thames, particularly
at this level, where
00:12:06
we have some huge marinas. A lot of people have
their small pleasure boats in this area.
00:12:12
This is during July when
everyone's out in the water. PETER FAULDING:
It's very difficult
00:12:18
to stop marine traffic going up
and down on a really busy day. So each time a vessel went by,
we'd had to pull the diver out.
00:12:27
If you imagine
being on the bottom, we are on a safety line and
the propeller caught our line,
00:12:32
it could drag him to his death. NARRATOR: With
the hazards assessed, Peter was ready
to start the dive.
00:12:40
- And now the pressure's on me
now to find this evidence. NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
on the island,
00:12:46
a full-scale fingertip
search was underway. - They are looking
for any blood spatter
00:12:53
because the injuries to Mr.
Wilkinson were substantial. You've got the tent,
you've got clothing,
00:13:03
you've got everything else. Anything Mr. Wilkinson
or the other people touched, they
want their prints.
00:13:09
They want their DNA,
down to a cigarette butt. At the end of the day,
if someone's
00:13:13
been smoking a cigarette
and they've thrown it down, their DNA is going
to be all over it.
00:13:17
So it's vital that every single
piece of evidence is looked at. And that is a slow
process on any scene.
00:13:25
[tense music] CHRIS MCKEON: So they
found a toothbrush, some cans, cigarette butts
on the ground near where
00:13:36
Scott had been camping. NARRATOR: DNA from the items
revealed Scott hadn't been alone on the island.
00:13:45
Three other people were
camping there, too. RICHARD SHEPHERD: The DNA
evidence linking the three
00:13:55
people is really very strong. The toothbrush, a beer
can, or a ring pull can all contain sufficient
material for a DNA match
00:14:07
to be made. And so that evidence puts
those people at the scene. It doesn't say
they were involved,
00:14:16
but it puts them
at the scene of the incident. NARRATOR: The forensic
results were
00:14:22
matched with a national
DNA database, giving police three names. [tense music] - The three suspects were
already known to the police.
00:14:34
Some of them had had
minor convictions. Nothing terribly serious,
but they were known.
00:14:43
And one of them was
a missing person, having absconded from his
care home in the North.
00:14:52
Lenny Crawt was 16 at the time. He had grown up in care. He was one of seven children.
00:15:02
He had some learning
difficulties. He'd fathered a child already,
I believe, at the age of 15.
00:15:10
He had been living
in care in Blackpool and had run away from his
home to return to his family.
00:15:19
Shane Crawt was
Lenny's older brother. He was 17 at the time. He was a tall, fairly muscular
lad, almost kind of placid,
00:15:32
and was seen by people as
the ringleader of that group. NARRATOR: The third person
was 21-year-old Charlie Smith.
00:15:43
CHRIS MCKEON: Charlie Smith
was Shane and Lenny's cousin. He was a little bit
older at the time.
00:15:51
He was 21. The three boys did not have
the best start in life. Shane and Lenny,
like their siblings,
00:16:02
grew up in care due to concerns
about parental neglect. So yeah, they'd all kind of had
had tough, tough childhoods.
00:16:19
JONI JOHNSTON: I think
what that speaks to is a pretty unstable upbringing. A lot of perhaps
chaos in the family,
00:16:27
a lack of ability
to care for these boys, and also perhaps an increasing
number of behavior problems
00:16:37
and criminal activity
as they grow up. What can happen
in homes where you don't have a lot
of supervision,
00:16:44
or there's a lot
of chaos or dysfunction, is you oftentimes have the
siblings really bond together
00:16:51
and almost become like a unit. There's a tremendous amount
of loyalty between them.
00:16:59
CHRIS MCKEON: The boys
were on the island because they were
hiding, essentially.
00:17:05
Lenny had absconded
from his care facility. They didn't want
the police to find him.
00:17:11
He was a missing person. So he and his brother
and his cousin went to camp on Donkey Island.
00:17:19
And they did some fishing
while they were there. But mainly, it was
to hide from the police.
00:17:33
[ominous music] NARRATOR: At the island,
police diver Peter Faulding and his team had started the
painstaking task of searching
00:17:45
for evidence on the riverbed. It was a 50-foot stretch
across the Thames from the pub on one side
to the island on the other.
00:17:54
[water splashes] PETER FAULDING:
So now it's a job of we put a line
across the river,
00:18:03
and the job is to then swim
the line slowly, methodically, and you're feeling around.
00:18:09
There was very, very small
growing reeds on the bottom, but not enough to make
our life difficult.
00:18:16
I had forensic gloves on. And often what I
do if the water's dark, where most of our diving
is, I close my eyes.
00:18:24
So I immerse myself
into the scene and I just literally swim along
the line extremely slowly.
00:18:32
If you're looking for a body,
you can move quickly. If you're looking
for evidence, it's
00:18:38
a very, very slow operation. NARRATOR: And in this
case, Peter couldn't use the traditional
method of tread
00:18:45
searching on the riverbed. - The trouble is,
with tread searches, when you walk in to do
a tread with your feet,
00:18:55
if you're looking
for a knife, it's likely to be pushed into the
mud and never be found again.
00:19:00
You've got to have hands on. And even when
we're diving, we're actually laying on the water,
floating just off the bottom,
00:19:08
and we can feel around
so we don't miss anything. So I'm swimming
along and I'm feeling
00:19:14
around very, very slowly. I'm moving forward slowly
and suddenly I felt a handle
00:19:23
and I opened my eyes. And then I could just
see something glistening and I'm being very careful.
00:19:30
And I could feel
the blade, feel the end. And I'm going running my finger
just to confirm it's a knife.
00:19:39
It wasn't in the middle
of the river. It was actually
towards the bank. And then I'm asking
for assistance
00:19:47
to pull me in slowly. Because what I
don't want to do is take my hands off this blade,
because I can't risk losing it.
00:19:54
The knife, it was rather
like a kitchen devil knife. And it was, I would
say, a carving knife.
00:20:01
What you would cut meat with. Stainless steel blade,
black plastic handle, an evil-looking
weapon, actually.
00:20:10
I'd bring my arm out of the
water and it's like a Excalibur coming out of the water
with this knife.
00:20:15
The trouble is, with any water,
it's going to potentially wash evidence away.
00:20:22
So what we would do
as the knife comes out, it gets put in a tube,
an evidence tube,
00:20:28
it gets sealed
up, and then that gets labeled and then whisked
off to the lab for the experts,
00:20:34
the other end. And that way you reduce
cross-contamination. Never found the drill.
00:20:42
The key was the knife
because they thought that the knife created
the wounds on the forearms.
00:20:48
And it was a great
feeling knowing that now the police have
got that vital evidence
00:20:53
and potentially
they're going to get a conviction out of this. [tense music]
00:21:09
NARRATOR: Police in Surrey,
England, strongly believe a knife found by expert
divers in the River Thames
00:21:15
is linked to the death
of fisherman Scott Wilkinson. The knife is sent to the lab
for forensic testing,
00:21:24
but when the results
come back, it's bad news. PETER FAULDING:
Eventually, it was
00:21:34
found to have no
DNA or blood on it because it got washed
off in the river. But that knife,
someone had thrown
00:21:43
that knife into that water. NARRATOR: It was a major
setback for the investigation.
00:21:50
The water had destroyed
any remaining evidence. But by now, the post-mortem
had revealed more detail
00:21:59
about how Scott had died. And it wasn't the knife
wounds that had killed him.
00:22:13
RICHARD SHEPHERD:
The wound's were interesting. They show the type
of weapon used.
00:22:18
He had extensive blunt
force trauma to his body centered around the head. There were multiple
deep lacerations,
00:22:27
some of them running
parallel, and phrase we use to describe
those is tramline bruises,
00:22:34
which shows that
an object, a linear object, has been used to cause them. When someone is being attacked,
they will often raise their arm
00:22:44
and receive blows to the outer
aspect of the little finger sides of the arms as they raise
them to defend themselves.
00:22:52
And they were present,
showing that Scott was alive at the start
of this incident.
00:23:00
But there were also other
blows fracturing his ribs and bruising the upper
parts of his body.
00:23:06
So this was a sustained
beating with a blunt object of some sort. The crucial bit about
the cause of death
00:23:18
here is the fracturing
of the skull and the damage to the brain underlying that.
00:23:25
Injuries to the head are
the most important thing that would have
been identified and
00:23:30
immediately triggered a proper
homicide investigation. NARRATOR: Scott's death was
now confirmed as a murder.
00:23:42
News that shocked this usually
quiet Surrey community. - I think people
are always kind of
00:23:54
surprised when they see
headlines about people being killed here. And not that many people get
murdered in Surrey, thankfully.
00:24:05
NARRATOR: Police
redoubled their efforts to find the actual
murder weapon, but it would be no easy task.
00:24:12
- Blunt trauma can be caused by
anything that is hard and firm. A brick, a plank,
a punch all cause
00:24:20
blunt trauma, which has very
similar features on the body. Unless the particular weapon
sheds slivers of wood,
00:24:31
say, or fragments
of metal or a fingernail, it's very difficult
to determine
00:24:36
exactly what caused it. NARRATOR: Ultimately,
despite an extensive search on the river
and island, the murder
00:24:44
weapon could not be found. It was given up for lost
in the river's flow. [water splashes]
00:24:56
GILL WILLIAMS: With
any murder scene, you're keeping your options
completely wide
00:25:00
open when you're searching. And in this case, there was
mention of a possible murder
00:25:06
weapon being a plank of wood. They could have thrown
that into the middle, where they might well have
been a stronger current.
00:25:13
Wood does tend to float. It could have been
carried quite a long way in a short length of time.
00:25:21
[tense music] NARRATOR: With no
murder weapon and just DNA evidence from
the campsite to go on,
00:25:31
police brought the three
suspects in for questioning. Brothers Shane and Lenny Crawt,
and their cousin Charlie Smith.
00:25:41
- And they were arrested
really within a couple of days of Scott's body being found.
00:25:47
[tense music] NARRATOR:
At the police station, the three were
interviewed separately.
00:26:02
- And also, it's
been video recorded. So you've got the cameras
in the corners,
00:26:05
the soundproof room. - All three boys gave no
comment/answers to questions. - From 6 o'clock in the evening
onwards last Wednesday,
00:26:15
the 27th of July, tell
me where you were, Shane? - No comment. - Lenny, were you
in Walton upon Thames
00:26:22
on Wednesday the 27th of July? - No comment. - When you look
at the interview tapes,
00:26:27
you just see this
recurring theme of no comment, no comment,
no comment, no comment.
00:26:32
- Have you been there
since that time? - No comment. - What was your location? - No comment.
00:26:40
JONI JOHNSTON: And I
think that's just a very clear example, visual
example of the loyalty
00:26:47
that these three feel
toward each other. - I want to talk about the
weapon that was used to assault
00:26:54
and kill and murder Scott. Describe that weapon to me. - No comment. - All three of these
offenders continue
00:27:03
to say no comment, no matter
the evidence presented to them. - We believe that you
were at the island
00:27:10
with at least two other people,
Shane Crawt and Charlie Smith. - No comment. - It starts making sense in a
way, because in their minds,
00:27:25
we are in the presence
of enemies. I also think it may have
a practical reason as well.
00:27:34
The worst thing you can do is
snitching on your loved one. We know that when
individuals are incarcerated,
00:27:45
if you have told
on a fellow offender, if you've told on somebody
in your family,
00:27:54
there can be practical
consequences for that as well. NARRATOR: Then,
in a written statement,
00:28:02
Charlie suddenly broke silence. - He essentially,
through his attorney, makes a statement that he had
nothing to do with violence,
00:28:11
that he had talked
to Scott Wilkinson. They had come back
to the island and their tents,
00:28:16
had these three
tents set up, and they had been kind of turned
over and they were in disarray.
00:28:21
Their equipment was missing. Scott told them that he had
no idea what had happened.
00:28:25
He'd been sleeping, but he
actually helped the boys locate and find their equipment.
00:28:33
And made a comment about what
a nice guy that Scott Wilkinson was, but absolutely
denied that there
00:28:39
had been any
violence at the time and that they all just kind of
left amicably after this point.
00:28:48
CHRIS MCKEON: Charlie
Smith had claimed that a group
of travelers had appeared and suggested that it might
be them who had killed Scott.
00:29:01
There was no such group,
and there was no evidence-- no evidence for that. NARRATOR: Without solid proof,
police had no choice but
00:29:11
to let the three suspects go. - They were released
because it was still very early
in the investigation,
00:29:27
and while the police seemed
sure that it was them, they still needed time
to build up a watertight case
00:29:38
against them. NARRATOR: Next, police
focused on gathering video evidence from the area.
00:29:46
CHRIS MCKEON: After
the three boys were released, the police continued their
investigation, looking at CCTV,
00:29:53
trying to establish who had
been on the island and when. There is a bridge from
the Towpath to Donkey Island.
00:30:02
It's the only way
on or off the island and it's covered by CCTV. And that was the bridge
that Lisa Lane would
00:30:08
have used to visit Scott. So it was quite
easy for the police to see who had gone
on to the island, who
00:30:15
had come off the island,
and when they'd done that. So they spent hours and hours
looking through CCTV
00:30:25
to establish that the three
boys were the only other people on the island. NARRATOR: CCTV from the bridge
showed the group leaving
00:30:42
the island at 11:22 PM on
the night Scott went missing, but crucial evidence from
Scott's heart rate monitor
00:30:50
suggested he was attacked
four minutes before that, when the three suspects
were still present.
00:30:59
- There's an incident at about
11:18 on that night where his heart monitor shows a sudden
increase in heart rate
00:31:08
of the type that could be
associated with fear and the release
of adrenaline, causing
00:31:14
the heart rate to surge up. And that strongly
suggests, together with some other evidence
of shouting and noise
00:31:23
at about that time,
that that was the time that Scott was attacked. NARRATOR: The heart rate
monitor also showed that Scott
00:31:34
did not die immediately. [ominous music] - The heart rate monitor showed
that he was alive for a couple
00:31:48
of hours after the attack. And then at 2:27
AM, it recorded a cardiac arrest when he died.
00:31:59
- Head injuries are very
commonly not immediately fatal. That it takes
time for the brain
00:32:06
changes to occur
and actually to cause death. - The heart rate monitor
allowed them to narrow down
00:32:14
when exactly
the attack happened, because they have the spike
in his heart rate,
00:32:20
and then combined with
CCTV evidence, that showed that the boys
were still on the island
00:32:24
and indeed left the island
very shortly after that time. It gave them a stronger
case against them.
00:32:32
NARRATOR: But it wasn't
until two years later, when a final piece
of evidence landed
00:32:36
on the investigator's
desk, that they knew they could get a conviction. - This, we say, is quite
clear, details your involvement
00:32:46
and others in the murder
of Scott Wilkinson. NARRATOR: In a secret
recording, Charlie Smith
described to a friend
00:32:54
what his two cousins had done
to Scott that fateful night. [ominous music] It was damning
evidence that would
00:33:44
change the course of the entire
murder investigation. [ominous music] [tense music]
00:33:59
In Walton on Thames, police
investigating the savage murder of Scott Wilkinson
on Donkey Island
00:34:05
have received a recording that
turns the case on its head. On the tape, Charlie Smith,
one of the three main suspects,
00:34:15
is heard admitting
that he and his cousins were involved
in fatally attacking Scott with a nail on a stick.
00:34:22
It's the final piece
of evidence police need to charge him
and brothers Lenny and
00:34:26
Shane Crawt with the killing. [tense music] CHRIS MCKEON:
At the start of the trial,
00:34:45
I think there was
an apprehensive atmosphere. It wasn't helped
by a series of delays.
00:34:53
The prison had failed to
produce the defendants on time, it had to be pushed back.
00:35:04
And eventually, they managed to
open the case in the afternoon. NARRATOR: In court, the three
defendants pleaded not guilty.
00:35:14
- There was a division between
the brothers and the cousin. It is what is described
as a cut-throat defense,
00:35:21
in which a group of defendants
all start to blame each other. Shane's case was that
Charlie had killed Scott,
00:35:33
and that Lenny had been
standing by their tents and hadn't been
involved at all.
00:35:39
Charlie's case was that Shane
and Lenny had killed Scott, and he'd been barely involved.
00:35:49
Lenny didn't put up
really a defense. He didn't give evidence
in his own defense.
00:35:55
His statement chimed with
his brothers in that he was standing in a different
part of the island
00:36:01
and had no idea
what was going on. NARRATOR: The defense
team also cast doubt over Scott's
cause of death
00:36:09
being his fractured skull. The post-mortem showed he
was still breathing when he was thrown into the Thames.
00:36:20
RICHARD SHEPHERD: We know
that his heart monitor continued to work after
this initial spike
00:36:27
associated with fear. NARRATOR: So could
Scott have drowned? [water splashes] GILL WILLIAMS: Whenever
we recovered a body
00:36:41
from the water, we
would always take a couple of water samples, one
from the surface of the water
00:36:47
where the body was
recovered from, and one from near the riverbed. And what you're
looking for there,
00:36:54
though you'd never see
it with your naked eye, are diatoms in the water. As you breathe
in on your last breath,
00:37:01
you would be breathing in water
that had diatoms in it, and in the last
bit of circulation
00:37:07
in the body, that
would filter around the body into the organs. Under forensic analysis,
as part of the investigation,
00:37:17
if you found diatoms
in the organs of the dead body, it would prove
that the body was
00:37:24
still alive and breathing when
they were placed in the water. - There were some features of
water entering Scott's lungs,
00:37:33
so that is a possibility. But the signs of drowning
are quite soft. Water can get into the lungs
as the heart fails,
00:37:41
and the lungs fill up
with water, in a sense, from the inside. But of course,
in drowning, water
00:37:47
can enter through
the air passages and the appearances
can be very similar and difficult to determine.
00:37:55
In Scott's case,
the head injuries were so severe they were
going to be fatal whether or
00:38:01
not he was put in the water. CHRIS MCKEON: There was no way
of saving him at that point,
00:38:10
even if help had been
called immediately. NARRATOR: As the trial
progressed, a picture emerged
of what happened
00:38:20
on Donkey Island in the days
leading up to Scott's murder. - The boy's campsite was quite
close to where Scott was.
00:38:28
In fact, I think they'd
camped in the place that he usually camped. They turned up
before him, so he
00:38:36
moved a little distance
away, but not very far to set up on his own. One of Scott's friends remarked
how much of a mess they'd made.
00:38:46
Maybe a little bit about
noise but, in general, that doesn't seem
to have been kind
00:38:52
of hostile relations between
Scott and the three boys. There was a strange
incident mentioned
00:39:02
during the trial, in which
the three boys had gone back to Shane and Lenny's parents'
house for, I think, some food
00:39:11
and maybe a change
of clothes, and then came back and found
that their fishing rods, which had belonged
to Shane and Lenny's father,
00:39:19
had disappeared. There's some suggestion that
maybe Scott had moved them, that they wanted
to teach them a lesson
00:39:29
for moving their fishing gear. That was one
of the reasons that was advanced as a possible motive.
00:39:37
Another was that as well
as fishing on the island, Scott would occasionally deal
small amounts of cannabis.
00:39:45
And the boys claimed that
he had given some to them. The suggestion then
was that on the night
00:39:55
they had gone to see him
to get more cannabis, and he had refused
on the basis that they
00:40:03
hadn't paid him for the stuff
that he'd already supplied. Later on that night,
Scott was beaten
00:40:10
by a blunt object, probably
a piece of wood, very severely. He was very badly injured.
00:40:18
His skull was cracked, and he
was left in the river to die. JONI JOHNSTON: Who
knows what started it?
00:40:34
Maybe one of the people felt
disrespected by something Scott Wilkinson said. Maybe one of the guys
saw something he wanted
00:40:44
that Scott Wilkinson had. I don't think it
took very much. And I think the minute one
of those boys picked up a board
00:40:55
and attacked Scott
Wilkinson, it would have been almost
impossible psychologically
00:41:03
for one of them to intervene. I think that this
was, in many respects, a somewhat impulsive crime.
00:41:12
I think this crime took
on a life of its own once it started. And it did become kind
of a mob mentality.
00:41:23
NARRATOR: As well
as the secret recording, the prosecution had witnesses
who had encountered the group
00:41:29
shortly after the murder. CHRIS MCKEON: They were helped
by the three boys essentially
00:41:38
confessing, not to the police
but to other people that they knew or that they'd met.
00:41:46
JONI JOHNSTON: As the three
boys leave the island, they run across these
three teenagers who
00:41:52
have been intimidated
by them in the past, and they continue
to intimidate them.
00:41:57
As a matter of fact, at one
point, one of the kids says to these three teenagers,
don't mess with us because we
00:42:03
just committed murder. Why would you go and then
brag about a murder that you've committed?
00:42:08
It doesn't make any sense,
except if you're in the moment and you aren't thinking
about the future,
00:42:14
and your goal is to feel
good about what you've done. One of the things
that you see so much
00:42:20
of the time with
these young offenders is they like judgment
in a lot of respects.
00:42:26
Their crimes can be
very, very impulsive. They aren't very sophisticated
in terms of hiding evidence.
00:42:32
There's a sense of we're
so cool because we did this, so I'm going to brag
to other people about this.
00:42:39
CHRIS MCKEON: The boys
didn't seem particularly remorseful during the trial.
00:42:44
They just sort of sat
there listening. At separate ends
of the dock, you had Shane and Lenny
at one end and Charlie
00:42:52
at the other with what's
called an intermediary, someone to help him understand
what was happening in court.
00:43:08
When the verdict was read out,
the initial reaction was shock. The first verdict
to be delivered
00:43:15
was Charlie Smith being
found not guilty of murder. There were audible
gasps in the courtroom.
00:43:25
But obviously, very
quickly after that, the foreman said
that they found him guilty of manslaughter.
00:43:33
There was less surprise
when Shane and Lenny were convicted of murder. I recall the three boys
showing very little emotion.
00:43:45
NARRATOR: Shane
and Lenny both received a life sentence with
a minimum term of 15 years.
00:43:50
Charlie Smith was
jailed for 13 years. - I think it's
always especially shocking when very young people
commit offenses of this nature.
00:44:05
It was a slightly
strange case in that because two years had
passed since the offense,
00:44:10
they were all
technically adults. And I think that
maybe slightly clouded the fact that,
actually, Lenny had
00:44:19
only been 16 when he did this. Shane was 17. But yes, I think it's still-- any murder is shocking, but
particularly one carried out
00:44:28
by people who were so young. JONI JOHNSTON: These three
boys had a history, ranging
00:44:36
from stealing to assault.
So they obviously had developed a way of life
that, at the very least,
00:44:44
accepted criminal
behavior, if not promoted, that as a way to survive,
a way to be tough,
00:44:51
a way to get back
at the system. This was a group that was
not willing to go along
00:45:00
with society's
rules, and likely saw again the world as this
us against them mentality.
00:45:09
- It was a tragic case,
and I think more tragic because it was so senseless. Scott seemed like
a perfectly nice
00:45:19
bloke, didn't
really do anything to invite this on himself. And then you've got three
boys who were very young,
00:45:31
immature, came from
a difficult background. And for seemingly no
real reason at all,
00:45:40
decided to carry out
a brutal attack on this man that they barely knew. I've only covered a couple
of murders, and as I say,
00:45:51
they're all tragic. But this one is
particularly, particularly so because there seems to be
no reason behind it.
00:46:06
[theme music]