00:00:03
[suspenseful music] NARRATOR: In the early morning
hours of the 15th of August 2017, a fire-and-rescue service
in the Northeast of England
00:00:17
responded to a 999 call
reporting a car on fire. Inside the car, the body of
28-year-old mother of two,
00:00:26
Quyen Ngoc Nguyen from Vietnam. ROBIN PERRIE: The flames
are so intense that her body
00:00:33
had been fused into the
back seat of the car. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
This was an act that
00:00:38
was premeditated and planned. NARRATOR: Her killers
were 50-year-old William McFall and 39-year-old Stephen
Unwin, two convicted murderers.
00:00:51
It was the evil of all evils. They're just evil people. NARRATOR: The killers had
met in prison where they
00:01:00
struck up a deadly friendship. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When Unwin
and McFall joined forces,
00:01:09
they really amplified their
level of dangerousness and violence because it's
not just about committing
00:01:16
crime and hurting
people now, it's about doing that
and performing it in front of another individual.
00:01:22
NARRATOR: In her final
hour, their victim suffered unimaginable
pain and cruelty
00:01:28
at the hands of Stephen
Unwin and William McFall, two of the world's
most evil killers.
00:01:35
[theme music] In April 2018, Stephen
Unwin and William McFall were on trial in the Crown
Court at Newcastle, England
00:02:06
for the brutal murder
of Quyen Nguyen. Unwin was also
charged with raping the 28-year-old from Vietnam.
00:02:15
Covering the day-to-day
court proceedings was Northeast reporter for "The
Sun" newspaper, Robin Perrie.
00:02:24
ROBIN PERRIE:
Quyen was subjected to a horrific assault. She was
attacked, beaten, strangled
00:02:29
with a ligature, and
then quite horrifically, William McFall injected her
with a syringe full of whiskey.
00:02:36
As she was incapacitated and
far too badly injured to escape, Unwin then subjected to her
a series of sexual assaults
00:02:43
and raped her. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
This poor woman has lost her
innocence and her life
00:02:49
eventually to these
two mindless thugs. And this wasn't just
an act of opportunism.
00:02:58
NARRATOR: On the
25th of April 2018, Mr. Justice Morris sentenced
40-year-old Stephen
00:03:05
Unwin and 51-year-old William
McFall to life in prison. ROBIN PERRIE: Both men
were given not just
00:03:12
life terms but full life terms. They're two of only
approximately 60 people in the country who have
full life terms, which means
00:03:19
they will never be released. They will die behind bars. WILLIAM MCFALL: Loving cheese!
00:03:24
STEPHEN UNWIN:
[sinister laughter] Real cheese!
STEPHEN UNWIN: Aah! ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
They are considered
00:03:28
among the most dangerous
criminals in the country. They are highly
likely to kill someone
00:03:33
else, to harm someone else,
if they were ever released. NARRATOR: This was not the
first time Stephen Unwin
00:03:39
and William McFall had killed. Both men were already
convicted murderers before they attacked Quyen.
00:03:47
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think we
do need to take a step back and say, why on Earth
were these two men
00:03:51
released in the first place? They took people's lives away. And the circumstances in which
those first murders happened
00:03:57
were particularly heinous. NARRATOR: William McFall's story
begins in Northern Ireland.
00:04:03
He was born in 1967 and
grew up in the small town of Greenisland near
Carrickfergus in County Antrim.
00:04:12
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
These were quite turbulent times in
Northern Ireland so things weren't
particularly stable.
00:04:18
There was always a
kind of fear in the air about what might happen next. And he's a child
who didn't really
00:04:24
seem to have very much in
the way of sort of guidance, and direction, and discipline.
00:04:29
So right from the word
go, he was kind of left to his own devices really. NARRATOR: Jimmy Smyth
knew McFall as a child.
00:04:38
JIMMY SMYTH: My early
memories of McFall was just on the
boat in the estate with a pair of Wellington
boots on, a pair of shorts,
00:04:45
and just-- just
like a feral child. He didn't seem to have
any friends at all, but everyone knew him.
00:04:51
People did really avoid
him because he was just-- there was something not right.
00:04:57
NARRATOR: McFall grew up with
two sisters and a brother. JIMMY SMYTH: McFall
and his older siblings
00:05:03
seemed to have no discipline
in the house at all. You know, they just-- they
just ran wild, all of them.
00:05:12
McFall always had a
weapon in his hand, whether it be a stick,
or a hammer, or a knife.
00:05:18
Most bizarre one was a chainsaw. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This really
does tell us that he wants
00:05:23
to be seen as threatening. He attaches a value to violence. He wants other
people to fear him.
00:05:31
JIMMY SMYTH: He wasn't really a
violent man with-- with anybody that could challenge him.
00:05:37
But if it was someone weaker,
then yes, it would be violent. He would be very, very nasty,
very vindictive, you know.
00:05:45
NARRATOR: There were early signs
that McFall was a troubled boy with tendencies to cruelty.
00:05:51
JIMMY SMYTH: McFall
had an altercation with one of the teachers in
Silverstream Primary School.
00:05:55
And later on that evening,
he broke into the school, went to the teacher's place,
toppling off fish tank,
00:06:02
and killed all the
fish, and put them under desks, and between books,
and the old blackboard as well.
00:06:09
Just really bizarre behavior. GEOFFREY WANSELL: There's
also a story that he killed
00:06:15
40 mice by beheading them. He was a brutal little boy,
a boy who set himself apart
00:06:23
from the crowd by his ferocity. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
We do see this quite often in cases
of people who go on
00:06:32
to commit horrendous murders. We look back at
their childhoods, and they do seem to have
animal cruelty within them.
00:06:39
We know that he is using
animals to exercise power, to exercise control. When you are a small
child, you don't
00:06:48
have really much physical
control over other people. JIMMY SMYTH: His
actual nickname was
00:06:53
"Mad John" when he was a kid. That just stuck with him. NARRATOR: As a young
adult William "Mad John"
00:07:02
McFall had several
convictions for violence and firearms offenses. GEOFFREY WANSELL: McFall
did what he wanted.
00:07:10
But then, as he grew towards
the second half of his 20s, again in jail, he brags
to a fellow cellmate
00:07:19
that he's gonna plot to rob
an elderly lady who lives, basically, a hundred yards from
his house whom he's convinced
00:07:26
has loads of cash under a bed. NARRATOR: William McFall
lived on Station Road, not far from 86-year-old
Martha Gilmore.
00:07:37
Martha was a frail woman
who had bad arthritis and struggled with movement. She relied on carers for help.
00:07:46
And one of the carers
to visit her regularly was community nurse, Ann Scott. ANN SCOTT: She was
just a lady that--
00:07:54
I just hit it off with
her from the word go. And she was a lady that
I was very, very fond of.
00:08:01
She did go out using
her two sticks, but she would have been very
slow, and she was very fragile.
00:08:08
But fiercely independent and
always made me very welcome. NARRATOR: In the
early hours of Sunday,
00:08:16
the 5th of May 1996,
McFall, armed with a hammer, went to Martha Gilmore's
semi-detached bungalow
00:08:24
on Station Road with the
intention of burgling her. He hoped to find loads
of cash under her bed.
00:08:33
He rang the doorbell. [doorbell dings] Nobody answered. ANN SCOTT: She'd
obviously been in bed.
00:08:39
Because she was slow, because
of her reduced mobility, she was taken too long
to come to the door.
00:08:48
GEOFFREY WANSELL: But of
course, McFall doesn't factor any of this into his thinking.
00:08:53
Nobody comes to the door because
she can't get up very quickly. She's simply an old
lady who finds movement
00:08:59
extremely difficult.
He rings the doorbell again, no response. So McFall breaks in.
00:09:07
By this point, Martha
Gilmore has got up and gone into the hallway. Now McFall realizes that
the house isn't empty.
00:09:18
He's convinced she
can identify him. After all, they live
about a hundred yards apart, so it's pretty
likely she could.
00:09:23
So without hesitation,
he kills her. He hits her over the
head with a hammer. NARRATOR: McFall battered the
frail old woman three times
00:09:31
on the back of the head. GEOFFREY WANSELL: This
is a violent young man who acts on instinct and
also has a vengeful temper.
00:09:38
So rather than risk leaving
Martha alive, he kills her. But not only that. He then drags her
along the hallway
00:09:48
so that he can get back
out of the door again. And on the way,
breaks her sternum.
00:09:53
NARRATOR: McFall fled
the scene, leaving Martha dead in the hallway,
in a pool of her own blood.
00:10:00
ANN SCOTT: The news
came on, and it said, an elderly lady
had been murdered. She lived in the Station
Road in Greenisland.
00:10:10
And I know this
sounds ridiculous, but I just knew in my
heart that it was Martha.
00:10:19
NARRATOR: McFall was arrested
within hours of the murder after police
discovered fingerprints
00:10:25
on Martha's front door,
which matched those held on file for William McFall. JIMMY SMYTH: When
his name came up,
00:10:33
I wasn't surprised that
McFall had killed her. It was obvious. The most striking thing
was the violence behind it.
00:10:39
It's out of order,
killing an old woman. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: We often
find this in cases of killers
00:10:45
like this individual. They-- they begin
by targeting very vulnerable people because
they are easier to control.
00:10:53
It's almost like a
testing out, essentially, of a particular offense,
of a particular crime,
00:10:58
to see if they can do it. ANN SCOTT: This lady who
was kind, who was gentle, who did nobody any harm,
who should have been safe
00:11:12
in the sanctuary of her own
home, but no, it was invaded, and she was horribly
and brutally attacked.
00:11:21
He didn't need to use a
hammer on a wee frail lady like Martha. He could have pushed
her out of his way.
00:11:27
No one deserves to be
attacked like that, but Martha was particularly
defenseless, not only her age
00:11:35
but her frailty as well, against
a young man wielding a hammer. It's despicable.
00:11:42
NARRATOR: On the
11th of April 1997, William McFall was
sentenced to life in prison
00:11:49
at Belfast Crown Court for
the murder of Martha Gilmore. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
This is a violent man
00:11:55
truly given his just desserts,
a life sentence for murder. NARRATOR: McFall was sent to
HMS Swaleside in Kent, England,
00:12:04
where he was housed with
like-minded individuals. During his time behind
bars, he shared a cell
00:12:11
with Stephen Unwin. The two convicted killers
struck up a close friendship. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Friendships within prison
00:12:19
are an interesting thing. Because for some
people, they will not want to continue those
friendships when they get out
00:12:27
because they want a
turn over a new leaf, they want to start again. But on the other hand,
prison friendships
00:12:32
can often be the most
meaningful, the deepest attachment that somebody has
felt to another individual
00:12:38
in their entire lives. And I think,
potentially, that's what we're looking at in this case.
00:12:44
NARRATOR: Stephen Unwin's
story begins in 1978. He was born on the 16th
of February in Durham.
00:12:52
He grew up with an older
sister in Fencehouses, a working-class village
near Sunderland,
00:12:58
in the Northeast of England. Like McFall, he was a troubled
boy from an early age.
00:13:05
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Unwin
is a face, if you like, in that local
criminal community.
00:13:10
At 13, there was arson
on a heavy-goods vehicle. There's theft. There's another brush
with the law at 17.
00:13:19
More burglary, more theft. Out of control would
be the contemporary way of describing him, bouncing
in and out of juvenile care.
00:13:30
In the mid-1990s, when
Unwin was a teenager, he burgled the house
of an amputee of 72.
00:13:39
COLIN DOBSON: Unwin
broke into his house. He forced a panel
on the front door. He went in downstairs.
00:13:45
The chap was asleep
upstairs, obviously, taking his false leg off. Unwin stole some benefit books.
00:13:51
But most remarkable
about this offense was that, all he had to do
was just leave the house.
00:13:57
He hadn't been disturbed. What he then did, he
set five separate seats of fire downstairs.
00:14:03
GEOFFREY WANSELL: It was
a crime of opportunity, but it also indicated
that he was prepared
00:14:09
to try and cover his tracks
because the certain amount of arson was involved. And that became one of
Unwin's fingerprints.
00:14:19
NARRATOR: Luckily, neighbors
were able to rescue the old man in time. Later that day,
Unwin was caught when
00:14:26
he tried to cash in the books. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He is
engaging in quite lawless
00:14:31
behavior from a very early age. These incidents happened
before he was 18 years old.
00:14:37
So this shows
somebody who doesn't have respect for the law,
who likes to create chaos,
00:14:43
essentially. GEOFFREY WANSELL: But the most
horrifying part of this story of the young life
of Stephen Unwin
00:14:50
comes when he apparently
befriends an aged pharmacist called John Greenwell. COLIN DOBSON: He was 73 years
of age, a retired pharmacist.
00:14:59
He was well respected
in the community. He knew one or
two young lads who used to run messages for him.
00:15:04
Really, really nice
man from all accounts. NARRATOR: In the summer of 1998,
one of the neighborhood boys
00:15:11
introduced 20-year-old
Stephen Unwin to the retired pharmacist. John had terminal cancer
and was often bedridden.
00:15:21
He lived very close to
Unwin, who decided one day, he'd steal a few items
from the old man's house.
00:15:29
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Unwin
burgles Greenwell, and steals, among other things,
a Zenit camera.
00:15:33
A friend remonstrates with him
and says, you can't do that. You must return the
goods that you've stolen.
00:15:40
And so a very
unrepentant, and in fact, I would say, probably
furious Unwin leaves what's he
stolen on the doorstep,
00:15:49
including the Zenit camera. But now, Unwin's got a grudge. You're going to teach
Greenwell a lesson.
00:15:55
NARRATOR: On the 25th
of December 1998, two uniformed police
officers on patrol spotted John Greenwell's
bungalow on fire.
00:16:06
COLIN DOBSON: They
notified the fire brigade who attended
and after several hours,
00:16:11
extinguished the blaze. And once they gained entry,
they realized that there was a body in the back room.
00:16:16
He was lying on a
bed face up, and it was the body of Mr. Greenwell. NARRATOR: Colin Dobson was the
senior investigating officer
00:16:24
on call that Christmas
bank holiday weekend. I knew that we were dealing
with a murder investigation
00:16:30
once we saw the scene. Mr. Greenwell's body was
desecrated, badly burned. When the pathologist
carried out the post-mortem,
00:16:37
it was quite evident
that he received several blows to the head. We think that he attacked
Mr. Greenwell as he lay
00:16:45
in bed, using the Zenit camera. We also realized that he'd been
stabbed to the chest-- once
00:16:51
to the chest. So the cause of
death was actually a fractured skull
and brain damage,
00:16:56
as well as the stab wound. NARRATOR: Unwin set fire to
several parts of the house,
00:17:02
including John's body. He stole a television
set and a VHS recorder. Shortly after Unwin had
set fire to John's home,
00:17:12
the two police
officers on patrol had seen him pushing a
wheelie bin down the road
00:17:17
and had stopped him. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
Where are you going? What you got there? He said, oh, I'm just returning
the VHS recorder for something.
00:17:25
Well, that's suspicious,
to put it politely, and they watched what
house he goes into.
00:17:31
NARRATOR: As the
officers walked on, they spotted John
Greenwell's bungalow on fire.
00:17:37
It didn't take Colin
Dobson and his team long to connect the dots
between the fire and Unwin.
00:17:44
They arrested him the same day. COLIN DOBSON: Once he was
arrested, and we did a check
00:17:50
and we realized that he
had previous convictions, and indeed, he had two
previous convictions of arson.
00:17:56
There's no doubt that
he was setting fire to the different
scenes to destroy evidence-- evidence
of contact, any DNA
00:18:03
evidence, anything at all. No one had been arrested. We had no eyewitnesses. We had no forensic evidence.
00:18:10
There was no CCTV in the area. Although he was a prime suspect,
we had to build up a case,
00:18:16
you know. NARRATOR: But Unwin
made one vital mistake. He'd wrapped the VHS
recorder in a bin bag
00:18:23
and taped it with sticky tape. COLIN DOBSON: The
beauty about this one was that our own scenes
of crime officers,
00:18:30
they have found amongst the
debris a roll of Sellotape. The forensic science
service was able to see
00:18:35
that the roll of Sellotape
was a physical match to the tape used on
the recovered bin line
00:18:40
as we got back off Unwin. Not only that, there
was a fingerprint on the Sellotape wall which
was Unwin's fingerprint.
00:18:46
When we got that
evidence, obviously, we placed Unwin in the property. There was no doubt
he was the person
00:18:50
responsible for Mr.
Greenwell's savage murder, and we charged him with murder. NARRATOR: Stephen Unwin
pleaded guilty to the murder
00:18:58
of 73-year-old pensioner
John Greenwell. On the 29th of October
1999, the 21-year-old
00:19:06
was sentenced to life in prison
at Newcastle Crown Court. COLIN DOBSON: I was
watching Unwin at the time,
00:19:14
and in my eyes, he showed
no remorse, whatsoever. At the end of Mr. Greenwell's
case, I was interviewed,
00:19:19
and I remember saying quite
clearly that I thought Unwin was a very, very dangerous man.
00:19:24
And I didn't say that lightly. NARRATOR: Stephen Unwin
and William McFall were both in their 20s when they
killed frail and defenseless
00:19:33
pensioners. GEOFFREY WANSELL: One
question must always remain-- McFall and Unwin both
burgled elderly, very
00:19:42
vulnerable people, why didn't
they just leave it at burglary? Why did they proceed to
kill Martha and John?
00:19:51
What was it in their
nature, in their character, that drove them to kill? I would argue that it's
a propensity to violence
00:20:00
and a propensity to murder
that exists in both men, which is why when you
add them together,
00:20:07
they become even more dangerous. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
I think burglary's are a bit of a sideshow.
00:20:12
It's what these crimes
are really about. They are about dominating
and controlling other people.
00:20:18
And their victims were elderly. They were vulnerable. This really does add to the
gravity of their crimes.
00:20:23
They're never going to go
after some muscle-bound man who is more than a match for them.
00:20:28
They will always target
those who can't fight back. NARRATOR: William McFall
and Stephen Unwin,
00:20:34
two convicted
killers, would meet and become friends in prison. Both men were released on
license after serving just 14
00:20:44
years of their life sentences. While Unwin was
still in prison, he got back in touch with a
girl he'd met as a teenager.
00:20:57
To protect her identity,
Rachel is not her real name and her image has
been concealed.
00:21:06
When I first met Stephen,
he was quite charming. You know, the typical
teenage charm and lot.
00:21:12
Bit of joked a
lot, made us laugh, and we started dating
for a little bit. It's like a teenage sort of
summer romance kind of thing.
00:21:22
And then, just end up
losing touch after that. When I first started talking
to Stephen back in prison,
00:21:28
I didn't really
think much of it. A mutual friend got us
talking again through phone
00:21:33
calls, and letters, and stuff. He had the charm when I was
speaking to him on the phone,
00:21:38
made everything
seem like it was OK. NARRATOR: In December
2012, 34-year-old Stephen Unwin was
released on license
00:21:47
to serve the remaining
years of his life sentence supervised by probation. RACHEL: When Stephen was
released from prison,
00:21:54
he convinced everyone he
was a changed man, even his probation officer. Even she believed
that he was remorseful
00:22:00
for what he'd done, that he was
never going to re-offend again. ROBIN PERRIE: He moved back
to his native Northeast
00:22:06
and lived and worked in the
Sunderland area and the hotel and spring area where
he worked as a handyman
00:22:13
carrying out maintenance
on properties. NARRATOR: By 2014, Rachel
and Unwin lived together
00:22:20
and were expecting a daughter. RACHEL: When I first told
Stephen I was pregnant,
00:22:24
he was quite excited. He was there through
the pregnancy, and he was there at
the birth as well.
00:22:29
It was-- it was quite
good at the birth. NARRATOR: Family life
was great at first.
00:22:35
RACHEL: Absolutely
doting dad, to be honest. He was a good dad, too. It's one thing I can see.
00:22:41
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Many men who engage in criminal and violent
behavior are fathers.
00:22:46
And I would say that none
of them are good fathers. What they are very good
at is performing the role
00:22:52
of the good father,
the doting father, because they're aware that that
is going to distract attention.
00:22:58
NARRATOR: And Unwin
struggled to keep up the charade of the caring,
loving partner and dad.
00:23:04
RACHEL: He was a
very jealous man. Stephen was abusive
a couple of times. Once, he got all of
us by the throat.
00:23:12
Never hit us, but more
sort of mental abuse. Convinced I wasn't good
enough for anybody else,
00:23:18
that I was his and his only. He was an angry man. He had lots of issues. Especially when he was drinking,
he become very, very angry just
00:23:28
at everything and everyone. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I look at
Unwin's behavior and what I see
00:23:32
is somebody who is a misogynist. Men like Unwin are
possessive and jealous in their relationships
with women
00:23:39
because they see women
as their possessions, who are there to meet their needs. NARRATOR: While Unwin
was living with Rachel,
00:23:46
he kept in touch with
his old cellmate William McFall, who'd moved to
Blackpool after his release
00:23:52
from prison in 2010. RACHEL: Stephen used to
talk about McFall a lot. My first impression
of McFall was that he
00:24:00
was just bonkers, basically. He liked to have a good laugh. He Like his drugs. He smoke cannabis.
00:24:07
NARRATOR: But Rachael
soon realized, there was something about
McFall that didn't feel right.
00:24:14
RACHEL: McFall was very scary. Just the way he looked,
that he had a lot of anger
00:24:20
inside him, which
was really scary. I never felt safe around him. NARRATOR: The relationship
between Rachel and Unwin
00:24:26
was becoming
increasingly strained. The couple eventually
broke up in December 2016.
00:24:33
RACHEL: Final
separation from Stephen, I just had enough
of feeling the way I felt. I was never happy for
all he did on our little one,
00:24:42
I wasn't happy with him. And I just said enough's enough. Rachel's departure from her
relationship with Stephen Unwin
00:24:49
is significant. I think it unsettles
Unwin, and he doesn't quite know where to turn.
00:24:56
The obvious person, of course,
is McFall, his close friend. And indeed, McFall cements
that by leaving Blackpool
00:25:04
and moving to stay with Unwin. NARRATOR: By the summer
of 2017, McFall and Unwin,
00:25:10
the two convicted killers
released on license, were living together
at St. Oswald's
00:25:16
terrace in the
Houghton-le-Spring area near Sunderland. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When Unwin
and McFall joined forces,
00:25:27
they really amplified the level
of dangerousness and violence because it's not just about
committing crime and hurting
00:25:34
people now, it's about
doing that and performing it in front of another individual.
00:25:39
So you have that competitive
element that's going on. NARRATOR: Unwin's and
McFall's behavior escalated.
00:25:52
They stole substantial
cannabis crops and tried to get hold of guns. They were like a ticking
time bomb about to explode.
00:26:04
In the early hours of
the 15th of August 2017, Tyne and Wear Fire
Service in England
00:26:11
received what seemed to
be a routine 999 call. A car had been
spotted ablaze down
00:26:18
a quiet lane near the
allotments behind Shiney Row in Houghton-le-Spring. But the inferno was
concealing a horrific secret.
00:26:28
GEOFFREY WANSELL: When the fire
brigade finally extinguished the blaze, they do discover
what they think is the body
00:26:35
of a child in the back. In fact, it's just
a very small woman. And it rapidly turns into
a murder investigation.
00:26:48
ROBIN PERRIE: The flames are
so intense that horrific damage had been caused to her body.
00:26:52
And when investigators were
able to get close to the car, they discovered
that her body had
00:26:57
been fused into the back seat. NARRATOR: The car had been
burning for over an hour,
00:27:03
and the dead body inside
was unidentifiable. ROBIN PERRIE: Initial
information came out
00:27:10
from the police in
the normal fashion that journalists get to hear
about breaking news stories,
00:27:15
but there was very little
detail to start with. It was a curious case. Not much information
was given initially.
00:27:23
NARRATOR: A passport
and other documentation were recovered from
the burnt-out car,
00:27:28
but police needed
more to identify the body on the back
seat of the black Audi. Later that morning,
Quynh Ngoc Nguyen
00:27:45
woke up and realized
her sister Quyen had not come home the night before. ROBIN PERRIE: She tried to
contact her by mobile phone
00:27:54
without success. And she alerted the
authorities and went out looking for her herself
without any success.
00:28:02
And later in the day, she
was told the terrible news that Quyen's car had
been found burnt out
00:28:08
and that there was
a body inside it. NARRATOR: Only dental
records could confirm
00:28:14
that the body found
in the burnt-out car was that of her sister,
28-year-old mother
00:28:20
of two, Quyen Ngoc Nguyen. Quyen was originally
from Vietnam. Little is known about her
life before she relocated
00:28:33
to Birtley near Gateshead. ROBIN PERRIE: She arrived
in Britain in 2010 when she moved to London to
study business at a university.
00:28:42
Following her studies, she moved
to the Northeast of England where she worked with
her sister in a nail bar.
00:28:48
She also was involved
in the management of residential properties,
looking after them
00:28:53
and sourcing tenants
for those properties. She was a caring, loving,
devoted, hard-working mother
00:28:59
of two. All her working
hours, really, was spent providing for her family. NARRATOR: Thanks
to CCTV footage,
00:29:07
police were quickly able to
retrace Quyen's final steps. ROBIN PERRIE: CCTV footage
was crucial to this case.
00:29:15
And the first relevant
footage was at 6:12 PM when Quyen was seen
leaving Glitter
00:29:21
Nails, the nail bar that she ran
with her sister in Gateshead. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
And then there's
00:29:26
some more CCTV that shows
her outside the back of Unwin's house. NARRATOR: Quyen
had driven to St.
00:29:34
Oswald's Terrace for a business
meeting with Stephen Unwin. ROBIN PERRIE: Quyen came
into contact with Unwin
00:29:41
because she managed a number
of residential properties, and Unwin would
work as a handyman
00:29:47
doing minor maintenance
jobs on these properties. McFall would work
for 50 pounds a day,
00:29:53
helping Unwin in his job. Quyen and her sister spoke at
7:00 when her sister asked her
00:29:59
when she would be
home that night, and Quyen explained
she would be late because she had some business to
attend to at a rental property.
00:30:05
NARRATOR: At 7:24 PM, Quyen
arrived at St. Oswald's Terrace and was greeted
by Stephen Unwin.
00:30:12
ROBIN PERRIE: This
is the last moment that Quyen is ever seen
alive by anyone other
00:30:16
than Unwin and McFall. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
Unwin invites are in, having told McFall
to hide to conceal
00:30:30
his existence in the house. ROBIN PERRIE: Once Quyen
entered the property, it isn't exactly known, apart
from by Unwin and McFall
00:30:37
exactly what happened. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
Now precisely what happens next, and in
precisely what order,
00:30:43
is a matter of conjecture. But we can be sure that Quyen,
this tiny, little Vietnamese
00:30:52
woman, is subdued very quickly. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: The
attack on Quyen happened over a number of hours.
00:31:02
And at any point during
this time, either or both of these men could
have decided not
00:31:06
to go any further, to
call it a day, to say, no, we're not doing
any more here. But they didn't.
00:31:12
They followed it through. And I think they fed
off each other's energy when they were doing that.
00:31:18
NARRATOR: Quyen was forced
to hand over her bank cards and reveal the PIN numbers.
00:31:27
GEOFFREY WANSELL: So she's
been in their hands for hours, and she's been subjected to
the worst imaginable treatment.
00:31:37
She's been just about allowed
to live so they can make sure they've got the right
PIN number so that she can,
00:31:43
in a sense, give them money. NARRATOR: At 9:51 PM, Unwin
was seen getting into his van
00:31:50
at St. Oswald's Terrace. ROBIN PERRIE: The CCTV camera at
the back of the house captured
00:31:55
Unwin leaving the property and
then driving to a nearby Co-op where he used her bank
card to withdraw cash
00:32:03
and then to go and buy
a bottle of spirits. Unwin when withdrew 500
pounds using Quyen's card.
00:32:09
The PIN number she'd
given them was correct. GEOFFREY WANSELL: But then
the most horrific element
00:32:14
of all emerges. NARRATOR: At 11:35 PM, the
CCTV at the back of the house captured more movement.
00:32:23
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Shortly after
11:30 that evening in August 2017, the two men are
seen, again on CCTV,
00:32:33
carrying Quyen's body
wrapped in a sheet to the back of
her car, her Audi. ROBIN PERRIE: Quyen
was very petite.
00:32:43
She was only 5 foot
tall and 7 stones, and Unwin was clearly capable
of carrying her out McFall
00:32:50
walked behind him, making sure
the sheet completely covered her body. GEOFFREY WANSELL: They
put her in the back seat
00:32:57
and drive it not
terribly far away. ROBIN PERRIE: She was
still alive at this point,
00:33:02
but only just. They then drove a short
distance around a mile away to a deserted
remote lane where
00:33:10
they set fire to the car in an
attempt to cover their tracks. NARRATOR: While the fire
was taking hold of the car
00:33:17
with Quyen lying gravely
injured in the back seat, Unwin and McFall
walked back home as
00:33:23
if nothing had happened. Several CCTV cameras
picked up their whereabouts as they returned on
foot to St. Oswald's
00:33:31
terrace to pick up Unwin's car. ROBIN PERRIE: 30 minutes after
killing Quyen and disposing
00:33:37
of her body by setting
her car alight, they were in Unwin's Audi,
driving around the local area.
00:33:43
NARRATOR: The men drove
to a local post office to use Quyen's
bank card once more
00:33:48
and withdrew another 500 pounds. They returned to
St. Oswald's Terrace around the same time the
burning car was spotted
00:33:56
and the fire service
was called at 12:34 AM. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: The details
of how McFall and Unwin took
00:34:04
Quyen in her own car to a
deserted road where they would then set fire to her body,
there are so many elements
00:34:12
here of control, of possession. We have taken what
we wanted from you. We've had our fun with you.
00:34:18
We're now going to destroy you. And we're going to
destroy something that's important to you as well.
00:34:23
Your car is a symbol
of your success, and your independence,
and your accomplishments,
00:34:28
so we're going to
get rid of that, too. NARRATOR: The next day,
Quyen's ruthless killers
00:34:33
casually went shopping
and to the pub with no apparent fear of
being caught for their crimes.
00:34:41
The CCTV images captured on the
evening of the 14th of August were the last time Quyen
Ngoc Nguyen was seen alive.
00:34:50
Four hours later, her
dead body was discovered inside a burned-out car. ROBIN PERRIE: During the
four-hour ordeal in the house,
00:34:59
when Quyen was
lying on the floor after being severely beaten and
when she was close to death,
00:35:04
quite unbelievably, McFall
and Unwin then cooked a curry and casually ate it. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think
this shows us the absolute lack
00:35:12
of empathy, the absolute
lack of attachment, of understanding of
other people's emotions
00:35:18
and suffering that
these men have. They are just about fulfilling
their own basic needs.
00:35:23
They cooked the curry
because they were hungry, they wanted something to eat. And the fact that somebody is
dying on the floor next to them
00:35:30
is immaterial to them. NARRATOR: Thanks to CCTV,
the killers' whereabouts on the night of the murder
and the following day
00:35:38
could be quickly retraced. The footage was damning. ROBIN PERRIE: The police
were onto them very quickly.
00:35:45
Early investigations
led them to his door. He'd used Quyen's bank card to
withdraw money from her account
00:35:50
and had bought some
spirits with it. And he'd been caught on
very CCTV in the area.
00:35:56
GEOFFREY WANSELL: They
have left so much evidence, there is so much CCTV,
that it beg us to believe
00:36:04
they haven't even thought
out any explanation for any of this action. Within 24 hours of
the attack on Quyen,
00:36:15
the police arrested Unwin. McFall was actually
pulled into the inquiry early on as a
witness, initially,
00:36:20
but he was very quickly
arrested as a suspect, as well. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Looking
at the evidence against them,
00:36:25
it was incredibly compelling,
and it shows us how stupid these two were, as well.
00:36:31
They're very brutish, they're
very primitive in a way because they're so
focused on the violence,
00:36:36
they're so fixated
on that, that they're not really doing very much to-- to think about how they're
gonna get away with it.
00:36:42
And that's why they don't. NARRATOR: Police also
analyzed the data on the men's mobile phones.
00:36:48
The content was
highly incriminating. ROBIN PERRIE: Evidence was found
on the phones of them chatting
00:36:54
to each other,
plotting the attack, going back a number of
weeks, and also of them
00:36:58
communicating with each and
other people in the hours after Quyen had been murdered.
00:37:05
Approximately half an hour after
they set fire to Quyen's car, and McFall took a selfie
of both of them in the car.
00:37:12
McFall was smiling
on the selfie, seemingly without a
care in the world, and he sent that to a friend.
00:37:20
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: The fact
that this guy wanted to document this in a photograph, he wanted
to take a picture of himself
00:37:25
at this time, this is
really significant. This is a sort of
decisive moment for him
00:37:31
that he wants to
capture in a picture. It's almost a celebratory mood. Both men are charged
with the murder of Quyen.
00:37:39
NARRATOR: News of
the murder spread through the local community. Unwin's ex-partner and mother
to his daughter was shocked.
00:37:48
RACHEL: It was on
the local news. His picture got brought up,
and I just burst into tears.
00:37:54
Just the thought that he'd
been in my life, really. NARRATOR: Only the day
before killing Quyen,
00:38:01
Unwin's daughter had stayed with
him at St. Oswald's Terrace, as she did so on many weekends.
00:38:07
RACHEL: Just before
the murder, Stephen had my daughter on the
Saturday night overnight.
00:38:12
He came, dropped her
back off on the Sunday sort of late morning,
just seemed normal.
00:38:18
Mr. McFall was also
sitting in the car, but hadn't gotten
out of the car. NARRATOR: Thanks to
overwhelming evidence,
00:38:25
police were able
to shed some light on the horrific
events that took place on the night of the murder.
00:38:33
It emerged that Quyen had
been sexually assaulted. Furthermore, she was
dragged through the house,
00:38:39
beaten, and asphyxiated. ROBIN PERRIE: They obtained a
DNA sample using her toothbrush
00:38:46
and a face mask that she had
previously used at the nail bar that she ran with her sister.
00:38:51
And using that DNA
profile, they were then able to piece together what
had happened at the crime
00:38:56
scene in Unwin's house. GEOFFREY WANSELL: As if there
could be the slightest doubt
00:39:02
of Unwin and McFall's
guilt. Quyen's DNA is found on Unwin's tracksuit bottoms. It was the evidence
investigators
00:39:12
needed to charge Stephen Unwin
with rape, as well as murder. ROBIN PERRIE: Police were
also able to prove that she'd
00:39:20
been sexually abused
with a number of items, including a gas gun. NARRATOR: The forensics team
found Quyen's DNA on the barrel
00:39:28
of McFall's gas
gun, and chillingly, on a toy light saber belonging
to Unwin's young daughter.
00:39:37
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think
parents feel a particular kind of attachment to objects
that their children play
00:39:43
with because these objects
represent innocence. But those parents are people
who have an emotional attachment
00:39:51
to their children. I don't think that Unwin does. I don't think he has an
emotional attachment to anyone.
00:39:56
So I think he would have
assaulted Quyen with whatever was there, essentially. NARRATOR: Six months
after the murder of Quyen,
00:40:08
the trial began on the
20th of February 2018 at Newcastle Crown Court. The most striking thing
about their court case
00:40:16
was their behavior in
court, especially McFall. He made a series of outbursts
throughout the trial.
00:40:21
On one occasion, he made
a throat-cutting gesture towards the press bench. Unwin was a lot different.
00:40:28
He seemed to be this quiet,
smoldering individual. He was clearly
capable of incredibly
00:40:32
violent, dangerous acts. But he just seemed to sit there
with his very calm demeanor
00:40:37
throughout the trial, as if he
was on trial for an incredibly minor offense. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Behavior in the courtroom
00:40:44
is always really revealing,
and this case is no exception. So Unwin was quite cool,
and calm, and collected.
00:40:51
And I think that tells us
about his coldness, about how unaffected he is by things.
00:40:56
McFall, on the other
hand, was the opposite end of the spectrum. He would write down,
and freak out, and make
00:41:03
a scene on multiple occasions. And I think this tells us
a lot about the dynamic
00:41:07
between these two-- Unwin is the puppet master,
McFall is the puppet. NARRATOR: The killers
were convinced
00:41:14
they'd found a legal
loophole by which they could escape justice. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
They're both going
00:41:22
to claim that the other one
did it to confuse the jury. ROBIN PERRIE: McFall's
version of events
00:41:29
is that he walked
into the property and discovered Unwin raping
Quyen, and then strangling her.
00:41:36
Unwin claimed the
polar opposite. He claimed he walked
into the property to find McFall strangling Quyen.
00:41:44
GEOFFREY WANSELL: It's
an absolute cacophony of silliness, except it's
so awful, so serious.
00:41:51
It demands to be treated as
it was, which is barbarism. NARRATOR: The jury
didn't fall for it
00:41:58
and decided both
men were equally responsible for Quyen's murder. On the 25th of
April 2018, William
00:42:05
McFall and Stephen
Unwin were given whole life prison sentences. This time, they will
never be released.
00:42:15
ROBIN PERRIE: Anyone
connected with this case will remember it for many years
because the horrific degree
00:42:19
of cruelty they both exhibited
towards Quyen and the way that they disposed of her body.
00:42:24
There are no happy endings in
this case for Quyen's family at all, but one tiny
degree of comfort
00:42:30
is them knowing that
they will never, ever be released from prison. GEOFFREY WANSELL: This meeting
of two murderous men, who
00:42:41
meet by coincidence
in a jail cell, meant that they
were more dangerous together than they were apart.
00:42:51
The treatment of Quyen,
literally, is heartbreaking. What she had to suffer
was all but unimaginable.
00:43:01
NARRATOR: Stephen Unwin
and William McFall are ruthless killers
in their own right.
00:43:07
They preyed on the
most vulnerable when they viciously
killed elderly pensioners.
00:43:13
And when they joined
forces, the sadistic nature of their wicked
ways knew no bounds.
00:43:21
They brutally murdered an
innocent young mother and set fire to her car while she
was still alive inside,
00:43:29
all for their own
twisted gratification, making Stephen Unwin and William
McFall two of the world's most
00:43:39
evil killers. [theme music] [audio logo]