00:00:03
[DRAMATIC MUSIC] MAN 1: It just
sounds like something bad is happening to her. NARRATOR: I heard her
scream, no, stop it.
00:00:11
MAN 2: I heard some gunshots. MAN 3: Drop it! Whatever it is, drop it! MAN 4: That is not true
that I killed my wife.
00:00:18
FEMALE 2: We know what
happened because the video tells us what happened. MAN 5: The camera doesn't lie.
00:00:24
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NARRATOR: This time on "Killers
Caught on Camera," in Auckland,
00:00:29
New Zealand, a
British backpacker is missing after
going on a date. AMBER HAQUE: When they
didn't hear back from her,
00:00:37
this was an alarm bell for them. NARRATOR: As the cameras
track the suspect. The story that he's given
us, very plausible as it was,
00:00:50
suddenly, it's not what
we've got on camera. And CCTV doesn't lie. NARRATOR: And in
Southampton in the UK,
00:00:57
a young girl is the victim
of a predatory murder-- PAUL BARTON: She's got
multiple stab wounds.
00:01:03
A number around the neck. NARRATOR: --in an attempt
to cover up a highly inappropriate relationship.
00:01:08
PAUL BARTON: He only
had one intention, and that was to silence Lucy. [THEME MUSIC]
00:01:23
[POLICE SIRENS WAILING] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NARRATOR: In the UK, close
to Billericay in Essex,
00:01:30
lies the small
village of Ramsden Bellhouse, home to recent
graduate, Grace Millane.
00:01:39
Amber Haque is a journalist
who covered the case. Grace Millane was a
21-year-old girl from Essex.
00:01:46
She had just graduated from uni. She had a marketing
degree in 2018. NARRATOR: Grace had
two brothers and was
00:01:54
extremely close to her family. After graduating from the
University of Lincoln, Grace decided to
travel the world.
00:02:06
AMBER HAQUE: She
was about to set off on the adventure of a lifetime. Living her dream, traveling the
world, it's what so many of us
00:02:15
have done at that age. You know you go
on your gap year. It's like the best feeling.
00:02:20
NARRATOR: Grace spent six weeks
in South America traveling around Chile, Patagonia,
and Pearl before flying
00:02:26
to Auckland, New Zealand. [SOMBER MUSIC] AMBER HAQUE: Throughout
the whole of the trip,
00:02:33
she was constantly updating her
family and friends, pretty much daily check-ins, and it
was quite clear to them
00:02:39
that she was having
the time of her life. NARRATOR: Grace was exploring
New Zealand's North Island
00:02:45
and was going to spend her
22nd birthday in Auckland. But on her birthday, the
2nd of December 2018,
00:02:54
Grace suddenly stopped
responding to messages. AMBER HAQUE: Naturally, her
mom and dad were sending
00:03:00
her happy birthday messages. When they didn't
hear back from her, this was an alarm bell for them.
00:03:07
They then decided
to alert the police. NARRATOR: Grace's
parents reported their daughter
missing on Wednesday
00:03:14
the 5th of December 2018. Detective Inspector Scott
Beard took charge of the case.
00:03:22
Grace had been missing
for basically five days. But the fact that she
hadn't contacted anybody
00:03:28
on her birthday, and
nobody could contact her, that was a huge red flag. So one of the first things we
have to do is profile Grace.
00:03:34
Who is she? You know, where's she from? Where she's staying? [DRAMATIC MUSIC] NARRATOR: It was a
race against time
00:03:42
to identify and obtain
footage from any cameras that could lead them to Grace. She'd been staying at Base
Backpackers in Auckland.
00:03:54
SCOTT BEARD: The
backpackers was the key. We have to work quickly to
obtain CCTV because some places
00:04:02
don't hold it for too long. It gets overwritten
very quickly. So the CCTV phase
became crucial.
00:04:10
NARRATOR: Detective
Adam Bicknell took the lead on the forensic
analysis of the recordings.
00:04:15
ADAM BICKNELL: From
the CCTV, we're building a timeline of events
and what's happened, where
00:04:20
it's happened, what time it is. So what we have is Grace
leaving the Base Backpackers
00:04:26
to head up to SkyCity Hotel. She's wearing a black dress. The CCTV showed Grace taking
a picture of a Christmas tree
00:04:37
outside the location,
sending it to her parents, and that was the last time
they made contact with her.
00:04:45
NARRATOR: Police spoke
with one of Grace's friends in the UK, who told
them that Grace
00:04:49
was on a date on the evening
of the 1st of December. AMBER HAQUE: Traveling can be
quite a full-on experience,
00:04:56
can be quite lonely sometimes,
and one of the ways that Grace was kind of getting
around and meeting people
00:05:01
was on the kind of popular
dating apps that are around. And the night
before her birthday,
00:05:08
she had matched with
someone and decided to go out for a drink with him. NARRATOR: At 5:45 PM, on
Saturday the 1st of December,
00:05:18
Grace was captured
on CCTV meeting a man at SkyCity,
a casino complex in the center of Auckland.
00:05:27
AMBER HAQUE: They recognize
each other immediately. They give each other a hug. It seems a really friendly,
nice initial meeting.
00:05:33
This place that they met
was a really public spot. It's the kind of place that
Grace will have felt safe.
00:05:40
NARRATOR: Hundreds of hours
of CCTV footage was reviewed. And the police checked Grace's
social media for any clues.
00:05:49
SCOTT BEARD: One of the
staff members looked at Grace's Facebook page. The last person to comment
on their Facebook page
00:05:56
and on a photo of Grace was
a person named Jesse Shane. NARRATOR: Police contacted Jesse
Shane Kempson via social media
00:06:05
and arranged an interview. JESSE SHANE KEMPSON:
We'd matched on Friday. SCOTT BEARD: He was very
comfortable, very polite.
00:06:23
And he spoke and was interviewed
by Detective Ewen Settle. NARRATOR: Jesse was filmed by
multiple high-tech CCTV cameras
00:06:32
meeting Grace at SkyCity on
Saturday the 1st of December. SCOTT BEARD: The CCTV
footage here from SkyCity
00:06:39
is really interesting. They've got 360-degree cameras,
which means when you play it
00:06:44
back, you can get
the camera to follow your subject, which is a pretty
cool piece of technology.
00:06:50
So they're able to track
Grace and Mr. Kempson throughout the entire time
they were within the SkyCity
00:06:57
building and environs. NARRATOR: Police asked
Jesse how the date went. JESSE SHANE KEMPSON: Um--
00:07:29
NARRATOR: After
SkyCity, Grace and Jesse headed to another bar. AMBER HAQUE: At the end of the
drinks at the second location,
00:07:37
Jesse pays the bill again. You know, quite charming
behavior, obviously, trying to impress
her and make her feel
00:07:43
romanced and kind
of looked after. NARRATOR: After
leaving the restaurant, Grace and Jesse went
to a third venue.
00:07:52
AMBER HAQUE: They both
look really relaxed. We see Grace sat. And she's chatting,
talking really rapidly,
00:07:57
and really looks quite
immersed in the conversation. NARRATOR: The
recordings show Grace
00:08:02
and Jesse hugging and kissing. ADAM BICKNELL: This
is CCTV footage where we believe Grace texts one
of her friends back in England.
00:08:11
AMBER HAQUE: And she says
to her from back home that she just can't believe
how well they're getting on.
00:08:16
She said we rarely click. And that was the last message
that Grace ever sent anyone.
00:08:24
NARRATOR: In his
police interview, Jesse described how his
date with Grace ended.
00:08:50
SCOTT BEARD: He said that's
the last he saw of her. And then he went off to
some bar in the city.
00:08:55
And he says he got
paralytically drunk. NARRATOR: Jesse told the police
what happened the next morning.
00:09:25
At this point, Jesse was
just a person of interest, but the police needed
to check Jesse's DNA
00:09:31
to eliminate him as a suspect. While Jesse was in
the interview room, the police made a
major breakthrough.
00:09:56
In the first stage
of that interview, he was very plausible,
very believable. And we had nothing
to contradict that.
00:10:04
It wasn't until later
in the interview when there was a break. One of the staff
on the CCTV phase
00:10:10
had found footage of
Kempson coming down the lift and the
CityLife Hotel at 8:00
00:10:18
AM on that Sunday morning. ADAM BICKNELL: Jesse's seen
entering the lift off his level
00:10:29
and exiting out
of CityLife Hotel. From there, he heads
to the warehouse store on Elliott Street.
00:10:38
He immediately proceeds
to make his way to where luggage bags are for sale. And we can see
him in the footage
00:10:46
perusing through the selection
of luggage bags there. And he selects the
largest bag there
00:10:54
and wheels is off to the--
to the counter to pay for it. It identifies him clearly and
identifies what he's doing.
00:11:03
NARRATOR: The footage
contradicted Jesse's statement. He said that he was asleep
until 9:00 or 10:00 AM,
00:11:10
but he was captured
on camera at 8:00 AM. SCOTT BEARD: Is he lying to us? Is he mistaken?
00:11:18
The story that he's given
us, very plausible as it was, suddenly, it's not what
we've got on camera.
00:11:24
And CCTV doesn't lie. NARRATOR: Armed with this
critical piece of footage, the police confronted Jesse.
00:12:06
Police later
checked Jesse's room and found an empty suitcase
but without any more
00:12:11
substantial evidence, the
police had to release Jesse. SCOTT BEARD: At the time,
all we had was Jesse Kempson
00:12:20
in that first interview what we
believed was telling us a lie. But that didn't prove
that he had done
00:12:29
anything to anyone or to Grace. So in the United Kingdom, they
can hold someone for 48 hours.
00:12:37
We don't have that, so we
either have sufficient a charge or we have to release them.
00:12:43
So in this case, Jesse
Kempson was released. NARRATOR: Police continued to
sift through the CCTV footage
00:12:50
from Jesse's apartment block. SCOTT BEARD: The CCTV phase
in that hotel, CityLife Hotel,
00:12:56
becomes more crucial and just
our general investigation. You know, what's the
background of Jesse Kempson?
00:13:02
AMBER HAQUE: So
Jesse Kempson was 26. He would tell people
that he had a law degree,
00:13:08
and he was a
successful businessman. Jesse's family painted
this picture of him as being a bit of a
complex character.
00:13:17
He had fallen out with his
dad two years previously. And he wasn't really talking
to much of his relatives
00:13:23
at the time. His grandfather
made this comment. He said, he was a
really nice kid,
00:13:29
but he would just constantly
fall out with people. NARRATOR: As the police
uncovered more footage
00:13:34
from Jesse's
residents, it showed that he wasn't telling the truth
about how the date had ended.
00:13:41
On the 1st of December,
Grace actually went up to Jesse's apartment. SCOTT BEARD: We see them
having left the Bluestone Room,
00:13:50
cross over to outside
CityLife Hotel. They're arm-in-arm. Mr. Kempson's got his arm
around Grace's shoulder.
00:13:57
She's holding onto his hand. You know, everything
appears to be fine. Grace is going back
over her own volition.
00:14:05
This is a key moment in
time, 9:40 PM on Saturday the 1st of December 2018. Grace has entered this
left, exits on level 3.
00:14:16
And it's the last
time she's seen alive. NARRATOR: Police continued
their forensic analysis
00:14:26
of the footage. They needed to find out what
happened to Grace after she went into Jesse's room.
00:14:32
[OMINOUS MUSIC] The recordings from the next
day aroused more suspicion. SCOTT BEARD: He
seen to buy bleach,
00:14:43
cleaning gloves, some sponges,
general cleaning material. NARRATOR: A couple
of hours later,
00:14:50
Jesse took a taxi
to Apex Car Rental and rented a car for 24 hours. Jesse was seen again at 2:53
PM leaving his apartment block.
00:15:03
He was going on another
date with another woman he'd messaged on a dating app. SCOTT BEARD: This is a date that
Jesse goes on in the afternoon
00:15:13
of Sunday the 2nd of December. So, you know, he spent the
morning buying a suitcase,
00:15:18
getting some cleaning
product, and now he's headed off to another date. AMBER HAQUE: This woman who went
to meet him describes that he
00:15:27
was quite intense but calm. He comes out with
this story where he says, oh, I
heard about this guy
00:15:35
who got caught up in a case. He'd asked his girlfriend
to have rough sex with him,
00:15:40
and it had ended badly. He'd ended up killing her. He came out with this
comment, the girl on the date,
00:15:45
where he just said,
it's crazy how a guy can make one wrong
move and end up in jail
00:15:50
for the rest of his life. It was quite a strange story to
come out with on a first date.
00:15:57
This woman understandably
got very freaked out and didn't want to stay
kind of on the date.
00:16:02
She left. But this all happened the
day after he'd been on a date with Grace. NARRATOR: Less than 24
hours after being last
00:16:10
filmed with Grace, Jesse was
seen with an industrial carpet cleaner. ADAM BICKNELL: And we can see
Jesse entering into the lift.
00:16:17
He's got the carpet cleaning
machine and a couple of different bottles of liquid
to clean up whatever mess
00:16:25
he's got going on
in his apartment. He only has the
Rug Doctor up there for just under half an hour.
00:16:32
NARRATOR: But as the
evening progressed, Jesse's actions became
even more alarming.
00:16:38
He was seen taking an empty
luggage cart up to his room. Minutes later, he
returned to the elevator
00:16:45
with it fully loaded. ADAM BICKNELL: It's
got a suitcase on it. And you can see, as he
wheels the luggage trolley
00:16:55
into the lift from his apartment
floor, that it's heavy. He's had to physically
pull it around the corner
00:17:02
to-- to get it into the lift. And Jesse was a--
he's a big guy. He's like 6 foot 1 or 2
and pretty solidly built,
00:17:11
so he was strong, and
he had to maneuver that. I recall the chills
and the goosebumps
00:17:18
when I saw that footage
for the first time. NARRATOR: Jesse was brought in
for questioning a second time.
00:17:26
And his version of the night's
events completely changed. SCOTT BEARD: He
accepted that they'd
00:18:28
gone back to his apartment,
they'd had consensual sex. It was rough sex because
that's what she wanted.
00:18:34
And he must have
strangled her to death. And then he says, after the
rough sex and strangling her,
00:18:41
he-- not realizing, he'd
gone to have a shower, fell asleep in the shower. The second interview was a
totally different contradictory
00:19:15
interview. I saw it as self-serving. Yeah. It wasn't my fault.
She wanted it. And it just was an accident
that I strangled her to death.
00:19:28
So in these kinds of
circumstances, what you're-- they're trying to do
is to blame the victim.
00:19:33
And say, well, it's
because of her kink, it's because she
didn't know her limits,
00:19:37
and I accidentally killed her. Diminishing your own blame
or trying to in the process.
00:19:43
Whether or not that's
still an acceptable excuse and whether it
just is an excuse,
00:19:49
probably, most of the time. It's conceivable that sometimes
sex games do go wrong.
00:19:54
But that is up to you as a
person who's administering the strangulation to make
sure that you are not
00:20:00
crossing that line, not
up to the person who's being strangled. Uh-huh. SCOTT BEARD: He panicked,
saw Grace down there,
00:20:33
screamed, panicked. He was going to ring 111
but didn't press to call. NARRATOR: Jesse didn't
call anyone to help Grace.
00:20:41
And, afterwards, his
online browsing revealed a sinister train of thought. AMBER HAQUE: The police
managed to try and piece
00:20:49
together a bit of a timeline. And this was based on
Jesse's Google searches. They figured out that
Grace was probably
00:20:57
killed before around 1:29 AM. And after that,
he was looking on hardcore pornographic websites.
00:21:06
NARRATOR: Jesse was also
searching for hottest fire, rigor mortis, and the Waitakere
Ranges, a mountainous area
00:21:15
west of Auckland. AMBER HAQUE: The police
found these images on Jesse's phone, which he had
taken of Grace's naked body
00:21:26
after she was killed. They were described
as grossly indecent. And comprehending that he had
done that after killing her so
00:21:38
senselessly and just taking that
last shred of dignity from her. And knowing her
family had to hear
00:21:47
that and know that that
had happened to her is just unbelievable. NARRATOR: Jesse's actions didn't
correspond with his statement
00:21:59
in the interview. Jesse was recorded
taking the suitcase down in the elevator at 9:30 PM.
00:22:36
SCOTT BEARD: On the face
of it, when you see him with a luggage trolley
and the suitcases,
00:22:40
it just looks like a suitcase
and a luggage trolley. But when you know
that Grace Millane is
00:22:46
dead in one of those
suitcases, it's quite chilling, it's quite cold. NARRATOR: When police
recovered the CCTV footage,
00:22:55
it showed a disturbing
sequence of events. Detectives were able to
locate the video footage
00:23:23
from the store on Monday
the 3rd of December. ADAM BICKNELL: Here he is
returning to the counter.
00:23:30
And he's got these
nuts and bolts. I think he's made that purchase
as a distraction to the fact
00:23:36
that he's buying a spade. NARRATOR: After
buying the shovel, Jesse disappeared from
surveillance footage
00:23:42
until he was seen at a
car wash four hours later. ADAM BICKNELL: He drives
into one of the wash bays.
00:23:50
From here, he's going to get the
mats out, spray them cleaned, get the shovel out
to spray that clean.
00:23:58
It's a rental car, you don't
need to clean rental cars. The rental car company
will do that at the end.
00:24:03
And you can see him
washing the dirt off here and the brownness coming off. NARRATOR: Later, Jesse
explained exactly
00:24:11
what happened between buying
the shovel and washing the car. SCOTT BEARD: He finds a car
layby where he can park.
00:24:45
He drags the suitcase
into the bush only about probably 10
meters from the roadside.
00:24:52
And he digs a shallow grave. And he brings the suitcase. NARRATOR: The police were
already one step ahead.
00:24:59
They had been tracking Jesse's
movements on his cell phone. SCOTT BEARD: We had
found on his phone
00:25:06
that that had been polling
up on the Waitakere Ranges. I was already speaking to
our search and rescue experts
00:25:12
because it's not the first
time a body has been found buried in the Waitakere Ranges.
00:25:59
NARRATOR: Grace's body
was found the next day in the Waitakere Range. SCOTT BEARD: We
were already close.
00:26:06
We are about two minutes away. So when he described
the area, we were there before he actually
came out to point to it out.
00:26:13
And I've always said that
we would have found Grace. Not as quickly, but we
would have found her.
00:26:25
NARRATOR: After
Jesse was charged, the police needed to build a
watertight case against him.
00:26:31
They discovered that Jesse
had bought a second suitcase on the 3rd of December. ADAM BICKNELL: We know,
obviously, that he's
00:26:40
taken Grace in one suitcase. And he's bought the duplicate
to try and cover up his tracks.
00:26:46
NARRATOR: Police also
uncovered another clip of Jesse throwing out a
bag filled with something.
00:26:54
ADAM BICKNELL: We believe that
Grace's purse or bag and maybe some personal belongings.
00:27:02
NARRATOR: Analysts also found
an alarming piece of footage from Grace and Jesse's date.
00:27:08
ADAM BICKNELL: We see
Grace go to the toilet. He's grabbed her bag. He's opened her purse.
00:27:17
And he's looking through Grace's
personal items and contents. Is he looking for cash, drugs,
information, identification?
00:27:26
I don't know. NARRATOR: As well as the
incriminating footage, police also had evidence
from the scene of the crime.
00:27:37
SCOTT BEARD: We'd done
the scene examination. We sprayed a chemical
called luminol,
00:27:42
and that reacts with blood,
and the blood will glow. And when we did that
in this apartment,
00:27:47
there was a significant
amount of blood. NARRATOR: On the
16th of January 2019, Jesse Kempson pleaded
not guilty to murder
00:27:56
at the High Court in Auckland. A character emerged,
opportunistic and emotionally
00:28:03
unpredictable. Our investigation
identified that Kempson was prolific on Tinder and
had numerous, numerous dates.
00:28:16
We spoke to-- we'd like to think
virtually every single date he'd had on Tinder.
00:28:22
You start to get this
pattern of how he operates, of what happens,
how he can switch
00:28:27
from a Jekyll/Hyde scenario. He'd be nice,
pleasant one minute. Goes to the bathroom, comes
out, the next, and he's angry,
00:28:35
and he's violent. I've always said
if it wasn't Grace, it would have been
someone else that Jesse
00:28:42
Kempson would have killed. And, I think, I look at that
simply because of the evidence
00:28:48
that we know from propensity
witnesses, who gave evidence, particularly, the
month beforehand
00:28:53
where he suffocated
one of his dates and she thought she
was going to die. The defense case was that
this was rough sex gone wrong.
00:29:03
It was accidental. The pathologist agreed
that the strangulation had to be for 5 to 10 minutes.
00:29:11
It had to be sustained
and with pressure. That's not rough sex. And the jury convicted him
very quickly of murder.
00:29:19
And that's what it was. NARRATOR: Jesse Kempson
was found guilty of murder. He was sentenced
to life in prison
00:29:28
with a minimum non-parole
period of 17 years. Is he a psychopath? He's not. There's no emotion.
00:29:37
He doesn't believe he's
done anything wrong. And that is
disappointing really. The CCTV, in this particular
case, was so crucial.
00:29:52
You know, it told us the story. And we could follow
Grace's movements from the moment she
left the backpackers
00:30:01
to the moment she got out the
lift up in the CityLife Hotel. But we could also follow
Kempson's movements
00:30:07
before and then after. And, of course, that
proved all his lies. That proved that he was lying.
00:30:15
We just keep recovering
the CCTV footage that was a gold mine for the inquiries.
00:30:22
AMBER HAQUE: I think what kind
of stuck out about the story and just chimed
with so many people
00:30:28
is the nature of what
happened to Grace. Like, you know, dating apps
and kind of the freedom
00:30:34
that it gives us to sort of meet
people so casually and easily. It's-- I guess, it's
something where you
00:30:41
put a lot of trust
in the stranger that you're going there to meet. And this was supposed to
be one of the most exciting
00:30:50
chapters of Grace's life. An adventure of a lifetime. And to think she's traveled
halfway across the world
00:30:57
so far away from a family. And that trip of a
lifetime ended up being the end of a life.
00:31:14
[DRAMATIC MUSIC] NARRATOR: CCTV and
360-degree cameras were vital for the
New Zealand police
00:31:20
to track Jesse
Kempson's movements and convict him of
Grace Millane's murder. Public transport is
peppered with cameras,
00:31:27
as pervasive, digital
witnesses, like in the case of Lucy McHugh, where a camera
on a bus led to a breakthrough.
00:31:39
[SOMBER MUSIC] Southampton, UK, home to
12-year-old Lucy McHugh. Bright, bubbly, and nicknamed
Brains by her grandmother.
00:31:54
Paul Barton was a
Detective Superintendent with Hampshire police. PAUL BARTON: Lucy lived
at home with her mother.
00:32:00
She was estranged from
her natural father. Mom had a new partner
who was 21 years of age.
00:32:06
They had a baby between them. And Lucy had other siblings. So it's probably a bit
of a chaotic household.
00:32:15
NARRATOR: In 2017, Lucy's
mother rented out a room to 25-year-old
Stephen Nicholson.
00:32:24
Kirsty Bennett is a
criminal psychologist. KIRSTY BENNET: Stephen
was a tattoo artist
00:32:30
but also a care worker. He was having a few
financial difficulties and struggling to pay his rent.
00:32:36
They allowed him to move in. Stacey had actually got
Nicholson a job as a carer.
00:32:43
NARRATOR: Stephen made
an immediate impression on 12-year-old Lucy. KIRSTY BENNET: Stephen likely
paid Lucy a lot of attention.
00:32:50
And that was quite flattering. NARRATOR: Their
relationship quickly developed and became sexual.
00:32:58
KIRSTY BENNET: At
Lucy's age, she wouldn't have realized that
that's highly inappropriate.
00:33:01
And Stephen took full
advantage of that. A few people raised
concerns about Lucy
00:33:06
and Stephen's relationship. It can be incredibly hard
for parents to accept the fact
00:33:16
that their child is
being groomed because it feels like a parenting failure. So it feels like you
should have known,
00:33:21
and so you might be defensive. Most of the time,
it is someone who you have at least some
relationship with,
00:33:28
even if it's not a close one. And so you think
that you would have known if that person
was doing something
00:33:33
terrible to your child. NARRATOR: But there
was growing tension between Lucy and Stephen.
00:33:41
PAUL BARTON: Nicholson could
be quite moody and, you know, kind of would dismiss
Lucy the next minute.
00:33:46
And that would
then get Lucy angry and there would be
arguments in the house. NARRATOR: By July 2018,
Stephen was no longer living
00:33:54
with Lucy and her family. Lucy confided in her
cousin that she was scared of Stephen, who was violent.
00:34:02
She was now 13 years old. PAUL BARTON: She had
actually been grounded. She had her mobile phone taken
away from her by her mother.
00:34:11
But it was a school summer
holiday, so she was allowed out during the daytime hours.
00:34:16
KIRSTY BENNET: On the
25th of July 2018, Lucy asked her mom if she
could go and visit her friend,
00:34:22
which Stacey agreed to. NARRATOR: But as
evening approached, Lucy didn't come home, and
no one had heard from her.
00:34:31
KIRSTY BENNET: And
Lucy wasn't picking up messages or phone calls. Stacey then rang
the police to notify
00:34:36
them that Lucy was missing. NARRATOR: News spread quickly,
and Stephen texted Stacey.
00:34:46
Early the next morning,
there was a grim discovery. Southampton Police Control
Room received a treble 9 call
00:34:52
from a member of the
public, an individual who's walking his
dog in the area of Southampton Sports Center.
00:34:58
So this is the
footpath that the dog walker used on that morning. He says his dog went off
track and went into the--
00:35:07
the undergrowth here. [SOMBER MUSIC] NARRATOR: Lying face down
was the body of a young girl.
00:35:16
She was quickly
identified as Lucy. She had been stabbed 27 times. PAUL BARTON: She's got
multiple stab wounds,
00:35:30
a number around the neck. One in her sternum, one on
the back of her shoulder, and then a number of small
wounds on her wrists,
00:35:38
which we would say are
defensive injuries. NARRATOR: Detectives
sealed off the area.
00:35:45
PAUL BARTON: We could see
there was blood on the leaves and on the trees, but
no obvious weapon.
00:35:50
Lucy was wearing a
watch, so tend to rule out the motive of robbery. And she was fully clothed so,
again, you would eliminate
00:35:58
a sexual element to the attack. NARRATOR: Investigators
retraced Lucy's steps in an effort to find
out who was responsible.
00:36:08
Time is critical in
these investigations. And quite often, CCTV can be
overwritten within 24 hours.
00:36:15
NARRATOR: A digital
forensics team was assigned to
process thousands of hours of CCTV footage.
00:36:21
8:59 that morning,
there's a camera just on the end of this house
here for private CCTV that
00:36:30
picked up Lucy
entering this road and walking in this direction. So that was our first
sighting of Lucy.
00:36:37
And then it's just a question
now just following up from this road to look
at the possible route
00:36:44
she may have taken. NARRATOR: The camera had
picked up an important detail. PAUL BARTON: Now because she
didn't have a mobile phone,
00:36:52
she asked her younger brother
if she could borrow his watch, which would indicate
that she needed to be
00:36:57
somewhere at a particular time. So this first image
was really crucial. What it also gave us
was confirmation of what
00:37:05
Lucy was wearing on the day. NARRATOR: As the
investigators continued to search through material,
more details and digital clues
00:37:14
emerged. Dr. Vasileios Karagiannopoulos
is a cybercrime expert. VASILEIOS
KARAGIANNOPOULOS: We can
00:37:21
see that she's holding a bottle
with some liquid in it that was also found in the crime scene.
00:37:28
PAUL BARTON: What that tells me
is that It's likely that Lucy was killed in that location.
00:37:33
She wasn't killed elsewhere and
then deposited in that location because the water bottle
was there as well.
00:37:40
NARRATOR: Lucy was filmed
multiple times walking towards the Sports Center. It's about a two-mile
journey, I think, from her home
00:37:48
address to the Sports Center. She's got her coat
under her arm. She's got a bottle in her hand.
00:37:53
But she is walking with purpose. NARRATOR: As well as
examining the CCTV footage,
00:37:59
police also searched
Lucy's bedroom for clues. PAUL BARTON: What we
uncovered very quickly
00:38:04
is that she did hold a
diary, a private diary, that she was keeping. She made some notes
to indicate that she
00:38:11
was potentially in a
sexual relationship with Stephen Nicholson. Some of the entries in there
were really, really concerning.
00:38:17
Lucy had written him letters
asking him to buy some condoms, asking him to buy
a pregnancy kit.
00:38:25
As far as the law is concerned,
that is statutory rape. NARRATOR: Stephen Nicholson
was brought in for questioning.
00:38:33
PAUL BARTON: He acknowledged
that Lucy probably had a bit of a schoolgirl crush on him.
00:38:38
But he said, you
know, she was a pain. You know, I-- I
didn't like her, I-- I always fell out with her.
00:38:46
NARRATOR: The police wanted
to know Stephen's whereabouts on the day Lucy went missing.
00:38:51
PAUL BARTON: He started giving
us an account as to what his movements were that day.
00:38:54
He had gone to visit
an elderly gentleman, who lived not too far from
Southampton Sports Center.
00:39:00
And he would go and do
his shopping for him. And so he said he went to visit
this chap at around about 9
00:39:06
o'clock that morning. NARRATOR: Detectives visited
the man to corroborate Stephen Nicholson's account.
00:39:13
PAUL BARTON: He knew
who Nicholson was, but he would pretty much agree
with anything you put to him.
00:39:19
He wasn't a credible
witness in that sense. And we couldn't rely on him. NARRATOR: On the morning
Lucy went missing,
00:39:26
Stephen told the police
he'd left his phone in the home of the man
he cared for while he
00:39:31
went shopping for him. He said he came back and
stayed there until 11:00 AM. The phone's GPS signal backed
up Stephen's version of events.
00:39:42
KIRSTY BENNET: Initially,
Stephen's alibi seemed to check out. So it's really important that
the police are then going back
00:39:47
through and trawling
through hours of CCTV to check where Stephen
was, and whether there
00:39:55
was any crossing
between him and Lucy on the day she disappeared. NARRATOR: CCTV from
a local supermarket
00:40:04
provided the police with the
breakthrough they needed. PAUL BARTON: We got
a small CCTV camera
00:40:09
that's just on the outside
of the building looking out. It picked up Lucy at 9:28 in
the morning walking purposefully
00:40:18
towards the Sports Center. And we believe that's probably
the last time she was seen
00:40:22
alive and caught on camera. NARRATOR: The supermarket
cameras had also captured Stephen 26 minutes earlier.
00:40:33
PAUL BARTON: No, I think he was
deliberately trying to catch himself on CCTV, so that
would support his alibi
00:40:40
that he was in the area. NARRATOR: The supermarket
CCTV footage was crucial. Not only did it provide
the last sighting of Lucy,
00:40:49
it placed Stephen in the area. There was another
recording of Stephen riding a bike at the Sports Center.
00:41:02
VASILEIOS KARAGIANNOPOULOS:
It's 9:39, and that's 10
minutes after we've seen Lucy walking
past the supermarket
00:41:10
CCTV towards the Sports Center. This video is really important
because it places both Stephen
00:41:16
and Lucy in the area. PAUL BARTON: What's significant
about this particular location
00:41:21
is just in the distance
there where those trees are is the location where Nicholson
had visited this elderly man.
00:41:28
It's almost in line of sight
of where Lucy was found, which is just up
there in the woods.
00:41:34
NARRATOR: Doorbell
and dashcam footage was recovered, which
captured Stephen cycling
00:41:39
home a couple of hours later. VASILEIOS KARAGIANNOPOULOS:
Dashcam footage from vehicles,
00:41:44
such as buses or
even private cars, is very, very useful
for investigators because it can pick
up movements that
00:41:52
might not be evident
using CCTV camera, for example, that's more static. [OMINOUS MUSIC]
00:41:59
NARRATOR: The footage
revealed a key detail. VASILEIOS
KARAGIANNOPOULOS: We see Stephen with a bag and
the bag being very full
00:42:07
and cycling down the road. But as we kind of
followed those cameras on, there's this gap where we
just don't see him at all.
00:42:17
Further on down the road,
we pick him up again. And sure enough, he's
there, he's riding his bike,
00:42:22
he's got the Tesco bag. But, actually, when
we look at the bag, the contents look a lot slimmer.
00:42:28
He's emptied that bag
of whatever was in it. But, more importantly,
we want to know
00:42:33
where he's emptied that. NARRATOR: The digital
forensics team gained access to
Stephen's Google account
00:42:39
and made a discovery. KIRSTY BENNET: If we put
the Google password in, we get all of his apps,
sort of, that he's using.
00:42:48
And one particular app that
comes up is Google Fit. It operates off of GPS. It then mapped his journey home
and now showing this diversion
00:43:00
going down towards a place
called Tanners Brook, which we hadn't picked up on
CCTV, and he hadn't
00:43:07
mentioned in his account. NARRATOR: Tanner's
Brook is a wooded area, which borders a river
running through Southampton.
00:43:15
It flows close to the other
woods near the Sports Center where Lucy's body was found.
00:43:21
PAUL BARTON: We know that
he went into this area with a fairly full bag. And when he reappeared, there
was less items in there.
00:43:29
Within the first few hours,
we had a stroke of luck. I had the phone
call from the search
00:43:33
team saying they found
a significant find at this location. What they found was
some burnt boxer shorts,
00:43:41
a blue, hooded sweater that
had apparent blood on it, and some tracksuit bottoms.
00:43:47
NARRATOR: They also found
some blue latex gloves. PAUL BARTON: Nicholson,
being a carer,
00:43:52
had access to those
sorts of gloves. They had apparent
blood on them as well. So all these items, we're going
to send off to the forensic lab
00:43:59
for analysis. And within a few days,
we had the result that actually that DNA matched
Nicholson and Lucy McHugh.
00:44:07
NARRATOR: Police finally
had enough evidence that Stephen had killed Lucy. PAUL BARTON: I think he was
fairly confident that he was
00:44:16
going to get away with
this because he had the perfect alibi, you know. He was at an address
for the period
00:44:22
of when Lucy was murdered. His phone supported him by
showing it was at this address.
00:44:29
And he then gave us
a detailed account as to his movements afterwards. And was so confident
with that account,
00:44:36
that he said, you
know, look on CCTV, you'll see me taking that route. But, actually, that
was his downfall
00:44:42
because the CCTV didn't
cover all of the route that he said he had taken. The cameras, ultimately,
provide the truth.
00:44:52
NARRATOR: On the
19th of July 2019, Stephen was found
guilty of murder at Winchester Crown Court.
00:44:59
He was sentenced to a
minimum of 33 years. PAUL BARTON: I think she
had contacted him and said,
00:45:07
you know unless you stay with
me or you treat me better, I'm going to tell my family,
and I'm going to tell, you know,
00:45:14
the police or whoever that
we've been having sex. He only had one intention,
and that was to silence Lucy.
00:45:21
[SOMBER MUSIC] I think we had over 10,000
hours of CCTV footage that needed viewing.
00:45:27
That is painstaking,
but people do it because they are so motivated
to get justice for the victim.
00:45:34
CCTV is so crucial
in any investigation. They say the camera never lies. KIRSTY BENNET: Lucy's case is
really tragic and upsetting
00:45:44
because what we have
is a 12-year-old girl, who was infatuated
with somebody who
00:45:49
was taking advantage of her. Lucy's murder is particularly
concerning because it's
00:45:55
a child, which we
all have this desire to protect and look after. [DRAMATIC MUSIC]