00:00:05
NARRATOR: In a
prison visiting room, Hazel Denver and Glyn
Dix fall in love. They were, said by everyone,
to be the perfect couple.
00:00:14
NARRATOR: But does Hazel
really know what kind of man she's marrying? He was controlling.
00:00:19
He was manipulative. He liked to frighten people. NARRATOR: He could kill, too. Glyn Dix had already
been responsible
00:00:26
for one violent death when
he asked Hazel to marry him. To me, he's just a
bomb waiting to go off.
00:00:31
First thing I saw was
this pile of branches, which the leaves had come off. So I saw these
legs sticking out.
00:00:41
NARRATOR: But could
Glyn Dix really be held responsible for
the death of a woman
00:00:45
who had become his wife? [music playing] When mother of six, Hazel
Denver, met Glyn Dix,
00:01:18
she was open to the
idea of falling in love. She came to see him. She couldn't resist him.
00:01:23
NARRATOR: 47-year-old
Hazel met Glenn through her son, Adam
Langford, while both
00:01:27
were serving prison sentences. She's a single mom. She's been sold a dream. Remember that.
00:01:33
Glyn Dix will have
sold her a dream. He will have convinced her
that he's a loving partner,
00:01:38
that he's going to
give her a new life, and finally, she
won't feel so alone. Adam had grown to be-- to
regard Glyn as perhaps his best
00:01:45
friend, certainly
a very good friend, but perhaps his best friend. NARRATOR: It was 1997 when she
was visiting Adam in prison
00:01:52
where he'd been locked up
following driving offenses. Glyn was Adam's cell mate.
00:01:58
So this is how he gets
introduced to Hazel. JEREMY COID: He appears
to her obviously
00:02:04
an attractive man, somebody
that she's interested in. They end up being pen pals,
00:02:09
JANE MONCKTON-SMITH: They
spark up a relationship. NARRATOR: Dix was 18 years into
a 20-year sentence, the kind
00:02:15
of punishment usually
handed down for the most heinous of crimes, yet Hazel
seemed to have few qualms
00:02:21
about befriending him. Would that change
when she knew more? JANE MONCKTON-SMITH:
There's already
00:02:27
some trust there
because, really, her son is sharing a cell. NARRATOR: Jane Monckton-Smith
is a leading criminologist.
00:02:36
All of those questions
and answers about, is this a trustworthy person,
have been done by somebody else
00:02:42
that Hazel trusts. So when she starts this
relationship with Dix, she's not concerned
about his past.
00:02:50
Hazel was soon regularly
visiting Dix in prison. And after a few months,
she announced to everybody
00:02:56
that she was in love, and that
they were going to get married. NARRATOR: By now, Hazel had
learned more about her fiance.
00:03:03
She knew that in
1980, Glyn Dix had been convicted of shooting
dead a young woman
00:03:09
called Pia Overbury. Dix tells her
some quite bizarre stories about how Pia died.
00:03:18
He comes up with some
strange story about being in the elite army, and
that he was involved
00:03:25
in this altercation,
and when he woke up, he had a shotgun in his
hand, and a woman was dead.
00:03:31
NARRATOR: Dix told
Hazel and her family that he'd been framed
for Pia's murder. It was an outlandish tale.
00:03:38
JANE MONCKTON-SMITH: But I think
because that trust had already started and been
built, and possibly,
00:03:45
Hazel was a bit vulnerable. He got away with those
stories and presented himself
00:03:50
as somebody who was
not dangerous at all. EMMA KENNY: You buy into the
narrative you want to believe.
00:03:55
Hazel wants to believe that Glyn
Dix is the man of her dreams, so she rationalizes a bias,
and that makes her believe it.
00:04:03
NARRATOR: The true
story of 32-year-old Pia Overbury's death was
much darker than Glyn
00:04:08
would have anyone believe. So we're in the 1970s. We are in Gloucester. NARRATOR: Then, in
his 20s, Glyn Dix
00:04:15
was a single man living alone. TONY KENT: He lived by the
docks, Gloucester Docks,
00:04:19
and that was particularly
rundown, even in comparison to the surrounding areas. It was a lot of some
bedsits and places
00:04:27
that we really look
at now as squats. And back then, she was really
struggling with getting
00:04:35
the rent from Glyn. She spent a lot of her time
going around there, being forced to just knock on the
door and asking to be paid,
00:04:43
and she never was. NARRATOR: As Pia Overbury
and her daughters were forced to make
weekly visits to his home,
00:04:50
Dix would subject
them to increasingly unnerving behavior. Pia's daughter was a
young child at the time.
00:05:05
She was called Maxine. Now, she recounts
that when they used to go to try and collect
rent, she would feel very
00:05:11
uncomfortable in his presence. He would sometimes make
strange faces at her. TONY KENT: What
Pia didn't realize
00:05:17
was she was dealing with
a ticking time-bomb. And by the mere fact of asking
to be paid for the rent that
00:05:23
was due, she had placed
herself very much in the firing line of that time-bomb. NARRATOR: It was unclear if his
bizarre, sometimes frightening
00:05:33
behavior was the result
of a psychiatric disorder or simply that he was an
unpleasant personality.
00:05:39
Whichever, Glyn Dix was
not willing to accept Pia's regular visits
to demand the rent.
00:05:45
I can see that
he would not have liked somebody like Pia to have
been in a position of power
00:05:52
over him. And, of course, him
not paying his rent meant that's exactly
where she was,
00:05:58
and she wasn't going anywhere. NARRATOR: He made the decision
she had to be stopped.
00:06:03
What he did next confirmed
how vulnerable Pia was. We can tell that Glyn Dix
is starting to unravel when
00:06:10
he goes and seeks to buy a gun. And he buys a gun from
Hastings, which is quite a long way away from him.
00:06:16
We do know that he
got this gun illegally. EMMA KENNY: But it
also shows that he now
00:06:21
thinks he's an imminent
threat, or he feels that he has to remove a situation. We do know about people
who revere weapons, display
00:06:31
weapons, want to
use weapons are more dangerous than other people. So we start to get a picture of
this man who likes to dominate,
00:06:43
who likes to frighten, and
now has an illegal gun. NARRATOR: On the 2nd of October,
1979, Pia Overbury disappeared.
00:06:54
It was her daughter
Maxine, wanting to celebrate her
own birthday, who first noticed that her mother
was not where she should be.
00:07:03
NEIL LANCASTER: Maxine went to
the cafe that Pia worked at. However, Pia wasn't there.
00:07:08
NARRATOR: Pia's
husband reported her missing to police
on the same day, but they had little
to help them.
00:07:14
What we have to
remember is this was 1979. This was a long time ago. NARRATOR: As a former detective
and surveillance specialist,
00:07:20
Neil Lancaster is used to
being able to follow a missing person's digital trail.
00:07:25
That's something that didn't
exist in the late 1970s. There were no phones
to track people by.
00:07:31
There were no bank records to
track people by because they were incredibly historic.
00:07:35
There was no CCTV. Now, I've got to say
that back in those days, missing persons were not taken
as seriously as they are today.
00:07:44
They were very often
thought of a wife's gone, maybe she's left her husband. This is nobody else's business.
00:07:49
There were no leads. There was nothing to go on. NARRATOR: For more
than two weeks,
00:07:54
Pia Overbury's family
searched for her. In October 1979, Mary
Redvers and her family
00:08:01
had just moved to the
picturesque parish of Hartpury in the Forest of Dean,
Gloucestershire in England.
00:08:07
MARY REDVERS: In the spring,
it's full of bluebells. It's lovely. And it's a very, very old wood.
00:08:12
It's called Carter's Grove
because they used to stop here on the way to market when
there was water for the cattle
00:08:20
and spend the night here. I think that's what's happened. But it's a very, very old wood.
00:08:24
It's very special and
it's just beautiful. NARRATOR: The 20th of October
was an unseasonably warm autumn
00:08:29
day. Mary and her young
children were exploring. MARY REDVERS: It's peaceful. And there's a lot
of birds down here.
00:08:37
And you feel it's an
ancient woodland, somehow. NARRATOR: In the idyllic scene,
Mary saw something unexpected.
00:08:43
MARY REDVERS: Well, there
was this pile of branches. And the leaves had
obviously fallen
00:08:48
off the branches
because it might have been there for some time. The first thing I saw was the
leg sticking out, of course.
00:08:55
NARRATOR: Crudely concealed,
the body of a woman. So obviously, when
he covered the body up,
00:09:00
they would have been
covered in leaves, so you wouldn't have
seen anything, probably.
00:09:03
And then, I got a bit closer and
I saw the head on the one side. So I said to the children
quickly, come on,
00:09:09
we must go back because there's
something rather nasty here. NARRATOR: Hoisting her tiny
daughter onto her shoulders
00:09:15
and taking the older
child by the hand, Mary Redvers made a hasty
retreat from the woods.
00:09:20
MARY REDVERS: I was frightened
because you think, oh, my gosh. Is there somebody behind a tree?
00:09:35
NARRATOR: Mary Redvers had
run from a murder scene, fearing for her own life. NEIL LANCASTER:
She rushes straight
00:09:42
off and raises the alarm. NARRATOR: Mary guided
police back to the spot. MARY REDVERS: I had no idea
that anybody was missing.
00:09:51
I didn't know anything
about it at all, nothing. NARRATOR: But officers attending
from Gloucester just five miles
00:09:56
away had a strong
suspicion whose body they were about to uncover. The stockinged legs
belonged to the missing
00:10:03
young mom of two, Pia Overbury. She had been shot in the face. This is now a murder inquiry.
00:10:10
Afterwards, my husband
said, oh, I think I remember hearing a shot. But then, people used to--
were allowed to come in here
00:10:17
and shoot rabbits, so we
didn't think anything of it. NEIL LANCASTER: They were
interviewing local residents.
00:10:22
They're interviewing the
tenants at the properties. TONY KENT: One
person that they were
00:10:26
inevitably going to
speak to was the tenant with whom she had issues. He wasn't the prime suspect.
00:10:32
No one was. He was just one of the
people on the list. NARRATOR: Glyn
Dix denied knowing
00:10:37
anything about Pia's death, and
was released after questioning. But the investigation
was gathering pace.
00:10:43
The police started a
fingertip search of the area where Pia's body was found. This would have been a
meticulous and systematic
00:10:50
exercise with a large
number of officers on their hands and knees
in amongst the leaves
00:10:55
and the undergrowth. During this, they
found Pia's handbag. This was a crucial finding.
00:11:00
It meant they were
in the right place, and they carried on searching. During the further search, they
found a 410 shotgun cartridge.
00:11:07
This was a crucial find. From that 410
cartridge, they were able to find the original owners
of the firearm that fired it.
00:11:14
They went to see them, and
they told them all about that they sold it to Dix. NARRATOR: Glyn Dix was
now the only real suspect
00:11:22
in his landlady's murder. But when police came to
interview him under caution, he wasn't at home.
00:11:28
After their first round
of routine questioning, Dix was feeling the
pressure of what he'd done.
00:11:34
Now, Dix can't handle this. The stress is far
too much for him. He takes an overdose, and
he's taken to hospital.
00:11:41
EMMA KENNY: It's not surprising
that Glyn Dix takes an overdose when the police questioned
him about where Pia is
00:11:46
or what might have
happened to her, because logistically,
he knows he's killed her
00:11:50
and he's not done the maths. He's not thought
about the next stage. So suddenly, he
feels that they know.
00:11:57
You've got to remember, Glyn
Dix has suspicious and paranoid thinking anyway. Now, he knows he's
done something wrong.
00:12:04
He's absolutely going to believe
that everyone knows the truth, so he's trying to escape,
and that's what he does.
00:12:09
He takes an overdose
and he tries to escape. NARRATOR: His suicide
attempt, unsuccessful.
00:12:15
Dix was now faced with
the fact that the police knew who was responsible for
the death of Pia Overbury.
00:12:22
JANE MONCKTON-SMITH:
When he gets to hospital, his behavior becomes
really concerning.
00:12:27
It's very erratic and strange. People start worrying that
he's not thinking properly,
00:12:33
responding properly,
so he actually ends up in a psychiatric unit. JEREMY COID: It's
believed that he
00:12:41
showed some symptoms looking
like those of schizophrenia at that time. NARRATOR: Professor Jeremy Coid
is a forensic psychiatrist who
00:12:49
works closely with
offenders who are seriously and mentally unwell. Schizophrenia is
a brain disease,
00:12:56
and we do not know
the true cause. It's thought that there is an
alteration of brain chemicals.
00:13:02
And what you actually get
is a series of symptoms which you diagnose the illness.
00:13:08
You have to have experiences
like hearing voices, people talking about you. You have to have your
thoughts interfered with.
00:13:16
You have to feel that
things around you take on a special meaning
that relate to you.
00:13:22
You have to have
delusional beliefs. Glyn Dix has
taken an overdose, and he's killed someone.
00:13:27
That's two big events in a
very short period of time. That shows the level of
stress that he's under.
00:13:33
Stress is a huge activator
of schizophrenic issues. So what we don't
know, whether he
00:13:41
had had those symptoms at
the time of the killing, or whether the stress-- and it is an extremely
stressful experience to have
00:13:50
been arrested for murder-- that actually tipped
him over the edge. NARRATOR: When police were
finally able to question Dix,
00:13:57
he was no longer
protesting his innocence. He broke down. He confessed. And he took them to
where that firearm was.
00:14:05
NARRATOR: Glyn Dix admitted
shooting Pia Overbury, but detectives and doctors were
baffled when he told them why.
00:14:13
He told them it was a
contract killing gone wrong. Pia had asked him to
help kill her husband.
00:14:20
Then, he told them that he was
putting Pia out of her misery because her marriage
was abusive.
00:14:25
Neither story was true. So I think that many
people have looked at those different
explanations and thought,
00:14:33
well, actually, this is an
example of pathological lying. And pathological
lying is something
00:14:40
you usually see with somebody
with a severe personality disorder. You do sometimes see it
in severe sex offenders.
00:14:46
And it's thought there might
have been strong sexual element in that first killing.
00:14:52
But I think there's another
possible explanation is that his mental state
was deteriorating,
00:14:59
and that it is possible that
he had sort of delusion. He truly believed that he was
involved in a contract killing.
00:15:07
NARRATOR: In July 1980, Glyn Dix
pleaded guilty to killing Pia. They have Dix's confession.
00:15:13
They have the firearm. He's taken them to it. He's shown them where it is. They have the bullet
that they found
00:15:18
at the scene, which
is now forensically linked to that firearm. It's a slam dunk case,
00:15:25
NARRATOR: It would be
20 years before Dix could be considered for parole. Jail guards and
prison inmates saw
00:15:30
a very different side to
him than the residents around Gloucester Docks. Throughout his time in
prison, however, he'd
00:15:36
been on medication. JANE MONCKTON-SMITH: Now,
all through his prison life, he seems to have
stayed under the radar,
00:15:43
maybe been a model prisoner. One of the differences
between Glyn Dix in prison and Glyn Dix outside of prison
is that prison has structure.
00:15:52
It really does. Some people fare better inside
than they do on the outside because they're given
the right medication,
00:15:57
they're fed at the right times. The stresses are lower because
you don't have to necessarily
00:16:02
worry about finding employment. And things are taken care of so
that you can essentially just
00:16:07
manage getting through the day. That's your job. Maybe that suited him. Maybe he's very suited to that
kind of prison environment.
00:16:17
NARRATOR: Andrew Fisher would
one day represent Glyn Dix. Mr. Dix was a long-term
schizophrenic, and as is not
00:16:26
uncommon with schizophrenics. They're fine when they're
on their medication. NARRATOR: Dix did so well inside
that he was eventually moved
00:16:33
to a minimum security jail. And it was here that
he met Adam Langford, an inmate in his early 20s.
00:16:40
I think that by
the time he has formed the friendship with Adam,
that he's essentially well.
00:16:46
He's symptom-free. And what you're actually
seeing is the real Dix, not the guy who's got all
these strange symptoms
00:16:56
and strange delusional beliefs. NARRATOR: Dix had
become a man that Adam was happy to introduce
to his mother.
00:17:03
JEREMY COID: When he met
Hazel, the likelihood is that he was mentally
well, that he'd been
00:17:07
well for quite a long time. NARRATOR: Glyn Dix may have
been managing the symptoms
00:17:11
of schizophrenia,
but he still hadn't told Adam or Hazel the truth
about Pia Overbury's death.
00:17:18
EMMA KENNY: One thing that's
deeply concerning about Glyn Dix is that he makes a complete
fabrication up regarding
00:17:24
why he was sent to prison. So somebody who is
sent to prison who knows that the reason
that they were sent down
00:17:30
was because they were
very severely mentally ill and acted in a terrible
way because of that
00:17:34
has a reason to be able
to explain behavior. You know, it was an awful time. I had a complete
break from reality.
00:17:40
Now I'm medicated. I'm well. But instead, he decides to
make this elaborate description
00:17:45
of the death that happened
where he wasn't involved. He just happened to
wake up next to a body.
00:17:49
JEREMY COID: He's giving
these accounts to the family, and that is beginning
to sound more, to me,
00:17:55
like the pathological lying. But, to be honest,
it is something that offenders who committed
very serious crimes sometimes
00:18:04
tell their nearest
and dearest of people with whom they
make relationships. They don't tell the truth
of what really happened,
00:18:12
so it's not uncommon. EMMA KENNY: So he's a liar. And also, he's unwilling
to take responsibility
00:18:18
for a crime he committed,
which means that he hasn't done any of
the work required
00:18:23
to actually be rehabilitated. NARRATOR: Did Dix have
an agenda in deceiving Hazel, the woman it now
appeared he was going to marry?
00:18:34
JEREMY COID: He seemed to
have a mission and a purpose, which was based on
delusional, essentially
00:18:41
distorted, crazy ideas. NARRATOR: Hazel Denver was
oblivious to the heinous crime
00:18:48
that her new fiance
had once committed. She met the man of her dreams. She wanted to believe what
Glyn Dix had told her.
00:18:54
Despite the fantastical nature
of this elaborate, ridiculous story, Hazel was in too deep.
00:19:02
She bought it and she
was taken in by it. She may have been lonely. She may just have,
again, been the victim
00:19:13
of an arch manipulator. He's got no other
focus in his life. He can focus
everything on Hazel.
00:19:20
He can make her
feel like a queen. He can make her feel like she's
the only person in his life
00:19:25
because the fact is, she is. NARRATOR: If Hazel
had any worries, she pushed them aside
and began to plan what
00:19:32
was an unconventional wedding. NEIL LANCASTER: On the 5th
of September, 1999, whilst
00:19:36
on day release,
Dix married Hazel. Family reported that
this was a nice day. It was a pleasant wedding.
00:19:43
He behaved like the
perfect gentleman, and the family
seemed to be coming around and accepting him.
00:19:48
NARRATOR: With Glen in a smart
suit, his blushing bride, a white dress and
blue coat, they
00:19:52
could have been taken as
any normal happy couple, but not all of the family
were there to throw
00:19:57
confetti over the newlyweds. The interesting thing is
that the family say that they
00:20:05
had misgivings about this. Now, obviously, you
might have misgivings if your mother's formed
a close relationship
00:20:14
and is going to get
married to somebody who has served 20 years for murder. NARRATOR: Two years
later, Mr. and Mrs. Dix
00:20:21
were able to begin married
life together in earnest. In 2001, after
20 years in prison,
00:20:27
Dix is released on life license. Now, this is not an entire
release from prison.
00:20:33
He is subject to
recall at any second. Any small infraction on
his conditions of release,
00:20:39
he can be recalled
to prison, so he would be living with
this over his head, like the Sword of Damocles.
00:20:44
He had been medicated. He had received all of the
treatment that he can receive.
00:20:49
And as a society,
we work on the basis that everyone's redeemable. After 20 years, he proved
himself redeemable,
00:20:56
and so, the system deemed
him no longer dangerous. And the system released him. NEIL LANCASTER: They settled
down in a house in Redditch.
00:21:04
He's completely
accepted by the family. And they just seem like
a normal married couple.
00:21:09
NARRATOR: He killed once. Would he meet, marry,
and kill again? The couple's first
indeed only home together
00:21:25
was a 1970s terraced
council house on Seymour Drive
on the outskirts of the Worcestershire
town of Redditch.
00:21:32
And their new neighbors were
unaware of Glyn's history. There was nothing
about his behavior
00:21:36
that would have given him away. They were described
by everybody as being this absolutely
wonderful couple, not just
00:21:42
Hazel. It wasn't, well, she's lovely,
but look at her husband. They were very popular.
00:21:46
They were very well regarded. He was carrying on with
his life very properly. There was no question,
for instance,
00:21:53
of any domestic violence
or any trouble between he and his wife, Hazel. He was described as having
a close, loving relationship,
00:22:03
certainly in the initial
period after he was released. NARRATOR: For two years,
Hazel and Glyn Dix
00:22:08
lived happily together. But without prison doctors
monitoring his mental health,
00:22:14
how long could that last? Is he being watched
regarding medication? Is he taking medication
at the right times?
00:22:21
Because if he isn't, that
can put him and everybody around him in extreme danger.
00:22:29
JEREMY COID: We don't know
or have enough information as to whether he was also
receiving supervision
00:22:35
from a psychiatrist. It will appear, for the
benefit of hindsight, that he certainly should
have received that.
00:22:41
He thought that he was well. And plainly, he'd stop
taking his medication. NARRATOR: In fact,
life as a free man
00:22:49
came with new challenges, ones
that Dix hadn't faced in his 20 years of incarceration,
like finding a job,
00:22:56
actually living
with someone itself, and all without his medication. Now that he's
left prison, he's
00:23:02
got all these other stresses,
from an extended family to struggling to find
employment, money worries.
00:23:08
NARRATOR: Not only
that, but the very state of being in a close relationship
may have triggered a recurrence
00:23:13
of Dix's schizophrenia. JEREMY COID: Some individuals
cannot tolerate intimacy. It's actually
stressful on a very
00:23:20
deep level within the mind. It's believed that the
relapse in schizophrenia, in to symptoms like hearing
voices and delusional beliefs
00:23:30
is triggered by a big shift
in the mood and the emotions. And so it's possible
that that had
00:23:40
been a sort of slow but
steady triggering factor. The closer he got to Hazel,
the more on another level--
00:23:52
I know this is
somewhat complex-- on another level, it was
something intolerable to him
00:23:58
and actually began
to make the illness come back and worse and worse. NARRATOR: It's
not clear if Hazel
00:24:06
Dix noticed the deterioration
in her husband's mental state. After all, their relationship
had always been based on trust
00:24:12
and perhaps blind optimism. Hazel trust the medics
who said that Glyn Dix is completely well and
can go on to live
00:24:21
a happy, healthy life with her. This is all a false foundation,
but a very believable one.
00:24:26
Because if you can't trust the
doctors, well, who on Earth can you trust? JANE MONCKTON-SMITH: I think
that to live with, Hazel would
00:24:33
have found him
challenging and difficult. But he had on his
side that he'd spent
00:24:40
the last 20 years in prison. Perfect excuse for all
these strange behaviors that she probably thought,
yeah, fair enough.
00:24:47
He needs to readjust. He's had a difficult life. The outside is
something new to him.
00:24:54
So there's all sorts of ways
that Hazel would have perhaps seen and recognize things she
didn't like, but had already
00:25:02
made an excuse for them. NARRATOR: She may also have been
ignorant about whether Dix was
00:25:08
following a medication routine. ANDREW FISHER: It's
not uncommon for people who are on long-term medication
that their partners or those
00:25:16
who live with them
don't necessarily know whether they're
taking the medication,
00:25:21
whether they're taking
the proper dosage at the right time. And it may well be
that his wife may not
00:25:25
have realized quite
how ill he was, or what the effects
of that would be. I think in probably the
last year they were together,
00:25:33
his mind is progressively
deteriorating and he's getting
sicker and sicker. And sadly, nobody's
picking this up.
00:25:41
NARRATOR: Hazel's son Adam may
also have been oblivious to how unhinged his stepfather had
become, until that is one
00:25:49
humid, stormy afternoon, three
years after Dix's release from prison. On Saturday the
19th of June 2004,
00:25:57
his old cellmate, Adam,
goes to visit his mom at Seymour Drive in Redditch. Can't get in.
00:26:03
So he knocks the door. There's no answer. So he phones. And Dix answers
the phone and says,
00:26:10
oh, yeah, come around the back.
Come in. Come on in. NEIL LANCASTER:
The gate is locked.
00:26:14
Now, that's unusual. So he picks up the phone
and phones the house. And he says, well,
yeah, I'm here.
00:26:19
Come in. Words to that effect. So he leaps over the fence. He came around to
the back of the house,
00:26:24
looked through the kitchen
window where he saw Mr. Dix. The sight that greeted him
was frankly absolutely horrific.
00:26:32
NEIL LANCASTER: Adam is met
with a scene of utter carnage. Dix is naked. There is blood everywhere.
00:26:40
There are tools everywhere. NARRATOR: With
extreme trepidation, Adam opened the door into
his mother's kitchen.
00:26:49
Having seen Mr. Dix
in the kitchen naked, he thought it was some
animal or something
00:26:55
that he must be slaughtering. And he only realized
it was his mother when he saw her severed
head, looking at it.
00:27:04
JANE MONCKTON-SMITH:
Dix had killed Hazel. But not only had
he killed her, he had dismembered and
mutilated her body,
00:27:16
and was still in the process of
interacting with Hazel's body naked himself, covered
in blood, when Hazel's
00:27:25
son walked into the room. Her body parts are in bags. A scene of unimaginable horror.
00:27:31
NARRATOR: It was a
scene that defied belief, as did Dix's words
when Adam walked into the room.
00:27:37
When Dix is aware the Adam's
in the kitchen with him, he looks at him and
simply says, unbelievably,
00:27:44
we've had a little argument. That shows you just
how far from reality he is that he's actually telling
the son of the woman he is now
00:27:55
mutilating that there has
been a small disagreement and this is the result. It's almost like he's
getting some perverse joy from,
00:28:05
look at the chaos
that I've done, that I'm in the
middle of, and see how I'm belittling it by saying,
oh, it's just an argument.
00:28:13
What's your problem? NARRATOR: After a tussle,
Adam fled the house and alerted the police.
00:28:18
They were on the
scene within minutes. Dix appears relaxed,
unfazed, calm. It's almost like this is normal.
00:28:24
He doesn't try to run away. He doesn't try to flee. He just sits and waits. He admitted his
responsibility, absolutely.
00:28:32
There was no question of him
trying to get out of it at all. JEREMY COID: Dix said
that they had had
00:28:36
an argument over a TV program. EMMA KENNY: That was
the moment that sealed her fate, turning a channel.
00:28:43
That's just how
dangerous that man was. He was just a predator
waiting to pounce.
00:28:49
And that moment tipped
him over the edge. NARRATOR: Dix told
officers at the scene
00:28:53
something else that, to
them, made very little sense. He said that she liked things
tidy, and he was cleaning up.
00:29:04
Now, two statements. One is he says he's been-- implied he's been provoked by
an argument over a TV channel.
00:29:14
The second, he says something,
which to most people, apart from the psychiatrist,
is totally bizarre.
00:29:22
He says he is tidying up. He's standing with a knife in
his hand when Adam finds him.
00:29:29
He's covered in blood, and
Hazel body parts about. Whilst this seems a frenzied,
brutal, horrific attack,
00:29:37
which it clearly is, there also
seems to be element of thought, of care, of a systematic
approach by Dix
00:29:45
to this unimaginable horror. JEREMY COID: In
dismembering the body, his thought says
that he was tidying
00:29:54
up, that he's doing this
because she liked things tidy. It's a sort of form of
distortion of the logic.
00:30:02
So it's logical to him, but
actually, he's killing here. He's dismembering her body.
00:30:07
And there's something
almost dreamlike about it, isn't there? NARRATOR: With Dix taken
into secure custody,
00:30:13
officers were able to examine
the gruesome scene and what remained of 54-year-old
Hazel's body.
00:30:19
They would need to make
sense of the carnage that they surveyed
before deciding what to do with Glyn Dix.
00:30:42
After just five years, Glyn
and Hazel Dix's marriage had ended in a bloodbath. TONY KENT: What we know
is that in the course
00:30:52
of a normal domestic
day, something triggers Glyn Dix to stab
Hazel, and then to effectively
00:31:02
chop her body up. Almost ritual butchery. NARRATOR: A key plank in the
investigation which followed
00:31:09
was whether or not Glyn Dix
was so mentally damaged, so mad that he couldn't face trial.
00:31:17
Dix had used a knife,
hacksaw, and scissors to cut off his victims
hands, arms, and legs.
00:31:22
Using at least 12
different tools, he had removed her heart,
liver, and kidneys.
00:31:28
NEIL LANCASTER: There
were elements and evidence here of a systematic approach,
the placement of the tools,
00:31:34
the way the body
was decapitated, the way the head
was removed, the way the organs were removed.
00:31:40
TONY KENT: He had
taken Hazel's heart. He had taken it from
her body, and he had placed it in the freezer.
00:31:46
NARRATOR: Dix told
the police that he'd done this to preserve his wife. It shows you how
distorted his reality is.
00:31:52
It's impossible to make sense of
it from an outside observation because you can't imagine what
it would be like, as they say
00:31:59
in human, to have such insane
chaos going on within your mind where, to the rest of the world,
your behavior seems outrageous,
00:32:08
diabolical, but to you, in
those moments, makes sense. So for Glyn Dix,
this makes sense.
00:32:17
NARRATOR: There were signs
too that Dix had become preoccupied with the devil. There is a
satanist salute which
00:32:23
involves the two outer fingers. And when he was cutting
up Hazel's body, Glyn Dix formed her
hand into that salute
00:32:32
by removing the fingers that
weren't part of the salute. He's described as
painting bizarre paintings
00:32:38
on the wall which have
sinister implication. JANE MONCKTON-SMITH:
He had done some very
00:32:44
strange things, especially
in artwork and things around the house. He's been reading the
Book of Revelations.
00:32:50
Interesting how often
Revelations seem to feature in the minds of people
with schizophrenia
00:32:57
when they become
severely psychotic. There was evidence of
his interest in the occult.
00:33:04
There was extracts from
the Book of Revelations in the Bible that
talks about the devil,
00:33:10
and about what the devil
allows people to do. JEREMY COID: It's quite
likely that, at one stage,
00:33:18
he actually identified himself
as the beast, the beast, 666. And so he actually
has to carry out
00:33:29
what he has read about
in the most awful, graphic way for the evil one. And so that is what's
actually driving him.
00:33:41
He was also quoting, at one
point, the Book of Revelations and the Book of
Revelations talking
00:33:46
about the 42 months in which
the beast is suppressed. He killed Hazel 42 months
after his release from prison.
00:33:56
NARRATOR: Had Dix genuinely
become a follower of Satan? I know that many people
think that he might have
00:34:06
been a sadistic
killer, a satanist, and that that's why he did it. A sadistic psychopath.
00:34:14
I'm not convinced by that. I think that his
illness had come back, and that he had progressively
lapsed into deeper
00:34:25
and deeper psychosis. EMMA KENNY: We have to remember
that as a schizophrenic human
00:34:31
being, your brain is constantly
playing tricks with you, and you're looking for relief.
00:34:37
You're looking for
things to make sense. And you can make sense of things
in the strangest of places
00:34:43
when your brain is delusional. JEREMY COID: I don't think
there's any evidence that he
00:34:49
met with other people and danced
around bonfires or anything like that, but I
think that he truly
00:34:54
believed that he was in
league or in touch with Satan. EMMA KENNY: His interest
may have been him trying
00:35:01
to make sense of the awful,
catastrophic feelings and thoughts that were
going on in his mind,
00:35:07
as opposed to him sacrificially
taking Hazel's life. NARRATOR: When he took
on Glyn Dix's case,
00:35:13
barrister Andrew
Fisher believed firmly that his client was suffering
from a break with reality.
00:35:18
I was first instructed,
I would think, a few weeks after the
murder had taken place.
00:35:23
NARRATOR: Fisher pushed
for Dix to undergo assessment by a psychiatrist. ANDREW FISHER: The very
facts of the offense
00:35:28
itself was so bizarre and
unusual that it could only have been committed by someone who
was seriously mentally ill,
00:35:35
in my view. My instructing solicitors,
though, had already obtained a medical
report, but that report
00:35:42
had been obtained from the
hospital that had released him from his previous sentence
and had suggested that there
00:35:49
was nothing wrong with him. NARRATOR: This may well
have been the case in 2001 when the parole board signed
off the release from prison.
00:35:56
Essentially to
get out, he's going to have to show that
he is mentally stable and demonstrate
that he no longer
00:36:03
poses a risk to the public. At that time, he
must have been well enough for everybody to believe
that he was totally stable.
00:36:10
NARRATOR: But, of
course, at the time, Dix was regularly taking
medication for schizophrenia.
00:36:15
EMMA KENNY: He stops
taking his medication. And the minute that he
stops taking his medication,
00:36:21
things will undoubtedly
start to unravel. ANDREW FISHER: That had its
effect that the schizophrenia
00:36:26
coming back and became
severely mentally ill and became psychotic. NARRATOR: The assessment carried
out prior to Dix's release
00:36:34
from prison could
bear little relation to his mental state on the
day that he killed his wife.
00:36:38
But Glyn Dix was not
interested in defending or explaining away his actions. ANDREW FISHER: I went
and had a conference
00:36:45
with him at Long
Lartin prison where he was being held in custody. He was utterly mortified.
00:36:50
He didn't really
wish to discuss it. He just kept on repeating
how much he regretted it
00:36:58
and how sorry he was. He was only interested in
pleading guilty to murder. However, as his legal
representatives,
00:37:08
we weren't sure that that was
the right outcome legally. Of course, there was
no dispute that he
00:37:12
had killed her in this
horrific and bizarre way. We felt it was
our responsibility
00:37:18
to ensure that we got the
right outcome in law for him, which meant trying to establish
from the psychiatrists
00:37:28
whether he was, in
legal terms, insane, which meant he didn't really
know what he was doing.
00:37:35
It's very obvious to me that
he was floridly psychotic, and that insanity
is a legal term.
00:37:47
But it looked to me
that, at that time, there was an argument that
he was legally insane.
00:37:52
He was so psychotic that he
didn't know what he was doing or, more importantly, didn't
know the nature of his act.
00:38:00
ANDREW FISHER: What happened
was when the first hearing before the court, I informed
the judge that we were not
00:38:11
satisfied about
his mental health, and therefore, we
needed reports before we could progress with the case.
00:38:19
But Mr. Dix himself
wasn't having any of that. And he stood up in
the dock and then told
00:38:25
the judge he was pleading
guilty, admitted the offense, and that was that. NARRATOR: On the 16th
of December 2005,
00:38:33
a judge at Birmingham
Crown Court accepted Glyn Dix's guilty plea. He took the view that he
couldn't prevent the defendant
00:38:41
from pleading guilty, even
though we weren't satisfied about his mental health. The judge, his primary
concern is that Dix is
00:38:50
of a major risk to the public. But I think that most people
looking at this case would say,
00:38:55
my goodness me, he's
done it 20 years ago and he's gone and done it again. So the judge's main
concern is that he
00:39:04
is to protect the public. The best way to be
entirely sure is to give him a whole life sentence.
00:39:10
All the time, of course, it
was acknowledged that there was no way that he would ever
be released from whatever
00:39:16
institution he was
held in, whether it was a hospital or a prison. If he'd been found not
guilty by reason of insanity,
00:39:23
he would have been sent
to a mental hospital with a restriction not to be
released along with the consent
00:39:27
of the home secretary. We would never agree to
release him, obviously, because of his
history and the fact
00:39:32
he had previously committed
a killing before this one. NEIL LANCASTER: He now becomes
one of the few convicted
00:39:39
British criminals who will
never ever see the light of day again. NARRATOR: Not long
after his conviction,
00:39:46
the prison authorities
quickly came to the conclusion that jail was not the
right place for Glyn Dix.
00:39:53
ANDREW FISHER: He was initially
remanded in the prison, at Long Lartin prison, which
was a category A prison.
00:39:58
On his reception into Liverpool
and to Ashworth hospital, they realized he was
seriously mentally ill.
00:40:05
I believe that Dix ended
up in the right place. ANDREW FISHER: Hospitals are for
very dangerous people, people
00:40:16
who, with their
mental illness, become psychotic and very dangerous. NARRATOR: Hazel's family may
have derived some satisfaction
00:40:25
from seeing her
killer, a man she loved and trusted enough to
marry, locked away for life.
00:40:30
But the scars left
from her brutal slaying have never fully healed. Tragically, 10 years
after this event, Adam died.
00:40:41
He never got over this. We must imagine what it
must have been like for him to see his mother
for the last time
00:40:48
in the circumstances
which he did. ANDREW FISHER:
One can't possibly envisage the devastating effect
that must have had on him
00:40:54
for the rest of his life. NARRATOR: In accordance
with his whole life tariff, Glyn Dix spent the
remainder of his life
00:41:00
securely incarcerated
in Ashworth high-security hospital. He died there in 2014
at the age of 60.
00:41:36
[music playing]