On
this date, 19 December 2006, The Suffolk Strangle, Steve Wright, was
apprehended. I will post information about this serial killer from Wikipedia.
Steve Wright
Steven Gerald James Wright (born 24 April 1958) is an English
serial killer, also known as the Suffolk Strangler. He is currently
serving life imprisonment for the murder of five women who worked as sex
workers in Ipswich, Suffolk. The killings took place during late 2006 and
Wright was found guilty in February 2008.
Early
life
Wright
was born in the Norfolk village of Erpingham, the second of four children of military
policeman Conrad and veterinary nurse Patricia. He has an older
brother, David, and two younger sisters, Jeanette and Tina. While Wright's
father was on military service, the family had lived in both Malta and Singapore.
Wright's mother left in 1964 when he was 6; his father divorced his mother in
1977; both later remarried. Wright and his siblings lived with their father,
who fathered a son, Keith, and daughter, Natalie, with his second wife, Valerie.
Wright
left school in 1974 and soon afterwards joined the Merchant Navy, becoming a chef on ferries
sailing from Felixstowe, Suffolk. In 1978 in Milford
Haven, he married Angela O'Donovan. They had a son, Michael. The couple
separated in 1987, and later divorced. Wright became a steward on the QE2, a lorry driver,
a barman and, just prior to his arrest, a forklift
truck driver. Former sex-worker Lindi
St Clair said she was attacked by Steve Wright in the 1980s. His second
marriage was to 32-year-old Diane Cassell at Braintree
register office in August 1987. They split in July 1988 while he was a pub
landlord in Norwich.
He
was in a relationship with Sarah Whiteley from 1989–1993, and they had a
daughter together, born in 1992. It was during this time that he also managed a
public house in South London. This post was lost due to his gambling
and heavy drinking. He was convicted in 2001 of theft, stealing £80
to pay off his debts. This was his only criminal conviction prior to the
murders.
It
is known that throughout these times Wright built up large debts largely
through gambling, and had recently been declared bankrupt. Wright had twice
tried to commit suicide, first by carbon monoxide poisoning in his car in
1994; secondly in 2000, by an overdose of pills. A Thai
woman, Somchit Chomphusaeng, claimed that she married Wright in Thailand in
1999. However, after their two week honeymoon, he flew back to Britain and she
received a letter, supposedly from his mother, informing her that he had been
stabbed to death. When shown photographs of Wright, after his arrest in
Ipswich, his Thai "widow" gasped: "Oh my God! That's my
husband!" before fainting. Later, she said: "It must be his ghost. I
was told he'd been murdered."
Suffolk
murders
Main article: Ipswich serial murders
Wright
met Pamela Wright (the shared surname was coincidental) in 2001 in Felixstowe
and they moved to the house in Ipswich together in 2004. Wright had always
admitted that he used sex-workers and had done since he was in the Merchant
Navy, and continually throughout his life. In Ipswich he admitted he went to
certain massage and sauna establishments that were actually brothels.
Throughout his trial he had stated that he had used professional sex-workers on
many occasions, including three of the victims and when his partner began
working night
shifts and their sex life became almost non-existent, he returned to using
professional sex-workers who were based on the nearby streets, procuring a
dozen in the final three months of 2006.
Between
30 October and 10 December 2006, Wright murdered five sex-workers in Ipswich.
Forensic evidence led to his arrest on 19 December. At the time of the murders
Wright was working as a forklift truck driver. He was found guilty of all five
murders on 21 February 2008. On the following day, he was sentenced to life
imprisonment and the judge recommended that he
should never be released.
It
was announced on 19 March 2008 that Wright was to appeal his convictions, but
on 2 February 2009, it was announced that Wright had decided to drop this
appeal case.
Prostitutes
nicknamed him "Mondeo Man" and "Silver-Backed Gorilla",
because of his hair colour and stocky build, and some said he liked dressing up
in tight women's clothing, and wearing a black curly wig. Tiny flecks of blood
were found on the back seats of Steve Wright's Ford
Mondeo, and partially matched the DNA profile of Paula Clennell.
Possible
links to other crimes
Wright
is still being investigated in connection with other unsolved murders and
disappearances. He is one of a number of high-profile murderers or sex
offenders to have been identified as possible suspects in the Suzy
Lamplugh case; he had worked with Lamplugh on the QE2 ocean liner
during the early 1980s. Lamplugh went missing in London in July 1986 and was
legally declared dead in 1994, but her body has never been found. However, the Metropolitan Police have stated that this is
not a strong line of enquiry.
Cleveland
Police have not ruled out a link between Wright and the murder of Vicky
Glass, a heroin addict who vanished from Middlesbrough
in September 2000 and whose naked body was later found in a brook on the North
York Moors.
In
June 2012 criminologist David Wilson suggested that the killer
of Norwich prostitute Michelle Bettles may have been Wright, but his theory was
dismissed by the police.
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