Suffolk serial killer Steve Wright admits murdering 17-year-old in 1999 | Suffolk murders
A serial killer convicted of five murders 20 years ago has admitted killing his sixth victim, teenager Victoria Hall.
Victoria was 17 when she disappeared on a night out more than 25 years ago. On Monday, Steve Wright admitted the kidnap and murder in September 1999, as well as the attempted kidnapping of Emily Doherty, then 22, in Felixstowe the day before.
Wright, 67, was due to stand trial at the Old Bailey for the murder but changed his plea at the last minute. His Honor Judge Bennathan said he would sentence Wright on Friday to give Victoria’s family the chance to attend and submit victim impact statements.
This was the first time Wright confessed to a murder, despite his family’s confession. Balding and bespectacled, Wright appeared at the Old Bailey dock in London on Monday wearing a navy blue and gray jumper and spoke only to confirm his name and make a request.
Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC confirmed Victoria’s friend Gemma Algar and Doherty would also give evidence.
Wright, a former sailor who is being held at HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire, is currently serving a life sentence for the murders of five women.
The guilty pleas came after the judge ruled that jurors could be notified of the murder convictions, even though his defense complained the bias would be too great.
Last month, the prosecution highlighted the similarities between Victoria’s murder and the murders for which Wright was previously convicted, saying all six women were strangled and left in similar places and shared the same physical type.
The prosecution also argued for the trial to include evidence from a sex worker whom Wright knew well and who said she was familiar with the area linked to Victoria’s murder.
Victoria, of Trimley St Mary in Suffolk, had left home on the evening of September 18, 1999, for a night out with Algar at the Bandbox nightclub in Felixstowe.
Five days later his body was found in a ditch at Creeting St Peter, about 40 kilometers from where he was last seen. The sixth former Victoria had hoped to study sociology at university in Roehampton, Surrey, before she was murdered.
A year after his murder, his parents, Graham and Lorinda Hall, appealed for help to bring the killer to justice. His father stated that he remained optimistic at that time and said, “Whoever did this must have been under as much pressure as we were. They always put this on their conscience.” Her mother died in December last year before her daughter’s killer could be brought to justice.
In 2006, the people of Ipswich lived through six weeks of terror as detectives searched for a serial killer in their midst.
On October 30 that year, 19-year-old Tania Nicol disappeared from the town’s red light district and was followed nearly two weeks later by 25-year-old Gemma Adams. Nicol’s body was found in a stream in Hintlesham on 2 December and then on 8 December Nicol’s remains were found in a pond in Copdock.
Two days later, the body of 24-year-old Anneli Alderton was found in woods in Nacton, prompting calls for sex workers in the Ipswich area to stay off the streets. On December 12, the bodies of Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, were found near woods in Levington.
Wright was arrested at his home in Ipswich a week later. Pathology evidence shows that all the women were strangled or suffocated. During a hearing at Ipswich crown court in 2008, prosecutors said Wright “systematically selected and murdered” women after wandering the streets around his home. He was seen wandering around the red light district around the time the women disappeared. DNA and fibers were found on the women, linked to their clothes, home and car.
After he was convicted of five murders, relatives of the victims and Wright’s father, Conrad Wright, said he should be executed. Ordering him a rare life sentence, Mr Justice Gross said the murders involved premeditation and planning.
