The missed opportunities in 26-year wait to bring serial killer Steve Wright to justice
Details emerging from the 26-year wait to bring Victoria Hall’s killer to justice have revealed many missed opportunities that could have allowed police to catch him sooner.
Steve Wright, known as the Suffolk strangler, kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered the schoolgirl on September 19, 1999, then dumped her naked body in a ditch.
The 67-year-old was only arrested for Ms Hall’s death in 2021.
By then he was serving a life sentence for the murder of five women he abducted near his home in Ipswich in 2006.
Here we detail some of the missed opportunities that led to a wait of more than a quarter of a century for Wright to be sentenced for Victoria’s murder.
Emily Doherty’s account was rejected
The night before he kidnapped Victoria, Wright tried to kidnap another woman, Emily Doherty, then 22, in Felixstowe.
Miss Doherty realized she was in danger and managed to escape Wright’s clutches after taking refuge in a couple’s home and calling the police.
In the statement, he explained how the special police officers who came to the address closed his account.
“When I told them what happened, the first question they asked me was ‘How much did you drink tonight?’ “It happened,” he said.
“They didn’t believe me.”
He told them about the car’s registration but said they had not noted anything he mentioned and declined their offer to go to the police station the next morning.
He said: “They told me to forget the whole thing. I wasn’t in the UK when the police decided they wanted my details. I gave as much detail as I could on the phone. I could definitely remember his face but there was no number plate.”
Ms Doherty continued: “For 25 years I wondered what would have happened. If they had taken my statement, would Victoria still be alive?”
“Or at least they could have found the killer sooner. And if it really was Steve Wright, the London Road murders wouldn’t have happened.”
Investigation into Wright’s car is being halted
The court heard that in 2000 police stopped their investigation into possible means linked to Victoria’s abduction based on Ms Doherty’s statement.
There were 56 vehicles identified in Suffolk with registered owners matching the partial registration number given by Ms Doherty, including Wright’s Ford Granada Scorpio.
The court heard a senior investigating officer at the time described the investigation into the vehicle owners as saying “no further action was required”.
The prosecution said police did not take into account the possible additional portion of records provided by Ms Doherty and that if they had taken into account the list of suspicious vehicles would have been reduced to 10.
The court was told Wright sold his Ford Granada Scorpio on a part exchange just days after the murder.
Wright’s DNA
In 1995, Wright accepted a police caution after allegedly damaging and stealing a car belonging to his former partner.
The court heard no DNA sample was taken from him at the time.
In 2001, Wright was accused of a string of burglaries, to which he confessed, and his conviction led to his DNA being added to the national database.
DNA eventually led to his identification as a suspect in the murders of Tania Nicol, Gemma Adams, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls.
But it took further scientific advances before Wright’s DNA was linked to samples taken from Victoria’s body.
Wright’s behavior
The defendant’s behavior after Victoria’s murder may have aroused suspicion among colleagues at the port of Felixstowe where he worked.
He reported an injury at work the day his body was found and did not speak when co-workers started talking about the murder.
A few days later a colleague asked him what he thought, and Wright gave him a menacing look and said: “You don’t want to know.”
