Original subtitles

- MALE NARRATOR: 23rd of October, 1983,

Dore, South Yorkshire, England, Basil Laitner, his wife, Avril,

and their children, Richard and Nicola, had settled in

for the night.

They'd been hosting their eldest daughter's wedding

earlier that day.

Unbeknownst to them, a stranger armed with a knife

had broken into their house.

- GEOFFREY: He creeps up the stairs and mistakenly

thinks that Nicola is in the room with the

bridesmaid's dress on the door and goes in.

He discovers that it's not Nicola, it's Richard.

He wastes no time in killing Richard Laitner with a series

of vicious knife wounds.

- NARRATOR: The deadly commotion woke father Basil

who went to investigate, he too was stabbed to death.

The killer was 42-year-old Arthur Hutchinson, a violent

criminal and rapist who was on the run from the police.

After murdering Basil and Richard he made his way

to mother Avril's bedroom, where he stabbed her

repeatedly.

- ELIZABETH: She had 26 marks of violence

on her body, it was much more violence than he needed

to actually end her life.

- NARRATOR: The killer then made his way to

18-year-old Nicola's bedroom, he raped the teenager

multiple times before going on the run once again.

- ALAN: You'd had this very happy occasion,

this big family wedding, and then 12 hours later

the world's being turned on its head and poor Nicky Laitner,

her life changed forever.

- NARRATOR: His history of violence culminated

in an unthinkable attack, a sadistic rape of an

18-year-old girl, having just murdered her parents

and elder brother in cold blood.

This makes Arthur Hutchinson one of the world's most

evil killers.

- ♪

- NARRATOR: On the morning of October the 24th, 1983

workmen made their way to Basil Laitner's house

to dismantle the marquee in the garden, they made

a startling discovery.

- MICHAEL: They found Nicola in a most dreadful state,

totally traumatized.

They call the police and they realize the horrific nature

of the crime.

The major incident team were called out and I was

part of that.

- He wreaked utter devastation in a matter of minutes,

he took out three prominent members of the local

community and raped a young woman.

- NARRATOR: News of the Wedding Day Massacre

hit the headlines and spread fear across the whole

of the nation.

The killer, Arthur Hutchinson, had been on the run for

26 days and quickly became Britain's most wanted man.

- It's only a few years after the arrest of Peter Sutcliffe

for Yorkshire Ripper and you'd seen a reign of terror.

People remembered very quickly.

And you've got a knifeman on the loose, a man who's

been prepared to kill three people in cold blood.

So, very quickly, people changing their patterns

of behavior and women wouldn't go out at night

unaccompanied.

- NARRATOR: As fear gripped the nation, the brazen killer

who had a history of violent and sexual offenses,

even taunted the police whilst on the run

and gave himself the nickname The Fox.

- He wants to be recognized, he wants infamy, he wants

to develop a brand, he wants people to fear him.

- He's sadistic, he's cruel, he has no empathy for anyone.

- NARRATOR: This killer's story begins on

the 19th of February, 1941.

Arthur Hutchinson was born in Hartlepool in the

northeast of England.

- GEOFFREY: Arthur Hutchinson was born

into an extraordinary family, in fact it was two families

in the end.

His mother Louise had a husband called Cuthbert,

with whom she had six children, but they also had

a lodger called Arthur Hutchinson, with whom Louise

had two further children, the first of which was

Arthur Hutchinson, named after his father.

- NARRATOR: Mother Louise eventually set up home

with Arthur Hutchinson, senior.

For their son, Arthur, growing up wasn't easy.

- His siblings didn't like him, they made fun of him,

he was an illegitimate child and they were legitimate

children.

So right from the word go, he was an outsider,

he was excluded, he was marginalized even within

his own family.

- NARRATOR: But young Hutchinson was close

to his mother, and would often seek comfort from her.

- There's not a lot of doubt in my mind that

Arthur Hutchinson was Louise Reardon's favorite child.

This was probably exacerbated by the fact he caught

meningitis as a small boy and would therefore have been

extremely ill, it was a nasty disease to catch

as a young child.

And then he rode into a lampost on his bicycle,

fracturing his skull.

- And he was in a coma for three days, he had

quite a significant injury to his head.

- And what happens in things like head injuries,

in some cases, it weakens inhibitory controls

and then you act out more impulsively than you might

otherwise do.

- I don't think that head injury led him to become

a murderer, I think it might be a factor in the background.

Because we can see when we study convicted killers

that there are higher rates of traumatic brain injury

in them than there are in the general population,

but it's certainly not a causative reason

and it's not an excuse.

- NARRATOR: At school, Hutchinson struggled

academically and was often teased by his five sisters.

- That type of bullying, and teasing, and humiliation

as a child stays with people, and it harbors an enormous

amount of anger.

They just build up so much resentment of people

that they want to get back at who hurt them.

- Hutchinson's anger with his sisters, who were making

his life a misery, was to display itself very forcefully

at the age of seven, when he stabbed one of them

with a pair of scissors.

- NARRATOR: As he grew older, Hutchinson became

disruptive, and his behavior towards the opposite sex

was disturbing.

- From a very, very early age, Hutchinson was interested

in sex, and he took the most

profound interest in it.

- At age 11, he finds himself in juvenile court for

indecent assault, now this is a really, really serious crime

for an 11-year-old to be committing.

And these crimes do not just emerge out of the blue,

there tends to be an escalation of behavior.

So this suggests to me that you have a child here

who doesn't care about harming other people.

- He must have only just hit puberty, but I think

the moment he did, every kind of hormone in the young

Hutchinson took off.

- This is an opportunity to intervene.

And for somebody to be committing this serious

an offense at this age tells me that they are capable

of much, much worse.

- NARRATOR: In his late teens, he got involved in petty crime,

and would steal cars and switch their license plates.

- He was a classic case of a bad lad gone worse,

you know, he started out being a bit of a handful

as a boy, graduated into petty crime, got involved

with the police, and had an unhealthy attitude towards

women.

- NARRATOR: Despite his reputation as a bad boy,

he was popular with women.

- He was obviously very attractive, he lived in a

comparatively small area, his reputation must have

preceded him, but he was one of those ultimate

bad boys that girls want to change.

- ALAN: I think Arthur's attitude to women was that

they all fancied him, it was as simple as that.

He had this unquenchable belief that women wanted

to be with him, wanted to be around him,

wanted to sleep with him.

- NARRATOR: Throughout his teens, Hutchinson had

19 appearances in front of the magistrates, including

four charges of sexual intercourse with girls

under the age of 16.

After leaving school, Hutchinson joined the

National Coal Board as a trainee miner.

- He's soon sacked from that job because he

breeches safety regulations.

He's somebody who doesn't respect rules,

he doesn't think they apply to him.

- He went into a number of professions, he'd worked

as a farm laborer, he traveled with gypsies,

he worked with the circus.

- These are jobs that involve him kind of going off the grid,

they're not regular jobs, and I think he's got that

kind of proneness to boredom, that need for stimulation.

- NARRATOR: Eventually he did settle down,

and in 1960, aged 18, he married his neighbor

in Hartlepool, and they had a child together.

But Hutchinson quickly went back to his thieving ways,

and he lost his job as a milkman for stealing wages.

- He was incorrigible, whatever job he took,

he couldn't keep, he wanted to break the law,

that's the only thing he really knew about.

- NARRATOR: The marriage became strained

and the couple split up.

Not long after, he met a teenager who quickly

became pregnant, but again, this relationship

didn't last either, and it wouldn't be long before

Hutchinson's deviant desires would surface.

A year later, in 1963, aged 22, he was jailed

for unlawful sexual intercourse with an underaged girl.

- There are no filters, there are no boundaries,

there are no moral brakes on his behavior

that stand in his way.

He's one of these people, when he wants to do

something, he will simply go and do it, when he wants

to attain something, he will go and take it.

This is somebody who is potentially very,

very dangerous.

- NARRATOR: With the charges now mounting

against sexual predator Hutchinson, he showed

no signs of stopping.

The crimes he would go on to commit would be more

violent and soon turn deadly.

After his release from prison, Hutchinson found work

in a chicken factory, where he met his second wife.

The couple married just months later, and moved in

with his mother.

- The second wife was only 16, and he was 27.

She was rapidly pregnant, and he beat her.

She once said anything could provoke him no matter what.

She also said that at one point, she saw him knock his mother

halfway across the room from her chair.

- He felt that he was invincible and that he could charm

his way to anybody, and the other side of him,

he was a very savage individual and could turn very,

very quickly.

He had this sort of split personality that enabled him

to get through his type of life.

- This is a person who enjoys controlling women, he enjoys

having women look after him, have a roof over his head

and dinner on the table, and this marriage is one

that is violent, it's one that's abusive, his wife describes

how he was promiscuous and controlling.

- NARRATOR: Unsurprisingly after just three years,

this marriage also failed.

- The day he left her, he beat her up in the street,

knocked her to the ground, kicked her.

This was a man of violent tendency.

- This is a pattern of behavior with him, this man is a parasite

who feeds off the women in his life, gets what he wants,

and then discards them.

- NARRATOR: Hutchinson's appetite for sex continued,

and in 1972, he was convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse

and received another prison sentence,

this time for three and a half years.

By 1978, Hutchinson was being investigated for

suspected Social Security fraud.

He was adamant that his half-brother Dino had tipped

the authorities off.

- He set off after his half-brother with a

sawn-off shotgun determined to end his life.

Dino, thankfully, escaped, and Hutchinson was caught

and indeed imprisoned.

- NARRATOR: Hutchinson was sentenced to yet more

time behind bars, this time a five-year sentence

in Leeds Prison for attempted murder and for carrying

a firearm.

- Hutchinson is somebody who loves being in control.

Now, when he is sentenced to a custodial term

that takes away a lot of his power.

I think he would be feeling very resentful, he'd be

ruminating, he'd be fantasizing about what he was going to do

when he was eventually released.

- NARRATOR: Alone with his thoughts, Hutchinson's

deviant sexual desires were once again ignited.

He read in a newspaper about a woman in the north of Selby

who'd recently come into money, she quickly became

his next target.

- For some reason, he became fixated on,

became obsessed with.

She was divorced, she had a new boyfriend, she had

a lot of money, throughout the course of his day, he's

looking at different people to see who he could get

over on, how he could go about it.

- And she moved to live somewhere just north of Selby

in a bungalow right on the edge of a field,

and Hutchinson had read this story and had made

drawings and sketches of what this bungalow

would be like in the back of this paperback book.

And on his release from Leeds Prison, he was allowed

to take the book with him.

- NARRATOR: In September, 1982, six months after

his release, Hutchinson made his way to the woman's

bungalow and broke in.

He stole her checkbook and attempted to withdraw

cash from a local bank, but was refused.

Penniless, he came up with another plan.

- And he then decided that he would follow this lady

and present himself to her, and she was bound to

fall for his charm and want to marry him.

He planned very, very carefully, he set up a hideaway

in a field near to the bungalow, watching the lady and her

male friend.

- He saw the woman in the house making love to her

boyfriend, he waits for the boyfriend to leave.

- When the male friend left on the second night,

he then presented himself absolutely naked to this lady.

- NARRATOR: Hutchinson made his advances, which were

quickly rebuked by the horrified woman.

Unable to accept the rejection, Hutchinson raped her.

- Hutchinson is a misogynist and he feels entitled to use

and abuse women.

He hasn't had access to women in the time

that he's been in custody, so by the time his release

comes around, he feels entitled to go and take

what he wants.

- There was a struggle, and he was wearing a

St. Christopher medal on a chain around his neck,

and that was broken.

The very sensible lady advised him to take the

medallion to a jeweler's shop to be repaired, and he did that.

And of course the first thing she did was to drive to

the police station and report the horrendous attack.

They dispatched police officers and caught him just

coming out of the jeweler's and arrested him.

They took him back to Selby Police Station

and of course as he walked in, there she was in the

entrance foyer, and there was a huge battle with officers.

- NARRATOR: Just months after his release, Hutchinson

found himself back in police custody.

He was determined not to be sent to prison for the rape,

and decided to take action.

- Hutchinson is to have appeared at Selby Magistrate's

Court, which is actually part of the police station,

they were joined, so he's taken to it.

He persuades the two officers to uncuff him

because he wants to go to the lavatory.

They make this mistake of uncuffing him,

he jumps through the window, cutting himself in the process,

but then lands on a mesh which is protected by

barbed wire.

He cuts his leg really seriously on the barbed wire,

but doesn't stop, jumps over the barbed wire onto the

pavement, and sprints off.

- Here's a potentially dangerous man, certainly

somebody who should be under lock and key,

pending investigations, and he is now roaming

Yorkshire free and unfettered.

Nobody knows quite where he is, nobody has the first

clue of how to find him again, and he goes to ground,

he just disappears.

- The police, not surprisingly, launch a manhunt,

he's an extremely dangerous prisoner.

- NARRATOR: Hutchinson lived rough for the next

three days.

But with his leg badly cut, on the 2nd of October,

he decided to seek help.

- He made his way the 19 miles to Doncaster

and was treated at Doncaster Royal Infirmary.

- He's obviously disheveled, he's been living on

dandelion roots and whatever he can forage for the last

three days, mud all over him because he's had to crawl

along gutters, his trousers are ripped to shreds,

nobody in A&E thinks to say, "Well, how did all this

happen?" or if they did, he had a very clever way

of describing it.

- NARRATOR: Unaware that he was a wanted man,

medical staff tended to his wound.

- And they treated it, dressed it, and gave him

certain instructions that the dressing needs changing,

and you need antibiotics, you need to come back.

- NARRATOR: Hutchinson returned to the hospital

two days later before going on the run again.

During this time, he committed a number of burglaries

to obtain cash.

- Nobody has a clue where to find him, and he's been

on the run for about three and a half weeks

before he finally washes up in Sheffield in Dore,

a suburb just to the south of the city center.

He would have been getting a bit desperate by this point.

He's been living, almost literally, in hedge bottoms.

He's chanced upon this wedding party in this

prosperous part of Sheffield, a large, expensive-looking house,

marquee tacked on the side.

- NARRATOR: The owners of the house were hosting

a wedding reception for their eldest daughter.

Hutchinson crept onto the grounds of the property

and hid.

- The house is owned by a local solicitor,

59-year-old Basil Laitner, along with his wife

who is 55, Avril, she's a doctor.

Also attending the wedding is their son, Richard,

who's 28, and their younger daughter, Nicola, who is 18

and is a bridesmaid at the event.

- NARRATOR: Over 200 guests gathered on the

23rd of October to help celebrate what should

have been one of the happiest days of their life.

- A lavish affair in Sheffield, a lot of champagne,

a lot of food, and a very, very happy day.

Sort of draws to a close, it gets past seven,

or thereabouts, it's getting dark.

Hutchinson is still hiding in the garden.

Bride and groom depart for a local hotel.

Basil, Avril, and their son, Richard, depart for dinner

with a relative not far away, but Nicola decides to stay.

- And at that time, unknown to everyone, of course,

Hutchinson had made his way into the back garden

of the house, and had been observing what had taken place.

And he stayed like that, in that area, for quite

some time because the family had returned home,

probably about 11 o'clock, and then they retired to bed.

- NARRATOR: Under the cover of darkness, Hutchinson

broke into the Laitners' house.

Armed with a knife, he was about to carry out

the next stage in his sadistic plan.

- The motivation was sexual in this case.

And in this particular case, he saw the young girl,

he became fixated on her, like he has done before,

and his goal was to rape her.

- Hutchinson creeps up the stairs and mistakenly

thinks that Nicola is in the room with the bridesmaid's dress

on the door and goes in.

He discovers that it's not Nicola, it's Richard.

- And Richard's out of bed in a flash and fights back,

but Hutchinson has the knife, so he prevails.

- NARRATOR: Richard was stabbed multiple times

in the chest, the impact was so brutal that one

stab wound cut through four of his ribs.

The commotion woke the rest of the family.

- Mr. Laitner had obviously gone to investigate,

their bedroom was on the ground floor

and the guest bedrooms were upstairs.

And he was actually climbing up the stairs

when he was attacked.

- GEOFFREY: Now you have Hutchinson who has already

killed Richard, stabs Basil in the throat twice,

killing him, and he stabs him again in the back.

Now he's only got two women in the house, and he knows it.

- Mrs. Laitner, hearing some noise, went out of her

bedroom on the ground floor, and Hutchinson went down

the stairs again and attacked her.

She tried to put her hands out to stop the assault

on her and then grabbed hold of the knife, it was

a huge knife, probably one of the biggest bowie knives

I've ever seen.

- NARRATOR: Again Hutchinson overpowered

his victim and killed her.

- There were three dead bodies in this house,

in Dore in Sheffield, and one terrified 18-year-old.

- You can't really imagine how it must have been

in that house for those awful, awful few minutes.

And within a few minutes, both Nicky's parents

are dead too.

She's the last person alive in that house.

- NARRATOR: The merciless killer then made his way

up the stairs once again.

- He sets his sights on Nicola, she was what he wanted

to get to, essentially.

He went into her bedroom, he put the light on,

he threatened to kill her if she didn't do what he wanted

her to do.

He marched her out to the marquee in the garden,

where the family had been celebrating a wedding

earlier on that day, and he raped her.

- Hutchinson takes her back upstairs again,

past the body of Basil, back into the bedroom,

where he proceeds to rape her not once more, but twice more.

- NARRATOR: With her family lying dead around her,

Nicola's survival instincts kicked in.

- She pretended to enjoy it when Hutchinson

was raping her.

Hutchinson was an incredibly narcissistic individual.

I think Nicola's behavior towards him and the

performance that she was able to put on kind of

pacified him a little bit, validated him, and actually

saved her own life.

- NARRATOR: The heartless killer showed no signs

of emotion towards the deadly and bloody chaos

he'd created.

- After Hutchinson had murdered the family,

after he'd raped Nicola, he went and drank some

of the family's champagne and ate some of their cheese.

Now, this appears to be completely bizarre behavior,

somebody's gone from murder and rape one minute

to eating and drinking the next, but Hutchinson

is somebody who simply follows his own wants

and his own desires.

He's hungry and he's thirsty, it is as simple as that.

He is so unaffected by what he's done.

- NARRATOR: It's almost dawn, and for some

mysterious reason he ties Nicola up again, covers her

in the coverlet, there's blood from his knee on her

bedclothes, and says, "Don't suffocate", and leaves.

- As the dawn broke, he made good his escape

and then went on the run.

- NARRATOR: The following day, workmen arrived

at the Laitners' house to dismantle the marquee.

- They realized something was wrong, you know,

they could get no response, went into the house,

saw signs of disturbance, came across the bodies.

- And then they discover Nicola.

Nicola is clearly traumatized, I mean, it's been the most

terrible, terrible experience, there can be nothing

that could have prepared any 18-year-old for that

sort of ordeal at the hands of a monster.

- NARRATOR: The workmen call the police

and Michael Burdis was part of the major incident team.

18-year-old Nicola Laitner was now their key witness.

- She was extremely traumatized.

We assigned officers to work with her, they produced

an artist's impression, and we used a local artist,

and he produced a picture.

- NARRATOR: The police now had a good idea

what the killer looked like.

They just didn't know who he was.

- At this stage, no one had actually joined the dots

between Selby and Sheffield.

At this point, nobody was saying the man who escaped

from Selby three and a half weeks ago is the man

who's committed these murders.

- NARRATOR: The police set up an incident room

in the local village hall, and forensic teams quickly

set about trying to gather any evidence that might

lead them to the killer.

- We got probably 300 different people that we

needed to identify to see whether they had seen

or heard anything that might have given us some clues

as to who was responsible.

We discovered a champagne bottle on the kitchen table,

and on that bottle, we discovered a palm print

and some fingerprints.

And we were able to discover a fairly large piece of cheese

in the refrigerator which had bite marks in it, and we

managed to get an impression of the teeth

that had made them.

- NARRATOR: News of the murders hit the headlines,

and the city of Sheffield was gripped by fear.

- Not surprisingly, the people of Yorkshire, and particularly

those around Sheffield, were devastated that

three people should be killed on their doorstep

in one night, on the evening of a wedding.

The tremble that would have gone through the whole

community, it was literally extraordinary.

And what's more, the perpetrator has not

been caught, there is a man on the loose.

- NARRATOR: Two days after the murder, the police

had a major breakthrough with the help of

Nicola Laitner's description of the murderer.

- We received a call from North Yorkshire Police,

from Selby, to inform me that they had experienced

a man escaping from their police station, and he'd been

arrested and charged originally with a very serious

case of rape.

And it seemed to be the same type of crime that had

occurred in our circumstances.

And we were able to compare the picture with a photograph

taken only a few weeks earlier by Selby Police Station,

and it was almost a carbon copy,

it was an amazing likeness.

We were able to get his fingerprints from the

North Yorkshire Police, and our fingerprint experts

compared them and immediately said,

"This is the man."

So, we knew within two days that we were looking

for Arthur Hutchinson.

- NARRATOR: Desperate to catch their man,

on the 27th of October, four days after the attack,

the police took the unusual steps of releasing information

on their number one suspect to the press.

- MAN: It was from Selby Magistrate's Court

a month ago that Arthur Hutchinson escaped from

police custody.

He got out through a toilet window.

Hutchinson, said to be a physical fitness fanatic,

then climbed onto the roof of a police van which was

parked in the backyard, climbed over a back wall,

and ran off.

- It's a very rare event that the police will actually

name who they're looking for.

But on this event, we took the decision that the

public were at danger, and at risk from this man

being at large in the surrounding area.

It was important we should say to the public,

"Look out for this man, but if you have seen him,

keep away from him."

- And those posters went up everywhere, you know,

they made a big, big impact.

- There was a major front-page story in a

Northeastern newspaper which announced that

Arthur Hutchinson was our number one suspect,

and prime suspect, and that's who we were looking for.

- NARRATOR: The terrified public were keen to help

the police with their search for the killer.

- It also brought with it additional problems.

We had over 3,000 calls, 1,000 calls in the first day,

from members of the public thinking that they'd seen him,

and some of them probably had, but a good number hadn't.

- NARRATOR: Hutchinson had now fled nearly

40 miles away, as far as Nottinghamshire.

His name and face was all over the news, so on the

30th of October, he decided to call The Yorkshire Post.

- He tried to put people off the scent, in fact he'd

been traveling a great deal more than he let on

in the phone call with The Yorkshire Post.

- And in these calls, this is just a narcissistic monologue,

this is all "me, me, me" there is no mention whatsoever

about his victims, if anything, he's taken the victim role

for himself.

- NARRATOR: Hutchinson reveled in the media spotlight.

- ALAN: He started writing letters to The Yorkshire Post

taunting the police, that's when he gave himself

the ludicrous nickname The Fox.

Because he could slip in and out unseen, and the police

couldn't catch him.

And he boasted of having been in and out of Doncaster

four times without being caught.

- LOUIS: When you look at someone like Jack the Ripper,

for example, Jack the Ripper didn't give himself the name,

the media gave him the name.

But in this case, Hutchinson gave himself the name,

he's The Fox, he wants to present himself in

a certain way to other people, sly, cunning.

- The police hired in a behavioral psychologist,

and she put a finger on it straight away and said,

"This is a man bigging himself up, this is about him,

"his reputation, and his self image: the master criminal

"that the police couldn't possibly catch."

- The context is really important here, only a few

years prior to this, we'd seen the conviction of the

Yorkshire Ripper, and we saw the kind of celebrity status

that was attached to Peter Sutcliffe.

And I think Arthur Hutchinson wanted a piece of that,

he felt like he deserved that kind of recognition.

- NARRATOR: Hutchinson had now been on the run

for six days since murdering three members

of the same family.

The police had deployed all of their resources

into finding him.

Nine forces joined in the hunt, spotter planes and helicopters

scanned the Peak District, but there was no sign

of the deadly fugitive.

- Hutchinson is intent on evading capture, he starts

to alter his appearance, starts to use disguises,

he moves around a lot, mostly on buses.

There were sightings of him at various points, particularly

at the end of October, about eight days after

the killings, in a pub.

But nothing happens.

- NARRATOR: The brazen killer thought he was invincible

but the police were closing in on him.

- We were fortunate enough to know that a brooch

had been manufactured specifically to give to

Avril Laitner, and that brooch was missing.

And it was quite obvious that Hutchinson had stolen it,

and so we were able to circulate pictures into

jewelers in surrounding towns.

And we were able to trace some of his movements

into Nottinghamshire, Mansfield, Worksop,

before he then moved further back north.

- NARRATOR: With the media frenzy and the killer's

taunting messages, the pressure was mounting

to catch the killer, and the police had come up with a plan

to lure Hutchinson in by leaking information about

the killer to the media.

- Mick Burdis was aware that Hutchinson had injured

his knee on a piece of barbed wire when he escaped from

Selby Police Station, and used this very cleverly by playing

at the injury.

That it might be worse than Hutchinson suggested,

and that he was highly likely to find he'd got an infected

wound that might even turn gangrenous.

And he planted that thought knowing that Hutchinson

would get to know about it.

- NARRATOR: Michael and the team also decided

to exploit another of Hutchinson's weaknesses.

- Well, he was close to his mother, and eventually

we persuaded his mother to allow us to broadcast

the fact that she was seriously ill, which was true,

she did have a heart condition, and we arranged

for her to be moved from her house by ambulance.

And that was well publicized, we thought that that would

attract Hutchinson to the area, which it did.

- NARRATOR: Concerned about his mother's health,

Hutchinson made his way back to Hartlepool.

- He knows the police are going to be keeping a watch

on his mother's house, and he makes the mistake

of ringing her, and the police have tapped the phone.

And he says, "I'm coming tonight,

I'll be with you at four A.M."

And the police have got the information, they now

know the time he's going to arrive at the house,

and they also crucially know the likely route

that he's going to take.

So they flooded the area with police and tracker dogs,

and waited, and waited, and waited.

- NARRATOR: Nearly 400 police officers and dogs

lay in wait for the killer to appear.

- And they got a lucky break, a farmer out feeding his stock

late at night came back in the house, his wife had been

watching him through the window, and she said,

"Did you see him?"

And the farmer said, "Did I see who?"

And she said, "Arthur Hutchinson, I'm sure

that was Arthur Hutchinson."

And of course it was, so they rang the police.

This draws the net in a little bit tighter still.

- NARRATOR: Eventually, on the 5th of November,

Hutchinson was spotted by police aircraft near a farmhouse

near Dalton Piercy, Cleveland.

Police dog handlers quickly closed in.

- He sees them, brandishes a knife, and also wraps

his jacket around his arm in case the dogs bite him,

and runs.

He's not gonna outrun two police dogs and two

police officers, he realizes that and sits down

holding the knife.

Now, some speculated that Hutchinson was intent

on taking his own life at that point, he's pointing

the knife towards his stomach,

the reality was I don't think he was.

I've always believed that that was bravado, he was a coward.

- NARRATOR: After 39 days on the run,

across nine counties, the deadly game was finally up

for Arthur Hutchinson.

- The dog handlers were able to make that arrest,

it was a long wait.

- NARRATOR: With Hutchinson now in custody,

further evidence was discovered from during

his time on the run.

- He made a recording on a little portable

tape recorder, and he referred to himself as The Fox there,

and how he would overcome all the difficulties that he

was experiencing, and it gave us clues as to how we might

use that knowledge of his mentality and his state of mind

to our advantage, really.

- NARRATOR: The trial took place on the 4th of September,

1984 at Durham Crown Court.

Nicola Laitner would have to face her attacker.

- The judge, Mr. Justice McNeil, decides that Nicola Laitner

can be identified because it was local knowledge

that she had been attacked.

Which meant that the Laitners were also

public knowledge.

- NARRATOR: It was the first time in British history

that they police used video footage to show

the crime scene.

- For the first time, here were the police shooting

a video moving around the house, piecing together

the story in the order that they understood from

the forensic evidence that events had happened.

And the jury was shown it which was another first.

- NARRATOR: Hutchinson took to the stand, but he

denied any role in the murders or the rape.

- I remember a fairly slight figure, unkempt, but with

that slightly cocksure-- just the way he held himself.

A man who fancies himself a bit.

And when he was giving evidence, almost everything

he said, he was spinning a yarn.

- NARRATOR: As the delusional killer continued to deny

any responsibilities for the murders and the rape,

the overwhelming evidence was presented.

Blood samples that Hutchinson had left

at the scene were also analyzed.

- Now, the police had very convincing evidence that

he has a very rare blood group, one of only 50,000 in Britain,

and his blood group is on Nicola Laitner's bed.

- NARRATOR: The police also had impressions of

the bite marks from the cheese left

at the Laitner's house.

- And we were able to link them to Hutchinson,

because he'd had dental treatment

whilst he was in prison.

So we were able to match the dental records with the

teeth marks in the cheese, which was quite a unique

feature of any inquiry, really.

- It is pretty clear that they have a lot of evidence,

as the police point out to him, "Look at this, and how do you

"explain your blood group?

"And how do you explain these teeth marks?

And how do you explain this palm print?"

Gradually he turns the story, he says, "I'd met Nicola

"the night before in a pub, and she said why don't you

"come round after the reception and we'll have

consensual sex?"

It was an absolutely bizarre story.

- It doesn't surprise me at all that he would come up with this,

a guy like Hutchinson, and any other type of

career criminal, all they do is lie,

they don't know how to tell the truth.

- NARRATOR: As the trial went on, Hutchinson

continued to fabricate his version of events

on that fateful night.

- The way he seemed to operate was that when

caught out in one story, he just segued

into the next stories.

And when this story began to unravel, he pointed to

a man called Mike Baron who reported with the

Sunday Mirror and said, "He did this, you should

"ask him about these murders, he's the man

who committed them."

Poor Mike Baron was sitting there looking absolutely

dropped-on, you know, gobsmacked.

- He is literally plucking stuff out of thin air at this point

in time, and obviously this does not stand up whatsoever.

But what it does do, it creates a distraction, it creates

a sideshow, it diverts people's attention away from what

he has actually done.

- NARRATOR: On the 14th of September, the jury of

six men and six women took just four hours

to reach their guilty verdicts for all three murder counts,

the rape charge, and the charge of aggravated burglary.

He was given three life sentences for the murders

of Basil, Avril, and Richard Laitner.

In addition, eight years for the rape of Nicola Laitner,

and another five years for aggravated burglary.

- When he was first convicted, he received a minimum

sentence of 18 years, which was later upgraded to

a whole life order by the home secretary, Liam Britain,

now these are not sentences that are given out

just like that, they are reserved for the most

dangerous offenders in society.

So I think this is testament to the evil things that this

individual did and the desire to protect the public from him.

- NARRATOR: In 2008, Hutchinson appealed his

life tariff, claiming it was a breach of his human rights,

he was the first British prisoner to do so.

His appeal was rejected, and subsequent appeals

were also denied in 2015 and 2017.

- I think this determination to challenge the sentence

really is testament to his character, he's not taking

responsibility for his actions, and for me that indicates

that this is an individual who has not changed.

So, as far as I'm concerned, Hutchinson is exactly

where he needs to be.

- Hutchinson was so arrogant, so conceited, that he committed

a crime that never, never needed to have been committed.

It was a monstrous act to take the lives of three

completely innocent people, in what?

In the pursuit of a rape, it defies belief, it literally

sends a shiver down my spine.

This is a man of the most deep depravity.

- NARRATOR: Hutchinson was a sadistic sexual predator

who preyed on the vulnerable and defenseless, even trying

to kill his half-brother.

His life as a career criminal culminated in a brutal

triple murder of three members of the same family,

along with raping the teenage daughter at knifepoint.

To this day, he has denied his guilt, and refuses to take

responsibility for his crimes.

Undoubtedly, that makes Arthur Hutchinson

one of the world's most evil killers.

- ♪

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