Original subtitles

[soft ambient music]

[footsteps thudding]

- Okay, ready. - Okay, cool. [indistinct]

[tense music]

- I was enjoying my fish and chips and the BBC news was on

...and it came on a 40-year-old man in Bradford,

...arrested, body parts found in the river.

- [Reporter] Police divers continued to search the river air near Shipley,

...where Suzanne Blamires' dismembered body was discovered.

[tense music continues]

- I made this funny noise, I don't know,

kind of sucked air through my teeth or something

and I just said, "My brother, I bet you that's my brother."

[Tense music continues]

- [Reporter] Sniffer dogs on the streets and in the alleyways,

searching the drains and bagging up potential evidence.

The handle of a suitcase pops up out of the water.

The diver drags it to the shore.

[tense music continues]

- Stephen Griffiths is formally arrested

for the murder of Suzanne and they begin questioning him.

"Do you know anything about Shelly and Susan?"

[tense music continues]

- He told us that he was responsible for the murder of all three victims.

- [Detective] Why did you feel the need to- to kill her?

- I don't know.

Sometimes you kill someone to kill yourself.

- He wanted to be infamous.

He wanted to be a serial killer.

[tense music continues]

- He wanted to be known for the most extreme aspects of his crime,

which was the crossbow, and the cannibalism.

[tense music continues]

- I watch true crime programs and I think that's terrible.

And then I think God, my brother did worse than that.

[tense music continues]

You hear about people chopping people up and that,

and you think, awful.

And then the words 81 pieces come into your head.

[tense music continues]

And you never really come to terms with it.

But it's real, it happened.

- Griffiths couldn't answer the one question

that we all wanted to know. Why?

If you try and analyze the mind of a serial killer,

you will never know.

Because they don't think like us.

They're not like us.

He is not of this world.

[tense music continues]

[tense music]

- Homefield Court is a big converted mill building

on the outskirts of Bradford Town Centre.

On one side, it was the city center, on the other side,

was the Red Light District.

It was one of these beautiful buildings,

fantastic architecture, which had been part

of the city's famous textiles industry.

But of course, as that declined,

it became a little bit shabby, a little bit rundown.

It became disused and eventually was converted into flats.

[tense music continues]

On the 24th of May, 2010, the caretaker

at Homefield Court turned up for work,

began his usual routine of checking the CCTV from cameras,

which were dotted around the building.

And on a normal Monday, very little would happen.

You know, there'd be maybe a bit of vandalism,

some drunks causing trouble.

[tense music continues]

He was in the habit of flicking through the CCTV

on fast forward, basically.

[tense music continues]

And the caretaker has to do a double take

because what he witnesses appears to be a violent attack on a woman.

[tense music continues]

What he sees initially are two people coming out

of the lift on the third floor and going into a flat.

He recognises one of them as the loner, Steve,

who he's been told to avoid, because he can be a bit volatile.

The person with Steve is a woman

with a small stature with dark hair, both go in the flat.

They disappear for a period of time, just a few minutes.

And then the woman runs out fleeing in terror.

[tense music continues]

The caretaker, obviously he's terrified by this,

and the first thing he does is call his manager.

They watch the footage again together,

and then they call police.

[tense music continues]

- I booked on as normal.

I was on a day shift, collecting my firearm,

and fairly early into the shift,

I received a call asking me to blue light immediately to Dudley Hill,

which is one of our sort of major planning stations.

I met with Silver Commander and CID team who briefed me

that there had been an incident

where a male had been caught on a camera.

He'd been involved in an altercation with a female.

[tense music continues]

- As soon as she got into that flat,

there was something that startled her,

and she ran out of the flat at some real speed,

almost hitting straight into the wall that came out

into a corridor.

[tense music continues] [heart beating]

- The male ran after her and incapacitated her.

He appeared to knock her out, or she was unconscious

on the floor, slightly off camera,

and then came out with what was assumed to be a crossbow.

[tense music continues]

We were unsure if the crossbow had been fired or not,

but the male dragged the female back into the apartment,

and then the door was closed-

[tense music continues]

- I've seen a lot in my operational activity in policing,

but seeing somebody run out the flat,

as she did, was startling

because what she must have seen in that flat was so scary.

Oh, it was shocking.

[tense music continues]

- By analyzing the CCTV from around Homefield Court,

police made another amazing discovery.

- The CCTV at 3:35 shows him trying

to lure another woman back to his apartment,

shortly after the incident with the assault.

But fortunately she must have got some sort

of vibe that there was something really not right.

- And she declined to come in.

So, again, that raises the threat level.

He's wanting to find more people to bring back

to his flat for whatever purpose.

[tense music continues]

- As far as we were concerned

we've got a female who's been incapacitated,

so we have hostage situation whereby,

she's been held against her will, clearly.

We're dealing with a collapsing timeframe,

so every second counts.

[tense music continues]

- Amongst the officers viewing the footage,

are some from Bradford's Vice Squad

who immediately recognise the victim as Suzanne Blamires.

[tense music continues]

- Suzanne came from a lovely family,

very well known family in the area.

And she was destined for great things.

- Her father was a successful businessman,

and so her childhood was one of foreign holidays and ponies.

And, you know, she'd done well at school.

She was popular, she was pretty.

She had every reason to believe that she was going

to have a successful life.

- She wanted to become a nurse.

She'd got far into her training

when she met the wrong people.

[tense music]

- She had adopted a hedonistic lifestyle,

which involved going out late, drinking a lot,

and unfortunately taking drugs.

- And very quickly she became an addict

and her life spiralled and the family had

to sit back and watch it happen.

- There came a time when the drugs became harder,

more addictive, and she had no other way

of funding the habit other than through prostitution

and street prostitution.

And that's what she did.

[tense music continues]

- Suzanne met a friend who had also worked in the sex trade,

but had left and escaped.

And they had a little bit of a meetup, had a coffee,

laughed and giggled, shared some old memories.

And then the friend went on her way and said,

"Just be careful, just take extra care."

[tense music continues]

Next day, Suzanne's boyfriend,

noticed that she was missing, went to speak

to her family to see if she'd been in touch with them.

The answer was no.

He was extremely worried about her.

So he went straight to the police.

[tense music continues]

- It was in the mid-'90s

that the prostitution moved from Lum Lane to Thornton Road.

- It's a very busy thoroughfare, Thornton Road.

It's what goes on behind there that people don't see.

[tense music continues]

There was at least 50, 60, 70 women selling sex

in that small area.

Many had given up their friendships,

any chance of prosperity, their families.

They were waifs, they were six stone.

They were standing in freezing cold conditions

wearing very little.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- At the time I was on the streets, it was 10 pounds

to buy a vulnerable young woman.

Unfortunately, it's even less now,

it's five pounds because that's the cheapest bag

of heroin or crack cocaine.

So, you know, these men don't value the women and girls.

The women and girls are so desperate

and they've usually got a perpetrator lurking

in the background that they're supplying

their drugs as well.

It's pretty grim.

[tense music]

- Women working within the sex trade in this area

of Bradford in the Red Light District were working

in an area that wasn't highly policed.

They were vulnerable to the police targeting them.

And as such, they are in an environment

whereby they are vulnerable to predators.

[tense music continues]

- A lot of the time they're completely off their heads.

I mean, it was really difficult to keep myself safe

and I was straight, I wasn't under the influence of anything.

[tense music continues]

- As a firearms tactical advisor all you're looking

for is information.

You're just filling in gaps, finding out who's living there.

We find out this guy's called Griffiths.

[tense music continues]

[dramatic orchestral music]

- I'm Stephen Sean Griffith's sister,

but I will call him Sean

because that's how we knew him growing up

because my dad's name was Stephen as well,

so we called him Sean.

There was three of us,

myself, Sean, who was the older brother,

and then my younger brother,

and my mom and dad.

[dramatic orchestral music continues]

Sean started showing then, when he was young,

the first signs of like troubling behaviour.

He'd have been under 10 when he first started stealing.

At one point we didn't have a lot, so, you know, children,

you want things and Sean wasn't satisfied to just want them.

He had to have them.

So he took them and he got caught and he got into trouble.

And I think a lot of my parents' arguments

as well as arguing with each other,

they were arguing about him as well.

[dramatic orchestral music continues]

That was just the way he was, you know,

like he closed his eyes and I think he was asked

to open his eyes and he just didn't, he wouldn't,

and the more he was asked to open them,

the more he kept them closed.

[dramatic orchestral music continues]

- He was a little bit withdrawn, a bit of a loner,

didn't play with other children, wasn't seen in the street,

was very slight of build.

And in fact, one nickname for him at that time

was the Stick Man.

- He had a real fear of going to a school called Outward Grange.

It had a reputation back then as being quite a rough school.

And Shaun didn't want to, I remember him waking me up

one night because Outward Grange was on fire,

and I've no proof, but I've always suspected

that maybe he had something to do with that.

It just seemed so coincidental that this school,

he had such a fear of going to, and then the next thing,

it's in flames.

[dramatic orchestral music continues]

[fire crackling]

And then with the divorce, he just got worse.

It's like consequences didn't matter to him.

He would steal stuff from the neighbour's sheds.

He would go down to Wakefield on the bus

and he would come back with stuff he'd stolen.

He stole off my mum as well.

He didn't seem to see the problem with taking money from a woman

that was already struggling to provide.

Yeah, so from a young age he was problematic

and it just escalated over the years, got worse and worse.

[tense music]

As he got older, the age gap became more apparent.

Between him and my younger brother, it was six years.

So that is a very big age gap.

And I used to worry about what he was capable of.

He was quite mean and cruel

and could be violent towards myself and my younger brother.

He developed a point system and if we did something to Sean,

say we went in his stuff, you damaged something,

he would give you so many points and once you accrued

so many points, that was his cue

that he could punish you then.

And there was one night in particular

that I must have accrued enough points,

so he decided to launch an attack on me

and he would get you and he would kneel on your arms there.

So you were pinned, basically.

And then I managed to get one of my arms free

and there was a table with a glass ashtray

and I managed to get that and I hit him over the head with it,

which is not something I'm proud of,

but I felt like I had to do it.

And his head bled.

I mean head wounds do bleed heavily.

And we had to get mum back from a night out

and she wasn't very happy.

So yeah, he could be a mean, mean boy, a bad boy.

[tense music]

- He enjoyed quite simply shooting birds

and then not just watching them fall, but then dissecting them.

Neighbours spoke of them catching him pulling wings off dead birds.

This is not normal behavior.

[tense music continues]

- I had pet mice and we weren't supposed to have them

and Sean knew about my pet mice.

So he decided to get himself a pet rat.

Anyway, my stepmom found out

and she didn't want them in the house.

So I arranged to give my mice away to one

of my friend's schools, which was an option for Sean,

but he decided not to do that.

And I was upstairs in my bedroom and it was quite late.

Everyone was in bed and I heard this thump thump thump.

So I knocked, I was like, what are you doing?

You'll wake everybody up and he let me in.

He says, "Oh, I'm trying to kill the rat."

So what I'd heard was him hammering this rat

with this broken off hammer [hammer banging]

and it was all hunched and crawling around

and I don't think he was trying to kill it at all.

I think he was just enjoying torturing it.

That poor thing.

[hammer banging]

- When a child harms an animal, it usually is experimentation.

It will have entered their mind.

What is it like to hurt someone?

So they'll experiment on animals, and most children

who do that will soon find out

that they don't like doing it.

But with Stephen, he recognized

that that was something he gained pleasure from.

- He could have got rid of it, he could have killed it

much more humanely if he wanted to,

but I think he just was having fun.

[tense music continues]

- He was very socially isolated as a child.

He really couldn't connect or make friends

and he had violent thoughts.

As he went on to his teenage years,

we see this developed into not just harming animals

but harming people.

[tense music continues]

- I was always worried about him.

I knew that it was escalating

and that he had the potential to do harm to people.

[tense music continues]

My maternal grandparents, they lived in an upstairs flat

and Shaun was in front of me on the stairs.

and I'd said something to him and he back kicked me

in the mouth and knocked one of my teeth out.

[tense music continues]

He had a cache of weapons like had flick knives

and Rambo knives and he had a machete

and he had a crossbow even at that age.

I was up in my bedroom, the attic, and my brother,

my youngest brother, was about two, three was there.

And the next thing there was this thunk noise.

[arrow banging]

He must have known that he was there,

and he went ahead and fired this crossbar at the door.

My brother started screaming and crying.

To this day, I think, was he trying to kill him?

Was he trying to injure him?

It's just so disturbing the fact he's got a crossbow,

he's firing it through a door in the house.

My brother's there and I think

that was the last straw for my stepmom.

She was like, "Right, that's it.

Get him out."

My dad asked him to leave after that.

[tense music continues]

It's just another example of his exacerbating behaviour,

his escalation, more and more odd things.

It's almost like he had a tick-box exercise

for I'm going to be a killer.

And he was just filling it in as he went along.

[tense music continues]

- Stephen leaves school at 16, and then he begins to drift.

- He moved down to a bedsit in Heckmondwyke.

And his behavior, I don't think it had changed

because he was stockpiling weapons there as well.

[tense music continues]

He'd been to see dad and Dad had given him a bit of money

and then he went to the co-op and I think

it was just pathetic things like sweets and a bottle of pop

that he could easily have afforded to buy.

But no he decided to steal them instead because,

because that's just the way he was.

And he got caught.

And what would've been maybe just a slap on the wrist, maybe a fine,

he just escalated it to the point where he pulled a knife

and slashed somebody down their face, stabbed somebody in the hand,

hurt somebody when he was running out the store.

[tense music continues]

- This poor guy needed 19 stitches,

and Stephen found himself arrested, taken to court,

prosecuted at Leeds Crown Court,

and was sentenced to three years youth custody.

[tense music continues]

- It is like a shock, but it's not a surprise.

You know, you could always see that it was going to happen.

Maybe not to that degree,

but I could always see him ending up in prison.

[tense music continues]

I remember seeing a photo in the local paper

and it had been taken of the arsenal of weapons

that he'd collected knives and throwing stars,

nunchuckers, machete, that kind of thing.

And it was like, God, it'd expanded.

It was more than what used to have

and lived at dad's and expanded in such a short time.

- Stephen Griffiths was assessed by a psychiatrist

in the criminal justice system for the first time.

He was assessed as having a personality disorder.

[tense music continues]

- Personality disorders are patterns of ingrained

inflexible behaviors and thoughts,

usually behaviors and thoughts

that go outside the social norm.

His narcissism, like his sadistic nature,

like being devoid of emotion,

they're incredibly hard to treat, if not impossible,

simply because they are so ingrained.

[tense music continues]

And often people with personality disorders are resistant

to treatment because they don't see

that there's anything wrong with them.

What is wrong is with other people.

[tense music continues]

He didn't kind of go into generalized psychology.

He went into abnormal psychology.

So he went into the field of psychology

that allowed him to feed his more darker desires.

[tense music continues]

- I had only just turned 18 really

when I moved up to Carlisle.

And after that our contact was minimal, really.

I kept in touch with my family by a letter

so me and my stepmom would write to each other just,

you know, about the family news,

and she would always mention Sean

because I would ask about him because obviously

I was worried about him.

- [Mum] Right now I'll get down to business

and I'll start with the worst first, Sean.

Your dad has kind of disowned him since he found out

about Sean befriending that dog,

then throwing it out the window three times and then killing it

because throwing it out the window hadn't killed it.

Your dad just can't come to terms

with the son of his being so cruel as to do something like that

and even laughing about it afterwards.

- So this next letter is dated the 25th of June, 1991.

Sean had been about 21.

- [Mum] Your dad had a phone call on his birthday

from Sean's probation officer telling him

that Sean is in the hospital wing at Armley

because he isn't considered stable enough

to be in the normal section.

He's on remand for threatening with intent to kill.

We don't know just what it's about,

but he was getting very neurotic

about people looking at him.

- While going about the campus one day, he imagined

that a group of girls had somehow slighted him,

and his response to that was to pull a knife.

[tense music]

He was sentenced for possessing an offensive weapon,

and I think affray, and found himself going

to jail again for two years.

[tense music continues]

- In prison, Stephen was diagnosed

as being a sadistic schizoid psychopath.

It's a merging of three different diagnosis really.

You've got the sadistic part, the sadism,

so this is gaining pleasure from hurting people.

This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect

of his personality.

Then you've got schizoid personality disorder.

So this is really about being detached emotionally,

not being able to connect with other people,

and it's that aspect of his disorder

that makes it easier for him to hurt people

because he hasn't got that emotional attachment.

And then you've got the psychopathology aspect of it,

which is really about having no empathy.

It's usually the empathy that stops most people

from crossing that line between violent fantasy

to actual behavior and making it a reality.

So together you've got a concoction of three very serious conditions

that make him a very dangerous man.

[tense music continues]

[tense music]

- The CCTV footage of a man

holding a crossbow sparked a major police operation.

They had to find out whether the young woman seen

in that footage was dead or alive.

- It really was an imminent threat.

[tense music continues]

When we found out subsequently

that there was two other sex workers missing,

you couldn't help but think back

to the Peter Sutcliffe days of the Yorkshire Ripper

and start to think, actually,

we don't want another Yorkshire ripper taking place

in the force area.

- I think Stephen was around six to 11

during the time that Peter Sutcliffe

was carrying out his crimes and, yeah,

he would've most certainly been aware of what was going on.

[tense music]

- The Yorkshire Ripper was active between 1975 and 1980.

It was a series of murders, 13 women, seven attacks,

and there was a build, it began in red light areas,

and it ended anywhere, anytime, any place.

And for five long years,

every woman in Yorkshire dare not walk the streets.

They dare not go out.

They literally held themselves in a group

of fear behind closed doors.

And that was the power he enjoyed.

[tense music continues]

- [Reporter] In her own ground floor flat in Bradford,

the body of 33 year old Patricia Atkinson.

She was last seen walking home from the pub

where she'd spent the evening.

- The idea that a serial killer is on the loose

will be prime territory for the media.

It is intensely newsworthy.

They are going to want to weave a narrative.

They want to get people watching the news.

- [Reporter] The Yorkshire Ripper's trademark is the unique

and vicious way

in which he mutilates the bodies almost beyond recognition.

- And as such people are talking about it.

We are gossiping.

It is inescapable.

And as such, it can play in the corners of people's minds.

And this feeds into a culture of fear

and an inability to truly switch off from what is going on.

[tense music]

People were frightened, people were questioning

who they could trust.

People were looking at neighbors, colleagues, friends,

and thinking, is it you?

[tense music continues]

- I've always talked of Bradford as a grim grey place.

That's how it strikes me.

And it was a grim time, all in all.

And the Yorkshire Ripper, it was like a dark,

miasma spread all over, you know.

Everyone was scared.

But Sean had an unhealthy interest in him.

[tense music continues]

- He had once even told prison staff

that he had one ambition and that was

to outdo the Yorkshire ripper.

[tense music continues]

- He once told me as well that if he couldn't be famous,

he would be infamous.

And that if I was famous and I was more famous than him,

he would find me and he would kill me.

[tense music continues]

- I do think Peter Sutcliffe re-emerged

into his memory when he was studying,

when he was deciding on the person he wanted to be.

So I think that he kind of re-emerged in Stephen's life

at a time when he needed a goal.

[tense music continues]

[dramatic orchestral music]

- Susan Rushworth had grown up on the outskirts

of Bradford in a very loving family.

She had loving parents, she had a brother.

She was a very quiet, in some ways, quite vulnerable girl.

- I know mutual friends.

I've talked to her brother.

She just literally went down the wrong track.

It was all going so well for Susan.

She was married, she had children.

She was a grandma.

[dramatic orchestral music continues]

- But then the marriage failed.

And I think that was a turning point for Susan.

She didn't really recover.

I think she suffered from depression.

I think her life began to unravel at that point.

She began taking drugs.

The drugs got harder ending with heroin.

She became an addict.

[tense music]

- And when she needed drugs, she sold sex.

Susan's mum adored her, she was really close

with her brother.

And yet her brother used to see her on the streets selling sex

and used to wind the window down and say, Susan,

you can't keep doing this.

And she'd promise and promise to get clean.

And she did.

And then some other disaster would happen

and she would fall foul to heroin and crack cocaine.

[tense music]

- I was really fortunate that I got off the streets

just before they were swarmed with crack cocaine and heroin,

which was in the sort of late-'80s, early-'90s.

And certainly the women I've worked with, certainly

on the streets, the vast majority have

a very high addiction to crack cocaine and heroin.

And that must be, I can't even imagine

because the day I got into the sex trade,

I lost me.

I wasn't Fiona anymore.

I became an object.

I completely disassociated from myself.

With an addiction on top of the kind of emotional

and mental torture you're living with

is almost impossible

to get away from.

[tense music]

- Susan was a little bit older than many

of the women who worked the Red Light district.

She was 43.

It was actually a good time for her because she'd made a bit

of a recovery in her battle against heroin.

And she was actually planning to go on holiday with her family.

Normality had begun to sort of seem like a realistic goal for her.

However, in June, 2009, she went off to see a friend

and was never seen again.

[tense music continues]

- She planned to go into town and pick up her methadone.

And after a week, the family began to get worried.

Not only had she not picked the methadone up,

she hadn't been in contact,

but they knew that she wouldn't have her epilepsy tablets,

which she desperately needed.

And so they called the police.

[tense music continues]

- When missing people come in, it's something

that is treated with real seriousness,

because what you don't want, the worst case

is someone is murdered or is kidnapped.

You start with the family.

You ask the questions, where are the places

that they may visit.

Maybe that you are trying to do electronic tracing

round the telephone number.

And also trying to look at any CCTV that you may be able to find.

[tense music continues]

- There was a police appeal.

There was a police dragnet.

They carried out door-to-door inquiries,

they put up posters, they contacted the press,

but there's absolutely no sign of Susan.

There appeared to be no activity on her phone

or credit card after the day of her disappearance.

[tense music continues]

By the 24th of May, 2010 Susan Rushworth had been missing

for a year.

[tense music continues]

- We know that he's got a crossbow,

and they're extremely lethal.

It'll just go straight through you.

- It was established that we'd need

to do a planned firearms operation to arrest the individual.

Griffiths had previous convictions

for offences including violence.

He was otherwise so dangerous so that he needed

to be arrested by specialist armed officers,

and there was even a preemptive taser strike authorized

by the Silver Commander on Griffith.

[tense music continues]

- This is a sort of a method to control somebody

who you think might be violent,

and it's really to protect them.

We know that this guy's got a crossbow,

we know he has caused harm to this female,

and we know this female is in danger.

So our job is to go in there and essentially rescue her.

And we needed to get it done

as quickly as possible.

[tense music continues]

Our role that day was to do what's called

an emergency entry, which is the most dangerous entry

you can do as a firearms team.

But we were so limited in our options

because obviously we've got a female that we assume

is under duress and is being harmed.

So what we'll do in an emergency entry situation

is we will try and overwhelm the suspect.

[tense music continues]

- Stephen Griffiths lived on the third floor of this block.

He was a bit of a loner, bit of an oddball.

- He was also very socially isolated,

so he didn't like to spend time with people.

If he was seen out and about, it was usually at night.

- He dressed almost in a gothic manner,

a full length matrix style, black leather coat.

He slicked his hair back.

It was in ringlets.

- He had Nile monitor lizards.

He would walk them in the corridors on a lead.

He would take them to nightclubs in a bag

and show off amongst the other nightclub revelers.

And he used to feed them on live mice and rats,

which he kept and bred in a cage at the back of his flat.

[tense music continues]

- Stephen Griffith had amassed this huge library

of macabre books about murder, murderers, Nazis,

terrorists, Satanists.

[tense music continues]

He got himself on a PhD course at Bradford University

with a specialization in local history.

He wanted to study homicide and lethal violence

in Bradford during the second half of the 19th century.

[tense music continues]

- Stephen cocooned himself in a world of serial killers.

Not only was he studying it and studying it intensely,

but he decided to take the topic of homicide

in Victorian Bradford.

So the area he was living in.

[tense music continues]

It was almost like he was studying the evolution

of crime within that area so that he could become part

of that evolution and become part of that history.

[tense music continues]

- He was interested in mass shootings at schools in America.

He was interested in cannibalism

and he made references to all those subjects

on his MySpace page.

He seemed to use the internet and MySpace

to promote this kind of alter ego

that he'd invented for himself.

[tense music continues]

- Stephen had a pseudonym online, which was Ven Pariah.

So Ven it's kind of theorised that this could be venerable,

which means worthy of high respect,

or it could be a shortening of his name.

Stephen and Pariah is outcast.

[tense music continues]

- Online spaces give us the opportunity to embrace personas

that are not completely who we are.

They are who we would like to be or extreme forms

of who an individual could be.

[tense music continues]

- He's got lots of very interesting quotes online

from himself in this persona

where he's kind of describing Stephen

as more like a vessel to carry him, Ven Pariah,

the demon through the world and through life.

[tense music continues]

- [Stephen] "Humanity is not merely a biological condition,

it is also a state of mind.

On that basis I am a pseudo human being at best.

A demon at worst."

- So we see a real splitting here of Stephen's personality.

There was nothing really challenging

that world that he created.

So it was very hard to step outside

of that and kind of have that wake up call

that this isn't reality,

and there's something wrong with me.

[tense music continues]

- [Stephen] Ven Pariah has finally emerged into the world.

What will this pseudo-human do, one wonders.

Poor Stephen.

Pretended to be me, but he was only the wrapping.

He knew, towards the end,

that I supplied the inner core of iron.

Hatred bound tightly in flesh.

At very long last, the time has come to act out.

Think about the number four.

Maybe add a couple more.

All of this before the war.

Ven Pariah embraces destiny and he still smiles.

[tense music continues]

- There's a large movement now of resources

that have to go to Homefield court.

An awful lot of firearms, cars, a fleet of vehicles.

You need to make sure you've got enough

to surround the whole house.

- The team amassed at the property.

They went up the stairs.

We had a method of entry device that we used

to go through the door.

There was a shout from a bedroom.

Team rapidly entered into the bedroom,

and he was overwhelmed immediately.

[tense music continues]

- Griffith didn't put up any resistance

to the armed police whatsoever.

When the police officers entered his flat,

he introduced himself as Osama bin Laden.

[tense music continues]

- Once he was cuffed, he went from being compliant

to being haughty and quite cocky

and quite sneering at officers.

[tense music continues]

I think he was arrested for assault

because we had nothing else other than that.

[tense music continues]

- After he's arrested by the armed team

he'd be removed from the flat.

One of the things that really stood out

was that there was obvious signs of violence

that taken place in the flat.

[tense music continues]

- Bear in mind these firearms officers go

to all sorts of scenarios and all sorts of places.

They said that there was something that made the hair

on the back of the neck stand up.

It was something quite unsettling about the apartment.

There was a duvet that was burning in the bathtub.

There was a strange sort of smell, like rotten meat.

There was blood smeared everywhere,

crossbow holes in the wall where he'd been using it

as target practice.

- There was a crossbow also located in the flat,

which was seized by the officers as well.

[tense music continues]

- The search through the apartment

was made by the officers for the female,

which was of course, the goal.

And sadly, there was no female in the apartment.

[tense music continues]

That's why why we're there.

We're there to save that girl.

And, you know, we were all gutted.

Unfortunately we were just too late.

We didn't get the report until Monday morning.

Yeah, we were gutted.

We were gutted.

[tense music continues]

- Shelly Armitage was a beautiful young girl.

She looked like a model.

She wanted to be a model.

She was confident.

One always thinks about girls who have been groomed

as being the weak, quiet ones.

It isn't that.

It's, it's the confident ones.

The gregarious ones, the ones who dare to skip school.

- She'd ended up becoming a heroin addict.

And in order to fund that habit had taken to sex work.

- Shelly was so loved by her family, her mom, her dad,

and yet they couldn't help her.

So many times, Shelly came back home,

and they never judged her.

And time after time, they gave this beautiful young woman

who could have had everything at her feet,

the opportunity to beat the drugs

that were absolutely killing her.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- This CCTV camera catches Shelly working the red-light area.

She's just walking up and down looking for punters,

basically looking for many cars who are looking for sex.

And she seems in good spirits.

- She's got a certain swagger with her.

She's pulling the cardigan

as she walks past Griffith's home.

And to me, that, that moving image sticks with me.

And that's the image I was asked to put out

on our news programme.

Have you seen this girl?

- I would emphasize that this is a missing

from home inquiry.

The appeal from myself is for Shelley or anybody

that may know Shelley to contact the police

so I can in turn update the family and bring some calm

to the anxiety that the family are suffering at the moment.

[tense music]

- Every day in the life or in the sex trade,

you would expect to have at least one or two men hurt you.

Some of the guys become regulars, so you see them,

you see them walking up and down.

They might live in the community

that you are selling yourself in.

They don't present as monsters.

They're ordinary men,

which is why you can never ever make it safe

because you never know when they're going to murder you.

You never know when they're going to attack you and rape you.

They're often smiley and friendly,

but what lies beneath that you just don't know.

[tense music continues]

- Griffiths knew the territory

and he knew quite a lot of the women,

and he had friendships, rather ambiguous friendships

with some of the women.

He would go and talk to them, share a cigarette with them.

He would bring some of them back to his flat.

He certainly had sex with some of them.

- Griffiths was seen as maybe just a little bit

of an outsider, slightly unusual,

but potentially not such a threat.

- [Reporter] This prostitute, who didn't want to be identified,

says he's well known in the area.

- [Speaker] He used to like come up to us, talk to us,

say that he'd been out for drinks

at student nightclubs, offer cigarettes.

He were nice to me really.

- Stephen was very good

at knowing people's vulnerabilities, knowing people

who needed something, and he was really tapping

into what these women needed,

whether it was just a nice cup of tea,

a bit of companionship, a chat over a cigarette.

He was trying to paint himself

as kind of like a harmless character, a friend,

so that they trusted him.

I kind of see Stephen as a bit of a hunter, really.

And the red light district was his hunting ground,

and these women were his prey,

and he's using these strategies to lure them in,

to put them at ease, to make his job easier.

The sad thing is that this

would've made it so much more shocking

for them when they got to his flat

and he'd suddenly turned from this kind companion

to someone who was going to take their lives.

[tense music continues]

- [Reporter] Griffiths himself paid for the services of prostitutes.

One who didn't want to be identified said

his behavior could be frightening.

- [Speaker] That always made me nervous.

When you were outside it were really nice or can I help you

with that love blah de blah de blah.

But then when you got inside,

it was like you weren't a human being no more.

He owned you. You were piece of meat.

What he were going to do, what he wanted to do.

[tense music continues]

- Yeah, I think he's got a real problem with women.

He had a relationship with one lass and she took him to court

because he'd attacked her with a belt

and I think he got found not guilty,

so he celebrated by having a tattoo,

"Diane lost the war."

As if he was celebrating getting away with it.

And he must have thought that was clever.

Not an iota of remorse for that girl or anything.

[tense music continues]

[dramatic orchestral music]

- I met Stephen in my late-20s walking back

from a club night in Bradford.

I used to have a thing for men with long hair,

that's all I saw as well as the intelligence.

And he was a good looking lad though.

He told me years later that he liked the challenge of me.

I'm fiery. [chuckling]

[tense music]

It's within two and a half weeks

of meeting Stephen that he first tried

to kill me by putting a drug in my tea.

I had two dogs and one night one of my dogs Taz,

part Collie, growled at him.

I then that night was over at his flat.

And as I was sat and to my right was the television,

I sat on the floor for some strange reason

and I looked and thought, what is going on with the screen?

And I turned to my left and I could see a smirk on his face.

And he went, "You're starting to feel the effects, aren't you?"

and he said, "I've poisoned you, I'm killing you."

I took myself to A&E at Bradford

and they kept me in overnight.

In the morning, went to my house in Wakefield.

And as we pulled up outside, the front door was open.

Where's my dogs?

Then my next door neighbour came in and basically said

to me it was him.

He was here at half three in the morning.

He came in, went in and took the dogs.

I completely fell apart.

It totally destroyed any thought process,

confidence, anything.

And Stephen said to me, "Look, you best stay

at mine until you've calmed down

and then I can go back to my house."

But then he never let me out again.

[tense music continues]

He was with me permanently

unless he went to do studying at the university,

then I were locked in anyway.

[tense music continues]

Daily life just consisted of walking on eggshells

and looking to see if, what his mood was like.

If I upset Stephen, it would end up

in mental torture or physical, but not at the time.

It can be a week or so later or a few days

and he'll ask you a question, a leading question.

And if you don't come back

with exactly the right thing he'd remember.

He broke my nose.

He stabbed me, he's burnt me.

Oh, all sorts.

But, they're easy to deal with because it's over with.

It's the mental torture that's horrendous.

[tense music continues]

It was his ex-girlfriend of his that took me

to the domestic violence unit in Bradford

who then told me what I was going to do to get away from him.

[tense music continues]

- Although the relationship was quite brief,

Kathy spent probably the best part

of seven years trying to shake Stephen Griffiths off.

[phone whooshing]

- [Automated Voice] Message two, Saturday 10:23 a.m.

- [Stephen] Don't make me do this, Kathy.

I swear to God all I did was ring your mum and dad,

and I sent you some nasty texts,

that's all I did 'cause you pissed me off.

You've got so many enemies there

and you want to add me to them.

I don't want to have to do that to you.

- [sighing]

Getting away from Stephen was half the battle.

The other half was him pursuing my parents,

going to my friends.

He's slashed tyres on my cars on on numerous occasions.

He contacted the RSPCA, benefits people,

told the government I was importing cigarettes

from going abroad, anything he could.

[tense music]

[computer chiming]

- He sent voicemail after voicemail to Kathy,

just harassing her and not letting her escape him.

[phone whooshing]

- [Automated Voice] Message five. Wednesday 11:46 p.m.

- [Stephen] I really miss you as well, Kathy.

You've had the police onto me, but I still care about you.

- He's trying to gain control of the situation.

He really can't cope with the fact that she has escaped him.

- [Automated Voice] Message one. Saturday 8:38 a.m.

- [Stephen] If you're gonna blame me for doing things

to you, then I might as well start doing things

to you, all right?

I demand an explanation, and I will not fucking stop

until I get that, okay?

That's all I want.

[tense music]

- He rang me up one night distraught, almost

begging me to help but to not tell the authorities.

[tense music]

And then he told me that what he'd done

is he'd decided to steal a puppy, feed it Valium.

And he wanted to dock its tail

and do the ears like pit bulls in America.

And what he said was, he'd gone too far.

[tense music]

- This is one of the worst letters I received.

- [Mum] The next thing is about your brother Sean.

He's shoplifting and thieving big style now.

Last weekend he stole an eight-week old puppy.

He docked its tail, which he said was successful,

but when he tried to clip her ears to make 'em stand up,

it went wrong.

So he cut them both off and when I say off, I mean off.

Then he told us he'd bought it for us for Christmas.

- I begged him for me to drive from Wakefield

to Bradford to pick this puppy up

and deal with the situation.

I went straight to his dad's and banged on the door.

[tense music]

- [Mum] I don't know how you feel about it,

but we were disgusted

and so upset when we saw the poor little thing.

Sean thinks he did well letting it live because

as he said to your dad, he could have microwaved it.

We cared for the dog for a couple of days

before she went to the vets to be rehomed.

Kathy says he's losing the plot and going downhill fast.

For your dad's sake, I hope she's wrong.

- I was horrified, horrified, shocked.

I knew he was capable of that kind of thing but, you know,

to see it written down.

[tense music continues]

- This, for me, feels very much a manipulative behaviour

and a way to tap into Kathy's vulnerabilities.

This also shows us that Stephen

knows other people have emotion and they have empathy,

and they don't like to see animals hurt.

And I think he's using that to lure Kathy in.

[tense music continues]

- 2008, gone to Turkey for two weeks and ended up staying

for three months just because it

was like a different life and relief.

And then I came back to England to slag being written

on the wall and all of my windows painted bright yellow.

I ended up getting a court order,

a non-molestation order to keep him away.

I had a police alarm in my flat,

they'd blocked up the letter box.

[tense music]

When you get a court order at that point in time,

they were for a year.

So they run out at midnight,

and the only time throughout most of this

where I've been almost frozen to the spot through fear

was when he left a message at about 3:25 in the morning.

My answer machine had clicked

before I could get to answer the phone.

So I get halfway across my front room

and then there's just this noise that went on and on.

[tense music continues]

- [Automated Voice] Message seven. Thursday 3:23 a.m.

[Stephen laughing] [tense music]

- At the time my court order had ran out at midnight.

So I assumed he's laughing because I can't have him arrested.

[Stephen laughing] [tense music]

- When I listened to it, it's a very chilling,

elongated laugh, almost a cackle.

He's completely lost reality.

He's somewhere else.

[Stephen laughing] [tense music]

[tense music]

- We were in the incident room at the homicide

and major inquiry team when we got a call

that someone had been arrested in the Bradford area

for a murder.

We made our way across to Halifax police station.

We were waiting as Stephen Griffiths came in.

He started saying all sorts of significant statements

like, "I've killed loads of people," and all sorts

of things like that.

We had no idea whether any of the victims

were alive or whether they died or not.

So we organized for an urgent interview with him.

There's no legal representative present

and you can only ask questions where you're hoping

to save life, or recover urgent evidence.

[tense music continues]

We were in the interview room me, my sergeant

and Mr. Griffiths.

We were asking him is she still alive and if she is,

where can we go and find and help her and rescue her?

- Griffiths then drops a bombshell.

He asks whether this Suzanne, they're asking him about,

is the one known as Amber.

And he says that if it is, then she's gone.

He uses that word, gone.

[tense music]

- More or less straight away we realised

that we couldn't carry on with the interview.

We'd confirmed that the person we were looking for

was not alive.

[tense music continues]

He then was then taken back out to the custody area

and a solicitor was requested.

And believe it or not, it was the same solicitor's firm

that represented Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper.

[tense music continues]

By this time we were aware that certain girls

had gone missing in Bradford area.

[tense music continues]

- West Yorkshire police had spent months trying

to find Susan Rushworth and Shelly Armitage.

- I think as a matter of routine in these kind of inquiries,

missing sex workers, the police compile a list of men,

punters basically, who they think might be suspects.

And I think the police did exactly that in this situation.

At no point during the police inquiry

was Stephen Griffith's on the radar as a suspect

in the disappearance or potential murder of these women.

They get him into an interview room,

and they begin questioning him.

- [Detective] Are you saying that you've killed Susan Rushworth?

- Yes.

- [Detective] And what was the other name?

- Shelley Armitage.

- [Detective] Are you saying

that you've murdered Shelley Armitage?

- Yes.

- [Detective] And then the last one?

- Suzanne Blamires.

- [Detective] Are you saying you've murdered her?

- Yes.

- He told us that he was responsible for the murder

of all three victims.

- [Detective] Why did you feel the need to kill her?

- I don't know.

I don't know.

Sometimes you kill someone to kill yourself,

or kill part of yourself.

I don't know, I don't know.

It's like deep issues inside me.

- It's just quite matter of fact, it felt in a way

to me personally a bit like he'd almost planned

what he was going to say if he ever got caught.

- [Detective] So, why did you feel the need

to kill any of the girls?

- I don't know. - Pardon?

- I don't know.

I don't know.

Well, I'm misanthropic.

I don't have much time for the human race.

- He was just so controlled about what he was saying.

He were going to tell us what he wanted to tell us.

- Griffith told officers

that Susan, his first victim, was killed with a hammer,

and he then dismembered her body with machine tools,

and he cooked and ate parts of the flesh.

[tense music]

He goes on to say he'd killed Shelly with a crossbow.

He told officers that he'd dismembered her in the bath,

but he also said they would find traces of her body on the cooker.

- Cannibalism is very rare.

I think for Stephen,

it was part of this hunting mentality he had,

where he would hunt his prey and then he would eat his prey.

I think it's the ultimate form of ownership, though,

to consume someone.

[tense music]

- I've had the discussions

with Stephen regarding cannibalism and him saying

that it's society that says what you can and can't eat.

What's justifiably okay and what isn't.

So I've had those conversations

about five years before he even murdered his first victim.

And he's told me that that's the ultimate

that people cannot cope with the idea of.

- Cannibalism goes beyond breaking a legal rule

of just killing someone.

So it adds a degree of violence

and almost specialness

to a violent crime.

It's like an escalation of a homicide.

[tense music]

- He said he'd killed Suzanne with a crossbow,

but, despite giving them lots of very gory detail,

Griffiths refused to give them any helpful information

about where he'd left the bodies.

- [Detective] And what sort of location have you put them in?

If you can't tell us where,

what sort of location have you put them?

- I don't know.

Where a robot, where a computer would put them, or,

you know, a rational, emotionless

aberration would put it.

- We were thinking of the family of the victims.

We wanted to try and help find out

where all the victims were.

And he wasn't up for doing that, he was, just wanted

to give us basic information to make himself

a serial killer and then not pass any more information on.

- I believe he was cryptic about what he did

to the bodies because, one was that need

to hold onto some of it himself

and to withhold some of it just

for that control he thrives off.

- After the first couple of interviews

he completely refused to talk to us again.

Wouldn't even come out of his cell.

He said, "Well, to become a serial killer

you only need to kill three people."

So he said, "I'm only telling you about three people."

[tense music]

- Stephen had huge aspirations

to possibly even outperform Peter Sutcliffe.

- He believes that Peter Sutcliffe wasn't as smart

or clued up as people seem to think because he used

to say to me, "Look at the idiot.

He got caught on something pathetic."

- In that police interrogation,

we are kind of seeing this deflated man

who looks nothing like the man we saw in front

of the CCTV camera.

Like this huge man with a crossbow looking scary.

Like they're complete opposites.

Stephen's ego would've been knocked significantly

by being caught on CCTV camera.

It wasn't the way he wanted his reign of terror to end.

[tense music]

- After the murder of Suzanne Blamires he emerges again,

carrying the crossroad again, making no attempt

to hide from the gaze of the camera.

He raises the crossbow towards the camera in one hand,

and raises the other hand

in a one-fingered gesture of abuse.

He goes back home and then he emerges again

with a bottle of lemonade, and he raises this

to the camera again in a toast.

[tense music]

- This to me, all seems like an act.

He wouldn't have liked that he was caught

and caught so stupidly and so easily,

and that the woman he was trying

to kill had actually been the one to get him caught.

So for me, this was an act of defiance,

and pretending that he doesn't care, but he would've cared.

- During the search of his flat,

police found a digital camera and a laptop.

On those devices were some incredibly disturbing images,

a video of Shelly Armitage's murdered body naked in the bath

with the words "My sex slave" written on her flesh.

Another video showed another victim's body,

never identified, which had been bound in green twine.

Griffiths provided a sick commentary,

in which he describes himself as a bloodbath artist.

He described Shelly as his assistant.

[tense music]

- I think a big, big part of this is the sadism

and the fact that he will rewatch this

to relive that pleasure that he got from it.

And also he's turning his actions

into some kind of artistry, almost propelling it

and making it seem something wonderful.

[tense music]

[Stephen laughing]

- When I listened to that,

for many years I thought he's laughing

at me because I can't do anything.

But that's not the case.

That's when he'd murdered his second victim.

[Stephen laughing]

So upon reflection it's like, is he laughing at me

or is it a manic laughing cry because of what he's done?

[Stephen laughing]

- If it coincides with a murder,

I think he could be just totally absorbed in the joy

that he got from carrying that out.

[Stephen laughing] [tense music]

- The day after Griffiths was arrested, a member

of the public who was walking by the River Aire in Shipley,

reported seeing something unusual in the water.

- He'd found a sports holdall discarded

by a side of the stream.

And when he picked it up, he'd quite a weighty thing.

He'd opened it and in there he'd found a human head.

It stands out as one of the most gruesome

and startling incidents we've ever dealt with really.

- When officers come,

they begin a huge search operation with police divers

and officers on the banks.

- This was a team probably of six or seven officers.

Incredibly well trained at underwater search,

but as you can expect, the River Aire,

they can't even see their hands in front of their faces.

They're having to feel their way around.

And subsequently found more body parts weighted down

in bin bags in the River Aire.

[tense music]

When the body parts were found,

there was consideration and thoughts

that perhaps the suspect could be a butcher,

because the body parts had been cut up so thoroughly

and so minutely.

[tense music continues]

- They also found in her head the shaft of a knife

and the bolt from a crossbow.

- It's unbelievable.

To have skinned people and sat in the bath with body parts,

you know, you just cannot believe

that humans can do stuff to each other.

- I think there's a number of reasons why Stephen mutilated

Suzanne's body, and I think a key one

is just how angry he was that she outsmarted him

for that moment and got away and got him caught on CCTV camera.

I think he had a lot of rage there.

He knew that this was perhaps going to be his last kill,

and he was getting out some of that sadism

that's so deep in him.

[tense music]

- Police were able to track him removing body parts,

not only after Suzanne was killed,

but after Shelly and families were forced to

come to the conclusion that those bin liners

contained their loved ones' remains.

[tense music continues]

- One of the other things that he did say

was that he'd dropped bones all over Bradford.

And this was in the height of summer,

so if you can imagine that the search teams were working

in really, really hazardous areas.

There's an awful lot of urban debris.

So there's a lot of rubbish.

There's a lot of food waste discarded.

There's bin bags, there's wheelie bins to look through.

You don't know what is and what isn't evidence

a used condom might be, might be something.

You'll find needles.

[tense music continues]

- A few days later, they find a canvas bag

and it's full of what can only be described

as a killing kit.

It's got hacksaws, it's got knives, it's got razor blades.

It's analysed and there's a certain amount

of tissue which can be traced back to Shelly Armitage.

[tense music continues]

- Shelly's family were among the loveliest families

that a journalist could meet in such horrific circumstances.

I went to her funeral, I saw them release the doves.

[gentle music]

But what struck me and does to this day,

was the devastation of finding so little of her.

I think for me seeing a family, not only traumatised,

seeing a family who had spent years fearing

that something like this would happen

to then have the dilemma as to what size of coffin

to use at their beloved daughter's funeral.

Because all they had managed to find was a piece

of her backbone stays with me to this day.

[dramatic orchestral music continues]

[tense music]

- I have authorized the police to charge him

with all three murders this afternoon.

The events of the last few days

have understandably been very upsetting for the families

and friends of Suzanne, Shelley and Susan,

as well as for the wider public in Bradford.

[tense music continues]

- When it first happened, when he first got arrested,

I just did not want anyone to know.

I did not want anyone to know.

Once he'd been named and the media just took it and ran

with it and his face was everywhere, everywhere I went.

So you're at work and there's newspapers in the canteen

and he's staring at you and you're going into a shop,

there's newspapers and he's staring at you.

[tense music continues]

Look at him, how proud he looks of himself

and he'd clearly gone and got changed.

He's killed the lass, dragged her back into his flat

and taken the time to change his clothes and do his hair

so he can come out and do this,

'cause he knows he's been caught.

- [Reporter] Police divers continued to search the River Aire

near Shipley, where Suzanne Blamires' dismembered body

was discovered.

It's a grim task, but necessary.

- And then after that it all came out

about the body parts and stuff

and it was just awful.

[tense music continues]

It wasn't even enough for him to just kill these women.

He just absolutely desecrated them like he wanted

to destroy them, just wipe all faces of them from the earth.

It was horrific.

And despite the fact I wasn't surprised

by the culmination as it were of his life,

it was still shocking and horrifying.

It was just a horrible, horrible time.

Very mentally distressing and I feel terrible saying

that because I can't imagine how it was for the families

of his victims, you know.

Those poor women.

[dramatic orchestral music]

I mean people ask me, "Do you write to him?

Would you go and see him?

Oh, you should write to him."

It's not that easy.

What am I going to say?

I'm going to say, who are you?

What happened to the little boy I knew?

Why have you done this?

What is wrong with you?

[tense music]

[tense music]

- On the Friday after Griffith's arrest,

he's brought up before magistrates at Bradford.

Court Number three.

When a defendant appears in court for the first time,

it's usually a very dry, short, nondescript affair.

Not with Stephen Griffiths though.

- He was asked to give his name.

You know, we were sitting there, we knew his name.

We were just waiting for Stephen Sean Griffiths.

And instead he kind of pulled himself up

and pronounced, "The Crossbow Cannibal."

[tense music]

The whole court gasped.

It was shocking enough as a journalist to hear that.

But imagine what it must have been like

for the families who were in court of those three women.

And he knew it would shock.

The look on his face was smug.

He was proud.

He had found a way to become infamous.

[tense music continues]

[gentle music]

- I know all the names.

I'll never forget the names.

Susan Rushworth,

Shelley Armitage, Susan Blamires.

Yeah, I can still see the faces as well.

The pictures they put in the papers and stuff.

Never leaves you.

Never. You know.

Just terrible.

Terrible waste.

Terrible waste of him and those three.

[sombre music]

Sorry.

I think he wanted to be someone.

I mean, it's not my idea

of someone you would want to be, but clearly to him it was.

[sombre music continues]

If it wasn't for the fact that that brave,

brave young woman had run out of that flat

and he had to chase her,

then maybe he would never have been caught.

And thank God she did really, I know what happened to her,

but still she stopped it happening to a lot more people.

She's a very, very brave girl.

[sombre music continues]

[tense music]

- We were told as journalists that he was pleading

not guilty and it would be quite a lengthy trial.

And then we saw his lawyers run.

[tense music continues]

I know the lawyer.

And he looked at me and he went,

once again a game had been played.

Griffiths at the last minute

told his defence team he wanted to plead guilty.

And at that moment, I suppose I was glad,

I was glad that the families would not have three weeks

of listening to the gruesome details

about what he did to their loved ones.

But make no mistake, he didn't do it for them.

He did it for himself to add a little bit of drama.

In fact, he turned to the public gallery

where the family was sitting and said,

"And what are you looking at?"

And there was just a moment when I thought somebody

was gonna leap over.

The tension was so high and then they led him away.

[tense music]

- Because Griffiths had pleaded guilty,

there was no need for a full trial.

So all the court needed was a summary

of what was being said against him.

[tense music continues]

People had a good idea of what he'd been up to

in that grotty flat in the center of Bradford.

But nevertheless, the details were truly shocking.

And at various points, there was the sound of sobbing

from the public gallery as the relatives of Susan,

Shelly and Suzanne were forced to listen

to what happened to them.

[tense music continues]

- When the police forensic teams

entered Stephen Griffith's flat, we learned today

that they would find blood samples from all three women,

blood which had been projected onto the walls,

over furniture and onto the carpets.

Griffiths would later describe his bathroom

to the police as the slaughterhouse.

[tense music continues]

- I think the depravity of Griffiths' crimes

was born out by the fact

that he's one of very few criminals

to get a whole life tariff, which means he will never,

ever be eligible for parole.

In fact, the judge described him as wicked and monstrous,

and indeed he is.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- Susan's family have never had a body to bury.

- I've spoken to Susan's family on a number of occasions,

and even now, more than a decade later,

they have not been able to say goodbye.

There is no grave for them to visit.

All that was found in Griffiths' flat was some blood,

but it was Susan's.

And what he has steadfastly refused to do

is to tell them what he did to her

and where he put her body and that haunts them.

[sombre music continues]

To not be able to lay a bunch of flowers,

to not be able to really grieve is cruel.

And it's part of his power game.

[dramatic orchestral music continues]

- While Griffiths admitted his offenses by pleading guilty,

he didn't actually show any signs of remorse.

[tense music]

- I'm not surprised he's shown no remorse.

I think this has all been about Stephen.

It's all been what he wants.

And these women have been a means to an end for that.

Stephen did know he was doing this.

He had mental disorders,

but he also made conscious decisions

to carry out these murders and crafted a life

where he could do that more easily.

[tense music]

- It's always there,

always there in the back of your mind.

I just want to ask him why, probably.

Why you did this and who are you?

I'd probably tell him that I loved him as well.

People might be shocked to hear that,

but he's my brother, my big brother.

I loved him. I love him.

I always will, probably, part of me.

Even though part of me absolutely hates him

for what he's done

and for what he's put so many people through.

[tense music]

- The most important people to remember in this story

are the three women, Susan, Shelly, and Suzanne.

It is so important that attention is always brought back to them

because for their families,

they were people that they loved,

people that they tried to help,

people that they were desperately worried about.

And their worst fears came true.

And they ended up meeting a psychopath,

a cold-hearted killer who wanted to be famous.

[dramatic orchestral music]

[tense music]