All language subtitles for Britains.Most.Evil.Killers.S02E08.WEBRip.en

-In February 1994,

a badly burned body
of a teenager

was found on an allotment
in Sunderland, in England.

It was the third similar death
in three months.

Pathology reports
gave the police no reason

to treat the deaths
as suspicious,

but they were dealing with
a sadistic serial killer.

-He knew that he got sexual
excitement from killing them.

He knew that he wanted
to destroy evidence

of the strangling
by setting fire to them.

-The murderer was a 23-year-old
man named Steven Grieveson.

The papers had begun to call him
the "Sunderland Strangler."

-He's making a decision

to take someone's life
time and time again.

He's somebody who has chosen
to do evil things,

and in that way, he is a classic
psychopathic serial killer.

-It would take the efforts
of one detective

supported by the stoic family
members of Grieveson's victims

to finally bring the killer
to justice.

-Steven Grieveson is the most
evil man I've heard of.

Horrible. Just can't understand
how someone could be like that.

-Steven Grieveson,
the Sunderland Strangler,

had been revealed as one of
the world's most evil killers.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

It was a case
that almost went unsolved.

For 3 months in the early 1990s,

there was serial killer
on the loose in the Sunderland

in the northeast of England.

The deaths of three teenagers --

Thomas Kelly,

David Hanson,

and David Grieff --

were all initially believed
to be mysterious

but not suspicious.

Pathologists
had ruled out murder.

It would take a new detective
to finally uncover the truth

and bring justice
upon the 25-year-old local man

named Steven Grieveson.

-As the guilty verdicts
were read out,

there were loud cheers
from the public gallery.

Handing down three
life sentences,

the judge described Grieveson
as evil and dangerous.

-When the body
of 18-year-old Thomas Kelly

was found in a fire
on November 26, 1993,

the police came
to the conclusion

that the death
was solvent-related.

Local journalist Nigel Green
covered the case.

-I don't recall there being
any great fuss

after the first death,

and it obviously makes you think
what would have happened

if Grieveson had just killed
the first lad,

presuming he would have
got away with it,

and it would have
just been dismissed

as some poor lad
who died glue sniffing.

-It wasn't until
in November 1995

that Grieveson
was finally charged.

Nicknamed
the Sunderland Strangler,

he was eventually found guilty
of a fourth murder

at a second trial
in October 2013.

-I still remember this case
as if it was yesterday.

It's still fresh in my mind,
even 20-odd years on,

and I would imagine
it's still similar

for the other people
of Sunderland.

-This killer's story begins
over 45 years ago.

Steven Grieveson was born
in Sunderland

on the 14th of December 1970.

He grew up in a large family,

but his parents were reportedly
violent towards one another.

-You are molded by
the environment you live in.

It's a fact.
Everybody knows this.

So if you grow up with violence,

you tend to be more violent

than people that don't.

-Grieveson appears to show
some psychopathic traits

in childhood.

Some of his old school reports
are looked at

by a psychologist at his trial,
and within these reports,

they talk
of his lack of empathy,

about his callousness,

about his real lack of emotion
towards other people.

I think there are
a few red flags

in Steven Grieveson's childhood,

but they're not necessarily
red flags that say to me,

"This person's going to turn
into a murderer."

They are red flags that say,

"This is somebody who perhaps
needs some help,

needs some support, you know,
later on in childhood

and in their teenage years."

-Growing up, Grieveson was
often in trouble,

and in 1982,
he was arrested for shoplifting.

-He opened a pack of nails
inside a shop.

He didn't take the whole pack.

He took one nail
and he got caught.

And obviously,
the owner of the shop

didn't like that very much,

and he actually went to court
for stealing one nail.

One nail,
not a pack of nails. One nail.

But he was only 11 years old.

-Extraordinarily, he was taken
in front of the magistrate.

Now, for most 11-year-old boys,
that would be

the most terrifying experience
imaginable,

and they would certainly
not dream of doing it again,

even though it was in many ways

an absolutely irrelevant
tiny crime,

certainly not punishable
by anything significant.

But it's interesting
that Grieveson didn't take

that experience
as any kind of lesson.

He simply brushed it off,
water off a duck's back.

He simply went on and did
what he wanted to do.

♪♪

-At the age of 13,

Social Services
made the decision

to remove Grieveson
from the family home.

-Well, when he was
an adolescent,

he was taken into
the residential care system,

and he ends up at
a children's home in Carlisle.

-Grieveson's troubles continued
through his adolescence.

-He's had a real sense of shame

instilled in himself
at this point in his life.

This is the point where
many people are

realizing things
about their sexuality,

experimenting
with their sexuality,

and at the same time
when people should have

the freedom to do that,

he's been experiencing abuse
and violence and neglect,

and all of this is fueling
a sense of shame.

-Grieveson struggled with
his homosexuality

in an environment
designed to quash it.

-I think that the context
of the 1970s, 1980s northeast

is another factor
in the Steven Grieveson story.

This is an area of tough
working-class masculinity,

of mining, of shipbuilding,
of those kind of jobs

that make men masculine men.

So there'll be very much
a culture

of what a man should look like,
how a man should behave,

and for Steven Grieveson,

for somebody who realizes
that he's gay,

this is another way in which
he's not going to fit in.

He's not gonna be accepted.

-People that grew up
in an environment

where it's a macho environment,
it's like,

"Oh, no.
You have to be a man.

"If you were born a man,
you have to be a man.

"You have to play football.
You have to do this.

You have to go and drink
with the lads."

Suddenly, you start having
all these, you know, affections

or feelings for another male,
is a very common thing

for people to be
a little bit ashamed,

and go, "What's going on?
This cannot be."

And they will lie to themselves.
And that's --

I'm pretty sure that's exactly
what happened with Grieveson.

-Grieveson didn't fit
into the world around him,

and by the age 19,
he'd become a social outcast.

-By 1990, Steven Grieveson
had been convicted

of around about
38 different offenses.

So he was in and out of prison,

and it's this very typical
revolving door

that we see with kind of
low-level crime, property crime.

It's a way of life
for some people.

-In May of the same year, 1990,

Sunderland was rocked by
the murder of a 14-year-old boy

called Simon Martin.

He had been found semi-naked

and bludgeoned to death
in a derelict building

after running away from home
just days before.

-I remember the Simon Martin
murder very well.

We had five murders in
less than a week in Sunderland,

and in hindsight, looking back,

whether that was putting
extra pressure on the police

with a given murder inquiry

involving
40, 50 police officers,

a hell of a lot
of police resources,

and whether that would
have put strain

on the Simon Martin murder
at the time.

-The police initially thought

they had quickly solved
the crime

after arresting
a local teenager.

-He was 16. He lived nearby.

He was a respectable lad
from a good family from memory,

and he had been playing
in that building with others,

and they found his fingerprints
in the building.

There was blood
in the building as well,

and they found
his fingerprint in blood,

which was just coincidence.

-All charges against
the 16-year-old boy

were eventually dropped.

The murder of Simon Martin would
remain unsolved for 23 years.

But during the original
investigation in May 1990,

police had also spoken
to a local 19-year-old man

named Steven Grieveson.

-He's somebody who had
a reputation in the local area

for hanging around
with people younger than him.

I think when you've got somebody
who's trying

to get a sense of control,
get a sense of power,

you often feel that
they hang around with people

who they see
as slightly inferior to them.

-Grieveson was questioned
by the police

in the wake of Simon
Martin's body being discovered,

and Grieveson said, "Yes.

Certainly, I saw him, but he was
fine when I left him."

-Grieveson was released
without charge.

Three years later,
the discovery of the body

of 18-year-old Thomas Kelly

would trigger a series
of similar deaths

that would spread fear
across the whole of Sunderland.

By the winter of 1993,
22-year-old Steven Grieveson

had built up a reputation
as a troublemaker.

In November of the same year,

Thomas Kelly,
an 18-year-old student,

had gone missing
from the family home

he shared with his parents
and his sister, Lyndsey.

-My brother, Thomas, was just
a normal boy for the time,

just kind, helpful.

He would do anything
for anybody.

Loved life.

We wouldn't go to bed
on the nighttime

without saying
we loved each other.

He used to call me "Pins"
instead of "Lynds,"

which was...a bit strange,

but that was the way we went on.

We argued quite a bit,
as brother and sister do,

but never went to bed
without making up.

We were very close
as brother and sister.

We were close as a family.

We didn't have loads of money,
nothing like that, but...

we went out
and done things together,

silly things
like willick picking

and, you know, we'd just...

Very close family, I'd say.

-Lyndsey vividly remembers
the day

her older brother disappeared.

-I went to school.

Me mum went to work,

and then Thomas had left
for college,

and that was the last time
we had seen him.

It was actually a bit strange
that morning

because we were very close
as brother and sister,

but that morning he was standing
by the fireplace

in me mum's house,

and, um...

as we said bye,
he walked forward

and grabbed me hand
and squeezed me hand.

-On November 26, 1993,
the emergency services

were called to a burning shed
on an allotment

near Monkwearmouth Hospital
in Sunderland.

♪♪

-The fire
attracts attention, inevitably,

and the body of Thomas Kelly
is found.

♪♪

It's hard to imagine
what it must have been like

for whoever arrived
on that allotment

to confront the sight
of a burning body

in a burning building.

It is gruesome.

-When it came on the news,
I wasn't listening to the news.

I was sitting in the house,
and I had seen me dad

cover his face,
and I went, "What's wrong?"

And he went,
"There's a body been found."

And they say parents
get a feeling.

I don't know whether he got
a feeling at that point.

-Thomas' badly burned body
had seemingly destroyed

any possible evidence,

and senior detectives at
Northumbria Police

were not convinced
that he been murdered.

-They were treating it as
mysterious but not suspicious.

They didn't quite know
what had went on with Thomas.

We had told them that everything
was out of the ordinary.

Thomas wouldn't be in
an allotment like that

or a place like that normally

unless he'd went with somebody.

♪♪

-Drug and solvent abuse
were prevalent

in working-class areas
at the time,

and detectives were keeping
an open mind.

-It's very hard for the police
at that point

to know quite what had
been going on.

Solvent was found in the area,
but they weren't certain.

-I think there was
a real stigmatization

of young men in this area
during the 1980s, the 1990s.

It was a period
of industrial decline.

There were a lot
of social problems often in some

of the deprived communities
in this part of the U.K.

So it was very easy
to attach a particular story

to a situation.

-Initial pathology reports
on Thomas' body

were also inconclusive.

-The question is whether
the death is suspicious or not,

in the era when solvent abuse
was common,

young lads found dead in
an allotment, evidence of fire.

If you're not thinking dirty,

you're not seeing what
it may be.

It's the initial assessment,

and if that misses
what it's likely to be,

then the whole investigation
goes down the wrong route.

-And that's
exactly what happened.

Because of a lack
of pathological evidence,

the police had ruled out murder,
but they were wrong.

Thomas Kelly had been
strangled to death

with his own bandana
after bumping into

a local 22-year-old man
named Steven Grieveson.

♪♪

-I think they probably
knew each other or at least met,

perhaps at football.

-Grieveson reportedly revealed

his homosexuality
to Thomas Kelly,

and it is assumed that he killed
the 18-year-old

to cover his secret.

♪♪

-He then decides
to burn Kelly's body

in an effort to disguise
what has gone on.

It is merciless.

It is without
possible explanation.

Why would you set fire
to the body of a boy

unless within you there is
some kind of lack of conscious?

It is a monstrous act.
There's no two ways about it.

-Detectives had questioned
known troublemaker Grieveson

about Thomas Kelly's death,

but they had to reason
to arrest him.

It was a grave mistake.

-Thomas Kelly was killed
at the end of November.

By early February, just
literally a few weeks later,

he had abducted or persuaded
another young man

called David Hanson to go
with him to a derelict building.

-On February 4, 1994,

Grieveson strangled the life
from 15-year-old David Hanson

before setting his body alight.

Once again, he was questioned
about the death,

but released without charge.

-So now Grieveson's starting
to be calculating.

He starts to realize

that he can
actually get away with things

by getting rid of the evidence.

By burning the victim,

you get rid of all
the circumstantial evidence

and all the evidence that
he could have left on the body.

-With another
inconclusive report

from a different pathologist,
detectives rule

that David Hanson
had not been murdered

despite the similarities between
his and Thomas Kelly's death

six weeks earlier.

-I remember speaking to one
police contact on the case

telling me that it didn't add up
that it was murder,

and it didn't add up
that it was solvents.

I didn't get into the precise
details of why that was,

but I remember him
telling me that,

as they say, the first one
was just deemed to be a tragedy.

The second one was deemed
to be a coincidence.

And officers said to each other
at the time,

"As long as we don't get
a third one,"

and they did get a third one.

♪♪

-Just a few weeks later,
the end of February '94,

Grieveson persuades
another boy --

David Grieff, also 15 --

to go to another allotment.

Grieveson kills him,

strangles him
and does set fire to him again.

♪♪

Grieveson has now killed
three young men

in the space
of literally 3 months.

-Steven Grieveson is escalating
his offending,

and for somebody
with psychopathic traits,

it's not unusual for them
to get bored easily,

and that applies
to their offending

as it does
to their life in general.

They've got a need
for simulation.

They've got a need to
up the ante and experience

that kind of thrill
again and again.

-I don't know.
I look back on it,

and I sometimes wonder
if Grieveson

had some kind of almost desire

to see how far he could
push it without being caught.

It's hard to say.

It's speculation,
but it seems...

strange use of the words,

almost reckless
from the killer's point of view

to repeat a similar murder in
a similar area for a third time.

-The police spoke to
Steven Grieveson

for a third time,

and for a third time,
they let him go without charge,

much to the frustration
of the families

of the three deceased teenagers.

-Steven Grieveson was
interviewed.

We didn't know this at the time

'cause the police were saying
that it was drug abuse.

It was afterwards
that we realized that he was

arrested and interviewed
at the police station,

only later to be let out
and murder again.

-Well, I think Steven Grieveson
felt absolutely invincible.

He was picked up by the police,

yet after each
of these boys' deaths,

but they didn't connect him

to the actually murders
until much later.

So it really did kind of shore
up a sense in which he felt,

"I can do this again because
the police have talked to me.

"They clearly haven't
joined up dots.

I'm getting away with this."

So he feels
absolutely invincible.

-But less than a month after
the death of David Grieff,

Grieveson was finally
in police custody.

He was arrested and charged
with robbery

after forcing staff
at a local fish-and-chip shop

to empty the till.

Although sentenced
to 18 months in prison,

investigators still
weren't considering

charging Grieveson with murder

because three reports from
three different pathologists

had failed to linked the deaths.

All of them were being treated
as solvent-related.

-We didn't understand where
the idea of drugs came from.

There was no evidence
on any of the boys to say

that they've taken anything.

No matter what the families
were saying

and telling the police
what these boys were like,

it felt like no one
was listening.

People were grabbing hold
of a story that wasn't true,

and I think to drag
three boys' names down,

it was awful.

It was just...
They didn't deserve it.

They didn't deserve it,

and they only had us
to defend them,

that they weren't here
to defend themselves.

-Even at the time,
you could look back

and think that police
should have looked on that

as being suspicious

that they were apparently
glue sniffers and the fires.

They should have realized
from day one there

was something not right.

-But time was running out
for Grieveson.

Investigators believed
the deaths were suspicious,

but so farm no one
had been charged with murder.

The families of the victims
were far from satisfied.

-I think before the three
families had met up

and got together, we were all
fighting from separate corners.

We wouldn't let anything lie.

We were trying to get
information from everywhere.

And I think when the families
did come together,

the police knew that
we were a stronger force,

and we weren't going to
back down.

Didn't matter what, we knew that
these boys were murdered.

-By the time
of the third death,

the families were starting
to kick up a fuss,

and the media were quite rightly
paying attention.

One of my colleagues,
Paul Watson,

went down to see the families,

and I remember him
coming back quite vociferous

that there was something
in what they were saying

'cause obviously there
could be a cynical approach

that the families
of glue sniffers

are going to try
and make it look like their sons

hadn't got involved
in that kind of thing

and that there was
some more to it,

but he came back
very convinced.

I also went up to see
the families,

and I remember coming away
thinking, "Yes, what they said."

There is something definitely
in what they say

that way too much coincidence,

way too many things
that were wrong.

-Months passed as the families
and local press

continue to pressure the police
to change course.

-You got to look
at the sheer weight

of the pressure
the families brought,

the campaigning that they did

that they were convinced
from day one

there was something
not right about it.

-All the families of
the victims were really close.

We needed each other.

We stuck together,
and that's what we needed.

We were no one alone,
but to have those people

who understood what you were
going through around you

made a difference.

-Finally,
the families got their wish.

A new detective, Dave Wilson,
had taken over the case.

He wanted to re-examine
the evidence

gathered by three
separate pathologists.

-Some causes of death
are simply more difficult

to identify than others,
particularly if there's been

postmortem changes
in the bodies.

Pathologists are human.

People make mistakes.

What you need is a new person,

a new way of thinking,
like the officer David Wilson,

in this case
who comes in and says,

"What about
thinking about it differently?

What about these factors?
Let's look at it again."

And that's the sort of thing
that can often

just kick-start an investigation
into the right frame of mind.

-David Wilson was a different
person altogether,

a different detective.

He wanted to find out
what happened.

He thought could there be
a sexual motive,

which it would have been
locked in straightaway

if they were girls
who had been murdered.

And he went down that route,
and it really helped.

We felt like someone
was listening to us,

and someone was fighting with us
rather than against us.

You could say David Wilson,

he was hungry to get
this person off the streets

and get this person convicted.

He wasn't going to just lie back
and leave it.

He was looking at everything,
everything again.

He looked in at the boys.

He looked in all the evidence,

and he wasn't going to give up
until he got his man.

-Detective Wilson was certain

that all three deaths
were linked.

Not only were the crime scenes
extremely similar,

all three boys had attended
the same school --

Monkwearmouth Comprehensive.

In August 1994, Wilson asked
for a second postmortem

to be carried out
on all the bodies

by a senior pathologist.

-You don't just
call a friend, say,

"Can you re-examine the body?"

No, you have to get, you know,
court orders and judges

and everybody involved,

and this detective
was relentless.

He went after it, and he got
the court order that was needed.

This was a detective that he
knew that something was wrong.

You know, when you read a case
and you just --

Maybe it's a gut feeling or
there's something there, you go,

"Okay.
This cannot be like this."

-On closer inspection,
all three teenagers appeared

to have died in the same way.

-So in Grieveson's case,
the most important factor

was that the ligature marks
are then identified.

We're now moving from
three similar

but apparently discreet
incidents

all involving three young boys
from the same school

to three potential homicides
from the same school

the same way.

Now you're almost looking
towards a serial killer.

-I think that the fact
that Steven Grieveson

killed his victims
by strangulation

is very significant

because it's one of the most
personal forms of killing.

You are watching the life
drain out of the them.

He's probably feeling
more in control

at the time
he's killing his victims

than he's ever felt
at any point in his life before.

So I think it's a very
deliberate choice of method.

-I think they were groomed,
encouraged,

cajoled, or perhaps
even threatened by Grieveson,

and they paid the price
with their lives.

♪♪

-I remember the day very well.

I was on the Sun
when Northumbria Police

revealed that they were treating
the deaths as murder.

And tragic as it was,

the family would have seen that
was a victory

and that finally
something was happening.

-Detective had found
fingerprints

and a footprint
belonging to Grieveson

in the derelict house
where David Hanson was murdered.

They were from a burglary

Grieveson had committed
months before,

but proved he had access
to the property.

And by September 1994,

Wilson had retrieved
some conclusive evidence.

Semen found in the stomach
of the third victim,

15-year-old David Grieff,

was a DNA match
for Steven Grieveson.

-If you burn the outside
of the body,

then you can lose injuries

if you lose the skin
and the soft tissues beneath it.

There's going to be less
and less that you can see,

but it can be surprising
what you can still identify,

particularly if the area
is protected from the fire.

You can still see
maybe stab wounds.

You can see all sorts of things
that many people

who try to dispose of a body
by fire think will be gone.

-Grieveson was already
in prison for robbery

after holding up
a fish-and-chip shop.

-Steven Grieveson was a bully.
He wasn't nice.

He used to go around picking on
lads and taking stuff off them.

He picked on teenage boys,
old women,

anybody that was
smaller than him, I think.

He was a troublemaker,
someone to keep away from.

When Grieveson was arrested
for the murder,

we weren't shocked at all

'cause it was what we were
fighting for, for months.

We knew it was him.

We knew that those boys had
done nothing wrong.

We knew that someone
had done that to them.

-Grieveson's trial was set
for January 1996.

He was going to plead not guilty
to the murders of Thomas Kelly,

David Hanson, and David Grieff.

-I think Steven Grieveson
maintained his innocence

for quite a while initially

because he thought that he was
going to get away with it

because he had come on to
the police radar several times

and had gone off it again,

and now he finds himself
charged with these murders.

I think he's just chancing it.

I think he's just pleading
not guilty

and saying,
"I'm not responsible,"

because he thinks
there is actually a chance

that he's going
to get away with this.

-He is a man who wishes to
conceal the darkness in his soul

and will go to any lengths
to do so.

He absolutely refuses to accept

that he could have played
any part

in the deaths of these three
innocent young men and fronts

that lie without any possible
flicker of doubt

throughout his 6-week trial.

-The parents of
the three murdered teenagers

arriving at court,

where today they listen
to details of how,

according to the prosecution,
their sons were killed.

-During the trial
at Leeds Crown Court,

Grieveson showed
complete contempt

for the families of his victims.

-I was 17,
I think, at the time,

and it was a hard thing
to take in,

not just for me,
for all the families.

None of us were used to being
in a court surroundings

or anything like that.

We didn't know what normally
went on in court.

What made it worse was Grieveson
sitting at the dock

sticking his fingers up at us,

just goading us,
pulling faces, laughing at us.

It wasn't nice.

-The evidence against Grieveson
was compelling.

He had left prints at the house
where David Hanson was murdered

and his DNA
on the body of David Grieff.

The jury took just 4 hours
to find him guilty.

When Steven Grieveson
got convicted,

we all erupted,

the public gallery, the family.

Everyone had jumped up
off their seat.

We didn't think that we were
going to get that

because of the lack of evidence
on some of the boys,

and when he got convicted
of Thomas first,

we knew that he would get
convicted of the other two.

-On February 28, 1996,

Judge Mr. Justice Holland
described Grieveson

as plain evil as he handed out
three life sentences

to the 25-year-old.

He was sent to
Full Sutton Prison in Yorkshire.

-I mean, nothing is going to
bring these poor lads back,

and the pain is going to be
with the families forever,

but at least in finding out
what happened to their sons

and finding out that
they weren't just glue sniffers

who died
in a burning building,

that they were innocent victims
of a serial killer

and the truth
finally coming out

would hopefully alleviate some
of the pain for the families.

-In December 1997,
Northumbria Police apologized

to the families of
the three boys for the distress

caused to them during
the initial investigation.

-I think if the police
had done a better job

and looked into this properly,

maybe listen more
to the families

about what kind of boys
they were,

they would have took him
off the streets a lot earlier

and maybe could have saved
a lot of lives.

-But the police weren't done
with Steven Grieveson just yet.

Northumbria Police
were convinced

that he was also responsible
for a death

that preceded
all of his other victims --

the murder of Simon Martin
in May 1990.

The body
of the 14-year-old schoolboy

had been found half-naked
in a derelict house.

-Grieveson clearly decided

that he didn't want
this little boy

to tell anyone
what had happened,

and so he decided
that he would silence him,

and he hit Simon Martin
with some of the rubble

in the house,
persistently around the head.

Later, he was to claim,
"I just flipped."

No, Grieveson didn't just flip.

He decided that he didn't
want anyone

to know what had happened,

and the easiest way of doing
that was to kill the boy

because he couldn't tell anyone.

Therefore, this was a little boy

who was being killed
to keep him quiet.

-However, the murder didn't
match Grieveson's usual M.O.

-Simon Martin was not strangled
to death by Grieveson,

nor was he set on fire.

But at the time of Simon's
killing in 1990

when Grieveson
was only 19 and a half,

he hadn't yet refined the method
that he wanted to use to kill.

He was still working out
in his own mind, I suspect,

what gave him
the most satisfaction.

Martin was,
if you like, a prototype.

Kelly, Hanson, and Grieff were
the finished article.

-Simon's murder predated
the others by 3 years.

-I think the thing that I'd say
with this case

is that we have quite
a significant gap

between 1990 and 1993.

I'd be really interested to know
what Steven Grieveson

was doing
during that time period

because often when
somebody commits a murder

and enjoys
committing a murder,

they often don't wait years
until they commit another one.

So that gap is
quite a problem for me.

-Just as before,
Detective Dave Wilson

had re-examined Simon's case

and discovered some DNA
belonging to Grieveson

at the scene of the murder.

In November 2000,
he was arrested in his cell

at Full Sutton Prison
and questioned by detectives.

-There's no doubt
that he had attacked

and killed Simon Martin.

Grieveson
denies any knowledge of it,

flatly refuses
to say anything.

-Without a confession,
the police decided they couldn't

charge Grieveson
with Simon's murder.

-Serial killers keep secrets
because it gives them power,

and it also gives them power
to torment

the families
of their victims.

Simon Martin's father,
who had been in the army,

launched a great appeal
to find his missing son.

These were...real, ordinary,
decent people

whom Grieveson
took inordinate pleasure

in tormenting.

-But over a decade later,
out of the blue,

Grieveson finally confessed.

In a series of interviews with
detectives in February 2013,

he admitted
that he was responsible

for Simon Martin's death,

but he still denied murdering
the 14-year-old schoolboy.

-When we find out
that Grieveson had admitted

to killing Simon Martin,
none of us were surprised.

We always knew,

and we always
wanted justice for Simon

as well as ourselves.

-So Steven Grieveson said
that he was haunted about Simon.

This is something
that had troubled him

during his time in prison,

and all of this apparently
from a man with no conscience,

with little empathy
for other people,

somebody with significant
psychopathic traits.

I'd be quite cautious about
this statement

because it suggests to us,

doesn't it,
that he had some empathy,

that he has some remorse,
that he's feeling bad.

But this is somebody
who's been in prison

for a significant amount
of time.

He's been learning about
other people's emotions

while he's been in prison.

He's been learning
what other people want to hear,

what they need to hear,
and also the kind of things

that you need to say to make
your own situation better.

So I'd be cautious

about attaching
any real meaning to that.

-On the 14th of October 2013,
at New Castle Crown Court,

Grieveson was back in the dock,
charged with a fourth murder

that had taken place
23 years beforehand.

♪♪

-When the Simon Martin trial
came up,

we all went to court every day,

the same as we did
the first time,

stuck together at the three
families or the four families,

which it had become.

It was just as hard
as the first trial.

We learned a lot of stuff
about our boys

that we got told wrongly
at the beginning.

There was lots of stuff
that we didn't know came out.

So it was just very hard.

It was difficult.

-The jury did not believe that
Simon's death was an accident,

and on October 24, 2013,

Grieveson was
found guilty of murder.

-It was good news.
It was good news for Sunderland.

It was good news for the family
that this unsolved murder

could finally be laid to rest,

and that would ease
some of the pain

not only for the family
of Simon Martin

but also for the family of
the boy who was wrongly arrested

and wrongly charged
with the killing.

-It was revealed during
the second trial

that Grieveson had written
to all three families

of his initial victims
asking for forgiveness.

In extracts from a letter
to the family of Thomas Kelly,

he wrote, "I know you think
I am evil, horrible.

"I should never have done
what I did.

"I never ever intended
to take Thomas away from you.

"I am sorry I destroyed your
son's life, your family's life.

"I wish I could
turn the clock back.

"I hope one day you will find it
in both of your hearts

to forgive me."

-Those letters meant nothing
to me, nothing at all.

And I think he wrote them
to wind us up.

It was his way
of getting to us again.

-There's several levels
of psychopath.

The top level is when
you have zero, zero emotions.

There's other levels that you
will have certain emotions

but not other emotions
towards people.

But in his case, one thing I
have seen in other psychopaths

and people who have been
to prison is that

they like the limelight,

and once the limelight
starts to die down,

they will find something else
to bring the limelight.

So it could have been that
that's the reason

why he wrote the letters.

-In respective of his motive

for writing
the letters of forgiveness,

nothing will bring back
the four boys

who Grieveson
heartlessly murdered.

-I think about Thomas
every day,

many times in that day.

He's always on me mind
and he's always there.

He's probably the first thing
I think about when I wake up

and the last thing I think about
when I go to sleep.

It doesn't just go away.
It doesn't. It's hard.

-The man who brought Grieveson
to justice,

Detective Superintendent
Dave Wilson,

passed away in 2011.

He was 64 years old.

The shadow of the Sunderland
Strangler

still looms over the city today,

a man who killed young boys
just to keep them quiet.

-Many people struggle
with their sexuality,

but very few of them are going
to go on and harm other people,

let alone kill them.

I think in the case
of Steven Grieveson,

what we've got is a unique
toxic combination of factors.

We've got
a disruptive childhood.

We've got a lack of acceptance
within a community.

So we've got all of these things
coming together

to almost create
the perfect storms.

That's a horrible way
of describing it,

but that's what we have
in this case.

-I look back on it now,
and I thank God

that the families did do
what they did and that the media

and the journalists at the time
did what they did

and really pushed
for the truth to come out.

-We will never forgive
Steven Grieveson.

Never forgive him.

He said it was too much,
and to be honest,

if I was to find out
he died in prison tomorrow,

wouldn't bother us one bit.

-Grieveson was a troubled man
with a troubled childhood,

but this can be no excuse

for callously taking the life
of four young boys.

His capture was all down
to the passion and hard work

of a detective spurred on by
the victims' families.

Together, they finally brought
about the downfall

of Steven Grieveson,

one of
the world's most evil killers.

♪♪

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