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Britain's Most Evil Killers S09E09 (Dec 03 2024)
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00:00The End
00:02The End
00:04In late summer 2007, in the East End of London,
00:17Zhao Meiguo and Bonnie Barrett vanished without trace.
00:22Those two bodies have never been found,
00:24nor have there ever been remains found.
00:27The women had fallen into the clutches of Derrick Brown,
00:31a man who hunted his victims down
00:34and treated them without mercy.
00:37Brown dismembered two bodies in his own home.
00:43You have to be very, very comfortable
00:45with that kind of violence to be able to do that.
00:50When elite murder squad detectives picked up the trail,
00:54the predator became the prey
00:56and Brown's days of freedom were numbered.
00:59It was an impeccable investigation
01:02and one that will remain, I think, unrivalled
01:05to put away a potential serial killer without a single body.
01:09At his trial, Derrick Brown showed no signs of remorse.
01:16He was found guilty and he was sentenced.
01:19He stood there and laughed.
01:21Derrick Brown brutally murdered two young women
01:26and robbed their loved ones of the chance to lay them to rest,
01:30making him one of Britain's most evil killers.
01:43He was found guilty.
01:44In 2007, a missing persons investigation led police
02:01to the door of convicted rapist Derrick Brown,
02:04a man with dark desires.
02:06Brown had quite the history of using sex workers.
02:13He was always in, you know, what we call the red light district.
02:18He had plans to build a disturbing reputation for himself.
02:23He said, you will hear about me, I will be famous.
02:28There was some thought in Derrick Brown's mind
02:31that he could become a sort of contemporary Jack the Ripper.
02:36Indeed, when the police searched his flat,
02:39they found evidence the would-be serial killer had already got started.
02:45They discovered a bill from a local DIY shop
02:49for what can be described as a murder and disassemblement kit.
02:52This was an investigation to identify a violent and depraved predator.
02:59As long as he was free, no woman was safe.
03:03It was beyond doubt and certainty
03:06that he would have killed many, many, many more times
03:08had he not been caught.
03:10Evil is the only way I can describe Derrick Brown.
03:14Evil.
03:22This killer story begins in October 1960
03:26in Preston, Lancashire.
03:29Derrick Brown grew up in a large blended family.
03:33Brown was his mother's blue-eyed boy,
03:36but in the eyes of the law, he was far from perfect.
03:40From about the age of 16 in 1976,
03:44he had a series of convictions in the north of England.
03:47He started a whole spate of burglaries and with some violence.
03:52He was an intimidating and frightening man.
03:55Brown's crimes were not confined to theft.
03:59In his 20s, a disturbing predilection for sexual violence became apparent.
04:08In 1988, an accusation of raping a 16-year-old girl was dropped,
04:13but the following year, another was made against him.
04:17He was convicted of raping a woman and buggery as well,
04:24and he had broken into her house to commit those offences.
04:32He keeps her hostage for two hours, rapes her, sodomizes her.
04:36It's a heinous crime.
04:39In July 1989, at Preston Crown Court,
04:4328-year-old Derrick Brown admitted to his crimes.
04:48He was charged with rape and another very serious sexual offence
04:53and was jailed for seven years.
04:55Having served four years of his seven-year sentence,
05:0533-year-old Brown was released from prison.
05:08In 1994, he left the north to start a new life in south-east London.
05:15Derrick Brown is a drunk, he's a loner.
05:17He settled into Rotherhithe and made a living as a delivery driver.
05:21At that time, he was working mostly at nights,
05:24picking up and delivering newspapers from source
05:27to distribute to local shops.
05:29Brown had by this time fathered seven children
05:32with four different women.
05:34In late spring 2007, after an argument with an ex-partner
05:39over access to their children,
05:41he made a vague and ominous threat.
05:44He was absolutely furiated by the fact
05:47he wasn't allowed access to his teenage children.
05:49He said, you'll hear of me.
05:54In the summer of 2007,
05:56Derrick Brown was living in a one-bedroom flat
05:59close to Rotherhithe Overground Station.
06:04His relationships with women appear to have, by this time,
06:07become purely transactional.
06:09The commercial street leading from Whitechapel up to Shoreditch
06:15is a well-known red light haunt.
06:18It is also a favourite stopping-off point on the tourist trail
06:21for the Jack the Ripper history tours.
06:24And Brown was certainly a regular visitor to that area.
06:28He's probably using sex workers because he is aggressive
06:32and he is violent.
06:33And anybody who was in a relationship with him
06:36perhaps would be frightened off by that kind of behaviour.
06:41The sex workers who came into contact with Brown
06:45would say things like,
06:46he behaved strangely, made them feel nervous.
06:50One said that he would barricade the door.
06:54One felt so concerned that she fled the premises.
06:57She left.
06:58In 2006, 28-year-old Xiaomei Gua
07:10travelled from her native China to England.
07:13She hoped to make a better life for her family.
07:17Her husband came with her to work here
07:21from a village called Jiangjing in Fujian province.
07:24To, primarily to improve their situation back home.
07:29To save money for their children.
07:31To prepare themselves for retirement.
07:35Xiaomei and her husband
07:37left their two sons with family in China
07:40and came to Britain illegally.
07:43Brought over by one of the international people-smuggling gangs
07:47known as Snakeheads.
07:49It was a costly process.
07:51In those days, probably up to £20,000 each person
07:55to be smuggled here.
07:57They would have borrowed already
07:58to pay off the Snakeheads back home.
08:00So that means they owed money to the moneylenders.
08:03They both had a lot of debts to pay off.
08:07Xiaomei and her husband of ten years
08:10rented a room in Whitechapel in London's East End.
08:14Sharing a house with other Chinese immigrants
08:17from Fujian province.
08:21She immediately went into selling DVDs on the street.
08:25It was quick money
08:26and there was no boss over your shoulders.
08:30Asmaid and wife scrape a living
08:33selling counterfeit DVDs, literally, in the street.
08:38It was very difficult because you earn a little bit of money.
08:42You have to pay this and that.
08:44You have to pay for your accommodation.
08:46You have to pay off the debt back home.
08:51They were always worried about the police.
08:54Just constantly frightened of being caught.
08:57They were really, really feared deportation.
09:01And always looking, you know, when you're selling,
09:04you're looking to see if there's anybody approaching
09:06or near you, any plain clothes.
09:09Usually when they are caught by a policeman,
09:12all their DVDs will be taken away.
09:15In July 2007, having been in the country for under a year,
09:25Xiaomei's husband was arrested for selling counterfeit DVDs.
09:30He was sentenced to four months in prison,
09:32leaving Xiaomei alone to honor their debts.
09:37Her co-workers were saying she was very worried
09:41that because the burden of having to pay off the debt was on her.
09:46Xiaomei was in an incredibly vulnerable situation.
09:52She was having to earn money and support herself and her family
09:56through means that would have brought her into contact
10:00with people on the edges of society.
10:03There's always men coming to you and propositioning
10:07and it's obviously harassment.
10:10Sometimes women would be asked to go back to the customer's house
10:16to try out the DVDs.
10:17And I've heard of cases where women were raped.
10:21For the weeks that followed her husband's detention,
10:25Xiaomei's routine was unchanged.
10:28Working, cooking, phoning family and sleeping.
10:31But on the 29th of August 2007, she did not return home.
10:39She was sharing a flat with a lot of people,
10:44several cousins and people who came from the same village.
10:48And usually after work she would come back and cook,
10:51but that day she didn't.
10:53This has never happened before.
10:55You know, she's dedicated to her children, she has a routine.
10:57She's the habit of phoning her sons in China two or three times a week
11:03to keep in touch, but that stops.
11:05So her cousins went looking for her everywhere in the streets,
11:10Whitechapel.
11:12They were very, very worried.
11:13So they knew straight away something was wrong.
11:15To all intents and purposes, Xiaomei just simply disappears.
11:19Unable to locate her and afraid to contact the authorities,
11:27Xiaomei Guo's housemates were stuck in limbo.
11:30Imagining all the dangers of London's sometimes unfriendly streets,
11:35they could not possibly dream of what had really befallen her.
11:40In September 2007, van driver Derrick Brown was living in Rotherhithe,
11:55Southeast London.
11:57Five weeks after the disappearance of Chinese national Xiaomei Guo from Whitechapel,
12:02Jackie Somerford received a disturbing call about her 24-year-old daughter, Bonnie Barrett.
12:1324th September, I got a phone call from a friend of hers to say that she had been missing a week.
12:20Normally we would be in touch every day, sometimes ten times a day on the phone.
12:25I had a feeling something was wrong because I never had no phone calls and nothing.
12:31And I told him that he had to phone the police and tell them the reporter was missing.
12:38Bonnie had not been seen since the 18th of September,
12:42when she was spotted in East London's Whitechapel.
12:45It had taken seven days for her to be reported missing.
12:49I think Bonnie was living quite a chaotic life.
12:51I don't think there was much stability there.
12:55That can create a situation where it takes longer to recognize that somebody is missing
13:02and to worry that something might have happened to them.
13:05Bonnie's life had started out to be a happy one.
13:09The youngest of three children, she was a much loved little girl.
13:14When Bonnie was born, it just seemed like that was our family complete.
13:19Bonnie was a wild child, very popular with people.
13:25She was happy-go-lucky.
13:30As she entered her teenage years, Bonnie's fun-loving personality gave way to something more destructive.
13:38As she got into her teens, me and her dad divorced and she rebelled a lot.
13:43And then she went to live with her dad in Scotland.
13:47She was drinking up in Scotland and all different wrong things that she shouldn't have been doing.
13:53But I came back and moved to East London.
13:57And then she started to run away.
14:01I did try my hardest to get her back on the right road.
14:04But Bonnie just didn't want to listen to anyone.
14:10In her late teens, Bonnie fell in with a bad crowd.
14:15By 18, she was living with an abusive partner.
14:18I think he was very controlling over her and he used to beat her up a lot.
14:25Then one day, she came over and she said she'd had enough and couldn't take no more.
14:33Then she told her she was pregnant.
14:36She was six months gone.
14:38Concerned for the safety of her daughter and unborn grandchild, Jackie took steps to get Bonnie away from her violent boyfriend.
14:50The next step we'd done was got a solicitor and get her away from him.
14:56And they put her in a refuge at King's Cross.
15:01And in the refuge was quite a few working girls.
15:04In the early 2000s, London's King's Cross was a hotbed of criminal activity, homelessness and addiction.
15:16With her newborn son living with Jackie, Bonnie was alone at the hostel.
15:22Things went from bad to worse.
15:25She started to run away.
15:27She went missing at one time for a few months.
15:30When news finally came of what Bonnie was up to, it was devastating for her loved ones.
15:37My ex-husband was working over King's Crossway and you see her one day walking down the road.
15:45And that's how we found her.
15:47But by then, she was into prostitution.
15:50She was addicted to crack cocaine.
15:55She was probably funding her habit through sex work.
16:01She was going to come into contact with some pretty unsavory people.
16:05I used to say to my other daughter, Kelly, we're going to get a knock at the door one day.
16:12So either she's murdered or something's really bad.
16:21Jackie was well accustomed to worrying about her youngest daughter.
16:26But when she went missing in September 2007, it felt different.
16:31Something inside me was telling me during that week something was wrong.
16:40Jackie's maternal instincts were right.
16:43Her daughter was last seen on Commercial Street in Whitechapel.
16:47She was never seen again.
16:48In September 2007, friends of missing 29-year-old Xiaomei Guo were extremely concerned for the safety of the undocumented Chinese migrant.
17:09Xiaomei was living in a, like a house of multiple occupation.
17:15And I would imagine that a lot of them were in a similar position to her.
17:20They didn't report to the police, obviously, you know, for obvious reason.
17:25And, but they were very, very worried.
17:28The DVD sellers were shrewd operators and fiercely protective of their client base.
17:33Xiaomei's fellow sellers knew little about the people she sold her stock to.
17:40They all have regular customers who would approach them.
17:43They bought DVDs before and they would come back and buy more.
17:47They didn't tell each other about their customers.
17:51Just this rule of, you know, avoiding competition.
17:53So they, sort of, they just kept it, like, secret.
17:59On the 4th of September, almost a week after Xiaomei was last seen, her colleagues notified the police of her disappearance.
18:10Xiaomei is reported missing early in September 2007.
18:15And at the start is identified as a sort of medium risk missing person.
18:19The missing person inquiry would have been dealt with by local officers, local to that area where she was last seen.
18:34Ten days later, on the 14th of September, Xiaomei's husband was released from jail, where he'd been detained for selling counterfeit DVDs.
18:44Extremely concerned for his wife's welfare, on the 21st of September, he contacted advocacy organization, the Subtle Monitoring Group, to ask for their help.
18:59They look after individuals who are victims of crime, or people who are from minority communities.
19:09But they approached them around about, I think, the 21st of September and said,
19:14Look, we know that this matter has been reported to police.
19:18It's been shown as a medium risk on their assessment.
19:21We believe it should be high risk.
19:23And that increases the tension behind the search for Xiaomei.
19:30She now becomes high risk, and the major incident unit are involved in the search.
19:36But what the murder team did, they said, Right, you keep primacy, but we will have a watch and brief on what investigations you are doing.
19:50They gave them a wish list of saying, These are the things we want you to do, which involved, for instance, saying to them, We want you to go and search the address where Xiaomei lived.
19:59They also said, Right, we want you to look at her phone data, see if you can find a telephone bill showing people that she may have contacted.
20:13They can then do inquiries on that to see if they can work on who she last spoke to, date and time.
20:1710.30 that morning, she made a phone call to a friend.
20:24And then again at 10.41, she had actually spoke to a friend and said that she was leaving Whitechapel to go three stops to Rotherhai because there was a customer who wanted to buy a lot of DVDs.
20:37Using cell site information, they could identify the time and location of any calls Xiaomei made or received.
20:47And the phone records show her in Whitechapel at about half past 10 and then in Rotherhai at about quarter to 11.
20:54During that final call, Xiaomei told her associate her customer had requested to test the DVDs in his home.
21:03Maybe she's going to make quite a bit of money and this would have been absolutely crucial to her and her children's survival.
21:12So she made the decision to go back there.
21:15So now you have a sense of where she might have been.
21:18And then the police look at the CCTV and they see Xiaomei on the CCTV outside Whitechapel Underground Station with a man.
21:28She is clear as day.
21:32But they obviously want to know who the man is.
21:36In a bid to move the investigation forward, on the weekend of September 29th, an expert was drafted in to help.
21:45The local officers decided to get the assistance of a behavioural investigative advisor, somebody who would try and give a theory as to what may have happened to Xiaomei.
21:57And that individual took the view that the chances were that she was more than likely dead.
22:02And if she wasn't dead, she was certainly still being held against her.
22:04The decision was taken at that point that they would try and get some information out to the media.
22:10The police had an image of a person seen with Xiaomei on the CCTV at Whitechapel Station.
22:17And they managed to blow this up and then try and circulate to fit a name to this image of this prime suspect.
22:23The media appeal yielded no response. Nobody identified Xiaomei nor the man with her.
22:32With the case escalation came a new team.
22:36Because the murder team had an input, the view was taken, we need to take this investigation on, we being the murder team.
22:45And on the 2nd of October, that was finalised and it became a murder investigation.
22:58Four weeks after Xiaomei was last seen, the team headed to her last known location.
23:05On the 6th of October, officers were sent out into Rotherhigh with the CCTV image of Xiaomei and this unknown white male.
23:13And they were asking people in the local area, close to the train station, if anybody could identify the female or the male.
23:22A police officer entered a mini-mart and a very sharp and alert shop assistant not only recognised the picture as a customer,
23:32but also pointed out any shopping over there in aisle 3.
23:35It's a eureka moment for the police officers.
23:43And they arrest him on the suspicion of the abduction of Xiaomei.
23:47On the 6th of October, 2007, over a month since Xiaomei was last seen, police were able to confirm the identity of the person last seen with her on CCTV.
24:05Records told them he was a man with disturbing and entitled attitudes towards sex, a man who'd previously been imprisoned for rape.
24:1446-year-old Derek Brown.
24:26The investigation into the disappearance of Xiaomei Gua had turned a corner.
24:32Convicted rapist Derek Brown was arrested on suspicion of abduction and was questioned under caution.
24:40The officers are now confident that they have the person who was with Xiaomei when she was last seen.
24:53He doesn't deny that he's met Xiaomei.
24:55He admitted little else, but when police asked him about meeting Xiaomei in Whitechapel, he was keen to tell them how familiar he was with that part of East London.
25:07He told the officers that he had actually picked up prostitutes from the Whitechapel area, which the officers thought was a bit strange for him to see it.
25:16Detectives were sure this was the man Xiaomei had told her friend of travelling to Rotherhithe with, so that he could test a large batch of DVDs.
25:26Her friends confirmed this.
25:29When Derek Brown approached her, they saw her.
25:33He was a regular customer, but they didn't think anything about it because he was very plain and ordinary looking.
25:42Police inquiries linked a travel card to Xiaomei.
25:45We know that she had an unregistered Oyster card and that, that day, somebody had topped it up and had used it for this journey that she talked about, which was from Whitechapel to Rotherhithe.
26:01But there was no return journey based on that Oyster card.
26:04Xiaomei had used the card to travel to Rotherhithe, but there was no sign she'd ever got back on the train to leave. Detectives felt Brown knew why.
26:19Then the police searches flat.
26:21They would have been looking for, like, maybe a phone, maybe the Oyster card, or anything to indicate that she'd be in there.
26:27On that first visit, they didn't see anything that would suggest that anything untoward had happened in the flat.
26:36But they did call in the forensics team.
26:39It appeared at the time as if you tried to clean up to the naked eye, you won't be able to see a speck of blood on a wall.
26:47But with the light sourcing, it will enhance it.
26:50If you try to wipe something away, like blood, the luminal would be able to tell, and that gives you much more forensic opportunities.
26:57They were astonished to find just a treasure trove of evidence.
27:01The forensic science officers found 65 separate sites of blood splattered around the walls and the furniture, mostly in the kitchen and the corridor and the bathroom.
27:14There was even some on the ceiling, and there was quite a lot that had seeped into the concrete.
27:19Looking at the patterning of that blood, it seems to me like there was some high-impact assault that had occurred.
27:30The scene of crime officers collected evidence from Brown's flat, which was sent to the laboratory for analysis.
27:38Initial tests confirmed there was not one, but two people's blood in the flat.
27:44Two people had been attacked in that kitchen, possibly in the same way, very violently and very brutally.
27:59They would have been expecting to find blood in relation to Xiaomei, but I'm sure not in a hundred years were they expecting that.
28:04By the 9th of October, while they waited for DNA results on the blood, the police had sufficient circumstantial evidence to charge Derek Brown with Xiaomei Gua's murder, and he was remanded in custody.
28:18As the autumn of 2007 progressed, Jackie Somerford was still hoping for positive news on her missing daughter, Bonnie.
28:37I was trying to find her, but she went on the missing persons list.
28:41I got a phone call from the police asking if they could come over and see me, and I said yeah, and they arranged to come over, I think it was the next day, and they said Bonnie is known as a very serious missing person.
29:00Bonnie's life on the street was a chaotic and violent one, where people were reluctant to engage with the authorities.
29:08It's always incredibly difficult for police to investigate crime in a red light area, because the very people who would be the ones with the most evidence, or the ones who would be most fearful of the police because they act beyond the law.
29:24Bonnie was in a position where her contact with the police wasn't as a victim.
29:30Bonnie had been arrested numerous times, lots and lots of times, in relation to, to sex work.
29:42Although her unconventional lifestyle and lack of routine made it difficult for police to build a picture of her habits, there were indicators that all was not well.
29:53Bonnie was collecting benefits, and she was supposed to collect her benefits on the 28th of September 2007.
30:01She disappeared on the 24th, and guess what? She never collected her benefits again.
30:06I don't know what it was, but I had a feeling something was wrong, because I never had no phone calls and nothing.
30:12The deeper the investigation looked into Bonnie's lifestyle, the more disturbing a picture emerged.
30:23Hers was clearly one in which violence was commonplace.
30:27Bonnie had met a client in Commercial Street that had, um, took her in a derelict building, beat her up bad, and left her for practically for dead.
30:40She managed to crawl out the building, passed her by as found her in the street, and she was taken to hospital.
30:48The police went there, kept asking her to, um, would she do a statement, and she wouldn't entertain them at all.
30:55Bonnie and her colleagues relied on each other over the police.
31:00Well aware of the dangers they faced on the streets, they shared information to help keep themselves safe.
31:06Sex workers are a very tight community.
31:10They will sometimes look out for each other, and they know who the dangerous ones are, they will warn each other.
31:18There was one in particular who stood out as one to be wary of.
31:23They may not know his name, but they certainly knew what he looked like and what he liked.
31:32With Bonnie Barrett now a high-risk missing person, known to frequent Whitechapel like Derrick Brown, detectives began to question if she was the owner of one of the blood profiles in his flat.
31:45The police requested Bonnie's hairbrush and toothbrush for a DNA comparison, and by December 2007, they had a result.
31:57It came back, it was Bonnie's blood.
31:58Bonnie's blood.
32:00In the kitchen, there was Bonnie's blood.
32:05In the front room, it was a bit of Bonnie's blood, and in the bathroom, on the hot tap, there was a spot of blood diluted, and that was Bonnie's.
32:15That is when I think my world fell apart, really.
32:32I was adopted.
32:33My real mum, she was a prostitute back in the 70s, and she was murdered as well.
32:40And I'd always told my girls the story of my mum, and I didn't ever think it would happen to me.
32:47But it was like history repeating itself.
32:57By December 2007, forensic analysis had confirmed that the blood in Derrick Brown's flat belonged to both Xiaomei Guo and Bonnie Barrett.
33:08Brown had begun to prepare his excuse for the presence of Bonnie's DNA back in September.
33:16When he got arrested and he said, I picked up prostitutes from White Chapel.
33:21He was gearing himself up to say, when you ask me about her, possibly if you find that her blood is here.
33:27Well, I always pick up prostitutes from that area, so that's why she would probably have come to my address.
33:32So he was thinking ahead of it.
33:33But Brown's phone usage indicated he had been in the White Chapel area on the exact evening Bonnie had disappeared.
33:42On the 18th of September, there was phone data which suggested that, certainly on two occasions, about five minutes past six, and at about 19.30 in the evening, his phone is pinging in that area.
33:54As a result of those inquiries, officers were able to find CCTV of him being in the area just before six o'clock in the evening.
34:04Police also questioned Bonnie's colleagues on Commercial Street.
34:08Brown is certainly a regular visitor to that area. He had a voracious appetite for sex workers.
34:16The number of Bonnie's co-workers said, oh, yes, I think she had a client called Derek, who lived in Rotherhithe.
34:23The indications from the police was that this was a very significant breakthrough.
34:26It was the same man women on the street had reported being afraid of, the man currently being held on suspicion of murdering Zhao Maigua.
34:41In December 2007, Derek Brown was also charged with the murder of Bonnie Barrett.
34:47As they built a case against suspected double-killer Derek Brown, detectives in London found evidence suggesting Zhao Maigua and Bonnie Barrett had been killed and dismembered in Brown's Southeast London flat.
35:12The police find a receipt from a hardware store, which is a receipt for all manner of things.
35:22It was what can be described as a murder and dismemberment kit. It involved a very heavy-duty saw, rolls and rolls of industrial strength cling film, rubble sacks, waterproof sheeting, everything you could imagine.
35:36He'd clearly dismembered the bodies, probably in the bath.
35:40That is not an easy thing to do. It takes quite a bit of time. You have to be very, very comfortable with that kind of violence to be able to do that.
35:56Neither woman could be found alive or dead.
35:59They spent 800 police hours searching for the bodies without any success. They had police divers in the Thames.
36:08And to this day, not a single trace has been found of either of those bodies.
36:13The next step for investigators was proof of life inquiries so they could prove neither woman was alive and simply living elsewhere.
36:27Basically saying, someone existed in the first instance, and you do that by different means.
36:32You can go to family members, friends, work colleagues, and they can say, yes, I used to know them.
36:39You get dental records, you get GP records, bank details, all those things prove that we exist.
36:46And that person is now dead. And up until this date, she has not been found.
36:59Derek Brown stood trial at London's Old Bailey in September 2008, accused of killing Jaume Gua and Bonnie Barrett.
37:09But with neither woman's body found, prosecutors knew the trial might be an uphill struggle.
37:16Brown himself utterly refuses to acknowledge that he killed either woman.
37:23Any murder trial is a big trial.
37:25To have two without a body in either case makes this a real standout trial.
37:36Amid a packed courtroom, Brown was brought into the dock.
37:40For the first time, the grieving families of Jaume and Bonnie laid eyes on the man accused of their loved one's murder.
37:50Me and my other daughter Kelly was there.
37:53He was a big, it was like a day out in the office for him.
37:57He just all the time was smirking, looking round.
38:01This was a brawny man who you could see could easily grab, subdue and batter defenceless women.
38:11The case against Derek Brown was a strong one.
38:15It included CCTV footage, phone records and more damning witnesses who'd heard noises in his flat the same evening Jaume disappeared.
38:29There were at least a couple of residents who heard what this is to describe as the shouts or screams of a female and whimpering.
38:40Amongst those called to give evidence was an ex-partner.
38:50Bonnie's mother recalls the testimony Brown's ex gave about her disturbing final encounter with him at the start of September 2007.
38:59This particular day he turned up, he was acting very strange, he brought all these DVDs down.
39:06She was getting a bit worried because of the way he was acting and she got him a train ticket one way.
39:14He said to her, you will hear about me, I will be famous.
39:17The prosecution painted a picture of Derek Brown as a man who craved fame at any cost.
39:26His library records revealed a macabre fascination with an infamous Whitechapel killer.
39:33The most fascinating discovery was that Brown was a fan of Jack the Ripper.
39:41Just a few weeks before he started his murder spree, he took out from the library Cawthorn's book on killers.
39:48It was a lot of Sutcliffe and others, what they had done to other people.
39:55Obvious pre-planning of this is what he was going to do and how he was going to dispose of the bodies.
40:03When Brown took the stand, he offered an elaborate defence and provided an incredible account of what had happened to Xiao Mei and Bonnie.
40:14Derek Brown entered the witness box with a certain swagger.
40:18He was a man clearly who had been in court many times before and was not going to be cowed or intimidated by the surroundings.
40:25So he came up with this ridiculous, ludicrous fantasy defence that they had died in his flat, but not at his hand.
40:35Xiao Mei was kidnapped by triads and Bonnie ran off with a Hells Angel.
40:40It was the most ridiculous defence imaginable.
40:44This sort of thing doesn't happen once, let alone twice.
40:48Having given his account, it was the turn of the opposing barrister to put his case to Brown.
40:56The prosecution rose to cross-examine.
40:59That was it. Brown said, stop, I'm not answering any more questions.
41:03And he went back to the dock.
41:05The trial lasted for four weeks, but on the 3rd of October 2008, the jury reached their verdict in under three hours.
41:16It took the jury two hours and 20 minutes to convict Derek Brown of the murders of both young women.
41:23He was found guilty and he was sentenced. He stood there and laughed.
41:30Judge Martin Stevens sentenced Brown to two life sentences for the two murders and set the minimum term before he could apply for parole at 30 years.
41:40The chances are very likely that Brown will die behind bars.
41:47It was an impeccable investigation to put away a potential serial killer without a single body.
41:53Unquestionably, this is a man who would have gone on to kill many, many, many times in the future.
42:01Unmoved and unrepentant, Brown steadfastly refused to give up the locations of Xiao Mei or Bonnie's remains.
42:11Judge Martin Stevens made a belated appeal to him, even at this late stage, to tell the police what he had done with the bodies.
42:19And to this day, he has refused all the attempts of the police to try and persuade him to reveal the secrets.
42:28The man who plotted and murdered the two young women robbed their children of the opportunity to grow up with their mothers
42:37and will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars.
42:40For those left behind, the death of the mothers brings its own life sentence.
42:49Xiao Mei's husband made deeply emotional comments to the media outside court.
42:59He described that their two children, now 10 and 11, would ask him, you know, where's mommy? Is she coming home?
43:06And he said that he didn't have the courage to tell them just what had happened to their mother.
43:11After the trial outside the courtroom, Bonnie's mother, Jackie, spoke of her pain.
43:18I will never understand Brown's actions. I can only describe him as a total beast.
43:26It was moving testimony from a woman who not only would never see her daughter again, but would have no idea what happened to her or where her remains lie.
43:36The police used to go back every two years to the prison and see if he was going to change his story.
43:45And he used to tell them to F off.
43:50Jackie's left with memories of her youngest child and her namesake granddaughter, Bonnie.
43:57Me, Kelly, and Kelly's daughter, Bonnie, and my grandsons, we always let balloons off on her birthday.
44:04And that is how I'll remember her, because I've got no grave.
44:16Derek Brown saw women as a commodity.
44:19His dark and destructive desires left three children without mothers.
44:24He refuses to ease the suffering of his victims' families and reveal the whereabouts of their remains, leaving little doubt that Derek Brown is one of Britain's most evil killers.
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