- 7 weeks ago
A young woman left home and stopped answering her phone, so her parents went to the police. Detectives quickly started turning up one alarming lead after another, and it didn’t take long before a pretty grim picture began to emerge. And once they uncovered the full truth, the case made national headlines — because its details shook people to their core.
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00:00a young woman left home and stopped answering her phone so her parents went to the police
00:05detectives quickly started turning up one alarming lead after another and it didn't take long before
00:11a pretty grim picture began to emerge and once they uncovered the full truth
00:17the case made national headlines because its details shook people to their core
00:22megan newborough was born in august 1997 in a small british town called new naton not far from
00:35birmingham she grew up in a big close-knit family she had an older sister and a younger brother
00:41when she was just two her parents signed her up for dance classes and from that point on dancing
00:46became one of the biggest parts of her life she also adored animals and she was always begging her
00:52parents to let her have pets like hamsters dogs and even rabbits megan had a tight group of friends
00:58from an early age and they all said the same thing about her she was genuinely kind knew how to show
01:04up for people when things got tough and she had this way of really understanding what someone
01:08else was going through after school she studied at a local college then landed a job in hr at a
01:14large brick manufacturing company she settled in quickly won over her co-workers and started
01:19making plans for the future the summer of 2021 was a big moment for her megan was 23 and she'd
01:26already managed to buy her first place she was supposed to get the keys just a few days before
01:31her birthday and she couldn't wait to move in with her dog until then she was still living with her
01:37parents in her hometown on august 6th at around 7 30 in the evening she told her mom she was going out
01:43to meet someone for a walk got into her car and drove off her parents expected her back within a
01:49couple of hours but by 9 30 she still wasn't home they texted her then tried calling but megan
01:56didn't answer she wasn't responding on social media either and they started to worry still megan
02:02was almost 24 and very independent so they decided to wait until morning they figured she might have
02:07stayed over at someone's place or gone somewhere with friends but she never got in touch and by
02:13morning her parents decided to call the police megan's older sister told officers that the night
02:18before megan had been planning to meet up with her boyfriend a 30 year old man named ross they'd
02:24met at work a few years earlier but they'd only started dating recently her sister said megan
02:29described him as kind caring and a genuinely decent guy and that the relationship was going great
02:35police went to speak with him while other officers started tracking megan's car using an automatic
02:40license plate reader system they quickly saw that at 9 30 pm about two hours after she'd left home
02:47her car had been spotted on camera in a nearby town roughly a 40 minute drive away but that still
02:53didn't answer the big question why hadn't she come home when officers arrived at ross's house in
02:59colville they found his parents there but ross himself wasn't home his mom and dad said he'd gone
03:04to a nearby town to visit a local bar so officers called him ross told them megan had come over to
03:10his place the night before and stayed for about an hour while his parents were out then he said she
03:15headed home telling him she was going to stop at mcdonald's on the way for a milkshake ross also said
03:21he'd been trying to reach her all day but she wasn't responding according to him he texted her a few
03:26times the night before and got nothing back he assumed she'd made it home and fallen asleep but when she
03:32still hadn't replied the next day he kept messaging her given that police had called ross while they
03:37were literally standing inside his house and his parents agreed to let them look around officers
03:43decided to do a quick walkthrough and see if anything felled off when they stepped into the
03:47living room they saw it was a mess there was stuff scattered across the floor and a large damp stain
03:54soaking into the carpet ross's parents said he'd spilled coffee there but they admitted they hadn't
03:59actually seen it happen since they hadn't been home the night before as they moved further in
04:04officers spotted red stains along the baseboard in the hallway that looked like blood so they
04:09called in forensic techs to collect samples and send them to the lab soon enough the results came
04:14back the red marks on the baseboard were megan's blood so later that night police returned to ross's
04:21parents house and arrested him on suspicion of kidnapping ross stayed oddly calm he even asked if
04:27he could put on socks before they took him to the station as they were cuffing him one officer asked
04:32straight up where megan was ross barely whispered can we talk about this at the station but the
04:40officer pushed back even a whispered answer would do he could tell ross didn't want his parents to hear
04:46so he kept his tone friendly trying not to scare off what sounded like a possible confession ross leaned in
04:53and murmured she's in woodhouse eves it was a tiny village near the same town where he'd been sitting
04:59in a bar earlier that day then he got more specific and named a rural road just outside the village the
05:06officer then asked if she was okay but ross quietly said no he also added one more thing ross said he'd
05:14been planning to call police himself the next morning while detectives drove ross to the station
05:19their colleagues headed straight to the area he'd named searching the road with canine units it was
05:24already the middle of the night and the stretch of road ran for miles but they weren't about to
05:29waste a second before long they also caught in a helicopter and the crew started scanning from above
05:35trying to spot megan not long after that officers noticed a small patch of flattened grass a few yards
05:42off the road near a low stone wall so they walked over to take a closer look when one of them
05:48shined a flashlight over the wall he saw a woman's body part of her clothing was missing and there
05:54were clean injuries around her neck they immediately knew it was megan medical examiners later came to
06:00a chilling conclusion megan died from strangulation and only after she was already dead did the killer
06:07stab her in the neck 14 times meanwhile police located megan's car it had been abandoned in the parking
06:15lot of a college in a nearby town forensics found megan's blood on the front passenger seat and
06:20nearby they recovered a glove that contained ross's dna on top of that investigators requested location
06:27data from megan's phone and learned something else since the night she vanished it had been sitting in a
06:33field not far from ross's home and because the phone was still on when it was left there the data
06:39was precise enough for officers to go right to it and find it in the grass when they examined the phone
06:45they also found megan's messages with ross the text showed that on the night she disappeared she indeed
06:51drove to his house after the murder ross started messaging her and leaving voice messages acting like
06:57he was worried she wasn't responding the next day with megan's body already lying out in that field
07:03he kept texting her pretending he had no idea where she'd gone by lining those messages up with
07:09the car's movements on surveillance cameras police were able to piece together what happened in the
07:14hours after the murder ross who didn't have his own car or even a driver's license had been driving
07:20megan's car around the area with her body sitting in the front passenger seat dumping evidence along the
07:26way that trail led investigators to security footage near a fitness center it showed ross pulling into the
07:32lot getting out and tossing various items into a trash can one camera even caught him changing clothes
07:39right there by the car stuffing what he'd been wearing into a bag and throwing that bag in the bin
07:44too after that he didn't get back into the car at all he just left it there then took a taxi home
07:50police immediately collected everything from those trash containers and inside they found bloodstained
07:56clothing belonging to megan rags with blood on them her glasses and ross's own clothes
08:02as well at that point investigators had a pretty solid working timeline megan likely arrived at his
08:08place around 9 pm and about 40 minutes later he strangled her then stabbed her in the neck over and
08:15over and started trying to cover his tracks but there was still one key piece missing motive that changed
08:23pretty quickly even before detective sat ross down for a formal interview they went back through his
08:28earlier messages with megan in those texts ross admitted he struggled with erectile dysfunction
08:33and he said he blamed it on the adhd medication he had to take megan didn't pull away from him instead
08:40she told him she'd support him a few weeks later ross started talking about wanting to try being
08:45intimate with her but based on their messages it didn't work and after that his text started getting
08:50more and more angry and aggressive while megan kept trying to calm him down and reassure him
08:56detectives also searched his computer and that only added to the pile of evidence at around 11 pm
09:02basically right after he got home from dumping megan's body ross googled how to tell a girl you
09:08love her minutes later he left megan a voice message saying he was worried and didn't understand why she
09:14wasn't answering then things took an even darker turn right after recording that message ross started
09:21looking up articles about three well-known killers he opened multiple pages about levi belfield who
09:28murdered at least three women then read about ian huntley responsible for two murders and after that
09:34he pulled up several articles about peter sutcliffe also known as the yorkshire ripper after that his
09:40phone and computer went quiet until the next morning but at around 6 30 a.m he was back at it searching
09:46articles about serial killers again while also visiting an adult site and watching videos focused
09:51on violence and humiliation when he was done he texted megan morning babe not long after that
09:59he started googling the safest prisons in britain who cuts inmates hair and other questions about what
10:05life in prison is like so in a short window of time investigators had built a pretty overwhelming
10:11picture of what ross had been doing and what likely happened to megan but they still needed to
10:16interview him and the story he told didn't match the narrative detectives had worked out from the
10:21beginning ross didn't deny killing her he admitted it but he claimed it happened during an argument and
10:27that he lost control he said he strangled megan then went to the kitchen grabbed a knife and stabbed
10:34her in the neck over and over as for what set him off ross gave detectives his explanation
10:40he said that years earlier he'd been abused and that it had affected him ever since that night when
10:45they tried to be intimate he claimed to trigger flashbacks of that trauma and he snapped he also
10:51told them that at the start of that breakdown he'd managed to pull away from megan but that she tried
10:56to comfort him and came closer that's when he said he attacked and killed her still investigators
11:03didn't buy some crucial parts of ross's story to them it looked like he was trying to steer this
11:08toward a manslaughter something with a much lighter sentence what they believed actually set him off
11:14was much simpler he couldn't have sex with her again detectives learned that not long before the
11:19murder ross had ordered erectile dysfunction pills online he was likely hoping they'd fix the problem
11:25but it still didn't work and in the investigators eyes that mix of anger and embarrassment is what
11:31pushed him over the edge ross also admitted megan was one of the very few people he'd ever told
11:36about his condition investigators thought he may have been terrified she'd tell someone else even
11:42though by all accounts megan had only ever been supportive and understanding and then there were
11:47ross's searches right after the killing detectives believed he had an unhealthy obsession with serial
11:52killers sexual depravity and violence and that he wasn't just panicking after the murder he was
11:59indulging something in their view he got real gratification from the idea of committing a brutal crime
12:05and with his impotence issues that may have been the only thing that made him feel in control
12:12finally investigators pointed to how hard he tried to cover it up and the fact that he only admitted
12:17to killing megan after he was arrested he didn't just dump her body and get rid of evidence he also
12:23kept texting her trying to make it look like he had no idea where she'd gone he just didn't think
12:29through the basics ross likely didn't expect to be caught on multiple security cameras tossing
12:34bloodstained items and driving megan's car around he also didn't think to power off her phone before
12:40he ditched it in a field which is exactly why police were able to locate it and he probably didn't
12:46realize detectives could pull his browser history and see the serial killer searches and the violent
12:51adult content he'd been watching but despite all of that ross kept pushing the same line it wasn't a
12:58premeditated murder it was a loss of control so the case went to court ross's lawyer tried to convince
13:06the jury that it all came down to an uncontrollable burst of rage triggered by ross's past trauma along
13:12with his struggles with depression and anxiety he even went into the trauma in detail saying ross had
13:17been abused by a man named stephen bidman who in 2016 was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of
13:2435 years before parole for a different crime bidman and a friend had kidnapped and killed a young woman
13:31but he didn't spend long behind bars and later died of a heart attack the case became one of the most
13:37infamous in the uk and it's been covered in several major documentaries still none of that convinced the
13:43jury that ross was being truthful and the prosecution's version of events felt far more solid to them the
13:49trial wrapped up in december 2022 and it took the jury just an hour and a half to reach a verdict ross
13:56was found guilty of murder and was given a life sentence with the chance of parole no earlier than
14:0223 years not long after sentencing the attorney general's office asked the court to increase ross's
14:08minimum term they argued that in their view the crime had a sexualized element given ross's fixation
14:14on serial killers and violent adult materials but the court of appeal rejected that request saying
14:20there wasn't convincing evidence of a sexual motive or sexual context in what happened so the sentence
14:27stayed the same and ross could be eligible for release when he's in his early 50s it's also worth
14:33noting that during the trial ross repeatedly broke down in tears but megan's family didn't believe it was
14:39genuine in their eyes he never showed real remorse and kept clinging to his own version of the story
14:46after megan's death her parents founded a non-profit in her memory the goal is to support initiatives
14:52that protect women from violence and they also donate part of the money to a dog welfare charity
14:57because megan absolutely loved dogs share your thoughts on this story in the comments section
15:03and don't forget to press the like button if you enjoyed my video thank you for watching
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