- 6 weeks ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00I'm Steve Peo, a former Scotland Yard murder detective inspector.
00:07I'm going to take you deep inside murder investigations.
00:12Opening my contacts book for the first time.
00:16To reveal the secrets of what it really takes to be a murder detective.
00:21On the front line, exposing how we solve the most heinous of crimes.
00:30Welcome to Secrets of a Murder Detective.
00:41The murder of John Hay in March 2012 was one of West Yorkshire's most challenging cases.
00:46I'm going to be meeting the senior investigating officer on the case to reveal what really happened.
00:51The pressures, the setbacks and the methods in the investigation that brought the killer to justice.
00:56I am Lisa Griffin and I was a senior investigating officer with the Homicide and Major Inquiry team within West Yorkshire Police in 2011.
01:06Hi Lisa, thanks very much for coming in. Hello.
01:09Lisa, the incident we're going to be talking about today stems from March 2012.
01:15What were you doing back then? What was your role?
01:17I was a detective superintendent. My role was a senior investigating officer in the Homicide and Major Inquiry team within West Yorkshire Police.
01:30An incident was reported to police. When did that first come to your notice?
01:33The police took a three nines call of a missing person on March the 13th, 2012.
01:39Thank you for calling 999. Put your emergency please.
01:42The missing person was an adult male, aged 61, called John Hay.
01:47He'd failed to return at the end of his working day.
01:50It didn't come to my notice until March the 14th, 2012, when the missing person was raised to high risk.
01:57The reason why this became a high risk missing person was because of concerns that it was very much out of character for John.
02:05He was a creature of habit and he had no reason to absent himself or to be missing.
02:11He was regarded by colleagues and by his family and friends as a very kind man, a very helpful and very gentle man.
02:20So he had no known enemies. No one was volunteered to us as a potential suspect who might wish him harm.
02:28And everybody who knew him were puzzled.
02:31So when a missing person report comes in to the police, they will be looking for what we call signs of life.
02:36So when we go about our everyday business, we leave a trail behind us, be it when we use our credit card.
02:42We use our telephones, most of us, on a regular basis.
02:46There was a trace of him, but that had stopped. So he was failing to return calls. Family and friends were ringing his mobile phone.
02:54He didn't pick up. Messages were left. They were not returned. Text messages were not returned. And that was very unlike John.
03:01Every effort was made to trace John Hayes' vehicle, which was a van. It was his works van.
03:06And it had triggered ANPR cameras and it had followed a route that had taken it through to Humberside.
03:11So the question was asked, why? Why would he go to Humberside? And there was no good reason for that.
03:20This was completely out of character. Eventually, the activity on his phone stopped completely at Humberside.
03:28And also the movement of his vehicle stopped in Humberside.
03:32All right. So that's going to be key for you now, that is the location, the significant location.
03:36So first of all, we put an inquiry through to Humberside Police and very helpfully, they put their helicopter up,
03:43which resulted in the vehicle being found in a location close by the Humber Bridge.
03:49So that must have been a really encouraging time for you as the SIO that we're onto something here.
03:57Absolutely. And my first request is to see if there's any signs of life in the van.
04:02Is John in the van? Secondly, I need to forensically examine that van.
04:07So I dispatched a team from the Homicide Major Inquiry team across to go and assist in that process.
04:14Right. So at this stage, you're still not being treated as a murder.
04:18It's still a high-risk missing person inquiry, but you're doing all the things that you would do in a murder because you have to.
04:26You can't get it back later on. You have to act like the worst has happened.
04:29That's right. I don't want to miss opportunities to recover forensic evidence, so I'm going to treat it as a crime scene.
04:35At such a point that John Hayes found safe and well, nothing is lost.
04:40So it's always worth doing a thorough investigation.
04:44So essentially, you're preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.
04:47Exactly.
04:51To find a missing person, it's really important you build up a picture of their life.
04:54Who's involved, who are their contacts, where do they go, what are their habits, etc.
04:58So when you did that for John, what were you getting back? What did you learn about him?
05:02What we found out about John, he was a retired police officer.
05:06He'd worked as a traffic patrol officer and he'd retired on ill-health grounds.
05:11He'd then set up a business as an independent builder and he had a very good reputation in Huddersfield.
05:19And all his customers came pretty much through word of mouth.
05:23Did you know him personally? Did you come across each other?
05:26I didn't know him personally, but many of the officers that I work alongside did know him personally and had worked with him in the past.
05:33So that would make this quite personal, wouldn't it?
05:35If you are investigating a high-risk missing person of someone who tends to come to harm and people on your team know him.
05:42Absolutely. And it gives me a better picture of the kind of man that he was.
05:46And I'm getting that information from people who I know to be as reliable sources.
05:53What came across to me when I was speaking to Lisa was how the fact that John was a former police officer within West Yorkshire
06:03and that he was known by some of her team, that was clearly an extra motivator for them to get justice for a former colleague.
06:12We conducted a search of the van. What we noted about the vehicle was that the seat, the driver's seat, had been pulled forward.
06:19Was John a tall fellow?
06:20John was six foot four.
06:21Right.
06:22And he would certainly have had the seat pushed back as far as it would go.
06:27And also it had been parked skewiff in the parking bay.
06:33That's going to raise your concerns, isn't it?
06:35This does raise my concerns because clearly the person driving that van was not somebody of six foot four height.
06:43Somebody who hadn't parked it in the way that John would.
06:46So it's definitely raising the ante in terms of who is driving that vehicle.
06:50And if not John, who?
06:51We were wanting to trace John's last known movements.
06:57And when we spoke to his family, they told us that John had taken the grandchildren to school, as he often did.
07:05And their understanding was that he'd then gone to see a prospective new client to give an estimate for some building work.
07:12So I wanted to know who was that client.
07:18John's diary was located and in there was an entry with a name and a phone number.
07:23We wanted to know who was the named person, which was Eric Johnson.
07:27So that was given to our intelligence department to do some research to try and identify the Eric Johnson that he was meeting.
07:33And also work was done around the telephone number.
07:37Phone inquiries came back with the fact that this was a pay-as-you-go sim that had been used to make two phone calls,
07:47two outgoing calls only, and those were made to John Hayes' landline.
07:51Now as a murder investigator, when you say that, I'm feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stick up.
07:56Because first off, when a phone comes into an inquiry and it's not registered to anybody, there's a little red flag there.
08:04Only two phone calls on that number, and that only to John.
08:10That's suggesting to me that that phone's been set up with the purpose of just phoning John.
08:15Is this your kind of thought process at the time?
08:18Yes, and to confirm that, we went to the shop where the SIM card was purchased from a shop in Huddersfield.
08:27I sent officers to the shop to make inquiries as to who it was that had purchased the SIM card.
08:32They came back and reported that the shopkeeper had no recollection of this.
08:37But I wasn't satisfied with that.
08:40So I sent one of my detectives from my team to go and interview the shopkeeper more thoroughly.
08:46And as a result of that, the shopkeeper gave us an account saying that a man had come in telling him that he had a problem,
08:54that he wanted to make a call but did not want the person he was calling to recognise his number.
09:00The shopkeeper advised that he buy a SIM, put it into his phone, make the call and then remove it from his phone and discard it.
09:09Because that way he could protect his identity.
09:12But the customer didn't understand what he meant, so the shopkeeper actually put the SIM card into his phone and helped him understand that he could now use it.
09:21And it would generate a new number that wouldn't be recognised by the person he was trying to call.
09:26And off he went with his phone with a new SIM card in it.
09:32That is a fantastic piece of police work there, because how easy would it have been for you to accept that what the first officer was told was the truth?
09:42By not accepting what came back from that first officer and then sending somebody else down there, somebody that you trusted,
09:50that's a fantastic piece of information you've just turned up there, that without that would have made your inquiry much harder.
09:57So hats off to you, Lisa, for doing that.
09:59Yes, I have some really good staff that I can rely on and you've got to give it your best effort.
10:05And it simply wasn't acceptable to be told, oh no, we don't remember someone coming into the shop.
10:11For me, that wasn't good enough, because this was absolutely key line of inquiry.
10:24The determination by Lisa not to accept what seemed to be the obvious reason for John's disappearance
10:32undoubtedly laid the groundwork for the result that came.
10:37In the police there's a principle known as ABC.
10:41Accept nothing, believe nobody, challenge everything.
10:45A principle perfectly demonstrated by Lisa in this case.
10:52So we do enquiries at the phone shop to establish if they have CCTV,
10:57so we can capture some images of the man that went into the shop.
10:59Unfortunately, there were none, but adjoining premises, a bank, had CCTV which gave a view of the shop.
11:07And the footage there showed a grey-haired man with a little white dog going into the shop.
11:13And that man matched the description as described by the shopkeeper.
11:17When you sent your officers to Humberside to make enquiries around where John's van was abandoned,
11:24what sort of information were you getting back?
11:25The van was abandoned in a car park very close to the Humber Bridge, and nearby was a cafe.
11:33The officers went to the cafe to make enquiries there.
11:36They gave a description of the man that came into the cafe.
11:39It was being an ageing man with grey hair and a small white dog.
11:43When we reviewed the footage from the helicopter, we could see that there was a male with grey hair and a dog
11:48who had approached the cordon and was speaking to officers at the crime scene.
11:54So this is the third time you've mentioned it to me, this man with grey hair and a dog.
11:58Exactly.
11:59So it's now starting to build up that Eric Johnson is someone you need to speak to.
12:03How close are you getting to identifying him at this point?
12:05We're not getting any closer to identifying Eric Johnson. The intelligence unit are not able to give us any information that realistically identifies an individual by that name.
12:16When we spoke to the wife, she told us that there was a voicemail message left on the landline which we had access to.
12:22And this was somebody calling John Hay, leaving a message that it was Eric Johnson and asking for him to ring him back.
12:30There is a second call coming into the home address and the wife tells us that actually there is a second recording of a message that's been left.
12:40And when we listen to this, it's a different voice. This is a different person ringing the house.
12:45With the same message, can John Hay please ring me back? This is Eric Johnson.
12:49A different voice? Yes, this is a different voice.
12:54What you're describing to me is quite bizarre.
12:57So the same message from the same phone, but with a different voice. What do you think is going on there?
13:03Well, this is a question that was posed to the wife of John Hay, and she was asked if she recognised either of the voices.
13:10And she said that yes, she had a suspicion that one of them, the older sounding voice, was a man that she knew to be Kenneth Bill.
13:17Kenneth Bill? Who's Kenneth Bill?
13:20She explained that Kenneth Bill was somebody she had had a relationship with in the 1970s.
13:26He'd been her boyfriend for four years, and that she'd seen him in an article in the local newspaper.
13:33She met him for a coffee, and they renewed their friendship.
13:36But he's now ringing the landline to speak to her husband under a false name and two different voices.
13:44And this is now screaming, there's something not quite right here.
13:48So we need to trace Kenneth Bill at the earliest opportunity.
13:51He has clearly rung the house, giving a false name to get John Hay to meet him, which in itself is sinister.
14:03Just as I'm sitting here thinking about this, and I'm thinking about what you know, this Kenneth Bill, is he a tall or a short man?
14:10Kenneth Bill is considerably shorter than John Hay.
14:12So the sort of person that would have to move John's seat forward from someone who's driving who's six foot four?
14:19He would need to move the seat forward. Yes, he would.
14:22So you make a decision. You make a decision that this is no longer a high-risk missing person case.
14:28We're going to treat this now as a murder inquiry.
14:30What were the pieces of information that you saw were important to that decision?
14:35He's been missing for four days, and this is so out of character for John.
14:41There is no good reason why he wouldn't return calls to his family and his friends.
14:46Also, his van has gone to Humberside. He has no connections with Humberside.
14:51It appears that someone shorter than John was driving that van.
14:55Add to that the fact that someone's been into a phone shop to purchase a SIM card, specifically to ring John Hay.
15:03And the wife is telling us that this person is potentially Kenneth Bill, a man that she has a relationship with.
15:14Kenneth Bill's now a suspect in your murder.
15:17And if any suspect comes into an inquiry, it's important you wiggle a profile of them.
15:21So that would be getting as much information as you can that can assist your inquiry.
15:26What sort of picture were you building up of Kenneth Bill?
15:30I knew from inquiries through the intelligence cell that he had no police record.
15:34He wasn't known to the police. He was a successful businessman.
15:37He had more than one business that he operated out of Huddersfield, and he was quite successful in that.
15:41He had a number of business premises too. He had an office that was associated with a quarry, and he also had an industrial unit that we knew that he had acquired for a new business that he was about to launch.
15:57He was a divorced man and he lived on his own. He lived in a property in Huddersfield. The property has land attached to it.
16:05It's probably best described as a small holding. There was a horse there. There were goats. There were cats. There was quite a lot of wildlife. I think there might have even been chickens there.
16:17Did he have a dog?
16:19He did. He had a white dog, a Westing. And that was the dog that I saw on the footage from the helicopter and also the CCTV from the phone shop.
16:28So if we look at the relationship between Bill and John's wife, she had indicated that it was a platonic relationship. Was that the truth?
16:43No, unfortunately it wasn't the truth.
16:45As the investigation progresses, we look at the wife's telephone and there are a number of messages on her telephone that suggest that she is actually in a relationship with Kenneth Bill.
17:00They had had an affair. The affair began in October of 2011 and it ran for approximately four months.
17:07At that time, the wife of John Hay decided that she didn't want the relationship to continue and she brought it to an end.
17:17But Kenneth Bill, by this point, was really quite obsessed with her and he did not want the relationship to end.
17:24And he made repeated attempts to contact her, pleading with her to get back together, to renew the relationship.
17:31But she wanted none of it. So he is of particular importance to us and there is a potential motive for a murder.
17:44So you make the decision that Bill is going to be arrested. How did that go?
17:49So officers were asked to go to his home address to arrest him.
17:52He was informed that he was being arrested for the murder of John Hay, to which he made a very surprising response given the gravity of the allegation.
18:05He didn't challenge it in any way. He made a comment along the lines of, can I feed my animals first?
18:12Which given, as I say, the gravity of the allegation is really quite surprising.
18:16I always like to think of it as how would I react or anybody I know react if they were given those words of being arrested for murder.
18:25I don't think I'd react like that.
18:27No. Anyone would be shocked to be told they were being arrested for murder and would want to know what the allegation was.
18:37But there were no such questions from Kenneth Bill. He was as cool as you like.
18:41So having been arrested, now some searches need to take place of those premises that Bill has some type of control over.
18:57And there are three. His home address, the industrial premises and the quarry.
19:03So tell me how those searches went.
19:04I nominated a forensic crime manager to coordinate the search of all three properties.
19:13I'm Frances Senior and in 2012 I was an area forensic manager for West Yorkshire Police.
19:20We needed to search the home address of Kenneth Bill, both the premises and the land.
19:26Concerns really had escalated to the point of thinking we're no longer looking for a missing person, we're looking for a body.
19:31The decision was made to deploy cadaver dogs.
19:36Cadaver dog is trained to find human bodies.
19:40The cadaver dogs made multiple indications at the same sort of area, indicating that something was particularly of interest in that area.
19:48The crime scene manager reported back that there was strong smell of the fire having been there.
19:53It appeared that there had been a fire and then the ground had been dug over.
19:58This area needs to be thoroughly examined and probably is going to need excavation to see if there are human remains there.
20:05It's a really long and laborious meticulous process and during that process they recovered a number of bones.
20:15Now we often find bones in the CSI world and predominantly they're animal bones.
20:21On site they won't make a positive identification.
20:24Bones get taken off to the laboratory, in this case in the university.
20:28And they are looked at in much more detail with better lighting, microscopy, et cetera, et cetera.
20:35What that resulted in was the discovery of a human toe bone.
20:39And when we did DNA analysis we could establish that that was belonging to John Hay.
20:44But there was no more human remains at this burn site.
20:55So the discovery of a burnt toe bone is not indication in itself of a homicide.
21:02Obviously our suspicions were raised but it wouldn't be enough on its own without lots of other evidence to really conclude foul play had happened.
21:09The person can of course survive an injury that results in the loss of a toe bone.
21:15So it still doesn't give me a cause of death.
21:18And it doesn't prove actually that John Hay is in fact dead.
21:22The challenge that I face is that I do have somebody in custody and in respect of suspicion for murder.
21:30I cannot charge him with an offensive murder unless I have a body or I have a cause of death.
21:36And at that moment in time I have neither.
21:46I think undoubtedly from talking to Lisa I could tell that the biggest frustration was the fact that they had no body.
21:53They didn't find John.
21:55Now it's not impossible to charge someone with murder if no body is found but it definitely makes it harder.
22:00They have to prove firstly that the person has died.
22:05And they'll also have to see some kind of sign of trauma to be able to clearly demonstrate that it wasn't an accident or some other reason that the person died.
22:15I asked detectives to attend the industrial unit and the office premises of the quarry to establish whether John Hay was present.
22:27They reported back that John Hay was not present and in their belief there had not been any disturbance at the two sides.
22:34But I wasn't satisfied with that and I wanted it to be forensically examined and actually those officers were wrong because there were deposits of blood in four separate areas within the industrial unit.
22:47If you'd accepted the word of those officers you would have missed an attack site.
22:54That decision you made was absolutely vital in identifying that crime scene.
23:01Bill's in custody, haven't been arrested for murder.
23:04Anybody in that situation gets interviewed and it's their chance to put their side of the story across.
23:10What did he say to you in that interview?
23:14In the initial interview he gave no account of his actions in relation to John Hay and was very unhelpful.
23:23When police interview murders in the UK we use what's known as staged disclosure.
23:27Yeah.
23:29Bit by bit they give him more evidence.
23:31Yes.
23:32As the evidence was put before him, little by little, he changed his account and what he told officers was that he had been in a relationship with John Hay's wife
23:46and that he had indeed obtained the SIM card from the shop in Huddersfield.
23:53And that to make contact with John Hay, he had asked an employee to ring on his behalf.
24:01Kenneth Bill Rag a second time.
24:03And he did it himself.
24:05On the second occasion he tried to disguise his voice and he said in the interview that to do this he removed his dentures and put a marble in his mouth.
24:14No one answered the phone and he left a message again saying this is Eric Johnson, please return my call.
24:20With the marble in his mouth?
24:22With the marble in his mouth.
24:24Bizarre.
24:25Yes.
24:27We formulated a forensic strategy for the industrial unit that will give us the best chance of telling the story of what's happened within the unit.
24:38Has John Hay been physically present in that unit?
24:41So I sent the crime scene manager and CSI to the industrial unit.
24:45Due to the size of the unit it presents a particular challenge for forensic examiners.
24:51There was an area of blood quite visible on the wall and it was more visible because it looked to have been recently painted over.
24:59So we deployed what's called quasar lighting and different light techniques using different frequencies of lighting to look at the paint and to identify using crime lights if there's anything visible underneath it.
25:11They found blood spatter so there was visible blood spatter in a number of places and the main find of interest there was finding a human tooth at the bottom of the stairs.
25:25As well as the areas of blood spatter there was indications of scalp and hair so I got a very excited call from the crime scene manager there notifying me of these key finds that really were a pivotal point in the investigation.
25:43What we found inside the unit was obvious signs of a cleanup. The floor had been cleaned but there was a ring of congealed blood which gave us an idea of the volume that had been on the floor prior to the cleanup.
26:00Until that blood was identified as belonging to John you do worry that something else has happened there and it's not actually going to be John.
26:11So in that instance I authorized and opened up the out of hours lab so called in scientists to work out of hours and to do what's called a quick turnaround DNA analysis.
26:21So that is when they use ultra first techniques so that will have been done overnight and I remember getting that information that would have got a conclusive match that it was John.
26:30You knew now that John was dead you always have at the back of your mind that there's that potential that is alive somewhere but the moment you discover this attack site and the blood and the distribution and the story that tells that hope
26:59hope no matter how small it is he's gone.
27:06He was a colleague of yours from West Yorkshire.
27:08How did you feel at that point?
27:09Probably felt more motivated to get to the truth and establish exactly what has happened.
27:17Kenneth Bill had an account for John Hay coming to his unit and what his account was that he wanted to tell John Hay that he was in a relationship with the wife
27:28and that in fact they should share her.
27:32Share her?
27:33Yes, this is what he said he wanted to tell John Hay and he said that John Hay was angry at this and an outburst, an angry outburst took place and that he had accidentally fallen down the steps which were very steep and in the process of doing that he had bumped his head and fallen unconscious.
27:54The interviewing officers asked him why he hadn't called an ambulance and Kenneth Bill said he had a phobia of ambulances and he didn't want to call an ambulance.
28:05So he did nothing and John Hay died before his eyes.
28:10So as bizarre as that sounds and it doesn't sound credible in the slightest that is presenting a problem for you now because on the face of it if he was telling the truth that's not murder.
28:27No.
28:28So you need to disprove what he's saying no matter how bizarre it sounds.
28:32Yes because he would have us believe that this was an accidental death.
28:36How did you go about that?
28:38So there are a number of experts that are available to me one of which is a forensic biologist who was able to tell me about the blood distribution and was able to describe the manner of the attacks that had taken place.
28:52I was in Leeds Crown Court on another murder case when the DCI, the Detective Chief Inspector Lisa Griffin, for want of a better word, collared me.
29:06My name is Dr Brian Rogers, I'm a consultant forensic home office pathologist, have been now for some 25 years.
29:17Generally speaking a forensic pathologist will undertake a post-mortem examination of a body and establish the unlawful killing but I didn't have a body.
29:27All I had was the scene of the attack and the blood pattern analysis that he could look at.
29:35Trying to think back through my career, I don't think I've ever been involved in a case where there was nobody.
29:42So it's quite an unusual case.
29:47The story that Kenneth Bill gave the police was that John Hay had fallen down the stairs.
29:57Because of the multiplicity of areas of blood spatter, this is highly unlikely to be just due to John Hay suffering a fall down the stairs.
30:09All that blood and all the blood contamination and tissue found at the scene was confirmed to be a perfect DNA match with that of John Hay.
30:22There were also found, in various areas going up the stairs, small clumps of about 20 to 30 hairs stuck in blood.
30:34And the interpretation of the forensic scientists was that those hair clumps had been forcibly pulled out from someone's head.
30:43So it all pointed to some form of struggle.
30:48The other interesting finding there was a further clump of hair embedded in a small piece of scalp tissue.
30:59And that was actually found towards the top of the stairs, quite high up on the wall.
31:06So how on earth has that piece of human tissue ended up there if this was just a simple fall downstairs?
31:15There's no way.
31:16So taking all the evidence into account and looking at everything, I was of the view that John Hay had been assaulted forcibly with a weapon to the head, sustained significant blunt trauma head injuries and probably then fell down the stairs.
31:36But he has been assaulted and the assault probably continued all over the unit from the distribution of blood in various areas.
31:46The evidence that I saw was, I felt pretty conclusive.
31:55Taking everything into account, I was pretty convinced that John Hay had been murdered.
32:02Whilst he can survive without toe bones, he most certainly can't survive without his skull.
32:14What we have here is a reconstruction of the crime scene.
32:17The victim, John Hay, has been led up these stairs, a very steep metal staircase to this office at the top.
32:26We believe that the suspect had secreted a weapon at the top of those stairs.
32:31He was struck very strongly about the head with such force that it removed part of his scalp, which has caused him to fall down the stairs.
32:40They were able to identify blood spatter down the staircase, showing that he was bleeding as he was going down the staircase.
32:47There were other areas within here where John Hay had been attacked, namely the fire exit.
32:53He'd been struck about the head, we believe, because there was blood on the wall at a height of six foot four.
33:02We believe he'd also been attacked as he tried to escape through the point where he'd entered.
33:08A human tooth belonging to John Hay was found at that point.
33:11It was obvious that the victim, John Hay, was trying desperately to escape from the industrial unit.
33:19There were clear signs of impact spatter, so blood that is distributed from something hitting, something that is bleeding.
33:28He had run or had certainly gone to the fire escape, which he couldn't exit because it had been welded shut.
33:37He couldn't exit from the door because it had been locked.
33:41And there was no other means of escaping from the industrial unit.
33:45John Hay was effectively trapped within that unit.
33:49The final attack point that I suggest is the area in the centre of the industrial unit where we found the remnants of blood in a pool in the centre of that area there.
34:03So there was essentially four attack sites.
34:06Without a doubt, the forensic pathologist in this case was absolutely vital.
34:22His evidence was needed to prove that John's death was unlawful.
34:27John Hay must have been terrified and bewildered by the reason for the attack upon him.
34:37And he did his best to escape but wasn't able to do so because every effort had been made to make that unit secure so that he could not escape.
34:46Also present in the industrial unit was a horse box and the horse box did in fact contain traces of blood in it.
34:53At the actual home address of Kenneth Bill near the burn deposition site, there were tire marks that looked to have been made by something on an axle trailer.
35:03We cast tire marks to link back to vehicles that may have left them to prove that the trailer had been taken to the land of Kenneth Bill.
35:13And the hypothesis was at that time that a body had been moved from the murder site at the industrial unit to Kenneth Bill's home address where the body was disposed of through the bonfire.
35:24We continued the search of Kenneth Bill's home address and in an office within the house, they found a list of items.
35:39This is a reconstruction of the note that was found inside Kenneth's home.
35:43It lists duct tape, one ton bag, SIM, bailing twine, pen knife, wood, and then more wood, and bleach.
35:56Ticking off items such as duct tape, wood and SIM cards certainly raised a few eyebrows amongst myself and my investigation team as to what he'd written this for.
36:08This alone gives me an indication that this was very much a planned murder.
36:14It was certainly an error of judgement for it not to end up on the bonfire where it so easily could have.
36:19An awful lot of planning has gone into the murder, but then he's left the note, with his planning, at his home.
36:29I mean, as mistakes go, that's a bit of a stupid one there, isn't it?
36:34It is a mistake, but I think we've interrupted the whole operation.
36:38I think it was still ongoing. I think he was still trying to cover his tracks, and that was just a piece of evidence that he hadn't yet destroyed.
36:50Another piece of information that was important for the investigation came from a witness who approached the police cordon at Kenneth Bill's home address.
37:00This particular person was another employee of Ken Bill, and he told us that he had gone to the pub with Kenneth Bill on two occasions,
37:12and had had a conversation that disturbed him greatly.
37:16The first time, Kenneth Bill said to him, I need your advice. I've got a bit of a problem. I'm in a relationship with a married woman, and I need to get rid of the husband.
37:30So I have a plan, and the plan is this. I'm going to invite him to come to the industrial unit, and once I've got him there, there is a steep set of stairs that I can ask him to follow me.
37:45And I will have a weapon that I will then use against him, because I will need a height advantage. This man is a lot taller than me.
37:54I'm going to attack him on the stairs, and I'm going to kill him.
37:59And then, to dispose of his body, I'm going to order one of those fertiliser containers that farmers use, which I'll fill with acid to dissolve the body.
38:10And I'm thinking that this will be the best way forward. What do you think?
38:17And this employee of his said, well, I do see a problem with your plan. You've told me.
38:25So he just regarded this as a joke. He didn't think that Kenneth Bill was being serious. It was so ludicrous, it couldn't possibly be a serious proposition.
38:37And he gave it no more thought at that time. However, they went to the pub on a subsequent occasion, and he said again, I've changed the plan.
38:46I'm thinking I won't use acid to dissolve the body. I think what would be a better idea would be to burn it. I could burn the body.
38:55And the employee of his, again, laughed it off and said, you know, surely, surely not. And thought it was a joke. He really thought it was a joke.
39:05So when he saw the police activity at Kenneth Bill's home address, he felt compelled to come and tell us.
39:11I've got to be honest, Lisa, I'm a little bit of a shock to hear that. I've never heard of anything like that. This was an employee, and he's basically given him his whole plans of what he's going to do. That's mad.
39:21Kenneth Bill was so arrogant, and he believed that he could carry out the perfect murder, and that he could get away with it.
39:28You've now managed to get to the stage where you're about to go to trial, the trial for John's murder. In your mind, what were the key pieces of evidence that were going to achieve that?
39:43We've got the evidence from our forensic pathologist who would say that it was the attack within that unit that has led to the death of John Hay, and it was not an accidental death.
39:56What happened when he appeared at the Crown Court?
40:03Kenneth Bill pleaded not guilty. That man was so arrogant and so strong-willed, he was determined to have his say in court.
40:14And he felt that he had a realistic prospect of getting a not guilty verdict.
40:20When you turned up for that first day of the trial, how did you feel?
40:24I was confident that we would get a guilty verdict because I knew that the evidence was very strong, it was very compelling.
40:33But I was also worried for the family.
40:36What defence did Bill put forward?
40:38Bill proposed a defence that he had not killed John Hay, that in fact it was an accident.
40:47He wanted the court to accept the account that he had given, that they had had a heated discussion over the relationship with John Hay's wife and that John Hay had fallen down the steps and had suffered a fatal head injury.
41:06There are elements of truth woven throughout the account and clearly he did put John Hay's body in a builder's bag and he did transport it back to his home in the horse trailer.
41:18And he did burn the body. He admitted that. The key element that he admitted in his account was the fact that he was responsible for killing John Hay.
41:28The way we were able to rebut that defence was by using our star witness, which was the forensic pathologist Brian Rogers.
41:36He was able to say that the account offered by Kenneth Bill was not consistent with the evidence that he examined at the scene.
41:44He was able to say that John Hay had suffered catastrophic injuries, head injuries, and he had been attacked in such a way that part of his skull had been removed within that industrial unit and he had died there.
42:00And that this was no accident, that this was a malicious attack on John Hay.
42:05He was really quite obsessed with the wife of John Hay. And this is what motivated him, we believe, to kill John Hay so that he could have access to her.
42:16Because in his mind, she would not leave her husband for him. It was the husband that was the blocker to this relationship.
42:23I was satisfied that John Hay's wife had absolutely no inkling that Kenneth Bill intended to or did in fact carry out the murder of John Hay.
42:32She did not support that action. She did not want a relationship with Kenneth Bill. And she could not have foreseen this outcome.
42:40She was devastated to lose her husband. She loved him greatly.
42:44As human beings, the majority of what motivates us to act is based on emotion. And that's no different when it comes to murder.
42:55Now, these could be emotions that push us. So, for instance, anger, jealousy or feelings of betrayal. Or emotions we seek, such as power, control or sexual gratification.
43:08When we look at the circumstances of this case, I mean, no doubt that emotion played a central role.
43:14So, you've been through the trial over several weeks. And there will come that point where the jury go out to consider their verdict. How are you feeling at this point?
43:27It's always a tense time when the jury retire to consider their verdict because nothing is ever guaranteed.
43:34The jury came back and the foreman announced that they had reached a verdict on which they were all agreed.
43:41And that verdict was one of guilty. Guilty for the murder of John Hay.
43:45The team were relieved that we got a guilty verdict. And also very sad, really, to reflect on the manner in which John Hay had died.
44:02But satisfied that we'd done enough to get that conviction.
44:06Kenneth Bill was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 22 years.
44:13Which means he's not eligible to apply for parole until he has served at least 22 years.
44:22He was 63 when he was convicted. So it's unlikely that he will ever have liberty again.
44:28John Hay was very well liked by colleagues. His funeral was very well attended by police officers and friends alike.
44:35He was very popular amongst the community in Huddersfield. He was a kind and gentle man.
44:41And did not deserve the violent death that he suffered.
44:53The investigation you've described to me, Lisa, I've got to say is absolutely outstanding.
45:00It must have left the jury in no doubt that Kenneth Bill killed John.
45:07Some of the decisions you made were absolutely outstanding.
45:12You didn't just take it on face value what you were being told.
45:17You challenged it and you asked people to go back and just make sure.
45:22John isn't around to say thank you. But on his behalf, can I just say thank you to you as an absolutely outstanding, diligent, professional, senior investigating officer.
45:35The work you did was outstanding. So thank you, Lisa, for that.
45:39Well, thank you for that.
45:40There are many skills that are required to be a good murder detective.
45:49And my conversation with Lisa reminded me that determination is one of those.
45:54But her refusing to accept the information that was coming back from the phone shop, the industrial unit,
46:00and what appeared to be a suicide were pivotal in solving what was always going to be a difficult case.
46:12So thank you.
Comments