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Secrets Of A Murder Detective - Season 2 Episode 4 - Lured To Death
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00:00I'm Steve Keogh, 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.
00:27Welcome to Secrets of a Murder Detective.
00:34The 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.
01:08Hello.
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.
01:40Thank you for calling 999. Port your emergency, please.
01:43The missing person was an adult male aged 61 called John Hay. He'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.
02:51Family and friends were ringing his mobile phone. He didn't pick up. Messages were left. They were not returned.
02:57Text messages were not returned. And that was a very unlike John.
03:02Every effort was made to trace John Hay's 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.
03:40And very helpfully, they put their helicopter up, which 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. Is John in the van?
04:03Secondly, I need to forensically examine that van. So I dispatched a team from the Homicide Major Inquiry team across to go and assist in that process.
04:14All right. So at this stage, you're still not being treated as a murder. It's still a high risk missing person inquiry.
04:21But you're doing all the things that you would do in a murder because you have to. You can't get it back later on.
04:27You 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 point that John Hayes found safe and well, nothing is lost. So it's always worth doing a thorough investigation.
04:44So essentially, you're preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best.
04:47Exactly.
04:52To find a missing person, it's really important you build up a picture of their life, who'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?
05:03What we found out about John, he was a retired police officer. He'd worked as a traffic patrol officer and he'd retired on ill health grounds.
05:12He then set up a business as an independent builder and he had a very good reputation in Huddersfield and all his customers came pretty much through word of mouth.
05:24Did 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? If you are investigating a high risk missing person of someone who tends to come to harm and people on your team know him.
05:43Absolutely. And it gives me a better picture of the kind of man that he was. And I'm getting that information from people who I know to be as reliable sources.
05:50What came across to me when I was speaking to Lisa was how the fact that John was a former police officer within West Yorkshire and 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 driver's seat had been pulled forward.
06:18Was John a tall fellow? John was six foot four.
06:21Right. And he would certainly have had the seat pushed back as far as it would go.
06:26And 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.
07:39Phone 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.
07:52Now, 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 inquiry and it's not registered to anybody, there's a little red flag there.
08:04But only two phone calls on that number, and that only to John, that's suggesting to me that that phone's been set up with the purpose of just phoning John.
08:16Was this your kind of thought process at the time?
08:19Yes, and to confirm that, we went to the shop where the SIM card was purchased from a shop in Huddersfield.
08:28I sent officers to the shop to make inquiries as to who it was that had purchased the SIM card.
08:33They came back and reported that the shopkeeper had no recollection of this, but I wasn't satisfied with that.
08:41So I sent one of my detectives from my team to go and interview the shopkeeper more thoroughly.
08:47And 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,
08:55that 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 because 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, that's a fantastic piece of information.
09:52You'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 and it simply wasn't acceptable to be told,
10:08oh, no, we don't, we don't remember someone coming into the shop.
10:11For me, that wasn't good enough, because this was absolutely key line of enquiry.
10:24The determination by Lisa not to accept what seemed to be the obvious reason for John's disappearance undoubtedly laid the groundwork for the result that came.
10:37In the police there's a principle known as ABC.
10:40Accept 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, so 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 and the footage there showed a grey-haired man with a little white dog going into the shop.
11:12And 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, what sort of information were you getting back?
11:26The 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 as being an ageing man with grey hair and a small white dog.
11:42When we reviewed the footage from the helicopter, we could see that there was a male with grey hair and a dog who had approached the cordon and was speaking to officers at the crime scene.
11:53So this is the third time you've mentioned it to me, this man with grey hair and a dog.
11:57Exactly.
11:58So it's now starting to build up that Eric Johnson is someone you need to speak to.
12:02How close are you getting to identifying him at this point?
12:05We're not getting any closer to identifying Eric Johnson.
12:08The 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.
12:23And this was somebody calling John Hay, leaving a message that it was Eric Johnson and asking for him to ring him back.
12:29There is a second call coming into the home address and the wife tells us that actually there is a second recording.
12:37of a message that's been left.
12:40And when we listen to this, it's a different voice.
12:42This is a different person ringing the house.
12:44With the same message, can John Hay please ring me back?
12:48This is Eric Johnson.
12:50A different voice?
12:52Yes, this is a different voice.
12:54What you're describing to me is quite bizarre.
12:56So the same message from the same phone, but with a different voice.
13:01What do you think is going on there?
13:03Well, this is a question that was posed to the wife of John Hay.
13:06And she was asked if she recognized either of the voices.
13:09And 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.
13:18Kenneth 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.
13:37But 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.
13:56Has clearly wronged 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?
14:09Kenneth 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?
14:18He would need to move the seat forward. Yes, he would.
14:21So you make a decision. You make a decision that this is no longer a high-risk missing person case.
14:27We'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?
14:34He's been missing for four days.
14:37And this is so out of character for John.
14:40There is no good reason why he wouldn't return calls to his family and his friends.
14:45Also, 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.
15:02And the wife is telling us that this person is potentially Kenneth Bill, a man that she has a relationship with.
15:15Kenneth Bill's now a suspect in your murder.
15:17And if any suspect comes into an inquiry, it's important you build a profile of them.
15:21So that would be getting as much information as you can assist your inquiry.
15:26What sort of picture were you building up of Kenneth Bill?
15:29I knew from inquiries through the intelligence cell that he had no police record.
15:33He wasn't known to the police. He was a successful businessman.
15:36He had more than one business that he operated out of Huddersfield.
15:40And he was quite successful in that.
15:42He had a number of business premises too.
15:44He had an office that was associated with a quarry.
15:48And he also had an industrial unit that we knew that he had acquired for a new business that he was about to launch.
15:56He was a divorced man and he lived on his own.
15:59He lived in a property in Huddersfield.
16:02The property has land attached to it.
16:05It's probably best described as a small holding.
16:09There was a horse there.
16:11There were goats.
16:12There were cats.
16:13There was quite a lot of wildlife.
16:15I think there might have even been chickens there.
16:17Did he have a dog?
16:18He did.
16:19He had a white dog, a Westing.
16:21And that was the dog that I saw on the footage from the helicopter and also the CCTV from the phone shop.
16:30So if we look at the relationship between Bill and John's wife, she had indicated that it was a platonic relationship.
16:41Was that the truth?
16:43No, unfortunately it wasn't the truth.
16:46As 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.
17:02The affair began in October of 2011 and it ran for approximately four months.
17:08At 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.
17:33So he is of particular importance to us and there is a potential motive for a murder.
17:45So 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.
17:53He was informed that he was being arrested for the murder of John Hay, to which he made a very surprising response.
18:02Given the gravity of the allegation, he didn't challenge it in any way.
18:07He made a comment along the lines of, can I feed my animals first?
18:11Which, 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.
18:24I don't think I'd react like that.
18:26No. 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.
18:47So, having been arrested, now some searches need to take place of those premises that Bill has some type of control over.
18:56And there are three. His home address, the industrial premises and the quarry.
19:03So, tell me how those searches went.
19:05I 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.
19:19We needed to search the home address of Kenneth Bill, both the premises and the land.
19:25Concerns 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.
19:34Cadaver 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 a strong smell of a fire having been there.
19:54It 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.
20:20On site they won't make a positive identification.
20:23Bones get taken off to the laboratory, in this case in the university, and they are looked at in much more detail with better lighting, microscopy, etc, etc.
20:33What that resulted in was the discovery of a human toe bone.
20:38And 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.
20:54So the discovery of a burnt toe bone is not indication in itself of a homicide.
21:01Obviously 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, so 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, I cannot charge him with an offensive murder unless I have a body, or I have a cause of death.
21:37And at that moment in time, I have neither.
21:39I 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.
21:54Now, 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, and 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.
22:35But I wasn't satisfied with that, and I wanted it to be forensically examined.
22:40And 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.
23:11What 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 stage disclosure.
23:27Yeah.
23:28Bit by bit, they're given more evidence.
23:31Yes.
23:32As the evidence was put before him, little by little, he changed his account.
23:39And 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, Kenneth Bill Ragg, 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,
24:11he 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.
24:21With the marble in his mouth?
24:22With the marble in his mouth.
24:24Bizarre.
24:25Yes.
24:26We 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.
24:37Has John Hay been physically present in that unit?
24:40So 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.
24:50There was an area of blood quite visible on the wall, and it was more visible because it looked to have been recently painted over.
24:58So we deployed what's called Quasar Lighting and different light techniques using different frequencies of lighting
25:06to look at the paint and to identify using crime lights if there's anything visible underneath it.
25:13They found blood spatter, so there was visible blood spatter in a number of places,
25:19and 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.
25:33So 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 clean-up.
25:48The 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 clean-up.
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.
26:10So in that instance, I authorized and opened up the out-of-hours lab, so called in scientists to work out-of-hours,
26:17and to do what's called a quick turnaround DNA analysis.
26:21So that is when they use ultra-first techniques.
26:24So that will have been done overnight, and I remember getting that information that we'd have got a conclusive match that it was John.
26:30You knew now that John was dead.
26:39You always have at the back of your mind that there's that potential that is alive somewhere.
26:47But the moment you discover this attack site and the blood and the distribution and the story that tells,
26:58that hope, no matter how small it is, is gone.
27:04He was a colleague of yours from West Yorkshire.
27:08How did you feel at that point?
27:10Probably felt more motivated to get to the truth and establish exactly what had happened.
27:17Kenneth Bill had an account for John Hay coming to his unit.
27:22And 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.
27:31And he...
27:32Share her?
27:33Yes, this is what he said he wanted to tell John Hay.
27:37And he said that John Hay was angry at this, and an outburst, an angry outburst took place,
27:44and that he had accidentally fallen down the steps, which were very steep.
27:49And in the process of doing that, he'd bumped his head and fallen unconscious.
27:54The interviewing officers asked him why he hadn't called an ambulance,
27:59and 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,
28:18that is presenting a problem for you now.
28:21Because 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,
28:45who was able to tell me about the blood distribution, and was able to describe the manner of the attacks that had taken place.
28:53I 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,
29:23and 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.
29:58Because of the multiplicity of areas of blood spatter, this was highly unlikely to be just due to John Hay suffering a fall down the stairs.
30:10All 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.
30:23There were also found, in various areas going up the stairs, small clumps of about 20 to 30 hairs stuck in blood.
30:33And 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 down stairs?
31:16There's no way.
31:18So 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.
31:37But he has been assaulted and the assault probably continued all over the unit from the distribution of blood in various areas.
31:45The evidence that I saw was, I felt pretty conclusive.
31:55Taking everything into account, I was pretty convinced that John Hay had been murdered.
32:06Whilst he can survive without toe bones, he most certainly can't survive without his skull.
32:10What 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 is causing 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.
33:12It was obvious that the victim, John Hay, was trying desperately to escape from the industrial unit.
33:20There were clear signs of impact spatter, so blood that is distributed from something hitting, something that is bleeding.
33:27He 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.
33:48The 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 tyre marks that looked to have been made by something on an axle trailer.
35:03We cast tyre 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, that's just... I 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,
36:44and that was just a piece of evidence that he hadn't yet destroyed.
36:50Another piece of information that was important for the investigation
36:54came from a witness who approached the police cordon at Kenneth Bill's home address.
37:00This particular person was another employee of Ken Bill
37:05and 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,
37:19I need your advice, I've got a bit of a problem,
37:23I'm in a relationship with a married woman
37:26and I need to get rid of the husband,
37:30so I have a plan and the plan is this.
37:34I'm going to invite him to come to the industrial unit
37:39and once I've got him there, there is a steep set of stairs
37:43that I can ask him to follow me
37:46and I will have a weapon that I will then use against him
37:50because I will need a height advantage.
37:52This man is a lot taller than me.
37:55I'm going to attack him on the stairs and I'm going to kill him
38:00and then to dispose of his body,
38:02I'm going to order one of those fertiliser containers that farmers use,
38:07which I'll fill with acid to dissolve the body
38:10and I'm thinking that this will be the best way forward.
38:15What do you think?
38:17And this employee of his said,
38:21well, I do see a problem with your plan, you've told me.
38:25So, he just regarded this as a joke.
38:30He didn't think that Kenneth Bill was being serious.
38:33It was so ludicrous, it couldn't possibly be a serious proposition.
38:37And he gave it no more thought at that time.
38:39However, they went to the pub on a subsequent occasion
38:42and he said again, I've changed the plan.
38:46I'm thinking I won't use acid to dissolve the body.
38:50I think what would be a better idea would be to burn it.
38:53I could burn the body.
38:54And the employee of his again laughed it off
38:58and said, you know, surely, surely not.
39:01And thought it was a joke.
39:03He really thought it was a joke.
39:05So, when he saw the police activity at Kenneth Bill's home address,
39:08he felt compelled to come and tell us.
39:11I've got to be honest with you, I'm a little bit of shock to hear that.
39:14I've never heard of anything like that.
39:16This was an employee and he's basically given him his whole plans
39:19of what he's going to do.
39:20Yeah. That's mad.
39:21Kenneth Bill was so arrogant and he believed
39:23that he could carry out the perfect murder
39:26and that he could get away with it.
39:28You've now managed to get to the stage
39:31where you're about to go to trial,
39:34the trial for John's murder.
39:37In your mind, what were the key pieces of evidence
39:40that were going to achieve that?
39:43We've got the evidence from our forensic pathologist
39:46who would say that it was the attack within that unit
39:51that has led to the death of John Hay,
39:53and it was not an accidental death.
39:55What happened when he appeared at the Crown Court?
40:03Kenneth Bill pleaded not guilty.
40:06That man was so arrogant and so strong-willed,
40:10he was determined to have his say in court
40:14and he felt that he had a realistic prospect
40:17of getting a not guilty verdict.
40:20When you turned up for that first day of the trial,
40:22how did you feel?
40:24I was confident that we would get a guilty verdict
40:29because I knew that the evidence was very strong,
40:31it was very compelling,
40:33but I was also worried for the family.
40:35What defence did Bill put forward?
40:38Bill proposed a defence that he had not killed John Hay,
40:45that in fact it was an accident.
40:47He wanted the court to accept the account that he had given,
40:50that they had had a heated discussion
40:53over the relationship with John Hay's wife
40:56and that John Hay had fallen down the steps
40:59and had suffered a fatal head injury.
41:02There are elements of truth woven throughout the account,
41:09and clearly he did put John Hay's body in a builder's bag
41:14and he did transport it back to his home in the horse trailer.
41:18And he did burn the body, he admitted that.
41:21The key element that he admitted in his account
41:25was the fact that he was responsible for killing John Hay.
41:28The way we were able to rebut that defence
41:31was by using our star witness,
41:33which was the forensic pathologist Brian Rogers.
41:36He was able to say that the account offered by Kenneth Bill
41:39was not consistent with the evidence that he examined at the scene.
41:44He was able to say that John Hay had suffered catastrophic injuries,
41:50head injuries, and he had been attacked in such a way
41:53that part of his skull had been removed within that industrial unit
41:58and he had died there, and that this was no accident,
42:01that this was a malicious attack on John Hay.
42:05He was really quite obsessed with the wife of John Hay,
42:09and this is what motivated him, we believe, to kill John Hay
42:13so that he could have access to her,
42:16because in his mind she would not leave her husband for him,
42:20it was the husband that was the blocker to this relationship.
42:23I was satisfied that John Hay's wife had absolutely no inkling
42:27that Kenneth Bill intended to or did in fact carry out the murder of John Hay.
42:32She did not support that action.
42:34She did not want a relationship with Kenneth Bill
42:37and she could not have foreseen this outcome.
42:40She was devastated to lose her husband.
42:42She loved him greatly.
42:44As human beings, the majority of what motivates us to act
42:49is based on emotion, and that's no different when it comes to murder.
42:55Now, these could be emotions that push us,
42:58so, for instance, anger, jealousy, or feelings of betrayal,
43:03or emotions we seek, such as power, control, or sexual gratification.
43:08When we look at the circumstances of this case,
43:10I mean, no doubt that emotion played a central role.
43:15So you've been through the trial over several weeks,
43:18and there will come that point where the jury go out
43:21to consider their verdict.
43:23How are you feeling at this point?
43:25It's always a tense time when the jury retire to consider their verdict,
43:31because nothing is ever guaranteed.
43:33The jury came back and the foreman announced
43:37that they had reached a verdict on which they were all agreed,
43:40and that verdict was one of guilty.
43:42Guilty for the murder of John Hay.
43:44The team were relieved that we got a guilty verdict,
43:56and also very sad, really, to reflect on the manner in which John Hay had died,
44:01but 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,
44:12which 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.
44:31His funeral was very well attended by police officers and friends alike.
44:35He was very popular amongst the community in Huddersfield.
44:39He was a kind and gentle man and did not deserve the violent death that he suffered.
44:44The investigation you've described to me, Lisa, I've got to say is absolutely outstanding.
45:01It must have left the jury in no doubt that Kenneth Bill killed John.
45:07Some of the decisions you made were absolutely outstanding.
45:13You didn't just take it on face value, what you were being told.
45:18You challenged it, and you asked people to go back and just make sure.
45:23John isn't around to say thank you, but on his behalf, can I just say thank you to you
45:30as an absolutely outstanding, diligent, professional senior investigating officer.
45:36The 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,
45:59the industrial unit, and what appeared to be a suicide,
46:03were pivotal in solving what was always going to be a difficult case.
46:08Understand and seek for us.
46:09Have a great day.
46:11Hey guys.
46:12That was a great day.
46:14After all, let's find out,
46:15we'll see you next week.
46:16Okay, in the next week.
46:17What are you doing?
46:20Bye.
46:21Bye.
46:22Bye.
46:23Bye.
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