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00:01He was the victim of a prolonged and brutal attack, a revenge murder.
00:08It was just shocking beyond belief.
00:12Why would anyone want to do a thing like that?
00:14A brutal murder.
00:16For some, feeling wronged sparks a desire for payback.
00:21Love, hate, jealousy, revenge.
00:24These emotions drive people to do unimaginable things.
00:28You're under arrest on suspicion of murder.
00:31Was it your intention to kill her?
00:33Was it your intention all along?
00:36He vents his frustration in his anger on her.
00:39You never really know who a person is.
00:42You can't trust anyone.
00:43He couldn't accept that there was no part of her that wanted him back.
00:49As a motive for murder, revenge is the most shocking of all.
00:53You see a certain level of premeditation
00:55because someone's festering on this anger.
00:58It's an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and it's all about power.
01:03Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Shaham Dass and criminologist Honor DeRoe Townsend
01:08investigate the triggers that make people commit these horrific crimes.
01:14Really hard to imagine who hated her enough to walk her dead.
01:19Nobody could expect anybody to survive such an attack.
01:22The underlying motive was revenge.
01:26Pure and simple, cold and callous.
01:43On a quiet Saturday afternoon in 2022,
01:47a woman arrives at the local stables where she's expecting to find her friend Claire
01:51tending to the horses as she normally does.
01:55But when she gets there, she finds the horses alone and no sign of Claire.
02:03The alarm is raised with Claire's father, Graham Tinkley, to check on Claire at home.
02:09So I said, well, I'll go up and have a look because I've got a key sort of thing.
02:14I was a bit annoyed at her because I thought she'd let somebody down.
02:18I let myself in the arse.
02:20It was locked when I got there.
02:23And I just shouted upstairs, Claire, where are you?
02:26It's like that.
02:28No answer.
02:30It was dark at this time, pitch black.
02:33I fell over a chair, which is never there.
02:35I thought, why is there a chair on the floor?
02:38Then I walked up to the little lounge.
02:42And that eye was all blood all over the door.
02:47I walked through there.
02:50She would have laid there in front of the fireplace.
02:54Pulled the blood like that.
02:55An absolute pull of blood.
02:59Shock of my life.
03:00Didn't know what to do.
03:02Flipped out.
03:02I couldn't figure out how to phone 999.
03:04That sounds so stupid.
03:07Finally got myself together.
03:09Phone 999.
03:11Said, I think my daughter's dead.
03:13And it says, can you check her breathing?
03:17I got down, checked her breathing.
03:20Filled with him.
03:22Then they said, can you do mouth to mouth?
03:25I thought, she's dead.
03:27Her whole body was white and cold.
03:30I thought, I've got to do it just in case.
03:34So, I did the math to mouth.
03:38As paramedics rush to the scene, on the other side of Nottinghamshire,
03:43Detective Mel Crutchley is at home after a long shift in the office.
03:47Got home and had just settled in when the call came in.
03:51I was told that there was a female that had been found in her home address.
03:56She was deceased.
04:00Detective Crutchley leads the case and heads straight to the scene.
04:05The particular scene itself is a road which leads from one area to the other, with very minimal housing along
04:12that road.
04:13I needed my sat-nav to get there.
04:16No street lights.
04:21The victim was discovered with blunt force trauma to her head.
04:26She'd been assaulted heavily to the face and we could clearly see that there were slash wounds to her neck.
04:35What wasn't obvious at the time were other stab wounds which had pierced her chest area because of the amount
04:43of blood that was covering Claire at the time.
04:46Rigor mortis had set in so she'd been there for some time.
04:51Police learn the victim is 47-year-old Claire Abelwhite, who was a mother of three children.
04:58Examining the crime scene itself, they scour the house for clues.
05:04As I walked into the dining room, around to the lounge, I could see that the victim had got ready
05:11for bed.
05:14I could see a concentrated area of blood, the bottom of the door, but also pulled on the carpet.
05:22Claire was lying on her back in front of the fireplace, but her head was nearest to the lounge.
05:28And so straight away I was thinking, well, how has she got into that position?
05:32There were drip marks of blood on her lower body, so she'd been standing at some point, but there was
05:39no trauma at all to the lower part of her body.
05:43You could see that her face was heavily bruised, black eyes were forming.
05:50I then noticed that she had hair within her hands.
05:55Was that the hair of the attacker?
06:06An attack this brutal in someone's home must have been shocking to the community.
06:13As a criminologist, we're constantly trying to work out what the motive for an action could be.
06:18And crucially, also helping to understand who the possible perpetrators might be.
06:23In this case, the way that they've attacked her, who could want to harm her like this?
06:28I mean, was it a case of mistaken identity? Was it a burglary gone wrong?
06:32But with this prolonged level of violence, it doesn't really feel like that.
06:38As the investigation gets underway, Claire's father, Graham, attempts to comprehend this life-changing event.
06:46Horror, disbelief. You can't ever imagine it happening to your daughter.
06:50Why would anyone want to do a thing like that?
06:53A brutal murder.
06:55We had no idea she'd got any enemies or anybody who'd want to even hurt her.
07:03My first decision was to treat Graham as a significant witness.
07:08I got blood all over my hands, all over my face, everywhere.
07:14They took all my clothes off me.
07:15I kept saying to the sergeant, I feel like I'm a suspect.
07:21I'd instructed that because he was the person that found her, that all of his clothes would be forensically surrendered.
07:27His DNA would be taken, his fingerprints.
07:31It's a difficult decision to make because he's her father and he's just found his daughter with serious stab wounds
07:39and he's tried to save her life, but also someone who could potentially be enriched with forensic evidence.
07:48Along with gathering any physical evidence, Detective Inspector Crutchley considers a crucial detail.
07:56How did that person get in?
07:58How did that person get in?
07:58Have they kicked the door?
08:01I noted that there was no damage to the doors, therefore there was no forced entry to the property, which
08:08for me stripped away the possibility of it being a burglar or a random attack.
08:14The brutality of it was very personal.
08:20Someone wanted to vent their anger in relation to her in particular.
08:25There's the potential that Claire knew her attacker and had let them in.
08:30The question is, what could have possibly happened for someone to murder a caring and animal loving mother in this
08:37rural village?
08:44The question is, what could have happened for someone to murder a caring and animal loving mother in this rural
08:44village in this rural village?
08:55Examining the brutal murder of 47-year-old Claire Abelwhite, police feel this was a targeted and personal attack.
09:04Imagine there must have been a build-up to it. There must have been some sort of argument or some
09:08sort of grievance.
09:09I think at this point of a crime, everyone's a suspect.
09:15Word soon spreads around Nottinghamshire and gets the attention of local reporter Olympia Zagnat.
09:23We obviously went to the scene. When you see forensics in a large police cordon, you just know that something
09:30serious must have happened.
09:32It was one of those stories because it was so big. Everyone knew about it.
09:39Everyone was just very affected by the crime, particularly because it happened in such a small community, in such a
09:49nice area of Nottinghamshire.
09:52As the investigation continues, Claire's family have to deal with the sudden impact of her death.
09:59When it happened, everybody was totally shocked in the village. She had so many friends. Everybody was so kind, coming
10:06to the house, saying they're so sorry.
10:09What can they do? What can they do? You can't do anything at all. Nothing you can do.
10:14No one could ever imagine this happened to you.
10:19It was in every newspaper of what happened.
10:24It's always difficult to cover a murder, to speak to the family who just lost a loved one.
10:31You have to respect their space, but everyone wants answers.
10:37In order to find the killer, investigators try to understand more about Claire and her life in Nottinghamshire.
10:44Nottinghamshire is made up of a lot of rural areas, and Colston Bassett is one of those.
10:51Claire had just moved to the quiet village of Colston Bassett six weeks before her death.
10:58Colston Bassett is actually ranked as one of the most desirable places to live.
11:05There's not much crime at all. There's agricultural theft.
11:09Apart from that, it is idyllic. It is a really safe place to live.
11:15So the question is, what can a middle-aged, caring mother of three who lives in a quaint, affluent area
11:22have got in her past to have caused somebody to commit such a brutal and horrific crime?
11:28As a criminologist, when I see what happened to Claire, I think there's a level of dominance at play here,
11:33because the killer is bearing down on Claire, she's unable to move, and he's stabbing her.
11:37And you have to wonder why someone feels the need to assert dominance over Claire in such an extreme way.
11:43Maybe this is someone who's trying to get back some power that they might have lost.
11:48As police learn more about Claire, it seems all the more unusual that she would be a target.
11:55When police actually released a photo of Claire and said that she was a mum of three, I think that
12:02was a really heartbreaking moment.
12:05Though she had a lot on her plate, Claire still managed to set up a successful business.
12:11Claire loved animals. She used to walk people's dogs on a regular basis, all day.
12:16She'd probably have three, four dogs on a lead, walking around the village.
12:20And she'd also board them at night time. So she made quite a good business out of it.
12:26She was feeling very positive. She was happy in Colston Bassett.
12:31With no obvious enemies, Detective Inspector Crutchley digs deeper into Claire's previous romantic ties.
12:38Could there have been hidden signs of problems in the past?
12:44Unfortunately, a lot of murders of women are in domestic violence situations.
12:48Sure. And a sad fact is, is that when women are killed, especially at home, the majority of the time,
12:53it's by somebody who is known to them.
12:56And in about roughly 60% of cases, it's either a partner or an ex-partner.
13:01And it's actually very rare, less than 10% of cases, where somebody is killed by a stranger.
13:06I would look at all the male people that were in Claire's life to try and trace them, to interview
13:14them, to establish their whereabouts at the relevant time, and then to evaluate whether they had a substantial alibi.
13:22Could they be responsible for killing her?
13:25Police discover, prior to her death, Claire was separated from her husband and trying to finalise a divorce.
13:33Claire Abelwhite, she'd been in a relationship and a marriage for 30 years, which had ceased.
13:39She moved to Colston Bassett because of the divorce. The divorce had been going on for three long years.
13:44So, after three years, the judge was going to make a decision. And that would have been in May.
13:52With Claire being killed just three months before the divorce could be settled, police have a possible motive for her
13:59death.
14:00And so turn their focus on Claire's soon-to-be ex-husband.
14:05She'd only been there six weeks, so it had to be someone that knew that she lived there. She was
14:12the intended target.
14:16Divorces are very common now, with almost half of marriages ending up this way.
14:20And often people are left with some bitterness, there can be arguments, there can be some resentment, but it's extremely
14:26unusual for it to escalate into actual violence.
14:30We'd never even thought the son-in-law had done it, to be quite honest with you.
14:33We want that sort of a man to murder his wife.
14:38Police bring in Claire's husband to assess his whereabouts on the night of the murder.
14:43We didn't feel right. We didn't feel they'd got the right person.
14:48After lengthy questioning, and with a solid alibi, police are satisfied Claire's ex-husband was not involved with her death.
14:57No longer having any suspects, police return to the crime scene in the days following the murder, to further understand
15:04what happened and gather forensic evidence.
15:07They hope a clue would lay in the hair discovered in Claire's hands.
15:11The hair that was in her hands was actually her own hair.
15:16Claire was like this, where she'd pulled her own hair out.
15:19She had defensive wounds along the forearms of both of her arms.
15:22You could see that she possibly had been fighting for her life.
15:26Police combed the house for more answers.
15:30Are there items within the house that have been disturbed, which could have potential forensic evidence?
15:36And it's a methodical process.
15:39And for me, I thought it would be saturated in forensic potential, but unfortunately that wasn't the case.
15:48There was no DNA found at the crime scene, so what does that mean?
15:51Was the killer prepared? Was he or she meticulous? Were they extra careful?
15:57The killer seems conscious of getting caught, even thinking to take a key piece of evidence.
16:03Claire had a new mobile phone and that phone was missing.
16:08Where is the phone? Has it been taken by the killer?
16:11I think that's quite telling. Maybe the killer recently communicated with Claire and is trying to hide the evidence of
16:17that.
16:18They know that a person's phone is a real insight into their life, a window into their life, and they
16:25don't want that to be found.
16:27Right, because if it was a completely random attack, then there wouldn't be any evidence on the phone, presumably, right?
16:31Yeah, why would they need to take the phone, unless they were taking the phone as an act of, you
16:36know, acquisitive crime and they were going to sell the phone.
16:38But it suggests to me that this is someone trying to cover their tracks.
16:44With no DNA and no phone, police have a challenge to catch who did this.
16:49So their next priority is finding the murder weapon.
16:54The actual wound that had killed her was a stab wound that had gone through here and had actually penetrated
17:03quite a depth into her neck.
17:05That was caused by a knife, however, searched the scene of her home address.
17:13Houses, cars, hedges, fields and areas nearby looking for the murder weapon.
17:20And we still have not located the murder weapon.
17:24Police are up against the clock to catch a killer on the loose and struggle to find significant leads at
17:30the crime scene.
17:31So they decide to try a more specialised approach.
17:35We call it Blue Star.
17:37So that is taping up all of the windows and making the premises really dark inside.
17:43But then spraying around a UV powder like a spray.
17:47What isn't visible to the naked eye is then illuminated.
17:52Using this UV light method, detectives make a significant discovery.
17:57There were two shoe prints, some left and a right, that were going from the lounge into the kitchen.
18:05With such a faint residue, these shoe prints would not have been found in the light of day.
18:12Those could only be made by somebody who was present at the time of Claire dying.
18:17Because the blood had dried before she was discovered.
18:21And they were made whilst the blood was still fresh.
18:25And it certainly wasn't Claire making those shoe prints.
18:29This is a huge breakthrough in the investigation.
18:33If police can find the shoes that made those prints, they may just find the killer.
18:52Nottinghamshire police have discovered a key lead in the murder of Claire Abelwhite.
18:57A bloody shoe print at the scene of the crime.
19:01Footprints aren't unique, but they are really helpful in terms of circumstantial evidence, tying a potential suspect to the crime
19:08scene.
19:09So if any of the suspects have shoes that match the prints found at the scene of Claire's murder, it's
19:15going to be really hard for them to distance themselves from this investigation.
19:20There's a national shoe print index.
19:23Forensic investigators can use computerised footwear databases to compare characteristics of the found shoe print, such as the tread design,
19:32to then possibly identify a manufacturer, brand and model of the shoe.
19:41We were able to prove that the footprint in blood came back to an Adidas trainer with a particular code.
19:49But as Britain's second most popular trainer brand, that's potentially thousands of shoes to match to someone.
19:58And to find a match, police need to get eyes on their suspect, and that means surveillance.
20:04There were very few CCTV opportunities, including public houses or shops and things like that, where there's lack of CCTV,
20:14etc.
20:15You've really got to think out of the box.
20:18In order to figure out where there might potentially have been sightings of the killer, detectives look at Claire's movements
20:24on the night of her death.
20:25I was able to establish a timeline which showed that Claire had gone to the pub with her next-door
20:32neighbours.
20:33And she'd been there from around about 6.30 until about 10.15 in the evening.
20:41She had driven home, dropped her neighbours off and then gone to her home address.
20:48Who had Claire engaged with during those three hours? What she followed from the pub?
20:55Just when they think finding CCTV is not a possibility, police get a break.
21:00From a camera on the home of one of Claire's neighbours, they'd been abroad at the time of her murder.
21:06Some CCTV captured, showed a male who was walking past Claire's house at around about the relevant time that we
21:15were looking at.
21:17In such a rural area, it's unusual for someone to be walking along the road on foot.
21:23Especially at 9pm at night, which is around the estimated time of Claire's murder.
21:28They turned their head towards the camera and then turned her away from the camera and then walked back towards
21:35Claire.
21:38The CCTV, it also had audio recording.
21:43Police not only have visuals, but can now pick up the sounds and conversations that occurred just before Claire's murder.
21:50We know that she's talking in the garden to her next door neighbour.
21:54He can hear her because you can hear a pin drop.
21:58There's no passing motorists.
22:00He stands there, he listens to her talking.
22:05And then he knocks on the door.
22:08We could hear the dogs barking at Claire's address.
22:12What you then go on to hear is Claire being killed.
22:15You can hear her screams.
22:19The events is frustration and his anger on her.
22:22Stab him to the neck area and he doesn't stop.
22:27And he ends up killing her.
22:30To hear that for the very first time was absolutely harrowing.
22:35And we'll stay with the investigation team for the rest of their lives.
22:39The man outside could be Claire's killer, but they still need hard evidence.
22:45Pushing in on the footage, investigators make out details of this person's clothing, particularly some distinctive stripes on their shoes.
22:55We could see on that that he had a pair of Adidas trainers on.
23:02Three days after Claire's murder, police now have a key lead about this person's appearance.
23:09Specifically, Adidas trainers that they know were linked to the crime scene.
23:14That, for me, was a breakthrough in the case.
23:19So, who is this guy? Is he known to Claire?
23:22And if he is her killer, why would he want her dead?
23:26With a confirmed person now spotted outside the crime scene, police begin to work backwards.
23:33If someone's going to kill somebody there, how did they get there?
23:37Walking? Well, it's in the middle of nowhere.
23:40Was it a car? Was it taxi? Public transport?
23:44This is a secluded area.
23:46There's not many places where anybody can run off on foot.
23:49So, it would make more sense to me that if you were planning a murder, you would arrive by car,
23:55do the deed, and then shoot off as quickly as possible.
23:59The village of Colston Bassett lies right next to a bypass connecting a major motorway that runs north to south.
24:06If the killer came by car, they could have come from anywhere in the country.
24:11But investigators spot another key detail on the CCTV.
24:16It showed a person who also had their rucksack on both shoulders, which may seem insignificant.
24:24But for me, if they've got there by a car, why have they put their rucksack on both shoulders?
24:29It was they've either walked to the scene or they've gone on a bike.
24:34Considering the possibility that this person arrived by bike, police widened their search.
24:39What we were able to do was expand the parameters of that CCTV review.
24:45There would have been a cycle path from Nottinghamshire to Clare's in Colston Bassett.
24:51And on that footage, you could see a cyclist coming towards Clare's address.
24:58The good thing was for us is that because of the time of night, the remoteness of the area, there
25:04were no other cyclists that used that route at that time.
25:09With a suspect in their sights, the police go public.
25:13I declared that person suspect.
25:18They released the footage to the media and call upon any witnesses in the area to come forward with information.
25:25The CCTV was a major step in the investigation.
25:28It was the first time we had an image of the suspect.
25:34Thousands of people shared their appeal online.
25:37So that tells you how important it was for the community.
25:42A public appeal might put some pressure on the perpetrator.
25:45They might slip up.
25:46They might somehow make themselves known to the police.
25:49In exceptional cases, there might even be killers who are so egotistical and so proud of their work that they
25:56might even volunteer information to the police.
26:00As police work through hundreds of tips and interview dozens of cyclists, they return to another key part of the
26:07case.
26:08Clare's stolen belongings.
26:11Clare's phone was missing, as was a purse and a keys.
26:16Her boys had got her a new mobile phone, had set her up on social media, etc.
26:21The mobile phone is pivotal to understand somebody's life, somebody's movements, their health data.
26:28Who were they communicating with?
26:31What we could see from utilising her son, his WhatsApp account, we could see the last time she was actually
26:37on her WhatsApp.
26:38It was around about 9 o'clock, the 25th of February, the night of the murder, and then nothing.
26:44No communication data thereafter.
26:47So it's pivotal that we found this mobile phone.
26:50There was lots and lots, I believe there was 200 police at one point, searching.
26:55They searched the river, the river smite, couldn't find anything.
27:00The stream itself was very silty, so therefore you couldn't see to the bottom.
27:06But eventually, some luck strikes the investigation.
27:11Ten days into the enquiry, on a glorious day, the sun was shining, this search sergeant phones.
27:18Guess what we've got, Mel?
27:21When I ignited Clare, they found the phone in the bottom of the river, and they got it working.
27:33Clare's phone soon revealed she'd been living a secret life, one she had not shared with anyone.
27:40When we got into the phone, there were various messages, someone she'd met online.
27:44We were able to establish that Clare had started communicating with a younger guy.
27:51His name is John Jessup.
27:54We had no idea who this John Jessup was.
27:58She never told us she'd met anybody, anything like that.
28:02We knew nothing of him at all.
28:06John Jessup was local to Nottinghamshire, and they'd begun speaking to each other around about September 2021.
28:14There were selfies between the two of them.
28:17They'd met on a few occasions, they'd been on dog walks, they'd been for coffee.
28:20The investigation moves quickly to understand who exactly John Jessup was.
28:27John was a keen tennis player, and he was almost like the boy next door.
28:34He was not named to the police, therefore his biometric data hadn't been captured, there was no DNA, no fingerprints
28:41on our system.
28:43When we look at Jessup on the surface, he seems like a fairly normal, typical guy.
28:47He's interested in sports, he's looking for love.
28:50Plus, what's very interesting to me is he doesn't have a known history of violence, and that's very unusual.
28:56For such a frenzied form of attack, there's usually a build-up, and perpetrators usually have quite an extensive offending
29:04history.
29:06You could see that John kind of instigated most of the contact with Clare.
29:12The friendship kind of blossomed quite quickly into an intimate relationship, however the intimacy was only the once.
29:20Clare then tells John that she doesn't want to see him again.
29:25Examining the messages between Clare and John Jessup, it established Jessup is aged 26, 21 years younger than Clare.
29:34He was similar aged to her sons, and due to that, then she wasn't interested in a relationship any further
29:41with him.
29:42This did not sit well with John Jessup.
29:45I do wonder if, from his perspective, he saw Clare as more than just a romantic partner, maybe he even
29:52saw her as a mother.
29:53And therefore, when the relationship ended, perhaps it left Jessup with a deeper wound than you and I can understand.
30:02She tried to call the relationship off.
30:04He didn't like that. He said, don't mess me around.
30:08He was angry in his text messages. He was phoning her. He was texting at all times of day and
30:14night.
30:15She was trying to let him down gently, but he was relentless in his contact.
30:20And then, on the 19th of February, he sends her quite lengthy text messages, trying to ascertain why.
30:31And it's at this stage that Clare has ceased the contact with him, so he doesn't get answers.
30:41Jessup obviously couldn't take that rejection.
30:44Absolutely. He's obviously somebody who takes criticism to heart.
30:48He's probably got an extremely fragile ego.
30:51He can't take anybody walking away from him.
30:54And to me, this seems like the trigger point for the revenge.
31:00The police did say he'd never come forward on any of the investigations.
31:04And he'd been seeing it.
31:07So, he became suspect.
31:12It's clear Jessup held a grudge against Clare.
31:15But police need more to go on if they want to bring a charge against him.
31:20John Jessup looks like an average 26-year-old man.
31:23But what does a killer look like?
31:25That's what makes revenge so deadly.
31:27It can be festering inside the most innocuous-looking person, and you'd have no idea.
31:35Police find out that Jessup has a job working shifts at a factory, which would be crucial to the investigation.
31:42I could see that the communication stopped with Clare on the 19th of February.
31:48I then knew that he'd went into a set of night shifts.
31:52The end of his set of shifts would have been on the 24th, and that seemed to fit with the
31:58event happening itself.
32:01Police established Jessup was not working the night of Clare's murder.
32:05He was also a cyclist who didn't hold a driving licence.
32:11Could John Jessup be their mystery cyclist captured near Clare's home?
32:17Police begin scouring hundreds of hours of CCTV between John Jessup's home address in Balderton
32:23and Clare's house in Colston Bassett looking for their suspect.
32:28Hit after hit comes up empty until...
32:3218 miles away from the crime scene, police strike gold.
32:37As part of the CCTV trawl, there was a corner shop nearby, a cycle path.
32:44This path is directly on the route between Jessup's house and Clare's.
32:48But the journey would take two hours.
32:51Would he really have cycled such a distance?
32:54We could see John Jessup parking his bike up, takes off his beanie hat and then chooses a pasty, a
33:02packet of chocolate biscuits and also a monster drink.
33:06It looks like Jessup is potentially stocking up for a long journey.
33:10And there is one other detail that feels like one coincidence too many.
33:16From CCTV, we could see the suspect walk in the store wearing Adidas trainers.
33:23Earlier, police established that the bloody shoe print found at the crime scene came from an Adidas trainer, which had
33:30a unique identification code.
33:32That code was then matched to the trainer that John Jessup was wearing.
33:38And that trainer was then also matched to the unknown suspect who was outside of Clare's address minutes before she
33:46was killed.
33:48The evidence is undeniable.
33:50With both the shoes and bike linking John Jessup to the murder, police are sure they've got the right man.
33:56Now they just need to find him before anyone else gets hurt.
34:13Police have captured John Jessup on CCTV, wearing the same shoes spotted on a suspect outside Clare's house minutes before
34:22she was murdered.
34:23This evidence, along with a threatening text to Clare and a likely method of travel to her house on the
34:29night, police have more than enough to bring Jessup in.
34:35So I put in place an arrest team on the morning of the 8th of March.
34:40We then go to his works address and we know that from speaking to his colleagues, he's there, but he's
34:46hidden himself in a toilet.
34:50Upon arrest, we put the taser on him because he's a suspect in a murder where a knife was used,
34:57so we don't know how he's going to react upon arrest.
34:59Come towards me.
35:02If Jessup is responsible for Clare's murder, this is clearly a man who's prone to violence.
35:08In this scenario, when he's hiding in a toilet, anything can happen.
35:11He could potentially take a hostage, he could attack the police.
35:18Do you understand what's happening?
35:22This officer here needs to tell you something, so listen very carefully, all right?
35:26We don't deploy the taser. He is arrested and upon caution, his response is, I didn't do this.
35:33Time of arrest is 8.46.
35:35I'm not doing it, sir. Let's go.
35:37John was interviewed over a series of three days. He does not provide an answer to any of our questions.
35:44With Jessup claiming his innocence and not providing any information, police only have circumstantial evidence to go on, and they
35:52need more to make the charges stick.
35:55We searched his work address, but we also searched his home address, looking for evidence.
36:00We did find his bike, but we didn't find any of the clothing, the rucksack or the murder weapon.
36:07Though they still need further evidence, a clear picture is forming for police of John Jessup's movements the night of
36:14Claire's death.
36:15From the 19th of February, from that last text message that wasn't replied to by Claire.
36:21That is the day that he starts a set of night shifts, and it's on the last night shift, which
36:27was the 25th of February.
36:28He then gets on his bike.
36:31He's getting himself angrier.
36:34He wants answers, albeit she's already provided answers.
36:40This is the classic pattern for revenge attacks.
36:43The perpetrator feels like they've been wronged.
36:45They're stewing on their feelings and fantasizing about vengeance.
36:48And then they begin to actively plot out their actions.
36:51When you see Claire's face, and then you hear about the fact that she was a very lovely person, a
36:57very caring mum, a person who just wanted to restart her life.
37:03That's why it was so tragic that this was the way her life ended.
37:10Phone records reveal Jessup's phone remained in his house the night Claire was killed.
37:1525th of February, the night of the murder.
37:18What he does is he leaves his phone at home and cycles the 18 miles to Claire's.
37:25Jessup leaves his Bolgerton address and travels to Claire's house in Colston Bassett by bike.
37:31While he is en route, Claire is at the pub with her neighbours having dinner.
37:36He cycles past her address.
37:38He stores his bike and hides it away.
37:43Jessup prepares in the shadows as Claire says goodbye to her neighbour.
37:48He changes his appearance.
37:49He takes off his beanie hat.
37:51He gets the hood out of his jacket and then walks to her address.
37:56Jessup then makes that fateful knock on Claire's door.
38:02Police estimate Jessup then spent an hour at Claire's address after murdering her,
38:06before leaving and locking the door behind him.
38:09Claire's phone disconnected from her router at 23.29.
38:14We can see from the CCTV that someone left her home address, which I now know to be John Jessup.
38:20He walked down Hall Lane and discarded her phone in the stream.
38:25He then walked to his bike, changed his appearance and titled home with that rucksack on his back.
38:32When he returns to work on the Monday morning, he's got a new rucksack.
38:36From that date, that rucksack has never been seen again.
38:40It is a long distance and thinking that he's cycled all the way there, committed the crime and then cycled
38:47back.
38:48It's just a horrible thing to think about.
38:51Police have their theory and hope now lies in what could be discovered on Jessup's phone.
38:57The data gap on his phone, we know that the phone locked at around half past six.
39:03We know that the activation on the phone was at 0152 as he'd arrived back at his home address.
39:11To me, there's a slight paradox.
39:13There's somebody that's committed this brutal, frenzied, violent attack.
39:17But at the same time, seems quite calm and calculated and methodical in their actions immediately afterwards.
39:25That's the terrifying thing about these type of crimes.
39:27They're this all-encompassing emotion and nothing can distract from that until they've enacted their revenge.
39:36John Jessup is charged with the murder of Claire Abelwhite.
39:40John Jessup initially denied the accusations that he murdered Claire and a trial date was penned.
39:49But eventually, Jessup pleads guilty on October 12th.
39:53John Jessup said that I cycled to Claire's, she let me in.
39:59He'd had an argument with Claire that he took a knife from her kitchen and that he killed her and
40:06he had the intention to kill her.
40:08That meant for the family that there was no trial and that we were going to go straight to sentencing.
40:16John Jessup has taken everything away from us.
40:18We've still got the grandkids, but we ain't got the daughter.
40:22All gone.
40:24Our life's gone.
40:26With police unable to find the murder weapon, prosecutors can't show whether Jessup went to Claire's arm with the knife
40:33that killed her.
40:34It makes proving his crime was premeditated much harder.
40:38Even so, his confession still stands.
40:42John Jessup is sentenced to life with a minimum of 17 years and eight months in prison.
40:49When we got to the court on sentencing, they played on video, Claire screams.
40:56Claire was screaming in the hallway for two minutes.
41:01Grandkids, they burst out in tears, felt really sorry for them.
41:07John Jessup was released when he was around 44 years old.
41:10That's three years younger than what Claire was when he murdered her.
41:17Those involved in the case reflect on Jessup's misogynistic and vengeful actions, resulting in this tragic outcome.
41:25I felt violence against women and girls is a real thing.
41:29Claire was starting her life again.
41:32She was going out for coffee.
41:34You know, that did become an intimate relationship.
41:38But then she chose to not continue in that intimate relationship.
41:42She's allowed to do that.
41:44John Jessup, instead of, right, thanks very much, fine,
41:49he got a knife and he ended her life.
41:52Because she did not want a relationship with him.
41:56When did that become okay?
42:01Feeling rejected, feeling slighted, feeling disrespected,
42:04all of these things are understandable.
42:07But to go from that to actually taking a life isn't.
42:10And over such a short relationship, over this minor rejection,
42:14it seems so disproportionate to then what he went on to do to Claire.
42:19I think when somebody kills as an act of revenge,
42:21they hope to gain this emotional release almost.
42:24But it actually very rarely happens in real life.
42:28There's no doubt the shock waves of Claire's murder will be felt by everyone in the area for a long
42:34time to come.
42:36This shocking crime has impacted this community's lives forever.
42:42It will never be the same.
42:46Sometimes as a journalist, particularly as a woman, sometimes you think, am I safe?
42:53I wake up at night, jump up like that, see a white face, that's all I ever see.
43:04It's still very hard saying it, but the reason I'm doing this is Claire met this man on a dating
43:11website.
43:12You don't know who you're meeting on these dating websites.
43:14You just can't trust anybody nowadays.
43:18If it just helps one person, that's why I'm doing this.
43:25Online dating is such a cultural norm now. Everyone does it.
43:29Surely the risks of running into someone who's truly a bad, evil person are just the same,
43:36whether you're meeting them online or in real life.
43:40With this tragic murder solved, the family can finally lay Claire to rest.
43:46The funeral was absolutely massive. There was over 400 people there.
43:49The church weren't big enough to take everybody, so they went in the old school next door.
43:55You've got so many friends, you know.
43:59I didn't think I'd be able to carry the coffin in or make a speech or anything.
44:04But the grandson said, you can do it, Grandad.
44:07So I did do it. I carried the coffin in.
44:10They were all in tears, actually.
44:13Everybody loved her at the end of the day.
44:22I'd like Claire to be remembered about the animal-loving person she was.
44:26They miss everything.
44:28Right, go in.
44:30Hello, all right?
44:31What she always says when she comes into the air.
44:34Hello, all right?
44:36She was always happy.
44:40And that's how we remember Claire.
44:47the life of Megan Douglas Sheen and the Palace of Georgia.
44:51Alright, let's do it again.
44:51Well, all right, this is mental.
45:05Bye, everyone.