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00:01The perfect murder, the unsolvable crime, does it really exist?
00:07In a TV first, we reveal the cutting-edge technology now used by British police to join the dots
00:15and reveal new evidence in all homicide investigations.
00:19I'm Tim Tate. I've been an investigative journalist for almost 50 years.
00:26I'm Sam Robbins and I'm a criminal intelligence analyst.
00:30For over 20 years, I've worked alongside detectives on major murder investigations.
00:34Together, in this new series, we are going to discover the fatal mistakes
00:39which prevented the perfect murder from ever being committed.
01:20Many killers plan what they believe will be the perfect murder.
01:25Many killers go on to put that plan into action.
01:30Very few, though, try to commit the perfect murder on the same victim twice.
01:43Emile Cillier is the rare exception.
01:46Over the space of just a few days in spring 2015,
01:51Emile Cillier tried to kill his wife, Victoria, twice.
01:57But because she did live, Emile Cillier's double life as an abusive husband,
02:05a serial philanderer, a fraudster, and a would-be murderer, rapidly unraveled.
02:16This case continues to be of interest to the public because it's a sexy case.
02:21It has somebody from the military.
02:22It has good-looking people.
02:24It has sex.
02:25It has all sorts that makes it titillating for the public to listen to
02:30and to hear the details of, and they can't get enough of it.
02:35In my career, this was defining for me, to be honest.
02:39I was involved in that case for three years, and it was three years of long, hard work.
02:44Emile Cillier stands out purely because of the person he was,
02:48purely because of the characteristic traits that he showed.
02:51Everything Emile did had to bring a benefit to Emile,
02:54whether that's financial, sexual.
02:56The extremes he went to to achieve those ends, you rarely see in people.
03:05Sam, Emile Cillier, what do we know about him?
03:08So he originated from South Africa.
03:12He had a relationship with a very young girl, Nicolene, and she's only 13 at the time.
03:18She becomes pregnant at 16, so she's a very, very young mother.
03:22That was the start of a pattern, a repeating pattern of predatory behaviour by Cillier.
03:30And he likes money, doesn't he?
03:31He likes the really good things in life.
03:34I think he probably looked at himself as a bit of a James Bond figure.
03:38He liked all the latest gadgets.
03:40You know, he was very keen on money and the finer things in life, and he liked that playboy
03:45lifestyle of having multiple relationships despite the fact that he marries some of the females that
03:51he's in relationships with.
03:53He has children.
03:54When he bores of those responsibilities, he just moves on.
03:58So Emile Cilliers is all about Emile Cilliers.
04:02You know, what you're describing are psychopathic traits.
04:07Definitely some psychopathic traits in there.
04:10And the trait that really comes out in all of his behaviours in this case is narcissism.
04:16So people like Emile Cilliers often have a collection of traits.
04:20We call them the dark triad.
04:22So there's psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism.
04:26And certainly Emile Cilliers has had elements of all those three traits.
04:29They sort of link together largely through this sort of common aim of manipulation.
04:34But again, this general disregard for other people, the feelings and
04:38an inability really to connect emotionally with people.
04:43Every action that Emile takes is all about furthering his own wants and needs
04:49and exerting power and control over those around him.
04:53So his first major relationship, he fathers two children with her.
04:58He does, but he doesn't hang around very long.
05:02He moves to the UK.
05:04So he essentially abandons his pregnant girlfriend.
05:08And then when he's in the UK, she gives birth to his son.
05:12Emile Cilliers really sees other people as something that he can use for his own gains.
05:17He's very quick then to move on as soon as he finds something new or the parts of his life
05:23are not unfolding as he wished them to.
05:26And he will manipulate and con people in various situations.
05:32In his late teens, early twenties, he'd moved to the UK.
05:35He'd worked a number of casual jobs before settling down in Ipswich in Suffolk,
05:40where he'd met Carly Cilliers, who he subsequently married and had children with.
05:46He forms a relationship with a lady called Carly, who he marries,
05:50and then goes on to have two more children.
05:54Whilst he was with her, he joined the army.
05:56Being a South African national, he was allowed to.
05:58And from there, he initially joined the Royal Artillery,
06:01who were based in Lark Hill, just outside Salisbury.
06:05From working with them, he gravitated more towards the PTI side of it.
06:09And on getting promotion, he joined the Royal Army Physical Training Corps as a sergeant.
06:16Narcissistic individuals seek out occupations, or they'll pretend to be from occupations,
06:23that exert authority and control.
06:25And what's quite interesting with Emil Cilliers is that he joins the army.
06:29It's all the things that would appeal to his narcissistic characteristics.
06:34And he becomes a skier for the army.
06:38He's going on lots of skiing expeditions,
06:40and becomes really very proficient until he has a very serious skiing accident.
06:46Being married to someone like that can't be easy.
06:50No, absolutely. And actually, it leads to a breakdown of the marriage from Carly,
06:57and Emil and Carly separate.
07:00But he has to have physiotherapy as part of his recovery.
07:04And he meets Victoria, who is his physiotherapist.
07:11She is going through a divorce from a very tricky marriage,
07:17a fairly abusive marriage that she was in.
07:20So she's a vulnerable individual.
07:22It's at a time when Emil is essentially looking for his next fix and high,
07:30and the next victim in terms of female relationship.
07:33So he's on the hunt.
07:34Absolutely. And he, you know, I think what is really clear
07:38from the whole of the timeline is that he's got very predatory behaviour.
07:44She was a captain in the army before leaving and joining the MOD as a physiotherapist.
07:48And I think he saw her as a way to making himself appear higher up in the echelons,
07:57if you like, than he actually was.
07:59And he could use her and her connections in order to do this.
08:03So in the first few months, they were very much in love.
08:08He would love bomb Victoria. He would make her feel like the best thing in the world.
08:12And like, he couldn't live without her.
08:21What Emil is excellent at, as are all narcissists, is being able to look at a situation and mirror back
08:31about the behaviours that they want someone else to see in them.
08:36So he knows and he spots very quickly that Victoria is vulnerable.
08:40So he starts to inhabit all the behaviours that are going to be needed to win her over.
08:46And it's a term called love bombing. And when you see that very, very early on,
08:51when it comes very quickly and it's hard and fast,
08:55it really is a massive red flag that you've potentially got a problem,
08:58because someone's trying so hard to win you over.
09:01And if you're Victoria, it's very hard to spot that, isn't it?
09:04There is no quicker way to fall in love than thinking that you're falling in love
09:07with someone who's got your values and your best interests at heart.
09:10It's not just values though, is it? Victoria's hobby becomes part of Emil's life.
09:18Yes.
09:22So Victoria's hobby was skydiving. In fact, it was more than a hobby. It was a way of life for
09:27her.
09:27She was a free fall skydive instructor and she'd done over two and a half thousand jumps.
09:32So she was extremely experienced and very, very well respected in the parachuting world.
09:38And she was an expert.
09:39Celia trained as a packer, someone who is qualified to pack the main parachutes
09:47and also the reserve chutes, which are sometimes deployed if the main canopy doesn't open or malfunctions.
09:55And by 2013, he'd got full qualifications on both and was earning extra pay as a packer.
10:04Meanwhile, back at home, Victoria has given birth to their daughter.
10:09Yes.
10:10Her first child.
10:11Yes.
10:12Emile's fifth.
10:13Yes.
10:14What's he doing around this time?
10:16So he's certainly not being the loving, attention-giving father that he should be.
10:23So that love bombing of Victoria in order to win her over has done exactly what Emile wants it to
10:29do.
10:29It's got her into a position where she's married him and she's had a child with him.
10:34He, on the other hand, is carrying on like he always does.
10:39So from the surface, everything looked almost picture perfect.
10:43But behind that, you had a wife that was ignored.
10:46He'd spend many nights away.
10:48He would go to swinging parties.
10:50He would try and coerce Victorians going to swinging parties.
10:53Women he met there, he would meet subsequently on weekends.
10:56He was on the various dating apps.
10:58So he was constantly looking for sexual partners whilst married.
11:05Financially, how's the family doing?
11:07Not brilliantly.
11:09So Emile is also, in order to chase the highs that he so desperately needs,
11:14is gambling and he's starting to spend the family money and also his playboy lifestyle.
11:20He always wants the finest things.
11:22It's not necessarily about getting the finest things for his small family.
11:27It's about feeding himself.
11:29So the money starts to decrease and to the point where he starts to lie to Victoria about
11:36what he needs funds for.
11:39I think, first of all, one was to fund an operation for his father.
11:43And then he starts to steal money from Victoria.
11:45He steals money from his own wife?
11:47He does.
11:49I don't know whether she knew where it was going, because they would never discuss this.
11:53He would never allow that conversation to happen.
11:56But she did challenge him on why money went from her account.
11:59There was one point, I think it was £6,000 went from account to two, three,
12:03two thousand lump sums, and he just gave her some cock and ball story about it was a bank's fault,
12:10it was this fault, it was everyone else's fault.
12:12And when she dug down into it, she realised the money had gone from her account to his account,
12:16using their own sort of home computers, etc., the IP addresses of those.
12:21Emile blamed the bank for their incompetence, and he said,
12:25do you think I'm stupid? This is all your fault. You're mad. This is nothing to do with me.
12:33You're paranoid. And he made her think that it couldn't possibly have been him,
12:37and it was all down to her insecurity.
12:41Emile Cillier subjected Victoria to what psychologists term, coercive control.
12:49He would criticise her viciously one minute, and then praise her like a princess.
12:56Next, it meant she never knew which Emile Cillier she was going to get.
13:02Coercive control has nothing to do with gender, class, age.
13:07It goes across everything. It's not the obvious broken arm, black eye violence,
13:14but that subtle coercive control, where they lose control of their freedom, their confidence,
13:20their finances, till they become effectively a shell of themselves.
13:24They're shut away from their friends and their family, and they're just there to serve a person.
13:40We fast-forward not very far to November 2014 on your timeline.
13:47Victoria's pregnant with their second child.
13:50Yes.
13:51But Emile is not being any more faithful.
13:54No, he's not. And he has now regained enough fitness to be back skiing with the army.
14:00So, he goes on a one-month skiing course to Austria, and he meets Stephanie,
14:08and he starts to have an affair with her.
14:10And this particular relationship will be critical in the undoing of Emile Cillier.
14:17So, Emile had met a lady called Steph Goller. She became his new infatuation.
14:24Victoria had her suspicions. She certainly at times thought something was going on,
14:29but he denied it, always denied it, and would put the blame back on her,
14:33that she was paranoid and ridiculous. But did she ever think he would go as far as to try and
14:38kill her?
14:40No, absolutely not.
14:41This is just a continuation of his narcissism. He started another relationship,
14:46and he wanted to be with her. He told a load of lies to start this new relationship
14:51by saying he was single, et cetera. And the only way he could see out of it,
14:56if you got rid of Vicky, get rid of the children, pick up the life insurance, he could start afresh.
15:02Emile Cilliers was different to a lot of men who commit murder,
15:07because for him, he didn't want to be necessarily actively involved in that murder, as in face to face.
15:14It needed to be from a distance so that he could distance himself from it,
15:18and he didn't feel, therefore, perhaps that he was part of it.
15:23I think once the decision was made, Emile Cilliers would have stopped at nothing.
15:27He needed to move on, and to move on, he needed to get rid of Victoria.
15:33So he plans what he thinks is going to be a perfect murder.
15:38And what Emile had done is he'd taken a room at the barracks, all the shots.
15:42So on Sunday night, he used to leave home and go to the barracks saying it was too
15:47difficult to drive on a Monday morning. Essentially, he used it as a place he could
15:51take other women back to. So on that Sunday, what he did was he put the children to bed early,
15:57had dinner, put Vicky to bed. She went to bed about 10. He then went downstairs into the kitchen.
16:01He loosened the gas valves. I had a gas hob in a brand new kitchen with an emergency cut off,
16:07as they all have now. And he loosened the nut on that to allow gas to seep into the kitchen.
16:12And he left and went straight to the barracks overnight.
16:16In the process of loosening the knob, Cillier grazed his knuckle. He didn't notice,
16:24but there was a tiny smear of blood. He then got in his car. He didn't drive straight to the
16:31barracks.
16:32En route, he stopped to have sex with his ex-wife, Carly, and then arrived at the barracks
16:38and texted love messages to Stephanie Golley, all the while knowing that the gas was building up in
16:47the kitchen and that when Victoria switched on the gas hob, she and their two children would be blown to
16:56bits.
16:58He was prepared to try and blow up the house with the gas leak whilst his children were there.
17:04You know, I get marriages, relationships fail. I get rightly or wrongly that people then end up in
17:11some sort of violent confrontation with each other. But how rarely do you see people that are willing to
17:16allow their children to be collateral damaging and be killed?
17:20Even amongst lots of criminals, that would be seen as quite extreme, but he doesn't have this
17:26conscience in a sense that if he gets away with it, then it won't matter to him. He won't feel
17:31bad.
17:32The only real consequences that he wants to avoid is being caught.
17:38Victoria became aware when she came down the stairs on a Monday morning,
17:42that there was a smell of gas in the kitchen. So when she smelt gas, she messaged Emil and said,
17:48do you know anything about this? And he said to her, have you put a stove on? And she replied
17:53immediately,
17:54well, I'd rather not, obviously. He didn't come home at that time. He just left her to sort it out.
18:00So she actually called out another gas engineer who came and found the loose nut and tightened it up.
18:08Victoria's suspicion is already building that all is not well here.
18:12So she sends him a sort of jokey text saying, are you trying to kill us? Which he reacts very
18:20badly to,
18:21and obviously does what he does in every situation where he's being caught out. He tries gaslighting
18:27her in terms of making her think she's going crazy. He loves them. Why would, you know, don't be
18:33ridiculous. Why, why would I do such a thing? But by this point, Victoria's suspicions have definitely
18:39raised to the point where she thinks she needs to take some kind of protective action.
18:44And she does, doesn't she? She takes action to protect her family's finances.
18:49She does. Unbeknown to Emil, she actually writes him out of her will. That is a really strong course
18:57of action to write your loving husband out of a will, should you lose your life.
19:03We know he doesn't know about this because he takes his own action.
19:08He does. So one thing that you'll always look for when you're looking at a murder inquiry is,
19:16has any suspicious activity taken place prior to the incident being discovered? So one thing
19:22that the police would always look for is, have any insurance policies been taken out? And lo and
19:28behold, in this case, police find that an insurance policy for £120,000 has been taken out in Victoria's
19:35life by Emil. We're now coming to April 2015. Everything's coming to a head.
19:41Yes, his first attempt has failed. So within days, he's hatched another plan, which possibly was,
19:48when you look back to 2012, so almost three years earlier, did he always have this in his mind that
19:54he
19:55could manipulate conditions to the point where he could encourage Victoria to jump out of an aeroplane.
20:03So Victoria and Emil already had a three-year-old child, and Victoria had just had a baby five
20:09weeks prior. She obviously hadn't been jumping since she found out she was pregnant. And Emil,
20:16five days after the gas leak, said to her, why don't you go and jump this weekend? It would be
20:21lovely for
20:22you to get back into it again. Victoria, thinking she had the old Emil back again, jumped at the chance
20:28and said, yes, I'd love to. She was now capable of jumping, but with two young children. She was a
20:35little bit dubious about, you know, is this a sport I want to get back into? But I still have
20:38the same
20:39love for it now I'm a mum of two. So he convinced her to go, they would try it that
20:43weekend. So he come
20:45home, they packed up. Saturday morning, they shot up there. Now this is April, May time, so skydiving is very
20:53weather-dependent. It has to be clear. They don't jump through clouds, etc. So if it's any of that,
20:58then there's no jumping.
21:00Emily had taken a parachute out for her from the parachute centre. He had rented it for her because
21:05her own parachute was in for repairs.
21:07So that was given to him. He puts it on his shoulder. She finishes paperwork, comes over and joins him.
21:13And the little girl says, Mummy, I need to go for a wee wee. I need to go to the
21:17toilet. So he says,
21:18don't worry, I'll take us. He takes the little girl into the men's toilets and he's there a number
21:24of minutes, five plus minutes. We believe that when he was in that toilet, we believe that that is
21:31when he tampered with the parachute. She goes and listens at the door and hears some sort of
21:37chingling type noise. Difficult to describe, but sort of something in there that was a funny noise.
21:43But she comes back. A minute or two later, Emile comes out with the little girl and the parachute on
21:48his shoulder. And they have a bit of chat. They didn't get told, look, it's too cloudy today,
21:54there's going to be no jumping.
21:55But instead of putting the parachute back in the main store where all the parachutes are stored for
22:01the jumps, Emile ensures that it's placed into Victoria's locker at the airfield so that she will
22:07go and retrieve that exact parachute. So it's so calculating that he's ensuring every step of this plan.
22:13He's failed once to try and kill her. He's not going to make that mistake again. And he's going
22:18to ensure that she gets the parachute that's 40 this time.
22:22Emile insisted that Victoria put it into their locker. This was really unusual, but Victoria didn't
22:30want to make a fuss. The children needed to get home. They needed to be fed. So she agreed. And
22:35they
22:35put that parachute that he had rented for her into their locker overnight.
22:40He would have really taken some pleasure in trying to create some kind of situation that was
22:46indicative of his narcissistic beliefs. It reflects very much on his personality. There were probably
22:52less audacious, conspicuous ways in which he could have killed his wife if he really wanted to. But it
22:58really reflected on him as a person that he wanted to do it in this in this very almost flamboyant
23:03way.
23:06The next morning on the Sunday, the weather had lifted slightly and Victoria went to Netheravon
23:13airfield on her own. She drove herself. At this point, she's still expressing milk,
23:19breastfeeding. So there's some text conversations about, you know, this is,
23:22you know, it's quite difficult to find a private space and, you know, I feel awkward and I've got
23:27a sort of milk. So I might just come home, she says. And he said, no, no, don't come home,
23:30you know,
23:30stay there. It'll be great. You'll enjoy it. Jump twice if you can.
23:34Yet again, it was bad weather throughout the day. But at about four o'clock in the afternoon,
23:39they said that they could jump. But they would only go up to 4,000 feet as the cloud cover
23:43was very low.
23:44It was going to be a jump called a hop and pop, which meant that almost as soon as you
23:48come out the
23:49plane, you pull your parachute. So there's very little freefall.
23:55So she said she was always nervous, but she put that down to, look, I'm jumped for months,
24:01mum of two, you know, I've got some concerns. But other than that, you know, the parachute looked
24:05fine. There's nothing untoward about it visually. One by one, the divers jumped and she watched
24:13as their canopies opened and they floated down towards the ground. And then she lodged herself
24:20out of the plane.
24:23After Victoria left the plane, she was at 4,000 feet. Almost instantly, she pulled the handle to
24:30engage her main parachute. But to her horror, when she looked up, she could see that the lines were
24:36twisted. When you deploy, you look up and it should be like a rectangle of material above your head.
24:41Visiting demonstrates that it's deployed correctly and you can fly it. And she realises straight away
24:45something's wrong. It's not a rectangle of material and she can't use it. Victoria was both highly
24:52experienced and highly trained. She knew what to do in these circumstances. She'd been trained to cut
25:00away the main malfunctioning chute and pull the cord of the reserve chute, which would get her safely
25:06to ground. When you cut away a main parachute, the reserve comes out almost instantly. You can pull it
25:13manually, but it does come out as an automatic response. However, when her reserve parachute opened,
25:19she realised that only half of it was attached. On one side, the slinks, which are a key component of
25:26the parachute, were missing. And her parachute was no longer attached on one side. So now she's not
25:32flying at all, but it's put her into a spiral. And what she says is, I don't really ever look
25:39down. I
25:40don't really ever start to panic. I just spend my time trying to correct it, trying to fly it. You
25:46know,
25:46training kicks in and I try and get on with it. During the fall, Victoria was conscious of fighting
25:54all the way. And she will say she fought. She fought with everything all the way down. This was
26:01her life. She thought about her children. She thought about them being left without a mother.
26:07But ultimately, she fought to stay alive. Spectators watched in horror. They were convinced there was
26:16only going to be one outcome for this. They have an open top double-decker bus on the apron out
26:23the
26:23front. So someone stands at the top with a pair of binoculars. So straight away, they put up an
26:27emergency call that they can see something is clearly wrong as she's descending. So straight away,
26:32they go towards where she's heading, because she's now heading away from the hangar and away from the
26:37landing zone. She is twisting in the air because of the spin of the parachute. And she lands about 10
26:46to
26:4615 feet from a road in a ploughed field, a freshly ploughed field. By chance, that field had been
26:56recently ploughed, making the ground of the mud softer for a landing. And frankly, Victoria had also
27:04been well trained in how to protect herself on difficult landings. And although she was horribly
27:11injured with a broken pelvis, spine and a huge number of other injuries, Victoria Cillier was alive.
27:30Victoria was plunging 4,000 feet towards the ground at a rate of 60 miles an hour. And when she
27:40hit the
27:40ground, spectators watched in horror. No one could surely survive that. But Victoria did.
27:55Normally, you don't survive that. Piece of luck for Victoria.
28:00It is genuinely miraculous that she survived this attempt on her life. And it was down to a couple of
28:07factors really. One is that she was an incredibly experienced skydiver. So she did actually know what to
28:17do in an emergency situation. Not that she probably ever would have faced that in her life or ever
28:22witnessed anybody doing it. But she did know what to do. So she knew how to position her body in
28:28the best
28:28way to minimize injury. The other stroke of luck is that she happens to land on a freshly ploughed field.
28:36She miraculously survived. She is hideously injured with various broken bones and damage to internal
28:43organs. But she does survive. And amazingly, she is conscious when the rescue team get out to her.
28:53The first person to race to her was a Royal Marine who was up there that day. He had a
28:58body bag in his
28:58car, actually. And he thought that's what they were going to use. When they get there, they find her
29:02sort of semi-conscious and groaning, you know, against all the odds. They can't believe it.
29:07And they then click into, you know, safety mode, you know, first aid, call an air ambulance, etc.
29:14Emile was called by one of the people working at the parachute centre. They advised of the
29:19accident and what had happened and that she'd survived and was being taken to Southampton Hospital.
29:24Emile didn't say much at all. He was quite quiet on the phone for a little while and then said,
29:29I shall sort some childcare and I'll go down to the hospital.
29:33And learning that she'd survived the accident, it wouldn't necessarily have bothered him too much.
29:38It would have just been a little bit of an inconvenience. He undoubtedly would have tried
29:42to do it again because this was not something that he would have played on his emotions or any
29:46guilt or any worry about anything. Another good example of his attitude was he was due to go and
29:54visit Victorian Hospital in Southampton. So he searched for a sex worker who lived in the vicinity of
30:01Southampton Hospital so he could go there first before going to see his wife. Who would do that,
30:07you know? You're going to see your wife who's just fallen 4,000 feet. She's in intensive care
30:12in hospital and yet you're more concerned with, can I get, can I have sex with a sex worker prior
30:19to
30:19going to see her? And that sort of, those little things like that really showed how selfish he was,
30:25how much he was concerned with himself above and beyond anyone else.
30:29The chief instructor at Netheravon Airfield had been the first at the scene of Victoria lying on the ground.
30:36He had scooped up the parachute after Victoria had gone but very quickly noticed that something was
30:42just not right about the parachute and that he could see that certain aspects of the act, the parachute
30:48was actually missing. So on the Monday he called police. I happened to be working on CID at the time
30:54in
30:55Salisbury and his call came through to the CID office. As I was almost the only officer that was
31:01working on that day, the call fell to me. At that time it wasn't a criminal investigation, it was a
31:09let's scope this out, let's see what's happened, is there anything there? You know, we'll talk to Victoria,
31:14we'll talk to some people up there, we'll get the parachute examined and then we'll assess it from there.
31:19So that was the initial phase of it, if you like.
31:24So in terms of a forensic investigation, especially one which involves physical evidence,
31:30then that can provide clues in the terms of an investigation. So where we have a damaged parachute,
31:37then not only can we examine the damage itself, but we can potentially link that to a tool that may
31:45have been used to cause that damage. The DNA technology that we use today is very sensitive.
31:52It can recover DNA from a matter of a few cells. So it means that we can wipe a swab
32:00or apply a small
32:02piece of sticky tape to an area and speculatively recover the DNA of an individual.
32:09The British Parachute Association had a look at the parachute and they came back to us and said,
32:17look, we can find nothing wrong with a parachute, but we can't rule out someone manually interfering with
32:22it. So that was a massive red flag then, because if there had been a reasonable explanation, they would
32:28have found it. This obviously led me to think, well, who else is involved? Who else could be involved with
32:33this? Netherraven Parachute Centre is a military base, which means that to get onto the base and
32:40onto the parachute centre, you have to have ID and you have to go through security to get there.
32:47So this narrowed down the amount of people who could have been involved quite quickly.
32:51We started to look at the last people who had been anywhere near that parachute.
32:55And of course, Emil Silias was one of the last people to touch that parachute.
33:01So we were interested in him, no more than that initially.
33:04At the same time as that came in, we were approached by a very good friend of Victoria's.
33:13After hearing about this incident, her friends, one in particular,
33:17decides that they really ought to let the police know that all wasn't well in the marriage.
33:22I took that call and that call was to change everything.
33:27Victoria's friend, who was also a captain in the army, said that she was not happy with the situation,
33:33that Emil and Victoria did not have the happy marriage that outwardly they appeared to.
33:37She said she'd seen so much about him that made her very suspicious about his actions on that day.
33:44She actually said that if he had been anywhere near the parachute, then she would be concerned that he was
33:49involved.
33:51At that point, Emil does need to be spoken to.
33:54You could just treat him as a witness or you could treat him as a suspect.
33:58The benefits sometimes of treating people as a suspect is you get powers of search off the back
34:02of that, of their house, of their workplace, etc. As a person charged that investigation,
34:08my gut feeling was I wanted him arrested, I wanted that sort of control and I wanted the powers of
34:14search.
34:15So I made the decision at that point we would arrest him and interview him.
34:21From what you've found and laid out, Emil Cillier's reaction to being arrested and questioned
34:31is revealing, isn't it?
34:32It's so revealing. So when police do decide that they're going to go and arrest him,
34:37he's actually at work. So he's a physical trainer for the army by this point.
34:41And he is furious that the police have dared to arrest him in front of his subordinates.
34:50Because he's losing face?
34:52Because he's losing face and also losing control. One thing Emil Cillier hates is to lose control of the situation.
35:01When a prisoner is booked in, they're always given the opportunity of a solicitor.
35:06Emil, however, said, I don't need a solicitor.
35:09I'm happy to go to interview right now.
35:12So we went to interview, thinking that he would say no comment because that's something that's very common as well.
35:18But not Emil. He wanted to talk and he wanted to tell us everything. And he talked for six hours.
35:26And he says things, you know, I'm a good father to my children, but I know I'm a bad husband.
35:31I don't love Vicky. I want to be away from Vicky. I want to leave her. I'm in love with
35:36Steph.
35:37I want my life to be with her.
35:39And he talks about his relationships with other women, you know, both at swinging parties and the sex workers.
35:46It's almost as if he's trying to include you in it and be a bit, you know, lads together.
35:52You're a police, I'm military. We all know what it's like. But it's such an extreme version of what he's
35:57doing.
35:57This is just putting up loads of red flags.
36:00When you consider he'd been arrested for attempting to murder his wife, most people would be nervous.
36:06The first thing they would do would be to protest their innocence and say, I don't know why you think
36:10this has happened.
36:11But not Emil. At no time did he protest with any urgency that he had not tried to kill his
36:18wife.
36:19At no point do I think it ever occurs to Milsilas that he's going to be outfoxed by the police.
36:25He thought he was cleverer than them.
36:27Yes, absolutely. I think he thinks that they're not going to be able to unpick this one.
36:32He thinks he's got away with a perfect murder.
36:36Yes, absolutely.
36:39Victoria's at home, so she's been in hospital for two weeks or so.
36:42We sat down and I explained to her about he denied maternity of his little boy that he had and
36:47he was having an infatuation with another female,
36:51but I wouldn't tell her who it was, and that he wanted to leave her.
36:53I said, but these things caused me grave concern and that I can't allow him to be here with you
37:01because I've got a duty of care to yourself, also a duty of care to other females,
37:05and a duty of care to investigate this now, because if he has done this, then you're at risk.
37:12And at that moment, she just broke down completely.
37:16I think that was probably the first time when she faced up to what our marriage and relationship had been
37:21all about.
37:23And then when we went to leave, that's when she said, well, she says, now you've told me that,
37:27you'd better know about the gas leak.
37:29So we had no knowledge of that at all until that point, so absolute double whammy.
37:36But after that, she very much closed down, and she would never accept that Emile was guilty,
37:45and she wanted us to start an investigation.
37:49In September 2016, Emile Cillier was charged with two counts of attempted murder of his wife, Victoria.
38:19The case came to trial almost two years later, and even then,
38:26Cillier might have got away with it.
38:30When we get to court, Emile Cillier turns up.
38:33He looks like he's dressed from Savile Row.
38:36He's in a three-piece suit, he has a tie pin, and he is immaculate.
38:41Every day he's at court, he is immaculate.
38:44But he's also incredibly laid back.
38:47And when he's there and he swans around court like he owns it, not a care in the world,
38:53he would sit in the dock at the back and he'd chew gum, looking bored, not really paying any attention
38:59to the evidence that was given, almost as if this is just pointless.
39:03I'm clearly innocent and I'll be walking out of here.
39:05Why are you wasting my time?
39:07And he never changed from that demeanour.
39:09There was one point where we were waiting for something, wondering where Emile was,
39:14and he was downstairs chatting up this young lady from another court hearing,
39:18you know, sat next to her on the public benches downstairs.
39:22During the first trial, Victoria Cilliers was called to the stand to give her a version of what had happened.
39:29As soon as she took to the stand, she started to go back on what she had told police.
39:34She said that she hadn't been given time to read her statement before being forced to sign it.
39:39She said that police hadn't kept her informed and that in actual fact Emile had not spent as long
39:45in the toilets with the parachute as she initially claimed.
39:48She then also said that she thought she had cut away a good parachute.
39:52And we're sitting there thinking, I don't understand, I don't,
39:56I get you weren't ever going to accuse Emile of anything,
39:59but I didn't understand why she spoke out against us so vociferously.
40:04And that damaged, that did damage the case a lot.
40:11In truth of it, I think Victoria, being a very, very smart woman,
40:16suddenly thought, what happens if Emile doesn't get convicted?
40:20He's going to be at liberty to harm me again.
40:23He would try for a third time.
40:24Yes, he would try for a third time.
40:26So she wanted to appease that characteristic of his nature to say,
40:31I'm not against you and actually this has all been a massive mistake,
40:34because I think she was genuinely frightened.
40:36We had a clinical psychologist assess Emile Silliers and he assessed him as a narcissistic psychopath
40:45and a very dangerous one at that. But Emile had an amazing hold over women and they end up in
40:52this
40:52coercive and controlling relationship where they are just pawns in his game.
41:01Ultimately, the judge decided to declare her what's known as a hostile witness.
41:06This means that her video interviews would be played in full for the court and for the jury,
41:11and she could be then questioned about those videos.
41:15The jury couldn't reach a verdict. It deadlocked and after two of the jury members pleaded
41:22to be released from service because they were suffering from extreme stress,
41:26the whole jury was discharged and the trial was stopped.
41:30A new trial was started within a month.
41:35In the first trial, we had tried to spare Victoria's blushes, but for the second trial,
41:40the jury needed to know what sort of man Emile Silliers really was.
41:44We had not brought in the fact that Emile Silliers visited sex workers,
41:49he visited swinging parties. He was a really unpleasant individual,
41:53but we had to bring all this in because the jury had to know.
41:58I was allowed to give evidence and I was asked about coercive control.
42:04So I explained about how police try and deal with coercive control,
42:08how domestic violence isn't just about black eyes and the obvious.
42:12It's more subtle and it's a lot more insidious than that.
42:16And she was a victim of this.
42:17So when Vicky gave evidence and she said the same thing the second time,
42:21there was a balance to it that the jury could see.
42:24I think they understood her position then.
42:26By the end of the second trial, we had done everything we possibly could.
42:32Thankfully, the jury saw through Emile and he was found guilty.
42:38He showed no remorse at all.
42:41Even at sentencing, when the judge sentenced him to life in prison with a minimum of 18 years,
42:46he didn't bat an eyelid. There was absolutely no expression on his face whatsoever.
42:52At the end of the second trial, it was three years since day one.
42:56You just wanted to jump up and down and scream and punch in the air and say yes.
43:01You have to retain that professional outlook and sit there and smile.
43:05I was emotionally and physically exhausted. When that jury came up with the first word of guilty,
43:12I broke down. I broke down in tears. I just couldn't contain it any longer.
43:17This had been three years of hard graft, but we got where we needed to get.
43:22We had got a very, very dangerous man behind bars and behind bars for a very long time.
43:33It's nice to sit back. I think you've had a really big case at the end of your career,
43:36and you've actually brought it home and you've got a conviction from it.
43:41It's what you joined for. Originally, I joined to lock up bad people.
43:46And at the end of my career, I got a chance to take on someone who was truly evil, truly
43:50horrible.
43:52It would take a lot of work to try and rehabilitate somebody with those kind of personality traits.
43:57There's often some research that shows even sort of giving treatment to psychopaths actually makes
44:03them to some extent worse. They actually can then learn the emotional ways to manipulate people.
44:08So whether he can be rehabilitated is really kind of a long-standing question
44:12that goes against lots of people of his type of personality.
44:21In your analysis, what made the difference between his plan for a perfect murder
44:30and the conviction which proved it was an almost perfect murder?
44:34He vastly underestimated the investigation team who were dogged in their efforts to get evidence
44:45that would help secure a conviction. I think he underestimated Victoria.
44:50He must have been delighted when the first trial failed. But he underestimated the people
44:56that loved and supported Victoria, and he most certainly underestimated the investigation team.
45:02The undoing of Emil Silias is a very interesting question. I would suggest his supreme confidence,
45:09the fact that he talked for six hours. He told us everything during that initial interview that he
45:14thought we would find on his phone, his computers, his laptop, but he gave us far too much information.
45:21And this was to his detriment, ultimately, when we were able to prove his lies.
45:26Emil Silias may still proclaim himself to be a victim. He isn't the real victims of Victoria, obviously.
45:35But beyond that, the six children Emil Silias fathered, and who have to grow up knowing that their dad
45:46was a would-be murderer. Their emotions, their needs, their psychological state, often gets lost,
45:57and I wish more sensitivity was shown and more attention was paid to them.
46:04Emil Silias must have thought, by tampering with her parachute, he was going to commit the perfect murder.
46:13Nobody would have suspected him. If she was dead and wasn't there to talk,
46:17that murder would have been perfect.
46:49To be continued,
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