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00:10I'm David Wilson, emeritus professor of criminology, and for over 30 years, I've
00:17investigated the phenomenon of murder and what it is that might motivate someone to kill.
00:27Every murder case is different, but time and again, a deadly pattern emerges of warning
00:34signs and red flags.
00:39In this new series, I investigate some of the UK's most harrowing murder cases to understand
00:48how and why these terrible crimes occur.
00:55This is Murder UK.
01:22There were early signs of the man that Mark Martin would become.
01:27He was bullied as a child because of a facial birthmark and taunted by other children calling
01:35him names.
01:36And what that did was leave him very angry, isolated, bitter, simmering with resentment.
01:45And for Mark Martin, those were probably the first steps that led him on a journey to murder.
01:56Young Mark Martin, chubby, round-faced, devoted to his father.
02:03He was an unsettled child, not particularly bright, but at the same time not educationally challenged.
02:10He was quickly to lose a sense of who he was.
02:15His school friend described him as out of control, very aggressive at all times.
02:24Growing up in Ilkeston, a quiet Midlands town, Mark Martin stood out and not always for the
02:31right reasons.
02:32He told classmates he was different, even special.
02:37Why?
02:38Because he'd say he was the only kid in school with a dad like his.
02:46His father was in prison.
02:48And it was this, and possibly only this, that in the context of the bullying at school, it
02:54was this that gave Mark Martin any status at all.
02:58The fact that his father was in prison and allegedly in prison with some notorious criminals
03:04like the Craves.
03:07In the context of all the bullying that he was suffering, the one thing that gave him
03:11status, that gave him an out, that was a glamorous alternative to what he was suffering, was
03:18criminality, was offending.
03:20That offending involved two things, drugs.
03:25He quickly started smoking cannabis as a teenager.
03:29He then progressed to amphetamines, to more and more pills.
03:32And violence.
03:33A school friend says that Martin once smothered a baby just to keep it quiet.
03:41That's a very large, bright red flag.
03:46Claims of smothering a baby were never proven, and Martin wasn't even arrested for that act.
03:54But everyone in the neighbourhood knew how volatile he could be.
03:59And there were signs of escalating aggression.
04:04You know, at home there was very little discipline being imposed on him, either because his parents
04:09were absent or they were unable to impose that discipline on him.
04:14And I suppose the path he was to take was becoming increasingly predictable.
04:25We often talk about the lack of a father figure in serial killers.
04:32But here we have a lack of a mother figure.
04:34There is no concrete evidence that he was ever mothered in a classical way.
04:39And I think he always resented it.
04:42And I think he took that resentment out on a series of young women.
04:46He was violent towards women because they were weaker than he was.
04:50They were, for him, the outlet for his aggression inside his soul.
04:57They were the objects of his desire to hurt.
05:02The second step in Martin's path to murder was shaped by this fixation on violent notoriety.
05:11Drawn to criminals who used extreme violence to command fear and fame,
05:16Martin wasn't repelled by their brutality.
05:20He was inspired by it.
05:22I think he always admired as a boy, not pop stars or footballers, but serial killers.
05:32He worshipped Donald Nielsen, otherwise known as the Black Panther,
05:37a multiple murderer, a multiple murderer, kidnapper, revolting person.
05:45They were his heroes.
05:47And I think he saw himself, in a sense, as trying to follow in their tradition.
05:53That that was what mattered to him.
05:56For him, criminality was a way to escape the existence in which he wasn't valued.
06:03He had no power.
06:04I think Martin's idolization of serial killers and violent offenders is really revealing.
06:16You know, in an age of reality television and instant celebrity,
06:20he seems to have gained the impression that he could achieve fame, infamy.
06:26He could matter, even if that fame comes from killing people.
06:38In the 21st century, it's become easier than ever to become famous just for the sake of being famous.
06:45Our TV screens and our column inches are filled with reality celebrities,
06:51as you may or may not want to call them,
06:54whose every movement and every make-up and break-up is tracked and documented.
07:00For Mark Martin, instant fame was the drug of its time.
07:06And the way he could get it was to kill.
07:10I think what Martin comes across is the way in which serial murderers are glorified.
07:17And it's out of this that he develops this ludicrous notion
07:21that he will become Nottingham's first serial killer.
07:32The third step on Mark Martin's path to serial murder is selecting victims he believes won't be missed.
07:41The vulnerable, the desperate, the socially invisible.
07:46He seeks dominance over those he believes to be weak.
07:53Mark Martin, like most if not all serial killers,
07:57preyed on people who were weaker and more vulnerable than he was.
08:01In his case, it was women.
08:03It was women who were in a state of dependency on drugs,
08:07who were in or on the fringes of the homeless community.
08:11There were trigger points for Martin that would set him on his way
08:15to the kind of warped notoriety he craved.
08:19He was a man of intense anger.
08:23He himself once said, and I think it was a very telling remark,
08:27I was all right until my father died and then I became evil.
08:31And perhaps there is an element of truth in that.
08:34He simply went completely off the rails as a teenager.
08:38But he also managed to marry and father a child.
08:44A brief period of stability followed,
08:47but then another trigger point is reached.
08:51Martin, who had been homeless for a time and then moved in with his wife,
08:57became homeless again when she threw him out.
09:04He was thrown out because of violence.
09:09There is no doubt in my mind that he wouldn't have been able to control
09:13his contempt for his infant child.
09:17And he had such a short fuse that there is no way he would have been able
09:22to control his violent temper towards the baby.
09:28Furious about losing access to his daughter,
09:31he grabs his partner by the throat, then calls 999.
09:36Not for help, but to issue a threat.
09:39Someone would pay.
09:41A calculated display of grievance as menace.
09:48And he says to the emergency call operator,
09:52I'm going to kill someone.
09:54I'm going to kill someone.
09:55There's no doubt about it.
09:56I've got this rage inside me.
10:00Martin suppresses the rage and turns to a community
10:04which would define his life from now on.
10:09He came into Nottingham and started to infiltrate the homeless community.
10:15He liked people to think that he was homeless.
10:18And as time went on, he got to know a lot of homeless people.
10:22He was mixing with them.
10:26In some neighbourhoods of downtown Nottingham,
10:30around the turn of the century, Martin cut an unmistakable figure.
10:36Menacing and daunting.
10:37Here was a community of people where he could exert some power.
10:41He was able to control and manipulate others in that community
10:46in a way that he might have been unable to,
10:49had he been in a conventional job and in conventional life.
10:53On the streets, dealing drugs and drifting,
10:57Martin blends in just another lost figure in the crowd.
11:01But beneath the surface is a man driven by resentment,
11:05fuelled by a need for control.
11:08He had a dreadful reputation in the homeless community in Nottingham
11:12because he was so violent.
11:14Many members of the homeless community said that if you knew
11:17Martin was in one part of Nottingham, you would go to the other side if you had any sense,
11:22because you knew very well that he'd probably attack you,
11:25that he'd almost certainly steal what few belongings you had.
11:29And he was not a man who should be helped in any way.
11:33He was a violent bully.
11:34For Martin, violence isn't a last resort.
11:38It's the clearest way he knows to feel significant.
11:53Martin isn't just surviving on the streets.
11:58He's enjoying being on the streets.
12:01He's performing his homelessness.
12:03And he begins to gather followers within Nottingham's homeless population.
12:08Not for friendship, but for validation.
12:13There's no doubt that Martin liked an audience.
12:17He had two specific followers, a man called John Ashley,
12:20who was known as Cockney John, and another man called Dean Carr.
12:24He wanted to be big to them.
12:27He wanted to demonstrate that he had a violence they could never even dream of.
12:35By the end of 2004, Martin is lurking in a world of instability, addiction and homelessness.
12:43He meets three women who aren't strangers to Nottingham's street scene.
12:49There were no real people of the world of instability.
13:05By the end of 2004, Martin is a very involved mayor.
13:07He looks at a room where he was in the room where he was in the room,
13:07so he was into the room where he was in the room.
13:08He was able to contain a cold out of the room.
13:10However he was in the room where he was in the room,
13:14there was no doubt,看看 he was in the room where he was in the room.
13:19community that they chose to immerse themselves in and it was also a community where mark martin
13:27would find his victims
13:31mark martin embeds himself within nottingham's homeless drug using community he's not an outsider
13:40he's become one of them he's living in a tent inside an abandoned warehouse and that not only
13:49gives him a place to stay he blends into the environment but it's going to become for him a hunting
13:55ground
14:01it was a building that was a real blight on nottinghamshire's skyline it's full of debris
14:08falling rock dust pigeons and it did attract the homeless people as a form of shelter for them
14:16perfect for a man yearning to kill everything is in place for martin to embark on his ambition
14:24he targets the vulnerable like katie baxter katie just 18 knows martin he's seen her handing out
14:34blankets for the homeless she would often assume the role of carer katie baxter the 18 year old who had
14:43befriended and was a girlfriend to his friend john ashley katie baxter probably felt very trusting
14:49of martin it's somebody that she knew he takes her back to the factory where he's erected a sort of
14:57tent a bivouac if you like inside the warehouse this deserted warehouse which is full of rubble and soil and
15:05decay and invites her into the to the tent he said later he thought she fancied him i can't believe
15:13it
15:14the warehouse gives martin the cover to act without consequence
15:20he understands other people as objects he doesn't assign any humanity to other people all other people
15:28in his life are merely objects to mark martin katie isn't a person she's a test a chance to begin
15:38the
15:39pattern he's long fantasized about to kill to be feared to be known for him it's not personal
15:50it's performance and katie's about to pay the price for his pursuit of notoriety the poor girl innocent
16:01idealistic had done nothing whatever to warrant this brutal bludgeoning strangling to death martin doesn't
16:11just kill he chooses to strangle a method that reveals something deeply personal when you strangle
16:21somebody they have to look you in the eye as you exact the ultimate revenge
16:35strangling isn't just a method it's a statement it's about control dominance and forcing the victim
16:43to face their killer but while martin wants his victim to see him he's just as determined to hide from
16:52everyone else katie baxter scratched him he was aware that there was dna under her fingernails so he
17:02burnt her fingers he takes the body the inert body of katie baxter into a floor of the warehouse where
17:10he
17:10covers it with rubble bricks and soil like a burial mound in viking times and retires to his tent unmoved
17:20by what's happened the murder of katie baxter isn't enough for mark martin among nottingham's homeless
17:29there's no shortage of vulnerable people to choose from and he's hunting
17:41there are people out there who feel that they can't go home to their families who are battling
17:46addiction who every night are sleeping in terrible conditions out in the cold alone
17:53on hand throughout his crimes cockney john ashley i suspect that he bragged to cockney john
18:02that well look what i did you know i'm i am now a killer one facet of mark martin's case
18:10that really stands out that really chills me as a woman as a person to the bone is the bragging
18:18about
18:18the horrible acts of violence that he committed for over a month katie's disappearance goes unexplained
18:26she's missing but the fact she's been murdered isn't yet known those who care about her are left with
18:34questions not answers meanwhile mark martin is back on the streets targeting the vulnerable and quietly hunting
18:45his next victim
18:55with hindsight we now know that this was the start of martin's uh spree to become a serial killer
19:05martin was dealing drugs around this time sizing up possible victims when another young woman disappeared
19:14on new year's eve 2004 december the 31st he encounters 26-year-old zoe pennick again in the factory
19:24in fact he's organized to meet her because he wants her to collect 2 000 cigarettes that he's intending
19:30to sell now she has with her a hypodermic not surprisingly she's an active heroin user
19:40she goes back with him to the tent in the factory
19:47she's been cold before entering the warehouse slipping into mark martin's tent would zoe become
19:56the wannabe serial killer's second victim
20:08zoe pennick 26 is well-liked and known to be on the edges of nottingham street scene
20:17on new year's eve 2004 she ends up sharing a tent with mark martin
20:23frankly it's the most dangerous place she could have been
20:35martin strangles beats and bludgeons zoe pennick to death
20:41martin remains in the tent just feet away from the two bodies he's buried beneath a
20:49a pile of rubble and staying so close to his victims will give him not just a sense of pride
20:56but a feeling of how he's still in control of those two victims he begins to brag to his inner
21:04circle he's
21:05using fear to intimidate those people he's selling drugs to and most chillingly of all he begins to plan his
21:15next
21:15kill martin decides to move to pastures new within days of killing katie and zoe leaves them covered hidden
21:24uh in in the old building and he moves out martin is already thinking about his next victim
21:33and when he hears about a new squat in the city he doesn't see it as a shelter but as
21:39an opportunity
21:41his friend dean car is already in the squad cockney john turns up from time to time
21:49these are his admirers these are his audience
21:52it's a common theme with with serial killers and serial offenders uh if if what they're doing is
22:00probably about wielding power in any case then they choose friends and associates and and underlings
22:09almost that they can control that they can wield power over easily and then they can manipulate
22:17uh whereas if they were dealing with people who were their equals or betters then they wouldn't have
22:24this power relationship they crave he decides to kill for the third time
22:32his friends around him martin sees that there's someone else in the squad ellen frith
22:45who's another drug dealer and somebody on the fringes of the homeless community was also addicted to heroin
22:53and was sharing at that point a squat in marble road in nottingham ellen frith was a very young mum
23:01she
23:02she she became pregnant she had a baby uh and she really embarked upon you know an adult life very
23:09early in her life and found that she couldn't cope when that relationship fell apart and she spiraled down
23:17into a drug addiction and then into into this homeless lifestyle her father took her baby and brought it up
23:26she had the opportunity there was a loving stable family home there for her had she wanted it but the
23:33lure of the drug addiction and the kind of lifestyle which she was able to lead in the homeless community
23:41proved too much for her and again it made her vulnerable to uh to mark martin's violence
23:55ellen lives on the margins part of a hidden world where those down on their luck slip through the cracks
24:04like many in her position she's exposed to danger because she's unseen unprotected and easy to overlook
24:13if you're living in a community where that life style isn't the norm where you don't have these
24:21things where you don't visit the doctor every three months or the dentist every six months where you
24:26you haven't got a bank account you haven't got a mobile phone and facebook and instagram and twitter
24:31it's a whole different world for police to investigate people say they're off the radar off the grid or
24:36whatever um to largely saying that's true in late january 2005 ellen frith slips further off the radar
24:50no fixed address no one checking in she's living in a squat with dean carr while john ashley comes and
24:58goes now mark martin is there too and it changes everything
25:07initially they were all just smoking drugs there in the flat martin and ellen frith had an argument
25:14over money he wanted her to give him 10 pounds with which to buy drugs she didn't she couldn't or
25:22she
25:22wouldn't and she paid for that with her life he then puts her on the sofa in the squat and
25:29sits there
25:30and admires his handiwork he then covers her with newspaper and sets fire to the newspaper so that he burns
25:38her body
25:40it was an act of the most grotesque depravity
25:49martin operates with a clear underlying psychological pattern he has a revenger mindset
25:58the trigger is often petty but to him it justifies extreme violence
26:05to you or i the reasons for these murders are astonishingly trivial ellen refuses to to lend him 10
26:11pounds but what she wouldn't have known is that by doing that she triggers the destructive revenger
26:18narrative within martin martin boasted how ellen's body twitched and turned blue
26:26as he strangled the very life out of her this poor young woman had done nothing to martin whatever
26:35except had the misfortune to encounter him in a squat
26:40on hand to help dean carr and cockney john by now hero worshipping the serial killer that their friend
26:50had become he was someone to be looked up to that he was a man who had something about him
26:58something
26:58special about him it was of course a fantasy but nevertheless it stoked up his violence
27:05and made him raise his own levels of violence police haven't yet connected the dots
27:12so for now mark martin is still free three women are dead in nottingham in just six weeks
27:22the pattern is emerging but the killer is still hiding in plain sight
27:30in front of his audience of cockney john and dean carr he took great pleasure in bragging about his killings
27:38now that bragging was in the end to lead to his downfall had he kept quiet and had he not
27:44been so
27:45full of arrogance and aggression it's possible that his crimes would have gone undetected
27:58police know two women are missing but the signs are aligning a pattern is forming and soon the full
28:05scale of mark martin's violence will come into view
28:11there was certainly an air of mystery about the fact that these girls had gone missing there was great
28:17concern and perhaps fear in the community that is there a serial killer in nottingham picking
28:22homeless women off
28:33a fire is started by mark martin to destroy evidence
28:39fire brigade were called police were called it was clear a murder had taken place within the homeless
28:44community martin has abused many homeless people talk on the street about his
28:52exploits is spreading in this case there is a lot of homeless people in the community who all knew
29:00each other and through that they were sharing information they'd all picked up different snippets
29:07and with that the police obviously spoke to them and gathered all that together police officers were able
29:14to go back into to go back into that community and talk to its members
29:25by late winter 2005 police can confirm only one murder ellen frith zoe pennick and katie baxter have
29:34vanished and on the streets rumors grow are they missing or already dead for detectives it's a race to find
29:44out
29:56the people most likely to hold vital information that will be useful to the police
30:03are those who are the hardest to reach the city's homeless population
30:08many are transient some live with addiction and many others have every reason to avoid the police in the
30:17first place that doesn't just inhibit investigation if these people are suspected of crime it also inhibits
30:27the investigation if they become victims of crime the people closest to the case those who live
30:33alongside martin were often overlooked by society but they weren't blind to what was happening
30:42many had seen too much and quietly they began to speak
30:53they spoke out they went to the authorities
30:56they told them all about martin and so began the unraveling of his life
31:05his need to be notorious could prove to be martin's undoing what he failed to think through was that
31:13in relishing the notoriety the other side of that for the community is is the climate of fear that he's
31:19generating and that therefore it's not surprising that that community is going to turn on him
31:27word travels fast within the homeless community certainly whatever their circumstances they really
31:34wanted to fight this evil within their communities they wanted to help police catch the person responsible
31:42and some of these people have been on the wrong side of the law but putting that aside this was
31:48a
31:48person that was leaving these people feeling in fear and that's the impression you got
31:54as tips flood in one name keeps surfacing mark martin two days after ellen frith's body is found
32:04he contacts the police himself i think you want me for murder he says in custody he makes hints
32:11about his earlier victims and police get to work
32:20so the police start searching and they don't know at this point what they're searching for how the
32:25murders if there were murders how they've taken place so they they're trying to build a case they're
32:30trying to find any evidence they can police work from the ground up speaking to rough sleepers following
32:38tips tracing martin's movements through nottingham's homeless shelters
32:45they do a thorough search of the building where mark martin had his tent pitched inside
32:50forensic teams search the warehouse inch by inch until they find a mound of rubble
33:03and they find that loosely under some rubble and within feet of each other he's buried the bodies of katie
33:10baxter and sorry pennock it was the smell from the second body that alerted him the fact that there
33:17wasn't just katie there there was also zory buried there as well dating the time of the deaths of the
33:22two
33:22women found in the warehouse is vital police had the task of trying to find out when they had been
33:32killed and so they used scientists to determine from the lava from blue bottles that were deposited on
33:41the body exactly when they'd been killed and they determined that one had been killed at the tail end of
33:47december 2004 and then the other was in january 2005. with forensic scientists able to date the murders
33:59police now have a timeline they can place mark martin at the scene add to that the accounts from
34:07nottingham's homeless community and the case against him begins to take shape
34:18martin is arrested he pleads not guilty but on remand he can't keep his mouth shut
34:26martin's appetite for bragging about his killings didn't stop when he was arrested and remanded in
34:33custody he bragged consistently in prison about what he'd done he told a fellow prisoner if you kill
34:41one you might as well kill 21 at one point he wrote to another prisoner suggesting he might have killed
34:4710 but that was just evidence of martin bigging himself up as he did so often there was no doubt
34:53at
34:54all that martin was glorying in his reputation as a serial killer remember his obsession as a child
35:01not with rock stars but with serial killers he had grown into his own fantasy he had lived out the
35:10fantasy and now he was intent on wearing it like a medal on his chest in prison he wanted other
35:18men
35:19in prison with him to be frightened of him he wanted them to look up to him as a serial
35:24killer
35:26the trial is set for january 2006 at nottingham crown court and mark martin isn't in the dock alone
35:36witnesses claim his so-called friends dean carr and john ashley weren't just bystanders they helped
35:45cover up the murders now all three stand trial accused of a killing frenzy that shot the city
35:55on the 16th of january 2006 mark martin and his two friends john ashley and dean carr appeared before
36:04the judge they all pleaded not guilty to the three murders there were two sides to this court case you
36:15had a man who had been married that had a home and a wife and then you had a man
36:22that suddenly had
36:23started mixing with homeless people and you wanted to know why had this transition happened what had
36:29happened in his life to want to be like that and then you had another side to mark martin was
36:33that
36:34i'm i've not done this that i'm the wrong person you're pointing the finger at the wrong person
36:39and i'm pleading not guilty it defies belief that he would plead not guilty but as so often in so
36:49many
36:49serial killing cases the most obviously guilty men plead not guilty when it gets to the trial
36:56no jury can convict without evidence in this case prosecutors were well aware of obstacles they'd have
37:05to overcome the lifestyles of the witnesses were always going to present an issue when you have 20 to
37:1330 witness statements to take who might need to attend to court and a lot of them are not of
37:20any
37:21fixed address the police did a fantastic job in keeping in touch with them all and tracing them
37:27making sure that they attended court if they were needed many were needed it's now that martin's bragging
37:35exposes the truth one of the prosecution's principal witnesses was a fellow prisoner of martin's who
37:43relayed the bragging about how many he'd killed what he'd done to them the way in which he attacked the
37:50bodies we had a key witness in the case he was on remand with martin who then said well he
37:57told me
37:57everything he told me how i killed all the women and this is what he did to them and it
38:02was just brutal
38:03and horrific to hear all the details aired out in open court and then you heard that people in the
38:09homeless community were talking about the boast that he'd made to them and you put all that together
38:15and you see there's a side of him that is a bravado he's so brazen it's unbelievable for the jury
38:22the decision is far from simple they must weigh testimony from the streets and from prison cells
38:31filter bravado from fact and decide whether mark martin truly confessed or was just playing the part he
38:40always wanted the feared famous serial killer the jury doesn't decide immediately however it's not a
38:49matter of going out for four hours and coming back it took them a long time almost a week
38:54the verdicts julie arrive dean carr was found guilty of murdering ellen frith as was john ashley who was
39:04convicted of also killing katie baxter but there was no doubt who's directly responsible for strangling the
39:13three women mark martin it is quite clear that the ringleader the mastermind is martin and the other two
39:24are simply accomplices martin was duly convicted and given a life sentence he showed no remorse during
39:32his trial he's shown no remorse to this very day in fact he's boasted about his crimes whilst he's been
39:40in
39:40prison in the end it was martin's mouth that convicted him he bragged to fellow inmates and members of the
39:50street community and the jury listened
40:01it is absolutely shocking grotesque it's terrifying for the homeless community and it's left you thinking
40:09afterwards what a pointless way what a pointless way to kill people and for these young women just to die
40:16in the way that they did there is nothing redeeming about mark martin he is in the end truly wicked
40:27an evil man who took the lives of young women who had done him no wrong and they had their
40:34whole life
40:34in front of them and his motive to be like his heroes reviled for the killers they were i think
40:44what martin
40:46comes across is the way in which serial murderers are glorified are revered and the way in which their
40:54offenses are in some way given meaning and attached to particular places and it's out of this that he
41:01develops this ludicrous notion that what will give his violent urges he's just these destructive forces
41:08within him what will give them meaning and will channel them is for him to become nottingham's first
41:14serial killer let's remember who his idols were he idolized killers serial killers he read about them
41:24he watched them on tv he watched them on tv he wanted to be one was he a product of
41:31our modern times
41:32where so much information about murder and murderers is so easily available i think he probably was
41:43mark martin's crimes unfolded in a shadow world one that most people never see
41:52it's all too easy to think about big issues when discussing this crime we could talk about the
41:58problems of homelessness we could talk about the problems of drug addiction but what we need to
42:05talk about the most is the fact that three young women lost their lives in horrific circumstances
42:12one of them was 18 one was 25 one was 26 one of them ellen was a mother katie was
42:21just starting her life
42:22at 18 and zoe was equally young and vulnerable at 26 all of their families will still think of them
42:32every day mark martin wasn't created in some kind of vacuum he was shaped by neglect emboldened by fear
42:44fueled by desire to be remembered at all costs not because of who he was but as a result of
42:53what he had
42:54done he was a serial killer in the shadows of the 21st century and violence was his voice
43:25so
43:25so
43:25so
43:25so
43:25so
43:25so
43:25so
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