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Britains Almost Perfect Murders S01E01
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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.
01:12Owl Indicat
01:15The Flemish
01:25Новís Molding
01:25murder. Many killers go on to put that plan into action. Very few, though, try to commit
01:34the perfect murder on the same victim twice. Emile Cillier is the rare exception. Over
01:47the space of just a few days in spring 2015, Emile Cillier tried to kill his wife, Victoria
01:55twice. But because she did live, Emile Cillier's double life as an abusive husband, a serial
02:07philanderer, a fraudster and a would-be murderer rapidly unraveled. This case continues to be
02:18of interest to the public because it's a sexy case. It has somebody from the military, it
02:23has good-looking people, it has sex, it has all sorts that makes it titillating for the
02:30public to listen to and to hear the details of, and they can't get enough of it. In my
02:35career, this was defining for me, to be honest. I was involved in that case for three years,
02:42and it was three years of long, hard work. Emile Cillier stands out purely because of the person
02:47he was, purely because of the characteristic traits that he showed. Everything Emile did
02:53had to bring a benefit to Emile, whether that's financial, sexual, the extremes he went to
02:57to achieve those ends, you rarely see in people.
03:05Sam, Emile Cillier, what do we know about him? So he originated from South Africa. He had
03:13a relationship with a very young girl, Nicoline, and she's only 13 at the time. She becomes
03:19pregnant at 16, so she's a very, very young mother. That was the start of a pattern, a repeating
03:25pattern of predatory behaviour by Cillier. And he likes money, doesn't he? He likes the
03:32really good things in life. I think he probably looked at himself as a bit of a James Bond figure.
03:38He liked all the latest gadgets, you know, he was very keen on money and the finer things
03:42in life. And he liked that playboy lifestyle of having multiple relationships, despite the
03:49fact that he marries some of the females that he's in relationships with. He has children.
03:53When he bores of those responsibilities, he just moves on. So Emile Cillier is all about
04:01Emile Cillier.
04:02You know, what you're describing are psychopathic traits.
04:07Definitely some psychopathic traits in there. And the trait that really comes out in all
04:13of his behaviours in this case is narcissism.
04:16So people like Emile Cillier often have a collection of traits. We call them the dark triads. So
04:23Archivellianism and narcissism. And certainly Emile Cillier has had elements of all those three
04:29traits. They sort of link together largely through this sort of common aim of manipulation.
04:35But again, this general disregard for other people, the feelings and an inability really
04:40to connect emotionally with people.
04:43Every action that Emile takes is all about furthering his own wants and needs and exerting
04:50power 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. He moves to the UK. So he essentially abandons
05:06his pregnant girlfriend. And then when he's in the UK, she gives birth to his son.
05:12Emile Cillier really sees other people as something that he can use for his own gains.
05:18Very quick then to move on as soon as he finds something new or the parts of his life are
05:23not
05:24unfolding as he wished them to. And he will manipulate and con people in various situations.
05:32In his late teens, early 20s, he'd moved to the UK. He'd worked a number of casual jobs
05:37before settling down in Ipswich in Suffolk, where he'd met Carly Cilliers, who he subsequently
05:43married and had children with.
05:46He forms a relationship with a lady called Carly, who he marries, and then goes on to
05:52have two more children.
05:54Whilst he was with her, he joined the army. Being a South African national, he was allowed
05:57to. And from there, he initially joined the Royal Artillery, who were based in Lark Hill,
06:03just outside Salisbury.
06:05From working with them, he gravitated more towards the PTI side of it. And on getting promotion,
06:11he joined the Royal Army Physical Training Corps as a sergeant.
06:17Narcissistic individuals seek out occupations, or they'll pretend to be from occupations that
06:23exert authority and control. And what's quite interesting with Emil Cilliers is that he joins
06:29the army. It's all the things that would appeal to his narcissistic characteristics. And he becomes
06:36a skier for the army. He's going on lots of skiing expeditions and becomes really very
06:41proficient until he has a very serious skiing accident.
06:46Being married to someone like that can't be easy.
06:51No, absolutely. And actually, it leads to a breakdown of the marriage from Carly and Emil and Carly
06:59separate.
07:00But he has to have physiotherapy as part of his recovery.
07:04And he meets Victoria, who is his physiotherapist. She is going through a divorce from a very
07:16tricky marriage, a fairly abusive marriage that she was in. So she's a vulnerable individual.
07:22It's at a time when Emil is essentially looking for his next fix and high and next victim in terms
07:32of female relationships.
07:33So he's on the hunt.
07:34Absolutely. And he, you know, I think what is really clear from the whole of the timeline
07:40is that he's got very predatory behaviour.
07:44She was a captain in the army before leaving and joining the MOD as a physiotherapist. And
07:59he could use her and her connections in order to do this. So in the first few months, they
08:06were very much in love. He would love bomb Victoria. He would make her feel like the best thing
08:11in the world. And like he couldn't live without her.
08:14He fastens on to Victoria. What need is he meeting for her?
08:22What Emil is excellent at, as are all narcissists, is being able to look at a situation and mirror
08:30back the behaviours that they want someone else to see in them. So he knows and he spots
08:38very quickly that Victoria is vulnerable. So he starts to inhabit all the behaviours that
08:44are going to be needed to win her over. And it's a term called love bombing. And when you
08:49see that very, very early on, when it comes very quickly, and it's hard and fast, it really
08:55is a massive red flag that you've potentially got a problem because someone's trying so hard
09:00to 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 with someone
09:08who'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
09:26for her. She was a free fall skydive instructor, and she'd done over two and a half thousand
09:32jumps. So she was extremely experienced and very, very well respected in the parachuting world.
09:39Cillier trained as a packer, someone who is qualified to pack the main parachutes and also the reserve
09:50chutes, which are sometimes deployed if the main canopy doesn't open or malfunctions. And by 2013,
09:56he'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. So that love bombing
10:25of Victoria in order to win her over has done exactly what Emile wants it to do. It's got
10:29her into a position where she's married him and she's had a child with him. He, on the other
10:35hand, is carrying on like he always does. So from the surface, everything looked almost
10:42picture perfect. But behind that, you had a wife that was ignored. He'd spend many nights
10:47away. He would go to swinging parties. He would try and coerce Victorians going to swinging
10:52parties. Women he met there, he would meet subsequently on weekends. He was on the various
10:57dating apps. So he was constantly looking for sexual partners whilst married.
11:05Financially, how's the family doing? Not brilliantly. So Emile is also, in order to chase the highs
11:12that he so desperately needs, is gambling and he's starting to spend the family money and
11:18also his playboy lifestyle. He always wants the finest things. It's not necessarily about
11:24getting the finest things for his small family. It's about feeding himself. So the money starts
11:31to decrease and to the point where he starts to lie to Victoria about what he needs funds
11:38for. I think first of all, one was to fund an operation for his father and then he starts
11:44to steal money from Victoria. He steals money from his own wife. He does. I don't know if she
11:50knew where it was going because they would never discuss this. He would never allow that conversation
11:54to happen. But she did challenge him on why money went from her account. There was one point,
12:00I think it was £6,000 went from account in two, in three, 2,000 lump sums. And he just
12:06gave her some cock and ball story about it was a bank's fault, it was this fault, it was
12:11everyone else's fault. And when she dug down into it, she realised the money had gone from her
12:14account to his account using their own sort of home computers, etc., the IP addresses of those.
12:21Emile blamed the bank for their incompetence. And he said, do you think I'm stupid? This
12:28is all your fault. You're mad. This is nothing to do with me. You're paranoid. And he made her
12:35think that it couldn't possibly have been him. And it was all down to her insecurity.
12:41Emile Sillier subjected Victoria to what psychologists term coercive control. He would criticise her
12:51viciously one minute and then praise her like a princess. Next, it meant she never knew which
12:59Emile Sillier she was going to get. Coercive control is nothing to do with gender, class, age. It goes across
13:08everything. It's not the obvious broken arm, black eye violence, but that subtle coercive
13:16control where they lose control of their freedom, their confidence, their finances. So they
13:22become effectively a shell of themselves. They're shut away from their friends and their
13:25family. And they're just there to serve a person.
13:40We fast forward not very far to November 2014 on your timeline. Victoria's pregnant with
13:49their second child. Yes. But Emile is not being any more faithful. No, he's not. And he
13:56is now regained enough fitness to be back skiing with the army. So he goes on a one month skiing
14:04course to Austria and he meets Stephanie and he starts to have an affair with her. And this
14:11particular relationship will be critical in the undoing of Emile Sillier.
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, but
14:29he denied it, always denied it, and would put the blame back on her that she was paranoid
14:34and ridiculous. But did she ever think he would go as far as to try and kill her? No, absolutely
14:40not. This is just a continuation of his narcissism. He started another relationship and he wanted
14:48to be with her. He told a load of lies to start this new relationship by saying he was
14:52single, etc. And the only way he could see out of it, if you got rid of Vicky, get rid
14:57of
14:57the children, pick up the life insurance, he could start off fresh. Emile Silliers was
15:04different to a lot of men who commit murder. Because for him, he didn't want to be necessarily
15:11actively involved in that murder, as in face to face. It needed to be from a distance so
15:16that he could distance himself from it. And he didn't feel, therefore, perhaps that he was part
15:21of it. I think once the decision was made, Emile Silliers would have stopped at nothing.
15:27He needed to move on, and to move on, he needed to get rid of Victoria.
15:32So, he plans what he thinks is going to be a perfect murder.
15:38What Emile had done is he'd taken a room at the barracks to order shots. So, on Sunday
15:43night, he used to leave home and go to the barracks saying it was too difficult to drive
15:48on a Monday morning. Essentially, he used it as a place he could take other women back
15:52to. So, on that Sunday, what he did was he put the children to bed early, had dinner, put
15:58Vicky to bed. She went to bed about ten. He then went downstairs into the kitchen. He loosened
16:02the gas valves. I had a gas hob in the brand-new kitchen with an emergency cut-off, as they
16:07all have now. And he loosened the nut on that to allow gas to seep into the kitchen. And he
16:12left and went straight to the barracks overnight.
16:16In the process of loosening the knob, Cillier grazed his knuckle. He didn't notice, but there
16:25was a tiny smear of blood. He then got in his car. He didn't drive straight to the barracks.
16:32En route, he stopped to have sex with his ex-wife, Carly, and then arrived at the barracks and
16:39texted love messages to Stephanie Colley, all the while knowing that the gas was building
16:47up in the kitchen, and that when Victoria switched on the gas hob, she and their two children
16:55would be blown to bits.
16:58He was prepared to try and blow up the house with a gas leak whilst his children were there.
17:04You know, I get marriages, relationships fail. I get, rightly or wrongly, that people then
17:10end up in some sort of violent confrontation with each other. But how rarely do you see
17:15people that are willing to allow 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
17:26this conscience in a sense that if he gets away with it, then it won't matter to him.
17:30He won't feel bad. The 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, that there was
17:42a smell of gas in the kitchen. So when she smelt gas, she messaged Emile and said,
17:48do you know anything about this?
17:50And he said to her, have you put the stove on? And she replied immediately, well, I'd rather
17:54not, obviously. He didn't come home at that time. He just left her to sort it out. So she
18:01actually 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. So she sends him a sort of
18:15jokey text saying, are you trying to kill us? Which he reacts very badly to and obviously does what he
18:23does in every situation where he's being caught out. He tries gaslighting her in terms of making her think
18:30she's going crazy. He loves them. Why would you know, don't be ridiculous. Why, why would I do such
18:35a thing? But by this point, Victoria's suspicions have definitely raised to the point where she
18:41thinks 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?
19:21So one thing that the police would always look for is, have any insurance policies been taken out?
19:27And lo and behold, in this case, police find that an insurance policy for £120,000
19:33has been taken out on Victoria's life by Emil.
19:36We'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,
19:47which possibly was when you look back to 2012, so almost three years earlier,
19:52did he always have this in his mind that he could manipulate conditions
19:57to 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 weeks
20:09prior.
20:10She obviously hadn't been jumping since she found out she was pregnant.
20:14And Emil, five days after the gas leak, said to her,
20:18Why don't you go and jump this weekend? It would be lovely for you to get back into it again.
20:24Victoria, thinking she had the old Emil back again, jumped at the chance and said,
20:29Yes, I'd love to.
20:31She was now capable of jumping, but with two young children.
20:34She was a little bit dubious about, you know, is this a sport I want to get back into?
20:38Would I still have the same love for it now I'm a mum of two?
20:41So he convinced her to go, they would try it that weekend.
20:45So he come home, they packed up.
20:47Saturday morning they shot up there, and this is April, May time,
20:51so skydiving is very weather dependent.
20:54It has to be clear, they don't jump through clouds, etc.
20:57So if it's any of that, then there's no jumping.
21:00Emil had taken a parachute out for her from the parachute centre.
21:03He had rented it for her because her own parachute was in for repairs.
21:07So that was given to him, he puts it on his shoulder, she finishes paperwork,
21:12comes over and joins him, and the little girl says,
21:15Mummy, I need to go for a wee wee, I need to go to the toilet.
21:17So he says, don't worry, I'll take her.
21:20So he takes the little girl into the men's toilets,
21:23and he's there a number of minutes, five plus minutes.
21:26We believe that when he was in that toilet,
21:30we believe that that is when he tampered with the parachute.
21:33She goes and listens at the door and hears some sort of chingling type noise.
21:38Difficult to describe, but sort of something in there that was a funny noise.
21:43But she comes back, a minute or two later,
21:46Emil comes out with the little girl and the parachute on his shoulder.
21:49And they have a bit of chat.
21:51They didn't get told, look, it's too cloudy today,
21:54there's going to be no jumping.
21:56But instead of putting the parachute back in the main store
22:00where all the parachutes are stored for the jumps,
22:02Emil ensures that it's placed into Victoria's locker at the airfield,
22:06so that she will go and retrieve that exact parachute.
22:09So it's so calculating that he's ensuring every step of this plan.
22:13He's failed once to try and kill her.
22:16He's not going to make that mistake again,
22:18and he's going to ensure that she gets the parachute that's faulty this time.
22:22Emil insisted that Victoria put it into their locker.
22:26This was really unusual, but Victoria didn't want to make a fuss.
22:31The children needed to get home, they needed to be fed.
22:33So she agreed, and they put that parachute that he had rented for her
22:37into their locker overnight.
22:40He would have really taken some pleasure in trying to create
22:45some kind of situation that was indicative of his narcissistic beliefs.
22:49It reflects very much on his personality.
22:51There were probably less audacious, conspicuous ways
22:55in which he could have killed his wife if he really wanted to,
22:58but it really reflected on him as a person
23:00that he wanted to do it in this very almost flamboyant way.
23:06The next morning on the Sunday, the weather had lifted slightly,
23:10and Victoria went to Netheravon airfield on her own.
23:14She drove herself.
23:16At this point, she's still expressing milk, breastfeeding.
23:20So there's some text conversations about, you know,
23:22this is, you know, it's quite difficult to find a private space,
23:24and, you know, I feel awkward, and I've got a sort of milk.
23:27So I might just come home, she says.
23:29And he said, no, no, don't come home, you know.
23:30Stay there, it'll be great, you'll enjoy it.
23:32Jump twice if you can.
23:34Yet again, it was bad weather throughout the day.
23:36But at about four o'clock in the afternoon,
23:39they said that they could jump.
23:40But they would only go up to 4,000 feet
23:43as the cloud cover was very low.
23:44It was going to be a jump called a hop-and-pop,
23:47which meant that almost as soon as you come out of the plane,
23:49you pull your parachute.
23:51So there's very little freefall.
23:55So she said she was always nervous,
23:59but she put that down to, look, I'm jumped for months,
24:01mum of two, you know, I've got some concerns.
24:04But other than that, you know, the parachute looked fine.
24:06There was nothing untworn about it, visually.
24:09One by one, the divers jumped,
24:12and she watched as their canopies opened
24:15and they floated down towards the ground.
24:18And then she lodged herself out of the plane.
24:23After Victoria left the plane, she was at 4,000 feet.
24:27Almost instantly, she pulled the handle to engage her main parachute.
24:32But to her horror, when she looked up,
24:35she could see that the lines were twisted.
24:37When you deploy, you look up
24:38and it should be like a rectangle of material above your head.
24:41It visibly demonstrates that it's deployed correctly
24:43and you can fly it.
24:44And she realised straight away something's wrong.
24:46It's not a rectangle of material and she can't use it.
24:49Victoria was both highly experienced and highly trained.
24:54She knew what to do in these circumstances.
24:58She'd been trained to cut away the main malfunctioning chute
25:02and pull the cord of the reserve chute,
25:05which would get her safely to ground.
25:07When you cut away a main parachute,
25:09the reserve comes out almost instantly.
25:12You can pull it manually, but it does come out as an automatic response.
25:17However, when her reserve parachute opened,
25:19she realised that only half of it was attached.
25:22On one side, the slinks,
25:24which are a key component of the parachute, were missing
25:27and her parachute was no longer attached on one side.
25:31So now she's not flying at all, but it's put her into a spiral.
25:35And what she says is,
25:38I don't really ever look down.
25:40I don't really ever start to panic.
25:42I just spend my time trying to correct it, trying to fly it.
25:46You know, training kicks in and I try and get on with it.
25:51During the fall, Victoria was conscious of fighting all the way.
25:55And she will say she fought.
25:57She fought with everything all the way down.
26:00This was her life.
26:02She thought about her children.
26:04She thought about them being left without a mother.
26:07But ultimately, she fought to stay alive.
26:11Spectators watched in horror.
26:14They were convinced there was only going to be one outcome for this.
26:19They have an open-top double-decker bus on the apron out the front.
26:23So someone stands at the top with a pair of binoculars.
26:26So straight away, they put up an emergency call
26:28that they can see something is clearly wrong as she's descending.
26:31So straight away, they go towards where she's heading
26:35because she's now heading away from the hangar
26:37and away from the landing site.
26:39She is twisting in the air because of the spin of the parachute.
26:43And she lands about 10 to 15 feet from a road in a ploughed field,
26:49a freshly ploughed field.
26:52By chance, that field had been recently ploughed,
26:57making the ground or the mud softer for a landing.
27:01And frankly, Victoria had also been well trained
27:04in how to protect herself on difficult landings.
27:08And although she was horribly injured with a broken pelvis,
27:13spine and a huge number of other injuries,
27:16Victoria Sillier was alive.
27:30Victoria was plunging 4,000 feet towards the ground
27:35at a rate of 60 miles an hour.
27:38And when she hit the ground, spectators watched in horror.
27:44No-one could surely survive that.
27:47But Victoria did.
27:54Normally, you don't survive that.
27:58Piece of luck for Victoria.
28:00It is genuinely miraculous that she survived this attempt on her life.
28:05And it was down to a couple of factors, really.
28:09One is that she was an incredibly experienced skydiver.
28:14So she did actually know what to do in an emergency situation.
28:19Not that she probably ever would have faced that in her life
28:22or ever witnessed anybody doing it, but she did know what to do.
28:25So she knew how to position her body in the best way
28:29to minimise injury.
28:31The other stroke of luck is that she happens to land
28:34on a freshly ploughed field.
28:36She miraculously survived.
28:38She is hideously injured with various broken bones
28:41and damage to internal organs, but she does survive.
28:45And amazingly, she is conscious when the rescue team get out to her.
28:53The first person that raced to her was a Royal Marine
28:56who was up there that day.
28:57He had a body bag in his car, actually.
28:59And he thought that's what they were going to use.
29:01When they get there, they find her sort of semi-conscious and groaning,
29:04you know, against all the odds.
29:06They can't believe it.
29:07And they then click into, you know, safety mode, you know,
29:11first aid, call an air ambulance, et cetera.
29:14Emile was called by one of the people working at the parachute centre.
29:18They advised of the accident and what had happened
29:20and that she'd survived and was being taken to Southampton Hospital.
29:24Emile didn't say much at all.
29:26He was quite quiet on the phone for a little while
29:28and then said, I shall sort some childcare
29:30and I'll go down to the hospital.
29:33And learning that she'd survived the accident,
29:36it wouldn't necessarily have bothered him too much.
29:38It would have just been a little bit of an inconvenience
29:40and he undoubtedly would have tried to do it again
29:43because this was not something that he would have played on his emotions
29:46or any guilt or any worry about anything.
29:49Another good example of his attitude
29:53was he was due to go and visit Victorian Hospital in Southampton.
29:57So he searched for a sex worker
29:59who lived in the vicinity of Southampton Hospital
30:02so he could go there first before going to see his wife.
30:06Who would do that, you know?
30:07You're going to see your wife who's just fallen 4,000 feet.
30:10She's in intensive care in hospital
30:13and yet you're more concerned with,
30:15can I have sex with a sex worker prior to going to see her?
30:20And that sort of...
30:21Those 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
30:32had been the first at the scene of Victoria lying on the ground.
30:36He had scooped up the parachute after Victoria had gone
30:39but very quickly noticed that something was just not right about the parachute
30:44and that he could see that a certain aspect of the parachute was actually missing.
30:49So on the Monday, he called police.
30:52I happened to be working on CID at the time in Salisbury
30:55and his call came through to the CID office.
30:59As I was almost the only officer that was working on that day,
31:02the call fell to me.
31:05At that time, it wasn't a criminal investigation.
31:08It was a, let's scope this out, let's see what's happened.
31:12Is there anything there?
31:13We'll talk to Victoria, we'll talk to some people up there,
31:16we'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,
31:31then that can provide clues in the terms of an investigation.
31:35So where we have a damaged parachute, then not only can we examine the damage itself,
31:40but we can potentially link that to a tool that may have been used to cause that damage.
31:47The DNA technology that we use today is very sensitive.
31:52It can recover DNA from a matter of a few cells.
31:57So it means that we can wipe a swab or apply a small piece of sticky tape to an area
32:04and speculatively recover the DNA of an individual.
32:09The British Parachute Association had a look at the parachute
32:13and they came back to us and said, look, we can find nothing wrong with a parachute,
32:19but we can't rule out someone manually interfering with it.
32:23So that was a massive red flag then,
32:25because if there had been a reasonable explanation, they would have found it.
32:29This obviously led me to think, well, who else is involved?
32:32Who else could be involved with this?
32:35Netheravon Parachute Centre is a military base,
32:38which means that to get onto the base and onto the parachute centre,
32:41you 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, Emile 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,
33:18decides that they really ought to let the police know that all wasn't well in the marriage.
33:21I 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 Emile 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, Emile does need to be spoken to.
33:55You 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 of that,
34:03of their house, of their work place, etc.
34:06As a person in charge of that investigation, my gut feeling was I wanted him arrested,
34:11I wanted that sort of control and I wanted the powers of search.
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, Emile Cillier's reaction to being arrested and questioned is 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.
34:42And he is furious that 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.
34:56And one thing Emile Cillier hates is to lose control of a situation.
35:01When a prisoner is booked in, they're always given the opportunity of a solicitor.
35:06Emile, however, said, I don't need a solicitor. I'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 Emile. He wanted to talk. And he wanted to tell us everything.
35:23And 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
35:37Steph.
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 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 police, I'm military. We all know what it's like.
35:55But it's such an extreme version of what he's doing. This 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 Emile. 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 Emile Silas that he's going to be outfoxed by the
36:25police.
36:25He thought he was cleverer than them. Yes, absolutely.
36:28I think he thinks that they're not going to be able to unpick this one.
36:31He thinks he's got away with a perfect murder. Yes, absolutely.
36:39Victoria's at home, so she's been in hospital for two weeks or so.
36:42We sat her down and I explained to her about he denied maternity of his little boy that he had.
36:47And he was having an infatuation with another female, but I wouldn't tell her who it was.
36:52And he wanted to leave her. I said, for these things caused me grave concern.
36:57And that I can't allow him to be here with you because I've got a duty of care to yourself.
37:04Also a duty of care to other females. A duty of care to investigate this now.
37:08Because 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 her marriage and relationship had been
37:22all about.
37:23And then when we went to leave, that's when she said, well, she says, now you've told me that, you
37:28better know about the gas leak.
37:29So we had no knowledge of that at all until that point.
37:33So, 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.
38:20The case came to trial almost two years later, and even then, Cillier 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.
38:47When 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.
39:01Almost 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, and he was downstairs chatting up
39:16this 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.
39:28As 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 in
39:45the toilets with the parachute as she initially claimed.
39:48She then also said that she thought she had cut away a good parachute.
39:52I'm sitting there thinking, I don't understand, I don't, I 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, suddenly thought what happens if Emile doesn't
40:19get convicted, he's going to be at liberty.
40:21To harm me again.
40:23He would try for a third time.
40:25Yes, that he would try for a third time.
40:26So she wanted to appease that characteristic of his nature to say, I'm not against you.
40:32And actually this has all been a massive mistake because I think she was genuinely frightened.
40:37We had a clinical psychologist assess Emile Cilliers.
40:42And he assessed him as a narcissistic psychopath and a very dangerous one at that.
40:47But Emile had an amazing hold over women.
40:51And they end up in this coercive 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.
41:05This 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.
41:18It deadlocked.
41:20And after two of the jury members pleaded to 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.
41:38But for the second trial, the jury needed to know what sort of man Emile Cilliers really was.
41:44We had not brought in the fact that Emile Cilliers visited sex workers.
41:49He visited swinging parties.
41:51He 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.
42:00And 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.
42:24And I think they understood her position then.
42:27By the end of the second trial, we had done everything we possibly could.
42:33Thankfully, 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,
42:45with a minimum of 18 years, he didn't bat an eyelid.
42:48There 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 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.
43:09When that jury came up with the first word of guilty, I broke down.
43:13I 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.
43:21We had got a very, very dangerous man behind bars,
43:26and behind bars for a very long time.
43:33It's nice to sit back.
43:34I 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.
43:43Originally, you know, I joined to lock up bad people.
43:46And at the end of my career, I got the chance to take on someone
43:48who was truly evil, truly horrible.
43:52It would take a lot of work to try and rehabilitate somebody
43:55with those kind of personality traits.
43:57There's often some research that shows even sort of giving treatment
44:02to psychopaths actually makes them to some extent worse.
44:05They 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
44:13that goes against lots of people of his type of personality.
44:21In your analysis, what made the difference
44:26between 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
44:40who were dogged in their efforts to get evidence
44:45that would help secure a conviction.
44:47I think he underestimated Victoria.
44:50He must have been delighted when the first trial failed.
44:53But he underestimated the people that loved and supported Victoria
44:58and he most certainly underestimated the investigation team.
45:03The undoing of Emile Silliers is a very interesting question.
45:06I would suggest his supreme confidence.
45:09The fact that he talked for six hours.
45:11He told us everything during that initial interview
45:13that he thought we would find on his phone, his computers, his laptop.
45:18But he gave us far too much information.
45:20And this was to his detriment, ultimately, when we were able to prove his lies.
45:26Emile Silliers may still proclaim himself to be a victim.
45:30He isn't the real victims of Victoria, obviously.
45:35But beyond that, the six children Emile Silliers fathered
45:41and who have to grow up knowing that their dad was a would-be murderer.
45:50Their emotions, their needs, their psychological state often gets lost.
45:56And I wish more sensitivity was shown and more attention was paid to them.
46:04Emile Silliers must have thought by tampering with her parachute
46:09he was going to commit the perfect murder.
46:13Nobody would have suspected him.
46:15If she was dead and wasn't there to talk, that murder would have been perfect.
46:48If she was dead and he's dead, she would have been dead.
46:53You
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