- 7 weeks ago
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🛠️
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00:05In the early hours of Friday, the 20th of November 2015, intruders slipped into Metalbridge Cemetery.
00:13They went straight to the shared grave of 16-year-old brothers, Levi and Gareth Price.
00:20The headstone was smashed, soil was dug out, and coffins were forced open.
00:24When they left, they took the skulls of both boys and left the rest of the remains in disarray.
00:32By late morning the next day, a visitor raised the alarm and police sealed off the area.
00:39Durham police called it sickening and said that this was part of an ongoing feud between traveller families.
00:45The family are absolutely shocked and devastated at this news, and we have got officers specially deployed to help them
00:52through this time.
00:53What I would say is that by anybody's standards, from whichever community they may come, this is a depraved act,
01:00a shocking act, and it needs to be stopped.
01:02And I would appeal to anybody at all who has any information about this incident, or a wider feud within
01:08travelling families that we believe this is connected to,
01:11to come forward and help us, help the community.
01:14This is totally unacceptable to anybody.
01:16We've had the cemetery cordoned off, we are taking it extremely seriously, and I can confirm that one grave has
01:23been damaged, and the earth dug up, revealing the two coffins.
01:28Shockingly, I can also confirm that two skulls have been removed from the corpses.
01:33Within a week, five forces launched dawn raids at traveller locations across the northeast and south Yorkshire.
01:40Officers seized firearms, ammunition, and vehicles, and arrested suspects over linked violence.
01:46But the skulls of Levi and Gareth were not recovered, and inside the traveller community, people said the same thing.
01:54This had gone too far.
01:59The desecrated grave in Metal Bridge belonged to two brothers, Levi George Price and Gareth Price, beloved sons of the
02:08Price family.
02:09Long before the feud erupted, both Levi and Gareth died young, each just 16 years old, in separate tragedies, four
02:17years apart.
02:19Levi Price was the elder of the two brothers.
02:21In February 2001, Levi was found hanging in the garden shed of the family home in Ferryhill, County Durham.
02:30His father, Salus Price, discovered the 16-year-old's body after Levi had spent the previous evening out with friends.
02:38An inquest heard that Levi had seemed perfectly normal the night before, aside from a minor argument with his girlfriend,
02:46and that nothing else appeared to be troubling him.
02:49The Price family was devastated.
02:53Levi's parents and siblings were left to grapple with unimaginable grief and unanswered questions about what led to his death.
03:01Tragically, the heartbreak did not end there.
03:04Four years later, in 2005, Levi's younger brother Gareth Price also died at age 16.
03:13Gareth's death occurred under very different circumstances.
03:16He was in custody at Lancaster Farms' Young Offenders Institution, awaiting sentencing for a serious crime.
03:24Gareth had pleaded guilty to arresting a 17-year-old girl in Formby, Merseyside.
03:30On the eve of his sentencing, Gareth was found hanged in his cell, an apparent suicide.
03:37An inquest later found that a series of failures by authorities had let down the troubled teenager prior to his
03:44death.
03:45The Price family was struck by a second, unbearable loss.
03:49In the span of a few years, Silas Price and his wife Karen had lost both of their children, two
03:56teenage sons gone, both by their own hand.
04:00The boys were laid to rest together in a single plot at Metal Bridge Cemetery, one coffin stacked atop the
04:07other in the small graveyard not far from the family's home.
04:11It was a place meant to be peaceful, a shared grave where the two brothers could rest side by side.
04:19For a decade after Gareth's death, the Price family quietly bore their sorrow.
04:24By all accounts, Salas Price, a tree feller by trade, was a hard-working family man who cherished his son's
04:32memory.
04:33They could never have imagined that this sacred grave, the final resting place of Levi and Gareth, would itself become
04:40a target in a vicious feud.
04:42Yet by 2015, that is exactly what happened.
04:48The theft of the brothers' skulls from their grave would be the ultimate insult to the Price family, compounding their
04:55tragedies with a horrifying new trauma.
04:59Why would anyone do this?
05:01That question, voiced in despair by a Price family relative at the desecration site, echoed across the traveller community.
05:09The answer lay in an escalating feud that had ensnared the Price family in a cycle of retribution with another
05:18traveller clan.
05:19In the years following Levi and Gareth's deaths, tensions had been brewing between the Price family and another traveller family.
05:27Police later described it as an ongoing feud among members of the travelling community.
05:32While the precise origins of their bad blood remained murky, by 2015, the hostility had burst into open violence.
05:42The feud's geography reflected the travellers' roots and connections.
05:46It spanned from County Durham in the northeast, home turf of the Price family, to the traveller sites of South
05:52Yorkshire, where the rival family had a stronghold, with skirmishes and incidents erupting in between.
05:58In 2015, attackers firebombed a house in Darlington, a town in County Durham.
06:04A lit petrol bomb was hurled at a residential property, igniting an inferno.
06:10Fortunately, no fatalities were reported.
06:14Just weeks later, a stolen horsebox trailer was used as a battering ram to attack a bungalow in Darlington.
06:21In what police believe was a deliberate act, the culprits drove the horsebox at high speed directly into the bungalow,
06:29demolishing walls and wrecking the home's interior.
06:32The occupants of the house, reportedly relatives of one of the feuding families, were left terrified and homeless, though again
06:41there were no serious injuries.
06:42Mere days after the horsebox incident, another home in Darlington was smashed by a heavy vehicle, this time a stolen
06:50recovery truck.
06:52The flatbed truck was stolen and then driven straight into a house.
06:57The impact was tremendous, partially collapsing the structure.
07:02It's affecting us all, because it's very upsetting.
07:07We have shops near at hand, we have a lovely church, we're a community.
07:12It was about half past eight last night, I think.
07:14Yeah, it was not very nice.
07:17Pretty loud bang.
07:19Unfortunately, it's a problem between families, but it's affecting us all.
07:24I think someone's going to get killed, I really do.
07:27That's what I think.
07:29I think in the end, someone's going to get killed, and it's going to get so out of control that
07:33we can't do anything about it.
07:35By now, police patrols in Darlington had been increased, and detectives were actively working to prevent retaliatory strikes.
07:43It was against this tense backdrop that the feud took its most gruesome turn.
07:48In the early hours of Friday, the 20th of November 2015, intruders crept into Metal Bridge Cemetery.
07:56The graveyard sits just off a busy road linking to the A1 motorway, yet the village itself is small and
08:03quiet, little more than a cluster of homes near an old bridge.
08:08Under cover of darkness, the vandals desecrated the grave belonging to Levi George and Gareth Price.
08:16What these intruders did next was almost beyond belief.
08:20They removed the skulls from each of the brothers' remains and stole them.
08:26The thieves left the other bones and coffin materials in disarray.
08:30Their depraved task complete, the grave robbers fled.
08:35Neighbors later reported seeing an estate car with blacked-out windows speeding away around that time.
08:41But in the darkness, no one realized a crime had occurred.
08:45The desecration went unnoticed until the following day.
08:49Around 11.45am, a visitor to the cemetery saw the damage.
08:54They contacted the police to report that a grave had been disturbed.
08:59Officers from Durham Constabulary arrived and quickly secured the scene,
09:03unsure at first what, if anything, had been taken.
09:07It didn't take long for the truth to emerge.
09:10It was a calculated act intended to maximize emotional damage.
09:15Detectives photographed shoe prints, tool marks, and any trace evidence left behind.
09:21Cadaver dogs, specially trained to sniff out human remains, were brought in,
09:26hoping the dogs might catch the scent of the missing skulls in the area or any vehicle used.
09:32As word of the grave robbery spread, members of the Price family rushed to the cemetery.
09:37Bridget Hanrahan, a relative of the Price's, stood near the police cordon and struggled to make sense of it.
09:44To be honest, we're all shocked.
09:46We haven't got a clue why anyone would do this, she told reporters.
09:51For a family that had already suffered so much loss, this was a vicious twist of the knife.
09:56To the traveler community, such an act is almost unspeakable.
10:01Many travelers are devoutly religious and hold deep respect for the sanctity of graves and the souls of the dead.
10:07The idea of disturbing someone's eternal rest, let alone stealing body parts, is an affront to fundamental cultural and spiritual
10:15values.
10:16It was an act of pure hate meant to strike at the heart of the Price family.
10:22Durham police launched a major investigation.
10:25They treated the crime scene with the same care as a murder.
10:29Community elders and traveler representatives cooperated with police, offering help to defuse tensions.
10:35In fact, detectives later thanked the traveler community for coming forward with information in the wake of the theft,
10:43noting that many decent people were eager to distance themselves from such a depraved act.
10:48Five police forces across northern England coordinated for a major crackdown.
10:53On Thursday, the 26th of November, just five days after the skulls were stolen, a massive multi-agency raid was
11:02launched.
11:03Around 150 officers in riot gear carried out synchronized raids at traveler sites and homes in multiple counties.
11:11These were places where intelligence indicated members or associates of the two feuding families were based.
11:17The coordinated raids took some suspects completely by surprise.
11:22Police later described individuals in their beds when teams forced entry at 5 a.m. that morning.
11:28This was a zero-tolerance operation aimed at halting the feud's momentum in its tracks.
11:34The results were significant.
11:36Across the various sites, police recovered multiple firearms, ammunition, and several vehicles believed to have been used in crimes.
11:45Over the course of that day, numerous individuals were detained for questioning.
11:50Several arrests were made on suspicion of involvement in the feud-related attacks.
11:55Despite the success of the raids in seizing weapons and making arrests, one goal remained frustratingly elusive.
12:04Finding Levi and Gareth's skulls.
12:07In the days and weeks after the operation, search teams scoured ponds, wells, and woodlands near the raided sites.
12:15But nothing was found.
12:17In the summer of 2017, the skull feud returned to the headlines with another horrifying act.
12:25One that nearly claimed the life of Salus Price, the father of Levi and Gareth.
12:31By this point, Salus was in his early 70s and a grandfather.
12:36Late in the evening of the 29th of July 2017, Silas and his wife were sitting in the living room
12:43of their bungalow.
12:44It was around 10.30pm, a typical quiet night, until a sudden crash shattered the peace.
12:51A brick came hurtling through their living room window.
12:54Outside the broken window was a man holding a container.
12:58A stream of petrol was being sloshed through the opening, splattering onto the floor, furniture, and onto Salus himself.
13:07The attacker then stepped back and lit a rag.
13:10He tossed the flaming rag through the window onto the petrol-soaked interior.
13:15The room erupted in a fireball.
13:17The petrol ignited, causing an explosion of flame that engulfed Salus Price from his waist to his head.
13:25Neighbours who saw the fire through the window rushed over.
13:29Together with the Price family, they managed to smother the flames on Salus' body and contain the blaze until firefighters
13:36arrived.
13:38Salus had suffered horrific burns over 30% of his body, nearly one-third of his skin seared.
13:44His face, neck, and torso were severely burned and raw, requiring immediate, advanced medical care.
13:52Paramedics and an emergency doctor fought to stabilise the 71-year-old.
13:58He was rushed by ambulance to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle and placed in an induced coma in the
14:05critical care unit.
14:07The cameras captured footage of the attack and the getaway.
14:11One of the men involved, the one who had poured the petrol, was clearly recorded on the footage.
14:17When police reviewed the CCTV, an officer from Northumbria Police recognised the face.
14:2428-year-old Daniel John McArdle.
14:27McArdle was arrested and ultimately charged with attempted murder for the firebomb attack.
14:32He was not a blood relative of either feuding family, but was believed to be an associate of the rival
14:38family.
14:39His surname, McArdle, is of Irish origin and not uncommon among travellers, though it's unclear if he himself was a
14:47traveller or an outsider hired to do a job.
14:50Police also believed at least two other men were involved that night as accomplices, one who smashed the window and
14:57the driver of the getaway car.
14:59However, McArdle was the only one caught on camera clearly enough to identify, and thus he became the focus of
15:07the prosecution.
15:07In August 2017, McArdle was formally charged with attempted murder, and the case proceeded swiftly.
15:16Rather than face trial, McArdle pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm, with intent and arson to endanger life.
15:25In December, he was sentenced in Newcastle Crown Court.
15:29The judge handed McArdle a ten-year prison term for his role in the attack.
15:34Price spent weeks in intensive care, underwent skin grafts, and was left permanently scarred from his burns.
15:41In a victim impact statement, Salus described being in constant pain and unable to live independently for a long time
15:49after the attack.
15:51Notably, prosecutors acknowledged that the arson attack was linked to the same traveller feud that had seen Levi and Gareth's
15:58skulls stolen.
16:00This was retaliation and revenge playing out in a slower, more insidious cycle.
16:06It appears that after the dust settled from the 2015 raids, the rival faction bided its time and eventually struck
16:14at the head of the Price family.
16:15However, the skull thieves themselves were never identified or charged.
16:21As of the latest reports, Levi and Gareth Price's skulls are still missing.
16:27Now, nearly a decade later, it seems unlikely the skulls will ever be recovered, or that the culprits will face
16:34justice.