The five young prostitutes killed by a presumed serial killer were also daughters, mothers, sisters and friends, writes Frank Millar, London Editor, in Ipswich
'I don't want people to think of her only as a prostitute. The Gemma we want to remember was a loving, beautiful and wonderful girl." No end of words will be expended in an effort to describe and convey the terror and tragedy inflicted by a presumed serial killer inevitably branded the "Ipswich Ripper". But Brian Adams spoke with the simple and awful authenticity of a tortured soul. He and his wife Gail had watched, increasingly helpless, as their daughter's once happy world degenerated into misery and chaos, driven by drug addiction into a life that nonetheless amounted to much more than her prostitution.
Gemma (25) had gone missing on November 15th. Her naked body was recovered from a stream at Hintlesham, near Ipswich, on Saturday, December 2nd. Brian Adams was speaking last weekend just after Ipswich Police linked Gemma's murder and that of the second victim, Tania Nicol (19), whose body was found in a pond at Copdock six days later. Telling his terrible, and now unchanging, truth, he explained: "We've been in a nightmare . . . You close your eyes and it's still there. Normally, if you have a nightmare, you wake up and the pain is gone, but this nightmare is ongoing."
As Gemma's parents showed family photographs of holidays, and birthday and Christmas parties, police were preparing to confirm that the body found in woodland near Nacton last Sunday was that of Anneli Alderton (24). A young mother, she had also worked the town's small red-light district in the shadows of the Ipswich Football Club ground. While still to establish the cause of death in the first two cases, police confirmed that Alderton had been strangled.
The man heading the murder hunt, Det Chief Supt Stewart Gull, made no attempt to conceal the impact on Suffolk Constabulary, one of Britain's smallest police forces. Indeed, his disbelief and bewilderment was shared by many among the estimated 140,000 local population, some of them surprised to learn of the existence of a red-light district in East Anglia's third largest town.
"This sort of thing just doesn't happen in Suffolk," said the cab driver at the railway station, expressing a common reaction within the town and among people who know it.
Det Chief Supt Gull subsequently told of the stunned silence among his officers when interrupted on Tuesday afternoon with the news that another two bodies had been found, not far from the road near the village of Levington. He could only fear the worst and assume these would prove to be the bodies of Annette Nicholls (29) and Paula Clennell (24) - both of whom had gone missing less than 10 days before. And on Thursday Det Chief Supt Gull confirmed Clennell, a mother of three children who were no longer in her care, was indeed the fourth victim.
In the afternoon gloom, the body of the second woman was taken to the local hospital, with every expectation that the fifth postmortem by Home Office pathologist Nat Carey would identify the "missing" Nicholls. That evening police opened mobile stations in the town centre, in part extending their appeal for information, and in part offering reassurance and advice to women in a town grown steadily frightened and alarmed.
Travelling to Police HQ in Ipswich on Wednesday morning, I met one man, James, who confirmed a self-evident truth reinforced by a walk through the town late the night before. Newspaper headlines might scream about a town paralysed by fear, its normal life on hold. But not everyone felt affected or immediately threatened, and, like James, not everyone cared that much about the tragedy unfolding in their midst. "My life's not affected," he told me. "This is all bollocks. They were all slappers anyway, though I feel sorry for their families."
WHILE THIS REACTION was totally untypical, many had gone about their business on Tuesday night, keeping pre-arranged dates for pre-Christmas celebrations. Certainly, taxis were conspicuous in Cromwell Square, waiting to transport people safely home. But Trongs Chinese restaurant, like the Indian Zaika, seemed festive and busy. Some drivers said things seemed quiet, although one or two admitted to having had the same "it doesn't feel like Christmas" feeling the week before. Meanwhile, the young crowd in Pals Bar and Brasserie appeared happily oblivious as the thumping music carried into the less-favoured neighbouring kebab houses.
In Carr Street, in the cold light of morning, however - and after a full night in which to digest the possible implications of a death toll rising to five - real fear was palpable.
"I'm a bit sad," confided Donna Kerry, after she had checked my ID. She and friend Kelly McNamee (whose grandfather hailed from Ballymoney) had known Anneli Alderton, grew up on the same Gainsborough Estate and went to school together. The sense, suddenly, was that this town might be big enough to ignore the existence of its red-light district, while just small enough for a lot of people to be at least acquainted with those plying their trade along the Handford, Portman, West End and London Roads and Sir Alf Ramsey Way.
McNamee admitted to feeling "a bit nervous" and vowed they'd be sure to get a taxi back from a party at the Novotel Hotel on Thursday night. Kerry, meanwhile, conveyed the sense of danger all around: "I'm petrified. Today we saw somebody on the bus and you think 'God, he looks weird'. It could be anybody, even the guy standing beside you at the traffic lights."
Coleen Ward agreed: "You just look over your shoulder and find yourself wondering."
Linda Merton's wondering would keep her awake at night. "I am a bit worried," she said. "I've got an 18-year-old daughter." Francesca Crabtree was also exercised by "what they're saying on the television - that if there are no [ working] women on the streets, he is going to go after somebody else".
It was against this backdrop that Det Chief Supt Gull and his colleagues assembled an investigation team and process with all the ingredients of a television Cracker thriller, but whose success at the end of the day might come down to the "plod" factor of basic police work, accident and fluke. Life goes on, even in the most extraordinary circumstances. And not the least of the tasks facing Ipswich police was to reassure the public that the normal business of an everyday policing service would continue too.
THE BIGGEST INQUIRY in Suffolk police history, meanwhile, grew by the day, with hundreds of officers and experts drafted in from neighbouring forces, while thousands of people called the special hotline, e-mailed, or made direct contact with information and offers of help.
The Bichard Report, which followed Ian Huntley's conviction for the murders of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, would provide the "core investigative doctrine" for detectives. The National Centre for Policing Excellence swiftly appointed a regional operations manager to work closely with Det Chief Supt Gull, the senior investigating officer. He and his men would also access the Opsline, a 24-hour resource available to all British forces, again established in the wake of Bichard. Told what is required at any point, the Opsline will identify and contact the necessary forensic psychologists, geographical profilers, soil or blood experts and the like. A botanist, for example, who found vital evidence in the Soham case, has been at the river and woodland sites where the Ipswich victims were found.
Police will be counting on the DNA and other technological and scientific advances made since the days of the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry. Forensic experts have been scouring the "dumping" sites while the Home Office pathologist will hopefully have yielded vital information.
While police desperately seek evidence of the last sightings of the victims, and the all-important murder sites, officers have to log, cross-reference and prioritise all those calls, while still more exhaustively examine CCTV tapes, conduct house-to-house inquiries and study the profiles of hundreds of people on the sex offenders' register. As the inquiry escalates, so too does the amount of information, and with it the risk of false trails and dead ends.
Central to everything is the ongoing effort to establish the client base of the dead women and their fellow sex workers. Police have assured the women they have no interest in any offences they have committed and that they can speak in total confidence. Det Chief Supt Gull has likewise warned their punters that they should come forward before he and his men come knocking on their doors, as they assuredly will.
The guess will be that the killer is a local man - his knowledge of the locality, and preference for old rather than new, camera-covered roads certainly suggests that. Given the audacity of this killing spree, the operative assumption will be that he can't be "normal" in every respect.
Psychologists will be advising the officers questioning the prostitutes on what to look out for. Has he attitudes to women that he may have betrayed to them? One expert told The Irish Times the killer's attitude to the police might also give him away: "He'll think he's smarter than the police, and he'll toy with them. He might leave clues, wanting his trademarks to be recognised."
The discovery of two of the dead women in a river might suggest someone who had previously offended and who has some knowledge of forensics. But in this DNA world it is very difficult to kill someone without exchanging some material. While continuing the cold analysis and hoping for that forensic breakthrough, police will also be counting on that other staple of successful policing, luck, and the killer making a mistake.
This Christmas, meanwhile, we can only try to imagine the agony of families forced to share their horrifying discoveries about loved ones with a watching world. And perhaps, like the carol singers in Ipswich, light a candle for the "prostitutes" who were also daughters, mothers, sisters and friends.