Mark Williams-Thomas - Hunting Killers: o Britains top crime investigator reveals how he solves the unsolvable

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First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright WT Productions Limited 2019

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Cover design by R Shailer/TW

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Photographs of Ursula Herrmann crime scene, Sarah Benford and Tia Sharp Shutterstock.
Photograph of Jessie Earl Connors Brighton.

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ISBN 9781473564190

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I have written this book to help those victims, and their families, who have been let down by the authorities and systems that are meant to protect and help them. To shine a light into the darkest of corners and bring attention to the many unsolved cases where families and loved ones still suffer without justice. It is to them, and to all the victims of crimes that remain unanswered, that this book is dedicated.

W HEN SOMEONE DIES, THEY TAKE THEIR SECRETS TO THE grave. If the death involves a missing person, or a dead body is found somewhere, investigators me, the police start with this absence; we have to work back through the last days, weeks or months of this persons life. Piecing together half-remembered conversations from witnesses, where the victim went, who they saw, what they did. Slowly we assemble a mosaic of the life thats gone, witnessing their joy and their boredom, stepping warily through minefields of sexual desire, rejection, loneliness and unhappiness. Often we trace threads which unravel to nothing of consequence; but we always aim to tug on one that yields a result.

When a person meets a sudden, violent end, those closest to them friends, family, colleagues often end up learning more about the deceased than they might have liked. Much more, perhaps. The victims private life gets laid bare in a way they probably wouldnt have wanted when they were alive. Sometimes with good reason their lifestyle may have been a contributing factor to their death. Their sexuality, the people with whom they mixed, the places they went, the drugs they consumed; they would have kept all these things to themselves, hidden from their families. These details, however even if they werent direct causes of a persons death are all important parts of an investigation.

A case, for me, usually begins with the words: Youre my last hope. More often than not, its the first thing I hear from a new client. For whatever reason, the police, the justice system, the authorities have all failed them. Theyve been let down.

Im passionate about what I do. I believe in protecting the innocent, and tracking down, exposing and enabling the prosecution of the guilty. There are times when I probably have too many cases on my books, overloading myself and my small team, but I care deeply about trying to help those in need. Im determined to achieve the best result for all my clients. Its about giving people a voice and shining a light in the darkest of corners.

The highly sensitive nature of the investigations I carry out, as well as the absolute need to protect the anonymity of both my sources and some victims, has meant that in the past Ive been reluctant to reveal how I go about what I do. Ive felt, before now, that to give away how I track down witnesses and painstakingly follow clues could expose the very people Ive promised to protect. When asked about my methods, I usually reply that my approach is delicate, sensitive and determined, but that I use quite simple investigative techniques. Now, though, Im on the brink of an exciting development that will change the way missing persons cases and unsolved murders are handled in this country, and its the right time to disclose my methods as part of this development.

These days Im known mostly because of my TV show The Investigator. It was for a different series, ITVs Exposure, that I made a programme exposing the historic crimes carried out by the now widely discredited Jimmy Savile. The expos laid bare to the world the extent of his abuse; but he wasnt the only individual to have acted in this way. Others did so, some of whom have also found themselves in court, after concealing their offences for years. As well as the stories of these individuals, there are plenty of crimes of other well-known figures even if not everything they did is yet in the public eye.

Im asked to handle investigations into all sorts of crimes and Ill consider taking on almost all of them apart from medical negligence ones although time and resources obviously restrict me. However, most of my work is taken up by missing person investigations or unsolved murders. In many cases Ive worked on, the crime in question took place ten years ago or more. On one hand, those can be the more challenging investigations (theres usually little or no CCTV footage to review, almost no social media to trawl through, and sometimes not even any forensic material to re-examine), but on the other hand they can be easier. Policing methods have changed drastically for the better in the past ten to fifteen years, meaning that any investigation undertaken into a crime committed before that time often has gaps in it that I can explore. Witnesses, constrained in the past by fear or misplaced loyalties, sometimes have different priorities a decade or two later, and are more willing to come forward and speak to me. For that to happen, though, they have to know that the investigation is still open and that someone is here to listen to what they have to say.

I receive so many letters and emails that I have to weigh up carefully which cases I can take on. One recent approach, for example, was a request for help in looking for a woman lost for nearly twenty years, the sender fed up with what they saw as a lack of interest from the police.

Another correspondent also wanted to find someone whod been gone for a similar amount of time, only on this occasion they didnt think the police lacked interest, but money. The search they wanted me to undertake spanned hundreds of miles from the east coast of England all the way to Portugal and, according to them, had links to many infamous crimes from the past two decades as well.

A couple of others came from people wanting help in solving murders from thirty years ago, both in the UK and overseas; and yet another came from someone who served time for a crime but claims they were wrongly convicted they want me to prove their innocence.