A man charged with murdering five prostitutes in a series of killings

A man charged with murdering five prostitutes in a series of killings that shocked England and led to a manhunt by hundreds of police officers went on trial Wednesday. Prosecutor Peter Wright opened the trial at Ipswich Crown Court by telling the jurors that Steve Wright, 49, a former pub landlord, was responsible for killing all five women, whose naked bodies were found in the Ipswich area over a 10-day period in December 2006.

The lawyer said the evidence will explore whether the defendant carried out the crimes alone, or with the assistance of someone else. The prosecutor, who is not related to the defendant, said each victim had a drug problem and had resorted to prostitution to fund an addiction.

TANIA NICOL, 19

Miss Nicol was the first of the five women allegedly killed by Steve Wright to be murdered and the youngest victim of the so-called Suffolk Strangler. The was last seen in the red light area of Ipswich late on October 30, 2006, and the prosecution argues that she was killed that night, probably close to the time that her mobile phone stopped working at 11.42pm.

GEMMA ADAMS, 25

Miss Adams’s body was the first of the five to be found. It was discovered on December 2, 2006, at Hintlesham and was in the same stretch of water where Miss Nicol was later discovered.She was last seen working the streets of Ipswich on the night of November 14 and earlier that day had collected her methadone prescription from a pharmacy.

ANNELI ALDERTON, 24

Miss Alderton went missing on December 3, 2006, two days after Mr Wright was stopped by police, and a day after Miss Adams’s body was found. The night before her disappearance, a police inspector had spoken to her in the red light area. She told him she was working the streets to get money for Christmas presents for her young child. On December 4 she failed to keep an appointment with her probation officer, something she had never done before. Her body was found a week later in woodland at Nacton. It had been stripped and arranged in a cruciform position.

ANNETTE NICHOLLS 29

Three witnesses have told police that they last saw Miss Nicholls in the early afternoon of December 8. Her body was found in woodland near the village of Levington on December 12 by a police helicopter that had been sent to the scene of the discovery of the body of Paula Clenell. Miss Nicholls’s body is believed to have been disposed of first and had been stripped, then “posed” in the cruciform position. On December 8 a dark Ford Mondeo was seen parked on the roadside near where the body was later found. Three-hundred yards further along the road another car, possibly a Renault Clio, was parked in a lay-by with its interior light on.

PAULA CLENELL 24

Miss Clenell was last seen on December 10 and her body was found by a pedestrian two days later, close to where Miss Nicholls had been left. Unlike Miss Nicholls and Miss Alderton, however, the body had not been posed. The court was told that it showed “all the signs of having been hurriedly dumped”. The Crown argues that, given the high level of police activity in the Ipswich area at the time, the killer may have been disturbed or startled by a police cordon as he tried to dispose of the body. Times Online