Kurtis Pratt has no memories of his mother. Now, after 26 years of agonising silence, he believes he finally knows who took her
The shadow of the “Suffolk Strangler” has been cast over a decades-old cold case as the son of a fears his mother may have been an early victim of the serial killer.
Kurtis Pratt, who grew up in the care system and faced years of hardship, has spoken out following Steve Wright’s shock guilty plea for the 1999 murder of Victoria Hall.
With Wright now linked to crimes across the East Anglian border, Kurtis believes the answers to his mother Kellie’s disappearance in 2000 may lie with the man already serving a whole-life term.
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Kellie Pratt vanished from the streets of Norwich—where Wright once managed a pub—and has never been found.
As detectives from the Joint Norfolk and Suffolk Major Investigations Team review Wright’s “missing years,” families across the region are bracing for the possibility of more victims.
Kurtis Pratt was just four years old when his mother, Kellie Pratt, disappeared from Norwich in June 2000. Now, following Wright’s recent shock guilty plea for the 1999 murder of Felixstowe teenager Victoria Hall, Kurtis is among those demanding to know if the serial killer’s shadow looms over even more unsolved cold cases across East Anglia.
Kellie, who was 28 and struggling with drug addiction, was working as a sex worker in Norwich to fund her habit when she met a customer and was never seen again. Her body has never been found, leaving Kurtis with nothing but press clippings to remember her by.
“A piece of my heart has been missing,” Kurtis told Sky News. “Being able to have the answers would let me start the process of mending that broken heart.”
The link to Wright, who was jailed for the 2006 murders of five women in Ipswich, has gained traction due to a “seven-year gap” in his known offending. Criminal psychologists have pointed out that Wright, who ran a pub in Norwich’s red-light district in the 80s, was 41 when he killed Victoria Hall—an unusually late start for a serial killer.
While Detective Superintendent Phill Gray of the Joint Norfolk and Suffolk Major Investigations Team says Wright is not currently an official suspect in Kellie’s case, he insists they are keeping an “open mind.”
The update comes days after Wright pleaded guilty to killing teenager Victoria Hall, his sixth murder victim.
Wright, now 67, had been due to go on trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of 17-year-old Victoria, who disappeared more than 25 years ago.
Wright, formerly of London Road, Ipswich, dramatically changed his plea on Monday and finally admitted Victoria’s kidnap “by force or fraud” and murder on September 19 1999. He also pleaded guilty to the attempted kidnap of Emily Doherty, then aged 22, in Felixstowe the day before.
It is the first time Wright has admitted any killings, despite pleas from his family to come clean.
As for Kurtis, his hope for the truth now rests on the chance of a confession from a man already resigned to die behind bars who has refused to admit to any of his horror slayings – until now.
