Evil killer Steve Wright may be behind five more murders according to a former police boss who has spent years investigating his horrifying crimes
Twisted serial killer Steve Wright, the ‘Suffolk Strangler’ may be behind five more murders in the UK and others overseas, a former police boss claims.
Wright, now 67, had been due to go on trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of 17-year-old Victoria Hall, his sixth murder victim.
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.
Retired police intelligence officer, Chris Clark, has been researching the former docker’s crimes since 2018 and believes he killed five more victims. He said Wright’s job on board ferries, then as a docker and on board the QE2 gave him the “perfect cover”.
The ‘ticking timebomb’ serial killer travelled to Belgium, Holland, and New York for work. But Thailand was one of his favourite destinations.
“He left school at 16 working on North Sea ferries from Felixstowe then he joined the QE2 from Southampton around 1980, taking him on world cruises,” Mr Clark told The Mirror. “He was 48 when he was convicted of the Ipswich murders, as we know serial killers start much younger. He had the opportunity from 17 to travel to Holland and Belgium and later the whole world.
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“Normally serial killers don’t go three years between victims. The nature of his shore leave would give him the opportunity to commit a murder and then sail away before the body is discovered.”
Mr Clark has made inquiries worldwide as he researched Wright for a book but it is the UK murders that leave him most convinced. Three of the victims were sex workers who all worked near Wright’s pub and several of those bodies found were strangled.
Jeannette Kempton. 32 was strangled near Southwold, Suffolk; Natalie Pearman, 16, died of asphyxia in Norwich; Amanda Duncan, 26, from Ipswich is still missing; Kellie Pratt, 28, last seen in Norwich also still missing; Michelle Bettles aged 22 from Norwich was strangled.
Mr Clark said: “I’m certain with regards to Jeannette Kempton in 1989 and the four others are possibilities because of the method used on the known victims, some of whom were strangled. He would not have started at 35 when Jeannette was murdered; he would have been much younger.
The one case that “ticks all the boxes” Mr Clarke said, is Jeannette, who was killed in February 1989. ”This fits his method, motive and opportunity,“ he said.
The 32-year-old went missing in Brixton, south London, where she lived with her ex-husband and their sons. Her partly decomposed body was found in a ditch near Southwold, Suffolk, just over two weeks later.
She was missing her coat, a shoe, her purse, a wreath she had collected for a funeral, and jewellery. The cause of death was strangulation. Wright had moved to Chislehurst, Kent at that time, 12 miles from Brixton.
In November 1992, around the time Wright moved back to live with his dad in Felixstowe, sex worker Natalie Pearman, 16, was killed. Her sister said the focus was on her being a sex worker – not a child.
It is believed she had been working near Wright’s pub the Ferry Boat Inn. Her body was found in a lay-by in Ringland hills by a lorry driver.
A post mortem found she had died from Asphyxia and semen was present in her body. DNA was found which has yet to be linked to anyone.
Mum of two small children Amanda Duncan, 26, went missing in Ipswich in July 1993. She has never been found.
Mr Clark believes she could have ended up in a nearby river and washed out to sea. It is believed the single mum had been working in the red light district and had been using drugs. She was reported missing by her sister.
Police said they are worried she may have come to harm. The mum has a distinctive heart shaped tattoo on her upper arm.
Kellie Pratt, was 28 when she disappeared from the red light district in Norwich. No trace of her has ever been found.
She was last seen outside The Rose pub in Queen’s Road in Norwich in June 2000.
She took a call and said she was with a ‘punter’. She was originally from Newcastle.
Michelle Bettles, 22, in 2002, was also a sex worker who worked around the old Ferry Boat. Her body was found 20 miles drive east from Norwich.
Both Michelle and Kellie worked around the Ferry Boat Inn in Norwich, where Wright was the landlord.
Mr Clark said of Wright: “He was a very controlling figure. He can be very calm and then suddenly explode. There appears to be some stress disorder in him; it may have been a volatile relationship he grew up in.
“There was domestic violence that he witnessed that may have had some effect on him growing up. He was quite a loner and a member of several golf clubs. His anger would come from nowhere.
His book due to be released soon is called Serial killer: Inside the mind of Steve Wright: the Suffolk Strangler by Chris Clarke and Tim Hicks
