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Before we begin today's episode, I want to tell you about the brand new Casefile Presents series Suing Diddy. It comes from Jack Lawrence, who has spent years speaking with men and women behind bars across the United States for his podcast, One Minute Remaining. From drugs to arson, assaults and murders, even wrongful convictions, Jack thought he'd heard it all. That was until he met a prisoner with an extraordinary story. A man whose lawsuit could turn him into one of the richest people on the planet. If you think you've heard it all before, when it comes to crime stories, trust me, you haven't heard anything like this. Suing Diddy is out now. Wherever you get your podcasts, stay tuned until the end of today's episode to hear the trailer. Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre for suggested phone numbers, for confidential support, and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. It was just after 6 o' clock on the evening of Saturday, February 3, 1990, when married couple Frank and Audrey Roberts realised they still hadn't heard from their friend, Dr. David Burkett. David lived next door to them in Linthorpe, a small neighbourhood in the industrial portside town of Middlesbrough in England's North East. The trio, along with some other neighbours, often got together to socialise on Saturday nights. They had discussed attending the Middlesbrough Little Theatre Club later that evening, but the minutes continued to tick by without David contacting the couple to confirm their plans. Audrey called David's home phone at around 6.30pm, but there was no answer. When they still hadn't heard From David by 7:50, Audrey decided to duck over to his house and leave a note asking him to get in touch with them. By 9 o', clock. 56 year old David Burkett was a recently divorced father of three who lived alone in a large two story home on Cornfield Road, a tree lined residential street in an affluent part of town. As Audrey approached, she noticed that the curtains to David's bay windows, which were typically kept open, were closed. She knocked on the door. There was no answer. Audrey slipped the note under David's front door and then turned down the laneway that ran alongside his house. She caught a glimpse of his kitchen and noticed that the windows were fogged up and it smelt like burnt potatoes. Thinking David might be busy cooking dinner, Audrey returned home to await his call. But nine o' clock came and went with no word, so the group decided to go to the theatre without him. By 4:00 the clock the next afternoon, there was still no word from David and his curtains remained closed. His pet cats were also waiting by the front door, eager to be fed. Concerned for David's welfare, Audrey Roberts decided to call his youngest daughter, 16 year old Laura, who lived with her mother nearby. David's other two children, aged 23 and 26, no longer lived at home. Ever since their parents divorced two years earlier, Laura had felt sorry for her father. Living all alone in that big house, she made every effort to visit him as often as possible. As soon as Laura received Audrey's call, she immediately felt that something was wrong. She rushed over to Cornfield Road where some of David's neighbours had gathered outside. Fearful of what Laura might find inside, they tried to stop her from entering, but Laura pushed her way through and unlocked the front door. The scene she found would haunt her for years to come. David was lying face down in the hallway, the walls and carpet covered in blood. As Laura later Recalled to the Telegraph. It was as if I could see myself going into the house. I was on the outside looking in. Someone called the police and an ambulance. And then the nightmare of it all began. Although Middlesbrough had its fair share of crime, Dr. David Burkett's house on Cornfield Road was not the kind of place police expected to find a murder. The brutal scene inside the six bedroom, semi detached home was at complete odds with the dignified reputation of the neighbourhood and with David himself. David was an eminent and highly respected dermatologist who primarily worked at the Cardipaquest Hospital in Middlesbrough. He also had a deep fascination with bones and worked as a consultant palaeopathologist for the government, helping to identify ancient diseases. So prized were his skills that people sent him bones to examine from all over the world. Despite his incredible intellect, David was a modest man who took quiet pride in his talents, never talking about himself unless asked. He was described by one acquaintance as a gentleman in every sense of the word. This made it all the more shocking for police as they entered the home and found what had clearly been a savage and brazen attack. Crime. Crime scene examiners determined that the killer had most likely struck as David answered the front door. David had an alarm system and there were no signs of forced entry, meaning that he had likely willingly let them inside and maybe even knew them. As David opened the door, the killer had hit him multiple times in the head with a blunt object, probably a hammer. A lack of defensive injuries indicated David hadn't seen the attack coming. Two pieces of green cord had been tied around his arms and used to drag him further down the hallway towards his study, where the assailant launched a second assault. In total, David had sustained approximately 17 ferocious and fatal blows to the front, sides and back of his head. In his kitchen, the oven was still on and there were two pots of burnt vegetables inside, suggesting the killer had attacked while David was in the middle of cooking. The initial assumption was that the murder must have been motivated by theft. David's wallet and a small fog watch were missing from the inside pocket of his jacket, while some drawers and cupboard doors had been left open throughout the house. The police wondered whether the assailant could have been looking for cash, drugs or jewellery. But it didn't really look like David's things had been ransacked or rifled through. Nothing else appeared to be missing and overall, everything was neat and tidy. With the burglary angle not quite checking out, police turned to David's friends and colleagues, seeking information about who could have possibly wanted him dead. But nobody had a bad word to say about him. By all accounts, David Birkett was well liked. He had always been a private and reserved person who was most often at work. But he'd recently made an effort to spend more time with his neighbours. They all knew him to be nothing but kind and friendly, often stopping to chat with townsfolk whom others wouldn't give the time of day. He frequented the Middlesbrough Bowling Club, which was just across the street from his home, testing his general knowledge skills in the week quiz night. Fellow members described him as an unassuming and polite gentleman. They couldn't fathom who would want to hurt him. With David's murder starting to look more like a random attack, fears were high that the killer could strike again. Pressure was on for the police to make a quick arrest. 70 officers were assigned to the case, led by Detective Chief Inspector Brian Leonard. They door knocked houses in the area, distributed posters about the crime around town and set up a police caravan at the end of Cornfield Road where potential witnesses could provide information. They were particularly eager to speak to anyone who might have seen David Birkett on Saturday, February 3, 1990, and could help piece together a timeline of his movements. A travel agent who worked in Linthorpe village recognised David from one of the police posters and recalled that he had come into the travel agency at around 3 o' clock on Saturday afternoon. He had picked up a brochure for an upcoming trip to the United States that he was planning with his daughter. The travel agent knew David as he was a regular customer and noted nothing out of the ordinary about his behaviour. Later that evening at 5.20pm, a Linthorpe resident had been cycling down the laneway that ran alongside David's house when he noticed David sitting alone at his kitchen table. As David had failed to answer phone calls from around 6:30 on and Audrey Roberts visited the house at 7:50 to find the curtains drawn, police deduced that the murder must have been committed sometime between that last sighting of David and when Audrey stopped by. This was confirmed by a post mortem examination which found that David had died between six and seven o'clock on Saturday evening. DCI Brian Leonard told reporters. We can't rule out the possibility that the murderer may have been in the house when the neighbour called and might have left sometime later. So we would still like to appeal to witnesses. From Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon at 4pm, Cornfield Road was a quiet place and there was little reason to be in the area unless you lived there or were visiting someone who did. However, a Football game between Middlesbrough and Aston Villa had taken place that evening, and spectators were known to park their cars around the neighbourhood. An evening mass had also been held at the Holy Name of Mary Church, located at the top of Cornfield Road. Police appealed for anyone who might have parked or passed through the area to think back and remember if they had seen anything at all that could help with the investigation. It had been a very messy crime scene and whoever was responsible had likely been covered in blood. David's house was protected from the road by a high fence and large trees. It was also positioned in a slight curve, placing it just out of sight of the bowling club. While no one had seen anything suspicious on David's property, it was reported that a scruffily dressed man with long, straggly black hair had been seen in the Linthorpe area earlier that day asking for directions to Cornfield Road. At around the same time that David was spotted through his kitchen window, witnesses reported seeing two young men standing on the street outside his home. They were both white and aged around 18 to 20 years old. One was approximately 5 foot 9 with fair hair, and the other was around 5 foot 11 with longish dark hair. DCI Leonard appealed for the men to come forward, even if they had no information to share, to eliminate themselves from the inquiry. He also sought further information about two men who reportedly ran out onto the dark street in front of a car at around 7.20pm when emergency services operator Pauline Collins heard about David Burkett's murder, she recalled a strange phone call that she'd received on the night of Saturday, February 3rd. Pauline was just about to knock off work for the evening when a call had come through to 999. Just before 9pm, police said, an unidentified man, 26 Cornfield Road. He then hung up. The connection had been poor, but the man's voice came through clearly enough for Pauline to notice that he sounded odd. Most people who called 999 were obviously panicked and anxious, but this man sounded calm and steady. Pauline patched the call through to the police. As the man hadn't said which town he was calling from, the police asked Pauline to get a trace on the call. It came back as having been made from a payphone on the corner of Union street and Parliament Road in Central Middlesbrough, roughly 1.4 miles from David Birkert's home. Because the man hadn't provided any further information or mentioned any type of crime, the call had ultimately been brushed off as a hoax. It was only in the wake of David's murder that police realised its importance because the call was made no more than three hours after David had been killed and 12 hours before his body was discovered. They wondered if the caller knew the killer or perhaps he was the killer and had been trying to direct police to the crime. Officers went to the payphone on Union street and conducted a forensic examination, but found nothing of use to the investigation. They appealed for the caller or anyone else who had been in the vicinity of the payphone at the time of the call to come forward. David's eldest son, Simon, also made an emotional plea for the caller to phone again. DCI Leonard told reporters, I am convinced now that the caller has knowledge of the murder and knows the identity of the killer. We have not ruled out the possibility that he may have even been the killer. I believe the man has a conscience and is shocked and disturbed by the brutality of this vicious killing. With no immediate suspects coming to light, police focused on three potential clues found at the crime scene. The first was a handwritten note found on David's hallway table, which appeared to have come from a 24 hour motorcycle courier service called Demon Dispatches. Mr. Burkett, it read, a dispatch rider called today with a parcel phone the above number as soon as possible to arrange a convenient time for delivery. David often received parcels from courier services, so there was nothing overtly unusual about this note. However, police considered the possibility that someone could have used this as a guise to lure David to his front door before launching an attack. The phone number on the dispatch note wasn't connected to an office but to the payphone on Union street where the 999 call had been placed on the night of David's murder. Police were unable to determine whether or not David had called the number, but their theory gained traction when they discovered a motorcycle tire track in David's driveway. Furthermore, they looked into Demon Dispatches and discovered that the company had actually ceased operations two years prior. Investigators tracked down the company's former director, a man named Alan Thompson. Alan couldn't shed any light on the situation, but he willingly handed over all of the company's old files, including employment records and delivery receipts. All up. Demon dispatchers had 49 former employees on its books. Police were able to track down about half of them with relative ease. It turned out that only one of them had used a motorcycle for their deliveries, and it just so happened that he lived less than a five minute walk from David Birkett's home. Police paid a visit to the man, whose name was Jim Lee, asked for his whereabouts on Saturday, February 3rd. Lee said he couldn't recall. A recording of his voice was sent to a local expert to be analysed against the 999 call made on the night of David's murder. They determined it wasn't the same person. Lee also provided a handwriting sample which was compared to the note pretending to be from Demon Dispatches. That wasn't a match either. Jim Lee eventually provided an alibi which was checked out and confirmed by police, putting them back at square one. Their next step was to sort through all of Demon Dispatch's delivery receipts, of which There were about 250,000. They were on the lookout for anything that had been sent to David Birkett's home and the name of the courier who delivered it. The police believed that David's murder hadn't been random after all, but a targeted and carefully orchestrated attack. They just had to figure out who would want to hurt him and why. After two arduous weeks, they finished sorting through the receipts, but didn't find a single record that led them back to David or to Cornfield Road. Alan Thompson, the former director of Demon Dispatches, also recalled that his house had been broken into about a year before David Birkett's murder and some papers featuring the company's letterhead were stolen. It was therefore possible that the killer wasn't connected to the company in any way, but perhaps had a history of breaking and entering. The note was sent to a handwriting expert who determined that the author was right handed and hadn't tried to mask their natural handwriting. They noted distinct characteristics to the letters B, P and D, which could be helpful to compare against any further samples. The second clue found at the scene of David Birkett's murder was a white plastic bag that was lying in the hallway not far from his body. David's cleaner said she'd never seen the bag in the house before, leading police to believe that the killer had brought it with him. It had come from a Co Op supermarket and was marked with a distinctive red and blue print advertising a tea promotion. Police made inquiries with the supermarket chain and discovered that the bag had been distributed by all stores in the region two years prior. With multiple outlets, there was no way of determining which location it had come from, but there was no doubt about its significance. Bloodstains on the outside of the bag, coupled with small tears at the bottom, indicated that the killer might have used it to conceal the murder weapon during the attack. Its handles were also stretched, as though they'd been wrapped around something. Police appealed to anyone who recognised the bag or had noticed a similar one missing from their home to come forward. While the bag itself was sent for forensic analysis, scientists conducted numerous experiments by placing a hammer inside a similar plastic bag and wrapping the top of the bag around the handle of the hammer before using it to bash a test object. When using a cross peen hammer, one with a wedged shape blade that runs perpendicular to the handle, the bag tore in exactly the same way as the co op bag found in David's house. They then tested the cross peen hammer against damage to a patch of carpet at the crime scene which had a semicircle shaped cut on was a perfect match. Because the co op bag was made of plastic, it couldn't be tested for fingerprints using the standard powdering technique. Instead, forensic scientists used an advanced method that required the bag to be placed inside a heated cabinet along with a container of superglue. If any fingerprints were present, the fumes from the glue would create white chalky deposits along their ridges which would then become visible after the bag was placed in a tub of yellow dye. The scientists completed this process and then placed the bag inside a special machine that acted as a high energy light source. They viewed the bag through a series of filters that aimed to highlight any fingerprint ridges present near the handle of the bag. There it was, a partial right hand thumbprint. Although this was a solid lead, the plastic bag could have changed hands many times over the years and police couldn't be sure that the print had come from the killer. They sent it off to be checked while turning their focus to the third and final clue. Casefile will be back shortly. 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You can find Little Belly's snacks at your local retailer and join the naming fun@littlebellys.com Monster Little Bellies do what's Natural thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to deliver quality content. The two pieces of thin green cord that had been tied around David Burkett's arms didn't appear to have come from inside his home. This not only suggested that the killer had brought the cord with him, but that he also knew a thing or two about forensic procedures. The assailant had used the cord to drag David down the hallway, presumably to avoid touching him, and transferring any identifiable fibres in the process. If police could identify where the cord came from, it could put them one step closer to finding the killer. The problem was, they couldn't even be sure what type of cord it was. Upon initial inspection, it looked as though it could have come from an item of sportswear, such as a snow jacket or something similar. Enquiries were made with numerous sports stores, but no one recognised the cord. Police sought help from various rope and cord manufacturers, making enquiries with companies as far away as Pakistan. But nothing brought them any closer to locating the green cord's origin. Meanwhile, checking the partial thumbprint found on the plastic bag was proving to be a slow and painstaking process. Back in 1990, there was no national fingerprint database, with searches only done regionally and by hand. The job was assigned to a senior fingerprint expert named Judith Kirby. She spent the first two weeks of the investigation manually comparing the partial thumbprint to the 20,000 files of active criminals in Middlesbrough. There were no matches. Her next task was to compare the print to every criminal file in England's North east. There were about 300,000 all up, and it could take Judith months with no guarantee of an outcome. Police were growing frustrated with the lack of progress in the investigation. It took three weeks alone just to conclude their meticulous search of the crime scene, during which family members realised that something else was missing from David's house after all. In one of his back bedrooms, he'd kept an ancient skull. It had come from a monk who had been beaten to death several hundred years prior to and David used it when conducting lectures on the study of ancient man. The skull was no longer there. David's son Simon, provided a sketch of the skull that he'd drawn years earlier for a school assignment. Interestingly enough, the injuries the monk had sustained bore some resemblance to David's head injuries. Police wondered whether there was any significance to this or if it was merely a coincidence. While it was possible that David's killer had taken the skull, it was just as possible that David had lent it to a colleague or one of his pupils. Police initially withheld the details about the skull from the public, while appealing for people to be on the lookout for David's missing fob watch or wallet. They said the wallet would likely have been discarded under a bush or in a bin. While the watch might have made its way to a jewellery store or second Hand dealer. David's funeral was held in his hometown and more than 250 mourners attended to pay their respects. The service was led by a reverend who'd known David personally and commended his humbleness. He told those gathered, David wasn't one to talk about himself. He didn't speak about his profession or his achievements. One thing he did talk about was taking part in the London Marathon, which he ran and finished and raised money for his favourite charity. It was worth more to him than any of his medical qualifications. Police who attended the funeral became more eager than ever to make an arrest. DCI Leonard told reporters, someone knows the killer and is shielding him. It may be a wife, mother, girlfriend, relative or friend. He may have spoken to them about what happened. He was bound to have had bloodstained clothing and they may have washed the clothes. He would have been in a very shaken and shocked condition when he came home. I would urge them to contact me. With 100 officers still working the case, the investigation was bogged down as letters trickled in from people claiming to be responsible for David's murder. The inaccurate details they provided proved these confessions were false, but it was a waste of valuable police time and resources. Nonetheless, DCI Leonard and his team were disgusted. From the outset of the investigation, they'd been disappointed by what they felt was a general lack of concern from the public. Despite their extensive public enquiries, they realised that people weren't coming forward with information that later came to light through different means. The head of the county's criminal investigation department told reporters, the death of any human being other than by natural causes should be of great concern to us. Detectives investigating these offences often come to the conclusion that very few people care. Using David Birkett's murder as an example, he said, when Detective Chief Inspector Leonard appeals for anyone who was in the vicinity of Cornfield Road at a particular time, he means everyone. Many people conclude that because they cannot recall anything from, say, driving down Cornfield Road, they have nothing to offer that is totally wrong. It is important to identify every person who was in the vicinity of the scene between the material times, because one thing is certain. Dr. Birkett's killer was there. Appealing to the public directly, he said, when you read, see or hear on television a policeman asking for help in an investigation of a serious crime, please take notice. He is talking to you. He isn't Taggart or Bergerac or Sherlock Holmes. He is working for you. And with your help, he can be successful. By March, almost a month had passed since David Birkett's death and police still hadn't identified a prime suspect. Then they received a call from a local man. Ray Benson. Not his real name. Ray had cast his mind back to the night of Saturday, February 3, and recalled that he'd been waiting for a bus on the corner of Union street and Parliament road. At about 9pm, he'd glanced over at the nearby payphone and noticed that an agitated man was loitering around it. The man walked up to the phone a couple of times and picked up the receiver before hanging it up. Without making a call, he walked across the street and stood in the doorway of a betting shop, muttering to himself before crossing back over to the payphone. This time he picked up the receiver and placed a call before walking off down Parliament Road. For the police, this was a significant breakthrough. The timing of Ray's reported sighting matched perfectly with the suspicious call made to 999 on the night of David Birkett's murder. Ray was also able to provide a clear description of the man. He was white, between the ages of 35 and 45 and 6ft tall, with a medium build. He had a round face with a high forehead and short sandy coloured hair that was receding at the sides. A sketch of the man was drawn and distributed with DCI Leonard telling reporters, he may be our man, but if not, we want to eliminate him from our inquiries. Around 30 people called in to report the names of individuals they believed matched the sketch. But all of these leads went nowhere. Then an envelope arrived at the police station addressed to Detective Chief Inspector Brian Leonard and marked as urgent. The envelope contained a slightly disjointed and fragmented letter that had been neatly written using a stencil. Hello, chums. Pig shit. Leonard, you have me wrong. I have no conscience. Smashing his head in gave me a buzz. Better than smack. Could get addicted to it. If I did, you'd soon know. Believe me, this is no wind up. I done the business on his head. He was a skin expert, eh? When I'd finished, he didn't have much skin. Not on his head anyway. That was a little test I set myself. Passed with flying colours, wouldn't you say? I'm writing this cause you won't get any nearer to me to talk and walk away. Know what I've done? I'm facing life. Who gives a shit? Not me. Letting you know I've nowt to lose. No, the way I like it. Tread carefully, pig and Joe Public get too warm and you burn. Phoned the pigs for fun so I could laugh at you. Know your every move, pig. You're barking up the wrong tree. With theft, more like fun. Do I sicken you, pig? You ain't seen nothing yet. At the bottom of the letter, the writer had stopped using the stencil and had written in regular handwriting the words, one has to live by the chosen way or not at all. This was followed by what looked like a Japanese symbol and the words death is release. The second page of the letter was also handwritten and contained what appeared to be a poem. It read in if my karma is to conquer, I shall conquer. If my karma is to be conquered, I shall be conquered. What difference does it make? Heaven and earth are my parents. Psychotandom is my home. Stoicism is my body. Flash of lightning my eyes. I can throw my life away at an instant. Can you? While the police had already received their fair share of bogus letters in relation to David Birkett's murder, this one was different. The others had all been filled with obvious falsities and incorrect details. But this one contained something that made investigators freeze in their tracks. In the stencilled portion of the letter, the author had written, who else would know about the hamster cage in the back bedroom? During the search of David's home, the police had indeed found an empty hamster cage in the back bedroom. The hamster belonged to David's daughter, Laura. She explained that the hamster had been eating things in her room, so David had moved it into the back room. This had happened just a few days before he was killed, either on the Thursday or the Friday. The only people who knew about it were David, Laura and David's house cleaner. The police had never released this detail to the public, meaning that whoever wrote the letter had to have been in the house around the time that David died. The letter provoked mixed reactions for investigators. On the plus side, they now had a solid clue as well as something to compare to the handwriting from the demon dispatcher's note. But the letter also confirmed what they'd feared all along. That the killer was a dangerous, sadistic man who had targeted David with no logical motive and that he intended to to strike again. The letter was analysed by a forensic psychologist who concluded that David's killer likely felt powerless in his day to day life. He might have been abused or rejected and fantasising about violence was a way for him to escape. Acting on that violence had restored a sense of power for him and that feeling became addictive. The forensic psychologist had seen similar traits in serial killers and he believed there was a high chance that the killer would strike again if not caught. The fact that the killer had singled out Detective Chief Inspector Brian Leonard specifically, coupled with his clear hatred of police, sparked fears that the detective could be his next target. DCI Leonard was on edge. He had a family of his own and worried about their safety. He began checking outside his house at night to make sure nobody was there, while keeping his fears to himself so that his family didn't worry. Not wanting to take any chances, DCI Leonard decided that anyone who was arrested in Middlesbrough from that point on would have their fingerprint compared to the one found on the plastic bag in David Birkett's home, regardless of the crime they were being arrested for. Police also expanded their search country wide. Because David Birkett had attended conferences all over England, a questionnaire was created and sent out to hundreds of his business associates. Investigators hoped that one of them might know something about his lifestyle or provide some kind of clue that could propel the investigation forward. By early May, leads continued to crop up locally, but the police still hadn't identified any prime suspects. Wanting to draw national attention to the case, they sought help from BBC's Crime Watch, a television program that produced reconstructions of unsolved crimes in the hopes of generating leads from the public. An episode about David Birkett's murder aired on Thursday, May 10, 1990, with a focus on key aspects of the case, including the stolen skull, the plastic bag, the strange man seen at the phone box and the partially stencilled letter. DCI Leonard believed there was a high possibility that the killer would call into the program. He told viewers it would appear the letter was written by an intelligent person who possibly has some knowledge of both the murder of Dr. Birkett and also the house where he lived. I am anxious to speak to anyone who can give me information about the anonymous letter. The host looked directly into the camera and said, remember, this killing is a very brutal and very weird one, and the killer might strike again. Please help if you can. The segment generated roughly 50 leads, with several people calling in to say they recognised the poetry in the letter. It was from the Miko, a novel by American author Erich Van Lustbader that told a tale of revenge and deadly games amongst Japan's samurai. As police followed up these new lines of inquiry, fingerprint expert Judith Kirby continued the painstaking job of comparing the partial thumbprint against every print on record, as well as those of recent arrestees. After 18 fruitless weeks, Judith went on leave. Her colleague John Bainbridge took over the task. In her absence. John was in his first day of the laborious job when he came upon the file of a man who had recently been arrested in Middlesbrough for the suspected theft of a motorcycle. He had prior convictions too, having only recently been released from a youth correction facility after serving five years for robbery, wounding with intent, and a breach of probation. John compared the man's print to the one from David Birkett's murder. A there was no mistaking was a match. John felt conflicted. On one hand, he was over the moon to have finally made a major breakthrough in the case. On the other, he felt bad for Judith, later telling Crimewatch, after all this hard work, she had actually missed this moment, which comes once in a lifetime. Casefile will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors.