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- [00:00]
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- [01:01]
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- [01:38]
Hannah
I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti and welcome to Red Handed.
- [01:42]
Saruti
Where in an effort to remain ever in the zeitgeist, we have accidentally done that because we have had this episode in the running for quite a while now and script was written. We were ready to go record today and then but yesterday update on what feels like a past o case. Because it's in 2006 when this starts. But update, update, update. We're going to come to it later, but just so you know, this is bang relevant. So keep listening.
- [02:10]
Hannah
Don't say we don't pay attention, even if it's accidental. In December 2006, most residents of the very ordinary British town of Ipswich were working their way through their Christmas shopping. But deep within the shadows of the town's notorious red light area, one man was making his way through a far darker list a spree of vicious murders. Within a period of just 10 days, police discovered the naked bodies of five young sex workers who'd vanished whilst working those freezing streets they'd been asphyxiated and dumped. Their pale limbs posed like eerie snow angels. Their names were Tanya, Gemma, Annalee, Paula and Annette. There were daughters, mothers and sisters who would never come home for Christmas. And instead of goodwill, terror was in the air in Ipswich. Would the so called Suffolk Strangler strike again? And even more chillingly, was he hiding in plain sight among them?
- [03:18]
Saruti
But for the police, catching the culprit was only the beginning. The murders drew comparisons to the Yorkshire Ripper case, sparking a fierce debate about how our legal system protects or punishes society's most vulnerable. So in their wake, Suffolk police didn't just make a change, they ripped up the rule book, rolling out a radical new approach to policing prostitution that the UK had never seen before. And 20 years on, the Ipswich murders still force us to confront our own prejudices and moral fears. It's the story of five troubled, flawed, complicated women and how their deaths at the hands of a depraved killer changed things forever. And I have to say, you heard that right. He killed or they found. We're going to go on to talk about that. Five women in 10 days. That is unprecedented in Britain for speed of a spree killing like that.
- [04:18]
Hannah
To understand this story, we need to take you to where it all happened. Because unlike us, you may not have been there in person. At least on the outside. Ipswich is the sort of classic British market town, distinguished mainly by its bang averageness.
- [04:35]
Saruti
I've never been to Ipswich.
- [04:37]
Hannah
You don't need to. It could be anywhere. It's not exactly a chocolate box village, but it's not a big bad city either. Actually, most people who live there would tell you themselves that it's quite boring. It's got a handful of medieval streets, a few faded high street shops and a distinctly middling yet beloved football team, Ichwitztown fc. The club's ground at Portman Road might not have a trophy case bursting with silverware, but for years it did have.
- [05:06]
Saruti
Another dubious claim to fame. Its location was slap bang in the middle of the town's infamous red light area. Well, less red light and more wobbly fluorescent glow from the stadium's floodlights. But it was here, amongst a cluster of semi residential and industrial streets around the grounds, including nearby London Road and Hanford Road, that the notorious hotspots existed for women working the streets and for their curb crawling clients to come a shopping. In 2006, local police were aware of at least 30 women regularly working in the area, though as they'd later find out, the real number was far Higher. And just to clarify, in case it isn't already obvious, we're not talking about onlyfans pages or sugar baby escorts here.
- [05:59]
Hannah
The sex trade in Ipswich's red light area was raw, gritty and fuelled by desperation. Most of the women working there battled serious substance abuse issues, spending up to £500 a day on heroin, crack cocaine or other class as. And a lot of these women, most of these women turned to street prostitution to fund their addiction, charging as little as £15 a go.
- [06:22]
Saruti
Imagine how much you have to do if you have a 500 pounds a day habit and it's 15 pounds ago. Also 500 pounds a day in 2006.
- [06:32]
Hannah
A lot of drugs.
- [06:33]
Saruti
That's staggering.
- [06:36]
Hannah
Several of these women had quote unquote boyfriends, pimps, depending on who you asked, who were controlling and abusive. More often than not, these women weren't out on the streets for a laugh. They're not empowered, they're not doing it for themselves. They were surviving.
- [06:52]
Saruti
Yeah, barely. And the thing is, the working girls had to share those streets with people who didn't have much sympathy for their plight. By day, the so called red light zone was like any other residential area. There'd be kids playing, people hanging up their washing, little old ladies tending to their rose bushes, the usual, very, very ordinary. But after dark, the area's seedy reputation was starting to create serious tension. Residents complained of used condoms and needles chucked into their gardens, while men and women alike were regularly harassed for business just walking home. The police were aware of the problem, but were hamstrung by basically useless laws. All they could do under the old system was arrest the women for frequent street solicitation, whack them with a fine, but after they pay up, after a few nights, they just inevitably be back on the streets with no meaningful intervention to break the cycle.
- [07:49]
Hannah
And while there were genuine concerns about the women's safety, their fear of arrest meant any dangerous incidents would go largely unreported. By 2006, the community was split in two with no solutions on either side. Residents felt ignored and let down, blaming the scourge of drug addicted sex workers for their area's unjustly grim reputation, while the street workers themselves were left in a vulnerable spot with no real support. Ipswich wasn't unique. Countless other towns and cities across the UK had pockets where the same old scene was playing out. And I think I remember either after this sort of came to a close or during there was like a spate of documentaries made by, you know, Panorama or equivalent where they would show you these normal houses in normal towns, just full of women. But the tragic events of December 2006 would shine the spotlight firmly on Ipswich and force change at the very worst cost.
- [08:54]
Saruti
At the heart of our story today are five women. The first is 19 year old Tania Nicoll, who was the youngest to be killed. Raised on a council estate on the outskirts of Ipswich as a child, Tania was bright, popular and had an adventurous spirit. But when she left home at 16, she ended up at a local hostel where Tania tried heroin for the first time. It was a choice that would set her on a downward spiral and into a double life she kept secret from her family. Tanya lived at home with her mum, Kerry, who knew she had drug issues, but had no idea she'd resorted to sex work to feed her addiction. Kerry thought Tania worked at a hair salon or at a bar, but in reality, she'd been working at a massage parlour called Cleopatra's under the fake name Chantelle.
- [09:47]
Hannah
While Tanya reportedly told other sex workers that she wanted to kick the drugs, her dependency was worse than ever in late 2006. And she'd recently made the risky decision to start working the streets alone as a way of earning more cash also means you might not have to hand over as much. That's another reason a lot of women do that. And on the night of 30th October 2006, Tanya was seen on CCTV catching a bus into Ipswich's red light area in her best pair of sparkly pink heels, like a tragic Cinderella. But the clock struck 12 and Tanya never made it home. After her mum filed a missing persons report on 1 November, police made inquiries and quickly got the measure of Tanya's risky lifestyle. They weren't immediately suspicious of foul play, since it's sadly pretty common for street based sex workers, especially those with drug issues, to vanish for days at a time before popping up again.
- [10:44]
Saruti
But the more time that passed with no news of Tanya, the more the police started to fear the worst. And then two weeks later, on the 15th of November, a second woman was reported missing. 25 year old Gemma Adams. Gemma was from a middle class family in the small town of Kesgrove, just outside of Ipswich. And she didn't fit the stereotypical profile of how most people would imagine a sex worker. She loved horse riding and played the piano as a child and was popular at school. But in her teens, Gemma had drifted into a bad crowd and started taking drugs, developing a crippling addiction to heroin that consumed her life. She lost her job at the insurance firm she worked at, lost contact with her family and spiraled into a life of addiction and prostitution. And she actually met Tania as their paths crossed on the streets. Gemma's boyfriend of 10 years, a man named John Simpson, was the only constant in her life, though not officially her pimp. John was like Gemma's shadow, often hanging around to assess clients and picking her up when she was finished working. Their relationship, needless to say, was messy, codependent and fueled by love and drugs.
- [12:02]
Hannah
What is an official pimp? Is my question. Is there a contract?
- [12:06]
Saruti
I don't know.
- [12:06]
Hannah
RHR involved.
- [12:08]
Saruti
I think there's some pushback from him that he was, like, taking the money or abusing her or forcing her to do it. He's just like, I was helping her, I was looking after her. I was making sure the clients were.
- [12:19]
Hannah
Legit and happily taking the drugs that she brought back. Yes, I see.
- [12:22]
Saruti
Quite. Both reportedly wanted to get clean, but were struggling to break the cycle. John reported Gemma as missing just a few hours after dropping her off for a shift on the streets. When she failed to answer his calls, he knew something was wrong. Gemma never went anywhere without contacting John. And with one girl already missing, her disappearance stood out to the police.
- [12:46]
Hannah
Unsure if the cases were even connected, Suffolk police amped up their efforts to make inquiries into both Tanya and Gemma's disappearances. They distributed over 20,000 missing leaflets and interviewed about 700 people linked to both girls, with no answers until two weeks later, when a horrifying discovery changed everything. On the morning of 2 December, a water bailiff named Trevor Saunders started his beat along the Belsteed Brook in Hintlesham, which is a village outside Ipswich. In case you didn't know, a water bailiff is like a river policeman and his job is to check that people aren't fishing illegally or getting up to any aquatic mischief. So there Trevor is just doing his job, which is not minding his business. His job is the opposite of minding his business.
- [13:40]
Saruti
But this is going to be the most shocking, and it sounds gross to say, but maybe most exciting day of his career as a water bailiff because.
- [13:47]
Hannah
He spotted what he thought was a mannequin floating in the weeds. I remember this being reported on the news. I was stood in the kitchen. It's good memory, you know, It's a curse. I can't forget anything, never get over anything. It's like everything just ever happened and every argument I've ever had is like it was yesterday.
- [14:06]
Saruti
Sounds relaxing.
- [14:08]
Hannah
It's unbearable. Anyway, it was not a mannequin. Just like it wasn't in Oakland, it wasn't in Ipswich either. And it wasn't until Trevor waded right up to it that he realized what he was actually looking at. The body of a naked young woman. Decomposition from being submerged in water made it difficult, but the body was eventually IDed as that of Gemma Adams. The discovery of Gemma's remains prompted the police to send out divers to search the rest of the brook, and six days later Tanya Nicholls naked body was found dumped further down the stream in the village of Copdoc, which is south of Ipswich. Both women had been manually strangled with no other trauma marks on their bodies. Tania had been submerged in water for over a month and Gemma for a fortnight, so any traces of DNA evidence had frustratingly degraded away. Suffolk police, which happens to be one of the smallest forces in the whole kingdom, we're left grappling with the very real possibility that there was a serial killer on the loose and they had no idea who or where that might be.
- [15:32]
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- [16:39]
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- [17:25]
Hannah
Time is valuable.
- [17:26]
Advertiser 2
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- [17:32]
Saruti
Bring us your plans and we'll generate.
- [17:34]
Advertiser 2
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- [17:57]
Saruti
The community and the police barely had any time to process these two grisly discoveries because just two days after Tania was found, police uncovered yet another young woman. But this one was different. Unlike Tanya and Gemma, who had been submerged in water, this victim was laid out in the woodland just outside the village of Nagton, which is to Ipswich's southeast. Her pale, naked corpse glowed pristinely against the dirt as though she'd been cleaned. Her arms were outstretched in a cruciform position and her bleach blonde hair had been fanned out in a conical shape behind her head like some kind of twisted halo. She'd been deliberately posed. The killer had clearly spent time arranging the scene, almost as if he was taunting the police and the victim. She wasn't even on the police's radar yet. Her name was Annalee Alderton, a 24 year old woman who'd previously been a sex worker in Ipswich's red light area and she had a close relationship with Gemma Adams, the second victim. Like Gemma, Annelie came from a middle class background and had done well at school, spending several years in Cyprus as a child and even speaking fluent Greek. But after her dad's death from cancer when she was a teenager, Anna Lee went off the rails. She turned to drugs to numb the pain, serving several stints in prison for theft and selling her body on the streets of Ipswich to make ends meet.
- [19:40]
Hannah
Over the last few months, Annelies family had hoped that she was turning her life around. She'd managed to stay clean for longer than she ever had before and was talking about starting her own mobile hairdressing business. But the news of her friend Gemma's disappearance hit Annalee hard. After visiting her mum's house to drop off Christmas presents for her little boy. She was last seen alive on the night of the 3rd of December, traveling on a train to Ipswich. Annelie can be seen on CCTV checking out her reflection in the doors and zhuzhing up her freshly bleached hair, which her brother believes was a sign that she'd relapsed. Since blonde Annelie was known to be chaotic and make reckless decisions, nobody had reported Annerley missing. She told her mum that she was staying with her boyfriend in Colchester while he assumed that she was still with her mum and her son. Later, it tragically emerged that Annerley was three months pregnant at the time of her death.
- [20:45]
Saruti
By now, the fears of a serial murderer on the prowl were pretty much confirmed. Though, to be honest, the rate at which he is killing his victims, I think he's better characterized as a spree killer. Yeah, he's described everywhere as a serial killer. But with spree killers, you see that they typically murder their victims in days or with just hours between victims, while serial killers usually wait weeks, months, sometimes even years between kills. And in true spree killer style, the discovery of the bodies and the mounting police pressure and media attention did nothing to slow him down. Again, with serial killers, we typically tend to see that if a body is discovered, they feed off that for a while and then they move on to the next. There's longer cooling off periods between kills. Don't see that here. This is happening in very, very rapid succession, or it's like the point at which a serial killer has started to completely dysregulate and go into, like, spiral mode towards the end, which is when they typically get captured. So, just to put this into perspective, Gemma's body was found on 2 December, and Annalee had vanished the very next day. So the story was, of course, now on national news and all eyes were on Ipswich's red light area. While this media storm was raging, the local drugs outreach program, iCene, received a charitable grant that enabled them to literally pay the sex workers who were on the streets to stay home. And this is remarkable. Its leader, Brian Tobin, later said that he would have handed out drugs if the law had allowed it. He knew how desperate the women were to get their next fix and how, for those in the deepest throes of addiction, a meager allowance of just giving them some money wouldn't cut it. As one surviving sex worker named Paige later said of her and her friends who died, quote, if all those girls had a choice between food and heroin, they Would choose the drug every time. So even with a killer on the loose and three dead women already having been found, and despite the monetary handouts that were being given, A handful of sex workers still took the risk. They stepped out onto the streets knowing that it could very well be their last shift.
- [23:05]
Hannah
In 2006, I would have been 16. I think this is all like flooding back to me. I think this is the moment that I started to understand what sex work actually is and how dangerous it is and the risks that women were taking. I had no actual understanding of it until this happened. One of the women who went out that night was 24 year old Paula Clinal. Paula's story was all too similar to that of the other victims. A mischievous, fun loving childhood that was derailed by addiction. Shelving her dreams of becoming a model and pushing her out onto the streets. Paula had three children, all of whom had been taken from her and placed in care. In one of the most chilling elements of this whole story, Paula was actually interviewed on a local news channel Less than a week before she vanished. She spoke about why she kept going out at night, despite the risks. Paula admitted that she was frightened. But she said that she couldn't stop because she had to maintain her 500 pound a day heroin habit.
- [24:15]
Saruti
I mean, how much heroin is that?
- [24:17]
Hannah
That's a lot of heroin.
- [24:18]
Saruti
I just. I can't. I can't even like, I have no idea. I have no idea. Like in 2006, how much fucking heroin does £500 a day? A day? That is a staggering amount of money. Like just unbelievable to me. I cannot get my head around it. 500 pound a month, maybe 500 pounds a day.
- [24:42]
Hannah
I mean, I don't know what heroin was going for by the gram in 2006 or now.
- [24:48]
Saruti
I have so many questions, but we need like some sort of drug expert here. Because I'm just like, how much heroin does a person need to be high for 24 hours?
- [24:56]
Hannah
I think famously, it doesn't last that long.
- [24:58]
Saruti
Oh, does it not? Okay.
- [24:59]
Hannah
That's why you have to keep chasing it. And this television interview was a eerie omen. Because on 12 December, just two days after Anneliese's body was found, Another grim discovery was made. A fourth woman had been dumped in woodland near Levington, southeast of Ipswich, Less than a mile from where Annelie was found. She was only a few yards away from the old Felixstowe Road, A major route between Ipswich and the port town of Felixstowe. And that woman was Paula. She'd last Spoken to a friend on 10th December, reassuring her that she'd be careful whilst out working. Claiming she'd carry a pair of scissors for protection. Paula promised that she wouldn't get into anyone's car and she would instead stick to the familiar streets around the red light area. But that wasn't enough to save her life.
- [25:54]
Saruti
And when investigators, after they found Paula, sent a drone up to survey the area, they got a disturbing shock because less than 150 yards away, the camera picked up the haunting image of another pale white body outstretched on the sodden leaves. It was Annette Nicholls, a 29 year old mum of one who also worked Ipswicher Streets. Annette knew all of the victims and was kind of like a mother figure to the other girls. Fellow sex worker Jade Reynolds called her the most gentle, loving, best person I think I've ever met in my life. While Annette had trained to become a beauty therapist, she had again, like the other women, become addicted to heroin virtually overnight. And it turned her life upside down. Is it true that just using heroin once is enough to addict most people? Yeah, that's fucking terrifying. And much like Annalee Alderton's body, Annette's remains were also found arranged in a cruciform pose. Police theorized that since she was reported missing on 8 December, Annette was likely killed before Paula Clennell. And this possibly explained why Paula, the now supposed final victim, was found dumped in a haphazard position rather than being carefully posed like Annelie and Annette. With the investigation now ramping up, had the killer finally started to feel rushed or under pressure? For now, the discoveries at Levington signalled the end of a six week killing spree that had begun with Tania Nicoll and ended with Paula Clernau. And as I said at the top, this was truly, truly unprecedented in Britain. Like our police forces had never seen anything like this. The speed of which the victims were turning up, it was unbelievable. And like you said, Suffolk Police, one of the smallest police forces in the country, they were completely in over their heads.
- [27:58]
Hannah
I think that apart from my brain being broken, I think that's why I remember it so vividly is because it really was night after night after night, it would be happening again and again and again and everyone was just transfixed by it because we had quite literally never had anything like it.
- [28:12]
Saruti
And it's really easy to feel like when you hear how quickly the bodies were turning up that this is such an old case. It feels reminiscent of something that would be happening in like the 70s or 80s or something like that. This was happening in 2006. Like, it blows your mind. And it.
- [28:28]
Hannah
We are quite old, though.
- [28:29]
Saruti
We are quite old. The youth listening are like, 2006, you're such an unk.
- [28:38]
Hannah
The investigation into these murders was codenamed Operation Sumac, and as Saroo said, it was totally unlike anything the Suffolk police had ever seen. And because they were so teeny weeny, they accepted help from 40 other UK forces. And rather than struggling for leads, as so often happens with media heavy cases, detectives faced the opposite problem. Within days, the tip hotline received more than 5,000 calls from the public, roughly one every 10 seconds, and over a thousand emails.
- [29:16]
Saruti
Yeah, because everyone's just like, I think it's my neighbour, I think it's my fucking dog walker. I think it's this dodgy guy who looked at me in the pub. Like, everyone is going to be at such a, like, heightened sense of fear. And, you know, I said, like, I haven't been to Ipswich, but if it's anything like where I grew up, it's just like a place where you feel safe. It's just like a boring town, like in England, where nothing ever happens. And then suddenly five women turn up dead. No wonder everybody was in free fall. And I know, like, there was lots of, like, fears around hoaxes and things like that, but I genuinely think it was just people panicking.
- [29:49]
Hannah
Yeah. I mean, there's always going to be a couple, but I think overwhelming. I remember them telling you on the news not to go out at night.
- [29:55]
Saruti
Yeah.
- [29:57]
Hannah
And the sheer scale of the investigation and all the tips felt eerily reminiscent of how a deluge of information and crank calls very nearly derailed the Yorkshire Ripper investigation back in the 1980s.
- [30:10]
Saruti
We haven't covered that yet, but it is a very, very big case that we will, we will get to for sure.
- [30:17]
Hannah
Although, thankfully this time, we're in 2006 and investigators had a bit more modern technology on their side than the ones in the 80s had. However, in an eerie echo of the Yorkshire Ripper, Ipswich residents also put on a Reclaim the Night march to protest the police's initial advice for women to stay indoors after dark. Which is exactly the same thing they did in the 80s, but quickly rescinded that advice after they got some backlash. I can see both sides.
- [30:50]
Saruti
So can I. I'm just like, I get it. And I think this isn't a case where I'm gonna sit here and, like, berate the police. They honestly try do everything right. It's not like they waited for five bodies to turn up before they cared. They act pretty quickly. As soon as women start going missing, we'll talk about what they try to in the aftermath to stop this happening again. I think it was really commendable work. And yes, of course there's going to be a knee jerk reaction from people, especially, you know, women who are just living their lives being told, don't go out at night because there's a crazy killer on the loose. But also there is a crazy killer on the loose. I'm like, I don't want to fucking be outside.
- [31:28]
Hannah
And he is killing women, taking women at night.
- [31:30]
Saruti
Yeah. So it's really hard because I'm like, what are the police meant to say? Yeah, just go out and do what you want. Like, they have to catch this man.
- [31:37]
Hannah
Yeah.
- [31:37]
Saruti
It's not like they're like, boys will be boys, smoking a fucking cigarette, being like, whatever. Bitches stay in the kitchen. They're like, please stay at home so you don't get murdered. We're gonna try catch this man.
- [31:48]
Hannah
I can also see the flip side of women saying, well, we're not the fucking problem. Absolutely, I see both. Both sides of the coin.
- [31:57]
Saruti
So, yes, the race was most certainly on to catch this killer before he could strike again. And if you're looking at the rate at which he's killing, they know it could literally be any day. So Suffolk police brought in the big guns. They hired a man named Adrian west, who up until this point had been relatively unknown in, like, I remember Adrian west, the larger world. But he has been described by the observer as the most eminent criminal psychologist in Britain. They also called him a real life cracker, which to our American audience, they're not just, you know, being derogatory about the color of his skin.
- [32:35]
Hannah
That's what I remember. Real life cracker. I remember that headline.
- [32:38]
Saruti
I don't know if Cracker was ever a thing in the US but it was basically like a detective show.
- [32:43]
Hannah
I would bet big money that Cracker never crossed the point.
- [32:47]
Saruti
I don't think so.
- [32:48]
Hannah
I.
- [32:48]
Saruti
Pretty good. Not as good as Taggart, but, you know, not bad.
- [32:51]
Hannah
Not as good as Wire in the Blood.
- [32:53]
Saruti
That is top tier. If you haven't watched Wire in the Blood, what are you even doing listening to this show? So, yes, he is. He's all these things. They bring him in, he's their big hope to crack this case. Right? And they use Adrian to build a profile of their potential spree killer and to try and help untangle any common threads between the victims. Because as we've said, Again and again, these sort of anonymous serial spree killing type crimes are the hardest to crack because, like, it's just a guy killing people at random. Like, what is the thing that's going to connect them?
- [33:26]
Hannah
Well, you need a cracker. You need a real life cracker.
- [33:28]
Saruti
Get him. He's Adrian West. So they quickly realize, obviously, all of the things that we just told you guys, that all of the women who had been killed had been struggling with some serious drug addiction issues, making them incredibly vulnerable and therefore easier to suck in and subdue. None of them had pimps with them on the nights that they were killed, and they were all working alone on the streets when they disappeared. Investigators theorized that the killer was likely a regular client that the women had already, you know, worked with, whatever the right phraseology is, a man that they already knew. Which would explain why even in the midst of a manhunt where five women have turned up dead, they were still willing to trust him, whoever he was. With these factors in mind, detectives narrowed down their suspect pool, interviewing men known to visit local sex workers, scouring CCTV footage and tracking number plates. It's like how your number plate got nicked. Who knows where it all turn up? How does number plate got nicked?
- [34:32]
Hannah
Sure did.
- [34:33]
Saruti
And now we are waiting on bated breath. See what crimes I've done, what crimes come rolling in. Josh, should we take a bet on what crimes might come rolling in?
- [34:42]
Hannah
Oh, okay.
- [34:43]
Saruti
So it got nicked outside your house. If I steal a license plate from outside a house in London, what type of crimes am I ready to commit? I think it's gonna be drugs.
- [34:55]
Hannah
I think. Yeah. I think it's gonna get snapped by a speed camera with a kilo of coke in the back.
- [35:00]
Saruti
Yep.
- [35:01]
Hannah
And then I'll go to prison where I belong, and Rose west will try and shag me. Oh, God.
- [35:09]
Saruti
Do you think we could still keep doing this show? If you were in prison, I'd fight to get you out. Ear Hustle took over the world from prison.
- [35:16]
Hannah
From prison.
- [35:17]
Saruti
Let's do it.
- [35:18]
Hannah
And there's always collect call with Shook Knight.
- [35:23]
Saruti
So we've got a plan is what you're saying. I can't wait. I'm excited. Let's see what happens.
- [35:27]
Hannah
That's all we needed to get the American numbers that we've been wanting. I just needed to get banged up.
- [35:34]
Saruti
For a crime you didn't commit so I could go on a mission of podcasting vengeance.
- [35:39]
Hannah
Do you know how many people would think that we set the whole thing up?
- [35:42]
Saruti
Give us too much. I'm tired.
- [35:45]
Hannah
This one goes all the way to the top.
- [35:49]
Saruti
Before you know, it will be an Epstein Files.
- [35:55]
Advertiser 2
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- [38:57]
Hannah
Time for some good news. The killer's ultimate downfall did come in just three tiny weeny letters that stand for a really, really fucking long word. Yeah. That nobody knows how to say and I'm not gonna DNA.
- [39:14]
Saruti
Bang.
- [39:15]
Hannah
The three final victims, Annalee, Annette and Paula, were found on land rather than in water, which made it possible to process their bodies forensically for evidence. Despite torrential downpours at the time, traces of semen miraculously remained.
- [39:35]
Saruti
What are you thinking in 2006 leaving your semen behind?
- [39:40]
Hannah
He'd already got away with it twice. Investigators ran this semen profile. Is that what we're gonna say?
- [39:48]
Saruti
Yeah.
- [39:49]
Hannah
Well, whatever it is, they ran it through the national database and they got a match. A file popped up belonging to a 48 year old forklift truck operator who had given a DNA sample years earlier after being arrested for stealing from his boss. His name was Steve Wright. He lived at 79 London Road, right in the heart of the red light area. Suddenly, everything fell into place. Wright was arrested on 19 December 2006. Responding, no comment for over eight hours of questioning.
- [40:27]
Saruti
Oh God. The stamina that requires. But when you are arrested, do do that.
- [40:35]
Hannah
Okay, when they take me in for my kilo of coke, that's what I'm doing. Eventually realizing that the DNA evidence was airtight, Steve Wright admitted to picking up and sleeping with four of the victims, all except for Tanya Niccol. But he continued to insist that he had nothing to do with their deaths. And this is the tricky thing when it comes to the murder of sex workers because technically the presence of Steve Wright's seaman does only prove that he had sex with them. Doesn't necessarily prove that you killed them or was anywhere near them when they died. But the police were sure that they had their man. They just had to prove it. And to do so, they would need to pull out all of the forensic stops.
- [41:24]
Saruti
Investigators tore apart Steve Wright's house and car, hunting for any trace that could link him to the girls. And that's where cutting edge new testing techniques had their moment to shine. Because even though Tanya and Gemma's bodies had spent weeks submerged in water, forensic investigators managed to find microscopic black nylon fibres in their hair. That was a match, or at least consistent, because that's kind of the best you can say with the floor mats in Steve Wright's car. And as for the semen found on the other three victims, police built a convincing case to prove that it didn't exactly point to consensual sex. The proof was in a pair of garden gloves found in Wright's home that were stained with his semen inside and out, as well as traces of both Annette and Annerley's DNA. This seemed to indicate that he'd worn them to handle the girls bodies, which isn't exactly standard sex practice, even for the biggest germaphobes out there. Even more damning tiny specks of Paula and Annette's blood was found on Steve Wright's high vis work jacket and in the back of his car. And so, on the 21st of December 2006, Steve Wright was charged with all five murders.
- [42:55]
Hannah
So who was the man behind this brutal spree? On the surface, Steve Wright was an unassuming, average guy, balding, slightly overweight, in his late 40s, your classic Curb crawler, who would pick up sex workers and then go home to his wife and a pint before bed. He'd only moved to London Road with his girlfriend at the start of October, but police would learn that his involvement with sex workers in the area stretched back years. He was known to the Ipswich girls as a quiet, nervous, slightly perverted guy who sometimes even let them use his flat for punters if his girlfriend was out.
- [43:37]
Saruti
That's very weird. That's. Are we pretending he didn't have some sort of camera set up in there or something?
- [43:45]
Hannah
Yes. I feel like it could also be a ploy to make them really trust him.
- [43:51]
Saruti
Yeah, yeah. Simping rather than pimpin'.
- [43:55]
Hannah
You're going to prison now.
- [43:56]
Saruti
With you.
- [43:57]
Hannah
See you in there. That's what our podcast is called.
- [44:02]
Saruti
Patent pending.
- [44:05]
Hannah
But whatever he was doing, beneath his ordinary facade lay a lifetime of emotional instability, failed relationships and simmering resentments against swimming. Why are you laughing?
- [44:15]
Saruti
Much Simping, not pimpin'.
- [44:21]
Hannah
I'll stop. We'll make it in the prison sweatshop. Like in Orange Is the New Black, when they start making knickers.
- [44:27]
Saruti
Perfect. We've got a whole plan, guys.
- [44:31]
Hannah
Wright's childhood was rocky. His parents split up when he was young. He spent much of his youth as an army brat in foreign postings like Malta and Singapore. He Left school at 16 with no qualifications, drifting through a series of jobs before joining the Merchant Navy as a chef. Sailing out of Felixstowe in Suffolk, he married young and had a son in 1978. But like everything else in Wright's life, that quickly crumbled thanks to his tendency for violence and gambling. Whilst working as a steward on the glamorous QE2 cruise liner in the mid-80s, he developed the habit of a lifetime dipping his toe into the sex tourism industry in port cities around the world. Former co workers say that Wright fancied himself as a bit of a ladies man, though he never seemed to be able to hold down a relationship for very long.
- [45:27]
Saruti
Back in the uk, Wright's life became a cycle of failed marriages, domestic violence, gambling, heavy drinking and oppression. His second marriage, branded a disaster by his ex wife Diane, collapsed after just a few months. With multiple neighbors witnessing him publicly throttling her during rows, Wright tried to embark on a career as a pub landlord.
- [45:51]
Hannah
Great. Yeah, fantastic.
- [45:52]
Saruti
Managing several bars in Norfolk and South London throughout the 90s. But he left a trail of broken relationships and burned bridges wherever he went. Wright had a daughter with another girlfriend, only for them to split while she was just a baby. Wright's heavy drinking and rising gambling debts got him sacked from several jobs, and he eventually declared bankruptcy in the late 90s and was convicted of theft in 2001 after getting caught with his hands in his boss's till. Maybe Steve Wright forgot that he'd given a DNA sample to process that arrest, because years later, that same little sample would prove to be his undoing. Wright attempted suicide twice, once in 1994 and again in 2000 after a brief liaison with a woman in Thailand who, according to his brother, scammed him for all he had. Wright's stepmom, Valerie, later reflected that girls really upset him. And when his partner Pamela started working nights in 2006, Wright returned to his habit of visiting sex workers on the streets of Ipswich. Only now he took things a step further, because now he started killing them.
- [47:11]
Hannah
Steve Wright's trial began in January 2008 and ran for six weeks. He pleaded not guilty to all five murders. There was no single smoking gun piece of evidence, rather a mountain of circumstantial proof that pointed to a Massive flashing arrow sign towards Wright. When confronted with the DNA evidence on the stand, he again admitted to having sex with four of the women, but shrugged that it wasn't exactly unusual given their profession. Unluckily for Wright, though, didn't stop at DNA. CCTV and number plate recognition technology tracked his car in and around the red light district on the nights the women vanished. And neighbors testified to hearing weird banging noises from his house late at night. Coinciding with the murders, the prosecution argued that Wright exploited his position as a familiar face to the sex workers, managing to lure them in even as fear gripped the streets. He supplied them with drugs to incapacitate them before overpowering, strangling and dumping them in the rural areas he knew well from his work in, in and around Ipswich. Throughout the trial, Wright was cold and impassive, not showing a drop of remorse.
- [48:31]
Saruti
And on 21 February 2008, after eight hours of deliberation, the jury of nine men and three women returned a unanimous verdict. Steve Wright was guilty on all five counts of murder.
- [48:45]
Hannah
Thank God. Love it when that happens.
- [48:48]
Saruti
Absolutely. And the judge, because we love this even more, sentenced him to a whole life order. Fucking good. That is a maximum possible prison term in the uk, meaning that he will never be released. Now, that wasn't much consolation, as happy as we might be about that for the grieving families of Tanya Nicholl, Gemma Adams, Annalee Alderton, Annette Nicholls and Paula Clennell. In a statement, the Nicholl family said the in no way has justice been done. Five young lives have been cruelly ended. The person responsible will be kept warm, nourished and protected. These crimes deserve the ultimate punishment.
- [49:31]
Hannah
With Steve Wright languishing behind bars, focus turned to why this had happened in the first place. Why did such an ordinary seeming man commit such a brutal string of killings over just a few months? We'll probably never hear it from his mouth. Wright has never once admitted his guilt or suggested any motive for his sick crimes. One possible clue can be found in a letter that Wright wrote from prison to his dad, where he claimed he kept his anger buried deep inside because he had seen too much anger and violence in his childhood to last a lifetime.
- [50:11]
Saruti
You didn't keep it buried that deep, mate.
- [50:14]
Hannah
And also so do loads of people that don't go around murdering women. Yeah, Wright did seem to be hinting at the fact that his fractured, formative years after his parents split were the reason for a lot of his emotional problems. But it just can't be the only reason. He murdered five Women?
- [50:32]
Saruti
No. I think what's far more likely is that Steve Wright had spent years stewing on repressed sexual fantasies and eventually something, some event, some moment triggered him to lash out on the vulnerable women that he considered to be at his disposal. I suspect that perhaps he became violent with a woman, realized that it turned him on and just kept going. We know that he was violent with his previous partners, but I think for him, maybe even he was able to recognise, if I kill my girlfriend, I'm gonna get caught pretty quickly.
- [51:06]
Hannah
Yeah.
- [51:08]
Saruti
And I think finally, maybe in this moment he had unlocked the key to his own sexual gratification. So he kept going again and again and again. What's unusual about him, as we've sort of spoken about, is the speed of his kilts, how, how many women he killed in such a short space of time. It seems like nothing except the kill itself could really serve Steve Wright's needs for other killers, particularly serial killers. The stalking, the victim selection, the luring of a victim, the kill, the aftermath, the memories, the trophies, all those things are part of a ritual which can help or, or do facilitate serial killers spacing out their victims. But clearly for Wright, nothing else compared and it cost five women their lives.
- [52:04]
Hannah
Back in Ipswich, the local community resolved to drag itself out of the ashes. Fed up of being known as the place where that guy killed the sex workers, long suffering residents formed a neighborhood watch group with the goal of a rebrand. They put on street parties, quiz nights and garden contests. And their efforts inspired a critically acclaimed national theatre show called London Road.
- [52:27]
Saruti
I've heard of that. I didn't know that's what it was about.
- [52:30]
Hannah
No, me either actually.
- [52:32]
Saruti
And it is. You have to feel so much for these people who are living there. They're just trying to live a fucking ordinary life. And they're like property prices and like the reputation of their street is just being cut off at the knees at every fucking turn. Whether it's the condoms in the bushes or the guy who's like fucking strangling women. It's a very sad story. But this theater show you're going to talk about, I had never watched it and I was shocked to hear what it was actually, how it was actually presented.
- [53:04]
Hannah
Because after London Road was on at the Nash, it was adapted into a star studded film in 2015 featuring the First lady of British television, Olivia Colman and Tom Hardy. And if you're picturing a gritty kitchen sink drama, you're kind of right. But it's also a musical.
- [53:26]
Saruti
Not what I thought was gonna happen here. It's bonkers.
- [53:30]
Hannah
No. Our patrons will know. I will defend musicals to the death. It pisses me off no end when people think that they're only saccharine and feathers and tap. However, I'm not gonna say it's quite Shannon Matthews, the Musical, but quite a lot of people were pretty, pretty icked out by the London Road musical. Olivia hasn't half managed to quash it though, has she?
- [53:56]
Saruti
I've never even heard of it.
- [53:59]
Hannah
I think the major problem with it is that it's kind of half singing, half talking, which is quite jarring. And the personal favorite letterboxd review we have found is this one and a half stars. The shit you endure because you're obsessed with Tom Hardy.
- [54:20]
Saruti
Oh, dear.
- [54:22]
Hannah
When is there gonna be a second season of Taboo?
- [54:24]
Saruti
I don't know, Tom. I don't know. And Chips. It was so good.
- [54:28]
Hannah
It's so good. Get it together, Tom. Call your dad. Get him to write another one.
- [54:31]
Saruti
Stop fucking wasting your time with London Road.
- [54:33]
Hannah
Yeah, go back to 2015 and sort yourself out.
- [54:40]
Advertiser 2
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- [55:44]
Saruti
But the problem was a few hanging baskets and jazz hands was never going to fix the deeper rooted issues at play in Ipswich. Because the truth was, the murders didn't reveal anything the authorities didn't already know about the serious problem of street based sex work in the red light area. As early as 2003, the murder of a sex worker named Cara Martin Brown had meant that the Safety of these vulnerable women was already sort of on the police's radar. Between then and 2006, there were several half arsed attempts to tackle the problem in the form of multidisciplinary panels full of experts giving their two pennies worth. But they could never actually agree on what needed to be done. Some pushed for tolerance zones, while others wanted harsher enforcement methods. So, surprise, surprise, they ended up in the middle, just doing nothing until 2006, when the murders delivered a brutal wake up call that things had to change.
- [56:48]
Hannah
Realising their dated and inconsistent strategies just weren't cutting it, Suffolk police made a bold commitment not just to change their approach to policing prostitution in Ipswich, but to eliminate street based sex work completely from the whole town. They based their decision on the inherent risks faced by the vast majority of the women working around London Road, including drug addiction and sexual exploitation. No other UK city had ever even attempted to do something like this, let alone pull it off. So how did they go about it? Well, in March 2007, they launched a joint agency strategic group composed of officers from local agencies including the council, police, NHS drug and alcohol teams, the probation service and housing associations. Their plan had two parts. Firstly, to target the men buying sex by rolling out widespread CCTV and ANPR technology. Within two years, 140 men were arrested and processed into the system for curb crawling. First time offenders were cautioned while repeat offenders were convicted. In court, Detective Superintendent Alan Katen said that the crackdown sent a clear message that buying sex on the streets would come with consequences.
- [58:11]
Saruti
The second and trickiest part of the strategy was to help women exit street sex work. This was no mean feat, because the task force quickly realised that the scope of the problem was far bigger than anyone thought. Police had guessed that there'd be a maximum of maybe 50 women in need of their help, but there were actually over 100 who'd worked on the Ipswich streets over the past five years. And for the scheme to work, officers needed to really engage with the women on a deeper level, something that they'd failed to do in the past. One sex worker named Jade Reynolds said, they started asking about our lives. For the first time.
- [58:55]
Hannah
Over 80 women went through the Make a Change outreach programme. Multi agency case conferences were held linking individual women with drug treatment, health services and whatever else they needed to turn their lives around. Housing was also a big priority since many lived with controlling partners and local homelessness services were majority male. They also had to guide them towards support for their neglected everyday needs, like seeing a dentist or reconnecting with their Children who'd been taken into care. It wasn't easy. Project manager Helen Hepburn said the most important element was stickability, which basically meant keeping in daily contact to make sure no one slipped through the cracks. It was a kind of police engagement strategy never seen before in the uk. And I think it's important to differentiate. So the concept of criminalizing the, for the sake of argument, man seeking a sex worker and essentially decriminalizing the work, but persecuting the purveyor. Is that the right word? No, no, the. The one who's looking for it.
- [60:00]
Saruti
Purchaser.
- [60:00]
Hannah
The purchaser, the man who wants to buy the sex. That's called the Swedish model. And it has problems because what that does is like most things, push it further underground and then the women are more at risk because they're trying to hide more. And also men who are willing to seek it out anyway are willing to do a lot more things. So the Swedish model isn't perfect. However, what they're doing here isn't just the Swedish model, they are supporting the women. And that is the big difference. Absolutely.
- [60:28]
Saruti
I think the key thing here is. Absolutely. We'll go on to talk about the Swedish Nordic model in this episode, but yeah, absolutely. The key thing here is the joined up approach. The list of agencies who are involved in this is an attempt to paper the cracks at every point in a person's life that could lead them back into sex work. And that is what I think is so well thought out and well done in this case.
- [60:53]
Hannah
I agree.
- [60:55]
Saruti
So now for the million pound question. Did it work? Short answer, yes. Police declared that the former red light area went from having around 50 regular sex workers plying their trade on the streets to zero. The task force reported that every single woman they worked with through the Make A Change programme had successfully exited street sex work, apart from one who moved to a different country. But let's not talk about her. Ten years on the force reported that there had been no reports of any women working on the streets. Along with zero arrest for curb crawling offences since 2008. The police were chuffed to bits with what they'd achieved, shouting from the rooftops about the overwhelming success of the so called Ipswich strategy. And yeah, it cost a lot. But a study by the University of East Anglia actually revealed that it was a cost effective program in the long run because for every pound one spent, they saved the public two pounds in projected legal and social care costs. It was living proof that investing in people was. Was worth it.
- [62:05]
Hannah
Of course there was the odd rumour Here and there over the years, that street based sex trade hadn't totally disappeared from Ipswich. Sky News claimed that in 2016, a few curb crawlers and working girls had been spotted in a new red light zone just a few streets away from London road. And in 2021, the BBC reported that prostitution had officially returned to ipswich with around 10 sex workers using those same old stomping grounds for business. That's nowhere near the level it was at in 2006, but it was still a concern. And this return could be chalked up to factors like recession triggered austerity, budget cuts and police generally taking their eye off the ball over the years. Following the BBC's report, the forces, Detective Superintendent Jane Topping announced that in 2022 they had quickly responded with targeted engagement strategies to reduce that number to just a couple of women. So overall, the red light has pretty much stayed off in Ipswich.
- [63:05]
Saruti
The strategies rolled out in Suffolk ended up looking a lot like what's known as the Nordic model of tackling prostitution. As Hannah talked about, that's the model that's been rolled out in Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Canada, France, Ireland and Israel. But it was the first time a British force had tried this method. And this approach decriminalises the selling of sex and deploys strategies to enable sex workers to safely exit the trade while cracking down on those who buy it. So, yeah, like we said, it tries to flip the script. Instead of punishing sex workers, it criminalises the clients and the pimps who exploit them. But it's not a perfect system and as Hannah's just talked about, it has its critics because it doesn't always solve the problem. No, this is the thing with all of these factors, it's so, so complicated, so, so complex that you're going to have unintended consequences and that is going to be that you're just going to push it further underground.
- [64:01]
Hannah
And the only reason that has been highlighted is because people have been talking to sex workers about it. Of course, it makes total sense. Obviously the women don't get in trouble and it's the man who are seeking it out that you could like. That makes logical sense until you speak to the women who will explain to you why that actually in some circumstances can make their lives more dangerous.
- [64:20]
Saruti
Yeah, but in Ipswich, the program they used genuinely seemed to work and it didn't stop there. Changes were also made to national policing policy here in the UK. The Policing and Crime Act 2009 adopted more Nordic inspired legislation with new curb crawling offences introduced to shift the focus from sellers to consumers, it also became a criminal offence to pay, or promise to pay any sex worker who has been subjected to exploitative conduct. By 2011, the association of Chief Police Officers revised the wording of its official guidance to reframe sex workers as victims rather than criminals. And while it may seem small, it all reflects a changing attitude towards how sex workers are perceived and therefore treated by the authorities.
- [65:09]
Hannah
So, before we finish this episode, let's go back to the culprit, Steve Wright. He was found guilty of the Ipswich Murders case and he was locked up for life. But that's not quite the end of the story. Steve wright was pushing 50 when he was caught, and research shows that most serial killers start murdering between the ages of 18 and 35. After analyzing the case, multiple criminal psychologists concluded that it was highly likely that Steve Wright had killed before. So following the Ipswich murders, police began digging into Wright's past for any links to cold cases. And quickly they hit upon some explosive leads. Remember Susie Lamphugh? Her case is one of the UK's most infamous unsolved mysteries. She vanished in 1986, leaving only an appointment to show a swanky London flat to a man known as Mr. Kipper. As it turned out, Susie worked with none other than Steve Wright on board the QE2. Could the Ipswich murders be the key to cracking one of London's oldest cold cases? Sadly, not this time. Police ultimately ruled outright, reiterating that the most likely suspect remains to be convicted murderer and rapist John Cannon.
- [66:39]
Saruti
But there are plenty of other unsolved cases where Wright hasn't yet been cleared. Like that of Jeanette Kempton, who disappeared in London back in 1989 and whose body was later found dumped in rural Suffolk. In 2019, an ex police officer named Wright as the most likely culprit for her murder. And a 2019 review of the case of Vicky Glass, a Teesside factory worker who was found strangled on the North York Moors in 2000, was unable to rule out Steve Wright. His name has been mentioned in multiple cold cases with similarities to the Ipswich murders. And as I said at the very start of this episode, we have got a very, very recent update that cast the Ipswich Murders in a whole new new light. Literally just a day before we recorded this episode, Steve Wright pleaded guilty to another previously unsolved murder, one that he had committed seven years before his vicious spree in Ipswich. Seventeen year old Victoria hall vanished in September 1999 on her way home from a night out in Felixstowe. She was abducted just yards away from her family. Home with her body discovered five days later in a ditch several miles away. In July 2021, police rearrested Wright, who was already serving his whole life order for the Ipswich case and they arrested him in connection to Victoria's murder as well as another unsuccessful kidnapping attempt that took place the night before her death. 22 year old Emily Doherty reported being approached and followed by a man between 3 and 4am but she thankfully managed to get to safety before anything could happen. Wright was officially charged in 2024 and the case went to trial in February 2026. Steve Wright initially pleaded not guilty, but in a shock turn of events, he changed his plea on the first day of his trial at the Old Bailey, admitting to the 1999 attempted kidnapping of Emily Doherty and the abduction and murder of Victoria Hall. And this is huge because it's the first time Steve Wright has ever admitted any guilt in the crimes he's been accused of. Because remember, he has to this day maintained his innocence in the Ipswich case. What?
- [69:09]
Hannah
He's got nothing to lose. Like he's already in there for life. I don't understand why he talks now.
- [69:15]
Saruti
No, he's got nothing to gain by saying that he did this. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't know why he did it.
- [69:21]
Hannah
Because you often see with sexually motivated serial killers like, you know, big hitters like Ed Kemper or creepy photoman.
- [69:31]
Saruti
Btk.
- [69:32]
Hannah
No Dating Game.
- [69:34]
Saruti
Oh, Rodney Alcala.
- [69:35]
Hannah
Yeah. They all confess dramatically because they love telling their own story and he doesn't do that. And it's not often that you see that in this particular kind of case.
- [69:47]
Saruti
Absolutely. I do not know why he confessed to this. Maybe he just couldn't be bothered with the fucking trial. But I can't see that he wouldn't. That's like six weeks you get out of prison.
- [69:56]
Hannah
Yeah.
- [69:57]
Saruti
Instead of just sitting in your cell looking at your fucking feet. So I don't know.
- [70:01]
Hannah
Making a podcast with Suge Knight. Exactly.
- [70:04]
Saruti
And I also think, come on, he was on the QE2 and he. That's when he starts using sex workers in port cities around the world. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the first time he killed somebody. And he is like, I got away with it because you kill somebody in a country where law enforcement isn't even fucking looking and then you get back on your fucking cruise ship and just float away. Like it's kind of the perfect serial killing route.
- [70:32]
Hannah
Which is why we will never go on a cruise unless. Please invite us.
- [70:39]
Saruti
Please Henry because yeah crime wave know want to get in touch again we'd be totally open to that this time.
- [70:52]
Hannah
This quite literally just in for you we recorded this only a couple of days ago and we've just had a report in that Stephen Wright has been given 40 more years for the murder of 17 year old Victoria hall that happened in 1999. 12 of those years were for the kidnapping of Victoria hall on top of her murder and then also nine years for the attempted kidnapping of Emily Docherty. All of that's going to be served concurrently. He's already doing a whole of life order but as the judge said when he passed sentencing he really really really will die in prison so that is an upside. There you have it.
- [71:32]
Saruti
There you have it. Absolutely that's it guys. That is the startlingly current now case of Steve Wright and the murders of the Ipswich 5.
- [71:42]
Hannah
I'm also just a bit worried about how much of 2006 me this is unlocked like what else is going to come out?
- [71:48]
Saruti
Who knows let's find out. Nothing good Join us next week for another red handed and then maybe in a couple of months for simpin not Pimpin we'll see you there. Goodbye.