A convicted serial killer has pleaded guilty more than a quarter of a century on to killing 17-year-old Victoria Hall, his sixth murder victim.
Steve Wright, 67, had been due to go on trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of Victoria, who disappeared more than 25 years ago.
But the killer – sometimes referred to as the “Suffolk Strangler” – changed his plea on Monday and finally admitted Victoria’s kidnap “by force or fraud” and murder, on 19 September 1999. He also pleaded guilty to the attempted kidnap of Emily Doherty, 22, in Felixstowe, the day before.
It is the first time that one of Britain’s most notorious killers has admitted responsibility for any of his crimes, despite pleas from his own family to come clean.
Balding and bespectacled, Wright appeared in the dock of the Old Bailey and spoke only to confirm his name and enter pleas. Mr Justice Bennathan said he would sentence him on Friday to give Ms Hall’s family the chance to attend and submit victim impact statements.
Wright, a former merchant seaman, who is being held at Category A HMP Long Lartin, in Worcestershire, is already serving a whole life prison sentence for the murders of five women seven years after Victoria was killed.
The guilty pleas came after Mr Justice Bennathan ruled that jurors in the scheduled trial could be told of Wright’s murder convictions. Prosecutors had argued that there were similarities between the murders, pointing out that all six women were asphyxiated, left in similar places, and shared a physical type.
The prosecution also argued for the trial to include evidence of a sex worker that Wright knew well, who claimed he was familiar with the area linked to Victoria’s murder.
Victoria, from Trimley St Mary, had left home on the evening of 18 September 1999 for a night out with a friend at the Bandbox nightclub in neighbouring Felixstowe. They left the venue at around 1am the following morning and walked back, saying goodnight just yards from Victoria’s home at around 2.20am.
However the sixth-former, who was hoping to study sociology at university in Roehampton, west London, never made it home safely.
Her naked body was found by a dog walker five days later in a ditch in Creeting St Peter, around 25 miles from where she was last seen.
In 2001, a businessman stood trial for Victoria’s murder, when prosecutors argued that soil samples on a foot pedal of his Porsche 944 were similar to samples from the murder scene, but jurors acquitted him in just 90 minutes.
Victoria’s mother, Lorinda, died last December, before her daughter’s actual killer could be brought to justice.
Following the guilty pleas, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said justice had finally been achieved for the teenager after 26 years.
Samantha Woolley, a specialist prosecutor who led the case against Wright, said: “The meticulous work we have carried out with Suffolk Police, supporting their restarted investigation over the past six years, and working hard to build this case to court, has resulted in Wright admitting his guilt.
“This outcome should make plain that time does not preclude a successful prosecution; we will doggedly pursue justice for the victims of non-recent crimes, no matter how many decades have passed.
“Our thoughts remain with Victoria’s family, and all those who loved and cherished her, at this incredibly difficult time. We also hold in mind Emily Doherty and her family, and anyone else affected by this tragic case.”
Assistant chief constable Alice Scott, of Suffolk Constabulary, said: “I am relieved that [Victoria’s] family have been spared the ordeal of a trial. However, I am acutely aware that despite today’s conviction, they will continue to live with the trauma of having Victoria ripped away from them at such a young age and in such horrific circumstances. I would like to thank them for the unwavering support they provided to the investigation team and pay tribute to them for the patience and dignity they have shown over such a long period of time.”
Wright’s crimes terrorised Ipswich as police hunted for a serial killer who targeted five women over a matter of weeks in 2006.
Tania Nicol, 19, vanished from Ipswich’s red light area on 30 October that year, followed by Gemma Adams, 25, around two weeks later, triggering a major inquiry. Ms Adams’s body was found in a stream on 2 December, followed by the discovery of Ms Nicol’s remains in a pond on 8 December.
The remains of Anneli Alderton, 24, were found two days later in woods, and sex workers in the town were urged to stay off the streets. On 12 December, the bodies of Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, were also discovered near woods.
The bodies of two of those five victims, who were all sex workers in Ipswich’s red light area, had been posed in a cruciform shape with their arms outstretched. All of them had been choked or strangled, according to pathologists.
At Wright’s trial at Ipswich Crown Court in 2008, prosecutors said he hadt “systematically selected and murdered” the women after stalking streets around his home. He was seen cruising the red light district around the time each of the women vanished. DNA and fibres linked to his clothes, house and car were found on the women.
Wright, a former steward on the QE2, admitted picking up the women for sex on the nights they vanished but denied any involvement in their deaths.
Following his conviction for five murders, the victims’ relatives – and Wright’s father, Conrad – said he should have been executed.
Wright will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday.
