Sex Drugs and Death

This episode covers the murder of Gordon Semple.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Laura and I'm Jel and.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
This it's crack Divers.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hello everybody, Welcome to today's Patreon episode. Hello everyone, welcome back.
Thanks for joining us. So, Jill, what is today's Patreon
episode called? It's called Sex, Drugs and Death? And where
in the world are we? We're in the UK? Okay, okay?
Shall we dive in? Yes, let's dive so.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Stefano Britzy was born into a devout Catholic family in
San Marceello Pistosi, in the Italian region of Tuscany, on
the twenty sixth of June nineteen sixty six. He was
the youngest of three children. His dad was a civil
servant and his mum worked in child healthcare. His uncle

(00:59):
was a Catholic priest and the family would go to
church services like every Sunday. And his parents were like
really strict and conservative, you know, they had their strict
Catholic beliefs, you know, as the whole family did, and
said the uncle was a priest, yeah, etcetera. So he said,
as I said, he had two siblings and they were

(01:21):
fine with that, like they grew up.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
That was just the way it was.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
But Stefano he knew from the age of fifteen that
he was gay. So oh, you know, he knew that.
He knew because his family's belief that they wouldn't be
okay with that hyoul be except Yeah, so the place
that he grew up in, it was a small town
and they all like shared the same strict Catholic beliefs,
you know, so he couldn't, like, he couldn't be open

(01:46):
about it. He couldn't be himself basically, so he kept
his sexuality to set up.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
But obviously he must have like really struggled with it, obviously.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
So he was desperate to get away from his family,
and as soon as he could, he moved to the
nearest big city, which was Florence. So he went to
university in Florence, where he studied a software engineering He
made friends and he started dating other men, and he
lived the way that he had wanted to for so long.
And when he graduated, he got a really good job

(02:16):
as a computer programmer. So in two thousand and eight,
when he was forty two, Stefano was diagnosed with hepatitis
C and his HIV positive, so he was put on
medication which kept his symptoms in check and the virus
under control. So in twenty twelve, when he was forty six,
he decided to move to London in the UK for

(02:36):
a much better income and a different lifestyle. There wasn't
much prospects in Florence for software engineers, so he soon
found work with a merchant bank as an IT consultant
and a web developer, and he was earning seventy thousand
pounds a year in London. So I'm moved to London
for that. Give me that now exactly. So yeah, you know,

(02:58):
he just worked to better I'm say, get better money.
And obviously London is what's the word like a lot? Yeah, yeah,
like you can be yourself in London, catty a lot.
I'm assuming a lot more than the strict kind of
Italian place that he's grew up. In twenty thirteen, Stefano

(03:20):
started experimenting with drugs, including G HB and poppers. And
then but then and he you know, that's he started
off with that, and then he just kind of progressed. Yeah,
and then if he found himself immersed and immersed in
a world of substance abuse and eventually became addicted to
crystal mess. So I mean the whole time that he

(03:44):
was you know, he struggled with his addiction, and you know,
he did try to overcome it, like he joined support group,
he would go to like psychologists maybe or psych tried,
he was going somewhere.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, you know, he was speaking to you. He was
trying to overcome it.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
And at one point he even conducted a funeral service
for his crystal meth addiction. So like he obviously had
some of it, and like he made a week coffin,
had he put in the coffin and then he but
he didn't.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
He said that was him Bury and his addiction. Okay,
but unfortunately that it didn't work.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Rose from the Dead, Yeah, basically that's quite a good
but yeah, it didn't work unfortunately, and in twenty fifteen
he lost his job.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
So god, I mean, you can imagine that.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
Was going to be the case because i mean, you know,
you know, addicted to drugs and you know, eventually sometimes
it can interfere with your life obviously, and what a shame,
you know, said, like I've done so well for himself,
having a good job and stuff.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yeah, but obviously the drugs just you know, took over. Yeah,
so his life was beginning to fall apart. He stopped
taking his HIV medication. He became more and more introverted
and all almost nocturnal, so he'd be like sleeping all
day in a week. All he covered all the windows
of his flat so he was in darkness all the time.

(05:08):
He didn't go out much at all during the day.
He only went out like if he had to during
the day, and he became hooked on the TV trow
Breaking Bad.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Oh. Yeah. And he even went to support group one
day wearing a Breaking Bad t shirt. So that's how
he was quite a fan. Yeah, I mean like people
like things like yeah, but to actually go get the
merch and you're obviously super fan.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
So but eventually he stopped going to support group. He
had just lost hope that he was ever going to
kick his addiction.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
You know, he had, as I said before, he had
like really struggled and tried to overcome it, and he
got to the Yeah, he got to the point where
it was like, you know, it's just not going to happen.
This is my life. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
overcome it. So he just, you know, obviously continued taking drugs.
It was described as having descended into.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
A kind of madness of his own creation, fueled by
crystal meth, fascinated by sex, and desperately keen to have
chem sex parties. So that's pretty much what sounds like.
It's basically having a sex party that's fueled by chemicals.
You know, you're just you're just on drugs and you're
having like orgies. That's basically what it is.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
So the two biggest chemicals.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
That are used in the community for sex parties are
ketmen and crystal meth. So apparently crystal meth is a
massive afrodiserk and once you've taken it, like your libido
just goes crazy and you just don't stop.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
I don't know, don't ever want to find it taking
a word for it. And ketmen kills your gaging effect.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
So I don't think I need to explain why that's
good at a sex party. Yeah, yeah, I knew that.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
We don't really need to go, so Stephen sorry.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Stefano would regularly use the online dating app Grinder to
meet men for keem sex parties, and his life just
revolved around drugs and sex like that. That was just
a yeah, it was just drug fueled six yeah, it
would often go on chem sex binges for days. On

(07:20):
the afternoon of the first April twenty sixteen, Stefano was
talking to a man on Grinder and this was fifty
nine year old policeman Gordon Semple. But it was like
just got the policeman was just being himself. He wasn't
like an undercover or anything like that. That's yeah, that's
just what his job was.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
I just realized that. I thought, oh, that sounds like
he's going to get caught out for doing something not illegal. No,
that's just his job.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
So Gordon, he was originally from Inverness in Scotland and
he had worked for the Bank of Scotland there, but
he had moved down to London thirty years earlier and
become a police officer. So he was currently working at
the City Hall in Westminster as part of an antisocial
behavior team. So he was a popular guy, had lots
of friends, loved his job. And as I said, you know,

(08:09):
him and Stefano were chatting on Grinder and Stefano invited
Gordon round to his flat for sex. So it was
about three o'clock that day. So the first April, three
o'clock that afternoon, Gordon was seen on CCTV getting off
the tube at Brat. I'm really sorry just portray her apologies.

(08:32):
I couldn't I couldn't stop it, so I've tried to
keep it quietly hopefully.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
So Gordon was seen on CCTV getting off the tube
at Blackfriars station and he made his way to Stefano's
flat on the Peabody Estate on Sutholk Street in South London.
So later, according to Stefano, he said that they spent
the afternoon having sex and then they decided to contact
other men via online apps inviting them to come over

(09:01):
for a Kemp sex party. So a few men indicated
that they were interested, but nobody turned up until like
seven o'clock. Another man arrived at Stefano's flat, so Stefan answered.
I think it was Entercom that he answered, and he
told the man that one of the guys had fallen ill,
so the party was over. And the guy actually thought

(09:26):
was this because it was April the first and he
was like, was this just like some kind of joke,
like an April Fool's prank.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Or something like that. Yeah, but so he was letting fine.
Then I'm just just going to go home, so if
he went so.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Three days later, on the fourth of April twenty sixteen,
neighbors complained to the caretaker of the Peabody estate about
a strange smell coming from Stefano's flat.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
The neighbors thought, sorry, not the neighbors. The caretaker thought.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Maybe it was something wrong with the drains or something,
you know, and then he was kind of thinking maybe
like the tenant might have died, you know, Yeah, we
should really happen, Yeah, we should really go and check
this out. So Steve Harris, he lived in the flat
above Staffans, and he must have been out somewhere and
he came back into the estate and he bumped into
the caretaker. So the caretaker told him that they've been

(10:14):
complaints about a smell in the block and asked Steve,
you know, if.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
He'd noticed it, and Steve was like, no, you know,
I haven't noticed anything.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
So Steve and the caretaker walked into the block and
the caretaker was like, right, can you smell it now?
And Steve was like, yeah, I can smell something. I
can smell it a bit. So they went up to
Stefano's flat and I think they knocked on the door
and he didn't answer, so the caretaker opened the letterbox
to sort of have a look inside, and they were

(10:42):
just hit by the putrid smell. And Steve said straight away,
he was like, that smells like a dead like a
dead animal. Although I don't think he'd ever smell anything dead,
but I think that's how.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Bad it was that he just assumed that's what it was.
I don't I've never smelled that before, but I would
imagine that you would.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
Just well, yeah, if you've never smelled anything like it
and you know it must be really bad, then you
maybe would kind of say that or think that. And
he said, like he just felt like throwing up on
the spot, it was that bad. So the caretaker was like, right, okay,
I'm gonna I'll.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Go and phone the police. And Steve was like, right, fine,
So he went.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
As I said, he lived above Stefano, so he went
up to his own flat and he was standing at
the window having a cigarette, and he noticed that Stefano's
central heating had gone gone on.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
You know, like basically when somebody turns their heating on,
you can see.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
The steam coming out of the flue, right, So I mean,
like it could have went on on a timer, ye,
But Steve probausly thought, well, now he's switched.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
He switched his heating on. So I'm gonna go back
down and knock on the door again.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
So so he went down, knocked on the door, and
this time Staffano answered the hell is he living?

Speaker 1 (11:53):
And that smell then?

Speaker 3 (11:54):
Hm. So Steve told him that there had been a
complaint about the smell coming from his flat, and Stefano
apologized and said he was cooking for a friend. I
would be like, okay, I really don't taste your cooking,
no exactly what the hell you can making me feel
sick just by the smell. Yeah, But Steve was like,
all right, okay, that's fine, And he went to the

(12:14):
caretaker and he's like, oh, don't bother calling the place,
like you know. I went back and the guy answered
the door and he told me he was cooking for
a friend. So the smell, you know, it's going to
go away, isn't it, because you know it's cooking smells
go So we're fine. We don't need to own the place.
It's so good, so right, right, right fine. So a

(12:35):
few days later, on the seventh of April, twenty sixteen,
place were called to Stefano's flat after neighbors I complained
about the putrid smell coming from the property and the
smell had been getting worse over the past few days.
So the smell didn't go away and they ended up
phoning the place right So when police arrived at the
Peabody estate on Scythar Sorry on Southern Straight in South London,

(12:57):
they made a groosome discovery.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
And that flat it wasn't a dead animal, but it
was the.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
Remains of fifty nine year old police officer Gordon Semple,
who had now been been missing for six days. At
some point after Gordoner had arrived at his flat on
the first of eight Pril, Stefano had murdered. So after
the neighbor Steve had spoken to Stefano about the smell,
you know, when he said he was cooking, Stefano.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Was like, okay, like people are smelling this smell that
I need to do something about it. And then I'm
just wonder how he could live with the smell, though
I have no idea. Maybe didn't have a sense of smell.
May that happens my husband doesn't have a sense of smell.
Does he So, I have no idea, or maybe it
was just that filthy that he just I don't know.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
So he was like, all right, okay, this is attracting attention,
so I need to do something about it. So he
went to a DIOI store and he bought various items,
including three saws, bottles of acid, buckets, rubber gloves product.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
In a large perforated mel sheepe. He was even seen
on CCTV putting a bucket over his head, and this
was him measuring to see if it was big enough
to put a human head in it. Sertainly, Stefano tried
to dispose of Gordon's body in the same way that
water White from Breaking Bad tried to dispose of a corpse. Now,

(14:23):
I've never seen Breaking Bad, No, and I think from
what I think, it was only one episode. I don't
think he made a habit of murdering people because I
know it's about drugs, isn't it Breaking Bad? It's something
to do as remember. Actually it's one thing I've always
meant to watch, and I've ever got to watch.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, Like John just watched it a few that long ago,
a couple of months ago. I think he watched it
and he said it was really good. But I don't know,
I've just not got it.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
I've just never no. But I think it's only in
one episode that I think he tries to I think
he kills a rival drug dealer or something. Anyway, spoiler.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
Anyway, So you know Stevano's obviously seeing this episode and
that will if this water white can do it, then
so he bought the acid and tried to dissolve parts
of Gordon's body and he dismembered them. So when police
knocked on the door, Stefano answered wearing a pair of

(15:22):
pink speedos. And for anybody who doesn't know who's what
speed is speedos, I don't mean, I don't know if
it's a worldwide thing, but speedos are somewhere that men
were that are budgie smugglers.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
They're a bit tight. Yeah, they're a bit tight and
small and you can see their bulge. Yeah, it's like
these Olympic summers that they wait, oh yeah, everybody probably
knows what speedos are. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Yeah, And so he had we had pink speedos on
and avay or sunglasses, so that's all they had.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
He answered the door and when they entered the flat,
they were hit with the overpower and smell of chemicals
and rotten flesh. So I'm just going to tell you now,
just to be we heads up, it's going to get
a bit gruesome, Okay, any more goosom than it already
seems to be.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Yeah, So that the officers, you know, asked what the
smell was, and the final said that he'd killed someone, right,
he said, oh, yeah, I've cut him up, I've dismembered them,
and you know, just so matter of fact like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
That's you know, that's what others I knew the game
was up.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
And when the officers went further into the flat, they
saw that the living room was covered in open bin
bags that contained large chunks of human flesh, a pelvis bone,
a severed hand, and part of a spinal calm.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
See, I knew you'd make that face. I just just
for the listeners.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
And when I was researched at this case, as I
said to a text Laura, and I told her that
it was going to be a bit gruesome. And I
said to her, I can just imagine the face that
you're going to be making, and she's like, oh, it
must be bad.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Then and I was like, yeah, and that's the face
that I knew you were going to be. So yeah,
I mean it is, it's awful.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
It's really we haven't got We're still in the midst
of the groups.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
I haven't finished with a gruesome just to let you know.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
And there was also a bucket with part of Gordon's
head in it, part of Yeah, I'm not sure how
that what part or Okay, I don't know, but yeah,
And you know, obviously the bucket that he got was
big enough then because they said he'd tried on over
his head. So they went into the bathroom and they
saw that in the bath was bluish green liquid with

(17:37):
large globules of human fat floating in it. So it
was later found that it was hydrofluoric acid that he
used to try and dissolve Gordon's body but had failed because,
as Dr Stuart Hamlett and a forensic pathologist, says, quote,
the truth is it's very difficult to reduce a body

(17:58):
to so little evidence nothing will be found or nothing
nothing or nothing significant will be found. Yes, things like
acids will damage the body, but it's very unlikely to
destroy it to the point where something can't be found
to completely dissolve a body, you're gonna need very very
powerful chemicals, much stronger than you would get over the counter.

(18:21):
And you're gonna need a long time and somewhere to
do it that you're not gonna get discovered, i e.
Not in your flat where people are going to notice
the smell.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
And practically speaking, outside the world of TV programs, it's
not a way to get rid of a body.

Speaker 4 (18:34):
End the TV program that just made up So they
probably yeah, over you know, just make things out like well, wait, you.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Don't believe everything you see, but you know, for somebody
who you have to remember, this guy was like totally
out of it on you know, on drugs. He was,
so maybe reality and TV, you know, yeah, it's maybe
hard to separate it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
However, that wasn't the first idea that Stefano had had
to get rid of the body.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
His first thought was to eat it. So he later
told officers that he had used a cheese greater to
take flesh off Gordon's body. Yeah, and then he.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
Cooked the pieces and tried to eat them out of
a bowl with top sticks. A Forensic investigators knew this
was true because they found large amounts of Gordon's DNA
and the oven on some cutlery on a top and
board and also inside a cooking pot. And also when
a section of Gordon's torso was recovered from one of
the bin bags, they saw bite marks on one of

(19:42):
one of his ribs. So he soon gave up on
the idea of eating the body, and that's when he
decided to try and dissolve the body in the bath. Gruesomeness,
I mean, the whole thing is, but you know, the
details that's over that's absolutely awful.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
I know, horrendous, isn't it. It's just imagine being part
of that family, of Gordon's family, knowing that's how your
loved one has died, Like that's what's happened to him
after he died. Yeah, there's bad enough died, but yeah,
I mean I haven't said how he died yet afterwards, Yeah,

(20:19):
his body's and well, I'll just tell for later on,
but I don't think I wrote it down.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
But when he actually did go to trial, none of
Gordon's family of friends turned up at the trial because
they were I think they were told that it would
just be too gruesome for them for, you know, to
listen to it, which does the surprisement that's like it.
So obviously Stevano who was arrested straight away and he
confessed to the murder, saying that he spoke to Satan

(20:46):
and he told him to kill, kill, kill, so so
he did at the first opportunity, and he admitted that
he had also thrown some other body parts into the
Thames River. So and after the crime scene had been secured,
police found a copy of the Satanic Bible on Stefano's computer.
He insisted that Satan had made him kill and he
had convinced himself that he was possessed, so he had

(21:09):
to fulfill Satan's desire. In the days leading up to
Gordon's death, Stefano had been abusing drugs, including crystal meth,
for several days, and the night before Stefano and Gordon
had met, Stefano had been irritated and he'd barely had
any sleep, and he'd been let down another he'd been
let down by another man that he'd been talking to

(21:31):
on grinder soteph Stefano had taken it quite personally that
the other.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Guy, I don't know what his excuse, what I mean,
it might have been an allegit, excuse ta, you can
make it. But Stefano had taken it quite personally.

Speaker 3 (21:42):
So even before they met, Stefano was tired, he was agitated,
you know, he was on the drugs.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
I think he just took out on Gordon, I think.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
So it's unknown exactly what happened though at Stefano's flat,
but according to him, the two men engaged in sadomas
and I'm just going to go right into this sam massogistics.
You know what I mean, sex act that involved a collar,

(22:11):
a mask, and a dog lead. And it's believed that
Gordon was strangled to death. Doctor Stuart Hamilton, the forensic pathologist.
He said, quote reduced oxygen supplied to the brain enhance
his orgasm and sexual pleasure. It's not something that's tremendously
well understood, but it's very well recognized and for and

(22:35):
for a forensic pathologists finding auto your erotic accidents, it's
not uncommon.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
So it does happen because he does say it was.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
An accident, but with pressure on the neck, there is
only about ten seconds before somebody loses consciousness if the
pressure is too high. That means if you don't have
some sort of fail safe, safe, and an auto erotic event,
you can die very quickly because you lose consciousness and
you can't save yourself. The interplay between pressure on the

(23:08):
neck and sexual activity can be very, very difficult to
work out when it stops being an inexperienced person in
an accident and when it becomes a deliberate homicide end quote.
So Jeffrey Wonsall, who was an author and journalist, said, quote,
he lived in an extraordinary fantasy world of nocturnal oblivion,
and so he just decided to kill him. I think

(23:30):
it probably just came over him. I'm going to kill him,
and he, Julie did. He did not know that Semple
was a police officer.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
He was not aware that anyone would particularly miss Gordon
Semple end quote.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
But Gordon actually had a long term partner, Gary Meeks.
They had been together for twenty five years, and he
was expecting to meet him later that evening on the
first of April twenty sixteen. Now I think I'm not
completely sure, but I think Gary and Gordon did have
like an open relationship.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
You know, they've been together for so long. I don't
think Gordon was cheating, Yeah, because I.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
Was just gonna see what a shame not only as
they died, but yeahed knowing that he was getting cheated on.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure of the extent of it.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
I mean, like I think they had an open relationship,
but I'm not sure if he knew that he was
meeting men on grinder.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
I don't know the ins and outs of it.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
But they and so that they'd arranged to meet at
a local pub near because they lived together, so they
meet arranged. They had arranged to meet at a local
pub near their home in Dartford. They were going to
have so they were going to meet up at the pub,
have a drink, then they were going to go home
and have Shepherd's pie for dinner that was already in
the fridge, you know, like ready just to get it up,

(24:44):
and then they were going to watch There was a
reality TV show that they both liked and they recorded it,
so they were going to watch that.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
So they had plans. Obviously, you know, Stefano didn't bother
to find out if if he had anybody who was
going to miss him. Yeah, So, as you can imagine,
when God And didn't turn up to meet Gary, he
was worried and its more time passed and he still
didn't appear. Gary couldn't get a hold of him, like
he he phoned him like eighteen times over the course
of an hour and a half, but there was no answer,

(25:12):
and he was you know, he kept leaving messages on
the on his voicemail, but Gordon still hadn't appeared the
following morning, so Gary, that's when Gary phoned the place
and reported and miss him. So his colleagues at the
police had been looking for him.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
But even if they'd managed to track him down to
Stefano's flat, unfortunately they would have been too late, of course,
because he wasn't reported missing until it was already gone.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
So Savanno Britzy stood trial on the eighteenth of October
twenty sixteen, and at the beginning he was like sobbing
loudly and he was like hyper mentally in and he
was like that for the first few days, which was
a different man, a very different man to the person
that they had arrested a few months earlier.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Probably drugs, Yeah, well that's what I mean.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
Like back then he'd been talkative and matter of fact reality,
probably sitting on the drugs and yeah, so yeah, he
would have been like a drug fueled hate, wasn't it.
But now he was just like a broken man because
I'm assuming that he would have been kept in custody
all this time, so he would have had to he
would have came off the drugs, wasn't it. So One
of the most incriminating pieces of evidence that the prosecution

(26:13):
had was the confession that Stefano had made at the
time of his arrest. But by now, now that he
was at trial, he had abandoned his confession that he
had been told by Stating to kill someone, and courty
surprised everyone when he pleaded not guilty to murder, and
his version was that he and Gordon had had consensual sex.
They had played quite a long sex game. They had

(26:36):
both taken crystal meth along with another drug with other drugs.
They'd used a collar and a dog laid and Gordon's
death had been an accident as a result of this
sex game. He said that the lead slipped and strangled them.
But you know, as we heard from the pad earlier on,
you know, you have to put pressure on and I mean, yeah,

(26:59):
I mean if that happened, but then.

Speaker 4 (27:03):
You know, why go to all the effort to one
not doing his body for days, but then you're actually
going to go and cut up to me if you're
if you're doing that, you're you're hiding something like it
was a genuine accident.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Then you know, I would like to think that you
would just you know, do the right thing.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
And one, yeah, I know you can be in a
panic and stuff, but if you have nothing, I feel
like that's just definitely got something to hide to that extent, yeah, yeah,
And well, I mean you have to take an account
of the drugs, so you're not going to be thinking straight.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
But anyway, so he.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
Did plead guilty to the lesser charge of obstructing a
corner by attempting to destroy a body. So basically he's
saying that it was an accident. So I'm not I
didn't murder him because it was an accident, but I
did try and destroy the body. So but I mean,

(27:56):
but as we know, there are other aspects of the
case that didn't add up to being an accident. He
told a lot of lies, like he lied to the
second man that had turned up for the Ken six party.
Remember he was the only guy that turned up, and
he had apparently found out later that he had actually
been in the middle of strangling Gordon when he answered
the door, so he stopped, answered the door, told this

(28:18):
other man that the party was over as someone was ill,
and then went back to strangling him and killed him.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
So how can you say that a's an accident.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
Gordon must have been unable to probably he probably it
must been unconscious or something by that point. And he
then left messages on Gordon's grinder account, which I'm not
I don't actually know what they said, but I'm assuming
they must have been along the lines of implying that
they hadn't actually met up that day because he was
trying to cover his tracks. So I'm assuming that he
was like, oh, you know, sorry, didn't Yeah, something along

(28:48):
those lines, I think. So, of course, there you go again,
trying to cover it up and of course trying to
eat the body and then attempting to dissolve it. That
doesn't scream accident, as you so the prosecution saw it, as.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
You know, the murder, sorry, the murderer is brutal and premeditated,
and there was no way he was going to get
off lightly. They asked him if he had been.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
Inspired by the breaking bad episode where Walter and Jesse
attempted to dissolve a body and how to follic acid,
and they asked if he accepted that he was living
out of an episode of breaking bad, and Stefano said, quote,
I accept I considered without any rationality at all. If
I had thought about it, if I was some kind

(29:35):
of criminal mind, I would have done things in a
much more organized way. I think I was inspired by
the idea. I took whatever was there, thinking maybe I
can dissolve him.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
End quote. Okay, So the prosecution.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Told the court that Stefano was an evil and calculating man,
while the defense argued that he was a monster and
that he had no recollection because of heavy drug use.
Stefano was assessed by a psychiatrist and they didn't find
that he had a defensive, diminished responsibility, or any psychiatric
condition that would explain what he had done, like he

(30:15):
was clinically saying on drugs. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
So the jury had to decide whether to believe that
Stefano killed in a haze of drugs, delusion and sleep deprivation,
or the version that he told in court that it
was a sex game that had gone wrong.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
So it took them thirty hours of deliberation and it
was a majority verdict of ten to two, so they
obviously struggled to you know, to come up the verdict.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
So on the fourteenth of November.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Twenty sixteen, the jury found Stefano Britsy guilty of murdering
PC Gordon Semple. In December, Judge mister Nicholas Hilliard sentenced
him to life in prison with a minimum of twenty
four years for them murder and an additional seven years
for obstructing a corner. So he was sent to Belle

(31:06):
Marsh High Security Prison in London, which apparently is.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
A really bad one.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
Like the program about that was there, Yeah, because sometimes
I like to watch like the sort of true crime
things on the on the TV, and it was one
about HMB bell Marsh and then there was because I
watched one about the women's prison as well.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
So is it really bad because I think I read
that those like terrorists there and like quite had a
profile like the most worst. Yeah, one of the worst prisons.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
So I don't think I've watched a fully episodes because
I've got I've got my recording, might have to.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
Watch him, but yeah, it was one of the worst ones.
So well, that's where he was sent to.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
But on this Sunday, the fifth of February twenty seventeen,
so it was almost a year after he killed Gordon,
but it was only like a couple of months and
sent fifty year old Safano Britzy was found dead in
his prison cell.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
He had killed himself by hanging. Mm hmmm, So there
you go.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
He didn't even It was just it's just such a shame.
It was very messed up, I know. I mean, like
because as you said earlier, he started off so well.
I mean, I know he must have struggled very sexuality.
That must have been so hard for him. But I
mean he had a good job and money.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
It sounds like it, you know, made a decent life
for himself, and and then obviously there you go, gets
hooked on drugs and totally ruins it. And you've got
to say, if if he hadn't ended up on the drugs,
he would he have been that.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
I don't think he would have been in that situation
where that would have happened. I don't think so.

Speaker 4 (32:37):
In fact, you can't believe the drugs because he has
the responsibility, But I do believe that that's probably a
massive factor in where he ended up.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
I mean, personally, in my opinion, I believe that he
killed him. It wasn't an accident, but I do think
it was. That could have still happened without the drugs.
It could have still happened. That an accident could have happened, maybe,
but I think you would have handled it differently if
that was the case.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
But I don't think it was an accident. But yeah,
there you go.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
So thank you to everybody for listening, and we will
be back so our next one soon.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Thanks for listening, Thanks for listener.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Bye,