Case 330: David Birkett

*** Content warnings: Animal cruelty ***After respected dermatologist Dr David Birkett was found bludgeoned to death in his Middlesbrough home, police struggled to uncover a motive or identify a suspect for what appeared to be a targeted attack.
As the months passed by with no arrests, it began to look like the assailant had succeeded in his plan to pull off the perfect murder. But then the cracks began to show. 
---
Narration – Anonymous HostResearch & writing – Elsha McGillCreative direction – Milly RasoProduction & music – Mike MigasAudio editing – Anthony Telfer
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 3 (01:16):
Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If
you feel at any time you need support, please contact
your local crisis center for suggested phone numbers. For confidential
support and for a more detailed list of content warnings,
please seed the show notes for this episode on your
app or on our website. It was just after six

(01:43):
o'clock on the evening of Saturday, February three, nineteen ninety
when married couple Frank and Audrey Roberts realized they still
hadn't heard from their friend, doctor David Burkett David, who
lived next door to them in Linthorpe, a small neighborhood
in the industrial port outside town of Middlesbrough in England's northeast.

(02:04):
The trio, along with some other neighbors, often got together
to socialize on Saturday nights. They had discussed attending the
Middlesbrough Little Theater Club later that evening, but the minute
continued to tick by without David contacting the couple to
confirm their plans. Audrey called David's home phone at around

(02:24):
six thirty PM, but there was no answer. When they
still hadn't heard from David by seven fifty, Audrey decided
to duck over to his house and leave a note
asking him to get in touch with them. By nine o'clock,
fifty six year old David Burkett was a recently divorced
father of three who lived alone in a large, two

(02:45):
story home on Cornfield Road, a tree lined residential street
in an affluent part of town. As Audrey approached, she
noticed that the curtains to David's bay windows, which were
typically kept open, were closed. She knocked on the door,
there was no answer. Audrey slipped the note under David's

(03:09):
front door and then turned down the laneway that ran
alongside his house. She caught a glimpse of his kitchen
and noticed that the windows were fogged up and it
smelt like a burnt potatoes. Thinking David might be busy
cooking dinner, Audrey returned home to await his call, but

(03:29):
nine o'clock came and went with no word, so the
group decided to go to the theater without him. By
four o'clock the next afternoon, there was still no word
from David, and his curtains remained closed. His pack cats
were also waiting by the front door, eager to be fed.

(03:50):
Concerned for David's welfare, Audrey Roberts decided to call his
youngest daughter, sixteen year old Laura, who lived with her
mother nearby David's other two children, aged twenty three and
twenty six, no longer lived at home ever since their
parents divorced two years earlier. Laura had felt sorry for
her father living all alone in that big house. She

(04:14):
made every effort to visit him as often as possible.
As soon as Laura received Audrey's call, she immediately felt
that something was wrong. She rushed over to Cornfield Road,
where some of David's neighbors had gathered outside. Fearful of
what Laura might find inside. They tried to stop her

(04:35):
from entering, but Laura pushed her way through and unlocked
the front door. The scene she found would haunt her
for years to come. David was lying face down in
the hallway, the walls and carpet covered in blood. As
Laura later recalled to the Telegraph, it was as if

(04:58):
I could see myself go into the house. I was
on the outside looking in. Someone called the police and
an ambulance, and then the nightmare of it all began.

(05:35):
Although Middlesbrough had its fair share of crime, doctor David
Burkett's house on Cornfield Road was not the kind of
place police expected to find a murder. The brutal scene
inside the six bedroom semi detached home was at complete
odds with the dignified reputation of the neighborhood and with
the David himself. David was an eminent and highly respect

(06:00):
dermatologist who primarily worked at the card Bequest Hospital in Middlesbrough.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
He also had a deep.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Fascination with bones and worked as a consultant paleopathologist for
the government, helping to identify ancient diseases. So prized were
his skills that people sent him bones to examine from
all over the world. Despite his incredible intellect, David was
a modest man who took quiet pride in his talents,

(06:29):
never talking about himself unless asked. He was described by
one acquaintance as a gentleman in every sense of the word.
This made it all the more shocking for police as
they entered the home and found what had clearly been
a savage and brazen attack. Crime scene examiners determined that

(06:50):
the killer had most likely struck as David answered the
front door. David had an alarm system and there were
no signs of forced dons, meaning that he had likely
willingly let them inside and maybe even knew them. As
David opened the door. The killer had hit him multiple
times in the head with a blunt object, probably a hammer.

(07:15):
A lack of defensive injuries indicated David hadn't seen the
attack coming. Two pieces of green cord had been tied
around his arms and used to drag him further down
the hallway towards his study, where the assailant launched a
second assault. In total, David had sustained approximately seventeen ferocious

(07:37):
and fatal blows to the front, sides, and back of
his head. In his kitchen, the oven was still on
and there were two pots of burnt vegetables inside, suggesting
the killer had attacked while David was in the middle
of cooking. The initial assumption was that the murder must
have been motivated by theft. David's wall and a small

(08:01):
fob watch were missing from the inside pocket of his jacket,
while some drawers and cupboard doors had been left open
throughout the house. The police wondered whether the assailant could
have been looking for cash, drugs, or jewelry, but it
didn't really look like David's things had been ransacked or
rifled through. Nothing else appeared to be missing, and overall

(08:23):
everything was neat and tidy. With the burglary angle not
quite checking out, police turned to David's friends and colleagues
seeking information about who could have possibly wanted him dad,
but nobody had a bad word to say about him.
By all accounts, David Burkett was well liked. He had

(08:45):
always been a private and reserved person who was most
often at work, but he'd recently made an effort to
spend more time with his neighbors. They all knew him
to be nothing but kind and friendly, often stopping to
check with townsfolk whom others wouldn't give the time of day.
He frequented the Middlesbrough Bowling Club, which was just across

(09:08):
the street from his home, testing his general knowledge skills
in the weekly quiz night. Fellow members described him as
an unassuming and polite gentleman. They couldn't fathom who would
want to hurt him. With David's murder starting to look

(09:28):
more like a random attack, fears were high that the
killer could strike again. Prussia was on for the police
to make a quick arrest. Seventy officers were assigned to
the case, led by Detective Chief Inspector Brian Leonard. They
door knocked houses in the area, distributed posters about the
crime around town, and to set up a police caravan

(09:51):
at the end of Cornfield Road where potential witnesses could
provide information. They were particularly eager to speak to anyone
who might have seen David Burkeert on Saturday, February three,
nineteen ninety and could help peace together a timeline of
his movements. A travel agent who worked in Linthorpe village

(10:12):
recognized to David from one of the police posters and
recalled that he had come into the travel agency at
around three o'clock on Saturday afternoon. He had picked up
a brochure for an upcoming trip to the United States
that he was planning with his daughter. The travel agent
knew David as he was a regular customer and noted
nothing out of the ordinary about his behavior. Later that evening,

(10:38):
at five twenty pm, a Linthorpe resident had been cycling
down the laneway that ran alongside David's house when he
noticed the David sitting alone at his kitchen table. As
David had failed to answer phone calls from around six
thirty on, and Audrey Roberts visited the house at seven
point fifty to find the curtains drawn. Police deduced that

(11:00):
the murder must have been committed sometime between that last
sighting of David and when Audrey stopped by. This was
confirmed by a post mortem examination, which found that David
had died between six and seven o'clock on Saturday evening.
DCI Brian Lanard told reporters we can't rule out the

(11:21):
possibility that the murderer may have been in the house
when the neighbor called and might have left some time later,
so we would still like to appeal to witnesses. From
Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon at four pm. Cornfield Road
was a quiet place and there was little reason to
be in the area unless you lived there or were

(11:43):
visiting someone who did. However, a football game between Middlesbrough
and Duston Villa had taken place that evening and spectators
were known to park their cars around the neighborhood. An
evening mass had also been held at the Holy Name
of Mary Che located at the top of Cornfield Road.

(12:04):
Police appealed for anyone who might have parked or passed
through the area to think back and remember if they
had seen anything at all that could help with the investigation.
It had been a very messy crime scene and whoever
was responsible had likely been covered in blood. David's house
was protected from the road by a high fence and

(12:26):
large trees. It was also positioned in a slight curve,
placing it just out of sight of the bowling club.
While no one had seen anything suspicious on David's property,
it was reported that a scruffy dressed man with long,
straggly black hair had been seen in the Linthorpe area
earlier that day asking for directions to Cornfield Road. At

(12:50):
around the same time that David was spotted through his
kitchen window, witnesses reported seeing two young men standing on
the street outside his home. They were both white and
aged around eighteen to twenty years old. One was approximately
five foot nine with fair hair and the other was
around five foot eleven with longish dark hair.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
D C. I.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Leonard appealed for the man to come forward, even if
they had no information to share, to eliminate themselves from
the inquiry. He also sought further information about two men
who reportedly ran out onto the dark street in front
of a car at around seven twenty p m. When

(13:35):
emergency services operator Pauline Collins heard about David Burkett's murder,
she recalled a strange phone call that she'd received on
the night of Saturday, February three. Pauline was just about
to knock off work for the evening when a call
had come through to nine nine nine just before nine
p m. Police said, an unidentified man Cornfield Road. He

(14:02):
then hung up. The connection had been poor, but the
man's voice came through clearly enough for Pauline to notice
that he sounded odd. Most people who called nine nine
nine were obviously panicked and anxious, but this man sounded
calm and steady. Pauline patched the call through to the police.

(14:25):
As the man hadn't said which town he was calling from,
the police asked Pauline to get a trace on the call.
It came back as having been made from a payphone
on the corner of Union Street and Parliament Road in
central Middlesbrough, roughly one point four miles from David Burker's home.
Because the man hadn't provided any further information or mentioned

(14:48):
any type of crime, the call had ultimately been brushed
off as a hoax. It was only in the wake
of David's murder that police realized its importance because the
call was made no more than three hours after David
had been killed and twelve hours before his body was discovered.

(15:09):
They wondered if the caller knew the killer, or perhaps
he was the killer and had been trying to direct
police to the crime. Officers went to the payphone on
Union Street and conducted a forensic examination, but found nothing
of use to the investigation. They appealed for the caller

(15:30):
or anyone else who had been in the vicinity of
the payphone at the time of the call, to come forward.
David's eldest son, Simon, also made an emotional plea for
the caller to phone again.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
D C. I.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
Leonard told reporters, I am convinced now that the caller
has knowledge of the murder and knows the identity of
the killer. We have not ruled out the possibility that
he may have even been the killer. I believe the
man has a conscience and is shocked and disturbed by
the brutality of this vicious killing. With no immediate suspects

(16:13):
coming to light, police focused on three potential clues found
at the crime scene. The first was a handwritten note
found on David's hallway table, which appeared to have come
from a twenty four hour motorcycle courier service called Demon
Dispatchers Mister Burkett. It read a dispatch rider called Today

(16:34):
with a parcel phone the above number as soon as
possible to arrange a convenient time for delivery. David often
received parcels from courier services, so there was nothing overtly
unusual about this note. However, police considered the possibility that
someone could have used this as a guise to lure

(16:55):
David to his front door before launching an attack. Phone
number on the dispatch note wasn't connected to an office,
but to the payphone on Union Street where the nine
to nine to nine calls had been placed on the
night of David's murder. Police were unable to determine whether
or not David had called the number, but their theory

(17:17):
gained traction when they discovered a motorcycle tire track in
David's driveway. Furthermore, they looked into Demon Dispatches and discovered
that the company had actually ceased operations two years prior.
Investigators tracked down the company's former director, a man named

(17:37):
Alan Thompson Allen couldn't shed any light on the situation,
but he willingly handed over all of the company's old files,
including employment records and delivery receipts. All up, Demon Dispatches
had forty nine former employees on its books. Police were
able to track down about half of them with releagys.

(18:02):
It turned out that only one of them had used
a motorcycle for their deliveries, and it just so happened
that he lived less than a five minute walk from
David Burkett's home. Police paid a visit to the man,
whose name was Jim Lee, asked for his whereabouts on Saturday,
February three. Lee said he couldn't recall. A recording of

(18:25):
his voice was sent to a local expert to be
analyzed against the nine to nine nine corps made on
the night of David's murder. They determined it wasn't the
same person. Lee also provided a handwriting sample which was
compared to the note pretending to be from Demon Dispatches.

(18:46):
That wasn't a match either. Jim Lee eventually provided an alibi,
which was checked out and confirmed by police, putting them
back at square one. Their next step was to sort
through all of Demon dispatcher's delivery receipts, of which there
were about two.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
Hundred and fifty thousand.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
They were on the lookout for anything that had been
sent to David Burkert's home and the name of the
courier who delivered it. The police believed that David's murder
hadn't been random after all, but a targeted and carefully
orchestrated attack. They just had to figure out who would
want to hurt him and why. After two arduous weeks,

(19:30):
they finished sorting through the receipts, but didn't find a
single record that led them back to David or to
Cornfield Road. Alan Thompson, the former director of Demon Dispatchers,
also recalled that his house had been broken into about
a year before David Burkett's murder, and some papers featuring
the company's letterhead were stolen. It was therefore possible that

(19:54):
the killer wasn't connected to the company in any way,
but perhaps had a history of breaking and dens entering.
The note was sent to a handwriting expert, who determined
that the author was right handed and hadn't tried to
mask their natural handwriting. They noted distinct characteristics to the
letters B P and D, which could be helpful to

(20:17):
compare against any further samples. The second clue found at
the scene of David Burkett's murder was a white plastic
bag that was lying in the hallway not far from
his body. David's cleaner said she'd never seen the bag
in the house before, leading police to believe that the

(20:37):
killer had brought.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
It with him.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
It had come from a co op supermarket and was
marked with a distinctive red and blue print advertising a
t promotion. Police made inquiries with the supermarket chain and
discovered that the bag had been distributed by all stores
in the region two years prior. With multiple outlets, there
was no way of determining which location it had come from,

(21:03):
but there was no doubt about its significance. Bloodstains on
the outside of the bag, coupled with small tears at
the bottom, indicated that the killer might have used it
to conceal the murder weapon during the attack. Its handles
were also stretched, as though they'd been wrapped around something.

(21:24):
Police appealed to anyone who recognized the bag or had
noticed a similar one missing from their home to come forward,
While the bag itself was sent for forensic analysis, scientists
conducted numerous experiments by placing a hammer inside a similar
plastic bag and wrapping the top of the bag around

(21:44):
the handle of the hammer before using it to bash
a test object. When using a cross peen hammer, one
with a wedged shaped blade that runs perpendicular to the handle,
the bag tore in exactly the same way as the
co op found in David's house. They then tested the
cross peen hammer against the damage to a patch of

(22:07):
carpet at the crime scene, which had a semicircle shaped
cut on it. It was a perfect match. Because the
co opper bag was made of plastic, it couldn't be
tested for fingerprints using the standard powdering technique. Instead, forensic
scientists used an advanced method that required the bag to

(22:29):
be placed inside a heated cabinet along with a container
of superglue. If any fingerprints were present, the fumes from
the glue would create white, chalky deposits along their ridges,
which would then become visible after the bag was placed
in a tub of a yellow dye. The scientists completed
this process and then placed the bag inside a special

(22:51):
machine that acted as a high energy light source. They
viewed the bag through a series of filters that aimed
to highlight any fingerprint ridges present near the handle of
the bag. There it was a partial right hand thumb print.
Although this was a solid lead, the plastic bag could

(23:14):
have changed hands many times over the years, and police
couldn't be sure that the print had come from the killer.
They sent it off to be checked while turning their
focus to the third and final clue case file will

(23:38):
be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening
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our sponsors. You support case File to continue to deliver
our quality content. The two pieces of thin green cord
that had been tied around to David Bergert's arms, it

(24:57):
didn't appear to have come from inside his home. This
not only suggested that the killer had brought the cord
with him, but that he also knew a thing or
two about forensic procedures. The assailant had used the cord
to drag David down the hallway, presumably to avoid touching
him and transferring any identifiable fibers in the process. If

(25:20):
police could identify where the cord came from, it could
put them one step closer to finding the killer. The
problem was they couldn't even be sure what type of
cord it was. Upon initial inspection, it looked as though
it could have come from an item of sportswear, such
as a snowjacket or something similar. Inquiries were made with

(25:44):
numerous sports stores, but no one recognized the cord. Police
sought help from various rope and cord manufacturers, making inquiries
with companies as far away as Pakistan, but nothing brought
them any closer to locating the green cord's origin. Meanwhile,
checking the partial thumb print found on the plastic bag

(26:07):
was proving to be a slow and painstaking process. Back
in nineteen ninety there was no national fingerprint database, with
searches only done regionally and by hand. The job was
assigned to a senior fingerprint expert named to Judith Kirby.
She spent the first two weeks of the investigation manually

(26:30):
comparing the partial thumb print to the twenty thousand files
of active criminals in Middlesbrough. There were no matches. Her
next task was to compare the print to every criminal
file in England's northeast. There were about three hundred thousand
all up, and it could take Judith months with no

(26:52):
guarantee of an outcome. Police were growing frustrated with the
lack of progress in the investigation. It took three weeks
alone just to conclude their meticular search of the crime scene,
during which family members realized that something else was missing
from David's house after all. In one of his back

(27:13):
bedrooms he'd kept an ancient skull. It had come from
a monk who had been beaten to death several hundred
years prior, and to David used it when conducting lectures
on the study of ancient man. The skull was no
longer there. David's son, Simon, provided a sketch of the

(27:33):
skull that he'd drawn years earlier for a school assignment.
Interestingly enough, the injuries the monk had sustained bore some
resemblance to David's head injuries. Police wondered whether there was
any significance to this, or if it was merely a coincidence.
While it was possible that David's killer had taken the skull,

(27:56):
it was just as possible that David had lent it
to a colleague or one of his pupils. Police initially
withheld the details about the skull from the public while
appealing for people to be on the lookout for David's
missing bob watch or wallet. They said the wallet would
likely have been discarded under a bush or in a bin,

(28:17):
while the watch might have made its way to a
jewelry store or secondhand dealer. David's funeral was held in
his hometown, and more than two hundred and fifty mourners
attended to pay their respects. The service was led by
a reverend who'd known David personally and commended his humbleness

(28:38):
he told those gathered, David wasn't one to talk about himself.
He didn't speak about his profession or his achievements. One
thing he did talk about was taking part in the
London Marathon, which he ran and finished and raised money
for his favorite charity. It was worth more to him

(28:59):
than any of his medical qualifications. Police who attended the
funeral became more eager than ever to make an arrest.
DCI Leonard told reporters someone knows the killer and is
shielding him. It may be a wife, mother, girlfriend, relative,

(29:20):
or friend. He may have spoken to them about what happened.
He was bound to have had bloodstained clothing and they
may have washed the clothes. He would have been in
a very shaken and shocked condition when he came home.
I would urge them to contact me. With one hundred

(29:46):
officers still working the case, the investigation was bogged down
as letters trickled in from people claiming to be responsible
for David's murder. The inaccurate details they provided proof to
these confessions were for false, but it was a waste
of valuable police time and resources. Nonetheless, d c I

(30:06):
Leonard and his team were disgusted from the outset of
the investigation. They'd been disappointed by what they felt was
a general lack of concern from the public. Despite their
extensive public inquiries, They realized that people weren't coming forward
with information that later came to light through different means.

(30:29):
The head of the county's criminal investigation department told reporters
the death of any human being other than by natural
causes should be of great concern to us. Detectives investigating
these offenses often come to the conclusion that very few
people care. Using David Burkett's murder as an example, he said,

(30:54):
when Detective Chief Inspector Leonard appeals for anyone who was
in the vicinity of Cornfield Road at a particular time,
he means everyone. Many people conclude that because they cannot
recall anything from, say, driving down Cornfield Road, they have
nothing to offer. That is totally wrong. It is important

(31:17):
to identify every person who was in the vicinity of
the scene between the material times, because one thing is certain,
Doctor Burkett's killer was there. Appealing to the public directly,
he said, when you read, see or hear on television
a policeman asking for help in an investigation of a

(31:39):
serious crime, please take notice he is talking to you.
He isn't Tagget or bergerac or Sherlock Holmes. He is
working for you, and with your help he can be successful.
By March, almost a month had passed since David Burkett's

(32:00):
death and police still hadn't identified a prime suspect. Then
they received a call from a local man, Ray Benson,
not his real name. Ray had cast his mind back
to the night of Saturday, February three, and recalled that
he'd been waiting for a bus on the corner of
Union Street and Parliament Road at about nine pm. He'd

(32:24):
glanced over at the nearby payphone and noticed that an
agitated man was loitering around it. The man walked up
to the phone a couple of times and picked up
the receiver before hanging it up without making a call.
He walked across the street and stood in the doorway
of a bedding shop, muttering to himself, before crossing back

(32:47):
over to the payphone. This time he picked up the
receiver and placed a call before walking off down Parliament Road.
For the police, this was a set significant breakthrough. The
timing of Ray's reported sighting matched perfectly with the suspicious
call made to nine ninety nine, on the night of

(33:09):
David Burkett's murder. Ray was also able to provide a
clear description of the man. He was white, between the
ages of thirty five and forty five, and six feet tall,
with a medium build. He had a round face with
a high forehead and short, sandy colored hair that was
receding at the sides. A sketch of the man was

(33:33):
drawn and distributed with the DCI Leonard telling reporters he
may be our man, but if not, we want to
eliminate him from our inquiries. Around thirty people called in
to report the names of individuals they believed matched the sketch,
but all of these leads went nowhere. Then an envelope

(33:58):
arrived at the police station, addressed to Detective Chief Inspector
Brian Leonard and marked as urgent. The envelope contained a
slightly disjointed and fragmented letter that had been neatly written
using a stencil. It read, Hello, chums, pig shit Leonard,

(34:22):
you have me wrong. I have no conscience. Smashing his
head in gave me a buzz better than smack. Could
get addicted to it. If I did, You'd soon know.
Believe me this is no wind up. I'd done the
business on his head. He was a skin expert. Eh,

(34:43):
when I'd finished, he didn't have much skin, not on
his head anyway. That was a little test I set
myself passed with flying colors. Wouldn't you say? I'm writing
this because you won't get any nearer to me to
talk and walk away? Know what I've done. I'm facing life.

(35:05):
Who gives a shit? Not me letting you know I've
nowt to lose. No the way I like it. Tread carefully.
Pig and Joe public get too warm and you burn
phone the pigs for fun so I could laugh at
you know your every move, Pig, You're barking up the

(35:29):
wrong tree with theft more like fun? Do I sicken you?

Speaker 4 (35:34):
Pig?

Speaker 3 (35:36):
You ain't seen nothing yet. At the bottom of the latter,
the writer had stopped using the stencil and had written
in regular handwriting the words one has to live by
the chosen way or not at all. This was followed
by what looked like a Japanese symbol and the words

(35:57):
death is release. The second page of the letter was
also handwritten and contains what appeared to be a poem.
It read, in part, if my karma is to conquer,
I shall conquer. If my karma is to be conquered,
I shall be conquered. What difference does it make? Heaven

(36:20):
and Earth are my parents? Psycho Tandem is my home,
Stoicism is my body, flash of lightning my eyes. I
can throw my life away at an instant, can you.
While the police had already received their fair share of
bogus letters in relation to David Burkett's murder, this one

(36:44):
was different. The others had all been filled with obvious
falsities and incorrect details, but this one contained something that
made investigators freeze in their tracks. In the stenciled portion
of the letter, the author had written, who else would
know about the hamster cage in the back bedroom? During

(37:09):
the search of David's home, the police had indeed found
an empty hamster cage in the back bedroom. The hamster
belonged to David's daughter Laura. She explained that the hamster
had been eating things in her room, so David had
moved it into the back room. This had happened just
a few days before he was killed, either on the

(37:32):
Thursday or the Friday. The only people who knew about
it were David Laura and David's house cleaner. The police
had never released this detail to the public, meaning that
whoever wrote the letter had to have been in the
house around the time that David died. The letter provoked

(37:54):
mixed reactions for investigators. On the plus side, they now
had a solid clue, as well as something to compare
to the handwriting from the demon dispatcher's note, But the
letter also confirmed what they'd feared all along, that the
killer was a dangerous, sadistic man who had targeted David
with no logical motive, and that he intended to strike again.

(38:24):
The letter was analyzed by a forensic psychologist who concluded
that David's killer likely felt powerless in his day to
day life. He might have been abused or rejected, and
fantasizing about violence was a way for him to escape.
Acting on that violence had restored a sense of power
for him, and that feeling became addictive. The forensic psychologist

(38:49):
had seen similar traits in serial killers, and he believed
there was a high chance that the killer would strike
again if not caught. The fact that the killer had
singled out Detective Chief Inspector Brian Leonard specifically coupled with
his clear hatred of police, sparked fears that the detective
could be his next target.

Speaker 4 (39:12):
D C. I.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Leonard was on edge. He had a family of his
own and worried about their safety. He began checking outside
his house at night to make sure nobody was there,
while keeping his fears to himself so that his family
didn't worry. Not wanting to take any chances, d C. I.
Leonard decided that anyone who was arrested in Middlesbrough from

(39:34):
that point on would have their fingerprint compared to the
one found on the plastic bag in David Burkett's home,
regardless of the crime they were being arrested for. Police
also expanded their search country wide. Because David Burkett had
attended conferences all over England, a questionnaire was created and

(39:55):
sent out to hundreds of his business associates investigation. It
is hoped that one of them might know something about
his lifestyle or provide some kind of clue that could
propel the investigation forward. By early May, leeds continued to
crop up locally, but the police still hadn't identified any

(40:16):
prime suspects. Wanting to draw national attention to the case,
they sought help from BBC's Crime Watch, a television program
that produced reconstructions of unsolved crimes in the hopes of
generating leads from the public. An episode about David Burkett's
murder aired on Thursday May tenth, nineteen ninety, with a

(40:39):
focus on key aspects of the case, including the stolen skull,
the plastic bag, the strange man seen at the phone box,
and the partially stenciled letter d C. I. Leonard believed
there was a high possibility that the killer would call
into the program. He told viewers it would appear the

(41:02):
letter was written by an intelligent person who possibly has
some knowledge of both the murder of doctor Burkett and
also the house where he lived. I am anxious to
speak to anyone who can give me information about the
anonymous letter. The host looked directly into the camera and sad,

(41:23):
Remember this killing is a very brutal and very weird one,
and the killer might strike again. Please help if you can.
The segment generated roughly fifty leads, with several people calling
in to say they recognized the poetry in the letter.

(41:44):
It was from The Miko, a novel by American author
Eric van Lasbeda that told a tale of revenge and
deadly games amongst Japan's samurai. As police followed up these
new lines of inquiry, fingerprint expert Judah uth Kirby continued
the painstaking job of comparing the partial thumb print against

(42:05):
every print on record, as well as those of recent arrestees.
After eighteen fruitless weeks, Judith went on leave. Her colleague
John Bainbridge, took over the task in her absence. John
was in his first day of the laborious job when
he came upon the file of a man who had

(42:26):
recently been arrested in Middlesbrough for the suspected theft of
a motorcycle. He had prior convictions too, having only recently
been released from a youth correction facility after serving five
years for robbery, wounding with intent and a breach of probation.
John compared the man's print to the one from David

(42:48):
Burkett's murder. There was no mistaking it. It was a match.
John felt conflicted. On one hand, he was over the
moon to have finally made a major breakthrough in the case.
On the other, he felt bad for Judith, later telling

(43:08):
Crime Watch, after all this hard work she had actually
missed this moment, which comes once in a lifetime. Case
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by listening to this episode sponsors.

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Thank you for listening to this episode's ad. By supporting
our sponsors, you support case File to continue to deliver
our quality content. Detective Chief Inspector Brian Leonard and his

(45:04):
team immediately got to work learning everything they could about
the motorcycle thief. It turned out that on the same
night that the crime Watch episode aired, two Middlesbrough police
officers had been patrolling Oxford Street when they drove past
a dark alleyway and noticed a man loitering on a motorcycle.
Suspicions aroused, they went to question him, but as soon

(45:28):
as the man noticed them, he sped off down the
narrow lame way. The officers chased him on foot and
came across his abandoned motorcycle in the middle of the alley.
It looked like the driver had accidentally crashed into the
wall before fleeing the scene. The officers gave chase, but
because of how quickly everything happened, they hadn't had time

(45:51):
to grab their torches and could barely see anything through
the dark. The officers called for backup, and within minutes
the area was swarming with police. Officers jumped the alley's fence,
which took them to a residential area. They searched the
surrounding gardens until eventually they found a man hiding in

(46:12):
the bushes. He reeked of petrol. The man, who was
white with a shaved head and facial tattoos, was placed
under arrest for suspicion of stealing the motorcycle and taken
to the police station to be formally charged. He was
identified as Reginald Wilson, a twenty five year old with

(46:33):
a proclivity for violence and priors for theft, robbery, and burglary.
On the right side of his face was a large
tattoo of a serpent, and on his forehead were the
words psychopath and chaos. Wilson had his fingerprints and mugshot
taken as a matter of routine, and was then released

(46:54):
on bail, with none of the officers giving it any
more thought. With the discovery of the matching print, Reginald
Wilson was propelled into the position of prime suspect in
the murder of David Burkett. While he'd never worked for
Demon Dispatches, he was known to ride a motorcycle and
was clearly no stranger to breaking and entering, but police

(47:19):
couldn't find any connection between the suspect and victim. Back
in the early nineteen eighties, Wilson had been a drug user,
and he'd sometimes frequented the laneway that ran alongside David's house.
Investigators theorized that David could have once chased Wilson away
and he'd held a grudge ever since, but there was

(47:40):
nothing to support this theory. A background check revealed that
Reginald Wilson's problems with authorities started when he was a teenager.
Issues at home led to poor attendance and bad conduct
at high school. He was removed from his family on

(48:02):
a place of safety order, then placed in a boarding
school for boys run by Social Services.

Speaker 4 (48:09):
A full care.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
Order was made for Wilson in nineteen seventy seven, and
from that point on he moved between various residential institutions
and had numerous run ins with the law. At the
age of nineteen, Wilson entered a general store wearing a
black mask and attacked the shop owner with a blunt object.

(48:30):
The owner's wife heard the commotion and tried to intervene,
but she too was attacked. The husband and wife were
treated for head injuries, and Wilson was eventually identified after
bloodstains on his clothes were matched to his victims. He
spent five years in youth custody, where he was denied
parole due to disruptive behaviour. He was released in August

(48:55):
nineteen eighty eight, eighteen months before David Burkert's murder. A
police surveillance team was tasked with watching Reginald Wilson around
the clock to learn more about him. They discovered that
he lived with his girlfriend, Sharon, in a two story,
two bedroom home in the Winnie Banks area of Middlesbrough,

(49:16):
just a mile west from David Burkeert. Sharon went to
work as a cleaner at a local restaurant each day,
while Wilson himself appeared to be unemployed. He mostly spent
his time wandering around alone, dressed in a camouflage print
jacket and listening to what looked like a walkman. They

(49:37):
soon discovered it wasn't a walkman at all, but a
police radio scanner. At one point, the surveillance team watched
Wilson as he stole a motorcycle off the street in
broad daylight. On another occasion, he made his way down
Union Street and entered what appeared to be an abandoned building.

(49:58):
It was located on the main street and just around
the corner from the phone booth used to make the
nine to nine nine call on the night of David
Burkett's murder. After Wilson left, the team went inside to
check the building out. It looked like he'd been using
it as some kind of hideout. Graffitied across the walls

(50:21):
was a picture of a skull, along with the words
up yours and thirteen years of hell. Now it's my
turn pig soon. The police had no doubt that Reginald
Wilson was a dangerous man. After surveilling him for three days,
they decided it was time to make their move, but

(50:45):
they needed to be smart about it. They didn't know
what kind of weapons Wilson might have, and given his
clear hatred for police, it was far too dangerous to
try and arrest him at home.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
Instead.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
On Friday, ja Une twenty two, nineteen ninety four and
a half months after David Burkett's murder, a team of
undercover officers watched Wilson as he rode his bike along
the street. When he stopped to use a payphone. The
officers barricaded him in and arrested him on suspicion of murder. Meanwhile,

(51:22):
a search warrant was executed at Wilson's house. It was
clear that he'd worked hard to cultivate a march O
image for himself. In the backyard were four guard dogs,
an alsatian, two pitbull terriers, and a rockweiler. Police searched
to Wilson's bedroom and found walkie talkies turned to the

(51:43):
police radio frequency, as well as a naxe and a
small notebook. In the notebook was stenciled writing that looked
just like the stencil used in the taunting latter sent
to police. Wilson also kept what appeared to be hit
list featuring the names of several senior police officers. In

(52:05):
his attic were torn up pieces of paper with passages
of writing similar in tone to the latter. The handwriting
was an exact match to the writing on the faked
demon dispatcher's note found at David Burkeert's home. Because of
Wilson's previous convictions, he'd been banned from owning firearms. The

(52:27):
search team used a telescopic censor to check the walls
behind the stairs. Hidden inside the plasterboard, they found a
lethal cache of weapons, including a sawn off shotgun, a
Premiere shotgun, a combat eight millimeter handgun, seventy three shotgun cartridges,
a crossbow, hammers, a collection of knives, knuckle dusters, and

(52:51):
even a rocket launcher. There was also a pair of
black woolen gloves that had a hole in the right thumb,
the same thing that had left a partial print on
the plastic bag found in David Burkett's hallway. Although Wilson
didn't have a telephone, he did own a phone book.

(53:12):
Investigators flipped through it and found that the names and
addresses of several people had been circled. One was David Burkeert.
Another was Alan Thompson, the former director of Demon Dispatchers,
whose house had been broken into the year before David's murder.
Thirdly was the home address of Detective Chief Inspector Brian

(53:36):
Lanyard at the police station. Reginald Wilson denied having anything
to do with the David Burkeert's murder. He also denied
writing the taunting letter to the police and said he'd
never even owned a stencil. When shown the stenciled writing,

(53:57):
found in his notebook, Wilson said he'd depend that freehand.
Police searched his parents home and found a Helix brand
stencil that was an exact match to the writing in
his notebook, as well as the latter sent to the police.
In another room, police questioned Wilson's girlfriend, Sharon. She was

(54:18):
reluctant to answer any questions, saying that Wilson had threatened
to kill her if she ever spoke out against him.
Sharon was clearly scared of Wilson, but she said it
hadn't always been that way. The two had met through
mutual friends and began dating in November nineteen eighty eight.
At first, Wilson was caring and attentive, taking Sharon out

(54:42):
for drinks and celebrating special occasions like her birthday and
Valentine's Day, but after they moved into their house in
Winnie Banks, he started to change. Sharon said Wilson became
obsessed with motorbikes, dogs and guns, and complained that he
was having severe headaches. He became increasingly withdrawn, spending weeks

(55:06):
at a time practically living in their attic, reading obscure
books and writing dark prose. He developed a deep interest
in physical fitness and survival techniques. He often spent time
on the Yorkshire moors fending for himself. While Sharon said
that Wilson could be extremely violent, she insisted he'd never

(55:29):
physically assaulted her. She also claimed to know nothing about
David Burkett's murder. It was only when the police showed
her the evidence they'd collated that she began to let
her guard down. Sharon recalled that Wilson had acted strangely
on the night that the Crime Watch segment about David's
case had aired. While he had never shown any interest

(55:52):
in the show before, he had asked Sharon to tape
the segment before going out for the night. Sharon admitted
that Wilson's behavior had been increasingly bizarre of late. She
said he had recently acquired two Doberman puppies, but he
became so enraged by their constant whining that he had

(56:12):
smashed both of their heads against the back wall. The
police searched the dog run in the backyard and found
pieces of green cord that resembled the cord that had
been used to drag David Burkett's body. Sharon said she'd
never seen the cord before because she was too scared
to go into the backyard, but she thought it looked

(56:34):
like part of a stretchy dog leash that Wilson owned.
Sharon said that Wilson had recently sold one of his
pit bulls, but had obtained the home address of the
woman he'd sold her to. He'd sneaked over to her
house a few weeks later and stole the dog back,
along with the green leash. The green cord found at

(56:56):
the crime scene was microscopically compared to the cord found
at Wilson's. Both of them had been made using a
distinct type of nylon with the same unique colour signature,
proving they were a match. Blank pieces of paper seized
from Wilson's home were also examined using electrostatic detection apparatus,

(57:17):
a forensic technique that reveals writing impressions left when one
piece of paper is placed on top of another. Clear
indentations from the stenciled letter that had been sent to
the police proved that Reginald Wilson was the author. Further
indentations also confirmed that law enforcements suspicions about further attacks

(57:41):
were correct. Written in Wilson's handwriting, was a note that read,
plan to kill as many pigs as I can before
they kill me. Idea is to put as much fear
into the police as possible, kill one frighten a hundred.
He wrote that he would call nine ninety nine and

(58:03):
to say he'd just come home from work to find
his rear window had been forced open, or that the
window to the garage had been broken. He could say
that property was damaged, or someone had been assaulted, or
that his child was missing. Wilson continued, nine times out
of ten, when someone phones the police with a complaints

(58:25):
or report similar to the above, only one copper comes
to take notes. If more than one comes, depending on
the escape route and place of ambush, He wrote, if
good still go ahead with plan. If not one hundred
percent sure a bought. Charon told the police that a

(58:48):
few weeks earlier, Wilson had left the house with a gun,
telling her he was going out to kill a policeman.
Police checked their incident books from the night in question
and discovered that someone had called nine nine nine to
report a domestic dispute. The address they gave was the
abandoned building on Union Street that Reginald Wilson had been

(59:10):
using as a hideout. Two officers had attended the address
and then left without incident. Based on Wilson's writings, police
believed that Wilson had lured the police there, then lay
in wait intending to ambush an officer. He had aborted
his plan when two officers arrived instead of one. D. C. I.

(59:33):
Leonard later remarked, they will probably never know just how
lucky they were. If one had gone, Wilson would almost
certainly have killed him. The police had amassed concrete evidence
placing Reginald Wilson at the scene of David Burkett's murder,
but they still didn't have a motive for anything that

(59:55):
connected the two men to one another. It emerged that
the previous December, David had placed his prized ancient skull
in the front window of his home with a sprig
of holly coming out of it as a bit of
a Christmas joke. The police believed that the skull might
have caught Wilson's eye as he was passing by, inadvertently

(01:00:17):
putting a target on the unsuspecting David's back. As one
detective who worked the case later remarked to UK True
Crime show Murdertown to murder without motive. If he hadn't
have dropped that carrier bag, we would probably have never
traced him. Ever he was trying to commit obviously the

(01:00:39):
perfect murder.

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
REGINALD.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
Wilson pleaded not guilty to the murder of David Burkeert
and was held in custody awaiting trial, while also facing
other smaller charges, including possession of a shotgun. In July
nineteen ninety, he was being transfer to the magistrate's court
via a prison bus when he attacked a prison officer
with a homemade knife, slashing the side of his face

(01:01:08):
and neck. Three guards managed to fight Wilson off, and
the officer survived the attack, leaving Wilson with additional charges
for attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm. A forensic
psychiatrist assessed Wilson, finding that while he was suffering from
a psychiatric disorder, he was still fit to stand a trial.

(01:01:32):
Based on Wilson's history of offending, the psychiatrist concluded that
he had considerable potential to cause harm to others, stating
he is less impulsive and more calculating than most psychopaths,
rendering him more of a liability. Wilson's murder trial went

(01:01:53):
ahead in July nineteen ninety one. The prosecution case was
that Wilson had been motifed by nothing more than his
desire to kill and to see if he could outsmart
the police. He'd planned the attack against a David carefully
disguising himself as a motorcycle courier, not only because it
would give him easy access to David, but also because

(01:02:16):
wearing a helmet allowed him to hide his distinctive facial features.
Once David led him inside, Wilson bludgeoned him to death
with a hammer wrapped in a plastic bag. It was
possible that the phone calls from David's neighbors checking if
he'd be joining them at the theater, had temporarily interrupted Wilson.

(01:02:37):
He then searched the house for the ancient Skull, staging
a ransacking before attacking David a second time. Wilson took
the stand in his own defense, but this did nothing
to help his case, with reports deeming his behavior on
the stand as psychopathic. After eighteen days of hearings, it

(01:02:59):
didn't take the jury long to declare Reginald Wilson guilty.
The judge praised the work of detectives, stating the quality
of the investigation, in my view, could not have been better.
It reflects highly on the officer in charge and.

Speaker 4 (01:03:16):
His whole team.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
The investigation itself was one of complexity and difficulty. It
required cooperation from a number of different arms, both at
police level and the level of forensic scientists. Since this
man's arrest, it is clear that the case has been
prepared with the utmost skill and presented to the court
in the same fashion. I wish to command all those officers,

(01:03:43):
especially the senior officer, in the highest terms. Turning his
attention to the killer, the judge said, Reginald James Wilson,
you have been convicted on what, in my view is
clear evidence of a most appalling murder. I regard you,
as a result of what I've heard during the course

(01:04:04):
of this trial, as an exceptionally dangerous man. The sentence
of the court is one of life imprisonment. I propose
to recommend to the Home Secretary that in your case,
a sentence of life imprisonment will be one that should
be served in its entirety. Life I will recommend should

(01:04:26):
mean life at the time very few prisoners in England
had been given a whole life sentence. Reginald Wilson became
one of them. Before being let out in handcuffs attached
to police officers flanking him, Wilson shouted, you may contain me,

(01:04:48):
but you'll never control me. The life sentence came as
a relief to the investigators who had worked on the case.
One detective told reporters he set out to kill and
he did it. If he ever gets out, I'm sure
he will kill again.

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
D C. I.

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
Leonard said that Reginald Wilson was the most evil, dangerous
and cunning criminal he'd encountered in his twenty seven year career.
He praised the painstaking detective work that brought Wilson to justice,
telling reporters we are just relieved he is behind bars.
He was so confident he would never be caught, but

(01:05:33):
he made mistakes. No one was more relieved than David
Burkett's loved ones. Reginald Wilson unsuccessfully appealed his conviction, with
the Home Secretary declaring that in his case, quote life
would mean life. In nineteen ninety six, Wilson was caught

(01:05:55):
attempting to break out of prison after he cut through
the bars of his cell and tried to escape over
the jail wall via a makeshift ladder he'd fashioned out
of old furniture. Three years later, he tried to stab
a prison officer for the second time and was transferred
to the prison's close Supervision Center unit, where he was
deemed an exceptional risk. For David Burkett's family, the fact

(01:06:21):
that Wilson would be behind bars for the rest of
his natural life was the only thing that gave them
some sense of solace. However, they received a terrible shock
seventeen years after Wilson's conviction. In two thousand and eight,
an officer who had worked on the case knocked on
the door of David's ex wife to let her know

(01:06:42):
that Wilson had been granted a hearing to apply for
a review of his whole life sentence. David's family learned
that in two thousand and three, changes had been made
to the UK's Criminal Justice Act that allowed convicted murderers
to apply for judicial reviews of their censor. While the
power of this decision had previously gone to the Home Secretary,

(01:07:06):
the responsibility had shifted to the High Court and the
Parole Board. The officer assured David's family they had nothing
to worry about, but two days later it was announced
that Wilson's sentence had been reduced to a minimum of
just eighteen years. David's family were horrified. They objected to

(01:07:30):
the decision in a letter to the Attorney General, writing,
how can a life meaning life's sentence, which could be
anything up to seventy years, considering Wilson's age at the
time of the murder, be so dramatically and inexplicably reduced.
Is our father's life worth less now than it was then?

(01:07:51):
The Attorney General immediately referred the case to the Court
of Appeal, where a panel of judges found the eighteen
year sentence to be manifestly lenient for a crime of
such a serious and sadistic nature. It turned out that
the judge who'd been tasked with reviewing Wilson's sentence had
not been given adequate paperwork, nor had David's loved ones

(01:08:14):
been invited to submit representations. A spokesperson for the Ministry
of Justice apologized for this oversight and said changes would
be made to the process to ensure the same thing
didn't happen to another family. The Court of Appeal overturned
the reviewed ruling, resentencing Reginald Wilson to a minimum term

(01:08:35):
of thirty years, making him eligible for parole in twenty twenty.
After the decision, David's daughter Laura spoke to the Telegraph
about how distressing the process had been for her family.
Wilson was twenty five when he murdered Dad. If he
is out in another twelve years, he'll still be younger

(01:08:57):
than Dad when he was killed. No one can ever
fully comprehend what this man has done to us. Although
we took comfort from the decision, it has been horrendous
to drag up all these awful memories again. The criminal
justice system was criticized again in November twenty twenty two,

(01:09:20):
after it was publicly revealed that the Parole Board had
approved Reginald Wilson's request to be transferred to an open prison.
An open prison is a minimum security prison where inmates
have permitted greater freedom to work, study, or visit family
to help them reintegrate into society. There are no walls, bars,

(01:09:40):
or guards in the traditional sense. The board stated that
there had been a major improvement in Wilson's behavior since
nineteen ninety nine, he had taken therapeutic and behavior offending
courses in which he had developed exceptional levels of personal responsibility,
life skill, resilience and maturity. Wilson said an open prison

(01:10:05):
would allow him to work with professionals to develop release plans.
The Parole Board's recommendation was sent to the Secretary of
State for approval, but in February twenty twenty three, just
as Secretary Dominic Rab denied the transfer, Wilson, now going
by the name of Reginald Zanshan, disputed the rejection in

(01:10:28):
the High Court later that year, arguing that Rab's decision
had been unlawful as he had served his minimum sentence
of thirty years. The High Court judge clarified that Wilson
had completed the punishment portion of his sentence and therefore
the only question that remained was whether he continued to
pose any risk to the public. While acknowledging the severity

(01:10:52):
of Wilson's crime, the judge stated, the fact is that
the claimant is not serving our whole life, and thus
the prospect remains of his being released into the community
at some point. Transfer to open conditions allows the testing
of compliance and the efficacy of relapse prevention strategies, along

(01:11:14):
with an informed assessment of how best to manage the
individual in the community. Thus, the Parole board recommendation in
this case was nothing to do with being soft on
a person convicted of murder. It was a difficult and
responsible decision made by a properly constituted statutory body based
on the unanimous evidence of experts and professionals, with a

(01:11:37):
view to maximally protecting the public going forward. Explaining his
decision in a detailed twenty six page judgment, the judge
concluded that rab had acted unlawfully in his rejection and
ordered that he remake his decision in accordance with the law.
As of twenty twenty five, Reginald Wilson remains in high

(01:12:01):
security prison. For David Burkeert's loved ones, one of the
hardest things to reconcile was that someone as kind and
harmless as David could be the target of such a
horrific and senseless crime. Still baffled by the case decades later,
a fellow member of the Middlesbrough Bowling Club told Murdertown

(01:12:26):
David was one of ours. He was part of our community.
He was such a nice person for it to happen
to it was brutal, and it was utterly pointless. David's
murder had a long and lasting effect on his daughter, Laura.
She had always planned to follow in her father's footsteps

(01:12:46):
by becoming a doctor, but after the discovery of his body,
she took a year off from her studies to recover
from the trauma. If David's murder had taught her one thing,
it was that anything could happen behind clothes to doors
without anyone else realizing what was going on. Because of that,
Laura no longer felt safe being home alone. She couldn't

(01:13:10):
even go into an empty room of a house. In
two thousand and eight, Laura told the Telegraph, I couldn't
even go to the bathroom on my own. I would
sit outside my home in the car, waiting for hours
until someone came to accompany me.

Speaker 4 (01:13:27):
Inside.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
I couldn't go out after dark by myself, or sleep
by myself. I lost all the friends I'd grown up
with because they couldn't cope with the horror of the situation.
That was hard for me because I am a social person.
It took years and years to build any kind of normality.

(01:13:50):
Laura said that her father's murder impacted her family in
different ways. Her dreams of becoming a doctor were quashed,
and she fell heavily into after buying a house with
her father's inheritance when she was too young to properly
manage her finances. She told the Telegraph the murder damaged

(01:14:10):
our ability to flourish and be happy. There was no
counseling at the time, no victim support scheme. Over the years,
I've had therapy of every kind. After being plagued by
nightmares and flashbacks for over a decade, Laura was just
beginning to heal when Reginald Wilson's sentence was unexpectedly reduced,

(01:14:35):
and she felt herself reliving the trauma all over again.
Her saving grace was how quickly the courts had acted
to overturn that decision. Laura found a moment of solace
during one of the High Court hearings when the presiding
judge made the unprecedented request of asking the court to
pause for a moment to remember David Burkert. Finding comfort

(01:14:59):
in that small all act of humanity, Laura said it
was lovely to have that little bit of silence for dad,