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19

The Taxi Driver

18 November

Becky Godden-Edwards (left), and Sian O'Callaghan (right)
The spade that had soil on it consistent with the soil where Becky Godden-Edwards remains were found.

The two cases we're talking about this week are the murder of Sian O'Callaghan and the murder of Becky Godden-Edwards. The murderer, taxi driver Christopher Halliwell, is suspected to have more victims. Joe talks about the court proceedings and Sandra tells Joe about berry farts.

Joe got his information from:

Sandra got her information from:

Audio transcript

Midweek Murders contains graphic and explicit content, listener discretion is advised.

Last time we recorded I wanted to tell you about the insect family that we in Sweden call the berry farts. It's a type of bug, it might be a beetle, that we call berry farts. I would say they're probably crawling on berries, a lot of the times like you can find them in berry bushes and stuff like that. If you take them up from the bush they will pee on you or excrement some kind of weird fluid that smells like farts. Do you have that in england?

No.

What!?

I don't think you have that in Sweden, I think this is a fever dream. [Laughter]

[Music]

Okay, should we start?

Go for it.

You're listening to Midweek Murders, which means... No. Fucking shit.

Do you wanna do it...

Every time.

Do you wanna do it in a Scottish accent? Can you do it in a Scottish accent?

It's wednesday my dudes, which means that it's time to talk about crime. You're listening to Midweek Murders. I'm your host Willie McBurney and with me is my co-host...

Sandra! Who's Willie McDermott?

Willie McBurney.

Burney.

It's the Scottishest name I could think of. [Laughter]

Okay, that's Joe. You did great man.

This week we're going to talk about Christopher Halliwell and the two ladies that he murdered.

I would say a five.

Five?! Fuck off.

On that last bit. Maybe a six.

What? The two... The two ladies that he murdered?

It's the "murdered" that doesn't...

Listen to a Scottish person say "murdered".

All right. Okay. Yeah, so this week we're going to talk about the murder of Sian O'Callaghan and Becky Godden-Edwards. So I got my information from Wikipedia, BBC News, The Independent by Paul Peachy. I also got references, or information, from A Confession a TV drama. Yes I watched a whole series a couple of weeks before this episode, but I did. And...This is going to be controversial! Controversial! An article in The Sun by Nicola Stowe. And also gov.uk PACE laws, code C - Detention.

Willie McBurney got his references from a website called judiciary.uk, which was a very informative website that had the recordings of the actual court trials.

Oooooh! Exciting.

And a BBC article.

So Sian O'Callaghan was at a nightclub in the early hours of the 19th of march 2011. Her boyfriend Kevin texted her at half past three at night. He didn't get a response. When Sian still hadn't arrived home in the morning he called the police and reported her missing, as this was unusual behavior for Sian. The text message Kevin had sent had been received at the Savernake Forest area 12 miles, or 19 kilometers away, but CCTV footage had captured Sian on her way back to their flat in the opposite direction of Savernak Forest at 2.52 and the flat was only 800 meters away. As the forest area was far away from when she can be seen walking towards her home, and the message received 40 minutes after disclosed her location as in the forest, the police determined that she must have been traveling in a vehicle. So the day after her disappearance the police issued a public appeal for any information regarding Sian and announced that they had begun searching the forest area. Approximately 400 civilians joined in on the search. Detective Steve Fulcher told the public on the 23rd that they should stop searching the forest, as the police had zeroed in on a few hotspots, and said that specialist search teams would continue the search on their own. But what was actually happening was that the police had reason to believe that they had found the perpetrator and was hoping that he would lead them to where Sian was being held, or to her body. In the CCTV footage a car can be seen stopping close to where Sian was walking on the sidewalk. The car was a green Toyota Avensis with taxi markings, which could be tracked by CCTV driving towards Savernak Forest. They narrowed down the suspect list by talking to the taxi companies and arrested Christopher Halliwell, a 47 year old taxi driver, at an Asda supermarket parking lot on the 24th of march. They had been surveilling Halliwell for a while in hopes that he would lead them to Sian, to no avail. As they were concerned that he would take his own life after seeing him buy large quantities of paracetamol, they rushed to apprehend him so that he could be brought to justice. When Halliwell wouldn't talk to the arresting police officers, and Steve Fulcher got the news of that, he decided to tell the officers to bring Halliwell to the Iron Age Hill fort to question him himself. Halliwell confessed to the murder of Sian O'Callaghan there and led the police to her body near Uffington in Oxfordshire. Oxfordshire. Did I get it the second time?

Closer. [Laughter]

What is it?

Oxfordshire.

Yeah. I thought that's what I said. [Laughter] Oxfordshire. Yeah. So after they had been led to Sian's body Halliwell asked Fulcher: "do you want another one?", which led to him confessing to the murder of Becky Godden-Edwards who had been reported missing since 2007. After that, Halliwell led them to the grave. Any notes?

I have notes on the condition of Sian's body.

Oh yeah?

And some more detail about the process.

I'm ready for it.

The judge in one of his trials, I presume it was the first one, summarized the order of events and said that he'd turned off his taxi handset so that he wouldn't receive any calls and either offered or persuaded Sian a ride home. Took her into the forest where she was assaulted and murdered. And they know that a knife was used, she had stab wounds to her head, and she had bruising and abrasions to her face which were consistent with being kicked. She also had bruising and abrasions to her left breast and nipple, which were consistent with biting or bite marks. So there was clearly sexual motivation involved, it wasn't just a murder lust. And the reason that they found him wasn't due to any forensic linking the first time around. So he was actually really careful in how he deposited any kind of evidence. So Sian was found buried naked, he'd removed all of her clothing. The surveillance team saw him twice take a bunch of cleaning products to the back seat of his car, so he was cleaning out the back of his car. He was also seen depositing a couple of bags into his wheelie bin and when they went and recovered those it was his seat covers and the headrest cover. So he knew that having her in the back of his car would leave a trace. Whether it be hair, or clothing, or anything like that. So he got rid of it all.

I remember him depositing evidence and the surveillance people picking up on that.

Yeah. He also got in his car and drove away through another village and the surveillance team were obviously following him, and when they passed the same road that they'd seen him drive down, they saw a small bonfire on the side of the road. So he'd obviously taken whatever else he couldn't throw away, probably Sian's clothes, and burnt them.

In the TV series I watched I think it was her handbag. But it might not have been.

I don't know. They obviously couldn't recover what it was because it was burnt.

Yeah.

And then, like you said, he was seen on the CCTV which was how they identified his car.

Yeah.

So they got an image analyst who identified the same car, the same model and the same color, and also noticed that it had lighter areas on the doors which were the removable magnetic stickers of the taxi company that he worked for. So when they cross referenced that with all the taxi companies, there was pretty much only one person it could have been who ticked all of those boxes.

I remember in the TV series, they did say that he had clocked off before doing this.

So that's when he turned off his handset.

Yeah. So his last official drive was before this happened, but then when they questioned him about it he said that he had gotten home before this even happened. Which obviously wasn't true.

It was a big fat dirty lie.

Yeah. So on the 19th of october 2012 Halliwell pleaded guilty to the murder of Sian, but the confessions were ruled inadmissible because Steve Fulcher was said to have breached the guidelines of the Police And Criminal Evidence act from 1984 by failing to caution Halliwell and denying him access to a solicitor. Fulcher hoped that this would be allowed as the police are entitled to carry out an urgent interview, without a solicitor present, if there's a chance to save somebody's life. Even though Fulcher suspected Sian might have been dead, he argued that the best practice in every case is to treat it as if there's a chance to save somebody's life as they had no evidence to the contrary. If she had been held hostage at some place, he felt like the PACE would allow him to question him because there was a chance to save her life.

One of the court reportings that I read actually went into a lot of detail and had Fulcher's reasoning behind what he did. So to just go into that in a little bit more detail, when he was arrested in the car park he was read his rights and cautioned. And everything was prim and proper at that stage. As the supervising officer, Fulcher told his colleagues at the car park: "conduct the emergency interview". An emergency interview is basically one where the suspect doesn't need to be taken back to a police station and have their solicitor, or lawyer, present, which is the only difference between that and a normal interview. If you get arrested by the police you don't have to answer any of their questions until they take you to the police station and you've had a chance to have legal representation, unless it falls into this emergency category. So basically, they stuck him in the back of a car, an unmarked police car, and conducted the emergency interview. And they were instructed to only ask questions about Sian's whereabouts or her condition. So they were just asking: "can you tell us where Sian is? Can you tell us if Sian is still alive?". During that interview he gave no answers, he either said no comment or that he didn't know where she was, he didn't know if she was alive etc etc. They relayed all of that information back to the supervising officer.

Steve Fulcher.

Yeah. At that point, legally, the emergency interview was ended. They couldn't continue with it, he should have been taken to the police station read his rights again and been given legal representation. The reason that it becomes inadmissible in court is because Fulcher had his officers take him, like you said, to another location where Fulcher then interviewed him again again without giving him a caution or reading him his rights and again refusing to let him have legal representation.

Yeah, no, I get that and I understood that from what I read as well. From what I understood, he never stopped investigating the case as if Sian was still alive.

Yeah and he gave testimony, Fulcher, to say that the reason he conducted the second emergency interview was to stay within the flow. He wanted Christopher to feel a bit of pressure, that they knew they were onto him. He wanted him to give him the answers as soon as possible. And his view, like you said, was that if Sian was still alive that was more important to him than ticking all of the legal boxes of the interrogation process. He wanted to make sure if there was a chance that he could save Sian, that he did it.

Yeah.

As soon as that second interview took place, as soon as they didn't take him to the police station after that first emergency interview, Fulcher was in breach of protocol. And that's why it became inadmissible.

Yeah. So what I would like to amend here, for the case, is the PACE laws code C - detention. And it's 11.1. What do you call that?

11.1?

Okay. So it's eleven point... [Laughter] Eleven point one.

I don't understand the question. [Laughter]

From gov dot uk.

Following a decision to arrest the suspect they must not be interviewed about the relevant offense except at the police station or another authorized place of detention. Unless the consequent delay would be likely to: A) lead to interference with, or harm to, evidence connected with an offense. Or B) interference with, or physical harm to, other people. Or C) serious loss of, or damage to, property.

It doesn't excuse the second interview though.

No. So in march of 2016 Halliwell was charged with the murder of Becky Godden-Edwards. Becky was a sex worker working in Swindon. So a friend of Becky's, another sex worker, that had contact with her at the time of her death testified at court that Halliwell had been obsessed with Becky. In the TV series she's up on the stand talking about how he made her promise that she wouldn't tell Becky that they had sex. And he was representing himself at the time?

Yeah. In the second trial he didn't have lawyers present. He even cross-examined witnesses and legally challenged the prosecutor, which I thought was quite funny.

Becky's friend was like: "yeah, we had sex. And he said that don't tell Becky about this". Because he was obsessed with Becky, which in the news articles it said "besotted". I don't think that's an accurate description.

And in the court hearing it was described as "a repeat customer", or something along those lines.

Yeah. Well that's probably more accurate. He was a repeat customer who thought that he could control Becky. So he was obsessed, he was not in love with Becky. And the other sex worker said that he had sex with her and then, yeah as I said, told her to not tell Becky about them having sex. And he was like: "well to be honest, you're not my type". And I was like: "what the fuck is wrong with you dude?!". Obviously he's a murderer and a huge dick, but also like, nobody believes that. Nobody believes that he's like: "oh, you're not my type. I would never solicit your services". He is obviously fucked. So the other evidence was that the police had also found a shovel at Halliwell's property, which had the same kind of soil on it as the field had where Becky's body had been buried. Becky's mother Karen said in a victim impact statement:

"I never had a body to kiss goodbye before she was buried. But of course, she had already been buried in a lonely field in the middle of nowhere for years. Just left to rot."

And I would like to say, for anyone who's into like true crime dramas, I saw the series and... What's the actor who plays Umbridge?

Imelda Staunton.

Yeah. When they rang on her door to deliver the news that Becky was dead, I cried. And I don't do that to TV series.

I mean, Imelda Staunton is a fantastic actor. You only have to look at her portrayal of Umbridge as a more hated character than Voldetort, to show how well she portrayed an evil witch.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, she's so good that even I cried.

You cry all the time.

I don't to TV things, I don't!

"I don't!". [Laughter]

I cry on my own time, please and thank you. But I don't cry to TV series and stuff, and I cried when they rang the doorbell to tell her that her daughter was dead in the TV series. So it's a kind of a good TV series. I wouldn't recommend it to you, but to the listeners out there "A Confession", quite good.

To people who might actually be interested in true crime... [Laughter]

Yeah.

Willie McBurney loves true crime, loves investigating a murder.

So after Halliwell told a prison psychiatrist about a fishing spot that meant a great deal to him, the police searched the area and found 60 items of women's clothing discarded in the water. Two of the items were linked to Halliwell's known victims, a cardigan worn by Becky at the time of her murder and a high-heeled boot Sian was wearing when she was abducted. Did you read anything about the clothing items?

Nope.

So that was extremely interesting to me.

Gosh darn it, and I missed out.

Because I was like: "oh my god, 60 items of clothing". And two of them, just one single cardigan that was linked to Becky because they had evidence of her wearing it and one high-heeled boot that Sian was wearing at the time of her abduction. To me, it means like...

There's a lot more victims.

Yeah. And Steve Fulcher, at the time, thought that he would be leading an investigation into a serial killer because he didn't believe that somebody would kill someone between 2003 and 2005, and then nothing, and then kill someone else in 2011.

Bit of a gap.

Yeah, it is. So I find that incredibly disturbing. There's a lot..

Does not bode well.

No. There's a lot of other cases linked to those geographical locations, and other geographical locations that Christopher Halliwell have been living at. And this is probably why I feel like it's fine that he did these urgent interviews, because if he didn't turn in his notice at the police station more progress would have been made in this case.

Yeah. I mean morally, I don't think you can question him. He was trying to ensure the safety of Sian and trying to save her. I don't think anybody can doubt that what he did was in his opinion, and most people's opinion, trying to do what he could to save her. The problem is, in most developed countries, everybody has the right to a fair trial. Like I said, morally I don't disagree with what he did. I wouldn't care that a murder suspect who turns out to have murdered two and possibly 58 more women, or men, or people of any fluid gender. I don't care that he was interviewed without a lawyer, I don't care that he was interviewed outside of a police station without being read his right to silence, I couldn't care less. This guy doesn't deserve any of his human rights because he's taken a life, or multiple, but legally is where it all fell down. I think the two judge reports that I read, they could see exactly that. That he looked to do everything he could to protect and serve but legally he didn't dot the i's and cross the t's, and therefore anything he brought forward from those interviews had to be made inadmissible. Or the judge would lose their job, the trial would get thrown out completely. So they'd lose any chance of prosecution on him.

Halliwell was convicted of the murders of Sian and Becky and is therefore not eligible for parole and is serving two life sentences. So that's good, at least.

I just want to reiterate. So a life sentence in the UK typically means 25 years and eligible for parole for good behavior. So he got the 25 years for Sian's murder.

Yeah.

And when he was convicted for Becky's, the judge changed it so that it was a whole life term with no eligibility for parole. So he now will be behind bars for the rest of his life.

So Steve Fulcher believes that there are many more victims of Halliwell, as I said before, because he felt like the gap between the murders is unusual for murderers who commit murder for like, that kind of satisfaction. Which makes sense. He wanted to investigate the murders of Halliwell in more detail, but then he quit the law force because of the fact that he was prosecuted because of this case. And lost his whole pension because of it.

I just want to point out that it wasn't a prosecution in the legal sense.

No, it was an internal police...

Yeah, it... Yeah, an internal investigation that they found he'd made a boo-boo.

The problem that I have with this whole case is the other victims. Because allegedly, he's probably killed a lot of more people.

The clothes would indicate so.

Yeah. I feel like that as well. Because they could identify two of the pieces of clothing to his known victims, I would say that the other pieces of clothing was probably, maybe not all, but probably some other victims. And I feel like it's unfair that they don't investigate all of the other crimes that he could have done. Some answers would be great, you know. It would be good if they were still investigating it, but they probably aren't. Maybe they are.

Expensive innit.

It is, yeah. What are you gonna do now?

Sleep. It's 11 o'clock.

Oh god. Are you gonna google berry farts?

No, I am not.

I'm probably gonna google it and send you the details of the berry farts. Maybe I will tomorrow to not disturb you in your sleep. But, you know.

Something to look forward to. [Laughter]

You won't look forward to it, but I'm probably still gonna send it. [Laughter]

All right, all right.

You tripping.

What are you gonna do tomorrow?

Same thing I do every Sunday. Plan to take over the world.

All right, Pinky. Wait! Who's the brain? The brain and Pinky?

Pinky and the brain, yeah.

Pinky and the brain.

It's the brain that plots to take over the world.

I'm guessing you're the brain then.

You'd have to be Pinky. [Laughter]

All right, Pinky's gonna send you all the details about the berry farts. If I have time.

"If you have time". [Laughter]

All right, get out of here.

All right. Thank you so much for listening to Midweek Murders. We'll see you next week.

Bye bye.

Bye.

[Music]

Topics
  • Christopher Halliwell
  • Sian O'Callaghan
  • Becky Godden-Edwards
  • Taxi driver murders
  • PACE law
  • Steve Fulcher
  • life term sentences
  • A Confession
  • CCTV evidence
  • disposing of evidence
  • soil evidence
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