Original subtitles

He is the most dangerous human being

that I've ever come into contact with.

This was about excessive violence.

For him, taking somebody's life in order to take property off them

is totally justifiable.

SUZANNE PACKER: This is the story of the extraordinary hunt

for a serial killer who evaded justice

for almost a quarter of a century.

If you can look at the sea for me...

The case is at the heart of the major ITV drama

The Pembrokeshire Murders.

This actually happens to people.

It's not a made-up story. It's not fantasy.

This is reality.

Now we bring together the real people

who brought this killer to justice.

A specialist team determined to unlock forensic secrets

which had remained undiscovered for decades...

Every contact leaves a trace.

It's just whether or not we're clever enough to find it.

...and who turned to a TV game show for the final crucial evidence.

This was a race against time... I am not a murderer!

I am not a murderer! ..to catch a killer.

This was a guy that was never gonna stop.

Pembrokeshire is an area of outstanding natural beauty.

Beautiful coastline.

And it is a place where people come and spend their holidays.

It's an area which is very, very close to my heart,

an area that I love, an area which I lived in.

If you've got to choose somewhere to live in the UK,

then Pembrokeshire should be top of the list.

Beautiful countryside with a terrible secret.

Pembrokeshire was a quiet little place...

...and yet we had someone

that had been capable of, er, such horrendous crimes.

Somewhere in this rural idle, a serial killer stalked.

In the 1980s, four innocent people

were blasted to death with a shotgun.

For more than 20 years, the crimes remained unsolved.

'Those crimes cast a shadow over Pembrokeshire...'

REPORTER:

...and two big double murders were a cloud over the force.

In here, we've got the main bulk of the stuff...

Encouraged by developments in forensic science,

Dyfed-Powys Police brought together

a small, hand-picked team of detectives

to take a fresh look at the murders.

What we'll do today is just to give you a brief background,

and then, later on...

The top-secret operation was code-named Ottawa.

I am Steven Wilkins.

I was the senior investigating officer for Operation Ottawa.

Cold-case reviews nationally had moved on,

particularly with... with forensic science.

There'd been a considerable amount of success,

so it's very, very important that serious cases are reviewed.

The Ottawa team had to go back to the very beginning,

when the murders began.

In December 1985, fire ripped through a secluded manor house

belonging to Richard Thomas and his sister Helen.

My name is Don Evans, former detective chief superintendent

of Dyfed-Powys Police.

Three days before Christmas, on a Sunday night,

I was at my home

when my control room telephoned me to say that there was

a large fire at Scoveston Park, near Steynton, Milford Haven.

When I arrived, the fire was so extensive

that everything had fallen through from the roof

onto an area where I saw the body of Richard Thomas burning,

partly burnt clothes round him burning.

There was an area on the abdomen

which had not been burnt in the fire.

That's where I saw this circular wound.

I thought at that time that it was a shotgun wound.

The body of Richard's sister Helen was eventually found in debris

from an upper floor which had come crashing down

through the burnt-out manor house.

The remains of Helen's body had gunshot wounds,

and she had black rope round her neck.

Initial enquiries began to reveal a terrifying scenario.

Police were to discover that Helen Thomas had been alone

when the killer arrived.

She had been tied up, possibly sexually assaulted,

and then shot.

When Richard returned, he too had been shot.

The intruder then started a fire to cover their tracks,

and it worked.

Scenes of crime officers spent weeks

sieving through the wreck of the house,

but found nothing to lead them to the killer.

It went on for a long time, er, without success.

I thought possibly it was committed by someone

quite close to the locality.

Every house in the rural villages around Scoveston Park

was called on by the police.

One man interviewed was 41-year-old John Cooper,

a handyman with convictions for violence in his youth.

Cooper was interviewed.

He was strongly alibied by his family,

er, who, it would appear, was terrified of him.

Said that he was home all night,

as it was a wet night, and that he hadn't gone out.

And officers took him out of the inquiry.

At that time, we were nowhere near close to solving it.

It was alarming for everyone.

Their main questions were, "Do you think it'll happen again?"

And I obviously was trying to instil in the public that,

no, it won't happen again.

But I was keeping my fingers crossed, everything crossed.

I had gone away on a week's holiday, returned on the Monday morning

to be informed, quite coolly,

that a couple at Little Haven, they are missing.

REPORTER:

I heard, "Boss, boss! Come quickly!"

My heart jumped.

And I ran along the coastal path to the two dog handlers,

through the undergrowth, right down to the cliff edge,

and there, I saw this horrible scene -

Peter and Gwenda Dixon.

Peter shot, tied...

...and his dear lady, partly unclothed...

...shot.

Five shots.

The most horrific sight you'd ever see.

The worst I've ever seen.

It was an assassination.

And here we had another major incident.

A double murder in the county of Pembrokeshire.

Horrific.

REPORTER:

Why don't you just give yourselves up to the police?

How can you live with yourselves with what you've done to my parents?

While officers had no idea about who might be responsible,

there was one lead.

REPORTER:

A witness came forward, and this sketch was produced

of the man seen using Peter Dixon's cash card at a local bank.

The figure in the sketch became known as "The Wild Man"

due to his unkempt appearance.

The man was almost certainly the killer,

but despite widespread appeals, there were no new leads.

Thousands of people were interviewed,

significant enquiries were made in relation to that.

Unfortunately, without a result.

The killer had slipped through the net again.

But the murders were not the only unsolved serious crimes

worrying detectives.

I'm Glenn Johnson, detective inspector

from the Operation Ottawa investigation.

For more than a decade, this rural area of Wales

had been dogged by a series of burglaries.

The burglaries were of property always in the Pembrokeshire area,

backing onto fields.

Jewellery, items of value were stolen.

These continued into the 1990s,

when police set up a major operation to catch the culprit.

During a house-to-house enquiry, a number of exhibits were recovered

that were identified, er, stolen from these burglaries.

The house belonged to John Cooper, the handyman who had been questioned

about the murders of Richard and Helen Thomas in Scoveston

13 years earlier.

A detailed search of his house, grounds and a nearby lake

uncovered a buried shotgun, more than 50 ropes and stolen jewellery.

In December 1998, Cooper was jailed for 16 years,

having been found guilty of 30 burglaries and one robbery.

The press dubbed him "The Super Burglar".

During the trial, there had been suspicion

that he might also have been involved in the shotgun murders...

...and Cooper got away with the killings.

Cooper was eight years into his sentence

when the Ottawa team was brought together.

It was kept very, very tight.

Positioned in an office in Fishguard Port.

Cooper was in prison at the time, and we certainly didn't want him...

make him aware that we were reviewing the two murders.

The sheer scale of an investigation which covered evidence

from four murders and a number of burglaries was daunting.

There was five computerised incident rooms.

There was one old-fashioned paper-based incident room.

11,000 exhibits and over a million documents

that we had to review before we could even think about

whether that was gonna end up in a trial or not.

But, from day one, I felt that we would find the person responsible,

that we would find the truth.

Evidence is always there, but you've just got to find it.

But could they link Cooper,

"The Super Burglar", to the murders?

It now seemed that another terrible crime

which took place about three miles away from Cooper's home

might hold fresh clues.

That night, their childhood was taken from them.

It was a... a really terrible attack.

GUNSHOT

In 2006, a small team of detectives

was on the trail of a serial killer who had evaded justice for 20 years,

and they had a prime suspect.

John Cooper was in jail for burglary,

but detectives believe clues to the murders

might lie in another terrible crime

which had taken place close to his home while he was still free.

In 1996, a man wearing a balaclava and armed with a shotgun

confronted five teenagers in a field near Milford Haven.

The Milford Haven attack was... for me, was very, very important.

It took place in March 1996.

Five children went out into a field.

A nice, sunny evening.

And then they're confronted by a masked man with a sawn-off shotgun.

Then he takes one of the young females away from the group,

where he rapes her,

and then indecently assaults a second female.

They were in a position where, if they'd made the wrong movement

or tried to get away, had he have shot one,

he could have potentially have shot all them then.

They were terrified and feared for their safety,

feared for their... for their lives.

That night, their childhood was taken from them.

It was a... a really terrible attack.

Steve Wilkins believed the rapist with the balaclava and shotgun

was also the man behind the Scoveston and coast path murders.

He was convinced that man was John Cooper.

For me, the attack at Milford Haven

actually tied those two murders together.

When you looked at it geographically,

proximity to Scoveston Park,

you could actually see Scoveston Park from the scene

where the five children were attacked.

Within five miles, we'd also had the murders

of Peter and Gwenda Dixon on the coastal path,

again, where robbery, a sexual element,

the use of rope and shotgun was used.

To me, that was beyond coincidental.

With the circumstantial case against Cooper building,

Steve Wilkins decided to go public with an appeal for information.

Cooper, who, at that stage, was in prison,

was an avid watcher of ITV Wales for the news.

Therefore, there was a good chance that he would see a public appeal,

and I wanted to know what reaction that had.

Steve Wilkins contacted a journalist who was fascinated by the case.

Jonathan Hill had been on holiday in the Little Haven area as a teenager

in 1989, during the search for the Dixons' killer.

As a team, we feel that there is a very real chance

that somebody watching this programme tonight

may have significant information, or, indeed, know who is responsible.

I want to unnerve him.

I want him to sit there and think, "What have they got?

"Have they got evidence already that ties me to it?"

The objectives and focus of Operation Ottawa

is to, erm, carry out a comprehensive review

of all the forensic material recovered in both cases.

The day after we made the appeal,

Cooper's chosen reading was failed cases on DNA,

so it did have an impact on Cooper.

Over that way there, and again, where it elevates, you'll see...

But despite all their suspicions about Cooper,

detectives had no forensic evidence

to put him at the scene of the murders.

The Ottawa team wondered

if they may already be sitting on the evidence they needed.

A large number of items had been recovered from Cooper's house

in Operation Huntsmen, when he was arrested for the burglaries in 1998.

He kept mementos of his offending, and I felt that was part of his...

his MO, is that reminded him of that moment

when he held the person's life in his hands.

Could it be that the forensic answers lay in items

Cooper hoarded from his crimes?

Steve Wilkins called on

one of Britain's foremost forensic scientists.

I'm Dr Angela Gallop, and I led the forensic science team.

It is such an interesting case. It's right up there.

It's like Rachel Nickell, Damilola Taylor, Stephen Lawrence -

all of these cases that I think people had given up on, really,

in terms of being able to solve.

Steve Wilkins said at the beginning of our investigation,

"All I need is a golden nugget, it's a golden...

"That's all I need, of DNA,"

and I think I and the rest of the team thought,

"Yeah, yeah," you know? SHE LAUGHS

"Yeah, you prob... You do, you do. Let's see what we can find."

BELL TOLLS

While Angela Gallop began the painstaking work

of examining the items seized from Cooper's home,

there was worrying news for the Ottawa team.

He'd served almost ten years of his prison sentence.

He was about to be released on parole...

and I'd got no doubt he would start his offending again.

And there would only be one end to that - Cooper would kill again.

METAL GRINDING

Welcome home, love.

Cooper goes back on his first night back at, erm... at home.

Erm, I was actually the senior investigating officer on call,

and I received a call from our control room

at around about three thirty in the morning.

HE SIGHS

And I can remember the exact words.

"Boss, we think he's murdered his wife."

And I can tell you that, er...

that sent a cold shiver down my spine.

It is a very sad story with Pat Cooper,

because she'd suffered years and years

of physical and mental abuse.

Pat probably was aware of issues which would have assisted us,

but I think her fear - and well-placed fear - of Cooper,

er, stopped her ever imparting that information to us,

so she was terrified of the man.

But the cause of Pat's death on the night of Cooper's release

was not what police first feared.

Pat had chronic heart disease,

and she actually died of natural causes.

That is the medical explanation.

I believe that Pat Cooper just gave up.

Cooper's release increased the pressure

to secure forensic evidence against him.

Experts started to make a detailed analysis

of the items recovered from his home in 1998,

when he was arrested for the burglaries in Operation Huntsmen.

So, we were examining the shorts for fibres

when we noticed that there was a tiny flake of blood,

or what looked like a tiny flake of blood on it.

And we DNA-profiled it...

...and we got a result.

After double-checking the test result,

it was time to break the news to Steve Wilkins.

And I remember, I rang him, and he was driving his car at the time,

and I thought, "This is going to come as a shock to him."

PHONE RINGS

I said, "just pull in somewhere, and then I'll...

"then I'll talk you through where, you know... where we've got to."

OK. What is it?

Right, so, we unpicked the hem of the shorts, like you asked.

And she said, "Steve...

"We've found a small stain. "We've tested that stain..."

"and it's tested positive for the blood of Peter Dixon."

"And its discriminating value is one in one billion."

We were pretty sure that that could be classed as a golden nugget.

Through further forensic analysis of the Huntsmen exhibits,

the team discovered that the shorts also linked Cooper

to the Scoveston double murder of Richard and Helen Thomas in 1985.

A lot of Richard Thomas's clothing had been destroyed.

There was one sock that hadn't been destroyed,

and it was extraordinary.

We managed two find two different kinds of fibres

linking the sock with the pocket of, er, john Cooper's shorts.

Finally, the team had some forensic evidence

to link Cooper to all four murders.

But could they also prove that Cooper was the masked man

who raped a teenage girl in Milford Haven?

During his spree of burglaries,

Cooper had attacked a woman at her home

in the small village of Sardis.

The robbery did not go to plan.

During that armed robbery, he attacked a lone female in a house,

and as he moved around the house searching for property,

cash and jewellery, she managed to, er, set an alarm off.

Cooper fled the scene.

In an attempt to avoid capture,

he threw items of his crime kit into the hedgerows.

The discarded glove was to be a forensic treasure trove.

Its fibres were recovered from items in Cooper's workshop,

proving it was his.

They were also found on branches used to cover the bodies

of Peter and Gwenda Dixon,

and on evidence from the scene of the Milford Haven rape.

This muddy glove that had been recovered from a hedgerow

that links with the Dixons, with Cooper's home address,

with the Milford Haven crime,

That is the central item, I think, of the whole case.

So we now connected him to four murders,

a rape and indecent assault.

Beyond our wildest dreams.

Finally, the Ottawa detectives believed they had unravelled

the 20-year-old mystery of the Pembrokeshire serial killer.

WOMAN:

But they knew Cooper would do everything he could

to continue to evade justice.

You're making things try to fit to john Cooper,

and it's bloody annoying!

John Cooper believed he had got away

with four cold-blooded murders in rural Pembrokeshire.

But police were closing in and ready to make an arrest.

He will be arrested this morning on suspicion of four murders,

the armed robbery and the... the rape offence.

More than 20 years after the murders at Scoveston Park,

detectives believed they finally had the evidence

to bring Cooper to justice.

WOMAN: He's kicked off! He's kicked off.

REPORTER:

Now, detectives had to go face to face with Cooper

and break down his lies.

Will you tell me what happened

on June 29th, 1989 in Little Haven?

My name is Gareth Rees, a former detective sergeant

in the Dyfed-Powys police force.

I was one of the officers who interviewed john Cooper.

He was a nasty individual, even in the family environment.

They all lived in fear of him.

When he was on a farm, he killed a pig with a hammer.

And that when his children were small,

they reared, erm, some chicks,

and he shot them with a shotgun in front of them.

Detectives focussed their questions on a pair of khaki shorts

recovered from Cooper's home.

These were shorter than those in the artist's impression

of the man seen using the Dixon's bank cards after the murders.

But Peter Dixon's DNA had been found on them.

During the interviews, we were given the task,

try and get him to admit they're his own shorts.

Would you accept that those shorts

resemble the shorts in the artist's impression?

HE CHUCKLES Not a bit, no.

OK.

He said that the shorts worn by the person

in the artist's impression were long-legged shorts,

but that his bathers were short-legged shorts.

Have you ever seen the shorts in this photograph, TWB1, before?

I believe those are my bathers, actually. OK.

And he's shown the photograph,

I asked, "Have you seen those before, john?"

and he said, "They look like my bathers."

OK, so, do you accept that those shorts were yours?

Yes, those might be my bathers. Oh, you're bathers.

I knew then that he'd associated himself

with one of the most crucial pieces of evidence we had.

The shorts were sent away for forensic examination,

and the reply we had back were that they had been shortened

post-manufacture by an amateur.

During yesterday's interview, John...

Yes. ..you mentioned that, during the trial,

you handled a shotgun.

Oh, a shotgun was in the court, yes, I believe it was, yes.

The shotgun used in the robbery that I was convicted of.

In Sardis? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cooper seemed preoccupied with the shotgun he used

during the Sardis robbery in 1996.

It had been part of evidence against him

at his trial two years later.

I believe I handled the gun in the court case that I was in court for.

As we looked at the packaging and got the gun out of the packaging

and so on, we noticed that, in the bottom of the packaging,

there were all these, erm, little flakes, black flakes,

and so, obviously, the paint was flaking off.

I seem to remember we had a low-power microscope with a...

with a strong light,

and you could see that there was a reddish cast on them,

on the inner surface, and, of course,

quick as a flash, we get our blood reagents out,

and we discover that it's actually blood.

Every contact, absolutely, I'm sure leaves a trace.

It's just whether or not we're clever enough to find it.

GARETH: The fact is, john,

that the net has been slowly closing in around you,

and, with the latest forensic results,

it's provided us with strong evidence.

I think he could see then that the cards

were stacking up against him and he was in trouble.

WOMAN:

No, because that's your outlook of every damn thing.

"Oh, yes, put 'em all onto john Cooper,

"because that's good and proper."

And at that stage, we could start to see the realjohn Cooper come out.

He starts to become angry.

You're making things try to fit to john Cooper,

and it's bloody annoying!

He starts to become agitated.

He starts to point to the camera and says,

"l know all of you in there..."

You two, you all... and your colleagues and them in there,

choose not to believe it. To look elsewhere.

Through years of painstaking work, detectives had built up

a compelling case against John Cooper,

but Steve Wilkins felt there was still one missing piece

to connect Cooper to the murders.

BU LLSEYE THEME PLAYS, APPLAUSE

The answer lay in an unlikely place.

...on Bullseye.

APPLAUSE

It was this legendary game show hosted byjim Bowen,

and hugely popular,

and the contestants had to answer general knowledge questions

and then also play darts to win the prizes.

26... And Steve said,

"Look, any chance you can see if you can find this?"

Black.

It was like looking for a needle in a haystack,

because they made countless episodes of Bullseye.

They're still running on channels now.

Who would you like to be if you weren't you?

I had to get hold of an archivist

who was looking after the, er... the shows.

They were all stored in a basement in Leeds,

and it required a bit of sweet talking and a bit of arm bending

to get him to go through all the episodes

and look for a contestant that was from Pembrokeshire.

Listen...

There was no list of the contestants on ITV records.

The archivist hunted through videotapes

of hundreds of programmes.

I got a call from the archivist, who said, erm...

"l think I've found him."

john and Harvey, with £220, please. APPLAUSE

He said, "There's a guy here, and he's with a friend,

"and they're from Pembrokeshire." And I can remember thinking...

Well, it was an amazing moment, to think we'd found it.

You've got an unusual hobby, john, haven't you?

The scuba diving.

Apparently, it's the place to do it down there, isn't it?

Yeah, because...

I get a call from... from a very excited Jonathan Hill,

and they've actually identified, er, the particular programme

and the recording, and, significantly,

it is three weeks before the Dixons are murdered.

There it is. I'll keep...

We took the artist's impression, and then we took a freeze frame,

just like you'd do at home on a... on a DVD player, you know,

you press pause at the most likely moment...

You get the £220 back. It's... We know you're a good player, I just...

...and suddenly, those two images came together.

There he was, on Bullseye,

just a month before he killed the Dixons.

The Ottawa detectives were ready to charge Cooper

with four murders and a rape.

Judge me AFTER the trial, not before.

But now everything rested with a jury.

I am not a murderer. I am not a rapist.

Do you find the defendant, john William Cooper,

guiltY 0F not guilty?

The atmosphere in the court was... You could have cut it with a knife.

After more than 20 years of evading justice,

John Cooper was finally facing trial for murder.

You must judge me AFTER the trial, not before.

Judge me AFTER the trial.

Over the years, I have had total control of the investigation,

so it's a real strange feeling that you're then...

you're handing over that investigation to people

that you've never, ever met before.

I believed that, if we didn't secure a conviction against him,

then he would kill again.

One of the country's top barristers took on the task

of leading the prosecution against Cooper.

This man in the photograph is the realjohn Cooper.

A loving husband who was married to his wife for 42 years.

I am not a murderer.

I am not a rapist.

I am an innocent man who has been wronged. Thank you.

Cooper gave his evidence, and then we normally concluded the day

around about four thirty, and the trialjudge asked Gerard Elias QC

as to whether he wanted to wait and start his interview in the morning.

Mr Elias... it's quarter to four.

Are you content to begin your cross-examination

of Mr Cooper tomorrow?

Very well, Mr Elias.

Yes.

Yes, but...

'The atmosphere in the court, you could have cut it with a knife.'

The next morning, Mr Elias said,

"We've now established you're a liar,"

and the impact that must have had on the jury was significant.

It was something that will remain with me forever.

I'm not a murderer. I am not a murderer!

REPORTER: The jury in the trial ofjohn Cooper has retired

to begin considering its verdict after weeks of evidence.

Now begins the tense wait for a verdict.

Tense for all the relatives that have been coming to court every day

and, of course, for the defendant himself, john William Cooper.

Let's have the jury in, please.

On count one of the indictment, the murder of Helen Thomas,

do you find the defendant, john William Cooper,

guiltY 0F not guilty?

HE CLEARS HIS THROAT Guilty.

Guilty.

On count two of the indictment, the murder of Richard Thomas,

guiltY 0F not guilty?

Guilty. Guilty.

On count three of the indictment, the murder of Gwenda Dixon,

guiltY 0F not guilty?

It's a cold, controlled evil that I think I saw in Cooper

which I don't remember in anyone else that I've been involved with.

It's a bittersweet sort of feeling.

Yes, we did have success, but it was on the success of...

of a lot of pain and trauma from victims and victims' families.

CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK

We were always left asking the question, you know,

were there other victims?

With a killer like Cooper, who was so prolific,

why would he stop?

REPORTER: 'Flo Evans lived here, on a small holding...'

And I remember Steve saying to me

he believed that there was another victim.

And when I trawled through the archive,

I came across a rather curious story.

'Flo Evans lived here,

'on a small holding less than two miles from Scoveston.'

Flo Evans lived here,

on a small holding less than two miles from Scoveston Park.

The 72-year-old, who was still fit and active,

was found dead, fully clothed in a bath full of water.

Flo Evans. Cooper knew her.

Cooper was her sort of handyman,

erm, and yet she died in a very mysterious way.

The reporter at the time had speculated

that Flo Evans lived just a short distance

from Scoveston Park, where two people had been brutally murdered.

An inquest decided that the death must have been accidental,

because there was no sign of forced entry at the house.

But friends and neighbours disagreed.

Normally, Mrs Evans only locked her inner back door,

but when her body was found, the outer door was locked instead.

The bath had been filled with water,

even though it would have been stone cold,

because the fire heating the back boiler was not lit.

The widow herself was buried alongside her husband

in the local cemetery,

her death destined always to be a mystery.

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