Original subtitles

(phone buzzes) (gentle piano music)

- [Narrator] 91 million of us worldwide

search for love online.

- She was looking for love.

- She wanted someone that would give her the freedom

to be herself.

- He looked like a normal, nice guy.

(ominous music)

(dogs barking)

- [Narrator] But internet dating can be a dangerous game.

- [Reporter] The mother of two small boys

reported missing early Sunday morning.

- [Narrator] In the UK alone, crime linked to online dating

has risen 450% over five years.

- This is a predator's paradise.

- It's that dark side of the web

that people don't realize exists.

- [Narrator] These are the real life love stories

that ended in tragedy.

- Each day she was living in fear.

- I knew that he was no angel,

but he really had me tricked.

- [Narrator] So how well do you really know

the person you're dating?

- She didn't stand a chance

against that monster of a man.

(intense music)

(dramatic music)

(gentle music) (birds chirping)

- [Narrator] Ibstock is a little village

with a fairly small population of people,

and a very quiet area by and large.

- The first time I went to Ibstock,

I thought what a lovely place it would be to live.

It's right on the edge of farmland,

there's a massive park next to it

where there's scout camps, and people walk their dogs,

and it's a really pretty rural location.

- Ibstock as a village

has a population of six to 7,000 people.

It has a pretty low crime rate,

and when this happened it really shocked the community.

- We've become increasingly concerned

that she may have come to harm.

And today, we have told the family

that we are treating her disappearance

as a murder inquiry.

(ominous music)

(gentle piano music)

- Kayleigh was 15 years old, had just turned 15 years old

in the August of 2015.

- Kayleigh was a normal teenager

with all the issues and other things you'd expect.

She fought with her siblings,

she had mates, she had sleepovers.

She was just an ordinary 15 year old.

- [Narrator] Kayleigh Haywood lived with her parents,

Stephanie and Martin, and six siblings.

- She was quite a bubbly person, certainly at home,

and very family orientated.

Kayleigh was very, very close

to everyone in her family, particularly her youngest sister.

But the bond that she had with her mother Stephanie

was also extremely close.

Stephanie would say that Kayleigh was like a sister

as much as a daughter.

- Family was a big part of her life.

There were lots of photos with her and her siblings.

She was obviously very happy with them,

she was very proud with them.

This was something that meant a lot to her.

- She didn't have a huge circle of friends,

but those friends she did have were close friends.

She had dreams of perhaps

becoming a hairdresser in later life.

- [Narrator] Like most teenagers her age,

Kayleigh was always on her phone.

- Kayleigh was almost surgically attached

to her phone, to her iPad.

She'd use it to send text messages

on a range of different social media platforms.

Kayleigh would think nothing of perhaps

exchanging 100 messages a day with her close friends.

She also was an avid collector of selfies,

and we've certainly got hundreds and hundreds of photographs

that Kayleigh took of herself

having fun in her bedroom with her mates,

dressing up, pulling funny faces.

Very much like every other child of that age.

- Social media for teenagers

is the be all and end all of their lives.

They will wake up in the morning,

they will check their device,

they will check their social media.

So for somebody like Kayleigh, an online profile

is all about making friends.

Well that automatically means they're gonna have

an element of vulnerability within their online life,

because they'll have strangers asking them to befriend them.

That is dangerous.

- [Narrator] On the 31st of October, 2015,

Kayleigh received a message.

- Kayleigh was sitting in her bedroom

when up popped a message on Facebook,

and it said, "Hi, how are you?"

- [Narrator] It was from a boy called Luke Harlow.

He told Kayleigh he was a friend of a friend,

and lived in the neighboring village of Ibstock.

- Friend of a friend is that classic phrase that's used

within social media to create friendships.

Gives an element of credibility.

Oh yes, of course you know me.

But by definition, a friend of a friend

if you don't know somebody is a stranger.

So in the case here with Kayleigh,

and other teenage girls,

by adding individuals they don't know

who are by definition strangers,

for them that's fun.

- It was just a random message,

and Kayleigh chose to reply to it.

She wanted more in her life.

She was a frustrated 15 year old girl,

and she was looking for fun and excitement.

- As part of a large family, having someone's attention

outside of that might have been quite exciting.

But teenagers might be more vulnerable than others.

They may not see through other peoples' lies so easily,

and may be very easy to get swept away

with compliments, for example.

- He continually told her that she was his princess,

and she was beautiful, and somebody looking like her

should have a boyfriend.

She would counter with, "I'm not that attractive,"

or "I'm not pretty," and he would say, "Oh yes you are."

So he would build her up,

and make her feel very good about herself.

If she had a row with one of her siblings,

he'd take her side.

- Kayleigh was flattered by the attention

that Luke Harlow was paying her,

and the litany of compliments

with which he was showering her

made her feel so special.

- [Narrator] Luke asked Kayleigh how old she was.

She replied that she was 19,

four years older than she really was.

He told her he was 26.

- Teenage girl might lie about her age online,

because she might think it makes her look cooler

in some way, or more like an adult,

and therefore, to maintain the attention

of the person that she was talking to.

- Within two to three days, Luke had realized

that she wasn't 19 years old,

and he confronted her about it,

and he realized that she was 15.

And he would say things like,

"People can't know we're talking.

"It has to be our secret.

"You can't tell anyone.

"I'll get into trouble."

- It's probably the first relationship she's had

whereby she's got an individual paying her the attention,

giving her the compliments

that she's never had before.

What we know of social media is that they can message 24/7.

It also means that the attraction for Kayleigh

would also progress a lot quicker than in normal time,

relationship when you meet somebody for the first time.

Here, she would be bombarded

with message after message after message

of somebody proclaiming their love for her,

and treating her like an adult.

- When we use social media on the internet,

it can be very easy to feel close to somebody,

because we've talked to them a lot,

we've shared intimate details with them,

and actually we get a false sense of security

and grow to trust them.

(phone dings)

- [Narrator] Within hours of first making contact,

Luke began to suggest they make plans to meet at his house.

- He was telling her what they'd be able to do

if she came round and stayed with him,

and they'd be eating chocolate, watching movies,

and significantly, drinking alcohol and getting drunk.

- Luke's questioning is classic predatorial type behavior,

including the questions relating to drink.

The fact that I want to meet you,

I want you to come round to the house,

I want to ply you with alcohol.

A 15 year old girl will see these

possibly as exciting, exciting times.

- Kayleigh's hearing wow, a chance to be

older than my 15 years here.

A chance to be an adult, and go and do what grownups do,

'cause grownups go to parties,

grownups drink booze, and they have a great time.

- [Narrator] In order to meet Luke, Kayleigh told her mom

she had made plans to stay with a close friend.

- Kayleigh didn't tell Stephanie, her mother,

about Luke Harlow, and we can only speculate why.

I personally imagine that was because Kayleigh

thought her mother probably wouldn't approve.

- He was the one that suggested

she should lie to her parents,

so you had flattery, support, and a secret.

All the sorts of things, sadly,

that make young girls very excited.

(somber music)

- Kayleigh was dropped off in the car park

of the local leisure center

where the friend was doing swimming lessons,

and she was seen, and we've seen her on CCTV

to walk in through the car park

and towards the swimming pool.

- When Kayleigh's parents

dropped her off in Ibstock that evening,

they both believed, quite firmly,

that's what their daughter was going to do.

Unbeknown to them, she was going to meet Luke Harlow

to spend the night at his house.

(gentle music)

- While Kayleigh was staying at Luke Harlow's

on the Friday night, she took some selfies,

she sent those to friends.

Luke Harlow wasn't in them.

They showed that she was okay,

that she was smiling.

There was nothing in the outgoing images

which would tell anybody where she was,

or that there was any cause for concern.

(somber music)

- After staying one night with Luke Harlow,

Kayleigh roundabout lunchtime on the Saturday

sent a message to her mom saying,

"Can I stay another night?"

And her mom, believing she was safe,

and not in any way in any kind of harm,

because she was at the address where she was supposed to be,

her mom said, "Yeah it's fine."

(ominous music)

- [Narrator] It was on Sunday morning

that Kayleigh's family realized that something was wrong.

- Local builder found Kayleigh's phone in the street,

and being a good guy, he decided to try and find out

who the owner of the phone was.

And he rang the last number dialed,

and that was one of Kayleigh's closest friends.

Now this friend obviously was quite suspicious

as to why she's got a guy she doesn't know

speaking on Kayleigh's phone.

He explains the situation, and alarmed,

the friend phoned Stephanie Haywood,

and told her what was going on,

to which Stephanie's response was,

"I thought Kayleigh was with you.

"What's going on?

"Why isn't she with you?"

And the friend replied, "I haven't seen Kayleigh

"since Thursday.

"She was never staying with me.

"What are you talkin' about?"

You know you've got a mom who's worried

about where her daughter is,

because these circumstances aren't right, are they?

Somebody has found Kayleigh's phone

in a situation in which they shouldn't have.

And Kayleigh is not where her mom thought she was.

- The very minute Stephanie realized

that her daughter wasn't staying with a school friend

that weekend, but in fact was missing,

she picked up the phone and rang the police, 999.

(somber music)

- [Narrator] Detective Inspector Simon Shuttleworth

was one of the senior officers

investigating Kayleigh's disappearance.

- Officers went as quickly as they were able,

and started to ask Stephanie Haywood

questions about where Kayleigh should be,

and where she could be.

One of the very first questions that the attending officers

asked Stephanie Haywood

was if she'd got a social media profile.

Answer, yes.

- When we're looking for a teenage missing girl,

and we don't know where she is,

social media profiles are somewhere that we could start.

And when we started this with Kayleigh,

it gave us a lot of information that we didn't have.

- [Narrator] Detective Constable Andy Spence

examined Kayleigh's phone, laptop, and social media.

- When we looked at Kayleigh's Facebook profile,

it was the typical Facebook profile of a teenage girl.

There were pictures with her and her friends.

There was pictures of her going out,

but there was nothing there that concerned us about it.

It was a typical 15 year old's social media account.

But I found that she had received a message

on the 31st of October,

so two weeks before, from somebody

who called himself Luke "Fun Times" Harlow.

Luke portrayed himself as the fun times.

He had plenty of photos on there of alcohol,

of him partying, of being drunk.

When I looked at the messages between Kayleigh and Luke,

there were messages there which gave me cause for concern.

One of the things he said which stuck out

was "Can I kidnap you forever?"

And he was very forward.

He was suggesting meeting up.

It was clear the two of them didn't know each other.

When these messages were seen,

Luke was quickly traced,

and police officers went round to see him.

- [Narrator] Police found Luke

at his home address in Ibstock.

- Luke's account to them

was that Kayleigh had been round at his house,

and that she'd stay on the Friday night,

and that she was there on the Saturday night.

- The officers who came round here to George Avenue

to speak to Luke Harlow

about Kayleigh's current whereabouts

were given some of her property by him,

but what he didn't have was her phone,

and he seemed very inquisitive

and he wanted to know where that phone was,

and where the police officers had found it.

The officers attending then thought that was suspicious,

and wondered why he would be so keen

to know where the phone was.

- [Narrator] With Kayleigh missing, police officers

interviewed Luke at the station as a witness.

He told police there was someone else

with him and Kayleigh on Saturday night.

His neighbor, Stephen Beadman.

- It's a big moment when a second name is introduced

into the investigation.

At that point, we're looking for

15 year old Kayleigh Haywood,

who we think has been brought into an address in Ibstock

by Luke Harlow, who's chatted with her on social media.

And now suddenly he is saying to us,

"Well when I last saw her,

"she was with this guy, Stephen Beadman, my neighbor,

"and I've not seen them since, neither of them."

Now we're looking not only for Kayleigh,

but for somebody else.

Now Beadman just lived here in a flat

which backs on immediately to Harlow's flat.

Unfortunately, Stephen Beadman wasn't at home

when we were looking for him.

The police officers looking for Beadman

found him at an address in Coalville,

which is the nearest town to Ibstock, really.

- [Narrator] Police arrested both Luke Harlow

and Stephen Beadman on suspicion of kidnap.

Both men were interviewed in police custody.

- [Interviewer] And how did you become friends?

- On Facebook.

- [Interviewer] How did that come about?

- I can't remember if I added her,

or she added me.

I'm not 100% sure, but I've got loads of people on it,

and I have a habit of accepting anyone

who tries, you know,

regardless of whether the name rings a bell, or anything.

I've got 2,000 odd people on it.

But I'm not sure whether

she added me, or I added her,

but basically as soon as we were friends on it,

we just started talking like, "Oh hey, how are you?"

- Harlow's using lots of body language to make his point

when asked about being friends on Facebook.

It almost seems as though he's acting.

He might be using lots of body language

to try and emphasize himself

so that he's better believed.

- [Narrator] Harlow claimed he went to bed early

on the Saturday night,

leaving Beadman and Kayleigh alone.

(eerie music)

- You don't know where she is?

- I don't know where she is.

I met her Saturday night at eight.

At half seven, eight o'clock.

I'd known her about four hours.

She was that drunk, she couldn't even,

I couldn't get much conversation out of her.

She'd been with Luke for Friday.

She stayed round there Friday apparently, Saturday.

He knocked on me door.

"Got a bottle of pop?"

I said "No, why?"

"Because I've got a bird round,

"I've had her round since Friday.

"We got wrecked last night,

"and I've got a big bottle of vodka."

- At this point, on Monday morning,

we have two men in custody

on suspicion of the kidnap of Kayleigh,

and neither of them are telling us where Kayleigh is.

- When we found Stephen Beadman, he said,

"I last saw her with Luke."

So you've got the two of them

pointing fingers at each other.

(helicopter whirring)

- [Narrator] With Kayleigh still missing,

the search ramped up as fears grew for her safety.

- It was a massive search operation.

By far the biggest I've ever worked on

in 30 years in the police service.

And almost hour by hour, more and more officers

are pouring in to assist that search.

- [Narrator] In an area of parkland near to Harlow's flat,

police had their first major breakthrough.

- I got a phone call very, very early on

as soon as they got here saying,

"Look, we think we've found a bra that's significant here.

"This is likely to be Kayleigh's.

"You can tell it's not been here long,

"it's in pristine condition,

"and it's on the top of the undergrowth

"behind the fence in the car park."

So that led to us taking a photograph,

and showing that information

in the photograph to Stephanie Haywood,

who sadly was able to tell us that that bra was Kayleigh's.

- It must have been deeply upsetting for Kayleigh's parents

to be shown items of underwear that we had found

during the search for their daughter.

Clearly was awful moment for them,

but critical in the context of our investigation.

(somber music)

- [Narrator] With this distressing discovery,

the pressure on the police to find Kayleigh was mounting.

- There were something to the order of

about 400 police officers in total working on the inquiry.

We had officers from all five East Midlands forces here,

and from further afield.

We had help from services

such as the Derbyshire Mountain Rescue Team.

Specialist dog search officers.

It was just a sea of vehicles,

and officers milling about,

and being given their directions and their orders

about where to go next.

You know, over to the left, over there,

we've got the park itself

and it's a massive park, full of woodland,

full of walkways, and lakes.

And at this time, we had no idea where Kayleigh was.

(somber music) (helicopter whirring)

- [Narrator] DC Spence was trying to piece together

what had happened in the days

leading up to Kayleigh's disappearance.

- When I looked at Kayleigh's phone, and her tablet,

and we pieced together the information

from her social media account,

it was very clear that Luke was the one

who was orchestrating the plans for that weekend.

He was the one telling her there would be alcohol there.

He was the one telling her what to say to her friends,

what to say to her mom and dad.

He was the one organizing when to meet.

It was clear he was the driving force behind that meeting.

He was also telling her to keep it a secret.

People won't like this, I'll get into trouble,

people won't understand.

Make sure you don't tell anyone.

- [Narrator] Meanwhile, the local community

were getting anxious about the whereabouts

of this missing teenage girl.

- We'd heard people in Ibstock talking,

and saying it was round the corner,

and also you could see the police activity.

It was all cordoned off,

so we knew it was the houses around the corner.

We had all the helicopters, police helicopters

at nighttime shining the lights in all the gardens,

and continually going round and round and round.

They were round a lot.

Dozen times or more, so you couldn't ignore it.

You knew something serious was happening.

- There comes to that community a sense of fear.

People clasp their own children more closely to them.

We obviously prayed for a good outcome,

and I suppose if I was to sum it up,

I would say that we prepared for the worst,

but hoped for the best.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] DC Spence's analysis of devices

belonging to Kayleigh and Luke

revealed something alarming.

- When I looked at the messages between Kayleigh and Luke,

there were messages there which gave me cause for concern.

Luke, from very early on,

was talking about having Kayleigh naked.

He was describing sexual acts.

When Luke realized that Kayleigh was 15,

the conversation got worse.

It became more overtly sexual.

He was describing sexual acts.

He was saying that he wanted her naked in his bed,

all the time knowing that she was 15 years old.

Your skin starts to crawl because you feel uncomfortable.

I mean this is very wrong about the way

that somebody speaks to a teenager.

(somber music)

When I compared the results of what was on Luke's phone

to what was on Kayleigh's phone,

I found that Luke had only kept 500 of the 2,600 messages.

So all the messages relating to Kayleigh's age,

the meeting up, anything inappropriate

had all been deleted by him.

This was him selecting which material to keep

to paint himself in the best light.

- [Narrator] The analysis of Kayleigh's mobile phone

revealed more worrying information.

On the night of Saturday the 14th of November,

Kayleigh stopped using her phone at around nine p.m.

- This was a red flag to us, because the normal activity

on her phone stopped at 11 p.m., midnight,

sometimes half past 12.

- Her phone was in the flat.

The charger was plugged in.

What other reason could there have been

for a girl who is attached to her phone, almost surgically,

to stop using it?

That is out of character.

Something went wrong.

- [Narrator] Police continued to interview Beadman

about Kayleigh's whereabouts.

- I'm being quite honest with you,

we don't know where Kayleigh is.

We don't know if she's injured somewhere.

We don't know if she's not alive, if she is alive.

And we urgently need to find Kayleigh Haywood.

If you know her, and if you indeed know where she is

you should tell us right now

at the beginning of the day.

- No I don't.

- You don't know where she is?

- I don't know where she is.

(somber music)

- [Narrator] On Tuesday the 17th of November,

police had another major breakthrough.

- Beadman's family told us he had a lockup,

and straightaway there's a glimmer of hope,

because I guess it's almost a sort of classic location

where you might find somebody, or it's somewhere

that would be good to hide somebody.

We were very quickly able to establish that Beadman

had been there on the Sunday afternoon.

CCTV footage showed us that Stephen Beadman arrived

around about two o'clock on the Sunday afternoon,

so after Kayleigh had been reported missing.

In his van, he drove into the yard,

he drove right up to his own lockup,

and he sat there.

(somber music)

- I was awakened by a phone call at three in the morning

from a mobile phone, which I immediately turned off,

assuming it was, well I didn't know who I assumed it was,

but it was the wrong time to call.

And they called immediately again, so I answered it.

And they said that we need

to get into your storage yard now.

I said, "Well, we don't open for another few hours,"

and they said, "It's the police.

"We think there's a girl in one of your containers."

- What we found when we came up here

was initially not very much,

because Beadman's lockup, which is just over there,

was very, very clean and tidy.

Everything all nice and neat and orderly.

However, the search officers went wider than that

to looking at searching the whole area,

and just outside the entrance gate,

there is a skip.

And within that skip, on top of

a load of bags of rubbish was a handbag,

and an item of clothing, a cardigan.

So we needed to quite urgently show Stephanie Haywood

images of those items.

She confirmed they belonged to Kayleigh,

or they were certainly identical

to items belonging to Kayleigh,

which were currently missing.

- The impact that must have had on them is unspeakable.

From an investigative point of view, clearly,

the concerns were becoming very, very grave now

that we would not find Kayleigh alive.

- It was pointing towards the fact

that Kayleigh Haywood had come to some serious harm,

and may not still be alive.

We'd already found a bra belonging to Kayleigh,

her phone had been found even earlier,

smashed and in the road

near to Beadman and Harlow's home addresses,

and now here we are, 10 miles away,

finding clothing and a bag belonging to her

that had been deliberately disposed of.

(somber music)

- [Narrator] Police made door to door inquiries

in Harlow and Beadman's neighborhood,

in case anyone had seen or heard

anything unusual that night.

- We found a number of witnesses

who had largely heard something significant.

We had witnesses in the block adjoining Harlow's house,

which is behind me, and witnesses in nearby streets

who'd heard things which we thought

were potentially significant.

Ear witnesses, as we called them,

had heard sounds of crashing about,

of screaming and shouting at significant times

throughout the evening.

- Somebody living very close by

saw what he thought was an off duty police officer

pinning somebody to the ground.

He then, the man that was watching,

though oh no, it's two lovers having a tiff.

Because he then sees the man help the girl up,

and she is wearing what he thinks

is a very short skirt and bare legs,

but in fact it was a long T-shirt,

and he sees the two walk off together.

He thinks, lovers' spat.

They've made it up and they're going off together.

- [Narrator] With this new evidence,

police continue to question Beadman

about Kayleigh's disappearance.

- Evidence was put to him of a witness

at about half past three in the morning

that saw a man pinning a young girl down

on a path, just near to Sence Valley Park,

and it was put to him early on that that was him,

and that was Kayleigh, and that was denied.

- [Narrator] But Beadman was about to make a huge mistake.

When questioned about his injuries, he told police

he fell while working outdoors.

In doing so, he disclosed a significant location.

- Stephen Beadman inadvertently led us here, really.

He was desperately trying to account for

three injuries to his face.

Quite distinctive injuries.

One to his forehead, one on his nose,

and one on his chin.

So detectives naturally came down here,

and had a look around.

And what they found was a bonfire, ready to go,

all stacked up, but not yet lit.

And underneath the bonfire, amongst all the other things

that were on it, bits of wood and stuff,

was a bin liner.

A quick visual inspection of the bin liner

and you could see that there was clothing in there,

and immediately potentially clothing

which matched the description of that

worn by Stephen Beadman on CCTV images.

That clothing was sent off for forensic examination,

and the blood on the clothing

was the blood of Kayleigh Haywood.

It's corroboration of your worst fears.

When you pass that kind of news to a family

who are desperately hoping that their loved one's

still alive, somewhere,

it's more confirmation

of the worst kind of news that's to come.

By that time, you are running out of hope

that you may find Kayleigh alive.

You still clinging on to some

desperate thought that we might

still be able to say that she could be somewhere,

maybe injured, but in reality,

if you make a discovery like that,

in my experience, it never ends well.

It never ends well.

- We've become increasingly concerned

that she may have come to harm.

And today, we have told the family

that we are treating her disappearance

as a murder inquiry.

- [Narrator] Police arrested 27 year old Luke Harlow

and 28 year old Stephen Beadman

on suspicion of the murder of 15 year old Kayleigh Haywood.

- Each and every day must have been

absolutely awful beyond words.

There's no other way of putting it.

The church doors were open, and people could come in

and say a prayer, or perhaps just for myself

to be a shoulder to cry on, really.

And many people came in really quite distressed

by what was going on.

- What we had in Ibstock was a community already in shock,

and already doing everything they could

to help in the search.

But then they realize that we now think Kayleigh is dead,

and she's been killed,

because we've arrested two people

that we think have committed that crime.

So that just took things

to a whole new level for that community.

This was no longer something which looked like

it could be resolved with a happy ending.

(helicopter whirring)

- [Narrator] In the early evening

of Wednesday the 18th of November,

Stephen Beadman finally began to talk

about what really happened that night.

- Are you having to control her by hold her,

or is she walking independently?

- By this point, she's walking independently.

- But up until that point?

- No.

- And how are you managing to control her?

- Just pulling her, pulling her hands.

- By her hand?

- Yeah.

- All right, okay.

Are you using anything else?

- No.

- Just your presence?

Is there any weapons?

- No weapons, nothing.

- Okay.

- After three full days of interviewing,

during which Stephen Beadman lied through his teeth

about what had happened on that Saturday night,

and the early hours of Sunday morning,

he finally admitted that he had murdered Kayleigh Haywood.

(somber music)

It's a hugely significant moment in the investigation.

It's also an awful moment,

and a task that then needs to be done straightaway

is that the family liaison officers

have got to go and see Kayleigh's mom and dad, and siblings,

and they've gotta then pass that news.

That's where the investigation currently is.

He gave an indication of roughly where he thought

he'd left Kayleigh.

Did that by pinpointing that on a map.

- The area that Beadman took Kayleigh to

was an area that he knew well,

because he worked in a garden center

not very far away, and it was sort of a back cut through.

Obviously at night, things would look very different.

There's an area of standing water.

It's hugely overgrown with nettles, and trees,

and it would be very difficult

for anybody to find a body there

unless they knew what they were looking for.

- We'd already built up

quite a substantial amount of evidence.

Finding Kayleigh's body was the final thing

that we needed in order to charge them both.

There was just the four of us down here,

trying to see if we could find Kayleigh

where Beadman said she was.

Because search operations for the day had finished.

It was dark and raining,

and you can't effectively search in the dark.

Not with any degree of certainty that you'll find anything.

And after quite some time, we'd not found her.

She wasn't exactly where he'd pinpointed on the map.

But we stood together, and said well,

if she's here, then we can't give up really.

The four of us really took a decision

that we weren't going home,

and we were staying the night if we needed to.

- [Narrator] At just after 10 p.m.,

police found Kayleigh's body.

- Kayleigh was naked, save for a sock,

and she was in a slightly twisted position.

Partly on her front, partly on her side.

As she lay there, she had been the subject

of what appeared to be quite a vicious and brutal assault.

She had a number of horrible injuries

to the front and the back of her head,

as well as injuries to her hand,

which could be described as classic defense style injuries.

And that, sadly, was the end of the search operation.

And it ended in the way we didn't want it to end.

- [Narrator] Six days after her parents last saw her,

the search for Kayleigh ended

as her body was carried across a field.

Police spent the day scouring the area

close to where they found her late last night,

as they continue to question two men in their twenties

on suspicion of her murder.

Those close to the family say they are beyond devastated.

- They're numb really with shock.

Nobody can believe that this has happened

in a tiny place like Ibstock.

(somber music)

- Shortly after Kayleigh's body was found,

a detective superintendent visited Kayleigh's parents,

to tell them this very tragic news.

Inevitably, it was devastating.

It was the last thing they hoped to hear,

but it was the one thing they feared they would hear,

and they both broke down.

- I've worked on a lot of homicide inquiries over the years,

and not much shocks me, not much upsets me these days,

but there's something a bit different about this.

This was the disappearance, initially,

and the murder of a defenseless 15 year old girl

by a savage, horrible person

who really, why did he do it?

Probably because he could.

Probably because he could.

(somber music)

(birds chirping)

- [Narrator] Police were now able to piece together

what had really happened to Kayleigh.

- What we came up with was that Kayleigh

had been held in the house behind me,

Luke Harlow's home address, by Beadman and Harlow.

And then at some point in the early hours,

around about three, 3:30,

she'd made a break for it,

and she ran out of the flat

and across, and onto this path.

And away down the path, towards the main road.

It was around here that Stephen Beadman

had chased after, and caught up with Kayleigh Haywood

who was half dressed.

He pinned her down on the ground

before they both got up, and went back in the direction

of Luke Harlow's house.

What they then did, a short time after that,

was turn around again

and walk back down this path

towards the main road,

and they were last seen hand in hand

crossing the road,

and here in Sence Valley Park

is where Stephen Beadman told us, eventually,

that this is where he raped Kayleigh Haywood

during the early hours of Sunday the 15th of November.

Before leading her out of the car park,

and off on a convoluted route across farmland

to a point where he eventually killed her.

(helicopter whirring)

- [Narrator] On Thursday the 19th of November, 2015

28 year old Stephen Beadman was charged

with the rape and murder of 15 year old Kayleigh Haywood.

27 year old Luke Harlow was charged with grooming,

and two counts of sexual activity with a child.

- One of the things that makes this case unusual

is the use of the internet.

Had Kayleigh Haywood not been lured and groomed

by Luke Harlow, she would never have met Stephen Beadman,

the person who ultimately raped and murdered her.

- [Narrator] While police investigated Beadman's computers,

they made another chilling discovery.

- He would access indecent images,

and those were not just on one of his computers,

but across three of them.

There was a long history of that on there,

and we were able to see that they were accessed

as recently as two days before the murder.

- Some online offenders never cross

into offending in real life, but others do.

And it would appear that in this case,

the use of online images may have fueled fantasy

and been a precursor to his violent offending.

- He spent a great deal of time online

looking at porn of the most graphic and violent nature.

And by pure chance, he was presented

with a set of circumstances

where one could argue he had the perfect opportunity

to live out some of those fantasies.

- Question I get asked a lot

is has the internet created monsters?

Well no, the internet has not created monsters.

What is has done is facilitated these monsters

in how they operate.

And now the ease of which they actually find victims.

Teenagers, and in particular teenage girls,

there'll always be a high danger

of adding and meeting people online.

They have the knowledge of how to use social media.

They just don't have the wisdom

in which to use it correctly.

- Children around the world are being abused online.

Kayleigh Haywood was one of them

who paid with her life for what happened to her.

(birds chirping)

- [Narrator] In June 2016, the case went to trial.

Miranda Moore was the prosecuting barrister.

- Stephen Beadman absented himself from the trial

for long periods.

He didn't want to come up from the cells,

and so nobody can force you to come up

and take part in your trial,

so he remained below for a good part of the evidence.

Stephen Beadman was wrestling with the fact

that he'd killed somebody.

He was clearly emotionally upset

during the trial,

and so when he decided he wouldn't give evidence,

and wouldn't take part in the trial,

it was almost as if he couldn't face

what he'd done.

Luke Harlow on the other hand, took the witness stand,

and gave evidence, and I was able to cross examine him.

He came across as

feeling sorry for himself.

Unsympathetic to Kayleigh,

and in my eyes, a thoroughly unpleasant young man.

- [Narrator] Luke Harlow was sentenced to 12 years in prison

for grooming Kayleigh, and for sexual activity with a child.

Stephen Beadman was given a life sentence

for the rape and murder of Kayleigh Haywood.

Both were found guilty of falsely imprisoning her

at Luke's home in Ibstock.

- Three days after we found Kayleigh's body,

I sat in this office, and I read every single message

that she and Harlow had exchanged in those 13 days

before the weekend of her death,

and I passionately felt we have to do something about this.

This is a growing problem around the world.

- [Narrator] Leicestershire Police,

in close liaison with Kayleigh's family,

made a film called "Kayleigh's Love Story"

to highlight the dangers of meeting strangers online.

- I hope it serves as the strongest possible warning

to children and parents that predatory men,

and women, are lurking online,

invading our children's bedrooms,

and grooming them.

It lasts five minutes, and it tells the story

of those 13 days, during which

a schoolgirl was groomed to death.

Children around the world are watching this film,

and are approaching parents, teachers, and police officers

making disclosures about what's happening in their lives,

and how they are being groomed.

"Kayleigh's Love Story" has been watched

by more than 40 million people.

In Leicestershire alone,

we've got 50 investigations underway,

and other people around the world in Australia,

and in the States, having watched this film,

are coming forward and talking to police officers

about what is going on in their lives as well.

That's got to be a positive.

(gentle music) (birds chirping)

Losing Kayleigh has ripped that family apart.

I know that there isn't a single day that goes by,

in many cases not a single hour that goes by

without that girl being thought of.

- I believe that the family have taken

what comfort they can from the fact that Kayleigh's legacy

is protection for other children.

And so although they've lost their child,

they've protected others.

That's how they feel.

- Somebody once said, you know,

"When the dark is darkest, the light shines brightest,"

and I think that's what happened in this situation.

That things were very, very dark indeed,

as dark as they could be,

but in spite of that,

the warmth and love and care and help

that was manifested through this community was,

was certainly a very very bright light

in a very dark, dark moment.

(gentle piano music)