Original subtitles

- It was really shocking, horrible, frightening.

We couldn't get our heads round it, none of us.

- That's when the alarm bells started ringing.

She wouldn't go anywhere without me.

- Axe marks. A lot of blood had been spilt onto the floor.

But when a killer refuses to reveal

the location of a body, police, prosecutors and forensic teams

have an almost impossible task to deliver justice.

- He didn't show any remorse, and he wasn't going to tell us

where Laura was.

Laura's family and her son, Rashid,

are still desperate for answers.

How could she have disappeared without a trace?

This is their story.

- It's like stepping back in time. It feels like yesterday

that we were here.

It's summer 2005,

and Cleveland police are hunting for human remains.

- A member of the public came forward

to pass some information on that they'd seen, years before,

somebody in the dark, carrying something heavy,

and taking it down towards the golf course.

Something may have been buried down there.

It clearly needed to be investigated,

and properly investigated.

- I was stunned, to be honest, when the police came back

and said that it was a lead

to do with the Laura May Shatanawi case.

I was... I was astonished, really, that, you know,

after all this time, it was all coming back to the surface.

- Laura May was a devoted wife, married to doctor

and property developer Hassan Al Shatanawi.

They lived in Laura's home town of Hartlepool

with their only son, Rasheed.

- The outside of where I grew up, with me mam, dad, and my granddad

living in this house. My bedroom was the top attic,

but the back one was me mam and dad's.

Oh, it was a good house. Had some good memories in it.

I've got a few bad memories in there, like,

but more good memories than bad.

Me mam just loved travelling. She just had the travel bug,

visiting new places.

She was studying travel and tourism at Hartlepool College.

But there's one college day in June

Laura's seven year-old son Rasheed would never forget.

- On that day she took us to school on that morning,

cos she was going to sit a travel and tourism exam,

and that was the last time anybody saw me mam.

- I'd gone up to take my mam shopping,

and when I walked in, my mam was upset. And she said,

"Shirli, you'll never guess who was in my house last night:

Hassan and Rasheed." She said,

"Laura has gone on holiday."

I said: "What, without Rasheed?"

And she said, "That's what I'm thinking.

Laura wouldn't go on holiday without Rasheed."

Mam was clearly upset about it,

and she... she knew something was wrong.

- Me mam's best friend couldn't get hold of her.

So she'd been trying. And one day she come down the street,

and I was playing in the street, and that's when she asked us,

"Where's your mam at?" And I told her,

"She's on holiday." I think that's when alarm bells started ringing.

- So I phoned after a week,

and Hassan told me then

that she'd gone to Hungary on a course with the travel agents.

I went straight to see my brother, and he just said to me,

"Shirli, she's just gone on holiday.

She'll be back when she's ready, she'll come back."

But Laura didn't come back,

and her friends and family

were becoming increasingly concerned.

- I believe it was a Friday, Mr. Shatanawi had arrived

at the inquiry desk at the police station

to report his wife missing.

He said that she hadn't been seen for almost four weeks.

The fact that he'd waited four weeks before he'd reported it to us

was, really, rather unusual.

Most missing persons are reported missing by their loved ones

within a matter of hours, as opposed to weeks.

Now, we were told, from the people who knew her well,

that she wouldn't even stay overnight without her son,

never mind for four weeks.

It just didn't seem right.

Police launch a missing persons inquiry,

and put Laura's life under the microscope.

- She was a happy little girl.

She was the first child to my brother and his wife,

and they were a lovely, contented family.

When she was a teenager, they went off on this cruise,

and she came back and she was full of stories,

and she absolutely loved it.

And from then on, she just wanted to travel.

In 1983, whilst on holiday in Egypt, Laura spots a post

in a lonely hearts column:

'Doctor seeks English girl.' The man behind the ad

is Cairo-based GP Hassan Al Shatanawi.

- She must have wrote to him, and he'd wrote back to her.

And then she went to Egypt to meet him.

She was 26, I think, at the time, and he was 36.

She loved the man, I know... I know she did, I know she loved him.

- And eventually they got married in Cairo,

and then they moved back to the UK. I think it was for business reasons.

He wanted to work as a property developer.

- And I was born in 1985, in Cameron Hospital in Hartlepool.

- And she was very, very family-orientated.

She just loved her little family.

In July 1993, as word spreads

about the missing mother of one,

the story hits the local Hartlepool news.

- We decided that we'd put out a press appeal

for anyone who had any information at all about Laura.

- And I distinctly remember the picture that the media used

at the time, with her blonde hair and sort of nice smile on her face,

and I remember thinking, you know,

she just looks like a normal woman, a normal mum.

You know, it sent shivers down your spine, really.

Hartlepool, it's a very close-knit community.

It's like a big village, everybody knows everybody,

and I think this case touched a lot of people.

It made you feel, like, uneasy, that you couldn't believe

something like that was happening in your town.

Behind the scenes, Al Shatanawi is helping police

with their inquiries into his wife's disappearance.

- We decided that Hassan would be brought to the station

as a witness, so that he could tell us as much information

as he had about what had happened,

about his wife, where she might be, any conversations they'd had

about her leaving and going on holiday.

And he was quite happy to speak to us, and freely gave us permission

to search the house.

We didn't find any evidence of any flights, any hotel bookings,

anything which might suggest that she was interested

in going on holiday, but we did find her passport.

This fairytale of her going off on holiday by herself

could be put to bed.

- I can't really remember that much about how the relationship was

with me mam and dad, but I knew they argued a lot.

Like, he used to hit me mam and that a couple of times,

but from the outside, looking in,

it just looked an ordinary family.

- By July 1993,

Laura has been missing for four weeks.

As the police investigation into her disappearance

picks up pace, Hartlepool detectives now consider her doting husband

a potential suspect.

- When he realised

that the CID were going to be involved

in trying to find Laura, he tended to change somewhat.

Far from being relaxed, he was

trying to give us the impression

that he was a concerned husband.

It didn't really wash, I have to say.

After discovering Laura's passport in the family home,

Hassan's claim to police that his wife had gone

on a last-minute holiday by herself isn't stacking up.

- We were able to speak to Laura's best friend,

and she confirmed to us that Laura had never mentioned

to her anything about taking a last-minute holiday.

She still could have telephoned, she could have written a postcard,

a letter. She could have gotten in touch,

and Laura's best friend insisted

that's exactly what she would have done.

And again, that was another red flag for us.

We did a sweep

of as many travel agents in the area as we could,

and no-one recognised her from photographs.

There was nothing, no indication at all that she'd booked a holiday

through a travel agent.

As the days go by,

Laura's family become increasingly concerned and confused.

- We knew there was something amiss.

- It was really shocking, horrible, frightening.

We couldn't get our heads round it, none of us.

And you know, we... we were just all confused.

We... we didn't know what we were... what was happening.

It was... it... it... it... it wasn't nice at all.

- We decided that we needed to find out exactly what had gone on

with the husband. And on one of his visits

to the police station,

he told us that he couldn't stay long,

he had to be away because he had an appointment.

When he left the police station, we placed him under surveillance.

He got a taxi from outside the police station,

and it was driven to Seaton Carew,

to an area where there are garden allotments,

and he got out of the car, opposite those allotments,

crossed the road to a bus stop. He waited for a double-decker bus

to arrive. He climbed on that bus,

and he was followed onto the bus

by two officers,

who watched everything he did

and recorded everything that he was interested in.

Went upstairs to the top deck, and that gave him viewing access

to allotments nearby.

And he stayed on the bus

until it returned to Hartlepool town centre,

and he got off and walked a short distance back to his house.

So it was looking as if he didn't have an appointment after all.

Detectives discover through a local authority search

that Hassan Al Shatanawi is renting one of these allotments.

He'd visited the council civic centre a few times

about this allotment, because he was wanting

to change the one that he had to another one,

but they couldn't accommodate him.

- My brother didn't know about the allotment.

No, we didn't know about that. Laura didn't know about it,

nobody knew about it.

- This allotment, it just threw everybody by surprise.

How... how he got it, how long he'd had it,

nobody... nobody seemed to know.

While CID keep Hassan and his mystery allotment

under surveillance,

they also dig deeper into his letting business.

- We checked with the council to see what other properties he had.

There's always a chance Laura might have gone there.

The information that we recovered,

whilst we were speaking to tenants of his other properties,

that he was a bit of a nuisance,

particularly with female tenants.

He was always interested in them,

and trying to get them to be interested in him, shall we say?

- He used to go missing for weeks and weeks on end.

I mean, there was times when I took Laura to Newcastle

to look for him. She'd knock on doors,

where she'd been sending letters to him,

and they had no idea who he was.

She knew that there was something up as well.

I mean, Laura was... she was as much in the dark with Hassan

as we were.

As police probe more deeply

into Hassan Al Shatanawi's background,

they soon uncover a reason

for his long stretches away from home.

It would be a major breakthrough in the investigation.

- We had the information from social services

that he was involved in another relationship.

There was another son Hassan had had

during his other relationship...

..and there were possibilities

that that son may have been taken into social services' care.

When Hassan was made aware of that,

he offered himself up to social services

and said that he would support his other relationship, other son.

Hassan's loyal wife, Laura,

was completely unaware of her husband's double life

and other family.

It's believed she finds out about it by accident,

just before going missing.

- There was a board outside the courtroom one day,

and Hassan's name was on it, about getting custody

for this child, and somebody had told Laura about it.

So she'd gone down to the courts to see what was going on,

and that's how she found out about this other little boy.

And Hassan wanted Laura

to take on this little boy,

and Laura didn't want to do it.

- We spoke with Laura's best friend,

and she said that if Laura had found out about it,

she wouldn't have stood for it.

She would have upped and left, taking Rasheed with her.

Now investigators have a potential motive

for Hassan Al Shatanawi to want his wife out of the way.

- When we spoke to him at the police station

in the early stages, he didn't mention any of that to us.

He didn't volunteer to us the fact that he was in a relationship,

nor that they had a son.

Again, that was something else which caused us concern.

Why didn't he tell us about that?

Soon,

the concerned husband lets his mask slip.

- Me dad did take part in a media appeal,

and then that's when a builder from Middlesborough

contacted the police by saying that my dad had paid him

a couple of days before to erect a brand new shed

on an allotment in Seaton Carew,

then a couple of days later rang him up,

asked him to dismantle it and burn it.

- They said that they could. They were willing to help him out

with that. So they agreed a price,

they went to the allotment, collected the shed,

and they were given instructions to take it away, smash it up,

and burn it. This shed was brand new.

They were aware of one of their friends

who was in the market for a garden shed,

and they found a new home for the shed,

not on a bonfire, but in a garden in Middlesborough.

This could be a significant breakthrough

in the hunt for Laura.

Investigators swiftly make their way to the home in Middlesborough

where the shed had been moved.

- The builders took us to the address where the shed was...

..and sure enough, it was in the back garden.

A team of detectives were present when the shed was discovered,

and the detective officers sent for a forensic team.

- It was very difficult

in terms of the recovery of forensic material,

because there was a long time delay

between the initial disappearance of this individual

and the subsequent examination of this particular material.

Forensic material can be fragile:

it can be dispersed, it can be destroyed, it can be moved.

- But in examining the shed,

the floor showed up quite a large dark patch.

Attempts had been made to gouge out the patch on the floor,

but that had failed.

The stain had been covered up by creosote.

- But the area was soon

the focus of the particular examination,

and some presumptive blood testing was carried out

in that particular space.

- And the forensic team confirmed it was human blood.

- In Hartlepool, after blood is found in an allotment shed

owned by her husband, Hassan Al Shatanawi...

..police now suspect mum of one Laura Shatanawi has come to harm.

But with no body, they now have to prove Hassan has murdered her.

- This was a very challenging case.

The obvious thing is the lack of a cadaver.

The body is a huge source of information.

Ordinarily, so much contact trace material can be recovered

and used within the investigation: nail clippings, hair,

swabs from the skin, but in this case there's no cadaver.

What police do have, however,

is the garden shed from an allotment

rented by Hassan Al Shatanawi.

He had ordered it to be destroyed,

but it was in fact moved to a garden in Middlesborough.

This is now the focus for the police inquiry

into Laura Shatanawi's disappearance.

- It was decided, as part of the forensic strategy,

that the shed would be put onto a low-loader

and transported directly to the Forensic Science Service,

where it would be examined,

and it was discovered

that the floor of the shed

were planks of wood butted together,

and it was apparent, visual examination,

that it had been cleaned,

and that a lot of blood

had been spilt onto the floor.

And if you can imagine the two planks together, like this.

we've got blood on the surface that was subsequently cleaned,

but then blood's seeped down to form a V shape

within the gaps in the shed floor,

and it appears as though some of that blood is formed

through the floor, and then onto the surface below.

But there is something even more sinister uncovered

by forensic scientists on the floor of the shed.

- It bore the marks of chop marks

in the wood, quite deep.

A crime scene investigator

was adamant that it was axe marks on the floor.

The working hypothesis:

that some sort of dismemberment had taken place.

Police now have to break the news

of this dreadful discovery to Laura's family.

- I mean, it must be horrible to think

that that's your dad that's done that to your mum.

It's horrible. It... .it... it's horrible.

- I remember

being in my mam's friend's, like,

kitchen-cum-dining room,

and I was surrounded by the police and social services.

And I think it might have been one of the care workers just said,

like, "We think your mam's... we think your mam's dead."

And I just remember bursting into tears.

I just remember going into that house afterwards,

and there was nowt in. The police had just taken the lot.

A lot of stuff out of wardrobes, shelves. Out of the kitchen.

The lot had gone. It was hard to take in.

Just threw everybody. It just threw everybody.

But before they can charge Hassan with murder,

investigators have to prove the blood uncovered in Hassan's shed

is Laura's.

- In 1993, the national DNA database

was in its infancy.

The amount of material that you would need

to produce a profile was quite large.

For example, crime scene investigators were told at that time

that for material to produce a profile, blood,

you would need something the size of a 10p piece.

Whereas now, we can simply

tape or swab a surface

and produce profiles from microscopic pieces of material.

Scientists now have a large sample of blood

from between the floorboards to work with.

But without Laura's body, there is a major stumbling block.

- So in relation to DNA matches

to the deceased's blood,

it's obviously difficult,

because we've got no control sample from the body.

So in this particular case, secondary sources were sought.

In a groundbreaking move,

scientists take DNA samples from members of Laura's family

to try to get a familial DNA match with the blood

at the suspected murder scene.

- I remember having blood tests, some blood taken for DNA,

a sample and that, and I remember just passing out.

I just remember getting up, and just passing out,

but the police did come with two bags of sweets for us.

It was overwhelming, it was.

- We compiled a DNA profile of Laura,

using a blood sample from her dad,

a blood sample from her son, Rasheed,

as well as strands of hair from the hairbrushes in her bedroom,

traces of saliva from postage stamps and envelopes,

from letters which she'd written to her dad

when she was in Egypt,

and that profile

matched the blood on the floor.

At the time, DNA profiling was pretty much in its infancy,

and to have this result available to us

was fantastic.

On the 16th of July, Hassan Al Shatanawi

is arrested on suspicion of his wife's murder.

- This is the police station in Hartlepool,

and when he was arrested

he was taken around the other side of the building

to the custody area,

where he was interviewed under caution.

We needed to understand what had happened,

and how he'd done it, and how he disposed of her.

These things had to be asked,

and he was given the opportunity to explain everything.

Obviously, he was informed that what he'd told us thus far

we didn't believe, and now it was time to tell the truth.

Any relevant questions which we put to him,

he would either say, "No comment," no reply.

Just wouldn't help with the investigation at all.

Minute strands of hair are also found

on samples of the shed flooring.

These too are profiled and match to Laura.

Even though the police don't have Laura's body,

the evidence against Hassan Al Shatanawi

is stacking up. But he continues to remain silent.

- Everything was slotting into place nicely.

We had the evidence from the shed builder,

the strong evidence of the DNA profile

recovered from inside the shed.

It was quite close to being unprecedented

to charge someone without a body,

but after his final interview

we were more than satisfied, as were the CPS,

that there was sufficient evidence, and Hassan was charged with murder.

But without a body,

police fear the chances of securing a conviction are slim.

- In one of the first investigations of its kind in Britain,

even though police had not found the remains

of missing Hartlepool woman Laura Shatanawi,

they believe they have enough evidence

to charge her husband, Hassan, with her murder.

But will they be able to make their case against him

stick in court?

- He was remanded in custody, to prison.

Inquiries still carried on, to try and find Laura's remains.

Searches continued of land...

..properties that we knew Hassan was connected with.

None of it came to anything.

We made inquiries at the local public incinerator.

That came of nothing. It was down to us now

to prepare the case for trial.

Meanwhile, with his dad, Hassan, in prison,

and his mum, Laura, believed dead,

seven year-old Rasheed has to be cared for.

- I went to live with me auntie Shirli in West Carnforth.

You know, great village. You know, great people in it.

You know, all sort of took us under their wings.

- And I took Rasheed in. I mean, Laura's best friend,

and her family, they were very supportive to me.

I had a huge amount of people to help me with Rasheed as well,

and it was just lovely. And it worked, it worked.

- I remember going to see Dad in prison, when he was on remand.

I still hadn't really got my head around it.

It was mixed emotions, really,

because I had people telling me

that he had killed me mam,

and then when I was going to see him,

I had him telling me that he hadn't killed me mam,

and that he'd been set up. It was very difficult.

It wasn't the easiest environment to be walking into.

Barely a year

after Laura Shatanawi's disappearance,

her husband finally faces justice.

Feelings in the area were running high.

- The court case got moved from Teesside,

cos me dad seemed to think that there was a gang after him,

and that's where they were going to get him, at Teesside,

so they moved it to Newcastle. - There were a lot of witnesses.

Their involvement in the trial, from a prosecution point of view,

was to try and build up

a picture of Laura,

and certainly to show

how much she adored Rasheed,

and that she would never leave him under any circumstances.

The prosecution outlines Hassan's motive

for killing his wife: to be able to set up home

with another woman, with whom he'd been having an affair,

and who had had his child.

- I think my mam found out about Hassan's affair,

and that could have been a motive. Whether she confronted him,

or he knew that she knew, I think it was on that day,

after that... exam.

- So on the one hand, there was the risk

that he might lose the child,

the son from his other relationship,

to social services.

On the other hand, if Laura found out

about his other relationship,

he might have lost Rasheed.

We were told she would never have stood for it.

Hassan's Muslim background would have also put him

in a quandary.

- It would have been a huge shame, disgrace,

were he to lose a son,

either through marital separation, divorce,

or any other means.

The prosecution takes the court

through Laura's final hours on that fateful day in June 1993

when she disappeared, never to be seen again.

- She sat the exam at the college.

That morning is when the shed was erected in the allotment.

The shed itself, that needed to be made available

for the jury to inspect. That wasn't brought backwards and forwards

every day, it was obviously left in the court building

under lock and key.

Without a body,

and with Hassan maintaining his innocence,

the star piece of evidence is the murder scene.

- Find Laura's DNA in the shed,

that was the main part of our case.

That needed to be pointed out, shown to the jury.

After a six-week trial, the jury retires

to consider its verdict.

- We were on tenterhooks from the moment

the judge sent the jury out.

Then, when they came back with the guilty verdict,

we were ecstatic.

- The judge, Mr. Justice Jarrett, told him,

"You have been convicted on the plain evidence

of cold-blooded, premeditated, calculated murder."

- He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

With a minimum term to be served of 16 years.

- In my career, spanning some 37 or so years

in crime scene investigation, this is the only case

that I'm aware of where the force have managed to secure a conviction

when in the absence of a deceased person.

- But Hassan didn't show any remorse whatsoever,

and he wasn't going to tell us, or tell the family,

where Laura was, which was a pity,

a shame, really, for Rasheed,

and for the other members of the family

not to be able to put Laura to rest.

- I think Rasheed should have had closure,

and my brother should have had closure,

and my mam should have had closure, but we didn't.

And it... it's... it's sad. It's very sad.

In the years that follow,

Hassan Al Shatanawi still refuses

to give up the location of his wife's body.

But Rasheed has never given up hope,

and is determined to continue the search.

- Oh, it always goes through your mind where she can be,

and it still does to this day. The same, like... the thing is,

sometimes I just sit there, think, like, where the hell can she be?

- Fast-forward 12 years, and an unexpected tip-off

could hold the key to Laura's final resting place.

Her family wait with baited breath, while the police start a dig.

- There was something buried that was giving nutrient

to foliage that wasn't elsewhere evident.

So it was important to identify what that nutrient was.

And that's where they advised that we should start the dig.

- I remember really feeling like,

oh, please, let this be Laura May's body.

To bring it back for her family, please let it be her.

- So the archaeological team carried out the dig

that was required to be carried out.

Took them about two to three days to finish the job.

And in the event, we discovered

it was the skeletal remains of a dead animal.

- Unfortunately, it wasn't me mam.

The family as a whole were gutted.

- He was devastated, but he had such a strength

that he, you know, vowed to keep fighting on to find her.

In 2013 comes another blow to Laura's family.

Hassan is released by the parole board

without their knowledge, and against their wishes,

and deported back to his country of origin, Jordan.

Now he's free, the family fear they'll never get the answers

they need to find Laura's remains.

- Disappointed, shocked. If ever I'm going to get closure,

I always thought it was going to come from me dad.

But that chance has gone of sitting down with him

in a controlled environment. That's gone.

Despite frequent attempts to trace his father in Jordan,

Rasheed has drawn a blank.

- I was absolutely crushed. I was crushed.

I couldn't believe it. It's horrible.

And it doesn't get any easier as time goes by.

I mean, it's 30 years now, and my mam's died,

she died of a broken heart, my brother died of a broken heart.

You know, and they... we've never found out whatever happened to her,

and yet Hassan is wandering around the streets.

He... he is a free man now to do whatever he wants.

That's very hurtful, and it's wrong.

- Hassan would know that there is channels out there

to contact me. Does sadden us that he hasn't tried before now.

He's done a crime, he's been released.

We've still got the life sentence.

I know I've got the headstone there with me mam's name on,

where me gran and granddad's buried.

I'd love to put me mam in there. That'd be closure,

and then us as a family, what's left of us,

can sort of move on.

- It's so important that we keep the case alive,

because somebody must know something,

whether it be just a tiny piece of information

that they remember back at the time.

It could, you know, be the final piece in the jigsaw,

really, of finding where she is.

- Every now and again, human remains will wash up on beaches

around the country. It's always going to be there,

at the back of your mind.

So you just keep on hoping that one day it'll be me mam.

I won't give up, until the day I die.

I'll never give up looking for me mam, never.

She's got to be out there somewhere.

- Please, Hassan, be truthful to us

and give us the answers

of what happened to our lovely, lovely Laura May.