Original subtitles

When a murder is committed, it's always a race against time

to find the truth, to separate fact from fiction, to catch the killer,

and to make sure that justice is served.

But what happens when the truth vanishes with the victim?

I'm Dr Richard Shepherd, and I've spent

my entire career as a forensic pathologist,

performing nearly 23,000 autopsies.

I've learned that the dead don't hide the truth.

And they never lie.

Through me, you'll be hearing directly from the victim.

With the aid of a state-of-the-art laboratory

using ground-breaking technology,

I'll be investigating a series of intriguing crimes

where, from the victims' bodies, I'll reveal to you

the truth behind these murders.

(camera shutter snapping)

On the day before Valentine's Day, 2011,

West Yorkshire Police searched a house in the village of Holmfirth.

It was the home of missing mother-of-two Marie Stewart.

And what they found was truly shocking.

The sleepy Yorkshire town of Holmfirth

was home to 30-year-old Marie, who lived in a quiet cul-de-sac.

But police had been tipped off

that she hadn't been seen for some time.

To start with, this is a welfare check.

She's been missing nearly two months.

No-one seems to know where she is.

Last seen early December,

and we're now in February the 13th.

(Richard Shepherd) In December, Marie had unexpectedly

told people she needed time alone

and was going to the Canaries for a break.

Marie has had two babies in a very short period of time.

One's one year old, and one's three year old.

And she's keeping home.

She's very, very busy.

Her work-life balance was difficult.

Marie was possibly suffering from postnatal depression.

(David Collins) The family started to receive text messages

on Facebook, telling the family that she'd gone off abroad

and was very happy, having fun in the sun.

(Richard) But something seemed amiss.

(David) Marie's sister had found her passport in the address.

So if she'd gone abroad, how could she do that without her passport?

(Clive Driscoll) Some of the messages, you know, "Go away.

I'm enjoying myself."

That was the catalyst for people

to start thinking this is not right.

Where is this lady?

(Richard) When Marie failed to make contact at Christmas

or on her son's first birthday in January,

the family raised their concerns with the police.

Marie loved her children, so it would have been

very out of character for her

to have missed her child's first birthday.

Such a family-loving mother.

Why would she not be around at Christmas to be with her children?

Why had she not been in contact with them at all?

(Clive) There's something really not right here.

That was what prompted the welfare check.

The police were genuinely going

because they had a real concern about her welfare,

not just a, "So how are you doing?"

You know, it was a real concern about her welfare.

I think they probably had suspicions

that maybe this wasn't your usual

kind of maybe missing person case.

(David) The neighbours had been reporting

some smells coming from the address.

This would probably have led them straight to the garage area.

When the police went round there and they went into the garage,

they found a body in a bag.

(David) A body was found.

It was in a Virgin Atlantic flight bag

with a carpet tucked over the top of it.

And now we have a murder investigation.

Police would have then withdrawn, cordons would be put into place

front and rear of the house.

This is now a major crime scene.

(Richard) Forensic teams rushed to the home.

(David) All we know at this point is, we've got a body.

We don't know whose body it is.

But obviously, the family needs to be out of the house,

and an examination can then begin.

So we do an initial crime scene assessment of the house.

Just... but bearing in mind,

this is seven, eight weeks down the line,

just to see what looks out of place.

Are there any signs of any clean-up of blood,

anything along those lines?

(Clive) It is the painstaking examination

to say what happened here.

You would be looking at the scene.

You know, what is the evidence in the top floor, middle floor,

bottom floor, the garage?

It's the bit which is the hardest part,

which is the really methodical going

through every part of that house.

What's it telling you? What is this scene telling me?

(Richard) Both house and the garage appeared clean, tidy, and normal.

But experts were looking for potential clues

invisible to the naked eye.

People think that they can cover up a crime scene,

but it's very, very difficult.

The next stage to deal with the garage area

and removal of the body is a record photography

of the garage area.

We don't know if this is the attack site,

deposition site, or what's gone on.

The carpet over the bag would be exhibited,

and then we'd have to deal with the bag

before moving it to the mortuary.

So probably do some contact swabs around the handles for DNA.

We need to identify as soon as we can

who that person is and, obviously, what the cause of death is.

(Richard) Though the body was badly decomposed,

dental records confirmed it was that

of missing mum of two Marie Stewart.

One of the main tasks of the pathologist

is to determine the time of death.

And that gets increasingly difficult

the longer a body lies undiscovered.

Marie's body showed advanced decomposition.

And the rate a body decomposes is influenced by many factors,

including temperature, humidity, insects.

When someone dies, each of our cells

goes into self-destruct mode.

They're full of enzymes that destroy proteins

and break down the structures of the body

from the inside out.

Determining the exact time of death is almost impossible,

but it is always possible to give a window

for the likely time of death.

And in Marie's case, it was possible to say

that she had been dead for about two months.

Crucially for the investigation,

this matched the timeframe for Marie going missing

and her body being found in the garage.

The race was now on to work out Marie's movements

leading up to her death,

so her life was put under the microscope.

(David) Marie was an incredibly kind woman,

loved her children.

Lots of friends. Very popular, very friendly lady.

Great mother.

Just generally a very nice person.

She'd worked with children with special needs,

worked in a care home with children,

and then became a teaching assistant

where she was very valued, very good,

and the children really loved her.

(Clive) And her life seemed to be a giving...

her giving back.

She was a lovely girl.

She had all her future ahead of her,

and things were looking very good.

(Richard) Marie lived with her 28-year-old fiance,

Andrew Lindo, and their two kids.

Andrew Lindo was born in Newcastle.

He had a musical background, came from a good background.

Father was a property developer.

He was a music teacher.

He appeared to be a family man.

He was in a band.

He was a very bright fella, very popular with friends.

(Richard) Andrew and Marie met at Huddersfield University,

where they became friends.

He was studying music.

She was doing health care, childcare.

But it appears that she already was in a...

a fairly steady relationship and went on to marry the gentleman.

(Richard) Marie's husband and Andrew Lindo

were close friends.

Despite this, Lindo pursued Marie romantically after graduating.

She turned him down, but Lindo remained close mates

with the married couple.

They referred to him as a womaniser in university.

Lindo was very friendly with Marie's husband.

There was jealousy involved there.

He would perhaps have been jealous of the husband

and wanted what he had.

And he set out to get it.

(Richard) As their friendship deepened,

Marie opened up to Andrew about her marriage frustrations

and unspoken desires.

He offered a shoulder to cry on.

She said, "Oh, he made me feel wonderful,

and he made me feel like I was the only person in the world."

(Richard) It led to a passionate moment between them,

which left her marriage hanging by a thread.

And Andrew's pursuit of Marie intensified.

(Jane Carter Woodrow) Very soon, the two became involved.

He'd kind of worked his charm on Marie,

and she was very taken with him,

completely falling in love with him.

And when he suggested them moving in together,

she left her husband, to the shock of all family and friends

because she was a very reliable, very honest,

very kind, young person.

She set up home with Lindo and moved away.

(Richard) In 2007, after moving in with Lindo,

Marie divorced her husband.

It seemed to be very quick and very intense and very passionate.

And she appeared to make almost an instant decision

to end the one relationship and move everything in with Lindo.

Together, they began a family.

And within a few years, they had two babies.

(David) In 2010, they moved into an address

in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire.

They seemed to live a perfect life.

Marie and Lindo seemed totally happy and in love.

She wore his engagement ring.

And Lindo even went as far as asking her father

for permission to marry her.

And why wouldn't he give it?

(Richard) But by the time they moved house,

another side to the seemingly happy couple was emerging.

Marie started becoming suspicious

of some of the things that Lindo was saying.

He'd been caught out cheating.

Quite correctly, Marie was actually asking difficult questions.

(Richard) In Holmfirth, West Yorkshire,

police had uncovered the badly decomposed body

of missing 30-year-old Marie Stewart

at the home she shared with her fiance,

Andrew Lindo, and their two children.

Police forensics confirmed Marie's body had been kept in a flight bag

under a carpet in her garage before she was found.

(David) This will now lead to house-to-house inquiries

being made with the neighbours,

see when they last saw Marie,

had they seen anything else going on.

CCTV inquiries, Ring doorbells.

They'd be looking at just to see

comings and goings there might have been.

(Jane Monckton Smith) The first suspect when a woman is killed,

especially in her own home, is going to be

the partner or the ex-partner because, statistically,

they are more likely to have done it than anybody else,

probably in 80% of cases.

This will now lead to Lindo being arrested

and questioned as to his possible involvement in this murder.

(Jane Smith) But police in that kind of inquiry

will look at all reasonable lines of inquiry.

They will look at other potential suspects as well.

So it's not just about, was it him,

but he would have been the number one suspect

until they could eliminate him.

(Richard) The race was on to find Marie's killer.

So police first needed to establish what exactly had happened to her.

And in the pathology lab, her body started to provide answers.

There was extensive bruising around Marie's head,

evidence of some blunt force trauma.

But had she fallen and hit her head,

or was she hit with something?

Now, the bruising extended to the deep tissues

and revealed a number of separate, heavy blows.

You wouldn't get injuries like this from a simple fall.

And this proves she was attacked.

The pattern of injuries on Marie's body

revealed that she'd been struck repeatedly by a complex object.

Injuries caused by a stick will produce parallel, linear bruises.

Objects like the head of a hammer produce a circular bruise.

But patterned bruises shaped like a T or a right angle

indicate a more complex object that has different parts

that have been joined together.

A fingertip and forensic search of the family home

was already underway.

(David) At the back of the premises, there was a chair,

a child's chair, Winnie the Pooh chair found.

They'd all be submitted - fingerprints,

DNA, blood, hairs, fibres.

(Richard) The chair looked clean to the naked eye,

but forensic analysis found otherwise.

On the leg of the chair, there had been blood.

The pattern of bruising on Marie's body

showed that she had been repeatedly hit by a small chair,

one that had belonged to her daughter.

But the attack with the chair hadn't killed her.

It was one part of a sustained attack.

She'd had her throat cut,

she had blunt force trauma injuries,

and she'd been stabbed.

She must have been so frightened. It's unbelievable.

(Richard) One by one, suspects were eliminated.

Marie's ex-husband had an alibi.

Inquiries with friends, family, and neighbours,

along with CCTV analysis, ruled out an intruder or stalker.

The only consistent person going in and out of the family home

around the time of the murder

was Andrew Lindo and an unknown woman.

(David) Obviously, Lindo is a person of interest,

lives at the address.

Their phones would have been seized

and downloaded and searched, along with laptops

and any other electronic devices they owned.

(Richard) And police made a shocking discovery

on Lindo's devices.

It was found out Lindo was having a number of affairs

with a number of women.

He had two going on at the same time

at the school that he was teaching at.

(Jane Smith) Multiple relationships, multiple women,

and he managed to keep, for the best part,

these women from knowing about each other.

(Richard) These affairs had started

when Marie was pregnant with her second child in 2009.

And at the time, she was blissfully unaware.

Lindo is very much a high-risk taker.

And he's gambling with these women.

He's still able to continue living this lie

and doing exactly what he wants to do,

which is to have all these women pandering to this massive ego.

While Marie was away going to visit her parents and her friends,

he would bring some of these women back

that he was having relationships with.

But he would obliterate every sight or sound

of Marie from that house

so that when they came around,

they would think it was the bachelor pad.

He was clearing out the premises as though no-one else lived there,

and he was on his own, giving a sob story

about being a single parent.

His wife had gone off with somebody else.

So having picked up different lovers,

he didn't ever give them his address,

but he would take them to the house

and simply drive around very long routes

to completely disorientate them

so that they wouldn't know where he lived.

They would arrive there presumably not knowing

where they were and not find their way back,

which gave him sort of carte blanche to do what he wanted

while Marie was away, knowing that they wouldn't

come round when she was back.

He was a fantasist and a liar.

He was actually...

he was living, I say, a double life.

He was probably leading a treble and a, you know, quattro life.

(Richard) Months before Marie's murder,

Lindo, the seemingly respectable schoolteacher,

even had an illegal relationship with a 15-year-old pupil.

That's reckless. That is reckless.

And it's ego-driven.

He was, you know, probably trying to make her think

that he was some kind of rock star musician.

And she was just a young girl.

This is very much indicative of a narcissist.

Everything is about him.

Me, me, me. See me. Attention.

Wanting to be the centre of attention.

(Richard) But it was one other illicit romance

in particular that caught the police's attention.

Lindo had met his next lover in a shop

when he'd gone to cash a work's check.

And soon they were chatting.

He said he was a single father.

He was giving her such a story about the children

and how awful his previous girlfriend had been.

(Clive) He was a bachelor doing his best with two children.

And it's a hook line, almost, innit,

to get people to feel sorry for you.

(Richard) Under police questioning,

the woman revealed she was suspicious

that Lindo hadn't actually left Marie

and wouldn't be convinced until she spent a night in the house.

Lindo took the children and went to pick up a woman

that he was having an affair, a relationship with,

and brought her back to the house.

(Clive) He was reinventing life.

And he was starting up with this new female.

He was almost grooming his children to have

this new female in their life.

(Jane Woodrow) When his new girlfriend was there

at Christmas Day, firstly, he said,

"This is the best Christmas ever."

And then when she commented on the nice Christmas tree

with the decorations and the little girl said,

"Oh, Mummy helped me with that,"

Lindo jumped in and said, "Don't be silly.

I helped you do that."

I... what must have that felt like for that little girl?

But clearly, he has no care for anybody else's feelings,

even his own children.

It shows the kind of mindset of this man,

that he's prepared to lie in front of his children

and play with their mind, really.

Lindo carried on inviting Marie's father and sister over

for Christmas dinner, acting as if nothing untoward had occurred.

(Richard) Lindo had told the family Marie had left him for another man.

But when they phoned her over Christmas, she never answered.

She only ever sent texts and did so for the next two months.

(David) Why has she not been in contact with them at all?

The family were becoming more and more suspicious

about what had gone on.

Also, Lindo claims to be the only person still speaking to her.

And if she'd gone off, why would she not speak to her family?

Why speak to him?

So things weren't adding up whatsoever.

(Richard) Police analysed local phone masts

and mobile phone activity around the time of Marie's disappearance.

(David) We learnt through phone work that both phones

had actually been more or less at the same address

at the same time, rather than her phone being abroad.

It was determined, obviously, that Lindo was sending these messages

on Marie's phone from the home address,

not coming from abroad whatsoever.

(Clive) He was making a trail of deceit

with text messages and Facebook page.

He fundamentally made some errors there

because people know people, don't they?

Parents know their daughters. Friends know their friends.

(David) He was posting messages on Facebook,

acting as Marie and sending texts to the family,

saying that she was having fun.

But he was using a language that Marie wouldn't use.

He's supremely confident that he's not going to get caught.

(Richard) The only people at the house

on the suspected night of the murder

were Lindo and his new girlfriend.

But forensic evidence eliminated her from the investigation.

And during questioning, she revealed

why she hadn't suspected anything sinister

in the weeks that followed.

(Jane Woodrow) And he'd actually placed candles,

aromatic kind of candles,

to kill the smell in strategic places,

and one over the garage,

which, presumably, he would have been lighting quite often

when he had women round because the body remained

in the flight bag, zipped up for the next seven weeks.

(Richard) Under arrest and confronted with the evidence,

Lindo confessed to killing Marie.

When the police found Marie's body,

there is no way that Lindo would have been able to explain that.

(David) He came clean to the police

in admitting what had gone on to a point,

admitted to manslaughter and not murder.

(Richard) But would Marie's body reveal a different story?

(Richard) The sleepy village of Holmfirth,

scene of a brutal crime in December 2011.

Police in Yorkshire suspected Andrew Lindo

of murdering his fiancee, Marie Stewart.

He had already confessed to hitting her over the head

with a child's chair.

But Lindo claimed it was spur of the moment...

manslaughter, not murder.

They'd had an argument one night, and he just lost control,

were his words.

Basically, it just went from there.

It was a sustained attack over three floors of a house,

which certainly started on the top floor

of the bedroom area.

All this is going on while their own children are asleep.

(Richard) The postmortem revealed Marie had been

repeatedly beaten with a child's chair.

And despite efforts to clean the scene,

forensics proved this happened upstairs.

Lindo's girlfriend corroborated this.

She noticed, like, stains and, like, Vanish or some product

had been used to sort of clear these stains.

(Richard) But this violent beating

didn't account for all the injuries on Marie's broken body.

The postmortem revealed more of the horror of that night.

As well as the blunt force injuries to her head,

there was also evidence that Marie had been strangled.

Evidence of strangulation is found in the larynx in the neck.

The larynx is a group of three cartilages

that form the Adam's apple.

And they provide the structure for the muscles

of speech and swallowing.

When force is applied to the neck, the delicate spikes get broken,

and evidence of strangulation can be identified.

Below the larynx is the windpipe, and this is kept open

by hoops of cartilage, so it's very strong

and very difficult to compress to stop air passing through it.

More usually, strangling compresses the vagus nerve in the neck.

And the vagus nerve passes from the brain to the heart

and helps control the heartbeat.

So compression of the neck compromises that nerve,

making the heart slow down and beat irregularly

and can cause people to lose consciousness.

So he may have thought he'd killed her, but he hadn't.

Under police interview, Lindo gave his version of events.

He was sitting on top of her.

She spat in his face.

He got incredibly angry and just started to manually strangle her.

(Jane Smith) Strangulation is very, very common

in controlling people.

It's very personal.

It's very "stare into your eyes."

I'm doing this to you, and I want you to know I'm doing this to you.

It's an incredibly personal violence.

But it does take a little bit of time.

It's not quick.

And Marie would have fought.

He rendered her unconscious, wrapped her into a rug,

put her into a suitcase, started to take her downstairs,

but she started making a noise in the suitcase.

Got her out again, attacked her with a Winnie the Pooh chair,

causing injuries to the head,

and used his belt to try and strangle her again.

Again, rendered her unconscious.

(Richard) Police recovered the suitcase and rug,

and Forensics found Marie's blood and DNA on them.

But it took further analysis of Marie's body

to lead them to the belt.

At the postmortem, Marie's neck was clearly

had bruising on it from fingers.

And then we know that a belt was used.

The markings may not have been totally clear at the time,

but you can use something called light source,

which is a spectrum of light

which enhances what the naked eye can't see.

This can then be photographed, measured,

and then you've got an idea of the width of the belt

that you'd be looking for in the address.

They found his DNA, her blood on it.

(Richard) The evidence against Lindo

was strong and building.

(David) The attack came as a total shock to Marie.

She was not expecting this level of violence.

I cannot imagine what she must have been feeling like

at this time, to be attacked in the bedroom.

She's put up an incredible fight.

To be attacked twice there, she must have been so frightened.

But she was still alive at this point.

Took her down three flights of stairs.

Next thing, she finds herself in the garage,

fighting for her life, fighting for her children.

It's unbelievable.

In the garage, he wrapped her head in bubble wrap,

slit her throat, and stabbed her 12 times.

The most ferocious attack, you could argue,

with the bubble wrap and then the knife, was downstairs.

So, you know, this was like the end of a sustained attack.

(Richard) After the attack,

evidence from Lindo's phone and new girlfriend

revealed his next calculating steps.

(David) After the attack, Lindo's texted his current girlfriend

that he may be a little bit late picking her up,

which is absolutely so cold and calm

in his manner about this.

He then wakes up his two children, who are fast asleep,

puts them in the car to go and get his girlfriend,

who stays the night, three floors up from where...

where the body is.

(Jane Woodrow) This is some person that could actually

kill the mother of his children while the children

are asleep in bed, go and pick up his latest lover,

take her to his house and have sex with her.

(Jane Smith) His behaviour tells us quite a lot about him.

He's somebody who doesn't suffer with shame or remorse or guilt.

He doesn't question his own behaviours.

(Clive) It's macabre.

(Richard) The two-month gap between the murder

and the discovery of the body gave Lindo plenty of time

to try and cover his tracks.

(David) He's had seven weeks now to clean up.

Nothing obvious in blood, maybe, but it's so hard

to clean every piece of blood.

With the action of a knife constantly stabbing,

you're going to have blood flicking off the knife,

landing on items, whether it be the wall,

the ceiling of the garage, other items that are in there.

There may have been quite a bit on the floor

that he has tried to clean.

(Richard) What's known as a Luminol examination

took place in the garage.

(David) Luminol is a chemical that reacts with blood.

Sprayed on all items, on walls.

And in a dark area, it fluoresces blue.

This can then be photographed and tested to see if it is blood.

(Richard) This confirmed the garage

as the final murder and deposition scene.

But despite having admitted to manslaughter,

Lindo kept lying to the police,

trying to justify the murder of Marie.

(Jane Smith) He's got to do anything, say anything

that's going to mitigate him being found with the body in the house.

He's really in a difficult place.

So he starts to denigrate Marie.

All he can say, really, is, "I was annoyed with her

about the way she treated the children."

Let's try and blacken her character in any way that we can.

(Jane Woodrow) The fact that he could kill her,

deprive the children of their mother,

shows the kind of person we're dealing with,

as well as the method that he used.

And then the victim blaming and shaming,

which he did all the way along - oh, she belittled me, you know.

And that, in itself, you know, picking on flaws in her

is kind of, like, dehumanising her before he actually murders her.

So he doesn't see her as this person any more.

(Jane Smith) It could be he enjoyed violence.

He actually enjoyed meting out the violence.

You know, a lot of these type of people

will strangle and then let you breathe again

so they can do it all again.

So this was like the work of a psychopath, basically.

How could he do this?

Well, that's exactly what I've said.

He could only do that because he was able to do that.

And that says a lot about his psychopathology.

Clearly, he has no care for anybody else's feelings,

even his own children.

(Richard) Andrew Lindo was charged with killing his fiancee, Marie.

But was this really manslaughter, or could Marie's body prove

it was cold-blooded, calculated murder?

He was absolutely determined that Marie was going to die.

(Richard) In 2011, Yorkshire Police

had arrested and charged 28-year-old Andrew Lindo

with the brutal murder of his fiancee

and mother of their two young children, Marie Stewart.

Her body revealed she'd been beaten, then strangled, and more.

Her body showed multiple stab wounds,

suggesting a sustained attack.

He wanted her dead, and he was going to achieve that.

(Richard) Marie's decomposing body

was found in a flight bag in the garage

seven weeks after the murder.

Evidence proved that Lindo had created a false digital trail

to throw people off the scent.

I can't imagine how cruel and how awful this must have been

for the family, sending text messages and Facebook messages

to try and back up his tissue of lies.

(Richard) The truth was that Lindo was a serial cheat

who'd had a string of illicit affairs.

He's somebody who doesn't suffer with shame or remorse or guilt.

He doesn't question his own behaviours.

(Richard) Police believed he'd killed Marie

to carry on a new life with a new partner.

(Jane Smith) He probably would have presented to other people

during that time as perfectly normal.

(Richard) But Marie's postmortem showed his actions

had been anything but normal.

In the garage, Lindo stabbed Marie 12 times.

But the blow that killed her was this stab wound to the neck.

The neck is a very complex area of the body,

full of major blood vessels and nerves and other structures.

The carotid arteries pass up, carrying blood to the brain,

and the jugular veins pass back down,

returning that blood to the heart.

Severing any one of these major blood vessels

causes immediate severe blood loss.

And within minutes, the heart will be unable to pump enough blood

around the body to sustain life.

After everything her body had been put through and survived,

it was this stab wound to the neck that finally sealed Marie's fate.

Lindo had confessed to the killing,

but claimed it was spur-of-the-moment manslaughter,

not murder, which carried a much higher sentence.

(Jane Smith) If you look at the way that she died,

it seems completely disorganised.

That doesn't mean it wasn't planned in some way.

(Richard) It would now be for a court to decide.

Seven months after his arrest,

Lindo finally faced justice in Bradford Crown Court.

He pleaded not guilty to Marie's murder.

(Jane Woodrow) He showed absolutely

no remorse at all in court.

And the family had to sit and listen

to everything that had gone on in that case

because he didn't plead guilty.

So they were forced to sit through it.

And then he would come on with these mock crocodile tears,

uh, as if he was really upset.

Sympathy, sympathy, look at me, while all the time,

putting her family through the awful detail

of what had happened, of her murder, was utterly sickening.

(Richard) The prosecution team put forward their theory

that Lindo had killed Marie after she uncovered his infidelity.

She was thinking about leaving him,

and she probably told him that.

And we know that in most intimate partner homicides,

that is the trigger.

In over 90% of cases, that is the trigger.

Unlike the other women in Lindo's life,

Marie was living with him.

She was the mother of his children.

And that puts her in a much more dangerous position than them

because he thinks he actually owns her.

At the point that Marie says, "You don't own me, I'm leaving,"

that's when she is in the most danger

she's ever been in her life, but she probably didn't know that.

And when he realised she was not budging,

that's when he would have killed her.

(Richard) In court, Lindo didn't take the stand,

but his defence argued he'd lost control

after being provoked by Marie.

This chap's saying that this was just a one-off, really.

I kind of lost my temper for about ten seconds.

And well, no, hold up.

That evidence shows a sustained, a very planned,

a very cold, a very methodical attack.

(Jane Smith) At the trial, Lindo's fighting for his life.

He's trying, at the very least, to get a manslaughter charge,

rather than a murder charge.

So he's just throwing everything at this now, everything.

It's really, really common.

How do I get out of this? This is survival now.

(Richard) Lindo claimed he was acting to protect his daughter.

Lindo basically tried to put up a defence

that he was worried about Marie attacking his daughter.

(Jane Smith) So he starts denigrating Marie

and saying she's a bad mother and that, you know,

she's this flaky person and she couldn't be trusted.

(Jane Woodrow) Lindo's basically blamed Marie

for her own death because he said she was

being very cruel to their daughter,

which is completely untrue.

She was a very, very good mother.

(Richard) There was no physical evidence

of child cruelty, no reports to Social Services.

And everyone who knew Marie could testify

that this was a wicked lie.

(Jane Smith) Everyone who knew her

knew that she would never do that.

If he was cleverer, if he was more intuitive,

he would have chosen an explanation

that actually fitted with Marie's personality.

But he couldn't do that.

And he dug his own grave, as it were.

(Richard) Marie's battered body proved this was no flash of anger.

He'd planned to kill her, strangling,

beating, suffocating, stabbing.

At each stage, he could have stopped

and saved her life, but he didn't.

That's where the pathology report basically becomes very important.

It's powerful evidence that this wasn't just a one-off attack.

(Richard) After a two-week trial,

the jury took just 55 minutes to return their verdict.

Lindo was found guilty of Marie Stewart's murder.

Lindo was sentenced to 22 years in prison

before parole could be considered.

It was a sustained, brutal, terrible attack

on a kind, loving woman.

(Clive) I really hope that Marie will be remembered

for what she was, which was a very kind, loving person,

who was a credit to our society.

And I hope that Lindo will be condemned forever

as the wicked manipulator that he is.

There are eight stages in this journey

towards an intimate partner homicide.

So the first stage is about the controlling person

because this is all about control.

Second stage is when this person meets somebody

they want to be in a relationship with.

Generally, that relationship will start very, very quickly,

and it will be very, very intense.

Third stage is when these two people are

in a committed relationship, and that will be

dominated by controlling patterns.

Now, the next stage is where

things start to get more dangerous.

We call the fourth stage the trigger stage.

Something happens to make the risk suddenly shoot up.

Well, this person imagines this person might leave them.

Stage five is when they escalate all of their behaviours

to try and claw the control back so that this person

doesn't leave or cannot leave.

Stage six, this is where they start to think,

right, I can't get the control back,

so I'm going to punish this person for daring to leave me.

Stage seven is the planning stage.

How am I going to do this?

And stage eight is the homicide.

When I think about Marie and what happened to her,

I can see those stages playing out in her life

and her relationship in...

well, in almost the classic way.

(Jane Woodrow) This is clearly a very dangerous man.

If he hadn't been caught at this point,

I have absolutely no doubt that he'd have been able

to continue murdering.

Lindo killed his fiancee, Marie, in a series of brutal assaults

that began in their bedroom not far from where

their young children slept and continued down to the garage.

Not only had he tried to strangle Marie

and hit her over the head with a blunt object,

he'd also stabbed her multiple times,

with a wound to the neck finally proving fatal.

While Andrew Lindo tried to cover up this terrible crime

by hiding Marie's body in the garage, in the end,

he couldn't escape justice because her body

revealed the truth about her murder.

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