All language subtitles for The Truth About My Murder S01E01 1080p WEB DL H264 BTN_track3_[eng]

(man) 'When a murder's 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 justice is served.

But what happens when the truth
vanishes with the victim?

I'm Dr Richard Shepherd
and I've spent my career

'as a forensic pathologist
performing 23,000 autopsies,

including on some of the most
high-profile cases of recent times.'

I've learnt that the dead don't
hide the truth and they never lie.

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

from a state-of-the-art laboratory
with ground-breaking technology

that uses digitally scanned
sample bodies.

I'll be investigating
a series of intriguing murders'

where from the victim's bodies,

I'll be revealing to you the truth
behind those horrific crimes.'

(camera shutter clicking)

On 22nd March, 2009,
a human leg severed at the hip

was found in a sport's bag
on farmland.

Who did the leg belong to.
Where was the rest of the body?

'Could this body part give any
clues,

as to what had happened
to the victim?'

(man) 'I was
the on-call detective sergeant

for Hertfordshire
and Bedfordshire Major Crime Team.

I received a report of
what they believed to be a body part

being found in a rural location

in a village called Cottered
over in East Hertfordshire.

(Richard) ' A farmer had spotted
a green bag at the edge of his
field.

When he looked inside
he was concerned by what he found

and called 999.'

Uniform officers turned up at the
scene, examine the object further

and suspected it to be
some form of human body part.

The murder team were contacted
and I went across to the scene.

By the time I got there, they'd
moved the body part to the mortuary.

'The leg was initially examined

and it was
in a green Gulliver's hold-all.

Wrapped in heavy loop polythene
and wrapped with gaffer tape.'

When the leg and its wrappings
are brought into the mortuary,

we're going to take off
all of the wrappings very carefully.

They're crucial bits
of forensic science evidence

and we don't deal with those.

What we look at is the leg.
Sample leg on the digital table.

Is it an adult leg
or is it a child's leg?

It's a size
that's going to fit much better

with it being a male, adult left
leg.

The next thing is, is it Caucasian
or a different ethnic group?

And here the skin is white,

so it's likely
to be a Caucasian person.

We're looking for other features,

like are there any marks that
might be identifiable on the legs?

Are there any tattoos,
any marks of surgery,

any evidence of implants,
like knee implants,

that might actually help us
to get an identity?

None of those were present.

However, there were signed of
eczema.

Then we'd be looking at,
are there any injuries,

are there any marks of it being
tied,

any bandings,
any stabbings, any shootings,

anything that would give us a clue?

And finally the one thing we'd look
through is the site of amputation.

Is this something that's surgical?

Is this a clinical specimen
that somebody's dumped?

'But here there's no tying off
of major veins or arteries.'

So clearly this leg
has been removed by an amateur.

When they were alive or dead?
We simply don't know.

It was an unusual call

and so therefore
it was keeping an open mind,

as to why, what was this left leg
doing in Cottered?

Was it a stolen body part
from a mortuary

or was it indeed
some macabre murder?

We weren't to know at that stage.

The most important part
of my role that night

'was to make sure
that our scene was secure,

so that come first light
the following morning,

our forensic teams
and our crime scene managers

could get in and do a proper
forensic search of the crime scene.'

(man) 'The news turned up
on the wires

that a body part had been found
in a field in Hertfordshire.'

Initially, we thought
it might be somebody

who has died of natural causes

and perhaps their body
had been spread by wildlife.

That was the first thing.

The first signs of any enquiry
are the golden-hour principles.

You must secure your scene.

Looking at house-to-house enquiry.

'An appeal for witnesses.

Did anybody see the deposition
of that body part?'

Were they driving past?
Did anyone see anything suspicious?

Anyone loitering?
Anything out of place?

'Being mindful that this was
a very rural location.

So we were looking
for key witnesses.'

We'd be looking for CCTV.

We'd have the whole area
cordoned off,

so that our forensic team
and do a fingertip search

'of the deposition site
and the surrounding area.'

It was about keeping an open mind
as to how did that body part,

and why did that body point
arrive at that bizarre location?

(Richard) 'But the leg
still had more truths to tell.'

It clearly wasn't
a surgical amputation,

but it's been done by someone
who has some knowledge of anatomy.

It's not simply been hacked off.

There's been dissection
around the joint

to remove the leg
from the rest of the body.

Often, in cases such as this,

the individual would try
and saw through the thigh bone -

the femur, one of
the thickest bones of the body,

and that's incredibly hard,
but that's not what's happened here.

What's happened is
that someone with some knowledge

has actually dissected
around the joint

to remove the leg
from the rest of the body.

The pathologist will take a sample,
taking a sample of muscle,

so that the DNA of the leg
can be analysed.

The police compared it
with their own database,

but there was no match.

So the owner of this leg
was not known to the police

and remained
at that point unidentified.

Whoever that body was,
whoever the deceased was,

had never come into contact
with the police

and weren't registered
on the national database.

(Richard) 'The police
felt they had to treat it

as a murder enquiry,

but uncovering the truth
wasn't going to be easy.'

We had a left leg.
That's all we had at that stage.

We needed to identify
who did that left leg belong to?

As soon as you identify your victim,

you're going to identify
who the offenders are.

(Richard) 'It'd be three weeks
before the body of the victim

was able to tell the truth
about what had happened.'

Once the police had declared
it was a murder investigation,

it took it to a new height.

This was a very big case.
A real whodunnit.

An unknown person's severed leg
discovered in a hedgerow

and a killer who appears
to know how to take a body apart.

'In time, would the victim's body
give away the truth of what had
happened?'

A murder investigation
was now in full swing.

We focused quite heavily
on missing persons enquiries,

but all we had was a left leg.

We couldn't give
the deceased an age.

We knew their ethnicity. All we knew
they were probably a white male.

And interesting thing
was on the left leg.

He had quite severe eczema
on his left leg.

So of course that was always
going to be a method,

hopefully, for us
to identify our victim.

Was a missing person
going to be reported

who suffered with severe eczema
on their legs?

Anything like that
was going to be really useful for us

to focus our investigation
to identify this victim.

(Richard) 'A discovery was made
which would blow open the
investigation.

A week after the severed leg
was found,

dog walkers uncovered a forearm
in Wheathampstead.

25 miles away
from the first discovery.'

And that really did catapult the
investigation to the fore, really,

into the media,

and it was crucial for us
to identify our victim.

'I believe that the left forearm

had to have come from the same body
as the left leg,'

but you could assume nothing.

It was key we had that postmortem,

that we were able to submit again
to the national DNA database.

Could we match the left forearm
to the left leg?

Was it the same deceased or
were we talking about two victims?

A second body part is found,
a left forearm.

It's brought to the mortuary
and immediately it's apparent

that it's been removed
with the same skill as the left leg.

Amputating a forearm
is really quite complicated,

cutting through the elbow joint.

A lot of people
saw through the bone,

but this would take a long time.

However, if you have the skill
to dissect through the joint,

it's much neater,
quicker and simpler.

It's also clear
the hand has been taken off,

presumably with an attempt to hide
the identity of the individual.

The key question, though,
is does it match the leg?

A sample of DNA is taken from the
arm and it matches the left leg.

Both limbs are from the same person,

but the police still don't know
who that person is.

The discovery of one body part
was obviously sinister enough,

but the discovery
of a second body part

some considerable distance away
from where the first body part was,

was really concerning for us.

From that moment we felt

that, ooh, you know, this is
something very, very serious.

We didn't know
what we were dealing with.

Was the murderer
playing games with us?

Was he trying to avoid detection?

Why these particular
deposition sites?

The general sense
amongst the public at the time

was that they were terrified

because at that stage
they didn't know

whether this was the beginning
of a serial killer.

(Ian) 'One in east Herts, the next
one in central Hertfordshire.'

Where was the next going to be?

Then over 100 miles away,

a head appears in Leicestershire.

(Richard) 'Like all the other parts,
the head was found in countryside.

This time by a farmer on his land
in Asfordby near Melton Mowbray.'

I mean, this was
a truly shocking discovery.

The killer had gone to great lengths

to make sure the victim
was not identified.

A decapitated head is found,
but not contained in any way.

When it was brought to the mortuary,

activity had been
taking place around the skull.

The skin was missing.
The tongue was missing.

Eyes, ears, nose
had all been taken off,

presumably in an attempt to hide
the identity of the individual.

Further examination confirmed

there was no evidence of any injury
to the head or the face

that could have caused
the death of this individual,

so we still don't know
how or why he died.

Two teeth were missing,
but that had happened a long time
ago

and wasn't associated
directly with the death.

Is the skull matching the arm and
the leg that have already been
found?

It matches very well, indeed,

because the strong eyebrow ridges
and the solid bits of bone,

the mastoid processes
that can be seen at the back,

all fit with this skull
belonging to a male.

DNA analysis showed that the head
matched the other body parts.

All of those things
are fitting together.

How had it been removed?

Removing the skull
by cutting through the spine

is really quite complicated.

The vertebrae aren't flat plates
that just fit together.

They actually interdigitate,
they fold together,

and it requires skill,
care and knowledge

to be able to cut between them.

And that's what had happened here.

So the same person
had removed the skull,

had removed the arm
and had removed the leg.

(Ian) 'So Leicestershire contacted
us

to say we've found
this skull in a field,'

but it's in Leicestershire,
is it going to be connected?

I believed it would be.

The rest of team
were of the same vein

that how often do we find body parts

scattered around
rural locations of England?

This had to be connected.

'We despatched a team
up to Leicestershire

to liaise
with their murder enquiry team,

and as a result
of the DNA confirmation,'

that indeed the skull,
the left leg and the left forearm

were all from one and the same body.

That really did throw us in the mix.

You know, why Leicestershire?

Why central Hertfordshire?

Why East Hertfordshire?

Who's doing this?
What are the links to these areas?

(Anthony) 'The body parts
being strewn all over

was not what you would
expect of somebody'

who has gone to great lengths
to kill someone and dismember them.

Usually, you would expect
the body parts to be buried,

but these were
very much easy to be found.

Amongst reporters,
the general feeling

was that this was somebody
who was almost taunting the police.

This was a person who was
very proud of what they had done

and, you know, wanted the publicity.

It was very high profile
in the media

and the British public,
it certainly caught their attention.

I think it was more concerning
for the residents

of Cottered,
for Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire

and for Leicestershire.

Those local communities
must have been concerned.

Why our location?
What's going on here?

So we, we were mindful that
the communities would be concerned,

but we hadn't identified
who's our victim.

There's a victim's family
that need our help,

but we couldn't identify them
at that time.

(Richard) 'While identifying
their victim was the main focus,

police were trying everything
to solve this case.'

(Ian) 'The discovery
of every body part

and every deposition site
and every crime scene'

gave us potential to possibly
identify who were our offenders.

So all of the wrappings
that the body parts were found in,

they were submitted for DNA
profiling, for fingerprinting,

so no stone
was left unturned really.

(woman) 'The interesting thing about
items that have been wrapped up,'

as part of the commission
of the crime

is that the wrappings are often
as important as the actual item.

'It's important to understand
as much as you can.

You could look for
who they were manufactured by

in case there are more of them.'

If you do identify a suspect's house
to go and look at,

there might be more of these sacks.

'But the traces
that would be on the outside,

well, it can be almost anything,'

and obviously DNA and fingerprints
are really important,

but also things like textile fibres
from clothing

or from other soft furnishings,
from car seats, car boots,

and any other
tiny particulate traces

that might turn out to be relevant
in this particular case.

'And so here a lot of attention was
paid to the wrappings themselves,

the blue plastic
and the sticky tape.

Sticky tape is very good
because it picks up things.'

They would have formed
an important part of this case.

(Richard) 'No DNA or fingerprint
evidence on the wrappings,

but embedded in the tape

were distinctive
green and blue fibres.

Despite this,
over a week into the investigation,

police weren't any closer to
finding out who the perpetrator was.

The victim's story
was yet to be told.'

It's often said
in police investigations

that you make your own luck,

but when was our break
going to come?

Our next port of call was,
if we can find the hands,

were we going to identify
that person via fingerprints?

(Richard) 'However, the killer had
already made one crucial mistake.'

With the deposition of the head,

the offenders
made their first faux pas.

They left the teeth in the skull.

Three times,
body parts have been found

strewn around the English
countryside

in the case
known as the Jigsaw Murder.

'The more body parts
that were discovered,

the more the body
was able to speak its truth

about what had taken place.'

Forensics had identified the body
as a white or Asian middle-aged
male,

but for the police
there were many questions

and the killer
was still on the loose.

The coverage at the time was huge.

This was a very big case.

The body parts turning up at various
locations in the countryside.

It was almost like a jigsaw.

'There was pressure on the police.'

There's always pressure on the
police in a murder investigation,

but this one, people really wanted
the person responsible caught.

(Richard) 'And yet more pieces
of the jigsaw were about to turn up.

A week after the skull was found,

the right leg was discovered

dumped in a lay-by on the A10,
near Puckeridge, Hertfordshire.'

The right leg cut in two,
in the blue polythene,

identical to that of the left leg.

We were obviously
hoping that the hands

would naturally follow
at some point.

(Richard) 'Four days later,
a farmer in nearby Standon

found a suitcase lying
in a small ditch in his field.

But the police weren't going
to get fingerprint identification

for this latest discovery.'

(Ian) 'Saturday,
the 11th of April, 2009,'

was the discovery of the torso

and the remaining part
of the left arm and right arm.

So the torso is found

and once again
clearly that of an adult male

fitting together
with what had gone on,

but crucially there's
significant injuries in the back.

Two stab wounds to the back that
had penetrated through into the
lung,

a knife blade
at least four inches long.

The lungs are very, very close
to the skin's surface.

Just one stab wound into the lung
can cause the death.

It could have resulted from a knife
that was four inches long.

The victim's body
had revealed the truth

and a cause of death
had been established on his body.

There was no evidence of any
struggle, fight or any other injury.

It looks as though two stab wounds
in the back have been delivered

when the person was either lying
down or simply from behind them.

So we now knew
that, yes, this was murder,

that we'd recovered nearly all of
our body parts other than the hands,

and that it was
two stab wounds to the back.

It was crucial for us to identify
exactly who that victim was

and then we had a case for murder.

(Richard) 'Three days later

and three weeks since
the first body part was found,

the police made an appeal
to the public.'

I need the public's help to help me
identify who the victim is.

The cause of death
was a stab wound to the back.

The man is believed to be of white,
Asian or of mixed heritage,

between the heights
of 5' 6" and 5' 10".

It was a direct result of our
press appeal, from that conference,

we received a telephone call
from a gentleman,

who stated that his brother
had been missing for some weeks

and his brother was Jeffrey Howe.

'He fit the criteria.

He was the right age,
right ethnicity, the right weight.

He had eczema and we knew that
from the eczema on our left leg,

that was first discovered
at Cottered.

And soon as we started making our
initial enquiries into Jeffrey Howe,

we soon established that he'd been
missing since March of that year,

no-one had seen him and
hadn't turned up for work one day.

(Anthony) 'Jeffrey Howe
was a kitchen salesman'

and his family said sometimes he did
have like a little bit of a temper,

but generally everybody who knew him
spoke warmly about him.

'We knew that he lived in Southgate,
which is an area of north London.'

(Ian) 'He had lived in a
two-bedroom flat, initially alone,'

but then we established
from our sort of early enquiries

that he had a male and a female
living with him,

and they'd moved in
some weeks or months previously

and they were friends of his.

And the name Stephen Marshall
came up in the investigation.

I was shocked because I knew
of a Stephen Marshall

from my early policing days

who was a criminal,

quite a concerning character,

quite a formidable character
in his own right.

I thought
it can't be one of the same,

but further enquiries established

that it was
the same Stephen Marshall.

(Anthony) 'Stephen Marshall
was very much an imposing figure,

very much a man mountain
of a character.'

And he used to boast that he had
a 52-inch chest. He was so big.

And anybody who ever met him
knew they were in his presence.

He was quite
an intimidating character,

very imposing,
very well built, very fit,

and would come across as charismatic
and very friendly at first,

but I would probably
describe him as a bully.

Would probably really aptly
describe Stephen Marshall

as a nasty bully
of the criminal fraternity.

(Richard) 'Stephen Marshall
had moved into Jeffrey's flat

along with his girlfriend,
Sarah Bush.'

(Anthony) 'Sarah Bush
was a very petite figure.

She'd also worked as a sex worker.'

And she'd managed to meet Marshall.

Apparently, he stopped paying

and then he was very much
a big imposing figure on her life

and pretty much controlled her.

Stephen and Jeffrey

had met through the kitchen
business, through kitchen sales.

Both were very successful
in kitchen sales.

Stephen Marshall probably had the
gift of the gab and they hit it off.

'Sarah Bush and Stephen Marshall
had moved into Jeffrey Howe's flat,

just for a short term, initially,

and Jeffrey, which appears
to be typical of Jeffrey,

was doing them a favour,
being a good friend to them.

But they exploited that friendship

and initially they were paying
a peppercorn rent,

but eventually stopped paying
any money to Jeffrey at all.

(Richard) 'After a week
of gathering intelligence,

police decided to investigate
Jeffrey Howe's address in person.'

(Ian) 'I took a team of officers to
Southgate where Jeffrey Howe lived.'

(rings)

As soon as I knocked,
it was answered by Stephen Marshall.

'I obviously immediately
recognised Stephen.

He's quite intimidating,
but he was very friendly with us.

'Invited us into the premises and
we sat down at the kitchen table.

Both Stephen and Sarah
portrayed themselves

as good friends of Jeffrey,'

but really couldn't offer
any firm explanation

as to why he'd gone missing,
just left

and not been in contact with them.

'They were very sketchy about
any detail, which as a detective,

always rings the alarm bells for us.

They weren't at all
concerned about him.

We asked to look around,

as we would do
on a routine missing person enquiry.

'It was then that we saw the number
plates for Jeffrey Howe's vehicle.'

He had a private number plate

'and those number plates
were in the master bedroom,

which was unusual,'

because obviously the car
wasn't outside the address.

They'd said he had taken the car
the last time they'd seen him.

Nothing was ringing true.
There was, there was..

There was no master bed
in the bedroom.

There was a blue inflatable
blow-up mattress on the floor.

Things just weren't right.

Things they were saying,
explanations they were giving

about their last sightings

and about their relationship
with Stephen

clearly weren't ringing true
and were a pack of lies.

So I just made an excuse to leave
and went outside.

I immediately phoned
the Detective Superintendent.

Just explains
my gut feeling, really,

and the rationale around it.

'We had options: we put them
under some form of surveillance'

or were we going to let them run

and just see what happens?

But the risk was too extreme,
as far as we were concerned,

'and the decision was rightly made

that we should arrest them
there and then.

We took the other officers
back into the flat.'

That's when I arrested
Sarah Bush and Stephen Marshall

for the murder of Jeffrey Howe.

(Richard) 'This was a bold move,
considering they hadn't confirmed

that it was Jeffrey Howe's body
strewn across the country.

They had 24 hours to charge them
or let them go.

They were both interviewed
under caution.

Both had solicitors,
as is their right.

(policewoman) Do you deny
or confirm that is Jeffrey Howe?

No comment.

Do you recognise that person
to be Jeffrey Howe?

No comment.

I believe he was a friend
or an associate.

No comment.

He's allowed you
to stay at his home. No comment.

(Ian) 'Stephen Marshall went
"no comment" to all questions.

Now bearing in mind
that he portrayed Jeffrey Howe

to be one of his best mates,
that they lived together.

We were suggesting
and it was our suspicion

that Stephen Marshall
was responsible for his murder,

'and we were accusing Stephen
Marshall of murdering Jeffrey Howe.'

Are you responsible for the killing

and the dismembering of your friend
Jeffrey Howe?

If so, why did you kill
and dismember Jeffrey Howe?

No comment.

You would expect him
to shout from the rooftops,

that I'm an innocent man,
I've not done this.

He would do everything possible
to try us identify who had.

And do you feel upset by the fact
someone's chosen to dismember him

and place parts of his body
around the countryside?

No comment.

How does that make you feel?
No comment.

But, no, Stephen Marshall
refused to help us in any way.

No comment.

(Richard) 'With time not on their
side, and Marshall not cooperating,

the police needed concrete evidence

or their suspects
would have to be released.'

(Ian) 'While Sarah Bush
and Steven Marshall

were in custody at Hatfield,

our fast-track enquiry

was to send Jeffrey Howe's
dental records to an expert,

along with the teeth from the skull
recovered from Leicestershire.

(Richard) 'Despite all the effort'

that had been taken to remove
the nose, the ears, the tongue,

the teeth had been left in the
skull.

Teeth can often be used
to identify someone.

So the police asked
a specialist forensic dentist,

a forensic odontologist,
to come in and to have a look

in the hope that a positive
identification could be made.

'If police couldn't find a match and
confirm the victim was Jeffrey Howe,

they'd have to release
their suspects the next morning.'

We only had them for 24 hours,
so time was of the essence.

After body parts had been found
strewn across the countryside,

a man called Jeffrey Howe
was reported missing

'and police arrested his lodgers,
Sarah Bush and Stephen Marshall.

Even dismembered the body had given
the truth of what had happened

with the discovery
of stab wounds in the torso.'

But the police still had
to positively identify the victim.

Fortunately, they had his teeth.

(Ian) 'We had fast-tracked Jeffrey
Howe's dental records to an expert,'

and also fast-tracked
the dental impressions

of the recovered skull
from Leicestershire.

And that dental expert
was able to confirm 100%

that, yes, our victim
was Jeffrey Howe

and that was the first time
in the investigation

and a big breakthrough for us.

So now almost all of the body
had been recovered.

The only significant things
that were missing were the two
hands.

The torso had given evidence
of the two stab wounds to the back,

which undoubtedly
were the cause of death.

One had penetrated
right through into the lungs

and would have caused extensive
bleeding into the chest cavity.

Interestingly,
stab wounds to the chest

often don't bleed much externally.

All the bleeding is contained.

But when the body was dismembered,

when the head was cut off
and the limbs were removed,

their major blood vessels
would have been cut through

and blood would have leaked
passively out of the body

causing extensive
blood staining of the area.

(Angela) 'It is difficult
to clean up a crime scene of blood,

where a lot has been shed.'

Blood spatter,
because it goes everywhere,

you could easily miss tiny spots,

which forensic scientists
will find with their powerful lamps

'and chemical tests
and all the rest of it.'

So it is difficult to clean up.

If you try to use water
or anything like that,

'sloshing it all over the place
you're diluting it.'

We will be able to detect it,
so it's really difficult.

(Ian) 'The flat was locked down
as a crime scene,'

and our forensic team
spent many, many days there

carrying out a very thorough
search of the address,

and albeit that Sarah Bush
and Stephen Marshall

had tried to do
a very, very good clean-up job.

When we took up
the carpets, the underlay,

the floorboards,
the skirting boards, and so on,

we found
a significant amount of blood.

(Angela) 'They found a lot of blood
in the bedroom,

in the bathroom.

It's more difficult to control blood
in somewhere like a bedroom

than it is in a bathroom.'

The pattern of blood staining
told them what had gone on where.

The key line of enquiry was to match
that blood to that of Jeffrey Howe.

'DNA analysis confirms'

that the DNA we found in
significant volumes inside the flat

was a positive match, 100%,
to that of the body parts

found scattered
around the rural locations.

It was a result
of that forensic examination

that we identified
that the master bedroom

was indeed the scene of the murder,

and indeed was the scene
of the dismemberment.

(Richard) 'Police could now charge
Stephen Marshall and Sarah Bush

for the murder of Jeffrey Howe.'

(Anthony)
'Within days of their arrest,'

police announced that they had
been charged with murder,

which was a real shock.

The two appeared in Magistrates'
Court on the Saturday morning

and remanded in custody
to face trial.

'There was some relief
from the public.

Two people had been charged
with his murder

and perhaps this was
the conclusion of the case.'

There were a lot
of unanswered questions

about why would somebody
kill Jeffrey Howe

who had only shown kindness

by allowing these two people
to stay in his flat?

(Richard) 'To build a case,

there was still
a lot of investigation needed.'

For every crime it's imperative

that we prove
beyond all reasonable doubt,

what is the motive for this crime?

Is it jealousy, is it greed, is it
drug-related, is it crime related?

And very, very quickly
we established

that in actual fact
the murder of Jeffrey Howe

was simply about finances and greed.

'We established that within hours
of Jeffrey Howe's murder,

Stephen Marshall
had started writing cheques

from Jeffrey Howe's cheque book.'

Taking out cash and monies
from Jeffrey's bank account.

They sold his car.

'They'd set up
online shopping accounts,

They'd purchased takeaway pizzas.'

Basically, just as soon
as they'd got rid of Jeffrey,

just plundered his assets

and plundered his bank accounts
to their own ends.

Stephen Marshall
had even gone to the extent

of utilising Jeffrey Howe's
personalised car numberplates

'to put over the top
of his numberplates on his car

to carry out a theft of petrol
at a petrol station.'

The private numberplates
that aren't seen in the flat

on the day
of Stephen Marshall's arrest.

(Richard)
'The evidence was overwhelming

and crucially the forensics
gathered from the body parts

also matched up.'

(Angela) 'The fibres evidence
was particularly powerful.'

Some of the links with the house
involved three mattresses

that were there.

They had this flopped surface.
It's like peach skin.

'It's very soft to touch,
a bit like velvet.

Some of the fibres
on the wrappings and body parts

related to that,
these three mattresses.'

And then there was
some really powerful evidence

to link again the body parts
and the wrappings

with a green polo shirt

'that belonged to Stephen Marshall,
one of the defendants.

And they were two different kinds.'

So they were green polyester fibres
and green cotton fibres

and so that immediately
makes the evidence more powerful.

(Richard) 'A clear image finally
emerged of what had happened.

Stephen Marshall
entered Jeffrey Howe's bedroom,

stabbed him in the back
and left him to bleed to death.

He later returned
to dismember the body.'

We couldn't have had
a stronger case, really.

We had our motive, the fact that...

We had evidence that Sarah Bush
and Stephen Marshall

had plundered
all of Jeffrey Howe's finances.

'Stephen Marshall's fingerprints
were on a receipt

that he supplied to the man
who'd bought Jeffrey Howe's car.'

We proved the fact
that Stephen Marshall

was in that flat at the time,

and the fact that the flat
was indeed the murder scene

and the scene of the dismemberment.

'We had extensive fibre evidence

to show
that Stephen Marshall's T-shirts'

must have been in that room

at the time
that the dismembered body parts

were being wrapped up
in those sacks.

We couldn't have been
in a stronger position.

(Richard) 'On 12th January, 2010,

Stephen Marshall and Sarah Bush

were tried
at St Alban's Crown Court.'

What was quite interesting
was Marshall and Bush,

who were sat
next to each other in the dock,

barely spoke a word to each other.

Considering they were lovers,

why were they so cold
towards each other?

(Ian) 'At the time of Jeffrey Howe's
murder we don't believe'

that Sarah Bush was present
at the flat at the time.

She had actually extracted herself
away from the premises

'and gone to visit a friend.

Nevertheless, it was always our case

that Sarah Bush was complicit
in everything that happens,'

was involved
in the planning, the preparation

and, of course, the disposal

of all the body parts
with Stephen Marshall.

(Anthony) 'Both Marshall and Bush
pleaded not guilty,

despite the weight
of the evidence against them.'

Stephen Marshall had admitted
chopping up Jeffrey Howe's body,

but denied murder.

'The details of the case
were truly grisly,

but Marshall and Bush showed
absolutely no remorse, no upset.'

As the trial proceeded,

Marshall and Bush
started to blame each other,

very much turning in on each other,

over who killed Jeffrey,
who had dismembered him,

who'd got rid of the body parts.

It was very much
the first emotion we'd seen,

literally to blame each other.

(Richard) 'But no-one was prepared
for the next turn of events.'

(Anthony)
'Three weeks into the trial,'

we were called into court
in the morning.

Marshall asked for the charge again
and this time he pleaded guilty.

'I mean, that's really shocking.

To admit murder when you're going
to get a life sentence

is like signing your life away.

It's open to different theories
why he decided to plead guilty

at the very last minute.

Was this him deciding that he wanted
to completely clear the slate?

Was this him playing the system,

pleading guilty at the last minute,

once he'd seen
the overwhelming case against him,

knowing that he also gets
a discount in his sentence?

Or was there some pressure
put on him to plead guilty

by people
in the criminal underworld?

(Richard) 'Then came perhaps
the biggest revelation of all.'

(Anthony) 'Stephen Marshall
didn't just leave it there.'

After pleading guilty he decided
that he was going to get his QC

to stand up in court
during the sentencing

and confess
he cut up four more bodies.

'He'd worked for one of the
biggest crime families in London,

the Adams family,'

and he had been disposing of people
who had double-crossed them.

I mean, it was truly

a shocking revelation.

(Richard)
'On Monday 1st February, 2010,

Stephen Marshall was convicted
of the murder of Jeffrey Howe

and given a life sentence.

He would have
to serve at least 36 years

before he could apply for parole.

Sarah Bush was sentenced
to three and a half years

for perverting
the course of justice.'

It was a difficult investigation.

I'm immensely proud
of not just my work,

but that of the team,
because it was a team investigation

that resulted
in that successful outcome.

It was certainly one of
the most disturbing court cases

that I've ever covered.

So immensely proud

and so glad
that we managed to get justice

for the family, really.

With the case concluded
and the killer in jail,

the last piece of the puzzle
was in place.

The autopsy had provided
the information they needed,

the stab wound to the back,
the teeth and the eczema on the leg.

'In the end, Jeffrey Howe's body
had revealed the truth

and the jigsaw was complete.'

Subtitles by accessibility@itv.com