Original subtitles

We found the body of a child

laying in a small stream near a culvert.

Investigators have come together over the murder of a little girl.

The most likely cause of death was suffocation.

But this case is different

because this murder happened more than 60 years ago.

These are the cold case detectives

pursuing justice in crimes often decades old.

A team of investigators and forensic experts at the South Wales Police.

They're committed to solving the most baffling murders

and sex crimes which have gone undetected for years.

Terrific, terrific.

I just hope he does get punished.

Using the latest developments in forensic science

to uncover new evidence, they're determined to put

some of the most dangerous criminals behind bars.

The time will come where we will be knocking on their door

and their world is gonna cave in.

You're under arrest on suspicion of rape.

You don't have to say anything

but anything you do say may be given in evidence.

So we're here to discuss a potential Cold Case forensic review

into the murder of Carol Stephens

a six year old girl who was abducted from Cardiff in 1959.

There are bereaved families of people who have been murdered

and they've got unanswered questions.

If we've got the ability to be able to provide those answers.

We serve the public so we must do that,

we must take those opportunities to do that.

These are scene photographs of the deposition site.

So you can have a look at those at your leisure, really.

But yeah, we've got everything she was wearing when she was taken.

We've got a cardigan, we got a dress,

we got a skirt and spectacles.

Carol Ann Stephens' killer evaded justice for more than 60 years.

But police now believe that recent advances in forensic science

might reveal traces of the killer's DNA

on the little girls clothes.

Generically speaking we can look for touch DNA,

which we will do as matter course now with cases

but the chance of us finding anything is going to be quite slim.

But also then body fluids, blood, semen, saliva,

we can have a look for things like that.

This is a 60 year-old case, so say the person who did it,

let's assume that he was 20 and he's going to be 80 now.

But he could be 30 then, so he could be 90 or deceased.

So this is probably a last resort for us.

So let's do what we can to try and provide some answers.

I'd be happy with that.

It still means an awful lot for a lot of people.

-It's a horrible case, isn't it? -Of course, it is.

Seasoned Detective Gerry Blake has his own personal reasons

for wanting justice for Carol.

In 1959 As a young boy, seven and a half years of age,

and I was actually in Sunday school with Carol

a couple of days before she went missing.

That was someone that I knew and she was murdered.

You would like to see that justice is done on a personal matter

because you knew the person

and then of course is the other professional aspect.

There is an undetected crime.

A child at the time, Gerry is now a cold case investigator

and this case has been a driving force throughout his career.

Now, he finally has the chance to get justice for his friend.

She was in school with myself and my two sisters

and of course, we remember the event very, very well.

CATHAYS, CARDIFF

I knew Carol very well.

Carol was an innocent girl, a very chatty girl,

a very friendly girl.

She did have a propensity to wander

but people would look out for young children

and make sure that no harm would come to you.

That was a type of neighbourhood that we had here in Cathays.

This is 9, Malefant street the home of Carol Stephens.

When Carol went missing, there was great emotion here.

Everyone was saddened by the whole incident

and of course, it had a huge impact on the people in this community.

So coming back here is quite sad and so poignant.

It brings back so many, so many bad memories really,

to think of that poor girl who was taken off the street.

It could have been any one of us.

Growing up in Cathays in my time, it was quiet.

People just went about their daily lives.

We went to school. We had the library.

Nothing bad happened. It just didn't.

It was a nice quiet ordinary family area.

Gill Ward was 13 years old in 1959

and remembers Carol Ann Stephens from the neighbourhood.

She was a quiet little girl with glasses...

and she would come down into our street

and play with the younger children.

She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This used to be the old corner shop, Wilkins shop.

Carol would run an errand for her mother and attended the shop

and to buy sweets as well.

Carol Ann left the shop.

She walked back along the street...

and then later on in the day,

she was seeing knocking on the window of a car door

that was parked in Fairoak road

which is just outside the cemetery.

That was a last known sighting of Carol Stephens.

When it happened,

there was a big sort of murmuring among the adults, I suppose,

that she'd wandered off somewhere and she'd be found.

Then of course, when she wasn't found

there was a great rush for moms or dads

who didn't take their children to school.

They suddenly started to take them to school and meeting them

because they were frightened.

And who's to say that he wouldn't come back

and pick up another child

because as far as we were concerned, this...

evil person could come around in a car

and take a child off the street just like that, as easy as that.

Which is very frightening.

I can remember obviously a detective coming around the houses.

Speaking to my mum and all the other mums.

When did they last see her?

Had they noticed anything strange? Cars, whatever.

I can't remember them speaking to any of us as children,

and that could have been as a protective sort of thing.

They didn't want to frighten us.

For everyone involved, it would be wonderful if they could solve it

and could finally find out who actually did it.

It'll put a lot of minds at rest, I think.

This case is undetected

and it would mean so much not just for the family,

but also for the neighbours as well.

We've always thought and asked:

"Whatever happened to Carol Stephens?"

After decades of unanswered questions,

the team now prepares to examine the 60 year old evidence for DNA

in the hope of finally identifying Carol's killer.

As well as unsolved murder cases,

the cold case detectives are also reviewing

more than 300 historical sex crimes from the archives.

A mammoth task, code-named Operation Dudley.

DNA will also be key in their mission

to bring these sex offenders to justice

decades after their crimes.

Cold Case investigator James Phillips

is working through the list of unsolved sex attacks

dating back to the 1980s.

He's looking for cases where there's now a realistic chance

of finding offenders DNA from the historical evidence.

So I've started on the team two months ago.

There's lots of improvements in the forensic science world.

We're looking at now at options and possibilities

of reviewing some of those exhibits that have been taken

and sending them off to be examined again,

hopefully with some hits.

When I joined the police force in1988,

DNA wasn't a thing.

Whereas previously, you would need a large amount of blood,

a large amount of semen in perhaps the early 90s,

for a profile.

Now they can pick up DNA profiles

from a slap on the back of a hand on someone's face.

It's just amazing.

Okay, this interview is being visually recorded.

Police report staff ID : 56655.

This man is being questioned on suspicion of rape.

He's been arrested by the cold case team

after advances in forensic science identified traces of his DNA

on the clothing of a woman who was raped 30 years ago.

In 1991, he victim was walking through a park in Cardiff

early evening, walking her dogs.

She was brutally attacked, raped.

And as a result of those injuries, she's required numerous operations.

It must have been an horrendous attack.

Three decades later,

a tiny semen stain on the victim's clothing

revealed the DNA profile of the attacker.

By comparing this profile with the national DNA database,

the team got a match with a man called Antony Carling.

Every person that has come into custody for recordable offence

has their DNA taken as a matter of course.

It's like having your fingerprints and photograph taken.

For 30 years, 64 year old Carling thought he got away with his crime.

Now, he has some explaining to do.

It's amazing. It's like, let's go get him.

It's just fantastic.

The time is exactly 1500 hours.

Do you recall ever seeing a female walking dogs?

How would I remember 30 years ago if somebody was walking a dog?

This female has got your semen on her at some point.

So that may jog the memory.

Well, how would my semen be on somebody that I don't know?

That's what we're saying.

That's a very good question. Can you answer it?

No, I can't.

Because she's given us an account why your semen is on her.

I haven't a clue why, sir.

Short on answers, Carling is charged with the rape.

And 30 years after he brutally attacked a woman,

today he must face up to his crime in court.

Carling pleads guilty.

Back at base, the cold case team wait anxiously

for Carling to be sentenced.

Alright, Paul, any news?

Oh, that's fantastic. That's unbelievable, isn't it?

Yes, it's a great result.

Yeah, we were hoping for double figures and well,

that's even better, isn't it? So...

He deserves it. Oh, that's great. Thanks, Paul. That's fantastic.

Cheers, mate. Bye, bye bye.

-12 years. -Bloody hell.

-He deserves at least that. -At least, yeah.

Jeremy, he's put her through hell.

-That was brilliant. She was there? -Yeah. Yeah.

After 30 years of evading justice,

with the overwhelming forensic evidence

presented to the court by the team,

Antony Carling receives a 12 year sentence

for the vicious rape in 1991.

12 years, it's just a phenomenal result really.

Although it's happened a long time ago,

staff files never closed and we're always trying to investigate

and find and get a bit of closure for our victim.

The conviction of culling for rape is an important result for the team.

But there's no time to rest on their laurels.

Seasoned Detective Gerry Blake is on a mission to crack a case

that has gone unsolved for over 60 years.

The murder of his childhood friend, Carol Ann Stephens.

I'd be absolutely elated.

One has to consider...

the background of this person,

and were there any other offences committed?

So by progressing the science and the forensic aspect of this case

we don't know what we'll get at the end of it.

Key to solving the case will be understanding

what lines of inquiry were followed back in the 1950s.

If the files are here, hopefully they're going to be in this section

but we can check the others as well.

Incredibly, most of the case papers have survived.

It's amazing, as you as you go through some of these

from my service I remember the names and some of the cases.

What about this? That's the only box there?

It's the only box, yes.

Well that's fantastic for a start.

It gives us a start, Carol Ann, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, they don't all appear to be in numerical order.

Really and truly patience is a virtue.

To test your eyesight.

It's just a matter of waiting through it.

I joined the police force in the late 70s.

I was enthusiastic to become a policeman.

I was in my 20s when I joined.

It was something that I wanted to do for a long, long time.

I didn't have the confidence to apply for the job.

I was in engineering before I became a policeman

but it was something I wanted to do.

I think once you're a policeman, you're always the policeman.

You're of service, you want to serve the public

the community around you and be helpful as much as you can.

Amongst the boxes of evidence,

Gerry and the team find the original witness statements

taken by the police in 1959,

from the residents of Cathays in Cardiff,

the area where Carol went missing.

They make a reference to Carol being a chatterbox.

It appeared that she was going to be going somewhere that morning.

There's a shopkeeper that says she would normally stay and chat.

She didn't.

It appears that she was more excited than normal.

Here's the bit, Gerry, about that lady you said about the garage.

She saw Carol Stephens in a green coloured motorcar

which might have been a Morris Minor.

But then she was not sure the colour

she put it the green or dark coloured car.

Carol was also seen by several witnesses

playing with a group of children in the street that morning.

They identified one little boy

who was in what we termed in the day was a Red Indian outfit.

He was with Carol.

At the time that she approached,

so both of them approached a motorcar.

He was suggesting it was a dark coloured car.

He would be the last person to see her alive.

And the last person to see the killer.

He's a key witness and I think it's a shame he was only six.

-Was a six? -Would have been the same age.

It's a shame he wasn't old enough to make a statement.

-It's clarified in the report. -What does it say?

The children were too young to provide statements.

He is vital.

He's seen the car, he's seen the colour of the car

and he's seen the driver of the car.

Other witnesses were only able to give a sketchy description

of the man in the car.

From that fireman statement,

tends to suggest the person sitting in the car,

they referred to them as commercial travellers.

And appeared not to enjoy the best health,

although he was clean shaven.

This suspicious driver was now the prime suspect.

Finding him became the focus of the inquiry.

But after two weeks,

the search for a missing child became a murder hunt.

Carol's body was found 60 miles west of Cardiff

in a stream near the remote village of Horeb.

The news shook the community and her friends to the core.

When she'd been found...

it was a realisation that she'd been taken and actually killed

and that was a big shock.

There was great talk about how she was found so far away

because it was assumed she'd be found nearer to home.

I mean, the talk was...

It's awful to talk about it because she's a little girl.

Was she murdered in the area

and then taken down later?

Did she travel all those hours in the car with somebody

that she didn't know but obviously trusted

on what would have been a four hour car journey then

back in those days, no motorways.

But it was just a terrible, terrible thing to a little child.

For everyone involved,

it would be wonderful if they could solve it

and draw a line under it.

-We go over this river. -Yeah.

It's in that field there, I'm guessing

or that field over there.

Going somewhere and getting a feel

for where she's found is quite important.

The Cold Case team has come to the village of Horeb

to try and find the exact location where Carol's body was found

more than 60 years ago.

-Where are we? -I think...

Looking at those fields, I think we need to head

towards the left over there, because the stream is running down.

Going there with the photograph from 1959

and turn up there 60 years later and take another photo,

they're identical. It's like nothing's changed.

So this is where she was found.

Do we assume that she's come out to the culvert

or she's been brought down the sides of this?

It would be difficult to climb here carrying even a small child.

It's difficult going down the incline

and she would have had more injuries if she had been thrown over.

So the tunnel itself

there's nothing in there, it's just a round, smooth tunnel.

Is goes in about a meter and then it goes 45 degrees.

-Alright. -Up to under the road.

The incline will bring things down.

So that means then we need to find where she was put in.

This has always been at the back of my mind.

It's not really the main reason for joining the police force.

I think all police officers would like to detect

every case that they're involved in.

This is poignant for me because I knew Carol Stephens.

Alright, so this is above where we were just now.

From what we've seen, the culvert goes up

and an incline comes out on that side of the road.

-It was a pullen area. -It's pullen, isn't it?

Nobody would think anything of it.

They might think you're just going into the field

even if you parked up here.

Well, this is the entrance and look at the speed of the water.

You wouldn't have to remove a drain cover.

It's a straightforward access from the road.

He's driven along here.

He's pulled in off the roads and natural pulling,

carries her here,

puts her into the culvert at this point.

He must have thought the chance of her ever being found here

is minimal.

I can't imagine he thought she'd be found, not for a long time.

From here, you'd have to know about this.

Oh, you'd have to know about it.

You would know the area, wouldn't you?

To be able to conceal Carol's body in that culvert

someone must have known about the culvert and the area

so therefore must have local knowledge.

So this narrows down who the killer might.

The team are now convinced Carol Ann Stephens killer

was a travelling salesman with a dark Morris Minor

and had local knowledge of West Wales.

Gerry and James are now on the trail of a suspect

who was identified back in 1959.

A local shopkeeper reported a suspicious conversation he'd had

with a travelling salesman days before the murder.

The storekeeper being told by the travelling salesman a story

which he thought was strange.

and it was about picking up a girl.

the suspicious salesman was identified as Ronald Edward Murray.

Murray worked for Carson's confectionery company,

delivering sweets to Cardiff and across West Wales

and drove a dark Morris Minor.

Crucially, he had previously worked at the Brickworks

in the village of Horeb.

Less than 300 yards from where Carol's body was found.

Armed with this knowledge,

Gerry and James have come to where the suspect lived,

and where detectives came to question him in 1959.

"I have reason to believe you may be to assist with inquiries

can you account for your movements on the day that she disappeared

which was the 7th of April 1959 at Cardiff?"

Murray says: "You don't think I have anything to do with it?"

And then they asked him if they can have access to his car

and take his vehicle, and he comments:

"It's a firm's car but you can do what you want with it."

Then he gave them the keys to the car, he was quite...

-Helpful. -He was helpful.

Albeit denying any involvement.

After initially saying he was at home ill

on the day Carol went missing,

Murray then changed his story

and admitted that he had actually travelled to Cardiff that day.

In his own words, he parks up in Robert Street,

which is only just a short distance from Carol's house.

-It's where the kids were playing. -Exactly.

And then he identifies the children playing in the streets.

According to Murray, he then drove home and spent the afternoon alone.

He's home between about 12:15, 12:30.

So no one accounts for his movements

until his lad comes home.

-From school at quarter to four. -Quarter to four.

The pathologists saying that judging by Carol's stomach contents

the time of death

would have been anytime between 12:15 and 2:45.

-It's a window, isn't it? -That is that window.

and he can't account for his movements during that time.

There was a lot of circumstantial evidence suggesting

Ronald Murray's involvement in the in the alleged offence

but there wasn't that golden nugget, I would say,

the forensic evidence so there wasn't enough to charge.

But now Gerry and the team

hope they can take the case further than the original investigation

and finally, prove or disprove Murray's involvement.

We can only hope with the advances in technology

and in the science itself, that we may get a breakthrough.

As the team focused their attention on modern forensics

for the Carol Ann Stephens case,

they're also hoping for a breakthrough

in their troll of over 300 historical sex crimes

as part of Operation Dudley.

DNA technology has already helped secure the conviction

of rapist Antony Carling,

and they're confident of a breakthrough in a case

from 40 years ago, in the Swansea area.

This is a nasty incident of the little girl

who is raped, stroked, sexually assaulted

and...

it appears there's a realistic opportunity of semen being found

on the victim at the time.

-It's terrific. -Terrific, yeah.

In particular with that offence

of a male person attacking a girl you just dread to think

what he's done in the last 40 years.

-You think significant improvements? -I think so.

-DNA in the sperm. -Yeah.

So what we got in the archives and we go from there, really.

Welcome to the forensic archive.

I've managed to locate four packets of material.

Debbie and Steve have come to the top secret

National Forensic archive.

Here, over 4 million items of forensic evidence

dating back to the 1930s from police forces across the UK

are kept in storage.

It's a treasure trove for cold case detectives.

On its shelves is the evidence that with today's forensic science,

could finally hold the answers to hundreds of unsolved cases.

What we're able to do is dig into the past.

Back in the 70s and 80s, the procedures and processes

were very different.

DNA wasn't something that was thought about.

But what the investigators at the time

had the foresight to think about

was the fact that with the speed that forensic developments progress

that there would be something in the future in those exhibits,

something that we can review again and get a result from it.

One slide reference: JN/2.

Hopefully, with the advances in forensic science,

a lot more cases will be solved again to bring closure to victims

and to let perpetrators out there know

that we're not going to let these things die down.

We were going to use every possible investigative technique

to identify these perpetrators to bring them justice.

The team head back to base

with the samples from the sexual assault on the little girl.

Cold Case investigator James Phillips

wants to get an expert opinion on whether the 40 year old samples

could still contain the attackers DNA.

Cheek.

Ear. Ear and Neck.

We're at a stage now where DNA is just so sensitive.

It doesn't take a great deal of contact

for us to be able to obtain a DNA profile.

So what they'll do is they'll soak the slides,

remove the cover slip,

and they'll swab the sample underneath the cover slip then

and then the swabs from the samples will be profile for DNA.

It's a horrific incident

for a young girl to go through.

Now, if it comes back with a profile

they're be good bet that he'd be on the database.

This case now rests with the scientists.

As does the other investigation

into the murder of six year old Carol Ann Stephens.

Senior forensic adviser David Thomas

has been looking at the 60 year old exhibits to assess their potential.

They're hoping to find traces of DNA

that would prove once and for all whether they're prime suspect

travelling sweet salesman, Ronald Murray, is the killer.

That...

is the right shoe at the scene of Carol Ann

which is in the water or in the stream then.

The river may have done some damage.

I think it has, my recollection,

and going back on a personal note on the weekend before

she attended Sunday school with us and they were new shoes.

Oh, were they?

Now a small child cardigan. This is reference: 101-2

Correct me if I'm wrong quite sure this is more Carol Ann was wearing

when she was abducted on Malefant Street.

Yeah, it's a possibility if she's wearing it, his touch.

She had to get out if she was in the car, removed from wherever

into that culvert.

There must have been some sort of touching around there.

Touch DNA is, say you grabbed me on my arm

you would leave DNA on my arm

from sweat skin cells, maybe even some hairs.

And then we would sample that area where we know you have touched

to recover the DNA that you've left on the surfaces.

Incredibly, police even preserved the confectionery

found in Murray's car more than 60 years ago,

in the hope that it would one day yield close.

Two chocolates in green foil wrappers.

Dorchestrer chocolate label by Carsons.

Do those sweets link up at all in any way?

Can they link at all to Carol Ann?

There could be some on the wrapper.

There are also dozens of Carol's belongings

that could crucially finally provide that forensic link to Murray.

Albeit, Murray's our strong suspect

for a number of different investigative reasons.

But who's to say it's not somebody else?

Whatever's there is there. Let's go looking for it.

Yeah.

But generally think there is some potential here.

While the forensic examinations get underway

on the Carol Ann Stephens case,

Cold Case investigator James Phillips

has been waiting on the DNA results

from the sexual assault on a little girl more than 40 years ago.

It's not good news.

The report is coming back more or less saying that...

there's no further potential.

However, the scientist, I'll read it out,

and it's one of the first ones we've had where he says:

I recommend that these slides are retained and attempt to profile

reconsidered and perhaps three to five years

pending any advances in DNA profiling technology.

In particular, the extraction of DNA from slides.

Gutted, is the word for that one.

Then we have ups and downs, good days and bad days.

Just got to carry on. Just got to, yeah.

Yeah...

As one door closes, the team are hopeful

that senior Forensic Scientist Claire Morse

will have better luck as they begin the work of testing

the 60 year old evidence

in the murder of Cardiff schoolgirl Carol Ann Stephens.

We will recover everything that we can from her items of clothing.

We are really looking for DNA.

If we can find DNA from somebody that's not Carol Ann

we need to find out who that person is.

Could be a legitimate contact, but it could be an offender.

So DNA from a touch or from blood or semen or saliva

is going to be the easiest thing really for us to look at.

It's a very difficult case.

Carol Ann was found in a culvert.

She was wet and had probably been in water for several days.

The fact that she's been in water means that any DNA

blood, semen saliva, could have been lost.

But there's always a chance with these things,

and that's why we keep going.

With the forensic testing underway,

Carol's school friend and veteran Detective Gerry Blake

has been digging deeper into the background

of lead suspect, Ronald Murray.

What he's found is deeply troubling.

His wife had a tragic death.

And in fact, the family are concerned that he had some...

some dealing with a with a death.

What had happened was that

Ronald Murray had a young child,

and he said they would play games, turning the gas on and off.

Murray says that the child had played the game on this mother.

She suffocated with the gas from the gas stove.

The officers who conducted the inquiries into that

were clearly suspicious about the story given.

But the verdict...

it was an accidental death.

Gerry's research has turned up another death certificate.

Murray died in 1973.

There are significant questions

that we would have liked to ask Ronald Murray.

Because the style of questioning at the time

is different to what we would do now.

That doesn't mean to say that we're going to stop our investigation.

Whilst he is a suspect

but from the evidence we've got in

it might not be Murray.

So that must be a key driver for us to carry on.

So if it's somebody else, that person may still be alive.

That person may still be a risk, an ongoing risk

to the public, to young girls.

So it's vital that we continue on inquiries.

So we'll be putting an immediate appeal out asking for information.

It needs to go out on a press release,

it needs to go on the website, it needs to go on the socials.

There may be people who for example, Mister Murray may have spoken to

and told people about what happened

what he did, if he is responsible.

They might have the smallest piece of information

but that might be significant to us because of what we know.

Next time.

Time catches up with a vicious rapist on operation Dudley.

-Police. -You're under arrest.

On suspicion of rape

that occurred on the 17th of August 1980.

In there.

And a breakthrough when after 60 years

a new witness comes forward in the Carol Ann Stephens case.

The main memory is I remember the car door being opened

and there was a white bag of sweets on the car seat.

He also suggested that there was a possibility

that he may identify this man if he saw a photograph.

Are you able to identify any person on the film?

Yes.

Subtitles: Amaury Pinos plint.com