A Killer's Confession- The Case Of Stephen & Anne Searle
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FunTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:28 This case takes us to the town of Stowmarket in Suffolk in the UK.
00:33 A well-known couple in the area, Stephen and Anne Searle, had been married for 45 years.
00:42 They lived in a little cul-de-sac in the Brickfields, with their three sons and many grandchildren, frequently popping in and out as well.
00:50 64-year-old Stephen and 62-year-old Jessica Anne, who went by Anne, had met in Glasgow as teenagers.
00:58 Stephen was about to join the Royal Marines at the time, where he would remain for the next 30 years.
01:04 They soon married and had their sons, Gary, Christopher and Stephen Jr.
01:09 And the family of five did a lot of moving around, relocating to wherever Stephen needed them.
01:15 Stephen Jr. said he and his brothers had a happy childhood, filled with lots of fun and laughter.
01:21 The moving was never a problem, as long as they were all together.
01:26 In the 1990s, Stephen left the military and he, Anne and their sons settled into a home in Stowmarket,
01:38 where they started running a pub and later a bowling alley.
01:43 It's safe to say the family was always very busy.
01:48 Their sons soon married and had children of their own, and Stephen and Anne loved the hustle and bustle of their grandchildren being around.
01:56 Given their very social businesses, Stephen and Anne quickly became popular in the town and were loved by locals and tourists alike.
02:04 Stephen Jr. described Anne as the glue and backbone of the family, who lived for her children and grandchildren,
02:12 and their father was their idol and best friend.
02:16 Between the years of 2013 and 2017, Stephen Sr. started working as a councillor for the UK Independence Party,
02:24 more commonly known as UKIP, for Stowmarket South on Suffolk County Council.
02:30 People in the town said he was very hands-on and active in his role,
02:34 and before long he was quite a high-profile person in the local political scene.
02:40 As good as everything had seemed from the outside for Stephen and Anne, behind closed doors can often tell a very different story.
02:50 By 2017, after Stephen was unsuccessful in the local elections, his and Anne's relationship was at an all-time low.
02:59 There had been murmurs around town for a while about the couple's issues.
03:03 The reality was, since the early 90s, the pair had been hiding a lot of volatility and problems from a lot of people.
03:12 Stephen was extremely controlling, often belittling Anne and putting her down,
03:17 and before long, the verbal fights became physical altercations, and Anne would often be concealing bruises on her arms and legs.
03:26 When the family moved to Suffolk, the problems only escalated further, and it reached a point where they were fighting every day.
03:34 Stephen started threatening her life, telling her he could destroy her if he wanted to.
03:39 On one occasion, inside the pub they owned, and in front of customers,
03:44 Stephen fired a shotgun above Anne's head when he thought she wasn't showing him respect.
03:49 He then tried to throw her down the stairs.
03:53 The police were called several times, but things never went any further.
03:58 One thing that only poured more fuel on the fire was that Stephen and Anne were both heavy drinkers, and had been for years.
04:06 The more they drank, the worse the arguments would get.
04:09 Anne had been to rehab before, and was aware that she had a problem.
04:13 By 2017, she admitted that her drinking was out of control,
04:17 her mental and physical health was on a rapid decline, and she was miserable.
04:22 Things got even worse when it came to light that Stephen had had an affair, an affair that would last for three months.
04:30 Anne, who was having suspicions that Stephen was involved with someone else,
04:34 eventually guessed the pin to his phone, and discovered many exchanges between Stephen and a contact called SBG,
04:42 his code for Steve's beautiful girl.
04:45 She was devastated, but had no clue who it was, and begged Stephen to tell her everything.
04:51 After denying it for weeks, the truth finally came out.
04:55 It turned out that Stephen had been having an affair with his own son's wife, and mother of his grandchild, Anastasia.
05:03 This was a bombshell for the family. Everyone was horrified.
05:08 When Anastasia was confronted, she said that Stephen had been chasing her for years, long before she started seeing his son, Gary.
05:16 At one point, she found out Stephen had a folder on his computer full of photos of her,
05:22 some where he had photoshopped her into graphic and explicit scenes.
05:26 He then started sending her photographs of himself from decades ago, when he was a bodybuilder,
05:31 telling her he was lonely, and hadn't had sex in years.
05:35 Anastasia said after months of his persistence, and being fearful of what he might do if she continued to say no,
05:42 she and Stephen started a sexual relationship.
05:47 Stephen Jr. said when it all came out, it was a very dark day for the whole family.
05:53 The betrayal had so many levels to it. He said his mother was completely broken and mortified.
06:00 Anastasia said she was in a vulnerable place at the time, maintaining she felt ashamed and guilty,
06:06 and was sorry that any of it had happened.
06:09 Gary stopped talking to his father after this, and he and Anastasia said they had started working hard to repair their marriage.
06:17 Gary said it brought them closer, and they remained committed to each other.
06:21 After news of the affair came out, on top of the endless fights in emotional and physical abuse for so many years,
06:29 Anne was in a very dark place, but told people that she was worried she was too old to start again.
06:36 Having been with Stephen for 45 years, the thought of moving on was too overwhelming for her,
06:42 and she said that she would push through and make it work no matter what.
06:49 As Christmas 2017 was approaching, it seemed that Anne had turned over a new leaf.
06:55 By December, she had given up smoking, was working on controlling her drinking again, and had lost a lot of weight.
07:03 She told colleagues that she was feeling positive about her future, and was keen to put the past behind her.
07:10 Despite all of this, sadly, Christmas Day for the family was a less than happy occasion.
07:21 With the tension already palpable, everything was turning into a fight.
07:25 Anne was disappointed that Stephen hadn't bothered to get her anything nice to unwrap,
07:30 and was left tearful and embarrassed when Stephen threw the Christmas dinner she had made in the bin.
07:37 That night, with her mood at an all-time low, Anne posted a troubling and sad status to Facebook.
07:44 "Happy Christmas to you all. Hope you are doing well. Have a good day. I hope I will still be here in 2018. We will see," she said.
07:59 [Music]
08:03 Five days later, everything would change.
08:08 10.20pm, 30th December 2017.
08:14 Police received a disturbingly calm call from none other than Stephen Searle.
08:21 [Phone ringing]
08:24 "Hello, can you hear me?"
08:26 "Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me?"
08:28 "Yep."
08:29 "Yeah, I've just killed my wife."
08:31 "You've just killed your wife?"
08:33 "Yeah."
08:34 "OK."
08:35 "Bit different for you tonight, I suspect."
08:38 "Happy New Year."
08:44 "OK, and how have you killed her?"
08:47 "Um, suffocation really, I guess. Bit of a bizarre situation, but, you know, never mind."
08:56 "OK, is it just the two of you in the house?"
08:59 "Er, well, just the one of us now."
09:01 "Right, OK."
09:02 "Yeah, well, two, if you like, yeah."
09:04 "OK, is there any other sort of issues that the officers need to be aware of when they come into the house?"
09:10 "Er, no, not really. You know, I'm not violent, I'm not for nothing."
09:14 "OK."
09:16 "Erm, Stephen, can I just get you to go and answer the door? I believe we should have some officers there."
09:23 "Are you able to just go and speak to them?"
09:26 "OK, they're here now, are they?"
09:28 "They should be there."
09:30 "Right, I'm on my way."
09:31 "OK."
09:32 "I'm on my way as we speak."
09:38 "OK."
09:39 [FOOTSTEPS]
09:42 "Hello."
09:50 "Oh, hello, buddy. How are you, alright?"
09:53 "Yeah, I'm well, thank you."
09:54 "Yeah, OK."
09:55 [MUSIC]
09:59 As can be heard from the 999 call, police had arrived at the house in less than two minutes.
10:05 As he let them inside, Stephen said, "Sorry, I've been a very naughty boy. Everyone has their breaking point."
10:13 Paramedics tried to revive Anne for half an hour, but she was pronounced dead at 10.58pm.
10:21 Several hours later, at 4am, Stephen Jr. was woken up by officers banging on his door.
10:28 He was expecting them to tell him that someone in his family had been in a car accident or had suddenly fallen ill and was in hospital.
10:36 When they told him the awful truth, that his mother was gone and his father was responsible,
10:42 he said the wind was knocked out of him and he went totally numb.
10:47 Stephen Searle was remanded in custody and on 2nd January, he appeared at South East Suffolk Magistrates Court.
10:57 He spoke only to confirm his personal details and made no indication of a plea.
11:02 A post-mortem examination revealed that Anne had died from a sustained compression to the neck.
11:08 According to experts, Stephen had put Anne into a chokehold for a long period of time.
11:15 A forensic pathologist said that Anne would have lost consciousness after about 15 seconds,
11:20 and causing her death required further sustained pressure for a period of several minutes.
11:26 Stephen told the police that he had been acting in self-defence.
11:30 He said an argument had been sparked after the affair with Anastasia was brought up again.
11:35 Anne had attacked him with a steak knife and he struggled to fight her off.
11:39 He said he was using one hand to try and disarm her and the other to restrain her,
11:45 maintaining he had accidentally killed her in the process.
11:48 Something police said they didn't believe at all.
11:52 The investigators said Stephen was a self-centred narcissist, caring for little else apart from himself.
12:00 Detective Chief Superintendent Eamon Bridger said his team listened to the 999 call many times,
12:06 and everything they thought about Stephen as a person was reflected very clearly in those two minutes.
12:13 He spoke calmly, as if he was ordering some food, with no remorse or sadness, no angst or upset.
12:21 This was amplified further when it turned out that Anne had actually died,
12:26 an hour before the phone call to police was made, and he hadn't bothered to contact anyone during that time.
12:33 Stephen said, "Eventually she stopped struggling and I said, 'Thank fuck for that. I'm going to have a cigarette.'
12:40 She didn't reply. I was expecting her to kick off again.
12:44 When she didn't, I thought she had gone to bed and that it would be fine in the morning."
12:50 He was still maintaining it was self-defence and continued with this argument in court,
12:56 pleading not guilty for murder and hoping for a manslaughter conviction instead.
13:01 In July 2018, a seven-day trial got underway.
13:06 The prosecution were confident that they had enough to convince a jury that this was not self-defence.
13:13 They argued that Anne would have been unconscious within about 20 seconds,
13:17 and the way that Stephen had carried on, despite the fact she wasn't responding,
13:21 was proof that he was intent on killing her in that moment.
13:25 They said that he hadn't tried to revive his wife, he hadn't called an ambulance,
13:30 and he hadn't even called the police until an hour later, by which point it was too late to do anything,
13:37 and his cold and collected phone call to police painted a picture of someone that was not panicking,
13:42 upset or shaken up by what had happened. He simply didn't care.
13:47 After just a few hours of deliberations, the jury rejected Stephen's self-defence argument,
13:53 and he was found guilty of murder.
13:56 He was later sentenced to life, with a minimum of 14 years to serve.
14:01 Stephen sat emotionless as the sentence was read out.
14:06 Stephen Jr. gave a victim's impact statement, and said the Searle family will never heal or recover from what had happened.
14:13 "I feel emotionally drained most days. It has taken its toll on me, my family and friends.
14:20 I have turned to alcohol as a release, which has affected my relationship with my wife and family, physically and emotionally.
14:27 The relationship between me and my brothers has been torn apart.
14:30 It has left a huge void in my heart, which is something I will never get over.
14:35 Losing my mum has destroyed me. It has left me completely broken."
14:41 The judge said he took into consideration Stephen's age, the fact that premeditation could not be proven,
14:47 and the fact that he had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer,
14:50 and he said the minimum term of 14 years to serve reflected all of these factors.
14:56 The judge said in part, "By your own hands, you have brought grief and distress untold upon your family.
15:04 You have deprived your children of the mother that they loved.
15:07 You have deprived your grandchildren of their grandmother, and you have deprived Anne of the remaining years of her life.
15:13 I think that it must go without saying that your actions have caused devastating waves of pain and anguish to crash through your entire family.
15:21 No sentence that I impose can ever undo that suffering."
15:33 "Good afternoon. As you are all aware today, there has been justice for my mum, Anne Searle.
15:40 The thing is, this year, not only have I lost my mum, but my dad as well.
15:46 So now all I want to focus on is my family and my friends, who can help me through this year and more to come.
15:54 The part that hurts me the most is I lost my mum.
15:58 The person who took my mum away was also my best friend, who was my dad.
16:03 So now it's time to focus on my family and my kids and do the best I can for them.
16:09 Thank you for your time."
16:11 Detective Chief Superintendent Eamon Bridger said that their thoughts were with the family and stated,
16:19 "Domestic abuse continues to take place behind closed doors.
16:22 Suffolk Constabulary will take positive action against the perpetrators where we have the opportunity.
16:28 When the victims of abuse come to us, we will work with them to address their needs and make them and their families safe.
16:35 Our focus is firmly on the needs of victims and we will continue to work closely with our partners in tackling this type of crime."
16:45 The aftermath of what happened that December night is still widely felt in the small and close community.
16:52 Stephen Jr. said he went to bed with both his parents and in the space of a few hours, they were both gone.
16:59 The only comfort he takes is that the last time he saw his mother, she was so happy and joyful.
17:05 The house was filled with laughter and she was in the highest and most positive of spirits.
17:12 If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in today's episode surrounding domestic abuse,
17:18 we have left links to further resources in the description box below.
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