Who were Suffolk Strangler Steve Wright’s five victims? How serial killer terrorised Ipswich during six-week rampage in 2006
- Here is everything you need to know about Steve Wright’s five victims
By Zac Campbell[1] and Harry Howard[2]
Published: 11:47, 8 December 2023 | Updated: 11:48, 8 December 2023
‘Suffolk Strangler’ Steve Wright murdered five women in 2006, leaving the people of Ipswich terrified.
The former QEII steward strangled Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls, before dumping their bodies in the winter of 2006.
Now, Wright – who is serving a whole life term for his crimes- has been arrested for the unsolved murder of 17-year-old Victoria Hall, who went missing on her way home from a nightclub in September 1999.
Her naked body was found in a ditch in Suffolk five days later.
Suffolk Police reopened their investigation in 2019 after receiving fresh witness information, which they would not expand upon.
Below, MailOnline delves into the lives of Wright’s five known victims.
‘Suffolk Strangler’ Steve Wright murdered five women in 2006, leaving the people of Ipswich terrified. Wright – who is serving a whole life term for his crimes- has been arrested for the unsolved murder of 17-year-old Victoria Hall
Gemma Adams
Wright’s first victim, Gemma Adams, 25, grew up with her parents, older sister and younger brother in Kesgrave, a village near Ipswich.
Brought up in a large, detached house, she was a keen horse rider, played the piano and was a member of the Brownies.
She had told her parents Brian and Gail that she had wanted to join the police.
Wright’s first victim, Gemma Adams, 25, grew up with her parents, older sister and younger brother in Kesgrave, a village near Ipswich
Her parents described her as a ‘bright and bubbly’ girl who was in the Brownies and whose hobbies included playing the piano and riding horses.
‘She was good company – bright and intelligent,’ her father said.
‘If you asked her to do anything she would do it well. We never had any rows with her at home.’
Her downfall was triggered when she was 15 and a pupil at Kesgrave High School.
She started dating another pupil, and the pair moved in together after she left school at 16.
Friends said the couple dabbled in cannabis before moving on to harder drugs.
By the age of 17, she was regularly taking heroin and crack.
With the help of her family, she managed to complete a GNVQ at Suffolk College and worked for an insurance company.
But she was sacked in 2004 after repeatedly slipping away for long lunch breaks and taking regular sick days.
Her desperate parents took her to see doctors and the community drug rehabilitation team.
‘It’s every parent’s worst nightmare.
Once your child is involved with hard drugs, your heart is already broken,’ Mr Adams said.
Ms Adams took up prostitution. She was last seen on November 15, 2006 outside a BMW dealership in West End Road, Ipswich and was reported as missing by her boyfriend after she did not reply to text messages.
Her body was found on December 2 in a brook at Hintlesham, seven miles from Ipswich.
Mr Adams said his world ‘just crumbled’ when police revealed Gemma’s secret life.
Tania Nicol
Although she was Wright’s second victim, Ms Nicol, 19, was the first of the women to be reported missing.
She was last seen on October 30, 2006, when she left the home she shared with her mother Kerry and younger brother Aaron, then 15.
Ms Nicol, who had dreamed of fame as a member of a girl band, was believed to have been heading for Ipswich’s red-light district.
It later emerged she was carrying out sex work to fund a heroin addiction.
Although she was Wright’s second victim, Ms Nicol, 19, was the first of the women to be reported missing
Her distraught mother, who along with her father Jim Duell had fought to save her daughter from the perils of drugs, had not known her daughter was a sex worker until she disappeared.
Ms Nicol’s father was haunted by the memory of coming across his daughter on a street corner when he was driving through Ipswich.
‘I stopped and offered her a lift,’ he told the Daily Mail in 2008. ‘She was wearing a short skirt and I said, “Aren’t you cold?”
‘She was smiling and said she was all right thanks, so I drove on.’ He realised later that she was ‘working’, he said.
Mr Duell told how his daughter was introduced to cigarettes and then cannabis by her boyfriend when she was 15.
Within a year or two, she was addicted to hard drugs.
As a younger girl, she had been in the sea cadets – where she met Prince Andrew – and had gotten good grades at school.
Her body, naked except for some cheap jewellery, was found in a brook at Copdock Mill, just outside Ipswich, on December 8.
Anneli Alderton
The turning point in the life of 24-year-old Anneli Alderton was the death of her father Roy, a computer programme who passed away from lung cancer when she was 17.
The heartbroken teenager fled from the funeral and moved into a flat, where she fell under the influence of a man her family said was a ‘sexual predator’ who introduced her to drugs.
She slipped into prostitution and was three months pregnant when she died.
Ms Alderton had spent five years of her childhood living in Cyprus. The family returned to England in 1997.
The turning point in the life of 24-year-old Anneli Alderton was the death of her father Roy, a computer programme who passed away from lung cancer when she was 17
She attended Copleston High School in Ipswich, with her striking green eyes and slim figure making her popular with boys.
After she began taking drugs, she spent several years in and out of prison.
Her mother last saw her alive on December 3, 2006, when she left to catch a train.
‘She shouted, “Goodbye, Mum.
I love you”. I didn’t answer,’ Mrs Alderton said.
She said she ignored her daughter because she had bleached her brown hair, which her mother had learned from experience indicated she was working as a prostitute to pay for drugs.
Like the other victims, she probably died in Wright’s bedroom, adorned with giant cuddly toys.
They included teddy bears and a 3ft-tall monkey holding a Coca Cola bottle.
Her body was found on December 10 in woodland in Nacton, arranged in the shape of a crucifix.
Her boyfriend, Sam Jefford, said they had been ‘overjoyed’ when she became pregnant.
The couple had plans to call her son Harry. ‘We both wanted to sort our lives out and Harry would have been the reason to do it,’ he said.
Paula Clennell
Paula Clennell, a mother of three, was found dead in Nacton, east Suffolk, in December 2006.
Despite knowing that a serial killer was on the loose, she had insisted on continuing to work as a prostitute to fund her drug addiction.
Under the assumed name of Kelly, she told a TV interviewer just days before her death that she had been attacked before.
Paula Clennell, a mother of three, was found dead in Nacton, east Suffolk, in December 2006
‘It makes me sick to the stomach but if you need the money badly, it’s better than going out thieving,’ she said.
Afterwards, Ms Clennell walked back to the red light area. Less than 72 hours later she was dead.
She grew up in Berwick-upon-Tweet, Northumberland, with her parents Brian, mother Isabella and sister Alice.
Ms Clennell began experimenting with cannabis when she was just 13, after her parents divorced.
She moved with her mother to Norwich and later Ipswich before leaving home at the age of 16 to move in with her boyfriend, Elton Norris.
The pair started taking crack and Paula began selling her body at the age of 20.
Her drug addiction led to her three children being taken into care.
In a letter to her mother weeks before she died, she revealed she was dreading Christmas.
‘Instead of being a happy day of joy and togetherness it’s only a dark, lonely and depressing day,’ she wrote.
Annette Nicholls
At 25 Annette Nicholls had a stable life, a close-knit family, and was a qualified beauty therapist with a long list of loyal clients.
But, ‘almost overnight’ she was transformed by drugs.
The eldest of Wright’s victims, she had become addicted to heroin.
Her cousin Tanya said of her: ‘She used to be such an absolutely outstanding person with the most lovely personality.
She was stunningly beautiful both inside and out.
‘But almost overnight she got into heroin and it changed her.
It was like flicking a light switch.’
Friends said that Annette, known as Netty, began her descent into drugs after she left her council house to move into a smart new housing association property.
At 25 Annette had a stable life, a close-knit family, and was a qualified beauty therapist with a long list of loyal clients
Soon, her house was repossessed and she began living with friends and working the streets to pay for hits.
Deeply ashamed of what had become of her, she hid the truth from her parents, Rosemary and John.
Among those who did know about her lifestyle was her uncle Peter who had a visit from the mother-of-one weeks before her death.
‘She came to see me when she heard I was ill,’ he said in 2008.
‘She rushed up and gave me a big hug.
She’d been such a happy little girl – and deep down she still was a lovely girl.’
Netty was last seen on December 8 and her body was found four days later a few miles away in Levington.
It too had been placed in a crucifix shape, arms outstretched.
References
- ^ Zac Campbell (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Harry Howard (www.dailymail.co.uk)