The Jigsaw Man (22 page)

Over the next week, police motorcycle couriers delivered material to my home almost daily. Stephanie proved a brilliant interview subject and could remember the black hairs on the back of her kidnapper’s hands and the way he pronounced the Ks and Ts at the end of words. Although blindfolded throughout, she knew that her prison had an old-fashioned dial telephone and a radio tuned to BBC Radio. The doorbell sounded like a cash register ringing.

Because she’d seen her attacker when they met at the house, she could also give a police artist a good description of what he looked like and what he’d been wearing. There was a train motif on the breast pocket of his duffel-type coat.

She’d been attacked while showing him the bathroom upstairs. Turning, she saw him holding a knife in one hand and a sharpened file in the other. ‘I panicked and started to scream and it all happened very quickly. It was very frightening and I was just shouting and screaming,’ she said.

He pushed her into the bath, tied her hands, put black plastic glasses on her eyes so she couldn’t see and bound more rope around her throat. Then he led her like a dog downstairs and outside to his car which had the passenger seat fully reclined.

When she arrived at their destination, possibly after dark, she was taken from the car, into a building and tied to a chair. After feeding her chips, the kidnapper made Stephanie change into clothes that he provided and then put handcuffs secured with chains on her legs and hands.

‘I hope you’re not claustrophobic because you’re going in a box within a box,’ he said and then made her slide into the coffin-like container. It was very tight and she had to turn sideways to reach the bottom. He told her that there were boulders on top of the box and that if she moved they would come down on top of her. He said he had also placed electrodes around the sides so that if she tried to escape she’d be electrocuted.

This had been Stephanie’s prison for the next seven days.

Reading through the interview transcripts, I was quite confident that there were two things which had kept Stephanie alive. This man didn’t have the Raffles-like image that he wanted to convey; he’d come across in the press as being a cold-blooded killer and he didn’t care for that. Secondly, Stephanie had been so shocked by what happened to her, she became passive and yielding. This made her more attractive to a man who got a buzz out of being in control. Without these two factors, I’m sure that another body would have been found dumped in a field.

After Stephanie’s return, Tom Cook asked me if she was still in any danger or if the kidnapper was likely to make contact with Shipways again. I said there was a very good chance he would. Stephanie had become important to him and we could never forget his primary motivation. Even if he went quiet for while, he’d come back because he loved the game.

When the media blackout was lifted, the headlines proved embarrassing for the police and I was surprised at how the media reacted and at the criticisms that were made. After all, Stephanie was safe and that had always been the top priority.

At a press conference in Birmingham, ACC Tom Cook, who had overall charge of the joint inquiry, revealed the link with Julie Dart’s murder. He described several of the similarities between the crimes and mentioned that the man’s main motivation had not been the money.

When pressed further, Cook said, ‘Well, we’ll have to see what Paul Britton has to say about that.’

It was the first time my name had ever been publicly mentioned in relation to any criminal investigation. The reaction was immediate and Cook realized that he’d made a mistake. As more questions followed, the leak couldn’t be shored up.

That afternoon a press officer from Leeds telephoned to apologize. ‘We’re awfully sorry,’ she said. ‘We made a mistake during the press conference.’

It didn’t take journalists long to track me down and by that evening the telephone was ringing and didn’t stop.

Psychological profiling became a new angle on the hottest story of the year and my carefully guarded anonymity was shattered.

Each time I was asked to give a comment or an interview, I politely declined. ‘Perhaps when he’s been caught and convicted,’ I said, hoping to fob them off. Meanwhile, the newspaper accounts portrayed me as being locked in a battle of wits with a madman. I cringed and gave up reading the papers.

The inquiry had fresh impetus thanks to Stephanie’s amazing recall and slowly the police began closing the net. A very good artist’s impression had been drawn up and, if necessary, they had tape recordings of the killer’s voice.

During the drive back to Birmingham, although blindfolded, Stephanie had talked to her kidnapper, who counted down the miles and told her when they were getting close. Based on the descriptions and times involved, they had narrowed the offender’s territory to a small triangle of A-roads in Lincolnshire. A team of detectives moved into a small hotel just over the Nottinghamshire border, ready to move quickly.

On 7 February a letter posted in the Sheffield area arrived at Millgarth Police Station in Leeds. Copies had also been sent to West Midlands police, Mrs Lynn Dart, the News of the World, the Sun, Yorkshire TV and BBC TV.

The three pages read like a plea of mitigation or the beginning of a killer’s defence.

Thefacts.

I, being the kidnapper of Stephanie Slater, am not the killer of Julie Dart. It is impossible that there can be any positive connection between the two cases.

I am also not the person who idiotically tried to blackmail B.R. the idear was a variation on an idear I had discussed with another, I now believe that he may have used my word processor to make his demands. The reason for the sudden cessation of communications between B.R. and the other, was my intervention when I learned with horror that he was to use my idears about picking up the ransome monies.

It could have been to my advantage to allow the police to continue to believe that the cases are all connected, but my concers are for Stephanie and her parents, and how they must be now feeling after reading the reports. I promised and gave my word to Stephanie on a few things, and with only one exception I kept them. Some of the promises were; a) I had not killed before, b) Provided she did not remove her blindfold she would be released and not harmed in any way, both at that time or any time in the future…

The fact that I knew, could, and did carry out the crime extremely successfully is my only satisfaction, I am ashamed upset and thoroughly disgusted at my treatment of Stephanie and the suffering I must have caused to her parents … even now my eyes still fill with tears, I wake up during the night actually crying, with a little luck Stephanie will get over it shortly. Myself? I do not think I ever will.

Sorry Stephanie. Sorry Mr & Mrs Slater…

The letter ended with the bold statement: ‘This case will never come to court as I have contingency plans should the police be two steps behind.’

Clearly he felt threatened; the artist’s impression had scared him and suddenly he feared for his freedom. He didn’t want a murder charge yet even his plea of innocence contained damning evidence that he was Julie’s killer. In the letter to West Yorkshire police he’d written ‘Millgate’ instead of ‘Millgarth’ - exactly the same mistake that had appeared on the letter sent to Leeds the previous October which began ‘Re Julie (with no hair)’.

There were also similar grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.

Psychologically, he was feeling hunted and feigning contrition as if constructing a defence for himself. He hadn’t expected Stephanie’s kidnapping to create such enormous publicity or for detectives to link him with Julie Dart’s murder.

The pressure continued to tell and on 20 February he made a call to Shipways and asked to speak to Sylvia Baker. On hearing the voice, she pressed a button alerting the Nechells Green police station.

The kidnapper said, ‘I’m the person who kidnapped Stephanie. Stephanie and you are the only two persons that can identify me and Stephanie won’t because she knows what will happen. Do you understand?’

That same evening Crimewatch UK and the ITV late evening news were both planning to broadcast a tape-recording of the kidnapper’s voice. It would be heard by an audience of more than fifteen million viewers, who would also hear details of where the man was believed to live and what car he drove.

Fifty telephone lines had been set up in three adapted incident rooms to take the expected flood of calls. Among them was a message from Susan Oake of Keighley, West Yorkshire, who had videoed the programme and watched it when she returned home that night.

She phoned the incident room, convinced she recognized the kidnapper’s voice. It was her ex-husband Michael Sams who ran a power-tool repair business from a workshop in the Swan and Salmon yard at Newark.

This news was flashed to Bingham Police Station and a surveillance operation began the following morning. Background checks confirmed that Sams owned an orange Austin Metro, had minor convictions for deception and fraud and was a keen trainspotter and railway enthusiast. In fact, Sams, fifty-one, seemed to have only one major drawback as a suspect - he had only one leg.

Shortly before midday on 21 February, four officers walked into the workshop and, with only the briefest glimpse of the interior, they knew he was their man.

The picture that emerged of Michael Sams fitted almost perfectly with the psychological profile that had been drawn up many months earlier. He was the nearly man, who never quite made it. A promising athlete in his youth, he had had to have his leg amputated because of cancer. All three of his marriages had failed, as had his numerous business ventures. Every time he became successful, a poor decision destroyed the hard work.

Intelligent and good with his hands, he spent three years in the Merchant Navy before leaving and doing a variety of jobs such as installing lift equipment and central-heating systems. He was sentenced to nine months in jail in April 1978 for deception and fraud after stealing and respraying an MG Midget and putting on false number plates. Cancer was diagnosed in prison and surgeons took off his right leg below the knee.

He resented how life had treated him and knew he was capable of much more. Who was to blame? Certainly not himself. With money being tight and his third marriage in trouble, he began planning how to show his talents.

Upon his arrest, Sams was taken to Newark Police Station and Tom Cook decided that West Midlands would have first crack at interrogating him because Sams readily admitted to kidnapping Stephanie. Then it would be West Yorkshire’s turn to probe the murder of Julie Dart.

Meanwhile, forensic experts began stripping the workshop and their discoveries would later prove vital in linking the suspect to all of the crimes. Fibres from the navy trousers he was wearing when arrested matched those found in a blackmail letter sent to British Rail. Fibres in the workshop also linked Sams to the rope and sheet used to wrap up Julie’s body and diluted blood on an old curtain almost certainly came from her.

From the outset it was clear that Sams hadn’t given up playing the game. The smoke, the lies, the false trails and exaggerations were on display as he pulled interviewers one way and then the other. He picked up on every ambiguity in the police case and played on the weaknesses, inventing scenarios which involved an accomplice who had supposedly been paid Ł20,000.

How else did I do it? challenged Sams, pointing to his artificial leg. He claimed his motor scooter didn’t fit in the Austin Metro and that he couldn’t have left all the ransom notes in the given time. Of course, he wouldn’t name the alleged accomplice and it was clearly another ploy designed to confuse and exasperate.

He even played games within games, jotting down numbers on scraps of paper and making sure the police found them. Hours were then spent questioning him about whether these were map references for the buried ransom. Sams would smile and say nothing.

By the time he was transferred to Millgarth Police Station, Bob Taylor and his team knew the difficulties that confronted them in interrogating him in connection with the murder of Julie Dart. Taylor asked me to look at the videotapes from Birmingham, to see if I could suggest an interview strategy. They had three days before Sams had to be produced in court again.

I arrived late in the evening and had dinner with Bob Taylor and the interview team in the police canteen, sipping tea from cups embossed with the West Yorkshire coat of arms. Talk shifted to whether Sams was likely to make any admissions about Julie.

‘He’s not going to make a confession,’ I said, ‘at least not before he’s convicted. He’s still playing the game and thinks he’s cleverer than you are.’

It didn’t come as a surprise. Afterwards we gathered in a small stuffy room crammed with technical equipment such as video and audio machines. Someone slid in an interview tape from Birmingham and Michael Sams flickered into view. I’d known him for a long while, but this was the first time I’d ever seen his face.

The time-coded video image showed him sitting casually in the interview room, dressed in a white open-necked shirt and trousers. He didn’t look particularly confident but neither was he anxious. The initial shock of having been caught was still evident - he didn’t think the police were capable of catching him but had been proved wrong. His pale face was relatively expressionless but he sat in a posture consistent with trying to hold things in, rather than completely laying them out. He continually denied killing Julie Dart or blackmailing British Rail and I could see him working hard to create an intellectual space for himself so that he could take control of the game again.

Sams didn’t want to be seen as a cold calculating killer; he wanted to be the intellectually dazzling and successful villain, like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. The only way he could account for the bloody evil was to say that somebody else was responsible.

This, however, created problems for the interviewers. How did they counter someone who constantly tried to lay the blame on an accomplice?

‘Understand that this is a fiction,’ I said. ‘But you can let him maintain it because in doing so you can still draw out all of the details that could only be known by the person who killed Julie Dart. When you have all of these, then you can work on destroying the accomplice theory.