Murder police find two more dead

Two more bodies have been found by police investigating the murders of three prostitutes.

A woodland area around the village of Levington, near Ipswich, in Suffolk has been sealed off by officers.

Police said it is likely the two bodies are those of two missing women - Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls.

The area is close to where the body of Anneli Alderton was found on Sunday. The bodies of Gemma Adams, and Tania Nicol, were also found near Ipswich.

Suffolk police officers were called to Levington shortly after 1500 GMT on Tuesday.

Ms Clennell, 24, and 29-year-old Ms Nicholls, have not been heard from since Sunday.

Det Ch Supt Stewart Gull said: "We can only fear the worst.

"The natural assumption is that these are the two missing women."

The body of Anneli Alderton, 24, was found in woodland at Nacton on 10 December. She had been strangled.

Ms Adams' body was found on 2 December at Thorpes Hill, Hintlesham, near Ipswich.

Police divers recovered the body of Ms Nicol, 19, six days later from the same stretch of water at Copdock Mill.

BBC News

CBS/AP) English police said Wednesday they continue to "fear the worst" about two missing prostitutes from a town where three other sex workers have been killed, one of them strangled, by an apparent serial killer.

Two additional bodies were discovered Tuesday in a wooded area near the same town, Ipswich, and both the authorities and the British media were openly speculating that they were the bodies of the two missing women.

Detectives have pleaded with sex workers "to get off the streets as soon as possible."

The two bodies found Tuesday have not been identified, but the detective leading the investigation said it was likely they were those of Annette Nicholls and Paula Clennell, two prostitutes who had been missing for days.

Their bodies were protected from the elements Tuesday night, but left in place so that forensic experts could gather evidence with the aid of sunlight on Wednesday.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull of Suffolk police said, though it may have seemed insensitive to the victims, it was necessary to leave the bodies where they were found to learn the most possible from the sites.

CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reports that police have made no arrests, and have impounded no vehicles in their investigation.

One of the bodies discovered Tuesday was found much closer to the side of the road, prompting British media to wonder whether the killer was growing more hasty in the disposal of victims' bodies — a possibility police could not confirm, but were certainly aware of.

MacVicar says the red-light district outside Ipswich was quiet Tuesday night but there was a palpable anxiety, and residents and the police alike are all braced for the discovery of another victim.

"The danger is he kills again and again until he stops, or he might move outside of the target group, which, so far, are prostitutes, into other types of women," criminologist Prof. David Wilson told Britain's Sky News.

"We have got three prostitutes murdered, now possibly another two. I do not know what stronger warning there can be to get off the streets as soon as possible," Gull said Tuesday.

Detectives were already investigating the deaths of three women, whose naked bodies were found a few miles apart. One body was found in a stream, another in a pond and a third in the woods, about 30 yards from a road.

The two bodies discovered Tuesday were lying near Levington, Suffolk, a village about five miles south of Ipswich. The corpses of the five dead women all have been found within a few miles of Ipswich.

The killings have stirred memories of the so-called Yorkshire Ripper, one of Britain's worst serial killers. Peter Sutcliffe admitted to killing 13 women, mostly prostitutes, in the 1970s. He was sentenced to serve a minimum of 30 years in prison.

His reign of terror recalled Jack the Ripper, the notorious Victorian serial killer who murdered at least five East London prostitutes in 1888. He was never caught and speculation about his identity continues.

The latest deaths have drawn intense media interest, with Ipswich's afternoon newspaper labeling the prostitutes' killer "the Suffolk Strangler."

Police said they suspected a serial killer in the Suffolk cases, but were not ruling out multiple suspects. Police said there was also no indication women other than prostitutes were targeted.

The three victims who have been named were identified as Gemma Adams, 25, whose body was found Dec. 2; Tania Nicol, 19, whose body was found Friday; and 24-year-old Anneli Alderton, whose body was found Sunday. Police said Alderton — who was last seen on a train — was asphyxiated. It appeared she had been strangled and that she was not sexually assaulted, police said.

The condition of the bodies of Adams and Nicol — both of whom were found in water — has prevented investigators from determining a cause of death or whether they were sexually assaulted.

Nicholls, 29, was last seen Dec. 5; Clennell, 24, was last seen Sunday. The women, both prostitutes, were seen in the neighborhood in the shadow of the town's soccer stadium, where sex workers ply their trade.

Police were reviewing closed-circuit television video of the small district — just a few blocks square — and other areas of Ipswich, which is about 70 miles northeast of London.

Ian Hunter, a 46-year-old who works for telecom company BT — one of Ipswich's main employers — said that he had been fishing on Sunday in the area where Alderton was found.

Normally, Ipswich — a town of about 120,000 — is "pretty relaxed," Hunter said, but the murders have set residents on edge.

"My daughter is 13, and once a month, they have a youth club (in town). And she won't go," Hunter said. "There's supposed to be one this Friday, but she won't go.

"My wife works in town, and they've been told to only move about after dark with a friend."

CBS News

I see this news is even being reported as far away as Australia too. Sad, but some of these prostitutes are doing what they do to feed their drug habit.

Man held over prostitute murders

Detectives arrested a man today on suspicion of murdering five prostitutes in Suffolk.

The 37-year-old was arrested at his home in Trimley, near Felixstowe, at 7.20am today.

He is in custody at a police station in Suffolk and will be questioned later today.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull said: "He has been arrested on the suspicion of murdering all five women - Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls."

Mr Gull read out the short statement at Suffolk Police Headquarters and refused to take any questions about the investigation.

He did not name the man arrested, nor did he give details of the police station where he is being held.

He said: "As legal proceedings are now active, Suffolk police will not be issuing any further comments or appeals at this stage."

The arrest of a man from Trimley today will remind people of the case of Vicky Hall.

In 1999, the 17-year-old sixth-former was murdered after vanishing from her home in Trimley St Mary, Suffolk.

She disappeared while walking home from a nightclub in nearby Felixstowe.

Her naked body was found in a water-filled ditch 25 miles away at Creeting St Peter, Suffolk, five days later. Police believe she died of asphyxia.

A 27-year-old Felixstowe businessman was accused of her murder but found not guilty following a trial.

Police have never linked Miss Hall's death with the murders of the five prostitutes in Ipswich.

Police officers guarded the man's address in Jubilee Close, in Trimley St Martin, near Felixstowe.

Police tape was strung in front of the semi-detached brick house.

Upstairs curtains were closed while downstairs the kitchen shutters were half open, with a plant pot on the windowsill.

Like Vicky Hall, two of the prostitutes were left naked in water.

The body of Miss Adams, 25, who went missing on November 15, was found in a brook at Hintlesham, Suffolk, by a member of the public on December 2.

Tania Nicol's body was found by police divers searching areas of water at Copdock Mill, near Ipswich, on December 8. Miss Nicol, 19, was last seen after leaving her home in Ipswich on October 30.

The body of Anneli Alderton, 24, was found in woodland in Nacton, near Ipswich, on December 10.

On December 12 detectives found the bodies of Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, near the village of Levington.

All the bodies were dumped within a few miles of Trimley, which is just off the main A14 dual carriageway between Ipswich and Felixstowe.

The Independent