Steven Gerald James Wright (born 24 April 1958) is an English serial killer, also known as the Suffolk Strangler and the Ipswich Ripper. He is serving

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

for the murder of five women who worked in Ipswich,

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

. The killings took place during the final months of 2006, and Wright was found guilty in February 2008.

Early life

Steve Wright was born in the Norfolk village of Erpingham, the second of four children of military policeman Conrad and veterinary nurse Patricia, on 24 April 1958. He has an older brother and two younger sisters. While Wright's father was on military service, the family had lived in both Malta and Singapore. Wright's mother left the family in 1964 when he was aged 6; his father divorced his mother in 1978; both remarried. Wright and his siblings lived with their father, who fathered a son and a daughter with his second wife, Valerie. Wright left school at the age of 16 in 1974, and soon afterwards joined the Merchant Navy, becoming a

chef A chef is a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term ''chef de cuisine'' (), the director or head of a kitche ...

on ferries sailing from Felixstowe,

. In 1978, at age 20, he married Angela O'Donovan in

Milford Haven Milford Haven ( cy, Aberdaugleddau, meaning "mouth of the two Rivers Cleddau") is both a town and a community in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is situated on the north side of the Milford Haven Waterway, an estuary forming a natural harbour that has ...

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...

, Wales. They had a son, Michael. The couple separated in 1987, and later divorced. Wright became a steward on the ocean liner ''

Queen Elizabeth 2 ''Queen Elizabeth 2'' (''QE2'') is a retired British ocean liner converted into a floating hotel. Originally built for the Cunard Line, the ship, named as the second ship named ''Queen Elizabeth'', was operated by Cunard as both a transatlantic ...

'', a lorry driver, a barman and, just prior to his arrest, a forklift truck driver. Former prostitute Lindi St Clair said that Wright attacked her in the 1980s. His second marriage was to 32 year old Diane Cassell at Braintree, Essex, register office in August 1987. They divorced in July 1988 while he was a pub landlord in Norwich. It was during this time that Wright also managed a pub in

South London South London is the southern part of London, England, south of the River Thames. The region consists of the Districts of England, boroughs, in whole or in part, of London Borough of Bexley, Bexley, London Borough of Bromley, Bromley, London Borou ...

. He lost this post due to his gambling and heavy drinking. Wright was convicted in 2001 of theft, having stolen £80 to pay off his debts. This was his only criminal conviction prior to the murders. Wright accrued large gambling debts, and was declared bankrupt in the late 1990s. He had twice tried to commit suicide, first by carbon monoxide poisoning in his car in 1994; secondly in 2000, by an overdose of pills.

Suffolk murders

Wright met Pamela Wright (no relation) in 2001 in Felixstowe, and they moved to a house in Ipswich together in 2004. Wright had always admitted that he patronized prostitutes, and had done so since he was in the Merchant Navy, and continually throughout his life. In Ipswich, he admitted he went to certain massage and sauna establishments that were actually

brothel A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...

s. During his trial, Wright stated he had patronized professional prostitutes on many occasions, including three of the murder victims. Wright began having sex with

prostitute Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...

s again when his partner began working night shifts and their sex life became almost non-existent; he paid at least a dozen women for sex in the final three months of 2006. Local prostitutes nicknamed him " Mondeo Man" and "Silver-Backed Gorilla". Between 30 October and 10 December 2006, Wright murdered five prostitutes in Ipswich. Forensic evidence led to his arrest on 19 December; tiny flecks of blood were found on the back seats of Wright's Ford Mondeo, and partially matched the DNA profile of murder victim Paula Clennell. Wright was found guilty of all five murders on 21 February 2008. At Ipswich Crown Court the following day, Mr Justice Gross sentenced Wright to

with a recommendation that he should never be released. On 19 March 2008, Wright appealed his convictions, but on 2 February 2009, it was announced that Wright had decided to drop his appeal.

Possible links to other crimes

Wright is still being investigated in connection with other unsolved murders and disappearances. Experts have highlighted how it is unlikely for any serial killer to start killing at such a late stage (Wright was 48 years old when the 2006 murders were committed), and that serial killers almost always start killing before their mid 30s. This indicates that Wright likely killed before in his life, and psychologists told police after the murders that it was 'highly likely' that he had done so. Wright is one of a number of high-profile murderers or sex offenders to have been identified as possible suspects in the

Suzy Lamplugh Suzy may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Suzy'' (film), a 1936 film starring Jean Harlow, Franchot Tone and Cary Grant * "Suzy" (Fool's Garden song), a song by German pop band Fool's Garden * "Suzy", a song by French electro swing band Ca ...

murder case; he had worked with Lamplugh on ''Queen Elizabeth 2'' during the early 1980s. Lamplugh went missing in London in July 1986, and was legally declared dead in 1994, but her body has never been found. However, the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

have stated that this is not a strong line of enquiry. In 2002, the police named John Cannan as the man they believed killed Lamplugh. Cleveland Police have not ruled out a link between Wright and the murder of Vicky Glass, a heroin addict who vanished from Middlesbrough in September 2000, and whose naked body was later found in a brook on the

North York Moors The North York Moors is an upland area in north-eastern Yorkshire, England. It contains one of the largest expanses of Calluna, heather moorland in the United Kingdom. The area was designated as a national parks of England and Wales, National P ...

. In 2019, Wright was linked by an ex-police officer to the murder of Jeanette Kempton in 1989. Kempton had vanished from

Brixton Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th ce ...

, near where Wright lived at the time, and was later found dead many miles away in a rural location in Suffolk. In July 2021 Wright was arrested, at

HM Prison Long Lartin HM Prison Long Lartin is a Category A men's prison, located in the village of South Littleton (near Evesham) in the Wychavon district in Worcestershire, England. It is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. History Long Lartin was opened a ...

, on suspicion of murdering Victoria Hall, a 17-year-old who was murdered on her way home from a Suffolk nightclub in 1999. Her body was found in a ditch five days after she was last seen alive in Felixstowe. Suffolk police reopened their investigation in 2019 after receiving fresh witness information. They announced that Wright had been “released under investigation, pending further inquiries”. Only two months after this police announced a re-investigation by a historical crimes unit into Vicky Glass's murder in order to pursue "new lines of enquiry".

Previous East Anglia prostitute murders

Wright has also been linked to the murders of other sex workers in Ipswich and nearby Norwich. When investigating the five murders committed by Wright in Ipswich in late 2006, criminologist David Wilson, who was personally involved in the case, stated that he felt that the murders were far too practised for someone murdering for the first time. There was a cluster of sex worker murders in Norwich in the years before the 2006 murders, which have gone unsolved to this day. Wright used to live and work in the city, and he frequently returned to the city in the years after he left, usually travelling from Ipswich to Norwich once a month. He ran a pub in the middle of the red light district of Norwich, similar to how he lived in the centre of the red light district of Ipswich at the time of the 2006 murders. Wright has been linked to the unsolved murders of: * Natalie Pearman, Norwich, November 1992 (a link was disproven with DNA by 2017) * Amanda Duncan, Ipswich, July 1993 * Kellie Pratt, Norwich, June 2000 * Michelle Bettles, Norwich, March 2002 (a link was disproven with DNA by 2022) In June 2012, Wilson said that the killer of Norwich sex worker Michelle Bettles was likely Wright. The police responded to the suggested links between Bettles's case and Wright by saying that they had found no evidence linking Wright to the crime. It was revealed in 2019 that police had already made an arrest in April 2003 of a man whose DNA matched samples from Bettles' body, and this man admitted having picked her up for sex on 26 March 2002, two days before she was last seen. The man claimed that he was at home with a migraine on the night she was killed, but phone records show him making a large amounts of calls that evening, although police failed to locate where the calls were made from. On 28 March 2022, police announced they had recovered further DNA profiles in Bettles' murder case, indicating Wright can be ruled out of the murder with forensic evidence. Wright had previously also been linked by criminal experts to the unsolved murder of Norwich sex worker Natalie Pearman in November 1992. Pearman was last seen at night soliciting clients outside the Ferry Boat Inn pub – the pub that was owned and run by Wright and that was located in the heart of the city's red light district. The police cross-referenced the DNA found on Pearman's body in 1992 to Wright's, but the results were "inconclusive". However, in 2017, police announced that they had a full DNA profile of the attacker and that solving the case was simply a matter of matching the DNA to an individual, meaning that Steve Wright could be ruled out of the murder. Ipswich sex worker Amanda Duncan vanished after talking to a man in a car on Portman Road in the town in 1993, a road that Wright was known to acquire his prostitutes from, and from where some of his victims were known to have disappeared from in 2006. After Wright's murders in 2006, the police re-opened and re-examined these four cold cases to establish whether Wright could be responsible, and questioned Wright about them. Family members of the victims stated they believed he could be linked and called for the police to investigate this further and charge him for them.

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