02x02 - Wright and Hanson

[bunniefuu]

NARRATOR: This time on "K*llers Caught on Camera."

In Florida, a woman goes missing after asking her friend

to look after some money.

I knew how she felt about her son, Drake.

That she loved him with all of her heart,

and she never would have just left him like that.

I love you.

NARRATOR: And in the North of England,

a night in with friends.

But one of the guests proves deadly.

She was snuggling up to him.

She even was said to have looked like she

found him quite attractive.

MAN 1: It just sounds like something

bad is happening to her.

WOMAN 2: We know what happened because the video

tells us what happened.

MAN 2: I heard some g*nshots.

POLICE: Drop it!

Whatever it is drop it!

That does not prove that I k*lled my wife.

MAN 3: The camera doesn't lie.

NARRATOR: United States.

Jacksonville, North Carolina.

A young community with a large number

of people in the armed forces.

It was home to 33-year-old Taylor Wright

and friend Vanessa Smith.

We both worked at Jacksonville Police Department together.

She loved being a police officer.

She was happy to come to work.

She was happy to put on the uniform.

She was happy to go out there and catch the bad guys.

And she would just-- she would do really good work.

NARRATOR: Vanessa and Taylor both

had husbands in the military.

OK, we're getting ready to start the engine.

VANESSA SMITH: Being a military wife

can be difficult, especially when your husbands deploy a lot.

We were each other's rock when we needed it.

It was like a sisterly friendship.

NARRATOR: Taylor and her husband Jeff had a son named Drake.

VANESSA SMITH: Taylor was amazing as a mom.

It was fun to see Taylor transition

from, like, this big bad cop to now this mother role.

No, no, no, no.

Don't use this hand.

Hold it.

OK, you can pull it.

You won the wish.

Now you have to make a wish.

Did you make your wish?

OK, give me a kiss.

I love you.

They were your typical family.

We hung out with them.

We went to dinner with them.

We go over to their house a lot.

[SINGING] You'll have fun.

Make you have fun.

Hey, yes, I am.

She was a part of the family.

She was a sister.

Here, take.

Take it. Come on.

Take.

Good girl.

NARRATOR: In 2015, Taylor and Jeff

divorced and Jeff eventually took custody of their son.

Two years later, Taylor moved 800 miles away

to start a new life in Pensacola, Florida.

Taylor started working as a private investigator

and at the same time applied for a job

at Pensacola Police Department.

She made new friends and began a romantic relationship

with a woman who she moved in with.

Life was settling down again.

But in September 2017, just a few months

after moving to Pensacola, Taylor disappeared.

VANESSA SMITH: Her girlfriend at the time sent me a Facebook

message and asking if I had heard from Taylor

because she was missing.

It was a shock because that wasn't anything like her.

She loved her son.

She loved him endlessly.

And she would have never just gone and left him.

It didn't makes sense.

NARRATOR: Taylor was reported missing by her girlfriend,

Casandra Waller.

Richard Ghigliotty was a detective for the Pensacola

Police Department.

The officer who initially responded

to this said she's an adult. If she wants

to take some time off or take some time away,

she's more than welcome to do so.

Some time I went by, I want to say close to a week or so,

the same reporting person, Casandra Waller,

came to the station and said that she still

hadn't seen Taylor Wright, still hadn't heard from her

and was growing a little more concerned.

NARRATOR: As well as not returning home to Cassandra,

Taylor also failed to make any phone

calls to her son, who she usually

spoke with every evening.

VANESSA SMITH: I knew how she felt about her son, Drake.

That she loved him with all of her heart,

and she never would have just left him like that.

NARRATOR: Taylor was building a new life in Pensacola.

Despite the distance from her old life and her child,

things seemed to be going well.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: You have a mother who consistently calls

her child now suddenly not.

She has an application in to work at a police department.

If she wanted to just disappear, why are

you applying for jobs, careers?

Something was more than just a missing persons case.

NARRATOR: The police needed to speak to anyone who might

have information about Taylor.

Detective Chad Willhite was assigned to the case.

When we're investigating a missing person case,

the first person that we're going to talk to

would be the reporting person, which would be

Casandra Waller in this case.

NARRATOR: Despite a few relationship

issues and some erratic behavior, all was well.

But her girlfriend received a message later that day

that was out of character.

Casandra didn't hear from Taylor again,

and she didn't return home.

Bridgette Myers Jensen is the assistant state attorney.

BRIDGETTE MYERS JENSEN: Initially,

when someone goes missing, I think everyone is a suspect.

So in this particular case, we looked at Taylor's girlfriend,

Taylor's ex-husband, possibly anyone

that was involved in her private investigations work.

NARRATOR: Police looked at Taylor's finances.

Cameras that scan checks revealed

a sudden large withdrawal from an account

that she shared with her ex-husband.

Taylor removed approximately $100,000

in cash out of the joint account that they had.

And the judge had ordered Taylor to give the money back based

on her ongoing dispute with her ex-husband,

Jeff, and the fact that there's $100,000

missing from the account.

He is a potential suspect in the case.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: We did contact Jeff Wright.

He was a friendly enough guy.

Still had custody of their child.

He gave us a little background that Taylor, you know,

has, from time to time, taken off

and didn't communicate with friends, but did

agree that she would still communicate with her son.

NARRATOR: There was still one key person the police needed

to speak with, a friend of hers called

Ashley McArthur, who Taylor had trusted

with a large sum of money.

Ashley McArthur was a friend of Taylor's.

Ashley's husband actually worked with Taylor

in the private investigations industry,

and so that's how Ashley and Taylor met.

NARRATOR: Ashley McArthur had worked

briefly as a crime scene technician

at the Sheriff's Office.

She also worked for her family's amusement

arcade company, which supplied video games to local businesses.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: Casandra Waller paints this picture,

Taylor let Ashley hold a significant amount of money

and that Taylor kept trying to get the money back.

Taylor grew more and more concerned about this

and expressed this to Casandra.

NARRATOR: Taylor Wright's girlfriend told the police

that Ashley had promised to give Taylor

her money back on September 8.

NARRATOR: That intimate moment was the last time

Casandra said she saw Taylor.

She also claimed that Taylor had a funny feeling about Ashley.

NARRATOR: Casandra's testimony meant

the police were now becoming much more focused

on Taylor's friend, Ashley.

She was called in for a chat.

We, kind of, honed in on the day

of the disappearance with Ashley and really try to get

her locked into a timeline.

Was Taylor trying to hide until she could recoup maybe

the funds that she had spent?

Was Taylor hiding this money with the hopes

that they would just let it go?

That was, kind of, an unknown.

NARRATOR: Ashley gave a detailed account of what

happened on September 8.

According to Ashley, they proceed to Ashley's family farm

out in East Milton.

She says Taylor rides some of the horses

and they come back into Pensacola.

And Ashley says Taylor gets into an Uber

and leaves her residence.

Ashley gives us permission to look into her cell phone

at the time.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: We kept the phone

and had analysts plug it in and start

chipping away at downloading.

NARRATOR: The police use the cell phone data to check

on Ashley's timeline of events.

Then they tried to find evidence for the route

that Ashley said she and Taylor took.

We're looking for any kind of surveillance cameras that we

can find, any kind of convenience stores

that they may drive past.

NARRATOR: They began with the gas station

that Ashley and Taylor went into on the last day Taylor was seen.

This is surveillance footage from a fuel station convenience

store called Tom Thumb.

There's Ashley MacArthur going in, purchasing some drinks.

She just grabbed a beer out of the cooler.

She's on the phone here.

So it's presumed here that Taylor

was likely in the vehicle.

She certainly said that Taylor was in the vehicle.

NARRATOR: The video of Ashley and the gas

station backed up her timeline.

But when they got the cell phone data back,

Ashley's version of movements didn't match the route mapping

from her phone.

Neither Ashley's cell phone or Taylor's cell phone

ever goes over to East Milton.

In fact, their cell phones stay over

in the area of that petrol station

where Ashley was observed making purchases inside the store.

We start looking for any kind of property that either of them

may have connections to in that area.

We know that Ashley, her maiden name is Britt.

So we type in the last name Britt,

and it brings up Britt Road.

NARRATOR: The police discovered Ashley's family owned a farm

on Britt Road just north of the gas station,

where she was caught on camera.

It's nowhere near where Ashley said they were.

This is not the farm in East Milton she's talking about.

It's in Cantonment-Beulah area here in Escambia County.

NARRATOR: Detectives started to analyze the inconsistencies

in Ashley's version of events.

They also grew suspicious of her eagerness to help.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: During the investigation,

Ashley called several times inquiring about the case.

She would ask what we were up to, or what we had going on,

or if we'd made any progress.

No one else during the investigation

called half as many times as Ashley did.

Someone being too involved in the investigation

by constantly calling the police is something

that I've seen before.

And it is, again, one of those circumstances

where the person is probably overcompensating.

So they are trying to show that they're

concerned about their friend.

What they're trying to, sort of, theatrically perform

is the worried friend.

But what they're obviously doing, because that's not

how normal people behave, is they're obviously

trying to get information about the case

so that they can adjust their story as needed.

And almost certainly doing something as unusual as this

is going to raise suspicions rather than quell them.

NARRATOR: Her bank records enabled the police to track down

surveillance footage of Ashley making a series

of unusual transactions.

CHAD WILLHITE: You can see a large sum of money in her hand

that she was depositing into the ATM machines.

We also received the image of the check

that Ashley had deposited.

And you'll see various images of Ashley

making various transactions.

NARRATOR: Crucial footage at the ATM

revealed inconsistencies in Ashley's version of events.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: We get Ashley

depositing Taylor's checks.

Taylor had checks made out to her in her name,

and yet Ashley's on camera depositing them.

We look at Taylor's signatures spanning back

months and the signature on the back of the check

that Ashley's depositing doesn't match the signature.

NARRATOR: In another breakthrough,

Ashley was caught on camera at a Home Depot store the day

after Taylor disappeared.

She had an unusual shopping list.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: In the cart is concrete and potting soil.

This is an employee that's she's got helping her push the cart.

And then she goes up and pays cash for the items.

NARRATOR: When the police checked

out another one of Ashley's interview claims,

they were baffled.

Ashley told us that Taylor had taken an Uber from her house.

We investigated that.

We learned she hadn't used Uber in quite some time.

We also checked other rideshare companies, and none of those

had any kind of records.

NARRATOR: With Taylor still missing,

the way Ashley McArthur behaved was in complete contrast

to Taylor's girlfriend.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: Casandra, on the other hand,

we asked her pass codes to her phone,

she gives them right over.

We ask her for consent to search everything,

she signs everything.

Open book.

It became quite apparent that Casandra wasn't involved

in Taylor's disappearance.

NARRATOR: Taylor's ex-husband, Jeff Wright,

was in the Army and many miles away at the time

of her disappearance.

Detective Ghigliotty was able to make contact with his command

at his base and confirm that he's been at work the whole time

and he hasn't left that area.

So it was easy to rule him out as any kind of potential suspect

in the case.

NARRATOR: With Casandra and Jeff in the clear,

all the evidence seemed to be pointing

towards Ashley McArthur.

The big question was, is Ashley lying to us because she's

hiding Taylor, helping her hide out,

or is she lying to us because she hurt her?

NARRATOR: The police decided they needed another conversation

with Ashley.

At the same time, they plan to search

three key properties, including the farm on Britt Road.

CHAD WILLHITE: We have teams in place to execute

all those at one time.

We also have myself and Ghigliotty.

We are going to conduct the interview

here at the police department.

NARRATOR: Everything was riding on this carefully

planned operation.

The police needed Ashley to reveal what really happened

to Taylor, and they needed to find

hard evidence from the properties being searched.

We wanted to confront her with the information.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: Well, at that point,

the first time really ever in our interviews with Ashley,

she changed her story.

Ashley initially told us she went out to East Milton.

Well, you look at the cell records

and they never went out to East Milton.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: Ashley now tells us

that the two did, in fact, go to the Britt Road farm that day.

This is the first time she'd ever mentioned this.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: We know we're

investigating a missing person.

You called us dozens of times.

Why not say, hey, we went out to this location?

Why hold back?

And her excuse was, is that Taylor just

didn't want us to know that she went out there,

which doesn't make any sense.

In her second interview when she came in,

she had a completely different demeanor.

She was not as forthcoming.

She clearly did not want to answer questions.

And she clearly did not want to be as

helpful as she was initially.

NARRATOR: The police were holding out for information

from the search teams that would enable them to keep

Ashley McArthur in custody.

CHAD WILLHITE: We're trying to prolong the interview

as long as possible.

It was a very long time during the interview

of not being contacted.

NARRATOR: With Ashley holding back,

Detective Chad Willhite decided to go in hard.

When I moved her chair and turned it around,

I wanted to break down whatever defense she had.

If I can get her thinking about how uncomfortable

she is, maybe she will slip up.

This is exactly the kind of thing

that you'd expect with what's called the Reid

model of interrogations, which is more

akin to good cop, bad cop than other forms of interrogations

or interviews.

And this idea of physically cornering somebody or physically

intimidating someone by changing the room is very in line

with that technique.

NARRATOR: With no solid evidence to keep Ashley in custody,

they had to release her.

It almost feels to a degree like you failed.

Because as an investigator, you want that confession.

And we didn't get it.

NARRATOR: Everything was now resting on the search

at the farm on Britt Road.

Detective Ghigliotty made contact with the team on site.

RICHARD GHIGLIOTTY: I happened to call one of the sergeants

at the time.

While he's on the phone with me, he's yelling in the background,

we have a body.

Unquestionably, we have remains.

NARRATOR: The police had to confirm

who the remains belonged to.

A unique item of jewelry helped identification.

We had pictures of Taylor's necklace she commonly wore.

Casandra said she was wearing it the day of the disappearance.

And sure enough, the necklace was there.

Taylor's body was discovered on the other side of a fence

in an area that was, kind of, wooded.

She was wrapped up in a tarp.

She was covered with concrete and potting soil.

I will never forget the day that they announced,

you know, they had found her body.

It was difficult. Because not only was she m*rder*d,

that her body was put in a grave,

that she just left her there to be--

it's awful.

They were able to determine pretty

quickly what appeared to be a b*llet

wound to the back of the skull.

The remains are taken to the medical examiner's office

to confirm cause of death, which was

later determined to be a g*nsh*t wound

to the back of Taylor's head.

Once the body was located, everyone

was on board that it was time to arrest Ashley and prosecute her.

NARRATOR: Bridgette Myers Jensen led the case against Ashley

in the summer of 2019.

It was very significant to law enforcement

and to the prosecution of the case

that Taylor's body was actually located.

Ashley could have used any defense.

I mean, she could have come up with anything

if we didn't have a body to prove that Taylor

had been actually m*rder*d.

NARRATOR: The video surveillance footage proved

vital for the prosecution.

The surveillance footage of the convenience store and Home

Depot not only gave us the evidence

that Ashley was purchasing concrete and potting soil,

but what it does, it shows us the accuracy

of the cell phone records.

Because defense counsel later in trial paints

this picture that the cell phone records can

be inconsistent and inaccurate.

And we can show that, well, in fact, if the cell phone records

show Ashley's phone covering the Tom Thumb

and she is, in fact, on the surveillance

footage at the time, similar to the Home Depot

and surveillance is corroborating that,

that these cell phone records are, in fact, very accurate.

It also helps show the jury there's always that doubt, well,

someone else could have deposited those checks

into Ashley's account.

But when they're on camera, it's hard to refute the fact

that she deposited them.

NARRATOR: A range of cameras were used to help

capture Taylor's k*ller.

But the question remained, why would Ashley

MacArthur k*ll Taylor Wright?

Taylor had withdrawn approximately $100,000 from

a bank account that she should not

have withdrawn based on court proceedings with her ex-husband.

In an effort to hide the money, I believe she gave the money

to Ashley MacArthur to hold.

Ashley at the time was having an affair

and Ashley was showering this man with gifts.

The motive of the homicide was greed, essentially.

Ashley MacArthur was in a position

where Taylor needed her money back,

but Ashley couldn't give it back because Ashley had spent it all.

We always want a profound psychological reason for m*rder,

and it rarely exists.

It's often much more trivial and very often

it's about things like money.

This shouldn't be the kind of thing

that motivates m*rder and yet much smaller debts

have also led to similar outcomes.

VANESSA SMITH: When I found out what had happened to Taylor,

it was devastating.

Devastating that somebody she obviously loved and cared for

did that to her, that they would k*ll her over something as small

as money.

That's just awful.

NARRATOR: After a week long trial, the verdict came in.

Ashley McArthur was found guilty of first-degree

premeditated m*rder.

She was sentenced to life in prison.

JULIA SHAW: Women k*lling women is so rare that we have almost

no research on it at all.

But we can take a little bit of the research

on women who perpetrate violent crimes.

And what we know is that women who perpetrate g*n

crimes are more likely to score high

in certain psychopathic traits.

So they're more likely, for example, to be low in empathy.

They're more likely to be manipulative.

And that is a package that makes women more likely to offend

violently using g*ns.

But even that, we really know very

little about why women perpetrate violent offenses

because so few women do.

[melancholic music]

VANESSA SMITH: Taylor was an amazing person.

She had a huge heart.

And when she loved you, she loved you big.

And she was just a breath of fresh air.

She was very special to me.

Yep, she was there through a lot of things in life.

I want people to know that she was a good person

and that her life mattered.

OK, give me a kiss.

I love you.

[melancholic music]

NARRATOR: Ashley and Taylor were just friends, new friends.

But what do you do if you feel a friend is not

good for your mental health?

There's so much in novels, and movies and anecdotes from people

around us about romantic relationships, and breakups,

and what those look like and how to end a relationship.

But there is so little comparatively

on how to end a friendship, or how to deal with a friend who's

not behaving appropriately, or who

you're not getting on with anymore,

or who's manipulating you.

And I think there's a real knowledge

gap there and a skills gap in what

do you even do if you've got a bad friend.

How do you get rid of this person?

NARRATOR: In our next case, a friend of a friend

proves fatal after being secretive about his past.

In the UK, Tyne and Wear, Sunderland,

a port city on the Northeast Coast of England,

home to Michelle Hanson

Michelle was 47 years old.

She had five kids and one grandchild.

She was very close to them all.

Her children often spoke about sharing secrets with her.

They found it very comfortable to talk to her,

and they felt that they could tell her anything.

Michelle was known as a very outgoing person.

She had quite a lot of friends.

She was very family orientated, loved going to parties,

loved singing.

She was generally the life and soul of the party.

NARRATOR: In early 2022, Michelle

invited friends and family to come over for a drink.

But after going quiet the day after,

a family member checked in on her

and was confronted by a devastating scene.

Michelle's body was found by a family member face-down

on the floor, which had about 29 stab wounds to her

neck and appeared to have blunt force

trauma to her head as well.

There was a broken plate nearby and she was found with porcelain

in her hair as well.

NARRATOR: It was a brutal attack that ended in Michelle's death.

DAVID HUNTLEY: When the police arrived,

they cleared the scene, taped the area off,

looked around for evidence, any sort of forensic details

that they could find.

They found blood on a windowpane in the bathroom.

They also found empty bottles of alcohol.

NARRATOR: The police sent the evidence off for DNA testing.

Michelle's body was sent for an autopsy.

A family member told the police about a possible suspect

who was seen with Michelle the night she had friends over.

Michelle appeared to be quite comfortable in his company.

She was snuggling up to him.

She even was said to have looked like she

found him quite attractive.

When the family member left, she said that she was fine.

NARRATOR: The family member gave the police

a rough description of the man and his name, Alexander Carr.

The police urgently needed to speak with Alex.

As soon as Alex Carr's been highlighted

as a suspect or a person of interest,

then the police will have gone and started to investigate where

he might be, his whereabouts.

He was a current student so they will have seen

if he'd had student lodgings or contacted

his friends on the course.

NARRATOR: Police started looking for surveillance footage,

tracking back to the time Michelle's body was found.

They were aware that he didn't have access to a vehicle.

So the obvious way in which someone would leave the locality

would be to use public transport.

NARRATOR: On December 2, a man matching

Alexander Carr's description was captured

by bus surveillance cameras.

Ray Evans is a forensic image analyst who works

regularly with the police.

RAYMOND EVANS: We know that he's a white male.

We can see that he has a shaved head, the shape approximately

of his ear.

He's wearing a backpack that would give the police

a little more information.

So the footage could be used for tracking the time,

the date and the location.

We can then utilize that footage to track

people across a location for a certain amount of time.

That would be very useful because it would place somebody

in a particular position.

NARRATOR: The bus footage also helped the police work out where

Alexander Carr was heading.

RAYMOND EVANS: Buses have a specific route.

If they've got footage of him getting on the bus, being

on the bus, and then getting off the bus,

it would tell you approximately which direction he's going in.

It's all about getting that little bit of information

that allows the police to assess what

the next step might be of a person that they're looking for.

It's very, very useful indeed.

NARRATOR: Professor Coral Dando is a forensic psychologist.

The footage revealed important details

about Alexander Carr, which proved helpful

for the police investigation.

It reveals information about him, about his distinctive walk.

We refer to that as a gait.

So the way in which people walk has been used quite a lot

to identify individuals even when we can't see their face.

So he's got this, sort of, swagger.

His feet are turned out and he does swagger

from one side to another.

And it is quite an unusual walk.

NARRATOR: As the last known person to see Michelle,

the police needed to speak with Alexander Carr,

but he was proving difficult to track down.

Alexander Carr was known as a bit of an urban survivalist.

He was used to spend time outdoors a lot.

That was one of his hobbies.

He's had periods of homelessness

and I think they've been at various places

around the country.

It would have taken them a while to track him down

in terms of looking at all the particular areas of the country

that he might be.

NARRATOR: But police received a tip off and moved in

to raid the property.

This is footage from mobile phone.

It was filmed by a neighbor.

You'll notice that they are armed.

It's important to get the suspect quickly.

Because if he turns out to be the perpetrator,

the m*rder*r, then he's a danger to other people.

[dog barks]

NARRATOR: They didn't know if he was inside.

And after several attempts to coax Alex out,

they entered the property.

Alex was not inside, but the police found a jacket heavily

stained with Michelle's blood.

You wouldn't expect to see things such as blood, hair,

bodily fluids unless he'd been involved in some, sort

of, violent incident with her.

NARRATOR: Alexander Carr was now the prime suspect in Michelle's

m*rder and he was on the run.

DAVID HUNTLEY: A huge manhunt was launched.

The police were trawling through CCTV footage.

The police were urging people not to approach him

if they saw him.

He was someone who enjoyed being outside.

He considered himself to be an urban survivalist so no one

knew where he could be at all.

NARRATOR: With a k*ller on the loose, news of Michelle's death

was met with sorrow and alarm.

No one could really believe what happened.

People had heard about the violent way that she died.

There was a lot of fear and quite a lot of shock.

NARRATOR: It was unclear why anyone

would m*rder such a well-loved member of the community.

Michelle's daughter, Shannon Brown, appealed to the public

to help catch her mom's k*ller.

My mom was a caring, kind and loving person.

She would never hurt anyone.

Even if someone did something to her,

she would forgive them because she

always saw the good in people.

Please, if you have any information, which

can help the police with their investigation,

don't hesitate to get in touch with them.

Any little piece of information could help.

Our mom deserves justice.

Thank you.

NARRATOR: The charity CrimeStoppers put Alexander

Carr on their most wanted list.

It offered a 10,000-pound reward for information

leading to his arrest.

The police also made the decision to release

the footage from the bus.

The reason it's given to the public

is to jog their memory, to see if they've seen this person

on that particular day.

And that then gives the police something

that they can, you know, tie into and refer back to.

So it's useful.

It's very useful as reference.

Obviously, the hope is that they will

strike gold and someone says, well,

I know that person very well.

And I can vouch that this is the person who I think it is.

NARRATOR: But Alexander had slipped off the radar.

He was on the run for quite a while.

And as the days went by, the police

were growing more and more concerned,

as were the community.

NARRATOR: During the investigation,

the police received the DNA results from the blood

at the m*rder scene.

It was a direct match for Alexander Carr.

As the police dug further into Alexander Carr's history,

they found a disturbing pattern of violence.

In 2010, Carr was sentenced to three and a half years

in prison for a hammer attack.

It would be likely that someone that's got a background

of attacking another human being with a hammer,

violent, nasty, aggressive will go on to re-offend.

NARRATOR: Alexander Carr posed a real danger to society

and he was still on the loose.



There was information that Carr

was in the North London area.

Police then focused their attention on the Upper

Holloway railway station.

NARRATOR: Police moved in to arrest him.

NARRATOR: Laser-guided sights on the canvas.

A knife is used for access.

NARRATOR: Three loaded automatic r*fles--

NARRATOR: --pointed inside the tent.

Typically, one wouldn't want to go

and do a complex arrest such as this in woodland in the dark.

He's a known violent offender with a violent history

so they will be concerned that he's got a weapon.

And they will also be concerned for their own safety

as well as his safety.

At this particular point, he's managed to evade arrest

for a certain number of weeks.

So that may have given him confidence that actually he

was being very smart, being very clever,

and maybe didn't think he was ever going to be apprehended.

NARRATOR: Alexander Carr was transported back

to the Northeast.

David Huntley was in the court on the first day of his trial.

When I arrived at court, he seemed quite disheveled

and quite bewildered.

He didn't really seem to know where he was at the time.

He'd been on the run for over two weeks, living in a tent,

so he wasn't in the best frame of mind at that point.

Everyone was quite pleased that this suspect

had finally been caught.

NARRATOR: During the trial, the full details

of what happened on the night of Michelle's m*rder became clear.

Michelle met Carr earlier that night.

She invited him into her home.

They shared drinks.

They had a laugh together.

A family member actually arrived at the property as well,

saw them both.

When the family member left, Carr

was left alone with Michelle.

That's when he carried out the brutal attack.

He choked her.

He smashed a plate over her head.

He beat her up pretty badly, as well as stabbing her around 29

times in the neck.

After the m*rder, he tried to find a key to get out.

He couldn't find one.

Had to resort to climbing out a bathroom window

and escape that way.

NARRATOR: At first, Alexander Carr

pleaded guilty to manslaughter with diminished responsibility.

Alex Carr has quite a complex psychological background.

In the past, he has had a lot of mental health episodes.

He has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder,

and psychosis and also some borderline

personality disorders.

There can be triggers that can trigger

a serious episode or incident.

And when that happens, that individual

then can suffer catastrophic drop in their mental health.

And that can sometimes result in very violent behavior.

Despite knowing fine well about his mental health

condition, his mental illnesses, his previous psychosis,

he knew that if he consumed drink and drugs,

that it would affect him badly.

And he chose on that night to make that decision,

and self-medicate, and do exactly what he

knew he shouldn't have done and that

was drinking and taking drugs.

And it ended in the worst way possible for Michelle.

NARRATOR: Alexander Carr pleaded guilty

to Michelle Hanson's m*rder.

He was sentenced to life in prison

with a minimum term of 19 years.

Michelle's family were left devastated

and completely broken.

He took their mother's life away from them,

and they'll never forgive him for that.

They've been left traumatized and they'll

never be able to get that time back that they shared with her.

[ominous music]