Crime Weekly - S2 Ep70: Julie Dart and Stephanie Slater: Justice Served? (Part 3)

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

During the 1970’s, a brutal serial killer terrorized the women of Manchester and West Yorkshire England. By the time he was apprehended, Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, had claimed the lives of thirteen young women and girls, and had attempted to kill at least eight more. Many of them sex workers he had picked up in red light districts. His killings created a culture of fear and suspicion in England. Every man was looked at with a side eye; whether he was your neighbor, teacher, bus driver, or father. Even after Sutcliffe was arrested in January of 1981, there was still a lingering dark cloud, causing women who were walking alone at night to pick up their pace, and glance over their shoulders. But by the early 90’s, the fear had subsided and Peter Sutcliffe and his horrendous crimes had faded to a cold memory. But when the West Yorkshire police received a letter from an anonymous man in July of 1991, alleging that he had kidnapped a prostitute off a street in Chapeltown, those distant, cold memories began to grow more vivid. The letter claimed that unless a ransom of 140 thousand pounds was paid, the girl would be killed, and the clock on Julie Dart’s life began to tick down. Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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Tonal gives you real-time coaching cues to dial in your form and help you lift safely and effectively. After a quick assessment, Tonal sets the optimal weight for every move and adjusts in one-pound increments as you get stronger, so you're always challenged. Tonal lets you choose from a variety of expert-led workouts, from strength to aero hit to yoga and mobility to keep you coming back for more. For a limited time, go to tonal.com to get $500 off your Tonal purchase, plus a free four-year warranty. That's tonal.com for $500 off, plus a free four-year warranty. Tonal.com. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're finishing up the case that we've been working on for, this is our third week. This is the final part. Before we dive back in, Derek, you want to say something?

Yeah, absolutely. We're trying to change things constantly for you guys to make it a better experience. So you're going to see a change this week. Yes, you just heard the sponsored video, but we're also going to have host ad reads in here. So we already do it on audio. It's going to be on video as well. There'll be anywhere from three to five host read ads in the two hours. That's pretty good. And the reason we're doing that is we're getting rid of Google monetization. So those skippable ads that some of you have been complaining about, you're seeing them about every 10 minutes.

You're not going to see those anymore. Yeah, we don't want to depend on them. Yeah, we don't want to depend on them. And we don't want you guys having to skip it if you're kind of stepping away. It's going to be the host red ads. We strongly implore you guys to support them, by the way, because they're supporting us. They're the ones that allow us to do this. So try not to look at it as a burden because they actually are a benefit to us.

And so we hope that you see that as well. But again, changing it up for the patron people, nothing changes for you. It's still going to be a couple of days early, no ads in yours as well. But for the people who are just watching on YouTube regularly, you will not have monetization anymore. You just hear and see the host read ads. So three to five per episode. Yeah. And today we only have four altogether, right? Right. And that's because we have a YouTube sponsor, which you just saw. In the future, there won't even be a sponsored video. It'll just be for hopefully three to five ad reads, depending on how many we're able to get. That helps support the channel. It helps us grow, helps us get better equipment. And it should make it less of an inconvenience for you guys if you step away from the iPad or computer or whatever you're watching on. And I think it's more fun to watch us do the ads than to have random ads pop up. Let's hope so. I think we made the decision together. It was a, it was a big decision by the way, to do that. And we're doing it because we think it's going

to be better for you guys. It's better for us. And we're hoping that you guys like it, you know, like a couple, it was stressful, like a couple months back when we were having real big issues with YouTube monetization. And then, you know, you never know. And then we have to like the videos going up late because we're depending on on Google to approve the video. And without that, we're much more free. We can put things out on time. We don't have to worry about it. And it's just easier for us. And we hope a better experience for you. Yeah. And to be completely transparent, you may see an ad before the video starts. And that's only because our YouTube queen over here, Stephanie, understands that if we turn off

monetization completely, they won't recommend us. It puts us out of the algorithm. Yeah. So we'll have the one pre-roll in there that you'll see, hopefully. But even if for some reason they don't approve us, we're not going to let that hold up the video coming out. You're going to get it on time. Like Stephanie said, we're taking back control. We had problems with them numerous times by eliminating the monetization. We don't need their approval. We have the host ad reads baked right in there. So you're getting the content on time. Take that Susan with Jisky. Don't please don't blackball us i wasn't talking to you all right but that was a little a little house cleaning thing because you're going to see a difference this week uh weigh in in the comments let us know what you're thinking we're constantly changing we're constantly evolving well let's dive

in get started because i know personally a lot of people have been looking forward to hearing where this case is going people are loving this case it's a little bit of a change of pace for us. It's bringing us from our typical comfort zone to something a little different. And I know you, Derek, you've been really interested in where this goes and it's been kind of your wheelhouse too as far as forensics goes and mysteries and things like that.

I always use the word lightly. I love this case for the investigatory aspect of it. I don't love what we're talking about, but yes, I, I, I like how police did a very good job on this one. And, uh, you know, I do think that Stephanie Slater is a big reason why she's alive today. If it wasn't for her, um, ability to stay composed in those situations and basically manipulate, uh, Michael Sams. Um, I don't know if she'd still be here right now, but you know, she did what she had to do in the police did what they had to do. They released the information, they got their guy

and, um, or we believe they got their guy and they use some, some good technology in order to make it stick, which is what's really important. It's one thing to catch the guy. It's another thing to have him convicted in a court of law, which is why I'm interested in part three, because I don't know where this is going yet. And I have not looked it up. So I'm interested to see how the story ends. Well, when we left off in the second part, the last part we did, they had just played his voice on Crimewatch UK and Susan Oak heard it. And she said, that's my ex-husband, Mike Sams. And she called and she said, look no further. I know who this is. Now, even though Susan Oak and Michael Sams had been divorced, they were sort of still in each other's lives a tiny little bit. You know, not only did

they share two sons, but Sams had been unwilling to accept that Susan no longer wanted to be with him after she left him and for quite a while afterwards. So after Susan left him in 1976, Sam's tried to beg and barter and get her to forgive him and stay with him. But when that didn't work, he threatened her, telling Susan that if he couldn't have her, no one else would. Another man who had worked for Michael Sams for a time, he also told Susan that his employer had offered to pay him to kill Susan, and Michael Sams had bragged about knowing how to pull off the perfect kidnapping. Michael Sams' obsession with the perfect crime had started 12 years before Julie Dart went missing from a street corner. While he was in a Leeds prison in 1978, he told a fellow prisoner, quote, one day I'll be as famous as the Black Panther, end quote.

Now, for reference, Sams was not talking about the Marvel superhero from Wakanda, he was referring to Donald Nielsen, a British armed robber, kidnapper, and murderer who had been arrested the same year that he kidnapped and killed Leslie Whittle, a teenage girl from Shropshire. At the time of this kidnapping, Nielsen had already committed over 400 burglaries and three murders, and he was known as the Black Panther in the press because he wore a black balaclava during his robberies. So, Sams was sentenced to the same Leeds prison that Nielsen had served his life sentence in, and according to the Daily Telegraph, Michael Sams held a fascination with the cell that the Black Panther had occupied. When Michael Sams was released from prison, he began breaking up the cellar of his house in preparation for a kidnap victim.

And once he opened up T&M Tool Repair in Newark, he would sit at his computer and work for hours on what he referred to as a brilliant and lovely plan. A plan that would allow him to show everyone how much he had been underestimated in life and solve all his money problems. The plan included a series of elaborate trails that he could use to collect ransom money, and he learned how to use latex makeup and clear a cell to disguise his appearance. He even figured out how to to add fake blemishes and warts to his face so that he would look different. And then Michael Sams built a wooden box using four sheets of chipboard in his

workshop to hold his intended victim. I will say this. It's really interesting because I was hearing you talk about the workshop and the conditions that Stephanie Slater was under. And I, when I was doing the thumbnail for the part two of this, where I was, you know, creating it for Instagram, they actually have photos of the actual workshop and the back room where she was held. And it's, you would think it was like a, I, my vision was that it was like a nicer area that he kind of was upkept. It looked like a basement that was like, you just threw all your junk in. So it really is as terrifying as you're thinking it is when, you know, Stephanie's reading the story and explaining it to you. So if you haven't seen that already and you're listening on audio, hop on over to our YouTube channel just to check out

those photos because there's some really good photos in there, both the workshop and the back room where Stephanie Slater was held. And I'm assuming we haven't got there yet. I don't want to take away anything, but I'm assuming Julie had been held there as well. Yeah. And I don't know if you're going to be able to tell me from looking at the pictures, but I was digging really deep into old newspaper clips on newspapers.com. And it seemed like there wasn't actually a legitimate back room. It seemed like it was like one big workshop. And he sort of like hung a curtain up to separate the front of the workshop where he served customers from the back of the workshop where he would, you know, use like use it as basically like a storage area. And that's where he kept these two girls. So there

literally didn't seem to be a lot between the workshop and the back area. And that was the reason why he had initially decided to build the box because he didn't really have like an enclosed space to keep them in. That's interesting. And I can't answer the question because the photos are like from two different angles. It may be with the photographer having their back to this curtain you're referring to. In the photos that I see, there's no clear like blanket or partition. It's like from one angle. So that very well could be the case. I'm assuming this wasn't like a huge location. So it probably is. But you can see a difference. The actual front of the store where people would come in, it's a little bit better. But the back, it looks like basically someone just dumped their trash there. And that's where she was kept. And you can see how it would be cold and dark and all of the things that she described and then some. So really, it's really nice to have a photo to go with the descriptions that you're giving us because it adds a whole

different dimension to it. And you can see what these poor women went through in those moments. It's absolutely terrifying. Yeah, absolutely. And it gets worse, really, if you think about it, because we're going to start to figure out what his motives are, what's going through his head while he's planning these. And to me, it's incredibly chilling because there's never a good reason to do this, but I will go on the record and say this dude did not have a good reason to do this at all. Like money maybe was his motive, but I do think he was very manipulative and he wanted to play games with these girls, with the police, and it was more like for the thrill of it in the end.

So once he had worked on his master plan for long enough, Michael Sams decided he was ready to kidnap either a sex worker or a female estate agent, but Julie Dart was not Sams' first intended victim. Years before he would kidnap Julie, Sams curated a plan to abduct a woman living in West Yorkshire, whose central heating unit he had installed, and he was planning to bring her to the cellar of his home and keep her chained up for a £30,000 ransom. He ended up not actually executing this plan, but a couple years later, about a week before Julie Dart's kidnapping, Michael Sams attempted to kid, there was like a builder who was building a house on that same street. And the builder like kind of walked up to him and began chatting with him. And he was like, you don't want to buy this house. This house is already built. I'm building a brand new house over here. Wouldn't you rather buy

this house? And as this was happening, Carol Jones arrived with another woman that she was training and Sam's had to call the plan off, obviously because Carol wasn't alone. And also he said he was afraid that this builder who just wouldn't stop talking to him would later identify him. Yeah. And that, so that there was some luck there with having this witness, right. That he identified, but it was something we said last episode without me even knowing this, you know, for people going to locations, whether it's a real estate transaction or going to meet friends, whatever it may be, you should always try to go with someone else in this day and age, because that just that small factor is in most cases going to be enough

for the offender to call off whatever they're planning, because now there's another person that can connect them to the crime. And also it's another person that they have to control. So imagine if Stephanie Slater was with a colleague and Stephanie goes into the bathroom and the other colleagues downstairs, well, Michael Sams can't do what he's planning on doing because the other person's going to be able to escape. So little things like that can give you an advantage. And yeah, most cases you're not going to need it, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Yeah, I agree. And you know, Carol did say later, like, you know, that's that's stunning.

Right. To find out that this man who ended up doing this to not just one other woman, but two other women. And you were like one of his intended victims. And for some streak of luck, you managed to not not have to be in that situation. I can't even imagine the kind of close call that you would feel that you'd had. And she said she thinks that builder saved her life. I would agree with that. And I'll say this. That's a really scary thought.

You, me, people watching and listening to this. There are people out here right now. I guarantee it. That were very close. This close, if you'll see my fingers, to being a victim of a crime just like this. And for whatever reason, maybe you were with someone else. Maybe a friend was behind you. Maybe your husband or a wife walked up right when they were about to do it. This person didn't decide to act because of something you did without even knowing

you were doing it. Just the way you were conducting yourself that didn't present that opportunity. You'll never know it, but I guarantee you some of you out there were very close to having something like this happen, but it never did because of your out there were very close to having something like this happen, but it never did because of your actions or because the actions of the people with you. That's the scary thing. Yeah. Thank you. That's very scary. I already didn't want to leave my house and now I feel like I want to even less. Thank you so much. I want to scare you. I care about you. I care about everybody out there. No joke. If that does that for you, where now you're a little bit more paranoid when you go out, I'm fine with it. And you should be too, because-

Do you think I could be a little bit more paranoid than I already am? No, you definitely couldn't. I'm straight up agoraphobic now. No, no. You're the exception. But I know there are people out there that might think twice because I maybe scared them a little bit. I'm happy for it. If it helps protect you and makes you safer when you go out on your own and you decide to park closer to the front door or, you know, take your headphones out when you're walking to your car, I'll own that all day long. If it protects you, then it's worth it. Thank you, Derek. No, yeah. I mean, thank you for, you know, taking care of yourselves. I don't want you guys to end up on the other end of the

spectrum. I hope that we all continue on this journey and none of you have to experience something like Stephanie Slater did because it changes her forever. As you see with the videos, if you're watching on YouTube, it's something that stays with you. And even though she survived, he took a piece of her that she'll never get back. And she's out there speaking about it because she's strong and she wants everyone out there to learn from it. That's why she's doing it. So let her be the example to teach you so that you don't have to experience it yourself. Absolutely. I agree.

I agree 100% with that. And I appreciate people who go through these situations where they become victims, where they have the bravery to speak out about it and even sometimes expose themselves to public scrutiny because there's these idiots there's these idiots out there who will be like, well, you know, you shouldn't go in there alone and say stupid shit all the time. And it's like this person's putting themselves out there to help others. So they have the bravery to do that even after all they've been through. Couldn't agree more. So the morning after Susan Oak called the police and identified her ex-husband, as the voice heard on the Crimewatch UK program, the police went to Michael Sam's tool repair shop and they entered, hearing the bell above the door tinkling as they walked in and they caught strains of music floating through the shop coming from a radio that

was tuned to BBC Radio 2. Michael Sam's emerged from behind a curtain and said, quote, I've been expecting you. What is it you want? End quote. So obviously it's funny. I think it's funny. It shows he's playing games right up until the end. Right. I've been expecting you. What is it that you want? It's like two contradicting statements. Why would you be expecting them if you don't know what they want. He knows the deal. Yeah. So 51-year-old Michael Beniman Sams was placed under arrest for the kidnapping of Stephanie Slater. And Sams was taken to Milgarth Police Station in Leeds, where he was questioned not only about Stephanie's abduction, but about the murder of Julie Dart, which, by the way, from the start, he vehemently denied having anything to do with. And we knew he was kind of going to do this because he had sent a letter after he released Stephanie saying like, oh, I feel bad about what I did to Stephanie Slater. But just so you know, I had nothing to do with what happened to Julie Dart. So he already tried setting this narrative right from the beginning. One of the police officers who was present during his question said, quote, he was a smarmy bastard, a nasty piece of work with a smile on his face

all the time, end quote. While he was being guarded, a young police officer asked what he was in jail for, and Sams responded, quote, suspicion of kidnapping and murder. Didn't you watch Crime Watch last night? End quote. When the police officer asked if Sams was referring to the kidnapping of Stephanie Slater, Sams responded, yes, the evidence is in the workshop. I've not done the murder. I promised Stephanie that she'd go home and she did, end quote. Sams also claimed that he'd been frustrated when Shipways had sent a female real estate agent to the Turnberry Road address because he felt he would have become less emotionally attached to a male hostage. Sams also denied being involved with the extortion attempt on British Rail.

And Sams' wife, Tina, remember Tina? She was also interviewed by the police, and she visited her husband while he waited for his trial in prison. She visited him quite a lot, and the first time she visited him, she went in and she said that Sams collapsed into her arms and dissolved into tears. Tina told the Sunday Mirror, quote, both of us cried as soon as we set eyes on each other. We just couldn't stop and kept hugging each other, end quote. Tina claimed that she knew her husband had to face justice for the kidnapping of Stephanie Slater, but she would, quote,

fight in the courts to clear his name from the other crimes he has been convicted of. He is no murderer, end quote. Yeah, that's where she draws the line, huh? So she's okay with the fact that he kidnapped this woman, held her against her will, raped her, but he's no murderer. So she's willing to stand by him. That's an interesting take. What was it you said last episode? Read the room, Tina? Yeah, she's not getting it. She's not getting or maybe she doesn't want to get it.

As far as him trying to separate himself from the murder, it could be a couple of things. And I think only he really knows. But I think there's an element of it, which is he developed feelings for Stephanie and he didn't want her to view him as a murderer because he told her he wasn't. I also think it might just be the simple explanation, which is although kidnapping is really bad, you know, rape really bad, it's not murder. And maybe he's thinking, you know, if I can, if I can beat the murder charge, I still may be a free man one day. So that could also be the reason as well. I agree. I think it was a combination of both. Obviously, he's thinking, if I get put on trial for murder and I get found

guilty, that's a life sentence. But kidnapping, what's that, five to seven years? And also, he had told Stephanie Slater that he never murdered anybody and he didn't want her to look at him that way. I think there was some emotional attachment there. I mean, just him saying, I was mad they sent a female because I wouldn't have gotten emotionally attached to a male shows that he had some emotional attachment. Yeah, I agree. A red Metro car that was parked nearby Sam's Newark tool shop at the time of his arrest was also taken into custody and forensically searched. And Sam's ex-wife, Susan Oak, remembered that he'd been driving that car when she'd seen him

at the funeral of his father just, I believe, the week prior. And during that time, she said he was acting really odd and she'd asked him, you know, can I get a lift home? And he'd refused to give her a ride home in that car when she had asked. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. Police descended on Michael Sam's workshop in Newark where they pulled up floorboards and ripped away plaster walls in their hunt for evidence. In the workshop, investigators found 19,000 pounds of the ransom money. It was wrapped in plastic and he'd had it stored in the workshop, but they didn't find the rest of the money. They would soon. They also located the place where Stephanie Slater had been held captive for over a week. It was a custom-built timber box, and he had built it inside a wheelie bin that had been turned on its side. So basically, this garbage can was turned on its side, and he purposely had built the box inside of the garbage can so that he would have a place to keep these girls. believe there was a secure place in the workshop where he could like close and lock a door. If they

got out of the wheelie bin, they would have been kind of roaming around the open shop. Inside, they found several strands of Stephanie Slater's hair, as well as a number of other hairs that appeared to have been chemically treated and dyed, but they did not belong to Stephanie, so the assumption was that these hairs were Julie Dart's. Also, on a curtain located in the workshop, a blood stain was found, but it was diluted, and it looked as if someone had tried to clean the stain with water. Because it had been so badly diluted, forensic specialists were not able to build a full DNA profile, but the blood type matched that of 18-year-old Julie Dart. There were also brown nylon fibers collected from the floor of the workshop, and these were tested, and they matched

the fibers that were found in the sheets that Julie's body had been wrapped in. And then they found Michael Sam's computer, and among other things on the computer, they discovered a Word document going over the account of Sam's picking up a young prostitute who referred to herself as Julie D. Now, Sam's wrote that this young woman had chatted with him a bit. You know, he says he purposely picked her up to have sex with her. They were talking a little bit in the car, and she told him that she had a boyfriend whose name began with the letters D and O. But then she stopped herself before giving Sam's the full name of her boyfriend. Sam's claimed that while he and Julie were having sex, he noticed that she had bruises all over her body. And after the transaction was completed, Julie gave him like a business card with her name on it.

It said Julie D. And she was like, listen, I'll be around if business card with her name on it. It said Julie D. And she was like, listen, I'll be around if you ever want to get together again. I usually get dropped off in that area like after 11. Just let me know. And then Michael Sam's claim, he like dropped her back off where he picked her up and, you know, saw her get into another car. Now, in my opinion, just like that, that little, you know, kind of Easter egg or that little hint, that breadcrumb he had dropped with the piece of paper that had something written onring. This was something to distract the police because he knew he was going to build the narrative that, yeah, I saw Julie, I had sex with her, but I'm not responsible for her murder. I think the fact that he is even putting himself in that area and admitting to an interaction with Julie is a huge mistake. We had said it on a few episodes ago where you're interrogating someone and they say,

hey, listen, I had nothing to do with that person's murder. Your first goal as an interrogator is to get them to admit to at least seeing them, right? Put them at the scene of the crime, put them in the car, put them in the house, wherever it occurred, so that now you can narrow down the scope of their interactions with your victim. Once they do that, then you can chip away at that. But you just want to get them to admit that they had some type of interaction with that victim. And he's doing that for them with very little force through this letter. So he's already putting himself at the scene of the crime with a victim, a murder victim, that now they can chip away at that narrative that he dropped her off. And the way they're going to do that is by the forensic evidence you laid out. Because if it's true and he dropped her off,

then you wouldn't have any of her hair or blood or anything like that connecting her to the workshop because according to his statement, she never went back there. So you use that against him. At first you say as the investigator, okay, so you're admitting that you met Julie Dart that night and that you guys had sex. We believe you. No problem. However, here's the investigator, okay, so you're admitting that you met Julie Dart that night and that you guys had sex. We believe you. No problem. However, here's the problem, Michael. We found her hair at your house. Even if they can't forensically match it, he doesn't need to know that.

Hey, we found her hair at your house and we found her blood. So we want to believe you, Michael. But how did that get there? Can you explain that for us? And then he's going to have to create another lie to say, oh, you know what? She was there, but then after we had sex, I brought her back and he's basically tightening the rope around his own neck. He doesn't, he thinks he's helping himself, but he's really not. And so he's given them a few, a huge up here by even acknowledging that he had an encounter with Julie Dart that night

because they know the rest of the story. They know that she was dead before she ever came back from seeing Michael. They just got to connect the dots to evidence, which it looks like they're going to be able to do in this case pretty easily. I think he was thinking ahead, thinking for a possible trial, thinking about reasonable doubt. They found her hair in my house. Well, I could say her hair was on me and that's how it got there. Her DNA was on me and that's how it got there. He probably didn't have a super good understanding of that. When he was hanging out in the box? Who knows? He did say he got in the box, right? It's true. It's true.

But he knows that there's probably forensic evidence on him in his car in his workshop that ties him to Julie Dart. He's saying he didn't kill her. He's got to figure out a way to explain how it got there. And that's the only way he can. What else can he do if he denies knowing her or having seen her at all? Then they've really got him right. Yeah. No, it's either way. He's in trouble. I could buy the plethora of things you've already laid out. Michael's going to have some problems. Well, on this same vein of investigation, the police paid a visit to Michael Sam's defunct tool repair workshop in Cambridgeshire. And so remember, he had a tool repair workshop before he had one in Newark. And, you know, they went to the old one that was now closed. And it was there that they discovered several of those unique blue clay bricks that had been collected during the Julie Dart investigation. If you remember,

he was taping clues and notes to these bricks. 130,000 pounds of the 170,000 pounds paid to Michael Samson Ransom was found by a team of special police officers, and all of that money was hidden within a two-mile radius of where Julie Dart's body had been left, hidden in two places beside the main East Coast railway line in Stoke Summit, an area that Sams had admitted to the police that he'd gone to watch trains in the days before his arrest. And they found this money plastic-wrapped, stuck inside of Black & Decker bags and buried. Yeah, this is great.

Obviously, the money is from Stephanie Slater's kidnapping. But what is as important as what you said, it's putting him in the area of Julie Dart's body where she was found. So he's frequented that area in the past. Coincidence? I guess it's possible. But you try to explain that to a jury. You try to explain that in this entire place.

You decided to store the ransom money from your second victim at a location that was similar to the first victim. Good luck with that one. Right. And this is all by like railway lines and stuff. And, you know, he's got his little. It's all with his M.O. Yeah. He's got his little railroad badge and his model train and his railroad paraphernalia.

So exactly. It's giving him this sort of pattern of behavior. Right. It puts him on a location that's a private area, right? Didn't you say that farm, that area was like, well, how many miles was it? Acres was it? It was a ton. It was huge.

He doesn't own it. So why is he there? You know, you explain that one, Michael. During the trial, Michael Sams told the court that although he took full responsibility for Stephanie Slater's kidnapping and he felt terrible about it, he had not been responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Julie Dart, but he knew who had done it, a friend of his who he refused to name. According to Sams, this friend had seen his detailed plan for committing the perfect crime, and the friend had thought it was brilliant. So he asked Michael Sams to write

out some ransom letters that were dictated to him by this guy. So now Michael Sams is trying to show the police like, yeah, I guess these ransom letters are in my handwriting, but I only wrote them because my friend asked me to write them. And he was asked in court, you know, why did you agree to do this knowing that like your friend was going to kidnap a young woman, knowing that a young woman's life was at stake? And Sam's claimed that due to the state of his personal life, you know, he's going through issues with his wife, Tina. She was depressed. They were having marital issues. He was having money problems. He was going into foreclosure, all of this stuff. He said he couldn't have cared less about anything at that time, saying, quote, his disclosures didn't bother me one bit. I did not know her

in any way. I felt no more for her than any of the soldiers who were killed in the Gulf War, end quote, which doesn't make sense if you look at his like word document, because he said he had sex with her. He said he picked her up and had sex with her and they talked and she told him about like her boyfriend and and told him when he could find her again. So it's not that you didn't know her at all. And it's conflicting statements. Yeah, I agree.

And the fact that there's a similar pattern of behavior, you know, having sex with a victim before, you know, Stephanie was after she was kidnapped, but still there was a sexual gratification element to the kidnapping. And essentially he was able to have sex with Julie before the kidnapping because of her profession. But I think that if she had refused in that moment, he still would have kidnapped her and had sex with her anyways. I don't think he had sex with Julie Dart, to be honest. You don't? No. And we'll get to that in a little bit. But also remember, after she went missing and then they found her dead, he wrote a letter to the police and he was like, I didn't have sex with her. She wasn't harmed in any way until I murdered her. And obviously, you know, they couldn't tell whether she'd been sexually assaulted or not. But I don't really think that he had the time. Okay.

You know more about the story than I do because I'm going and I'll still hang myself on a limb here. And even though you're probably going to find a way to, you know, rebut this with facts. But my initial thought going into it was he picks her up, they go somewhere that he can take control of the situation again. He has sex with her. And then when she feels like the interaction is over, the transaction's over, I don't know if he's paid her yet or not. But when that moment comes is when he pulls out the knife and the chisel or the screwdriver and says, you're not going anywhere. You're coming with me. And probably does a similar thing to what he did to Stephanie, where he's holding her at knife point, keeping her down in the passenger seat, putting something on her chest so she can't sit up. That's my initial thought,

but I'll reserve judgment until you continue because maybe something will make that a complete impossibility. So a few weeks after this, after his friend saw his brilliant plan on his computer, Sam's claimed that he and his friend were watching television when the news of Julie Dart's body being found broke. And Sam's was like, oh, my friend was watching and he started acting nervous. And then at that point, Sam's turned to his buddy and said, quote, your kidnapping went wrong, end quote. Sam's told the court that his friend had told him that Julie's death had been an accident. He'd been holding Julie in a chalet on the east coast of England, but she'd gotten away and the man had hit her over the head with a hammer to prevent her from revealing details about where she was being held. This was the same friend, Sams claimed, who had tried to blackmail British Rail, even though Sams had told him it was a dumb idea. Sams' friend and accomplice went on to help with the ransom of Stephanie Slater.

Driving Sams to the railway station where Stephanie's manager, Kevin Watts, had been first directed to go. He then left Sams's there with a moped, like a little scooter, so that Sam's could follow along with Kevin Watts until he had successfully taken possession of the ransom money, at which point Sam's was then picked up by his friend again. But the friend told Sam's that Stephanie Slater should be killed, even though they had the ransom money, just to be safe. And at that point, he and his friend violently argued when Sam's refused to kill Stephanie and Sam's had to offer to give the man a large cut of the money so that the man would like leave it be and

not insist that Stephanie be killed. Not only that, but this mysterious accomplice had a key to Michael Sam's workshop, as well as access to Sam's computer, which he had taken advantage of on several different occasions. So now, once again, this is building a narrative. You can no longer say that, you know, Julie Dar's not connected to you at all. So you have to make up somebody to basically come in and do all of this bad stuff. Like, if you find anything on my computer, it wasn't me. My friend has access to my computer. If you find evidence in my workshop, well, my friend had a key to my workshop. No. And this is in line with what you've told me about Michael Sams. It goes back to episode one where we had the indentations on the notepad,

which was a complete red herring, which was done intentionally by Michael Sams. So knowing that, I would say, because when you were talking about the money being in two different locations and being somewhat near Julie Dart's location, I was like, why would he do that? Why would he tie himself to that area? And why would he separate the money like that anyways? He put it under the floorboards. Why put it near Julie Dart's body? Now it makes sense to me. He intentionally did that for this purpose. He put a small amount under the floorboards and he puts the rest of his money near Julie Dart's body so that when he wants to give this reasoning, this other person, it almost makes sense, right? Like, oh, that's the person who killed Julie. So he chose to hide his money near Julie's body, not me.

And this is in line with the way he operates because he did the same thing with the notepad. So although I don't believe him in the slightest, unless he's referring to his multiple personalities, I do see why he did it. And on the surface, it's smart, but obviously all the underlying facts of the case completely dispute that. It's funny that you say his multiple personalities because like during the trial, the prosecutor was like not buying this at all. And he's like, your friend, your friend is your friend named Michael Beniman Sams. And he's like, this is this is ludicrous. Like every time you find out something new about what we know, you come up with an excuse or reason, a justification for why we know that that doesn't tie back to you at all. And it's getting ludicrous here because there's no evidence of the existence of this person and you won't even

tell us who this person is. And not only that, Stephanie Slater was held for multiple days. And although she couldn't see, she could definitely hear. And I think she would remember someone else showing up and interacting with Michael in her presence or Michael, you know, talking to someone on a phone or something like that about this plot if that person didn't feel comfortable showing up. And from what I've heard so far, Stephanie never heard about another person. Well, she did. Except when he told her what he told her, but she never heard anything from another person. No other voice was ever in that building as far as interacting with her. Yeah. So what we're referring to is when Stephanie Slater was being held by Michael Sams and he said, oh, you're lucky that it's me because I have a friend and he's violent and he has no problem killing people. He's killed before. So even when Michael Sams had Stephanie Slater hostage, he was already building this narrative of this other person who could potentially be responsible. So he thinks

ahead. You got to give him that. Yeah. And that might have been something that started to become a thing as he developed feelings for Stephanie. Who knows? So during the trial, the prosecution laid out all of the evidence that they had against Michael Sams. First, his voice that he had made the mistake of not disguising when he called the shipways office and spoke to Kevin Watts during ransom discussions. It wasn't only his ex-wife, Susan Oak, who had recognized his voice, but also one of their sons, Charles, had called into the police, telling them that the voice on the recording belonged to his father. And Charles was like, I don't know if this is the right guy, but I can tell you, it sounds exactly like my father, but my father only has one leg. And this

was a big deal in the investigation because everyone was like, how could a one-legged man have done all this? Because, you know, he's like going climbing on bridges, putting clues all over. He's riding mopeds away with ransom money. They just couldn't understand how he could be sort of so nimble, I guess, with only one leg. But we have to remember, he was basically like an athlete at one point in his life. He was an avid runner. He ran every day. So there's probably some of that agility and athleticism still in him because he was able to do it on his own because no proof of an accomplice was ever discovered. Also, Sam's red Metro had been spotted not only driving away from the site where Julie Dart's body had been dropped, but also an

eyewitness the night that Sam's had released Stephanie Slater had seen that red Metro within a few hundred yards of her home, and he'd seen Stephanie Slater get out and stumble home and the Red Metro drive away. Additionally, there were the letters, which were sent in brown envelopes, and they used similar writing styles and spelling errors. Not only did handwriting experts claim that they were written in Sam's handwriting, but after his arrest, Sam's was asked to provide a sample of his handwriting, and this included some of the words that had been misspelled in these letters. And he spelled those words the same way he spelled them incorrectly. It turned out that Michael Sams was dyslexic, and he couldn't have spelled

these words properly even if he was trying to mislead the police. His brain just didn't work that way. Additionally, the ransom letters were all posted from towns and cities that Sams was shown to have visited on the dates stamped on the postmarks. They were able to follow his trail. They even talked to his wife and she said, yeah, I was with him in these cities on these days. And they all, every single letter that was sent, they proved that Michael Sams was in that area when it was sent. Also, a digital forensic expert retrieved files from Sams' computer that had been deleted. So remember, that file where Sams is talking about, you know, hooking up with a sex worker named Julie D, that was not deleted because he wanted the police to find that. But these other files had been

deleted and they were retrieved, and these files listed phone numbers that had been used in both abductions when law enforcement was sent on elaborate scavenger hunts. Additionally, fibers were found on sticky tape that had been used to seal one of the blackmail letters that had been sent to British Rail, and those fibers matched a pair of pants, a jacket, and gloves, all found in Sam's workshop. The blood found on the curtain in Sam's workshop, it did match the blood type of Julie Dart, and it was a rare blood type, a blood type that Michael Sams didn't have, his wife Tina didn't have, and his other victim, Stephanie Slater, didn't have. So basically, they're trying to rule

out people who could have been in that workshop and been a't have. So basically, they're trying to rule out people who could have been in that workshop and been a contributor of that blood. And they're saying, this person doesn't have it, this person doesn't have it, this person doesn't have it. So we can only assume that it was Julie Dart, because who else would be in the back room of your workshop bleeding on the curtains? Yeah, they're painting a picture, right? As we said earlier, he writes this letter on his computer and says that he did have an interaction with this victim, Julie Dart. They did have sex, according to him. So he's putting himself at the scene of the crime that night. But according to him, that's where the truth deviates and he dropped her off and nothing

happened. However, you have this evidence at his workshop that contradicts that. And although they can't say definitively it's Julie's because it deteriorated or whatever, they're painting a picture for the jury. They're canceling out that reasonable doubt that juries are going to have to deal with. Could it have been someone else? Could it have been a significant other? They're answering those questions for them. And they're painting a picture through the totality of evidence to say, listen, through the process of reasonable deduction, these are the options you're left with. And it comes down to basically Julie Dart, coupled with everything else that you've laid out. I mean, this really is a slam dunk case and you're not even done yet. I haven't even heard

any mention of the typewriter and I have a feeling that's coming, right? I mean, there's going to be some mention of a typewriter or am I getting excited for nothing? Actually, they never mentioned the typewriter. No. Hold on, let me look. Really? No mention of the type Actually, they never mentioned the typewriter. No. Hold on, let me look. Really? No mention of the typewriter? They never found the typewriter?

So there was no mention about the typewriter in anything that I saw, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. This was a difficult case because it's a UK case. Now, there have been a couple of books written about this case, but they're not available on like Google eBooks or Amazon Kindle. That's typically the place where I would download a book to read it quick.

You'd have to like buy it and you have to buy it on like eBay. And then, you know, eBay, it's like 10 days for this book to get to you. So I knew I wouldn't get them in time in order to do this case. It doesn't mean that they didn't put two and two together with the typewriter. But like you're saying, at this point, the ransom letters are in his handwriting. I think that's far more telling than even the typewriter because he could have said that his accomplice used his typewriter too. I'm sure he would have. Right. Yeah. The typewriter would just be piling on the evidence. Yeah. Just a little icing on the cake. No, but this is fascinating. This is really fascinating stuff, the whole thing. And I tell you, you guys have been with us for a lot of cases.

This is more evidence than you usually get to tie someone specifically to this case. And again, to go back to this other person, no mention that Michael Sams knew this person's name or where they resided or anything that they could go basically confirm about the second individual. And you would think that if Michael Sams agreed to participate in these types of actions with another person, he would at least know their name. And I'm assuming he never provided any of that. He said he did know the person's name, but he didn't want to tell police because he was scared that if he identified this person, then this man, who's violent

and mean and scary, would find Stephanie Slater and hurt her to get back at Michael Sams. Ah, I got it. So he is defending her and willing to go to prison to protect her. Yeah yeah isn't that nice wow what a my hero well michael enjoy prison buddy and you know it's funny how this guy it's

funny how this mean violent guy allegedly never committed any other acts after michael sams was apprehended and never and never came back to like get his money that he worked so hard for. He just left it there so the police could dig it up, you know? Very, very convenient. So yeah, you know, I mean, we're being funny here. It's not funny. This guy is clearly, he's got problems. And, you know, he was so dead to rights that he didn't have a good reason. That's why we're laughing about it because he was pinned. They had him, not only by his own words, his own writing, but by the forensic evidence, which also really tied him to both crimes. I mean, he admitted to the second one.

So that was a slam dunk. But the first one, it seems like that's where they had to do a lot of work because obviously that was the more significant, the more severe charge. And they wanted to get him for the murder because they wanted to make sure he never saw the light of day again. And I think that's why they really focused on it because, yeah, they had him for Stephanie Slater, but they also wanted him for Julie Dart. He needed to answer for that. And it seems like up to this point, they did a really great job. And that's the thing too. I know you get off on all this forensic evidence and obviously as a jury member, you're going to be like, I love this stuff. I need to see this stuff because I'm making a decision. Really,

I'm making a decision about somebody's life. However, if you look at all we've talked about, the same person who kidnapped Stephanie Slater later wrote a letter to the police saying he didn't do anything to Julie. But that same person who had the same handwriting and misspelled things in the same way after Julie was found said, oh, I did kill her. I did kill her and here's how she died. Her hair came off when I took the towel off. He knew all of these things that the police hadn't released to the media. He knew all of these things that the public didn't know. And how could he know those things unless he was the one who did it? Now, Michael Sams would say, no, it wasn't me. I just wrote these letters for the person directly involved with the crime would have. And as you've laid out, they had already confirmed and through their forensic evidence that the writing was written by Michael Sams. So Michael Sams, who wrote the letter, had this guilt knowledge and is unable to provide the name of the person who allegedly told him this. So therefore, Michael, you got problems, buddy. Yeah. And I feel like unable to provide. No, he was able to provide the name. That's the point.

If we're going with his narrative, he is able to provide it. He's unwilling to provide it. And at that point, when all signs are pointing to you and you don't want to give us an alternate explanation, you're going down for this either way. That's right. But just so you know, not one going down for this either way. That's right. But just so you know, not one person involved in this case believed that there was a second person involved. It was the opinion of law enforcement that this man had been fabricated by Michael Sams to explain away all the evidence that they had against Sams in the murder of Julie Dart. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

So when Michael Sams, who testified on behalf of himself at the trial, when he spoke about Stephanie Slater during the trial, he cried often. You know, he was just crying and tears just streaming down his face on the witness stand. And he expressed his regret for what he had done to her. He also marveled at how calm she had remained, speculating that he saw signs of Stockholm syndrome in Stephanie. But a testifying detective believed it was the other way around, claiming that Sams had probably fallen in love with Stephanie or he wanted to demonstrate a man's control over a woman. In my opinion, probably a little bit of both because for people like Michael Sams, love is confused with control and possession. Like somebody like Michael Sams

probably doesn't know what love really is. And when you're looking at somebody like Julie Dart, who we're going to talk about later, she's kind of like, she's a little bit of a fighter. You know, she's a little bit of a wild card. She was very claustrophobic. She would have been freaked out when she got put in that box. And she most likely would have fought a lot harder about being put in this box than maybe Stephanie did because Stephanie realized pretty early on, like, the only way I'm getting out of here is to go along. So I think Michael Sams probably felt that he loved Stephanie because she was passive,

because she appeased him, because she went along with what he wanted. Someone like Michael Sams is not going to fall in love with a woman who pushes back or questions him. And so it's not really love, you know, at that point. It's just you are convenient to me in this moment. Yeah. And I'll weigh in on it more when we get to Julie. But I agree with everything you said. I think Stephanie definitely saved her own life. I think the plan was to kill her.

No doubt about it. And it was her own behavior, her own actions that resulted in her survival. The police did not know where she was. They were not going to get to her in time. Sorry. As good as they were doing, as hard as they were trying, he was going to kill her and there was nothing they were going to be able to do about it. The only reason Stephanie Slater is able to talk to us today is because of what Stephanie

Slater did. It's that simple. And I can tell you I'm incredibly claustrophobic. Incredibly. With a fear of my life, claustrophobic. And if somebody had tried to put me into a tiny box, I would have fought like a wildcat. And he probably would have taken me out. Yeah. Yeah. Would have had to have killed you just to stop you from screaming so that he wouldn't be found out by the people coming into. Absolutely. Yeah. I wouldn't have been able to stop. I wouldn't have been able to calm myself down. Because when you have a fear like that, there's no talking yourself out of it.

You know? Yeah. No, I can't even imagine. In a diary that Sam's had written while he was in jail, he said, quote, Always before putting her back in the box, I stood opposite her and put my hands on her shoulders or cheeks and promised her she would be okay and unharmed. But on one occasion, she suddenly put her arms around me and hugged me for a while. When she put her arms down, she went back in the box without either of

us speaking. I could tell she was choked, end quote. And what he means like she was choked, he means like she was touched, like she was feeling something. He doesn't mean like she was choked, like he was choking her. She was touched. She felt something sentimental in that moment for him. book about her ordeal, he said he wanted to send her his diary to help with her writing, stating that his account might, quote, contain serious discrepancies from her account, which could take some explaining if she initially was subconsciously trying to protect me due to the enforced friendship that had built up between us, end quote. He's clearly like delusional. He's delusional. In fact, I think he may almost be delusional to the point where he's convinced himself that this other accomplice does exist because he was able to convince himself that Stephanie Slater actually felt something real

towards him. He's not over here like, I'm her captor. She has no other choice but to go along with what I want her to do. He actually convinced himself that she felt something for him. So he may be crazy and delusional enough to convince himself that this other accomplice does exist because that's easier for him mentally to accept. And when you said it, I believe it was in part two that he came down with meningitis at some point. And there are a lot of, you know, this is by no means an excuse, but he had came down with meningitis. And before that, he was a pretty squared away guy. And then this happened and it changed him personality wise. He

was doing, making business decisions that didn't make sense. He became irrational and confrontational and irritable. So there was something that happened. I don't know if it's related to the meningitis or something else, but something did change in his chemistry, his brain makeup. And there is a real possibility to your point that this man may have had a mental disability where he was bipolar, he was schizophrenic. He maybe believed that there was another person helping him. I mean, that's not that far fetched. So what you're saying could absolutely be true. Again, no excuse, but there could be some actual truth to what you're saying. It's certainly not an excuse, but it does provide context because for Michael Sams, in my opinion, it was a lot of things that sort of happened.

Like his life was great and then it started going downhill and it never stopped. Right. He gets meningitis. And then all of a sudden things are changing. He's not doing well mentally. And then his wife leaves him because of that. The mother of his children. So now he doesn't have his wife.

He doesn't have his kids. Now he gets into crime. He's hanging out with the wrong people. He's stealing a car and he's going to prison for nine months. And in prison, they find out he has cancer in his leg. They got to cut his leg off. This guy was a runner. He was an athlete.

So that's going to be incredibly depressing. Now he gets out of prison. He's in and out of different relationships. And all he's dealing with is money troubles after money troubles after money troubles. And then he's with his most current wife. Her son, Paul, dies suddenly. She's suddenly depressed. All the burden is on him. Once again, this isn't an excuse because people go through this stuff every day, all of this and more. Yet you can understand he was in a pressure cooker at some point. That's a

lot for somebody on top of thinking that the meningitis may have caused some mental disturbances. And now you're adding all of these life pressures on top of that. Yeah. So someone, a normal person would have trouble handling these situations. Now put it someone who's chemically imbalanced and probably needs to be on medication for what they're going through. And now they're dealing with these things so it could definitely be a contributor so it's just interesting to think that when he's saying these things because you brought it up that there could be some truth that he actually does believe there's another person involved um in his own brain sort of like a fight club thing you know right i don't know if i believe it i'm throwing it out there you know to to bring it up i still think that you know

the fact that he made the indentations on the notepad and these other things, I think he was more put together than he wants people to believe. But I'm just throwing it out there. Don't come for me in the comments. I don't necessarily believe it myself. I think he was aware of what he was doing. But if someone was able to prove to me that it was a split personality type thing, it

wouldn't shock me. That's all I'm saying. I agree with you. So during the trial, the prosecution revealed for the jury what they believed had happened to Julie Dart based on the evidence that had been collected during the investigation. It seemed that Michael Sams had installed a passive infrared detector in his workshop. And this was an actual device. This wasn't one of his fake wooden devices that he painted silver to look like an actual device. This was a real infrared detector. And this device would sense any movement. He had also geofenced the area around the workshop with an alarm, essentially meaning that if anyone or anything went over this invisible

barrier, it would notify him. Both the sensor and the alarm were attached to Michael Sam's home number. So if anything happened, if anything went off, it would ring him at home. Police believed that Julie Dart, who suffered from asthma and was extremely claustrophobic, she had tried to escape. And Sam's, who was notified of her movement, he drove to the workshop and he murdered her because at that point she'd seen too much. I mean, obviously, once she gets out of the box, she may remove her blindfold if she can. I don't know if her hands were tied or anything like that, but she'd be able to alert law enforcement to where she'd been held, and this was his place of business. So it's not even like he can detach himself from this place.

Now, it wouldn't be long before the police and the world had actual confirmation of this theory. So Michael Sams was found guilty on all charges, including the murder of Julie Dart and the extortion of British Rail. He was sentenced to four life sentences and he was sent to full Sutton prison in Yorkshire. After the jury had reached their verdict, which they did, I believe, in under four hours, so they were pretty convinced as well, the judge had addressed Michael Sams saying, quote, you are an extremely dangerous and evil man. The jury has convicted you of murder, a murder in cold blood. You deliberately strangled Julie Dart and beat her to death when your kidnapping went wrong because she saw more than she should. You tried to turn her death to your advantage.

You were heartless at the grief you had caused. It was misplaced pride and callous arrogance, end quote. So four days after his conviction, Michael Sams said, you know, he wanted to speak to the lead detective, Bob Taylor. So apparently, Sams had seen a picture of Julie Dart's burial site on the news, and he was bothered that her headstone showed the incorrect date of her death. Since he was already behind bars for life, Michael Sams felt he could now tell the police what had really happened to 18-year-old Julie Dart so that Julie's mother could have closure. According to Sam's confession, he said he'd picked Julie up on Tuesday, July 9th, 1991, just after 11.30 p.m. At some point while they were in the car, Julie had leaned forward to take her shoes off, at which point Sam's placed a rope formed into a noose

around her neck, and then he drove her to his Newark workshop. Julie was stripped naked and tied to a chair, at which point Sam's made her write a ransom letter that would later be delivered to her boyfriend, Dominic. After this was completed, Julie was placed inside of a box that was placed inside of that wheelie bin, but in the early hours of the next evening, Julie had fought her way out of this box. And this set off the emotion alarm and this alerted Sam's to her movements around 6 p.m. on the evening of July 10th.

So when Sam's got this notification, he jumped into his red Metro, he raced to his workshop and he found Julie disoriented, but in the process of trying to escape. So he used a hammer to knock her out and then he strangled her until she was dead. Julie Dart had been dead within less than 24 hours of her abduction, but Sam's was the only person who knew this. So he continued to dangle the hope of her safe return in order to extort the police.

All right. So this clears up some things, right? First off, we were talking about the split personality possibility. Well, that puts that to rest right here, right? He clearly remembers what happened. I will say this. I think there's the majority of this is truthful, but based on how he treated the sexual interaction, the rape with Stephanie Slater, and the fact that to this day, he's still, you know, we're almost done with the script. You know, he said it was consensual. I feel like he

omitted somewhere in there having sex with Julie Dart. I feel like something in his mind, murder's okay, but having sex, you know, against their will, that's like, that crosses the line, which is why he said what he said. So not that it matters at this point. I still feel like something in there he's leaving out as far as taking advantage of Julie Dart, who, as we know, was a sex worker. So it's not too far fetched. But for some reason, he doesn't want that now where we're looking at it But I think it's important to point out because this guy's a monster And he deserves to be called out as one and I definitely think there was a sexual element to it And he's choosing to leave that out on purpose Just like he chose to contort the story of stephanie slater and say oh no, you know, basically 48 hours You know within the kidnapping she was willing to have sex with me. Not only that, but in love with him. Right. Yeah. It makes no sense. And the fact that Julie's not here to contradict his story,

he can say whatever he wants and we can't go back and confirm it or discredit it. Yeah. And it's interesting because there's times, like we said last episode, where it's like, is this guy human? Does he have some humanity in him? You know, he wants Julie Dart's mother to know the day that she died for closure. In my opinion, he doesn't care about Julie's mother getting closure. It's this way that he keeps getting attention and accolades. In his mind, he said he was going to be more famous than the Black Panther, a criminal, and this is his way of doing it. He can't sit here and keep saying it wasn't me. It wasn't me. How's he going to get his fame now that he's in prison for life? Right. It doesn't matter at this

point. He can tell them what happened. And it just adds to his resume, I suppose. I think you're right on. You're right. He wants the attention at this point. Oh, you got me. Jigs up four days later. I'll tell you the truth now. Forget everything I said before. And honestly, who knows if even any of it is the truth? You know, who knows? Great point. We still will never know what happened to Julie because her body was not able to tell the story because she'd been dead quite a while before she was left in that field. And she's not here to tell us. So he could just be making things up. He could be adding his own illustrious details

to make himself look better, look more badass. We don't really know the truth. We can't really take somebody like Michael Sams and say, well, he said that's what happened, so it must be what happened. He was the only person that was there. Exactly. He's the only person who was there who's left alive.

So he can really say whatever he wants at this point. We're going to take our last break really quickly and we'll be back. During his time of imprisonment, before he went to trial, Michael Sams kept himself busy by writing endless letters to his wife, Tina. Now, these letters were decorated with crayon. They were like pictures of roses, crayon pictures of

roses all over these letters. And in these early letters, Sams expressed a desire to help Tina with her financial problems that she faced now that he was incarcerated. So he was like, oh, you should take out loans. You should like move this bank card to this bank card. He's like giving her advice on how to like ease her financial burdens. Author Christopher Berry Dee, who read these letters, claimed that there was not one word nor one ounce of remorse for what Sam's had done to Julie Dart or Stephanie Slater. But there were plenty of requests, including ensuring that Tina subscribed to several of his favorite publications and delivered them to him in prison. In his book, Talking with Serial Killers, Sleeping with Psychopaths,

Christopher Berry Dee wrote, quote, page after page, his letters contain little more than sentimental and untruthful drivel about his undying love for Tina. This was somewhat balanced by descriptions of his busy prison life, the hours of sleep and rest, the excellent medical treatment, hot food served on time three times a day, to the last of which he added cynically, Yes, Tina, three times a day is something you should learn to do when I am released and back home. Then there were his new inmate friends, how they wanted his autograph and how his fellow cons cheered him every time he walked out to meet them. End quote. So this is before the trial.

Michael Sams is thinking there's a chance that he could be going home, I guess. Well, we didn't we didn't we never said he wasn't delusional. Yeah, but I mean- This is right on par. Yeah, so he thinks he's going home. And apparently, right from the get-go, right, Michael Sams loved prison. He loved prison.

I don't know if UK prisons are different than US prisons. I tend to think that they are because I've seen some television shows. They look a little bit more laid back. They look a little bit more cushy. But he he loved it there. He said the food was good. He was getting great medical care. And he was basically a hero amongst his fellow inmates that they were like, yeah, you know, you took the police for a ride. You got away with it. You tricked them. You outsmarted them. And this is what he's wanted since the beginning, at least since the beginning of when he started becoming absolutely unhinged,

thinking that people weren't taking him seriously, thinking that people didn't respect him. He wants respect. He wants people to see him as a serious person, no matter what it takes at any cost. And I guess he's getting that from other criminals, which I don't know what kind of trophy that is for him, but there you go. Well, we see this with a lot of killers, right? Where they feel like nobody acknowledges them. They're just kind of there in the background and they go unnoticed and they want to be someone. And if they can't do it with talent and good acts, they choose to be infamous and do things like this that are heinous and unthinkable and will absolutely get people talking. So if they can't do it under good merit, they're going to choose the other route. And that's what he did.

So you're right. Ultimately, he wanted to be recognized, even if it meant being recognized for something that nobody should want to be acknowledged for. And, you know, that's how these sickos think. That's how these monsters function. They don't really care how it gets done. They just want it to be done. But that kind of pisses me off because he went to prison because he did something bad,

supposed to be justice. And here he is. He's having the time of his life and he's getting fed three square meals a day. He's got a comfortable bed. He's got like all this medical care. He's over here like, you know, a god amongst his fellow prisoners. It seems like he actually bettered his circumstances when going to prison. And that's is a little truth to it. I've had these conversations before about prisons and the luxuries that they have, especially in the minimum security prisons where they've committed crimes against victims. And yet they got cable TV, good meals, medical, like everything you just said, dental. They come out completely jacked. They're working out multiple times a day.

They're healthy, all these things. And it's like, really? That's what you're there for? To me, that's fine. If you are like somebody who can be rehabilitated, rehabilitated, if you're a robber, you know, or like a petty thief or something. And it's like, yeah, you should, you know, not be completely destroyed in prison because we want you to be a good contributing citizen when you come out. But when you're a murderer and you're most likely never going to see the light of day again, it shouldn't be that fun for them. I mean, he's got his wife bringing in magazines. He's watching the TV all the time for news about himself to the point where he sees that Julie Dart's being buried.

If I'm Julie Dart's mother, I don't want him to be able to see footage of my daughter's funeral, my daughter's burial. I don't want him to be able to see footage of my daughter's funeral, my daughter's burial. I don't want him to see anything. I want him locked in a room or put to death. And that's just the way I feel about it. If you're not being able to be rehabilitated, your life should be miserable on the inside. Yeah, it's so hard. I think about victims that I've worked for that weren't murder victims, just people who were robbed at gunpoint or were, you know, someone who was, you know, the victim of a larceny or someone who was held against their will for a couple hours because this person I've had these cases where I had an individual who was

on the run, broke into a home, didn't want to do anything to the victim, but, you know, held her there so that she couldn't disclose where he was. Things like that, that's traumatic. They're going to be affected for the rest of their lives, regardless of the outcome. And I think about those individuals who, yeah, there's rehabilitation there, but what about the victim? You know, and it's like, there is no perfect system

because you're right. If this person is going to be released back into the public, you want them to come out better than the way they went in. So I don't know what the answer is, but I always, and I'm biased in that sense. I've never denied that to you guys, you know, as the cop who's fighting for the victim, I don't really give a shit about the other person. And I probably should. And that's just, that's just the cloth that I'm cut from, but I definitely see what you're saying. And if it's a murder person, if it's somebody who's

committed that ultimate price when killed someone and they're not going to get back out, we are on the same page as far as what should happen to them, especially if the evidence is overwhelming like a case like this. But unfortunately, we know that's not the way the judicial system works. And there are people, unfortunately, that go to prison and are looked at as a legend by their peers, which is unfortunate, but it's the truth. I mean, I feel like it really should go on a case by case basis. And I think that the prison system is too blanketed. Like you all go in here and you all get the same, really no matter what you did. And at this point, Michael Sams, he's confessed. I mean, four days after he went in, he was like, yeah, I killed her. And, you know, he confessed to doing what he did to Stephanie Slater,

not just kidnapping her, but raping her, ruining her life forever. And now he gets to just chill, play cards, get like slapped on the back by other pieces of shit. Like, no, no, no. I'm with you. relationships, you know, with these men who are murderers. So Sams began to write to his wife, Tina, about one of these women that he was talking to. Her name was Vicky. And he told his wife, Tina, like, Vicky's the best looking woman that I've ever seen. And Vicky became Michael Sams' prison pen pal. And she would send him, you know, explicit photographs of her. They had these like Pornhub style letters going back and forth. And Vicki would even visit Sam's in the prison where they would have conjugal visits. And then his wife, Tina, would show up to visit with him. And he'd be with Vicki. And he would tell the

guards, like, you know, if Tina comes, I'm busy. So, disgusting. Now, Vicki, she talked to Christopher Berry Dee, the writer, and she referred to Michael Sams as Hot Mike. And she said that while Sams was behind bars, he was treated like a prison overlord. And Michael Sams felt that his days in prison had been the happiest of his life. After the trial and his conviction, the letters that Sams was sending his wife Tina changed. In these letters, Sams admitted that he had always planned on allowing Stephanie Slater to live, but he'd also always planned on killing Julie Dart. There was never a chance that Julie Dart could have escaped, even once she freed herself from that box because she was locked inside of his workshop.

Now, due to this information, the police believed that Michael Sams had used Julie Dart as a dry run, a dress rehearsal to the plot that he believed would actually get him his ransom money. Julie Dart was a sex worker. She was a nobody. She wouldn't be missed. She was expendable. She's not going to bring in this huge ransom. That's his thought process, not mine. And that was why he never actually followed through on retrieving the ransom. He'd just been trying to see if it would work. And you remember in the early days when he claimed he had Julie, he had these police officers go to the phones and he said, I'll call you at this time. And he wouldn't call or, you know, the police officer would pick up the phone and he wouldn't be there.

Or they would go to like the next clue and there was nothing there. Things like that, all of this stuff that wasn't really adding up. And a lot of the people in the comments from part one, they were like, why wasn't he answering the phone? Why wasn't he there when he said he would be? This is why he didn't really care about getting a ransom at that point. He didn't really care about getting Julie Dart home safely. He was just trying it out to see how it would go, to see if he could actually convince people to run his gambit to to make this happen for him. Right. It's intelligence gathering, right? He's watching the behaviors and the responses of law enforcement so that he can make adjustments for the real

thing. And he's using this as a form of documenting their response times, how receptive they are to his demands, their tactics when they perform the actions that he requests so that he can make minor, you know, technical adjustments to how he carries it out so that he won't be apprehended. That's sad to think that Julie was used as basically a dry run, you know, as you described it, because her life mattered regardless of what you think about her chosen profession, what she was going through. It doesn't, she doesn't deserve this. Nobody deserves this.

And to think that he was willing to use her and dispose of her like that, it just adds to my already distasteful opinion of Michael Sams and how much of a scumbag he really is. And I hope by the end of the story you tell me something happened to him in prison, but we'll see. I'm just waiting to get there. No, man, nothing happens to him in prison, dude. Nothing happens to him. Okay, let's just end this episode. He does- I'm only waiting around for that part where he gets shanked in prison. He does these horrible things. He gets the notoriety that he wants, and then he lives the happiest days of his life in prison. Yeah, no. Not what I was expecting, Stephanie. But he does more. He does more in prison, okay? So in 1995, Michael Sams met with 52-year-old Julia Flack in a converted cell where she was seeing prisoners to discuss their issues. So Julia was a probation officer, and Michael Sams was always complaining about everything. Even though he's

like, this prison's awesome, he also has complaints out the ass. So she's like, we'll come in and we'll talk about this and see if we can't make life easier for you. So Julia said that when Sams walked in, he was smiling and good-natured. But within minutes, he was holding a 12-inch metal spike, telling her that if she touched the alarm, she would be dead. Julia did try to reach the alarm, but Sams physically overpowered her and tried to strangle her with a length of cream sewing tape that he had stolen from the prison workshop. Luckily, another prisoner heard Julia's screams and rushed in to save her. For this attack, Sams was charged with false imprisonment, and eight more years were added to his sentence, which I'm sure he was happy about.

During the trial, Sams claimed he had taken Julia hostage to draw attention to his poor treatment at Wakefield Prison, including an incident where the prison had lost his fake leg, for which he won 4,000 pounds in damages, by the way. Because once they figured out like, we lost it, it was our fault. They awarded him 4,000 pounds in damages for that. And he had also brought a civil suit against the prison, claiming his bed was too hard. The balls on this guy. The balls. And this is what happens when you treat murderers like actual people. Because in my opinion, once you've taken a life willingly, knowingly, you're not a human anymore and you don't deserve any human rights. That's just my opinion. I'm sorry. I'm still upset that there's not a different ending to this.

No, man. He has a great life. We'll keep going. Now, Stephanie Slater's life did not go back to normal, not after her release, not after her kidnapper and rapist's conviction. In 1995, she told The Independent that she was also serving a life sentence. She wasn't sleeping due to her bad dreams. She couldn't bear to be alone in a room. And she had separated herself from the girl who had been kidnapped, raped, and held hostage for eight days. In her interview, she said, quote, The only similarity I have with her now is the name. That's the only thing we share. There's nothing left of Stephanie Slater in me. She died just after I was released. She was such a strong

character. She was very pretty, and I'm not. She used to look ever so good and go to pubs with her friends. She was courageous and brave. I shy away from all of that now. I keep to a very small circle of trustworthy and lovely people. I need them. Sometimes I can relax and giggle about something. Occasionally, I can be brave for a short time. If somebody needed help, I'd be there for them. But I couldn't be like she was, end quote. So I was referring to earlier, right? You know, as far as like the impact, the trauma it has on a victim. And, you know, it's the sad reality of it. But, you know, Stephanie might have survived. But the Stephanie that everyone knew never came home. You know, the minute she was kidnapped, that Stephanie, that everyone knew never came home. The minute she was kidnapped,

that Stephanie, that innocence was gone. And that's the unfortunate reality of these types of crimes where going back to what we were talking about with prisoners, let's say for a second that Michael Sams hadn't killed Julie Dart and he had just committed this crime. There's a very real possibility that he would have got out eventually. Yes, absolutely. And been walking the streets, the same streets as Stephanie Slater. Does that sound right to you? Does that sound like that's justice? No. That this woman, who will never have her life again, it was taken from her by him. At some point, he can be reformed and go on with his life because he's forgiven himself.

And so hasn't the justice system. It's kind of crazy to me. And it's maybe a different story for a different day. We may have some people in the comments who disagree with us, but I really think it's a conversation we need to have. And I know the judicial system isn't perfect and there are people in prison for crimes they didn't commit. So there's a lot of work to be done. We're not even close. But these types of stories really piss me off because, and you said it multiple times in this episode, for the most part, if they didn't get him on the Julie Dart murder, Michael Sams would be out there with the rest of us, which is crazy to me. And he would offend again. He did it in prison. He attacked a probation officer, a female probation officer in prison and threatened to end her life and tried to hold her hostage, essentially. He's not going to stop. Even if Julie Dard didn't exist, and he just done this to Stephanie Slater, he would do it again and again because that's who he is. That's his nature. Yeah, I agree.

After Stephanie had published her book detailing her ordeal, Michael Sams had publicly announced that she had lied about being raped, that it had been consensual, and she was in love with him. Why in the hell are we letting murderers and rapists even speak from prison? Why are we allowing that to happen? Shut up. You go away. You're behind prison. You apparently have this cushy life. Fine. But nobody wants to know you exist anymore. You don't get to victimize and re-victimize Stephanie any longer with your words, with your presence, with your existence. Why are we letting them just talk? I have no, I got no, uh, no dispute there.

I can complete with you wholeheartedly. I don't, I don't know. I don't get it. Why is he even allowed to read the book? Oh, he's, he can read anything. He can watch TV. He can do whatever he wants. He's, I know that there should be, I mean, well, when Stephanie heard this, she said, quote, when I heard, he said, we had a love affair, I had a sort of breakdown. I started crying and shaking. It was like being raped all over again. My conscience is clear. I've never been a liar.

People realize what kind of person he is. The man is evil through and through. He lied throughout the court case. He's saying this because he craves attention. End quote. I agree. Why is he allowed to get this attention? Now, before being kidnapped, we talked about it. Stephanie had this great job that she loved,

that she was good at. She'd been dating a man that she thought she was going to marry. But after this happened, her relationship soon fizzled out. Obviously, she was a different person. Obviously, this man probably didn't know how to deal with it. He didn't know how to do what was best for her. And, you know, they broke up. She tried to return to her job, but she quit after three days because she was experiencing crippling panic attacks. Stephanie changed her name to Phoenix Rhiannon and moved with a close friend of hers to the Isle of Wights, a place she had enjoyed visiting as a child. As the years passed and Stephanie was interviewed by different media

publications, a few things remained constant. She said she didn't think she would ever get married or have children. Initially, she thought she'd like to find someone who could provide a place of safety for her, but as she got older, she realized that this ship had probably sailed. She said she wasn't distrustful of men in general, wasn't like that, but she just didn't know how much she had to give to anyone. In 2017, after a long battle with cancer, Stephanie Slater passed away. I believe she was about 50 years old. ITV News correspondent Keith Wilkinson had spent a lot of time with Stephanie while he was making a documentary about her story in the 90s, and he said, quote, Stephanie never got over what she went through. She suffered with terrible nightmares, great trauma.

She lived in fear that one day Sam's would be released on parole. She had a lot of backaches and blamed this on the awful pains she felt during her abduction. I was very upset when I heard Stephanie was seriously ill. The last time I saw her on the Isle of Wight to do some filming a few years ago, she was quite upbeat and positive. She could sometimes be hysterically funny and had many passions. She loved her dogs, her cat, she enjoyed walking on the beach. She was mad about space and astronomy. One day, we took her up in a light aircraft around the Isle of Wight to look at her new home when she moved away from the West Midlands to start a fresh life. She was full of laughter that day.

Stephanie's life wasn't all doom and gloom, but the terrors of what happened to her never left her. They had an awful impact on her and her parents. End quote. for over a decade before he kidnapped Julie Dart and Stephanie Slater, many people have wondered if he could also have been responsible for the 1986 disappearance of Susie Lamplew, a 25-year-old real estate agent who vanished after going to a house showing with a client named Mr. Kipper. Despite an extensive search, no trace of Susie has ever been found. Susie had left for an appointment on July 28, 1986, and later that night, her white Ford Fiesta was found abandoned with the keys missing. In 1994, it was reported

that Michael Sams admitted in a letter from prison that he had killed Susie Lamplew, but her family and law enforcement were not so sure. There is strong circumstantial evidence tying another man to Susie Lamplew's disappearance, a man named John Cannon from Birmingham, who's currently serving three life sentences for the murder of 29-year-old Shirley Banks from Bristol. Cannon has denied killing Shirley or Susie Lamplew and also denies the attacks of two other women he's been accused of, but the police believe that he is the right guy. And it's more likely that Michael Sams was inspired by Susie Lamplew's kidnapping, but had not actually committed it.

If his confession actually happened, it was most likely simply an attempt to get more attention, something that he so desperately needed and wanted. Yeah, if we're to believe that he was, you know, looked at by his peers in prison as, in prison as an overlord, as it was described, he knows that with his history, with the background of what he's already done, that's how he gained that power. So how do you gain more power? By building your own legend. By expanding upon what people think you're responsible for, even if you're not. We see this a lot where just really bad people at the core will take credit for crimes they didn't commit in order to build their own legacy within the walls that they're confined to for the rest of their lives. So this isn't unheard of. A lot of people who are in prison for life do this. And I think everything you laid out would suggest that, yeah, he might have been inspired by it, but it doesn't line up with his modus operandi. He never requested a ransom.

There doesn't seem to be any real similarities in it. So I would agree with what you had said there as far as it being the other guy canon. Yeah. And I mean, Henry Lee Lucas comes to mind when you talk about somebody who confesses to murders that he didn't necessarily commit. I think that guy confessed to like over 100 murders that they figured out he had not had a part in. And I assume, you know, you've been in prison for a while. Maybe the shine's starting to wear off. Maybe the inmates, you know, they're like seeing other prisoners come in who have freshly murdered people and they're getting all the accolades. And you're like, I want my accolades back. I want my place at the

head of the table back. So I've got to come up with some other thing that I've done so that I can be a hero to these guys again. In March of 2012, Michael Sams testified during a high court hearing that his prisoner status should be changed from high risk to low risk, claiming, quote, in 1995-1997, I was an extreme danger to female staff. In 2005, I was only a medium risk. Now, I am only low risk, end quote. The judge told Sams that prison authorities had considered his case in 2009, 2010, and 2011, and each time they had concluded that he was still a high-risk inmate. In fact, Sams is considered one of the country's most dangerous criminals. Now, even though Sams seems to prefer life in prison, claiming that his living conditions were better than he could

expect on the outside, his case was automatically referred to the parole board for review in 2020, at which point they deemed him to still be a danger to the public and not yet eligible for parole. But they will revisit this. And I think it's weird. He's not asking for parole. The parole board is like, you're up for parole. Let's talk about it. And he's like, I don't necessarily want parole. I'm happy here. And they're like, we're going to see if you're still eligible for it anyways. There might be some legal thing here just so they can say they did it. But that seems a little backwards to me. Yeah, I would agree with that as well. And obviously, glad they caught Michael Sams and prevented him from doing this again, because more than likely, that's what he

would have done. He would have gotten his money and then ran out eventually and had to do it all over again in order to get more money. So, you know, great job by law enforcement. I have a question. Yeah. He had the money from Stephanie Slater and her ransom. Why didn't he leave? Why didn't he go and start his new life? I mean, that's a pretty good amount of money, especially when you have no money, right? He had at one point said, you know, I wanted that money because I wanted to start fresh. I wanted to start fresh somewhere else. Why didn't he do that, in your opinion? My initial thought, Stephanie. Yeah.

I mean, you know, he also had other ties here. He had a business here. He had things here. And I think he believed he got away with it. But I think there was this curveball. I think he planned on killing Stephanie, regardless of what he's telling people. I think he planned on killing Stephanie once he got the money, but something changed. She won him over. She won him over slowly too. He was treating her a lot worse in the beginning, but then he started to deviate from his plan. And I think she won him over by saying things like,

can you just give me a hug? I just want a hug. I need that affection. And there was probably conversations that they had, you know, briefly that we, you know, we didn't discuss here that humanized her. And he said it right out. I hated the fact that she was a woman and not a man. I think he fell in love with her. Uh, and in his weird screwed up mind, I think he believed there was a possibility that at some point maybe she would forgive him and they could be together. Damn. Um, you know, it's very possible, but, um, what I was going to say, you know, Stephanie, um, I know she's no longer with us, but you know, she is someone who will be remembered because of what she did, because she single-handedly in a lot of ways, stop this man from doing this again. And I know, unfortunately, she essentially sacrificed her own life and doing it not,

you know, involuntarily, but her sacrifice prevented this monster from doing this to other women. And I hope deep down, she knew that, women. And I hope deep down she knew that, you know, I hope deep down as much as of the burden that she carried, she did have an impact on her community and she did stop this guy. She stopped her attacker and she was a big reason why nobody else ever became a victim of Michael Sams. And I hope before her passing, she recognized that and she realized that as much as she went through in her life and there's really no positive spin on it. It just, it sucks that she had to go through that and she had to endure that.

And I think that's why we cover these cases because it does put a little fear in people. I see all these comments all the time about true crime and how these podcasts and these shows create this level of anxiety within their listeners and viewers. And I don't necessarily want that, but I don't think it's a bad thing that people who are listening to us or watching us leave a little more anxious about the people around them when they get done. Because I do think education is our biggest advantage we have to protecting ourselves. And I think it's good to acknowledge that unfortunately, you might

be a good person, but not everyone is. And you don't necessarily have to give them a reason to cause harm to you. They might just decide that you're that person. And if you're better prepared for those situations by listening and watching things like this. It may prevent you from finding yourself in a similar situation down the road. So I do think there's a lot of advantages to covering these cases, even though they're really tough to talk about. Because as much as we have an ending to the story, we don't have justice, so to speak. You know what I mean? Because Stephanie never got her life back.

Yeah, I agree. I think the only happy ending that we have here is the fact that he was apprehended and he was put away. We don't have this sense of that justice was done, that he's paying for this. He's clearly not paying for this. In a way, he sort of got what he wanted. But the best that we can say is that he was taken out of society and he won't do this to anyone else. But in the process, because of that justice, because to protect the rest of us from him, both Julie and Stephanie lost their lives. And I think that's too high a price to pay, honestly. That's absolutely, absolutely.

Really sad story, guys. I hope you take something from it because I'm sure you're all feeling the same way we are Learn from this it for julie and stephanie, right? Take what they went through what they had to sacrifice And use that going forward in their memory because I I have a strong feeling that that's what they would have wanted So that's why we do it, right? I mean, that's why we cover these cases as as much as they suck And we're going to continue to do it because there's a lot to learn from it. We're not just doing this to sensationalize these stories. We're doing it to inform, to educate,

and to empower you guys so that you can control your own narrative. And although it's no perfect system, a lot of the times there's nothing you can do to stop these things. But if you can be more prepared, just maybe you can prevent it. Yeah. Be prepared, be aware, be careful and be safe out there because we love you too much to lose anyone. Thank you guys so much for being here this week. Join us next week for a brand new case. You can follow us on social media. Derek's going to tell you where. Yep. At Crime Weekly Pod on Instagram and our website is crimeweeklypodcast.com. Check us out, follow us because sometimes we post things on Instagram and our website is crimeweeklypodcast.com. Check us out. Follow us

because sometimes we post things on Instagram before they go here. Thank you guys so much. We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye.