RedHanded - Episode 57 - House of Horrors: The Murder of Tia Sharp

Episode Date: August 16, 2018

12 year old Tia Sharp adored her Grandmother’s partner, Stuart Hazell. He'd been in Tia’s life since she was a baby, and he'd always been her loving “Grandad”. But unbeknownst to anyone in the family Hazell, a man with a dark past, was starting to have sick sexual fantasies about Tia... One day, out of the blue she vanished and her panic stricken family had no idea that they would eventually find her closer to home than they could ever have imagined. Merch shop: https://shop.spreadshirt.co.uk/redhanded   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys,

guess what? We have finally launched the Red Handed Merch Shop. Hannah, do you want to give everyone the URL since you have put it to memory? Yeah, it is shop.spreadshirt.co.uk forward slash red handed and you can't see my hand gestures but i just did loads you know like on smtv live where they used to be like forward slash like that's exactly what i just did it's

good though it's like when you learn things with your body you muscle memory yeah you also put it to put it to your mind better put it to your mind why can't i speak today it's because we worked so hard on these designs with the fantastic isla krumak if you want to go check them out there's some great quotes out there i know there's not all of the quotes that everyone wants to see but guys we're going to keep switching it out there'll be new designs in a few months once we've recovered from this bout of merch creation go check it out and also if you buy something put it on take a picture and tweet it at us instagram it at us facebook it at us we want to see it oh and also for the next two weeks everybody gets 15 off and the date that runs out is the 25th of august so

you've got till the 25th of august to get 15 off so don't miss out and we'll put the link just in case you can't remember hannah's wonderful recitation of it, in the description for this episode. Okay, let's go on with it. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. During the summer of 2012, London was hosting the Olympics.

The Games had taken over the city. And like it would be anywhere it was taking place, it was a time of celebration and, of course, global PR concerns. Because your city is in the spotlight across the world during that point, isn't it? But can we talk about it, though? Because why do we want the Olympics? We don't appear to be making any money out of it. They're extraordinarily expensive.

All they leave behind is incredibly expensive flats that people can't afford to live in and london was a fucking nightmare during 2012 olympics i was living in victoria working in soho so i had to walk down whitehall to get to work and i would add an extra 25 minutes to my commute for tourist time because they just don't get out of your fucking way and yeah you're right i don't really why. Like I went to even go do like a site visit, a like London palindrome. Is it, is that what it's called? Palladium?

Palladrome, what? The London palindrome. Do you know what a palindrome is? My name is a palindrome. So you're right. It's not a building in London that is the same backwards as it is forwards. It is the London palladium.

Palladium, yeah. I even went there.'s the point it's just massive and you can ride your bike around it really fast that's not the Palladium the Palladium's a theater what am I thinking of what's the one that's shaped like a pringle box oh it's like the something drome velodrome there you go there you go anyway let's let's stop shining a light on my ignorance and just move on with our lives so while all of this revelry and mayhem was going on in London, in Croydon, South London, about 20 miles away from where the opening ceremony had taken place, a tragedy was about to unfold.

A 12-year-old girl, Tia Sharp, had been reported missing by her family. It was completely out of character for Tia to run away or not come home. Something had to be very wrong. Tia had grown up in a very tight-knit family. Her mother Natalie had had Tia when she was just a teenager, but always had the support of her mum, Tia's grandmother Christine. They had brought Tia up to be a very confident and loving child. And in videos of Tia, you can see that she was feisty and headstrong, but really, really confident and outgoing. And at school, teachers described her as smart,

popular and a joy to have in the classroom. But just before she disappeared, Tia, as she was getting older, had started to have some issues around attendance at school. And the family were known to social services. The issues were around the use of cannabis and alcohol by Tia's mum and her partner. But social services had never actually taken any of the kids away because there was no neglect or actual abuse. But someone in the family did have a dark past. Christine, Tia's grandmother, had a partner, Stuart Hazel. And Hazel, unbeknownst to the family, was a dangerous man.

And again, the story with Hazel is weird. He had originally been dating Natalie, Tia's mum. And then, after they broke up, he began dating Christine, Natalie's mum, who, in the world, goes out with someone, dumps them, and then goes out with their mum. Yeah, very, very unusual. That's a red flag if someone goes out with you and then dumps you and goes out with your mum don't let your kids anywhere near them that's lesson number one I think. It's very weird but like everyone's just totally fine with it like Natalie's just like yeah they were a great fit he made her really happy he looked after her

so it was fine by me. There was like a weird age gap as well like natalie was like 30 he stewart hazel was like 37 36 37 and christine her mom is like 46 so he is much closer to natalie's age and when you look into hazel's past apart from his daughter mom swapping it gets so much worse because his past is the classic backstory of so many killers and sex offenders. His mum was a sex worker and his dad had basically been in prison throughout his childhood. Hazel had been taken into care at a young age and he struggled at school. He had a very low IQ and pretty much just fell out of the education system at a very early age. At 16, he said he was raped whilst in care.

The abuse and also the early exposure to sex he would have faced when his mother brought back clients to their home, again, super common markers in the childhoods of violent sex offenders. After having previously dated Natalie, but it not having worked out, one day, as luck would have it, Hazel ran into Christine at a pub in Rains Park in 2002. Christine was working there as a barmaid and the two reconnected. They became a couple and in 2007, Hazel moved in with Christine in

New Addingdon. He seemed fine, a nice guy, he had a job and everyone liked him. But in 2010, Hazel was convicted of carrying a machete and sent to jail for 12 months. Carrying a machete is not a gateway weapon. I feel like that's pretty, pretty up there. That is, you know, someone who is more experienced in the world of knife wielding. It's not just a penknife, is it? No, it's not my first knife, is it? She's like, oh, what are you like? And Christine does. She stands by him. Maybe she just thought it was a one-off. Is a machete ever a one-off? I feel like that's the real question here. That's a good question. And in this case, the answer is an absolute no, because Hazel, in fact, had over 30 previous convictions for everything from drug offences, dealing drugs, burglary, theft, violence,

racially motivated violence, and GBH. And for his numerous crimes, he had been to jail three times. But again, Christine and the rest of the family said that they had no idea about any of this. Christine described Hazel as her world, a man who made her feel safe and secure, and as someone who loved her unconditionally. And I think she was probably just trying to do the same, by ignoring his past and his little indiscretions with the law. Maybe she was just grateful that she had this guy around who, in every other sense, seemed to be pretty decent to her.

That's pretty bleak if you're overlooking machetes. Oh, definitely. But I think everyone in this case is quite unfortunate to some extent, I think. But it wasn't just Christine who loved him, though. This is the thing. Natalie, Tia and Natalie's two just Christine who loved him, though. This is the thing. Natalie, Tia, and Natalie's two other little boys loved him too. And they spent a lot of time with him. Tia was just two years old when Hazel had come into her life as her grandmother's partner. So as far as she was concerned, he was her granddad. And she called him as much. A perfect example of

how much Tia loved this man was on her birthday. It was in June in 2012. And Natalie and Christine said they would take Tia to Chessington for her birthday. For our international listeners, Chessington World of Adventure is, I suppose, technically is a theme park, isn't it? It is. It's like for very young kids, isn't it? I think they've got one quite big scary ride, but it's not like thought park levels of big scary rides. They've got like a Beano themed section.'ve been quite a few times i think but it's not as bad as alton towers i've in my mind it's very much alton towers chessington thought park that's the order you think chessington is better than alton towers yes absolutely 100 alton towers just looks like a good scrubbing

when was the last time you actually went to alen towers when i was in year nine exactly it literally needs to be torn down and started again it is grubby as fuck but they oh really yeah i feel like i have quite fond memories of it there was another theme park i used to go to as a kid it starts with an s what was it strudwick i don't know that was that was terrible darkest hertfordshire i don't know i have no idea it Deepest, darkest Hertfordshire. I don't know. I have no idea. It was very weird. It just had one of those machines where, you know, you get into it and it's like half a tube. And you stand with your arms and your legs out to the side. And then it starts to spin and the floor goes down and you're stuck to it.

What? You made that up. No, you don't know what I mean. No, 100%. It's like a cylinder. you go in and you stand at the side and because it spins so fast you're stuck oh i know what you mean yeah yeah exactly the way you were describing it was like individual children have to go into a cylinder and stick their arms out the side and then they're shot down a giant tube yeah it's the new ride it's the centrifuge at strudwick theme park fucking hell anyway anyway so chessington world of adventure very middling theme park in the uk

but kind of place you'd go on a school trip well they're never going to sponsor us now are they hannah chessington world of adventure i mean we can chat shit about it all we want that's where tia wanted to go for her birthday and her mum and her grandma told her that she was allowed to bring a friend but instead of choosing someone she went to school with or someone she knew from her estate she chose to take Hazel she chose to take her grandma's partner to Chessington World of Adventure with her on her birthday that's so sad either she really loved him but it just stinks of grooming to me like you can just imagine him telling her oh i wish i was coming with you it's so manipulative and it's such a sad part of this story how much he abused the trust of this little girl had in him because he's not even her granddad and she's 12 she's not like little little no but i think they did say she

was so close to her family and he was always there yeah i just hear him completely manipulating her and i don't know she was part she was also when you think about it like they don't really bring up natalie's partner her mom's partner much so i think stewart hazel wasn't just a granddad but maybe the only kind of like real male role model that she had and like male influence she had in her life because by all accounts her dad loved her like her biological father but he lived in like he lived in like Northampton so he lived like fucking miles away and she only saw him during holidays so I think she just probably loved him I think she really idolized him and you can see this in not just the Chessington world of adventures thing but also in the fact that she always wanted to stay over at her grandparents' house. And she'd

actually said that when she turned 16, she wanted to move out and live with them because she had two little brothers. There's only so much space in the house. And I think she thought, if I move in there, I can be the only kid. I can have my own room, all of this. So I think it's all part of the grooming, but I think she just really did love them and that's what makes it so sad. But the problem was Tia was growing up and Hazel was starting to have sick sexual fantasies about her. He was a man obsessed with violent child pornography. And in the months leading up to Tia's disappearance, he had been looking at incest porn, a lot of it. Specifically, oh, and this just turns my stomach, daddy daughter porn.

And all of the porn he was looking at was rape fantasy porn. And there's no doubt who he was fantasizing about with all of these searches. Because all of the searches were for young girls, school girls and girls with glasses. Just like Tia. It's so crucial to note just how important Hazel was to Tia. She trusted him totally and up until then there was no reason she shouldn't apart from all of the child porn obviously but she doesn't know about that but he was becoming infatuated with her and if he'd ever had any grandfatherly feelings towards her they had definitely started to change. Tia went from his granddaughter to somebody he wanted sexually. He became voyeuristic and did things like creep into her bedroom and secretly film her as she slept. It's all about power and control. She's asleep. She trusts him totally.

Even if she woke up, he knew that he'd be able to explain it away and you see with this escalation in risk because he is getting a kick out of this but it's not going to be enough once people like this take that step they don't go back they need more and more to satisfy their sick urges and sadly with the amount of time tia spent with him the opportunity presented itself pretty quickly it was august 2012 and tia was planning to stay at her grandmother's house for a few days. But Christine, who worked nights, said that she wouldn't be in that night and Tia could come over the next day. But Tia was already excited and she just wanted to go. So she texted Hazel asking him if she could stay there with him even if her grandma wasn't there.

So Hazel texts Natalie, Tia's mum, saying, Tia can stay over. Totally up to her, Christine isn't going to be here, but she can stay with me. When Natalie read this and asked Tia if she wanted to go, Tia was thrilled, jumping up and down and saying absolutely yes she did want to. Again, yes I'm sure she loved Hazel, but what 12 year old is that excited to stay at their grandparents house? Certainly not fucking me, it's boring. He's been fucking grooming her, and I bet, I bet with this with this that's it it wasn't boring because i bet he let her do things no one else would so as a kid that's the dream absolutely as soon as natalie said she could go tia immediately went to pack her clothes up and

left when natalie kissed tia goodbye that day she had no idea it would be the last time she'd ever see her daughter again it was th Thursday, 2nd of August, and Tia caught the tram from Mitcham to New Addington where Hazel met her. They went food shopping, and in all of the CCTV footage, there's nothing weird, it looks totally normal. That night, Christine and Hazel went from work to check everything was okay, and he told her, yes, they had dinner, and they were just playing video games. In the background, Christine could hear Tia laughing,

so as far as she concerned, there was no issue. But what was going on in Hazel's mind was very different. That night he got drunk and decided to act on what he'd been fantasising about. The next day, Friday the 3rd of August, Christine came home from work and Tia was gone. Hazel told her that Tia had just gone to Croydon to meet a friend and buy some flip-flops. He literally had an entire day, more than that, to think of a lie and all he could come up with was that she'd gone to

buy some flip-flops in Croydon. What a shit lie. It's been like, oh, I'm just gonna go to Blackpool to buy some trousers. Also, she's fucking 12. Why is she going to buy flip-flops on her own in Croydon? But she's clearly I don't know if that's that weird. You're in year 7 by the time you're 12. Were you not gonna go meet your mates when you were on your own at 12?

I think like year seven was like the very first time that I was allowed to do that. And it was in my town. I wasn't catching a fucking tram to Croydon. How far is it? 40 minutes by tram. Oh shit. Okay, that is really long. Yeah.

11 minutes to drive, but 40 minutes on the tram. When I was allowed out in year seven to like go meet my friends in town, it's my town center is like a six minute walk from my house yeah and i suppose you get dropped off at the train station with your mate so like the time you're alone is very isolated i think that's my memory anyway it's not just i'm off for the day yeah bye that's true i'm off to croydon on the tram any particular reasons you can buy any flip-flops in new addington is there a flip-flop emporium in croydon that i didn't know about is croydon the place to any flip-flops in New Addington? Is there a flip-flop emporium in Croydon that I didn't know about?

Is Croydon the place to buy flip-flops? Perhaps. Perhaps. And she knew. She was in the know and they were like, I'm off. And Christine just is like, okay. Okay, that's fine then. No alarm bells were raised until Tia hadn't returned by seven o'clock that night.

And Christine called Natalie. And when Natalie told her that Tia wasn't there, they all started to panic. They were all calling Tia's phone again and again, but she wasn't picking up. And they drove around Croydon for hours. And finally, at 10pm, with no other choice, they went to the police station. Christine came home that afternoon and Tia wasn't there. Like, again, she's 12 years old. So why did they wait until 7 before they panicked? That is strange. How long does it take to buy flip-flops? I mean, maybe he was like, she's gone to to meet a friend she told me she'd be back by seven everything is fine for me it's the not picking up the phone i think that's the bit where you

start to panic because if she was staying out later than had been agreed either she would have rung or she would have been keeping an eye on her phone one would assume as a 12 year old out on her own definitely and i think there's also stuff you see on the internet about people being like, why did it take them like three, four hours after that to go to the police? Definitely. They don't go to the police until 10pm that night. But I think, okay, these people have been in trouble with social services before, who have been in trouble with the police before. I think they're probably not going to immediately go to the police when there's a problem. They're going to try solve it themselves. But I think what's really terrifying in this case is that all the while they're looking for Tia, all that time they're looking, Hazel knew exactly what had happened. He knew what he'd done

and he knew exactly where Tia was. But not one person spotted anything. His behaviour gave nothing away and he didn't slip up at all. He's not an intelligent man, so it's really quite horrifying just how good a liar he is. I've been thinking about that and just how many hours they must have been sat in the car driving around like mum and grandma in blind panic and he's just there knowing exactly what's happened. Definitely. That's chilling.

It really, really is. And even though he wasn't acting suspiciously, he was the last person to see Tia before she vanished so he was most definitely a person of interest. Hazel told police during questioning that he last saw Tia at midday as she walked out of the door to go to Croydon to meet a friend and buy some flip-flops and a neighbor and this is so so important a neighbor Paul Meehan also came forward and said he saw Tia leaving the house at around the same time. Meehan knew Tia, knew her by sight, so his statement was taken very, very seriously as corroborating evidence for Hazel's story. And I genuinely think that without Meehan's statement,

Hazel would have been suspect number one from the start. I absolutely agree. What's he playing at? No idea. I still don't know by the end of this why that guy Mian came forward and said that he saw Tia. The police searched the house in the early hours of Saturday morning, by which point Tia had been missing for 16 hours. And as we know, the first 24 hours in missing persons cases, especially children, is absolutely crucial. They found Tia's mobile in the house, which seemed to be immediately odd. Why would she leave to go to Croydon to meet someone on her own and leave her phone she's 12 who is she going to meet that's interesting as well I wonder whether he just said oh she went to go and meet a friend or whether he had a name or knew it was someone

she went to school with or whatever or he just says a friend and everyone's like oh okay then yeah exactly but apart from the phone the police found nothing and now with the house having been searched and with hazel and the neighbor's stories seeming to match up the investigation took police away from the house that tia had disappeared from and this story unsurprisingly despite the olympics caught the media's attention it was the front page news for weeks the journalists were camped out at new addington and in all of the footage of the vigils and searches you see for Tia, you see Hazel at the front of every crowd with a fucking candle and a t-shirt with Tia's face printed on it. The kind of anti-social personality disorder

Hazel is clearly affected with meant he would have been loving this. Yes, I'm sure that the stress was there, the stress of being caught, but at the same time, people like him seek publicity. He was getting a kick out of all of the attention. He thought he'd got away with the perfect crime at this point. He thinks he's hiding in plain sight. And he must have been feeling pretty fucking clever at this point. He had managed to get the police off his tail for like a day. But the investigation, which had started to branch out of New Addington, was quickly being pulled back in.

Because the thing is, New Addington was quickly being pulled back in. Because the thing is, New Addington, yes, it is an estate. But it's more like a town. Something like 20,000 people live there. And although it's in the London Borough of Croydon, it's oddly isolated. There are only a few ways in and out of New Addington. And the police had scoured over 800 hours of CCTV footage. And except from the story that Hazel and the sighting by Meehan, the neighbour, Tia was nowhere to be seen. There were 76 CCTV cameras on basically any route

Tia could have taken off the estate and given she wasn't visible on any of them, the police were being pushed back in towards New Addington and so they searched Christine and Hazel's house again. This time the police took a body recovery dog with them in case Tia had been hurt in the house. The dog actually struck in one of the bedrooms, but again, the police didn't find anything else. At this point, it had been four days since Tia had gone missing and because the house kept being searched

and because he was the last person to have seen her, Hazel said he started to feel like a suspect. And so he does the normal thing when one feels like a suspect and called ITV News over to his house to give an interview. He said it was to clear his name and give his side of the story. And this interview, it really is something. I mean, here's just like a

snippet of his bullshit. They asked me stupid questions yesterday. Like, oh, did you do anything? I said, well, no, I bloody didn't. Excuse my language, but no, I didn't. I'd never think of that. All the hearsay in the papers, they've been digging up my previous, which has got absolutely nothing to do with it,

and they've even got that arse about face. Well, if they believe what they read in the papers, they can do whatever they like, cos I know deep down in my heart that tear walks out my arse. It's not about me, it's about tear. This is all about Tia. We've got to get her home, man. We've got to get her home.

I just don't know what more to do. He's so false. And here's the thing. The story he tells of what happened that day, he just gives way too many details, which is a telltale sign of a liar. He talks about how he was hoovering up dog hair and he looked up and saw the timer on the oven said 12 10 and that was the exact moment he heard the door slam as tia

left no one remembers that shit that's like clear sign about do you know who he reminds me of that guy who killed helen bailey yes exactly this is what liars do this is what liars do and there's so many things in this story that really remind me of the Soa murders with Ian Huntley. Details, details, details, details. It's just such a clear sign that that person is lying. And it does the opposite thing to what they think they're doing. If you're giving loads of false details, you're like, oh, this has to prove that I know what I'm talking about. But in real life, no one remembers things that clearly. Keep it vague. If you're going to lie, keep it vague.

Saruti's tips for getting away with it absolutely keep it vague keep it vague how about that better than vague keeping it vague keeping it vague with saruti that's the name of your album right so he's talking about the oven and the door slam and all that bullshit and not only does he tell the story in great detail but also in perfect chronological order and when the reporter goes back to a certain part of the story Hazel gets confused and this is such a sign of a liar because telling it in strict order is the only way the liar can remember all of the lies taking it out of chronological order messes it up in their head and they can't remember what they've said and where they've said it so if you think's lying, it's a really good thing to do to ask them about one specific isolated point in their chronology. And if they're lying, they won't be able to do it. Absolutely. And go backwards, pick a thing and then go backwards

because they will get confused. And that's exactly what this reporter did. And you might be thinking that's very, it's very like intense of an ITV news reporter who's just popped around to do this interview for a few ratings. Well, that reporter happened to be an ex-detective. So it really, really didn't help. It really didn't help Hazel in any way. It did absolutely nothing to help his case. The police see the interview, even though it was done without their knowledge, and it immediately rung alarm bells for them. And towards the end of the interview, Christine walks into the house and is visibly upset. Hazel makes a huge deal of ripping the mic off and chasing after her but you can just tell he's loving this. He's the kind of man who has probably never felt particularly intelligent or successful before and now here he is tricking the world because yes tragically this point, Tia was already dead.

She died that first night she spent with Hazel, and she was closer than anyone could have imagined. Because as he sat in that living room, giving this bullshit interview and comforting his distraught partner, 12-year-old Tia's body was decomposing just 12 feet above their heads in the loft. And if anyone is thinking, maybe it was just an accident and now he doesn't know what to do. He killed her. He hid her body up there. Well, while Tia's body lay in that loft, Hazel was back on the internet hitting up more porn sites looking for more indecent images of children.

I am amazed the police didn't look in the log. They did. The first search. They just didn't see it. So what happens, and this comes out later when they sort of like try to a massive extent cover their asses about what happened, is they searched and the first search, it was done at 4am the day she went, well, the next day after she'd gone missing. And apparently they sent like a rookie cop, someone really inexperienced up there to do the search. Someone with no training in forensic and forensic searching apparently on a missing child's case that's fucking criminal i know and he goes up there and they said genuinely the excuse afterwards is it was really poorly lit and the loft wasn't boarded up properly so he couldn't like he was

scared to walk on the floors and it was dark. Are you fucking kidding me? You're a police officer. Are you, what, scared of the dark? Do you not have a fucking torch? It's dark. And, you know, the journalists say afterwards that when they did eventually find her body, if you'd have gone up into that loft and put your arm out and touched around, her body was that close to the door of the loft. Jesus. And they missed it. And you really have to wonder what Hazel's plan was here. The body is upstairs. The media are surrounding the house and the police are everywhere.

How was he going to get the body out of the house? Or was he just going to leave it there? Like Dory and Corey to just become like person soup. And the pressure was really on now because after the body discovery dog had struck in the bedroom, the police had called for a full forensic search of the house and it was going to happen the next day and at this point I can hear you all screaming but they

searched the house three times and they hadn't found her and as Saru just said there seems to be a lot of excuses made by the police the initial search taking place at 4am the team leading the searches were super inexperienced it was a human error but it is mental that they didn't find Tia on day one. And quite often with police searches, the reason the police have to go into lofts and cellars and bathrooms and stuff is quite often when people are reported missing, they've just fallen over in the house and for whatever reason can't call out or maybe they're unconscious. So this is not something that the police are not doing all the time this is a very common thing the first thing you do in a missing persons case is search the house so it is a glaring error absolutely especially when as a child they said one of the reasons they wanted to search the house in case she was just hiding and it wasn't anything serious

but yeah for whatever reason they searched the house multiple times and didn't find the body. They were frantic, looking for Tia all that time. Her body was fucking decomposing just above their heads in that house. That's insane. And the next morning, Friday, August the 10th, Hazel knew it was all over. He knew there was going to be no escape that day. So when he woke up, he just left. And when Christine woke up, the smell in the house was intense. Tia's body by that point had been decomposing in the loft for a week in August. The police came over for the planned forensic search and immediately asked Christine to leave the house because there was no mistaking that smell and then they searched the house for the fourth time in five days and this time they made a gruesome discovery. They found Tia. And the

police, after finding Tia, told the family that a body had been found in the house. And it was so badly decomposed that they did need to use dental records to confirm that it was her. But literally, who else is it going to be at this point? But the family actually asked them when they say they found a body, who it was. They couldn't even imagine that the entire time Tia had just been above their heads in the same house. And also, by that point you're still in denial. You don't want to believe that she's dead. So even when they say they found a body in the house, they're asking who it is. It's so tragic.

Come on, like, Hazel, he's disappeared. He was the only suspect. And now he was missing. But luckily, a member of the public saw the appeal that the police put out and told them that they'd spotted Hazel. He's so fucking stupid. He's literally in a shop buying vodka. There's CCTV. The member of the public points him out. They call the police. And the police caught him by that evening. That night, the police also arrested Christine. She had been at the house the entire time and they were rightfully suspicious. But the next day, she was released on bail under the condition that she wasn't allowed anywhere near Natalie or her other grandkids. And I can't

imagine what a horrendous time this would have been for Natalie. Not only is your daughter dead, a man you trusted was the one who killed her and now your mum isn't allowed anywhere near you. Natalie watched Tia's body being brought out of her mum's house, live on the news. And in one particular documentary, it's really heartbreaking to watch her sob that the package they bring out wasn't big enough to be her. The decomposition in that loft, in that weather, had been intense, and the police refused to allow Natalie to see Tia's body. With Christine on bail, the police put their full focus on Hazel. Hazel's account kept evolving, but he ended on the story that he and Tia had been playing together that Thursday night. She had then accidentally fallen down the stairs, but

apparently seemed fine, so he didn't worry about it. He said he then got drunk and passed out, and when he came to, he went to check on Tia and she was dead. He said that he then felt incredibly guilty that he hadn't done anything when she had fallen the night before, saying he couldn't face telling Christine that her only granddaughter was dead, he decided to just wrap Tia's body up in a black bed sheet, then wrap her up in black bin liners and tape her up. Who has black bed sheets? Yeah, I know. I was thinking that.

I checked that a couple of times. 100% in a black bed sheet. Very odd. I think the only people who have black bed sheets are teenagers who listen to My Chemical Romance. Like, I don't... Who as an adult is buying black bed sheets? It's it's not a good look but but he does it's very convenient for him he tapes her up just to save everyone the pain of what's happened and he

carried her body up to the loft and tucked her between the rafters and covered the body up with just like random shit in the loft and this is just like again it comes back to that thing of like what the fuck was the plan here when was he gonna get the body out it makes no sense and when the police did finally search the loft they found Tia and they also found small plastic bags inside another black bin bag and these contain the clothes that Tia had been wearing that night and her broken glasses the police obviously didn't believe the story. Even if you discount how mental that behavior would be, the autopsy on Tia's body found no broken bones or any trauma like someone who had died falling or shortly after a fall would have suffered. The post-mortem

instead found that Tia had died from essentially being crushed and suffocated and the medical examiner concluded that Tia had likely died as a result of Hazel lying on top of her and his weight not allowing her to breathe. She was 12 years old. During this forensic search, the police found more evidence. They also found a memory card hidden in a doorframe in the house. It contained deleted and undeleted images and videos. There were pornographic pictures of girls on there

who weren't Tia, but who looked like her. There were also videos of Tia doing things like innocently rubbing moisturiser on her legs. She was a child. She wouldn't have thought anything of Hazel being in the room while she was moisturising her legs, but she clearly had no idea he was filming it. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life.

You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding. And this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy.

You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after

liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich,

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or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. And it's gonna get rough now with the other things that they find on that memory card because jesus you'll remember that we talked about him going into her bedroom and filming her it's so fucking creepy he's like sneaks into her bedroom in the dead of night and films her as she slept and as if that's not creepy enough he also was filming his own shadow standing over her that is so fucking sinister and he clearly loved it because in like the way the police describe it, it's like him zooming in and like focusing in on

his shadow over her bed. Like what a fucking, like that is so predatory. He's so disgusting. And the last photo on the card had been deleted, but obviously the police were able to recover it and it really is just the worst and most disturbing thing. It's a photo of Tia naked on all fours with the photo being taken from behind and she's clearly dead in the picture. A pathologist confirmed that in the picture you can see hypostasis which is the accumulation of fluid or blood in the lower parts of the body after death and what's horrifying is that hypostasias, which is the accumulation of fluid or blood in the lower parts of the body after death. And what's horrifying is that hypostasias doesn't become clearly visible until at least two hours after death. So Hazel killed Tia and then fucking played around with her dead body for hours. And as if this wasn't enough, it wasn't just Tia on the card. Because they found a video of Hazel naked and posing in the same way

he had posed Tia and in one of the videos of this he's gyrating like what the fuck and there were also several deleted photos and videos of him inserting foreign objects into his anus and if you think that's as worse as it can get, you are sadly very wrong. This is the worst bit. This is the worst bit, yeah, so brace yourselves. The police found a vibrator in the house and they sent it for DNA screening.

Horrifyingly, it's Tia's DNA and blood that was found on the vibrator. I really had to take a big break after I read that when we were doing the notes. And what can you even say? I have no words. I have no words. Like I don't think, I don't think there is anything you can say. What the fuck? What the fuck? Because yeah, we haven't, we still have no idea that that bullshit story that he gives is of her falling down the stairs and him doing that is literally all he ever says about this.

We have no idea what really happened that night. No idea. All we have are the images, but she's already dead in those. And then you have this vibrant, like, oh my God, we have no idea. I think from all of the evidence, it's pretty obvious, and I think we can quite confidently theorize that hazel made sexual advances towards tia maybe she's shocked and she threatens to tell everyone what he's done and he panics and he kills her and then he gets his sexual thrills with the body i do wonder though

just because of all of the stuff he does with the body after she's dead i wonder whether that was his plan all along i don't know i don't know. I don't know. I don't know with him. We don't know enough about him. Like, you know, if he'd done this before and that's what he was looking at, because, you know, the porn he was looking at was very much like rape fantasy porn. It wasn't like necrophilia, but, you know, maybe he was just settling for what he could get because he had to kill her to shut her up. I don't know, but he certainly had no problem with playing around with a dead body. Let's just put it like that. And after questioning, the police cleared Christine of any involvement in her granddaughter's death,

and Hazel went on trial in May 2013 at the Old Bailey in London. He, unsurprisingly, pled not guilty. Whilst he was awaiting trial, Hazel was still protesting his innocence, and he wrote a letter to his dad in which he stuck to his story of the accident and kept emphasising that nothing about Tia's death was sexual. He really wants his dad to know that he is not a nonce because his dad was in prison. So obviously the worst thing his son could be was a nonce. It's like being a baby killer in women's prison.

It's like the worst thing. Absolutely. And, you know, I'm sure at this point it's starting to dawn on him where he's heading and what reception he's going to get from the other men in that prison. It's like the worst thing. Absolutely. And, you know, I'm sure at this point it's starting to dawn on him where he's heading and what reception he's going to get from the other men in that prison. And in court, you know, Hazel shows absolutely no emotion. He just sat there cold and blank looking. Not once, even so much, did he glance up at the family. And during the trial, the court was shown the images found on that memory card. And fucking hell, just imagine the family were in there and they saw that last picture of Tia. When that photo was shown, Natalie, her mum, just got up and ran out of court.

And who can fucking blame her? I feel like they shouldn't have even been let into court that day when those images were going to be shown. Like, I know that's not allowed, but fuck's sake. Like, they don't know what they're going to see. I mean, she could have had fair warning. And obviously it's the prosecution's case to present these images. So they're going to be working with the family. So why were they like, maybe you want to step out this morning? Maybe they were told and they were just like, no, I don't know.

And they were subjected to four days of harrowing evidence. And on the fifth day, Hazel was set to take the stand. But it was at this point he decided, finally, to change his plea to guilty. He said it was to spare the family. But it seems a little fucking late for that, don't you think? It's much more likely, I think, that he changed his plea to avoid taking the stand and being cross-examined. And also just, like, desperately trying to get a lighter sentence, I think. Potentially, yeah. He's a coward. He's not smart enough to stand up against cross-examined. And also just like desperately trying to get a lighter sentence, I think. Potentially, yeah. He's a coward. He's not smart enough to stand up against

cross-examination. No, he can't even remember his lies in the right order, let alone like... He wants out of this. But he let them go through four days of hell before he came to that conclusion. And when it came to sentencing, this really is just so fucking crazy to us. The judge said that the level of decomposition that Tia's body had gone through meant that they couldn't confirm Hazel's motivation was sexual. And so the maximum sentence the judge was able to give him was 38 years in prison. So like a life sentence, but with a minimum term of 38 years to be served. I mean, okay, that is a long time and he won't have any chance for parole until he's 75.

But no clear indicator of sexual motive. What the fuck? I mean, I know justice is blind, but for fuck's sake, that's ridiculous. I don't understand how you can look at the evidence that has been presented in this trial. And it's not like there's one or two bits. There are lots and lots and lots of things that not just suggest, like wildly point to this being a sexually motivated murder. And we yell all the time, circumstantial evidence is evidence. This barely even feels like circumstantial evidence. Why is him looking at child pornography, having photos

of her posed in a pornographic state after she's dead, vibrator with her blood and DNA on it? I'm sorry, how is this not sexually motivated? How is this not sexually motivated? I'm baffled by it. I'm honestly baffled by it. Like I can't. And even when you look up his conviction, it just says homicide. That's all he's convicted of. And in case you're wondering, Hazel hasn't turned things around in prison. Last year in Wakefield Prison in the Monster Mansion, Hazel stabbed a fellow inmate and one-eye convicted murderer, Omar Benguit, who is also serving life for the 2002 murder of student Jong-ok Shin. He denies the claims and they actually,

the BBC have just made a documentary on his story called Unsolved, The Man With No Alibi. It's definitely a case we'll cover in the future as a new appeal has just been launched. And this year, two witnesses have come forward to say that the police encouraged them to falsify evidence. Well, Stuart Hazel apparently in a frenzied and unprovoked attack, jumped on Benguit and stabbed him in the face with a shank. So he's not reformed.

No, it wouldn't appear so. The neighbour, remember him, the one who gives the statement saying he saw Tia leaving the house? Meehan, he was charged with wasting police time and sentenced to five months he should be charged with falsifying fucking evidence is what he should be charged with fucking good at least something happened to him because what the fuck his motive was i have absolutely no idea and that's perversion of the course of justice as well like that's a massive thing that he's done i think i mean obviously it's good that he's been yeah i think it can

probably only maybe be perverting course of justice if you like lie about something and it can be proven. And because they can't prove that he didn't see some girl and think it was Tia. So I think maybe the most they could get him on was wasting police time with false claims. And the family are obviously haunted by Tia's final moments. After seeing those images and hearing those autopsy results, how could they not be? Stuart Hazel is a real fucking piece of shit. He had known Tia for 10 years. She'd loved him. He had absolutely no morals because he murdered her and then degraded her after he killed her. She was a 12-year-old girl who called him granddad.

Hideous. What a hideous human being. It really is absolutely horrific. And yeah, definitely not another not very easy case to listen to. But hopefully you're still there. Yeah. Maybe we should do like a nice like theft or something. I don't know. Yeah, a nice little theft. Something, I don't know, like another canoe man.

That's what we need. But sadly not this week. No, it's an important story and you know all of the police fuck-ups in this how just how manipulative hazel was and everything that happened and just the fact that she was in the fucking loft the whole time it's nuts it's an absolute crazy case there are some really good documentaries out there if you guys want any more information so yeah go check them out and we'll post a couple of the interviews with him on the Facebook group as well. So you can check out what a great liar he was.

Yeah, and check us out on social media as well. On Twitter and on Instagram, at RedHandedThePod. You can go to our Patreon page at patreon.com forward slash handed. Slash handed, that's what I just said. That's the thing I said. You can't memorize that URL after all of the times you've said it. I can do all of the spreadsheet, but I can't do patreon.com forward slash red handed for my 30 millionth time of saying it. Anyway, and we just hit a thousand dollars. So we're going to have to start some cogs turning for a live show.

We've got some feelers out. So watch the space for 2019. Great. And we'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. Bye. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame,

fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment,

charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness,

and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.