Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - The Brighton Tragedy Russell Bishop’s Crimes and the Long Road to Justice PART3 #61

Episode Date: November 23, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #truecrime #darkjustice #twistedtruth #criminalminds #realhorrorstories  “The Brighton Tragedy: Russell Bishop’s Crimes and the Long Road to Justice PART 3” explores Bishop’s life after his shocking acquittal. While families grieved and the community feared, Bishop continued to walk free—his predatory behavior escalating into new crimes. This part exposes his disturbing patterns, the missed chances to stop him, and how the shadow of Brighton’s tragedy only grew darker with time.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, truecrime, realhorror, brightontragedy, russellbishop, darkjustice, twistedtruth, hauntingcases, disturbingpatterns, criminalminds, chillinginvestigation, basedontrueevents, tragicfailures, eeriehistory, justicehaunted

The Russell Bishop story, suspicions, lies, and the trial that shook Brighton. If there's one word people used for Russell Bishop back in the 80s, it was ridiculous. The guy was a walking punchline in Brighton. Everyone knew him, and not in the flattering sense, he was the sort of person you laughed at when he walked away, rolling your eyes at his silly little stories. But the joke stopped being funny the moment two little girls, Nicola, Nikki, Fellows and Karen Hadaway. went missing. Suddenly the clown wasn't so harmless anymore. The wildest part. Both families knew Russell. They'd seen him around.

Barry Fellows, Nicky's dad, had even played football with him some weekends. They weren't best mates, but they'd laughed together, kicked a ball around, exchanged casual banter. To Barry, Bishop was just another local lad, nothing more. Like ever, everyone else, he saw him as totally inoffensive. And so, when October 9th rolled around, that fateful day when everything collapsed, no one was looking at Russell. Not one single person was pointing fingers his way. The day the girls disappeared.

Nikki and Karen vanished in broad daylight. At first, their families thought it was just kids being kids. they'd wandered off, gone to a friend's house, stayed out a little too long. But as the hours ticked by, worry turned into panic. Parents and neighbors were shouting their names in the streets, checking parks, knocking on doors. And Russell? He jumped right in. He joined the search. He didn't just sit at home watching the drama unfold. He got himself out there, brought along his dog Misty, and acted like one of the helpers. He was there shoulder to shoulder with the grieving families,

looking under bushes, walking the fields, pretending to care. In fact, he wasn't just tagging along, he was feeding people information. He told them that at around five in the afternoon, he'd spotted the two girls near Wild Park. That little detail made him seem useful, like he was helping build the timeline. And for a while, it worked. He blended in. Nobody thought twice about him being there. He wasn't a suspect, he was part of the community effort to find the missing girls. But then came a strange moment. During one of the

searches, a few people asked him straight up, Russell, what if you're the one who finds them? Wouldn't people think you're a suspect? Instead of laughing it off, Bishop just looked at them with this odd seriousness. That one comment, the way he answered, gave everyone a weird shiver. It didn't prove anything, but it planted the tiniest seed of doubt. The Discovery in the Park October 10th, the following day, is when the nightmare turned real. Two 18-year-old boys stumbled upon the bodies of Nikki and Karen in Wild Park. The scene was brutal, heartbreaking, Unforgettable.

And guess who was right there with them? Russell Bishop The boys later swore that they never touched the girls, never went too close. They spotted the bodies, realized immediately what they'd found, and called the police. But when officers arrived, Russell blurted something that would haunt him forever. He admitted that he had touched the bodies. He claimed it was out of concern. He said he bent down, checked their necks for a pulse, but found none.

On paper, that might sound like a good Samaritan move, but in the middle of a murder investigation, it was the worst thing he could have said. Because if no one else had gone near the girls, how come he had? If everyone else froze in shock, how was he so casual about putting his hands on the evidence? That one detail became a turning point. Bishop wasn't just another searcher anymore. He was suddenly standing under a much brighter spotlight. The blue sweatshirt Fast forward a few weeks.

October 31st, Halloween. The police showed up at Bishop's house, but it wasn't him who answered the door, it was his partner, Jennifer. The officers sat her down, asked her a few routine questions, and then pulled out the bombshell, a blue sweatshirt inside an evidence bag. This wasn't just any hoodie. This was the one found dumped on a path near the place where Nikki and Karen's bodies had been discovered. They asked Jennifer if she recognized it.

Without hesitation, she said, that's Russell's. 100%. She was sure. She even remembered a specific red stain on one of the sleeves, something he'd got it. while fixing a car. To her, it was obvious. That was his jumper. End of story.

The police didn't say much in response. They didn't tell her where exactly it was found. They just nodded, packed it back up, and walked out. Their next stop. Russell Bishop The interrogation The cops wasted no time arresting him. At the station, they wanted one thing, his timeline.

Where had he been on October 9th? What exactly had he been doing? Russell laid it out like this. Around 5 p.m., he said he went for a walk and saw the two girls in Wild Park, chatting with the parkkeeper. At 5.40, he claimed he went off to buy some weed. By 6.30, according to him, he was home. He even said a couple had stopped by to sell him insurance around that time, which could prove

he was in the house. At first glance, it sounded tight. Almost too tight. The police checked it out. Yes, he had bought weed at 5.40, witnesses confirmed that. But the insurance story. That fell apart fast. When investigators tracked down the insurance reps, they said they did visit Bishop's house,

but it was 4.30, not 6.30. And nobody had been home then. That meant his whole alibi was wobbling. The odd behavior. Russell kept insisting he'd tried to help. He said he cared about the girls, that he'd gone out searching with Misty the dog, and that he'd even been the one to check their pulses after they were found. He described how their bodies were positioned, together, one resting on the other, with blood

in Nicky's mouth. But here's the thing, the police found that too detailed. Almost rehearsed. Witnesses said nobody had been that close. The two teenage boys swore Bishop never leaned over the bodies. Officers on the scene didn't remember him crouching down either. So how did he know all those details? On top of that, his demeanor stood out.

The 18-year-olds who discovered the bodies were devastated, pale, heads down, unable to even look at the girls. Russell, on the other hand, was whistling. He was singing under his breath. He looked relaxed, almost cheerful. It was creepy, disturbing, and it only deepened suspicions. Jennifer changes her story. Just when police thought they had him cornered, everything flipped.

On November 1st, Jennifer marched into the station and retracted her entire statement. That blue sweatshirt. She said she didn't recognize it after all. She'd never seen it before. The red stain. She swore she'd never mentioned it. As far as she was concerned, the hoodie had nothing to do with Russell. And, just to make it clear, she told officers that if the case went to trial, she wouldn't say anything against her partner.

For the investigation, this was a massive blow. That one piece of evidence, the jumper, was slipping through their fingers. Russell's strange visit. Soon after, Russell was released on bail. And what did he do? He went straight to the fellow's family home, the grieving parents of Nicky. He knocked on their door, stood in their living room, and repeated over and over that he was innocent.

He didn't ask how they were coping. He didn't offer condolences. He didn't show compassion. It was all about him, his name, his reputation, his insistence that he wasn't the killer. The fellow's family was stunned. To them, it felt selfish, invasive, even cruel. The formal arrest By December 3rd, Bishop was back in custody, this time formally charged with the murders.

The case was heading to trial, but the road there was absolute chaos. Jennifer wasn't done flipping sides. On January 2nd, she went public with the press, declaring that the police had made the whole sweatshirt story up. She swore she'd never identified it, never mentioned stains, never said it belonged to Russell. In her version, the authorities were railroading an innocent man. Suddenly the public wasn't sure what to believe. The trial. November 1987. Court was in session. Jennifer took the stand and doubled down, she didn't know the jumper, never identified it, never talked about stains. The defense hammered that point, painting Bishop as a

victim of sloppy police work. And to be fair, the cops had messed up. The investigation was full of holes. They never took the girl's body temperatures, so the exact time of death couldn't be pinned down. Without that, Russell's timeline couldn't be properly tested. The strangulation marks weren't measured against hand sizes. The blood found on the girls' underwear. Never analyzed.

It was a disaster. So, on December 10, 1987, Russell Bishop walked free. Acquitted. The aftermath. On the outside, though, he wasn't welcomed as a hero. People avoided him. Crossed the street when they saw him. He was a pariah.

And so, Bishop hatched a twist. twisted plan to clean up his image. First stop. The tabloid news of the world. He sold his story for 15,000 pounds. In the article, he cast himself as the victim of a botched police case. But he didn't stop there. He went nuclear, pointing the finger directly at Barry Fellows, Nicky's father.

Bishop told the paper that Nikki had supposedly accused her own dad of abuse. That she'd told other kids, that there was a family secret, that Barry had never been investigated. It was a total lie. But lies are dangerous. The story shredded Barry's life. Neighbors spat at him. People painted his house, hurled insults, issued death threats. He was destroyed, emotionally and socially. And after a full investigation, police confirmed.

what Barry already knew, none of it was true. He had never harmed his daughter. But by then, the damage was done. Bishop was playing the victim card, and Barry was the collateral. The public campaign. On August 19, 1989, a march was organized to demand justice for Nikki and Karen. And guess who showed up at the front, holding banners, wearing a vest, smiling for the camera. cameras. Russell Bishop himself. He told reporters he wanted the case reopened, that he wanted justice, that the real killer should pay.

It was pure theater, another performance to make himself look like a wronged man. And the madness didn't stop there. The closing of the case. On February 2, 1990, Bishop received an official letter, the case of Nicky and Karen was being closed. No further action. Done and dusted. And then, just two days later, another little girl was attacked. To be continued.