DNA Breakthrough and Final Legal Fallout

We'll get back to your true crime story in just a moment This podcast is part of the always True Cime netwk home of thousands of episodes exploring gripping true crime cases If you're looking for somewhere to start, check out our recent investigative series, Project Mind Control It uncovers a chilling chapter in history, examining the disturbing experiments carried out on vulnerable people in an attempt to erase and reprogram the human mind featuring testimony from one of the last known survivors of a notorious Canadian psychiatric institution powerful story that's as shocking as it is important. Check out the show and more at alwaysTrue crime. com One day AI agents took over my work Absolutely love Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders, agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday dot comot so they see the full picture, My work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, whichich means I'm free to focus on the big stuff, knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work Create your own AI agent in mininutes on Monday. com In february nineteen eighty eight, a twenty year old woman was out working in Cardiff's Dockland's district an area known for its nightlife, poverty and after dark trade Like many women trying to survive on the margins of society, she was out that night hoping to earn money. and make it home safely by morning Instead, she was subjected to a frenzied and brutal attack. By sunrise, Lynette White was dead and the city was left horrified by the violence of her final moments Police came under immense pressure to find the killer quickly. But in the rush for answers, detectives focused on a group of local men whose lives would soon be torn apart. Confessions were disputed, evidence was challenged, and allegations of police misconduct began to surface Yet, despite mounting concerns, three men were convicted and imprisoned for a crime they did not commit while the real killer remained free for years In this episode of British Murders withith Stuart Blues, we're discussing the murder of Lynette White One of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in British legal history It's a case involving corruption claims, false confessions, shattered lives, and the long fight to uncover the truth It's the story of a young woman who lost her life and how justice was delayed for far too long. Before we begin, please take a moment to follow the show on your podcast platform of choice, subscribe on YouTube. It's a free and simple way to support British murders and helps the podcast reach a wider audience Reviews and ratings are always hugely appreciated, and if you want ad free episodes, early access and a range of exclusive content, you can support the show at patreon d. com forward slash British Murders. This is without question, one of the most complex cases I've ever covered on this podcast As always, I've done my best to present it in the clearest, most straightforward way possible, so it's as easy to follow as it can be We'll start by introducing the person whose life was taken at such a young age and whom the story essentially revolves around Lynette Deborah White was born on july fifth, nineteen sixty seven in Wal's capital city of Cardiff, and it's there where she grew up and lived Her childhood was a rather difficult one, as her mum left home when she was a young child The result of that meant Lynette stayed with her dad Terate for a period of time But even that wasn't without its own frustrations Perry earned a living working as a lorry driver And given he now had sole custody at Lanette, she was forced to accompany him on the road sleeping in the truck and traveling all over the country Lenna also went through a period of living with her grandma until she passed away After that, she had to look for her own place to live I think it's fair to say she had an unstable childhood and early life Old school friend Ovlnette said she was a very shy girl and never got in any trouble She was seemingly a lovely person who could do no wrong. Another friend of hers said Lenette was a small girl, very petite and that she liked buying clothes on the rare chance she was able to get them She was also a keen dancer who had a passion for music She enjoyed letting herself go and having fun East Cardiff District of Rumneet was where Lette specifically grew up And by all accounts, it was a lovely place to live in Locals were the s who felt comfortable leaving the doors unlocked or even open because everyone knew each other. And crime was not something that typically occurred there After leaving school, Lenette left home shortly after turning eighteen, moving to the Butttown area south of the city center It's also known as the Ds and Tiger Bear The town has a bit of a reputation for being a fairly rough area. with many online commentators saying it's not somewhere you'd want to walk alone at night I've never been, so I have no idea if that's accurate or not ough a lot of similar areas with a so called bad rep are often nowhere near as bad as people who've never lived there or even near there make out Either way, Linette eventually ended up earning around a one hundred pounds per night in the area as a sex worker orts suggesting she did so to support her boyfriend's cocaine addiction. Stephven Miller, who had the nickname pineapple, was the boyfriend in question, and he lived with Lenette in a flat located on Dorset Street over in Grangeown, that's a mile or so northwest of Buttown Reports state that Stephven was not a fan of Lynette taking on such work and continually attempted to get her to stop Whereas others categorically state that he was her pimp who she feared and that he had been seen punching and kicking her According to Stephven, the couple would erupt into rs about her sex work, and he even offered to sit around the corner from where she worked to make sure she was safe Lynette supposedly argued that it would look like he was her pimp and deter any potential customers as well as attracting the police While out working, she seemingly kept herself rather than ingratiating with fellow sex workers, with some of the other women recalling how she did what she needed to do and then headed straight home toown commommunity knew Lynette as a lovable and gentle character with one of her male friends saying she was like one of the boys He further added that she had hopes and dreams like anyone else and didn't plan on doing sex web forever She had aspirations of becoming a doctor, he said, and was only doing sex work to get back on her feet But others said she had an aura of sadness about her with a former cab driver at the time saying it was because she lived in fear of Stehven who the driver said took all her money to pay for his drug habits and turned her from a bubbly young woman into a shell of her former self Our main timeline started on february ninth, nineteen eighty eight because it was on that day that Lynette suddenly went missing. She didn't contact Stehven or her other known associates for the next five days, which was a massive worry The alarm was raised by a friend of hers due to the lack of contact But neither her whereabouts during that period nor the reason for her disappearance have ever been established The next crucial day in the story is Sunday, february fourteenth, nineteen eighty eight Valentine's Day On that day, Lnnette was using a flat number seven James Street in Buttetown's Red light district, which a friend and fellow sex worker called Leanne Vilde had allowed her to see clients in The flat was based above a betting shop And its location did not please one particular client who had paid Lenette thirty pounds upfront before changing his mind after seeing the place and demanding a refund We'll talk more about him later Now because Lynette had the only set of keys to the flat, it meant that the friend who loaned them to her could not access it herself. And given Lenette had seemingly disappeared for the past five days, there was no way Lene could access the flat Despite gaining access to the building's main door thanks to the efforts of another resident, there was still no access to the actual flat So Leanne, as well as a taxi driver, headed to Buttown pololice station. to not only explain the situation, but to report Lanette as missing A couple of officers from the station then accompanied them back to the flat Because as it happens, Lnette was wanted by the police anyway due to no showing a court case she was due to be a witness at. The officers forced entry to the flat shortly after nine PM and was soon met with the horrifying discovery of Lenette's badly injured body Her wristwatch had stopped working at around one forty five AM, which police considered to be the likely time of her death This was an extremely violent one which saw Anet suffering sixty nine wounds in total. including stab wounds to her face, neck, chest, stomach, breasts, wrists and thighs. Her throat had also been slit so deeply Bones of her spine were exposed and her left breast was almost completely severed. This seemed to be an incredibly personal attack, and despite Lyette's best attempts to defend herself, as confirmed by her many defensive wounds She was no much for a killer The forensic pathologist who conducted the postmortem said she'd been subjected to a mutilating attack with sexual overtones And although Lyninetette was fully clothed except for one shoe, the motive was thought to be sexual The murder weapon was believed to be a six inch blade, but it was never recovered by the police Pressed they called the attack a vicious frenzy adding that it was carried out by a sadistic person using a sharp instrument A day after Lyette's body was found, officers turned to a close circle of friends And when it came to a boyfriend, Stephen Miller, he quickly became their first suspect and was picked up for questioning Deven was a young black man who'd been in a relationship with Lynette for about two years at the time of her murder The key fact about his personal background and one that became central to the miscarriage of justice was his intellectual vulnerability Miller was said to have a mental age of eleven, which made him particularly susceptible to the pressured interrogation he was later subjected to His friend said he was mellow and slightly immature for his edge. And when he was arrested, Stephven said he understood why they took him in for questioning because he was Lennette's partner He added that he believed the police thought he was pimping off her And in his own words admitted that he was a hustler who sold weed and took cocaine Though he insisted that did not mean he was a murderer Police took away the clothes Steen was wearing on the night Lyette was murdered Yet after extensive testing, there was nothing that linked him to the crime And he also had an alibi regarding his whereabouts on the night in question, which was corroborated Harry, a former detective Chief inspector for South Wales Police, said they were satisfied with the explanations Stephen gave at the time And he was therefore no longer considered a suspect. With that, it was released from custody and told to ask around for information task he agreed to A week or so after the murder, information stemming from witness testimony was coming in at a rapid pace One woman reported seeing a man wearing jeans sitting outside the flat at James Street who appeared to be bleeding Several other witnesses described seeing a white man near the murder scene with blood on his hands Another witness said she saw a man out of breath and with a bandage wound on his hand This man, who I must reiterate was described as being white by multiple witnesses then became the police's main suspect They handed out a sketch artist's rendition of what they believed it looked like and proceeded to massively ramp up the investigation which included the sketch being used on an episode of Crime Watch They began to conduct house to house inquiries and were quoted at the time saying they were keeping an open mind as to the motive But as the anxiety in the community began to increase, so did the pressure on the police They had organized forensic testing to take place on Lynette's blood and a minor amount of blood from someone else left at the murder scene Police were also trying to get assistance from the community. but they struggled get Lnette's previous clients to open up. becausecause it was a rather sensitive topic which many found embarrassing to discuss Two months after she was killed on april seventeenth, nineteen eighty eight Lynette's family and friends gathered to pay their last respects to the woman they loved Shortly after, in the spring of that year, seven black men were arrested in connection with Linette's murder. Qestioned and blood tested again samples recovered from the scene But none of the samples matched, leaving the police with no serious leads Police pursued a theory that a group of local men were responsible There were five names in particular which caught their attention. The first being Stephven Miller, who we've discussed already Next was Yusef Abdalahi, who was born in nineteen sixty one and grew up in Butttown Since the nineteenth century, Buttown had been home to families descended from Somalia, Yemen, West Africa, the Caribbean, and Malta Most of whom were seafarers who had come to work at the docks And the name Abdullahi placed Ysef square it within the older Somali Welsh tradition of Dockland Cardiff He came from a large extended family rooted in Buttown's tightly packed streets, and in later life was himself the head of a household which included older sons, a common law partner and two younger children born after his release from prison familyamily, Butte toown, and the sea were the three constants in his life H personersality was made up of a kind of quiet dignity with a dry, defiant sense of humour. Those who knew him described a man who was mild rather than showy ate loyal and more comfortable offering quiet support than outlandish speeches. Friends recalled him as being a dependable, unassuming presence in the Buttown community long before his arrest. a young man who was respected for his work on the ships, for keeping out of trouble and for the way he looked after his relatives and neighbours. By the time of Lynette's murder, Yusesef had built his working life around Cardiff's diminishing but still active docks, earning a living as a merchant seaman Cruci at the moment Lynette was being killed, Ysef was not even in Cardiff She was on board the MV Coral Sea, a cargo ship berthed roughly eight miles away in Barry docks On may nineteenth, nineteen eighty eight, Detective Inspector Richard Powell took a formal statement from USEF, in which he explained about his duties on the ship and the timings that placed him away from the crime scene alibi which under any remotely competent investigation should have been decisive Earlier that day, while intoxicated, Leanne Vilde, who I mentioned earlier, had named Stehen and Ysef as being Lynette's killers in front of several other sex workers Hence, the police went on to arrest and take a statement from UseEf, as I've just said But Leanne later told a sergeant that same evening that it had been a false accusation saying it was the result of drunken rambling and that she had heard the names from DI Powell when he had questioned her earlier in the day Bpite her retraction, she went on to give evidence against the accused men at the trial We're going to take a quick break here. When we return, I'll introduce it to the next person arrested by the police See you soon Monday. com AI agents took over my work. and I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. I stay in the loop only when it matters. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday d. com Welcome back The next person arrested was Tony Parris, who also grew up in Buttetown Tony had a brother and sister who were frequently mentioned in the family's public statements during and after the case They were a close knit Cardiff family who sat through long prison visits, hearings and eventually campaign meetings together Tony was living an unremarkable working class life on the edge of Tiger Bear at the time when it was killed and he wasn't exactly a stranger to the local police Even so, he never did anything as serious as murder. Court records and press accounts describe a brief history of petty crimes such as shoplifting or a driving fine is striking is what the police themselves said about his character Contemporary and later reports noted that Tony was known to the police as being notoriously non violent whichich is precisely the opposite of the profile a reasonable detective would look for in the man who had stabbed a young woman to death more than fifty times At the time of the murder, when the story broke on the news, Tony said to his partner, Whoever they get for this is in big trouble Little did he know that he himself would soon be accused of committing said crime Tony was also already a dad himself before he was arrested, with reports stating he had two children from the earlier part of his life He was the kind of guy whose life would ordinarily never have touched a murder investigation in any way Ronnie Actter is the next person I need to introduce He also lived in Buttetown, and at the time of Lennette's murder, Ronnie was the boyfriend of Lene Vildaire person whose flat let was killed in and who'd leent the keys to it personal link was part of what pulled Ronnet into the investigation As with Tony, Ronnie was already known to the police but once more, only for petty crimes John Actor was also one of the arrested men and based on his surname, I'm sure you've clocked that yes he was related to Ronnie. cousins They grew up together within the same community And John was a big personality in the area He stood six feet plus and was an ex rugby player with a build to match. He worked as a debt collector. And consequently, the police were always looking for an excuse to arrest him because they saw him as a gangster To their frustration, John would always walk free after being taken in. Police hated him, a former officer said adding that they were very keen to put him down for Leninetette's murder timeim he had just had a baby. But even so, DCI John Williams, who led the murder investigation said I don't think anyone in the Dockland will shed any tears if or when he is put away Fast forward to november nineteen eighty eight, and a woman called Violet Periam who worked as a receptionist at the Butte Town Health Center, came forward as a possible witness Violet claimed that at around one AM on february fourteenth, remember that Lynette's watch stopped at one forty five AM. drove past the flat and remembered she'd seen four men outside on the street Despite seeing them from behind, she identified one of them as Mbe being John Actor and she said she recognized him from the health center. Then in a case which was unrelated, the police took blood samples from Angela Sayor. I may be saying that wrong. P S A I L A. I think it's Silor She was another sex worker and was told her sample matched a blood sample recovered from the flat at James Street Wellen that was murdered The sample was, in fact, type AB the same as hers But it wasn't hers The type also has a connection to someone referred to only as Mr. X, who was seemingly a man who lived close to James Street and was known to be a convicted sex offender with a plethora of mental health issues. DNA analysis would later rule him out as a suspect, however And even though there was no match with Angela's blood brought in for an interview regardless. She lived in a flat at St.t Claair's Ct, which had an unrestricted view of the front of number seven James Street and was described later as one of the most vulnerable members of Cardiff Society She had an IQ of just fifty five, around half the average of one hundred. indicating she was an individual with learning disabilities. She shared her flat at one point with her friend, the aforementioned Leanne Vilde who was eventually asked to leave by Angela due to the near daily police visit she was receiving during the murder investigation Leanne later claimed that Detective Inspector Graham Mauncher had threatened her with prosecution for the murder telling her that her young son would be orphaned if she kept saying she knew nothing Ultimately, she said she had no choice but to provide an account of what happened, regardless of whether it was a lie or not. Leanne was a single parent with substance abuse problems who was later described like the other key witnesses, as being among Cardo's most vulnerable people. After being kicked out of Angela's place, Leanne began lodging with another couple who also complained that the police were calling aroundound to speak with her on an almost daily basis By that point, detectives had taken over three thousand statements, which is quite an achievement given the people of Buttown didn't want to tell the police much about their lives They feared it would be used against them Sth even claimed that at that time, police cars would speed by shouting things at people, such as the N word or forgive me and remember I'm quoting Back Bastard which understandably created a hostile relationship between the civilians and the police There was apparently a huge amount of racism from the police aimed at the locals and it bred not only fear, but a strong disliking of those in authoritity A pololice station in Butte toown was known as the Wild West at the time Very rough and redady DCI Williams only showing his face when a serious crime had been committed. The officers seemingly had little sympathy for sex workers who were frequently physically assaulted by their clients And the word misogyny was thrown around in many of the resources used to research this case One former officer said that if someone suggested a name on a gut feeling for a crime, the officers would go and arrest them arguing that ninety percent of the time Prob right In those days, it was a case of arresting someone first, then trying to build the evidence around the case A series of arrests then took place on december seventh, nineteen eighty eight, including those of Stephen Miller, Yussef Abdullahi, and Ronnie Ake John Actor and Tony Parris were then arrested two days later, and the five of them were interviewed in connection with Lenette's murder Stephven, who we already know is a vulnerable man, was interviewed nineteen times over a four day period, totaling roughly thirteen hours He was denied access to a solicitor during his first two interviews Crucially denied murdering Lenette three hundred and seven times before eventually producing a confession In another room, the police reportedly told Usef You're a disgrace to the human race Tony's interview included the police scaring him, slamming the rans on the table and shouting They gave very graphic details about Lynette's body in the post mortem and even showed photos of her, which traumatised him greatly Yet all five men provided alibis for the night of the murder leaving the police frustrated once more attempting to mold evidence around the story they wished to pedal, the police's belief of events was as follows The men went to the flat and killed Lynette to teach her a lesson After four days of been held, the men were under very intense circumstances couldn't sleep or eat properly and the interviewing officers would manipulate the men against each other, saying others had placed the blame on them. Yusf continued his alibi that he was on the cargo ship working at the time of the murder And he said that more than five hundred times, according to some reports All the while the officers were telling him what they believed he had done as per the accounts of Angela and Leanne Police focused more on Stehven because they thought he was the closest to Lnette, so therefore he would know more , the officer said, You hold the key to this inquiry now going to have the truth out of you Stehven then shockingly confessed to the murder after days of interrogation He said on the tape, I think Lon came in She started shouting She said something to someone She ran out and after that all I can tell is Tony went fucking crazy man So I started stubbing, do know what I mean He also implicated the others in the killing So with that, the five men. Stehven, Yusesef, Tony, Ronnie and John were formally charged with Lennette's murder. evenven though none of the forensic evidence from the scene matched any of them. They were held on remand for nearly a year before their trial finally commenced in october nineteen eighty nine at Swansea Crown Court before Mr. Justice McNeil In his opening speech, case prosecutor David Elfa set the scene of what the prosecution believed happened This was the first chance for them to swear the juror. David was perpetuating a myth about Butttown people who weren't aware of their own racism. selling the defendants to the jury as animals He said the town they came from was an upside down place The judge had already told the court You're going see people that come from a totally different background adding that people from the Dockland carry knives just as casually as you'd carry your coat all in an attempt to try and paint a picture of people who were violent criminals It's worth noting here for some historical context that in Swansee, many people hadn't seen anyone who was black before at that time. The population was two hundred and twenty two thousand one hundred and ninety two, with only four hundred and forty six black people contributing to that total figure As the trial pressed on, the case was essentially built on nothing but hearsay, as none of the men were in the area at the time of the murder The witnesses' stories did not add up But any inconsistencies were put down to the length of time passed since the murder occurred Leanne and Angela gave evidence, with the latter being incredibly racist in the terminology she used to describe the five defendants I'm not prepared to repeat what she said in this podcast In a strange twist, Mr. Justice McNeil suddenly passed away after a heart attack in february nineteen ninety which led to the trial being stopped believed at that point, based on the lack of evidence, the five men would likely have been freed as the trial was approaching its conclusion and was going in their favour But three months later, the retrial opened, once more at Swansee Crown Court on may fourteenth This time before Mr. Justice Leonard Prosecutors made different statements to the first trial and change their story and their facts to undermine the evidence Angela now told the court her account was not true and was just what she believed the police wanted her to say She said she was scared of the police and what they would do to her if she didn't comply Police interviews with Stehven were shown to a forensic psychologist who gave evidence for the defense They noted that the interviews sometimes had a calm, friendly police presence, but it was all a manipulation tactic The officers soon escalated to shouting at Stehven, scaring him in the process. Eventually they would send nicer police back in suchuch was the stereotypical good cop bad cop routine And there were the officers Stephen confessed to because he felt safer with them The psychologist said in court There is no doubt in my mind that bearing in mind the type, intensity and duration of the police pressure The reliability of the content of the interviews must be considered to be unsafe and unsatisfactory. For his testimony, the prosecution told him he was in cloud Cuckooand which he took great offense to. On november twentieth, nineteen ninety, DCI John Williams retired And just two days later, The jury found Stephven, Yusef Antoni guilty of Lenette's murder leading to them becoming known forever Cut if three Cousins, Ronnie and John were each found not guilty who were free to leave the court while the others were taken into custody Tony and Ysef's brothers started the wrongful conviction campaign after the verdicts and pushed for media attention to highlight what was a massive miscarriage of justice Journalists took their side, arguing that there was enough doubt to not put those three men in prison. Keal against the Cardiff Th sentences would be heard in december nineteen ninety two But just weeks before it was due to commence Tony Parris's dadght Arthur, who was a central figure in his life passed away age sixty five Tony was escorted from prison in the company of an officer so he could say some form of a goodbye to his dad in the hospital but he was not allowed to attend the funeral. Tony firmly believed that the stress of him being in prison is what led to his dad's death As the appeal date approached, H human rights Barrister Michael Mansfield QC agreed to take the case, going through all of the tapes in preparation for the hearing Mle said There was no scientific evidence that connected Miller or any of the others to the scene, and there's plenty left there Blood all over the place Listening to the tapes, I was so shocked by what I heard I thought that I can't really believe any appeal court judge would listen to this and not be moved and not be horrified by what they hear. The hearing took place across four days that December, with the panel being led by then Lord Chief Justice Lord Taylor of Gosworth It began with Michael presenting those controversial interview tapes after Lord Taylor ruled they could be played in the courtroom. Ct, which was so silent you could hear a pin drop, heard Stephen confess. But only after hearing him deny having anything to do with Lenette's murder over three hundred times first It clear that the officers had pressured him into confessing to a crime he did not commit On december tenth, Lord Taylor had heard enough The Ct of appppeal proceeded to quash the convictions of Stephen, Yusesef and Tonck It's heartbreaking to hear not only because they were wrongly convicted, but because of what happened to Tony's dad. Taylor summed up by saying the police had bullied and hectred Stehen during what was a traravest day of an interview He added the short of physical violence It was hard to conceive of a more hostile and intimidating approach by officers to a suspect The confession was ruled as being irrelevant and was ultimately rejected as evidence The three men were now finally free after spending four years behind bars for a crime they had nothing to do with Youf said We were just used as scapegoats for the police who couldn't find anything else or anybody else to pin this crime on. added to that saying Police can't do their job Something's got to be done about it t in liberty with innocent people's lives Former DCI John Williams then said I think that the officers were there to get the truth, and that is what their duty was In some instances, some people have to be shouted at. People have to be spoken to quietly That is the way interviews go Ysef returned to Buttetown and over time settled back into domestic life with his common law partner The time spent in prison left a permanent mark on him He was subsequently diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and was hospitalized after a nervous breakdown His solicitor later recalled that Yusef found it difficult to come to terms with life even after he was formally cleared of any wrongdoing He spent much of the nineteen nineties and two thousands as a visible campaigner, lobbying persistently for the Lenette White murder to be re invvestigated He also spoke publicly on behalf of others who had suffered miscarriages of justice Yusef passed away in january twenty eleven, dying of a perforated ulcer at the age of forty nine. His funeral was held at Saint Mary's Church on Buttee Street to the spiritual heart of Buttetown on february first, twenty eleven with intermment at Western Cemetery Friends, family, former co deffendants, fellow campaigners, and members of the broader cardive community gathered to pay their respects to a man who had spent the second half of his life refusing to accept that the wrongs done to him and his co accused should be quietly forgotten We're gonna to take one final break here on the other side, we'll discuss the effect being falsely imprisoned had on Tony Paris Don't go anywhere Monday AI agents took over my work. I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders, agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Mondayot comot so they see the full picture. My work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, whichich means I'm free to focus on the big stuff, knowing everything runs smoothly in the background It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday. comot Welcome back. Let's now carry on with the final part of this episode The four years Tony spent in prison were, by every account, the defining trauma of his life He would later tell his daughter that he still remembered vividly watching other men hang themselves on the wing He said he simply could not believe he was being held among murderers and pedophiles when he was innocent adding that the sheer cognitive dissonance of it never fully went away But freedom, for him, did not mean rejoining the noisy world Closest to him said that Tony Paris who came out of prison in december nineteen ninety two was not the same man who hadd been taken from Buttown four years earlier He had also developed what his family and supporters described as post traumatic stress disorder Now he dealt with it in the most private way possible by deliberately scaling down the size of his social circle He didn't like being around people afterwards, according to his daughter and friends, and kept himself largely to family and a small group of very close friends Tony passed away on september eleventh, twenty twenty two, aged sixty five after a period of ill health His daughter announced the news on Twitter as it was known at the time, and tributes flooded in from campaigners and lawyers, But toown community figures feellllow exonorees and eventually from Parliament itself Early day motion called Remembering Tony Paris was tabled on september twenty third, twenty twenty two to mourn and place on the House of Commons record, The Loss and Tony's fight for justice As for Miller As of twenty twenty one, he is still alive ough he opened up in an interview that year, saying he's unable to go back to Cardiff more than three decades later But if the card I three were innocent and got released Who on earth killed Lynette? I hear you ask We must go back to nineteen ninety two after the three men's release to find out Initially the police refused to reopen the investigation, with many believing the reason was because they still believe Stehven, Yusef and Tony were guilty For years afterwards, suspicion didn't just go away and there was no attempt to find out who really killed Lynette Even Terra, Lynette's dad, was convinced the Cardiff III had killed his daughter person responsible for everything we've just been through was none other than that client of Lenette's who paid a thirty pounds in advance then demanded to give it back to him after seeing the flat at James Street on Valentine's Day, nineteen eighty eight His name Jeffrey Charles Gf Gafor was born in Cardiff on may twenty ninth, nineteen sixty five and was the youngest of five children to his parents Rs Abdull and Jeanette Gfor. His Dad was of South Asian descent, whereas his mother was Welsh And for a living, the couple were traders, running a food shop, which would become the backdrop to Gufae's quiet adolescence and early adulthood The family home was in the heart of the working class cardiff districts of Splot and later Ee Parts of the city were dominated in Gafo's childhood years by steelworks, terraced streets tight knitch immigrant communities Contemporary newspaper profiles described his childhood as unremarkable in the politest way possible No obvious trauma, no trouble with the authorities No warning signs of what he was capable of He was, however, already showing the introverted streak which would define him. And he was often referred to asfore the Loner is Former schoolmates and relatives told reporters after his conviction that even as a boy, he had very few friends, and that he quite literally had none at all as an adult. At the age of seventeen and the early nineteen eighties, Gafour joined a youth opportunity program in Butttown which was a Thatcher era government training scheme for unemployed school leavers placement there gave him his first real taste of working life beyond the family' shop while also placing him physically in the very streets where five years later, he would meet Lynette White Throughout his late teens and early twenties, Gfour revolved around his parents shop with him seemingly working in various roles, including behind the counter, stacking shelves and doing the ordinary chores of a small grocer's His sister, the relative who spoke most openly to journalists after his arrest summed up his lifestyle with unusual bluntness She said it didn't drink, smoke, or do drugs And no one in the family could recall him ever having a girlfriend At the time of Lennette's murder, a twenty two year old Gfour was still living at his parents' home, quietly filling his days with shop work, television and books One of the stranger moments in his early working life was a spell in Germany The exact dates of his stay are not widely reported, but it is known that it was during his twenties Coeagues there reportedly teased him mercilessly about pornography, which he found so genuinely upsetting that he would become visibly offended and annoyed whenever the subject arose He never sought female company or formed a romantic relationship on the trip turned to Cardiff apparently as solitary as when he'd left Whatever that period on the continent says about is inner life It fits the picture that his relatives painted that of an intelligent but emotionally stunted young man who seemed to recoil from intimacy Gafaort's fragile connection to his family broke in nineteen ninety three when his mum died After her death, he left the family home and steadily drifted apart from his siblings Time it lived in the back of a van that in a succession of small flats around Cardiff and in the South Wales Valleys. His work kept pace with his lifestyle F From the early nineties onwards, it took a string of jobs as a security guard, often working twelve hour shifts overnight on building sites, car parks, and industrial premises The work gave him exactly what he wanted Long stretches of solitude minimal contact with a public time to be left alone with his books and his thoughts. It was during that security guard period in july nineteen ninety two or a criminal conviction prior to the murder In a minor dispute during a shift, he hit a fellow security guard over the head with half a brick He pleaded guilty at Cardiff Crown Court to unlawful wounding and was ordered to complete eighty hours community service The inquiry into Lnette's murder was then reopened in nineteen ninety five in light of advances in forensic science which coincided with the introduction of the UK's national DNA database that same year. Bill Hacking, a former head of Lancashire Police CID, was appointed as the reviewing officer. But the re invvestigation quickly hit a stumbling block because South Wales pololice insisted on testing every available sample. Early multiplex methods, wasting precious DNA in the process By the turn of the millennium, a fresh forensic review was carried out, and there was plenty of evidence to go through There were nine hundred pieces in turtle. And on a single weekend, the assigned officers went through all of them Sadly, none of it led to anything Police went back to the flat to picture what it was like on the night of her murder. And while looking through photos of the scene, they spotted a cellophane cigarette wrapper on the floor which hadn't yet been tested for DNA On that wrapper was foreign blood, i. e., it didn't belong to Lette So therefore, it likely belonged to a killer pololice consequently referred to the person that DNA belonged to The cellophan month A skirting board was taken from the flat and examined by forensic Alliance As Luck would have it, the board hadn't fit very well and there was a little gap behind it sequently, some blood just so happened to have landed on the top of the gap and drip down literally a microscopic flake of dried blood, which was recovered from underneath two layers of newer paint In total, ten traces of the same blood were found on the skirting board, which matched that of the cellophane man By september two thousand, an independent review into Unsolved murders in South Wales had cleared the way for the case to be formally reopened by South Wales pololice By january two thousand one, Gafour was renting a terraced house on Bridgeendnd Road in Llanharon, a village between Bridge End and Pontte Klun that offered him the invisibility of somewhere small and unremarkable Neighbors would later tell reporters that they'd barely seen him adding that he would only speak to them out of necessity One person described him almost like a rumour in the streets Curtains always drawn, lights on at odd hours Nothing more than a shape that occasionally moved to and from his car A year later, and the Cardiff three plus Ronnie and John Acte had offered to donate their DNA samples to be compared to the profile recovered from the murder scene via an independent lab They didn't want their samples going anywhere near a police station, understandable eachach came back as not being a match, further cementing their innocent statuses. prorofile was ran against the national database There were no matches But one of the teams suggested you could cross reference the DNA to a family match which narrowed the case down to around six hundred matches in the area. Using the newly available second generation Multiplex plus DNA test, SGM plus, a bit of a mouthful Angela Galluab and her team at Forensic Alliance managed to obtain a partial familial match against the profile of a fourteen year old boy DNA had been added to the database for an unrelated juvenile offence. He wasn't even born when Lenette was killed. so he clearly wasn't a killer Exploring the familiar links, DNA samples were first taken from his mum and dad when compared to the killer's DNA Plose, but not a perfect match then in february two thousand three The fourteen year old boy's uncle was tested Binger. Perfect match The boy's estranged uncle Jeffrey Gf That was the first time in British legal history that a case was solved through a familial search of the National DNA database. On february twenty eighth, Gafor was arrested after a firearms unit burst through his doors when he did not respond to their knock in It was obvious he had attempted to take his own life by swallowing an overdose of paracetamol he was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance He then confessed to killing Lynette while on the way to the hospital With that, the police formally apologized to the CardiffII in July When police search Gafur's house after his arrest, What they found was, in its way, as curious as the man himself. The shelves held around ten Bibles alongside dozens of notebooks filled with codes that officers and analysts were unable to decipher Gafor seemed to have spent his long empty hours in a private world of scripture photographer and solitude None of the material recovered from the house has been made public though content of the notebooks remains more than two decades on. Oh noone Lga four pleed a guilt Laninetette's murder on july fourth, two thousand three at Cardiff Crown Court before mister Justice Royce It was revealed that upon his arrest, Gforord said Just for the record, I did kill Lynette White I've been waiting for this for fifteen years whatever happens to me I deserve it Mis. Justice Royce imposed a life sentence with a minimum term of twelve years and eight months But even so, there are still police officers and civilians who firmly believe the Cardiff I were the ones who murdered Lennette, even though the case against Gafour is airtight. In november two thousand four, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, I, announced it would supervise a fresh investigation by South Wales pololice into the original murder inquiry And just six months later, five retired police officers were arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, and misconduct in public office Four more retired officers were arrested less than ten days later, were in april two thousand five at this point in connection with their roles in the original murder investigation In fact, over the course of around twelve months, thirty or so people were arrested in connection with it. about nineteen of whom were serving or retired police officers As we've discussed, Lean and Angela became key prosecution witnesses in the original murder trial giving statements after prolonged police questioning that later proved to be false in february two thousand seven Four witnesses who gave evidence at said trial were charged with perjury In december two thousand eight, the three main civilian witnesses, that's Angela, Leanne and a man called Mark Gromick, were found guilty of committing perjury and each was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment Prosecutors later accepted that Mark had told the truth for eight months before changing his account under extreme pressure from the police. In two thousand nine, thirteen former South Wales police officers, including former DI Graham Muncher and two civilians, were charged with some very serious offences, including conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perjury. Two years later, in july twenty eleven, the trial of eight former officers opened at Swansey Crown Court And it was the biggest prosecution of police officers of its kind The case is formally listed as R V Mcher and others But in December of that year, the Maoucher trial collapsed prorosecuting counsel told the court he had lost confidence in the disclosure process and that the prosecution offered no evidence As a result, the defendants were formally acquitted Central to the collapse was evidence held by the IPCC concerning civil actions against South Wales police, which was not disclosed to the defense Cot was told it had been destroyed. The collapse case cost a reported nine hundred six thousand pounds in change with the homeome office saying the cost reflected the complexity of the investigation. In february twenty fifteen, then homeome Secretary Tereresa May announced a QC led investigation into the collapse of the Muncher trial. which was followed two years later by Richard HorwellQC's publishing of the Muncher Investigation repeport, which is available to view online Richard concluded that the trial collapsed because of human errors by South Wales pololice and the Crown Prosecution Service, rather than any deliberate cover up He described what happened as an embarrassment on a national scale and a series of disclosure catastrophes. In june twenty twenty one, the parole board held Gfor's first parole review after the expiry of his minimum tariff. It was ruled it was not suitable for release