Reflecting on Systemic Failures

Hello there. Welcome Murderost British. I'm Zack Hey, welcome. I'm Rachel. Thanks for joining us. Yes, Thank you for joining us for another episode Episode phase seven we're on. Yeah G going to your favorite place, Wales. Okay. Not that I don't take that that I don't like Wales. I mean, I've never been The place names and stuff it's really tricky to say. Yeah. It's something you don't talk about You don't say it like often. so Well it's not too bad. It's not too bad this time. so don't worry about it So we arere going off to Wales This one's Crazy one. Couldn't couldn't believe it And then I'm looking for things to like, you know, documentaries or because it's so crazy. Yeah. Ain't nothing V nothing really? Yeah is I couldn't find very many of anything Yeah, Zach does all the research and stuff. so and then yeah I like to I read through the stories, but I don't really sort of like delve into it. until I hear it as I'm telling it to you guys. So, you know, I learn stuff as I go So yeah, makes it more exciting for me to be fair because I feel like I'm like you guys just hearing it for the first time or You know, I did in the beginning think that maybe we would do like how some other ones do it to where someone just tells the story and then the other personactss. I was like, nah, I want us both to share the same sort of storytelling. it was it'd be more fun Yeah Before we begin, a small request from us If you'd like to support the show directly and unlock ad free episodes, bonus episodes, early access, Q and A's, and more. You can now join our Patreon community Jump over to patreon. com forward slash Murdermost British podcast We'd love to have you there Definitely. If you enjoy listening to our true crime stories, please give us a like, follow and a five star rating. would really help because it helps the other people get to see What we do? What we' doing Also you can follow us on TikTok, Instagram at Murermost British and on Facebook at MMB podcast Your support really helps the archive grow and ensures that no story is ever forgotten. You can also join us on the public Cryptchat, our free disiscord channel, where you can talk about cases, share theories, and read the latest news from the archive This episode contains discussion of extreme violence, including a brutal killing and graphic descriptions from the crime scene also includes references to cannibalism, drug use and themes of mental illness Some listeners may find this material distress in So listener discretion is strongly advised Now. Let it to the story. Just after midnight at a small hotel in a Welsh village, a woman went to check on a disturbance in one of the rooms. Inside, she found a young woman laying on the floor, covered in blood Standing over her was a man clothes stained, his focus fixed on what he was doing out in horror She ded nine nine nine try to explain what she had just seen But before the operator could fully understand what she was describing, the Cooler uttered a sentence that would soon dominate headlines across Britain. He's actually eating her In early November of twenty fourteen Argoyid was the sort of place where very little seemed to change into the South Wales Valleys carried the quiet rhythm of a former mining village Rows of houses narrow roads, and the sense that most people already knew the lives unfolding around them Days pass without urgency Nights settled quickly But on one stretch of the village stood a building that didn't quite belong into the stillness anymore place where lives in motion briefly came to rest The Sir Howy arms Is that how? Sir Howey Yeah, it's I was like At first I was like, Who's Sir Howeie? Is he some knight or something from back in the day I was like, no, that's just that's just a name. That's the name. The Sahhawi arms had once been a pub and guest house the kind of place people pass through without thinking twice By twenty fourteen, it served a different purpose become a temporary accommodation, a stopgap for people with nowhere else to go Some arrived straight from prison some from the streets Others carried quieter forms of instability It was not somewhere people chose, it was somewhere they ended up placelace defined less by comfort and more by necessity Among those moving through the building that autumn was Matthew Williams He was thirty four years old when he arrived, released from Park prison on the twenty third of October after serving a twenty seven month sentence for blackmail. His life had followed a familiar pattern offffending. custody, release, and then back again By then, it was no longer a cycle that disrupted his life It was the structure of it Instability wasn't something that came and went It was constant. A attempts had been made to house him in Newport through his father But the application failed over residency requirements Instead, he was placed at the Sir Howi arms through Care Philly counsel a temporary solution arranged quickly and with little room for much else. been warning signs long before that final release. His mother would later describe a man who had struggled not just with crime and addiction but with his own mind spoke of paranoia of voices of beliefs that didn't align with reality. What she understood to be schizophrenia Though later medical opinion would question whether those symptoms were driven by drug use rather than a fixed condition account described a life that never quite settled, periods of calm would come and go, but they never lasted each time the same pattern followed. a return to environments that offered neither treatment nor structure. Yeah, it seems like it was just kind of a revolving door of, you know, he just offending And then he's unstable couldn't get the help that he need or just didn't want it. Yeah. And then rightight back in and then out and then back in, you know, it's just awful which you do see with a lot of prisoners, some A lot of them aren't able to be sort of rehabilitated, they come out and you know, depending on how I do know there's not a lot of support for them when they come out to be fair. you know, not a lot of structured right this is what you do. you know, they come out. they have to go to probation like once a week or, you know, but that's it that's pretty much all they Yeah And then any support it's whether they want it. It's whether you that or they seek it out themselves. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's like with the or how he arms That's not like a care facility. That's not a facility. kindind of like a halfway house really, but it's not a place that's equipped for no stuff like that. And it feels like there's an overflow of stuffed it can't be dealt with Yeah. And they just stick them in this place and go here you go, man awful Well, drugs had been part of that pattern for years Those who knew him described long term use, including amphetamines. alsoso known as speed These are substances that deepened his paranoia altered his behavior in ways that made him harder to read and harder to predict By the time he arrived at these Sirhai arms, there were already signs of change Friends and family would later describe him becoming unsettled again Seeing things, hearing things growing increasingly detached It wasn't a sudden break. Gadual a shift that had already begun and was now quietly gathering pace And yet inside the hostel, none of that was immediately visible The manager would later describe him as polite, calm Easy to deal with. She had not been told about his history and had no reason to see him as anything other than another arrival. In a place like that, people came and went constantly Bags brought in, keys handed over, doors closed Whatever someone carried with them, their past, their problems, often stayed out of sight A least at first That was part of the difficulty Buildings like these Sahhawi arms were expected to absorb complexity they were never designed to manage addiction, criminal histories, fractured relationships, untreated mental health all contained within a structure built for something far simpler staff could oversee the practical side the rooms, the routines, the movements of people in and out but what they couldn't control were the things that arrived unseen. the histories that followed people through the door and the risks that didn't announce themselves But in the weeks leading up to his release, those risks had already been noted. A probation assessment completed on the tenth of October classified Williams as a medium risk of serious harm to the public A safety plan was discussed Police were made aware supportort services were outlined But there was a limit to what could be done Having served his full sentence, there was no license conditions No requirement to engage Support could be offered but not enforced, and in the days after his release He chose not to take it Also moving through that part of South Wales at the time was twenty two year old Karis Yem She lived nearby in Blackwood A mother of two Working, building a life and still at the beginning of it to those who knew her, she was simply getting on with things. work Friends, nights out There was nothing about her life that suggested it would intersect with someomewhere like the Sirhawi arms notothing to suggest that her path and his would cross it all But they did. The two had met only weeks earlier, likely on a night out in backackward toward the end of October On the evening of the fifth of November, they were together again this time at the home of Williams' friend, Rodery Moore in Argoyid There was nothing unusual about it, drinks, conversation. the slow drift of an ordinary knight. too anyone there It would have seemed unremarkable. Just another evening continuing on thenen Sime between eleven thirty PM and midnight. Williams and Carris. left More's house and made their way back toward the Sirhawi arms Friends would later say he had promised to get her a taxi home Inside, the building had already settled Doors closed corridors quiet. The low familiar stillness that follows midnight had taken hold. Nothing about the place suggested anything had changed Nothing suggested. What was about to happen Not long after midnight, something began to shift inside the Sahhawi arms. At first, it was just noise, the kind that could be dismissed Half heard through walls and corridors easy to ignore if you weren't listening for it it didn't fade It grew louder, sharper, more defined People nearby began to realize that what they were hearing was not an argument Not raised voices carried too far through thin walls, but something else entirely somethingomething urgent something wrong From inside one room, a woman was screaming The sound cut through the stillness of the early hours cararrying along the corridor drawing attention towards the door that remained firmly closed The cries were loud enough to alarm the other residents word quickly reached Mandy Miles, who was managing the hostel that night. She made her way upstairs Following the noise has echoed through the building until she reached the door to Williams's room She knocked waited There was no answer Inside the screaming continued With no response and no sign that anything was improving She used the room's doorcode to unlock it and slowly pushed the door open What she saw inside was something she would never forget Later, when she tried to describe it, she reached for the simplest comparison she could find It was like a horror film The room itself was small enclosed But what feelilled it made it feel overwhelming Blood covered the floor, spreading across the space At its centre lays Caris Yem. Motionless, a body still Standing over her was Matthew Williams, his clothes were stained, his head lowered towards her He did not react to the door opening Even as she spoke, he did not look up in that moment, Miles said she could immediately tell there were no signs of life The amount of blood pooling on the floor made that clear Still. She tried to speak to him to break through whatever state he was in Miles asked Do you know what you're doing to that girl The reply didn't bring clarity. It only made the moment feel more unreal Williams replied That's no girl. Miles would later say he did not appear to recognize her at all as if she were not even there as if nothing beyond that moment had any meaning to him There was no attempt to confront him further realizing the situation was beyond anything she could intervene in She stepped back from the room and pulled the door closed behind her Instead, she reached for her phone and dialed nine ninetyine nine Trying to find the words to describe something that didn't feel real somethingomet that didn't fit into anything she had experienced before. The call that followed would later become one of the most chilling pieces of evidence connected to the case There's a lad in the room, she told the operator. actually eat in her It's awful At another point, her voice broke under the shock of what she had seen There was screaming and screaming, o my Godd, it's awful Even as she spoke to the operator, Miles took another step onene that would later stand out in the accounts of that night. She stayed at the door. One hand gripped the handle, holding it firmly shut. making sure the man inside come out into the corridor Be police arrived, Later, she explained the decision in simple terms I made damn sure he couldn't get out, she said I was in total fear of what he was capable of Behind the door, theroom fallen quiet That is That's crazy. That is wild It just something, you know, you walking into something like that and just you're in such shock because your eyes you're not believing what your eyes are seeing but then it's like I don't know how I could handle that. Yeah, I would think for me I wouldd be like, o, someone they're having an argument or Whatever and she's, you know, maybe he's beating her up or something. That's why she's screaming for help And you come into something like that, What would you know what to do? There's no way that you would anticipate that that was what was happening inside the room. Yeah Yeah Police received the call at one twenty three AM Within minutes, officers were on their way responding to what had already been reported as a violent attack By around one thirty seven AM, they arrived at the Souhawi arms Outside, the stillness of the village was broken by the arrival of patrol cars Blue lights reflected off nearby buildings, cutting across windows and walls as officers stepped out and moved quickly inside Mandy Miles was waiting for them When officers entered the room, They were stepping into a scene. already crossed beyond rescue They issued commands Clear, direct, ordering Williams to move away and get onto the ground He did not respond in any clear or compliant way Instead He resisted He struggled as officers attempted to restrain him forcing him into a physical confrontation inside the confined space of the room One officer would later describe the moment callalling that Williams had an angry look. and that he looked into his eyes and they appeared almost black. and come looks very vacant then just not there. Wow were faced with a situation that was rapidly escalating. Officers made the decision to use a taser in an attempt to bring him under control But even then Williams continued to resist The struggle continued on the floor Oicers working together to restrain him handandcuffs, leg restraints each step taken to bring the situation under control Eventually, after repeated attempts, they were able to secure him Only then could their attention fully return to the young women lying motionless nearby Inside the room, there was nothing anyone could do to change what had already happened Taris was beyond help. As officers worked to contain the scene, another development began to unfold. One that would shift the focus of the night once again Williams's condition which had seemed stable moments earlier began to change as paramedics carried out their assessments. At first, there was no immediate sign that his condition was critical Breathing and pulse appeared normal as they began their checks But within minutes something began to go wrong. Breathing slowed became irregular and then weaker as he was moved from the room and taken downstairs towards an ambulance The situation deteriorated further the change becoming impossible to ignore then He stopped breathing Paramedics began attempting to revive him in the back of the ambulance parked outside the hostel efforts continued. But nothing changed the outcome. A short time later to eighteen AM He was pronounced dead Less than an hour earlier, people inside the building had heard a woman screaming Now in that same span of time Two people were dead. Yeah. been wild You would just think, oh, you know, they've got him if they got him, they got him restrained. everything's good. Yeah. you know, they they've got the perpetrator. trying to you know help with Karis, you know, or whatever And then just all of a sudden He goes into some sort of state and Yeah and what I mean, your initial think you'd think oh, maybe he's having a panic, you know, he having a panic because he's been, you know in doing this, etceta but obviously took a real turn quite sharply. Yeah And then yeah, passing away. I mean The police officers and the paramedics probably thinking what the hell has happened? You know, why is this person passed away because he was Carly And then also thinking of the officers they're like, is this something that we did? they' like what what what went wrong Yeah what's what's happened here Mbe too much pressure like if when they're trying to restrain him. Yeah. Who knows? Wild. We shall M find out. We shall may find out. Yeah Well, news of what had happened spread quickly beyond our Gid Within hours, the story was appearing in newspapers across Britain That phrase, taken from the emergency call began to dominate the coverage But behind the headlines, behind the speculation and the attention One unsettling reality remained The man responsible was already dead And with him went the only account of what had unfolded inside that room in those final moments in the hours after the deaths at the Sir Howy Arms builduilding was transformed What had been a temporary shelter became a sealed crime scene? Officers from Gwent Police secured the property while specialist investigators moved in, fousing their attention on the small upstairs room E had taken place sccenes of crime officers worked methodically Photographs were taken, evidence was logged The layout of the room was documented in precise detail What had happened there would now be reconstructed. Piece by piece. Inside the room, investigators began the process of working backwards through the final minutes of Keris Yem's life. Blood patterns were examined, the position of her body was recorded. Ojects within the room were noted exactly as they had been found From these details, a sequence began to emerge The injury is pointed towards the use of a sharp instrument Evidence later suggested a screwdriver had been used during the attack indicating not only a single act of violence, but somethingomething sustained, chaotic and prolonged Investigators also recovered fragments of a broken bowl. suggesting more than one object may have been used during the attack Post mortem examinations revealed the full scale of the injuries Pathologist Dr. Richard Jones found that Karis had suffered eighty nine separate injuries Many of them sharp force wounds concentrated around her face and neck Good Lord That is man is Insane The severity of those injuries led medical experts to conclude that she would have lost consciousness rapidly The final determination was clear She had died as a result of sharp forst trauma Probably only one good thing about this whole situation is that she would have lost consciousness and not knowing what the hell was going on and what he was doing to her. You know, I think God Yeah, it' terrifying crazy. examination was carried out to determine why Matthew Williams had died at first There was no immediate answer Early reports listed the cause as unascertained while further testing was carried out But as those results began to return clear a picture started to form Medical evidence would later show that he had suffered cardiac arrest following restraint by police officers at the scene What remained unclear at least initially was why that collapse had occurred and whether it could be attributed to a single cause or to several factors acting together the way you say attributed atttributed I say it in the English way, dude. in English And you're very American You you're very partish when you say occurred urred. I can speakaking the king's English. A kid. Yeah Well, one of the most significant findings came from the toxicology Tests showed that Williams had amphetamines in his system at levels consistent with significant recent use Witnesses described him as having taken drugs heavily in the days leading up to the attack One toxicologist later stated that he appeared who have been using amphetamines virtually on a daily basis in the two weeks before his death His behavior that night, investigators were told was consistent with a condition known as excited delirium a stay often associated with heavy stimulant use. I am Yeah, hey kids, don't do drugs. Our advice don't do drug God Jesus Medical specialists explained that stimulant drugs such as amphetamines can place extreme strain on the body. heart rate increases pressure rises agitation intensifers. In situations involving physical struggle, that strain can become critical. investigators began to consider whether it was this combination excuse, stress and restraint. that had led to the cardiac arrest The conclusion that emerged was not simple There was no single cause Instead, it appeared to be a combination of factors contribute into the outcome. Well, I mean, goodness, he was only thirty four. And he's over there having a heart attack because of all this drug use and shit. That's crazy. Yeah, see, that's the thing. There's not really, you know Um Oh No It's not know many like I can't word it. Not not there's not many people that are at thirty four years old have their heart explode Yeah, a heart attack., It's not a regular ur Yeah. I mean, unless you have like health issues and what on His health issue was too many drugs. Yeah, Unfortunately. whichich obviously affected his heart Which, you know, don't do drugs. Yeah goodness Well, at the same time, detectives continue to build the timeline. not just of that night, but of the days leading up to it. On the third of November, just three days before the attack Police had executed a drugs warrant at Williams's room at the hostel Nothing of evidential value was found. He wasn't present But the search itself reveals something important He was already on their radar There had been earlier warnings too. While in prison, Williams had sent a series of threatening letters directed at his former partner, her family and police officers These letters had been handed to authorities months before his release Officers considered whether charges could be brought none were Later, those letters would be re examined in a different light. notot as isolated threats, but as potential indicators of risk a warning, perhaps M that? Hindsight is twenty twenty. Yeahah, that isue. It didn't go to intervention of any kind No sh lead to any intervention No Crazy And it's like, well, he's just medium risk, but he he's sending out these letters and threatening a bunch of multiple people, not just one person. That's a high risk if if you're threatening It's not like he's just verbally doing it as well. It's written Yeah There' actual evidence that he has said this You know crazy. absolute crazy Well, investigators then return to the events inside the hostel itself They spoke to residents who had heard the screaming They gathered statements from staff who had been present that night. Mandy Miles described opening the door and seeing what she later called A blood bath for retreating and calling emergency services Each account added another fragment to the puzzle Well the officers who had entered the room also gave detailed accounts One described the moment simply quote I've never been so scared in my life They spoke of Williams not responding to commands of his continued resistance as they attempted to restrain him Concerned about the threat he posed, an officer deployed a taser. It was discharged four times over approximately seven minutes before Williams was finally brought under control using handcuffs and leg restraints. Holy shit. I mean, it took four Four shots That in it so four shots from the taser because obviously the taser could affect your heart rate, you know, maybe it can actually trigger your heart rhythm to change pattern and what. Yeah. So that yeah, where they say there's multiple actors go Yeah. I think good God had he not needed to be tasered so many times and you know physically restrained because he just was not comply in Maybe he wouldn't have died, but I think it was all the stress, the physical exertion, the taser Exactly. I mean it would have been running off adrenaline. His adrenaline would have been high as well during this horrible attack. So Well this is addressed because his death followed direct contact with police The case was automatically referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The IPCC began its own investigation examining the actions of the officers The use of the taser and the methods of restraint used during the arrest Their role was not revisit the killing of Karis Yem It was to determine whether police had acted appropriately in the circumstances they faced. It was a separate process running alongside the murder inquiry adddding another layer of scrutiny to the case already under intense attention. Well you would expect the IPCC to do an investigation because obviously, you know, anybody that has been arrested and is in police custody that has died needs to be investigated. yeah.' to I mean, even though you, you know, it was criminal or whatever they did something wrong, they do have rights. They do, you know, to not be killed um in custody So it's If anything could be learned, if anything could be, you know, some training or something that could h help ways to try to restrain people Yes, anything that could help prevent it in the future that should be learned and taken on board. Because ideally, you know, we would have wanted him to be alive so that he could Keris's family and herself could have justice if him, you know, being stuck behind bars, but Unfortunately, that was not the case, but even as the evidence clarified what had happened inside that room, broader questions began to surface beyond it Williams had been released from prison only weeks earlier Police had raised concerns before his release, but their ability to act had been limited how someone with his history had come to be placed in a hostel alongside vulnerable residents quickly became a central issue The focus began to shift away from the room itself and towards the decision that had led him to being there at all Questions of release, support and oversight and of what, if anything. might have been missed before that night ever began nearly two and a half years after the deaths at the Sirhai Arms case returned notot as a crime scene investigation. as a courtroom process. The inquest was not there to relive the night step by step It was there to examine the evidence already gathered and determine could formally be established Assumptions were tested Early conclusions were questioned And piece by piece, the case was narrowed to what could be proven and what could not Witnesses return to give evidence again this time under examination. Details were revisited, accounts were challenged What emerged was a clearer understanding of how much of the Early narrative had been shaped in shot and how easily those first impressions had carried into public reporting without being fully tested One of the most significant outcomes of the Inquest was not what it added, but what it removed Yeah, we're going back into the old tabloid rags. Yep. J like old Mudsley. Yeah. you know, the the false narrative facts, are't they, you know, mean they don't want tabloids and newspapers and that to putting out like stuff that's actually just untrue exaggerated or you know Well like I said with Modsley, you know, the lie can travel around the world before the truth is putting its shoes on Yeah,s that's just how it goes. And then the lies will just never fade they will override any truth because it's already been out there and circulated. far and wide that people won't believe the truth They just want to sell they just want to sell papers if if you have a headline that reads Hannibal killer eats womoman. s You're going to be like, holy shit, man, I need to buy this paper. I need to read this story. That That's all it is. It's not the fucking truth. Mind you newspapers, I don't think many people are like buying newspapers anymore. You got all your new stuff online. so you know And it's the same with them you need click bait titles to get people to go onto that website to see the ads so the ads can pay the guys for they make money. Yeah. it's simple as that Bastards Caims that had dominated headlines in the immediate aftermath were tested against medical evidence and, in some cases, set aside The hearing drew a distinction between what had been reported and what could actually be supported. At the center of that reassessment was the claim. that had come to define the case publicly the suggestion of cannibalism. The inquest addressed it directly Medical experts confirmed that while bite marks were present There was no evidence that any part of Karisyem had been eaten. Cannibalism had not occurred at all Good. I mean, that's just gross like Honestly. I don't understand how people can do that Oh I'll find some more cases for that have fak. Oh we did with with Menz', which freak freaked me out. I was like my God. Yeah. That's a previous episode. It was horrible. Yeah. Jesus. Donny was a vampire. Seriously. Well what had become the most recognizable detail of the case was rooted in not in fact but in perception. in what had been seen or believed to have been seen in a moment of extreme shock The inquest also examined the death of Matthew Williams, where early reports had left open multiple possibilities The evidence pointed instead to a combination of factors The amphetamine use, physical struggle and stress placed on his body Together, they contributed to the cardiac arrest Yeah, usually like eyewitnesses They're not exactly always reliable, especially under extreme stress like that. Yeah. You just see something and you're like, well, and your mind kind of It's tryings w picture and place things and say, right, this is what you're seeing. Your brain is doing that. Yeah. You know, your eyes are seeing it, but your brain is trying to tell you what you're seeing. Yeah' trying to process what the fuck is going on powerful thing in it really Oh yeah. I mean, it can close things off to trauma to help protect itself Um yeah, the brain is white wild Well, the actions of the officers were examined in that same light They had entered an active and dangerous scene And the question was whether their response had been justified in that moment Conclusion Was that it had. one hundred and I agree Yeah, someomeone could take four taser shots. You do, you know you've tried. U as people that that are on, you know, high on drugs like, you know, like was it PCP and and stuff and they just have this strength that, you know, that adrenaline and all that sh' pumping And they can just fight off fucking four, five, six officers. Yeah And you're just like, what the fuck No, I definitely think that, you know, I agree that is justified Yeah, so the force used, including the repeated use of a taser, was found to be reasonable given the circumstances And the IPCC later reached the same finding The inquest also turned to what had happened before the attack Evidence showed that support had been available following Williams's release But That had depended on his willingness to accept it. It should really bring in like something like a post release, you have to, I don't know, do six months of like some type of therapy, especially if you're showing signs of like issues with drug use or you know, like prior to you being put in jail But also you have a problem though. Look at this for how we arms You have a place that is being used to house these people that actually need better care and a better place and people there to be able to support them See, it' the thing is like nowadays that we don't really have That like Back obviously many decades ago, you had the asylum places Yeah Obviously, we do have mental health facilities that people with certain cond, you know, like with use, like dependency and stuff like that donon't get housed in these places for treatments, you know? And I think It's last resort or if you are literally you know highly schizophrenic and you've done something terrible that they'll put you in and house you in these places. but for preventable kind of things to help support these people. Yeah, so they should be like instead of a halfway hostel house, they should be released to, you know a mental health therapy place. Yeah, maybe not not like a high security security place like justust a place that they could go to. Yeah. All that costs money A an an ideal world U But yeah, what emerged was not a single failure but something less defined between what existed in theory and what could be enforced in practice When the jury returned its conclusions, that separation was reflected clearly Kerris Yem's death was recorded as unlawful killing Matthew Williams' death was given a narrative conclusion The findings did not reopen the case, but they did define its limits. What could be said with certainty? what could not What the inquest ultimately provided was not a new version of events, but a narrower one It removed the speculation ed some of the most widely repeated claims and fixed the case within the boundaries of evidence But within these boundaries, one question remained Whether what had happened that night had been inevitable or whether someomewhere along the way There had been a moment where things might have gone differently In the days that followed the deaths at the Sahhawi arms, the village of Argoid found itself poured into national attention. News of what had happened and the death twenty two year old Karis Yem across the United Kingdom. With it came repetition. headlines broadcasts, online reports many returning again and again to the same phrase taken from the emergency call. what had happened inside a single hostile room was no longer contained become a national story So for those living in Argoyid, the impact was immediate The Sirhai arms was not an abstract place. It was familiar Part of the village itself The idea that such violence had taken place there was difficult to process. Attention quickly turned to the building. and to the role it played within the community Questions followed. Whether a place like that had ever been suited to housing people with complex unstable needs in the middle of a small residential area In the weeks that followed, those concerns grew louder Some residents called for the hostel to be closed altogether Others argued it had never been equipped to manage people dealing with addiction, mental health difficulties and recent criminal histories also concerns about transparency The nature of placements had not been fully explained. What had once been a background unease was now being spoken openly. by fear, grief, and the sense that something had not been fully understood before it was too late Yeah, because you have people who are just running a hostel. They're not medical professionals. They're not any sort of authority and they don't know how to handle people like this. And there's going to be violent people, you know, all sorts of different But but also they're not being told. Okay. this guy's got these problems. this person got these problems person because this is their history of Yeah because they can't tell them crime was. Yeah, they can't tell them medical stuff and all, you know I sa all that data protection stuff as well now So they're going in blind They should have the heads up basically to know who they have in this building You know, really In my view At the same time, scrutiny turned toward the decisions that had placed Matthew Williams in the Sir Howie arms so soon after his release from prison. A probation assessment had classified him as medium risk of serious harm Supp options had been discussed A safety plan had been outlined But in practice, There was no way to ensure he engaged with any of it Support could be offered concerns could be recorded But ultimately The choice remained his. Yeah. I think because obviously he wasn't he didn't have any license conditions. There was no way to force him to do anything. Exactly. free I think they should all you know do some sort of conditions for post release, you know, they have to have some sort of Richid you know, you you need to do this. Yeah. Do you know what I mean for for the next sort of four months, say u just to get them back into civilian life. Yeah. help transition Yeah into, you know, back to life His mother later spoke publicly describing a man who had struggled for years with mental health problems and addiction and who, in her view, had been released without the support that he needed He should have been in hospital, she said He needed help Her words reflected a wider concern about people leaving in prison with unresolved issues, minimal structure and no system capable of ensuring that help even when available was actually taken. As formal reviews began, the picture that emerged was complex and uncomfortable A serious further offense review was launched. While healthcare Inspector at Wales examined the role of health services Their findings did not point to a single failure. Instead, they concluded that based on the information available at the time What happened would have been difficult to predict or prevent government line. Yeah I don't know about predicting. I mean, he he You had some fucking red flags.k He was medium risk, you know, But in truth, he was a fucking high risk. Yeah. but you know, you look at the threatening letters he'd sent to multiple people and even including police officers, you know is And then the prior history of the revolving some supervision of some sort once he left prison. Yeah, it was just the revolving door of in and out of prison and trouble and And, you know, and then threatening letters and yeah it's like, come on, man Well, not everyone accepted that conclusion. Professor Robert Snowden, a forensic psychologist at Cardiff University, argued that Williams should never have been assess as medium risk, but as a very high one pointed to the same factors repeatedly, a history of violence, a willingness to use weapons, long term drug misuse, and a pattern of refusing treatment and support. Ten together Th factors painted a picture that, in his view been underestimated I agree, prorofessor I agree with the professor Well, in that interpretation, the risk was not hidden Once released, it was likely he would deteriorate quickly, return to drugs, and become unstable again within days. From that came a further criticism that too much attention had been placed on diagnosis on what condition best described him and not enough on the more immediate questions of what risk he posed when drugs, instability and violence were all present att once The case also brought renewed focus to how those earlier warnings had been interpreted Months before his release, Williams had sent the series of threatening letters from prison directed at the former partners, their families and police officers They were known to fs. At the time, they were not treated as evidence of escalating risk, no charges followed, no further action was taken but later expert opinion challenged that approach Those letters, it was argued, were not isolated or impulsive They reflected fixation, hostility and a willingness to direct violence towards specific people In that context, they were not just behaviour to be recorded, but behaviour to be interpreted a signal perhaps, The level of risk had been misunderstood. Yep Like I said before, hindsight twenty twenty, but You got to take things seriously Yeah Well, the media coverage added another layer Many reports refer to Williams as a Hannibal killer The phrase spread quickly. shaping public understanding before the evidence had been fully examined Williams's father later challenged the description as misleading And by then, it had already taken hold And like many narratives formed in the aftermath of violence It proved difficult to undo correction that cannibalism had not occurred never carried the same weight as the original claim The case became an example of how quickly perception can turn into belief and how once established It is rarely fully reversed. beneath all of that. the headlines, the labels and the debate The reality remained unchanged A young woman had lost her life in an act of extreme violence What remained were fragments, witness accounts, medical findings review conclusions and questions Some answered, some not people of Argoid The memory of that night remained tied to a place they had always known But for those who knew Keris Yem, it was never a case or headline or a story to be debated It was the sudden loss of someone they loved. a life that should have continued far beyond that night Well, that was the story of the Sir Hai Arms murder of Karis Yam Terrific I mean you can understand with' hostile manager or lady that was working that night you know, entering the room seeing him You know, you would think, o my go, he's eaten her, which, you know and then having that stick in the headlines, you know, and just not able to even when the evidence come out that he hadn't actually consumed any body or anything like that that ye they still wouldn't move away from the original Oh, it was all corrected and everything. one time But once it's out, it's like the genie' out of the bottle. you can't put it back in and you can say you know, whatever years later or whatever say, o, sorry, we got this one wrong. That's the story' long gone Yeah That train's left the station. But it's so tragic and, you know, I mean, his motives if he just seems to be Maybe he was hallucinating from the drugs or You know, I'm just assuming this is just my assumptions, but That's what it was. They said it was it was more than likely that delirium excited delirium that comes from heavy amphetamine use. Yeah, So I'd never heard of that before crazy Well, that's a sad case They're very sad. and just thinking of Karis you know, in her family and and the people affected, especially like There the people that were there and the manager the mandy that was that had to see it Yeah. and the police officers that that They had to go through all that You know, it's just things like this just affect so many more people than we does it does It's just horrendous. I'm such a young girl, you know, She's twenty two's just had her whole life ahead of her I definitely think you know more needs to be done for people with mental health issues and especially prisoners that come out There should be, you know, a mandatory ped release some sort of, you know Vision or J Just support. Yeah Anyways, so If you would like to support that the work we do here in the archive, Please take a moment to follow the show and leave us a five star rating. It helps others discover the stories that we tell and keeps the archive growing. Sharing the podcast with someone who loves true crime also makes a huge difference. Most definitely. and you can also jump over to our Patreon for more true crime episodes, ad free and twenty four hours early access Go to patreon. com four slash more Murermose British podcast And you can follow us on Instagram at TikTok Mur ofice British on Facebook at MMB podcasts. 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