British Police Arrest 2nd Suspect in Serial Killings

By ALAN COWELL
Published: December 19, 2006

LONDON, Dec. 19 — Moving in before daybreak, the British police raided a modest row house near the red-light district in the eastern town of Ipswich today to arrest a second suspect in the serial murder of five prostitutes — a case that has seized the nation's headlines.

The arrest came one day after police secured their first arrest, detaining Tom Stephens, 37, a former part-time police officer and supermarket worker, who was seized in the village of Trimley St. Martin in nearby Felixstowe, outside of Ipswich along the North Sea coast.

The murders, which British newspapers attributed to a killer they nicknamed the Suffolk Strangler, rank among the most lurid crimes against prostitutes since the so-called Yorkshire Ripper killed 13 women in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The man arrested today was identified by the police as Steve Wright, 48 years old. Neighbors said he was a recent arrival on London Road in Ipswich and had come from another part of the town. He had a female companion, according to British news reports, but there was no sign that she had been arrested.

A police spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity under police rules, described the man's arrest as "significant."

According to neighbors, police officers arrived at a house at 79 London Road at 5 a.m. local time and arrested a man described by neighbors as composed as he was led away. Then, the police removed the man's car and built screens and scaffolding around the house to secure it for a detailed forensic examination.

The police have not so far brought charges against either man for the murders of the five prostitutes, whose naked bodies were found near villages south of Ipswich over a 10-day period earlier this month.

The women have been identified by police as Tania Nichol, 19; Gemma Adams, 25; Annette Nicholls, 29; Anneli Alderton, 24; and Paula Clennell, 24. Ms Adams and Ms Nichol were found several days apart in a stream. The other three were found in wooded country, according to the police.

Police officials have said Ms. Alderton was strangled and Ms. Clennell died after "compression" on her neck. But the cause of death of the other three women has not been made public.

The case has cast a baleful light on a seamy side of a small provincial town, 60 miles from London, putting pressure on the small local police to handle a crime of national proportions. It has also drawn attention to the clientele.

On Sunday, Mr. Stephens, the first of the two suspects, told a British newspaper that he had known all the dead women and was a regular client among the town's prostitutes.

Another man, Ray Hollingsworth, told the Press Association news agency today that he was a writer who had visited the red-light district in Ipswich either for sex or for research for books. "I do think police have had eye-to-eye contact with the killer," he said. "I just feel it. I think the killer is known to them, it's a feeling I have."

From the NY Times