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Killer in the family podcast
A true crime podcast exploring men who kill their families.
Killer in the family podcast
Episode 54 - Julie Dart and Stephanie Slater Part One
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In July 1991 18 year old Julie Dart was kidnapped from Leeds and forced to write ransom letters to her boyfriend and mother. Kept in a workshop by her kidnapper she tried to escape and was killed. Her body was found in Lincolnshire nine days later. Six months later in January 1992 25 year old Stephanie Slater was kidnapped while showing a house as an estate agent. She was taken to the same workshop while her kidnapper sent random notes to her employer. Once he had collected the ransom money Stephanie was let go and dropped off back to her family. She survived the kidnapping but sadly died of cancer in 2017 just aged 50 years old. Both women were kidnapped by serial predator Michael Sams who is still serving his life sentence today.
This is Part One of the story of Julie Dart and Stephanie Slater.
Information and support
· Samaritans UK Contact Us | Samaritans
· National Domestic Violence Helpline UK 0808 2000 247
· Women’s Aid Home - Women's Aid
· National Domestic Abuse Helpline UK 0808 2000 247
· Mental health support USA Mental Health America | Homepage | Mental Health America
· Domestic abuse helpline USA 1.800.799.SAFE Domestic Violence Support | National Domestic Violence Hotline
References
BBC Sounds - The Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater - Available Episodes
Beyond Fear By Stephanie Slater | Used | 9781857022865 | World of Books
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-leeds-letter-man-bonus/id1448151398?i=1000678752400
Michael Sams: Killer of Julie - Psycho Killer: Shocking True Crime Stories - Apple Podcasts
Stephanie Slater: The kidnap victim who faced a second ordeal - BBC News
Credits
Hosted and created by Clare Laxton @ladylaxton
Produced by: Clare Laxton
Killer in the family podcast (buzzsprout.com)
Music from Pixabay.
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Hi there and welcome to Killer in the Family podcast. I'm your host, claire Laxton. Welcome to episode 54 of Killer in the Family podcast, and we are going to get straight into this one, as it is something a bit different. In July 1991, 18-year-old Julie Dart was kidnapped from Leeds and forced to write ransom letters to her boyfriend and mother. Kept in a workshop by her kidnapper, she tried to escape and was killed. Her body was found in Lincolnshire nine days later. Six months after this, in January 1992, 25 year old Stephanie Slater was kidnapped while showing a house as an estate agent. She was taken to the same workshop while her kidnapper sent ransom notes to her employer. Once he had collected the ransom money, stephanie was let go and dropped off back to her family. She survived the kidnapping but sadly died of cancer in 2017, aged just 50 years old. Both women were kidnapped by serial predator Michael Sams, who is still serving his life sentence in prison today.
Speaker 1:This is part one of the story of Julie Dart and Stephanie Slater. This is definitely going to be a tough listen team, but it's a bit of a different story than I usually do. It doesn't concern a man who's killed his whole family, but does concern a man who was a serial predator and who could have gone on to be a serial killer if he wasn't stopped by the bravery of his last victim, stephanie Slater. You might be asking yourself why I'm covering this case. Well, apart from wanting to talk about Julie and Stephanie and raise awareness of their case, the kidnapper and killer, michael Sams, actually lived very close to where I live now when he was carrying out his horrific acts. Now, this was before I lived in the area, but I also know the workshop where he kept Julie and Stephanie in Newark as well. When I first moved into this area, people talked about someone called the wheelie bin killer and I wanted to delve into this local case, uncover what really happened to Julie and Stephanie and centre them and their experiences, rather than him, as research for this episode.
Speaker 1:I have listened to a brilliant podcast many times that was originally recommended to me by my friend Kate. The Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater podcast was created and hosted by Andy Whittaker from BBC Nottingham. It's a deep dive into the case and not only tells the stories of Julie and Stephanie but also talks to their families and experts in the system. It's a deep dive into the case and not only tells the stories of Julie and Stephanie, but also talks to their families and experts in the system to try and disentangle what happened to them. The podcast has two seasons from 2022 and 2023 and is still available on BBC Sounds. It's linked in the episode notes and I highly recommend a listen. I've also read Stephanie's own book, which she wrote a few years after her ordeal. It was a really gripping book because, you know, most people don't come back from a kidnapping or abduction and it's such an insight into exactly what happened to her over those eight days and beyond. I listened to a couple of other podcasts on the case too, and all sources are linked in the episode notes.
Speaker 1:Now, before we get into this episode, I also wanted to let you know that we've got a bit of a surprise. In both episodes about Julie and Stephanie, I will be bringing you an exclusive interview with Andy Whittaker, who created the Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater podcast the Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater podcast. I interviewed him in BBC Nottingham earlier this month and I'm so grateful for his time and I know that you will enjoy his contributions and reflections. Okay, without further ado, let's get into this episode, the first two-parter of 2025. So let's start by finding out about Julie Dart and Stephanie Slater.
Speaker 1:So Julie Ann Dart was born in March 1973 in Leeds, west Yorkshire, and she was just 18 years old when she was kidnapped and murdered by Michael Sams. Not loads is known about Julie, but on the Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater podcast, andy talks to Julie's uncle, gary Atkin, who takes him on a tour of Leeds where he grew up. I definitely recommend a listen on this one. Julie was born to mother Lynn and apparently they were really close, more like best friends. Lynn grew up with her brother, gary, in the Gipton area of Leeds and Gary describes a really happy childhood for him and Lynn and how much he loved his niece Julie too. On the podcast he talks about the last time he saw Julie, which was at the Compton Arms in the Hare Hills area of Leeds it's not there anymore, it's been torn down and how she was having fun and dancing before she headed home in a taxi.
Speaker 1:It was a few days after this that she was kidnapped and murdered and by the time Julie was 18, she'd left school and you know her life was a bit of a crossroads. Like many, many 18 year olds when they're that age, she hadn't done as well in her exams that she wanted to and had ambitions of joining the army, and although I think she'd started her application, she sort of wasn't moving forward with it at that point in her life. But that was still her ambition. She had a boyfriend called Dominic and told her mum and Dominic that she'd actually gotten a job at a local hospital doing night shifts in Leeds. In fact, she was working as a sex worker in the Red Light district of Leeds and in an episode of the Psycho Killer podcast by Simon Ford it talks about how maybe Julie owed someone some money and was forced to earn it back by being a sex worker in Leeds. So maybe you know it wasn't her choice, she was actually being forced to do that. However, she got there. This is where one fateful night in July 1991, she met Michael Sams More on that later.
Speaker 1:What we need to remember now is that Julie was a young woman with a whole life in front of her. She had a loving family, friends and a boyfriend and just so much potential. So let's talk about Stephanie Slater now, whose name will always be connected with Julie's. Stephanie was born in 1966 and was adopted by Warren and Betty Slater, who lived in Birmingham in the West Midlands In 1992, stephanie was enjoying her new job with Shipways Estate Agents which she had just started in December 1991. She enjoyed going out with friends to a local pub and seeing her boyfriend David. She seemed to be really happy and just enjoying life as a young woman in the early 90s.
Speaker 1:In the Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater podcast, former West Midlands police inspector Ellie Baker talked about going into Stephanie's room after she was kidnapped and how Stephanie at this point in her life loved to dress in like all black and wore sort of like goth fashion. And Ellie said that Stephanie's room was all dark and black as well, which made it difficult to search. But I'm sure you can imagine, if you grew up in the 90s like me, that sort of real goth fashion at the time. Now we're going to hear our first bit of my interview with Andy Whittaker here. Andy is an award winning radio host and podcast producer, so he's the creator of BBC podcasts such as Undercover Spy Cops.
Speaker 1:Another recommendation Bodies in the Garden, the, the why chile murders and the case we're talking about today, the kidnapping of stephanie slater. He now works as a podcast producer, audio consultant and radio host and, as I said, I spoke to andy at bbc nottingham earlier in january. We were in the reception of the bbc, so if you hear any background noise, that will be why, but hopefully it'll be pretty minimal. Now here's how Andy came to know about the cases of Stephanie and Julie, and he also talks about Julie and Stephanie in the early 90s, hi, andy. So thank you so much for joining us and sparing a bit of time to talk to us about all your amazing work, particularly around the kidnapping of Stephanie Slater and the murder of Julie Dart. Just to start off, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your career and what got you interested in the cases of Julie and Stephanie?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for me it was all about Stephanie. I'll tell you a bit of the background first. So I've been a radio host for donkey's years. It's pretty much what I've done my entire life, apart from like a job in a catalogue shop in a pork pie factory, um. So I've always been a radio presenter.
Speaker 2:But when you're doing that you meet people and you remember stories that occurred. And for me, when I was, um, a young journalist and presenter uh, growing up really in the West Midlands there was this one story that happened. I was about 22, 23 at the time, similar age to Stephanie, and she had gone missing. Nobody knew, but the media had been let in on it by the police. And so for me this was like this was the first story that had really touched me in some way. I think there's a woman of my age who had been taken as an estate agent whilst doing a house visit visit, and nobody knew where she was. All they knew was that she'd been kidnapped and that money was being demanded for her safe return. So as a journalist, you hear that story and it's extraordinary, but you also identify with it.
Speaker 1:So from day one, really, I identified with Stephanie and you spent time with um Julie's uncle and family and talked to him about her life, and Julie and you've you've also, you know, obviously interviewed Stephanie. You've spoken to her. Can you tell me what? What were their lives like in those early 1990s, before they had that horrific encounter?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think that word ordinary is the one I would use again, and I would also say positive. You know, I think Julie had had some issues, but she was 18. She's only just beyond a child really and you know, as a young woman of 18 she had her whole life in front of her to do with whatever she wanted. Yeah, um, and one of the things she wanted was to join the army. That was a thing, a passion of hers. So I think she was, she was happy, she had optimism for the future, um, and was just starting to find her way in the world when such a horrific thing happened to her. And probably I'd say the same for Stephanie. You know, a young estate agent, fairly new to the job, who again has the whole world ahead of her, her whole life ahead of her, and she's just doing her job. That day it could have been anybody you know who turned up at that house to do that house viewing, but it was her.
Speaker 1:I always think about Stephanie like sort of Susie Lamplew obviously another estate agent that went missing and when you hear about her and her family talk about her. There's that quite. You know optimism of the late 80s, early 90s like housing market was booming, she was having a great time. You know optimism of the late 80s, early 90s like housing market was booming, she was having a great time.
Speaker 2:you know, good at her job and that sort of it feels similar to Stephanie as well. Yeah, I think so. I think that the mirrors are there, aren't they? Which is why people have always sort of since gone. Did Michael Sams take Susie Lampley, which I don't think he did? But yeah, the similarities are there, aren't they? And that kind of optimism of that time.
Speaker 1:Now, as you know, it is serial predator Michael Sams that brought Julie and Stephanie's names together, linked in history forever. Sams was born Michael Beniman Sams in 1941 in Keefley, west Yorkshire, as well as living close to where he lived in Nottinghamshire. Now. Another weird connection is that I was also born in Keefly too, though not in the 1940s. After serving in the Merchant Navy, sam's became a lift and heating engineer and started his own company of like heating engineering.
Speaker 1:He had actually been to prison before he killed julie and kidnapped stephanie, not for anything like those crimes, but in 1978 he served time in prison for stealing a car and for a false insurance claim. On the kidnapping of stephanie slater podcast. It talks about how sam's actually probably learned more about crime in prison and left thinking that he was much cleverer than other prisoners and started planning about, you know, to commit the perfect crime of kidnapping for ransom. Now Sam was married three times and had two children with his first wife. His marriage with his first wife ended in divorce before he was sent to prison. His marriage to his second wife ended in divorce and his marriage to his third wife ended when he was arrested for prison. His marriage to his second wife ended in divorce and his marriage to his third wife ended when he was arrested for murder and kidnapping. I asked Andy Whittaker about Sam's and what he was like.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure he ever had a functional relationship with a woman. He had three marriages, all of which failed for one reason or another. I don't think he identified with women. I don't think he ever had conversations with women. I just think he mixed with guys, and I don't think he was mixing with even that many of them. So he's quite a loner.
Speaker 1:The other thing that you need to know about Sam's is that he absolutely loved trains. This becomes important later on in the case. Sometimes he would spend the day riding trains, just riding them up and down, and his house was full of train memorabilia. The house that he lived in when he committed his crimes against Julie and Stephanie was right next to the East Coast mainline. So if you've ever got the train from London to Leeds or Newcastle, you probably would have gone past it. So I am just taking my dog for a walk. It's a beautiful sunny, wintry January day and we're just walking along, walking along the east coast main line where the trains go from Leeds to London, from Leeds to London oh, and you just would have heard a train pass us then. That's how close Sam's house was to the train line really right next to it. I'm sure it would have been a dream for a train buff like him, but I think it's really interesting to see and hear just how close he would have lived to the east coast mainline.
Speaker 1:Thinking about Sam's and his relationship with women, I asked Andy about whether Sam's had a sort of documented history of abuse or coercive control. His third wife, tina, did mention in an interview about how controlling he could be. When she did talk about how controlling he was and I think some of her friends talked about how controlling he was and I just wondered if there was any sort of more about that, about that behaviour. And I guess we're in the early 90s so that sort of coercive and controlling behavior probably isn't recognized and domestic abuse in itself, physical violence and physical violence probably isn't sort of addressed as much as as we would want it to be. But I just wondered if there was anything more about those sorts of behaviours from him towards women so towards, like his partners or other women that anyone found out about.
Speaker 2:So I know that the police officers that I spoke to, both from West Midlands and from West Yorkshire, believed that she was in a coercive relationship, that he was controlling her. She said some of those things in an interview with the police and and that interview is where the information that's in the podcast has come from. So and that was controlling behavior, about, you know, keeping an eye on what she was doing, making sure she was buying certain products and keeping the shelves stacked up. And it was socks in a certain way. Yeah, socks had to be laid out in a certain way in the drawer and you sort of get the impression that if they weren't, he would not have been happy.
Speaker 2:Now what he would have done, I don't know. I don't know if that was a physical thing, I just don't know. Wouldn't surprise me, because we know what he did to julie dart, we know how he kept stephanie slater. He clearly didn't respect human beings as being human beings. He was one of those people who seemed to just have very traditional roles, gender roles, and he was the one who went out and did the work. He was the one who came up with the ideas of how to make the money and her role was not to question any of that.
Speaker 1:That element of control for him was not only about his wife and what she did, but also what he felt. So he controlled that relationship. He controlled Julie and Stephanie when they were in his care, and he obviously has capacity for physical violence because of what he did to Julie. So it feels like that was quite not not necessarily control on its own, but that sort of like I'm also very clever like I want to get one over on the police, I want to, you know, make loads of money without making all these mistakes that other people have made. Like that sort of it feels that sense of almost entitlement or that sort of sense from him yeah comes through a lot doesn't it.
Speaker 2:He's almost like the big man. I'm the big man which I think yeah I think, is because he wasn't.
Speaker 2:he wasn't a big man, he was a small man. He was a small man who had a disability, only had one leg. He'd lost one of his legs, he had a short stay in prison, um early in his life, and that had changed his life completely, you know. So I think he felt inadequate in many ways and he made up for that by saying I am the big man, I can pull off the perfect crime. I can deceive the police, I can murder a woman if I want to and get away with it. I can kidnap a woman and get away with it. That, I think, is his mentality.
Speaker 1:So in the 90s we have a man who already has a criminal history, one who is maybe struggling financially, a train buff, who is married many times but probably didn't respect or even like women, and a man who thought he was cleverer than all of his fellow convicted criminals that he met in prison. So One night in early July 1991, 18-year-old Julie Dart was out on the streets of Leeds trying to earn some money. It is not known exactly how it happened, but she met Sam that night and he ended up kidnapping her. If what he did to Stephanie was anything to go by, then he might have had a knife or other weapon which he might have used to threaten Julie as soon as he got into his car, a red mini metro and apparently Sam's had actually tried to abduct another sex worker from Leeds a few weeks before he took Julie. She had asked to get out of his car to change her clothes when he threatened her and she took that opportunity to run away, not before hurling a brick at his car by the way, damage that was still on his car when he was arrested the next year. Anyway, back to Julie. We presume that once he had abducted her in his car, he then drove her back to his workshop in Newark and put her in his horrific box contraption, which was a wooden box inside a wheelie bin lay on its side. So he put her in there and said that it was like hooked up to electrodes and sort of sensors so he would know if she was trying to escape. And there were also like some bricks on top of it as well. And you know, I just can't imagine how scary that was for Julie. She didn't know where she was. Sam's had blindfolded her, handcuffed her, gagged her. She was, sam's had blindfolded her, handcuffed her, gagged her, and she was forced into this tiny, tiny box and told that she wouldn't be able to get out.
Speaker 1:Now Sam's plan was to get a ransom for Julie and a few days later Julie's mum and boyfriend, dominic, received a letter from her. I can imagine at this point they were really worried about what had happened to her. According to the Going West podcast episode about this case. The letter that they received said that she had been kidnapped and read quote Hello Dominic, please help me. I've been kidnapped and I'm being held as personal security until next Monday night. Please go and tell my mum straight away. Love you so much, dominic, mum, please phone the police straight away and help me. Have not eaten anything but I've been offered food, feeling a bit sick but drinking two cups of tea per day. Mum Dominic, help me.
Speaker 1:So Julie's mum, lynn, and her boyfriend Dominic received this letter on Tuesday, the 9th of July. So the letter was saying that she was going to be held until the next Monday. So six days away, and obviously as soon as they got the letter they they took it to the police and they confirmed that it was from Julie because it was her handwriting. Now it wasn't clear what they could do at this point because they didn't know where the letter had come from or who it was from or where she was or anything about you know, a ransom or anything like that. But Lynn, julie's mum, as I'm sure you can imagine, was out searching the streets of Leeds for her daughter every single day, and people that she spoke to you know other people who knew Julie said that they hadn't seen her in a few days. Now, on the Friday of that week.
Speaker 1:So a few days after they got that letter, the police got a ransom demand. They received a typed letter saying from someone saying he'd kidnapped a prostitute and he wanted £140,000 by Monday and according to the Going West podcast episode, there was a range of, you know, complicated instructions for the ransom drop which specified that a woman had to come to a specific train station with the money and wait for a phone call at 7pm on that Monday. So that Monday a plainclothes female police officer went to this train station with the ransom money which was put up by the police and waited for a call. At 7pm the payphone in the station rang and the female officer picked it up, but nobody said a word. And then they hung up and the kidnapper never turned up for the ransom money. And at this point what the police didn't know is that Sam's had already killed Julie Dart On the 19th of July 1991, so a few days, nine, ten days later, police received a call from a farmer in eastern Lincolnshire, which is near Grantham, so it's about 23 miles from Sam's workshop in Newark to report that he'd found something in his field.
Speaker 1:The police came and they found the body of a young woman wrapped in a sheet with duct tape and rope. The coroner later reported that the cause of her death was blunt force trauma to the back of the head. The farmer had found the dead body of Julie Dart. It turned out that when Sam was negotiating the ransom for Julie, he had already murdered her. Police speculated that maybe she had tried to escape the hellhole that was his workshop and this coffin and wheelie bin, and he had killed her in cold blood. Whatever the reason, police were now looking for a dangerous kidnapper and murderer. There weren't loads of clues on how to find him, though, but one thing police did find with Julie was some yellow carpet fibres, which could have been a clue to whoever killed her, with some yellow carpet fibres, which could have been a clue to whoever killed her.
Speaker 1:As police were still searching for Sam's and as Julie's families were desperately mourning and grieving their loss, it actually wasn't long before the police heard from him again.
Speaker 1:He taunted them and told them how he had killed Julie. He threatened to kidnap another woman and ask for the ransom money again. The instructions he left, though, were so convoluted that the police found them difficult to follow. In another attempt to get some money, sam's then threatened to derail a train and included British Rail in the ransom attempt, and according to the Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater podcast, he even sent a diagram of the railway line, including part of the railway that was defunct and sort of indicated how he would derail the train. So they knew that not only was he serious, but he also seemed to have in-depth knowledge of trains and British railway lines depth knowledge of trains and British railway lines. Now, despite all these letters back and forth between Sams and the police and all the threats he said, thankfully in the months there weren't any more murders that police could attribute to Sams. But Sams was becoming a nuisance to the police and British Rail as well. Little did anyone know what he was about to do next.
Speaker 1:Thank, you on the morning of the 22nd of january 1992, so 33 years ago this week. Step Stephanie talks in her book about how she'd woken up a bit late and dressed in a rush to get to work in Shipways estate agents. She didn't even have time to wash her hair. She talks in her book about a holiday she'd just booked with her friend Danielle to go to the Isle of Wight in July that year. So pretty standard January morning for 25-year-old Stephanie Slater. Now, that morning Stephanie looked at her appointment book and she had a 10.30 appointment to show someone around a semi-detached property nearby at 153 Turnberry Road. In her book she says it was sort of just luck of the draw that she was showing the property. It could have gone to a colleague. But she arrived at the property, which was in Birmingham, a few minutes late and saw the prospective buyer just an ordinary looking man who'd booked the appointment via a letter and was called Bob Southal standing outside. This was not Bob Southal, though it was Michael Sams. Was not Bob Southall, though it was Michael Sams. In her book Stephanie describes her first impressions of him, quote he was somewhere between 40 and 55 years old. He was of medium to stocky build and quite small, probably only two inches taller than me. His dark hair brushed back off his face and he wore heavy rimmed glasses like the ones favoured by Michael Caine. His clothes had a worn look about them and on the breast pocket of his duffel coat was a train badge.
Speaker 1:Now Stephanie went in, introduced herself to Bob, who she knew as Bob, and showed him around the house. But she actually told Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater podcast in an interview that she did later on that she could tell he wasn't really interested in the property. She sort of said you know, estate agents have a sense about this, like they can tell if someone's interested or not. She took him to view the upstairs and when he was in the upstairs bathroom he called out to her to ask what something was. She went into the bathroom and explained to him that it was a hook for like a towel or a flannel. And when she turned around to face him he had completely changed. In her book she says quote he was filled with anger. In one hand he was brandishing a sort of homemade knife with a blade about nine inches long. In the other hand he clenched a long flat chisel or a file about 12 inches long. She talked on the podcast about how she was just so surprised and just totally bewildered.
Speaker 1:Now Sam's proceeded to attack Stephanie in that bathroom in an attempt to subdue and kidnap her. In an interview with Stephanie that's played on the Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater podcast, she sort of said how she sort of fell in the bath and tried to grab the knife. She was wearing thick gloves because obviously it was the winter. But as soon as she grabbed it, sam's pulled it back and cut her hand quite badly. In her book she talks about how she still has the scar. She stopped struggling against him as she knew she was beaten and pled with Sams to not kill her. On the podcast she talks about how she randomly remembered a book by Dr Miriam Stoppard about how if a woman was attacked suddenly, then a good tactic was to remind the perpetrator that they are human. So Stephanie shouted remember, I'm human. And that would be the start of Stephanie's very clever way of placating Sam's.
Speaker 1:As she was kept in captivity, sam's proceeded to tie her hands together, put on some dark glasses on her face to sort of blindfold her and then put some sort of noose around her neck like a dog lead, I guess and he led her out of the house towards the car. She said that she sort of pretended to fall over as they walked out of the house to try and create some commotion that neighbours might notice. Remember, this is like half 10, 11am on a weekday morning. No one noticed, though. No one was around and Sam's forced Stephanie into his red mini metro car. Now Sam's quickly started his journey that morning with Stephanie in his car, bound and blindfolded, by getting straight onto the M6 from Birmingham. Now if you look at Turnberry Road on the map, you'll see that it is basically right next to the M6.
Speaker 1:Andy Whittaker from Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater podcast thinks that this was part of Sam's plan. That really quick getaway onto the motorway was part of Sam's plan that really quick getaway onto the motorway. Now he drove 83 miles that day to take Stephanie to a place where she would be kept for eight days his workshop in the Swan and Salmon Yard in Newark, nottinghamshire. The Swan and Salmon Yard in Newark was a series of workshops in the 90s but it's right next to the River Trent and only a few hundred yards from the main road in Newark. It's a pretty busy place. It's got a pub nearby and lots of foot traffic. I'll post a photo of it on my social so you can see where I mean. Now Sam's had a workshop in the Swan and Salmon Yard and the business above his workshop always took Wednesdays off, so that was the day that he always chose to do his kidnapping. What a horrible, horrible piece of crap he is Now.
Speaker 1:Stephanie talks in her book about how, after some hours on that journey, she could feel the car turn and go down a bumpy lane. She then heard scraping metal of a heavy door or something and Sam's manhandled her inside the workshop. He made her sit on a chair and put handcuffs around her wrists and ankles. He also took the hairband out of her hair so that her hair was like around her face instead of tied up. He brought us some chip shop chips, which he ate a few of and drank some tea as well. Now this bit is going to be a really tough listen team.
Speaker 1:I'm going to describe a sexual assault and rape. If you don't want to hear this, then please skip on. About a minute or a minute and a half. Sam's took the handcuffs off Stephanie's wrists and ankles, but kept the blindfold on and proceeded to undress her. She talked in her book of the dread that she felt at this point, he began touching her and remember that she's still blindfolded at this point and he forced her onto a mattress in the workshop. He told her to open her legs and she knew what was coming.
Speaker 1:In her book she described how, at this point, she felt like she split into two entities. She talked about how her body could feel him moving on her and committing this horrific travesty, but that her mind went elsewhere and she became an observer rather than a participant. I'm sure that anyone who's experienced a sexual assault or worked with victims, survivors of assault, knows that this is a common defense mechanism. Stephanie's instinct here was pure survival, and to survive she had to detach for what was happening to her, and on the going west podcast episode about this, they say that once he had raped her, sam said that it wasn't very good, probably because she was so detached, and that he didn't get what he wanted. He never raped her again, according to Stephanie. I cannot imagine how scared she was at this point, not being able to see, naked and cold and God knows where, not knowing when she might be able to go home, thinking that she might be killed Just having been raped by her kidnapper. It's just really unthinkable Now, on that first night, sam's then revealed where Stephanie would be spending most of her time In the box that was in a wheelie bin, the same one that he had kept Julie Dart in.
Speaker 1:Stephanie describes being forced into there and how small it was. Her limbs were squashed and although some nights she was able to push her blindfold off, it was just horrifically small and uncomfortable. Sam's told her, like he did Stephanie, that there were booby traps around the wheelie bin, like boulders on top and electrodes that would electrocute her. And just think about that. If Stephanie was experiencing this, then that is probably what Julie went through as well. This, then, that is probably what Julie was went through as well, and I cannot imagine what that first night trapped was like for Stephanie or Julie.
Speaker 1:In an interview with Stephanie that was played on the kidnapping of Stephanie Slater podcast, she talked about how she spent her nights thinking about, you know, random things like episodes of the comedies Red Dwarf and Blackadder to keep her from thinking about the worst that could happen. She talked about how much she loved those comedies and would recite lines from episodes as she lay in the box and wheelie been at night. They kept her spirits up and as the days went on, there seemed to be a routine with Sam's. He would come into the workshop in the morning, let Stephanie out of the box for the loo and then make her porridge and tea. He would then put her back in the box until tea time.
Speaker 1:She really didn't want to go back into that box, so she started talking to Sam's, telling him about herself, her family, her boyfriend, her job. He didn't talk a lot back, but did seem to enjoy the conversation with her. He didn't talk a lot back, but did seem to enjoy the conversation with her. Each day she continued talking about things like her holiday plans, him saying that he had been to places she wanted to go, even talking about Coronation Street. Stephanie was very cleverly reminding Sam every day that she was a human being. She was also probably playing to his ego by pretending to be interested in him. Whatever it was, she continued to survive and that was the main thing.
Speaker 2:I still think about what an amazing thing she did, and I don't know if she would think it was amazing We'll never know, really, I never asked her but I think what she did was amazing because she saw the human being in this horrendous man who'd taken her and decided to use that, communicate with the human being underneath the monster and try and get through to him and make herself human. Yeah, emphasize to him that she was a real person, a person with a life, a person with hopes and aspirations. As they watch soap opera, exactly. You know all that stuff and and you know all the things that she liked she shared. Originally, when she started to talk to him, she knew he wasn't going to give her anything, so she just did the talking. She started just pouring out things about her life. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:You think about the situation that she was in. She was being held against her will. Most of the day she was being locked up in this coffin-style wooden box, which was then locked in a wheelie bin, and that was her life, and the only time she got out was when he made a food, when he let her go to the toilet or when she was talking to him. So in some way she was doing it on a personal level to stay out of the box, but at the same time she I think she knew what she was doing. She was trying to communicate, build a relationship with this guy so that it was more likely he would let her go.
Speaker 1:The same time as Stephanie was being held in that Newark workshop, forced to spend most of the day in a box in a wheelie bin, bound and blindfolded with only tea, kit Kats and porridge to sustain her, sam's was out and about negotiating a ransom with her employer's Shipways estate agents. As soon as Sams had kidnapped Stephanie and put her in the car, he forced her to record a message on a cassette tape, and the message from Stephanie talked about how she was OK but that her kidnapper is asking for £175,000 in ransom for her safe return on the 31st of January 1992. The cassette was sent to Kevin Watts, who was Stephanie's boss at Shipways and unbeknownst to Sam's. Kevin immediately called the police and alerted them to what was happening and awaited more information from the kidnapper. Sam's never knew that the police were watching and advising Kevin in the background. He also never knew about the deal that police struck with the media to keep the story out of the press and hopefully keep Stephanie alive. We are going to leave this episode with Stephanie being kept against her will in that workshop in Newark by Sam's and Kevin Watts and the police working away in the background to get the ransom and awaiting further instructions from Sam's to get her home safely. We're going to pick it up in part two, which we'll be dropping next Friday, when we'll hear more from Andy Whittaker as well. In the meantime, this episode is dedicated to Julie Dart and Stephanie Slater and their powerful and important legacies.
Speaker 1:This has been Killer in the Family podcast written and produced by me, claire Laxton. I'll be back next week with part two of this case. Don't forget to send me any comments or questions to my Insta at Killer in the Family pod or through a text via a link in the episode notes. Do let me know any stories you'd like me to cover as well. Also, don't forget that you can buy me a coffee if you like the podcast and help support its running. The link is in the episode notes, and thank you so much to everyone for your support so far. Until then, I've been Claire Laxton. No-transcript.
