Suffolk Strangler Steve Wright revealed as suspect arrested over unsolved 1999 murder of Victoria Hall, 17, whose naked body was found in a ditch after she vanished walking home from club

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Police have arrested Suffolk Strangler Steve Wright over the unsolved 1999 murder of 17-year-old girl Victoria Hall, who was strangled and dumped in a water-filled ditch after disappearing while walking home from a nightclub, it emerged today.  

The 63-year-old, who is serving a whole life tariff for murdering five women, was arrested at Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire yesterday. 

Suffolk Police had reopened an investigation into Miss Hall's death after receiving new 'information from witnesses' which they described at the time as significant. 

Steve Wright, (left) who is serving a whole life tariff for murdering five women, was arrested at Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire yesterday in connection with the death of Victoria Hall (right) 

A Porsche-driving businessman was cleared of her murder in November 2001 after a two week trial at Norwich Crown Court.

Suffolk Police confirmed yesterday that the man had been arrested on suspicion of murder and had been taken into custody for questioning. Wright was first named by the Telegraph. 

Miss Hall left her home in Faulkeners Way in Trimley St Mary, at 9pm on September 18, 1999, to join friends at the Bandbox nightclub in Felixstowe.

She left the club with her best friend Gemma Algar, 17, at 1am the next morning, stopping to buy chips from the Bodrum Grill takeaway.

The pair walked back along Trimley High Road towards their respective homes while eating chips and singing, before splitting up at the junction of Faulkeners Way at 2.20am.

A short time later Miss Algar heard screams, but assumed it was someone messing around.

Miss Hall's parents Graham and Lorinda Hall reported her missing in the morning and a huge hunt for her got underway.

Her naked body was found by a dog walker on September 24 in a water-filled ditch around 20 miles away in Creeting St Peter near Stowmarket, Suffolk.

Tests revealed that Miss Hall who had just started her second year of studying A levels at Orwell High School, Felixstowe, had not been sexually assaulted.

Adrian Bradshaw, then aged 27, who owned the Felixstowe Flyer free newspaper was charged with murder after one of the biggest ever investigations to be undertaken by Suffolk Police.

He had spent part of the night at the same club as Miss Hall and was dropped off by a taxi a few hundred yards from where she disappeared.

Other witnesses also heard 'horrifying' screams followed by the roar of a 'throaty' car exhaust, which prosecutors claimed was from Bradshaw's Porsche 944.

The prosecution also alleged there was a near match between soil samples recovered from his car and the ditch where Miss Hall's body was found.

But the evidence was undermined when a geologist called by the defence said the sample could have come from elsewhere in East Anglia.

As a result jurors took less than 90 minutes to find Bradshaw not guilty.

Graham and Lorinda Hall. Their daughter, Victoria, was murdered in 1999 but the case was never solved 

A Suffolk Police statement said today: 'Police investigating the unsolved murder of a teenage girl from Trimley St Mary - which took place over 20 years ago - have made an arrest as part of the inquiry.

'Victoria Hall, aged 17, was last seen alive in the early hours of Sunday 19 September 1999, in High Road, Trimley St Mary.

'Victoria left home on the evening of Saturday 18 September 1999 to go for a night out with a friend at the Bandbox nightclub in Bent Hill, Felixstowe, where they remained until around 1am on the morning of Sunday 19 September.

'They then went to get some food at the Bodrum Grill in Undercliff Road West, before beginning the walk back to Trimley St Mary. They parted at around 2.20am near to the junction of High Road and Faulkeners Way. Victoria was just yards away from her home.

'When Victoria's parents woke-up that morning and discovered that she had not returned home, the police were called and a missing person inquiry commenced.

'Five days later, on Friday 24 September, Victoria's naked body was found in a ditch beside a field by a dog walker in Creeting Lane, Creeting St Peter, approximately 25 miles away from where she was last seen.

'In September 2019, Suffolk Police revealed that the case – known as Operation Avon - was now a live inquiry again and being fully reinvestigated by a new team of detectives, after fresh information had been received that was not previously known.

'As a result of the work that has been ongoing for the past two years, officers have arrested a man on suspicion of murder this morning, Wednesday 28 July.

'He has been taken into police custody where he currently remains for questioning. This individual is not someone who has previously been arrested as part of this inquiry'.

Suffolk Police had reopened an investigation into the teenager's death after receiving new 'information from witnesses' which they described at the time as significant

The new investigation into Miss Hall's murder was announced in September 2019 by Detective Chief Inspector Caroline Millar of Suffolk Police.

She said at the time that it was 'quite possible' that someone was protecting the killer, and appealed for them to come forward.

Mr Hall, 67, said in 2019 that he and his wife were told six months previously about the new police leads.

He said: 'It was a complete surprise. I am very confident that this new team will pursue it to the end. It has been very positive over the last few months.

Describing his daughter, he said: 'She was a fun loving teenager who liked to go out in the evenings. She was an intelligent girl who was working hard, hopefully to go to university. She was a normal 17-year-old girl.

'We obviously see her friends who were the same age and you do wonder what Victoria would be doing at this stage and what she would have achieved in the last 20 years, and what she would have done with her life.

Two officers near the spot where Miss Hall was discovered on September 25, 1999 

'The person that evening took all of that way from all of us, but they will have to live with that. Hopefully, there will be pressure put on them again now. Hopefully they can't put up with it any longer because it will keep coming back to haunt them every year.'

Mrs Hall conceded that the killer could still be living in the Felixstowe area.

She said: 'It's not so much that the person might still be round here. It's that this person has put us through this. You have got to live with that. You've destroyed, our lives, not only our daughter's, and every close family member and her friends. Being near or far, doesn't really come into it because the hurt and pain is there.'

Police investigating Miss Hall's murder in 1999 revealed that she had been wearing a black dress with a frilly trim around the hem, a smart light brown jacket and black open-toed Size Five sandals.

But Det Chief Insp Millar said officers were able to reveal that she was thought to have been carrying a black purse with a zipper, possibly made of nylon, a house key fob with Miss Hall on the top and Victoria written down the side, a Rimmel lipstick, and a wooden hair slide with a piece of wood going through it.

She also disclosed that the inner soles of her sandals might have been stuck on with sellotape.

Victims of his six-week reign of terror

Steve Wright’s reign of terror began on October 30, 2006, when 19-year-old Tania Nicol disappeared.

She had left her home in Ipswich three years earlier and lived in a hostel having become a prostitute to pay for her heroin and cocaine addiction.

Her body was found in a river on December 8. There were no signs of sexual assault and a post-mortem was unable to specify a cause of death.

Tania Nicol (left) and Gemma Adams (right)

Gemma Adams, 25, was snatched in the early hours of November 15 and her naked remains were found in a river at Hintlesham on December 2.

She was from a middle-class family but became addicted to heroin in her teens and also fell into prostitution.

Mother of one Anneli Alderton, 24, was living in Colchester, Essex, and disappeared on December 3 after catching a train to Ipswich. 

The drug addict was strangled and left naked, posed as if on a cross, in woods where she was found on December 10.

The last sighting of mother of one Annette Nicholls, 29, was in Ipswich town centre on December 8

Paula Clennell (left) and Anneli Alderton (right)

The last sighting of mother of one Annette Nicholls, 29, was in Ipswich town centre on December 8. 

The prostitute’s naked body was also in the cruciform position when it was discovered four days later.

Wright’s last confirmed victim was Geordie mother of three Paula Clennell, 24, last seen on December 10. 

Tragically, she appeared in a TV interview as fear gripped Ipswich but said she had to keep working as a prostitute as she needed the money. 

Her naked body was found on the same day as Miss Nicholls. She’d been strangled.

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