The harrowing true story behind new BBC drama Steeltown Murders – and how it made murder investigation history
NEW BBC drama Steeltown Murders is based on a harrowing true story that made murder investigation history.
Starring Philip Glenister, 60, Steffan Rhodri, 56, and Keith Allen, 69, the four-part series centres on the hunt to catch the killer of three young women in a small town in Wales.
BBC One’s Steeltown Murders is set in Port Talbot in 1973 and tells the heartbreaking true story of the fates of three young women.
Sixteen year-olds Geraldine Hughes and Pauline Floyd, and 15-year-old Sandra Newton were all murdered and raped by Joseph Kapper.
The attacks were so brutal, police went so far as to put up posters warning people that “thumb lifts have led to murder” and urging them not to do it.
Kapper earned himself the nickname the Saturday Night Strangler for exclusively attacking on Saturdays.
He was caught in the early 2000s, almost 30 years after the last murder, using pioneering DNA evidence.
BBC describes Steeltown Murders as a “portrait of a town dealing with the repercussions of an unsolved case three decades on” while asking if justice can ever truly be found.
Philip Glenister appears as DCI Paul Bethell and Steffan Rhodri, as Phil Bach Rees, as two officers working on the investigation and lead a stellar cast including Keith Allen, and Sharon Morgan.
Written by Ed Whitmore, the brains behind Manhunt and Safe House, the show explores the contrasting policing methods of the 1970s with the forensic breakthroughs of the early 2000s, rather than focusing on the murderer.
The case was a first of its kind thanks to pioneering methods used in a cold case.
After a DNA swab matched a petty thief who was just seven years old at the time of the murders, police took their case to the high court to ask for Kapper’s body to be exhumed.
In 2002, the landmark case helped determine the fiend’s guilt after DNA was extracted from his femur and his teeth and turned out to be a complete match.
Steeltown Murders launches at 9pm on Monday 15 May on BBC One, with all episodes then available on BBC iPlayer.