I investigated Steeltown murders of 3 teens by Saturday Night Strangler for 30 years… shocking twist finally solved case
AS thunderstorms raged overhead a team of forensic officers dug up the body of a burly bouncer they suspected of being a serial killer.
Petty thief Joe Kappen thought he’d taken his dark secrets to the grave – but in 2002, he became the first murderer in the UK to be exhumed on the basis of DNA evidence.
Unmasking the moustached predator as a serial killer who raped and strangled three 16-year-old girls in South Wales, in 1973, was only possible thanks to the determination of a cold case team, led by DCI Paul Bethell.
Bethell’s discovery finally closed the oldest unsolved case in Britain and ended 29 years of “hell” for the families of the victims – Geraldine Hughes, Pauline Floyd and Sandra Newton.
It also brought peace to a close knit community clouded by the knowledge that a killer – dubbed the ‘Saturday Night Strangler’ – who preyed on virgins could still be walking among them.
Now Life on Mars star Philip Glenister is playing the forward-thinking detective in a four part drama called Steeltown Murders, which begins on BBC1 tonight.
Glenister says: “Something like this can tear a community apart. My parents live in Wales and one of their neighbours was a junior policewoman on the case.”
Sandra Newton had been to the Traveller’s Rest pub at Briton Ferry, on Saturday July 14, 1973, and had moved on to the nearby Baron nightclub, leaving at 1am with her boyfriend.
But the pair had gone their separate ways and Sandra, dressed in a mini skirt and knee length boots, made the fatal decision to hitchhike home.
Her body was found the following day, dumped in a ditch near a coal mine in nearby Tonmawr.
She had been raped before being strangled with her own skirt.
Police suspected a local man was responsible because of the detailed knowledge of the area needed to be aware of the remote dump site.
Two months later, on the night of Saturday, September 15, Geraldine Hughes and best pal Pauline Floyd, both 16, had gone to Top Rank nightclub in Swansea.
Leaving at 1am, too late to catch a bus, the sewing factory workers were unable to afford a taxi to their homes seven miles away, so decided to thumb a lift.
They were seen getting into a white Austin 1100 and, travelling together, they must have felt they were safe.
Tragically, the next morning their bodies were found dumped 50 yards from each other in a wooded area near the village of Llandarcy, in the borough of Neath Port Talbot.
They were fully clothed with a five foot rope wrapped tight around their necks, leading police to conclude the killer had told them to get dressed again after raping them, then slaughtered the terrified teens.
One of the girls had attempted to escape and had made it yards from the road, close to where her father worked, before being caught by her attacker and killed.
Manhunt
The murders sparked the biggest manhunt in Welsh history – and Bethell, a young constable at the time, was involved in the case.
Police suspected the killer – dubbed the Saturday Night Strangler – was a local man because of the places where he hid the bodies, although the double murders were initially not linked to Sandra’s death.
They also knew Geraldine and Pauline had been picked up in a white Austin 1100, and questioned 11,000 registered owners.
Kappen, who was known to have a temper, was one of the 300 most likely suspects.
When police called he had the car up on blocks, having removed the wheels, and told them it was not roadworthy.
After his wife gave him a false alibi, police concluded there was not enough evidence to link him to the crimes and the investigation was dropped.
But a shadow hung over the local community and, three years after the slayings, Geraldine’s mother Jean Hughes made her feelings known by delivering a petition to No.10 Downing Street demanding a return of the death penalty.
She said. “I can’t accept what happened to Geraldine. It has left me very bitter. If they ever catch the person responsible, they should hang him. I want him to feel a rope around his neck like the girls felt.”
DNA clue
While the case was reviewed several times over the next three decades, it took a major technological advance in 1998 to provide a breakthrough.
The Low Copy Number DNA test, which could detect DNA from the tiniest speck of material, meant the girls’ clothing, kept in cold storage for almost 30 years, could now unlock the identity of the killer.
But after obtaining the DNA profile, the police were disappointed to find he wasn’t among the 1.7million on file.
Operation Magnum, the reinvestigation of the Llandarcy murders, was officially opened in January 2000, with a team consisting of DCI Paul Bethell and two veteran detectives, Phil Rees and Geraint Bale.
I can’t accept what happened to Geraldine. It has left me very bitter. If they ever catch the person responsible, they should hang him. I want him to feel a rope around his neck like the girls felt
Jean Hughes, victim's mother
With the budget for just 500 DNA swabs from local men, the trio had to narrow down the 35,000 names on file to find the top suspects.
Incredibly, the team discovered a string of unsolved rapes in the Neath area in the months prior to the girls’ murders, which had not previously been linked.
The women’s clothing had been destroyed, meaning there was no DNA evidence, but two of the rapes bore strong similarities to the killings and involved the use of ropes.
Victims said the balaclava-clad rapist, who smelled strongly of tobacco, grabbed them from behind before punching or threatening them into submission.
Afterwards, he told one victim: “Don’t open your eyes. I’m going to have a cigarette and think about whether I’m going to kill you or not.”
‘Throwing dice’
The team also called in a behavioural scientist from Surrey police, who profiled the killer as white, aged late 20s to mid-30s, with history of minor property crime, known to the police as a juvenile at around 12, and likely to live in the Neath area. He was also likely to have a history of assaults, and possibly animal cruelty.
Over eight months, they painstakingly eliminated names from their enquiry.
“No one outside the team ever believed we would get a detection from this,” says Rees. “It was like throwing dice for two years.”
But after whittling down to 500, they began to collect swabs from their suspects, even tracking some down as far as New Zealand.
“We were looking for a particular tree in a forest. In order to find it, you had to cut down all the other trees. The beauty of DNA is that you can once and for all eliminate a suspect,” says Bethell.
Kappen was listed as suspect number 200, but detectives visiting his old address in Port Talbot in August 2001 were told by his ex-wife he had died of lung cancer in June 1990.
Two months later, Sandra Newton’s clothes were reexamined and DNA revealed she had been murdered by the killers of Geraldine and Pauline.
Body exhumed
Bethell’s team still had one ace up their sleeve – which had never been tried before.
Using the killer’s DNA profile, they swept the records for a familial match among living descendants and struck lucky when the name of Joseph Kappen’s son, Paul, came up.
Just seven at the time of the murders, he had become a car thief and the familial match meant his father was now prime suspect – although his family vehemently denied it could be him.
At Goytre Cemetery in Port Talbot, on May 17, 2002, the first ever exhumation of a UK murder suspect swung into action.
Witnesses reported a thunderstorm suddenly struck as the exhumation began and a large thunderclap was heard as the ground was moved from the hole, with one suggesting they had “unearthed evil”.
Forensic testing proved, without a doubt, that Kappen was the Saturday Night Strangler.
He was also suspected to have murdered 23-year-old Maureen Mulcahy, strangled in September 1973, near the Sandfields Estate where Kappen was living at the time.
For Jean Hughes and husband Denver, the police breakthrough meant they could finally find peace, 30 years after the death of their only child.
“You know there are evils out there but you never believe it will touch on you and yours,” said Jean at the time.
“When it does, it is a lifetime’s sentence of hell, believe me. Now we hope we can close the book on the most horrific chapter of our lives.”
The Steeltown Murders begins on BBC1 at 9pm tonight.