The Essex Murders: Private investigators say new evidence ‘points to different killer’ in 1995 Range Rover shooting
It has been almost 30 years since one of the UK’s most notorious murder cases – the gangland shooting of three drug dealers whose bodies were found in a Range Rover parked up on farmland in a small village in Essex.
Patrick Tate, 37, Tony Tucker, 38, and Craig Rolfe, 26, were each shot in the head at point-blank range in December 1995.
In 1998, two men, Michael Steele and Jack Whomes, were jailed for the triple murder that became known as one of the UK’s biggest gangland executions.
Search for any of these names online – or type in Essex Boys Murders, Rettendon Murders, Range Rover Murders, and you’ll get thousands of results – news stories, details of appeals, films based on the stories of those involved, interviews with associates, commentary on internet forums, and social media pages set up by armchair detectives.
The killings inspired films in The Rise of the Footsoldier franchise, as well as the 2000 film Essex Boys, starring Sean Bean.
Michael Steele and Jack Whomes (below) were jailed in 1998
Essex Police say the case has been “exhaustively examined” over the years – but despite the convictions, many believe there is more to the story.
Now, private investigators from the firm TM Eye, who began looking into the case in 2020, have told Sky News they have uncovered evidence that casts doubt on the convictions. They believe the real killer has walked free.
The investigation, headed by David McKelvey, a former Met Police detective, will be featured in an upcoming three-part series, The Essex Murders, on Sky Documentaries.
“We would not be doing this if we had any doubts at all,” he told Sky News. “We’re career detectives, we’ve put bad people in prison.
“We would not be trying to get anybody out of prison who we didn’t believe was innocent. Jack Whomes and Michael Steele did not do this.”
Mr McKelvey says the pair were involved in drugs offences, for which they should have been punished.
“But they did not carry out this murder,” he added. “And the important point here is: they didn’t do it, someone else did – and that person or those people are still on the streets.”
The original investigation
TM Eye private investigator David McKelvey. Pic: Sky UK
The bodies of Mr Tate, Mr Tucker and Mr Rolfe were discovered in the Range Rover on farmland in Rettendon, near Chelmsford, on the morning of 7 December 1995.
The scene provided little in the way of forensic evidence, according to reports from the time.
All three men were known by Essex Police; part of the reason the case became so high-profile was that Mr Tucker ran security for Raquels, the nightclub where Leah Betts had taken the ecstasy tablet that led to her death less than a month before the murders.
The TM Eye investigators question Essex Police’s timeline of the night of the murders, alleging the shooting happened at about midnight, rather than just before 7pm – a farmer who heard gunshots backs this in the programme – as well as mobile phone evidence presented during the trial.
But they believe the case against Whomes and Steele rested largely on the testimony of a man called Darren Nicholls.
The word of a ‘supergrass’
In May 1996, the man then known as Darren Nicholls was arrested on suspicion of possessing a large amount of cannabis that had been imported into Clacton from the Netherlands.
While being questioned by police over this case, he told officers it was Steele and Whomes who were behind the Essex Murders and that he had been the getaway driver.
Nicholls, who said the three men had been killed over a bad drugs deal, became known as a “supergrass”; he was placed under witness protection and given a new identity after giving evidence against the pair.
“Our start point was: did Darren Nicholls tell the truth?” Mr McKelvey said. “If he told the truth, then Michael Steele and Jack Whomes are guilty and that’s the end of it. But as we’ve delved into it all a different story has emerged.”
Albert Patrick, another former detective who worked on the private investigation, says: “You have got to be ultra careful when you’re dealing with the evidence of another criminal against a criminal, as simple as that.”
The documentary includes interviews with associates of the three men who died, as well as interviews with experts and police officers who investigated the case.
Former detective Ivan Dibley, who investigated the case at the time, says the right men were jailed. Pic: Sky UK
Former detective superintendent Ivan Dibley admits physical evidence was “scant” and there was an element of Nicholls “saving his own skin”, but that his account had an “enormous” amount of detail; he says his evidence was examined thoroughly and “it was pretty clear that what he said was true”.
There is “no doubt in my mind” that the right men were convicted, he adds. But the TM Eye investigators spoke to criminals, who feature anonymously in the documentary, who tell a different story.
‘A professional assassination’
One man, known as Witness A in the series, maintains the murders were linked to organised crime in east London and that the three men were actually killed over part of the proceeds of a £495,000 armed robbery allegedly being stolen by Mr Tucker.
This man was interviewed by Essex Police shortly after the deaths, the TM Eye investigators say, but his account was not taken any further.
This is the word of another self-confessed criminal – one of the various different accounts of what happened, from people who could have ulterior motives.
The investigators say they have to be cautious, but believe they were able to corroborate this account.
“Because of our backgrounds, our history and our knowledge of organised crime, particularly in east London, we were able to get behind that,” Mr McKelvey says. “We were able to identify officers who dealt with him, criminals who knew him, and his account is compelling.”
Towards the end of their investigation, they spoke to another anonymous witness who tells them he organised the hit.
The target was Mr Tucker, he says, because of the armed robbery. Mr Tate and Mr Rolfe were “collateral damage… wrong place, wrong time”.
“When you put the whole thing together, you had serious and organised crime behind this,” Mr McKelvey says. “You had a professional assassin, a sophisticated assassination.”
The Rise of the Footsoldier
Carlton Leach features in The Essex Murders documentary series. Pic: Sky UK
One person featured in the series is former football hooligan Carlton Leach, a friend and associate of Mr Tucker whose autobiography inspired The Rise of the Footsoldier film franchise.
He tells Sky News he wanted to take part to “speak up” for his friend. While he admits his lifestyle “wasn’t right”, he says there were “a lot of people living in that world, making money [from drugs]”.
He says Mr Tucker had told him of a “meet” with Steele. “So I do know that Mickey Steele was there or involved in how they got there. I can’t say for definite, because I wasn’t there… but I do know he was part of it. As far as I’m concerned, whether he pulled the trigger or not, he was part of the parcel that killed them.”
Read more:
Rise of the Footsoldier origins: The story behind cult Essex films
However, he believes there was at least one other person involved. “I don’t think the person who’s actually killed them has ever been caught, who pulled the trigger. And I think whoever did kill them was an assassin and had done it before… it wasn’t just a random shooting, it wasn’t someone just someone running up to the car. It was a planned murder. And it was done professionally.”
Where are Whomes and Steele now?
Michael Steele and Jack Whomes leaving the High Court under armed guard in 2006, when the sentences were appealed
Since the convictions, the case has been taken to the Court of Appeal several times.
The appeals have been rejected and in 2006 Lord Justice Kay said there was no “element of unsafety” relating to the original convictions of both defendants.
The case has also been reviewed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) and the decision was made in January 2023 not to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal.
Whomes, now 61, had his life sentence reduced in 2018 after making “exceptional progress” in prison and was approved for release under strict licence conditions in 2021, while Steele, 78, has a parole hearing in May.
What do Essex Police and the CCRC say?
The TM Eye investigators say they hope the documentary will encourage even more witnesses to come forward and that they believe the case should be reviewed by an independent police force.
A spokesperson for the CCRC said in a statement: “A comprehensive review has concluded there is no real possibility that the Court of Appeal would overturn these murder convictions.
“The decision notifications were shared with the applicants and their legal representatives.”
A spokesperson for Essex Police said there had been “an exhaustive” investigation into the murders and that the force welcomed the CCRC’s decision “as this case has been exhaustively examined over the last 27 years and there is no fresh evidence identified which would call the original verdicts into question”.
The Essex Murders starts at 9pm on 15 April on Sky Documentaries.
A former soldier has been found guilty of raping his ex-girlfriend during a four-hour attack in which he killed her, her mother and her sister.
Warning: This article contains distressing details.
Kyle Clifford, 26, previously admitted murdering BBC racing commentator John Hunt’s wife Carol Hunt, 61, and their daughters Louise, 25, and Hannah, 28.
He also pleaded guilty to false imprisonment of Louise, who was tied and gagged with duct tape, and possession of the crossbow used to kill her and her sister, and the 10-inch butcher’s knife he stabbed their mother to death with.
Kyle Clifford. Pic: Hertfordshire Police
Prosecutors said he raped Louise in an “act of spite” during the attack in the Hunt family home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, on 9 July last year after she broke up with him 13 days earlier.
Clifford, who refused to attend the four-day trial at Cambridge Crown Court, claimed DNA evidence found on her body was from a consensual sexual encounter 16 days before the attack.
But he was found guilty by a jury after the court heard his explanation was “completely untenable”.
Louise Hunt
Pic: Facebook
There was applause from the public gallery and cries of “yes!”, with one woman pumping her fists and another woman crying as the guilty verdict was heard.
The court was told Clifford began planning the murders after Louise, who told a friend he had a “nasty temper”, ended their 18-month relationship in a message on 26 June.
Judge pays tribute to family of the victims
Mr Justice Joel Bennathan said he will sentence Clifford on Tuesday for his “dreadful” and “almost unspeakable” crimes.
The judge paid tribute to the family of the deceased, adding: “They conducted themselves with huge dignity and restraint and I pay tribute to them.”
Detective Chief Inspector Nick Gardner said Clifford’s failure to attend his trial was an “absolute act of cowardice”.
He pointed out that the trial had been held in Cambridge to meet Clifford’s accessibility needs – he required a wheelchair after he shot himself with the crossbow.
“He has put the family through the ordeal of the trial, he has created everything that’s happened over this past week and failing to show his face is completely cowardly,” he added.
Carol Hunt pictured with her husband John Hunt.
Pic: Facebook
Hannah Hunt. Pic: Facebook
Clifford ‘planned a terrible attack’
Louise’s friends and family, who had described Clifford as “odd”, and “disrespectful, rude and arrogant”, backed her decision to end the relationship, sparked by his behaviour at a friend’s wedding.
Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said Clifford, who had hidden relationships with two other women from Louise, was “angered” that she rebuffed his attempts to get back together.
“The defendant planned a terrible attack on Louise Hunt and her family, enraged by her rejection of him,” she told jurors during the trial.
“That attack included an act of sexual violence, committed out of spite, when she was restrained and unable to escape him.”
Read more
CCTV released shows timeline of crossbow and knife killer
Kyle Clifford pleads guilty to murders of racing commentator’s wife and daughters
Violent misogyny of kind promoted by Andrew Tate ‘fuelled rape and triple murder’
The recovered crossbow.
Pic: Hertfordshire Police
She said the murders were “carefully planned and executed”, with Clifford tricking his way inside the family home on the pretext of returning Louise’s belongings and delivering a “thank you” card to her parents after checking Mr Hunt was not home.
He carried out “a brutal knife attack” on Carol, then waited for his ex-girlfriend to return home from working at her dog grooming business in a pod in the garden, the court heard.
It was added that customers of Louise’s business were using the gate at the side of the house, “not realising what was happening” when Carol was attacked and killed.
Louise was held for hours before Clifford shot her with the crossbow moments before her sister Hannah, a beautician, came home from work.
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Footage shows Clifford fleeing the Hunt family home
Hannah is heard on audio at the Hunt family home saying: “Kyle, I swear to God,” after finding him inside the house, the court heard.
The prosecution said Hannah messaged her partner, Alex Klein, telling him to “call police… immediately. To mine. Now. Kyle here. Police now. He’s tying us up”.
Clifford’s own sister messaged him on the day of the attacks when she realised he had taken the crossbow, asking: “What are you playing at?”
A loud whooshing sound was caught on a doorbell camera as the weapon was fired, while Hannah could be heard to shout, “Oh my god”, as she found her mother and sister.
The 10-inch butcher’s knife Clifford used was never found but police released an image of the packaging.
Pic: PA
She was also shot but managed to call police, and emergency services found her collapsed in the doorway, but she died soon after.
Clifford, who served in the army from 2019 to 2022, shot himself in the chest with a crossbow as armed police found him in a cemetery the next day after a manhunt and is now paralysed from the chest downwards.
Violent misogyny promoted by the likes of Andrew Tate fuelled Clifford’s attack, prosecutors argued in court.
He also had been searching YouTube for the controversial influencer’s podcast the day before he carried out the four-hour attack, it was said in legal argument ahead of his trial.
It can only now be reported because the judge excluded the evidence from the trial, saying that it was of “limited relevance” and too prejudicial.
UK
Kyle Clifford: Violent misogyny of kind promoted by Andrew Tate ‘fuelled rape and triple murder’, prosecution says
The violent misogyny promoted by the likes of Andrew Tate fuelled a former soldier’s rape of his ex-girlfriend and the murder of her along with her mother and sister, the prosecution argued in court.
Warning: This article contains distressing details.
Kyle Clifford, 26, had been searching YouTube for the 38-year-old controversial influencer’s podcast the day before he carried out the four-hour attack, it was said in legal argument ahead of his trial.
It can only now be reported because Judge Mr Justice Bennathan excluded the evidence from the trial, saying that it was of “limited relevance” and too prejudicial.
But he added that anyone who takes a close interest in Tate, a “poster boy for misogynists”, could also be seen as a misogynist.
Clifford tricked his way inside the family home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, on 9 July last year on the pretext of returning a bag of 25-year-old Louise Hunt’s clothes 13 days after she dumped him.
He made sure her father, the BBC and Sky Sports racing commentator John Hunt, wasn’t home before stabbing her mother Carol Hunt, 61, to death with a 10-inch butchering knife.
Clifford laid in wait for more than an hour until Louise returned from work at the dog grooming business she ran from a pod in the garden, tied her arms and ankles with duct tape, gagged her and raped her.
Carol Hunt and her daughters Hannah and Louise.
Pic: Facebook
He held her captive for hours before shooting her through the chest with a crossbow, using the same weapon to kill her sister Hannah Hunt, a 28-year-old beauty therapist, when she returned home minutes later.
Clifford pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, false imprisonment, and two counts of possession of offensive weapons but denied raping Louise – claiming the DNA found on her body was from 16 days earlier.
He has now been found guilty of the charge by a jury at Cambridge Crown Court.
Interest in Andrew Tate
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CCTV shows Clifford’s movements
Clifford had been searching YouTube for Tate’s podcast the day before the murders and is believed to have watched up to 10 of the influencer’s videos.
One of Louise Hunt’s friends had previously asked why he was watching one of Tate’s videos involving drugged animals and he said: “Because it’s funny,” it was said during legal argument before the trial.
Prosecutors argued the “violent misogyny promoted by Tate” was the same kind that “fuelled both the murders” and the rape” committed by Clifford.
Alison Morgan KC said his interest in the “widely known misogynist” helped to explain why he became so “incandescent with rage” after she ended the relationship.
Andrew Tate. File pic: AP
In throwing out the evidence, the judge said that there was likely to be ongoing reporting about Tate after he and his brother Tristan, 36, flew to the US from Romania on Thursday after travel restrictions imposed on the pair were lifted.
A criminal investigation has since been launched into the British-American pair – who are already subject to an ongoing probe into alleged people trafficking in Romania – in Florida.
They are also due to be extradited to the UK after that case to face separate accusations of rape and trafficking dating back to between 2012 and 2015.
The brothers deny any wrongdoing.
‘Misogynistic and sexualised’ comments
Clifford had recently been sacked from his job at a catering supply firm in Waltham Cross.
It also emerged in legal argument that he was said to have made “misogynistic and sexualised comments” about female colleagues in the workplace.
He hid two relationships with women he knew through work from Louise during their 18-month relationship, which started after they met on a dating website.
It can now be reported Clifford went on dating apps Hinge and Tinder moments after Louise ended their 18-month relationship in a message on 26 June last year.
Clifford then started planning his attack, buying a length of rope just two days later, and on 30 June he researched crossbows before searching for a pornographic video of a Wandsworth prison officer having sex with an inmate.
Brother serving life sentence for murder
He also discussed crossbows with his brother Bradley Clifford, who he would visit in prison every other week, where he is serving a life sentence for murdering a teenager in 2017.
Bradley Clifford drunkenly mowed down 19-year-old Jahshua Francis, who was riding a moped, and his pillion passenger Sobhan Khan, 18, after his “prized” red Mustang was damaged.
Bradley Clifford. Pic: Met Police
Police said Kyle Clifford had plenty of opportunities to back out of the 9 July attack but was “absolutely cold-blooded and calculated in his actions”.
In legal argument not before the jury, Ms Morgan said “highly sexualised violence played a part in what took place” and that Clifford was trying to “misogynistically control Louise Hunt for one more time”.
‘Sense of entitlement’
She described him as a man whose identity was based on “whether he has the right number of women and the admiration of women” and “doesn’t like to be told, ‘No,’ by women”.
Ms Morgan said his “sense of entitlement” and the “spite and the sleight” of being dumped fuelled the sexualised violence.
After the murders, CCTV footage shows Clifford calmly leaving the Hunt family home in the quiet cul-de-sac of Ashlyn Close carrying a backpack and holding the crossbow hidden under a blanket.
He drove to a cemetery near his home in Enfield, north London, where he shot himself in the chest with the weapon as armed police descended the next day following a manhunt.
A makeshift noose was found in a nearby tree, but police and prosecutors don’t believe he made a genuine attempt to end his life, although he was left paralysed from the chest down.
The trial was held in Cambridge to accommodate him as a wheelchair user, but he refused to attend.
Kyle Clifford in 2023
‘Underwhelming individual’
His victims’ friends and family, including John Hunt – who has one surviving daughter Amy – sat in the public gallery to hear the harrowing details of the case.
Detective Chief Inspector Nick Gardner described Clifford, who served in the army from 2019 for around three years, as an “entirely underwhelming individual” with a failed military career who couldn’t hold down a job.
He worked as a private security guard for a few months in 2023, then was sacked from his job at Reynolds shortly before the murders.
Louise had told a friend Clifford had a “nasty temper”, while friends and family members described him as “odd” or “disrespectful, rude and arrogant”.
Clifford came to the attention of police in London in relation to alleged offences of possession of cannabis, assault without injury and theft when he was a juvenile between 2012 and 2013, but they didn’t result in charges or convictions.
Police say there were no obvious red flags that he would go on to commit such a crime.
Sharon Holland sits surrounded by fresh flowers as she scrolls through photos on her phone of her daughter, Chloe.
Warning: This article contains references to suicide and domestic abuse
Beautiful, poised, Chloe stares back at her from the screen. She was a fun, independent young women – until she wasn’t.
Caught up in an abusive relationship with a former partner, who her mother calls a “monster”, Chloe became a shadow of her former self.
Sharon never met him as Chloe kept the ongoing relationship a secret but she had suspicions when her daughter, who had moved out of home, retreated from her friends and family.
“As far as I knew, they’d split up in September 2022 and she was living happily in Southampton,” she says.
But Sharon began to suspect the relationship might be back on after she spotted her daughter liking some of her ex-boyfriend’s Facebook posts.
Chloe was full of life before she met her abuser
“I saw a few hearts on his pictures, and thought ‘here we go’. But she would always deny it and say she would never get back with him. Of course, she was lying to me.”
Increasingly isolated from her loved ones, Chloe’s only communication with Sharon was through text messages and the occasional phone call.
“She turned up at people’s houses with black eyes and made excuses for marks around her neck and everything else,” says Sharon. “No one told me.”
Chloe took her own life in February 2023.
Her family is not alone in their grief. There are now more victims of domestic abuse who take their own life, than those who are killed by their partners.
Between April 2022 to March 2023, there were 93 people who took their own lives following domestic abuse. A 29% rise compared to the previous year.
Sharon and Sky News’ Ashna Hurynag
Assaulted with a dumbbell and handed a knife
Marc Masterton, Chloe’s boyfriend at the time, was routinely assaulting her, controlling her appearance, isolating her from friends and family, belittling her and encouraging her to self-harm.
On one occasion after he assaulted her with a dumbbell, Chloe threatened to take her own life.
In response, Masterton handed her a knife.
“She said on a few occasions, his eyes went from blue to black and it terrified her,” Sharon says.
The abuse was happening in plain sight – in hotels, hostels and on public transport. Chloe eventually chose to report the abuse to police. But two weeks later, she attempted to take her own life.
At the intensive care unit she was taken to before she died, Sharon didn’t leave her bedside. It was here she learnt from a police officer about Chloe’s testimony a fortnight before.
Chloe and her mother, Sharon
Chloe’s evidence
“They told me she’d done a video statement for over two hours and were investigating him,” Sharon says.
“I’ve watched it. She was crying for lots of it and was distraught. I was devastated and angry. He was telling her to take her life. He was giving her knives up against her neck and then saying, you do it.”
Her evidence led to the conviction of her abuser. Masterton admitted coercive and controlling behaviour and was jailed for three years, nine months.
Justice which, Sharon feels, fell well below her expectations.
“We needed to get over four years for him to go on this dangerous person’s list, so he could be monitored as high risk,” she adds.
Sharon is now calling for tougher sentences for those convicted of coercive control.
The current maximum sentence a perpetrator can get for the offence is five years, but Sharon points to countries like France where the maximum sentence is 10 years.
“No amount of years is going to bring her back… But he needed to get more than that.”
The overlooked victims of a growing crisis
It’s incredibly rare to get a criminal investigation in these cases, says Hazel Mercer from the national charity, Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse.
“Most of the families that come to us where there’s been a suicide as result of domestic abuse, the biggest issue for them is the lack of acknowledgement of what has happened to their loved one. Is there going to be any justice that says this domestic abuse was a crime against this person who’s now dead?
“They ask, is anything like that going to happen, and at the moment, nine times out of ten, the answer is no.”
Hazel Mercer advocates for families who have a lost a loved one after domestic abuse
Hazel works with families who feel a lack of “professional curiosity” by authorities means critical connections are often missed.
“When we have a homicide, resources are put into it, there is a real investigation… For a suicide, we seldom see that investigative desire or professional curiosity to look behind that suicide and why it happened.”
Fighting for change
The Crown Prosecution Service is investigating the link between suicide and domestic abuse more closely.
Efforts are being made to educate police and prosecutors on coercive control’s deadly trajectory after the high-profile death of mother Kiena Dawes, who was abused before she died by suicide on 22 July 2022.
Sky News has learnt the CPS is actively assessing similar cases, but Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown says “it isn’t straightforward”.
Kiena Dawes was abused before she died by suicide
“Invariably because of the nature of coercive and controlling behaviour, a lot of that offending happens in private. So without the victim, that’s quite difficult,” she says.
They are working with police to unpick the detail of the abuse a victim suffered in the lead up to their death. Collating evidence from family, friends or even doctors if the victim’s medical records show there’s been a history of physical violence.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown
The Ministry of Justice told Sky News: “This government is committed to halving violence against women and girls. The independent sentencing review is looking at sentences for offences primarily committed against them.
“Victims of controlling and coercive behaviour will also now be better protected through a new law that ensures more abusers are subject to joined-up management by police and probation.”
For Sharon, her campaign is a way of honouring her daughter’s memory. “I won’t stop till I get justice for Chloe,” she says.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
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