Cold Blooded Evil. Neil Root
last season. It was a talking point in local shops, offices and at bus stops. The anguish of the Adams family touched many hearts. There was also some moralising and smug self-assurance. Other prostitutes were realising that it was probably bad luck that had singled out Gemma. It could have been them.
As well as establishing ‘no definitive cause of death’, the post-mortem examination on Gemma was able to conclude that there had been no sexual assault. The fact that the body had been found naked pointed to a sexual murder, but Suffolk Police were now having to consider different options. There were also many questions to be answered. Did the killer have consensual sex with Gemma as a business transaction before killing her? What was the motive? Was she left in the brook immediately after death? Was there a connection to a regular punter?
Detective Chief Inspector David Skevington of Suffolk Police made the routine appeal for information in a murder inquiry. He said: ‘Further enquiries need to be carried out to ascertain how long Gemma had been in the water, but our appeals are to anyone who had been in the area of Thorpes Hill in Hintlesham in the past two-and-a-half weeks since Gemma went missing on November 14.’
It was also stated that as she had been found unclothed it was a ‘matter of urgency’ that they find her clothing. The clothes worn by Gemma on the night of her disappearance were as follows: a black waterproof waist-length jacket with a hood and a zip at the front, light blue jeans with studs on the pockets, a red top and white and chrome Nike trainers. Gemma had been carrying a black handbag, but this had been found close to the crime scene. The contents of the handbag were a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste and a change of knickers.
Posters went up with Gemma’s photograph and description. On 5 December the police made a further appeal for information from the public and urged Gemma’s clients to make contact with them. Regular clients needed to be eliminated from the inquiry, but of course this was a very sensitive matter for the men concerned. Other prostitutes from the red light district were also questioned, many of whom knew Gemma. The police knew that the smallest, most trivial piece of information might lead to the killer.
Searches were also made of the red light district itself, within a specified radius from where Gemma was last seen. Door-to-door enquiries of the local area were carried out in case any local residents had seen or heard something and not yet come forward. The white and chrome Nike trainers that Gemma had been wearing were found near a tyre-fitting firm about a mile (1.6km) from the red light district. But there was no sign of her other clothes.
There was no breakthrough clue, no piece of information giving the police a name or an address. But there were leads and these had to be followed up.
On Saturday 5 December the national press began to take notice. The reason was a chilling one – there were concerns for another young Ipswich woman working as a prostitute. There was a very small report in the Sun newspaper about police fears for missing Tania Nicol, aged nineteen.
Tania had worked the same streets of the Ipswich red light district as Gemma. Police were quoted as saying that there were ‘obvious similarities’ between Gemma’s murder and Tania’s disappearance. Tania Nicol had gone missing on Monday 30 October. That was five weeks ago and more than two weeks before Gemma had disappeared. Where could she be?
Tania had last been seen on that Monday night at 11.02pm. She had been recorded on CCTV outside Sainsburys supermarket in London Road, Ipswich at that time. This is in the red light district. Before that, she had last been seen leaving home at 10.30pm to work the streets. Tania had been reported missing by her mother on Wednesday 1 November.
Police, family and friends had been trying to find her since then, but the discovery of Gemma’s body had made tracing her far more urgent. The fact that both Gemma and Tania were working as prostitutes in the same area, perhaps sometimes sharing the same clients, did not make the police feel optimistic. Five weeks is a long time to be missing when there is no apparent reason.
It soon became clear that Gemma and Tania had been friends. This was not so surprising, as they must have seen each other regularly. Detective Superintendent Andrew Henwood of Suffolk Police said: ‘We are still treating Tania’s disappearance as a separate inquiry, but we have grave concerns for her.’
Sadly those concerns would soon prove to be well placed.
The appeals to locate Tania Nicol were now stepped up by the Suffolk Police. Posters and leaflets showing Tania’s photograph were distributed. Having left her home in Woolverstone Close in the Pinebrook area of Ipswich, south-west of the town centre on 30 October 2006, it was learnt that Tania had planned to take a bus from nearby Belmont Road into Ipswich. She intended to work the streets that night.
The CCTV footage from all relevant buses was checked, but the police were unable to trace her movements. It could not be proved whether Tania ever did get on to a bus.
In the first week of November 2006, almost a month before the body of Gemma Adams was found, Detective Chief Inspector John Quinton had said: ‘There have been some unconfirmed sightings in the Ipswich area around the time Tania went missing last week. Also, a number of her associates have come forward. This has all provided information for the inquiry team to follow up.’
However, there were no strong leads to her whereabouts until after Gemma Adams was found in Belstead Brook. The police then changed the direction of the Tania Nicol inquiry, which was still officially a missing person investigation. The links between Gemma and Tania now heightened police fears and a new focus was employed in the hunt for Tania.
By trawling through hours and hours of CCTV footage from Ipswich’s red light district, the police were able to identify Tania Nicol on captures taken at 11.02pm on 30 October, walking past the exit of the Sainsburys garage on London Road, and then around five minutes later at the junction of nearby Handford Road and Burlington Road.
The police description issued by Suffolk Police was as follows: ‘Tania is described as olive-skinned, 5ft 2in tall (1.57m), slim build, with shoulder-length, light brown hair, brown eyes and a spotty complexion. The clothes which Tania wore on the last night she was seen were a black jacket, mid-blue cut-off jeans, a light-coloured top and pink sparkly high-heeled shoes.’
On Thursday, 7 December, the police released a photograph of a pair of shoes similar to the ones she was wearing. As DCI John Quinton said: ‘As part of our enquiries we have been working with a company to get a photo of the same shoes Tania was known to be wearing the night she went missing. We know New Look manufactured the shoes and they are very distinctive, having a pink sparkly appearance, a small buckle and high stiletto heels. It is imperative that we try to work out Tania’s movements on the night she went missing – we hope that by issuing the picture of the shoes, someone’s memory will be jogged and they will remember seeing her that evening or since.’
The last word of this statement shows that the police did believe that she could still be alive. But it was now five weeks since she was last seen and five days since the body of Gemma Adams had been discovered. No confirmed sightings, no word from Tania herself (this was out of character for her), and the murder of a woman who had known Tania and had plied the same trade in the same area. And Gemma had been missing for a shorter length of time than Tania. It was little wonder that optimism was dwindling.
This was driven home further when the police began searching intensely in the back streets and alleyways of the red light district where Tania was last recorded being, as well as in gardens and outbuildings of both residential and business sites across Ipswich. It would not be long before a development occurred, but tragically it was to be the worst one possible.
The long weeks since Tania had gone missing were of course extremely emotionally draining for her loved ones. At times of great apprehension such as that, it is hard enough getting through the day, let alone the night. At such times the true value