Suffolk serial killer Steve Wright admits murdering 17-year-old in 1999 | Crime

The Suffolk serial killer Steve Wright has pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to killing 17-year-old Victoria Hall, his sixth murder victim.

The 67-year-old had been due to go on trial for the murder of Victoria, who disappeared more than 25 years ago. He changed his plea on Monday and admitted her kidnap “by force or fraud” and murder on 19 September 1999. Wright also pleaded guilty to the attempted kidnap of Emily Doherty, then aged 22, in Felixstowe the day before.

It is the first time Wright has admitted any killings, despite pleas from his family to come clean.

He appeared in the dock of the Old Bailey in a navy and grey jumper, and spoke only to confirm his name and enter pleas. Mr Justice Bennathan said he would sentence Wright on Friday to give Victoria’s family the chance to attend and submit victim impact statements.

The prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC confirmed Victoria’s friend Gemma Algar and Doherty would also submit statements.

Wright, a former merchant seaman who is being held at HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire, is already serving a whole-life prison sentence for the murders of five women seven years after Victoria was killed.

The guilty pleas come after Bennathan ruled that jurors in his trial could be told of the murder convictions, despite his defence complaining the prejudice would be too great.

In legal argument last month, the prosecution highlighted similarities between the murders, pointing out that all six women were asphyxiated and left in similar places and that they shared a physical type.

The prosecution also argued for the trial to include evidence from a sex worker who knew Wright, who would say he was familiar with the area linked to Victoria’s murder.

Victoria, from Trimley St Mary in Suffolk, had left her home on the evening of 18 September 1999 for a night out with her friend, Algar, at the Bandbox nightclub in Felixstowe.

Five days later her body was found in a ditch in Creeting St Peter, about 25 miles from where she was last seen. A year after her murder, her parents, Graham and Lorinda Hall, had appealed for help to bring her murderer to justice.

Graham Hall said at the time he remained optimistic, saying: “Whoever did this must be under as much pressure as we are. They have got it on their conscience all of the time.”

Lorinda Hall died last December, before her daughter’s killer could be brought to justice. Algar had been due to give evidence in Wright’s trial, having said goodnight to her friend shortly before she vanished.

In 2006, local people in Ipswich suffered six weeks of terror while detectives hunted for the serial killer in their midst. On 30 October that year, Tania Nicol, 19, vanished from Ipswich’s red-light area, followed by Gemma Adams, 25, about two weeks later, triggering a major inquiry.

Adams’s body was found in a stream at Hintlesham on 2 December, followed by the discovery ofNicol’s remains in a pond at Copdock on 8 December.

Two days later, the body of Anneli Alderton, 24, was found in woods at Nacton, and sex workers in the town were urged to stay off the streets. On 12 December, the bodies of Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, were found near woods at Levington.

Two of the women, who were all sex workers in Ipswich’s red-light area, were laid out in a crucifix shape, which was described as “macabre”. Wright was arrested at his Ipswich home a week later.

Pathology evidence suggested all the women had been choked or strangled.

During a trial at Ipswich crown court in 2008, prosecutors said Wright “systematically selected and murdered” the women after stalking streets around his home.

Wright was seen cruising the red-light district around the time each of the women vanished. DNA and fibres linked to his clothes, house and car were found on the women.

Wright, a former steward on the QE2, admitted picking up the women for sex on the nights they vanished but denied any involvement in their deaths.

Following his conviction for five murders, the victims’ relatives – and Wright’s father, Conrad – said he should have been executed. Handing him a rare whole-life order, Mr Justice Gross said the killings involved pre-meditation and planning.

He said “drugs and prostitution” put the five women at risk, but told Wright: “Neither drugs nor prostitution killed them. You did. Why you did it may never be known.”