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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. On the evening of April 22nd, 1993, 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence waited at a bus stop in London with his friend.
A group of white teenagers showed up across the street and started shouting racial slurs at Stephen and his friend. Minutes later, a horrific and unprovoked attack begins. And when it's over, Stephen is left dead. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 137, The Murder of Stephen Lawrence. ♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
As a one-woman show, your support helps me find new exciting cases, conduct in-depth fact-based research, produce and edit this weekly show. As a thank you for supporting the show, you'll get early ad-free access to weekly episodes, shout-outs and episodes, priority on case suggestions, and access to weekly bonus episodes.
To support Forensic Tales, please visit our Patreon page at patreon.com slash Forensic Tales or click the support link in the show notes. You can also support the show by leaving a positive rating with a review. Now, let's get to this week's episode. At 10.30 p.m. on the evening of April 22, 1993, 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence waited at a bus stop in southeast London with his friend, Dwayne Brooks.
The two teenagers spent the day together and were on their way home when they stopped at the bus stop. While they waited for the bus to pull up at the stop, Stephen told his friend to wait there. He stepped off the sidewalk and walked toward the center of Rickson Road. He wanted to see if the bus was coming. When Stephen got about halfway through the road, he and Dwayne saw something that caught their attention. But it wasn't the city bus.
It was a group of about five fellow teenagers standing on the opposite side of the road. As soon as Stephen got to the center of Rickson Road, the group of teenagers seemed to notice them as well. Then the group of teenagers started yelling racial slurs at Stephen and Dwayne. The group of teenagers were white, while Stephen Lawrence and his friend Dwayne Brooks were black.
Dwayne tried to ignore the teenagers and called out to his friend Stephen to see if the bus was coming. He wanted to get out of there and away from the group of white kids. But once Dwayne asked Stephen if the bus was coming, one of the teenagers from across the street started yelling at them even louder, this time calling them racial names.
A few moments later, the white teenagers stormed across the street and began beating Stephen. When Stephen tried to fight back, one of the teens pulled out a knife and stabbed Stephen twice. Dwayne frantically called out to the group of teenagers and told them to get off his friend. He also screamed at Stephen to get up and try to run away.
After beating Stephen for around 20 to 30 seconds, the teenagers got up and disappeared down Dixon Road. Seconds later, Dwayne ran across the road toward Shooter's Hill. Beaten and stabbed, Stephen was able to get up off the ground and try to run after his friend. He ran slightly over 100 yards before collapsing back down to the ground. Minutes later, he was dead.
Stephen Lawrence was born on September 13, 1974 in southeast London. His parents were originally from Jamaica and had immigrated to the UK before Stephen was born. His father, Neville Lawrence, worked as a carpenter and his mom, Doreen Lawrence, worked as a special education teacher.
Growing up, Stephen was the oldest of three children. His brother, Stuart, was born two years after him in 1976, and his sister, Georgina, was born six years later in 1982. Like other young teens his age, he kept himself busy. He juggled an active social life, schoolwork, family commitments, and even a part-time job.
He also shared several passions, like running and competing for the local Cambridge Harrier Athletics Club. As a teenager, he even starred as an extra in Denzel Washington's movie For Queen and Country. At the time of Stephen's murder, he took classes at two schools. He took physics and technology courses at the Blackheath Bluecoat School, and he was taking English classes at Woolrich College.
After college graduation, Stephen had aspirations of becoming an architect. Becoming an architect meant that he could combine his talents for math, art, and design. During the attack on April 22, 1993, Stephen suffered two fatal stab wounds. Paramedics transported him to Brook General Hospital, but he was pronounced dead at 11.05 p.m.
Each stab wound had a depth of five inches and both severed auxiliary arteries. When Stephen stood up and tried to run away, this caused the blood to pump out of his body and ultimately caused him to bleed to death. One of the stab wounds also penetrated his lung.
At the time of his autopsy, the medical examiner attributed Stephen's ability to run over 100 yards after puncturing his lung to his physical fitness. But despite his excellent physical fitness, he couldn't stop the bleeding before paramedics arrived.
Word about Stephen Lawrence's murder spread quickly throughout East London. The case was quickly labeled as racially driven because Stephen was black and the five or six perpetrators were white. Information was also leaked to the public that right before the attack, the group of white teens were shouting racial slurs at Stephen and his friend Dwayne.
To the public, Stephen's murder seemed to be an unprovoked attack simply because of the color of his skin. He didn't know his killers, and his killers didn't know him. In the days following Stephen's murder, several witnesses came forward to the Metropolitan Police to provide information about what they saw at the bus stop that night.
The first tip came in less than 24 hours after the murder. On April 23rd, the Metropolitan Police received an anonymous letter from someone who claimed to know who was responsible. Someone had left the letter on a police car windshield parked outside the police station.
The anonymous letter alleged that a local gang was behind Stephen's murder. The letter named five men involved. Gary Dobson, brothers Neil and Jamie Accourt, Luke Knight, and David Norris. On top of the anonymous letter, the Metropolitan Police identified three eyewitnesses who saw the murder happen. All three witnesses were at the bus stop when the attack happened.
They all said everything happened so quickly. They said Stephen was standing between Well Hall Road and Dixon Road when a group of six white teenagers crossed Rochester Way on the opposite side of the street. The witnesses said the group moved towards Stephen and started shouting at him. Minutes later, the group of teenagers ran into the street and started beating Stephen.
According to the three eyewitnesses, the attack only lasted 20 to 30 seconds. And according to all three of them, the attack was completely unprovoked. Unfortunately, none of the eyewitnesses could provide much of a physical description of what this group of white teenagers looked like. Within three days of Stephen's murder, the Metropolitan Police had a mountain of evidence.
They had an anonymous letter that outlined the names of five potential suspects, and they had three eyewitnesses who saw the murder take place. But even with a suspect list and eyewitnesses, no arrests were made. Two weeks later, on May 4, 1993, Stevens' parents held a press conference to express their disappointment with how the Metropolitan Police was handling the investigation.
At this press conference, they publicly criticized the police for not doing enough to solve the case. Even with a suspect list, no arrests were made. The family feared that Stephen was just another black kid murdered without anyone being held responsible.
Two days after the family's press conference aired on TV, the family received a phone call. It was a phone call from Nelson Mandela, South Africa's president from 1994 to 1999. Nelson Mandela had called the Lawrence family after hearing about the case and how the police hadn't done much to try and solve it.
Mandela called to offer the family resources and to help bring more awareness to the investigation. But even with his support, the investigation was stalled for another several weeks. The first arrests in the case weren't made until May, nearly one month later. On May 7, 1993, the Accord brothers, Neil and Jamie, and Gary Dobson were arrested.
Three days later, David Norris turned himself in to the Metropolitan Police. And on June 3rd, the last person named in the anonymous letter was arrested, Luke Knight. After they were arrested, all five men denied having anything to do with Stephen's murder, despite being named in the letter. Neal and Jamie Accord, Gary Dobson, David Norris, and Luke Knight were all charged with Stephen's murder.
But the five men wouldn't stay in jail long. After only two months behind bars, all five men were released. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. What are some of your self-care non-negotiables? Maybe you never skip leg day or therapy day. When your schedule is packed with kids' activities, big work projects, or podcasting like me, it's easy to let your priorities slip.
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Visit BetterHelp.com slash tails to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash tails. All criminal charges against Neil and Jamie Accord, Gary Dobson, David Norris, and Luke Knight were dropped on July 29, 1993.
In its decision, the Crown Prosecution Service, England and Wales' leading public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions, announced that they didn't have enough evidence against the five men to warrant criminal charges.
Although the men had been named in the anonymous letter and Stephen's friend, Dwayne Brooks, identified the man as Stephen's attackers, the prosecution maintained there wasn't enough evidence to move forward with the trial. And without sufficient evidence, that meant all five men walked free.
This announcement devastated Stephen Lawrence's family. They had already waited weeks to see any suspects arrested. And now, only a couple months after Stephen's murder, the prime suspects were being released. One month after the Crown Prosecution announced its decision to release the five men, an internal review of the case was opened by the Metropolitan Police in August 1993.
During its review, the department re-examined all the evidence from the case, which, according to them, wasn't much. Despite the anonymous letter and Dwayne Brooks' testimony, there wasn't any physical or forensic evidence linking any of the men to Stephen's murder. They also didn't have any evidence that placed any of them at the scene on the night of the murder.
So after an eight-month-long review of the case, the Metropolitan Police closed its internal review of the investigation. And on April 16, 1994, one year after the murder, the Crown Prosecution Service announced for the second time they still didn't have any evidence in the case to bring criminal charges.
After this announcement, the Lawrence family decided to take the case into their own hands. In September 1994, the family initiated a private prosecution against three of the original suspects, Dobson, Knight, and Neal-Accourt. Under English law, private citizens are allowed to bring criminal charges against someone else without the assistance of the Crown Prosecution Service.
The English system was based on principles that suggest the rights of private citizens are paramount. So if a person becomes a victim of a crime or a victim's family, and the Crown prosecution decides not to prosecute the case, then a private citizen is allowed to initiate their own private prosecution of the individual.
In some cases, the Crown Prosecution will stay out of the case entirely and leave it up to the private citizen. But in other cases, the Crown Prosecution might become compelled to participate and can sometimes join the private citizen in their prosecution. In that case, if the Crown Prosecution Service takes over, they may direct the police to conduct further investigation.
But if the Crown isn't involved, the private citizen is the one responsible for conducting their own investigation as well as paying for all the financial costs associated with a private prosecution. To assist with the private prosecution, the Lawrence family was represented by three attorneys who all worked pro bono on the case. They were Michael Mansfield, Martin Sujo, and Margo Boye.
For the next two years, they prepared for trial. Throughout their investigation, the Lawrence family and their attorneys uncovered a lot about the men accused of Stephen's murder. They discovered that all five men had previously been involved in racially driven attacks in the same area before Stephen's murder.
Four weeks before Stephen's death, Dobson and Neal Accord were involved in a physical incident with another black teenager, Kevin London. In this particular incident, Dobson and Neal Accord allegedly verbally abused Kevin London and attempted to stab him. But luckily, Kevin London was able to get away from the two men.
In a separate incident, Neal's brother, Jamie Accord, was accused of stabbing Darren Witham in May 1993 and Darren Gills in 1994. Then there was another incident in March of 1993. In this attack, Neal and Jamie Accord, David Norris, and Gary Dobson were all linked to stabbing two teenagers in March of 1993.
These incidents occurred in the same area where Stephen Lawrence was murdered. The Lawrence family's investigation also uncovered disturbing videotape evidence involving the five men. For example, in a video discovered in December 1994, the five men are all caught on camera using racist and violent language towards the African-American community.
After a two-year-long investigation, the private prosecution against Dobson, Knight, and Neal-O'Court went to trial in April 1996. The Lawrence family was hopeful that after waiting two years to finally get justice, they were getting close. But the private prosecution fell short of giving them that.
After a week-long trial, the judge assigned to the case dismissed the case on April 25, 1996. In his ruling, the judge cited a lack of evidence linking any of the three men to the murder. As a result of the judge's ruling, the three men were formally acquitted of all criminal charges.
Just like in the United States, the UK prohibits people from being tried for the same criminal offense more than once. This is often referred to as double jeopardy. Under English law, double jeopardy also applies to private prosecutions. Once Dobson, Knight, and Neal O'Court were acquitted in the private prosecution, that meant that they were also ineligible to ever be tried for Stevens' murder again.
So if a person is found not guilty or is acquitted of a crime, even during a private prosecution, they're also protected under double jeopardy. They can't be retried for the same crime by the Crown Prosecution Service. Following the result of the private prosecution, a public inquiry into the case was launched in February of 1997, officially four years after Stephen's murder.
Public inquiries are investigations that deal with matters of public concern. Whatever the reason is, the purpose remains the same. The people want to establish the facts, find out what happened, why it happened, who may be responsible, and try and learn lessons to prevent it from happening again. In this case, the public demanded answers.
They wanted to know who was responsible for killing an innocent black teenager and why it's taken so many years to get justice. During this investigation, the five suspects refused to participate at all. They refused to answer any of the questions presented at trial claiming the privilege against self-incrimination.
So instead, the inquest was left entirely up to police reports, witness statements, and what was uncovered about the five suspects leading up to the private prosecution. The public inquiry wrapped up on February 13, 1997, with the jury reaching its decision after deliberating for 30 minutes.
The jury concluded that Stephen Lawrence was killed in, quote, a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths, end quote. The day after this announcement on February 14th, 1997, the Daily Mail newspaper printed about the case on their front page. In the article, the newspaper labeled all five men murderers.
The headline read, quote, murderers. The mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us, end quote. Underneath the headline was a printed picture of each of the five suspects, Dobson, Neal and Jamie Accord, Knight and Norris. Despite the group of men being acquitted in criminal court, they appeared to be guilty in the eyes of public opinion.
Five months later, in July 1997, the UK's Home Secretary, Jack Straw, initiated a second inquiry into the case. The second inquest would later become known as the McPherson Report. The McPherson Report was conducted by Sir William McPherson, a former judge with the High Court of England and Wales. The report was published two years later in February 1999.
It consisted of more than 100,000 pages of reports, statements, and other documents related to the investigation. The report concluded that the original Metropolitan Police investigation into Stephen's murder was botched from the beginning.
According to the McPherson report, the investigation was, quote, married by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism, and a failure of leadership, end quote. The McPherson report alleged harsh allegations about the police, such as failing to provide Stephen with appropriate medical care when they first arrived on the scene.
failing to follow many leads throughout the investigation, and failing to arrest suspects. The report went on to allege that many of these errors made by the police resulted from racism. Because Stephen Lawrence was black and the five men accused of his murder were white, the report alleged the police didn't take his case as seriously as they should have.
The publication of the McPherson report didn't simply shed additional light on Stephen Lawrence's case, but it also greatly influenced British law. Over the years, this report has been called one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in Britain. The report listed over 70 recommendations to improve police attitudes towards race and address institutional racism.
The report led to many changes in British law and changes to police practices. This included greater recruitment and promotion of Black and Asian police officers. It also led to the creation of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, with the power to appoint its own investigators to investigate complaints against British police officers.
The McPherson Report became the first widely published document publicly addressing race in the UK's criminal justice system. After the release of the McPherson Report, Stephen's family filed a formal complaint with the Police Complaints Authority, an independent organization in the UK in charge of investigating complaints against police officers.
After the investigation wrapped up, only one police officer faced any type of disciplinary action. Detective Inspector Ben Bullock was second in command of the investigation into Stephen's murder. He was found guilty of failing to properly brief officers about the investigation and failure to fully investigate the anonymous letter sent to the police.
But before he could face any disciplinary actions, he retired from the police department the day after the punishment was announced. The rest of the police officers who worked on Stephen's case were exonerated of any wrongdoing. Following the release of the McPherson report, Stephen Lawrence's case remained quiet until 2005.
One of the biggest changes made by the report into Stephen's murder was the UK's abolishment of double jeopardy in 2005, the law that prevents someone from being tried more than once for the same crime.
The McPherson report recommended that the double jeopardy rule should be repealed in murder cases and that an acquitted murder suspect should be subjected to a second trial if there is, quote, fresh and viable new evidence in the case.
The abolishment of double jeopardy was huge for Stephen's case because that meant that some of the suspects could be tried again if new evidence was uncovered. And that is exactly what happened less than 12 months later. In the summer of 2006, 13 years after Stephen's murder, the police reopened the case.
They wanted to re-examine evidence recovered at the time of the murder to see if anything was missed or whether new forensic techniques could help. One of the first things they looked at was the clothes Stephen wore when he was killed and some of the clothing worn by the five original suspects. Even after 13 years, most of the clothing was in good enough condition to be retested.
One of the first pieces of clothing to be retested was the jacket that Gary Dobson wore on the night of the murder. Investigators combed over the jacket to see if they could find any trace evidence that might have been missed in 1993. When they examined the jacket, they found something promising. Investigators found tiny fragments of red fibers on a few sections of Gary Dobson's jacket.
Using a microscope, they determined that these tiny red fragments belonged to Stephen Lawrence's red polo shirt that he wore on the night of the murder. A few pieces of the red polo shirt were still present on Gary Dobson's jacket.
Investigators also found the same red fibers on David Norris's sweatshirt that he wore that night. And when compared, all of the fibers matched Stephen's red polo shirt. At the time of the original investigation in 1993, the police didn't test the five initial suspects' clothing.
Although they turned the clothes over to the police, they didn't test them for fibers or blood.
They didn't think that fiber evidence could have stayed on the clothes during this two-week gap between when the murder happened and when they were first arrested. So when the men turned over their clothes to the police, they didn't test them because even if they did, they didn't think anything would be there. But miraculously, even after 13 years,
The red fibers were still visible on Gary Dobson's jacket and David Norris' sweatshirt. Besides the red fibers on the jacket and sweatshirt, investigators in 2006 also found hair on David Norris' jeans, the same pair of jeans he wore on the night of the murder. When tested for DNA, the hair found on his jeans matched Stephen Lawrence's DNA.
Now they've got clothing fiber and hair belonging to the victim found on two of the original suspect's clothing. But that's not all they found. Investigators also found blood evidence. The first sign of blood came when they used a tool called a microspectrophotometer.
This instrument allows scientists to combine a microscope's magnifying power with a spectrophotometer's power. In criminal investigations, it can be used not only to detect blood, but also to figure out the chemical composition of something, for example, like a paint chip. When scientists used this tool on Dobson's jacket, they found more.
They decided to go over the rest of the jacket with a microscope, magnifying it to over 40 times to the original size. Then they found what they were looking for. On the collar of Dobson's jacket, they found a tiny spot of blood. Like the hair found on David Norris' jeans, the spot of blood also matched Stephen's DNA.
The bloodstain only measured 0.5 by 0.25 millimeters, and the only way to know it was there was to see it underneath a microscope.
Because of the size of the blood drops, investigators theorized the transfer of Stephen's blood onto Dobson's jacket happened very quickly. Like it would if Dobson was the one holding the knife when he stabbed Stephen, and then had small traces of Stephen's blood transferred to his jacket. Back in 1993, DNA testing on such tiny amounts of DNA and hair wasn't possible.
So without the testing capabilities, forensic experts wouldn't normally have looked for them in the first place. But by the late 2000s, years later, advanced DNA testing was becoming a routine part of criminal investigations, even detecting tiny amounts of DNA like was in the case of Stephen Lawrence.
By the time investigators found a forensic link tying Gary Dobson and David Norris to Stephen's murder, they had enough to make an arrest.
So on September 8, 2010, Gary Dobson and David Norris were arrested and charged with Stephen's murder. And one month later, on October 23, British prosecutors applied to the Court of Appeals for Gary Dobson's original acquittal to be overturned. Because David Norris wasn't previously acquitted in the first prosecution, the private prosecution,
prosecutors didn't need to apply for any special permissions to charge him. On April 12, 2011, Gary Dobson's acquittal was formally squashed, which enabled him to be retried for the murder for the second time.
The court ruled that, quote, if reliable, the new scientific evidence would place Dobson in very close proximity. Moreover, which no innocent explanation can be discerned, end quote. This is when the McPherson's report's influence on the abolition of double jeopardy really came into play in Stephen's case.
It allowed for Gary Dobson to be tried for a second time despite being acquitted back in 1996. The trials against both Gary Dobson and David Norris began in November 2011. The prosecution's case relied almost entirely on the new forensic evidence, the microscopic spot of Stephen's blood found on the jacket collar and the hairs found on the pants.
Throughout the trial, the prosecution drove it home to the jury that there was no other plausible explanation for both Stephen's hair and blood to be on Dobson or Norris' clothing. They may have gotten away with murder in the 1990s, but that was all about to change. The jury deliberated for just over eight hours before returning a verdict.
On January 3, 2012, Gary Dobson and David Norris, two of the original suspects, were both found guilty of Stephen's murder. They were both sentenced the following day, on January 4, 2012. Gary Dobson was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years and 2 months, and David Norris was sentenced to a minimum of 14 years and 3 months in prison.
Because Dobson and Norris were both juveniles at the time of the murder, the judge had no choice but to show a little leniency on their sentences. If either one of them was an adult at the time, they would face 25 years to life behind bars. Immediately following their conviction, Dobson and Norris both filed appeals. As of today, both of their appeals have been denied and their convictions have been upheld.
A racially motivated attack at a bus station three decades ago left the young teenager Stephen Lawrence dead. Despite the tremendous amount of leads in the case, the police failed to make an arrest and the case went unsolved for decades. Public inquiries into the case led to the McPherson Report, one of the UK's most important reports on the criminal justice system and race.
It also led to several changes in law and police practices, including abolishing England's double jeopardy. Finally, years later in 2012, a single microscopic spot of blood was found on one of the original suspect's jackets. This key piece of evidence was all prosecutors needed to move forward with a murder trial once again against Gary Dobson and David Norris.
In the aftermath of Stephen's sudden death, the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation was created in 2019. The event was first celebrated in 2019 and takes place annually on April 22nd, the date of Stephen's murder. Prime Minister Theresa May announced that April 22nd will be recognized as a national day to commemorate Stephen Lawrence's life.
According to the foundation's website, the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation was established amid unprecedented growing global awareness of racial inequality and exists to inspire a more equal, inclusive society and to foster opportunities for marginalized young people in the UK.
The foundation offers classes, creates opportunities within all types of communities, and even offers career assistance to marginalized young people. In February 2008, Stephen's mom, Doreen Lawrence, opened the Stephen Lawrence Center in honor of her son.
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