nurses who kill S03E06
Category
🦄
CreativityTranscript
00:00Nurses and carers, we place our life in their hands, but are we always safe?
00:14This is the series that tells the stories of those who take the lives of the people
00:18that they are supposed to care for.
00:48Hired by a local community team for an awards evening, Stoke City's football stadium was
01:06about to become part of a murder story.
01:10A woman weaving a spider's web of intrigue would call and message two young men, one
01:17her son, to meet there ahead of a short evening road trip.
01:25Two days later, a phone call would be made from a picturesque cottage in Alton, Staffordshire.
01:33I came into work over a weekend, I was on call and I was notified that there had been
01:38a death in Alton.
01:42Initial findings into the death of Mr Greg Baker were that this was not a matter for
01:47a police investigation.
01:49Mr Baker was a 61-year-old.
01:51He had an extensive history of illness, really.
01:56He'd had polio from birth and he'd suffered muscular dystrophy for the majority of his
02:02life.
02:03It wasn't that he was expected to die, but it wouldn't have been expected to be unusual
02:08for someone in his position.
02:10He was quite ill, he was under considerable amount of care on a regular basis.
02:17Mr Baker's body had been discovered by one of the nurses who'd visited him.
02:21She was upset and she had spotted something which did not quite make sense.
02:26As the morning progressed, what became apparent was that the pillow which Mr Baker normally
02:31had was missing.
02:32It couldn't account for where it could be.
02:35The pillow was important to Mr Baker because of his condition.
02:38It was a big pillow and it was one that he particularly enjoyed having.
02:43It was quite a significant part of his bedding, really.
02:47It propped his head into a position which made him more comfortable.
02:51Why had the feather pillow gone?
02:54Outside of his home, another mystery.
02:56Later on that morning, there was a pullover handed to the police officers at the scene
03:02which had been found down the road.
03:05It was Mr Baker's pullover.
03:07Where had his favourite pillow gone and what was the explanation for an item of his clothing
03:12being found outside and many yards from his home?
03:17As the day progressed, Detective Raper was growing suspicious and he was right to be.
03:23Greg Baker had been murdered.
03:30It was Ken Raper of Staffordshire Police who would one day be charged with unravelling
03:34the mystery of what had happened to Greg Baker.
03:38Over a period of a few hours, suspicions became aroused.
03:43Other facts emerged.
03:44Cash had been taken from his room.
03:48The carer was identifying there were certain items missing from the room which ordinarily
03:52would be there and the question was being asked, where have they gone?
03:57What's happened to them?
03:59It was just enough to raise suspicions.
04:03It appeared from the evidence that any killer or killers had assumed that they would never
04:07face investigation.
04:10I think that they thought this was going to be really easy and as Agatha Christie said,
04:17if you want to get away with murder, kill someone who's expected to die.
04:22Mr Baker was a vulnerable person.
04:25He was ill.
04:26They probably thought if he dies, nobody's going to ask any questions and they certainly
04:31picked a method to kill him that they thought would leave no injuries and would be quite
04:36easy to achieve.
04:38But who were they?
04:41The pretty village of Alton is remote.
04:45Locals know each other well and are so trusting that, like Greg, they often leave open their
04:49doors at night.
04:52Any passerby could have killed Greg, but few randomly passed by in Alton and the locals
04:57appeared to be beyond suspicion.
05:01What was the answer to the mystery of a murder in an Agatha Christie picture postcard village?
05:07Soon, the part played by a carer called Yvonne Thelma Purchase became the focus of enquiries.
05:18Some called her Yvonne, others Thelma.
05:21She went by both.
05:24She had an image of herself, wanted to look good, desired the nice things in life.
05:29Things not always easy to get on the rambling estate where she lived.
05:33At 43 and a single mother, money was tight.
05:37She had met a man who had divorced, Kelvin Amos, and a relationship began.
05:42Thelma soon proposed that the couple and their children would be better off living under
05:46one roof.
05:47Kelvin's.
05:49I think my house was a bit bigger, we got more garden, we got a drive, which Yvonne's
05:57hadn't.
05:58At first, all seemed fine to Kelvin.
06:01She was just bubbly, she was good fun to be around.
06:04Yeah, we had a laugh and yeah, it was good.
06:08Wanting a bigger, better house was part of the course for Yvonne Thelma Purchase.
06:13Purchase lived in a social housing estate.
06:16She didn't have a lot of money, she wasn't living the high life, but it was something
06:22that she had perhaps experienced in the past and maybe wanted again.
06:28But the relationship with the man whose house she was living in soon soured and Kelvin's
06:33things started to go missing, as did those of his children.
06:37Yvonne Thelma Purchase and her son Lance were in the frame.
06:42I had my bracelet pinched, it was a bracelet that my mum had bought me for my 21st and
06:48that had gone, which I then assumed it was Lance, but I couldn't say anything.
06:53There was things like that going missing and Ricky had a scrambling motorbike, which went
07:00missing and we knew Lance had had that.
07:03So my oldest son come down and we put a lock on our bedroom so we could keep our stuff
07:08safe and things like that.
07:12Under the same roof, two warring parties.
07:16Despite being a complete innocent, Kelvin even ended up spending time in a police station
07:21after one incident.
07:22Purchase, it seemed, had a scheming side to her nature, a violent one too.
07:28I'd just come in, made myself a sandwich, made myself a cup of tea, went down the garden
07:33and then she'd come out, started swearing and being aggressive and what's it and I just,
07:40I went back to work and then I got arrested and my solicitor said to me, she is claiming
07:47that you knew she was in the shower and you ought to put the tap on and you scolded her.
07:54On agreeing to split, Thelma Avon seemed to want as much as she could, even Kelvin's house.
08:01When she wanted the house, that's it and I was definitely not going to give that up without
08:06a fight.
08:08What Kelvin did not know was that his girlfriend knew people who were no strangers to violence.
08:15She'd asked one such person to kill Kelvin.
08:18There was one particular individual who we knew quite well, she was a well-known criminal,
08:24who came forward and provided us with some evidence in relation to Thelma trying to have,
08:31offering to pay people to kill her former boyfriend, her former partner, boyfriend.
08:39The issue was around insurance, that if he died, she'd be benefiting from the insurance.
08:46That was something Kelvin Amos would learn only years later.
08:49Disbelief?
08:50No, I just couldn't, you know, I just couldn't take it in really.
09:02The couple's relationship became fractious around the time that Avon Thelma got a new
09:08job as a carer for Greg Baker.
09:11He lived 25 minutes away in rural Alton, a man whose physical condition meant that he
09:17needed significant nursing and carer assistance.
09:21Greg Baker had suffered from polio, so most people who've had polio will get some recovery
09:30if they don't die as a result.
09:32Not all, but they will all be left with at least some muscle weakness and wasting, which
09:38will make it usually difficult for them to walk, difficult for them to use their hands
09:43properly, difficult for them to function and certainly unable to function in what we would
09:48take for granted.
09:50Mr Baker's condition deteriorated as he grew older.
09:53By his 60s, the effects of polio were added to the fact that he now also suffered from
09:58muscular dystrophy.
10:01Each morning a nurse would help Mr Baker out of bed and each evening another would help
10:05him back in.
10:07Greg, during the day, kept active, so he wanted help for himself and around the house, someone
10:13to care for his personal needs.
10:15Mr Baker had lived in the premises of that particular building, Corner Cottage, for many
10:20many years.
10:21He'd lived there with his mother.
10:23She died in the mid-90s and he'd carried on living there ever since.
10:28Once his mother had died, he'd been in receipt of care from the social services and different
10:32people over a period of time.
10:35One of those people, obviously, who did the care was Thelma Purchase.
10:41For Greg, now alone, his carer offered companionship as well as attending to his needs.
10:46Anybody coming into the house would have probably been like a little ray of light for him.
10:51There was the opportunity for somebody manipulative like Yvonne Purchase to infiltrate herself
10:59into the affections of Greg Baker.
11:02Thelma Yvonne quickly became important to Greg.
11:05Superficially, the couple warmed to each other.
11:08She said that she loved him, but that their relationship was in effect as a father-daughter.
11:18But in reality, to Greg's carer, he was somebody who simply paid her.
11:25He probably had a lot more invested in that relationship than she did.
11:29He would have seen some of her caring activities.
11:34You know, that can be interpreted as friendship, as a close friendship, as caring for an individual
11:42rather than caring as a profession.
11:45And sometimes that can be misconstrued, but equally it can be used and manipulated as well.
11:54What he offered was a chance to upscale the life of Thelma Yvonne Purchase.
11:59One day, that would cost him his life.
12:09Soon after Thelma Yvonne Purchase got the job of caring for Greg,
12:12Kelvin Amos noticed that she had more money to spend.
12:15And not just on small things.
12:17She was flush enough to trade in one car, an old banger, and buy another, a new one.
12:22Where had the money come from?
12:25Whether that was Mr Baker or... I just don't know.
12:28But she'd sold one and then bought this smaller car.
12:31It was a brand new car. I think it was a blue Saxo.
12:35Greg Baker had indeed given her £1,500 towards the car.
12:41A fully trained, qualified carer would ordinarily reject such a gift.
12:45But not Thelma.
12:47Thelma Purchase should never have accepted any gift of significance.
12:52There are rules that govern even small gifts.
12:55A car? Nobody can tell me that a car of any type is a small gift.
13:04Financially, this went way beyond anything that she should have accepted.
13:09And ethically, it went way beyond that.
13:13Greg Baker was becoming completely dependent
13:17that their relationship could not possibly be the professional relationship
13:22that she should have ensured was maintained.
13:28But the gift of a car was just the tip of the enriching iceberg.
13:32That the relationship had become for Yvonne Thelma Purchase.
13:36A carer who saw her patient as a get-rich-quick scheme.
13:40There is every possibility that she would have seen that vulnerability in him quite early on.
13:47And she would have seen the signs of him getting close to her.
13:51Building a little bit of a dependency probably.
13:54And that can be very easily encouraged and manipulated.
13:57And she certainly seemed that kind of person.
14:00Greg Baker had let somebody into his life who was anything but good for his health.
14:09Over the six years that Thelma Purchase worked for Greg Baker,
14:12the couple appeared to get on well.
14:14One of his friends said that the help she gave him and the time she spent with him
14:18made Greg think of Thelma, as he called her, as his best friend.
14:22He could rely on her to get through the day.
14:25When you have a physical disability, particularly when you're housebound,
14:28routine becomes everything.
14:30Because if you can't rely on waking up, needing to get out of bed and nip to the loo,
14:35or going to your purse to get out money to pay somebody,
14:39then you need everything to be set up in advance.
14:44And Greg Baker was no exception.
14:46He absolutely had a routine which would have given him enormous success.
14:52He had a routine which would have given him enormous security and comfort.
14:57Yvonne Thelma appeared keen to please her patient,
15:00taking his calls when at home late at night.
15:03He phoned up and wanted to speak to Yvonne.
15:05It really seemed a nice bloke.
15:08Between the late 90s and the early part of this century,
15:11it was an arrangement between the two which worked.
15:13But it was an arrangement, not a relationship,
15:16despite what Greg may have imagined.
15:19It would have been quite difficult for Mr Baker
15:22to have developed a proper romantic relationship with Purchase.
15:28And one of the things perhaps that he had that she didn't have was money,
15:33and she was certainly, it seemed, willing to take his money.
15:38And perhaps even she was so overjoyed or pleased
15:45or getting closer to him every time he did her a little favour,
15:49that it was something that he enjoyed and he wanted to carry on,
15:54and the money didn't bother him.
15:57Greg Baker had no children of his own,
16:00but grew close enough to the Purchase family
16:03to offer Thelma Yvonne's sons Grant and Lance,
16:06whose surname was Rudge, tutoring.
16:09Barrister Christopher Hotton would one day prosecute the case
16:13against Greg Baker's killers.
16:16Greg Baker, for all that he was infirm, was no fool.
16:21He was an intelligent man.
16:24He was an educated man.
16:27But Greg Baker had actually tutored Lance Rudge
16:32and his younger brother in mathematics.
16:37That fact would become important.
16:40Lance Rudge, Thelma Yvonne's son, knew Greg Baker,
16:43had been to his house, was aware of the layout.
16:46That Greg offered tutoring for free to his carer's children
16:50did not surprise friends and neighbours.
16:53Mr Baker was a devout Christian attending the local church,
16:56helping others was part of his personality,
16:59and so was trusting them.
17:02Analysing the cast in this tragic real-life story,
17:05investigative psychologist Donna Youngs
17:08is struck by Greg Baker's nature
17:11and the role that it played in his death.
17:14We know that Greg's physical vulnerabilities
17:17dated right back to his childhood.
17:19Now, that produces somebody possibly
17:22with a less pronounced sense of personal ego.
17:26He develops muscular dystrophy,
17:29meaning that he has to rely not just on other people
17:33but actually on strangers.
17:35Now, that produces, I think,
17:37somebody for whom trust in other people is what life is about.
17:43Trust in other people isn't just all he has.
17:47It's actually something sacred for Greg.
17:55However pure his motives were, Greg's neighbours did speculate
17:59about what caring actually meant to the woman
18:02who arrived every day to tend to her patient in a new car
18:05that Greg himself had partly paid for.
18:08Some were thinking that Thelma Evonne Purchase
18:11had become more than a carer.
18:14Greg may have had severe disabilities,
18:16but he was capable of having sex,
18:19and it seems likely that he found Purchase attractive.
18:22Having polio, having muscle wasting,
18:24does not mean that your normal urges go away.
18:27It has no impact on your hormones.
18:30And Greg Baker was able to perform sexually,
18:33so it's not remotely surprising that his sexual urges
18:37and his sexual desires became fixated
18:40on the one object of his affection,
18:44the one person that he could realistically fantasise
18:49about having a relationship with.
18:52There was evidence that the relationship went further than that.
18:57A number of witnesses had seen her sitting on his knee.
19:05A number of witnesses claimed to have seen them kissing.
19:10It's easy to say that the professional-personal line
19:14is just something that blurs.
19:16Thelma has to be up close and personal with Greg on a daily basis.
19:21He could very easily have become
19:24inappropriately emotionally attached.
19:28But what would a sexual relationship have offered
19:31the attractive, image-obsessed Purchase?
19:34We were informed by family members and people local to Mr Baker
19:38who did know Mr Baker that there were occasions
19:41when money had changed hands.
19:43I don't think anybody could really prove the amount of money
19:46or the frequency of that money,
19:48but it was something that everybody was aware of,
19:51that money had been going to Thelma Purchase.
19:55He wanted care and attention, affection.
19:59She wanted money.
20:01Greg Baker went along with it,
20:03but his carer could not have cared less for him.
20:07He's in a position where there's very little that he can do
20:10in some ways physically for Thelma.
20:14What he can do is finance her.
20:17And he was helping finance a very dangerous woman
20:20as Calvin Amos would one day find out she knew people.
20:27It was during this period that Calvin and Purchase
20:30were disputing who should have the house that they shared
20:33when she approached somebody and asked
20:35if they would kill her former partner.
20:38The first time I heard about that
20:40was when I had two police officers knocking on my door.
20:43They were asking, do I own a black car?
20:46Well, at the time, I did.
20:48And that's when they started saying
20:51that it was trying to get somebody to knock me off or something.
20:58So, yeah, that was a bit of a shock.
21:00I don't know whether I believed it or not, you know.
21:03It was just something out of a film, I thought.
21:08It seemed that when a man could no longer give her the money
21:11or wealth that Purchase craved, he was in grave danger.
21:16Around 2002, Greg took a decision which would imperil his life.
21:21He made Thelma Yvonne Purchase one of the beneficiaries of his will.
21:26On sale of his house, she was due to inherit a lot of money.
21:30She was described by her son as a very greedy woman.
21:35She had wheedled her way into the affections of Greg Baker.
21:41She knew that she stood to gain a substantial sum of money from his death.
21:47She did say once, I think, she told me,
21:50and I thought it was round about 60 grand,
21:52but it just went over the top of my head, you know.
21:55That was...
21:58£60,000, the amount Thelma Yvonne would receive on the death of the man
22:03that she had spent years caring for.
22:07Greed was almost certainly a motive.
22:10We do know that when Greg Baker told Thelma Purchase
22:15that she was the beneficiary of his will,
22:18he probably signed his own death sentence.
22:33Around 2004, Greg was not able to pay Thelma Yvonne what she wanted.
22:38She got another job, still visiting him from time to time,
22:41still receiving the odd payment from him.
22:44The issue we had with it was,
22:46she continued to keep visiting Mr Baker at his home,
22:51and there were various sort of rumours circulating in the village
22:55about that relationship.
22:57We could never really get to the bottom of those rumours,
23:00but it was enough to cause us some concern
23:03about what was actually going on there.
23:05Hers was a far from lavish lifestyle,
23:08but it was one that Purchase could not afford.
23:11She ran up debts.
23:13Thelma had been short of cash.
23:16She was struggling financially.
23:18Greg Baker, of course, was not.
23:22She probably thought, well, this is wasted on him.
23:26He can't even go out.
23:28This is what I need.
23:30And perhaps even seeing through that vulnerability,
23:34I can really, really exploit this.
23:37He may have been infirm,
23:39but he had years of life to look forward to.
23:42When he did appear to have quite some years left,
23:45perhaps it just wasn't going fast enough for her.
23:49Had Thelma Yvonne Purchase decided to cash in on her biggest asset,
23:54namely the death of Greg Baker?
23:58A vulnerable victim.
24:00A village where no-one locked their doors.
24:03Someone in debt who stood to benefit from his death.
24:06Someone who had already been given help from Greg in buying a car.
24:10Thelma is not used to restraint,
24:12and yet that's what is required in the situation here with Greg.
24:17She needs to play her role and continue playing her role
24:20until her inheritance comes to fruition.
24:24But then he gives her a taste,
24:26a taste of the wealth that she is hoping she is going to inherit.
24:31She knew she was in the will, belonged to Mr Baker.
24:34Once she'd got him to put her in his will,
24:38really, it was just a matter of time then.
24:41She would have been watching the clock after that moment.
24:46But this taste of the money that she's going to get
24:50was too much for her to hold on any longer.
24:54Purchase was why, to an underworld where hiring killers was possible.
24:59This is a woman who has no worries about somebody dying
25:05and her benefiting from that death.
25:07She doesn't seem like the kind of person
25:09who actually wants to get her hands dirty and do that murder herself.
25:15She may not have wanted to deliver the fatal blow herself,
25:19but she was happy to pay for somebody else to do it.
25:29The ingredients needed for a murder to take place had come together.
25:34In early summer 2007, Thelma Ebon Purchase
25:37received a cash windfall from her then employers,
25:41a chance again to feel flush.
25:44Purchase had recently received a back pay
25:49in the sum of £8,500,
25:52and there's no doubt that that had given her a taste for money.
25:58She had spent a large part of that sum on landscaping her garden.
26:04We were aware that at Thelma's house
26:07there was an area of paving which had been recently laid.
26:11She'd bought herself a brand-new plasma television,
26:15and indeed one of the police officers who visited her council house
26:19in the course of the investigation
26:21described it as like a show home.
26:24But, as had happened before,
26:26Thelma had spent more than she actually had.
26:30This time she found herself in more severe debt than usual.
26:34The time had come.
26:35She needed Greg Baker to die, and to die now.
26:41In a chapter of the crime story which even seasoned observers found shocking,
26:45she needed help,
26:46not from those who had failed to deliver
26:49on her desire to kill Kelvin Amos years earlier,
26:52but from someone closer to home.
26:55She recruited her son to find somebody to carry out the murder,
27:02and one might say that in addition to betraying the trust
27:08that Greg Baker reposed in her as somebody who cared for him,
27:14if anything, the greater betrayal of trust
27:19was the betrayal of the trust of a mother towards a son.
27:24The person that she recruited to help her was her own son,
27:28which is, you know, would be abhorrent to most mothers
27:33to involve your own child in such an awful plot.
27:37Using your own son to find a murderer for you,
27:43involving him in a plot to kill,
27:46might be said to be a true act of betrayal
27:50of the relationship of mother and son.
27:53It says something about her that, first of all,
27:56she was willing to share that she was going to do that with anybody.
27:59She clearly didn't think that her son would think any less of her
28:05once she said that,
28:06so that says something about what her son already knew about her anyway,
28:11and the kind of relationship they had.
28:13But it says something else about what she thought of her son.
28:17So, you know, this relationship they've got together,
28:20they don't really have any respect for each other.
28:22She thinks he's capable of murder.
28:24He's not really surprised when she suggests that she wants a murder.
28:27I mean, this is not a healthy relationship.
28:31She recruited her son Lance as part of a group
28:35and arranged for Lance to meet with Shane Edge.
28:41Shane Edge, friend to Lance, known to Thelma Purchase.
28:46Shane Edge was recruited by Lance Rudge
28:50in the presence of a whole group of his friends,
28:53asked, is there anybody who's prepared to kill for money?
28:57And the person who said yes was Shane Edge.
29:01Lance inviting Shane to become involved in the murder
29:05speaks very clearly of the world that they're part of.
29:08The assumption of his acceptance
29:11and asking him without shame or fear to participate in a murder
29:15just tells us the kind of world that they are part of.
29:20The carer who wanted to cash in on her one-time patient's will
29:24encouraged two young men in a plot to kill.
29:28And so the three of them, Purchase, Lance Rudge and Shane Edge,
29:34became involved in this plot to murder Greg Baker.
29:40It's a world without morality,
29:42a world that puts little value on human life.
29:47Actually, a value had been put on the human life
29:50of Greg Baker by Thelma Purchase.
29:52They were to receive £8,000 each.
29:57So the motive was greed.
30:04The three waited until after 10 o'clock.
30:06They met up at Stoke City Football Ground
30:08before moving on to Alton,
30:10the village in the countryside where Greg lived.
30:13Yvonne Purchase drove her car to the area of Alton
30:18with Shane Edge as a passenger.
30:23Police later combed through the evidence
30:25to get a complete picture of events.
30:28Over a period of time, we were able to identify the car.
30:32We had to get an expert in cars to do that
30:36because the CCTV wasn't particularly brilliant,
30:40but by examining the car, measuring certain things,
30:44where the lights were,
30:46the one light was, if I remember rightly, was out at the back.
30:50That was a good indicator.
30:52So we were able to track the car
30:54and then we cross-referenced that with the mobile telephones as well
30:58and we could show the car and the mobile phones being there together.
31:03Thelma, her son and his friend were in Alton.
31:07Inside his house, a sleeping, highly vulnerable Greg Baker.
31:20Thelma Yvonne Purchase was in a car,
31:23the one partly paid for by Greg Baker that night.
31:27Her two helpers, Lance, her son, and Shane Edge, left her there.
31:32She stayed in the car. They knew the layout of the house.
31:35Lance had actually been to the house previously.
31:38He'd been educated sort of on a part-time basis by Mr Baker,
31:42so they knew the layout.
31:44Perhaps Lance felt some pangs of guilt.
31:47Who knows? But he let Shane Edge lead the way.
31:51Edge had been told where his target might leave cash.
31:55Lance and Shane Edge went into the bedroom where Mr Baker was lying.
32:00And he found Greg Baker asleep in bed.
32:03And what he knew was that Greg Baker would have a large sum of money
32:10tucked into the top pocket of his pyjama tops.
32:14He always had a large sum of money put there by his carers on a Friday evening
32:20so that he could pay his carers and other bills in cash over the coming week.
32:26So the crime was undoubtedly committed by somebody who knew Greg Baker
32:32and knew his habits.
32:36Edge then took the pillow on which Greg was sleeping
32:42and placed it over his head.
32:46Shane actually placed it over his face and probably forced that down on his face
32:53and then sat on the body.
32:56And knelt astride it and pushed down to smother Greg Baker.
33:03And he described how his arms literally ached
33:08from the pressure of pressing down and forcing the life out of Greg Baker.
33:16Suffocation is a horrible thing.
33:19Anybody who has got stuck underwater and realised they can't breathe
33:23because they are going to get water in their mouths
33:26will understand a little bit of what it feels like.
33:29Only it's just that bit more than that.
33:31Physically, your adrenaline floods through you.
33:35Your mouth and your nose are covered.
33:38The oxygen levels in your blood drop really quickly.
33:41The carbon dioxide levels rise.
33:43Even if you weren't awake, you would be as soon as you realised
33:48that you couldn't breathe.
33:54So the adrenaline will make you incredibly anxious.
33:58Your breathing rate goes up.
34:00Your heart starts to hammer.
34:02Your mouth is dry.
34:03Your palms are sweating.
34:05And the terror that goes through you at that moment,
34:09especially if you realise that there is nothing you can do
34:13to reach out and clutch and take this away.
34:19As this was happening, Greg Baker said to him,
34:22why are you killing me?
34:24Now, that is not only a chilling comment,
34:28because here was a man who realised that his death was coming moments later,
34:35but it demonstrated that this was no random act of burglary.
34:42It was quite a callous way to kill someone.
34:48In suffocation, not only is the face of the victim hidden,
34:52you don't have to look at the person that you're killing.
34:55It's almost a passive form of murder.
34:57The person themselves stops breathing, simply stops breathing.
35:01It's almost as if they are partly to blame.
35:04So it's totally consistent.
35:06There's no direct contact.
35:08There's no active murdering involved.
35:10There's no blood on your hands.
35:12I'm not surprised that suffocation was the methodology of choice here.
35:18And not even in the room, the carer who'd planned the murder of her patient.
35:26With the murder over, the two men ran to the escape car
35:29where Thelma Purchase waited.
35:31The three had assumed that the discovery that a man so ill and infirm
35:35as Greg Baker had died in the night would point to death
35:38by natural causes.
35:40People do die in their sleep.
35:42People with muscle wasting and particularly the breathing problems
35:46that might affect somebody who's had polio do die in their sleep.
35:53The killers had a realistic chance of escaping justice,
35:56but for the anomalies spotted by the morning nurse
35:59who discovered Mr Baker.
36:01Mistake by mistake, the case unravelled.
36:05First, where was Mr Baker's money?
36:08Lance Rudge and Shane Edge, not ones usually who had spare cash,
36:13were seen spending freely in the early hours after Mr Baker had died.
36:18They entered into some form of celebration
36:21by going out to the 24-hour Tesco, buying alcohol and celebrating.
36:26They actually took the money and started spending it
36:30very, very openly, very, very publicly.
36:34So that anybody would think, oh, they've got money.
36:38It was well known to the carers that Mr Baker often kept some loose cash
36:44either in his pyjama pocket or on the table by the side of the bed.
36:49And we believe that money is what they took back with them.
36:53In so many ways, they drew attention to themselves.
36:59Another anomaly, his most comforting and comfortable pillow,
37:03had disappeared.
37:05Mr Baker had a special pillow, a very large pillow.
37:08They decided to take that pillow away from the crime scene.
37:13Now, the first thing that any carer is going to notice
37:18is where's Mr Baker's pillow?
37:24In a remarkable piece of detective work,
37:26a feather from that pillow would be found
37:28under the new patio at Purchaser's house.
37:31When the police examined Yvonne Purchaser's house,
37:37they found outside a burn site.
37:41One of the detectives in the team had noticed
37:44at the edge of one of the blocks of the paving,
37:47there was a little burn area.
37:49And we decided once we had that information
37:51that we'd lift the paving and look underneath.
37:54In the belief that they probably had burnt the pillow.
37:58They didn't find a pillow. They found a feather.
38:01An expert was instructed to look at the contents
38:06recovered from the burn site.
38:10There was a tiny, very small piece of what appeared to be cotton
38:15with something which appeared to be a feather attached to it.
38:19We had a look at it sort of forensically
38:22and we were sort of struggling a little bit.
38:25So we wanted to know what that thing attached to the cotton was.
38:29Was it actually a feather?
38:31We liaised with an expert at the Natural History Museum in London.
38:35We took it down to him and he was very confident
38:39in saying to us, that is a feather.
38:41He had a real good look at it and he actually indicated to us
38:45that you might want to go and look at some of the manufacturers
38:49of pillows in the East Midlands, which we did.
38:54And they were able to say it was a part of a pillow
38:59because of the machining of the sample that we'd got.
39:02So we were very happy to say that was part of a pillow.
39:05And that was, again, a crucial piece of evidence.
39:08Police then knew that a pillow had been removed from the house
39:12and they knew that a pillow had been recently burnt
39:16at Yvonne Purchase's house.
39:18So this was another of the key elements
39:22that linked Yvonne Purchase to the murder.
39:28A mistake-laden murder had been committed in the hope
39:31that the death of a vulnerable man would appear natural.
39:34But diligent nurses knew Greg Baker too well to be taken in,
39:39so police had become suspicious.
39:41Their first inquiries were about who would benefit.
39:45One of the first things you need to establish around sort of death
39:48is, you know, why does someone want somebody dead?
39:51You're looking at the motive.
39:53And one of the key things we had to look at was
39:56who would benefit from his death?
39:58So very quickly we started to establish who his family were,
40:02who his close friends were, and what background Mr Baker had.
40:06We looked at his financial background, his social background.
40:10And we were just trying to establish, obviously,
40:13who might be a beneficiary in his death.
40:16Security footage and mobile phone records
40:18placed the killers at the scene.
40:20Thelma Purchase was arrested.
40:24Initially, she was quite calm.
40:26I think she almost expected us to speak to her
40:29because of her relationship with Mr Baker.
40:32But over a period of time,
40:34that became more and more ruffled and less cool.
40:38And she didn't really admit anything,
40:41but it was quite clear that she was hiding things.
40:45She didn't answer, specifically,
40:47some of the key questions that we needed answering.
40:51She has, to this day, refused to admit her guilt.
40:54In court, the three on trial turned on each other.
40:58Son blamed mother, mother blamed son.
41:01The hired hand blamed them both.
41:03But the catalogue of errors made by the killers
41:06left a jury in no doubt where guilt lay.
41:09All three were found guilty of murder.
41:12And the longest sentence was given to the orchestrator of events,
41:16the carer who had turned killer, Thelma Yvonne Purchase.
41:21Most murderers convince themselves that the act,
41:25that they were something that they had to do,
41:27that they're not really bad,
41:29and that they can keep it separate from their families,
41:32helps them to maintain that facade,
41:34that the murder was just something that they had to do.
41:38So Thelma, not hesitating to involve her family, involve her son,
41:43tells me just how rotten through and through
41:47her approach to other people is,
41:50her coercive, manipulative, abusive approach to other human beings is.
41:56She doesn't even see the need to keep it hidden from her teenage son.
42:02She was a manipulative and self-centred woman.
42:08And she thought only of herself
42:12in the planning and execution of the murder,
42:16and only of herself in seeking to escape conviction.
42:21And I think, undoubtedly, the jury saw through that
42:27and realised that she was at the centre of the spider's web.
42:33All three were given life sentences.
42:36Lance Rudge will serve a minimum term of 18 years.
42:39Shane Edge will serve a minimum sentence of 20 years.
42:42Thelma Yvonne Purchase will not be eligible for release
42:46until she has served 30 years in prison.
42:49She was also found guilty of perverting the course of justice
42:53and of trying to arrange the murder of Kelvin Amos.
42:56What possessed him? I haven't got a clue.
42:59I still can't believe me being involved with somebody that close
43:04and knowing them, it just seemed...
43:07Oh, it just seemed like a novel type thing, like an horror story.
43:14I firmly believe that she'd sort of ingratiated herself with Mr Baker
43:18over a period of time with the sole purpose of benefiting in the long term.
43:22Unfortunately for her, her situation changed
43:25and she needed to benefit in the more near future
43:28and that's why Mr Baker died.
43:31Yvonne Thelma Purchase.
43:33Carer.
43:34Killer.
43:52CARER
43:53KILLER
43:54KILLER
43:55KILLER
43:56KILLER
43:57KILLER
43:58KILLER
43:59KILLER
44:00KILLER
44:01KILLER
44:02KILLER
44:03KILLER
44:04KILLER
44:05KILLER
44:06KILLER
44:07KILLER
44:08KILLER
44:09KILLER
44:10KILLER
44:11KILLER
44:12KILLER
44:13KILLER
44:14KILLER
44:15KILLER
44:16KILLER
44:17KILLER
44:18KILLER
44:19KILLER