STEVE WRIGHT: THE SUFFOLK STRANGLER

“quiet” Steve Wright wasn’t out drugging and murdering prostitutes, his main obsession was golf.

People described him as a dapper dresser and friendly-enough bloke who kept himself to himself (probably wise when you’re a psycho who’s fighting the raging desire to kill).

It was October 30, 2006, when Wright spotted 19-year-old hooker Tania Nicol as he prowled the streets of Ipswich in his Ford Mondeo.

Her naked body would be found three weeks later, posed grotesquely in the cruciform position by the side of a river at a nearby beauty spot.

It marked the start of an intense campaign of murder, in which five prostitutes would be slaughtered by Wright – dubbed the Suffolk Strangler – in just six weeks.

One of the victims, Paula Clennell, 24, was killed just days after she had appeared on the local TV news, talking about street workers’ fears about a killer on the loose. Another of his victims, 24-year-old Anneli Alderton, was found during the post-mortem to have been three months pregnant.

And still nobody knows why Wright did it. After living 48 years without any major brushes with the law, something had flipped in his head.

Wright started using prostitutes in the 80s after joining the merchant navy as a chef. His job on the seas gave him plenty of chance to visit the red-light districts of foreign cities.

His secret sex life was put on hold after he met Pamela Wright at a bingo hall in Felixstowe. But in 2004 the couple moved to a property in Ipswich that neighboured the city’s main area for prostitutes.

And when Pamela started to work nights in a call centre in 2006, Wright became a familiar face with the local street workers

Police forensics show that after stepping into Wright’s car, his victims would be drugged unconscious, stripped naked and then strangled to death.

In court, he admitted having sex with four of the five victims, thus accounting for his DNA being on their bodies.

He was found guilty and jailed until he dies.