Chilling murders Crimewatch helped solve – including ‘coffin kidnap’, brutal hammer slaying & killing of James Bulger

WHEN Crimewatch launched in 1984, no one could have known it would end up playing a role in solving some of the most horrific murders in British history.

Child killers and serial rapists have ended up behind bars thanks to the show's appeals, but executives swung the axe on the crime reconstruction series in 2017.

Even its spin-off show, Crimewatch Roadshow Live, was forced to take a break earlier this year because of the pandemic.

But it will be back this week to continue examining some of the nation's most despicable crimes, including a rise in attacks on homeless people.

Before its return, here are some of the most disturbing offences Crimewatch helped to solve – from child killings to serial rape attacks.

Teen sexually assaulted and strangled to death

The first case ever shown on Crimewatch was the chilling murder of Colette Aram, who was just 16 years old when she was abducted, raped and murdered in 1983.

Colette was walking to her boyfriend's house in Keyworth, Notts., when she disappeared.

Worried friends and family called police to help look for her that evening – her naked body was found dumped around a mile and a half from where she was taken.

A reconstruction of Colette's shocking murder was broadcast on Crimewatch in June 1984, leading to over 400 tip-off calls from the public.

The case was also shown in the 20th anniversary episode of Crimewatch in 2004, but Colette's killer remained at large until 2008.

Jean-Paul Hutchinson was arrested for a driving offence that year, and his DNA was a near-identical match of the profile police had made of Colette's killer.

But Jean-Paul was only 20 in 2008, meaning he hadn't been born at the time of Colette's murder.

The close match led cops to his dad, Paul Stewart Hutchinson, who eventually pleaded guilty to the killing in December 2009.

He was jailed for life in January 2010 but he died in October that year after being found unconscious in his cell at Nottingham Prison after taking a suspected overdose.

Toddler abduction and train track torture

In February 1993, two 10-year-old schoolboys abducted two-year-old James Bulger from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Merseyside, when James' mum briefly took her eyes off him.

The boys led James by the hand to a railway line near a disused station where they beat him to death with bricks, stones and an iron bar.

They left his body across the tracks in the hope that his death would look like an accident – he was cut in half by a train after they fled the scene.

But investigators quickly realised James had been murdered when his body was discovered two days later.

CCTV footage of the killers taking James from the shopping centre was shown on Crimewatch and two witnesses called in to say they'd seen Robert Thompson and Jon Venables with the toddler.

They were both convicted of the killing in 1993, becoming the youngest murderers in English history.

Hammer horror

In July 1996, 45-year-old Lin Russell was walking down a country lane in Chillenden, Kent, with her two daughters, six-year-old Megan and nine-year-old Josie, and their pet dog Lucy, when the family were attacked by a thug with a hammer.

They were tied up and brutally beaten by the assailant – only Josie survived, but police assumed all three were dead when they saw their horrific head injuries.

In July 1997, cops arrested Michael Stone for the murders after they received a tip-off from someone who'd watched a reconstruction of the attack on Crimewatch.

Stone was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison but, to this day, he maintains his innocence and blames the crimes on serial killer Levi Bellfield.

Locked in a coffin for eight days

In January 1992, 25-year-old estate agent Stephanie Slater was kidnapped at a house viewing by a man who took her to a warehouse in Newark, Nottinghamshire.

Blindfolded, bound, and with electrodes attached to her legs, Slater was stuffed into a makeshift coffin inside a wheelie bin where she was kept locked up for eight days.

Her captor let her go after Slater's estate agency paid a ransom for her release.

Crimewatch aired a phone call recording of the voice of someone they suspected was Slater's captor and Michael Sams' first wife recognised it was her ex-husband.

Sams was arrested and DNA evidence confirmed that he'd also been responsible for the 1991 kidnap and murder of 18-year-old Julie Dart.

Dart had also been kept chained in a coffin-like box and was beaten to death with a hammer after being made to write letters demanding a ransom to her boyfriend.

Sams is now serving life in prison and, in June this year, was deemed too dangerous to be released, despite being 78 years old.

Schoolboy gunned down in gangland crossfire

Rhys Jones was just 11 years old when he was shot in the back on the way home from football practice in Croxteth, Liverpool, in August 2007.

A hooded teen on a bike had fired three shots from a Smith & Wesson .455 revolver from the First World War.

He'd been aiming at rival gang members, but hit Rhys instead.

After a direct appeal from Rhys' heartbroken mum on Crimewatch, 12 people who rang in gave the same name of the murderer.

Sean Mercer of the Croxeth Crew gang, who was 16 at the time of the killing, was sentenced to a minimum of 22 years in 2008.

Other gang members and their parents were also sentenced for assisting Mercer and perverting the course of justice.

'Trophy Rapist'

Cops first realised they were dealing with an exceptionally sadistic criminal when, in 2002, a rapist used his victim's phone to taunt her mum about having raped her daughter just an hour after the assault.

The twisted serial sex attacker became known as the M25 Rapist because his similar crimes were found in Surrey, Kent and London.

He would go up behind his victims, drag them to a secluded area and rape them, sometimes at knifepoint.

The monster was also known as the "Trophy Rapist" because he would sometimes keep victims' clothing after forcing them to undress.

Some also said he ordered them to tell him that they loved him during the attacks.

His first victim was a 10-year-old girl whom he abducted from outside a police-run youth club in Ashford, Kent, but unusually for a serial rapist he also targeted adults, with his oldest victim being aged 52.

Once cops had built up a DNA profile of the attacker, they launched a massive public appeal, including by broadcasting an e-fit of the suspect on Crimewatch.

Someone tipped-off investigators that the mock-up drawing looked a lot like their neighbour, Antoni Imiela.

Authorities took a DNA swab from Imiela whose DNA matched, and he was ultimately convicted of the rape of nine women and girls, along with the indecent assault and attempted rape of another 10-year-old girl in Birmingham.

He was sentenced to seven life sentences in 2004, and he died from heart failure in Wakefield Prison in 2018.