A quarter of a century after 17-year-old Victoria Hall vanished into the night, a judge at London’s Old Bailey declared that Steve Wright given 40 year sentence would stand as formal recognition of a life stolen and a family shattered.
Wright, 67, already serving a whole-life term for murdering five women in Ipswich in 2006, was sentenced for the kidnap and killing of Victoria and the attempted abduction of another woman in Suffolk in September 1999.
A Predator “On the Prowl”
The court heard Wright had been “on the prowl” in Felixstowe when he first targeted 22-year-old Emily Doherty on 18 September 1999. The following night, he abducted Victoria after she left the Bandbox nightclub with her friend, Gemma Algar.
The two young women parted near their homes in Trimley St Mary at about 01:00 BST.
“That’s the last time anyone — apart from you — saw Victoria Hall alive,” Mr Justice Bennathan told Wright.
Neighbours and Gemma reported hearing two piercing screams, followed by the sound of a car speeding away. Five days later, Victoria’s naked body was discovered in a ditch in Creeting St Peter, roughly 25 miles (40km) from where she was last seen.
Expert testimony established she had been asphyxiated within hours of her abduction. DNA evidence taken at the time showed she had also been raped or sexually assaulted.
“For reasons only you know, you snatched her away and you crushed that young life,” the judge said.
