page_title: Ipswich serial murders
section_title: Police investigation
hierarchical_section_title: Ipswich serial murders / Police investigation
caption_attribution_description: English: Nacton Village Road sign
context_page_description: The Ipswich serial murders, commonly known as the work of the Suffolk Strangler, took place between 30 October and 10 December 2006, during which time the bodies of five murdered women were discovered at different locations near Ipswich, Suffolk, England. All of the victims were women who had worked as prostitutes in the Ipswich area. Their bodies were discovered naked, but there were no signs of sexual assault. Two of the victims, Anneli Alderton and Paula Clennell, were confirmed to have been killed by asphyxiation. A cause of death for the other victims, Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol and Annette Nicholls, was not established.
  Suffolk Police linked the killings and launched a murder investigation codenamed Operation Sumac. Due to the size of the investigation police officers were drafted from several other police forces. Two arrests were made in connection with the murders. The first suspect, who was never officially named by police, was released without charge. Forklift truck driver Steven Gerald James Wright, then aged 48, was arrested on suspicion of murder on 19 December 2006 and charged with the murders of all five women on 21 December.
context_section_description: The body of a young woman was discovered in the water of Belstead Brook at Thorpe's Hill, near Hintlesham, by a member of the public on 2 December 2006. The body, later identified as 25-year-old Gemma Adams, had not been sexually assaulted. Six days later, on 8 December, the body of 19-year-old Tania Nicol, a friend of Adams who had been missing since 30 October, was discovered in water at Copdock Mill just outside Ipswich. On 10 December, a third victim, found by a member of the public in an area of woodland by the A14 road near Nacton, was later identified as 24-year-old Anneli Alderton. According to a police statement, she had been asphyxiated and was about three months pregnant when she died.
  In a press conference police warned all women to stay away from the red light district of Ipswich. On 12 December, Suffolk police announced that the bodies of two more women had been found. On 14 December, the police confirmed one of the bodies as 24-year-old Paula Clennell. Clennell had disappeared on 10 December and was last seen in Ipswich. According to Suffolk Police, Clennell died from "compression of the throat". On 15 December, the police confirmed that the other body was that of 29-year-old Annette Nicholls, who disappeared on 5 December. The bodies of Clennell and Nicholls were found in Nacton near the Levington turn-off of the A1156, close to where Alderton was found. A member of the public had seen Clennell's body twenty feet (six metres) from the main road and a police helicopter dispatched to the scene discovered the second body of Nicholls nearby.
  Suffolk police linked the killings and launched a murder investigation, codenamed Operation Sumac. Chief Constable Alastair McWhirter acknowledged that Suffolk Constabulary would be reliant on external assistance owing to the magnitude of the investigation. A senior investigator with the Metropolitan Police, Commander Dave Johnston, was reported to have been drafted into the murder inquiry team from Scotland Yard in London in an advisory capacity.
  During press conferences on 13 and 14 December, DCS Gull revealed that police believed the locations where the five bodies were found to have been 'deposition sites', not murder scenes, indicating that the victims were all killed elsewhere and transported to the locations where they were later found; no comment was made on where the women may have been murdered. DCS Gull also revealed that some items of women's clothing and accessories, including a handbag and jacket, had been recovered and were being forensically tested to establish whether they belonged to any of the murdered women.
  During the course of the press briefings, DCS Gull stated that over 300 police officers were involved in the investigation, and some 400–450 calls were being received daily by detectives.
  On 15 December, Suffolk Constabulary's website revealed that a total of 7,300 telephone calls had been made to police regarding the investigation, and that over 300 police staff and specialists were working on the cases, with support from at least 25 other police forces. As of 18 December, the number of officers involved in the investigation had increased to 650 including 350 officers from 40 other police forces who had assisted in the inquiry. The number of calls received regarding the case had also increased to around 10,000.
caption: Nacton village, near where the body of Anneli Alderton was found
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