Transcript for Case 281: Bibaa Henry & Nicole Smallman

Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. In early June 2020, the city of London was in the middle of its first lockdown issued in response to the coronavirus pandemic. For almost three months, UK residents had been ordered to stay at home to prevent spreading the virus dubbed COVID-19. When the weather was good, people would catch up with their friends and family outdoors, where there was less risk of spreading the virus in the fresh air. But during the first week of June, temperatures were cool, prompting members of the public to want to socialise indoors instead. The UK government reminded its citizens to remain cautious and continue meeting outside as much as possible. Bieber Henry was a respected social worker who took the community's health and safety seriously. So, as her 46th birthday approached on Friday June 5, she decided to celebrate with the sunset picnic in a local park instead of a party at home. Restrictions on movement meant that only loved one who lived within walking distance could attend, and it would be a fairly small gathering. Undeterred, Bieber sent text messages to friends with an invitation to attend. Please bring a blanket, lights, snacks, and a drink of your choice. Let's have a catch up. Play some sophisticated music. Watch the sunset and take it from there. Included with the text was a Google Maps screenshot of the party's destination, a 250 acre park with open fields and small woods called Friant Country Park. It was located near Beabas home of Wembley in North West London. One person who was able to attend the celebration was Beabas' younger half sister, 27-year-old Nicole Smallman. Nicole, who was a freelance photographer and artist, lived in the neighboring town of Harrow. Despite their 20-year-age difference, the sisters were close, and Nicole helped Beba prepare for the picnic. That evening, the two went to a supermarket to purchase snacks, then headed to Bryant Country Park in Beba's purple outie. Video footage from London's expansive CCTV network captured the two walking into the park side by side at 7.39pm, chatting together and smiling as they carried their supplies. The sisters selected a spot at the top of a hill, scattering cushions and blankets around. They had also brought some fairy lights and glow sticks to add a party atmosphere and provide light after the sun went down. As Babes' friends started to arrive, the sisters waved the lights in the air to draw their attention. The spot where they were seated afforded a scenic view of London, and everyone snapped photographs of the pink and purple straight sky as the sunset and dusk fell. There was singing, dancing, laughing and chatting, as well as lots of eating and drinking. When it became dark and the hour grew late, Babes' guests began to depart. One by one, the partygoers said goodbye and headed home, until just Bieber and Nicole remained. Left alone to enjoy some time together, the two sisters chatted, danced and snapped photographs of themselves playing with the fairy lights. Throughout the night, Nicole had been texting her boyfriend Adam via the messaging platform WhatsApp. At 104 AM, she sent him a message that read, I'm dancing in a field, accompanied by an emoji of a woman dancing. She followed up with another text, going home soon. The following morning of Saturday June 6, Wilhelmina Smallman decided to text her daughters, Bieber and Nicole, to see how their picnic had gone. Wilhelmina, who went by the nickname Mina, had been unable to attend Bieber's party, as she lived in the coastal town of Ramsgate, located almost 80 miles east from London in the county of Kent. But Bieber and Nicole had made sure to send Mina photos from the celebration the previous night. Their family was close knit. As well as Bieber and Nicole, Mina had a third daughter, Manik, who lived in Holland. Bieber and Manik were mean as children from her first marriage to her man Henry, a retired boxer. Nicole was her only child from her second marriage to Christopher Smallman. Bieber and Manik were close with their stepfather, and everyone got along extremely well. At 11.23 a.m., Mina sent her daughters a text message in response to some pictures they'd sent of the picnic. Love the photo, good turnout. She added that she hoped they'd had a lovely time and asked them to tell her all about it later on. To her surprise and concern, Mina didn't hear anything back from either of her daughters. Meanwhile, Nicole's circle of friends were also growing concerned. Her boyfriend Adam had asked her to let him know when she arrived home safely, but she never did. Adam got in touch with Nicole's housemate, Emma, who said Nicole hadn't come home. The lack of contact was strange. Nicole loved animals and had a pet bearded dragon lizard whom she adored. If she ever planned to be away for a longer period of time, she would provide instructions for his care, such as when to feed him or change his heatland. But she hadn't done so this time. Emma contacted some mutual friends to save they had heard from Nicole. None of them had. After Adam repeatedly called Nicole without success, he tried to trace her phone with a tracker app to know a veil hoping that Nicole had decided to stay at Bieber's house, Adam travelled there to check. No one was home. By the time Saturday evening rolled around, Adam and Nicole's friends were becoming increasingly upset. When the women's mother Mina conferred with Adam and realized nobody had heard from Bieber on a call, she knew something was wrong. At 1042 that night, Mina called the police to report her daughter's missing. She told them what the situation was, how long it had been since anyone had heard from Bieber and Nicole, and provided a detailed description of where they were last seen. But Mina got the impression that the police didn't share her concern. They listened to her, but didn't seem to share her sense of urgency, and didn't indicate they would do anything to look for the women. that night, meaner and her husband Christopher couldn't sleep. They continue trying to call and detect Bieber and Nicole throughout the night, topping out one message after another. Where are you? Getting quite worried here. Please let us know you are okay. When Sunday morning rolled around, the women's loved ones knew they would have to do something. It had been more than 24 hours since Bieber and Nicole had been seen. Hoping that getting the word out on social media might help, Nicole's friends posted about Nicole's disappearance on Facebook. They shared a photo of Nicole beneath the heading, missing. They also started phoning hospitals in the area to see if they had any patients matching the women's description. As the police still hadn't sent out search parties, Christopher Smallman made the decision to drive to London to conduct his own search. Nicole's boyfriend Adam had the same idea. Like Mina, he had called the police the previous night to report his girlfriend missing, but hadn't gotten anywhere. The police had told them they would pay a visit to Bebe's flat, so Adam and his mother had gone there to wait for them. But the police never showed up and couldn't say when they would arrive. A company to buy his parents, Adam decided to go to a free and country park. The place where the women were last known to have been. Once at the park, Adam met up with a friend of the sisters named Nina Resmat, who attended the picnic on Friday night. Nina had also been concerned after being unable to reach the women and had circled to the park by herself hoping to find something. She'd spent about 30 minutes writing her bike around the enormous park looking for her friends. Nina took Adam and his parents to the top of the hill where Bebe's celebrations had been held, The spot was a five-minute walk from the Valley Drive entrance to the park. It was surrounded by sprawling fields which were dotted with ponds and framed by denser areas of woodland. No sign of the picnic held tonight earlier remained. All of the blankets, cushions and fairy lights that had been strewn around the top of the hill were now gone. The lack of items belonging to the sisters left the impression that they'd most likely packed up their things and left the park, rather than something happening to them while they were still there. Regardless, the groups still decided to search their surroundings. They split up and began scaring the area. While Adam and his parents went in other directions, Nina combed through the large field at the base of the hill, looking for anything out of place. Then, something caught her eye. A mingled pair of expensive designer prescription sunglasses lay on the ground, glinting in the sun. Nibai was a long patch of flattened grass. Nina's heart sank. She immediately recognized the glasses as belonging to Beba. The state of them didn't suggest that Beba had left the park safely and of her own accord. Uncertain what she should do now, Nina picked up her phone and called the police to report what she'd found. They told her to hand the glasses into them, so Nina picked them up and hopped back on her bicycle to go to the nearest police station. She continued to communicate with Adam via text. He'd found nothing, and when he messaged Nina saying that he didn't know what to do, she replied, if you can bear it, just keep looking. Adam and his parents continued to search. They called out the women's names, hoping desperately for a reply, while searching through scrub and vegetation. Adam spotted a second pair of sunglasses, but didn't touch them. Then, Adam's father called out to him, Adam rushed over to the location his father was searching. Nearby was a long trail of flattened grass, and lying on the ground was a black handle to knife with a 12 centimeter blade. It was engraved with the brand name, Taylor's eye witness, and looked clean. Despite the clean blade, the sight left Adam panicked. Pulling out his phone, he dialed 999, the emergency services number, and to begin explaining the situation to a dispatcher while running along the stretch of flattened grass at the same time. The trail led towards a strip of wooded area with a row of trees. Poking out from beneath some undergrowth was a pair of shoes. Adam ran around to a gap in the bushes. Diving into the undergrowth, he was met with a horrifying sight. About one foot away from him laid the bodies of two women intertwined together. It was Bieber and Nicole. Both lay on their sides, and they were positioned top to toe. It looked as though they were locked in an embrace with their limbs wrapped around one another. Bieber's clothing had been pulled up over her head, She had been stabbed eight times and her back was covered in abrasions from being dragged through the rough undergrowth. Nicole's clothing had been yanked up above her abdomen and she too had abrasions and stab wounds. But Nicole's injuries were far more extensive than her sisters. She had been stabbed 28 times. Her eyes were open and as Adam looked at his girlfriend's face, he knew that she was dead He fell to the ground and let out several gutter-all screams, which was heard by the 999 dispatcher on the other end of his phone. His parents also heard Adams cries of distress and raced over towards him, but he leapt up to stop them from having to see what he'd seen. He handed his phone to his father and ordered his parents not to go into the bushes. Then collapsed once again. After hearing Adam screams, a man in another area of the park flagged down a police officer and directed her towards the noise. She found Adam and his parents in a state of shock. The officer and a colleague entered the scene where the sisters' bodies lay and confirmed that both were deceased. Officers from London's Metropolitan Police descended on the park. With the grounds stretching for 250 acres, they were facing an enormous crime scene. To preserve the area where Bieber and Nicole's bodies lay and prevent it being contaminated before forensic experts had a chance to examine it, officers set up a series of cordons. The innermost cordon framed the hedgero where the women's bodies were. Mina Smallman was at home, waiting anxiously for news, when her phone rang with a call from Adam. She answered, and Adam told her. Mina, Mina, I need you to sit down. We found them, but they're gone. Mina began to scream uncontrollably. After her cries eventually subsided, she remembered that her husband was driving to Friant Country Park. She found Christopher and broke the news to him that their girls had died. Although they knew there was no longer any way to help a Bieber and Nicole, some of their loved ones felt a desire to go to the park and be there for them in the only way they could. A small group gathered at the bottom of the hill before the cordon started and watched as forensic units arrived and officers went to and from the scene. As detailed in the BBC documentary, two daughters, one of Baby's relatives was extremely distraught and begged the officers to let him see Baby. We can't do that, one of the officers replied. But we will look after them. We will take care of them. We will respect them. We will promise that. Several officers were installed at the innermost court and to guard the sister's bodies until they could be removed for autopsy the following morning. Forensic tents were set up so that members of the public wouldn't see the bodies being taken from the park. Further examinations confirmed that whoever had killed the two women had dragged them by the feet into the bushes and deliberately positioned them in the way they were found. Perhaps as a way to further degrade them, 46-year-old Bieber Henry had sustained six stab wounds to her chest, one to her growing, and one to her back. The knife used in the attack had penetrated her lungs and heart, with one chest wound measuring 15 cm deep. This particular injury would have rendered Bieber unconscious within seconds. She had no defensive wounds, indicating that her killer had caught her by surprise. Her 27-year-old sister Nicole Smallman would have been witness to her sister's attack. Unlike Bieber, Nicole had a numerous defensive injuries and her attack had been far more brutal, likely because she had tried to fight back. She had been stabbed 28 times and had injuries to her chest back thigh, hip, shoulder, arms and hands. Investigators appealed for anybody who had been at Bryant Country Park on the evening of Friday June 5 or early morning on Saturday June 6 to come forward. They described the location where Bieber and Nicole had been and said that if anyone had seen or heard anything suspicious, then it was especially important that they share what they knew. Quote You may have stumbled upon items of property, but not realized the significance of them. If you did, you may well have information that could assist us hugely, no matter how insignificant it may seem. Several witnesses did come forward. At 145 AM on the morning of Saturday June 6, a local woman named Elaine Williams had been at home watching television when she suddenly heard a disturbance from the direction of the park. It sounded like a man shouting. This was followed by two female voices shouting back. Then Elaine could only hear one woman's voice, followed by a blood curdling screen. to a lane, it sounded like a messy argument between two groups who didn't know each other. Later that morning, a man named Martin Ridgeway headed to the park armed with several bin bags. Martin was a member of Barnhill Conservation Group and would spend time picking up rubbish as part of that work. As he made his way through the park looking for litter, Martin came across a large pile of abandoned belongings. There were several cushions, two backpacks, a large blue hold-all bag, a white paper bag, and some food packaging. Some of the items were covered in red marks, which Martin assumed were ketchup stains, as there were several empty source parts amongst the detritus. He threw the belongings away in some park bins. Police were later able to track these items down. The following morning of Sunday, June 7, shortly before Adam's stone and his parents commenced their search of the park, a woman named Linda Guerrero was walking her pet Beagle Bambi through the ground. As she passed Symbush's near the top of a hill, Linda noticed two bodies intertwined on the ground. From the angle where she was standing, Linda could see the bear back of one of the individuals. She assumed they were a couple asleep in an embrace. Sometimes unhoused people would sleep rough in fri and country park, so Linda wasn't particularly alarmed by the side. She called out, a U.O.K., a U.O. right mate. When there was no reply, Linda continued on her way. She later phoned street link, an organisation that helps rough sleepers in London to report the incident. It wasn't until she learned of Bieber Henry and Nicole Smallman's murders that she realized the significance of what she had seen. Bryant Country Park remained closed off to the public while police scoured its grounds for further evidence. A heavy downpour of rain across London on Saturday June 6, the day before the sisters were found, led to fears that evidence had been washed away. This rain was also the reason that the knife recovered at the crime scene appeared to be clean. But when investigators picked it up, they saw the underside was stained with blood. Testing revealed that the blood belonged to two different people, Nicole Smallman, and an unidentified male. Thanks to London's comprehensive network of CCTV cameras, investigators had been able to trace the sister's actions in the lead-up to the picnic. They had been captured on camera shopping for picnic supplies at a co-op supermarket, and one of the items they purchased was a bottle of tonic water. The bottle was subsequently found in a bush near the women's bodies. It had blood on it. Other bottles of rosé and Prosecco recovered at the scene also had traces of blood on them. A pair of blue latex gloves was also found. One of the gloves was heavily stained with blood and damaged along the center as though slashed with a knife. If the killer had been wearing the gloves, it appeared that they had suffered an injury during the attack. Most likely, when Nicole Smallman had fought back, Investigators were able to obtain a DNA profile from the blood on the bottles, the glove, and the discarded items that a member of the public had thrown away. It was from the same unidentified male as the blood on the knife. This individual's blood was also found on some vegetation near the women's bodies, from one of Nicole's feet, and on Bieber's trainers, hand, and leggings. This blood had likely been left when the killer dragged the women by their feet into the bushes. There was no record of this person in the National DNA database. Divers searched upon in the park for possible evidence. They recovered two smartphones which had belonged to Bieber and Nicole. Their killer had seemingly taken them from the scene and subsequently disposed of them. A forensic examination would reveal that the last contact date had with friends or family, was when Nicole texted her boyfriend Adam just after 1 a.m. on the Saturday morning. Between 1.26 a.m. and 3.48 a.m. someone had repeatedly tried to gain access to Bieber Henry's phone. Its screen had been turned off and then on again at least 130 times. Thanks to a step counter on the phone, police could see that whoever had been holding it had walked about 1.3 miles during that time, before switching the phone off and throwing it into the pond. Also found on the device were a number of photos that the sisters had taken throughout the night. There were shots of them celebrating with their friends, and then pictures of just the two of them after everyone else had gone home. Bieber and Nicole had set up a timer on the phone's camera, draped themselves with fairy lights, and snapped more than 100 pitches as they laughed and danced in the dark. The final photograph was taken at 13 a.m. In this image, the women appeared distracted. Instead of posing, like they had in the other shots, both were looking to their left, as though something in that direction had drawn their attention Detective's suspected that this was the moment their attacker had made himself known. No one who knew Bieber and Nicole could think of anyone who would want to harm them. Bieber was a highly respected and popular senior social worker at Buckinghamshire Council, who went above and beyond for the children she worked with. Bieber had her own daughter whom she had dored and was about to become a grandmother for the first time. She made friends easily and was well-liked for her positive demeanor. Nicole worked as a freelance photographer and shared her sisters up beat out look on life. Her parents often joked that she should have been born in the 1960s as she was a flower child at heart who cared deeply about social justice, animals, and the natural world. For the past six years, she had been in a relationship with her boyfriend Adam Stone. The couple had lived together with Adam's parents for a while, but Nicole had recently moved into a flat with a housemate. Nevertheless, the pair remained as close as ever. Prior to Nicole leaving for Bieber's party, Adam had made sure to give her money so she could catch a cab home. Bieber and Nicole also had good relationships with their family members, who were highly respected members of the community. Their mother, Mina, was a retired arch-deacon in the Anglican Church. Mina's father was Nigerian, and she had been the first black woman to hold that title. There was nothing in either of the women's lives that pointed to them being targeted by someone they knew. disappeared to be confirmed by the killer's DNA recovered at the scene. The fact that it belonged to an unknown male suggested to police that the sisters had been victims of a random attack. Detectives went public with this information, telling journalists that the women were murdered by a stranger and they needed the public's help to find him. The suspect they were looking for had a likely suffered an injury during the attack, which resulted in significant bleeding. If anyone had seen somebody injured or acting suspiciously around the frightened country park area, they were urged to report what they knew. A few leads trickled in. Local residents said they had recently been a man hanging about the park following women. He was aged in his 50s. While pursuing these two buffs, police arrested several different men, but all of them were later released without charges. Some people, including the sister's mother Mina, felt that the brutal double murder wasn't receiving enough press attention to generate worthwhile leads. Although London's media had reported on the crime, it wasn't receiving front-page coverage or a national spotlight. Users of the online forum, web sluths, complained that they hadn't even heard about the murders until stumbling across a thread on the website. The subdued nature of the coverage seemed at odds with the terrifying nature of the random attack. Then, two weeks after the murders, news broke that finally seemed to capture the press's attention. Case file will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors. This episode of Case File is sponsored by BetterHelp. Is there something you need to get off your chest? We all carry around different stresses, big and small. That's just part of life. It's when we keep these things bottled up that they can start to affect us negatively. Therapy is a safe space where you can get things off your chest and figure out how to work through whatever's weighing you down. The team at Case File affirm believers in the benefits of therapy. It's not just for those who have experienced major trauma. 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Go to homechef.com slash case file. That's homechef.com slash case file for 18 free meals and free dessert for life. You heard that right. Homechef.com slash case file must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert. Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to deliver quality content. In June of 2020, 32-year-old police constable Jamie Lewis had worked as an officer with the Metropolitan Police Service for just over nine months. Prior to joining the Met, as it was known, Louis had spent several years with the British transport police. At 3.30 a.m. on the morning of Monday, June 8, 2020, Louis arrived at Bryant Country Park with a number of his colleagues. The bodies of Bebe Henry and Nicole Smallman had been found in the park roughly 15 hours earlier, and officers were needed to guard the scene overnight until the bodies could be safely removed. Jenny Lewis and several colleagues were assigned to the court and closest to the sister's bodies, which weren't visible from where they were standing. The officers were told the general location within the thicket where the women lay, but weren't shown the bodies. None were wearing full barrier forensic clothing. They were not to search the woodland area. Their job was simply to keep watch and to make sure no one entered the scene in order to preserve its integrity. Each of the four offices was given a separate post to God and told they must remain in place until colleagues arrived to relieve them. Under no circumstances were they to enter the bushes where the women's bodies lay. At 350am, about 20 minutes after arriving at the park, Jamie Lewis took out his phone and opened the messaging application WhatsApp. He then typed a message to a group chat labelled the 18. Me, Izzy Dennis and Mad are living the Wembley dream. He attached a photo of a forensic tent set up at the park, then hit Sand, The group chat consisted of 41 different metropolitan police officers. One soon sent a reply. Enjoying the sunrise. Lewis responded. Unfortunately, I'm sat next to two dead birds full of stab wounds. Another officer replied with a joke about Lewis's use of the sling-turn birds, referring to women. Hey, asked. Who's been out stabbing pigeons? Lewis responded by sending a photograph he'd taken of Bieber and Nicole's bodies, despite being instructed and not to breach the court. One of Lewis' colleagues from the North East London Police Station, 45-year-old police constable Dennis Jaffer, was also using WhatsApp to message nine of his friends in another group chat. He sent the group a daily male article about the double homicide and informed them that he was at the scene now. He would try to take some photos of the bodies to share with them. Over the next several hours, Lewis and Jaffa repeatedly left their posts to walk back and forth to chat with each other. Both breached the cordon to take multiple up close photographs of Bieber and Nicole. Jaffa took four photographs while Lewis took two. Lewis said at one photo in the social media rap Snapchat to superimpose his face next to the bodies, as though he'd taken a selfie with them. Both men shared some of their photos with friends who didn't work with the police, and to told them that the two victims were a 14-year-old and a pregnant 20-year-old. It is unclear where they obtained this incorrect information. Lewis referred to Bieber and Nicole as two stabbed up a dead woman. When Jeffar was asked by a friend if the crime scene was bad, he replied, not really, I've seen worse. Lewis also showed the photos on his phone to several different people in person. Two of these were police officers. One was a female probationary officer. She was disgusted by the photographs and told Lewis his actions were inappropriate. At least one member of the 18 WhatsApp group who had been sent similar photos agreed and reported the matter to their higher apps at the Metropolitan Police. On Friday, June 19, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, also known as the IOPC, was alerted. Three days later, Lewis and Jaffa had their phone seized and were arrested for misconduct in public office. During an examination of Jeff's phone, it was found he'd also use the racist term to refer to South Asian men. When Lewis received a text using that same term, he made no objection. The Met issued a press release about their rests, and the story quickly made headlines across the UK. Bieber and Nicole's family had the news broken to them in person by a member of the IOPC. For me and a smallman, and the sisters other loved ones, this was the final straw. They had felt from the start that Bieber and Nicole's case hadn't been taken seriously. First, they had been the delayed police response when they were reported missing. Mina put this down to racism and classism. Both her daughters were of Nigerian heritage, and Bieber lived in a public housing flat in Wembley, a predominantly black neighborhood. as she told the BBC, quote, I knew instantly why they didn't care. They didn't care because they looked at my daughter's address and thought they knew who she was, a black woman who lives on a council estate. Cases involving missing white women from middle class backgrounds seemed to be taken more seriously by the media as well. Mina Smallman would later note that the story about the officer's misconduct to generated far more media attention than the women's disappearance and murder had. But that didn't mean Mina thought the misconduct was unworthy of attention. The news that her daughter's dignity had been further degraded by two people charged with protecting them was utterly devastating for the grieving mother. As she said in an interview with the Guardian, Mina had an even imagined what her daughters' bodies looked like until she learned officers took photos of them. She was already barely holding on by her thread, and now she suddenly began having images flashed through her mind of what the crime scene might have looked like. Her pain somehow deepened. Mina told the BBC, quote, This has taken our grief to another place. If we ever needed an example of how toxic it has become, those police officers felt so safe, so untouchable, that they felt they could take photographs of dead black girls and send them on. It speaks volumes of the ethos that runs through the metropolitan police. Bieber and Nicole's friends and family were horrified to think that while they had been standing vigil at the park, desperate for one final glimpse of their loved ones, members of the police were taking dehumanizing photographs of them and making crass jokes. In the BBC documentary, two daughters, one of Bieber's cousins stated, those two police officers did something worse than then being murdered. We can't change that, but the dignity that they deserved in their death, they took that from them, and I will never forgive them for that. In the wake of the misconduct allegations, the family and the public's trust in the Metropolitan Police Service took a severe hit. Despite this, detectives continued working to solve the case. The suspects DNA hadn't matched anyone in the National DNA database, so detectives asked the National Crime Agency to run it against their records for a familiar match. This time, there was a hit. On Tuesday, June 30, detectives discovered their suspect was related to a man named Kamal Hussein, who had previously received a caution. The DNA indicated the suspect was a close family member of Kamals, most likely his child. Kamal was from an Iraqi Kurdish background and had four children with his ex-wife who resided on the south side of London in Elton. All of the children were school-aged with the oldest being just 18 years old. Kamal had often worried about his first born, who was a boy named Daniel, Kamal would tell a neighbour that Daniel had gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd, and he was concerned about the direction he was heading in. Daniel had been in his early teens when his parents split up. It had been an unhappy household prior to the divorce, characterized by yelling and arguments. Both the police and paramedics had attended the property on more than one occasion. After his marriage ended, Kamal relocated to North London, settling into a residence in Kingsbury, just a short walk from Fry and Country Park. But his son Daniel's issues continued. In October 2017, when Daniel was 15, his teachers discovered that he had been accessing far-right propaganda and looking for images of corpses on school computers. He was subsequently referred to Prevent, the UK Government's counter extremism program. Prevent was designed to stop vulnerable individuals being groomed by and drawn into terrorist organizations, such as the extremist Islamist group ISIS. Adolescence such as Daniel, who were isolated and from immigrant backgrounds, were seen as especially susceptible to being radicalized. Daniel Hussein was assigned a mentor and was discharged from Prevent just over six months later in May 2018. Supervisors determined they had, quote, no outstanding concerns at that time with respect to violent extremism or terrorism. They continued to provide support and conducted to further reviews of Daniel over the next year. No additional need for concern was identified, and no further interventions were deemed necessary. Armed with the DNA evidence of a familial type between Kamal Hussein and their suspect, detectives raced to gain access to CCTV footage from various cameras surrounding Kamal's home. It turned out that although Daniel still lived with his mother in Alton, he had been staying with his father at the time when Bieber Henry and Nicole Smallman were murdered. Within an hour and a half, investigators had recovered some incredibly alarming footage. On the afternoon of Wednesday, June 3, two days before Bieber's birthday picnic, Daniel has seen left his father's address and headed to an asda supermarket in Colondale, North London. Security cameras captured the slight dark-haired young man wearing a blue jacket and light jeans, as he browsed the aisles of the store. He selected a tailor's eye witness knife block, which contained a set of five black-handled kitchen knives, along with some chewing gum, cans of drink, lemons, and two candles. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, her scene was wearing a face mask as he shoved. When he took the items to the checkout to pay for them, a clerk asked to see some proof of age due to his purchase of the knives. As saying pulled out his passport and removed his face mask so he could be identified. As saying returned to the Asda later that day to buy some extra strong Unibond power tape. Two days later, on Friday, June 5, her scene left his father's home again and caught a bus to a Morrison supermarket to collect some items he'd purchased the day prior on Amazon, a balaclava, and two folding shovels. Her scene also bought some alcohol. At 8.40 pm, CCTV cameras on Lakesber Close captured her scene entering the northeast corner of Bryant Country Park. This wasn't far from the Valley Drive entrance where Bebe Henry and Nicole Smallman had arrived one hour earlier. As he strode into the park, the scene was carrying a rock sack and clearly wearing blue latex gloves and a mask. The next time he would appear on camera was almost seven hours later at 308 AM when he was captured leaving the pitch black park and heading in the direction of his father's house. Her sane had removed the pants he'd been wearing earlier, and tied his jacket around his waist, leaving his lower legs exposed. His right hand was tucked tightly into his jacket's waistband. CCTV cameras tracked her sane back to his father's home, which he reached at 407 a.m. After he knocked on the front door, his father opened it, and Daniel has sane disappeared inside. At 1 a.m. on Wednesday, July 1, officers armed with tasers descended on the home of her son's mother. The double story, Brown brick townhouse, was one of several identical attached residences that sat side-by-side in a row when a quiet cul-de-sac. It was mere hours after detectives had discovered the familial DNA link and the incriminating CCTV footage. They knocked on the door, and after a few moments, a light flicked on inside. A skinny young man pulled back a share curtain to look at the waiting offices, then opened to the door. The police immediately ordered him to raise his hands and informed him that he was under arrest. Daniel has seen lifted his hands, placed the money's head, and silently stepped over the threshold. officer's hand cuffed him and transferred him to one's worth police station. Multiple injuries were visible on her son's right hand. His middle finger had a deep cut near the tip which had been stitched up and he also had several stitches a centimeter or so below his first finger. When asked about the cuts, her son replied, I was getting robbed. Records would show he had visited a hospital that day after the murders and presented with the cuts to his right hand. He initially told staff he'd been mugged the previous night, but he later told the plastic surgeon who treated his injuries that the mugging had been two or three days earlier. He didn't want to report the crime to the police. Has seen then told detectives that he had autism spectrum disorder and problems with his memory. After that, he refused to speak further. He answered every question that detectives asked him with the same refrain. No comment. While his scene was being interviewed, offices searched his mother's home. In his scene's bedroom, they found a blue latex glove that matched the one's found in Bryant Park. In his wardrobe, they found the bellachlava and one of the folding shovels that Hesain had bought one day before the murders. The other folding shovel was never found. Nor were the jacket or the trousers Hesain had been wearing on the nighting question. A book of spells was found in Hesain's room, along with some hand-drawn pictures of what looked like a cult symbols. Officers also found a piece of paper taken from a loosely folder that was covered in handwriting. It was headlined, agreement. Below that was what appeared to be a kind of contract. It read. For the mighty king, Lucifus Roffekel. Perform a minimum of six sacrifices every six months, for as long as I am free and physically capable. Sacrifice only women. Build a temple for you. Do everything that I have promised. For me, win the Mega Millions Superjackpot. To receive fruitful rewards in return for the future sacrifices I make to you, the rewards could consist of wealth and power. to never be suspected of any crimes by the police, and also that the police will never know of any crimes that I have done, and that I will do. At the bottom of the page were the words signed by, followed by spaces for two signatures. One was for King Lucifu's rufficle, and was left blank. The other was assigned to Daniel, who had signed his name in blood. case file will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors.

Thank you for listening to this episode's ads by supporting our sponsors. You support case file to continue to deliver quality content. DNA tests would confirm that the blood on the contract belonged to Daniel Hussein. His fingerprints were also all over the document. Research would uncover that Lucifus Raphael was a demon named in the 18th or 19th century book, The Grand Grim War. This occult text contains instructions for summoning demons, and contains are, quote, hierarchy of hell, a list of different evil supernatural beings and their roles. According to the grand grimoire, Lucifu's rougher cow is supposedly in charge of hell's government and treasury. Investigators realized they had just uncovered a motive. Her sane had seemingly believed that if he murdered victims as sacrificial offerings to a demon he believed in, then he would win the lottery, gain power, and escape police attention. Her sane's misogynistic views led to him deciding to only target women. Another document found in her sane's possessions was a handwritten letter to another demon named Queen Byleth. In this note, her sane request that the demon make a particular girl at his school fall in love with him and believe that he was the only person for her. He also wanted to be more attractive to women romantically. In exchange for these things, her sane would burn incense every two weeks, make offerings of sweet drinks and chocolate, burn red candles, and shed more blood. Based on these documents, it was clear that Daniel Hussein had intended to kill more women. Yet, in the four weeks since Bieber and Nicole's murders, there had been no further slings. Detectives believed this was due to the hand injuries Hussein sustained during the crime. He was unable to even make a fist with his right hand, which prevented him from attacking more victims. It was also exactly what it brought him to their attention. Daniel Hussein refused to provide police with a blood sample, but agreed to let them take a swab of his cheek. After this swab was tested for DNA, it was confirmed that the blood of the unknown male at the scene was a billion times more likely to have come from Hussein than from anyone else. He appeared stunned upon learning that were able to receive these results when he had refused to give them his blood. On Thursday, June 4, the day before Bieber's party, her scene had set up an online betting account with lotogo.com, which ran bets on the Mega Million Super Jackpot. His bank records indicated he had placed five Mega Millions bets and won Mega Millions Syndicate bet on Sunday, June 7. This was the lottery named in her scene's blood-signed contract, and its price total was £321 million. Next to the contract, Officers found three luxury tickets purchased on Tuesday, June 9. Her scene had also purchased some online scratchcard games. In total, he had spent 162 pounds into 88 pants, trying to win the lottery in the days after the murders. None of his attempts were successful. An examination of Hussein's electronic footprint showed that he was fixated by the occult. Just a few hours prior to his arrest, Hussein had gone online and logged into a forum that was owned by an American man named EA Coetting. Coetting was a misogynist, a neo-Nazi, and a kind of occult influencer. Unlike more mainstream pagan religions such as Wicker, which emphasize nature-based spirituality, co-wedding's occultism encouraged violence and harmful practices. The forum he ran was part of a larger website where co-wedding sold merchandise, shared spells and occult instruction, and offered one-on-one classes to follow us. In his writings, Coetting encouraged people to commit ritualistic murders, instructed them on selecting victims, and described how to kill someone with a knife. Coetting was affiliated with a self-described satanic neo-Nazi group in the U.S. called The Order of Nine Engels, or ONA. While most people who identify as Satanists are atheists who don't believe in deities at all, Owen A. members do believe in the devil and other demonic entities. Between 2019 and 2021, seven young men sentenced for neo-Nazi charges had been radicalized by the Owen A's content. Daniel Hasein had joined Coettings Forum two years earlier in March 2018. At the time, he was being assessed and supervised by the counterterrorism program, prevent. They were monitoring him for signs of Islamic extremism, but nothing was found. After prevent stopped checking up on her sane, his obsession with demons only grew, as did his misogyny. In one post to Coetting's forum, Hasein described himself as a psychic vampire and said he felt a natural connection with some supernatural beings and demons. Hasein bragged that he was skilled in some areas of magic, but needed to practice more to keep up his abilities. He said he particularly loved Satanism and Norse magic, and was a big fan of EA Coetting. He had even learnt his first spell, which was a love spell, from co-edding. His saying asked other posters for advice on creating demonic packs. It appeared that his saying's contract with Lucifu's Raphael had been directly inspired by co-edding's work. Coating told his followers that this particular demon was the one to enter into packs with, but added they would also have to take real-world action to ensure their wishes would be fulfilled. He provided detailed instructions for writing up such packs, including that the contract writer should request wealth and sign the document in their own blood. The packs should also be brought before the demon by candlelight. When her saying bought the knife he used to kill Bieber and Nicole, he also purchased some candles. Coetting's real name was Matthew Lawrence, and he was based in Utah. He had a number of prior convictions for drugs and weapon possession charges. At the time of Hesain's arrest, Co-wedding had a large social media following, with 128,000 followers on Facebook and 87,000 YouTube subscribers. After the link between Co-wedding and Hesain was made, a public backlash would lead to these platforms removing Co-wedding and his content. However, as of the date of this episode's release, e-commerce site Amazon still sells numerous books co-authored by Co-wedding Detectives were unable to uncover the extent of Daniel Hussein's radicalization as he refused to provide the passwords to his laptop and diepad. He had also thrown his phone away so it wouldn't fall into police hands. This prevented the police from accessing 80% of Hussein's data. The UK's Crown Prosecution Service, or CPS, took the matter to the US court, sin an attempt to force Apple to hand over the data. However, the American judge ruled against their application, finding that the CPS had an offer evidence that there was anything on her son's devices that would directly link him to the murders. When Mina Smallman found out her daughter's die due to their killer believing in demons, she actually felt a sense of strength. As a retired Anglican arch-deacon, she found solace in her faith, telling the BBC, This is my territory. I understand this. I'm the light. He's the darkness. Daniel Hasein was charged with two counts of murder and one count of possession of a knife within tent. He entered a plea of not guilty. Hasein was adamant that the person shown in the CCTV footage was not him and said he's bank card used to purchase the knives had been stolen. He'd reported the matter to his bank almost two weeks after the murders. Has seen also claimed that the demonic pact found in his room didn't belong to him, though he offered no explanation for how his fingerprints and DNA came to be on it. His trial began one year after the murders, on Wednesday June 9, 2021. Bieber Henry and Nicole Smallman's loved ones testified about how they'd found the women's bodies during a search of the park. While detectives and forensic experts detailed all of the evidence tying her sane to the double murder. Prosecutors theorized that her sane had selected the two sisters to be his first victims after having his attention drawn by the fairy lights they were carrying. He had a lane in weight under cover of darkness at the park, watching the two sisters as they danced together and laughed on the hilltop. Then he launched his attack. As saying didn't testify in his own defense. His legal team pointed to the fact that two metropolitan police officers were found to have breached the crime scene to take photos of the sisters' bodies. They argued that this may have compromised evidence, but provided no explanation as to how Hasein's blood could have otherwise been found at the scene. Hasein's behavior in court disturbed those present. He kept trying to make eye contact with Bieber and Nicole's mother, Mina Smallman, made L-shaped loser signs at a paramedic witness who was testifying, and turned his back on the judge, After a month long trial, the jury found Daniel Hassane guilty on all counts. Hassane continued his disrespectful behavior during his sentencing hearing. Appearing via video link due to an outbreak of COVID-19 on his prison wing, Hassane smiled and tossed his face mask into the air while waiting for court proceedings to commence. He also squatted on his chair throughout the hearing, instead of sitting upright. When it came time for the judge to pass her sentence, her scene turned away from the camera. Undeterred, the judge spoke about the horror her scenes actions had inflicted on his victims' loved ones, stating, I am sure that you performed these murders as part of that bargain which you thought would bring you wealth and power. Well, the wealth and power did not arrive, and nor did it happen that the police never found out about your crimes. Your DNA was all over the crime scene. There was a vast amount of CCTV to track you, and other evidence to prove it was you. You were tracked down, and your plan failed. bizarre, though, your pact with the devil may appear to others. This was your belief system. Your own commitment to the murder of innocent women. Despite Daniel Hussein's sighting, his autism spectrum disorder as a mitigating factor, the judge found that this had no bearing on his decision to commit his crimes. She sentenced her saying to life in prison with a minimum of 35 years. Because he was under the age of 21, he could not be given a whole life, Tariff. Bieber and Nicole's mother, mean a small man, spoke outside court after her saying sentencing, and expressed her relief at his capture. If he hadn't been cord, four other families may have been suffering what we have. Although Mina was grateful her sane had been stopped, it didn't ease her devastation at losing her daughters. She stated, no one expects their children to die before them, but to have two of your three children murdered overnight is just incomprehensible. Attending cord has been heartbreaking. The fear that both girls must have gone through in their final moments, trying to save each other and fighting for their lives. That boy, Daniel Hassane, has not only shown that he has no respect for the court, but that he has no remorse for what he has done, or the pain he has caused. For those who loved Bieber and Nicole, Hassane's senseless motive added to their grief, as a longtime family friend told the BBC. There was a moment of sheer disbelief. To find out it was to do with the just trying to win the lottery, it was beyond tragic. It's insulting. If it wasn't bad enough already, such a banal reason, it was insulting and offensive. Their grief was further compounded by the feeling that they had been let down by the authorities as well. Although, mean a smallment had nothing but praise for the detectives who solved her daughter's case, she was devastated by the initial delay by police in taking their disappearance as seriously, and the actions of the Met officers who talk and share photos of their bodies. The fact that so many officers also received these images in group chats and failed to raise the alarm was just as distressing. At around 9pm on Wednesday March 3, 2021, a 33-year-old woman named Sarah Everard left a friend's house near Clapham Common in South London and began walking to her home in Brickston Hill. When she failed to meet her boyfriend as planned the following day, he reported her missing and a search was quickly launched. CCTV footage would reveal that Sarah had walked for about half an hour before being stopped by an off-duty met police officer named Wayne Cousins, who was driving a rented car. He flashed his police badge at Sarah and falsely arrested her for breaching COVID-19 guidelines by being out without permission. An investigation would reveal cousins had strangled Sarah, then disposed of her remains in a pond on a property he owned. He had been plotting to kidnap and kill a woman for some time, and Sarah had been his randomly selected victim. Sarah Everard's murder led to a widespread backlash across London. For many people, her death was an example of another pandemic gripping the United Kingdom. may all violence against women. Visuals were held in memory of Sarah and to protest the fact that she'd been killed while just going about her life as she had every right to do. But the met police broke up these visuals and made a number of violent arrests in the process. They said this was because attendees were in breach of COVID restrictions. To many Londoners, the Met Police's actions were unacceptable. One of their own had been responsible for murdering a young woman, and it appeared that those protesting his crime were experiencing harsh penalties than the perpetrator had in the past for prior offences. News broke that Wayne Cousins had a history of committing sexual assault. He had been accused of indecent exposure on three separate occasions. Each time, police had either failed to investigate or take action against him. One woman said when she had tried to report cousins, the police had laughed at her. In 2018, cousins sexually assaulted a drag queen at a pub. Five officers came under scrutiny for having shared grossly offensive material with cousins prior to Sarah Everard's murder. One officer involved in the initial search for Sarah shared an offensive meme about her case on social media. Several met officers opted to give cousin's positive character references during his sentencing for the murder. And female officers came forward to say they felt unable to report inappropriate conduct by male colleagues. Public trust in the Metropolitan Police was at an all-time low. For me, a small man, at all felt sickeningly familiar. She felt a tremendous amount of grief for Sarah Everard's family. In an interview with the BBC, mean a stated, I know what that family, the parents, will be going through, and it is a hell. You can't begin to understand what it is to lose a child under those circumstances. and then to have a further betrayal. By the very organisation who is paid, and we have an agreement with that they will protect us, they will honour us, and behave in a way that gives our deceased dignity. At the same time, Nina couldn't help but noticed the stark difference between the amount of attention and public outrage Sarah's case had received in comparison to her daughters. Where investigators took Sarah's disappearance seriously from the start, Beber and Nicole's loved ones had to organize their own search parties. This led to the extremely traumatic result of Nicole's boyfriend Adam being the one to discover their bodies. There was wall to wall coverage of Sarah Everard's case, in stark contrast to the amount of attention Beber and Nicole received. Women's magazine Gratio reflected on the discrepancy between the two cases in an article headlined, where is the outrage for Nicole Smallman and Bebe Henry? Me and I told the BBC, I think the notion of all people matter is absolutely right, but it's not true. Other people have more cut-offs in this world than people of color. That's what gives me purpose. If their lives make a change in the way women have viewed and to black women in particular. Because in the pecking order of things, we are the lowest on the latter. The Metropolitan Police issued a statement in response to the public anger against them. It read in part The murder of Sarah Everard is the most horrific of crimes, but we recognize this is part of a much bigger and troubling picture. There have been other murders of women in public spaces, including the killings of Nicole Smallman and Bieber Henry. All of these bring into sharp focus our urgent duty to do more to protect women and girls. They reported that there would be a review of metpolice culture and standards, with an urgent review of all current investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct and domestic abuse against mad officers. They also published a new action plan for tackling violence against girls and women. Jamie Lewis and Dennis Jaffa, the two officers who had photographed Beaver and Nicole's bodies, both pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office. Lewis was instantly dismissed from the force, while Jaffa had already resigned by the time he faced court. In December 2021, both men were sentenced to two years and nine months in jail. They would later unsuccessfully appeal this sentence. The Metropolitan Police's then assistant commissioner, Helen Ball, said that the men's colleagues were appalled by their actions, and that the public couldn't have confidence in their organization if the force didn't take their behavior seriously. Quote, I'm sorry that our officers behaved in such a hurtful, disrespectful, and criminal way. Their actions are shameful. Three other officers who had received the images without challenging or reporting them all received written warnings, but were permitted to keep their jobs. The Independent Office for Police Conducts, or IOPC, held a separate inquiry into how the police handled initial reports that Bebe Henry and Nicole Smallman were missing. They found that the Metropolitan Police had failed to follow their missing persons policies and made other errors. When a friend of one of the sisters called the police asking for help, the call handler was dismissive and referred to one of the missing women as a suspect. Information from a family member has to wear the sisters might be was inaccurately recorded and led to an inspector canceling the report. The IOPC found that the Met Police's response to the case was below the standard that it should have been. However, they didn't find that this was due to any racial bias against the women. While we know that very sadly, Nicole and Bieber had been murdered in the early hours of Saturday June 6, 2020, before they were reported missing, if we had responded better, we may have saved their friends and family in measurable pain. I am very sorry that the level of service we provided fell short. Minus Mormon responded, quote, Sorry is something you say when you comprehend the wrong you do and take full responsibility for it. Demonstrating that by taking appropriate proportioned action, which to our minds is not going to happen. The investigation was not handled appropriately. The apology should have been done face-to-face and not nearly ten months later. Mina rejects the finding that there was no racial bias behind the Met's mishandling. Bieber Henry and Nicole Smallman's loved ones suffered a reprobble damage as a result of their murders. Mina Smallman's sister, the women's aunt, had cancer and suffered a rapid decline after losing her nieces. After she died, Mina said, You can't exclude that a broken heart doesn't help a person who is terminally ill. The woman's sister Monique went from being one of three siblings to an only child. Bieber's only daughter gave birth to her first child, a boy after her mother's murder. Those who knew Bieber said that her death was a loss to the entire community. She had been a fierce advocate for the vulnerable members of society who came into her care as a social worker. She was also a vivacious and fun person with a larger-than-life personality described as, just fantastic to bear around. Her father, Herman Henry, said he was in agony without her, describing Bieber as, a beautiful, outgoing, strong-minded and intelligent woman Mina Smallman said that although Bieber was barely five foot tall, she had the heart of a lion, and a smile that would put the black pool illuminations to shame, a reference to an annual lights festival in Blackpool, England. Where Bieber was described as a beacon, a friend of Nicole said she had a gentler energy. Quote. When she walked into a room, she was like a nightlight. It was subtle, protective, warm. Easygoing and client-hearted, Nicole was a humanitarian who was passionate about the arts and seen as a joy to be around. In his victim impact statement in court, Nicole's partner Adam spoke of his devastation at losing her. To put into words how I feel about losing Nicole is almost impossible, especially in this unimaginable and horrifically violent way. Nicole is my first thought, my second, and every thought thereafter, and if I am lucky enough to fall asleep, then I see her in my dreams. This is all I have left of her. Nicole was the only child of her school-teacher father, Chris, and had been particularly close to him. Meena Smallman told the Guardian, I remember watching him kissing her newborn head. He was completely smitten. For a man who is not sentimental, it was a beautiful thing to see. In the BBC documentary, two daughters, Mina concluded by saying she wanted people to remember how her daughters lived, not how they died. Bieber, the amazing social worker who battled to make sure children were safe that families weren't broken up. And Nikki, she was just a ray of light everywhere, and I know that will always be the way. And I think that's what we need to do. We need to find the sunshine in the rain.