01x02 - Episode 2

[bunniefuu]

[cars driving]

I racked my brains to try and think
the last time I saw....

Nic alive.

Erm, I’d just nipped up to the local shop,
up the road

[camera shutter clicks]
and Nic walked round the corner

and the next thing is
she’s gone missing.

[dramatic music]

I think you could pretty much
go up to anybody in Coventry and say,

“Nicola Payne” and they’ll tell you
what happened that day.

MAN: It’s one of the greatest
unsolved crimes in this country.

REPORTER: Nicola Payne had left her
boyfriend and baby son

to go to her parents.

She simply vanished into the mist.

GARRY PAYNE: It’s just hitting home
that summut serious

has happened to my sister.

REPORTER: A team of police officers
today began a yard by yard search

of the waste ground where Nicola
was last seen.

MALCOLM ROSS:
It was the biggest search

that West Midlands Police
had ever encountered.

Every effort it seems is being made
to find Nicola Payne.

If anybody is holding Nicola
just take her somewhere,

or to just phone anybody.

I kept thinking,
where’s my Nicola gone?

Like, where’s me Nicola?

MAN: What happened to Nicola
could happen to any woman.

How can an 18 year old disappear
and just never be seen again?

It’s just a never ending
real life horror story.

NIGEL PAYNE: The truth.
That’s all we want is the truth.

If it was your sister,
when would you give up?

[theme music]

PHOTOGRAPHER:
Let’s do one just by the sign, there.

This sign? Oh, that sign.

INTERVIEWER: It’s, er,
Detective Superintendent Malcolm Ross.

-R O double S?
-Double S, yes.

INTERVIEWER: I’m just gonna ask
you a couple of questions,

obviously about the reconstruction here.

What’s happened -
over the last six days,

erm, and the most important thing is

what chance of finding Nicola Payne?

We hope that this reconstruction
will jog somebody’s memory.

That they will come forward and tell us

if they’ve seen anything of Nicola

either last Saturday
or in the time in between.

We want these people to come forward
and help us with our enquiry.

I’m ever hopeful of finding her,
obviously,

and I’m ever hopeful of finding her alive.

But as time goes on, of course,
the concern grows.

[clock ticking]

Nicky had been missing nearly a week

and the search, of course,
was still going on.

Yesterday there were
over a hundred officers

searching waste ground and river
and doing house to house enquiries.

Today, the search has moved
to other locations

and I’m extending
the search in a constructive way

to make sure that Nicola
is not lying somewhere.

I just can’t even imagine
how the Payne family

were trying to cope with
that situation.

Everybody was just,
what’s happening, what’s happened?

Like, you know.

I just couldn’t believe it.

I thought, no, gotta be
gotta be somewhere.

Something’s gotta happen.

Every time there’s a search and nothing,
a search and nothing,

you just get less and less hopeful.

They say there’s another search
and you just say to yourself,

yeah, just another search.

And they didn’t seem to be getting any...

far forward very quickly with anything.

It was still very early days
and you’re just thinking,

no, this can’t be happening
or if she’s been abducted.

You’re sort of like expecting her
to turn up the next day,

and have this miraculous excuse

as for why she had to go somewhere
or do something.

It’s dawning on you that summut
serious has happened,

and then, when you hear about evidence

like the car and Barwell and O’Reilly,

the dread comes in going,
oh no, no, this can’t be.

We had the situation where

Barwell and O’Reilly had been arrested,
they’d been released, bailed,

and enquiries into their movements
were still continuing

as best as we could
with the little information

that we knew of, about them.

And the arrangement was that
they would return to the police station

the following week
and stand on an identification parade.

So, we had to get the witnesses together.

We knew Mr Carter’s information then,
who had heard a scream,

saw a Ford Capri,
gone to the police station

and identified the Ford Capri
that was Barwell’s.

But during the rest of the investigation
more witnesses had come forward.

Barwell lived the other side of the estate
from Nicky Payne,

near to the River Sowe.

[dramatic music]

There was a witness that came forward.

Her house overlooks like a parking space.

It’s not far from Barwell’s house.

On the Saturday afternoon,
she saw Barwell and O’Reilly

at Barwell’s car
overlooking the path

that led down to the river.

And the boot of the car was open,

and she saw Barwell and O’Reilly

taking out of the boot what she described
as some sort of bin bag.

[car boot shuts]

She knew both Barwell and O’Reilly,

‘cause they’d been to her house
on the Friday night.

And on the Saturday,
when she saw them here,

it appears that they saw her
looking at them from her window.

She ducked down,

and when she looked again
they’d gone and so had the car.

Well, the officers came back
to take another statement

and she said she’d got the story wrong.

That it was the Tuesday that she saw them,
not the Saturday.

But she also said that Barwell

had been round to see her
in the meantime.

I think quite possibly
she could have been scared of Barwell.

And it made her change her story.

[high tempo music]

There was another witness
that said that on the Sunday afternoon,

Barwell was outside his house,
cleaning the Ford Capri in the rain,

which of course raised suspicions.

Where his car was parked,
there’s a fence

and then there was the river.

That’s what caused the search
of the river bank.

REPORTER: Officers were brought in today
to search the River Stowe

and nearby scrubland.

A thermal imaging camera
mounted on the police helicopter

was also used to try to find Nicola.

And mounted police and dog handlers
were involved in the search.

MALCOLM ROSS: When the police helicopter
was used to search,

the crew reported

that they could see something
on the banks of the river,

not far from the back of
Barwell’s house.

Well, we’re on a bridge
over the River Sowe,

which runs very close to
where Nigel Barwell lived.

That’s where he was seen
washing his car that Sunday afternoon,

in the rain.

And the helicopter crew reported
that they could see something

on the riverbank.

And I sent a search team down
and that’s where we found the tent.

It was an outer tent of one make,
and an inner tent of another make.

It was wet, so it was parcelled up

and taken back to
Little Park Police Station

where it was dried out.

And it was wrapped up
and sent off as an exhibit

to the Forensic Science Service

to see what they could find
in the tent or on the tent.

[clock ticking]

We asked Barwell and O’Reilly
to go on an ID parade.

We’d made the arrangements
for all the other witnesses

that assist on the identification parade
to be at the police station,

and they didn’t turn up.

[dramatic music]

Nigel Barwell and Thomas O’Reilly
just disappeared.

So, you know, nobody knew
where they were or where they’d gone.

We spoke to their solicitors and
they’d got no idea where they were.

If you’ve got nothing to hide,

you’ve got no issues,
you’ve got nothing to do with it,

and surely you’d wanna help
try and find somebody.

It was hard.
We wanted answers.

We couldn’t take it any further
at that stage,

but there were other lines of enquiry
that we were getting on with.

My name’s Hazel Johnson,

and I was formerly employed
as a forensic scientist.

The Forensic Science Service
was a section of the Home Office.

It had a number of laboratories
throughout the UK

and the police would submit
any item that they wanted

examined for forensic examination

to their local forensic science
laboratory.

It was quite early days in Nicola’s
investigation

when a request came into the laboratory

to have a car examined.

Investigations involving missing people

are the most difficult investigation
that you can get involved with,

because you’re not dealing with
standard evidence

that you would get from
knowing what happened to the victim,

knowing what happened at the scene.

You’re dealing very much
with circumstantial evidence.

So it’s like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle

when there’s no picture on the box.

We started the examination of the car

as soon as it was submitted to
the laboratory.

It was in quite an untidy condition.

There were a number of items
in the footwells.

We recovered soil and debris
from the footwells

and hairs and fibres using tapings
from the seats.

And we searched the vehicle
for the presence of blood,

but didn’t find any.

We knew that it had been cleaned
out on that Sunday, in the rain,

which was not gonna do
my investigation much good.

But there was an instruction leaflet
found in the glovebox of the Capri.

And that related to the inner tent
found on the banks of the River Sowe.

As far as I was concerned,
that linked the inner tent

to the instruction leaflet
in Barwell’s car, therefore to Barwell.

The tent was brought
to the submissions desk.

It was in a large brown paper sack.

I do remember that it
wasn’t properly packaged,

so there was some discussion
at the submissions desk

about whether we should
actually accept it or not.

Any item submitted
for forensic examination

has to be sealed,
because if it’s not sealed,

there’s potential for forensic
evidence to be lost,

and equally potential for evidence
to actually be introduced to that item.

After discussion
with the senior investigating officer,

we agreed to accept the tent,

but only to examine it
for the presence of blood.

We felt that the evidence
could be compromised

in relation to hairs and fibres.

But again, we didn’t find any.

That was a great disappointment,

because I knew
if you haven’t found any blood,

you’re really no further forward.

[high tempo music]

[phone rings]

MALCOLM ROSS: Calls started
week two or three of the investigation.

They were made
to the Payne family,

they were made to
Coventry and Warwick Radio

and also to the police.

Numerous of these calls
came in from the same man.

Whenever they came in,
of course officers were deployed.

The phone calls were coming directly
to the home phone number.

MARILYN PAYNE:
He didn’t even say hello.

It was a man’s voice

and all I heard him say was,
‘Dead or alive.'

And straight away I panicked

and just gave the phone quickly
to my husband,

who took over from there,
because I couldn’t handle it, you know.

And you’re prepared to
talk to this man again?

I’m prepared to talk to anybody if it’d
give us some light on where Nicola is.

[phone rings]

The police at the time
took this very seriously.

They thought that
the information was credible.

As a result of what he has told both us
and Mr and Mrs Payne,

I’m convinced that he knows something
of Nicola’s disappearance.

Is this the best clue so far
in the hunt for Nicola Payne?

Well, it’s certainly one of the positive
leads that we’ve got to follow up,

and we need to follow this up urgently.

Well, it was important
that I traced the caller

to see, A, if he was genuine,
or B, if it was a hoax.

My suspicion was it was a hoax,

but I went on the basis of
we need to know.

[dramatic music]

There’s two radio stations in Coventry.

I went and knocked on the door of both
of these radio stations in the evening,

and to be fair they were really helpful,

and they gave me airtime there and then.

It was a plea to the caller to say,
if what you’re saying is right,

you must tell us
because we can find Nicky.

And the hope, of course,
that he would ring again.

And it worked.

Me mum and dad
stopped answering the phone,

and it came down to one of us lads
would answer it,

and the police had informed us,

“If you think it’s him,
just keep talking and talking.

Try and keep him on the phone
as long as you can.

And we were just trying to
ask him questions and everything.

MALCOLM ROSS:
With the help of the telephone exchange,

we were able to trace the call
to a hotel in Stratford.

A member of the staff at the hotel
has been using the phone.

It was Christopher Parker.

PETER WILSON: That this man should stop
playing games with your feelings.

-If he knows nothing...
-Oh yeah. Yeah.

...just stop it, please.
Just stop it.

MALCOLM ROSS:
Parker was traced and arrested.

He was interviewed
and he admitted 18 false calls.

He was charged
and he eventually was imprisoned.

There was no substance at all
to any of his calls.

Christopher Parker had pleaded guilty
to wasting police time

and to making nuisance calls.

After studying medical reports,
the magistrates decided to commit him

to a psychiatric hospital near Warwick.

They wasted a lot of police time,
man hours, investigating these claims

But he caused untold damage
to that police investigation

and to the family themselves.

He was saying, yeah,
he’d got my sister

and he was gonna do this,
he was gonna do that.

And you know, it’s things
I put out my mind

and my one was just watching your mum
having to listen to that.

Had enough now, my mum’s
going through so much,

and you’re just making it
double worse.

So that to me was as bad as
taking my sister away.

[dramatic music]

PETER WILSON: Nicola Payne
had everything to live for.

A loving family, a boyfriend
whom she was setting up home with,

and a baby son.

A full incident room
was now being set up.

The same staff had been involved
in the search for Barbara Finn,

who went missing
nearly two months ago.

Barbara Finn was also
the devoted mother

of a six year old daughter.

PAULINE FINN: I’d just like to say,
Barbara, please come home.

Roxanne’s missing you so much.

She just wants you home.

We love you
and we want you to come back.

But if anybody knows something,
please phone the police.

MALCOLM ROSS: Barbara Finn went missing
in October 1991.

She was last seen in the early hours of
the morning,

banging on the out door
of a public house.

And when the licensee
opened the out door,

he knew Barbara Finn,
and she’d asked for some cigarettes.

When he brought the cigarettes to her,
he noticed a man standing next to her.

He couldn’t describe the man.

And that was the last time she was seen.

And that investigation was ongoing,
of course, when Nicky went missing.

It’s the not knowing that’s the worst.

We don’t know whether
she’s dead or alive.

We just don’t know.

Naturally, I considered the two together
to see if there was a link at all.

Barbara Finn, she was older than Nicola,
she was 32.

But there were also some strange
coincidences to the Nicola Payne case.

Like Nicola, she had
shoulder length brown hair,

she also disappeared on a Saturday.

She too had a child,
who she was devoted to,

that she wouldn’t have abandoned.

Even down to a weird detail

that Barbara Finn was wearing
a b*mber jacket,

very similar to the jacket
that Nicola Payne was wearing

on the day that she’d disappeared.

But there appeared to be no direct link
between the two young women.

At the same time, of course,
we had the Stephanie Slater

enquiry in Birmingham,
which was linked.

[people chattering]

MAN: Now calm it down!

Calm it down!

Now be gentle, all of you.

REPORTER: Stephanie and her parents
appeared at a news conference,

one of the biggest ever seen in
Birmingham.

Following her kidnap,

police described Stephanie Slater
as calm and collected.

Her abductor possessed the same qualities.

He planned the kidnap with cool precision.

MALCOLM ROSS: Stephanie Slater
was an estate agent in Birmingham,

and she made arrangements
to see a client at a house.

She was kidnapped in the house and held.

That was a huge story.

And that drew on
almost all of the resources

of West Midlands Police.

MALCOLM ROSS:
We had Stephanie Slater in Birmingham,

which was linked
to the Julie Dart in West Yorkshire.

Similar case.

REPORTER: Julie Dart was last seen alive
on the 9th of July last year,

leaving her boyfriend’s home in Leeds.

Ten days later, a farmer
discovered her body

in a field near Grantham in Lincolnshire.

She’d suffered blows to the head
and had been strangled.

A ransom note to do with the Julie Dart
case came up from here in Coventry.

Another link to the city.

REPORTER: There’s the Moseley Avenue link,
with Julie Dart.

Barbara Finn was last seen
in Yardley Street,

and 19 year old Nicola Payne
disappeared near Winston Avenue.

MALCOLM ROSS:
Throughout Nicky Payne’s enquiry,

I had Barbara Finn’s consideration
all the time.

And I was in touch
with the incident room in Birmingham

for Stephanie Slater,

and also West Yorkshire
for Julie Dart.

All the time seeing if there was any
comparable facts.

But there was no evidence
to suggest a link at all.

I must stress that there is
no connection whatsoever

at this time between
Nicola Payne’s disappearance,

Barbara Finn’s disappearance

and Julie Dart’s disappearance.

It was one of the biggest investigations
that I’ve seen,

certainly in the West Midlands.

The resources that it was given,
you couldn’t doubt

the commitment to the investigation.

They were also working closely
with the BBC Crimewatch programme.

[clock ticking]

JACQUI HAMES: Just before Christmas
Nicola Payne vanished into thick fog

as she walked home.

Nicola lived with her parents
and baby son in Woodend, Coventry.

Just after midday
on Saturday the 14th of December,

Nicola left her boyfriend’s house
and hasn’t been seen since.

So I went to Crimewatch to appeal
for information for Nicky.

At the time of her disappearance,

Nicola was wearing
this tan leather jacket,

T-shirt, bottle green trousers,
and pixie boots.

They were really good.

Everybody in Coventry knew about Nicola.

It was massive in Coventry.

But now the whole country knew.

JACQUI HAMES: If you can help solve
the mystery of Nicola’s disappearance,

please call now.

MALCOLM ROSS:
We got not many calls.

One or two of them were for people
who’d got a theory about it,

but nothing significant.
Nothing of note.

There are very vague sightings
and we’re really not very optimistic.

But if you think you know
where Nicola is,

or can add anything to that,
then please do still call us,

or call the incident room.

The Crimewatch appeal, yeah,
I remember that pretty well.

It becomes like public knowledge.

Up until then people
hadn’t really related me to Nicola.

Only people that really,
really knew us.

But then all of a sudden,
people are walking down the street saying,

“Oh, you’re Nicola’s brother.

All the best interest in the world.

You know, they really, really wanna help.

But it does get to you after a while.

[gentle music]

[clock ticking]

We had a call from Barwell
and O’Reilly’s solicitor

to say they’re willing to stand
in an ID parade immediately.

So, we had to get the witnesses
straight away, and form the ID parade.

We got told they’d gone to France.

No explanation why they’re in France.

And they’d disappeared for,
I think it was three months.

MALCOLM ROSS: When they eventually come
back, they turned up to the police station

and they stood on an ID parade.

Barwell in particular
had changed his appearance.

Grown his hair,
and grown a moustache.

His hair was a slightly different colour.

They looked very different
and so they wasn’t identified.

But why wasn’t they asked
to change back?

You know, would they be prepared
to look more like they did,

and then see if they would go,
but they didn’t have to.

In 1991, the rules were different.

We couldn’t then make him shave.

The rules are different now.

So again, we were obliged
to release them.

When these things happen
the more despondent you get.

You can’t cater for

what something like this
has an effect on the families concerned.

Aggression or frustration.

It’s a natural emotion.

The last people that Nicky was with
were the Cooke family,

so it’s understandable
that the Paynes, they’d all be upset.

NIGEL PAYNE:
My dad saw Nicola on Friday evening.



She was supposed to be with Jason
and his family

having a meal in on that night.

So, I would love to know
what happened within them 17 hours.

We just kept on asking ourselves
questions.

What about this and what about that,
and why this and why that?

We just wanted answers,
and the police weren’t getting them.

I had discussions with the Cooke family.

They got heated to a degree
and, yeah, they called the police.

I was locked up for 24 hours
and told under no circumstances

was I to go near the Cooke family.

The police were called in
just to calm things down.

It's not unusual in those circumstances

for emotions to run high, you know.

Every time the police were
trying a different avenue or someone else,

they just kept saying to us,
“Believe in us, trust in us.

We’ll find it.
We will sort it.”

So you did,
you just gave every faith

that the police will find out
what’s gone on.

But your trust
slowly dwindles away.

At the time, the Cookes,
they had an uncle in the police force.

He would know what
the process the police would go through

and the questions that were probably
gonna be coming towards them.

MALCOLM ROSS:
I remember speaking to PC Neill about it.

And, to be fair, he was a good avenue
into the Cooke family.

I asked him to use his skills
to try and keep a lid on the tension

between the two families,

because people are gonna be upset.

But he had nothing to do
with the investigation as such.

There was a lot of distrust of police

in the Coventry
and the West Midlands and...

They had quite a bad reputation,
and you can call up no end of cases.

PETER WILSON: West Midlands Serious Crime
Squad was disbanded in August 1989.

Reputation at the time was very poor.

REPORTER: There have been nine cases
in the past two years

in which officers are alleged
to have tampered...

REPORTER: The day of the Birmingham Six
appeal,

and attention turned to the much
criticised police evidence

that helped convict
the men.

There had been substantial alterations
to other documents

by West Midlands officers.

REPORTER: Thousands of police officers
and the public

would be shocked and saddened
by what had happened.

A number of officers were reprimanded,
fined or reduced in rank.

PETER WILSON: There was lots of cases

where West Midlands Police
had been involved,

and their conduct or pressure
that they’d put on witnesses had come out.

And just speaking to ordinary police
officers at the time,

they felt that the force was besieged,

and at times seen almost
as a laughing stock.

The reassurance that you should
have from the police,

you lose that, you lose the trust.

But when anything like this happens,
they’re the first people,

they’re the only people you can turn to.

[dramatic music]
[clock ticking]

REPORTER: The home video
shows a first birthday party

much the same as countless
thousand others.

The only difference
that one important guest is missing.

Owen Payne’s mother, Nicola.

The incident room,
which buzzed with activity

when Miss Payne first disappeared
is now quiet.

Detectives have followed two thousand
lines of enquiry,

taken six hundred statements
and made 700 house calls.

We’d spent many months
on this investigation,

but I was required elsewhere.

Before I moved, it was reviewed
by a senior officer from Birmingham,

and was quite content that everything
that could have been done had been done.

When I left it was still
an active enquiry.

NIGEL PAYNE: Malcolm, you know,
I think he was honest to us.

I had faith in him.

There are other murders,
there are other disappearances.

We haven’t got millions of policemen,

millions of detectives
to have individual cases.

Yeah, you’ve gotta be realistic
and think, yeah okay,

they’re gonna move on
to something else.

But you would hope somebody else
would be stepping into his shoes

and push it on again, keep it going.

[clock ticking]

REPORTER: 10 months
after their teenage daughter disappeared,

Nicola Payne’s parents and friends

organised a poster campaign
at the weekend,

after a clairvoyant told them
that Nicola was alive and well

in Stoke on Trent.

She actually feels that Nicola
is somewhere in this area,

but that she’s suffering with amnesia,
and has lost her mind,

and is trying to find herself
and desperately needs help.

It’s the first person in 10 months
who’s saying they’ve seen Nicky.

So we’ve got to follow it through
for our own peace of mind.

I’ve known Nicky for a long time
and to support the family

and give them help, you know,
to look for her.

RACHEL MOFFITT:
We had all pictures on posters put out

and we all went up in like a convoy.

We were sort of like chasing around
trying to look, but nothing.

AMANDA EALES: All they ever wanted
was to just find out where she is.

My auntie especially
has a coping mechanism, I guess,

that she has to keep going.

Because if you stop,

that’s when you start
to think about things.

[dramatic music]

[clock ticking]

We’ve always tried our best
to keep the story alive,

get things moving,

and we did have a good
relationship with the press,

like, you know, a lot of the media.

REPORTER: Nicola vanished one year ago.

Family had organised
a news conference today,

believing that this was their last chance
to appeal for help.

It’s the anniversary now of her going.

I feel it’s the final thing
and it will fade a lot in the media.

So, I feel today’s really important
and I really am banking a lot on it.

REPORTER: Her family believe
that someone in Coventry

must know the answer to this mystery.

I have a conscience,
but perhaps there are people that don’t.

I find it hard to believe that somebody
can live with this or cover for somebody

and not have a conscience at all,
and sleep easy.

I really liked John and Marilyn Payne.

They were just lovely people.

They were going through absolute hell,

but they had a quiet dignity about them.

They were the types of people
that you just felt

this shouldn’t be happening to them.

Yet, they were facing what
every parent dreads,

the disappearance of a child.

On the face of it, on the surface,

the Payne family seemed to be coping,

but as I found out over the years,

really they were suffering from
post-traumatic stress.

Marilyn would talk about her feelings.

She would share things,
even with somebody like myself.

REPORTER: The portrait over the fireplace
is a constant reminder of a mystery

that dominates their lives,
and they fear the worst.

I still firmly believe that
she was m*rder*d. I really do.

REPORTER: Why are you so convinced?

It’s so out of character for Nicky.

Nicky wouldn’t just go off like that.

It just not her.

Marilyn thought it straight away.

She said, “That’s it,
something’s happened to her,”

and she just had that feeling.

Oh, I couldn’t accept it at first.

And it took me a long time
to really come to...

realise that I’m not gonna see her again.

John was a traditional working class guy.

Nicola was his only daughter.

I think he always felt a sense of guilt

that she was walking
to take some keys to him.

I think he felt that perhaps
he could have driven round.

Year after year he ran
those things through his mind,

and I think for John particularly,

it was something that he never really
managed to cope with.

[clock ticking]

REPORTER: Detectives have never found
any trace of Nicola or her belongings.

A month after she disappeared,
Michael Sams kidnapped

Birmingham estate agent Stephanie Slater.

He was convicted of this crime

and the kidnap and m*rder
of Julie Dart last week.

Now, Nicola’s mother
plans to write to Sams in prison

in the hope that he can unravel
the mystery of Nicola’s disappearance.

She has no idea whether Sams
is linked to her daughter’s case,

but feels she has to follow any lead,
however small.

I think it doesn’t matter
how bad anybody is,

I will just sit and find the right words
and just write a letter,

hoping that he would just
give me an answer,

an honest answer.

Yes or no.

[dramatic music]

This was a letter my mum
sent to Michael Sams.

He’d been found guilty of abduction
of a young girl.

About the time she wrote the letter,

it was getting near to
like desperation stakes.

There was no leads,
there was nothing.

Could he help us?

What me mum said in the letter,

“It’s been several weeks now
since your trial.

Your nightmare began a few weeks ago,
mine started 19 months ago.

We’re still struggling,

clutching at straws at the moment
about what do we do next.

I feel it is someone local.

But your knowledge
may help us find out

what sort of person would take Nicky,

and why would they take her.

And most importantly,
where could she be?”

Trying to appeal to any sort of
good inside him.

[dramatic music]

This is Michael Sams' reply.

It was sent from his prison cell.

“Many thanks for the letter.”

He was unsure, really, of what
me mum was asking him.

He’d never been involved with
anyone else in the Coventry area.

“If I could help you,

I would only be too pleased
to help you in any way I can.”

But no, he’s not been involved with
anybody else in any criminal activities.

It was just a dead end.

It’s horrible to watch your mum and dad
get hope and then be dashed.

They were lost.

They didn’t know what else to do.

[clock ticking]

Obviously we fear the worst,
given that it’s two years now

and nobody’s heard not a thing
from Nicola.

REPORTER: Hence her parents’
increased reward, £10,000.

Well, we’re hoping that somebody
out there knows something,

or somebody’s shielding somebody
who knows what’s happened to Nicola.

And we’re hoping the money
will loosen somebody’s tongue.

REPORTER: His grandparents
enjoy sharing in the upbringing

of Nicola’s son, Owen.

But now relations
with his father’s family have soured.

GARRY PAYNE:
The Cookes didn’t get involved at all.

They was asked for interviews every year.

Just give their versions,
their stories.

Never spoke to anybody.

Very strange behaviour.

REPORTER:
Owen’s now two and a half.

They took him on holiday this summer,
but access is limited by a court order.

GARRY PAYNE:
My mum and dad

still had a bit of a relationship
with Jason,

because they had Owen to sort out.

They were sharing the custody of Owen.

I didn’t have a relationship
with the Cookes.

Never have, never will.

When my sister went missing,

I put myself in Jason’s shoes.

If that happened to my girlfriend,
the mother of my child,

how would I act?

It would bring me closer
to her mum and dad and her family.

It would bring me closer.

But he wouldn’t even come in the house.

He wouldn’t come near.

His brothers certainly wouldn’t come near.

[high tempo music]

REPORTER: Last year,

more than four thousand women
went missing in the West Midlands alone.

But the majority do get in touch
with their relatives.

Barbara Finn and Nicola Payne
are the rare cases.

Their families admit
that they’ve been left with no alternative

but to clutch at any straw offering hope.

REPORTER: Nella Jones,
the twelfth medium to offer her services

in the hunt for Coventry teenage mother,
Nicola Payne.

-Hello, Mrs Payne.
-Hello.

As the years went on,
to try and keep it going,

me mum and dad,

they would just speak to anybody
and everybody.

This is more the main road, okay?

Mm-hmm.

And I’ve got the feeling that Nicky
would have walked up here,

and that’s as far as I can trace her.

Marilyn was almost a spiritual person,

so psychics, clairvoyants
were getting in touch with her,

giving her information
about where Nicola might be.

A very serious question.

MARILYN PAYNE: Yeah.

Where do you think Nicola is?

I believe she’s been m*rder*d,

but I just can’t get her to
come back to me from the other side.

She wasn’t a fervent believer
in clairvoyants or psychics,

but she was prepared to listen
to somebody who believed in

some non-logical explanation for things.

If somebody said, this is the year
that you’re gonna find Nicola,

she would have faith.

She had real belief that she would
find the answers,

but with age and time,
that belief seemed to naturally crumble.

DALE PAYNE:
Over the next few years,

there wasn’t really anything major
that stood out.

We would try and give as much publicity
as we can

to keep the case going.

REPORTER: They searched
acres of wasteland in Coventry.

Volunteers looking for anything that might
help them solve a two year old mystery:

the whereabouts of Nicola...

REPORTER 2: The search for Nicola Payne

began just before Christmas
four years ago.

At 18 she had everything to live for.

REPORTER 3: Police and forensic experts
moved in at dawn yesterday

acting on a tip off.

They found nothing.

REPORTER 4: 10 years on,

and Nicola’s parents have all
but given up hope.

MARILYN PAYNE: The last 10 years
have not been easy at all.

People say time heals,
but I’m sorry, I feel that...

in fact, I feel worse now

than what I did on the first Christmas
that she went.

REPORTER: What’s happened to their
daughter, Nicola,

has haunted John and Marilyn Payne
for the last 12 years.

REPORTER: The case on Nicola Payne

would remain open until the mystery
over her disappearance was solved.

They said that they would always
investigate new lines of enquiry.

REPORTER: An image of the teenager
will feature on the side of lorries

travelling across the UK.

MARILYN PAYNE: I wonder what Nicola’s
last hours of life was like.

At least thinking that she’s dead,

I know nobody else can hurt her anymore.

[clock ticking]

-CAMERAMAN: Stand by.
-REPORTER: Okay.

CAMERAMAN: Recording...

In the 22 years that Nicola
has been missing,

clearly any biological or forensic
evidence will have degraded significantly.

Although the officers
in charge of this investigation

are confident that the improvements
over that time,

in search techniques and technology

mean that they will still be able
to find a body,

if, of course,
they’re looking in the right place.

REPORTER: Okay, camera’s rolling now.
So just introduce yourself for us, Sir.

Yeah, I’m Detective Inspector
Martin Slevin

of West Midlands Police.

REPORTER: So just talk us through
initially what’s happening here,

behind us at the moment.

Yeah, we’re here today in relation
to the Nicola Payne investigation.

Once Martin Slevin took over,

it was a completely fresh set of eyes.

I can’t comment on the source
of the information,

but it’s significant enough
for us to have mounted the search

and the level of search
that we’re doing today.

There was nobody from the police
actively on that case

until Martin Slevin come along.

And Martin Slevin and his team,

you felt as if they really,
really wanted to solve it.

MARTIN SLEVIN: He had told the police

that Nicola was buried in an area
called Purcell Fields.

REPORTER: After years of seeming inertia,

momentum in the search for Nicola Payne.

REPORTER: Police activity
switched to this address.

The intelligence
began to grow and grow.

MAN: And I think they nailed
the whole case on that DNA.

That was the make or break.

There was no plan B.
This was everything.