Pizzas galore!

More than 100 samples were collected from her body, and one of these, a body fluid, “rich in DNA”, would eventually send Wright to prison for rest of his life.

The samples were delivered for examination at midnight.

Judith Cunnison, the senior scientific adviser at the centre, who also worked on the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire, said: “The sense of urgency was palpable as the samples started to flood in. There was a real buzz at the lab, driving everyone to do their utmost to examine the submissions as fast as possible.

“When the samples came in from Anneli’s postmortem we were very optimistic as this was the first body found on dry land. As soon as they were delivered people went to work.

“For two days we worked around the clock ordering in food to keep us going, and I had to force some scientists to go home to rest.

“When we finally got the best possible profile we could it was fantastic. We knew it was a good sample and if this person was on the DNA database then we’d have a name.”

On December 17, just before 8pm, they got what they wanted and an anonymous profile was sent electronically to the national DNA database in the Midlands.

At Suffolk police headquarters a senior officer sat by his computer waiting for the results. Thirty minutes later the name of Wright flashed up. He was one of hundreds of men who had been spoken to during the inquiry.

Wright’s DNA was in the database because of a conviction five years earlier when he had stolen £80 from a pub where he was working.

Surveillance was immediately set up on Wright and for 24 hours police watched his every move. It was at this time that uniformed officers questioned him for a third time, during door-to-door inquiries. They were unaware, however, that he had been put under surveillance by detectives and so should have been cautioned before questioning.

The judge therefore threw out this evidence and the jury was denied the chance to hear his answers, in which he lied about his whereabouts on the nights that the women went missing.

Then, at dawn on December 19, seven days after the last body was found, Wright was arrested. He declined to comment after every question, giving his side of events only from the witness box.

Examination of his car and his clothes, including his gloves and a fluorescent jacket, provided a wealth of scientific material, including small amounts of the victims’ blood.

All the evidence linking him to the dead girls was “a coincidence”, Wright said.

Genetic fingerprints

—The UK’s DNA database is the largest of any country, with 5.2 per cent of the population compared with 0.5 per cent in the US

—After 2001 DNA samples could be taken from anyone arrested for a recordable offence and detained in a police station

—By the end of 2005, about 200,000 samples had been retained that would have been destroyed before the 2001 law change. 8,000 of these matched DNA taken from crime scenes, involving nearly 14,000 offences, including murders and rapes Source: Home Office

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