The Playdate that Ended in Murder

Who speaks in this episode?

• Ellen O'Neal (Host)

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Brighton, NordVPN, Karen Hadaway, Nicola Fellows
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Nicola Fellows, Musulcom, Top of the Pops
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Wild Park, Nicola Fellows
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Brighton, Ben Russell, Nicola Fellows, Action for Child Trauma International
5. 20:00 – 25:00: Ben Russell
6. 25:00 – 30:00: Ben Russell, Nicola Fellows, Brighton
7. 30:00 – 35:00: Ben Russell, Brighton, Rachel Watts
8. 35:00 – 40:00: Ben Russell, Nicola Fellows, Rachel Watts
9. 40:00 – 44:02: Ben Russell, Nicola Fellows, Rachel Watts, Wild Park

Notable quotes from "The Playdate that Ended in Murder"

• Hello and welcome to Outlaw Podcast. I'm Ellen O'Neal and in today's episode, we're in Brighton in 1986 where two sets of parents are beside themselves after both of their…

  about Brighton · at 0:00

• And one more quick thing before we jump into the case, I do want to take a moment to thank NordVPN for sponsoring this episode of Outlaw Podcast on YouTube. As you all know, I cannot live without NordVPN. It is their mission to.

  about NordVPN · at 1:33

• This case with the two little girls that would tragically never come home for dinner. The two nine-year-old girls at the center of today's case are Karen Hadaway and Nicola…

  about Nicola Fellows · at 3:20

• Back in the 80s as well, which is one of the reasons that this case shocked the nation so much. The girls were specifically based in Musulcom, which is a more northern suburb…

  about Musulcom · at 5:01

• Officer Paul Smith, one of the many, many policemen deployed to patrol the area, was walking down by Wild Park, not far from where the girls had been climbing that tree the day before, when he was stopped by a guy walking his dog.

  about Wild Park · at 10:12

• Helping kids who have been severely traumatized across the world. They're called Action for Child Trauma International. There is a crisis [snorts] right now with how many…

  about Action for Child Trauma International · at 17:29

• Helps. Now, with that being said, let's get back into the case where a prime suspect has been identified. The man with the unemployed tracker dog was soon identified as Russell Bishop, a 20-year-old lad from the local area.

  about Ben Russell · at 19:13

• This little girl was just 7 years old.

  about Rachel Watts · at 32:58

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Ben Russell — Person · Primary perpetrator / central suspect and later convicted murderer · 28 mentions · first at 19:23
  Central figure in the Babes in the Wood murders narrative: initially suspected and acquitted, later convicted (2018) via new forensic evidence; also convicted for the later attack on Rachel Watts.
• Nicola Fellows — Person · Victim (one of the two murdered children) · 9 mentions · first at 3:28
  One of the two 9-year-old girls murdered in 1986; her family’s experience (including false accusations) and the eventual conviction are key parts of the narrative.
• Karen Hadaway — Person · Victim (one of the two murdered children) · 1 mention · first at 3:26
  One of the two 9-year-old girls murdered in 1986; her disappearance, death, and the decades-long pursuit of justice form the core of the episode.
  This case with the two little girls that would tragically never come home for dinner. The two nine-year-old girls at the center of today's case are Karen Hadaway and Nicola…
• Rachel Watts — Person · Survivor / victim of later related attack · 4 mentions · first at 33:00
  Her 1990 abduction and attempted murder (with survival and identification) led to Russell Bishop’s conviction for similar crimes and reinforced suspicions about the 1986 murders.
• Ellen O'Neal — Person · Host / narrator · 1 mention · first at 0:00
  Introduces the episode and narrates the case details, framing the timeline, evidence, and outcomes for listeners.
  Hello and welcome to Outlaw Podcast. I'm Ellen O'Neal and in today's episode, we're in Brighton in 1986 where two sets of parents are beside themselves after both of their 9-year-old daughters went.

Companies & orgs

• Action for Child Trauma International — Company · 1 mention · first at 17:33

Places & events

• Brighton — Place · 10 mentions · first at 0:05
• Wild Park — Place · 4 mentions · first at 10:17
• Musulcom — Place · 2 mentions · first at 5:05

Media & podcasts

• Top of the Pops — Media · 1 mention · first at 8:21
  Would encounter pure evil. That evening, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadway never returned home for their dinners, not even to watch their favorite TV show, Top of the Pops, which…

Sponsors

• NordVPN — Product · Sponsor of the podcast episode · 3 mentions · first at 1:36
  Provides internet security and protection against online threats

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Hello and welcome to Outlaw Podcast. I'm Ellen O'Neal and in today's episode, we're in Brighton in 1986 where two sets of parents are beside themselves after both of their 9-year-old daughters went out to play in the streets and never came home. Their community rallied together searching for the girls out in the dark, cold night. But time was running out and soon this would become one of the biggest and most devastating true crime cases to hit the UK. Outlaw. In a misty, cold woodland on the outskirts of Brighton, a search for two little missing girls has just been disrupted by a volunteer and his dog. He claims that his dog has specialized abilities. It's a tracker dog. Police could borrow him for the investigation if they wanted. Only there was something weird about this guy right from the jump. Police couldn't quite put their finger on it. But it wouldn't be the last time they came into contact with

1:00 this suspicious man. Today, we're covering a case so notoriously tragic it's been given its own name. It's called the Babes in the Wood murders. And chances are, if you're from the UK, you've heard of this one. It might have even been used as a cautionary tale by your parents to scare you into staying safe and close to home as a kid. We're going to be covering a lot of sensitive topics today, including murder, sexual assault, rape, and violence against women and children, kidnap, and torture. As always, viewer discretion is advised.

1:33 And one more quick thing before we jump into the case, I do want to take a moment to thank NordVPN for sponsoring this episode of Outlaw Podcast on YouTube. As you all know, I cannot live without NordVPN. It is their mission to make the internet a safer place. And we all know how scary it can be out there with the hackers and the scammers and the scary links. So, why go online without protection? VPNs aren't just for switching countries and accessing regional locked content. They're for real life protection against hackers, accidental scam sites that you just clicked onto by accident. Accidentally.

2:06 I said accident a million times in that sentence. But there's also like data breaches that are happening all the time that we don't know about. And no one is equipped to fight all of those things quite like Nord. They have so many different features from threat protection pro to a dark web monitor. And I know it sounds sinister, but trust me, you need that level of scary on your team to be able to fight off the bad guys on the internet. These features are able to stop scams, save you from going into dodgy websites, and alert you if any of your passwords or details have been leaked. The second that you're alerted, you can jump in and change any info that you need to and save yourself from any potential scary issues.

2:47 Literally, just switch on your device and with one click, you can do your thing online and Nord will protect you in the background. Sounds perfect, right? And it gets even better. You can get an exclusive NordVPN deal and four months extra when you click the link in the description of this video. It's risk- free with NordVPN's 30-day money back guarantee. I can't count the amount of times that I would have ended up in hot waters online if it wasn't for their protective shield. So, thanks again to NordVPN for sponsoring this episode and for always keeping me safe. Now, let's begin starting at the very beginning of this case with the two little girls that would tragically never come home for dinner. The two nine-year-old girls at the center of today's case are Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows. Karen was the slightly older one of the two. Born on December 21st, 1976, she was the middle child of her family. But her

3:38 bestest friend in the whole entire world was her neighbor Nicola Fellows. Nicola was born on February 22nd, 1977. So just a few months after Karen. And while they didn't attend the same school, they were very, very close from a very young age, simply from living on the same estate and their families hanging out together. Nicola was said to be the more outgoing of the two, and Karen was the more sensible, sensitive one, but she did have a cheeky side as well. They were like two peas in a pod, honestly. They were a package deal. The girls did everything together. They would play out practically every single day that they got home from school. They would get to know the other kids in the area. They would go to parks, climb trees, explore together. The 80s were a different world to what we live in right now. Parents would let their kids go off and play unsupervised in the streets without a worry in the world, especially in a

4:31 lovely place like Brighton, which is where today's case takes place. And coincidentally, where I live, not right now, but I'm moving back there in a week. Yes, I love it more than words can even describe. Brighton has actually been named the happiest city in England. the 11th happiest city in the world. The energy in Brighton is just different. The community is so strong. Everyone is so accepting and caring of one another, even total strangers. It's amazing to live in Brighton now, and it was amazing back in the 80s as well, which is one of the reasons that this case shocked the nation so much. The girls were specifically based in Musulcom, which is a more northern suburb further from the sea. They lived on a council estate that was again very community-based. Everyone knew each other. All the neighbors were friends. All the kids on the estate played together, but almost everyone that lived there was struggling

5:25 financially. So to make some extra money, a lot of families would rent out any spare bedrooms that they had to lodges. Nicola Fellow's family took in a young lad in his early 20s named Douggee. And he seemed fine enough that there's not much to say about him to be honest. Although he does end up becoming a key component of this case. On October 9th, 1986, 9-year-old Nicola Fellows had returned home from school at about 3:30 p.m. when there was a knock at the door. She answered, "And there was a young couple standing looking down at her. She vaguely knew who these people were. They were friends of her lodger, Douggee, and they'd come to see if he was in." In fact, Nicola knew even more than that because there'd been rumors and whispers going around Musulcom, specifically about the girl in this couple. Word on the street is that she was a harlot. The feminism in me goes missing every time I

6:17 remember the word harlot exists. I love it. I think it's so funny. But the streets were saying that this girl jumped between men very quickly and now she was pregnant. Basically classic misogyny and sexism. This girl was so young as well, but whatever. Little Nicola had heard these rumors going around the estate. And before I tell you what I'm about to tell you, bear in mind she was 9 years old and probably didn't fully understand what any of this means. But she called the girl standing at her front door a slag. She called her a slag. She told the couple to go away cuz Douggee wasn't at home. And they did. Is slag an English term? Will people overseas know what that means? It means a harlot. It means someone promiscuous that sleeps around. Um, but it's a very like it's a very colloquial term. It's just silly. It's silly and funny.

7:08 Anyway, about an hour or so later at 5:00 p.m., Nicola grabbed her roller skates and went out to go and meet her best friend. Karen, still in her school uniform, chucked on her pink trainers and ran to meet Nicola. Both the girls knew that they couldn't be out for too long because both of their moms were already cooking dinner at home. But they had a little time at least. So they headed off out of the estate and to a nearby park, stopping on the way to climb a tree. Here they were seen by a local policeman who told the girls to be careful or they'd fall and hurt themselves. After that, the girls toddle off to a fish and chip shop where they encounter a 16-year-old girl from their estate who walks the two of them back towards home. By now, it was getting close to 6:00 p.m. And in October in the UK, that means it's starting to drop dark. This teenage girl just wanted these little onins to be safe. She

7:56 didn't walk them the whole way home to the estate for whatever reason. Perhaps the girls told her that they wanted to keep playing out. But sadly, this would be the last interaction that they would have with someone who had their best interests at heart. Soon, the girls would encounter pure evil. That evening, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadway never returned home for their dinners, not even to watch their favorite TV show, Top of the Pops, which was something that they never missed. Their parents were panicking, and they rushed to each other's houses to try to work out where the girls had gone, hoping that the kids had maybe just lost track of time and they'd be home any minute. They started knocking on all of the doors of the other kids in the area in case they'd gone round to someone else's house. But literally no one had any idea where they were. A spontaneous search party began to form of other parents and neighbors

8:47 who shared the family's panic. Everyone was bundling up in their big winter coats and going out in the pitch black freezing cold winter, flashlight in hand, calling the girls' names all over town. And by 8:30 p.m., when Karen and Nicola still hadn't turned up, the police were called. They collected statements from the girls families and tried to piece together as much information as possible. Where they were going that day, what they were wearing, where they played frequently. The police knew that they only had a short window of time to find them. It would only get colder outside. And if these tiny little girls were out in the bitter, chilling winter all night long, they could well freeze to death. The police spared no expense. 200 different officers were brought in from other towns to manually search, to knock on doors, to take statements. Soon, a helicopter was brought in. But all of this led to

9:43 nothing. The search continued through the night. Nicola's mom walked for miles to and along the seafront, checking every boat, every beach house. By the morning, she was seen just standing on the beach, wailing and screaming for her daughter. As the day dawned, police were running out of ideas and places to search. They were all so stressed and worried sick. I mean, it was coming up on 24 hours now since the girls had last been seen. At around 400 p.m. that day, officer Paul Smith, one of the many, many policemen deployed to patrol the area, was walking down by Wild Park, not far from where the girls had been climbing that tree the day before, when he was stopped by a guy walking his dog.

10:26 Well, I say stopped. The fella caught him smoking his pipe apparently and jokingly yelled, "Oi, what are you doing?" So, Officer Paul Smith turns around and he gets talking to this guy who says that his dog that he's walking actually has specialized abilities. It's a tracker dog, but he's currently like out of service or unemployed or whatever. Like unemployed dog, I don't know. But he says that police can use him for this investigation if they want. Paul turns down the offer cuz like who is this guy and his dog? They can't verify anything he says really. And besides, police know how to get a proper tracker dog. They probably even had some on the way at this point. But this fell that was talking to the officer looked very tired and he told Paul that he'd been part of the search all day, but he's going to give up soon cuz it's getting late. Obviously, Paul urges him to keep looking. They can't give up on

11:20 these girls. But then the guy says something quite frankly suspicious as hell. He said, "But if I find them and they're dead, I'd get nicked, wouldn't I?" If you need a British slang translation for that, getting nicked means getting arrested. But why does this man think that he would be arrested for simply finding the girls if he hadn't brought any harm to them? But it was literally as this interaction was playing out that the girls were in fact found and everyone's worst fear was confirmed. As the officer and the dog walker had been talking, a scream had pierced the air. Two young men standing by the bushes in Wild Park yelled, "We found them. We found them." But as all of the officers and the search party in the area rushed over, they could tell that the boys hadn't found the two girls in a good way. They were clearly distressed from what they had just discovered. Officer Paul Smith recalls

12:18 the dog walker rushing over to the scene immediately, running faster than even he could. So he called to this guy, telling him to make sure that everyone stays away from the girls and doesn't touch them. Everyone stay away from the crime scene to avoid contaminating it. Paul was of course one of, if not the first police officer on the scene. He sees the bodies of Karen Hadoway and Nicola Fellows laying in what looked like a bit of a makeshift den made from branches.

12:47 They were there as if they were sunbathing. Nicola Fellows was on her back with one knee up and Karen Adway was laying on her stomach with her arm round as if she was asleep. They were deranged like that. They were cold as marble. It was awful. It was just awful.

13:06 One of the girls mothers was actually in Wild Park looking for them as their bodies were found. She said that when she saw those police tapes go up in the area, she knew immediately that her daughter was gone. Her body just gave up on her. She collapsed to the ground in the park, wailing and sobbing for her daughter. Later that day, the girl's parents had to go and identify their bodies. God, I can't even imagine how much that could tear a parent apart. It would literally physically hurt. You would feel the pain and the devastation in your whole body. As if the very sudden grief and pure horror of the situation weren't enough. Now you are face to face with your child for the very last time, but they're not really there. You can't kiss them or hug them and have them hug or kiss you back ever again. They can't hear the last words that you'll want to say to them that you love them so much and they mean the

14:08 world to you. They can never say it back to you ever again. You can never hear their voice again. [ __ ] Like it's tragic enough in any relationship to experience this grief, but when it's a parent with their child, I don't know if there could be a more torturous pain out there. Nicola Fellow's father tells the most heartbreaking story of reaching into his pocket and finding a 50 piece. And one last time, he placed it down by his daughter's body and said, "Here's your pocket money, darling." Once the girls had been identified, their bodies could then be sent for autopsy. And the results were absolutely horrifying. I'll give you a warning now. If you don't want to hear this, please do skip forward about 30 seconds. The girls cause of death was strangulation. They had marks around their neck when they were found. So, this didn't come as a huge surprise. It seemed that their killer had strangled these poor girls

15:07 with their bare hands. And what's even worse, the girls had been sexually assaulted. And not just before their murder, but even after as well. As if their killer couldn't get more sick, twisted, and depraved, he further assaulted these girls once they were already dead. This also meant that one of these poor girls would have had to watch her best friend in the whole world being murdered in front of her eyes knowing that the exact same thing would be coming to her in a matter of minutes. These were two innocent, unsuspecting, beautiful, cheery little kids. Not only were they completely undeserving of such a tragic and violating end, but nobody ever expected anything of this caliber to take place in Brighton of all places.

16:02 Everyone had always felt like they could trust their community with their life. And now that was proven to be incorrect. Everybody found it so difficult to come to terms with the fact that a monster had been living among them. Someone capable of such evil had been lurking in their community and now two little girls had been murdered and violated. Nicola and Karen had a joint funeral that was actually months down the line since their bodies couldn't be released to their family for so long. But the girls were laid to rest in plots right next to one another sharing a headstone and in identical coffins that were carried through the church by their dads. The community as a whole grieved for these little girls. Even the police who were working on the case turned up to the funeral to pay their respects. On day one of the murder investigation, all eyes were on police to make an arrest and to ensure the safety of the

16:59 community as quick as humanly possible. So, the resulting investigation was absolutely enormous. Over 2,000 inquiries were made and very quickly police narrowed down their suspect list. and one person stood out like a sore thumb. But before we continue any further, I just want to take the chance to give a platform to a really wonderful charity that we discovered during our research. I'm going to take us out of Brighton for just a second and instead center a global children's charity helping kids who have been severely traumatized across the world. They're called Action for Child Trauma International. There is a crisis [snorts] right now with how many children are living with PTSD as a result of being put through unimaginable trauma. Whether it's through war, being the victim of sexual assault and violence, abduction, or maybe being forced to watch horrendous situations unfold before their eyes, children are

17:55 being subjected to truly awful horrors that no kid should ever have to experience. But what's worse is when this happens in areas impacted by conflict and disaster, there's often no psychological treatment available for children at all. Which is why today's charity is so critical. They train local people in so many different countries, especially ones affected by violence and disasters such as Yemen, Palestine, Uganda, Armenia, Colombia. They are quite literally the boots on the ground with a proven track record of helping so many children who otherwise would have suffered in silence from the PTSD they were experiencing. This is one of those charities where it's more of a donation appeal. They do have some information online on how you can get involved yourself and support them, but it is just such an incredible organization. We just really want to help where we can by putting their work out there and

18:49 appealing for donations and advocating for children in need of trauma therapy. As always, the link will be down below in the description of this episode along with our link tree that also has a bunch of charities and helplines and resources if you might have been personally affected by this case. All the links that you would need are down below in the description. And thank you again if you do donate to Action for Childhild Trauma International. Every little bit helps. Now, with that being said, let's get back into the case where a prime suspect has been identified. The man with the unemployed tracker dog was soon identified as Russell Bishop, a 20-year-old lad from the local area.

19:26 Born and raised in Brighton, the youngest of five kids. He did odd jobs for a living and fixed up cars. He was based in Mile, which is about a 20-minute drive away from where the girls lived. And he shared a flat there in Mile with his girlfriend and their son. And get this, remember when Nicola Fellows answered the door to two of her lodgers's friends? A couple, and she called the girl a slag. Well, Russell Bishop was the boyfriend of that couple, but the girl wasn't the girl that he lives with and has a baby with. Streets are saying he wasn't a very loyal man, and he wasn't a very good man either.

20:03 Not only was he two- timing the mother of his child, but it was with a 16-year-old child. And that was the girl that he had shown up on Nicola's doorstep with. That is the girl that she called a slag. It comes back to what I said earlier about how it is just pure misogyny and sexism that the whole neighborhood was calling this 16-year-old child a slag because a 20-year-old man was cheating on his partner with her. She was being groomed. Let's be [ __ ] real. Obviously, Nicola didn't know that. She was way too young to understand the situation. I'm more so talking about everyone else talking about this 16-year-old girl because that'll be where Nicola heard it. She'll have overheard it from the adults that should have known better. But anyway, but let's focus on Russell, shall we? He was thought to be more on the insecure side. Whether it was due to his height, he wasn't a very tall man. In fact, he

20:52 was about as tall as me, 5'4ish. And he also hadn't done very well in school, mainly due to dyslexia. But it's also said that he tried to overcompensate for all of this with charm and gregariousness. Funnily enough, he was actually already known to police before this case. He had a previous criminal record with offenses such as robbery and theft, but when he was a teenager, technically a minor, there were a number of concerning writeups relating to the assault of younger kids. Now, the content of these writeups are not publicly available, so we don't know in what nature or to what degree he was assaulting other younger kids, but the point is it's already looking like there's a concerning pattern. Police quickly arrested Russell Bishop based on such suspicions. Only they didn't have any actual evidence on him. They could only detain him for questioning for a short amount of time before he would have to be released if

21:50 they didn't find any evidence. So, while they had him in police custody, they asked him about the day of the murders, and he said that he had actually seen the little girls earlier in the day. In fact, he could tell police in detail what they had been doing that day, what streets they'd walked down, who they'd stopped to talk to, practically how long it all took. And I guess there's nothing out weird about that. But if everything he told the police was actually true, then that means he was paying a hell of a lot of attention to these two 9-year-old girls. at the very least.

22:22 It's weird. But even though he seemed suspicious in a number of ways, police couldn't get any solid evidence on Russell Bishop to actually be able to make a charge. And so soon, they had to release him from police custody. He was back out on the streets. And a few days later, he would show up at Nicola Fellow's family home. He had come to try and clear his name. When Nicola's father answered the door to Russell's knock, he told him, "I did not top the girls." What a horrible, insensitive way to word it. I'm not sure if that kind of language is used elsewhere in the world, but topping someone in this context in the UK is a very flippant, almost comedic, sarcastic way of saying killing someone. Nicola's father threatened to call the police on Russell, and he left very quickly. But this wasn't the only way in which he egregiously overstepped on this case, considering he is still the number one suspect. Keep that in

23:21 mind as I tell you this. A bunch of flowers were found laying at the girl's shared grave site. Their families, curious to know who had been to pay their respects, checked the card left inside. They were from Russell Bishop. Police had their focus very narrowly and confidently on him as the suspect. They were searching for any kind of evidence that could be enough to charge him. And then pops up this abandoned jumper. Police had found a blue sweater laying on the ground about 5 or 10 minutes away from where the girls' bodies were eventually found. But the thing is, they had found it while the girls were just considered missing. So, it was never really taken to be crime scene evidence, but now they're thinking it could actually be linked. And on a closer look at this jumper, it had a lot of identifiable stainage on it. There was red stuff on the cuffs and a big stain down the front. So, police get right

24:16 down to Russell Bishop's house, blue jumper in hand, to see if it could be officially identified as his. Only Russell wasn't home when they went. It was his girlfriend who answered the door. And as soon as she saw it, she said unprompted, "Oh, you found Russell's jumper." Right. Right then. And she could even tell the police how the jumper had gotten all that different staining. She said that the red stain on the cuff was from some sort of red paint that he had used on the cars at work. Not blood, just in case you were thinking it could have been that. But when the jumper was analyzed forensically, there were ivy spores all over it. A match to the plants right by where the girl's bodies were found. For the police, that was enough evidence to arrest Russell Bishop on Halloween night of October 1986.

25:04 Karen Hardaway and Nicola Fellow's families were informed that an arrest had been made, but nothing could have prepared them for the fact that it was Russell Bishop. I mean, they didn't know him well, but they certainly knew him. He would come around to Nicola's house often since he was friends with their lodger, Douggee. In fact, her dad had played football with the lad before. He was at least familiar to Nicola, if not both girls. They would have trusted Russell Bishop, just like they trusted every member of their community because they were innocent little girls and this was a safe place to live. Or so people thought before one of their own had done the unthinkable. When Russell's trial began in December of 1987, it was just over a year since the girls had been murdered. Russell had entered a plea of not guilty to murder. The trial was very much hinged on the blue sweatshirt that was found covered in ivy spores that

26:00 supposedly belonged to Russell. But when his girlfriend was called up to the stand, she changed her mind. She said that she had never seen that jumper before a day in her life, despite earlier saying that it was definitely Russell's and even giving a very specific explanation for the stain on the cuff. She even tried to say that the police had forged her initials on the statements that she made for them to use as evidence. All of this seems quite convenient, right? But then Russell's defense made a good point. The police on this case had been quite careless with the physical evidence, or at least that's what they were trying to argue, that the evidence hadn't been collected properly. It hadn't been stored properly, and therefore none of it should be admissible in court. Alongside that, Russell's own girlfriend had cast so much doubt in the minds of the jury.

26:52 They were questioning the competency of the police that had this guy on trial in the first place. A very short deliberation took place. The jury took just two hours to find Russell Bishop not guilty of the murder of the Babes in the Wood, Karen Hadway and Nicola Fellows. When he was released from the court, he stroed over to the journalists with pride and yelled, "Not guilty, lads."

27:17 The man who had been accused of murdering two school girls from Brighton has been found not guilty.

27:23 Late. Yay. The family of Karen and Nicola were just distraught. They had been confident in the police investigation. They had believed for quite a while now that their sweet children's killer had been found and would be seeing justice. But now that belief was shattered and unfortunately it was about to get a thousand times worse. Police got in touch with Nicola Fellow's family one day regarding new information that had come forward in the case. Someone suspected that Nicola's own father could have had something to do with her death.

27:59 A witness had come forward and said that they had seen something very concerning prior to the murders taking place. They had walked in on Nicola's father and their lodger, Douggee, watching a home video of the two of them sexually abusing Nicola. The police simply had to investigate this. They couldn't leave any stone unturned. But they quickly concluded that the report was false. As if Nicola's family hadn't been through enough without being accused and made to doubt and second guessess their own loved ones. It was horrific that someone would make something so evil and twisted up just to make things harder for the family. Even though he was ruled out relatively quick in the grand scheme of the investigation, it was still long enough that the rumors spread and people in the local area genuinely started to believe that Barry Fellows might have murdered his own daughter and her best friend. So much so that their house was

28:57 covered in graffiti saying fellows out among other awful awful things. The community turning against this family during one of the darkest times of their life is just so tragic. And do you want to know who it was that brought these false accusations about Nicola's own father to the police? It was Russell Bishop. And if that isn't suspicious as hell in itself, like I don't know what is. Right now, since he was officially cleared in the eyes of the law, he wasn't considered a suspect, at least officially. But the police had a bad feeling about him, and everyone in the area still suspected him. Everyone knew that something wasn't right here, especially the girls families. They begged and begged and begged for police to reopen this case, but they repeatedly told them that they couldn't because there were no new suspects. No one worth investigating now that Russell Bishop was cleared. But isn't it one of the

29:56 purposes of an investigation to seek out potential suspects? They don't just blow in with the wind. You have to go and find them, right? This is the violating murder of two little girls we're talking about, not a stolen bike. You've got to go out and [ __ ] solve the case. Like the families felt so frustrated by the police and the lack of justice for their babies that they organized a protest. The community rallied together and marched through the streets of Brighton yelling until somebody listened. Among the protesters was none other than Russell Bishop. He was always there.

30:30 Every step of this case, he had been there. He told the police that he had saw the girls before they even went missing. And then on day one of the search, he brings his tracker dog. He's trying to get involved. And then on day two when their bodies are discovered, he is one of the first people at the crime scene, he's just always there, isn't he? But despite how uncomfortable Russell's very active participation made the girls' families, they just kind of had to believe the police when they said that he was innocent. And they had to believe Russell when he turned up to the protests claiming that he wanted to help. I suppose some people might be surprised that you're now linking up with the parents of the two murdered school girls having been accused yourself of their murder. People are very surprised.

31:15 People keep on asking me why do I keep on and on and on. The fact is I want to see this case reopen. My name isn't cleared until someone else brought it justice. A real person.

31:25 But so many people could see right through Russell that he was actually lowkey loving all of this attention. Now that he was deemed the innocent guy, he was doing what can only be described as a press tour. TV interviews, newspaper spreads, literally getting paid to tell his miscarriage of justice story, claiming that police had tried to frame him for such an awful crime. It was apparently very uncomfortable to watch because everyone knew the truth, even if it couldn't be proved yet. And then just two years after the girl's murder, a very horrific similar incident would happen in Brighton. Only this time there would be a survivor. On February 4th, 1990, a local couple were parked up by the woods when they saw something absolutely devastating. A little girl crawled scared and completely naked out of a bush. She was bleeding between her legs. The couple could immediately tell what had happened to this poor girl. And

32:32 so the man jumped out of his car and made his way towards her. But when she saw him, she was filled with fear given whatever horrific thing had just happened to her.

32:42 Then I jumped out of the car and ran towards her. And she said to me, "Are you going to kidnap me?" And I said to her, "No, we're here to help you. You're going to be okay."

32:58 This little girl was just 7 years old. Her name was Rachel Watts. And she told the couple that she had been abducted and abused by a man. She didn't know who he was. She didn't know where he'd gone, but he had tried to murder her and had left her for dead there in the woods. Of course, it had immediately shattered her perception of the world. No one felt safe to her in this moment. It broke my heart into a million pieces to hear that her first words to her rescuers were asking if they were going to kidnap her, too. But thankfully, this couple were Rachel's saviors. They rushed her to the nearest house with where they could borrow their phone to call the police and an ambulance for this poor baby girl. And there they heard the full detailed, heartbreaking story of the abduction. She said that she'd been out on her roller skates that day. Her dad had given her a pound to go down to the local shop and buy some sweets with. She

33:56 set off, but since they were quite new to the area, she quickly got lost and couldn't find her way to the shop. That was when she spotted a man working on his car. She immediately felt safe in this man's presence since her dad was a mechanic as well. He works on cars, too. I don't know. As a kid, that is a comforting thing, isn't it? It's it's familiar. And so she skates up to this man and asks him for directions to the shop. But before she even has a moment to realize that this man isn't safe, he grabbed her and threw her into the boot of his car, slamming down the lid on her without saying a word. Rachel was terrified, laying there in the pitch black, not knowing where this man might take her or what he might do to her. But God, she was a smart, brave girl. She very calmly removed her roller skates, knowing that if she did get the opportunity to try to escape, she would have a better chance of running away

34:52 from this man if she didn't have wheels on her feet. And then she began feeling around in the dark for anything that she might be able to use to either get out of the car or maybe even as a weapon against this man if she had to. And this is an 8-year-old girl, mind you. What a brave little thing. Her fingertips brushed something there with her in the boot. And as she went to pick it up, she realized it was a hammer. So she grabbed it and she began trying to smash her way out of the boot. She is bashing at the door. Her abductor yells back at her to stop or else I'll kill you. And soon the car came to a stop. When he stepped out and opened the boot, Rachel thought she might try to run, but she didn't get the chance. He grabbed her, lifted her out, and threw her instead into the back seat of the stationary car. And it was there where he stripped her of her clothes and sexually assaulted her. Rachel was

35:47 paralyzed with fear as this man then put his hands around her throat and squeezed. She struggled for breath and felt herself losing consciousness until eventually nothing. The next thing she knows, she woke up laying among some overgrown bushes, feeling terrified and hurting all over. It was then when she crawled out from under the bushes that the couple found her and got her to safety. After being checked over at the hospital, she was given the opportunity to tell police everything. And she described her attacker and his car in detail. Police managed to locate Rachel's roller skates by the crime scene. It seems they'd just been ditched by her abductor, who honestly probably thought that he had murdered this little girl and that he might get away with it.

36:37 But of course, he wouldn't. Tire tracks had been left around the crime scene, and when they were analyzed, along with all of the other evidence and the girl's very detailed description, police had enough evidence now to head right down to the house of their prime suspect. It was none other than Russell Bishop. When police arrived, would you believe that Russell was actively in the middle of scrubbing out the boot of his car? his car that coincidentally had a bunch of dents on the inside of the boot matching Rachel's account of hitting it with a hammer several times. So once again, Russell Bishop was arrested, this time for kidnapping and attempted murder, and another trial would be set. This time around, police had a lot more physical evidence to hopefully get a guaranteed conviction. Fibers from Rachel's clothes were found in the boot. Paint flex on her roller skates were found to be the

37:30 exact same paint as Russell's car. Rachel herself had even picked Russell Bishop out of a lineup of a bunch of similar looking men. It was him and I think his defense knew that it would be a very hard case to fight. But they decided to go with their tried andrue method of denying everything and even accusing the police of trying to forge evidence and frame him. It was a very weak defense that crumbled under pressure. Everyone knew which way the verdict was going when the jury returned from deliberation on the 13th of December, 1990, and they found Russell guilty of molestation, kidnapping, and attempted murder. He was ordered to serve just 14 years in prison, which was the full sentence available for a crime like this back then. But Rachel Watts and her family could breathe a sigh of relief knowing that her attacker was behind bars and he couldn't harm any other little girls. But what about

38:27 Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadway? They deserve justice, too. And the whole community believed that Russell Bishop was to blame, especially now that he had been found guilty of an almost identical attack. But because of the double jeopardy rule at the time, he couldn't be tried again for the same crime. since he'd already been found not guilty in a court of law, they can't just keep trying him and trying him and trying him until the verdict changes unless there's new evidence. Then in 2005, that law was updated to take into account improvements in forensic technology.

39:00 Cases that had been ruled a certain way in the past were now able to be reopened if it was deemed that there was new promising evidence that could well change the outcome. This means that a suspect could be retrieded for a crime that they had already been acquitted or found not guilty of. There was a chance that Russell Bishop might actually go down for the Babes in the Wood murders. Police just had to find the evidence to prove that it was him. So everything was revisited. Every piece of evidence that they had ever collected was reanalyzed.

39:32 And there were a number of new tests that could be done. Now it was around 2016. It had been so so long. And one thing that was discovered in the evidence locker were tapings from the girl's skin. Like, you know, when you put a piece of tape on and rip it off, it's got dead skin cells on, right? And now these tapings could be analyzed on a microscopic level. And finally, they had their link. These pieces of tape didn't only have the girl's own dead skin cells on, but Russell Bishop's as well. This was proof that he had touched both of the girls on the day that they were violated and murdered. It was only on discovery of this evidence over 28 years later that Russell Bishop, already serving time in prison, was rearrested for the murders of Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadway.

40:20 I'm arresting you on the suspicion of the murders of Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadway on or around Thursday 9th of October 1986. The grounds for arresting you are that there is fresh evidence linking you to the murders of both Nicola Fellows and Kar.

40:36 The trial would take place in October 2018. So then it was actually 32 years since the murders. And once again he plead not guilty. But this time it wouldn't be so easy to argue. The forensics proved that he was at the scene of the crime. This time, the jury deliberated for less than 2 hours before they found Russell Bishop guilty of the murder and sexual assault of Nicola and Karen. A case that spanned decades was finally solved. Russell was ordered to serve two more life sentences on top of what he was already serving for the attack on Rachel Watts. And now his minimum term was 36 years. his ex-girlfriend from all of those years ago was eventually found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice. She confessed that she had lied in the trial all those years ago when she said that she'd never seen that blue jumper a day before in her life. It was Russell's jumper and she knew that. But

41:32 because she'd thrown off the trial with false statements and accusing the police of trying to frame her, she is practically the whole reason that Russell Bishop got away with the Babes in the Wood murders for three decades. Not only that, if she hadn't have lied on trial, he wouldn't have been able to assault and almost murder another girl, Rachel Watts. Because his girlfriend had lied, he was free to be able to kill again. And I have no doubt that he never would have stopped. He is the kind of man that has an insatiable thirst for control and children, which is sick and twisted. His girlfriend claimed that the reason she lied is because Russell had abused her and threatened her life if she didn't do this for him, which is very sad. It's very scary. But this is also a child killer we're talking about.

42:24 And I just don't know how you could live with yourself when you've actively lied to keep him free to do it to other kids. I don't know. Like I'm I'm sure that there is a safe way to be able to report that to the police. Whatever. His girlfriend was sentenced to six years in prison for her part in throwing off the trial. And I believe she was actually released this year. But Russell Bishop, he's dead. He died of cancer in prison in 2022. He was 55 years old. Whatever. Whatever. Good riddance. The police issued the families of Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadway with a formal apology in April 2024 for the mishandling of this case for so long. And just this year, a memorial was made for the girls in Wild Park. It's a a snazzy playground. It's a climbing frame kind of deal. It looks actually really sick.

43:11 I really wish I was a kid so that I could go and play on it. And since the girls were so adventurous and free, I think this is just such a lovely way to honor them. On the floor beneath all the equipment, it reads in memory Nicola and Karen 1986. And that is all we have for this episode. Thank you so so much for tuning in to Outlaw Podcast once again. And thank you to NordVPN for collabing with us to make this episode possible. Remember, you can get an exclusive NordVPN deal plus 4 months extra when you click the link down below in the description. It's risk-f free with NordVPN's 30-day money back guarantee.

43:45 If you're watching on YouTube, please leave us a thumbs up. Don't forget to subscribe. And don't forget to comment as well so that we can continue the conversation. If you're listening on a podcast platform, please rate us five stars and I will see you in the next episode. Bye.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Playdate that Ended in Murder"?

Ellen O'Neal (Host).

What is discussed in "The Playdate that Ended in Murder"?

In order: 0:00 Brighton, NordVPN, Karen Hadaway, Nicola Fellows; 5:00 Nicola Fellows, Musulcom, Top of the Pops; 10:00 Wild Park, Nicola Fellows; 15:00 Brighton, Ben Russell, Nicola Fellows, Action for Child Trauma International; 20:00 Ben Russell; 25:00 Ben Russell, Nicola Fellows, Brighton; 30:00 Ben Russell, Brighton, Rachel Watts; 35:00 Ben Russell, Nicola Fellows, Rachel Watts; 40:00 Ben Russell, Nicola Fellows, Rachel Watts, Wild Park.

What is mentioned in this OUTLORE with Eleanor Neale episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Ben Russell, Nicola Fellows, Karen Hadaway, Brighton, Wild Park, Rachel Watts. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Playdate that Ended in Murder"?

The episode runs 44 min; the transcript is about 7,953 words in 59 timestamped sections.

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