Following the success of 2020′s White House Farm, Des and Honour, ITV is continuing its run of true-life crime dramas into the new year with The Pembrokeshire Murders.
The three-part series is set to air across consecutive nights from Monday, recounting one of Wales’ most notorious murder investigations. Here’s what you need to know.
It is based on the real-life murders of serial killer John Cooper
The Pembrokeshire Murders recounts the cold case investigation Operation Ottawa, which was reopened in 2006 and looked into two double murders that took place in the Welsh county during the 1980s.
In 1985, local residents, brother and sister Richard and Helen Thomas, were shot dead, while four years later two tourists, husband and wife, Peter and Gwenda Dixon were also murdered by shotgun. Both crimes were investigated at the time, but no-one was ever charged.
Sixteen years later, DCI Steve Wilkins returned to Wales after a stint at Scotland Yard, and following a promotion, he decided to form a team to reopen the case, believing the two double murders were linked.
He had a suspect – a man called John Cooper, who at that point in time, was serving time in prison for burglary – but had to be able to prove it.
The team were on a race against time to find evidence that proved Cooper’s guilt before he came up for parole.
He was released from prison in 2008 – two years into their investigation, which took so long because of the painstaking work required to go through over 3,000 exhibits from the crime scene and the wait for forensic analysis results.
Following his release, Cooper was brought in for questioning, and after a second meeting with DCI Wilkins, police finally had enough evidence to charge him in 2009.
After a trial in 2011, Cooper was sentenced to life imprisonment for the two double murders, as well as an attack on five children in Milford Haven in 1996.
The series draws heavily on the book The Pembrokeshire Murders – Catching The Bullseye Killer
This book was co-written by DCI Steve Wilkins, who cracked the case, and ITV journalist Jonathan Hill, which writer Nick Stevens described as being his “bible” while writing the series.
Hill is actually a key part of the story, as he developed an important relationship with DCI Wilkins during the investigation.
He originally approached him about featuring the double murders on an episode of Welsh documentary series Crime Secrets, but unbeknown to Hill, DCI Wilkins was in the process of reopening the case and wanted to keep it covert. The pair then struck a deal whereby Hill agreed to postpone his film and Wilkins would give him the inside story on the case when the time was right.
It was an arrangement that benefitted them both, as Wilkins was eventually able to use Hill’s exclusive ITV News report to send a message to Cooper in prison, as they knew the inmates were watching.
Hill says: “It was slightly stage-managed that we revealed that the cases were being investigated. They wanted to see what Cooper’s reaction would be. It was very much a coded message directly to the killer, who they believed was Cooper.”
The journalist stayed in close contact with Wilkins over the course of the five-year investigation, even providing a key piece of evidence.
When the police researched Cooper’s background, they knew he had been a contestant on TV gameshow Bullseye, but did not know when. Hill asked an ITV archivist to trawl through all the episodes until eventually they found Cooper’s appearance, which was filmed four weeks before he murdered the Dixons in 1989.
Wilkins explains: “I didn’t have was a good photo of John Cooper at around the time of the Dixons murder to compare with an artists impression of the possible offender. I needed to know what Cooper looked like at that time.
“He sent it to me and I remember just looking at it and I can honestly say in my 33 years in the police when I’ve seen hundreds and hundred of artists’ impressions. As a likeness, I’ve never seen one as close as this. It was one of those jaw dropping moments - I thought, ‘that’s him!’”
Following Cooper’s conviction, Wilkins and Hill teamed up to publish an in-depth account of the investigation, which was published in 2013.
The series is actually six years in the making
Hill reveals that he had been trying for six years to get the case turned into a drama, before writer Nick Stevens approached him with an idea.
“We worked together and we approached World Productions who immediately thought it was a great story,” he explains. “I was always convinced it was such a good story it was just finding the right moment really.”
They worked with Cooper’s real-life son on the story
During his original police interviews, Cooper had repeatedly implied that his son Adrian was responsible for the four murders – something that disgusted DCI Wilkins at the time and is detailed in the book.
Sharing the officer’s disgust, writer Stevens says he was “determined” to give Adrian a voice in the series, and enlisted Hill to track him down so they could speak to him.
Now going by the name Andrew, Cooper’s son “quietly, frankly and without self-pity” told Stevens how it had been for him growing up as the abused son of a serial killer.
“He also breathed life into the tragic figure of his mother, Pat, who, in another extraordinary twist, had died of a heart attack on Cooper’s first night of freedom after his release from prison in Christmas 2008,” Stevens says.
“Thanks to Andrew’s openness and generosity, the drama I was writing now had a poignant, deeply personal storyline which would run in parallel with the police procedural.”
While the families of Cooper’s victims did not object to the new drama, Stevens explains that they had no wish to be featured in it, and tells of how he had to find another way of dramatising the positive impact the trial and verdict had.
Operation Ottawa had investigated a third crime which Cooper had committed: the Milford Haven Attack of 1996, which saw Cooper rob five teenagers at gunpoint. He sexually assaulted one of the three girls and raped another, and the two later gave evidence in court during Cooper’s trial.
“Every police officer and lawyer I interviewed confirmed that the testimonies of the two women had a decisive impact on the outcome of the trial,” Stevens explains. “Furthermore, Steve confirmed that the impact of the eventual guilty verdict on the two women and their families was life-changing.
“Here was the redemption I’d been looking for. And I will always be grateful to these two brave women for allowing us to dramatise their time in court. For me, their scenes are so true and moving that they become a tribute to all the victims and their families – and a powerful condemnation of the man responsible for so much wasted life and suffering.”
Luke Evans and Keith Allen take the lead as DCI Wilkins and John Cooper
Hollywood star Luke Evans returned home to Wales to take on the role of DCI Steve Wilkins in The Pembrokeshire Murders.
“It’s actually my first time working on a project in Wales so for me it’s very poignant, and also that it is a Welsh story,” he says.
“I got to visit some incredibly beautiful parts of Wales as well which was special. It was a joy to come to set and listen to all these beautiful Welsh accents every day. I’ve missed it very much.”
He got to meet his real-life counterpart during the making of the show, and described their meeting as a “privilege”.
“He’s a man of honour and integrity,” Luke says. “Steve had an incredibly interesting career and was involved in some very interesting and serious crimes throughout his career. I just like the guy, he’s got an energy. There’s a fire inside Steve Wilkins.”
Keith Allen takes on the role of serial killer John Cooper, with executive producer Simon Heath describing his performance as “incredibly chilling”.
“Beneath this initially affable mask [Cooper] puts on for the police is this dark, menacing quality,” he says. “And though we don’t see the crimes he committed, we hear about them and they are ugly and nasty and violent.
“One of the interesting things about Cooper is that by the time he was brought to court, he was at an age where he was able to play the role of the ‘grandad’ who had been wrongly dealt with by the police. It’s that mixture of the elderly gentlemen who wouldn’t harm anybody and this powerful underlying menace.”
Also among the cast are David Fynn (Vanity Fair) as journalist Jonathan Hill, Oliver Ryan (The Accident) as Cooper’s son Andrew, Alexandria Riley (The End Of The Fucking World) as DI Ella Richards, Steven Meo (High Hopes) as DI Lynne Harries and Charles Dale (Casualty) as DS Gareth Rees.
The Pembrokeshire Murders begins on Monday night at 9pm on ITV, airing over three consecutive nights.