THE DETECTIVES: SPIDERMAN CAUGHT IN HIS OWN WEB; He was dubbed Spiderman after escaping police by scaling 100ft down a block of flats. But the net was closing on double killer Terry Clifton. JOHN PARRISH reports...

NOTHING could have prepared the police officers for the sight facing them when they opened the door to Tony Marrocco's small garage business in Morecambe, Lancs. It was 1.30am on the morning of January 24, 1995, and the officers were responding to a call from Tony's concerned wife Geraldine saying her husband had failed to return home from TM Motors that evening.

The reason was horribly evident. Tony's head had been smashed in with a monkey wrench. Blood splattered around the garage was testament to the desperation with which the 49-year-old businessman had fought for his life.

Police attention immediately turned to Paul Sandham, 29, a mechanic who worked with Tony. Sandham's wife Sue had also reported him missing. Could the two men, said to be the best of friends, have had an argument which resulted in murder?

Even as 50 detectives were drafted onto a murder squad under the leadership of Detective Superintendent Graham Gooch a new development scotched that theory. Paul Sandham's body was discovered.

Paul - a cancer sufferer who'd just been given the all-clear - had been stabbed more than 40 times and dumped in a field a mile from the garage.

Detectives were looking for a double killer who appeared to have murdered both men for the few hundred pounds Tony carried in his wallet and a gold belcher chain he'd been wearing.

Gooch and his team concluded the killer was unable to take on both men and had persuaded Paul to take him for a test drive. He'd got him out of the car, killed him and then driven back to murder Tony. The theory was confirmed when detectives found soil in the driver-side footwell of a Toyota at the garage. It matched soil at the site where Paul Sandham was killed.

The team knew what had happened but still needed a link to the killer.

A breakthrough came when one of Italian-born Tony's part-time employees told them a white MG Metro was missing from the garage. The car documents were also gone.

"This meant it was no panic killing," says Mr Gooch. "After murdering Tony, the killer had selected the most expensive car in the garage and then calmly searched for the documents. He'd even moved other cars out of the way to get at the Metro."

Police launched an immediate hunt for the car. Figuring the killer could be connected to the motor trade and might have sold it, detectives made a computer check.

HPI is a company with a database which car buyers can check against to learn if the car they're interested in has been stolen or is owned by a hire purchase company.

"HPI told us a dealer in Erith, South-East London, had run a check on the car," said Mr Gooch.

"The dealer told us he'd traded another car for the Metro. The description he gave us was good but the details he'd been given by the man with the Metro proved to be false."

But, thanks to an alert Kent detective and TV's Crimewatch, a new lead was about to emerge.

Before the murders, on January 16, Crimewatch had broadcast a security video showing a man robbing a Surrey jewellers.

A viewer rang in identifying the man as Terry Clifton. Kent detective Richard Cullen was investigating a robbery on a jewellers in his own county and began investigating Clifton, believing he could be connected.

He learned the 24-year-old had links with Lancashire and his last known address had been in Erith. Recalling the Lancashire murders and the white Metro found in Erith, the astute officer dialled the incident room in Morecambe.

The description the Kent officer had of Terry Clifton, based on the video image and his own investigation, matched the description of the man who'd sold the Metro to the Erith car dealer. "It was good police work and a great moment for us," said Mr Gooch. "It meant we now had a possible identity for the killer."

That belief was strengthened when a woman who knew Clifton walked into Morecambe police station and said he'd been in the area at the time of the murders.

The inquiry team were anxious to trace him but Clifton remained one step ahead - changing his car and address sometimes twice a day and leaving a trail of false names.

But they did establish another direct link between him and the murders. They traced an acquaintance of Clifton's who'd bought a gold chain from him - it was Tony Marrocco's belcher chain.

On February 28, 1995, four detectives turned up at a seventh floor flat in Erith to question a girlfriend of Clifton's. They were greeted by Clifton himself - clutching a double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. With the gun trained on them the desperate killer backed out of the flat and lowered himself over the balcony, dropping to the one below.

He climbed over all the other balconies until he reached the ground - a distance of 100ft - and then escaped. The Press dubbed him "Spiderman".

Officers now set up observations on all the addresses he was associated with and continued wading through the records of cars he'd bought and sold. In early March they found a man who'd bought a Sierra from him. He told officers Clifton was now driving a Montego.

As the information was broadcast over the police radio, two detectives watching a house in Erith saw a man leave and get into a Montego. It was Clifton. When he parked in a nearby street armed officers swooped and he was arrested, offering no resistance. Det Supt Gooch had his suspect in custody but the search for evidence continued.

Officers learnt Clifton had done business with TM Motors on New Year's Eve, 1994, when he'd exchanged a BMW for a Honda Prelude.

They believed Clifton either thought he'd got the poor end of the deal or saw the cash Tony Marrocco routinely carried and had conceived his plan for murder.

Witnesses came forward to tell officers they remembered Clifton had an injury to his hand at the end of January. Given the ferocity of the murders Mr Gooch figured there was a possibility he'd injured himself during the attacks and left blood at the scene.

Forensic scientists re-examined the victims' clothing and found a smear of blood inside one of Tony Marrocco's trouser pockets. It wasn't his blood - it was Clifton's.

As Tony Marrocco, father of a grown-up son, lay dead or dying, the callous killer had rifled his pockets.

Thanks to the forensic scientists, detectives now had a watertight case against Clifton. But the drama was far from over.

Before a remand appearance at Lancaster magistrates' court, Clifton asked to see his lawyer.

When solicitor Alistair Harper entered his cell, Clifton took him hostage, holding a sharpened piece of metal to his throat. The siege lasted for 21 hours, during which Clifton, who'd announced his conversion to Islam, called for a Muslim holy man to mediate.

Eventually, fearing for the safety of the lawyer, a specially-trained squad of officers stormed the cell and ended the stand-off.

Before his trial in January, 1997, at Preston Crown Court, Clifton sacked his barristers and said he intended to defend himself.

When the trial began he refused to be brought up from his cell but he'd pleaded not guilty at an earlier hearing and so the trial went ahead.

The jury found him guilty of both murders and it took eight prison officers 35 minutes to carry the struggling killer into court when the judge ordered him brought up to receive his life sentence.

Tony Marrocco's widow was in court to see him jailed but Paul Sandham's widow wasn't. Unable to face the memories, Sue Sandham moved out of Lancashire before the trial.

Ironically, she had had a premonition that her husband was in trouble on the night of his death. "I could hear his voice calling my name over and over," she said. "I remember it so clearly. It's a nightmare I'll never wake up from."

Mr Gooch said: "Clifton is an extremely dangerous man with a long record of violence. I've no doubt if he were ever released he'd do the same thing again."

BBC1 are showing a reconstruction of the case in Crimewatch Files on March 11.

Article Details

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Title Annotation:	Features
Author:	Parrish, John
Publication:	The People (London, England)
Date:	Mar 1, 1998
Words:	1375
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