The tragic case of Rebecca watts

0:01 Hello everybody and welcome back to Unthinkable a True Crime Podcast. Thank you for joining me today. My name's Lisa. I hope you are all well. So today's case is set in Bristol, and I actually live in Bristol. I'm about 25 minutes away from where a couple brutally murdered and dismembered a 16-year-old girl. Now, this 16-year-old girl was fairly timid. She had a lot of anxiety about the outside world. Her home was her sanctuary, her safe place, with a loving family, also she thought. Chillingly, this young girl's life was horrifically taken in her own bedroom, the safest place she could have been.

0:45 And the perpetrators? Her own stepbrother and his girlfriend. This is the utterly heartbreaking and tragic case of Rebecca Watts. So let's meet Rebecca. So Rebecca Marie Watts was born on the 3rd of June 1998 to parents Darren Goldsworthy and her mother Tania Watts. Now Becky's parents actually split up before she was born, and Becky lived with her mother Tania for the first few years of her life. However, when she was around three, she was taken into foster care, and this was because it was suspected that her mother was neglecting her.

1:26 Her father soon after successfully fought for custody, and Becky went to live with Darren and his new partner, Angie. Now Angie had a 12-year-old son, Nathan Matthews, and Nathan actually lived with his grandmother, Margaret May. He'd lived with her since the age of seven. He maintained a close relationship with his mum and visited regularly. Nathan's father has never met Nathan. He's not in the picture at all, and there is no name on the birth certificate. Now, Angie and Becky, they were extremely close.

2:00 They were inseparable, and Angie showered her with love and attention. Now, to begin with, Nathan and Becky seemed to get on well. Becky's first word was actually Nathan, but as they grew older, tensions started to show. Nathan later claimed that he disliked Becky because he felt she was rude and disrespectful to his mother. And when Becky was older, she told a friend that she was actually scared of her stepbrother. Now Becky went to Summerhill Junior School and her teacher, Laura Trutch, described her as quiet but a happy child.

2:36 She said Becky was incredibly shy and was incredibly quiet, but by the end of her time in year five, her confidence had started to grow and she was blossoming into a beautiful young girl. Now Becky was a shy girl, and I can relate to this. So as a child, I was painfully shy. I barely spoke to anyone and I couldn't really give eye contact. And it's not easy, it's not easy for a child when you can't really communicate because you're so shy. Now Angie said that when Becky was comfortable and she felt safe, she would come to life.

3:11 Angie said at home she had loads of confidence, but the minute she stepped out the door, she was timid and shy and full of anxiety about the world around her. Now, when Becky moved to secondary school, things did take a turn for the worse. So Becky was bullied over her weight. Like Becky's very petite, she's very small, so whether she was bullied because she was so tiny or Becky is very, very pretty, and you know children can be jealous, so it may have been disguised as they were bullying her over her weight when really it was because they were jealous of how pretty she was.

3:48 But so by the age of 13, she'd actually developed anorexia, and she dropped down to lesson six stone, and Becky was actually hospitalized. Now, Angie describes this as a very dark time, and they were worried they'd actually lose her. But Nathan, so he dismissed Becky's anorexia. He said that she was doing it for attention and that she enjoyed the sympathy, and he actually teased Becky about her weight at home as well. Now, Becky, she thought, and with lots of support and care from her stepmother, her father, and the hospital, Becky overcame her anorexia.

4:28 And she said Becky really started to grow in confidence. She started to go out more, she was making friends, and as her confidence grew, so did the tension between Becky and Nathan. Nathan had become resentful of how close Becky and his mother had become, and I do get it that he was raised from the age of seven by his grandmother, but his mum is raising another child who isn't biologically hers. So you can understand why there's some resentment there and jealousy, can't you? But Nathan and his mother, they were close, they you know, they were still close, and Nathan lived in Wormley in Bristol, and Angie lived in St. George, also in Bristol, so they're they're close together and they spend a lot of time together.

5:15 Now, when Nathan is 21, he meets Shauna Hall. Now, Shauna is either 14 or 15 at this time, and the pair start a relationship. So Nathan's 21, and Shauna's 14 or 15 at this time, so she's underage. Now, Shauna had a tough start to life. She was placed in foster care as an infant and she went on to live in a number of different foster homes before eventually returning to the care of her mother by the age of 13. After a couple of years together in 2012, Nathan and Shauna moved in together and they settled into a terraced house on Cotton Mill Lane in Barton Hill in Bristol.

6:00 Now, this is a housing association property, so a housing association is an independent non-profit organization that provides low-cost housing and affordable rent for people that need it. Around this time, Angie, Nathan's mother, she starts to experience unexplained balance problems and she gets like a twitching in her eye, and she later gets diagnosed with progressive MS, and the condition rapidly started to affect her mobility. Shauna, she actually becomes her registered carer, and the pair appear to get on well.

6:40 Now, after Nathan's mother's diagnosis, Nathan appears to resent Becky even more, and he becomes angry of how Becky is apparently treating his mother. He said she was a brat, she was rude, she was lazy. He said that she would leave clothes lying around the house and it was hazardous for his mum's condition because she could trip and fall on them. Now, Shauna, she shared Nathan's strong dislike for Becky, although around the family she would behave as if they were friends. In 2013, when Angie and Darren got married, Shauna and Becky were actually bridesmaids.

7:20 So let's jump to 2015. Now Becky is 16 and she's thriving. She loves fashion, she loves shoes, she loves listening to music and going to the cinema with friends, and she's even got a boyfriend called Luke. And after all her struggles with anorexia and the bullying and the and the anxiety, Becky finally seems that she's very much enjoying life. So we get to the 19th of February 2015, and now Angie has a hospital appointment for her MS, and she leaves the house at 10:15. Becky had stayed with friends the night before, but she returned home about 8:30am, so she sees her stepmother before she leaves.

8:04 So Becky sends a text to her boyfriend Luke saying, I love you so much. Now Luke is asleep at the time, but he replies later when he wakes up. But then he becomes a little bit concerned because he's unable to get in touch with Becky. And Luke actually comes around to the house. This is around 5 pm to see if everything's okay. Shauna answers the door. Luke asks if Becky was okay and is she home. Shauna turned to Angie, so Angie's returned from the hospital by now, and Angie says, No, I don't think she's here.

8:37 And Shauna says, I think I heard her go out earlier. I heard the door slam. Luke didn't see Becky, but he didn't notice anything suspicious in the house. And he said that everything seemed normal. But unbelievably, at this time, Becky had already been murdered, and her body was hidden in the boot of the car that was parked on the drive. Now, Angie, she initially assumed Becky might have gone to stay at Friends again as she did the previous night, but it was unlike Becky not to keep in contact. Angie became increasingly concerned when by the morning Becky still hadn't returned or hadn't been in contact.

9:20 So they start posting on Facebook asking if anyone's seen her. Becky's friends are replying, saying they haven't seen her and they can't get hold of her. And when Darren returns from work and realizes Becky's still missing, he raises the alarm and calls the police. When police arrive at the house, they notice that Becky's phone, laptop, and tablet device were missing, but she hadn't taken any money or any spare clothes. It just didn't look like a case of a runaway. Now on the 22nd of February, after there's still no sign of Becky, and her social media has been inactive since the morning of the 19th, and this is the last time anyone's been able to get in contact with her.

10:06 It's like she's vanished into thin air. So Avon and Somerset Police they make their first appeal for information about her disappearance. And the following day, Darren and Becky's grandmother appear at a press conference appealing for her safe return. Now her dad, bless him, he can't make it through his speech because he's so upset. Like he starts talking and then he just starts crying. It's horrible. Um her grandmother speaks instead. So police search a number of properties and surrounding areas, they make house-to-house inquiries, and searches are also being carried out by volunteers.

10:44 Now they're searching in nearby park areas and woodland. There's a campaign put online using the hashtag findBecky, and this actually reaches two million people worldwide. And I'm I'm not a fan of social media, but in situations like this, it can be incredibly helpful, can't it? And people want to help, they really do. But with all this, there's still nothing. Now, police make a second appeal for anything, any tiny details somebody might think insignificant. Please come forward, but it's just a dead end over and over again.

11:21 Now, police are keen to speak to Shauna and Nathan because they claim they were in the house on the 19th of February, so they would have been the last people to have seen Becky. They said although they didn't actually see her, they knew she was home in her bedroom because there was music playing. Um, and then Shauna said that she heard Becky stomp, stomp, stomp down the stairs, or she assumed it was Becky, in one of her moods, and then she heard the front door slam, assuming Becky had left. Now, after speaking to both Shauna and Nathan, the police become suspicious of them.

11:59 And this is because even though they're interviewed separately, their stories are unusually accurate. It's like they've been rehearsed. So two people's memory of the same thing is always going to be slightly different. We don't remember things the same, or they'd be at least different wording of the situation, but their stories are pretty much word for word the same. And Shauna was described as being upbeat. And this is odd. You're being interviewed by the police, and a child is missing, you're going to be showing signs of emotion, concern, aren't you?

12:34 But Shauna, she's laughing, she's smiling, she appears confident in her interview, she's not showing any signs of concern at all. So the search continues for Becky, and members of the public are out in force, searching day and night, missing persons, posters are put up everywhere, and everyone involved is determined not to give up until she's found. Now, on the 25th of February, this is six days after Becky's disappearance, police brought the major crime unit in to assist in the investigation, and they turn their attention to Becky's house.

13:11 The family are asked to leave whilst a forensic team do a thorough sweep of the home. They are looking for any clues that could give them some kind of sign of what's happened, but they do find something. So on Becky's bedroom door, they find splatters of blood. And not only that, the blood contains a fingerprint. Now, this is sent off for testing. Nathan and Shauna are brought back in for questioning, and weirdly, this time Nathan starts to tell police that he didn't even like Becky. He said, I don't particularly talk to her, and I obviously don't particularly like her, and he gets annoyed with the way she treats his mum.

13:55 Nathan's completely calm, he shows no concern for Becky whatsoever. Now, on the 28th of February, this is nine days after the disappearance, the test results come back and it's confirmed. The blood on Becky's bedroom door did belong to Becky, and the fingerprint that belongs to her brother Nathan. This time the pair are arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and they are brought back for further questioning, and police go and search the couple's home on Cotton Mill Lane. Now they arrive at the house, and initially they can't get in, and this is because there are two full fridge freezers pushed up against the front door, along with other boxes and other items.

14:41 But when they do manage to enter, they find that the home is completely filled with clutter. In every room, the hallway, the living room, they're hoarding. It's just like stuff. There's there's suitcases, there's umbrellas, there's computer keyboards, there's a child's red three-wheel bike, there's lampshades, pictures, boxes upon boxes, there's children's toys, there's a folded-down pool table, and there's even an oven in the bathroom. It's just horrendous, and this is every single room, and it looks like their sort of living space is in their bedroom because there's um a kettle, there's like a little kitchen set up in the bedroom, and there's like a little bit of space in there, but every other room in the house is just completely filled with junk.

15:32 But then police enter the bathroom, and so the bathroom is pretty much the same as the entire house on the left hand side of the room, but on the right hand side of the room where the bathtub is, the bath is sparkling. It's so clean it looks like it's out of a showroom. So, why has the bath been so expertly cleaned when the rest of the house is in a tip? What are they trying to clean away? So the police also discover a receipt. And this receipt is for a 1400-watt circular saw purchased from BQ. They found other receipts for cleaning products, cling film rubble sacks, tape, face masks, safety goggles, and gloves.

16:24 And the receipts they're dated the day after Becky disappeared. So police go and look at CCTV, and it reveals that it was Nathan that purchased the circular saw, and the cleaning products were bought in Asda, so they went to Asda to see the CCTV, and this you see Nathan buying the cling film and the duct tape, the face masks, and making their murder kit. But Nathan's not alone. Shauna is with him. Police were now granted another 24 hours to question Nathan and Shauna. They explained to the pair that after searching their property, they have made a few significant discoveries, but they didn't tell them what they had found.

17:06 So in criminal investigations, police often hold back key pieces of evidence from suspects. This allows police to see if the suspects will tell the truth or lie about their actions. If the suspect gives an account of their whereabouts or approaches that directly contradicts the physical evidence, this shows a pattern of deception, if that makes sense. So the police continue to put pressure on Nathan and Shauna, and they are seeing signs that they are about to crack. The police officer tells Shauna, I know you have something to tell me, I can see it on your face.

17:42 And you really can? Like after every question, she pauses and she kind of rolls her eyes and before answering, and she's still quite smiley, it's just a bit strange. Now, in a shocking twist, on the 3rd of March 2015, a statement is given to police from Nathan through his lawyer. And in this statement, to everyone's surprise, Nathan confesses he confesses to killing Becky on the morning of the 19th, but he says it was an accident. He says he hadn't meant to kill her, he was simply meant to scare her.

18:21 Nathan writes he and Shauna had arrived at the house on the morning of the 19th. He said he had a bag in his car that contained stung guns, duct tape, face masks, and handcuffs. My plan was to pretend to be an intruder and kidnap Becky. My plan was to scare her because of the way she'd been treating his mother, and he said he wanted to scare her into being a bit more appreciative of life. He said, Shortly after we arrived at the house, Shauna went outside in the garden to have a cigarette. So with Shauna in the garden, I ran to my car, grabbed my kidnap kit, and ran upstairs to Becky's room.

19:03 I knocked on the door and Becky said either what or hello. I asked if I could talk to her, so she let me in. Now Nathan says he can't remember what actually happened, but he'd used the items in the bag to subdue Rebecca, and whilst he was trying to put her in the bag, he said his mask slipped and she saw his face. But she already knows it's him because he just knocked on the door and said he needed to speak to her. Plus, he's a family member and someone you see regularly. You you don't need to see their whole face to know who they are.

19:40 But that's what he's going with. So he said that his face mask slipped, she saw his face, so he panicked, and he ended up strangling her to death. In the interview room, officers are reading Nathan's confession back to him. And when they do this, Nathan he doesn't want to hear it, and he puts his fingers in his ears and he puts his head on the desk and he starts crying. Um, so the confession goes on. Nathan writes that after Becky was dead, I collected the items I'd used and Rebecca and I put her in the bag and zipped it up.

20:15 He writes that I took her laptop, her phone, and her tablet in a separate bag. And then he carried everything, including Becky's body, down the stairs, out the front door, and to the boot of his car. And then he ran back inside to see Shauna coming in from the garden, and she just started washing her hands, and Nathan slams the front door, and then he quickly goes into the living room and sits down on the sofa and he pretends he's been there the whole time. Nathan says that Shauna was completely unaware of anything and that she hadn't been involved in the apparent kidnap plot.

20:53 And he says Shauna had no idea that I killed Becky, and she had no idea that her body was in my boot. So, what Nathan is suggesting that in the time it took Shauna to smoke a cigarette, he had time to go to his car, go to Becky's room, kill her, put her body in a bag, carry Becky and her belongings downstairs by himself. How are you carrying the body of a 16-year-old, as well as her belongings, including her laptop, down the stairs by yourself? This, of course, is not true, and evidence later confirms this.

21:32 Now, after Nathan's initial confession, he also confesses to something else. And the next part makes this case just more horrific, if you can imagine. Nathan discloses to officers that he took Becky's lifeless body back to his house and put her in the bath. The next day he goes out, and this is when he buys the circular saw and the cleaning products from Asda. When he returns, Nathan starts dismembering Becky's body with the saw. He literally cuts her up into pieces. He wraps her body he wraps her body parts in clean film.

22:14 Oh, it's just so awful. It's it's like out of a horror film. So he places Becky's body parts in bags and suitcases. And he also puts cat litter around the body parts, and this is to help with the smell. Nathan then contacts a friend, Carl Demetrius, and he asks Carl if he could store some items in his shed for a few days, and he offers to pay him. Carl agrees, and later he told police that he had no idea what was in the bags. He assumed it was drugs, but he didn't ask any questions. Police go to the property where Nathan said he'd left Becky Becky's remains, and they discover five suitcases, a rucksack, and a plastic storage container.

23:01 The body parts had been wrapped in layers of plastic bags and cling film with heavy-duty duct tape. Now police have to break the news to Becky's father and Angie. Oh, could you imagine? They have to break the news that Becky's remains have been found and that Nathan has confessed. But what of Shauna? So Shauna, she adamantly denies that she had anything to do with this, and she denies all knowledge of Nathan being involved. When they tell her Nathan had confessed, Shauna just nods. She doesn't say anything, there's no shock, there's no horror, she just nods.

23:42 And interestingly, from this point onwards, Shauna, who, you know, up until this point has been upbeat and giggly, is now answering every question with no comment. And now she's rigid and her arms are folded. Of course, there's an investigation into the pair where it's discovered that Shauna and Nathan both shared a sick, twisted sexual interest in young, petite girls. They had fantasized about kidnapping a young girl and keeping her chained in their loft as their sex slave. The pair were addicted to violent porn, which almost always involved the raping of young girls.

24:25 They had watched a video titled Schoolgirl Gets Bound and Raped in Her Bedroom. They are both obsessed with getting a young, petite, pretty girl and doing what they want with her. Now after the post-mortem, it was discovered that Becky died of suffocation, but she also had stab wounds. 15 deep stab wounds, and she had a total of 40 injuries to her body, including blunt force bruising and marks from a screwdriver. And these injuries were inflicted after Becky died, proving without doubt that this was no accident, this was a frenzied attack.

25:11 An attack after she died. It's horrific. And later in court, when Nathan is questioned about this, he says that he stabbed and slashed her abdomen because he believed that the human body expanded after death due to gas buildup. And he claimed that he did it to release internal fluid and prevent swelling, so that he was able to carry her down the stairs and take her back to his house. It's utter nonsense. Now the trial begins on the 6th of October 2015 at Bristol Crown Court. Nathan Matthews admitted killing Becky but denied murder.

25:51 Shauna also denied murder. She said she had no knowledge of the murder or the role that Nathan played. And to begin with, there was no real evidence of Shauna being involved until her makeup and DNA was found on one of the two face masks discovered along with Becky's body. Her DNA was also on the suitcases and the rucksacks. And it was discovered that Nathan suffered from a condition called fibromyalgia. This is a long-term condition that causes chronic pain, in particular the arms and back. And this would make it impossible for Nathan to carry Becky's body from her bedroom downstairs and out to his car.

26:34 He would have needed help. And Shauna was the only other person in the house. So she helped him, didn't she? Of course she did. Now in court, Nathan he sobbed throughout. He was hunched over and he had his head down. But Shauna, however, she was cold. She was stony-faced with no emotion. The trial lasted six weeks, and on the 11th of November 2015, the jury found Nathan guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 33 years. Now Shauna, she was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter, and she was sentenced to 17 years in prison on a fixed-term sentence.

27:19 This was for manslaughter, conspiracy to kidnap, and preventing the lawful burial of a body. So Shauna, so she was sentenced in 2015 to 17 years, but she's out now. She was released on the 1st of September 2023. At the time of her sentencing, offenders serving a fixed-term sentence were automatically entitled to be released on licence halfway through their sentence. So she only served eight and a half years. She is and will remain on licence until the 17-year sentence is completed, and there are strict licensing conditions, including she has a ban from returning to Bristol.

28:04 But she's still out, isn't she? After eight and a half years. It's just not right, is it? Now, Becky's family, they are obviously absolutely heartbroken, of course they are. Becky's father, Darren Goldsworthy, he shared that he woke up in terror, dreaming of his daughter being attacked. And he says that everything beautiful in their lives has been destroyed. Angie, Becky's stepmother, she voiced a deep pain over the betrayal. She said that she and Darren had trusted Becky's killers completely. She plans to visit her son in prison to get answers from him.

28:43 Becky's biological mother, Tanya Watts, she describes the tragedy feeling like being in a horror film. Now we will never know what really happened to Becky entirely. Shauna still pleads her innocence, and Nathan maintains that he acted alone. But I think they acted together. Nathan and Shauna acted out their fantasy. They both targeted Becky in a sexually motivated kidnap plot. I think they both attacked Becky, and after a violent struggle in her bedroom, Nathan suffocated her. It's an utterly heartbreaking case, isn't it?

29:20 It's unimaginable how you carry on after something like this has happened in your family. But Darren and Angie, they are still together through all of this. And Becky's dad, he actually wrote a book and it's simply titled Becky. And it's his account of Becky Watts' story. And I think what makes it so sad is after Becky, you know, she'd overcome all the struggles that she had in her life, and by the age of 16, she was thriving. And I think it's how she had like a fear of the outside world and how safe she felt at home.

29:57 But ultimately, that would be the place where she died in her bedroom, which was her sanctuary, her safe place. I want to dedicate this case to Rebecca Watts and her family. We don't know where Shauna Hoare is now. I don't think she should have been released. I think she was just as culpable as Nathan Matthews. Nathan Matthews apparently isn't having a great time in prison. He actually had boiling hot butter poured over him. Kind of deserved it though, didn't he? So that's it for this week. Please let me know what you think of this case.

30:37 I have an Instagram page now at Unthinkable True Crime. If you'd like to leave me a review or any feedback, that would be greatly appreciated. So thank you for joining me today, and as ever, I like to end by saying in a world where you can be anything, be kind. Take care, guys.