The tragic case of the Wilkinson family

Hello everybody and welcome back to Unthinkable a True Crime Podcast. Thank you for joining me today. My name is Lisa. I hope you are all well. Now, today's episode is actually the penultimate episode, and next week's will be my final episode of season one. So today's case, well, it's a shocker. Imagine you are a young person and you've had a really tough start in life. You find yourself orphaned, homeless, and living on the streets by the age of 23. You're feeling hopeless when there's a chance meeting and a loving family take you in.

They help you find permanent accommodation, they give you a job, and they even help your struggle with dependency issues. How lucky would you be feeling? You would spend the rest of your life being so grateful towards the family, wouldn't you? Someone's finally giving you a chance in life. Well, not in this case. This story starts like a heartwarming tale, but it ends with two family members dead and one fighting for their life. This is the tragic case of the Wilkinson family murders. Right, so let's meet the Wilkinsons.

So we have Peter and Tracy Wilkinson. Peter is a businessman who ran local operations, and Tracy, she's a former ballroom dancer, she's a full-time mother, and she actually volunteers at an old people's home. Now the couple they married in 1999 and they have two children. A daughter born in 1998 called Lydia, and in 2003 they have a son called Pierce. And the family live in Rathmore Lodge, a house on Greyhouse Lane in the West Midlands. The family were a family of dog lovers, which I love. As some of you know, I work with dogs and I absolutely love them.

The family rescue a greyhound called Mandy, and Pierce's favourite charity was the Greyhound Rescue. Now Tracy was described as a warm, chatty person who could not bear to see anyone suffer. So in March 2016, Tracy was leaving a Tesco supermarket in Stourbridge when she spotted a young homeless man trying to keep warm in a cardboard box. Tracy instantly took pity on him and she went over to see if she could help. Now Tracy actually ended up driving him back to her home where she gave him a warm meal.

This young man's name was Aaron Barley, and Aaron had definitely had a tough time in life. He was born a child of incest. His parents were uncle and niece, there was a 19-year age gap. I couldn't find much about his parents, but Aaron was orphaned by the age of six. So his father died of cancer when he was just four. And his mother died of a heart attack two years later. Now I don't know if Aaron had any brothers or sisters. I couldn't find anything about his other family members. But he was raised in the foster care system after his parents died, and he lived in numerous care homes.

And one of Aaron's former foster carers, Eileen Adams, she described him as a Jacqueline Hyde character. She said he could be caring and sensitive one minute, and then the next minute he could be threatening and violent. Now, over time, Aaron's behaviour was becoming more difficult and increasingly violent. And at the age of just 11, Aaron was actually kicked out of a children's home just south of Birmingham after he broke in and stole a member of staff's car. Now, in his late teens and early 20s, Aaron's behaviour spiraled and he ended up with 21 convictions from petty theft and public disorder to assault on a former partner and a police officer.

And Aaron actually spent three years in prison. So Aaron is now living on the streets, and he's a regular drug user, so he's in a pretty bad way. You see this with a lot of homeless people, don't you? The way of coping with living on the streets, they turn to drugs or alcohol. Then along comes Tracy, and this wonderful, kind, compassionate woman, she wants to help him. So after Aaron meets the rest of the family, Tracy then takes him to the local council offices to help secure a place for him to live.

And they do manage to find him a place in a hostel for a few nights. And Tracy, sh bless her, she would bring Aaron breakfast and dinner every day. And the couple invited Aaron Rind to their house for evening meals too. And it was during one of these times Aaron explained to the Wilkinsons that he expressed a strong desire to turn his life around and claiming that he just needed a chance. Tracy and Peter were more than happy to help the young lad. Peter actually provided Aaron with work as a labourer of one of his businesses in Newport, South Wales.

Tracy began to help Aaron find permanent accommodation, and she had connections in real estate, and she was able to identify a vacancy before it went on the market, allowing Aaron to bypass the rental waiting list. Now, of course, the landlord would need a background check, to which Aaron's isn't great, but Tracy steps in again and she offers to be guarantor on the property and to cover the initial financial commitment. And with that, Aaron now has a home in South Wales and he has an income. So this is wonderful, isn't it?

And this could really be the turning point in what has been a chaotic and unstable life so far for Aaron. Now, Tracy's kindness didn't stop there. So Aaron, where he developed quite a bad dependency on drugs and alcohol during his time on the streets. Well, Tracy, she had actually struggled with alcohol addiction previously, and she now volunteers at a local drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. So she decides to bring Aaron along with her so he can get support with his substance abuse. And Aaron manages to stop taking drugs and drinking alcohol, and he appears to be making real positive progress.

So everything appears to be going well. Tracy and Peter are over the moon at Aaron's progress. However, Aaron had made a few disturbing comments to a couple of the volunteers at the rehabilitation center. He commented that he wanted to kill someone with a knife, and he said he had two goals in life. One was to kill a police officer, and two to kill a prison officer. The volunteers later said that he seemed to have a real obsession with weapons, particularly knives. But they dismissed Aaron's remarks and believed that they were caused by his drug abuse.

Aaron started working in Newport Docks in April 2016. However, in September, managers started to report that Aaron was failing to turn up for work. And then Aaron admitted that he had relapsed and started taking drugs again. And this led to him losing his job. Aaron's behaviour starts to spiral. It all happens quickly, and Aaron actually ends up getting evicted from his flat. So after losing his job and his flat and relapsing, Aaron ended up returning to the West Midlands and he began sleeping on the streets again.

Now the Wilkinsons didn't hear from Aaron for a few weeks. This obviously saddened Tracy, but she'd done all she could. It looks like Aaron was a lost cause, and now they didn't know where he was. Until early November 2016, Peter's coming down the drive and he actually sees Aaron sleeping on the driveway. Now he looks like he's been beaten up really badly. He's covered in cuts and bruises. Peter calls to Tracy, who comes out, and the pair take Aaron inside. And seeing him in this state, the pair decide to help him one more time.

And Aaron stayed with the Wilkinsons for the next two weeks whilst he recovered. Tracy goes out of her way again and she managed to secure Aaron with a council accommodation. Aaron did odd jobs for the Wilkinsons and their extended family, earning himself enough money for food and rent, and things are starting to look positive again. Aaron spends Christmas in 2016 with the Wilkinsons. They invite him over for Christmas lunch, and Aaron actually gave Tracy a Christmas card with a message saying, To the mother I never had.

They exchange presents and some of the Wilkinsons' extended family they give Aaron clothes and things to help him. So the Wilkinson children, Pierce and Lydia, they are both at the family for Christmas. Lydia is actually, she has been away in Bristol attending university, but she's returned for the Christmas holidays. Now, whilst Peter and Tracy are eager to support Aaron, Lydia and Pierce were never really comfortable around him, and it was later stated that they both felt uneasy around him. Now in February 2017, Aaron manages to secure himself a job as a furniture polisher, this is full-time, and Tracy decides to buy Aaron a phone and she offered to pay the contract for him.

This was so she could stay in contact with him. Now all's looking well until early March, and then completely out of the blue, Aaron seems to cut off contact with the Wilkinsons. They don't hear anything from him and he ignores their attempts to contact him. Peter finds out during this time that Aaron has lost his new job and he's been seen frequently in local pubs behaving unpredictably, and there's rumours that he's back on drugs. So after not hearing from him for over three weeks, Peter goes ahead and cancels Aaron's mobile phone contract.

Tracy and Peter decide they want nothing more to do with him. So on the morning of the 30th of March 2017, Peter left to walk the family's dog at about 7 a.m. as he normally did. He asked Pierce if he would like to come, but Pierce declined and said that he would go with him the next day instead. Peter left and he didn't lock the back door as he knew Tracy would be up soon to make breakfast. As Peter walked down the family's drive, he failed to spot Aaron Barley hiding in the bushes. Now Aaron had actually arrived the previous night, but he had failed to get into the home, so he'd hidden in the garden shed.

The CCTV from the family's home captures Aaron putting on a balaclava, entering the home through the unlocked back door, and he takes two knives from the kitchen. Then he makes his way upstairs. He creeps along the hallway to Tracy's bedroom. And of course he knows the layout of the house because he's been there so many times. He enters Tracy's bedroom, she's asleep, and Aaron stands over her on the bed. We know this because there were footprints on the bed. Then he just starts to stab her, and it's frenzied.

Aaron stabs Tracy seventeen times, and these are deep stab wounds. She didn't stand a chance. Paramedics pronounce Tracy dead at the scene. She was still in her bed, covered with a blood soaked duvet. Aaron then quietly makes his way along the hall to Pierce's bedroom. He opens the door quietly, and Aaron unleashes a violent assault on Pierce, stabbing him eight times, then leaving him for dead on the bedroom floor. Now Aaron goes back down the stairs and into the kitchen, and he hides behind like a wall that they've got in the kitchen and he waits for Peter to return.

So Peter returns to the home at 7.30 and he remembers thinking Tracy and Pierce must have overslept because they're normally up by now. Tracy's normally making breakfast and making cups of tea. And Peter notices that the curtains are still shut, so he thinks they've overslept. So Peter walks up the drive, he opens the back door, and that's when all of a sudden Aaron, who is all dressed in black, jumped out from behind the wall and he started stabbing Peter. He stabbed him twice in the face, twice in the back, and twice in the stomach.

Aaron is then seen on CCTV running into the garden and stealing the family's Land Rover before speeding away. Now Peter initially thinks he's okay. He goes out to the garden and he calls the emergency services. He started explaining what happened, but Peter he doesn't know that Tracy and Pierce have been attacked as well. And it's during this call Peter realizes how badly he's been injured. He says that he could feel his lungs filling up with fluid, and that he started to realise that he's dying.

He said he could feel that he was losing all his energy. Now when the ambulance crew arrive, they find Peter barely conscious in the garden. He's bleeding heavily, and he asks paramedics to go and check on his wife and son. Paramedics find Tracy, but it's clear that there's nothing they can do. Her injuries are fatal. They find Pierce. Now he's been trying to crawl along his bedroom floor, and when they find him, he's laying on his stomach, struggling to breathe, and then he goes into cardiac arrest.

Now Peter he overhears paramedics saying one deceased and one in cardiac arrest, and he says at this moment his heart just sank. He knows he's lost either Tracy or Pierce, and the other one is critically ill. Now Peter is rushed to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, whilst Pierce is rushed to Birmingham Children's Hospital. Hospital staff battled to save Pierce, but heartbreakingly he succumbs to his injuries and he was pronounced dead shortly afterwards. Now Lydia, the daughter, she's away.

She's back in Bristol at University. So thankfully she's escaped the attack, but she's also unaware of what's happened. It's only when her boyfriend calls her and he asks her if her family are okay. He says there's been a stabbing on Greyhound Lane. Now Lydia tries to contact her family over and over again, but she gets no luck. So she goes to Google and she searches Stourbridge stabbings, and then a photo of her family home appears and it's got the police blue tape around it. Can you imagine that?

Seeing your family home in the news, it's just chilling. So now Lydia she runs to a friend's room at uni to call the police and she asks, um, she asks the officer if the news is real. Now officers are sent directly to her university to inform her that her mother and her brother have died and that her dad was in surgery in a critical condition. Now Lydia remembers ringing her boyfriend back and saying, It's me, it's us, they've all been stabbed. So Lydia's boyfriend's parents, they drive Lydia to sorry, from Bristol to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, and she's taken through to critical care.

Her dad's hooked up on numerous machines. Lydia remembers thinking she's going to lose him as well, as nobody could survive the state he was in. But thankfully, Peter did survive. He received emergency surgery, six days in intensive care, and eleven days in hospital, but he was going to be okay. Lydia was also faced with the very difficult task of identifying the bodies of her mum and her brother, and she said that she stayed with them for a while. She said she stayed with them and she brushed their hair, and it was because this was the last time she was ever going to see them.

Like how strong is this girl? She's amazing, isn't she? And Lydia, she actually went to the family home two days after the attack to lay flowers for her mother and her brother, and she spent time reading the messages that had been left on the flowers that were there. Now so back at the home, so Aaron has stolen the Land Rover to make his escape. Now police are alerted straight away and they quickly spot the stolen Land Rover and a police chase ensues. Now Aaron attempts to evade them by speeding through residential streets.

He's mounting pavements, he's driving on the wrong side of the road, and the pursuit ends when Aaron collides with another vehicle and he crashes into a wall on Norton Road. And the Land Rover has Dash Cam. So you can actually see footage online of the pursuit and Aaron's kind of you know attempt to flee. So after the crash, Aaron attempts to get out of the Land Rover and flee on foot, but he's tackled by officers and he's taken into custody. So Peter he leaves hospital nearly two weeks after the attack, and Lydia and Peter go to Peter's parents' house.

They spent time there recovering as they have to prepare for the funerals. Now, of course, there is an outpouring of grief. A makeshift memorial quickly grew outside the family home, and local residents leave flowers, candles, and sympathy notes. The funerals they took place on Wednesday, the 7th of June 2017, at St. Mary's Church in Stourbridge. Now, Tracy and Pierce were laid to rest together in one white coffin, and this was to reflect their close bond. It says that they were inseparable. Hundreds of mourners attended, including students and staff from Pierce's school.

Peter and Lydia walked hand in hand together behind the coffin, and their dog Mandy was there too. Thankfully, Mandy was unharmed in the attack. On Saturday, the 1st of April, two days after the stabbings, Aaron made his initial court appearance at Warsaw Magistrates Court. He was accompanied by three officers who were wearing full riot gear. So Aaron had been trying to bite and punch the officers whilst in custody. Now later on the 3rd of April, he appeared at Birmingham Crown Court for a brief preliminary hearing.

Aaron was remanded in custody to await trial. Now the trial took place on the 3rd of October 2017. Now Aaron pleads guilty on the very first day. He pleads guilty to the murder of Tracy and Pierce and to the attempted murder of Peter. The following day, Aaron Barley was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison. Just a side note here, so in December 2017, the Court of Appeal reviewed the sentencing, and Aaron's minimum term was actually increased to 35 years. Now Aaron remained emotionless as the sentence was being read out.

And Aaron, he's never shown any signs of remorse. He said his only regret is that he didn't kill Peter, and he said he was glad he had done it. Aaron was described in court as a compulsive liar and a manipulator, as well as a chaotic and very angry individual. During sentencing, Mrs. Justice Carr described Aaron's actions as vicious, merciless, and unprovoked, noting that he had a total disregard for the family's safety and abused their trust and extraordinary generosity. Now, Aaron did have a very tough upbringing, but there are plenty of people that have a tough start in life and they don't go on to become murderous.

In call, Lydia read her victim impact statement and from the witness box, and she looked directly at Aaron and she said, You have obliterated my life, murdered half my family, nearly all of them, and for this I will never forgive you. My parents cared for you, they treated you like a son, and you repaid them with destruction and heartache. This is a pain I will feel until my heart stops beating. And Peter's statement, he described the devastating loss of his wife Tracy and his son Pierce. He said his life has been completely torn apart by the attack.

He spoke about the bond that he shared with his wife of nineteen years and the deep pride that he had in his son. Aaron Barley, he never gave a reason or an explanation as to why he carried out the attacks. Throughout his time in police custody and during the legal proceedings, he remained uncooperated, refusing to give any statements and would not disclose any motives. There is no explanation. Peter has said his personal feeling is that Aaron lost his job, he lost his flat, and when he decided that his life was going to be bad again, he took it out on the very people who cared for him.

Now on the 25th of July 2019, Lydia graduated from university, earning a 2.1 degree in biological science. Her father, Peter, attended the graduation ceremony to celebrate with her. Lydia shared that completing her degree was a major goal driven by her mother's memory, as her mother had been exceptionally proud of her being accepted into Bristol University. Now Lydia has shown immense resilience, and so has Peter, and they actually moved back to the family home for a while. They were determined not to let the attack drive them away.

However, they were there for nearly a year and then they decided to sell the house and have a fresh start. So Lydia and Peter, they've done a few interviews. You can see interviews with them on YouTube, but they have tried to maintain a private life away from the public eye. They're trying to focus on healing after what they've been through. Lydia, she does say that she tries to focus on positive, she tries to draw strength from the fact that she didn't lose her father. Because when her dad was in hospital, she was terrified she was going to have to plan a three funerals on her own.

So yeah, so she says she um draws strength from the fact that her father's still around with her. And you know, let's hope that they are happy and they are peaceful. And will Aaron ever explain why he did this? Oh, it's really sad, isn't it? It's a really sad story. And you know, because they took him in and he'd had such a bad start to life, you know, and being on the streets and homeless and being in foster care, and then he gets taken in by this family who do everything they possibly can for him.

Like what reason would he have to hurt them? Let them kill them. You know, you almost want him to talk to make it make sense, you know, because it's just so oh it's horrible. Well, yeah, so well that's it for today. Thank you very much for joining me. Please let me know what you think of this episode. It's a terrible one, isn't it? Um, I have an Instagram account now, which is at Unthinkable TrueCrime. Um, if you'd like to leave me a review or some feedback, I would be very grateful. Thank you. And as always, I like to end by saying in a world where you can be anything, be kind.

Take care, guys.

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