Serial killer Steven Wright aka The Suffolk Strangler

Steven Gerald James Wright is a British serial murderer.

He was born in the Norfolk village of Erpingham in April 1958. One of four children, including one brother, of a military policeman and a veterinary nurse. While Wright's father was on military service, the family had lived in both Malta and Singapore. Wright's parents split during the 1960s and both later remarried. Wright lived with his father, who fathered two more children with his second wife.

Steve Wright left school in 1974 and soon afterwards he joined the Merchant Navy, becoming a chef on ferries sailing from Felixstowe, Suffolk. In 1979, he married and had a son called Michael who was born in 1983. The couple separated in 1987 and Wright later became a steward on the QE2, a lorry driver, a barman, and just prior to his arrest, a fork-lift truck driver.

Former prostitute Lindi St Clair has claimed that she was attacked by Steve Wright in the 1980s. His second marriage lasted less than one year whilst he was a pub landlord in Norwich.  He became a father again with another partner in 1992, whilst managing a public house in South London. This post was lost due to his gambling and drinking behaviour.

It is known that throughout these times Wright built up large debts largely through gambling, and has recently been declared bankrupt. Wright had twice tried to commit suicide firstly by carbon monoxide poisoning and then, in 2000, by an overdose of pills.

Wright met his last partner Pamela Wright (the shared surname is a coincidence) in 2001 in Felixstowe, and they moved to the house in Ipswich together in 2004. Wright had always admitted that he had used prostitutes, firstly whilst in the Merchant Navy, and continuously throughout his life. In Ipswich he admitted he went to certain massage and sauna establishments that were actually brothels.

Throughout his trial he had stated that he had used prostitutes on many occasions, including three of the victims, and when his partner began working night shifts their sex life became almost non-existent; so he returned to prostitutes who were based on the nearby streets, procuring a dozen in the final three months of 2006.

Wright was found guilty of all five murders on 21 February 2008. On the following day, 22 February, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and the judge recommended that life must mean life.