MUSIC: 'Clair De Lune' by Debussy
I was very quiet and shy.
Didn't have proper friends, and I was scared of kids.
My mum took me to the ballet.
I've always danced when I could.
If I travel and there's music, I'll dance.
I'm a perfectionist, but my life is the opposite of perfect.
It is the sort of thing you read in the papers or watch in a movie.
It doesn't happen for real, but it did.
It happened to me.
ANNA MAXWELL MARTIN: What happened
was a relationship with John Sweeney,
a man who would turn out to be a serial killer.
Sweeney fears rejection.
And the ultimate form of rejecting them
is to take their life.
A man who triggered a decade's long investigation
that would crisscross Europe.
REPORTER: 'They fear the killer
'may have kept parts of body as a grisly trophy.'
It was the Rotterdam cold case investigation team,
"I need to speak someone about a man called John Sweeney."
It was a eureka moment.
A man who documented his crimes in terrifying artwork.
They're just horrific. It's utter contempt for his victims.
Those things were crucial.
He was telling us about his life and his relationships.
A man who could have other gruesome secrets
yet to be uncovered...
Chances are very slim that there are only two victims.
We still have a lot of unidentified bodies.
..and a man brought to justice by the determination of one woman.
John Sweeney told them things.
So he could use them to punish me more.
And he enjoyed that.
As far as I was concerned... WHOOSH
..I died that night.
PRODUCER: Before we start, Delia, how are you...
how are you feeling about this?
I'm nervous about the interview, but talking about it,
it doesn't bother me because I want the truth known.
I've never been able to get my true story out properly.
Growing up in America,
Delia Balmer had always dreamed of becoming a dancer.
Instead, she spent years travelling, leaving her family behind in Texas.
I remember when she was young, she didn't want kids.
She wrote down what she... wanted to do in her life,
and she said she just wants to travel.
My dad would get three weeks off for vacation,
and the best one was when we went to Montana
and we went to Yellowstone and Glacier National Park.
It made me always want to travel.
I liked the idea of being free.
I was all mixed up when I first came to London.
I was a mess, and I didn't know what I was doing.
I started an auxiliary nurse,
and that was OK, and was a student nurse.
I was still shy, and I've never, ever had much confidence.
The ground war in the Gulf has begun.
We got called a national disgrace.
REPORTER: 'Exactly six weeks since Terry Waite arrived home...'
'This was a well-planned attack aimed at the centre of government.'
DELIA: It was a bank holiday Monday. I went to the Hawley Arms pub.
They had a good jukebox there.
And I was sitting at the bar, and then he came over to my side,
stood next to me.
Thought you could do with a hand. What are you drinking?
Oh, er... a pint of real ale, please.
Thank you. Let me give you some money.
That's all right. Go on, I've got this. Enjoy.
"Would you like a beer?" And I thought, "Oh, well, I'm bored.
"And he's somebody to talk to."
He was hippy looking.
He told me that he worked in Germany and whatever,
and I thought, "Oh, he's a traveller."
And he sounded so carefree and he could do, like,
what he liked, and he was free, and I like the idea of being free.
I wasn't looking for a boyfriend.
But me, into travel so much, that was the attraction.
John Sweeney was a carpenter from Merseyside.
He was charismatic, and for Delia, incredibly interesting.
He'd go off to Europe to work as a carpenter.
He bought me the pink silk cushion with "Ich liebe dich" written on it.
Before long, he'd moved in with her.
When he came to stay, he...
little by little, he made all this furniture.
So this is the massage table.
This was the last thing, I think, he made for me,
and underneath, he wrote his name and the date.
So often, murderers are not dysfunctional loners.
They are people who have charm. They are people who can seduce.
They are people who can establish relationships,
and often what they're doing is that they're mirroring them.
They're mirroring their interest.
Sweeney would've been good at that.
MUSIC: 'Fairytale Of New York' by The Pogues
Oh, I love this song.
Ah!
Oh, I love this one.
John. HE CHUCKLES
Come and dance with me, John.
Come on. Will you?
Yeah?
Come and dance with me, lover.
Fucking sit down. Everyone's looking at you.
Well, I was trying to make myself to believe it was for real,
but I was so vulnerable, and I was so alone.
I did have doubts, I'm sure, in the back of my mind.
Then there was his artwork. Strangely dark and very disturbing.
He could draw, and he was very good.
But... most of his art is bizarre.
The first ones I remember is the girl lying down naked.
The naked woman was Melissa Halstead,
an American model.
She was his ex-girlfriend,
and she'd gone missing four years earlier.
Melissa arrived in the UK 1986.
She met John Sweeney, they then lived together for a while.
And then we got to a point where Melissa,
who was from America, was deemed to be an overstayer
in the United Kingdom.
She is clearly an attractive, striking woman,
and, of course, it's difficult to understand
why she would fall for somebody like John Sweeney.
He would probably talk about the fact
that HE liked drawing, that HE was interested in art.
He lived a very bohemian lifestyle.
She was slightly vulnerable because there was a distance
between her familial support network,
her friends support network.
Melissa needed to leave
not just because she'd overstayed her visa,
but because John Sweeney had become violent.
She had to run away because he was beating her up,
and she... that he went to collect her,
to go get her in Vienna.
Sweeney had tracked her from Italy to Vienna,
where he was arrested for attacking her with a hammer.
Shockingly, she bailed him out, then fled to a new country.
Melissa landed in Amsterdam.
And shortly after, Sweeney, then, he arrived there.
And then they moved in together.
Melissa had sent a voice message on an answerphone to her mother.
CASSETTE PLAYER BEEPS
The spring of the following year,
she's seen in a photograph with Sweeney,
and then she's not seen after that.
She had a very adventurous life, and so her parents in the US,
they had no clue where she was at what time.
So, of course, then it takes very long time
to figure out there is something wrong.
Fears began to grow amongst the Halstead family
that something terrible had happened to Melissa.
Firstly, Melissa was missing,
and secondly, that if she had come to harm,
they were convinced that Sweeney would be responsible.
But with no body and no clues, Dutch police had nothing to go on.
The case ground to a halt.
Four years later, another woman found herself
under Sweeney's coercive and controlling behaviour,
and was desperately wanting a way out.
Delia took Sweeney to Texas,
hoping that introducing him to her family might ease tensions.
I thought it might change him. My mum and dad didn't like him.
I could see when we got there that he just did not fit in.
I met him '94.
He came here and, you know, he was a well-built, tall guy,
and I just thought he was OK then.
I just figure my sister knew better, and I just went along.
We were in Stewart's apartment. We had a bottle of wine.
Us two were sitting on the floor.
I asked him, "Have you ever killed anyone?"
HE CHUCKLES And I don't know why I asked it.
I just had these vibes about him.
He wouldn't say yes or no.
He said, "The white men taught the Indians how to scalp."
Really strange.
Back home, his behaviour became even worse.
"Where have you been?
"Why are you wearing that short skirt?
"Did guys look at you?" And all the rest.
Delia knew she had to end the relationship.
I want you to move out. This again?
You use me.
You're rude to me, and you don't respect me.
Respect? Has that dyke been putting ideas into your head?
This has nothing to do with her.
I don't wanna go out with you any more!
I said, "I'm going to bed now. I have to work tomorrow."
Then the door burst open... BANG
..and he came in.
He grabbed my ankle, and I says, "What are you doing?"
This is the bed where Delia was attacked.
Out comes these ropes, and then he tied it to the bed,
and then he tied the other ankle.
Then he grabbed my arms.
He held me down.
He tied that one first to the top, and then the other to the top.
And at first I struggled,
and I found out it's best not to struggle
because he'd fixed it
so that the rope would get tighter and tighter.
Sweeney pulled out a knife and a gun
he'd been hiding by the bed.
Then he began to interrogate her about ex-boyfriends.
He's waving the gun and the knife around,
and threatened to cut my tongue out if I screamed.
With Delia tied down, she says that Sweeney
made a chilling confession
about his former girlfriend Melissa Halstead.
He said, "She was in our flat in Amsterdam with two German guys.
"They were in bed with her."
He said, "I shot them all.
"They were there for three days.
"Didn't know what to do with the bodies,
"so I cut them up, and I threw them in the canal."
In May 1990, a dismembered female body
who had been found in the Westersingel Canal
in a large duffel bag.
It was quite clear that there was what appeared to be blood
leaking from the bag,
and when they opened it, to their horror,
they found the dismembered remains of a white female.
Her head and her hands had been removed,
and her torso was effectively trussed up, really,
with lengths of rope.
Quite a horrific discovery.
Rotterdam police quickly launched a murder investigation
to identify the unknown woman.
There were no features or identifying marks
with which they could identify her,
so after a short period of time,
unfortunately, that case was effectively closed.
Back in London, John Sweeney,
armed with a gun and knife, was holding Delia Balmer hostage.
That is the flat right there where I was in.
I was tied up to the bed all night long.
I thought there was no way of escape.
There wasn't.
You just do what he wants.
Drink the can of beer he holds to your mouth, just do it.
Been sick as a dog, I've had food poisoning.
'Food poisoning? John said your nan was sick.'
Family emergency? No. No, he's just being silly.
He assaulted her multiple times.
Then, after a week, he let her go.
When I went back to work,
I had a mark on my left wrist from the tight rope.
I told them he had me tied to the bed.
They said, "Go to the police."
I said, "No, I can't do that. They won't do anything."
'He's gonna want revenge, and he'll take it out on me.
'I knew it.'
For months, Delia was terrified he'd attack her again.
She asked a council advice centre for help,
and they called the police.
When officers came to her flat,
she tried to convince them that Sweeney was a killer.
Come on, Delia. Get off me.
Why won't you look at the pictures?
They prove he killed Melissa.
They're just drawings, Delia. They don't prove anything.
How can you say that?
The truth is staring you in the goddamn face!
Delia, listen to me.
Our main priority right now is keeping you safe.
Oh, no. I'm not going.
I know my rights. You can't force me out of my home.
Delia... No. Get out.
Her warnings were ignored.
His violence and controlling behaviour
was escalating.
Then, in November,
just before she was due to visit a friend,
she came home to find Sweeney waiting for her.
I opened the door slowly.
And, of course, there he was.
Then he pushed it open.
He stuck his fingers down my throat.
And used that to shove me onto the bed, which was just there.
And I was lying there with my legs dangling
over the edge of the bed.
He said, "Stop screaming."
He says, "I'm just going to talk to you.
"I won't be here for long."
PHONE RINGS
My friend kept phoning because I had not turned up at the pub.
Her friend knew Sweeney was dangerous,
so when Delia didn't answer, she immediately dialled 999.
The police came and they knocked on the front door.
He said, "Just answer the door, and tell them everything is OK."
I stood up and I walked to the door.
I could feel his presence behind me. I opened the door.
I said, "Help me!"
I ran down the stairs.
I asked the policewoman after, I said,
"What did I look like?"
She said, "You looked like you were running for your life."
Sweeney was arrested.
Then detectives searched his possessions.
They came across a holdall or some sort of rucksack
that belonged to Sweeney.
The contents I can only really describe
as what amounted to a killer's kit bag.
Contained in the bag was the hacksaw blade,
various pairs of rubber gloves, lengths of rope,
a large tarpaulin, also rolls of duct tape.
All the items he would need to use to dispose of Delia's body.
I saw them taking him away in the van.
All I know is that for a few minutes, I was OK.
Sweeney was charged with false imprisonment
and actual bodily harm,
but shockingly, he was released on bail.
Delia was now incredibly vulnerable.
She should have been informed straight away
and there should have been a much more rigid process
to make sure that he didn't go within a mile of her.
I told the police, "He knows what time I finish work.
"He'll be waiting for me."
On the 22nd of December, exactly what I said happened.
Delia arrived home after finishing
her last nursing shift before her Christmas break.
I was halfway up the steps with the bike.
It was the darkest day of the year.
Nobody was on the street.
I kept looking around like this,
and then I looked like... around this way, and there he was.
He took hold of one hand, and he pushed.
He says, "Come on in. I want to speak to you."
I said, "No," and I pulled back.
The bicycle fell against the wall.
He brings the axe out.
He bashes me in the side of the head.
I held my arms up.
He bashed this arm and gave me a compound fracture
of the ulna bone.
He bashed this arm...
..and gave me two torn tendons.
He dropped the axe, and he pulled out a knife.
I thought, "I've got to do something."
So I pushed.
And then he came up the step again.
Stabbed me through the breast, stabbed me in the thigh.
I saw my finger fly through the air over to there.
Sweeney had the axe in his hand, ready to come down.
I turned around and squatted, and I said, "I'm going to die now."
Then the neighbour came out.
I heard another noise.
And Sweeney went "Argh" with the axe in his hand.
And he ran away.
MAN: Stay with us. Delia?
ECHOING: 'Delia, stay with us.'
SIRENS BLARE
As Delia lay on the brink of death, Sweeney vanished.
There was a raid on Sweeney's home to try and find him
in the days following the attack.
He disappeared without trace,
and after a period of time, the trail went cold.
No-one really knew where Sweeney was.
WALKIE-TALKIE: 'PK1, are you doing all right?'
In February 2001,
two boys who were fishing pulled a holdall out of Regent's Canal.
The bag contained a woman's dismembered body.
The bags containing the body parts were weighed down
with a mixture of what turned out to be ceramic tiles,
engineering bricks and other pieces of sort of concrete material,
in the hope that they may never get recovered.
The woman's remains had been in the water for days, possibly weeks.
Her head, hands and feet were missing,
making identification difficult.
The pathologist was able to say
that all the pieces belonged to one person.
DNA samples were taken where a match very quickly came back
to that of a young, white female from Liverpool called Paula Fields.
NEWSREADER: 'Paula Fields' remains were found in several holdalls
'in the Regent's Canal a fortnight ago.
'They fear the killer may have kept parts of her body
'as a grisly trophy.'
Paula was a mother of two boys.
She came down to London from Liverpool
and found life very difficult.
She was a vulnerable individual
who engaged in sex work to feed her drugs habit.
Police made fairly extensive enquiries
into Paula's friends and people that she mixed with.
And one name kept cropping up, and that was a nickname, really,
it was Scouse Joe or Joe Scouse.
Since her disappearance, he had completely disappeared.
So the police were very keen to find out who this man was.
The police began to watch where Scouse Joe lived.
Then they discovered his real name - it was John Sweeney.
Of course, the investigators very quickly realised
through intelligence
and going through their criminal record systems
that John Sweeney was on the run
for the attempted murder of Delia Balmer in December '94.
And this was now in March 2001.
After more than six years on the run, the net was closing in.
Delia had spent months in hospital following Sweeney's vicious attack.
Now she was moving on with her life.
She went back to university and was making new friends.
I met Delia in 1997.
She was different to anyone else in the class.
We did talk an awful lot, so we did become quite good friends.
Then one day, she told me about John Sweeney.
She showed me drawings.
And she told me that she had been held hostage...
..and that she was nearly killed by this guy.
I just remember looking at her,
crying and, like, holding her.
I just said, "God, it sounds like a really awful film.
"And I can't imagine it happening to anyone I know."
Four weeks after Paula Fields' body was found,
Sweeney was arrested in London.
While there was no direct evidence linking him to the murder,
he was still wanted for the attack on Delia.
He was remanded in custody
while detectives continued their investigation.
They searched his tool chest at the building site where he was working.
They found a loaded Luger pistol.
And then when they did further searches of where he was living,
they found some shotguns and ammunition.
In his Scouse Joe flat,
they uncovered more of his gruesome artwork.
The drawings were found during a search that I was present at
of Sweeney's flat, where he'd been living.
The ones that we suspect were the murder victims
where he has got the head, hands and feet cut off,
and then almost like sticks of rock, he'd have the writing on the wrists.
Just, it's utter contempt for his victims.
One of the things that interests me about Sweeney
is how he documents, not only his life,
but how he documents his crimes.
He documents them by writing rather crude poetry,
and he documents them by drawings and paintings.
These are clearly autobiographical poems
and autographical drawings and paintings.
It's a way of keeping memories alive.
It's a way of taking him back to the moment when he exercised
the ultimate form of power and control over a former partner.
So there's a sense in which these drawings and poems and paintings
are also a form of trophy taking.
Among the women he'd drawn was his ex, Melissa Halstead,
who was still listed as missing by Dutch police.
But there were no obvious drawings of Paula.
The police could not link Sweeney to her murder.
It's almost like dealing with two separate enquiries.
We had the Paula Fields murder enquiry,
which ran in tandem alongside the assault on Delia.
The evidence we had was for the crimes against Delia,
not for the crimes, at that time, against Paula.
So the only way to get Sweeney off the streets
was to convince Delia to testify against him in court.
That wasn't going to be easy.
I didn't give a damn what happened to Sweeney.
That's their trip. It's too late for me, I didn't care.
All I knew is that I was gonna be punished in court.
It was hell for Delia. Delia didn't want to go.
I was glad I was there for her.
Delia was a mess.
I never was scared of him. He'd done it.
I got the worst fear in my life. I got my... this body messed up.
And it didn't matter any more. I didn't care any more.
But Delia was struggling physically and mentally
with the trauma of the attack and lashed out in court.
Delia, she was probably one of the most anti-victims of a crime
that I'd ever had to deal with.
When Delia got into the witness box, she was asked to swear an oath,
which she didn't do.
And then, at that point,
she started getting very abusive towards members of the court.
She was extremely difficult.
You may sit down, Miss Balmer. Yeah, well, I don't wanna sit down.
Miss Balmer! Please control yourself.
This is a court of law, not your personal stage.
Yeah, but the law is a load of shit.
The law is a load of fucking shit!
They treated me as though I was guilty.
They made a mockery
out of all the scars and pain in... that I have.
This damage to this body.
They made a mockery out of it to prove what they already knew.
And John Sweeney told them things
so they could... he could use them to punish me more.
And he enjoyed that.
After Delia's outburst, the trial judge called for a recess.
Fearing Sweeney could go free if Delia blew up again,
Sue Kendrick took drastic action.
Myself and another detective took her to a cafe.
Delia, listen to me.
My job is to get you to give evidence in court.
This is all going to shit cos of what you just did in there.
I did something I'd never done with another victim of crime in my life.
I swore at her a lot. I was so angry with her for doing this.
Delia returned to court.
She faced Sweeney and told the jury how he tried to kill her.
We got her to give the evidence. That was just a wonderful moment.
I felt incredibly relieved.
A man's been given four life sentences
for carrying out a terrifying knife and axe attack on his girlfriend.
Sweeney will now be interviewed over the unsolved murder of Paula Fields,
whose headless body was found in Regent's Canal.
Barnes Green Serious Crime Command. DI Steve Smith speaking.
I joined the investigation team in 2005 as a detective inspector.
And I was aware of a number of cases
that the team had, if you like, on their books.
One case that I noted on the list was the Paula Fields case.
It was what I would describe as a cold case.
It wasn't actively being investigated.
The trail had gone cold, really.
The investigation into Paula's murder had gone nowhere
until Steve received an unexpected call from Holland.
It was a detective sergeant, or the equivalent.
The opening line was effectively,
"I'm from the Rotterdam cold case investigation team.
"I need to speak someone about a man called John Sweeney."
Well, of course my ears immediately pricked up.
'We've identified the remains of a former girlfriend of his,
'a young American woman - Melissa Halstead.'
Once that conversation took place
between Steve and the cold case team, I said to him, "OK.
"Bring all the cases over, and I would go through the decision logs."
So, we were trying to be one step ahead of the game.
This was what I can only really describe as a eureka moment.
My immediate thoughts was that,
"What are the chances of two women,
"11 years apart,
"being murdered, dismembered...
"..effectively trussed up in bags or holdalls
"and deposited in canals?"
And really, there is only one common denominator,
and that is John Sweeney.
For the first time,
British detectives teamed up with investigators from another country
to investigate a murder.
The bit of legislation that allowed us to do that basically said,
"If a British subject commits murder anywhere in the world,
"they can be tried in the United Kingdom for that."
If we didn't bring the two together,
the chances of a success were going to be diminished.
With no confession and no forensic evidence,
the detectives' only hope
was to build a case out of Sweeney's disturbing pictures and poetry.
Ultimately, these paintings, these drawings, these poems,
are gonna become central in the case that's built against John Sweeney.
One in particular depicting Melissa in the centre of the picture.
Then the correction fluid,
and underneath the correction fluid, you've got, erm,
"RIP Melissa", and then her birthday,
and then it's got written "died". You're thinking, "Well...
"..only the killer, surely, would know that Melissa had died."
Those things were crucial
in terms of proving to a jury that he was the author of those.
He had an axe, and it had in it "Made in Liverpool".
So when you put all those things together,
this is not just someone who's just made an innocent drawing.
He was telling us about his life and his relationships.
It was compelling evidence,
but detectives needed more to be certain of a conviction.
Once again, they asked Delia to testify.
We know the trial in 2001 was very difficult for you.
Ha! But if we can get the case to court,
we'd greatly appreciate it if you would consent to give evidence.
It would be much easier this time.
You'd just have to talk about what he told you he did to Melissa.
No, no. That's all.
They started pestering me again.
And I carried on the same as I did the first time.
I was damned if I was going.
And near the end, this policewoman, she said,
"If you don't go, we'll make you go."
And I thought, "I don't care."
Faced with her continual refusal to testify,
the police called in a psychologist. Their conclusion was clear.
Taking the stand could seriously harm Delia's mental health.
Sweeney's trial for the murders of Paula and Melissa
would have to go on without her.
Crucially, the judge allowed Delia's previous statement
that Sweeney confessed to killing Melissa to be read to the jury.
That was the thing that really, shall we say,
was the sort of final nail in his coffin.
John Sweeney had always convinced himself throughout
that he would never be convicted of this heinous crime.
I was satisfied that justice had been done,
and that, finally, after all those years,
after Melissa and Paula had been killed,
that the family had finally
got the justice that they had craved, really,
and what they deserved.
But some investigators believe
Sweeney may well be responsible for the brutal deaths
of many more young women across Europe.
I was a journalist for a Belgian newspaper for a very long time,
for 20 years,
and I've worked with... on stories of disappearances and murder cases.
I created a foundation
that actually helps the people that are left behind in cold cases.
In 2023, Interpol launched an appeal
to identify nearly two dozen murdered women.
Many of the deaths bear striking similarities
to Sweeney's known victims.
Kurt's foundation believes
he was in Europe when some of the women were killed.
What we've done here is we created some timelines.
And basically, we try to figure out, well,
what happened in what period of time on these timelines.
And what's very interesting to see is that Sweeney,
before the Melissa Halstead case,
he already travelled to the Netherlands and probably beyond.
What really strikes me is that
the moment Sweeney is being looked for in the UK,
December '94,
well, stuff starts to happen in the Netherlands and in Belgium.
And stuff that's unsolved.
And again, we don't know if Sweeney is our guy. We don't.
But he's worth looking at.
It's very hard to believe that somebody that kills
and mutilates and decapitates a woman in 1990
actually waits until 2001, until another body is found.
That's 11 years. That's way too long to not do anything.
For Delia, who's watched as a TV drama is made about her story,
life since Sweeney has often been hard.
Three decades on, there is hope that both the drama and her own book
might offer hope to others trapped in abusive relationships.
The impact John Sweeney has had on my friend is...
..just everything, just huge.
He's ruined her life, mentally and physically.
Delia Balmer. You know, what a brave woman.
What an extraordinary woman to have survived that attack
and to be able to have given testimony and evidence,
which is gonna be central in getting justice, not just for herself,
but also for Melissa and for Paula and for their families.
She's the one that we can truly say brought John Sweeney to justice.
I'm an angry person.
You know, I've been very bitter, and I'm still quite bitter.
And I don't like the damage done to this body.
It need not have happened.
MUSIC: 'Clair De Lune' by Debussy
I think Delia is misunderstood.
She is a really bright, inquisitive person. Compassionate.
She is actually friendly. It's... It's...
She's prickly, but...
but she's my friend, and I, I love her.
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