Bradford & District | Archive | 2000 | September | 8
From the Telegraph & Argus, first published Friday 8th Sep 2000.
Keighley killer Michael Sams this week featured in a television documentary about the police investigation which eventually led to his arrest.
The programme, called Manhunt -- Evil Calling, traced West Yorkshire Police detectives' efforts to catch one-legged Sams, who murdered Leeds teenager Julie Dart and abducted estate agent Stephanie Slater.
The film was made by Shipley-born producer Mark Handscombe, of Ray Fitzwater Associates.
He says: "We are both from the same area I suppose, but that is just a curious irony. I was fascinated by this extraordinary story of how a one-legged man could evade so many police for so long."
Sams sparked a nationwide manhunt in 1991 when he kidnapped and murdered Julie Dart.
Six months later he kidnapped Stephanie Slater, keeping her tied up, blindfolded and half-naked in a wooden box at his tool repair workshop in Nottinghamshire for eight days before he finally released her.
In a bid to free Miss Slater, police agreed to pay a £175,000 ransom demand, but Sams gave 1,000 police officers the slip when they tried to trap him as the money was handed over near a disused railway track in Barnsley.
He was eventually brought to justice when a photofit picture and an extract from a ransom tape were featured on the BBC Crimewatch programme.
His first wife Susan Oake -- who still lives in the Keighley area -- recognised his voice.
Sams, now 59, received four life sentences in 1993.
He was born at Keighley in 1941 and grew up in Exley Head and Stockbridge.
He served briefly with the merchant navy and worked for the Keighley Lift Company before becoming a heating engineer.
The former Bingley Harriers athlete moved away from Keighley in the late 1970s. Latterly he lived at Sutton-on-Trent.
© Newsquest Media Group 2008