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A parent’s love is often defined by an instinctive desire to see the best in their child.
Even as the horrifying truth about serial killer Steven Wright’s gruesome acts came to light, his father initially struggled to believe the monstrous capabilities of his own son.
“I couldn’t believe he’d do something so horrific,” Conrad Wright admitted, reflecting on those dark times.
Steven Wright, known for his quiet demeanor as a truck driver and family man, was infamously labeled the Suffolk Strangler. In 2008, he was convicted of brutally murdering five women—all sex workers—during a six-week rampage in Ipswich.
It was only last month that new revelations linked Wright to one of the nation’s most notorious unsolved murders, occurring years before his 2006 spree that claimed the lives of Tania Nicol, 19; Gemma Adams, 25; Anneli Alderton, 24; Paula Clennell, 24; and Annette Nicholls, 29.
In 1999, Wright had abducted, raped, and murdered 17-year-old Victoria Hall as she was returning home from a nightclub in Trimley St Mary, near Felixstowe.
In the last interview before he died in 2021, Conrad Wright, 84, revealed for the first time the moment he knew his son was a ‘monster hiding in plain sight’.
The Daily Mail has obtained the previously unpublished interview – and others across a number of years – which provide a unique insight into the warped mind of Wright by the man who thought he knew him.
Conrad admitted: ‘I believe he is guilty and could have murdered more women.
‘He’s my son. And he turned into a mass murderer.’
Steve Wright (right) alongside his father Conrad Wright who admitted his son was a ‘monster hiding in plain sight’
Conrad Wright believed his son’s hatred for women might have stemmed from feeling abandoned and rejected by his mother (pictured, Wright as a younger man)
Wright was living with his father, a former RAF policeman, at the time in Trimley St Mary, home to only a few thousand people.
But the link to Victoria Hall was not made when Wright was caught for the murders of the five women years later.
I’m Sam Greenhill, Chief Reporter, and nearly 25 years ago I had an encounter with killer Ian Huntley that still sends shivers down my spine.
Huntley is one Britain¿s most notorious child murderers. But when I was invited into his home for tea and biscuits days before he was arrested for the Soham Murders, this was the last thing on my mind. I’ve written about it in The Crime Desk newsletter – sign up to read it for free.
All five victims had all been reported missing towards the end of 2006.
Then, over the course of less than a fortnight, they were each found naked, their bodies dumped in ditches, streams and remote locations around Suffolk.
In chilling echoes of the Yorkshire Ripper case and the Soham murders, when both suspects were interviewed but not arrested, suspicious officers pulled over Wright on two separate occasions when he was out cruising the red light district.
But the breakthrough came when DNA evidence taken from three of the suspects matched Wright’s. He was arrested.
Blood belonging to two of the women was found on his hi-vis jacket, along with specks of blood in his car.
CCTV and numberplate recognition technology had also placed his car in the red light district at the time several of the women disappeared.
His trial heard Wright picked up the women while they worked in the streets around his home before killing them while they were incapacitated by heavy doses of drugs.
Wright admitted he had sex with the women but he denied killing them. He said it was merely coincidental that forensic evidence linked him to all five.
He was handed a rare whole-life term when he was sentenced for his killing spree.
Conrad died of heart failure not knowing his son had strangled Victoria Hall.
But speaking shortly before he died, he said: ‘Steven was quiet and unassuming – but perhaps he was a monster hiding in plain sight.
‘He must be a strong suspect for other unsolved murders.’
Conrad never spoke to or received a letter from Wright after his conviction, despite trying to reach out to him in prison. The killer also ostracised his extended family.
In the aftermath of the 2020 Covid pandemic and with his health ailing, Conrad considered phoning his son in jail.
Serial killer Steve Wright was seen grinning in a prison mugshot after pleading guilty to the murder of 17-year-old Victoria Hall in 1999
In a six-week frenzy in 2006, Wright went on the rampage, killing Annette Nicholls, left, and Paula Clennell, right
Anneli Alderton, pictured left, and Tania Nicol, right, were sex workers also killed by Wright in the attacks
Gemma Adams, then 25, pictured, was one of the victims of Wright’s murder spree in Ipswich’s red-light district in 2006
But he feared the bad news might tip the killer over the edge.
He said: ‘I was half expecting some contact – perhaps a phone call from jail. But he hasn’t.
‘I have been asked ‘do you want to ring him in prison?
‘But to be honest, he is accustomed to life in jail and I wouldn’t want to upset him.
‘A phone call from outside, from me, might upset him and he could do something silly, like suicide.
‘I don’t want him to do anything stupid.’
Conrad had his own theory as to why Wright had become a woman-hating killer.
He believed the seeds of evil had been sown after his mum left the family home to move to America.
Conrad claimed that his first wife Patricia left him for an American serviceman in 1964, when Wright was six.
They were divorced in 1977 and Conrad later remarried his son’s babysitter Valerie. They had two children.
She died of cancer aged 64 in 2011.
Patricia went to live in the United States and only came back once in the 1990s.
Conrad Wright never spoke to or received a letter from his son (pictured) after his conviction, despite trying to reach out to him in prison
Victoria Hall (pictured) vanished on her way home from a nightclub in September 1999
CCTV released by the CPS shows Steve Wright visiting a petrol station on the day he abducted Victoria Hall in 1999
Pictured: Police at the ditch in the village of Creeting St Peter in Suffolk, where Victoria Hall’s body was found five days after she went missing
Pictured: Steve Wright’s home in Ipswich is cordoned off and searched by forensics officers after his arrest in 2006
Conrad said that Wright felt abandoned and rejected her.
He believes this could have been at the core of his hatred for women. ‘He said to me: ”Why has she come back now? She didn’t want me.”’
He also revealed that his son did not get on with step-mother Valerie. ‘She tried to bring them up but they ganged up on her’, he revealed.
For her part, Patricia claimed in an interview in the News of the World that she was forced to leave because the marriage had grown violent.
She said that she had wanted to take the children and that Wright was afraid of his father, but was prevented from doing so.
Conrad said his son must have had a split personality as he never showed any signs of violence to him.
He recalled Wright spending days watching him playing cricket and then drinking pints in a village pub.
Conrad also lived under the same roof as Wright and his two wives at different times.
He said: ‘They never once told me he was physically or verbally aggressive to them.
‘You would think I would have heard any arguments – or one of them would have taken me aside and told me what was going on if he was being violent.
‘But there was nothing. To me, he was a good son who I could have a few quiet pints with.
‘He was always respectful towards women as far as I was concerned. Steve must have been a sort of Jekyll and Hyde character.’
