Suzanne Capper died of multiple organ failure at Withington Hospital on December 18, 1992, after being intentionally set on fire by a group of people she considered her friends. Suzanne said before her death that she had previously been kidnapped and held in detention for seven days.
Suzanne was known as a “high-spirited, well-mannered girl who would help her stepfather out around the house and was thoroughly polite.”
Who was Suzanne Capper?
Suzanne Capper was described by her mother as a “gentle and easily influenced girl,” Suzanne had been babysitting for Jean Powell since she was 10 years old. Suzanne and her sister had spent time in the care of local authorities after the separation of their mother Elizabeth Capper and stepfather John in 1990. Suzanne and her sister then lived with their stepfather.
During this time, Suzanne became less interested in school and began truancy from Boston Brook High School, and her attendance in the last two years was described as “erratic.” Soon, Suzanne began to spend more time at Jean Powell’s house, for whom she babysat as a 10-year-old. Powell’s house at 97 Langworthy Road was a drug-dealing hotspot and she was also involved in stolen motor vehicles.
Michelle Capper lived with Powell for a short time because she didn’t like the “nasty new friends” that Suzanne was associated with. “I tried to stop Suzanne from going there, but she had a very strong will,” John said. But John had no idea what was going on behind closed doors.
John had a strange feeling about the house and those who visited it frequently, calling it “the house of evil.” In Powell’s house young Suzzane coincided with the wrong crowd. Jean’s ex-husband Glyn was convicted of burglary, theft, drunkenness, and disorder.
Clifford Hayes, Jean’s brother, was Suzanne’s ex-boyfriend. Anthony Dodson Jean’s on-again-off-again boyfriend. Bernadette McNeilly, a drug addict mother of three, her boyfriend was Anthony, who also had sexual intercourse with Jean Powell. Jean was also involved with Jeffrey Leigh, who was convicted of robbing his 86-year-old disabled aunt.
Suzanne continued to visit Powell, even though almost everyone was harassing her and taking advantage of her friendly and soft nature. “It was not that she was afraid of them, it’s just she would do anything for them. She pampered their every whim, her sister recalled.
At the end of 1992, Suzanne went to live with her mother after being beaten by Jean. When Suzanne asked to be allowed to stay in the house, her mother cruelly rejected her. Suzanne’s mother said her boyfriend would not allow it. Suzanne did not want to go to Jean’s house because she was afraid, but she had no choice, so she walked back to Jean’s house.
“I believe if she had done something to help Suzanne, things might be very different today. As a parent myself I would find what Suzanne’s mother did very hard to live with,” said Michelle’s fiancé, Paul Barlow.
Jean Powell claimed in 1992 that Suzanne had stolen a pink duffle coat that belonged to her, infecting them all with pubic lice. When Dodson had picked up pubic lice and shaved his pubic hair, McNeilly told him that she thought he had caught her by Capper. At the time, Anthony was sexually involved with Jean, Bernadette, and Suzanne.
While these assumptions - true or not - would come to a nasty end for Suzanne Capper, the group lured Suzanne to Jean’s house on the pretext that a man she had imagined was there and wanted to see her. Little did Suzanne know that her friends wanted to kill her when she entered the house, she was detained while Glyn shaved her head and eyebrows. After shaving her hair, Glyn put a plastic bag over her head and walked around her while striking her head.
Everyone in the gang took their turn, laughing and shouting, hitting her with belt buckles and three-foot-long wooden instrument. After that, she was taken to the bathroom where she was forced to shave her own pubic hair, and afterward, she was locked in a cupboard overnight.
Suzanne’s screams and cries disturbed Jean and Bernadette’s children, who also lived in the same house, so the gang moved Suzanne upstairs and locked her in another closet. On December 8th, they moved Suzanne to McNeill’s abandoned house because their childrenn were disturbed by Suzanne’s screams.
There Suzanne was tied to an upturned bed in a bedroom with electroflex. Over the next five days, she was subjected to a series of acts of violence that “only increased in severity and brutality over time.” Her two front teeth were torn out with pliers and another was torn in half, exposing her nerves.
She was regularly beaten and injected with amphetamine, burned with cigarettes, and during all the torture and abuse, she was subjected to a tape recorder on which Chucky repeated “I am Chucky, I want to play” over headphones, as well as rave music at maximum volume.
Suzanne died inside from the tortures she was subjected to, but Jean and her gang did not stop - Suzanne had been sitting in her own urine and feces for several days. Once, she was put in a bath with concentrated disinfectant and scrubbed with a stiff brush with sufficient force to remove her skin.
In the early hours of December 14, 1992, all six gang members agreed that Suzanne Capper had to be removed from the house after Michelle Capper announced that her stepfather would report her missing to the police.
Suzanne was forced into the boot of a stolen white Fiat Panda and driven 15 miles to a remote wooded area near Stockport, where she was pushed out of the car and pushed down an embankment where she rolled through leaves and thorns that severed her bare feet.
They did not stop, McNeill poured petrol over Suzanne but had difficulty setting the petrol on fire, and after three failed attempts, Dudson said: “In the end, he just walked up to her with a lighter and lit it. She immediately went up in flames and screamed. The flames lit up the whole forest.” The gang thought she was dead and left the scene laughing and singing: “Burn, baby, burn.”
Suzanne, however, did not die immediately, as her attackers believed, and after they left, she staggered up the embankment and was found by Barry Sutcliffe and two of his colleagues driving to work. Suzanne thanked Barry repeatedly and said to them, “Over in the field. They burned me, they put petrol on me with gasoline…” Although they did not have to be told what happened to her, as was evident from the skin hanging from her body.
They immediately took her to a nearby house to call an ambulance. Michael and Margaret, the residents, described Suzanne’s condition as follows: “Her hands looked like ashes, her legs were like raw flesh and her feet appeared to be badly charred. I was impressed by how polite the victim was. She kept thanking my wife for her help… I instinctively put my arms around her, but she pulled away because she couldn’t bear to be touched. Her head was shaved and there were new, not new, cuts to her head. Her face was almost faceless, her hands were red and black from the burns, she could not bear anything near her legs. “
When the couple called her in, she drank six glasses of water but was unable to hold the glass herself due to the injuries on her hands.
Suzanne was taken to the hospital and was able to give the names of her attackers and Powell’s address before she fell into a comma. She had suffered so many burns that not even her mother and stepfather could recognize her. Suzanne was identified by a partial fingerprint of her thumb, only a part of her body that was not burned.
Sadly, Suzanne died four days later in Withington Hospital, but not before she had named all her killers.
When police arrived at 97 Langworthy Road, they found Suzanne’s hair in the trash can, a bloody pair of pliers and Suzanne’s discarded teeth. Officers arrested anyone they found in the house. Jean Powell and Bernadette McNeilly laughed and joked with each other when they were arrested. At first, all denied involvement, but Anthony, who had been urged by his father to tell the truth, began to speak.
“When the story began, we just couldn’t believe it. I kept wondering how one person could do this to another,” said one of the detectives involved in the case. Even the most persistent officers were moved to tears when they discovered the extent of Suzanne’s suffering.
During the trial, everyone turned on each other to lessen the blame on themselves. Also, no one confessed to the last act of horror, the burning of Suzanne. According to Jean, she was in the car while the other set Suzanne on fire. She claimed, “I was numb. I was scared.” She said that she locked Suzanne in a closet “for her own safety” and she loved her “like a sister.” She also claimed that she had injected Suzanne with amphetamines to protect her from injecting heroin. Anthony told the court that Glyn was the one who set Suzanne on fire.
Trial and Sentence
As the judge delivered the verdicts, two jurors wept and there were shouts of “Yes! Yes” from the public gallery, which was filled with relatives of the victim.
During the sentencing, Judge Francis Potts described the murder as appalling a murder as it is possible to imagine. Jean Powell, Bernadette, and Glyn Powell were sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 25 years. Jeffrey Leigh was sentenced to 15 years. Jean’s sentence was reduced by two years after she allegedly showed remorse and helped prevent a prison escape. Bernadette, Jeffrey Leigh, and Clifford Hayes have all since been released.
Now that you’ve read about the horrifying murder of Suzanne Capper, read about the murder of Jennifer Daugherty who was killed by people whom she considered friends.
