A murderer who fled to Thailand after bludgeoning his landlord to death is starting a life sentence after a weekly newspaper helped bring him to justice.
Stuart Crawford was yesterday convicted of killing retired heating engineer Michael Ryan following a joint undercover operation between the Metropolitan Police’s murder squad and the Sutton Guardian.
He was tracked down after sending an email to the paper’s editor Matthew Knowles asking for £20,000 in return for information about the case.
Matthew then began a lengthy correspondence with the fugitive which led ultimately to an undercover manhunt halfway across the globe.
He was finally caught after a police ambush at his home in Thailand after he revealed his address in one of the emails.
Said Matthew: “As a reporter, I am used to receiving tip-offs on all manner of stories.
“However, I would never have suspected this email would lead to an undercover police operation which resulted in the arrest and conviction of a wanted killer.”
Here is Matthew’s full account of how the killer was ultimately trapped.
The email was short and to the point. “I have information about the brutal murder of Michael Ryan. I want to tell you my story.”
It was signed Stuart Crawford and arrived on my computer from a Yahoo account on Friday lunchtime in March last year.
As a reporter, I am used to receiving tip-offs on all manner of stories.
However, I would never have suspected this email would lead to an undercover police operation which resulted in the arrest and conviction of a wanted killer.
I recalled the murder of Michael Ryan, a genial grandfather who was found battered to death and rolled in a carpet in his flat in Devonshire Road, Sutton, in September 2008.
The man suspected of his killing was his lodger, who flew out of Britain shortly afterwards.
Months went by and the case slowly became another unsolved statistic.
This could be the break the case was looking for. I did not want to scare him off with too many questions but I needed to see if he was genuine. I sent an innocuous email back asking for more details.
His reply came at 3.55am and was blunt and to the point.
“I will tell you my story then return to the UK to face the music. I will call you when the time is right.
“I want £20,000 for my full and accurate story, half now, half after. Non-negotiable.”
I convinced him to send over proof of his identity and he sent his driver’s licence along with the startling admission he was Mr Ryan’s lodger and would be confessing his crime.
He revealed he was staying in Bangkok, Thailand, and had fled the UK on September 5, two days after Mr Ryan’s killing.
He wrote: “I don’t want to keep running. I need to tell what happened and why. I can’t live with myself for keeping this information to myself. I will be confessing to what I did on the 3rd of Sept 2008.
“I’m not really a bad man but the last five or so years have been very difficult for me but nothing can condone what I did.”
Bizarrely, he also negotiated his fee down to £5,000 without prompting and demanded an instant payment of £1,000 to be transferred by Western Union. It was time to call the police.
Detective Inspector Bob Campany, a murder detective with 15 years experience of the darker side of south London, and his colleague Detective Sergeant Danny Gosling, had been chasing Crawford since his flight.
As part of a cunning plan it was agreed I would continue to contact Crawford to maintain continuity while they worked behind the scenes to secure an international arrest warrant.
Fittingly on April 1, 2010, I began an undercover police operation to fool Crawford into thinking the Sutton Guardian would pay him substantial sums of money in order to hear his side of events.
We had our fish on a hook but now had to reel him in – but there was a major problem.
The volatile political situation in Thailand – at the time it was undergoing violent revolution – combined with the already incredibly slow wheels of justice over there, would mean we had to keep him interested potentially for the next few weeks, if not months.
Crawford had already made it clear he was desperate to get hold of some money as he admitted his visa had expired and he faced jail in Thailand if he was caught overstaying.
A week after our email exchange began he was putting the pressure on.
“I really can’t believe it takes this long to sort things out. It’s very simple really. If you don’t send the money then you won’t get my story,” he wrote.
What he did not know is we had zero intention of paying him anything. Not only would it be deeply unethical to pay a wanted criminal for his story but there was no guarantee once he got hold of some cash he would not run away to another country.
We had to slow things down. We had an advantage with the six hour time delay between countries so he rarely could respond after I sent our message so I could not get into a dialogue with him.
We decided to only answer his responses before the weekend so he would have to stew before I could arrive at work to check his answers.
We also began the first part of the sting, which was to get Crawford to agree to a meeting with me in Bangkok.
It was crucial to our plan to know where Crawford would be so that police would have an opportunity to catch him.
Using the excuse of identity fraud and the possibility of losing the money in transit I asked for a face to face meeting in Bangkok to clinch the deal.
Crawford was not easily fooled and got angry, still demanding an immediate payment of £1,000.
He wrote: “I know who I am and what I have done. If I was an impostor I would never know anything about the case, dates, times, etc, plus I have many details about the case that no one else could possibly know.
“I need to clear everything before I come home. This is the only way it can be Matt, otherwise I will just walk away but I don’t really want to do that.”
Two days later he wrote again, this time a little more contrite.
“I do need some money now… you will pay me the remaining amount in cash, only cash, and please – no funny business.
“I really want to try to see my mum and my daughter when I get back but I know this will be difficult as I may be detained at the airport.
“After seeing my family I will give myself up to the police in Sutton.
“I do want to do the right thing but the first thing that I need to do is to clear my financial situation otherwise I won’t be able to leave Thailand.”
Crawford’s patience was evidently wearing thin and by April 20, with no money from us and very little developments, he wrote: “You asked me to be patient Matt and I think that I have, but this is taking the piss, you need to let me know what is happening.”
Sensing he would not buy any more excuses from me, we brought in the lawyers.
If anything was going to make lengthy delays believable to Crawford it was the involvement of solicitors.
I mocked up a fake newspaper contract for the money with the usual caveats of exclusivity and asked him to post a signed copy back to us in the hope of delaying things considerably.
Crawford smelled a rat again, however, writing: “I really feel that this is all bullshit and you are just stringing me along maybe because you are in contact with the police and they are telling you to do this, so I will make this very clear, do things to my requests, as I want them, or we really don’t have anything left to talk about.”
A day later he had had enough. He wrote: “I don’t know what your game is but I don’t want to play any more, I’m not wasting any more time waiting for you to reply to my emails so it ends now. I will approach other papers to see if they can help me but will have no more contact with you.”
It looked like it was game over, so I compiled a long response blaming the lawyers, telling him we were close to a deal and arguing that this situation could land us in a lot of trouble with both the police and the Press Complaints Commission.
I had no idea if it would work but it was all we could do. We were all frustrated with the length of time it was taking to get the arrest warrant but could do nothing until we had it.
It was eight tense days later that I received an email from Thailand.
“Just to let you know that I have signed the contract and sent it to you. You should receive it in about a week. Stuart.”
The fish had once again taken the bait. We had another stroke of luck during this time as over in Iceland an unpronounceable volcano erupted causing widespread chaos to airlines across the world and seriously disrupted air mail.
Crawford bought it and we delayed the situation for well over a month.
He eventually faxed the contract back on June 14, and had even unbelievably included his full home address in South Pattaya, 90 miles south-east of Bangkok, where he originally claimed to be living.
Crawford was understandably still very frustrated with the length of time everything was taking and was very suspicious.
He wrote: “I really hope that you are being straight with me Matt? I do realise that you could easily be sharing all this with the police, after all you now have a signed confession to his murder.”
We had managed to keep Crawford’s interest for more than three months, far longer than we imagined it would take to get the documentation the police needed to arrest him.
We realised Crawford was absolutely desperate to get his hands on some money and was genuinely scared of being apprehended by the authorities in Thailand.
We could use his fear and desperation to our advantage and decided to delay the process further by telling him I was on holiday until the end of July and our lawyers were still thrashing things out at head office.
Things were moving ahead at a pace with the police and we were just days away from getting the warrant, so it was time to step things up in the sting.
I told Crawford I was going to fly over to meet him very shortly and needed him to agree to a set of security arrangements, which included letting us pick the location we should meet.
We knew where he was living and had Interpol confirm it was legitimate.
It was originally planned to lure Crawford to a hotel so Royal Thai Police could ambush him there. But in the end, as he had so generously provided his address, it was decided to arrest him at his house.
He had no idea what was about to happen.
I received a text from Detective Inspector Campany on August 5 telling me officers from the Royal Thai Police had raided his home.
After more than two years on the run, the man who battered Michael Ryan to death had been caught.
We exchanged more than 60 emails over a five-month period and these emails formed a major part in unravelling Crawford’s lies in a week-long court case.
Prosecutor Philip Bennetts chose to use Crawford’s email to the Sutton Guardian to end the prosecution case.
The email, sent from Thailand, was read out in court.
It said: “Yes, I will be confessing to what I did Matt. I’m not really a bad man. I know I need to be punished. I will accept my fate.”
Mr Bennetts said: “Crawford will not accept his fate. The truth could be too awful for him to accept – that he killed Michael Ryan purely for greed.”
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