Does Luke Evans’ character, Steve Wilkins from The Pembrokeshire Murders still work as a police officer today? What is his current address?
ITV will show a drama about the investigation in the 1980s that helped catch serial killer John Cooper.
Luke Evans, who played Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, stars as Detective Steve Wilkins in The Pembrokeshire Murders. Wilkins looks into a number of murders that happened in west Wales and thinks that Cooper did them.
Cooper was found guilty of two sets of double murders after a police investigation called “Operation Ottawa.”
Who exactly is detective Steve Wilkins, and what exactly happened to him?
The Pembrokeshire Murders: What’s the story?
ITV’s program details John Cooper’s investigation into two 1980s double killings. Police were unable to charge anyone during the original investigations, but Steve Wilkins resumed working on the case in 2006.
Steve believed he could find Cooper’s DNA on crime scene evidence with the help of forensic scientific advances.
The Pembrokeshire inquiry aims to discover the killers and put them to justice.
The Investigation Into the Cold Case Continued..
Wilkins returned to the Dyfed-Powys Police Department after two years with NCIS and began researching into Cooper.
He suspected Cooper of killing Richard and Helen Thomas in 1985 and Peter and Gwenda Dixon in 1989.
In 2005, the investigation into the cold case was reopened, but by then, Cooper was serving 16 years for armed robbery.
“During the first three years, we had no forensic link,” Wilkins told BBC News.
In 2008, a pair of shorts taken from Cooper’s house in 1996 contained a drop of Dixon’s blood.
“Soon after that, blood belonging to [Mr. Dixon] was discovered on a firearm that Cooper had used in an earlier robbery,”
Cooper was convicted of the killings and a second sexual assault after new evidence and a Bullseye recording were produced. Together, these pieces of evidence were sufficient to secure Cooper’s conviction.
Where Is Steve Wilkins The Police Officer These Days?
Mr. Wilkins was able to retire after the success of Operation Ottawa, and he later chronicled his experience investigating the unusual case in a book. Mr. Wilkins “never meant to write a book,” but he did so to “give a genuine, sensitive record” of what happened.
In 2013, The Pembrokeshire Murders: Catching the Bullseye Killer was published.
Jonathan Hill, an ITV news reporter who covered the murders and is the basis for the upcoming ITV drama, worked with the author to write this piece.
Mr. Wilkins was “surprised” when Hollywood actor Evan Evans was selected to play him in the three-part series based on his novel.
“When they mentioned Luke Evans was in it, I was actually startled,” he told Wales Online. When I finally did meet him, I understood why.
He continued by saying, “A lot of people were making jokes about how Johnny Vegas or someone else should portray me.”
Mr. Wilkins, who has since relocated back to his birthplace in Cheshire, expressed his admiration for the approach taken by Evans and the rest of the ensemble.
“I looked at it as I wanted to preserve the relationship I have with the families, and they were very sensitive,” he added. “I looked at it from the point of view that I wanted to keep my relationships with the families.”
Because I did not want anything that was sensational, they adhered extremely closely to the details of the situation.
