Neighbour, friend, killer: The murder of Wendy Buckney | BBC News

A murder investigation has been launched after the body of a woman was found in Swansea.

An unsuspecting retiree, brutally killed by her neighbour.

These videos show Brian Whitelock in the days before the murder.

But this wasn't the first time he'd killed.

It could have been prevented.

If they had listened, if he hadn't been let out, he wouldn't have been able to kill again.

So, could Brian Whitelock have been stopped?

It's early morning in the small South Wales town of Cliddock.

A man checking in on his elderly neighbour has made a shocking discovery.

Some of his call is caught on CCTV.

So has he got any blood in him?

What's happened?

Covered in it.

He is covered in blood?

Wendy!

Wendy Buckney, seen here the day before, is 71 and lives alone in her ground floor flat.

She's well known in the community as the founder of a popular local riding school and she's known for her acts of charity.

The man making the 999 call is outside Wendy's flat.

Brian Whitelock, who did odd jobs for her, has just walked out of her front door.

Brian is described as just wearing his boxer shorts.

Those boxer shorts are inside out.

He is covered in what appears to be blood.

And Brian pretty much confesses to killing Wendy.

When police arrive, he keeps talking.

It's all, oh, my God, why have I killed her?

He uses the words torture, and he tortured her, and she was begging him to stop.

He's asked by the witnesses at the scene, what have you done to Wendy, what have you used?

And he basically says he's used everything, which transpires to be an accurate description.

Oh, my God.

This was a particularly brutal murder with a number of weapons, including a knife, a chair leg and pieces of shelving, and inflicted so many injuries on her that the pathologist couldn't accurately count them.

So it was a sustained and very brutal attack.

After Brian Whitelock's arrest, police quickly make another discovery.

The 55-year-old has killed twice before.

The man has appeared before magistrates in Swansea, charged with murdering two men, one of them his own brother.

The early noughties in Swansea in South Wales.

It's a bustling city with a thriving nightlife and a football team fighting relegation from the second division.

27-year-old Nicky Morgan was born and bred here, one of four siblings.

He's a social boy, you know.

He liked different things.

He loved being with his family.

He loved that.

He loved a bit of a party.

So if there was a match, he'd probably meet up with his friends, make their way down there.

If they were on a match, sometimes he'd be in.

He was either cracking a joke or telling us something that he'd done or...

Normal, normal family.

Nothing different than anybody else.

Nicky lived with his family in an estate on the outskirts of the city.

His friend, Glen Whitelock, lived on the same street.

That's one of our favourites.

That's what's on his grave.

Christmas.

With his turkey leg.

Nicky's older sister, Melanie, lived around the corner.

We were in bed.

It was middle of the night.

My mother rang me to tell me that there was a house fire in Glen's house.

So I didn't really know why she was telling me that at that time of the night.

And then she said that old Nicky was in the house.

Nicky and Glen both lost their lives.

it took days for Nicky's body to be formally identified.

But the fire was not accidental.

Glen's brother, Brian Whitelock, had also been in the house.

He was quickly arrested.

33-year-old Brian Whitelock is accused of killing his 35-year-old brother, Glen, and another man, 27-year-old Nicholas Morgan, in the blaze in the Blyna Mice area of Swansea last week.

In court, it emerged that Brian had violently attacked Nicky in a drunken rage.

He had then set the house on fire to cover his tracks.

His own brother was sleeping upstairs.

He was convicted of murder and manslaughter and sentenced to life with a minimum term of 18 years in prison.

After sentencing, the relief for Nicky's family was clear.

They should bring back Captain punishment for people like that.

We will never recover from the cold, callous and horrific injuries that white lock inflicted upon Nicky.

The family felt anger and disgust at the total lack of remorse shown by the defendant.

Nothing changed then, did it?

20-odd years?

No.

Well, it was a relief.

A relief that somebody was going to be held accountable.

But it was upsetting as well, you know, to know that somebody was capable of doing what they'd done to him.

Just that evil face.

Wicked, as it says.

Yeah, wicked.

Underneath the picture, wicked.

Wicked, right, look.

Life for an evil killer.

She was at a meeting with the parole board just after the end of this case.

And then nothing for 18 years.

Nothing at all.

Brian Whitelock went to live in the small former industrial town of Cliddock.

He was under strict conditions, including that he wasn't allowed to travel to certain parts of Swansea.

But word quickly got out to the family.

Brian was spotted in places he wasn't supposed to be.

You'd have instant messages where somebody would tell us he'd been seen.

You're doing probation.

They would tell us to ring the police.

We'd ring the police, and the police would just say then to report it to probation.

And we assumed that then he'd be taken back into prison, but it never came to that.

We just lived in panic, really.

Are you gonna bump into him?

Are you gonna see him?

Is he gonna say anything?

Is he gonna do anything?

We just didn't know.

Then, in 2020, during the height of COVID, Brian Whitelock assaulted a security guard at a shop in Swansea.

To the family's relief, he was recalled to prison.

But that relief was temporary.

Despite the best efforts of Nicky Morgan's family, Brian Whitelock was released from prison back to the same flat in Cliddock.

One neighbour in particular felt he deserved a second chance.

Wendy Buckney was well known for her bubbly, caring personality.

She lived alone, but had two sisters and many nieces, nephews and friends living nearby.

They adored her and she loved them back.

You speak to Wendy's family and you do get a flavor of who Wendy Buckney was and I would describe her as a pillar within that community, within the community of Swansea.

She ran the horse stables for decades, which I would suggest has touched the lives of probably thousands of people.

Former pupils at her riding school paid tribute to Wendy as a kind, patient teacher.

She loved helping people.

Police believe that on her last day alive, she was buying food for Brian Whitelock.

Wendy knew Brian Whitelock as a neighbour.

She had befriended him.

She knew about his history and his background.

She took the view that he deserved a second chance.

And as a result of that, she would, what I would say, look after Brian to an extent.

She would give him odd jobs to do.

She would look out for him.

She would go shopping.

Her sister, Anne, said Wendy believed she could help Brian and that her only fault was to care too much.

But in the weeks running up to her murder, other neighbors became concerned about his behavior.

Brian, try and talk to me.

All right, take your time, take your time.

Where's your phone?

Have you got any family I can ring?

Take your time, Bri.

He was buying diazepam, also known as Valium, from drug dealers off the street and taking up to 30 tablets a day.

Police were called after he was found climbing on a derelict bridge.

In the days before Wendy's murder, things escalated even further.

We get a call from a concerned neighbour around Brian's behaviour.

He's shouting out of his house, he's shouting he's got COVID, things like that.

But they were concerned enough to call us, so officers attend.

No offences are disclosed, no offences are committed.

And the officers leave.

We get a call a few hours later.

Brian is given suitable advice.

He goes back indoors.

And the neighbors are advised that if there's any continuing behaviors, to contact us.

The next incident we're involved with then is the discovery of Wendy's body.

So it's the 23rd of August, 2022, early hours of the morning.

A neighbor has concerns for Brian Whitelock.

He hears taps.

He hears water running from Brian Whitelock's flat.

Goes down to investigate in the early hours, finds the flat insecure, goes in, turns the taps off, but can see Brian's flat is devastated.

So probably about four hours later, he comes back.

Brian is still not in his flat, at which point his neighbour has even more increased concerns and actually reports Brian missing to us, to South Wales Police.

Same time he's doing that, he notices the light from Wendy's but his flat has come on and gone off and come back on.

He knows that Wendy knows about Brian and would have concerns about him, so he goes over to speak to Wendy to say that Brian is missing to see whether she may have any information.

As he gets to Wendy's flat door, he hears a person inside, and then that person comes out, and that person is Brian Whitlock.

Brian Whitlock, we've just reported missing, has come out to the girl's house and said he's killed her.

When police arrived, they entered Wendy's flat and found a scene of devastation.

The living room was completely smashed up.

A blood-spattered sofa was standing on its end.

a shelving unit had been ripped apart.

At the centre of the scene lay Wendy's body.

Her clothes had been removed.

Police believed that she was sexually assaulted.

I mean, I've been a major crime SAO for a few years now, but I have to say Wendy's was probably one of the worst I've ever seen.

From the pathologist's perspective,

He managed to count up to 70 blunt force and sharp force trauma injuries to Wendy's face, torso, arms and legs.

The difficulty I think he had, there were more injuries than that.

We appeared to have injury, over injury.

Oh my God.

What has he done?

That's plenty.

Brian Whitelock had already confessed to Wendy's murder, but in police interviews, his story changed.

When he was interviewed by the police, he claimed that he hadn't killed Wendy Buckney.

He said that there'd been shadowy figures hanging around her flat, and that by the time he had found her, she had already been attacked.

So he denied that he was involved at all, that someone else must have done it.

Brian Whitelock was charged with Wendy's murder, but later changed his story again.

This time, he admitted he'd killed Wendy, but blamed his actions on a previous head injury.

You couldn't get a more straightforward case.

On the face of this one, you had Brian Whitelock coming out of the scene with the victim's blood on him, making admissions to killing her.

So on that alone, you think,

I know what the outcome is going to be here.

But we didn't factor in Brian Whitelock.

It took 27 months for the case to get to trial.

Much of the delay was caused by Brian Whitelock, who sacked the legal teams representing him, asked for new medical reports, and eventually chose to represent himself.

The delay took its toll on Wendy's loved ones.

In a statement, her sister Anne said her family spent every day not knowing if the case would go to trial or not.

She said it was like a roller coaster that none of them wanted to be on.

Brian Whitelock's defense, that a brain injury had caused him to kill Wendy Buckney, was challenged in court by the prosecution.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Looking at those videos, you can see why people would think Brian wasn't mentally well.

However, further investigation using all the experts, the psychiatrists, neuropsychiatrists, neurosurgeons, I think it was really clear that the brain injury defense that Brian was putting forward just was not evidenced.

It wasn't there.

So then you look at what other causes there might be for that.

Brian telling witnesses post us finding Wenny's body that he's been using diazepam and street valium.

The prosecution case was that he was heavily intoxicated from diazepam and cannabis and alcohol and ultimately the jury, by their verdict, rejected his account.

It took just six minutes for the jury to reach their verdict.

When the foreman stood up to say guilty, he looked directly at Brian Whitelock.

Wendy's sister Anne was in court.

In a statement, she said her other sister, Rosemary, was so affected by the murder, she could no longer leave the house.

While the verdict brought some measure of justice, they said they would never be able to move on.

So our thoughts are with Wendy's family today, especially her sister, Anne, who we have watched endure the same pain and suffering as we did previously during the trial with absolutely no remorse shown by him.

My last words to the parole board were that I can categorically guarantee he will do it again.

And here we are.

It took him less than a year.

From the day he was released, he was using drugs, he was drinking, he was riding around Swansea, all against his conditions.

So if you're not going to respect that part of your conditions, what else is it going to lead to?

And it could have been prevented if they had listened or made him do the sentence.

What he had as in life, if he hadn't been let out, he wouldn't have been able to kill again.

How much does Nicky still mean to you and your family after all these years?

Well, apart from him not being physically here, he's here every day.

He's still our family, he's still part of our family, a big part of our family.

I suppose the bottom line for this case is that Wendy was murdered as a result of giving somebody, in her words, a second chance.

I don't think you'll ever get over it.

I don't think as a family.

But hopefully the verdict gives them some sense of justice.

Brian Whitelock.

For the murder of Wendy Buckney, I sentence you to imprisonment for life.

This is a case of the most extreme gravity.

I have no doubt that the seriousness of this murder is so exceptionally high that just punishment requires you to be kept in prison for the rest of your life, and you will never be considered for parole.

Before I leave this case, I want to express my condolences to Wendy Buckney's family, many of whom are here in court today.

You conducted yourself throughout the trial with great dignity, but your grief is palpable.

I hope that with the passage of time, you will be able to think more and more of Wendy Buckney as she was in her life of 71 years, so that her last hours do not blot out all that was happy and good about that life and about her.

I hope that eventually you will be left with all those memories you and she would want to have.

Multiple reviews will now be held into whether the authorities, including the probation service and the parole board, could have done more to protect the public from Brian Whitelock.

The probation service said its thoughts were with Wendy's family and friends and that it would share the findings of its own review with them.

The parole board said every serious further offence is a tragedy.

It said it has already looked at its role and is committed to learning lessons.