Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #361: The Vanishing of Wendy Upton (Steve Salisbury, Lichfield)12/8/2026 
Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-ONE: Wednesday the 7th of October 1998, 40-year-old Wendy Upton of Lichfield went to her local Tesco’s to buy the basics, and vanished without a trace. For nine months, there was no trace of her; no sightings, no calls and her bank account wasn’t touched, her husband believed she had been murdered, but the Police held firm to their belief that she was missing, had fled, or had overdosed. But what was the truth, and how did her killer subvert the investigation to his own need?
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m in Lichfield, Staffordshire, where the hunt for a missing woman led to a callous killer in their midst. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 361: The Vanishing of Wendy Upton. It seems impossible that anyone could go missing in the modern era, that a person - with friends, family and a life - could be seen going about their everyday business one minute, and vanish the next. Wendy Ann Upton (as she was later known) was born on the 11th of May 1958 in the city of Lichfield in Staffordshire, and like so many others she was ordinary and unremarkable. She didn’t court danger, she didn’t make enemies, and she didn’t stand out as a target to any sex pests, deadbeats or thieves. She was a smaller-than-average woman (five foot two and eight stone), she was no healthier or sicker than anyone else, she struggled through life’s trials and tribulations, and with pale skin, green eyes and auburn hair, she was pretty in her own way, but drew little attention – as I said, she was ordinary. What made Wendy so memorable was her warm and generous personality. Those who knew her said she was “a lovely woman, happy, lively, a free spirit”, she was fun-loving, her face always beamed with a beautiful smile, and “she didn’t have a malicious bone in her body”. They said “she would give you her last penny even if she couldn’t afford it, but if she didn’t have a penny, she’d give you something of hers to help make your life better”, and if she had to borrow some money, she always paid it back. When the Police examined her photo albums to learn more about her life, it was filled photos of this wonderful woman enjoying her life, with her arms wrapped around her wealth of life-long friends; happy, smiling and living her life to the full, whether on trips to Wales or the Glastonbury Festival. Having met in 1985, in July 1991, she married Peter Upton of the nearby town Burntwood, who earned a modest income as a gardener and planned to start his own business, and although he said “she told me she loved me every day of the thirteen years we were together”, they never had any children. Maybe this was a conscious choice, maybe they couldn’t conceive, or maybe her heart was truly broken having given up her baby daughter for adoption back in 1977 when she was just 19 years old? By 1998, the year she went missing, her life had taken a turn for the worse; she was unemployed, she was broke, she was living on benefits, and had an addiction to amphetamines. It was never said why; whether prescribed by a doctor to help her with ADHD (as it sharpens focus and reduces impulse control), narcolepsy (as it’s a stimulant), obesity (as it suppresses the appetite), or for recreational use. As a registered drug addict, she was receiving counselling, and according to Peter her husband, she’d got her addiction under control and trying to piece her life together, she had everything to live for. So, how and why did she vanish into thin air? Wednesday the 7th of October 1998 was an ordinary day in Lichfield, but elsewhere; President Clinton was embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal, the Kosovo war was escalating, Myra Hindley was appealing her ‘whole life’ tariff, and actor Kevin Lloyd who played Tosh from British TV series The Bill had died. That year, Peter & Wendy Upton had moved from Mesnes Green, south of Lichfield City train station, to Crane Field, a cul-de-sac on the Dimbles Estate comprising a handful of post-war council houses. As far as we know, her day began no better or worse than any other, and with dusk falling at 6:27pm, as they had ran out of the basics, it wasn’t unusual for her to head out to the supermarket for essentials. Dressed in a dark calf-length floral skirt, dark jacket and a white top, she told her husband “just going to Tesco’s”, a journey she had made hundreds of times before in this city she had lived in all her life. With it being cold and drizzly with lows of 8 degrees, she wasn’t wearing a coat as she wouldn’t be out for long, she hadn’t a mobile phone, and she had no bank cards in her handbag, just £2 in her pocket. Her route to the Tesco’s on Church Street was simple; a zig-zag path onto Dimbles Lane, down Dimbles Hill, into Curborough Road (where she had friends in the Ash Court flats), over St Chad’s Road (and in a pay phone, at 7:30pm, she called her friend on Wissage Road, 33-year-old single mother-of-six, Karen Cook, and made plans to meet up, but Wendy never arrived), she walked around the edge of Stowe Pool (where she was seen by someone who knew her at 8:30pm, 90 minutes later, even though this was a 25 minute walk), she crossed over Stowe Road into Partridge Croft (passing Smithfield Rise), up St Michael’s Road to the Tesco’s – a smaller version of current Tesco’s Extra, being demolished in 2009. She didn’t look harassed or afraid, rushed or flustered, she was just a chatty and likeable woman on her way to the supermarket for the basics, barely an hour before it was due to close for the evening. At 9:09pm, CCTV captured her entering the store, she bought nothing, she spoke to her friend, Steve, a security guard, they chatted briefly, she asked to borrow some money off him which he said he’d loan her tomorrow, and at 9:15pm, six minutes later, Steve saw her take that same ‘zig zag’ path home. Wendy was never seen alive again… …and she vanished without a trace. Worried, Peter spent the night searching for her and calling her friends as she had never gone missing before, and by lunchtime the next day, with no sign of her, he reported her missing to the Police. After a week with no calls, no confirmed sightings, her bank account untouched and no benefits withdrawn, even though this was unusual for her, the Police stated “we do not believe she has come to any harm”. Police had three theories as to where Wendy was; she had ran away to start a new life in Ireland with her friends, she’d gone in search of the daughter she had given up for adoption 21 years before, or as a registered drug addict, she may have overdosed and been disposed of by someone who was scared. Karen Cook, her friend, told the press: “I don’t think she is dead. She’s too clever. I think she’d planned it for a while… she’s gone and wants to be left alone. I don’t think she’s dead for one minute. She may have gone to look for her mum or her adopted daughter”, and many friends had the same thought, so it makes sense that Detective Chief Inspector Peter Hall, who headed up the missing person’s hunt for Wendy Upton stated “the suggestion is that Wendy is dead, though not necessarily murdered”. So, where was Wendy? As she didn’t suffer with depression, suicide was ruled out, but the detectives continued to check any bodies found against her medical record. Her home was searched, but no clothes or bags were missing, she hadn’t a passport, and she was so broke, she would barely have had the bus fare to leave the city. Being a case where a wife had vanished for no reason, her husband, Peter was suspected. Police poked into their past, spoke to their friends, examined their bank and phone records, and with Peter being a gardener, they removed nine paving slabs from the patio in their back garden at Crane Field, as a shed had recently been removed from this spot, but Peter had sold it, as without Wendy, he couldn’t work. After six months with no sightings, and mounting pressure by locals, on the 15th of April 1999, Police held a press conference appealing for Wendy’s safe return. Sat beside DCI Hall, Peter pleaded “I have no idea where she is. I hope she is alive. We were in love. I would like to appeal to Wendy, if you are out there, I would like to know if you are safe and well”, he appeared to be grief-stricken and broken. Also taking part in the appeal was Steve the Tesco’s security guard, who was last to see her alive, “we talked about a friend Pete had round the flat, she was edgy and nervous when she mentioned him. I didn’t question her. I wouldn’t force her to tell me what was wrong. I didn’t want to get involved. I hope she’s alive. I miss speaking to her. I think she was in trouble, but I was waiting for her to tell me”. Police investigated Peter’s friend, and he was ruled out as a suspect. With no proof of life, desperate for any tip as every avenue of inquiry had ended in dust, a phone line was set-up at the incident room “with a reward of ‘up to £10,000’ for any information which leads to a conviction, the finding of her body or evidence of wrongdoing”. But this was hit by disaster, when on day one, the faulty equipment had knocked out the phone lines at Lichfield CID for 18 hours. But some promising leads did come in. Of the 600+ calls, some gave names, some gave addresses, and on the 6th of May, a caller said that Wendy had “asked to borrow cash and needed it desperately”, which backed-up the security guard’s statement. And on the 5th of July, an anonymous male caller said “she’s been murdered, her body taken out of Lichfield to be disposed of”. This could have been a hoax, so Detective Sergent Simon Chapman said “no-one has told us where the body is, or if there is a body, but we’ve had information as to the area where it might be. We have been told it is outside Lichfield, but that is not to say we’re not keeping our options open”. They investigated, and although a female body was pulled from the River Trent in nearby Burton, “officers have not ruled out that it could be Wendy”… but it wasn’t. To capitalise on the re-investigation of this missing person’s case, on the 18th of May 1999 at 10:10pm, an appeal was broadcast on BBC Crimewatch, an episode which drew in 8 million viewers being the first after the murder of the show’s co-host Jill Dando. DCI Hall stated “Crimewatch will be the biggest audience we are likely to get for our appeal, and if we don’t get anything positive, that will reaffirm our suspicions that she is dead”. They wanted to know who Wendy met after she left the Tesco’s store at 9:15pm, and although some interesting leads came into the incident room, again, it led to nothing. In a final attempt to shake loose any memories from anyone who may have seen Wendy on the night she had vanished, Peter made another appeal, and Chris Ryan, a Staffordshire Police typist played the part of Wendy in a reconstruction of her last known movements at Tesco’s; they filmed the walk from her home, arrival at the store, chatting to Steve the security guard (who no-longer worked for Capital Security, but was given an identical uniform so he could play himself), they recreated the two of them chatting, and Steve watched as Wendy walked the ‘zig zag’ path towards Stowe Pool, and vanished. DCI Hall said ”this is not a murder investigation, but we suspect something untoward or sinister may have happened to her. The most likely explanation for her disappearance seems to be she is dead”. But without a body or evidence of any foul play, they couldn’t call it a murder. On the 25th of May 1999 at 8am, based on a tip-off, Police raided a flat at Ash Court off Curborough Road on the route that Wendy had walked that night. A 40-year-old man said to be “a friend and an associate… but not her husband” was arrested, his flat was searched by forensics, and although he was re-arrested, on the 3rd of June, he was released as “they had insufficient evidence to charge him”. Again, the Police had no proof as to how or why Wendy had vanished… …until on Thursday the 22nd of July 1999, nine months after her disappearance, at 4pm, while specialist teams were searching the perimeter of the Tesco’s, Royston Cunnett of Smithfield Rise told officers that his 8-year-old son had noticed a bad smell coming from the bushes. Officers came to investigate, and at 4:40pm, peeping over the garden fence into a 10 foot wide patch of waste ground between his house and the back of Tesco’s store, in an overgrown area enclosed by fences, “as I looked over, I saw a bra and then a body. I shouted to the police… and guided them to where the remains were lying”. The body wasn’t buried and it wasn’t covered, it had been left to the elements for almost a year, just a few yards from where Wendy was last seen alive. Over those first few months, as flies, maggots and foxes ate at her remains, it’s likely somebody had smelled it, but assumed it was a sewer or the bins. Taken to Queen’s Hospital in Burton on Trent, Dr Kenneth Scott performed the autopsy. He stated “it was on its back with the head under a tree… the remains were completely skeletonised”, so with no skin, no blood and no internal organs remaining, the pathologist concluded “there were no fractures to the facial bones… I am not able to say how this woman died… I cannot say if it was strangulation”. Dental records confirmed that this was Wendy’s body, but with it impossible to determine if she had died by overdose, murder or natural causes, coroner Reginald Browning had to record an open verdict. If she‘d wondered into this space by mistake, tripped, was knocked unconscious and died of exposure, that couldn’t be proven. If she had overdosed and been dumped here by a scared friend, that would be just a theory. And with the crime scene non-existent after almost a year exposed to the elements, if someone had lured Wendy here for nefarious reasons and killed her, they had got away with murder. The Police would deny this, but it was a cock-up of cataclysmic proportions, as across the nine months, teams of detectives and forensics officers had swarmed this site, staff and customers were questioned, and CCTV was supposedly checked, but barely 100 feet from the store’s front door, her body had lay. Peter, Wendy’s husband, complained that the Police hadn’t taken it seriously, they’d investigated her murder too late, that her amphetamine addiction was seen as the reason she had vanished, he also stated he had asked for sniffer dogs to search the grounds of the store, and that – with one, and just one suspect in his eyes – he had pointed them in the direction of this man, but again, he was ignored. Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Lawton retorted “there is much with Mr Upton’s statement that we could take issue with, but we understand the trauma he is going through. We do not intent to add to Mr Upton’s distress by conducting a public discussion about the details of this investigation”. The detectives stated that their investigation was “painstaking and thorough”… …so how did they miss a dead body, just yards away from where she was last seen? So far, every suspect had been eliminated and all that remained was one who (from the start) came across as calm and normal, he helped the police in their search, he offered names of possible suspects, and having taken part in the recreation, it put him above suspicion. But as the last person to see her alive, and possibly dead, claiming “I saw her walking the zig zag path towards her home”, which led their hunt away from his crime, the next day, on Friday 23rd of July, Police went to his new workplace. When Detective Inspector Graham Ingley arrived at the warehouse, “I arrested him, I told him a body had been found” - not murdered, not skeletonised and not at Tesco’s, just found – and without missing a beat, “he said ‘yes, I killed her. I was expecting you. I am sorry for wasting everybody’s time’”… … his name was Steven Salisbury. 31-year-old Steven Alexander Salisbury - although that wasn’t his birth name - was born in Lichfield in 1968. At school, he struggled, as he was of ‘below average intelligence’ with an IQ of 80, but he wasn’t sub-normal or incapable knowing the difference between right and wrong. So how did he manipulate the Police for so long? Simple, he was polite and helpful, and got lucky owing to their incompetence. With a crew cut and a bad moustache, he looked like an Army reject as he drove his Reliant Kitten to work at Capitol Security, who provide security for Tesco’s. In November 1995, he married Jayne Cooke who had two sons from a previous relationship, and in 1997, they had a daughter called Steffany. Their relationship was strained, and for good reason. Salisbury told the press, “I wasn’t really a close friend. I didn’t know Wendy that well”, which was a lie, as they’d been neighbours at Mesnes Green for the four years before she vanished. He also told Jayne, “that Wendy came into the store pestering him for money, it just went in one ear and out the other”, and yet it was Salisbury who was the ‘pest’. Giving evidence in court, Belinda Shepherd, his second cousin said “he’d often say to me, if we weren’t related, he’d like to have sex with me. At first I laughed it off. It was said more than once and it started to scare me. I told him ‘I wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole’”, he said he was joking, but he wasn’t. He would flirt with her in front of Jayne, invite Belinda round for coffee when Jayne was out, and then, in February 1997, on the morning that his daughter was born, Belinda said he came round to her flat “he wanted sex and to keep me warm in bed. I told him to get out”, and only left when she screamed. Unsurprisingly, there were also rumours he was sexually harassing customers and staff at Tesco’s. It’s impossible to know what happened on the night Wendy vanished, as with no witnesses, the CCTV incorrectly checked, the crime scene destroyed, and her body mere bones, all we have is his version of events, which he’d use to paint her in a bad light, and re-write his narrative as if he was the victim. We know she left home at 7pm, telling Peter “just going to Tesco”, her walk should have taken just 25 minutes, but not arriving till 9:09pm and seen at Stowe Pool at 8:30pm, she headed somewhere else. Maybe to see a friend, or maybe (unseen by the store’s cameras) she had met Salisbury in advance? In court, he told the jurors “she badgered me for sex in exchange for waste groceries”, and being unemployed, broke and an amphetamine addict, this seemed feasible, but did it happen? It made him seem like a stud, her a slut, and with the food not being stolen from the shelves, but spoiled waste scavenged from the compactor, this portrays her as a tragic figure, and him, somehow, as her savour. But was it true? Lisa McCleod, a checkout assistant told jury “I frequently saw Salisbury and Mrs Upton and thought they were having an affair”, so was this an illicit rendezvous, had he been pestering her for sex, was she breaking up with him to save her marriage, or did she really sell her body for old food? In his initial alibi, he claimed “she asked for a few pounds, I told her to come back tomorrow”. So was this all she was doing when she was seen entering the store at 9:09pm, as at the customer service desk she asked to speak to Salisbury, they radioed him, she left, and 30 seconds later, he followed her. That was the last time she was seen alive, and given his job, he knew where the cameras were… …and weren’t, so why did he need to hide from the CCTV? For sex, or for murder? In a dark and isolated patch of waste ground, covered in high fences, between Smithfield Rise and the back of the store, Salisbury claimed that he met Wendy. He was carrying no groceries as an unnamed security guard had been watching him. “She was hysterical, she threatened to report me for rape. I told her I couldn’t get it and she should return tomorrow. She started attacking me. I pushed her away. I kept telling her to pack it in and started to walk away. She hit me with her handbag. I started shouting at her. I pushed her again and she fell to the floor”, laying his plea of manslaughter by provocation. He claimed as they struggled on the floor, his radio went off as a member of staff needed his help with a flower display. He dropped his radio, and as he was searching for it, he suddenly saw a piece of cord. “I put it across her throat. She started laughing… I was angry. When she said she’d accuse me of rape, I was thinking about prison. She was mad and hitting me. The cord was tight round her neck and she said ‘do it, do it’. She started gurgling and was laughing as well. I pulled it tight and she just went limp”. With her dead or dying, he didn’t bury her or cover her, and he never went back. He claimed “I planned to get her body to St Chad’s church with a note of confession”, but he didn’t, as just six minutes after she had left the store, Salisbury returned as if nothing had happened, and carried on with his job. To portray her as the villain, he said she’d driven him to kill her, “so I put the cord round her throat to stop her wrecking everything”, to portray himself as the hero, he claimed, “I tried to do the kiss of life. I put her in the recovery position”, he also said he made two attempts to hang himself, but did he? Salisbury showed no emotion for his victim, no remorse for his crime, he blamed innocent parties to aid his alibi resulting in their arrest and ruining their lives, he could have been the anonymous caller who told the Police “she’s been murdered… her body is outside of Lichfield”, in the same way he led the investigation towards the ‘zig zag’ path to Stowe Pool and away from the body in the overgrowth, and he threw Peter’s electricity card just a few feet away from the body to put the suspicion on him. Based on his creepy demeanour in which he harassed women at the store and his cousin Belinda, Detectives believed “Salisbury did not accept rejection by women and was persistent in his pursuit”. But Salisbury wasn’t a desperate man driven to kill by sex-obsessed woman who put him in a deadly dilemma, as after he’d murdered her, he joked to colleagues that he had hidden her body in his car. He quit is job three days later, but Jayne his wife recalled “the strange thing was he insisted we do our shopping at Tesco’s, when we always shopped at Co-op. I just thought he wanted to stay in touch with friends… but he always parked in the same spot, and I now know it was the nearest point to her body”. Only his weirdness didn’t end there. After his arrest, having read his statements and piecing all of the strange little things he had done over those nine months, Jayne stated “he took a morbid interest in the police’s hunt for her killer”, and when the reconstruction of Wendy’s last known movements was broadcast, “he was at work and he kept ringing me up and saying ‘Can you see me? Do I look alright?’ For the next month he was on a high. He never stopped talking about it and was bragging to everyone about how he had been on TV. Looking back, I’m surprised he didn’t start handing out autographs”… …as being a local nobody, by killing Wendy, he had suddenly become a someone. (End) The trial was held at Stafford Crown Court, before Mr Justice Hughes. Anthony Baker QC for the defence stated that Wendy Upton had ‘goaded him to kill’ by threatening to tell his wife that he had sex with her, her husband that he had raped her, and maybe this was true? He confessed to strangling her, stating “I put my hands around her throat, and I squeezed”, with her goading him “do it, do it”, and no other submissions by his defence except for his low mental age. David Crigman QC for the prosecution stated “it was a killing executed with coolness and callousness, no doubt because she angered him. That he killed her is clear… I tell you immediately that his protest of manslaughter, not murder, is as false as other lies he had told”, as even in court, all he did was lie. On the 28th of June 2000, having deliberated for 85 minutes, a jury of 10 men and 2 women found 31-year-old Steven Salisbury guilty of the wilful murder of Wendy Upton, and he was sentenced to life. Summing up, Justice Hughes stated “you killed her by strangling her and you then hid her body and it stayed hidden for months. There is not the slightest doubt that you added appreciably to the grief and distress of those who knew her by hiding it and taking steps as you did by casting suspicions on others”. DCI Hall told the press, “Salisbury gave the impression, even after he had confessed to the killing, that he did not care at all about what happened to Wendy Upton. He only cared about himself. His lack of remorse shows what a dangerous and callous man he is. Even minutes after he killed Wendy he was able to collect himself and go about his job. He lied and lied again to cover up what he had done. One by one we eliminated people from our inquiry until we were left with one person – Steven Salisbury. As he piled on the lies, Salisbury’s version of events were discredited. Salisbury is a dangerous man. He is a callous individual and a liar. He is going to prison for a long time and that is what he deserves” Upon his conviction, his wife, Jayne called him ‘pathetic’ and said he deserved to remain behind bars. As of today, 26 years on, it is uncertain if Steven Salisbury is out, or soon to be released. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
Archives
August 2026
Subscribe to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast
Categories
All
Note: This blog contains only licence-free images or photos shot by myself in compliance with UK & EU copyright laws. If any image breaches these laws, blame Google Images.
|