MARK BULSTRODE

Suffolk serial killer Steve Wright has denied killing estate agent Suzy Lamplugh and told his brother that he would kill himself "at the first opportunity I get".

In an interview with a Sunday newspaper, businessman David Wright, 50, of Bury St Edmunds, said that, in a taped phone call from his jail cell, the killer said: "I'm going to do it at the first opportunity I get. Then I want to be cremated and get my ashes scattered at the golf club."

His brother told the newspaper he was in no doubt that Wright was going to kill himself. He said he was "exhausted, physically and mentally" and had hardly eaten in the past two weeks.

Mr Wright told the newspaper: "He's not admitting anything. I asked him about Suzy Lamplugh and he told me, I never killed Suzy Lamplugh and I never killed the other girls'.

"I can picture him sitting next to one of those girls in the car and losing his temper if the girl had been a bit aggressive with him."

Last week Wright, 49, was told he would spend the rest of his life in jail after a jury found him guilty of killing Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29.

Jurors heard that the naked bodies of the women, who all worked in the Ipswich red-light area, were found in isolated locations near the town between December 2 and December 12, 2006.

Earlier, the murderer's former partner told how he lived a life of domestic bliss during the period that fork-lift truck driver carried out the murders.

In newspaper interviews, Pam Wright, 60, said Wright would come home from work and eat dinner in front of the television before driving her to her night job in a call centre.

Then, she now knows, he would trawl the streets of Ipswich looking for prostitutes to have sex with and then kill.

Pam Wright told Sunday newspapers he would slip into jogging bottoms, a polo shirt and fluffy brown slippers before eating a home-made tea such as shepherd's pie or lasagne in front of the television, eating Mars bars and Toffee Crisps afterwards while watching soaps or action films.

She said: "By the time it got to 11.30pm he'd slip on a pair of trainers without socks, put on his coat and drive me to work.

"After he dropped me off he didn't go home but, as I now know, went looking for prostitutes to have sex with and then kill. Then he'd come home and do the same thing again later.

"But he never showed any signs of being under pressure. He was always totally relaxed and calm."

After the third victim, 24-year-old Anneli Alderton, was found, Ms Wright told her partner that she and her colleagues at work were terrified.

She told reporters: "He turned to look at me and said, There's no need to be frightened because I'm here'."

The next day he gave her a rape alarm that cost £1. Ms Wright said a few hours after the guilty verdict she received a telephone call from Wright when he said: "I can't live without knowing you're there for me."

The pair met when they worked together at a bingo hall in Felixstowe, Suffolk, in 2000. She told reporters he was charming, with a dry wit and made her feel "like a schoolgirl".

The pair moved into a two-bedroom house on the edge of Ipswich's red-light district in October 2006.

Ms Wright said her suspicions were aroused just weeks after the move, when a prostitute smiled at Wright in a "strange way" as he was driving her to work one night.

She said she instinctively thought the girl knew him, but when Wright denied it she put it to the back of her mind.

But, on December 19, her world changed forever when she rang Wright at 4.30am to make sure he was up for work. When she got no reply she worried he had suffered a heart attack.

Two police officers then arrived at her work address and told her he had been arrested in connection with the murder of five prostitutes.

Ms Wright said she could "totally understand" why the victims' families wanted Wright to be hanged for their murders. "If anyone harmed my son, I would feel exactly the same way," she said.

She added that he had mentioned Suzy Lamplugh just once She said: "We were watching Crimewatch or something, and he said I used to know her, she used to come in the pub occasionally'."

Ms Wright added he was unlikely to say whether he was involved in any other unsolved murders. "If Steve won't admit to killing five girls, he won't admit to killing anyone else."