In August 1994, in the small town of Castlederg, Northern Ireland, 15-year-old Arlene Arkinson went out to a disco and never came home. The last person to see her was Robert Howard, a 50-year-old convicted sex offender who was dating her friend’s mother. Howard had a pattern. He’d infiltrate families, befriend vulnerable people, and end up in homes with young daughters.
One neighbor called him the Pied Piper. Arlene’s disappearance went unsolved for seven years. Then another teenager went missing in Southeast London.
Hannah Williams was 14, the youngest of three children raised by her mother Bernadette.
They were close—Hannah was energetic, a tomboy who loved climbing and jumping. On April 21, 2001, she told her mom she was heading to the market. Bernadette offered to come along. “Mom, I’m only going around the corner.
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Hannah never came home. Bernadette walked the streets of Deptford crying, calling her daughter’s phone over and over. It always went to voicemail. When she went to the police, they assumed Hannah had run away.
They told Bernadette to wait 24 hours. She waited. And waited. Nothing.
Two weeks later, Bernadette walked into the offices of a local newspaper. A reporter named Peter Harrison listened as she said, “My daughter’s been missing for two weeks and no one seems to care. ”
The police were convinced Hannah was a troublesome runaway from a broken home. The case barely registered in the media.
There were other missing girls—Danielle Jones, Milly Dowler—and their stories got more coverage. “I feel like because they were living in more suitable places and I was in Deptford, single mom… I felt like they got more coverage. ”
Bernadette spent a year hoping her daughter would walk through the door. In March 2002, a digger driver working at the Ebbsfleet rail terminal site found a blue tarpaulin wrapped in rope.
Inside were skeletal remains. There was a ligature around the neck. Kent Police identified the body. It was Hannah Williams.
Her last words to her mother echoed in Bernadette’s mind: “Mom, I love you and I’ll never leave you. ”
Detective Chief Inspector Andy Murray led the investigation. On the day Hannah disappeared, she’d received a 14-second phone call from a mobile registered to a woman who lived near the deposition site. When detectives visited the woman, she said she hadn’t made the call.
It must have been her partner, Robert Howard. When DCI Murray saw Howard’s record, it was staggering. This man had been a career sexual offender for over 35 years. He’d been investigated for Arlene Arkinson’s disappearance.
He’d been on bail for abducting and raping a teenager in Northern Ireland. “We had Robert Howard as our number one suspect, but we had no evidence at all apart from a possible 14-second phone call. And the biggest fear I had was this man may go on a spree of killing. ”
Police arrested Howard and searched his girlfriend’s home and his allotment.
They found nothing. Under questioning, Howard said “No comment” to everything. He was released. But detectives kept digging.
They worked with social services to identify at-risk children near Howard’s home. They found a 6-year-old girl. Howard had invited her into his flat and indecently assaulted her. She’d called him a pervert and run out.
She also told police Howard had taken her swimming at a lake right next to where Hannah’s body was found. In May 2002, Kent Police charged Robert Howard with Hannah’s murder. Northern Irish police arrested him for Arlene Arkinson’s murder. Then an anonymous tip-off claimed Arlene’s body was buried under her sister Kathleen’s floor.
The accusation threatened to derail both cases. The Arkinsons had already suffered enough. Police had once searched Kathleen’s home with diggers and press in attendance, tearing the garden apart while looking for Arlene. Nothing was found.
The relationship between the family and police had been destroyed. But Kathleen came forward willingly to help Kent Police. She and her family traveled to England to support Bernadette at the trial. “I thought that was so nice of them,” Bernadette said.
“They’re going through the grief of their sister, and they came to support me. ”
At Maidstone Crown Court in October 2003, the prosecution was allowed to present evidence of Howard’s previous arrests and convictions, including what happened to Arlene. Kathleen testified. So did the 16-year-old Howard had held captive in 1993.
So did the 6-year-old girl from South London. Bernadette sat through the entire trial. She heard how a blue rope was wrapped around her daughter’s neck. “She must have struggled to try and get away, but she wasn’t obviously strong enough.
And probably the more she struggled, the rope was tightening. ”
She heard how the gusset of Hannah’s underwear had been cut out, likely to hide DNA evidence. Howard stood in the witness box and told lie after lie. He never once looked at Bernadette.
The only time he looked up was when the jury left to make their decision. It took them three hours to convict him. As Howard was driven away in a police van, Kathleen approached. “Bye-bye,” she said.
“You’re going to jail. You’re not getting out this time. ”
Howard kicked the inside of the van in fury. He knew where he was going.
In 2005, Howard was brought to trial for Arlene Arkinson’s murder. The jury wasn’t told he was already serving life for murdering Hannah. They didn’t convict him. “Never ever did I blame the jury,” Kathleen said.
“They didn’t know nothing. ”
Howard never admitted killing Arlene. Like many murderers, he kept those secrets to himself. He took her location to his grave.
But an inquest into Arlene’s death was finally held in 2021, 27 years after she disappeared. Detectives revealed a confession Howard had made to a cellmate—how he’d held Arlene over a sink, how there was a lot of blood, how she’d put up a good fight. The inquest ruled that Robert Howard had killed Arlene. They were confident her remains were still near the town where she disappeared.
“I just want her home,” Kathleen said. “I’m never going to give up. The last breath I take, I’m going to fail her. Give her a decent burial.
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Bernadette still thinks about what Hannah would be doing now. “I just wish Hannah was still here. But that evil person just killed her. She’s always in my heart.
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Robert Howard was a violent sex offender known to authorities for over 30 years. He managed to attack women and children for decades, slipping through the system again and again. Had he been properly sentenced for rape and unlawful imprisonment, Arlene Arkinson and Hannah Williams would likely be alive today. Arlene’s body has never been found.
What exactly happened the night she disappeared remains a mystery. But after the deaths of both Arlene and Hannah were finally proven, there is no doubt that Robert Howard was one of the world’s most evil killers.
