"Suffolk Strangler" Steve Wright has been sentenced to a further life in prison with a minimum term of 40 years for the murder of 17-year-old Victoria Hall in 1999. Wright, 67, abducted schoolgirl Hall, sexually assaulted and killed her, then dumped her naked body in a ditch.
He admitted the kidnap and murder after the teenager disappeared more than 25 years ago in a village on the outskirts of Felixstowe. He also pleaded guilty to the attempted kidnap of Emily Doherty, then aged 22, in the Suffolk port town the day before.
Delivering his sentencing remarks, Mr Justice Bennathan said: "Victoria Hall was a typical bright, lively teenager. Her father described her as having been a happy, loving child.
"She spent hours on the phone to her best friend, she was studying for her A-levels, she had a part-time job and loved to go out dancing.
"For reasons only you know, and most people will never start to comprehend, you snatched Victoria away and you crushed her young life."
Wright is already serving a whole-life prison sentence for the murders of five women in Ipswich.
On Friday, prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC said Wright had been "on the prowl" in Felixstowe in his burgundy Ford Granada Scorpio.
She said: "Almost undoubtedly sexually motivated, he was a predator stalking for his prey: looking for a young woman to kidnap... He did not allow Victoria Hall, aged 17, to escape his predatory clutches.
"Having separated from her best friend Gemma Algar only 300 metres from her front door, she never made it home and seemingly vanished, the only clue to what happened to her a scream in the night on the small housing estate where she lived in the village of Trimley St Mary, not two miles from where the defendant made his attempt on Emily Doherty.
"But Victoria had not simply vanished into thin air. The defendant had abducted, and within a very short time, murdered her, as well as sexually violating her in some way."
He then "callously discarded her body, stripped naked of everything except for her jewellery", in a farm ditch some 25 miles away, "as if she were no more important than a disposable commodity", the court heard.
