The serial killer Levi Bellfield has confessed to the murder of the missing student Elizabeth Chau in a recorded face-to-face interview with police.
Scotland Yard homicide detectives interviewed Bellfield in prison on Tuesday under criminal caution, during which he named a location in west London where he claims to have hidden the body of Chau, who was 19 when she vanished 24 years ago.
On Thursday, for the first time, the Metropolitan police confirmed their renewed interest in Bellfield and said: “On Tuesday 9 May 2023, a 54-year-old male was interviewed under caution. Inquiries continue. We can confirm we remain in contact with Elizabeth Chau’s family. At this time we will not be providing an ongoing commentary. We have no comment to make.”
Police are taking Bellfield’s claims that Chau was his fourth murder victim “extremely seriously”, a source said, after the six-hour interview in HMP Frankland in Durham.
Seven months after Bellfield first made the claims about Chau to a prison visitor, on Tuesday two detectives interviewed him in prison, taking portable audio recording equipment with them.
The detectives, from a Met team specialising in unsolved homicides, started by reading Bellfield the criminal caution, warning him that anything he said could be used against him at a trial.
The detectives brought a map of the west London area with them. They asked Bellfield to point to the area where he claims to have buried Chau’s body, which he did. He also gave details of how he claims to have kidnapped Chau, and horrifying details of her final hours alive.
The detectives used a written statement that Bellfield gave in March as the basis for the interview, spending about three hours gaining additional claims from Bellfield about Chau’s disappearance, and the rest of the time gaining extra information about attacks he claims to have carried out on other women in London and Surrey.
A second day had been set aside for the Met detectives to interview Bellfield, but it was decided it was not needed.
Chau was a computer studies student at Thames Valley University and was last seen in Ealing, west London, on 16 April 1999.
The family of Chau have said they are fully aware that Bellfield can be deceitful and manipulative, but are angry because they have believed from the start that police have not taken the disappearance of their loved one seriously. They feel police have been too slow to establish the truth or otherwise of Bellfield’s confession.
Police were first given details of the alleged confession, made verbally by Bellfield to a prison visitor, in October 2022. In March, he made a written statement claiming to have kidnapped and murdered Chau and buried her body. He also claims to have carried out six other attacks on women who survived their ordeal.
Bellfield has already been convicted of three murders: those of 13-year-old Milly Dowler in March 2002, 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell in February 2003, and 22-year-old Amélie Delagrange in August 2004. He was also convicted of the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy in May 2004. He is serving whole-life tariffs.
There has been no sighting of Chau since shortly after 6pm on 16 April 1999, in or around Uxbridge Road close to Ealing police station. Her body has not been found.
The family are from Vietnam originally, and Chau was born in the UK.
Bellfield lived in west London and while under police surveillance was spotted driving around in a van and trying to talk to young women in and around bus stops.
One option for police now is to dig up the site that Bellfield named and carry out a forensic search.
Last month, Elizabeth’s sister, Bic-Hang, said: “After 24 years, you want to hang on to hope and get answers where your sister is.”
Her brother, Minh-Vu, said of Bellfield’s alleged confession: “We were very cautious. Bic recognised some of the material [in Bellfield’s alleged confession] that was not in the public domain.”
The family believe their race and Elizabeth’s gender led to a poor police attempt to find out what happened to her.
