News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Wright nursed a simmering hatred of women after his mother walked out on the family when he was a boy.

Patricia left Wright's dad Conrad for another man when he was still at school. Wright was then brought up by his father who poisoned his son against her.

Growing up without a female figure in his life, Wright later struggled with relationships with women.

He turned to prostitutes when he was just 23 and carried on using them for the next 25 years.

He had a brief reunion with Patricia, now 68, in the early 90s.

Wright had not seen her for 15 years and their meeting was amicable. But later his anger surfaced and he left a vile and abusive message on her answer phone.

By 1998, Wright was living in Norwich and a regular customer of local prostitutes. He was a cross-dresser and became a familiar figure in massage parlours in women's clothes. He would turn up in PVC skirts and high heels with matching earrings and lipstick.

But his sexual obsessions began to take a sinister turn. He would take hookers home as often as three times a week and dominate them. Many started to fear him.

Word got round about warped Wright, who had a fierce temper, and even some of the desperate street walkers refused to take his money.

One former prostitute said: "Most of the girls never got in the car with him. The police were aware of him because he sometimes scared the girls."

Double death wish of monster

Wright twice tried to commit suicide, his half-brother revealed last night.

He attempted to gas himself in a car and take an overdose, Keith Wright said.

The killer was so devastated after two failed marriages that by the mid-90s he could not hold down a job or keep control of his bank balance.

Brooding alone in his bedroom for hours, he refused to open up - even after his worried father Conrad moved him back home.

He was found "gassed out of his brain" in a car in 1994 and doctors said it was a miracle he survived, Keith recalled.

Later, he was left devastated after being ripped off by a woman he fell for on holiday in Thailand. He tried to take his own life again with pills and was found slumped in his Felixstowe bedsit.

Keith, 39, said of the suicide attempts: "I bet a fair few people wish he hadn't come through it."

Only in 2001, when he moved in with girlfriend Pam Wright, did the family dare hope he was finally back on his feet.

But, as is now only too terribly clear, his demons had never left him.

Too much to bear..

Wright's father Conrad, 71, attended every day of the case - but could not bear to listen to the jury find him guilty.

Devastated Conrad sat in the court canteen as the killer's half brother Keith watched the verdict on a TV link-up.

Keith, 39, said: "Dad was sure what it would be and didn't want to be in there."

Conrad had sat through the evidence in an annex - giving up his public gallery place to avoid seeing the victims' relatives.

He even stopped daughter Natalie, 34, joining sister Jeanette, 46, and brother David, 50, in court "so it wouldn't rub in the families' loss of their own young girls".

Keith said: "Dad wanted them to know how bad we feel. But he was also trying to believe in Steve. Now he's said, 'He's not the son I brought into the world'."

Inside his lair

The home of killer Steve Wright looks just like any other normal terrace.

The monster lived at a house in the heart of Ipswich's red light district, 79 London Road, with his partner Pam.

Now it seems destined to take its place beside notorious 10 Rillington Place and 25 Cromwell Street.

Within hours of Wright's arrest on December 19, 2006, it was boarded up.

Most of the contents remain exactly as they were during the early hours of that morning.

Only the signs of forensic officers seeking evidence suggest the horrific crimes of its twisted occupant.

Curtains are drawn at the patio doors at the rear through which Wright brought prostitutes.

The court heard he had sex with them on the bedroom floor.

A collection of giant teddy bears have been placed on a double bed in the centre of the room. A short passageway leads into another smaller bedroom at the back of the house.

There is a single bed with a white metal frame on top of a brown carpet with flecks of orange.

In the bathroom, the bath is now full of toiletries, thrown in during the fingertip search of the home.

Downstairs in the kitchen, tiles have been pulled up and dust, possibly from forensic teams, has been smeared over work surfaces and door fronts.

Fingerprints on a white cupboard above the work surface have been circled using a pencil.

The smell of cooking still hangs in the air and a pan contains a little oil.

Letters and newspapers are strewn about on the living room floor.

At the boarded-up front bay window, police have set up a CCTV system with a camera pointing out.