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Colonel Russell Williams was a model officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Commander of Trenton, the country’s largest air base, he was a rising military star who had been decorated for his exemplary service and had flown VIPs including the Queen and Prince Philip.

But Williams was an officer and a killer – a man who had graduated from burglary and stealing female underwear to rape and murder until he was brought to justice in 2010.

It’s the kind of double life which sounds like it comes from the pages of a Hollywood script.

(Image: UGC)

But there was nothing make-believe about the horrific ordeals he unleashed upon his victims, Corporal Marie-France Comeau, 38, and Jessica Lloyd, 27, or the terrible grief he inflicted on their families.

Williams, 55, was brought to justice when he confessed to his crimes in a remarkable police interview which has become regarded in law enforcement circles as a masterpiece.

It features in new CBS Reality TV special Voice of a Killer – The Colonel, which is on Tuesday at 10pm and is hosted by Scottish criminologist David Wilson, Emeritus Professor of Criminology at Birmingham City University.

The former prison governor admits the Jekyll and Hyde contrasts of Williams’s double life makes him a grimly compelling subject.

(Image: REUTERS)

He said: “He was incredibly fascinating from a number of different aspects. This is somebody who is commanding Canada’s largest military air base until his arrest in 2010. He had been flying the Queen, he’s decorated, he’s British.

“Whenever I have worked with people who have committed comparable offences, there is always a progression.

“You don’t wake up one morning and just decide that you are going to murder somebody or abduct them or tie them up.

“Those kind of sexual deviancies have been present in your past for a very long period of time. What you see with Williams is almost a case book progression.

“He would steal women’s underwear, he would then start wearing that underwear, he would then break into homes in order to be able to steal that underwear, then photograph himself in that home whilst wearing the stolen underwear.

(Image: Reuters)

“He would then do home invasions whereby he would tie the women up until he is eventually committing murder.”

The Williams case shocked Canada. Despite his high-profile job, which included overseeing ceremonies for bodies of soldiers killed in Afghanistan as they arrived home, he committed more than 80 break-ins.

Married to a respected businesswoman, in 2007 he began breaking into neighbours’ homes, stealing underwear and photographing himself. In 2009, he went further, committing two sexual assaults.

Later that year, in November, he broke into the home of Corporal Marie-France Comeau, who was under his command at Canadian Forces Base Trenton.

He subjected her to a horrific ordeal before murdering her, recording it all on video and with photographs. Back in his day job, the colonel, who was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, sent condolences to Corporal Comeau’s father.

(Image: UGC)

In January 2010, he claimed his next victim. He broke into the home of Jessica Lloyd and again subjected her to a nightmarish attack before taking her life and dumping her body.

When she was reported missing, a massive search took place and, while her body wasn’t uncovered, the police did find distinctive tyre tracks in a field near her home.

When checks matched to a Nissan Pathfinder belonging to Williams, he was brought in for questioning by Detective Sergeant Jim Smyth of the Ontario Provincial Police.

The original police interviews are brought to life with lip sync technology as Williams, unaware of the evidence, goes from confident military commander to a man who realises he has no way out and confesses to multiple murders and the location of Jessica’s body.

(Image: UGC)

Prof Wilson, who went through the entire 10-hour interview tape for the programme, is fulsome in his praise of DS Smyth.

He said: “Over the course of 10 hours he is literally revealing to Williams the evidence that is going to tie him to the two murders.

“When Williams first enters the interview scenario, he is a very powerful man, he’s highly decorated.

“He’s filled with power and he kind of presumed, I think, that he would just be able to overcome this quietly-spoken police sergeant, who asked him to come in on a Sunday to talk about one or two things that he wanted to get clarified.

“You begin to see the tables turn in the course of the interview when you see the scales fall from Williams’s eyes and Smyth gets him to not only confess to the murders but also tell them where he has buried the body of Jessica.”

For Prof Wilson, the interview is also a triumph of differing interview techniques.

(Image: Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Police in the UK use the use the PEACE process – Participation and Planning , Engage and Explain, Account, Closure and Evaluate – which is based on gathering as much information as possible to prove or disprove theories

through interrogation.

In North America, they use the controversial Reid Technique, which is geared primarily towards gaining a confession. Critics say it encourages accused individuals to confess to the allegations even if they are untrue.

ProfWilson said: “American detectives are legally allowed, for example, to lie. They can say, ‘I have your DNA at the crime scene’, or, ‘Your co-defendant says you pulled the trigger’, and neither of those things could be true, whereas in this country detectives are not allowed to do this.

“And what’s so interesting about the way Jim Smyth approaches this interview is he doesn’t use the Reid technique at all. It really is a masterclass.”