EastEnders star brutally murdered before being chopped up – with chilling twist

When former EastEnders actress Gemma McCluskie went missing at the very beginning of March 2012, her disappearance made headlines. A large search was organised for the 29 year old star, who played Kerry Skinner in more than 30 episodes of the BBC soap between 2000 and 2001, alongside stars including Dean Gaffney and Michelle Ryan.

But the true tragedy didn’t unfold until a headless torso was found in a London canal&nbsp, a few days later, with a friend of Gemma’s family telling the Mirror at the time: “We’ve been told the police have found the body of a woman and we’re now waiting to find out if it’s Gemma”. Sadly their worst fears came true – Gemma had been brutally killed, chopped up and dumped in the canal. She was identified by a distinctive tattoo but her head, arms and legs had been separated from her body. Her head would not be discovered for another six months. Later, mourners packed her funeral service in Hoxton, east London.

Gemma’s brutal murder is revisited today on ITV, in the true crime documentary series Murder In The Family: True Crime Presents. The programme explores the grisly events and – as its title may suggest – the shocking revelation that her own brother, Tony, turned out to be the cold-hearted killer. It was only the relentless work of police detectives that brought him to justice.

As a youngster, Gemma’s acting talent had secured her a place at drama school, and she later scored the role of Kerry Skinner in EastEnders at 17. After her stint on EastEnders came to an end, she took a shot at running a bar. At the same time, her mum sadly needed brain surgery, so Gemma took on the financial burden.

Meanwhile, Tony’s employment was erratic, bouncing from building sites to window cleaning jobs, while routinely indulging in cannabis “from morning until night”. When Gemma went missing, he was spared from early suspicion as he had never been seen as violent by acquaintances.

But psychologists have since suggested that envy of Gemma’s success might have been a driving force behind his actions — a deadly detail missed by many at the time. It later transpired that she had endured 20 years of sickening abuse from her brother and was “petrified of him”.

Initially when Gemma disappeared, her family suspected she might be with a friend. Recalling the events, her other brother, Danny, explained: “On the Sunday morning, me and a friend met up with Tony and got some pictures developed of Gemma. We took them down to Bethnal Green Police Station”.

In the grim aftermath, Tony pretended everything was normal, joining search parties and comforting Danny, plus their estranged parents. Danny conveyed the difficulty in obtaining any coherent information from Tony, saying: “I just thought it was just him just stoned out of his nut again”.

The family’s desperate search for missing Gemma turned to horror, as Danny vividly recalls the gut-wrenching moment when parts of her body were found, and how Tony reacted, saying: “Out of nowhere he walks in and puts his arms round us and he starts saying, ‘ Please don’t let it be Gemma. ‘ I’ll never forget it”.

A unique tattoo on Gemma’s body made identification painfully swift – a blow that left Danny reeling. He remembers the intense promise he received from a police officer at the scene: “I turned round and went to the police officer, I said, ‘ You’d better catch whoever did this’. And he kept saying to me, ‘ I promise, we’ll catch him, we’ll catch him'”. He continues: “That broke me”.

Relaying the tragic news to their mother was a task that overwhelmed Danny: “I ended up breaking down, crying. I was just overwhelmed. I’ve just found out it was my sister and now I’ve had to go and break the news to my mother. She’s laying there in hospital, you know, she’s just had a big operation”.

Eventually Danny confronted Tony, who was under police suspicion, demanding the stark truth, as he remembers: “I said to him, ‘ You look me in the eye and you put your hand on your heart you ain’t done this to my sister? ‘ And he just said to me, ‘ The police are fitting me up'”.

Yet a court later heard that Tony had brutally killed Gemma during an argument while high, the situation escalating when she ordered him to leave, because of a flooded bathroom.

Under the influence of drugs, his anger led him to violently attack Gemma with a blunt object, tragically resulting in her death from a cerebral haemorrhage. He chillingly admitted later that, failing to sever his sister’s limbs with a knife, he then unfeelingly procured a meat cleaver, bin liners, and cleaning products.

In a horrifying twist, he even sent a text message from his sister’s phone – while her body was still in the house – saying: “Morning, sorry crashed out last night. Woke up too late to get back to you. Feeling a bit better today”.

He even tried to make things appear normal by texting his dead sister: “Hi Gem, letting you know I’m at the hospital. Mum is doing really good and the doctors are pleased with her. Going to look at the throat and swallowing today. Love ya xx”.

That same evening, he gruesomely forced her lifeless form into a suitcase and coldly took a taxi to dump her body in the Regent’s Canal.

Yet when Tony was arrested, Danny struggled to believe it – with a friend even saying she felt sorry for him – as he remembers: “My head was all over the place, you know. It was like, this ain’t right. I phoned the police and I said to them, ‘ You’d better show me some evidence it’s him, otherwise he’s in that jail, he’s in that jail suffering'”.

Then Danny was shown chilling CCTV footage of his brother lifting a heavy suitcase into a minicab on his way to dump the body – the proof he needed. In court, Danny could only feel fury towards his brother, confessing: “I just thought, I wanna smash his face in. Because he was guilty”.

What deeply disturbed Danny were Tony’s perpetual lies and fabrications. Even when admitting to the deadly act, he shunned the label of murderer, pinning the blame on a sudden loss of composure, blackouts, tensions with his girlfriend, and even wildly claiming Gemma had assailed him with a knife.

“He was saying he couldn’t remember what happened. I’m just thinking, is this geezer for real”? Danny recounted, bewildered by his brother’s persistent denial despite glaring evidence. Yet, come January 30, 2013, Tony earned a guilty verdict for the murder, receiving a sentence of at least 20 long years behind bars.

Tony’s dad disowned his son, while Danny spoke out over Tony’s devastating actions, saying: “He took her life away. She didn’t even hit 30 years old, she didn’t get married, she didn’t have kids, he took all that away from her”. Her EastEnders co-star, Dean Gaffney, also said he was “utterly devastated” by Gemma’s brutal murder

Watch Murder In The Family: True Crime Presents – Gemma McCluskie on Friday, 7 March at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX

Source: Mirror