The eerily similar murders of Sian Blake and Gemma McCluskie were committed four years apart
EASTENDERS is known for its dramatic story lines, but two of its stars went on to be brutally murdered after they left the soap opera.
The eerily similar murders of Sian Blake and Gemma McCluskie, committed four years apart, are the topic of a new Channel 5 documentary.
Both women were murdered by the men closest to them - who later disposed of their bodies and did everything they could to escape detection.
Speaking on The EastEnder Murders, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes said: "These murders were so brutal that actually they could not have appeared on soap operas as a story line."
Kevin Maguire, associate editor at the Daily Mirror, added: "To have two actresses from the same soap killed in horribly brutal cold blooded ways is just a coincidence, but it’s a terrible grisly coincidence."
Gemma was 29 when she was killed on March 1 2012, around 12 years after she first appeared in EastEnders as Robbie's two-timing girlfriend Kerrie Skinner.
Her older brother Tony, then 35, murdered her in the flat they shared in Shoreditch, East London, during a row over an overflowing bath.
The skunk addict, who smoked 15 joints a day, then dismembered her body and dumped it in the canal.
Remembering Gemma, her stage school classmate Nic Knight said: "I remember Gemma as being a very bubbly, smiley, quite cheeky character.
"She loved a chat with her friends. And then you’d see her transform when she was performing, from quite an easy, happy-go-lucky person to someone who was quite a fierce and feisty character."
At the time of her death, she was working in a pub and caring for her divorced mum - who had a brain tumour.
At first, it was a missing person's enquiry - after Gemma's killer reported her missing.
Entertainment reporter Minnie Stephenson said: "The EastEnders family rallied around together, particularly the women.
"Brooke Kinsella, Natalie Cassidy, Martine McCutcheon - all women that came forward to appeal for information when Gemma went missing, desperate to find out what had happened to one of their own."
Of her brother, Kevin said: "Gemma’s real life was too close to the soap in many ways, because her brother Tony was hugely jealous of her success."
Five days after she went missing, a member of the public sailing a barge discovered Gemma's torso stuffed in a suitcase in the canal.
Tony was arrested on suspicion of murder and a search of their flat found drops of blood in the bathroom and kitchen - as well as a missing knife.
Laura Richards, criminal behavioural analyst, said: "Certainly there were accounts that he was quite jealous and controlling of her.
"That there was this underlying sense of resentment and acted much more like a jealous partner than he did a brother."
CCTV footage from the day Gemma went missing showed Tony dragging a heavy suitcase into a taxi.
Laura added: "He spends three hours dismembering her. He decapitates her. And not only did he do that, he cleared up.
"He called a taxi. This taxi drivers sees him lugging this heavy suitcase which is almost impossible to lift and putting it in the car."
Kevin said: "It’s absolutely horrific, and you couldn’t imagine anybody doing that to anyone else – least of all doing it to your own flesh and blood, your kiss and kin, your sister.
"The sister who looked after you for all those years, and you do that to her?";
The case didn't go to trial until January 2013, after Gemma's skull was discovered in a plastic bag in the same canal.
At the Old Bailey, Tony finally admitted to killing his sister - but insisted he couldn't remember doing it, and that she'd attacked him first.
Kevin said: "Tony wasn’t just a killer and a murderer, someone who dismembered and butchered his sister.
"He’s also a liar, a pathological liar, who was prepared to stand there in court and just lie and lie and lie.
"He’ll do at least 20 years. It will be a long time before he’s out."
Mum-of-two Sian Blake appeared in EastEnders between June 1996 and March 1997, starring as femme fatale Frankie Pierre.
She was murdered by her partner Arthur Simpson-Kent in December 2015. He also killed the couple's sons Zachary, eight, and Amon, four.
Remembering Sian, her acting agent Joanna Archer said: "Sian was really chatty, friendly person, absolutely lovely. If I had to describe her, it would be a fantastic mum.
"They were her world, she did everything for them. They were her priority. And I think that’s what people will remember about her."
Sian, 43, went missing after Sunday lunch at her mum's house, in East London. A few days earlier, she had been diagnosed with terminal motor neurone disease.
Joanna added: "My first thought was for the boys. I was genuinely worried and concerned."
Of her murderer, The Sun's crime editor Mike Sullivan said: "Arthur Simpson-Kent on the surface was a charming man.
"He worked as a hairdresser, he worked as a male model, he had a succession of girlfriends and seemed to be a man with the world at his fingertips.
"But unfortunately, behind that façade, there seemed to be a sinister side."
Kevin added: "Simpson-Kent was a pretty nasty piece of work. He was very controlling and trying to run her life. And she was the main breadwinner in that family. She brought in the cash."
Simpson-Kent had been married once before, to a French woman called Dominique Deblieux, with whom he has a child.
She told Channel 5 cameras: "He tried to control me in a way, but I’m not someone you can influence really.
"We were arguing all the time. Police came three times and I had enough because everything was wrong."
After Sian was reported missing by her family and the NSPCC, Simpson-Kent was visited by the police.
He immediately fled to his native Ghana, and the bodies of his victims weren't found until early January - while he had disappeared without a trace.
Mike said: "The bodies of Sian and her sons were found wrapped in plastic in the garden.
"It’s awful to think of them lying there in that grave in their garden, the garden where those children would have played with their mother.
";Lying there over Christmas. Sian’s family going out of their minds with worry, wondering where they were, and all the time they were in the garden dead."
Dominque said: "I was shocked especially for the children. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe he was a murderer.
"I said ‘no that’s not possible’. I knew him, I fell in love with him. I felt sorry for the relatives really. The family of Sian."
Described in the programme as “a selfish, narcissistic man”, Simpson-Kent was later arrested in Ghana.
While on trial, he admitted to killing Sian and his boys - but insisted the actress had asked him to do so.
But he was found guilty, and handed a whole life sentence for the murders.
In the days following the murder, Simpson-Kent had removed all the furniture from his family home, burned clothes, buried three bodies under heavy flagstones in the garden and sent texts to Sian's family from her phone.
Kerry concluded: "Both of these killers have something in common. They had very calculated steps to try and get away with it.
"In actual fact, this isn’t television, this isn’t a soap opera plot and it’s very difficult to get away with serious crimes like that. They were never going to get away with it."
The EastEnder Murderers: True Crime, Real Tragedy, is on Channel 5 on Wednesday at 10pm.
