IT took 450 police officers from eight different forces to hunt down Terry Rodgers – a man who killed his own daughter Chanel seven weeks after her wedding.
This is the story of Terence Ian Rodgers, known as Terry.
1
Who was Terry Rodgers?
Terry Rodgers was born on November 26, 1948 and was trained to work in security but his violent actions got in the way.
In the 1970s, he married his first wife, Theresa McIntyre but was jailed for assaulting her.
She decided to leave him and in response he tracked her down and attacked her with a claw hammer.
For that, he was jailed for 18 months for causing grievous body harm and Theresa filed a divorce.
Once he came out of prison, he met his second wife, Anne Macpherson, who he was violent towards too.
Together they had three children, including Chanel, who when her mum kicked Terry out of their house – in South Normanton – for the violence he showed towards her and their children, took him in to live with her.
He attacked Anne with knives and forks and threatened her with a hammer sometimes too. In some occasions, he also hurt Chanel and would grab her by her hair and try to punch her.
But she helped him out anyways, and in 2004, in Chesterfield Road, Mansfield, she got married to Lee Taylor with her father by her side.
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Chanel, 23 and Lee, 22, had been in a relationship for four years and moved into a terraced house in New Street.
On Friday, July 30, 2004, at around 1pm, Lee came back home to find his wife shot twice in the head and twice in the body in their kitchen diner.
Terry, 55, was nowhere to be seen but his Red Peugeot 106 was found abandoned in Victoria Street in Hucknall.
Lee was left heartbroken with his wife’s – who worked as a hairdresser – death, as he said: “Chanel was everything to me, not just my wife, she was also my best friend.
“We had been through so much in our four years together and had become a stronger, closer couple.
“We knew each other inside out, talked for hours and always made each other laugh. I lover her so much.”
Where is Terry Rodgers now?
Terry Rodgers was hiding out in the woods, along with another killer, Robert Boyer.
Robert murdered 62-year-old ex-miner Keith Frogson because he thought that he had it out for him.
He shot him with a crossbow then attacked him with a samurai sword he bought online for £150.
Operation Rendition was the name for the biggest man hunt in British History. Officers from other stations – Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, Leicestershire and The Met – joined the Nottinghamshire Police to hunt down the two killers, not known whether they were armed or not.
Polices vehicles lined up the A611, police had 30 specialist dogs by their sides, helicopters were set up to use heat-detection equipment and over 500 ‘Wanted’ posters of Terry were put up on lamp-posts and in shops across Hucknall, Huthwaite and Sutton-in-Ashfield.
Six days since the operation began – August 6 – the police found the air rifle which Terry used to kill his daughter Chanel.
He built a shelter in the woods, and it took police 17 days to find him.
On August 15, Robert was found, tasered and arrested. The next day, the police found Terry.
While surrounded by armed forces, Terry had no energy to try and defend himself and it was said that he gave up without hesitation.
Terry denied Chanel’s murder but the prosecutors refused to accept the plea and set a murder trial to take place on March 6, 2006.
He was sent to Lincoln Prison on remand and was refusing to eat. He also signed a document which prohibited prison officers from force feeding him and if they tried they would have been breaking his Human Rights.
So he was put on suicide watch following the findings of a mug half filled with pills and shoe laces in his room.
A document dated July 28, 2005 showed that Terry said: “My intention is to be with my daughter.”
He was drinking three litres of orange juice every day, barely eating and was sent to a psychiatric unit in Leicester in Arnold Lodge.
He returned to Lincoln jail after he was deemed mentally fit and on February 25, 2006 – a week before his trial – he died weighing only 43.5kg.
He does of bronchial pneumonia, caused by severe malnutrition and his file was closed at the Nottingham Crown Court on March 9, 2006.
No one knows why he killed Chanel while the inquest showed that he was diagnosed with “anti-social personality disorder” and a “psychopathic disorder”.
Detective Chief Inspector Paul Cottee said: “He admitted in court he has killed Chanel. But he never disclosed why, which is all the family wanted to know.
“For a father to shoot his daughter four times and make an admission to that, but gives no good reason, beggars belief.”
He added that this might have been the “result of his marriage break-up.”
On the other hand, a friend of Terry said that he might have killed Chanel because she asked him to move out once she returned from her honeymoon with Lee.
During Chanel’s funeral in St Katherine’s Church in Teversal, Lee said: “We were looking forward to a happy future together. She was such a loving person. We had talked about having children and I know she would have made a great mum.
“All those plans have been taken away now. I feel like I have lost everything.”
On the other hand, Anne reacted in a very different way to her ex-husband’s death. She said: “He’s cheated everybody. He’s taken the coward’s way out and I hope he rots in hell.”
