WARNING: The Man They Trusted… Was The Killer | True Crime Documentary

“Terrible. They’d never dream of it. A young child on the bus like that, you know, just going missing. It’s just unbearable to think about. It’s just a nightmare for everyone. It’s like any child that has a day saver ticket which you boarded with; it’s up to them what they do with it. They paid for the ticket. They can do what they please with it.”

“If anybody out there knows where Jamie is or giving him food, please just get in touch with the police. Everybody’s waiting for him to come home.”

“I’ve got nothing to do with the abduction of James Levis and I’ve got the back end of the Levis family relations, everybody.”

In 1997, the Levis family were living on Bley Street in Manchester, England.

8-year-old Jamie Aaron Levis was the middle child and had four siblings. He was a cheeky, mischievous, and adventurous young boy. At just 4 feet tall, he was fairly tiny for his age and his mother, Karen, said she had to dress him in clothes made for five to six-year-olds. He and his siblings used to play out in the streets together as did a lot of children in the neighborhood. But Jaime was afraid of the dark and never stayed out late, making sure he was always back for dinner.

Bank holiday weekend, May 5th, 5:00 p.m. The Levis family were ready to sit down for their evening meal, but little Jaime hadn’t come home from playing outside that day. His parents thought he had just lost track of time or maybe he had gone to a friend’s house. But as 8:00 p.m. came and went and he still wasn’t home, his family headed out onto the streets to look for him. They searched for hours but had no luck and eventually, late that evening, they phoned the police. What followed was the biggest investigation in Manchester since the infamous Moors murders. Appeals were being broadcast and everyone was out searching for Jamie. His family were begging for his safe return, and many tips and alleged sightings started to come in.

“If anybody out there knows where Jamie is or giving him food, please just get in touch with the police. Everybody’s waiting for him to come home. Now, Jamie is described as being small for his age. He’s about 4 foot tall and he wears… he wears clothes that are made to fit a 5 to 6-year-old.”

Several people said they had seen Jamie catching the 219 bus at around 10:30 a.m. the morning he was last seen. Apparently, he had planned on going to buy his mom a birthday present. Following the sightings of him on the bus, Jaime’s sister was approached by a man who said he’d seen someone he thought could be Jaime. The man said,

“He wouldn’t happen to be wearing a dark blue Reebok tracksuit, would he?”

His sister, Jane, confirmed that he had been. 28-year-old Darren Vickers was a local bus driver who lived just three streets away from the Levis family. He told the family and later the police the boy he now knew to be Jaime had spent virtually all day on his 219 bus. He said Jaime had bought a day saver ticket and spent several hours riding around and looking out of the window before Darren dropped him off near his home. Over the coming days and weeks, with still no sign of the missing Jaime, bus driver Darren was becoming extremely close to the Levis family. Everyone was frantic and desperate for answers, and it seemed that Darren Vickers was more than willing and able to help them.

“There’s somebody out there that’s got to be sick, keeping a child of that age, you know? It shouldn’t be done. If you had any respect, you just hand him over to the nearest police station. Just let the child go in. Just let him come home. He’s not in trouble. It’s not nothing. It’s just wanted.”

He started acting almost as the unofficial spokesperson for the family, conducting press conferences and speaking on their behalf when they couldn’t face the media. One officer described him as being like the kingpin of the family.

“I feel he’s still alive. I don’t fear the same way the police fear that he’s murdered. His family don’t, but somebody, somewhere, knows where Jamie is.”

They saw him as a pillar of strength, and he was fighting alongside them to help find Jaime and bring him home. Darren offered to take part in a reconstruction of Jaime’s last known movements in the bus station along with Jaime’s brother and his father. But his fixation with the family and the case was starting to be seen as odd and strange. The more he started to insert himself into the family’s world, the more the police were questioning why. Even the community was starting to wonder why this random man was so deeply invested. As more time passed, the police started to find his relationship with the Levis family not only troubling but downright damaging to the investigation. Sharing facts and updates with the family had become almost impossible because the information would always get back to Darren. One inspector said that Darren had become so involved with the family, the Levis’s trusted him more than they did the police.

More witnesses on the 219 bus that day were now coming forward and they were giving a totally different account of the bus journey. Darren’s description of Jaime as just another passenger couldn’t be further from the truth. Jaime was described as turning the bus into a playground, changing the gears of the bus, and giving out tickets to people while standing in the driver’s cabin.

“Terrible. Could never dream of it. A young child on the bus like that, you know, just going missing. It’s just unbearable to think about. It’s just a nightmare for everyone. It’s like any child that has a day saver ticket which you boarded with, it’s up to them what they do with it. They paid for the ticket, they can do what they please with it.”

Darren had previously said that Jaime had an all-day bus ticket, but this also added more doubt and raised more questions. Children weren’t allowed to buy day saver tickets. And the police started to wonder whether Jaime even had a ticket at all. What the police did know for sure was that Darren was the last known person that admitted to seeing Jaime that day. Police went back to the place where it had all started: the bus station. Hours and hours of footage were analyzed from May 5th, and sure enough, there was Jamie.

But the footage also showed Darren Vickers. He could be seen approaching Jaime, ruffling his hair, and talking to him for several minutes. Again, this account was very different from what Darren had told the police. At the time Jaime went missing, Darren had only been a bus driver for a mere matter of days. Further investigation into his background led police to look into his work references. All the contacts he had put down were fake apart from one, who turned out to be a convicted pedophile.

3 weeks after Jaime was reported missing, on the 24th of May, officers brought Darren in for questioning. The Levis family were appalled that he could even be considered a person of interest, let alone a suspect. This was a man they had let into their home and someone that was spending every waking moment helping them look for their missing boy. Karen, Jaime’s mother, said they assumed that the police had drawn a blank and arrested Darren on a whim.

“We just got close. It’s like one big close family now.”

He said that Darren had shown him a picture of young Jaime and then pointed ahead saying,

“I think that’s him.”

Darren started walking away and the teen quickly turned and ran. It was also later revealed that Darren had taken Jaime’s older brother, 11-year-old John, into some woods and given him a cigarette. He said to John that this was where his brother was and if he didn’t behave himself, this was where he would end up too. Jaime’s sister recalled that he had started showing an unusual interest in John, buying him shoes and a new bike, but he didn’t seem to care much for the other children.

Following all of these accounts, police began an extensive and meticulous search of the wooded area. In the same location the teens described, half a mile away from the path, officers found some tarpaulin in which were covering some clothes. Clothes that matched what Jaime had been wearing on the day he had disappeared. The clothes were taken back to the station and as they were all laid out to be forensically examined, police found a small jawbone wrapped up in the clothing. More human remains were found scattered throughout the woods, but most of the bones were never found. DNA testing of some milk teeth confirmed these were the remains of Jaime Levis. Due to decomposition, the cause of death could not be officially determined.

Darren was arrested and charged with the abduction and murder of Jaime. Police believe that at the end of his shift that day, Darren took Jaime into the woods in his own car where he sexually assaulted, killed, and dismembered him. He then set about involving himself with the Levis family, partly to keep the suspicion off himself and partly because he had a morbid fascination with the case. He even started to use a scanner to monitor police radio calls and would turn up at places where Jaime was reported to have been sighted.

Darren pled not guilty and a 7-week trial ensued. During the trial, Darren made the shocking claim that Jaime’s father had been the one to kill his own son. He alleged that he and Karen had been having an affair and she was carrying his child. Karen was forced to take a blood test to prove the baby wasn’t his. Darren Vickers’ twisted manipulation of the Levis family and the media seemingly knew no bounds.

Two years since the story broke about the missing Jaime, at Manchester Crown Court, Darren Vickers was unanimously found guilty. Mr. Justice Forbes praised the police and also the teens that had come forward with their stories about Darren. The judge awarded them £150 each from public funds.

After the guilty verdict came in, Darren asked to talk to Detective Chief Superintendent Roy Rainford, who had been heading the investigation from the start. He finally admitted to abducting, sexually abusing, and murdering Jaime. However, just days later, he contacted the media and retracted this confession. Darren Vickers was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 25 years. He was eligible for parole 5 years into his sentence, but the police worked hard to ensure that this was denied. It is said that Darren has since gone on to brag about the heinous crime to fellow inmates in jail, detailing the abuse and murder. Roy Rainford believes that the day he was taken into custody, they had stopped a serial killer in the making. In 2014, Darren Vickers was attacked in prison with a hammer, suffering three skull fractures and broken bones in his hand. The Levis family talk about Jaime everyday, and his siblings make sure that their children know everything about their uncle. Photos of Jamie cover the walls of the home and Karen said she feels his presence every day.