secondary Research

- medical research -

TW: Addiction, suicide, drug misuse, PTSD, discussions of mental health, child abuse

Research Context

In this section of my research, I will be covering anything that will concern the Medical and psychology elements of my production. This is relevant as our protagonists often find themselves in the grips of mental health struggles such as addiction, grief and PTSD.

Research started: 30th March

Type of research: Secondary

Research Material: Articles, journals, experiments, videos, documentaries, television, books

Research Justification: This research will help me paint a bigger picture of my Character's true psychologies. It has become rather obvious to me that the characters I have created have not had the easiest lives, which is something I do have to accept. This research page is going to help me cover all of the areas that our characters have personal experience in so their actions, choices and words can be as authentic and to the bone as possible. I have built up an extensive bibliography of research articles and documentation regarding opioid addictions, the effects of grief on the physical and mental body, and the overall snowball effect of unresolved trauma. This thorough and in-depth greatly impact the accuracy of scriptwriting and planning, as well as making the job of the actors easier.

Addiction

Understanding opioids

What Are Opioids? [1]

Opioids are a class of drugs that have both medical and recreational purposes. They have been at the forefront of many a drug epidemic and have caused the life expectancy in the United States to drop by 0.30 over the course of 2014-2017, which although does not seem like a lot when you take it at face value, America is an increasingly developing country that has only had an increasing life expectancy over the last thirty years. So a sudden drop (a drop that hasn't been seen since the Great War followed by the 1918 influenza) does prompt the question 'what's happening and why is it happening?'

19th - 20th century use of opioids - a brief overview [2]

While the history of opioids is blurry and has suspected uses back as far as 3400BC, the discovery of morphine most certainly paved the road for their contemporary effect on society. In the 1800s, German chemist Wilhelm Adam SertĂĽrner discovered a substance the opium poppy which aided in pain and respiratory relief especially during the civil war. SertĂĽrner named it Morphine, after the god of dreams 'Morpheus.' An unforeseen issue that arose was that the soldiers who consumed Morphine during the civil war ended up developing an addiction to the substance after the war (this was known as 'Solider's disease') .

In 1898 (nearly one hundred years after its use in the civil war and nearly fifty years after the first hypodermic needle was invented that allowed morphine to be administered during minor surgeries) Heroin was first synthesised as a derivative of morphine and Bayer, a German pharma company, advertised it as a cough suppressant and a 'nonaddictive' alternative for morphine.

Throughout the next century the war on drugs would begin, with legislations such as the Opium Exclusion Act of 1909, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, the The Heroin Act of 1924 and the controlled substance act of 1970, pushing and fighting against the disease of addiction. However to little success as the opioid epidemic has reached international notoriety and continues to take lives to this day.

Understanding ADDICTION

21st century use of recreational drugs [3]

The use of recreational drugs is still incredibly prevalent, especially in the UK. According to the most recent findings, in 2019 9.4% of 16-59-year-olds consumed an illicit drug of some description. The following year in 2020, the UK saw its largest number of deaths due to drug poisoning since 1993 at 4,561.

The addiction rates in the UK have slowly been rising over recent years. While it's hard to pinpoint exactly what causes addiction, both genetic and environmental factors play a large role. For example, some people may be more genetically vulnerable to developing an addiction than others, which could be due to previous drug abuse from a relative. However, this isn't a guarantee In terms of environmental factors exposure to substances of abuse in childhood, or experiencing trauma either in childhood or later in life can also pave a road to addiction.

In 2018/19 there were 7376 hospital admissions for drug related causes which while being 14% lower than 2015/16 with 8,621, however it still 30% higher than in 2008/09 with 5,668. Research showed that those who live in more deprived areas are six times more likely to be admitted than those who live in less richer areas.

Withdrawal at face value [4]

While Heroin withdrawal symptoms may only last a week they can be extremely uncomfortable and even painful. Withdrawal symptoms can appear as early as six to twelve hours after the last dose and will get dramatically more severe for the first three days. Over the three days, the addict will suffer from a range of symptoms such as:

  • Nausea

  • Abdominal pain

  • Sweating

  • Shaking

  • Nervousness

  • Agitation

  • Depression

  • Muscle spasms

  • Cravings for drugs

After the three day mark, these symptoms will usually plateau however this is not guaranteed. Quite often it depends on how long the addict has been taking the drug, the longer the addiction, the longer the withdrawal and detox.

- true crime research -

TW: Rape, murder, assault, grooming, kidnapping, drug abuse...

Missing persons - Kayleigh Haywood

Kayleigh Haywood

(All information is based on when she was last seen alive)

Age: 15

location: Leicestershire, England, UK

occupation: Student

context: On the 13th of November 2015, after being groomed by 27 year old Luke Harlow, Kayleigh Haywood met up with Luke and was raped and murdered by him and his neighbour Stephen Beadman. Her body was found in a grassy plain after Beadman confessed.

Solved: Yes

status: Deceased

Kayleigh Haywood (2000-2015)

Kayleigh Haywood was your very typical teenager. Always with friends, very sociable, and was essentially glued to her phone. She was on Facebook posting every second of her life and, like most people, had a friend list that consisted of people that were at best acquaintances and very often strangers.

On the 1st of November 2015 received a friend request on Facebook by a man named Luke Harlow, she had accepted the request and they immediately started talking, Hayleigh was originally sceptical of Luke however that was quick to change after some conversation. They had both lied about their ages, Hayleigh posing as 19 when she was 15, Luke posing as 26 when he was 27 (which would've been legal if true as in the UK due to consent laws stating that the minimum age is 18). The conversations quickly escalated from small talk to Luke giving Hayleigh relentless compliments such as: 'You're beautiful' and 'How are you single?' which Hayleigh never really accepted. Hayleigh had revealed her age to Luke after posting a photo of her in her school uniform with her friends to which Luke just replied that they needed to be more secretive about their 'relationship'.

It wasn't long before they had already discussed meeting in person as they didn't live too far from each other. The plans had escalated from having a 'cute' night in watching movies and eating snacks to alcoholics beverages being introduced and the mention of possible sexual acts.

A short film by Leicestershire Police as a warning about grooming and talking to strangers online

Luke Harrow

Kayleigh Haywood

It was decided that Hayleigh would go to Luke's house on Friday the 13th of November. She had been dropped off at a car park by her parents, who were told she'd be staying at a school friend's house. After they drove off she walked to Luke's house where she stayed the night. She then texted her mum asking if she could stay an additional night to which her mother said yes.

On Sunday morning a builder was walking down the road, presumably to the shops or a building site, when he found a smashed iPhone on the pavement floor. He picked it up and called the most recent caller which was the friend that Hayleigh had claimed to be staying with. After explaining that he had found the phone and where it was the friend proceeded to call Hayleigh's mum, Stephanie, as it was nowhere near where they lived.

Stephanie was confused when receiving the call as this particular friend had been the one that Hayleigh had claimed to be staying with. This immediately caused alarm and she called 999 and reported Hayleigh missing. The police arrived at her house and they were quick to check Hayleigh's social media and saw the text thread between her and Luke Harlow. The texts were very flirty with kisses and love heart emojis however the text that stood out to the police was from Luke saying 'Can I kidnap you forever?'

While some officers were back at the station going through the texts some other officers immediately went over to Luke's house. This was all within the hour of seizing Kayleigh's phone.

After arriving at Luke's house, Kayleigh was nowhere to be seen however they still wanted to talk to Luke about his relationship with her. He was very open about it and admitted that she had stayed over on Friday however she left the next night. He had also revealed that they weren't alone and that they were joined by Luke's neighbor Stephen Beadman.

Luke's story is that Kayleigh and Stephen left the house. He didn't know what time it was nor where they were going. An hour after they left he had decided to go to bed and the next morning they still weren't home so he had assumed that they went back to Stephen's place. Still suspicious of Luke the police looked for Stephen and found him at a friend's house and when they didn't find Kayleigh with him they arrest both Luke and Stephen on suspicion of kidnap.

Stephen Beadman

At the station, they asked Luke to go through how he first came in contact with Kayleigh (although they already knew due to them reading the messages that they hadn't spoken before becoming friends on Facebook). Throughout the interview, he was using lots of body language which is connected with telling a story or lying. He had stuck with the story that Stephen and Kayleigh had gone out, did not come back, and that he has no clue where Kayleigh was.

Meanwhile, in Stephen's questioning, he said that Luke had knocked on his door at 7:30 PM on Saturday asking for any mixers to put with alcohol as he had a "Bird" over and they had gotten drunk the night before and they planned on getting drunk again that night. Stephan said that he went around and they drank for about four hours before going home as they were so drunk they could hardly string a sentence together and left Kayleigh there with Luke.

With two different stories, one, likely both, had to be lying.

The search for Kayleigh began and there were hundreds of officers searching as they knew that time was running out if they still wanted to find Kayleigh alive. It wasn't long into the search until they found their first piece of evidence: Kayleigh's bra. They brought her mum into the station who confirmed that it was her bra. This caused the investigation to become even higher profile and there was now over 400 police officers, volunteers and friends and family of Kayleigh all out looking for her.

As part of the investigation friends of Stephen's friends and family to get more information on the type of person he is. This was when a family member revealed that he had a storage locker. This gave police some hope as if the men had kept Kayleigh alive then she's most likely be in the storage locker. The police began speaking to some employers and found CCTV footage that showed that he had gone to the storage locker at 2 PM on that Sunday.

As soon as they found out they called the owner and requested that he unlocks the locker with a master key. When they got into Beadman's locker Kayleigh was not only not there but it seems that it contained nothing that would be of any help in the investigation. As they know that he had been there on that Sunday they decided to search the surrounding areas and in a skip near to the warehouse they found women's clothing and a handbag. They took the items back to the police station and Stephanie had confirmed that they belonged to Kayleigh.

By this point, the police were very doubtful that Kayleigh would be found alive as they had most of her clothes and the only suspects they had were lying as well as the fact that even if she had escaped somehow or got lost then chances are she could've died of exposure considering it was mid-November.

Some neighbours had told the police they had heard screaming and banging. The people who had heard the screaming had just assumed it was a group of drunk people being stupid. However, one neighbour, in particular, saw a young woman being pinned down by a man then being helped up and then walking away together. The neighbour who saw this had shrugged it off assuming it was a domestic argument between a couple and that they had made up. The police presented this information to Stephen and he denied the couple being him or Kayleigh. Police knew that Stephan had worked outside so they decided to go to his workplace and see if they could find any more leads. When they went to his workplace on one of the fields they found an unlit bonfire with a bin bag with clothes in it that were covered in blood. The bin bag was taken back to the police station and after DNA testing the blood they confirmed that it was Kayleigh's blood. It became obvious to the police that if they were to find Kayleigh she most certainly wouldn't be alive. Luke Harlow and Stephen Beadman were re-arrested on suspicion of Kayleigh's murder and went through one more round of questioning as it was a fresh charge. This was when Stephen Beadman began to tell the truth...

Stephan admitted that the couple that the witness had seen had been them. This means that not only had he been alone with Kayleigh but he had lied to the police. He then confessed to the rape and murder of Kayleigh Haywood and that her body had been left in a field. Police went and found her body, naked apart from one sock. She had been bludgeoned to death and evident by the wounds on her hands she had fought for her life until the very end.

In June 2016 Luke Harlow was found guilty of grooming, sexual misconduct, false imprisonment, and perverting the course of justice and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Stephen Beadman was found guilty of the rape and murder of Kayleigh Haywood as well as false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice and was sentenced to life in prison.

Case closed.

Bibliography

Medical research

  • (UCSF), U., University, M., Dresden), T. and Dresden), T., 2019. Tracing the US opioid crisis to its roots. [online] Nature.com. Available at: <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02686-2> [Accessed 6 April 2022]. [1]
  • Biram, T., 2020. 'issues' volume 373: Drug Use and Abuse. Cambridge: Independence Educational Publishers, pp.1-44. [3]
  • Michael's House Treatment Centers. n.d. The History of Opiates | Michael's House Treatment Center. [online] Available at: <https://www.michaelshouse.com/opiate-rehab/history-of-opiates/> [Accessed 6 April 2022]. [2]

True Crime research