The subsequent manhunt eventually led to the arrest of Levi Bellfield for Delagrange's murder, and several other high profile, yet previously unsolved cases.
Metropolitan Police select Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton to lead a large task force as Senior Investigating Officer.
Despite pressure to send divers elsewhere, Sutton insists on dredging the river (Thames) by the nearest car crossing, Walton Bridge, and finally finds the phone and other items owned by the victim.
A WPC who attended the initial crime scene reminds Sutton about a witness report of the day, leading him to a possible suspect named Levi Bellfield, a self-employed vehicle clamping operator.
Sutton only lets the Surrey Police officer DCI Marjoram, previously in charge of the Milly Dowler case, who he visits privately at home so there can be no leak to the press, know about Bellfield.
A large operation is drawn up to facilitate Bellfield's arrest and at the same time to strike at the addresses of known associates to prevent the loss of possible forensic evidence.
But out of the blue a leak to the press alerts the News of the World, a large sensationalist tabloid in the UK, which plans to run a story of the impending operation well before Sutton and his team are ready.
To make the News of the World postpone its story, the investigating team agree to let a journalist and photographer join the operation to get first-hand access to the bust.
The series is written by screenwriter Ed Whitmore, based on the memoirs of real-life former Met police detective DCI Colin Sutton.
[9] The Sunday Times said that "The art of telling true stories without resorting to sensation or cliché was expertly showcased by Manhunt, a deftly constructed three-part dramatisation of the 2004 police pursuit of London serial killer Levi Bellfield".
The Hollywood Reporter has this to say: "In Manhunt, there's something likably precise in the old-school focus on how much boring paperwork, staff-wide effort and luck goes into piecing together a complex case," and considers it "keenly British".