Keighley killer Michael Sams is to feature in a television documentary about the police investigation which eventually led to his arrest.

The programme, called Manhunt - Evil Calling, traces West Yorkshire Police detectives' efforts to catch one-legged Sams who murdered Leeds teenager Julie Dart and abducted estate agent Stephanie Slater.

It has been made by Shipley-born producer Mark Handscombe, who was brought up in Heaton and attended Cottingley Manor School.

"We are both from the same area I suppose, but that is just a curious irony. I was fascinated by this extraordinary story of how a one-legged man could evade so many police for so long," he said.

Mr Handscombe, of production company Ray Fitzwater Associates, said he was also intrigued by the murderer because of the most infamous old boy from his school - Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe.

"It galled me when I was a journalist and film-maker that the most famous person from my school was the Yorkshire Ripper but it also fascinated me," said the 37-year-old, who has also made programmes for World in Action and Rough Justice.

Sams sparked a nationwide manhunt in 1991 when he kidnapped and murdered Julie Dart. Six months later he kidnapped Stephanie Slater, keeping her tied up, blind-folded and half-naked in a wooden box at his tool repair workshop in Nottinghamshire for eight days before he finally released her.

In a bid to free Miss Slater police agreed to pay a £175,000 ransom demand but Sams gave 1,000 police officers the slip when they tried to trap him when the money was handed over near a disused railway track in Barnsley.

He was eventually brought to justice when a photofit picture and an extract from a ransom tape were splashed across the nation's TV screens and his first wife Susan Oake, who has since re-married twice and still lives in Keighley, recognised his voice.

Sams, now 59, received four life sentences and Susan reluctantly accepted a then record £175,000 reward from a Sunday newspaper for her tip-off phone call to police.

Mr Handscombe said: "We've spoken to a number of officers who dealt with the case including Bob Taylor, who was a detective superintendent at the time, and asked them to talk about how they approached the investigation.

"We also look at people like Kevin Watts, Stephanie's boss, who took it upon himself to deliver the ransom money. It was a real dilemma for the police to decide whether to tell Watts that the kidnapper was a killer as well.

"Sams slipped out quietly on his moped down a disused railway track on the night the £175,000 was handed over and got into his car and drove off without being caught.

"It was a combination of bad luck and lack of technology which meant the police didn't catch him that night and Sams was also very lucky in that there was a very heavy fog and the Pennines interfered with the police radios."

lManhunt -- Evil Calling will be shown on ITV at 10pm tomorrow.