The death of the soap actress will be explored in ITV documentary Murder in the Family: True Crime Presents
Murder in the Family: True Crime Presents is airing on Friday evening (March 7) on ITV, telling the tragic story of actress Gemma McCluskie’s tragic murder.
Playing the role of Kerry Skinner, Ethel Skinner’s great-niece, from 2000 to 2001, Gemma appeared in over 30 episodes of the long-running soap opera.
Introduced as the daughter of Eddie Skinner, Kerry Skinner was close friends with Zoe Slater and dated Robbie Jackson for a short period.
While Robbie proposed to Kerry, it emerged that she already got engaged to a man she met on holiday called Darren, leading to Kerry and her actress Gemma leaving Albert Square.
Gemma torso was discovered on March 6, 2012, floating in a canal in East London.
The 29-year-old, who worked in pubs after her time in EastEnders, had been reported missing from her flat which she lived in with her brother Tony McCluskie, five days earlier.
She was last seen at home with her brother on the afternoon of March 1, with it later being found that she went to a kebab shop at around 8pm that night.
With a search party of over 100 people looking for Gemma across the east and south of London, her headless torso was found in a suitcase in Regent’s Canal, Hackney, on March 6.
Her limbs were then discovered in plastic bags the week after that.
Four days later (March 10, 2012), her brother Tony was charged with her murder, appearing at Thames Magistrates’ Court on March 12 and having his preliminary hearing at the Old Bailey on March 26.
It was confirmed in September of that year, that Gemma’s head was found in the same canal where the initial discovery was made. Her funeral was held at London’s St Monica’s Roman Catholic Church on November 30.
Tony’s trial began on January 14, 2013, at the Old Bailey, where the court were told he hit Gemma over the head at least twice before cutting her body into six pieces with a knife and a cleaver.
Denying murder, citing that he had ‘lost control” Tony pleaded guilty to manslaughter and claimed the ‘last thing he remembered’ was his sister coming at him with a knife.
According to the prosecution, Tony was asked to leave his and Gemma’s flat after he left taps running and overflowed the sink with water.
After killing his sister, Tony brought her body in a suitcase to the canal, where he dumped her body, telling a cab driver that it was a ‘sound system’ in the suitcase.
Mr Justice Fulford told Tony during the trial: “I have no doubt that you killed your sister because she was furious with you for letting a sink overflow in the bathroom. I unhesitatingly reject your account that she had used bad language towards you or that she had belittled you in the past.
“She was a warm-hearted woman who was loved by a great many people…. Your hope must have been that she would never be found.”
Found guilty of her murder on January 30, 2013, Tony was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum sentence of 20 years.
Back when Gemma went missing, her former EastEnders co-stars Natalie Cassidy and Brooke Kinsella both appealed to the public for help locating her.
Brooke wrote on Twitter, now known as X, upon hearing of her passing: “Thinking of you Gemma. I am so so sorry. Despair of the world we live in sometimes. RIP darling xxx”
Murder in the Family: True Crime Presents airs at 9m on Friday, March 7, on ITV and ITVX
