Beside his parents, the one person who was profoundly affected by news of Haigh being a callous mass murderer was Barbara Stephens, the woman he was supposed to love and marry. She visited him regularly in prison trying to understand what kind of man she had been involved with. Did he intend to kill her, she asked? He never entertained the idea, was the seemingly genuine reply. However, Barbara knew that at some point she may have succumbed to a similar fate when Haigh saw her as an inconvenience.There appeared to be no remorse on Haigh’s part and he revelled in revealing his grisly escapades which were recounted in the newspapers.ForensicsEven although the acid had destroyed a great deal of evidence, not everything had been eliminated. Ghoulish relics such as small bones, dentures, Mr Henderson’s foot and a gall bladder were all discovered, as the forensic team sifted through tons of mud and sludge. Technicians had to wear rubber gloves and cover their arms in Vaseline to protect themselves from the acid. They found the following items.1. 28 pounds of human body fat2. 3 faceted gallstones3. Part of a left foot, not quite eroded4. 18 fragments of human bone5. Upper and lower dentures, intact6. The handle of a red plastic bag7. A lipstick container

Despite the forensic evidence, it was Haigh’s very own sense of invincibility and arrogance that was to be his greatest undoing in finding him guilty.Haigh was of the opinion that nothing could be found from his human slaughterhouse and confidently recounted in great detail his escapades of death. As far as he was concerned, it was a case of corpus delicti. No bodies, no crime, no punishment.Psychiatric EvaluationOn 1 April 1949, EG Robey opened the case for the prosecution before ten Sussex magistrates. Haigh was in a confident mood and even made light banter throughout the proceedings, as if he was unaware of the magnitude of his crimes. If ever there was an illustration of sociopathic tendencies, that is the inability to empathise and recognise human feelings and emotions, Haigh was the perfect embodiment of such dysfunction.Haigh had during an early confession not only admitted to many of the deaths but also enquired as to what the outcome would be with anyone who was declared insane. It seemed at this stage that Haigh had been mulling over the possibility of appearing mad in order to escape the noose and had most likely invented the stories of nightmarish dreams and claims to be a vampire in order to literally save his neck.During court proceedings, EG Robey called thirty-three witnesses to prove premeditation of murder for gain. He laid out his case in the form of a basic chronology that showed how rational Haigh's movements were and how they had not been the actions of someone with diminished responsibility.Haigh was also examined by several doctors and psychologists who were interested in the defendant’s claims to have a need to drink blood. Such a compulsion, if genuine, is part of a sexual deviation and related to the act of violence itself. However, Haigh, who it appeared had little interest in sex, gave no indication that he suffered from such a disorder.Most of the psychologists agreed that although Haigh suffered from mental health issues he was not ‘insane’ and had been perfectly aware of his murderous actions that had involved meticulous planning. One eminent psychiatrist believed without any doubt that Haigh had a 'paranoid constitution', the same mental disease as Hitler.Haigh, they believed, had most likely developed a paranoid personality to escape his parents’ suffocating universe, in order to relieve himself from emotional pain. His upbringing had contributed to a mental state where the dividing lines between reality and fantasy had become blurred.The result was that Haigh had an acute sense of omnipotence and believed he was above the law. He was in effect an ‘egocentric paranoiac’ who, although aware that killing people was against the law, still thought that it was part of fulfilling his destiny.Haigh tried to impress on the psychiatrists more details of his abnormal dreams and obsession with blood drinking but none of them bought his efforts to portray himself as a lunatic. However, something of which they were not aware was that Haigh had years before developed a friendship with an employee of Sussex psychiatric hospital and had shown a great deal interest in mental illness. He possessed a talent for deception, having over the years also posed as a lawyer, engineer and a doctor.

Gotcha

"He was actually making for his carpentry box, and inside he had a revolver. There was a struggle and officers overpowered him. He would not have been taken alive if he had known we were on to him."Detective Chief Inspector Norman McKinlay, BBC News Online, 4 April, 2011As a violent and dangerous criminal, Sweeney is arrested by police a number of times.The breakthrough comes in March 2001, when police arrest Sweeney for the attempted murder of Delia Balmer while he is at work on a building site near the Old Bailey. He is surrounded by armed officers before he can reach for a knife hidden in his waistband. In his work locker, police find a loaded 9mm Luger pistol.At his home police find weapons including sawn-off shotguns, a machete and a garrotte made with bamboo and wire. There is also a holdall with a ‘killer’s kitbag’ of a saw, bow knife, Stanley knife, axe head, orange rubber gloves and rolls of tape.Detectives also discover a huge haul of artwork: violent and macabre in its nature, including over 300 drawings and poems showing him chopping up bodies and name checking his victims: Melissa, Delia and Paula, amongst others. On the back of one of his wood carvings, surrounded by kisses are the words: “inspired by and dedicated especially to Delia. May you die in pain.”

The Met vs "the Ripper"

The Victorian police were largely unfamiliar with serial killers. Their understanding of the psychological aspects of such murders, or indeed recognising patterns and killer profiles, was extremely limited.Two major police figures are associated with the Ripper investigations, Sir Melville Macnaghten, Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police Service Criminal Investigation Dept and Inspector Frederick Abberline.Macnaghten didn’t join the force until after the murders and his notes are now viewed as containing errors relating to the murders and investigations.Abberline himself was not in charge of investigations, but he is the most prominent police figure strongly associated with the case and was even portrayed twice on film and TV by Johnny Depp and Michael Caine.Following the murder of the first victim, Mary Ann Nicholls, Abberline was transferred to Whitechapel and placed in charge of several detectives investigating the case.

The police and press received countless letters during the investigation from a variety of different sources. Some pertaining to come from the killer himself were considered hoaxes, but a few were noted as genuine and even today have not been dismissed by experts. The killer referred to himself as ‘Saucy Jack’ in a postcard dated 1 October 1888, and the message contained details such as the ‘double killing’ even before the event had been reported in the press.One letter in particular has passed into folklore due to its association with a ghoulish package. Posted on the 15 October 1888, the letter headed ‘From Hell’ was sent to George Lusk who was head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee.The letter arrived with a box that contained a lone kidney, assumed to have been taken from victim Catherine Eddowes. At first it was thought that the package may have been a hoax sent by medical students, but is now considered to be genuine:From hell.Mr Lusk,SorI send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longersignedCatch me when you can Mishter LuskNewspapers at the time did not hold back in criticising the authorities for not bringing the killer to book and in one particular sketch in ‘Punch’ magazine depicted a drawing of a blindfolded policeman being spun around by unsavoury characters with the heading ‘Blind-Man’s Buff'.It is thought that it was the newspapers that actually coined the phrase Jack the Ripper, as a means of ‘branding’ the crime and upping circulation figures.

Who was the Ripper?

Prime SuspectsThe longevity of the Jack The Ripper phenomenon has been maintained due to the fact that no killer was actually identified and the murders suddenly stopped after the butchering of Mary Kelly. Therefore, the gruesome saga has always been shrouded by mystery and prone to a multitude of theories and conspiracies.During the time of the actual investigations by Inspector Abberline, suspicion fell on a group of men, some of whom have been totally discarded as ever having been the Ripper. Crime writer Patricia Cornwall has invested millions in her endeavours to name the faceless killer and settled on an old suspect, the Victorian painter Walter Richard Sickert.Sir William Withey Gull (31 Dec 1816 – 29 January 1890)Perhaps the most popular choice of suspect throughout the decades has been physician to Queen Victoria, William Withey Gull, who appears to have caught the imagination of countless authors and film producers. Withey Gull is fingered as the culprit or associate of the Ripper in several films, including the blockbuster ‘From Hell’ (starring Johnny Depp as Inspector Abberline), played by a diabolical Sir Ian Holm.Withey Gull is a favoured villain most likely because he fits the bill for conspiracy theories that revolve around Royal connections and associations with Freemasonry and illegitimate children. However, there is very little evidence supporting these views and many of the theories surrounding the involvement of Queen Victoria’s physician and grandson are simply seen as flights of fantasy rather than credible notions backed up with conclusive evidence.According to the main theory surrounding Withey Gull, he was employed to dispatch the victims after they had become part of a plot to blackmail the Government about Prince Eddy’s indiscretions with a pregnant shop girl, whom he secretly married. Withey Gull, with the assistance of a royal coachman, was alleged to have butchered the prostitutes including Mary Kelly who was the real target due to her harbouring Prince Eddy’s illegitimate child.Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence (1864-1892)The theory revolving around Prince ‘Eddy’ Albert, being either the Ripper himself or the main cause of the murders, is perhaps the most intriguing and fanciful of all stories. It is a tale that has been recounted in a plethora of books, movies and TV productions but actually was only a theory that came to light in the 1960s.The rudiments of the tale are that Prince Eddy’s mother, Princess Alexandria introduced her son to the Danish painter Walter Richard Sickert in the hope that he would teach the young man about London life. During their escapades, the Prince met and had an affair with a shop girl, Annie Elizabeth Crook, who became pregnant by him. According to one angle, Prince Eddy sired a child with Irish prostitute Mary Kelly instead.Prince Eddy is then alleged to have married Annie Crook in a secret ‘Catholic’ wedding and set up both her and his illegitimate daughter in an apartment in Cleveland Street. It was shortly afterwards when the Royal family discovered Eddy’s secret and fearing scandal that they employed Withey Gull to dispatch Mary Kelly and her prostitute friends, who were blackmailing the Government.Annie herself was abducted and experimented on by Withey Gull, went insane and placed in an asylum where she lived until old age. The story makes compelling reading, but falls down on evidence relating to time and dates. Accusations that the Prince himself was the Ripper due to the fact he had contracted syphilis and had gone insane, are also discredited mainly because records show that he was out of London, often in Yorkshire, during the time of the murders.Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942)Sickert is the prime suspect in crime novelist Patricia Cornwall’s book ‘Portrait of a Killer’, which alleges the German-born painter is the Ripper due to elements of ‘misogyny’ in his art and a belief that he wrote the taunting letters to the police at the time of investigations. The choice is not original as Sickert has been associated with the murders as part of the many royal-conspiracy theories and also his relationship with Prince Eddy. Strong evidence points to Sickert having been in France during most of the killings and he is not considered by many investigators as being a serious contender.John Maybrick (24 Oct 1838 – 11 May 1889)Another contentious suspect, Maybrick was a well-travelled Liverpool cotton merchant who was murdered by his own wife, Florence, after she poisoned him. A diary, purportedly written by Maybrick, describes his activities as the Ripper responsible for the Whitechapel murders. The diary did not come to light until 1992 and the general consensus is that it is a fake.‘Dr’ Francis Tumblety (1833-1903)An American and charlatan, who posed as a doctor throughout North America and occasionally Europe, he was associated with the deaths of some of his patients who he may have actually killed through incompetence. Tumblety was in England in 1888, at the time of the Ripper murders and arrested for homosexual importuning. He was released on bail and fled the country to France on 24 November 1888, fifteen days after the death of last known Ripper victim, Mary Kelly. Contemporary investigators have dismissed him as being the Whitechapel murderer.Montague John Druitt (15 Aug 1857 – 1 Dec 1888)Druitt was a lawyer by trade, but also acted as a private school teacher. His last place of teaching was at a Blackheath school. Following his dismissal he was found floating in the Thames two days later. Police assumed Druitt had suffered a bout of depression and had also placed stones in his pocket to assist quick drowning. Because of his suicide so soon after the last of the Ripper murders, some investigators believed he may have been the killer. However, later evidence suggested that he was in a good state of mind after having performed well in a court case. Inspector Frederick Abberline himself was not convinced he was the Ripper.Severin Antoniocich Klosowski (1865 Poland – executed 7 April 1903)Klosowski was Inspector Abberline’s favoured suspect, having shown that the Polish born man was extremely violent and possessed a misogynistic streak. He was found guilty of poisoning his three mistresses and eventually hanged. Klosowski took up the alias George Chapman on his arrival in the UK. He was also known to have had some medical knowledge, but failed to become a doctor and instead set up a barber’s shop. It was thought unlikely that the Ripper, who dispatched his victims in such a bloody and messy manner with a knife, would then resort to poisoning his victims. Standard profiles of serial killers show that they rarely change their method of killing and chosen weapons. Chapman used a particularly cruel form of poison, similar to arsenic and after conviction for the murder of his last victim was hung at Wandsworth Prison on 7 April 1903.Dr Thomas Neill Cream (May 1850- 15 November 1892)Born in Scotland and educated in London, Thomas Cream specialised in secret abortions, which were illegal at the time. He was eventually found responsible of the deaths of several female and male patients by poisoning while working in America. Imprisoned at Illinois State Penitentiary he was released and relocated to London where he carried out similar activity. He was arrested and hanged. At the time of his execution on the gallows he is alleged to have said ‘I am Jack’.Cream was more likely a fantasist and possibly suffered from the personality disorder Munchausen syndrome, a pathological form of behaviour that has been linked to several contemporary murder cases within the medical profession. Many believe the fact that the dates of his imprisonment clashed with the times of the Ripper murders rule Cream out as the Whitechapel killer.Other suspects have included Frederick Bailey Deeming, a British man who murdered his family and a second wife in Australia ; Robert Donston Stephenson, an in-patient at Whitechapel Hospital who had a penchant for the occult and William Henry Bury, who murdered his wife, a former prostitute by cutting her with a knife. The murder took place a year after Mary Kelly’s death. Bury pleaded guilty to killing his wife and was hanged in Dundee, Scotland.

After James’ murder emotions among the Liverpool community are running high. On the bank, close to where his body has been found, hundreds of flowers are being placed.

Among them is a bunch of flowers put there by one of James’ murderers.

The only leads the police have to go on are the grainy images from the Strand revealing James’ abduction. Keeping an open mind, the police want to track down the two youths seen leading him out of the shopping centre. The problem for the police is they need a way to improve the CCTV footage in order to work out the ages of the two teenagers. The Ministry of Defence agrees to help.

With the public’s support in trying to catch the killer, the one thing the police aren’t short of is information. On Tuesday 16 February they arrest a young boy. It’s breaking news. However, neighbours who have seen the police arrive, jump to the wrong conclusion. Believing he’s guilty, a near riot ensues. The level of anger that someone could commit such a brutal and savage murder has incensed the Liverpool community. As soon as the innocent boy and his family are ruled out of the enquiry they’re forced to move house.

A woman sees the grainy images from the Strand and recognises the two individuals as Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. They are known troublemakers and a quick check of the school register proves they were playing truant the day James Bulger went missing.

Thursday 18 February 1993

The police act on this information and plain clothes policemen in unmarked cars are sent to arrest them. Robert Thompson is 10 years old and lives in Walton with his mother and two younger brothers. His four older brothers have all been taken into care. When the police arrive they realise his house isn’t far from the murder scene.

Jon Venables is also 10. His parents divorced when he was three-years-old and together they share joint custody of him and his two siblings. When he appears at the top of the stairs, the police are astounded by his young age and small stature. The police are certain that the boys they’ve just arrested aren’t who they’re looking for. They strongly believe the children are just not capable of such a crime.

This belief is shared by Detective Superintendent Albert Kirby who’s in charge of the investigation. He dismisses the boys as murderers but still wants to question them. Kirby believes they are looking for teenagers. So in a desperate bid for more information he asks Crimewatch to help. The programme is to be broadcast on Thursday 18 February. For the first time in the programme’s history an appeal is to be launched in the same week the murder has been committed. During the broadcast police release newer and better enhanced images of the two boys hoping that someone will be able to identify the two individuals.

What the police fail to realise is the two suspects they’re searching for are already in their custody.

Read more:

What drove James Bulger's underage killers?

The Plot Thickens

The police thought they were dealing with four murders and one suicide. They had been aware of Shelia’s mental health problems and when Bamber had made out that his disturbed sister had gone crazy there seemed no reason to question his story. However, the young man’s cavalier behaviour soon began to arouse suspicion.

At the funeral nine days later, Bamber let his vanity betray him by admitting that his only worry was that the cameras should catch his best profile. He put on a tearful performance at the graveside but afterwards he went out for a meal with friends to celebrate, not thinking twice about how this would appear.

It was even noted that on the day of the killings the police had passed Bamber driving to the scene at a casual 30mph, hardly the actions of a distressed son concerned about his family.

Finally, when Bamber told his girlfriend, Julie Mugford, that he had hired a hitman for £2,000 she reported this comment to the police. Despite this throw-away comment, the evidence against Bamber remained circumstantial. Although Bamber's fingerprints had been found on the murder weapon, alongside those of Sheila, there was no other forensic evidence to link him to the killings, in large part due to the fact that police had allowed the crime scene to be cleared.

In the meantime Bamber enjoyed a life of luxury, spending his parents’ money and even going on holiday to Amsterdam. Although his behaviour was now being closely watched, Bamber appeared unaffected and detached from the traumatic events. His sister’s modelling photos were all he wanted as a keepsake, so he could offer them for sale.

Fleet Street turned him down but the likes of 'The Sun' publicly demonstrated its disdain by brandishing front-page headlines with ‘Bambi Brother In Photo Scandal’.

Despite the lack of evidence against him, the investigation unveiled a quandary with regard to the murder weapon. Without a silencer, the 25 shots that were fired would have made too much noise and would have alerted the victims to the danger. Yet if a silencer was attached to the weapon, it would have been too long for Sheila to have shot herself.

This startling realisation seemed to rule out the theory that Sheila had taken her own life, and therefore the possibility that she had been responsible for the other murders. Whoever committed the crime would have had to take the silencer off before they left the house after carrying out the killings.

It was David Boutflour, Bamber’s cousin, who found the silencer in a cupboard at the farm, still with traces of Sheila’s blood on it alongside a single grey hair.

However, before forensics could study the hair, it had been lost. What was now certain was that Sheila had not committed suicide but had been murdered. This confirmation meant that Bamber’s call to the police, saying that she was running amok, was a lie.

On 29 September 1985, Bamber was arrested and charged with murder.

In April 2001, a new taskforce forms. Forensics, not profiling, is the new emphasis.On 30 November 2001, a married, 52 year old father, from the Seattle suburbs, Gary Ridgway, is arrested as he leaves his truck painting job.It is the end of the longest running serial killer investigation in US history.The break in the case had been connecting the DNA taken when Gary Ridgway was arrested for the relatively minor offence of ‘loitering for the purposes of soliciting prostitution’.This wasn’t the first time Ridgway’s connection to prostitutes had come to the attention of the police. In 1980, a prostitute he’d picked up accused him of driving her to the woods and trying to strangle her. Charges were dropped when Ridgway explained it away by saying she’d started to bite him while performing oral sex, and he only choked her to make her stop.

In 1982, he was stopped with a prostitute in his truck and questioned by police.A few years later he was again arrested after propositioning an undercover police officer posing as a prostitute. Pleading essentially prostitution addiction, his guilty plea meant a lenient sentence.In 1987, he was a prime suspect in the disappearance of one of the Green River Killer’s victims but he passed a polygraph test and the investigation moved on.By 1988, Ridgway is again suspected and a warrant to search his house as well as a court order requiring him to give a saliva sample.It’s this sample that catches him when he’s arrested in autumn 2001 for soliciting prostitution.His saliva sample matches with that of the semen found in three of the victims of the Green River killer.His employment records are checked revealing a correlation between his absences, and victims going missing.On Wednesday 5 December 2001, Gary Ridgway is formally charged with the deaths of four women.In November 2003, as part of a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty, Ridgway admits to the murder of forty eight women.At his sentencing in December 2003, some of the victim's families say they hope he’ll be killed by his fellow inmates in jail.He breaks down as he listens to them and then reads out a note he’s prepared earlier in which he references his numerous other victims whose bodies are still missing.“I am very for sorry for the ladys (sic) that were not found. May they rest in peace. They need a better place that what I gave them.”Since his sentencing in 2003, Gary Ridgway has been in solitary confinement.

THE HAMMER OF THE GANGS

Percy Joseph Sillitoe, the Gangbuster, became the Chief Constable of Glasgow in 1931. He went there after a stint sending down the serious offenders of the steel hard city of Sheffield. He believed Glasgow was "a city being overrun by gangsters terrorising other citizens and waging war between themselves in the streets".Sillitoe fought fire with fire and recruited the toughest men he could find from the Highlands. Given basic training and uniforms, their brief was simple. Take down the gangs. The ‘boot and baton’ approach of the now 1,500 strong Glasgow police force meant they became known as "the biggest gang in the world".But Sillitoe didn’t just use brute force. He introduced radio cars, police boxes, a modern fingerprint lab; and the chequered band round cop caps - now used throughout the world - is called the Sillitoe Tartan because he introduced it to help identify police officers, even in riots.Sillitoe wouldn’t just wade into the middle of a fight. His police waited till both sides had worn themselves out. Then they would wade in to sweep up the survivors.And if he couldn’t arrest Billy Fullerton for violence, he would take him down another way.

Sillitoe first arrested Billy Fullerton in the late thirties. Billy, fond of the drink and of his family image, was parading through the streets with forty of his followers whilst cradling a baby in his arms. So Sillitoe arrested him for being found drunk in charge of a child. He was jailed for 10 months. Sillitoe then confiscated £600 from Billy’s bank account draining the financial lifeblood of the Billy Boys.On release Billy formed a 200 strong Glasgow branch of the Mosley Black Shirts. Billy’s attacking of communists (by belief, anti nationalist) all fitted with their image as defenders of the faith, and their nation. In reality, they were thugs who had found in Moseley a new paymaster and Moseley had found much needed bodyguards. But when the Fascist leader was interned, Billy signed up for the navy as World War II broke out. There, he served with distinction, as did many other Billy Boys.However, on returning to Glasgow, he went onto form Glasgow’s own branch of the Ku Klux Klan. On top of the predictable anti-Semitism, and with few racial minorities to attack, Catholics were once again targeted.

Caught slipping

The original plan was for the gang to stay at the farmhouse for up to two weeks. However, a police broadcast announcing their escapade and revelations that every newspaper in the land was reporting the story, meant that they had to move fast.Before the gang left the farmhouse in new transport, an unknown accomplice was paid to clean up the farmhouse of all evidence.Two major police figures undertook investigations into the robbery. Detective Chief Superintendent Tommy Butler, a Scotland Yard legend and Jack Slipper, a detective with the moniker ‘Slipper of the Yard’.The gang's hideout was soon discovered when a local reported a ‘suspicious vehicle’. Unfortunately for the gang, the man they had hired to clean the farmhouse of any trace of incriminating evidence, had taken their money but left behind a wealth of clues for the police to find.

Within a day of the farm being processed for evidence, the first gang member, Roger Cordrey, was arrested and charged with taking part in the robbery. Ronnie Biggs panicked when a suitcase containing £100,000.00 was recovered from woodlands just a few miles from his own house.A week later Charlie Wilson was arrested in London. The police also announced that they were looking for Bruce Reynolds, Jimmy White, Roy James and Buster Edwards to assist them with their enquiries.Jack Slipper visited Biggs’ residence on two occasions. A month later, Biggs was taken into custody and transported to Scotland Yard for questioning. Later he found himself at Bedford prison with fellow gang members Charlie Wilson, Tommy Wisbey, Jim Hussey and Bob Welch.It transpired that the reason Biggs and the men had been arrested was because their fingerprints were lifted off items such as a ketchup bottle, beer bottles and several Monopoly game pieces.By November, all five of the gang were transferred to Aylesbury prison in Buckinghamshire and kept together in a secure hospital wing, which had been specially cleared to house them. On one occasion they tried to escape by bribing a guard but the plan was botched.

The Nightmare Begins

"People put this aura around Brady that he doesn't deserve...He's a paedophile. He's a child murderer. He's a coward. Brady's nothing."David SmithThe megalomaniacal Brady had attempted to recruit 17-year-old David Smith. Instead, Smith would report the couple to the police and become the key witness for their prosecution:“I think Brady thought he’d got another convert to his cult.”-Jean Richie, AuthorBrady had believed that because of David’s violent past, he’d found a kindred soul. And when in April 1965 David’s six month old baby died unexpectedly, Brady thought he was vulnerable enough to be converted to his belief system. He ‘groomed’ David in exactly the same way he had Hindley. He gave him the same books and even gave him essays to write to show he’d understood his reading list. And he had David do surveillance on the Electricity Board showroom for a robbery that never happened. Brady took him for shooting practise on the Moors. And both couples often picnicked there. It was only later that David would realise they’d sit and cavort on the graves of the couple’s victims.Brady believed he’d made himself his right hand man and thought a shared murder would seal their relationship.But the bloody bludgeoning to death of a 17-year-old in the couple’s front room did exactly the opposite.Horrified and terrified by the Evans murder, David told his wife, Hindley’s sister, everything. Maureen and he went to a public phone box armed with a carving knife for protection. They rang the police and didn’t leave the box till they came. Maureen accompanied David to the police station on 7 October 1965. David poured out the horror he’d witnessed at Hyde Police station. He wasn’t just doing his public duty. He was scared he would become the couple’s next victim.The police went to Brady’s home and upstairs found Evan’s body and the murder weapon. Brady denied the murder was pre-meditated. He said an argument had broken out between him, Evans and David and initially denied Hindley’s involvement. And at first, because of David’s criminal record, they were reluctant to believe him over Brady:“David Smith, I always feel, was vilified. He was vilified by the people of Manchester, who refused to believe he hadn’t been involved in other killings. People walked out of pubs if he came in, nobody would speak to him, and that kind of thing. David Smith’s a hero, in my eyes, because David Smith did what Myra should have done at the beginning.”Jean Richie, AuthorIt’s only when the police started trawling through Brady’s library of books on murder and sexual perversion that they realise Brady may be responsible for more than one killing.And in his wallet they found sheets of paper and a code with plans on how to dispose of Evan’s body on the Moors. The reason Brady hadn’t was because he’d hurt his ankle during the attack on Evans. Just 24 hours after his arrest the police had enough evidence to charge Brady with murder.But David’s allegations of previous murders seemed impossible to prove. Then the police also found the name ‘John Kilbride’ written in Brady’s handwriting in his notebook. The boy had been missing for two years.Brady had dreamt of committing the perfect murder. But he had left damning circumstantial evidence. Brady denied any involvement in the schoolboy’s disappearance. The police didn’t have enough to charge him but it was enough to convince them that David had been telling the truth.

They started questioning Brady about Keith Bennett and the other suspected victims.The naked body of Lesley Ann Downey was found on 10 October 1965, followed eleven days later by the body of John Kilbride.The police charged both Brady and Hindley.But despite intensive police searches of the Moors there was little evidence of other crimes.So the police re-interview David. David recalled being asked to do surveillance for a robbery. But all the incriminating notes to do with it were packed away in two suitcases. David didn’t know where the suitcases were but did know that Brady liked to frequent railway stations.The police phoned all the left luggage railway stations.They tracked down the suitcases to Manchester’s Central railway station:“I found a photograph of a little girl, and she had a scarf tied round about her mouth, and she was naked. That really was the Pandora’s Box, if you like."Ian Fairley, Former Detective Chief SuperintendentAs the police don’t have any audio equipment, they took the reels to BBC Manchester.First the body of Lesley was discovered and then John Kilbride. But his body was too decomposed to ask the family to identify him. Instead, they took the remaining shoe Brady hadn’t taken from the make-shift grave.Brady and Hindley would be prosecuted for the murders of Edward Evans, Lesley Ann Downey and John KilbrideThere were still two missing: Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett. But escalating costs meant the police couldn’t prosecute for these two killings.

Following the discovery of Holly and Jessica's charred clothing, police arrested Huntley and girlfriend Carr on suspicion of murder. Later the same day, 17th August 2002, 13 days after the girls had disappeared, a game warden discovered the girls’ bodies near RAF Lakenheath, an airbase in Suffolk, near to Huntley’s father’s home. 

Subsequent autopsy reports on the girls listed their probable cause of death as asphyxiation, but their bodies were too badly decomposed to establish whether they had suffered any sexual assault. Despite Huntley’s attempts to destroy forensic evidence, extensive hair and fibre residue remained which linked Huntley to the girls.

Huntley was formally charged with the girl’s murders, and sectioned under the Mental Health Act at Rampton Hospital, pending a hearing to establish if he was fit for trial. Carr was arrested for assisting an offender, as well as conspiring to obstruct the course of justice, as she had initially provided Huntley with a false alibi for the time of their disappearance.

Mum's the word

On Easter Sunday, 1973, Edmund Kemper flees. He makes it to Colorado but realises that with the killing of his mother, it is over. On just a practical level, there’s little chance that this murder won’t be linked to him. So, he puts in a call to the police back in Santa Cruz and confesses. At first, no one believes him. Like many serial killers, Kemper’s fascination with authority means he’s on friendly terms with many of his local police and they think it a prank by their friend, ‘Big Ed’.The FBI profiler John Douglas later observed that Kemper liked to ‘frequent bars and restaurants known to be police hangouts and strike up conversations. This made him feel like an insider, gave him the vicarious thrill of a policeman’s power. But also, once the Co-Ed Killer was on the rampage, he had a direct line into the progress of the investigation, allowing him to anticipate their next move’.

Kemper sits patiently by the phone until one of them decides to come out and arrest him.His confession convinces them.Kemper pleads insanity but at his trial, like at his last psychiatrists’ interview, he’s considered legally sane. After three weeks, he’s convicted of eight counts of murder. The judge asks what Kemper thinks would be the appropriate punishment for his crimes. Kemper replies...‘Death by torture’Instead, he receives a sentence of life in prison and is sent to the California Medical Facility State Prison, for observation.

Catch the Killer

The Black Dahlia murder investigation was conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department and was the largest since Marian Parker’s murder in 1927. It necessitated the borrowing of officers from neighbouring police forces in order to investigate every person who had known Short, starting with 20 of her former ‘boyfriends’. These people, numbering in the hundreds, were all treated as suspects, who had to be eliminated one by one.In February 1947, as a direct result of the Short murder, California became the first state requiring the registration of convicted sex offenders. It was a breakthrough for LAPD psychiatrist Dr J. Paul De River who had been making recommendations for this legislation for a number of years.The police spent precious manpower interviewing thousands of people and the Biltmore Hotel's registration records were examined from December 1946 to January 1947 but none of the suspects' names appeared. A house-to-house search was conducted, the police searching for blood-soaked clothing, but they gained no solid leads. At one point in the investigation, the detectives were convinced that the clean bisection of Short’s body pointed to the murderer having medical knowledge. They focussed on medical students and some doctors made it onto their list of suspects. By June 1947, police had eliminated approximately 75 suspects and by December 1948, the number had reached 192.Various witnesses reported seeing different cars in the area, including a black sedan that had been driving slowly along the driveway of the vacant lot at around 6 am, with its headlights off. It had stopped against the curb, idling, but no one had seen the driver. Whilst there were hundreds of suspects and intensive investigation and interviewing, no perpetrator was ever found.

The SuspectsThe last person to see Short alive on 9 January 1947 was Robert “Red” Manley, a 25-year-old married salesman. The pair had apparently stayed a night in a local motel and Manley had driven her the following day to Los Angeles, to check her luggage in at a bus station. Short had told him she was going to Berkeley to stay with her sister, whom she was meeting at the Biltimore Hotel. Manly accompanied her to the hotel lobby but left at 6:30 pm to return to his family in San Diego. Police booked him as a suspect but he was released after he passed a polygraph test. Later, he was given sodium pentathol (the ‘truth drug’) but was absolved a second time. Manly suffered a mental breakdown and in 1954, after claiming he heard voices, was committed to Patton State Hospital by his wife. He died on 9 January 1986.On 24 January 1947, nine days after the murder, a package was mailed anonymously to the Examiner newspaper, still smelling strongly of the petrol the sender had used to wipe it clean of fingerprints. There was speculation that it had been sent by Short’s killer. Inside were some of Short’s belongings, including her birth certificate, social security card, some photographs, Major Matthew Gordon’s obituary and an address book, containing the names of 75 men. All of these men were traced and their stories found to be similar. They had met Short at a nightclub or on the street, bought her drinks or dinner but not seen her again after she made it clear she was not interested in a physical relationship.On 25 January 1947, Short’s black patent leather handbag and one of her black open-toed shoes was found in a dumpster, several miles from the crime scene. Manley confirmed them as hers, as the handbag still smelled of her strong perfume and the shoes were the same he had paid for to be resoled in San Diego.The police and the newspapers were contacted by several people who claimed they had seen Short during the week between her disappearance on 9 January and the discovery of her body on 15 January. All reports of alleged sightings were investigated and ruled out. None of the people actually knew Short and in some cases, police identified other women witnesses had thought were Short.22 final suspects were investigated by the Los Angeles district attorney’s office:1.    Mark Hansen2.    Carl Balsinger3.    C. Welsh4.    Sergeant “Chuck” (name unknown)5.    John D. Wade6.    Joe Scalis7.    James Nimmo8.    Maurice Clement9.    A Chicago police officer10.    Salvador Torres Vera (medical student)11.    Doctor George Hodel12.    Marvin Margolis (medical student)13.    Glenn Wolf14.    Michael Anthony Otero15.    George Bacos16.    Francis Campbell17.    “Queer Woman Surgeon”18.    Doctor Paul DeGaston19.    Doctor A.E. Brix20.    Doctor M. M. Schwartz21.    Doctor Arthur McGinnis Faught22.    Doctor Patrick S. O’ReillyMark Hansen, a 55-year-old Dane who owned Florentine Gardens, a Hollywood nightclub that featured burlesque acts was a major suspect. He had known Short while she was in Los Angeles and she had lived in his home on several occasions between May and October 1946. Hansen had received a telephone call from Short on 8 or 9 January, making him one of the last people to have spoken to her. The address book sent in the anonymous package to the Examiner newspaper was embossed with Hansen’s name. He had never used it and had given it to Short. Hansen remained a key suspect until 1951 and was linked to three others, Doctor M. M. Schwartz, Doctor Arthur McGinnis Faught and Doctor Patrick S. O’Reilly. Hansen had no criminal record or history of violence and no charges were brought against him. He died of natural causes in 1964.Doctor Patrick S. O’Reilly was a medical doctor who knew Short through Hansen. O’Reilly reportedly frequented the Florentine Gardens and attended sex parties with Hansen. O’Reilly had a history of violent, sexually motivated crime and had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon but no charges were brought against him.Physician Doctor George Hodel only became a suspect in 1949 when his neighbour, Lillian DeNorak accused him of molesting her. He was placed under surveillance from 18 February to 27 March 1949 and tried and acquitted in December 1949. Lillian was later committed to a state mental institution. Hodel died in 1999 and his son, LAPD detective Steve Hodel published his book ‘Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder’ (2003). In it he depicts his father, George Hodel, as a misogynist and a pervert, holding orgies at the family home and raping his 14-year-old daughter. He goes on to claim his father was the Black Dahlia killer and committed other unsolved murders over two decades.

"A Family affair"

Given that the West’s vicious sex acts did not result in murder every time, and the sheer number of attacks, it was inevitable that someone would expose their activities, which resulted in them coming to the attention of Detective Constable Hazel Savage, who led a search at Cromwell Street in August of 1992 that found pornography and clear evidence of child abuse. West was arrested for rape and sodomy of a minor, and Rose for assisting in the rape of a minor.In the course of the investigation DC Savage uncovered the abuse of Anne-Marie, as well as the disappearances of Charmaine and Heather, which warranted further investigation, as well as rumours about what might be buried under the patio. The younger West children were taken into care, and Rose attempted suicide at this time, although she was found by her son, Stephen, and revived.The case against the Wests collapsed when two key witnesses decided not to testify against them, but DC Savage continued to pursue her search for Heather, questioning the West children repeatedly, but they had been well trained by their abusive parents and failed to cooperate.On 24 February 1994 a warrant was obtained to search the Cromwell Street house and garden, and police found the remains of two dismembered and decapitated young women, one of whom the police suspected might be Shirley Robinson. West claimed sole responsibility for the murders and, when Rose heard of the confession, she denied all knowledge of Heather’s death.

Then, inexplicably, West admitted the presence of the bodies in the cellar to the police, who discovered the remains of nine individuals. Establishing the identities of each victim was a mammoth task.Continuing in his spirit of cooperation, West revealed the whereabouts of the remains of first wife Rena, lover MacFall and daughter Charmaine, who were all buried away from the Cromwell Street house.As the case against them developed, Rose tried increasingly to distance herself from West, claiming that she was also a victim, but police were not convinced of her innocence, given the sheer number of murders which had occurred, and her participation in the rapes.On 13 December 1994, West was charged on twelve counts of murder, and he was taken into custody at Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, pending trial where, on 1 January 1995, he hanged himself in his cell with knotted bed sheets.

Get well soon

Jack Cassara, a resident of New Rochelle, received a strange ‘get well' note in his mailbox. The well wisher described how he hoped he was getting better after a fall and also included a picture a German Shepherd dog. It was signed from a Mr Carr and his wife in the district of Yonkers.The odd thing was that Cassara hadn’t injured himself nor could he recall who the writer was. He called the Carrs who immediately revealed that they too had been receiving strange letters. They also had a German Shepherd that had been found shot. The couples got together. Cassara’s teenage son then remembered that they once had a lodger who had left and never came back for his deposit. He had also not taken to the family dog. The Carrs' daughter who worked for the Yonkers police department suggested she bring someone in to investigate.It later transpired that a man called Craig Glassman, who was a deputy sheriff and neighbour of Berkowitz, had received an anonymous letter ranting on about him and the Cassaras/Carr families as being part of a devil worshipping ‘demon’ coven. Although this was odd behaviour it did not prove that Berkowitz was a killer and his name simply went down on a computer file.

6 serial killers who made stupid mistakes

Dennis Nilsen flushed his victims' bodies down the toilet, causing significant blockages

His victims this time were young lovers Stacy Moskowitz and Bobby Violante. They had just been to see a movie and then drove to a quiet spot near Gravesend Bay in Brooklyn. Eventually they got out and went for a walk towards some swings, but when Stacy saw a suspicious character hanging around she insisted they head back towards their car. Despite Stacy’s desire to leave there and then, Bobby convinced her to stay for a while longer. It was to be a dreadful mistake.Moments later gunshots fired out and the car’s windows were shattered. Stacy was shot and fell away from Bobby who had been shot twice in the face. Bobby managed to crawl out of the car and cry for help. Stacey’s injuries were severe and she died in hospital while Bobby was left blinded in one eye and with only 20% vision in his other.

Following this incident two officers, Chamberlain and Intervallo from the Yonkers district decided to investigate the letters that were originally sent to the Carrs and Cassaras families. They also looked into the fact that two dogs, one belonging to the Carrs, had been shot. Checking on Berkowitz through the police computer files they realised that he was similar to the description given by witnesses.

Berkowitz lived at 35 Pine Street and the officers discovered that he was a quiet tenant who worked for a security firm in Queens. He had then quit in July 1976 and gone to work for a cab company. Chamberlain and Intervallo then spent days ringing hundreds of cab companies in the Bronx and surrounding areas in order to find his employer. Nothing turned up, but the two officers still took their findings and the letters to New York City Detective Richard Salvesen.A series of other fortunate developments occurred over the next few days. First a witness who lived near the area where the shooting of Stacy Moskowitz and Bobby Violante took place came forward with a description of a man she had seen at the time. Her sketch of the suspect bore an uncanny resemblance to Berkowitz. Then shortly afterwards news came through that a suspected arson had taken place at the building block where Berkowitz lived.

When the police arrived at the scene they questioned Craig Glassman, a male nurse. Glassman was one of the names mentioned in Berkowitz rambling letters describing him as being part of a demonic coven. But what astounded the officers was the fact that the arsonist had tried to set off bullets placed by Glassman’s door with the fire. Glassman was able to show the police several 22-calibre bullets plus several letters he had received from Berkowitz. The police noticed that they were written in the same hand as those sent to the Carrs/Cassaras families.

Mr Carr had been so frustrated with the police lack of action regarding his disclosure of Berkowitz’s letters and the shooting of his dog that he went down to the police headquarters where the Omega task force were based. When it was pointed out to him that he was just one of hundreds of people who were convinced that they knew the identity of the Son of Sam killer, Carr let it go.More vital evidence cropped up. Several traffic tickets that had been written in the same area as the shooting of Moskowitz and Violante had turned up nothing, except one, which belonged to Berkowitz. It was then that the police started to take seriously the statements from the Carr family whose dog, they assumed, had been shot by Berkowitz. With all the accumulated evidence, including the photo sketch by a witness, the arson attack and 22-calibre bullets found in Berkowitz’s apartment block plus the letters sent to the families and Glassman, it is baffling to think why it took some time for these coincidences to be seriously investigated.

On 10 August 1977, 35 Pine St was put under surveillance. The first man to come out of the apartment block and head towards Berkowitz’s car turned out to be a false start when the man was revealed to be Craig Glassman himself.Several hours later another man appeared carrying a paper bag. It was Berkowitz. He got inside the suspect’s car but didn’t see the police running up behind him. Immediately he was told to ‘freeze’ and slowly get out. When asked who he was Berkowitz grimaced inanely and said “I’m Sam. David Berkowitz."

Sergeant Coffey was the first to interview Berkowitz who calmly told him about the shootings in great detail. There was no mistaking that he was the killer. Coffey was amazed and baffled by Berkowitz’s calm demeanour. The man was clearly emotionally detached from the horror of his murderous actions.

Berkowitz’s pre-murder obsession with howling dogs - canine conduits for the demons’ voices - indicates that he had developed acute psychosis during that time. Before he had actually murdered anyone he had indeed shot the Carrs' German Shepherd after initially trying to poison it.

Sam, he told detectives, was a father-like devil - a blood monster - who lived in the bodies of people he knew and who needed his blood lust sating by the killing of innocent people. Certainly this confession appears to be the authentic workings of a schizoid and deluded mind that had tipped over the line, blurring reality with extreme fantasy.

I just couldn't believe what they were telling me.

Police at the scene were said to be left ‘sick and shaken.’ One experienced officer vomited.When Clive and Elsie tried to go home, the police stopped them. They wouldn’t let them back into their home. They took the parents to the police station. At first, the police couldn't rule the parents out as murder suspects. When the police realised Elsie and Clive weren’t responsible they had the task of telling them their children had been murdered.Elsie was just 23 years old when she was told her world, as she knew it, was over. It was too much:“...this is when they'd told us that there had been a murder, that there was an investigation going on. And that's as far as I can really remember properly because there was a doctor there at the time because I went hysterical, which you would, and he gave me an injection, and I don't really… I never ever went back to the house. I wasn't allowed because I was screaming saying that I wanted to go and see my children and...and they said we couldn't do that...I wasn’t allowed to go to the mortuary.”Elsie Urry, Children’s MotherThe police turned their attentions to the only missing member of the household – McGreavy.It didn’t take the police long to locate him. At ten to four in the morning, PC Elliot found McGreavy in nearby Lansdowne Road.He was immediately arrested and apparently said:“What's this all about?”Former Editor of the Sunday Mirror, Paul Connew, covered the story as a young journalist;“At first, he denied it, but then, I think it was several hours after his arrest, he said, “It was me, but it wasn’t me”, and then went on to describe, in quite graphic, but measured detail, what he’d done, but couldn’t really explain why he’d done it.”Paul Connew, Media Commentator & Ex Editor Sunday Mirror

Everyone searched for a motive.“It was suggested by one of the psychiatrists that there may have been a sexual motive behind this, but there was no question...of him having sexually abused the children, either before that night, or during these terrible events.”Paul ConnewOne of the first reporters on the scene was Tony Bishop who had been called by the editor of the Worcester News in the early hours on Saturday 14 April. Memories from that morning still haunt him;“...we saw these horrible railings, and the blood was congealed on the railings.”Three children had been suddenly murdered and mutilated on a sleepy suburban street. But enquiries revealed that few neighbours had heard or seen anything suspect.A couple of guests of nearby neighbours did try and investigate but seeing nothing, they returned home.It was hoped the trial would somehow bring some answers and sense to the senseless killing spree.

"Something smells off"

Nilsen was met on the evening of 9 February 1983 by Detective Chief Inspector Jay, who informed him that they wished to question him in relation to the human remains that had been discovered in the drains. On entering the flat, Jay noticed the pervasive foul odour, and asked Nilsen what it was, at which point he calmly confessed that what they were looking for was stored in bags around the flat, which included two dismembered heads and other larger body parts.Upon his arrest, he immediately provided exhaustive details about his killing spree, admitting to killing 15 young men, despite receiving a legal caution. He also admitted to the attempted murder of seven others, although he could name only four of them. At no point did he show any remorse, and appeared eager to assist the police with amassing evidence against him, even taking them to his old address to point out specific disposal details.After the confession, Nilsen was held at Brixton Prison pending trial. Whilst there, he wrote over fifty notebooks of his memories to assist the prosecution, and also drew what he referred to as “Sad Sketches” which detailed his treatment of some of his victims. He seemed ambivalent about his fate, at turns without remorse, and then showing concern about public attitudes towards him. He fired his legal council, then rehired him, and fired him once again, shortly before he came to trial.

After 31 years of mystery, the 59-year-old, bald, bespectacled face of Dennis Rader is confirmed to be the BTK killer. On Friday 25th February 2005, the police stop him at a traffic light near his home. Like most of his kills, his arrest is during the day. Police had believed BTK might have inserted himself into the investigation or even might be from within their own ranks.

During his first interview, Rader reveals himself to be a wannabe police officer, desperate to ingratiate himself with the detectives interviewing him, and almost unaware of the situation he’s in. One of his concerns is his future jail accommodation. “Am I going to be in a special section of the jail or am I going to be thrown in with a bunch of loonies?".

Do serial killers like BTK want to get caught?

'They all got caught except the Ripper, could I become a killer and not get caught?’ So taunted Dennis Rader to the police

Rader compares the good cop/bad cop routine they try to the way he would make his victims acquiesce to his wishes. Confronted with the computer disk and the DNA, he says, "There’s no way I can weasel out of that or lie". Falling for the false camaraderie with which the police present him, he spends hours and hours confessing. During this, he seems genuinely upset that the police lied to him about the computer disk information.

It will take him some time to realise that he has been played and, on his lawyer’s advice, he stops co-operating. It’s discovered that when he was arrested, he had other "projects" targeted and was preparing to execute them. Police never reveal the names of these nearly victims. His bail is set at $10million.

Following the Fivers

It wasn’t long before various people were looking for Stanley Setty, including his sister and brother-in-law who reported him missing. The papers printed stories with headings such as ‘Dealer With 200 Fivers Vanishes’ inferring that Setty had been killed because of the £1000 he had on him.

Setty’s car was fingerprinted, but Hume felt confident that with so many questions relating to the dead man’s background and lifestyle the police would be on a wild goose chase for a long time.

On the 8 October 1949, the papers revealed that Scotland Yard had issued the numbers of Setty’s £5 notes that he had received from the bank on the morning of his death. Some of this money had been deposited by Hume into his own bank account and also paid taxi cabs while travelling from London to Elstree Air Field. Hume now became worried that his blind greed, all for a miserly £100 could now lead a trail to him.

The police also recovered a notebook belonging to Setty which detailed all of his business associates. Then Hume’s nightmare came true when the torso finally turned up on the Essex mudflats on Friday, 21 October 1949. The first witness to come forward was a taxi driver who had been given a £5 with the published serial numbers. He explained that he had taken a customer from Southend Airport to Finchley Road.

After further investigations which involved all airfields in the area it did not take long before the police discovered that Hume had hired a plane and was also an associate of Setty. They knocked on Hume’s door at 7.30 am on Thursday 27 October 1949.

Detectives were posted at both the front and back of the flat. Chief Inspector Jamieson and Superintendent MacDougall interrogated Hume at the Albany Street Police Station, although he kept up a convincing plea that he had nothing to do with the murder. He denied that he owned a car which appeared futile when he was then asked about the ‘parcels’ he took on board the hired plane.

Realising that petty lies were not going to get him off the hook, Hume concocted an elaborate story about how he had been offered £150 by three shady smugglers who he only knew as Mac, Greeny and The Boy. The men asked him to drop off the parcels by plane into the sea. Hume made out that he was desperate for the money and only later realised that the situation was very suspect. Despite his convincing act the officers did not believe him. After forensics had swept his Finchley Road flat they discovered bloodstains under the floorboards.

Catching the Cannibal

Three days after the disappearance of Suzanne Blamires, the caretaker of Holmfield Court reviews the CCTV tapes from the weekend. (He routinely checks them for any evidence of petty crimes in the flats). He’s fast forwarding through the silent footage of the third-floor corridor when he comes across a resident, Stephen Griffiths, leading a woman into his flat.Within minutes, the woman runs out looking like she’s running for her life. Griffiths follows with a crossbow, fires, misses, fires again, and fells her with a bolt to her head. He turns to a nearby CCTV camera and raises his crossbow to it like a winning footballer raises a trophy cup. He drags her lifeless body back by her leg and into his flat. He then returns to the camera with a drinks can which he raises as he ‘toasts’ his triumph while giving the finger.

Later, he goes back and forth in front of its silent gaze dragging bin bags and a rucksack.The camera has captured the last moments of Suzanne Blamires.On Monday at 1pm, the distraught caretaker phones the police.Armed police race to arrest 40 year old Stephen Griffiths. He’s arrested and handcuffed and tells police, ‘I’m Osama bin Laden.’ He will have to wait for the tabloids to come up with his nickname.They search his flat and find two crossbows and bolts along with shelves stacked with books on serial killers. The flat looks like Griffiths had tried to recently eradicate evidence by ripping up carpets and tiles.The next afternoon, a member of the public discovers a woman’s head and other body parts in a rucksack on the banks of the River Aire, five miles north of Griffiths’ flat. The crossbow bolt and knife are still embedded in the head. The head has been skinned.Nearby is a ‘killer’s kitbag’. It contains hacksaws and knives used in the dismemberment of bodies.

The admittance of guilt

Due to the fact that immediate family members are always considered suspects in crime cases, Blackwell was needed for questioning. On 8 September 2004, police arrested Blackwell at his girlfriend’s house in Childwall, Liverpool and took him into custody for interrogation.During police interviews, a sobbing Blackwell admitted killing his parents but said it was “a split second thing” and, “I just couldn’t believe what I’d done”. He told investigators that before his father died, he went over and held his hand and talked to him for a while, telling him he still loved him.Shocked neighbours described Blackwell as a lovely, quiet and clever young man, who played tennis and studied hard. Not one of them could believe such a tragedy had befallen such a seemingly pleasant and normal family.

Caught at last

Brian Bowden-Brown was part of the ‘Cold Case’ team of elite detectives set up in 2000 by the Metropolitan Police. In his caseload was the decade old unsolved murder of Irene Grainey. Brian speculated her murderer could have been the ‘Beast of Bermondsey’?He hoped that a combination of obsessive work and plain luck would combine to give some fresh lead.After four years, he had nothing.Sarah Mustoe was hired as part of the forensic review team. The National DNA Database had been launched in 1995. Now DNA could be checked against a list of known offenders. The DNA from the first two attacks showed it was the same attacker. But the extracts of DNA had been used up to establish this. None remained to be added and updated into the database.And worse, the original swabs hadn’t been retained either.So the team once again appealed on ‘Crimewatch’. The Met Police put up a £10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer.With a financial incentive, a renewed national television appeal and a dedicated team of police and forensic investigators, hopes were high.They came to nothing.But Sarah had been working through an old store of forensic exhibits. She told Brian that she’d found some old tapings from the victims clothing.Fifteen years after they were first taken, Sarah had rediscovered microscopic fibres taken from the victims of the third and fourth attacks.They were the DNA of the attacker.

The exhibits had such minute particles of bodily fluids that they would have to do ‘low copy number analysis’. This is an extremely sensitive form of DNA profiling.Because such a method only provides a partial DNA profile, it couldn’t offer a one in a billion match. But it could narrow down the list of potential suspects.A full profile is effectively twenty matching numbers. The partial profile had only six or seven numbers increasing the numbers of people who might match.There was a chance that the investigation would go from having no suspects to being overwhelmed by possibilities. And all in the knowledge that even if all the matches were investigated and interviewed, they may not have the right man in the first place.The results came back.There were twenty six suspects. This was a manageable amount.The police first excluded those who were children at the time of the crimes, then those with infallible alibis proving they were in a different location. In some cases, the fact that the criminal suspect was in prison at the time of the original attacks was the reason they were ruled out.One former convict’s name stood out of the remaining suspects:Michael Roberts.He lived near the first Southwark attacks and had moved to Rotherhithe around the time the attacks there had occurred. His hair was down in a fringe. He had a crooked or broken nose.But all this, with only a partial DNA profile, wasn’t enough to press charges.The first attack of an elderly woman on Boxing Day 1987 had no modern DNA link. All the police had was a primitive genetic fingerprint that couldn’t be compared to modern DNA.It would require Roberts to offend again to secure a genetic fingerprint to make a match. For once, the investigators wouldn’t have to wait long.Roberts was a careful attacker. Despite the violence of his attacks, he ensured there was no forensics, like fingerprints, to link him to the crime scene.But all of his usual counter-measures meant little when he dropped an item belonging to his stepson. In the home of his latest victim, he left his stepson’s bus pass.The police went to Robert’s latest address and arrested him.

"Serious Personality Disorder"

By 26 July 1991, police felt that they had sufficient evidence to charge Allitt with murder but it wasn’t until November 1991 that she was formally charged.

Allitt showed calm and restraint under interrogation, denying any part in the attacks, insisting she had merely been caring for the victims. A search of her home revealed parts of the missing nursing log. Further extensive background checks by the police indicated a pattern of behaviour that pointed to a very serious personality disorder. Allitt exhibited symptoms of both Munchausen’s syndrome, and Munchausen’s syndrome by Proxy, which are characterised by gaining attention through illness. With Munchausen’s syndrome, physical or psychological symptoms are either self-induced or feigned in oneself to gain attention. Munchausen’s by Proxy involves inflicting injury on others to gain attention for oneself. It is fairly unusual for an individual to present with both conditions.

Allitt’s behaviour in adolescence appeared to be typical of Munchausen’s syndrome and, when this behaviour failed to elicit the desired reactions in others, she began to harm her young patients in order to satisfy her desire to be noticed.

Despite visits and assessments by a number of healthcare professionals whilst in prison, Allitt refused to confess what she had done. After a series of hearings, Allitt was charged with four counts of murder, 11 counts of attempted murder, and 11 counts of causing grievous bodily harm. As she awaited her trial, she rapidly lost weight and developed anorexia nervosa, a further indication of her psychological problems.

We got the wrong gang.

Amazingly, considering the ambush and the weapons used, no one ended up in the morgue that day. But many went to hospital.After their disastrous ambush, the Brummagem Boys made off in a bright blue charabanc, not the most inconspicuous of vehicles, with the police in pursuit. They parked it up in plain view by a pub near Richmond Park. It was soon spotted by Police Sergeant Joseph Dawson. So they couldn’t make a fast getaway, the spark plugs of their vehicle were removed. Dawson entered.Why the gang of 28, after committing such a terrible crime and knowing that the police were after them, decided to stop and have a drink was never explained.The attack at Ewell had been so violent and bloody that the police had first thought it had been a Sinn Fein operation and issued firearms to their officers.Sergeant Dawson only had to listen to the Brummagem’s accent, take one look at their blood splattered clothes, to know he had the gang responsible. He entered the George and Dragon pub and politely but firmly asked the members of the Birmingham boys to consider themselves under arrest.They rose as if to resist, but Sergeant Dawson drew out his revolver and calmly said;“I should shoot the first man that tries to escape”He held the entire group at gunpoint until the Flying Squad arrived.

THE FLYING SQUADThe legendary police unit was formed in 1919 to combat the increasingly violent post-world war one crime outbreak. Criminals that hadn’t managed to avoid conscription had returned to their old ways, but now they were military trained. The Flying Squad hoped to combat the more determined criminal. And this ‘Mobile Police Experiment’ – its original title – was also hoped to be less susceptible to bribes and turning a blind eye to the gangs.Their first vehicles were horse drawn carriages with spy holes cut in the sides. These were replaced with cast offs from the Royal Flying Corps. With no brakes and aerials that looked like ‘bedsteads’, their vehicles became so named.But the Flying Squad still found it extremely difficult to secure convictions in the gang wars. Even rival gangs wouldn’t testify to the police and if any gang activities were witnessed by the public, they would be ‘persuaded’ not to testify. Darby Sabini escaped one beating by the Brummagem boys in Greenford on 23 March 1921 by using his unlicensed five chamber revolver to shoot ‘his way out of trouble’. One of the few occasions he was arrested, he pleaded self defence, and was only fined.

Kryukov turned to police chief, General Bogdan Romanuk, at the Lviv police headquarters on 7 April 1996, for advice. General Romanuk, ordered Kryukov to form a task force immediately and search Onoprienko’s apartment. On 16 April 1996, Kryukov and his task force of more than 20 detectives and patrolmen drove in unmarked police cars to Onoprienko’s residence. They surrounded the building in Ivana Khristitelya Street and blocked the entrances.

Police knocked on the door and an unwitting Onoprienko opened it, thinking it was his girlfriend and her children returning from church. Police handcuffed him and began a search of the apartment. In the living room, they found a stereo of the same make as one reported missing from the home of the family murdered on 22 March 1996 in Busk. It was later confirmed through a serial number match, to be the very one stolen from the murdered family’s home.

The task force also discovered a pistol in Onoprienko’s possession that was later matched to a murder scene in Odessa. Onoprienko was arrested and taken into custody whilst investigators conducted a more thorough search of the apartment. They found in excess of 120 items linked to various unsolved murder cases, including a 12-gauge shotgun. In addition, Onoprienko’s girlfriend was found wearing a ring that he had stolen from one of his victims.

Onoprienko waived his right to an attorney and was initially disinterested in talking to the police, saying he would only speak to a General. Kryukov was forced to call in lead investigator, Bogdan Teslya, to interrogate Onoprienko.

Whilst in custody, Onoprienko confessed first to stealing the 12-guage shotgun found at the time of his arrest, then to using it in a murder in 1989. He then said he had used it in eight murders between 1989 and 1995. He also told investigators of his friend and accomplice, Serhiy Rogozin. Onoprienko denied the other charges but admitted to a six-year killing spree, involving 52 victims. He explained to police that he was told to commit these murders, by voices he heard in his head.

Still hungry?

By November 2002 Meiwes had nearly finished his supply of Brandes' frozen flesh and posted another message for a victim on the internet. It was seen by an Austrian student who reported it to local authorities. On 11 December 2002 police raided Meiwes house and found 15lbs of Brandes' flesh under pizza boxes in his freezer, as well as the video of the killing.

Meiwes reportedly admitted to what he had done almost straight after his arrest in December 2002. It took police seven months to put together a case, after going through Meiwes' computer to trace evidence of his correspondence over the previous few years. They found thousands of images of torture and pornography and on 17 July 2003 he was charged with murder.

On the Run

The housing estate where Hutchinson grew up has nearby woodlands. Police believe it’s the most likely route he’ll take:“To get to his mother’s, Arthur would have to come through the field area...There’s so many abandoned farm buildings… wooded areas where anyone could hide with ease.”-Dick Copeman, Detective Chief Inspector, Cleveland Police5 November 1983 is a cold, misty day.Hundreds of police and dogs flood the areaAs the light starts to fade, the police intensify their searches trying to flush Hutchinson out. Hutchinson believes his injured knee urgently requires medical treatment. He can’t risk hospital and hopes that his mother will make it all all right.

What he doesn’t know is that the injury isn’t as deadly as the police have made him believe.A local farmer, George Bailes goes out to feed his dogs and check on his cattle:“And when I went back inside the wife says ‘did you see him?’And I said ‘see who?’And she said ‘Hutchinson’”Hutchinson breaks for home. He runs along the hill and straight to his mother’s house. Sensing the huge deployment of manpower sent to corner him, he hides in a copse. Police dogs soon flush him out.He pulls out his knife and makes a final run for home. Fittingly, it is the pursuing dog section that takes down the self-styled ‘Fox.’Perhaps even more fittingly, in the ensuing struggle to apprehend him, Arthur ‘The Fox’ Hutchinson stabs himself with his own knife.If Hutchinson hadn’t really needed medical help before, he does now.Britain’s most wanted man is taken away in an ambulance.The hunt that spanned 39 days and 9 counties ended just a stone’s throw away from his mother.“I knew that he’d go back and see his mother because he had nowhere else to go. He was a mammy’s boy see?”Dino Reardon, Hutchinson’s half brotherTaken to Stockton Police office, Hutchinson is allowed to see the mother for whom he’d risked all. The days and nights of living rough had not been kind to him.“She explained that she didn’t even recognise him as being her son. He’d changed his appearance so much.”Dick Copeman

Wuornos is Captured

A mammoth manhunt was initiated, and Wuornos was tracked down to Port Orange, Florida, where local forces had to be called off from arresting her immediately, so that the task force could track her movements and see whether she made contact with Moore, their other suspect.The next afternoon, 9th January 1991, Wuornos was arrested at the Last Resort bar, where she was advised that she was wanted in relation to minor outstanding charges against Lori Grody. The press were not informed of the arrest, and no mention was made of the murder charges at that stage. The following day Tyria Moore was traced to her sister’s home in Pittston, Pennsylvania, where she revealed to the police that Wuornos had admitted the murder of Mallory to her, on the day it had happened, but Moore had deliberately avoided discussing any other suspicious incidents with her, fearing for her own safety.

Moore made a deal to help the police build a case against Wuornos, and the two conducted a series of recorded telephone conversations over the next few days, during which Moore pleaded with Wuornos to confess, to spare Moore from prosecution as an accomplice. Wuornos was initially cautious on the phone, but faced with the prospect that Moore would also be prosecuted, she confessed to six of the murders on 16th January 1991, claiming that they had all been acts of self-defence, and that Moore had had no involvement in any of them.

Given the media attention surrounding the case, and the relative rarity of female serial killers, Wuornos was a national celebrity overnight. Within two weeks of her arrest, Wuornos had sold the film rights to her life story, and expected to become rich, not realising that Florida law specifically forbade profiting from criminal enterprise in this way. Even investigators and lawyers involved in the case, not forbidden by this restriction, were hiring their own media lawyers to negotiate their own book and film deals.

During January 2001, a 44-year-old rancher’s wife and born-again Christian, Arlene Pralle, contacted Wuornos via letter. She informed Wuornos that God had instructed her to do so, giving her home number and asking that Wuornos contact her. This marked the beginning of a bizarre friendship, which saw Pralle defending Wuornos’ self-defence plea, through a flurry of media interviews, for most of 1991, and culminated in Pralle’s legal adoption of Wuornos on 22nd November 1991: again on God’s instruction, according to Pralle.

With so much money flowing her way, Diamond led a lavish lifestyle, spending her ill gotten gains freely. Her forty thieves also indulged to excess. They were all aware that the freedom to do so could end at any moment. Jail was an occupational hazard. The women faced between 12 months and three years hard labour if caught. One professional thief, Ada Wellman, was convicted of shoplifting from an Army and Navy store in Victoria in 1921. She was still one of the Forty Thieves when she was jailed again 18 years later. But it would be because of a revenge attack and rioting, and not shoplifting, that the gang would eventually be broken.Diamond used violence as a means of control. If your face was on the receiving end of one of her hard diamond punches, it was because you’d either refused an offer or because you hadn’t paid up. But in 1925, she took part in a brutal attack that had no monetary motive. It would be a catastrophic miscalculation.It was the evening of the 19 December 1925. The air of the old Canterbury Social Club was thick with tobacco smoke. The innumerable empty glasses testified to just how many its customers had drunk. Two of Diamond’s Forty Thieves, Maria Jackson and Bertha Tappenden started drunkenly throwing insults at one another. Then Jackson attacked Tappenden with a broken wine glass. It cut her face. Jackson’s father, Bill Britten joined in. He first threw a glass of stout over her. Next, he punched Bertha. A cat fight quickly escalated into a vicious bar-room brawl. Britten eventually dragged his daughter away and the fight petered out. But the scene had stirred the remaining drinkers. They were now ready for a fight.A few nights later, at the same club, the only talk was of Jackson and how she and her father hadn’t gotten their just deserts. Everyone, including Diamond, and especially Maggie Hughes drank heavily until midnight. They decided to head to Jackson’s home. As they departed, some of the men gathered up bottles and glasses and anything else they could lay their hands on.DIAMOND’S DRUNKEN DOZEN Alice Diamond led about a dozen people to attack Jackson’s house. Inside, there was Maria, her father Bill, and her mother, Mary. When the rabble arrived, others from the surrounding streets soon swelled their ranks. Alice knocked on the door. In answer, she had a jug full of water chucked in her face. She ordered the door broken in.By the time they decide to attack the two story house, there were about 30 to 40 people all crowded outside. They were all armed with bottles and bricks. Some had guns.It was the sound of pistol shots that woke Maria. Then the mob smashed in her windows. Next they went to smash in the door. Bill and his wife were now up and trying to desperately hold the door shut. Outnumbered, the door gave way. The mob swarmed in. Those who couldn't fit in through the hallway pelted the house with bricks and bottles. Bill ran upstairs. He was chased from room to room. As he tried to flee, he was slashed at with knives and razors. His face was badly cut.Bill’s fifteen year old son tried to intervene. He was knocked down. He was badly beaten with ‘life preservers’. These curiously named weapons were often rubber coshes. Their name came from the fact that no matter how enraged the perpetrator, the victim usually just received bruises and broken bones. They didn't kill.What saved everybody’s life was the arrival of the police. They arrested two and the rest, including Diamond, fled. Bill’s bloodied face required 25 stitches. Maria, frightened and with her family threatened, broke the gang code and gave names to the police. They arrested two of the most important members of the ‘Forty Thieves’, their ‘queen’, Alice Diamond, and her second in command, Maggie Hughes.

With no investigatory task force after them, it is possible that the couple would never have been arrested if it was not for the escape of one of their victims. In 2003, Fourniret tried to adduct a 13 year old girl. He boasted to her that Marc Dutroux, the then recently apprehended Belgian paedophile and serial killer, was no match for him. But she managed to escape by biting her way through the ropes binding her wrists and jumping out of the van at some traffic lights. Before she fled, she noted his registration.

The police questioned both Fourniret and Olivier. But they didn’t realise they were interviewing the French equivalent of Fred and Rose West. It was only Olivier’s mistaken belief that the police knew more than they did that caused her to confess in the hope that her sentence would be reduced.

The first murder she confessed to resembled that of Leeds university student, Joanna Parish, who disappeared in Burgundy in 1990. Confronted with her confession, Fourniret confessed to many murders, but not this one. 

Whilst the profiling was underway, investigations at the site revealed that one of the victims found, Amelia Rapodile, had last been seen before an appointment to see a man, named Moses Sithole, on 7 September. A job application form was found, in which she was offered a position, and when a second victim showed a similar connection to Sithole, police were confident that they had unearthed a likely suspect. They were unable to locate Sithole, however, who continued with his killing spree, unfazed by the manhunt and media attention, and the body of Agnes Mbuli was discovered near Benoni on 3 October 1995.That same day, a phone call was received at “The Star” newspaper, from a man claiming to be the serial killer. As he seemed to have information not known to the general public, police were inclined to believe it was Sithole. An attempt to set up a meeting with him failed, however, and three more bodies were discovered over the next 10 days, forcing the police to release Sithole’s details to the media.With the manhunt now in the public domain, Sithole tried to seek assistance from family members, but undercover police intercepted him on 18 October 1995. Unwilling to go quietly, he was shot in the leg and stomach by a policeman, and hospitalised, operated on, and transferred to the secure Military Hospital in Pretoria, where Sithole admitted to numerous killings whilst being interviewed by detectives.He also denied ever having had an accomplice, and believed that some “copycat” murders had been executed using his modus operandi. A police claim, that he had waived his right to an attorney, whilst making his confession, was later denied in court. Five days later, on 23 October 1995, Moses Sithole was charged with 29 murders in the magistrates' court in Brakpan.On 3 November 1995 he was transported to Boksburg Prison, where he had served his rape sentence two years previously, to await his trial. During this time, press reports stated that he was HIV positive.

Whilst escaping, Gilmore continued to lose blood, and called his aunt for assistance. He admitted that he had been shot and told her his whereabouts, asking her to come and help him. She called the police instead, and told the police where to find him. Gilmore was arrested outside his girlfriend, Nicole’s, mother’s house, and he put up almost no resistance. Nicole was also at the house at the time of his arrest. Gilmore was taken to hospital for treatment, where his hand was tested for gun shot residue, then placed in a cast.Under interrogation Gilmore initially denied any involvement in either killing, but eventually admitted guilt, claiming he had no reason for the crimes, and admitting that he might well have continued to kill indiscriminately had he not been caught.

When the usually punctual Judge failed to turn up for work the next day the alarm was raised by noon. The house seemed in order, but the porch light had been smashed and officers found two rolls of adhesive tape, as well as bloodstains on and around the wooden stairs leading to the beach.Boats and a helicopter scanned the water and divers combed the ocean floor, but the Chillingworth’s bodies were never recovered.“Five years were to pass before the police would arrest their murderers.”The police heard that Holzapfel had been bragging that he knew who killed the Chillingworths. For three days in a Titusville motel room, two undercover policemen got Holzapfel so drunk he confessed to the murders. In an adjacent room an officer was taping everything and on 1st October 1960 Holzapfel was arrested.The very thing Peel had been trying to avoid when he ordered the judge killed happened when he was suspended for 90 days over the non-divorce case. Peel quit as a judge soon after and resigned from the Bar in 1959. After Holzapfel’s ‘confession’ Peel went into hiding, but a friend set him up and he was arrested in Chattanooga a month after Holzapfel’s arrest.

When detectives tracked down Angus Sinclair there was no need to physically arrest him. He was already in prison serving a life sentence since 1982 after admitting eleven counts of raping young girls between the ages of six and fourteen. And he’d also served time for murder – more than once.In 2001, he’d finally been convicted of the 1978 murder of 17-year-old Mary Gallagher. He’d strangled her with her own clothing before raping her.However, a witness to her abduction in 1978 meant police back then had been close to identifying a suspect at the time. Some believe this close shave meant he turned his attentions to easier victims, which is why he started targeting children. Angus Sinclair had started young.He was just fifteen when he killed his first victim.Catherine Reehill was just ten years old when he lured her back to his house.Once inside, he immediately sexually assaulted her. Then he strangled her.The judge at the time warned that from reading Sinclair’s Psychiatric Reports, it was clear Sinclair would always be a danger to women.But as he was only a minor at the time, he receives just ten years and as it’s not an adult conviction, it was soon effectively lost within the system. As detectives continued questioning Sinclair, scientists continued to pursue evidence of the second killer. It was noticed that male relatives of Sinclair’s wife shared common characteristics with the suspected second killer.After eliminating all but one of her brothers, only one remained. His name was Gordon Hamilton.But, he was now dead.And his remains had been cremated.And the materials that might have identified him had since been destroyed. Despite all of those seemingly impossible obstacles, forensics once again came to the rescue.Hamilton had done some work as a handyman in a house in the mid-nineties. He’d fitted cornicing and, almost unbelievably, ten years on, when scientists removed his handiwork, they found his DNA there.And it matched their sample. “...that was the final piece of the jigsaw for the whole puzzle.” Allan Jones, Former Det. Superintendent, Lothian & Borders Police But could Hamilton and Sinclair be behind other unsolved crimes? Operation Trinity was formed to find out. They found that in 1977 Angus had been earning good money and had purchased a brand new Toyota caravanette. He said it was to go fishing. Instead, it meant that he and his brother in law, Hamilton, could serial kill across Scotland. Some even believe Sinclair could be Scotland’s worst serial killer.Similarities in the murders lead police to suspect that from 1977 to 1980, Anna Kenny, Hilda McAuley and Agnes Cooney were all victims of Sinclair and Hamilton.They had all been bound and gagged with their own clothing.But it was just that, a suspicion. All the forensic evidence that could prove their theory was gone.And with Hamilton dead, no trial could take place to prove he was the killer. Only Angus Sinclair could help and his co-operation was highly unlikely.Detective Chief Constable Tom Wood watched him in Peterhead Prison as hour after hour, Sinclair repeated, ‘No comment.’“Sinclair was a classic organised professional criminal, hard as nails, been in prison most of his life...You got no response from him whatsoever...the absolute epitome of a professional criminal.” CCTV recordings of those interviews show Sinclair sitting impassively, often totally silently. So if Sinclair wouldn’t admit his guilt, maybe a jury could be persuaded of it. 

When a pair of discarded jeans was discovered near the river on 31 December 1989, containing an ID card for a girl called Felicia Stephens, police began an aerial search of the surrounding area. On 2 January 1990 a helicopter spotted what appeared to be a naked female body, lying on the ice surface of the river, near a bridge in the forest. The body was not Felicia Stephens but that of a missing prostitute, June Cicero, who had also been mutilated post-mortem, as well as sawn practically in half.Most importantly, the helicopter spotted a man standing on the bridge next to a small van, who appeared to be either masturbating or urinating. Fortunately for the authorities, Shawcross had, as speculated, returned to the scene of one of his crimes to relive the pleasure of the attack.Patrol teams on the ground were alerted to track the vehicle, which had made off at speed, and finally tracked down Shawcross via the registration, which was in the name of his girlfriend, Clara Neal. When approached, Shawcross agreed to assist the police with their enquiries. When they asked for his driver's license, he admitted he did not have one and then revealed that he had been in jail for manslaughter.Police were confident they had their killer and further questioning revealed the earlier child deaths and a grandiose account of his Vietnam War service, which was later discounted. A photo taken of him, during the initial questioning, soon confirmed his identity as 'Mitch' and official enquiries unearthed the reason for Shawcross’ sealed record that had prevented the police from tracking him down sooner.Still, police were unable to get Shawcross to admit to the murders, until they confirmed that a piece of jewellery that he had given to Clara Neal had belonged to June Cicero. When police threatened to implicate her in the killings, Shawcross capitulated and admitted to most of the murders, giving detailed excuses about why he had been 'forced' to kill each one. He even admitted to the killing of two undiscovered bodies, those of prostitutes Maria Welsh and Darlene Trippi, leading investigators to their bodies. His formal confession was nearly 80 pages long.

To date, no arrest has been made and Madeleine McCann has not been found.

Thirty-six hours after the discovery of the body a suspect was found in the form of one Freddie de Marigny, an enigmatic and rich, middle-aged Count, who was also Oakes’ son-in-law. A fingerprint found on the Chinese screen was believed to be his and Marigny was arrested and imprisoned in the local jailhouse. His wife, Nancy, the eldest daughter of the Oakes, refused to believe her husband had anything to do with her father’s murder and enlisted the help of private detectives. They requested that Freddie be subject to a lie detector test. When the fingerprint and lie detector experts arrived at Nassau they were shocked to find police officers scrubbing away the handprint and other miscellaneous forensic evidence. Also photographic plates taken of the bloody handprint were ruined by daylight contamination so that the identity of the print would never be known.