British Serial Killers

On the anniversary of my first viral post about 10 of the world's worst serial killers ( https://imgur.com/a/vJlUm ) I've compiled a list of some of Britain's less known serial killers. Hence why I've left some out like Harold Shipman and Jack The Ripper.

Muswell Hill Murder – Dennis Nilsen Kill Count: 12 - 15

-Born November 23rd, 1945 in Scotland
-At 6 years old, his grandfather passed away suddenly and the viewing of his corpse at the funeral traumatised him. He said this event led to his later behavioural psychopathology.
-He became aware he had homosexual desires but didn’t act upon them.
-At 16 he joined the army and became a butcher in the Army Catering Corps.
-He left the army in 1972 and became a police officer, allowing him to develop his morbid taste in morgue visits and autopsied bodies. Despite the advantages of being an officer, he resigned and became a recruitment interviewer.
- December 29th, 1978, Nilsen killed his first victim by strangling him and drowning him in a bucket of water. Afterwards he washed the body, had sex with it then stuffed it under the floorboards. His next few victims suffered the same fates.
- By 1981 Nilsen had killed 12 men, including Billy Sutherland, a 27 year old prostitute and Malcom Barlow, a 24 year old with learning disabilities. Only those two along with the two mentioned above were identifiable.
- By the time Malcom Barlow was killed, Nilsen was running out of storage space so stuffed him under the kitchen sink. He had at least 6 bodies hidden around his apartment. When the neighbours complained he blamed the smell on structural problems with the building.
- To get rid of the bodies he would dismember them in his kitchen with a butcher knife, place vital organs into bags and boil the skulls. He buried limbs in the garden and put torsos into suitcases for burning.
- Between 1982 and 1983 he killed a further 3 more victims after moving to the top floor of an apartment building to stop his homicidal behaviour. To dispose of their bodies he boiled the hands, feet and heads, dissected the bodies then flushed the remains down the toilet.
- Soon the drains were blocked and rotting human flesh was found to be the - February 9th, 1983, Nilsen was questioned by Detective Chief Inspector Jay, to which Nilsen confessed and was arrested.
- October 24, 1983, Nilsen was charged with six counts of murder and two charges of attempted murder. - November 4th, 1983, the judge sentenced Dennis Nilsen to life in prison, without eligibility for parole for at least 25 years. He is still alive in HMP Full Sutton prison today at age 71.

The House of Horrors – Fred and Rose West Kill Count: 12 – 13+

-Fred West was born on September 29, 1941, in Much Marcle, England. He grew up with 5 siblings and was his mother’s favourite child although some claimed she was sexually abusing him. Fred claimed his father had incestuous relationships with his sisters, but this couldn’t be proved.
- At 17 he was in a motorcycle crash that left him in a coma for a week and had a metal plate in his head. He also sustained another head injury after falling from a fire escape, possibly causing permanent brain damage.
-1967 Fred killed his pregnant lover and buried her body near to his caravan
- November 1968, Fred West became acquainted with Rose Letts.

-Rosemary Letts was born on November 29, 1953, in Devon, England. Both parents suffered from mental illness and her mother underwent electro-convulsive therapy whilst pregnant with Rose. Her father was a paranoid schizophrenic and after moving out of the house with her mother, she met Fred West.
- Rose found herself looking after West’s 2 children while he went to prison for petty theft charges. She gave birth to their daughter Heather in 1970.
- The pressure of raising 3 children on her own was thought to be the source of her aggressive outbursts. It’s thought that, while having one of these outbursts, she killed Fred’s daughter Charmaine in 1971.
- When Charmaine’s mother came looking for her, she was strangled, dismembered and buried near to Anna McFall, who Fred killed previously.

- Number 25 Cromwell Street was fitted with a torture chamber in the basement while Rosemary prostituted herself for extra money. His daughter, Anna Marie, became the first to undergo brutal rape by her father while her stepmother held her down. This became a regular occurrence.
- Late 1972, they hired 17-year-old Caroline Owens as a nanny. They imprisoned, stripped and raped the woman but she managed to escape. She was too traumatised to press charges and the West’s escaped with fines.
- Over the next several years, 8 more girls and women were sexually attacked, murdered, dismembered and buried in the cellar.
- Rose had several more children that were all somewhat aware of the activities going on in the house, but their parents controlled them strictly.
- Fred continued his sexually attacks on his own daughters. When daughter Heather resisted and told friends about what happened, she was murdered, dismembered and buried in the back garden. Their son, Stephen, was forced to help dig her grave.
- August 1992, Detective Constable Hazel Savage led a search at Cromwell Street and found pornography and evidence of child abuse. The Wests were arrested.
- February 1994 a warrant was obtained to search the house and garden. Police found 2 decapitated young women, and, after Fred’s admission, 9 more bodies were found buried in the cellar.
- December 13th, 1994, Fred was charged on 12 counts of murder and taken to Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, but hung himself in his cell January 1st, 1995.
- Rose West was found guilty on 10 separate counts of murder and sentenced November 22, 1995
- Rose West is currently serving her sentence at HMP Low Newton, Brasside, Durham. And is still alive to this day at 63 years old

The Black Widow - Mary Ann Cotton Kill Count: Approx. 21

- Born October 31st, 1832 in Durham county, England. When she was 8 years old, her father fell to his death down a mine shaft and her family was evicted from their miner’s cottage.
- At age 16 she left home to work as a nurse, but returned 3 years later to become a dressmaker.
- 1852 she married William Mowbray and over the next 10 years they had 8 or 9 children.
- 1856 the family moved to Hendon and William took out a life insurance policy on his family. Only 3 children had survived, after their siblings died young from “gastric fever”.
- 1864, William and 2 of the children died from gastric fever. Mary Ann left her only daughter in the care of her mother after receiving the insurance money.
- 1985 she married George Ward, the following year he died, and she collected more insurance money.
- 1866 she became a housekeeper for James Robinson. Within weeks one of his children died of gastric fever.
- A few weeks after she visited her ailing mother, who passed away a week later. Mary and her daughter went to live at Robinson’s home.
- 1867 Mary’s daughter and 2 of Robinson’s children died.
- Later that year she married Robinson and they had 2 children, one died.
- 1869 Robinson discovered Mary was stealing money from him and grew suspicious that she kept asking him to take out a life insurance policy. He threw her our and she was homeless for a time.
- 1870 she met Frederick Cotton. That year Cotton’s sister and youngest child died.
- Later that year they became married and she gave birth to a son.
- 1871 Cotton and two more children died, again she received life insurance money.
- After her husband’s death she took up with her former lover. By 1872 he was dead
- Mary became pregnant to another man but said she to an official she couldn’t marry him because of her stepson. He died soon after and the official notified police. The body of her stepson was exhumed and arsenic was found in his stomach. Authorities exhumed her previous lover and two other Cotton children and found they had been poisoned by arsenic.
- While in prison, she gave birth to her 13th child in 1973.
- March 24th, 1873 she was hanged. It took her three minutes to die as the trap door wasn’t positioned correctly and her neck didn’t break as she fell.

10 Rillington Place - John Christie
Kill Count: 8+

- Born in Yorkshire, England, in 1898. He grew up in a house with a dominating father and overprotecting mother and sisters. He became sexually dysfunctional, obsessed with control and disliked women.
- He joined World War 1 as a signalman and was involved in a mustard gas attack.
- At aged 19 he frequented prostitutes.
- 1920 he married Ethel Simpson Waddington, but he still visited prostitutes.
- By 29 he had left his wife to move to London and had been to prison numerous times for theft and assault charges.
- 1933 his wife moved in with him again but he continued to relieve his violent sexual urges on prostitutes. Necrophilia began to become an urge too.
- 1938 the couple moved into 10 Rillington Place.
- 1943 Christie was having an affair with 21-year-old Ruth Fuerst. He strangled her to death during sex then buried her in the garden.
- November 8th, 1944, he lured his 32-year-old neighbour, Muriel Eady, into his house. He drugged her with carbon monoxide then raped and strangled her to death then buried her in the garden.
- 1948 a couple, Timothy and Beryl Evans and their baby moved into the flat below Christie. A year on Beryl, became pregnant but feared that her husband couldn’t support their family with another child. Christie mentioned he had knowledge on abortion and offered to assist the couple.
- Whilst in Christie’s care, Beryl was drugged, raped and strangled. She died November 8th, 1948, after the rape had occurred. Christie convinced her husband that she died of septic poisoning. Timothy moved away, their child was left in Christie’s care and was never seen again.
- November 30th, Timothy’s mother confronted Evan’s on his wife and baby’s disappearance. Unable to maintain the charade he went to the police to confess that he accidentally killed his wife. Upon investigation, Evan’s changed his story again and implemented Christie. - December 2nd, 1949, police searched 10 Rillington place and discovered the bodies of Beryl and her baby hidden in the washhouse in the back garden and another woman’s body.
- Christie managed to convince police he had no involvement in the murders. March 9th, 1950 Evan’s was hanged for his wife’s murder.
- After the trial Christie lost a large amount of weight and also lost his job. He had difficulty maintaining a job over the next few years.
- December 12th, 1952, Christie strangled his wife, Ethel, and buries her body under the floorboards.
- Rita nelson, a pregnant prostitute, went to Christie for help with an abortion. She was drugged, raped and strangled to death then stuffed into an alcove behind a cupboard.
- His final victim suffered the same fate as Rita and was stuffed into the alcove with her.
- March 20th, 1953, Christie moved out of 10 Rillington Place and the next tenant, while renovating the kitchen, discovered the two bodies and notified police. Police discovered Ethel under the floorboards as well as the two bodies in the garden.
- June 22nd, 1953, he was put on trial. Four days later hr was found guilty.
- July 15th, 1953, John Christie was hanged at Pentonville Prison, London.

The Crossbow Cannibal - Stephen Shaun Griffiths
Kill count: 3

- Born on Christmas Eve in 1969, in West Yorkshire. He’s the eldest of the three children
- Aged just 17, he’s sentenced to three years’ youth custody for attacking a shop manager with a knife. He tells probation officers he fantasises about serial killing.
- 1989, he’s convicted of possessing an offensive weapon: an air pistol. He uses it to shoot birds which he then dissects.
- 1990 he receives two year prison sentence for affray after holding a knife to the throat of a young girl.
- Stephen gains a degree in psychology and begins a PHD, his doctorate thesis is on the history of homicide.
- He begins buying books on serial killers like Jack the Ripper, the Moors Murderers and his idol, the Yorkshire Ripper.
- 1996, aged 27 Stephen moves into a one bedroom flat in a block of housing association flats in Holmfield Court, Bradford, West Yorkshire.
- Griffiths had 2 relationships since moving to Bradford, the first being good and lasted for 2 years, until his obsession with homicide became too much for his girlfriend. The second girlfriend was abused and, after leaving him, Griffiths stalked her for years
- June 22, 2009 prostitute Susan Rushworth was seen getting off a bus near her bedsit in Bradford. She was never seen again, and a body hasn’t ever been recovered.
- April 26, 2010, another prostitute, Shelley Armitage, disappeared. Griffiths used his mobile phone to videotape his “encounter” with Shelley Armitage. The video shows him defiling her naked body. She’d been hog-tied with twine. The video also shows Shelley Armitage dead and naked in the bathtub.
- Less than a month later Suzanne Blamires, 36, went missing. She was another prostitute and lived 3 blocks away from Shelly Armitage. She put up a fight against Griffiths and managed to escape, where CCTV captured her. The fottage showed Griffiths knocking Suzanne to the ground where he then killed her with a crossbow bolt to the head. Griffiths then raised his crossbow in victory to parade in front of the camera before dragging the body out of sight.
- May 24, 2010 Stephen Shaun Griffiths was arrested and charged with 3 counts of murder. When his flat was searched the police recovered two crossbows and bolts and 30 knives.
- May 25, 2010 a passerby discovered female body parts and a head in a rucksack in the River Aire. Police also found 81 different pieces of Suzanne Blamires. A broken knife and a crossbow bolt were embedded in her head. Nearby along the river police found a small piece of spine which was determined to belong to Shelley Armitage. That was all that was ever found of her body.
- “It was just a slaughterhouse in the bathtub,” he told officers. Stephen Shaun Griffiths also declared that he’d eaten parts of his victims. He claimed Suzanne Blamires was the third victim he had cannibalized. He said he’d cooked and eaten parts of his first two victims, boiling one in a pot, but he ate the third one raw.
- December 21, 2010, Stephen Shaun Griffiths was convicted of 3 murders after pleading guilty. He was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole and is still alive to this day, even after attempting suicide 4 times.

The Acid Bath Murderer - John George Haigh
Kill count: 6 – 9

- Born 24 July 1909, Stamford, Lincolnshire. His parents were deeply religious and any form of casual entertainment like music, newspapers ect were all regarded as sin and only Bible stories were tolerated. Haigh later claimed that he suffered from recurring religious nightmares in his childhood and later in his childhood he soon believed he was invincible and could do anything
- He won scholarship to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield. He then won another scholarship to Wakefield Cathedral, where he became a choirboy.
- After school he was an apprentice to a firm of motor engineers but dropped out a year later.
- He then took jobs in insurance and advertising but was sacked at 21 after being accudes of stealing.
- July 1934, Haigh married the 23 year-old Beatrice Hamer, the marriage soon fell apart. That same year he was jailed for fraud and Beatrice gave birth while he was in prison, but she gave the baby girl up for adoption and left Haigh.
- 1936 he moved to London and became chauffeur to William McSwan, the wealthy owner of amusement parlours.
- Following that he became a bogus solicitor and went to jail for 4 years for fraud.
- He missed being enlisted into WW1 and continued his unsuccessful petty criminal carreer, landing in prison a few more times
- Whilst inside Lincoln Prison he began plotting murder. He experimented using acid, dissolving dead mice to see how long it would take. He then devised a formula that would apply to humans.
- 1944 Haigh renewed his friendship with the McSwans and rented a small basement workshop
- September 9th, 1944, he took McSwan’s son Donald to his workshop and bludgeoned him to death. He then placed Donald’s body in a 40 gallon barrel filled with sulphuric acid. The next day the remains of McSwan were little more than cold liquid and lumps which he disposed of down a drain.
- 2 July 1945, the rest of the McSwans disappeared. They were killed in a similar fashion to poor Donald. Haigh hit them first, killing them and then claimed to have drunk their blood, before dissolving them in acid baths.
- August 1947 Haigh met Dr Archibald Henderson and his wife Rosalie. He soon shot and disposed of the Hendersons’ bodies in oil drums filled with acid. He forged a letter from them and sold all of their possessions for £8,000.
- 1949 Olivia Durand-Deacon, 69, the wealthy widow of a solicitor, was shot and placed into the acid bath. He sold her possessions for a measly amount of money
- February 28th the police brought him in for questioning whilst they searched his hotel room and workshop after Olivia’s friend became concerned with her whereabouts.
- Further investigation of the sludge at the workshop by the pathologist revealed 28 pounds of human fat, corroded human bones, three human gallstones and part of a denture.
- Monday 18th August 1949 he was put on trial. The next day he was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was hanged at Wandsworth Prison.

The Grindr Killer - Stephen Port
Kill Count: 4

- Born 22 February 1975 in Southend-on-Sea.
- When he was a year old, he moved to Dagenham, where he grew up and his parents still live.
- His neighbour, Ryan, described him as having a peculiar, childlike personality, exhibiting odd behaviour as a grown man, such as playing with children's toys. He came out as gay in the mid-2000s.
- Port met his victims via online gay social networks
- 17 June 2014, Anthony Walgate, 23, a fashion student originally from Hull, who on occasion worked as an escort, was contacted by Port. On the 19th June, Port anonymously called the emergency services about a young boy who was “collapsed or had a seizure”. It was Anthony Walgate and he was pronounced dead just after 8am that day.
- Between August 2014 and September 2015 Port murdered at least three more men: Gabriel Kovari, 22, who had moved to London from Slovakia; Daniel Whitworth, 21, from Gravesend in Kent, who worked as a chef; and Jack Taylor, 25, who lived with his parents in Dagenham, East London, and worked as a forklift truck driver.
- The bodies of the last three of the four murder victims were found in the graveyard of the church of St Margaret of Antioch in Barking.
- To kill the men He used gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), a date rape drug, adding it to drinks given to his victims, raped them, and murdered four of them in his flat in Barking.
- 23 November 2016, he was convicted of the assaults by penetration, rapes and murders of Anthony Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21 and Jack Taylor, 25, as well as the rapes of three other men he drugged, and ten counts of administering a substance with intent, and four sexual assaults.
-He was found guilty on all counts. In total, eleven men were victims of Port's crimes.

Baby Farmer - Amelia Dyer Kill Count: 200 – 400+. 12 confirmed

- Born 1837 in the small village of Pyle Marsh, east of Bristol.
- Her mother died 1848 from mental illness, her father in 1859.
- 1861, at the age of 24, she married George Thomas, 59.
- After marrying Thomas she trained as a nurse.
- From contact with a midwife, Ellen Dane, she learned of an easier way to earn a living—using her own home to provide lodgings for young women who had conceived illegitimately and then farming off the babies for adoption or allowing them to die of neglect and malnutrition.
- Unmarried mothers in Victorian Britain often struggled to gain an income whilst bringing up their children in a society where single parenthood and illegitimacy were stigmatised. - This led to the practice of baby farming in which individuals acted as adoption or fostering agents, in return for regular payments or a single, up-front fee from the babies’ mothers.
- Unscrupulous carers resorted to starving the farmed-out babies, to save money and even to hasten death. Noisy or demanding babies could be sedated with easily available alcohol and/or opiates. This would lead to starvation and death.
- Mothers who chose to reclaim or simply check on the welfare of their children could often encounter difficulties, but some would simply be too frightened or ashamed to tell the police about any suspected wrongdoing.
- Amelia married William Dyer. Amelia was apparently keen to make money from baby farming
- Soon after the receipt of each child taken into Amelia’s care, she murdered them, thus allowing her to pocket most or all the fee. She would mostly suffocate the babies by wrapping tape around their neck or even strangling them to death whilst they were being born.
- She was eventually caught in 1879 after a doctor was suspicious about the number of child deaths he had been called to certify in Dyer's care.
- However she was only sentenced to 6 months hard labour for manslaughter and spent a lot of time in asylums whilst heavily abusing alcohol and opiates.
- Inevitably, she returned to baby farming, and murder. Because doctors now began supply death certificates, she disposed of the bodies themselves. However, she soon grabbed police attention again when parents tried to visit or reclaim their children to find them missing. She and her family moved from town to town to escape suspicion.
- April 3rd, 1896 police raised Dyer’s home after the discovery of a child’s body in a suitcase that was dumped in the Thames river. The police were stuck by the stench of human decomposition and found evidence including the strangling tape, telegrams, pawn tickets for children’s clothing and receipts and letters from mothers inquiring about their children.
- 22nd May 1896, Dyer appeared at the Old Bailey (Criminal Court) and pleaded guilty to one murder
- 10th June 1896 she was hanged at Newgate Prison.

Edit: Thanks for making my serial killer post viral again! I'd love to hear some suggestions on what to do next