Derrick Bird, 52, described by friends as “a loner” who lived with his mother, started his bloody rampage with his twin brother, a family solicitor and then three taxi drivers with whom he had worked for years. He then embarked on a random spree through the Cumbrian countryside.

The shooting frenzy began close to Bird’s home village of Rowrah early in the morning. It is understood he shot dead his twin brother David, of Lamplugh, a former mechanic working as a lorry driver. He also killed Kevin Commons, the family solicitor. He set off for Whitehaven, where one of his first victims was Darren Rewcastle, 43, a taxi driver who had worked with Bird for years. Friends said they never had any problems in the past.

A taxi driver in Whitehaven, Cumbria, where Bird shot and killed two people, said last night: “From what I’ve been told, there was an argument between him and other drivers.” Afterwards Derrick shook all their hands and said: “There’s going to be a rampage tomorrow.” Bird then told his friend Peter Leder: “You won’t see me again.”

Turning the gun on two other taxi drivers, Bird killed one and injured another, believed to be Terry Kennedy, who is in his 40s. He moved on to the town of Egremont where he came across Susan Hughes, 57, who has two daughters, one of whom is understood to be severely disabled. She was walking home from a local shop when he killed her. Bird climbed out of the vehicle and shot her twice in the stomach with a .22 rifle before driving half a mile and shooting dead Ken Fishburn, a retired security worker who was in his 70s. He was believed to be on his way to a betting shop when he was killed. As he drove to Wilton, Bird killed a man, named locally as Spike Dixon. Last night it emerged that a couple named locally as Jimmy and Jennifer Jackson, both church stalwarts in their 60s, had also been shot dead at a house in Wilton, just outside Egremont. His next victim was Garry Purdham, 31, a former professional rugby league player, who played for Whitehaven and Egremont as well as Workington. Mr Purdham had been mending a fence on his father Jack’s farm near Gosforth. Bird fired twice and killed him.

Driving on to Seascale, Bird collided with a Land Rover being driven by Harry Berger, the landlord of the Woolpack pub at Boot. Bird fired two shots through his window. Mr Berger was hit but survived. Moments later, as he approached the village of Drigg, he came across Jane Robinson, 66, who was delivering catalogues. Bird passed and opened fire, killing her. Moments later Michael Pike was shot dead as he cycled past. Heading out of the village Bird opened fire once more, hitting a woman named locally as Jacqui Lewis.

It is believed Bird’s bloodbath claimed 12 victims and left 25 wounded with eight people in hospital, three fighting for their lives. By 12.41pm, Bird would have heard radio reports naming him as the gunman. From Seascale, he made the short journey to the hamlet of Boot where he left his car, walked into to a wood where he shot himself in the head.

Those who knew Bird said he was a quiet, “normal bloke” with two grown-up sons, one of whom had just become a father. He lived alone in Rowrah, near Frizington, Cumbria, and liked tinkering with his car. Bird was teased over his sex life and for being a “mummy’s boy”, later executing a friend who had taunted him for being a failure with women.

After a three hour manhunt, police found the serial killer lying in a pool of his own blood at 1.40pm.

-articles by Chris Riches, Rod Mills and Nick Fagge rewritten and adapted by admin-

Detectives investigating the alleged murder of three vice girls by “Crossbow Cannibal” Stephen Griffiths last night confirmed they are probing possible links with the unsolved murders of two more prostitutes. Stephen Griffiths, 40, has been charged with killing three women who vanished over the past 11 months.

Stephen Griffiths is charged with the murder of Ms Blamires, Susan Rushworth and Shelley Armitage, all of whom worked as prostitutes in the Yorkshire city. Now detectives fear the crimes could be linked to the murders of Michaela Hague, 25, and 19-year-old Dawn Shields, who vanished from Sheffield’s vice zone 50 miles away. Street walkers befriended by Griffiths as they plied their trade near his flat have told detectives he was a regular visitor to red-light districts in South Yorkshire. He even offered to accompany one prostitute to other towns where he told her she could make extra cash because there were more men there. The 35-year-old said she was stunned when Griffiths – who was doing a Bradford University PhD on serial killers – appeared in court on Friday, introducing himself as “the Crossbow Cannibal”.

“I can’t believe he’s the same man who was like a brother to me for years. He fed me, washed my clothes and took me in when I was on the streets and had nowhere else to go. He never harmed me and even offered to protect me while I was out on the streets. He told me I’d do much better business if I went with him to Sheffield, Barnsley and Doncaster. He said he went regularly to red-light districts there and there was more cash to be made than in Bradford.”

Griffiths was arrested last Monday after a caretaker in the block of flats where he lived in Bradford discovered shocking CCTV footage of Suzanne Blamires being beaten by a man who then fired a crossbow into her skull. Her dismembered body has since been recovered from the River Aire four miles away in Shipley. Police are also probing claims that part of her body may have been eaten by her killer. They are still searching for the remains of the other two women.

While searching the perimeter detectives have also found a “Ripper kit” of knives and hacksaws stashed inside a bag and dumped in a river. Inside were the razor sharp blades which may have been used to dismember the street-walker victims. Human tissue may also be inside but police are waiting for the bag to dry to avoid damaging DNA evidence before opening it. It was pulled from the Aire in Shipley, West Yorks – four-miles from self-proclaimed Crossbow Cannibal Stephen Griffiths’ flat.

Griffiths is on suicide watch in a single cell in a health care unit in the “Mansion”, a top-security Wakefield, West Yorks, which houses some of Britain’s most notorious serial killers and sex offenders. “Crossbow Cannibal” Stephen Griffiths said he had a vision that he would be locked up in the jail dubbed “Monster Mansion”. A prison insider revealed: “He said he used to look up at the high walls and bars over the windows and think what it would be like to be inside. Griffiths said the last time he walked around the jail was about three weeks before he was arrested. He said he had a sort of vision that he would be locked up in Wakefield very soon.”

-Griffiths will next appear before Bradford crown court, via videolink, on 7 June.-

-articles from skcentral.com rewritten and adapted by admin-

A former public schoolboy studying for a PhD in criminology was charged yesterday with murdering three prostitutes. Stephen Griffiths, 40, faces charges over the death of three sex workers who disappeared over an 11-month period in the red-light area of Bradford and was arrested on Monday.

Mr Griffiths, who was brought up in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, was educated from 1983 to 1986 at the town’s fee-paying Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. He later gained a degree in psychology at the University of Leeds. For the past six years he has been studying at the University of Bradford, he was comparing modern policing methods with investigations by detectives in the 19th century.

Stephen Griffiths, described as a model student by those who knew him at Bradford University, was charged yesterday with the murders of Ms Blamires and two more women, Shelley Armitage, 31, and Susan Rushworth, 43. He was arrested on Monday after police obtained CCTV footage of one of the alleged murders as it unfolded in the block of flats where he lived on Thornton Road, in the heart of the red-light district.

The film is understood to show Suzanne Blamires, 36, being murdered by a man who attacked and knocked her to the ground before using a crossbow to fire a bolt into her head. He then dragged her from view. A man was later seen carrying bin bags and a rucksack from the block of flats. Parts of Ms Blamires’ dismembered body were found on Tuesday, floating in a river three miles away. Further body parts were recovered in the last few days.

“An examination of human remains recovered from the River Aire have confirmed a positive match to Suzanne Blamires,” a police spokesman said. “Inquiries into the incident remain ongoing and a 40-year-old man remains under arrest in custody. He is being questioned on suspicion of the murder of Suzanne Blamires, Shelley Armitage and Susan Rushworth.” Detectives questioning Mr Griffiths are initially focusing on those three cases but intend to include further unsolved murders of sex workers in the area dating back several years. These include the cases of Rebecca Hall, 19, the mother of a four-month-old son, whose badly-beaten body was found in an alleyway near Holmfield Court in April 2001, and Yvonne Fitt, 33, who was last seen alive in Bradford before she was found stabbed to death in 1992.

Neighbors described Griffiths as a loner. He is thought to have regularly posted on web forums under the name “Ven Pariah” and to have posted pictures of himself on social networking sites. On one social networking site, which has been taken down since his arrest, he described himself as “the misanthrope who brought hate into Heaven”. In a separate posting, he wrote: “Humanity is not merely a biological condition. It is also a state of mind. On that basis I am a pseudo-human at best.” The web page, on which he gave his age as 99 and listed his mood as “evil”, also included a quotation from the book of Ezekiel – “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides” – and listed his academic interests as “aggregate homicide, multiple homicide, capital punishment and targeted political homicide”.

Stephen Griffiths has been under arrest for 24 hours and is due to appear before Bradford magistrates this morning and at the city’s Crown Court later.

For more details about this case, visit a DailyMail article I am the crossbow cannibal’: ‘Ripper’ suspect charged with murder of three prostitutes in extraordinary court appearance.

-articles from various sources combined by admin-

A man’s body was found in the killing field on Monday, where the remains of five women have been unearthed – the latest one last week. Lenasia police spokesman Captain Mbulaheni Netshivhodza said the cases could not be linked, but condoms found at the scene could give a clue regarding the killers and killings.

The shock discovery of a Soweto woman’s skull – sticking out of a shallow grave near a railway line – has unearthed a killing field of women’s bones and bodies. And police are probing the possibility that a serial killer and rapist – or two or more – is on the loose. The body of the woman, who disappeared two years ago after testifying in court against a man who had conned her, was found last week when a woodcutter noticed a skull protruding from the soil in a secluded area next to the railway line in Lenasia.

And it wasn’t the first time a body had been found in the area, he said. In February, a decomposing body was found there by a passer-by. The body is still lying in the government mortuary because nobody has claimed it. Netshivhodza said the bodies of at least five women were found in the same area last year. He did not have the exact number of bodies found in the area, but there were many, he said. “They were found in different areas, but not far from each other.” Some were naked, others half-naked, and post-mortem results revealed they had been raped. Netshivhodza said police believed the serial killer or killers had abducted the women from various areas, then raped and killed them in the veld in Lenasia near the Waterworks informal settlement. He also said most of the victims had not been identified.

Now police are investigating how the man, aged between 25 and 30, had died. “He had injuries on the face and bruises on his body. It looks like the body has been there for two days. His face was swollen and covered in blood. The injuries do not show that an object was used,” he said. The deceased was dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt.

Despite the danger in the area, people were still walking through the veld. It was not clear whether they were aware that a skeleton had been found there. Netshivhodza added: “These people don’t want to listen to us. This place is dangerous. Next to the grave, there were used condoms. The condoms looked like they have been used recently. So you never know if there is someone lurking in the veld.”

He also urged people who know of any woman who has gone missing to contact the police.

-article by Solly Maphumulo rewritten and adapted by admin-

Anthony Sowell, an accused serial killer facing death penalty, was arrested when bodies of eleven woman were found in and around his home last fall. Now, the police released exclusive photographs of the crime scene, taken inside his home.

Last November, Cleveland Police discovered the remains of nearly a dozen women inside Sowell’s house on Imperial Avenue. Bodies were found throughout the home and also in the yard. There were multiple shallow graves in the basement. Police say in addition to burying the decomposing bodies, Sowell hid them in various crawl spaces. In the living room, cops found two dead bodies out in the open, lying next to a shovel. More than 4,500 pictures were taken during the investigation by the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s office, and you can see 62 photos exclusively on Action News.

Anthony Sowell is facing an unprecedented 85 charges. The accused sex offender faces the death penalty if convicted. if you want to read more about this case, read the article Serial Killer Anthony Sowell Arrested. It is yet uncertain if he is involved in more disappearances that happened around Celeveland and police are looking into it.

-article from Action News rewritten and adapted by admin-