You've all heard of Jack the Ripper.
Jack killed five prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London in 1888.
History buffs will also have heard of Dr. Crippen, who was executed for the murder of his wife in 1910, and George Haigh, the "acid bath murderer" who murdered 5 people for profit between 1944 and 1949, the year he was finally caught and hanged.
Some of you will also remember John Reginald Haliday Christie. He is known to have killed 7 women and a baby between 1949 and 1953. His exploits are best remembered nowadays via Richard Attenborough's wonderfully creepy performance in 10 Rillington Place.
There aren't many in Britain who will not know that the Moors Murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, killed at least 5 young people in 1965 and 1966.
In 1968, 11-year-old Mary Bell strangled two little boys. Some of you will not have forgotten Mary Bell.
And, elsewhere on the planet, Charles Manson's gang killed 9 people in 1969, one of whom was movie starlet Sharon Tate, the wife of Roman Polanski. Most of you will have heard of Charles Manson.
However, almost no one in this country, except for those directly involved, will ever have heard of Kenneth Erskine.
And yet, Erskine killed his victims more recently than any of the killers listed above, he killed more of them and he killed them in England's capital city.
Kenneth Erskine was tried and convicted in 1988 of the killings of seven old age pensioners in a 3-month spell beginning in April, 1986.
The police are as sure as they can possibly be that he murdered at least 4 others around the same time. This because those who died were all pensioners, all of them were killed in inner London, they were all strangled, and most of them were buggered before or after death.
A senior detective is on record as having said:
"There is simply no way of knowing how many defenceless old folk he killed; it could be dozens".
The 23-year-old killer was abandoned by his parents as a child, and was a product of special schools and a bleeding-heart social security system.
After drifting out of that system, he began his career as a burglar in 1979 at the age of 16. He was arrested on numerous occasions and, even though, at his trial, he was found to have a mental age of eleven, he was smart enough to have opened ten different bank accounts to launder the proceeds from his thievery.
This supposed retard was also shrewd enough to arrange the bedding after he had killed, with the edge of the sheet tucked neatly under the victim's chin. The better to convey the impression that they had died peacefully in their sleep.
78-year-old retired schoolteacher, Eileen Emms, is thought to have been Erskine's first victim. She was strangled in her Wandsworth home in early April, 1986.
Erskine might have gotten away with it if he hadn't made off with Eileen's TV set, because her family originally fell for his plan and thought she had passed away peacefully. They almost cremated her before they noticed the missing television and contacted the police.
The body of 81-year-old Stockwell resident, Wilf Parkes, was found in his bed on the 2nd of June, 1986. He too had been strangled.
Erskine was never convicted of this killing.
A week later, he murdered 67-year old Jane Crockett, another Stockwell pensioner, the same way.
On the 27th of June, 1986, 73-year-old Clapham resident, Frederick Prentice, was awoken by an intruder.
Fred switched on the bedside light, at which point the man who had broken into his home leapt on top of him, found his throat and began to squeeze. However, Fred had the strength to free himself from Erskine's grip and the presence of mind to press the alarm at the side of his bed.
Whereupon, Erskine fled.
Frederick Prentice would be a key witness at his trial and, when he was presented with Erskine in a line-up, immediately picked him out as the man who had broken into his flat and tried to kill him.
On the 28th of June, 1986, Erskine murdered 84-year-old Polish war veteran, Valentine Gleime, at a house in Stockwell Park Road.
Incredibly, he returned to the same house later in the day and killed 94-year-old Zbigniew Stabrawa, another Polish gentleman who had survived the horrors of WWII to face an even greater horror at the end of his life in London.
After these killings, Erskine was dubbed The Stockwell Strangler by the British media.
On the 8th of July, 1986, he moved further afield and crossed the Thames to Islington, where he murdered 84-year-old William Carmen.
When William's daughter discovered his body the day after his death she found that all the pictures in the bedroom had been turned to face the wall.
Perhaps in the warped world of Erskine, he imagined that the eyes in the photographs were watching him critically. I mean, how would you feel if you were forced to watch a subnormal cretin sodomise and strangle your granddad?
And then make the bed.
On the 12th of July, 1986, 75-year-old Trevor Thomas was found dead in his South London bathroom. He too had been strangled.
As Trevor's body was submerged in bath water, the gathering of forensic evidence proved difficult and his death at Erskine's hands was also never proven.
On the 21st of July, 1986, Erskine killed 74-year-old William Downes in his Stockwell bedsit.
William had been raped and strangled like most of the others.
On the 23rd of July, 1986, Erskine murdered 83-year-old Florence Tisdall in Fulham.
Florence, who was disabled, had also been strangled and sexually assaulted.
Erskine's previous rapsheet eventually prompted detectives to investigate his whereabouts on those days when the killings occurred and, having done so, they concluded that he might well be the Stockwell Strangler.
As Erskine was still collecting Social Security payments on a regular basis, a watch was kept at the office where he signed-on. He was soon apprehended.
At first, he attempted to blame the murders on a voice in his head and said:
"I don't remember killing anyone, I could have done it without knowing it. I am not sure if I did it".
At any rate, by the time he came to trial in January, 1988, Erskine wasn't up for any jail time and pleaded not guilty to 7 counts of murder and one of attempted murder.
The jury did not believe him, however, and he was given 7 life sentences and a concurrent 12-year stretch for attempted murder of Frederick Prentice.
The Judge stated that he should serve a minimum of 40 years imprisonment.
This sentence was the longest minimum sentence ever imposed in Britain.
After the trial it was made known that Erskine had twice tried to hang his younger brother when he was a child, and, when he was eighteen, had stabbed the bloke who was his boyfriend at the time.
No charges were brought, however, and he was allowed to go free.
Just the thing to reinforce a fledgling fuckup's prejudice against going straight, eh?
So, why have we never heard of Kenneth Erskine?
Well, I can think of one reason.
Erskine was black,
And his victims were white.
This is what a man who rapes and murders pensioners looks like:
Since his trial, Erskine has told the police that he did what he did because he wanted to be famous.
Interestingly, 13 years later, Richard Fielding, a black man who would also be convicted for the murders of 7 white people, would tell the police the self-same thing.
Check out another loony-tune you've never heard of:
Ever hear of Stephen Akinmurele?
18-year-old Akinmurele murdered at least five old-aged pensioners between May, 1995 and February, 1996 in Blackpool and the Isle of Wight.
As with Erskine, the police are pretty sure that he killed more than this.
Akinmurele was also black.
His victims were also white.
Here's another serial killer THEY never told you about:
What about a bloke called Peter Bryan, ever heard of him?
Now, everybody ought to have heard of Mr. Bryan because he achieved nationwide notoriety recently and the things he did are the stuff of Hammer Horror movies and cheap novelettes.
Peter Bryan beat a young girl's brains out in 1993 and was sent to the nuthouse.
After a few years in there, he convinced the blokes in white coats that he wasn't as much of a nut as he used to be and he was transferred to hospital with a more relaxed attitude.
In January, 2002, he convinced a mental health tribunal that he was safe to be released and he was housed in a hostel from where he could come and go more or less as he pleased.
By November, 2003, a shrink recommended that Bryan should be given his own accommodation and he got a flat of his own.
In February, 2004, however, his condition worsened and he was re-admitted to a mental health centre. Just seven days later doctors agreed that he was no danger to the public and let him loose upon the rest of us once more.
He killed Brian Cherry soon afterwards.
When police officers arrived Brian's flat they found the walls and floor of his flat covered in blood.
His body had been dismembered and, when they went to check the kitchen, they found his brain sizzling in a frying pan.
Now, you'd have thought that, by this time, the authorities would've figured out that they had to keep an eye on this particular loony. However, in April, 2004, Bryan attacked Richard Loudwell, a fellow patient in Broadmoor.
Loudwell died soon afterwards. |
