The Crime Crypt

Killed by the person who was supposed to protect them. 

When the police stopped Timothy Jones at a checkpoint in Mississippi in August 2014, nothing could have prepared them for the utter horror that lay ahead.  Jones was agitated and high on drugs. His clothes were covered in blood. 

The police officers were overwhelmed by the stench of decomposing bodies. As they searched the vehicle they couldn’t work coming from.  It was then that Jones confessed - said he’d murdered his five children, driving around with them in the back of his car for days. 

He said he’d dumped them in black bin bags and told the police to search on a hillside in Alabama. 

And there they were - little Merah, 8; Elias, 7; Nahtahn, 6; Gabriel, 2, and Abigail, 1 - wrapped in bin bags, as Jones had said.  As the news broke, shock spread nationwide. 

What possessed a father to murder his children?  The children’s mother Amber was heartbroken. She’d handed custody to her ex-husband after their divorce in 2011, as he earned more money than her. 

She was adamant that Jones was a good father during their marriage. He had a respectable job as a computer engineer.  There was no sign that he was capable of such evil.  The marriage had fallen apart after Amber was said to have had an affair with a 19-year-old. 

She moved out of the family home, leaving her husband devastated. To those who knew the family, Jones was a loving dad, raising his kids alone in South Carolina.  But, at his trial in Lexington County in May 2019, the jury heard another side to the story. 

Crystal Ballentine - one of Jones’ former babysitters and single mum of a baby girl herself - said she was just 17 when she first met Jones in 2012.  She worked from 7am to 6pm, looking after Jones’ kids and doing chores in the home. It wasn’t long before she and Jones, then 30, were in a relationship. 

But, soon, Crystal noticed Jones had started to beat the children. Sometimes he made them stand on their tiptoes in the corner.  She told the court Jones even tried to whip her own daughter when she was less than a year old - the final straw for Crystal. She ended the relationship. 

But it didn’t stop Jones from handing out more brutal punishment to his five innocent children.  Another babysitter, Joy Lorick, told the court she accompanied Jones and his children on a visit to Disney World in June 2014 - just eight weeks before the children were killed. 

Joy told the court she’d seen Jones pull down the pants of little Gabriel and Nahtahn to beat them.  And Joy testified the children had asked her, ‘Could you not tell Daddy you just fed us again?’  But why had Jones killed his five children?

The confession came from Jones himself. He told psychiatrists that, on the night of 28 August 2014, he had an angry confrontation with little Nahtahn.  Just 6 years old, Nahtahn had allegedly broken an electrical outlet. 

As punishment, Jones forced him to do various strenuous exercises.  Later that night, Jones found the child dead in bed.  But, instead of calling an ambulance, Jones panicked, spent hours thinking about what to do. 

He decided his five children should be together in heaven.  So he strangled Merah and Elias, using his hands, then used a belt to choke Gabriel and Abigail. 

He wrapped their bodies in plastic and bundled them into the back of his truck.  Driving around frantically, he stopped off at various places to buy drugs. For nine days, Jones drove around in a daze, his dead children in the back of the car. 

He searched online for ways to make bodies decompose faster.  Then he researched countries that didn’t extradite criminals back to the US.  Jones was under no illusion about what he’d done. 

Finally, he found a spot in rural Alabama and dumped his children on a hillside.  Jones’ lawyers claimed he was deep in the throes of mental illness when he killed his children. 

They said that his sanity was damaged by his wife leaving him for a teenager. ‘He’s crazy,’ lawyer Boyd Young told jurors. ‘You can’t rationalize crazy. But at the time, he thought it was the right thing to do.’ 

Then the defense called a social worker, who detailed several levels of trauma within Jones’ family.  The horror included three generations of rapes, molestation by family members, gunshots, stabbings, drug deals, voodoo rituals, prostitution, frequent screaming fights, and swearing at children. 

The court also heard how Jones’ own mother dipped him in ice-water baths and gave him laxatives to try to make him behave.  Even Amber, the grieving mother of five dead children, begged the jury not to give her ex-husband the death sentence. 

‘He did not show my children any mercy by any means,’ said Amber. ‘But my kids loved him, and if I’m speaking on behalf of my kids and not myself, that’s what I have to say.’ 

But, in June 2019, the jury’s verdict was unanimous. Jones should face the death penalty. Days later, Jones launched an appeal against his conviction and sentence. At the time of writing, he’s on Death Row, knowing he can never truly pay the price for the innocent lives he stole. 

The story behind one of history’s most infamous criminal couples.

On 5 January 1930, in West Dallas, Texas, Bonnie Parker, 19, met Clyde Barrow, 21. Bonnie was a bored waitress, estranged from her jailed husband, while Clyde was a petty criminal. 

They fell head over heels in love. Soon after, when Clyde was jailed for burglary, Bonnie smuggled in a gun to help him escape.  He was recaptured, sent back to jail. But when he was released in February 1932, Clyde rejoined Bonnie and they stole a car, committed a string of robberies. That April, Bonnie was caught and jailed for two months. 

And when she was released, she and Clyde embarked on their infamous crime spree, rampaging through Depression-era America with an ever-changing team of accomplices.  They robbed banks and convenience stores, murdering anyone who got in their way. 

In the summer of 1932, the couple travelled with Clyde’s boyhood friend Raymond Hamilton, although he was later jailed.  That August, while Bonnie was visiting her mother, Clyde and Raymond were drinking at a country dance. Sheriff Maxwell and his deputy Eugene Moore approached them in the car park. 

Clyde opened fire, killing the deputy.  As their crime spree continued, they became known as the Barrow Gang. In March 1933, Clyde’s brother, Buck Barrow, was released from prison. He and his wife Blanche joined Bonnie, Clyde and their gang. 

The Barrow Gang committed a string of daring robberies and made headlines across the country, particularly Bonnie - an unlikely criminal.  Bonnie and Clyde even posed for playful photos, brandishing guns. However, the notorious lovers were almost caught in April 1933, when police raided their hideout. 

Bonnie provided cover with a hail of bullets from her automatic rifle as the gang shot their way out.  Two police officers were shot dead as the gang escaped. But the criminal couple had to leave behind most of their possessions in the hideout - including a roll of undeveloped film, containing photos subsequently released to the media. 

They included the now-infamous snap of Bonnie beside a car, cigar clenched between her teeth, and pistol in her hand.  Photos of the outlaws were front-page news. In June 1933, Bonnie suffered terrible burns to her right leg during a high-speed car crash. 

Clyde had missed a detour sign, flipping the car into a ravine, and acid from the crushed battery melted Bonnie’s flesh to the bone.  Her burns were so severe that, from then on, she limped, hopped or was carried by Clyde. 

The following month, they were almost caught during a second raid on a hideout in Missouri.  Buck was killed during the shootout, Blanche arrested and later jailed. But Bonnie and Clyde continued their life of crime. 

In January 1934, they attacked Eastham Prison Farm in Texas, freeing five prisoners, including Raymond Hamilton.  Several guards were shot, one killed by the escaping prisoners - using automatic pistols Clyde had hidden in a ditch. 

As the prisoners ran, Clyde covered their retreat with bursts of machine-gun fire.  After this, Texan prison officials hired special investigator Captain Frank Hamer to track down the couple. 

Hamer soon traced the duo, set up an ambush. Before dawn, on 23 May 1934, Hamer and four police officers hid in bushes along a country road near Sailes, Louisiana. 

When Bonnie and Clyde appeared and attempted to drive away in their stolen car, the officers opened fire - killing Bonnie and Clyde instantly.  Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker and the Barrow Gang were responsible for at least 13 murders, including those of nine police officers. 

And while their violent story has been romanticized - their bullet-riddled car is still on display at a hotel and casino in Primm, Nevada - they take their place as one of history’s most dangerous criminal couples. 

The Movie Take

The 1967 double-Oscar-winning film Bonnie and Clyde starred Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Some criticize it as romanticized, glorifying the couple’s cold-blooded crimes. 

In the film, they meet when Bonnie thwarts Clyde’s attempt to steal her mother’s car. But Bonnie’s mom said they met over a mug of hot chocolate at a friend’s.  Clyde was portrayed as impotent, but was actively heterosexual. 

Beatty invented this to give his film character more depth. However, Clyde really did chop off two toes in prison!  In the film, the gang are ‘Robin Hood’ types, stealing from rich banks, soft on ‘regular folk’. Yet, in truth, the gang’s main targets were small-town stores and saving banks. 

And, unlike real life - with the pair imprisoned for stints - the film takes place over one long, murderous spree.  But, like all retellings of this infamous due - their story ends the same. The couple die in a hail of bullets. 

A monster was on the loose for two painful decades. 

For 20 years, the family of 18-year-old Miranda Fenner desperately hoped for answers. Ever since the nightmare began on the evening of 15 November 1998.  Police were called to a video rental store in Laurel, Montana, where Miranda was working. 

A report had come in from a passing motorist that a young woman had been seen crawling on her hands and knees - and covered in blood.  Arriving shortly after, officers discovered Miranda. She’d been left for dead. 

Multiple stab wounds plastered her mutilated body, her throat slashed.  She’d managed to crawl from the back of the shop to the front. And, somehow, the teenager survived for 90 agonizing minutes. 

But after being rushed to hospital, she succumbed to her injuries. Miranda had been brutally murdered.  Who would want to kill this innocent high-school graduate?

Her killer left no evidence, didn’t steal from the shop or from Miranda. As authorities scrambled to find the perpetrator, they were left stumped.  Numerous people came forward, some even falsely claiming responsibility for the fatal attack. 

Others made accusations about who had committed the heinous crime.  And though countless potential suspects were questioned, the police had nothing concrete.  Miranda’s family reached out, offering $25,000 reward to anyone who could help find her killer. But years went by and the case went cold. 

Until, in October 2013, police got a tip-off. A woman came forward with a story they hadn’t heard before.  She said her ex-husband’s son Zachary O’Neill was a ‘very violent person’.But what was more, she said O’Neill had gone out to rent a film from the shop where Miranda worked on the night of her killing. 

But there was no evidence, no motive, no other information to build a case.  In 2016, O’Neill was admitted to a psychiatric ward of a hospital. There, he confessed to killing Miranda - but he also said he’d committed another murder that simply hadn’t happened.  Police didn’t consider him a credible suspect. 

Then, a year later, 37-year-old O’Neill walked into a police station, tried to confess again. He was nervous and upset, confused and apprehensive.  O’Neill said he’d gone to the video rental shop on that fateful night almost 20 years before. He said he’d rented four films, including porn, which his mother had told him to take back. 

But at the time, he’d had a drug habit, smoking methamphetamine earlier that day. On his way back, he decided to rob the shop to fund his habit.  Waiting for the shop to clear of customers, he pointed a gun at Miranda and demanded the money. 

But fearing leaving an eyewitness, O’Neill took it one step further. Murder.  ‘I tried to slit her throat, but it [the knife] was too jagged. I could hear her gurgling on her own blood,’ O’Neill told investigators.  Police were finally taking him seriously. O’Neill also confessed to the rape and attempted murder of another woman in September 1998. Told police he’d tried to kill her, slitting her throat to avoid being caught for rape. 

As he revealed fresh details, his confessions became more credible. When his DNA matched with that of the attempted murder and rape case, the dots were finally joining up.  O’Neill was the man they’d been unable to track down for two decades. He was Miranda Fenner’s killer. 

Asked why he hadn’t come forward sooner, he said that, at the time, he hadn’t cared. But over the years, he claimed he’d felt shame and regret over his actions.  In a July 2019 court case, Zachary O’Neill, 39, pleaded guilty to the murder of Miranda Fenner, as well as the rape and attempted murder of a second victim. 

In August, he was sentenced. Appearing in court, he wore a purple shirt and trousers. He was shackled, handcuffed. Finally, justice was being served.  And Miranda’s family were there to see it happen.  As sentencing began, a police detective described the day O’Neill made his confession. 

Then, the second victim made a statement: ‘The worst day of my life, the day I fought evil in its purest form and survived.’  She told how the traumatic experience had led to years of depression, suicidal thoughts. 

Bravely, Miranda’s parents spoke, too. ‘You are a vicious monster, not a human being. You deserve every horrible thing that comes your way. There is no forgiveness in my thoughts,’ her mum Sherry Fenner said.  Her dad Mike asked for a severe punishment. 

‘You are lucky I am not the judge because I would have hung you to death,’ he said.  At Mike’s request, photos of his daughter were shown on a courtroom screen.  As O’Neill’s lawyer Kris Copenhaver spoke, she tried to justify the defendant’s actions. She explained he’d had a drug habit since the age of 10. 

And she said he was no longer the same man who’d committed the horrific crimes.  ‘Zach has changed, and he will continue to change since he came forward and confess of these crimes to law enforcement.’ she said.  O’Neill was handed three concurrent life sentences, eligible for parole after 30 years. 

For Miranda Fenner’s family, after two painful decades of waiting, they were given closure and justice for the loss of their young daughter. 

Murder of Joanne Yeates Landscape architect Joanna Yeates, 25, disappeared on 17 December 2010, following a night out with colleagues.  The last CCTV footage of Joanna showed her in a Tesco Express at around 8:40pm. 

Following a huge manhunt, Joanna’s frozen body was eventually discovered on a snowy roadside verge that Christmas morning. The murder investigation was one of the larges ever undertaken in the Bristol area, dominating the news. 

On 20 January her Dutch neighbour Vincent Tabak, 32, was arrestedfor murder. He was obsessed with violent sex and pornography.  In October 2011, after being found guilty of strangling Joanna, Vincent Tabak was jailed for live, to serve a minimum of 20 years. 

The Wests Married couple Fred and Rose West tortured, raped, and brutally murdered scores of young women unlucky enough to end up at their Gloucester house. 

The victims were dismembered, and many buried in the family home. The Wests’ decades of depravity were only uncovered in February 1993, following a tip-off. 

Fred West hanged himself in his cell on New Years Day 1995 while awaiting trial for 12 murders. That November, Rose West was convicted of 10 murders and given a whole-life tariff. 

Carnkie Killings  The killings shocked the Cornish hamlet of Carnkie in 2000. Lee Ford, 33, had told friends his wife Lesley, 36, had left him. Now she and her children - Sarah-Jane, 17, Ann-Marie, 16, Steven, 14, and Craig, 13 - had been found in the shed, two in a field six miles away. 

All had been garotted with a rope.  Ford was arrested and pleaded guilty to murder. He gave no motive but the court heard he’d had a sexual relationship with Sarah-Jane. Ford was jailed for life. 

Murder of Becky Watts In February 2015, schoolgirl Becky Watts, 16, vanished from the Bristol home where she lived with her dad and step-mum. 

After a huge police search, her stepbrother Nathan Matthews and his girlfriend Shauna Hoare were arrested for murder - to the horror of Becky’s family.  During the trial, Nathan claimed he’d killed Becky by accident, trying to scare her. But the court heard Becky was suffocated and stabbed in an alleged sexually motivated kidnap plot. 

The couple put Becky’s body in their car boot, driving home hours later. They used a power saw to cut up her body, bagged it and arranged to store it in a shed.  Matthews, 28, was convicted of Becky’s murder and sentenced to life, with a minimum term of 33 years. Hoare, 21, got 17 years after being convicted of manslaughter. 

Christopher Halliwell When Sian O’Callaghan, 22, went missing after a night out in Swindon, in March 2011, police soon suspected taxi driver Christopher Halliwell. 

His car was caught in CCTV close to where she was last seen. After his arrest, Halliwell led police to Sian’s semi-naked body dumped on a country road. She’d been stabbed to death. 

He then confessed to killing Becky Godden-Edwards, 20, who’d disappeared in January 2003, and led them to her shallow grave nearby.  At Bristol Crown Court, Halliwell pleaded guilty to murdering Sian. And, after a separate trial, he was convicted of murdering Becky and handed a whole-life term. 

Eunice Spry Known as Britain’s most evil mother, for over 19 years Eunice Spry abused three foster children, viciously beating, starving them and making them live in a barn.

As a toddler, Spry’s adopted daughter was made to eat cat food, and even her own vomit, at their Tewkesbury home.  After Spry moved the family to an isolated farmhouse, a 10-year-old was tied by his feet to Spry’s van and dragged at speed across a field. 

She forced sticks down the children’s throats and scrubbed them with sandpaper.  When one found the courage to speak out, Spry was arrested and found guilty of 26 charges, including unlawful wounding and assault occasioning ABH.

Initially jailed for 14 years, reduced to 12, Spry was freed after serving half her sentence. 

Murder of Lin and Megan Russell On 9 July 1996, Lin Russell, 45, was walking home from school in Chillenden, Kent, with her two young daughters, Josie, 9, and Megan, 6. 

On a country lane, drug addict Michael Stone suddenly attacked, demanding money. The three victims were tied up, blindfolded, then savagely beaten with a hammer.  Josie was the sole survivor, despite suffering catastrophic head injuries. And, as she recovered, the brave little girl helped officers create an e-fit of the attacker. 

A year later, psychopath Stone, 37, was charged. A cellmate testified Stone confessed while on remand in Canterbury Prison.  Michael Stone was convicted and jailed for life for the murders of Lin and Megan. 

Josie and her father Shaun moved to Wales to rebuild their lives. Stone continues to protest his innocence from prison and has pointed blame at killer Levi Bellfield, who he says resembles the e-fit picture. 

Daniel Gonzalez Daniel Gonzalez, from Woking, had fantasies of being horror-film slasher Freddy Krueger and wanted to be a ‘famous serial killer’.  On 15 September 2004, wearing a hockey mask, Gonzalez stabbed Marie Harding, 73, to death on a Worthing footpath. Two days later, he killed Kevin Molloy, 46, in north London, then Derek and Jean Robinson, 75, and 68, in their home.  Two other men, aged 61 and 59, survived attacks. 

Gonzalez was arrested at a tube station on 17 September after buying a ticket with a bloodstained £20 note.  Daniel Gonzalez, 26, was jailed for life and took his own life in Broadmoor psychiatric hospital in August 2007. 

Killing of Billie-Jo Jenkins  Billie-Jo Jenkins, 13, was killed by a blow to her head at her home in Hastings, on 15 February 1997.  Billie-Jo had been placed in foster care with Sion and Lois Jenkins when she was 9, and foster father Sion said he’d got home that day to find Billie-Jo in a pool of blood. 

Sion soon became prime suspect - forensics found microscopic spots of blood on his clothes and, in July 1998, he was convicted of murder.  But experts said blood on his clothing could’ve come from Billie-Jo’s airway as she lay dying.  After two appeals, Sion’s conviction was quashed. After two re-trials failed to reach a verdict, he was acquitted in 2006. The case is still unsolved. 

Levi Bellfield  Levi Bellfield hated all women. The 6ft 1in, 20st wheel clamper stalked and attacked them after they got off night buses.  In February 2003, Bellfield bludgeoned student Marsha McDonnell, 19, with a hammer in Hampton, southwest London. 

In May 2004, he drove into Kate Sheedy, 18, before reversing over her. Amazingly, she survived.  Bellfield beat French student Amelie Delagrange, 22, to death in August 2004 on Twickenham Green. He was arrested when his van was caught on CCTV near the scene. 

Bellfield was sentenced to a whole-life term for killing Marsha and Amelie. Afterwards, police linked Bellfield to the unsolved murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler, 13, who’d vanished while walking home in Walton-on-Thames in March 2002.  Her remains were found six months later.

Despite being convicted of Milly’s murder in 2011 and handed another whole-life term, Bellfield refused to admit his guilt.  But, 14 years on, he admitted abducting, raping and strangling the schoolgirl. 

Hungerford Massacre A sunny August afternoon in 1987 in Hungerford, Berkshire - and loner Michael Ryan, 27, armed with two semi-automatic rifles and a pistol, went on a rampage.  Ryan shot dead a mother picnicking with her kids in Savernake Forest and, by 1pm, he was shooting people at random in the town center. 

By the day’s end, 16 people were dead, including Ryan’s mother and a police officer.  A further 15 were injured.

Armed police swarmed the area, and, after evading capture all afternoon, Ryan shot and killed himself. 

Murder of Sarah Payne Sarah Payne, 8, vanished while playing with her siblings near her grandparents’ home in Kingston Gorse, West Sussex on 1 July 2000. 

A huge police hunt was launched and, on 17 July, Sarah’s body was found beside a field, 15 miles from where she’d disappeared. Roy Whiting, a local paedophile and convicted sex offender, was the prime suspect.  A strand of hair matching Sarah’s DNA was found on a T-shirt in Whiting’s white van and fibers  from the van were also on Sarah’s shoe. 

Whiting was jailed for life. Sarah’s mother Sara successfully campaigned for Sarah’s Law - which allows anyone to formally ask the police if someone with access to a child has a record for child sexual offenses. 

Murder of Nisha Patel-Nasri Special Constable Nisha Patel-Nisri, 29, was stabbed to death outside her Wembley home in May 2006.  It was assumed she’d interrupted a burglary. Her husband Fadi Nasri made an emotional televised appeal for information. But, six months later, police found the murder weapon - a knife missing from the Nasris’ kitchen - in a nearby drain. 

CCTV footage showed a silver Audi - traced to a nightclub bouncer - pulling up to the drain. The bouncer claimed his friend Jason Jones, 36, of disposed of the knife.  Jones’ phone records connected him to drug dealer Rodger Leslie - and also to Nisha’s husband Fadi Nasri. Officers charged all four with murder. At the February 2008 trial, it was revealed Nasri had been having an affair with a Lithuanian prostitute, was £100,000 in debt. 

Nasri had paid Jones £15,000 to kill his wife for her life insurance - a deal set up by dealer Leslie.  The bouncer was acquitted, but Jones, Leslie and Nasri were all found guilty and sentenced to life. 

John Christie On 9 March 1950, Timothy Evans was hanged for murdering his daughter Geraldine. Police believed he’d also killed his wife Beryl at 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill, London. 

Evans claimed the downstairs neighbor John Christie killed Beryl in a botched abortion, but Christie was a prosecution witness, and the jury believed him.  When Christie moved house three years later, another tenant stumbled across three bodies in a hidden alcove in Christie’s kitchen. A total of seven bodies were found in the house and garden - including those of Beryl and Geraldine, plus Christie’s wife Ethel.

Christie was arrested and confessed to murdering seven women. Most were raped and strangled.  On 5 July 1953, Christie was hanged by the same executioner who’d hanged innocent Timothy Evans. 

Killing of Rachel Nickell The sexual assault and killing of Rachel Nickell, 23, on Wimbledon Common in July 1992, was one of Britain’s biggest unsolved cases.  The model was stabbed 49 times in broad daylight. 

Heartbreakingly, her son, then 2, was found clinging to her, covered in blood, begging her to wake up.  A local man was charged, but the trial collapsed. 

In November 2004, after a DNA breakthrough, killer and rapist Robert Napper became prime suspect. He was already in psychiatric hospital Broadmoor for murdering Samantha Bisset and her daughter Jasmine, 4, in 1993.  Napper finally admitted killing Rachel and, in 2008, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. 

Death of Baby P In August 2007, 17-month-old Peter Connelly, known as Baby P before his full name was released to the media was found dead in his cot in Haringey, north London, with a catalogue of injuries. 

His mother Tracey, her lover, Steven Barker and his brother Jason Owen had inflicted the unimaginable violence.  Prior to Peter’s death, doctors and social services had noticed injuries, yet Peter was always returned to his mother. 

Just days before Peter’s death, a social worker failed to spot further injuries - disguised by chocolate deliberately smeared on his face.  When he died, little Peter had a broken back, fractured shin, his ear was ripped, a tooth knocked out and his head was gashed. 

The distressing case left the nation horrified. Connelly, Barker, and Owen were convicted of causing Peter’s death, and jailed. Owen and Connelly were released but since returned to prison for breaching parole.  Haringey council apologized for its failure to save the life of little Peter Connelly. 

Dennis Nilsen In February 1983, residents of 23 Cranley in Muswell Hill, north London, complained of blocked drains and a sickening stench.  In the outside drain, a technician found bones and rotting human remains. 

In the filthy attic of Dennis Nilsen’s flat, police found dismembered, decaying corpses. Nilsen had been luring young gay men to his flat, then strangling them.  After cutting them up, he’d boil the skin off their bones and hide body parts in the house. He’d flushed limbs, flesh and organs down the toilet and sink. 

Three men were killed at Cranley Gardens, 12 more were murdered at Nilsen’s previous flat in Cricklewood, where he’d burned remains in the garden.  Nilsen was serving a whole-life sentence for the murders when he died in 2018 from a pulmonary embolism. 

Murder of Stephen Lawrence On 22 April 1993, Stephen Lawrence, 18, was killed in Eltham, south London, in a racist attack - David Norris, Gary Dobson, and three other suspects were arrested and Norris and Dobson were charged with murder, but the case was dropped due to insufficient evidence. 

In 2005, laws preventing suspects being tried twice for the same crime were scrapped. New DNA evidence was found on Dobsons’ and Norris’ clothes and, in 2011, they were re-tried, found guilty of murder and jailed for life. 

Joanna Dennehy Joanna Dennehy grew up in a loving home. But, at 16, she left, got into drink and drugs and lived in a violent fantasy world.  In March 2013, she launched a two-week killing spree, murdering men ‘for fun’. She lured Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, to her Peterborough flat with suggestive texts, stabbed him and dumped his body. 

Ten days on, she stabbed housemate, John Chapman, 56. Next, she killed her landlord Kevin Lee, 48. He was found in a ditch in a sequined dress. Days later, she stabbed two men at random. Both survived. When arrested, Dennehy laughed, danced around the police station, and was later diagnosed with psychopathic antisocial personality disorder. 

Dennehy, 31, pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, and two of attempted murder. She received a whole-life sentence.  

Suffolk Strangler  Late in 2006, sex workers began disappearing - Tania Nicol, Gemma Adams, Annell Alderton, Annette Nicholls and Paula Clennell - after being picked up from the Ipswich red-light district. 

Their naked bodies were found in remote locations.  Police tracked the murders back to Steve Wright. He’d drop his partner at work, then trawl the red-light district for small, slight prostitutes. After having sex with them, he’d kill them, dump their bodies, then go home, get changed, and go to work. 

Convicted of the five murders, he got a whole-life sentence. His repeated appeals have been unsuccessful. 

Tony Martin  In August 1999, Fred Barras, 16, and Brendon Fearon, 28, broke into Tony Martin’s Norfolk property. 

Martin had trouble with burglars before. Arming himself with an unlicensed pump-action shotgun, he fired at the intruders as they fled.  Both had leg wounds, but Barras was shot in the back and died. 

Martin was tried for murder but claimed self-defense. He was convicted, jailed for life. The case provoked debate over rights to defend property.  On appeal, Martin’s defense claimed he was suffering paranoia, particularly regarding burglars, when he killed Barras. 

Martin’s conviction was reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and he was released after three years. 

Soham Murders The photo made headlines worldwide in August 2002.  Smiling best friends, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both 10, in matching Man Utd football shirts. 

Shortly after the photo was taken, the schoolgirls had left a family barbecue to buy sweets and vanished.  Their bodies were found nearly two weeks later in a ditch near RAF Lakenheath, 12 miles from their homes in Soham. 

School caretaker Ian Huntley, who’d given several TV interviews during the search, was arrested.  He’d lured the girls into his house as they walked by and murdered them, before disposing of their bodies. 

He was jailed for life.  His girlfriend - the girls’ teaching assistant Maxine Carr - was jailed for perverting the course of justice after initially giving Huntley a false alibi. She was released in 2004. 

Murder of Emma Ward Emma Ward’s family contacted police in May 2010, concerned for her safety. Her husband Nicky Ward claimed that weeks earlier she’d left him a note saying she was leaving him for another man - but there was no trace of the note. 

Detectives found rubbish bags in the garden containing Emma’s passports, birth certificate and driving license. Ward was arrested.  Forensics found bloodstains in the bedroom, on the landing, on a picture frame and pillowcase. Traces of Emma’s blood were in the bathroom, and on an electric saw. 

Ward was charged with murdering his wife in the bedroom of their Norfolk home because she was about to leave him, and dismembering her body in the bath with a chainsaw.  Her remains have never been found, but Ward was convicted, jailed for life. 

Jeremy Bamber At 3:30am on 7 August 1985, Jeremy Bamber called the police claiming his father had phoned, said his sister Sheila had ‘gone beserk’ with his rifle.  At his adoptive parents’ house in Malden, police found Bamber’s parents Neville and June, plus Sheila and her twins Nicholas and Daniel, 6, shot dead, the gun by Sheila’s side. Murder-suicide? 

But Bamber’s girlfriend told police he’d confessed plans to hire a hitman to kill the family.  And a blood-flecked silencer was found at the house.  Bamber was convicted of killing his family to inherit their fortune. He received a whole-life sentence, but still protests his innocence. 

Murder of Rebecca Aylward On 25 October 2010, Rebecca Aylward, 15, awoke on 6am, did her make-up, put on new clothes. She was excited about meeting ex-boyfriend Joshua Davies, 16, hoping they'd rekindle their relationship.

But Davies hated Rebecca. With mates he met on Sundays for breakfast, he'd discussed ways to kill her - poisoning, drowning, pushing her off a cliff.

In the end, that rainy morning, Davies lured her to secluded woods near Aberkenfig, Bridgend, and hit her over the head with a rock. Rebecca's distraught family reported her missing and her body was found the next day.

And Joshua Davies was arrested. His murder trial heard he'd killed Rebecca over a bet for a free breakfast. A mate had said he'd buy him a 'Full English' if he carried out his threats. Davies was convicted, jailed for life to serve a minimum term of 14 years in prison.

In 2018, Davies finally admitted to the murder to prison officers.

Murder of Karen Price In 1989, workmen found a rolled-up carpet while digging up a garden in Cardiff's Riverside area. Inside were the remains of a girl. Forensic experts made a clay reconstruction of the girl's head, identifying her as Karen Price, 15, who'd disappeared from a children's home in July 1981.

Back then, the basement flat where her body had been found was occupied by Alan Charlton. In 1991, Charlton and another man, Idris Ali - accused of being Karen's pimp - were convicted of her murder.

The trial heard that Charlton had killed Karen when she refused to perform sex acts, while Ali helped bury her body. In 1994, Ali successfully appealed, pleaded guilty to manslaughter at his retrial, and was freed. Charlton has made several appeals against his conviction. All have been dismissed and he remains in jail.

Ian Watkins In December 2012, Ian Watkins - lead singer of award-winning band Lostprophets, with 3.5m album sales worldwide - was arrested on charges of child abuse.

As the case unfolded, horrifying details emerged Watkins seduced female fans he met online and manipulated them until they allowed him to use their children to fulfil his depraved sex fantasies.

In November 2013, Watkins was jailed for 35 years after admitting a string of child sex offenses, including attempted rape of a baby and sexually abusing children His two co-defendants - the two mothers of children he abused - were jailed for 14 and 17 years. The judge Mr Justice Royce, said the case 'plunged into new depths of depravity.'

Murder of April Jones April Jones, just 5 years old, disappeared on 1 October 2012, while playing on her bike near her home in Machynlleth, Wales.

April's friend said she'd willingly got into a car with a man. Her hysterical parents Coral and Paul called the police, sparking the largest search in UK policing history. Within hours, media appeals were made and April's photo hit global news.

Police set up roadblocks, hundreds of volunteers searched and, the next evening, local Mark Bridger, 46, was arrested. The desperate search for April continued. After five days, Bridger was charged with April's abduction and murder. Her body was never found.

At Bridger's April 2013 trial, it emerged that tiny burnt bone pieces were found in his fireplace, and that blood in his cottage living room matched April's DNA. Bridger was convicted of abducting and murdering April and jailed for life.

Murder of Ffion Wyn Roberts Ffion Wyn Roberts' body was found in a drainage ditch behind her Porthmadog home in April 2010. She'd last been seen alive enjoying a night out with family and friends.

Detectives launched a massive murder hunt and, eight weeks later, arrested local lestyn Davies at his workplace, a wool factory close to Ffion's home. Davies was known to Ffion's family.

Davies' murder trial heard he'd attacked Ffion, 22, as she made her way home. He'd beaten her, strangled her with her own scarf and left the care worker to drown in the ditch. DNA traces were found on the scarf and Davies was captured on CCTV in the area at the time she was killed. He was found guilty, jailed for life, with a minimum 25-year term.

John Cooper In December 1985, farmer Richard Thomas, 58, and his sister Helen, 56, were shot dead, and their home near Milford Haven set alight. In June 1989, couple Peter and Gwenda Dixon, 51 and 52, were shot dead on a coastal path. They'd been tied up and robber, Gwenda sexually assaulted.

Then, in March 1996, five Milford Haven teens were held at gunpoint. One girl, 16, was raped at knifepoint, another, 15, indecently assaulted. Police long suspected a local convicted burglar, John Cooper, who was finally charged in 2011 on a review of DNA evidence.

Convicted of four murders, five attempted robberies, rape and indecent assault, he was given a whole-life sentence. An appeal against the conviction was rejected in 2012.

Murder of Charlene Ellis and Latisha Shakespeare Best mates Letisha Shakespeare, 17, and Charlene Ellis, 18, were shot as they left a party in Aston, Birmingham, in the early hours of 2 January 2003.

Charlene’s twin Sophie, their cousin Cheryl Shaw, and friend Leon Harris were injured by the burst from an illegal submachine gun, fired from a car. The teenagers were innocent victims of a bitter gangland feud between the Johnson Crew and Burger Bar Boys.

Charlene’s half-brother Marcus Ellis, 24, along with Michael Gregory, 23, Nathan Martin, 26, and Rodrigo Simms, 20 - all alleged members of the Burger Bar Boys - were convicted of the murders and jailed for life.

The Black Panther Donald Neilson was a burglar but, in 1967, moved on to armed robberies of post offices and - in 1974 - murder.

Within nine months, he’d shot dead sub-postmasters Donald Skepper, Derrek Astin and Sidney Grayland during almost identical robberies. The media dubbed the balaclava-wearing killer the ‘Black Panther’.

In January 1975, he kidnapped heiress Lesley Whittle, 17, in Shropshire, and demanded £50,000 ransom but never got the money. Lesley was found dead months later - hanged in a drainage shaft. Neilson was given four life sentences for the murders. He died in prison in 2011.

Monster of Worcester Friday, 13 April 1973 - the mutilated bodies of siblings Paul, 4, Dawn, 2, and Samantha Ralph, just 9 months, were found impaled on a neighbor's garden railings.

Police arrested the Ralph family's lodger, David McGreavy, then aged 21. The children's dad Clive had left McGreavy babysitting while he collected his wife, Dorothy from work. But when Samantha cried, McGreavy - who'd been drinking - flipped and battered her to death.

Next, he strangled Paul, then McGreavy then mutilated their bodies with a pickaxe, before impaling them. In June 1973, David McGreavy pleaded guilty to three murders and was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 20 years.

He was controversially released on parole in December 2018.

Murder of Daniel Pelka Daniel Pelka, 4, was starved and beaten by his mother Magdalena Luczak, 29, and her boyfriend Mariusz Krezolek, 36, before he died in their Coventry home in March 2012.

Daniel was locked in a room, force-fed salt, and subjected to water torture. Krezolek broke Daniel's arm in 2011, but the couple claimed that he'd fallen off the sofa. Daniel weighed just 1st 9lb when he died.

Krezolek and Luczak blamed each other but were both convicted of Daniel's murder and jailed for life with a minimum 30-year term. A serious case review found there were missed opportunities to help little Daniel.

Social services had investigated in 2011 and teachers had raised concerns when the underweight child was caught stealing food and eating from bins. Luczak was found hanged in her cell in July 2015. Krezolek died of a heart attack in prison in 2016.

Tracie Andrews Lee Harvey, 25, was stabbed 42 times in his car on a quiet lane near Alvechurch, Worcestershire. His fiancée Tracie Andrews claimed a man had murdered Lee during a road-rage attack after a three-mile car chase.

Andrews sobbed during a press conference appealing for info, but it emerged that the couple had a volatile relationship, and Andrews could be violent. Police found the murder weapon hidden in the petrol tank of Lee's car and Andrews was charged with his murder.

Andrews claimed she acted in self-defense, but the court heard that she'd stabbed Lee after a row broke out in the car. She was convicted of murder and jailed for life. Andrews, was released in July 2011 after serving 14 years of her sentence.

Murder of Naomi Smith At 9:45 on 14 September 1995, Naomi Smith, 15, went to post a letter for her mum. Just before midnight, Naomi's father and her best friend found Naomi's half-naked body underneath the slide of a local playground a few hundred meters from her home in Ansley Common, Nuneaton.

Naomi had been sexually assaulted, her throat cut and body mutilated. DNA found on her body matched that of local man Edwin Hopkins, 19.

During his trial, it was revealed Hopkins had an obsession with knives. He was convicted of murdering Naomi during a frenzied attack and jailed for life. Hopkins maintained his innocence, but an application to review his minimum term in 2010 was declined.

Murder of Kayleigh Haywood Kayleigh Haywood, 15, met Luke Harlow, 28, online in 2015. For two weeks, with over 2,600 texts, he groomed her. Said she was beautiful, declared his love, persuaded her to visit.

On Friday 15 November, Kayleigh’s dad dropped her at Ibstock Community College, Leicestershire, believing she was staying with a friend. At Harlow’s flat, Kayleigh met his neighbour Stephen Beadman, 29, and she was abused, plied with alcohol.

Her worried parents reported her missing. At 3am Sunday morning, a neighbour saw Kayleigh flee Harlow’s flat, naked from the waist down. Beadman chased her, raped her and killed her with a brick. Harlow was jailed 12 years for sexual activity, grooming and falsely imprisoning a child.

Beadman was jailed for life for rape, murder and false imprisonment of a child.

Colin Pitchfork November 1983 - Lynda Mann, 15, was found raped and strangled in Narborough.

The case went cold until July 1986, when Dawn Ashworth, 15, was raped and strangled less than a mile away. The year before, Alec Jeffreys, a British genetics researcher, had discovered DNA profiling.

Testing semen samples found at both crime scenes, Jeffreys linked the cases. Police asked local men aged 17 to 34 to submit blood. Jeffreys tested the DNA samples.

After being overheard admitting he paid a colleague to provide blood on his behalf, local man Colin Pitchfork, then 25, was arrested. His DNA matched both samples, and he was jailed for life.

Susan and Christopher Edwards In October 2013, police dug up a garden in Mansfield and found the remains of former residents Patricia and William Wycherley, 63 and 85.

The pairs daughter Susan Edwards, 56, and husband Christopher, 57, were arrested - turned out they’d shot and buried them in May 1998. For 15 years, Susan said her parents were travelling, but after living off their benefits, a letter to William from the Department For Work and Pensions scared them to confess.

They were convicted of murder and given life.

The Philpotts At 4am on 11 May 2012, Mick and Mairead Philpott’s home, 18 Victory Road, Derby, went up in flames. Despite Mick’s apparently valiant efforts to save their kids, Duwayne, 13, Jade, 10, John, 9, Jack, 7, Jesse, 6, and Jayden, 5, all died.

Detectives found petrol inside the letterbox, and suspected arson. But while Mick and Mairead sobbed during a TV press conference, police already considered them suspects. A tangled love triangle emerged. Mick’s mistress, who’d lived with the Philpotts, had walked out with her five kids- a custody hearing loomed.

Mick planned to torch the family home, frame his ex love, and win custody. But a horrific fireball engulfed the house, trapping his and Mairead’s children upstairs.

In April 2013, Mick and Mairead Philpott were found guilty of six counts of manslaughter. Mick was jailed for life, Mairead for 17 years. A friend involved in the plot - Paul Mosley, 47 - also got a 17 year sentence for manslaughter.

Murder of Danielle Beccan On her way home from the Nottingham Goose Fair in October 2004, Danielle Beccan, 14, was shot in the stomach and killed in a drive-by.

Junior Andrews, then 24, and Mark Kelly, then 20, part of the Waterfront gang, were charged. They hated the St Ann’s area where Danielle lived and they’d wanted to ‘shoot up’ people.

When they saw Danielle, Kelly pulled up next to her and Andrews opened fire. Andrews and Kelly were jailed for life.

Beverley Allitt Liam Taylor, 7 months, was the first victim of serial killer nurse Beverley Allitt, then 22, in February 1991 at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, Lincolnshire.

Within 59 days she’d killed Timothy Hardwick, 11, Becky Phillips, 2 months, and Claire Peck, 15 months, and tried to kill or harm nine more children. Staff became suspicious of the number of heart attacks on the ward.

Allitt was the only nurse on duty when the children were attacked. She’d given at least two of them large doses of insulin. In May 1993, Allitt was given 13 life sentences.

The Crossbow Cannibal Between June 2009 and May 2010, Stephen Griffiths murdered three sex workers in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

His final attack was captured on CCTV and led to his arrest. He shot his last victim - Suzanne Blamires - with a crossbow as she tried to escape his flat, before stabbing her in the head with a knife.

In custody, he boasted to officers of West Yorkshire Police, ‘I’ve killed loads,’ and also claimed to have eaten body parts of his victims. It’s thought his other known victims - Shelley Armitage and Susan Rushworth - also suffered this fate. Griffiths, who called himself the Crossbow Cannibal, was jailed for life and will die in prison.

The Murder of Jo Cox Jo Cox, 41, was MP for Batley and Spen, West Yorkshire - the constituency where she was born - and was married with two small children, aged 5 and 3.

On 16 June 2016, she was killed outside the library where she was to hold a constituency meeting. She was shot in the head and chest with a sawn-off hunting rifle and stabbed 15 times. Jo’s killer Thomas Mair - a far-right extremist - was convicted of murder on 23 November 2016 and was given a whole-life term.

The Yorkshire Ripper Known as the Yorkshire Ripper, serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, from Bingley, in Bradford, West Yorkshire, was serving 20 consecutive life sentences after he was found guilty of 13 murders and seven attempted murders in 1981.

Over five years, he attacked women across West Yorkshire and Manchester, picking victims he believed to be prostitutes, though not all were.

Once arrested, he attempted to plead guilty to manslaughter, claiming diminished responsibility and saying God told him to kill prostitutes. Sutcliffe served most of his sentence in Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric facility, but was judged sane enough to be moved to HMP Frankland in 2016.

Sutcliffe died at University Hospital of North Durham aged 74 on 13 November 2020, having been sent there with COVID-19. He had a number of underlying health problems including, obesity and diabetes. He reportedly refused treatment.

The Kidnapping of Shannon Matthews In February 2009, Karen Matthews, from Dewsbury, called the police when her daughter Shannon, 9, didn’t come home from school. What followed was the biggest investigation by West Yorkshire Police since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.

Every newspaper in the country reported on the case, with one offering a £50,000 reward for information leading to Shannon’s safe return.

Three weeks after she’d gone missing, Shannon was found alive at a flat less than a mile from her home. The flat belonged to Michael Donovan - the uncle of Karen’s boyfriend - Donovan was arrested and, soon after, so was Karen Matthews.

In November 2008, both denied charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice. Leeds Crown Court heard Karen had engineered Shannon’s kidnap with Donovan to claim the reward. Shannon had been drugged, tethered, and hidden inside a divan bed during her captivity.

Matthews and Donovan were found guilty of all charges and jailed for eight years. Both have now served their sentences.

The Fox Killings Arthur Hutchinson, also known as The Fox, was wanted by police for rape. Then, on 23 October 1983, he broke into the Sheffield home of Basil and April Laitner.

Also there were their children Richard, 26, and Nicola, 18. Hutchinson killed Richard, Basil, and April, then raped Nicola at knife point before fleeing. He’d already spent five years in prison for attempting to murder his brother-in-law.

After a 39-day manhunt, The Fox was captured and serving life. He will never be released.

The Murder of Sharon Beshenivsky Sharon Beshenivsky had been an officer with West Yorkshire Police for nine months in November 2005. On the day she was killed, the mum of five and her colleague went to an emergency call at Bradford travel agency.

There, they were fired on by armed robbers and Sharon was fatally wounded, her colleague seriously injured. Three men were convicted of her murder and got life. Three others were also jailed in connection to the killing.

Moors Murders Not just notorious in the UK, the name Ian Brady and Myra Hindley are synonymous with evil worldwide. In the 1960s the twisted couple tortured and violently murdered Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12, Keith Bennett, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17.

During their killing spree, Brady and Hindley posed for photos at the murder scenes and gravesites on Saddleworth Moor, near Manchester.

Both were convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to life. Hindley died behind bars in 2002, aged 60. She was so despised that 20 local undertakers refused to handle her body. Brady spent 19 years in standard prisons before being transferred to a high-security psychiatric hospital where he died in 2017 at the age of 79.

The Murders of PCs Bone and Hughes In November 2012, wanted killer Dale Cregan, 29, had made a hoax call to police. When PC Nicola Hughes, 23, and PC Fiona Bone, 32, attended, Cregan fired 32 bullets at them and launched a grenade before driving off. Both officers died.

In February 2013, Cregan admitted both murders at Preston Crown Court. He was given a whole life order, and also convicted of two other murders and three attempted murders.

Then-PM David Cameron honoured PC Bone and PC Hughes, calling their murders ‘an act of pure evil’.

Harold Shipman Britain’s most prolific serial killer, GP Harold Shipman, worked in The Hyde area of Manchester. In January 2000, he was found guilty of murdering 15 of his patients by lethal injection.

Sentenced to life, it was recommended he never be released. After the trial, an inquiry concluded Shipman had actually killed an estimated 250 victims.

Shipman killed himself in Wakefield Prison in January 2004, on the eve of his 58th birthday.

The Murder of James Bulger The unforgettable CCTV footage remains as chilling as it was back in 1993. Little James Bulger, 2, being led by the hand from The New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Liverpool, by the boys who’d go on to kill him.

Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both 10, walked the tot for over two miles to railway tracks where they murdered him.

When James’ body was found, he had multiple skull fractures and other injuries that suggested he’d been hit with a metal bar and bricks, kicked and stamped on.

Thompson and Venables became Britain’s youngest convicted murderers in November 1993 for what the judge called ‘an act of unparalleled evil and barbarity’.

The Murder of Anthony Walker At 11pm on 29 July 2005, popular student Anthony Walker, 18, and his cousin walked his girlfriend to the bus stop in Huyton, Liverpool.

As they passed a pub, thug Michael Barton shouted racist abuse at the group, which they ignored. But later, Barton and his friend Paul Taylor ambushed the teenagers.

Anthony’s cousin and girlfriend escaped, while Anthony was killed by Taylor with a blow to the head from an ice axe. That December, Paul Taylor, 20, got 23 years for murder. Michael Barton, 17, got 17 years, reduced by a year in 2016.

Derrick Bird It was the UK’s worst mass shooting since the 1996 Dunblane massacre. In June 2010, taxi driver Derrick Bird, 52, left his home in Rowrah, Cumbria, drove to the home of David, his twin, and shot and killed him.

Then he drove to his family solicitor Kevin Commons’ home and shot him dead, too. His next victim was a fellow taxi driver. By now, police were hunting Bird and told residents of nearby towns to stay indoors. But by the time Bird’s body was found at 1:40pm, he’d killed 12 people and left 25 injured before shooting himself.

At an inquest into Derrick Bird’s death, a medical expert described him as ‘delusional and paranoid’. He’d apparently murdered his brother and solicitor believing they were in cahoots against him over a tax bill. He’d targeted his workmate over a jibe that’d been made over his personal hygiene.

But no one could ever offer a satisfactory explanation of this senseless, devastating crime.

John Darwin In March 2002, John Darwin, 51, paddled out to sea in his canoe near his Hartlepool home. He never returned Coastguard rescue teams and police searched for him, but all they found was Darwin's paddle.

Several weeks later, the wreckage of his canoe washed up on a beach. With no body found by April 2003, John Darwin was declared dead. His widow Anne and their two sons grieved. Until December 2007 - when Darwin walked into a police station, claiming to have amnesia.

John Darwin was reunited with his sons and Anne, who'd moved to Panama, was delighted. Only, a pjoto emerged of Anne and John in Panama, together in 2006. The couple had actually faked John's death to claim his £250,000 life insurance.

Both Darwins were jailed for over six years - him for obtaining cash by deception, her for deception and money laundering.

Michael Atherton New Year's Day 2012 - taxi driver Michael Atherton, 42, shot dead his partner Susan McGoldrick, 47, her sister Alison Turnbull, 44, and niece Tanya Turnbull, 24, at his home in Peterlee. He then turned the gun on himself.

His stepdaughter survived after fleeing via a window. It emerged Atherton had a history of domestic violence. He blamed Alison for his arrest in 2008, after a row. When he discovered Susan had gone out with her sister that night, he said there'd be trouble if he saw Alison at his home. He said he'd stay in a hotel.

Yet the women arrived home before he'd left. A row erupted and Atherton got his gun from the car.

Mary Bell On 25 May 1968, the day before her 11th birthday, Mary Bell strangled Martin Brown, 4. His body was found in a derelict house in Newcastle.

Two months later, Mary enlisted a 13-year-old friend to help strangle Brian Howe, 3. His mutilated body was found on waste ground. When detectives questioned local children, Mary and her friend acted strangely, their stories changing. Officers soon realised Mary was a killer.

The friend was acquitted and gave evidence against Mary. The court heard Mary committed the crimes 'for the pleasure and excitement of killing'. Mary Bell was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. She was sentenced to life in detention, released aged 23, and given a new identity.

Raoul Moat Two days after being released from prison on 3 July 2010, Raoul Moat, 37, from Newcastle, went on the rampage with a sawn-off shotgun.

First he shot his ex Samantha Stobbart and her new partner Chris Brown. While on the run in Rothbury, Moat shot police officer David Rathboand in the face. Brown was killed, Stobbart injured and PC Rathboand blinded.

Police deployed armed officers in one of Britain's biggest manhunts. In a letter left with a friend, Moat declared war on officers, saying that he wouldn't stop 'until I am dead'. On 9 July, police tracked Moat to the river Coquet, leading to a stand-off. Police negotiated, but Moat shot himself the next morning.

Sadly, David Rathboand later took his own life.

Billy Dunlop - Double Jeopardy Pizza delivery girl Julie Hogg, 22, disappeared in November 1989. Eighty days later, her mother Ann found her decomposing, partially mutilated body behind a bath panel in Ann's Billingham home.

Julie's ex Billy Dunlop was charged with murder, yet juries at two trials failed to reach a verdict. He was cleared. The double jeopardy law (which meant Dunlop could not be tried again) meant he thought he'd got away with murder for 17 years.

Ann fought for double jeopardy laws to be scrapped and, in 2003. MPs backed changes allowing serious cases with compelling new evidence to be reopened. Dunlop pleaded guilty to murder in 2006, was jailed for life.

Gary Vinter = Freed to Kill Again Gary Vinter killed colleague Carl Edon, 22, in a railway workers' cabin in 1995. Vinter stabbed him 37 times, puncturing every organ. He was jailed for life, but released in 2006, after serving 10 years.

In July 2006, he married Anne White. But Vinter was recalled to prison after a New Year pub brawl. Released again in early 2008, he separated from Anne after attacking her at their home in Eston, Middlesbrough. That February, Vinter bundled his estranged wife into a car.

After holding her hostage at his mother's house, he stabbed Anne to death. He was jailed for life. In 2011, Vinter attacked Roy Whiting - killer of schoolgirl Sarah Payne - in jail.

In 2016, he received a third life sentence for trying to murder fellow 'life' Lee Newell behind bars.

Peter Manuel In 1946, aged just 16, Peter Manuel was jailed for a string of sexual attacks. After his release in the mid-1950s, he became the country's worst serial killer. In January 1956, he stalked Anne Kneilands, 17, at an East Kilbridge golf course, raping and bludgeoning her to death.

That September, he shot Marion Watt, 45, and her daughter Vivienne, 17, as well as Marion's sister Margaret Brown, 41, in their Glasgow home. And Manuel's killing spree continued. In December 1957, Manuel shot taxi driver Sydney Dunn, 36 - and, later that month, Isabelle Cooke, 17, was raped, strangled and buried in a Lanarkshire field.

On New Year's Day 1958, Peter Smart, 45, his wife Doris, 42, and son Michael, 10, were shot in their beds. Manuel was finally caught after being arrested for using stolen money. At Glasgow High Court, Peter Manuel was convicted of eight murders. A coroner later found him guilty of the ninth.

In July 1958, after a last meal of fish and chips, he was hanged at HM Prison Barlinnie.

Colin Norris Glaswegian-born nurse Colin Norris once boasted to colleagues, 'someone always died' on his night shifts. And when Ethel Hall, 86 - admitted with a broken hip - was found unconscious and later died, a suspicious specialist ordered blood tests. She'd been given a massive insulin overdose.

Norris was convicted and sentenced to life for the murder of Ethel Hall, 86, Doris Ludlam, 80, Bridget Bourke, 88, and Irene Crookes, 79, and attempted murder of Vera Wilby, 90.

Norris, 32, had given them lethal doses of insulin at the two Leeds hospitals where he'd worked in 2002.

Murder of Emma Caldwell In May 2005 , Emma Caldwell, 27, was found dead in isolated woods near Biggar. The young woman, a Glasgow prostitute and heroin addict, had last been seen alive in the Govanhill area of Glasgow that April.

Emma's was one of a number of unsolved murders involving sex workers, and sparked a major police operation. Regular clients were interviewed by the Strathclyde force, no arrests were made. Two years after Emma's murder, police charged four Turkish men following a £4m covert operation.

The case later collapsed when evidence was brought into question - and the murder trail ran cold. The case remains open, yet unsolved.

Murder of Angelika Kluk In September 2006, the body of Angelika Kluk, 23, was found under the floor of a Glasgow church. She'd been beaten, raped and stabbed to death. Last to see her alive was church handyman Patrick McLaughlin. DNA on the Polish student's body matched that of Peter Tobin, jailed for rape in 1994 and released in 2004.

The sex offender, who'd been using the alias of Patrick McLaughlin, was arrested. At the High Court in Edinburgh in May 2007, Peter Tobin, 60, was convicted of murder and jailed for life. The case also led to his conviction for the murders of Vicky Hamilton, 16, and Dinah McNicol, 18.

Some speculate that Tobin may also be 'Bible John'.

House of Blood Murders A triple murder at a Glasgow flat in 2004 began with a boozy row between David Gillespie, 42, and Edith McAlinden, 37. After, David and pals Ian Mitchell, 67, and Tony Coyle, 71, lay dead, the walls dripping blood.

McAlinden, her son John, 17, and his mate, Jamie Gray, 16, each pleaded guilty to one count of murder. The teens got 12 years each, McAlinden a minimum of 13.

Bible John Bible John is the nickname given to a serial killer who raped and murdered three woman after meeting them at a Glasgow ballroom between 1968 and 1969.

The killings began in February 1968, when Patricia Docker, 25, was found in a back street battered and strangled with her own stockings. In August 1969, Jemima McDonald, 32, was found dead in a derelict building. And, two months later, Helen Puttock, 29, was strangled with her stockings.

All three had spent the previous evening at Barrowlands Ballroom. Helen's sister Jeannie Williams said that Helen had danced with a man named 'John', before sharing a taxi home, during which 'John' had quoted from the Bible.

However, despite a huge murder hunt, the investigation went cold. Some crime experts believe the known movements and methods of killer Peter Tobin suggest he could be Bible John. Yet, it has never been proved and the case remains unsolved.

Murder of Kriss Donald In March 2004, Kriss Donald was found dead beside the Clyde. The 15-year-old had been abducted and taken on a terrifying 200-mile drive, before being stabbed, doused in petrol and burned to death.

It seems gang members had killed him in revenge for an incident at a Glasgow club - not connected to Kriss - and he'd been singled out because he was white. Imran Shahid, 29, his brother Zeeshan, 28, and Mohammed Mushtaq, 27, were jailed for life for his murder.

Child Killer Robert Black On 8 July 1988, Caroline Hogg, 5, was playing at the fairground on Portobello Promenade. Only, after riding the carousel, the little girl disappeared. Playmates had spotted her walking away with a 'scruffy' man who had paid the 15p for her carousel turn. Ten days later, her naked body was found in a Leicestershire ditch.

Susan Maxwell, 11, had been killed in similar circumstances a year earlier. Police linked the cases and in 1990, they got a breakthrough.

Delivery driver, Robert Black was caught with a 6-year-old in his van in a Scottish borders village. Detectives then spent four years piecing together his past movements.

It turned out that the day Caroline vanished, Black had been delivering posters nearby. In 1994, Black was jailed for life for the abduction and murder of Caroline, Susan, and Sarah Harper, 10, in 1986.

In 2011, he was convicted of the 1981 sexual assault and murder of nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy. Police suspected that he'd actually murdered many more, but they will never know for sure. Black died at the age of 68 behind bars in January 2016.

Burke and Hare Irishmen William Burke and William Hare met in 1827 when Burke moved into Hare's Edinburgh boarding house. On 25 November 1827, an elderly lodger died owing Hare £4. Burke and Hare stole his body and sold it to anatomist Dr Robert Knox st the Royal College of Surgeons.

In early 1828, another lodger was dying of a fever. The men smothered him, selling his corpse to Dr Knox for £10. Burke and Hare murdered 16 people over the following year, selling their corpses.

The body of their final victim, Mrs. Docherty, was discovered before Burke and Hare sold it. In court, Hare blamed Burke, in return for his freedom. Burke was hanged in January 1829. Hare fled Scotland and Knox was cleared.

Murder of Suzanne Pilley On 4 May 2010, Suzanne Pilley, 38, vanished while making her way to work in Thistle Street, Edinburgh.

A murder inquiry was launched police suspected Suzanne's ex-lover and colleague David Gilroy, Suzanne had recently ended their affair. Officers believed jealous Gilroy lured her into the office's underground car park as she arrived for work, then dumped her body in the countryside.

In June 2010, Gilroy was charged with murder, later convicted, and jailed for life. In 2012, his appeal against the sentencing was rejected. Despite searches, including an area near Loch Long, Suzanne's body has never been found.

Donald Forbes In 1958, Donald 'Ginger' Forbes was sentenced to death for murder. He'd bludgeoned nightwatchman Alan Fisher, 66, to death while robbing a fishing factory.

Only, public letters of support for Forbes poured in, and his sentence was reduced to life. He was released in May 1970. Weeks later, he stabbed ex-soldier Charles Gilroy, 27, to death during a pub brawl.

With the death penalty now outlawed, Forbes was convicted of murder, sentenced to life again. He was released in 1998, only to be jailed for 12 years in 2003 for running a cocaine and cannabis factory. Forbes, 73, died in 2008, handcuffed to a hospital bed.

World's End Murders In October 1977, Helen Scott and Christine Eadie, both 17, were raped and killed after a night at Edinburgh's World's End pub. For decades, the case went cold - until a forensic review found a DNA profile, matching Angus Sinclair.

Sinclair had been serving life since 1982 for raping and indecently assaulting 11 girls. He'd received another life sentence in 2001, after DNA matched him to the 1978 murder of Mary Gallacher.

In 2007, he stood trial accused of murdering Helen and Christine, with his late brother-in-law Gordon Hamilton, who'd died in 1996. The case collapsed, Sinclair was acquitted. However, in November 2014, Sinclair was re-tried, finally convicted, and jailed for life.

Mary Bell was released at the age of twenty three and was granted anonymity under the Mary Bell Order. This allowed her to change her name and start a new life.

As a young adult, Mary bore a daughter and led a quiet life. Until people took interest in her story, wondering Where is Mary Bell now? Tabloids & reporters began to follow Mary and her family trying their best to get an updated scoop.

The Guardian states, “The child killer Mary Bell was… in hiding after being hounded out of the seaside home where she had lived anonymously with her 14-year-old daughter.”

Much of the media frenzy stemmed from a 1998 biography called Cries Unheard: The Story of Mary Bell written by journalist, Gitta Sereny. Sereny received public criticism and backlash due to the fact that Mary Bell now received residuals from the book.

Sereny said, “I felt that I wanted to give her some of the money… because I could not use her, as everybody else has done.”

Bell’s profit created an uproar and opened old wounds for those related to the victims. People agreed Mary should not be allowed to receive money based on the murders she committed as a child.

A mother of the victim spoke out against Sereny & Bell in an interview with the Observer, “Mary Bell died when she left prison and took on a new identity. I thought of her as dead. I tried to have a decent life. I started to learn not to hate her because she had died and become someone else. Now Gitta Sereny has resurrected her. Why?”

Mary and her daughter moved from town to town, sometimes walking out with sheets over their head to escape publicity. The Mary Bell Order continued to protect the anonymity of her daughter and was eventually extended to her granddaughter. Their names will be protected for the duration of their lives.

Mary's mother and her life partner were not shy to give information to the press.

Mary Flora Bell was born 26 May 1957 in Corbridge, Northumberland, England.

Bell was only 10 years old when she strangled her first victim, four-year-old Martin Brown just a day before her 11th birthday on 25 May 1968. Mary and her 13-year-old neighbour, Norma Bell (no relation) knocked on Martin Brown’s aunt, Rita Finlay’s door and informed her, “one of your sister’s bairns has just had an accident. We think it’s Martin, but we can’t tell because there’s blood all over him.”

Dr. Bernard Knight conducted a post-mortem the following day upon the body of Martin. Knight was unable to find any signs of violence on the four-year-olds body, thus was unable to determine a cause of death. Knight’s theory was poisoning through ingesting tablets.

Two months later, Mary mutilated a three-year-old boy, Brian Howe.

Brian was last seen playing outside his house with one of his siblings, the family dog and Mary Bell and Norma Bell. Relatives became concerned when the boy did not return home later that afternoon. Concerned and worried neighbours and relatives scoured the streets to look for Brian.

At 11:10 pm, a search party discovered Brian Howe’s body between two large concrete blocks upon the “Tin Lizzie”.

A policeman who was first on the scene, observed that a “deliberate but feeble” attempt had been made to conceal the body due to being covered by clumps of grass and weeds. Brian was found with bruises and scratches on his neck and a pair of broken scissors lay close to his feet.

A coroner concluded that Brian had died of strangulation, and that he had been deceased for up to seven and a half hours. Brian’s genitals were found to be mutilated and he had an ‘M’ carved into his stomach.

Prior to Brian’s murder, on Mary’s 11th birthday, she and Norma broke into a nursery and vandalised it. The two ripped tiles off the slate roof, tore books, upturned desks and smeared ink and poster paints around the property before escaping.

Staff discovered the break-in the following day, along with four separate notes claiming responsibility for Martin Browns murder. One of these notes stated: “I murder SO That I may come back”; another read: “WE did murder martain brown fuckof you bastard”; a third note simply read: “Fuch off we murder. Watch out Fanny and Faggot.”

The final note was the most complex, reading: “You are mice Y Becurse we murdered Martain Go Brown you Bete Look out THERE are Murders about By Fanny and auld Faggot you Screws.” This was dismissed by police as a childish prank.

Two days before the funeral of Martin Brown, Mary Bell and Norma Bell called upon the house of his mother, June, asking to see her son. When June Brown replied that they couldn’t see her son because he was deceased, Mary replied, “Oh, I know he’s dead, I want to see him in his coffin.”

The trial of Mary Bell and Norma Bell started on 5 December 1968, in Newcastle Assizes. Both girls pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The trial lasted nine days. Mary Bell was cleared of murder, but convicted of the manslaughter of both boys on the grounds of diminished responsibility; Norma Bell was acquitted of all charges. Upon hearing the verdict, Norma clapped her hands in excitement, whereas Mary burst into tears as her mother and grandmother also wept.

Bell was first detained in a Durham remand home before being transferred to a second remand home in South Norwood. She was then transferred to Red Bank secure unit, a young offenders institution in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside.

According to the Guardian, Mary Bell was, “the only girl among 20 or so boys.” She was allegedly subject to sexual abuse by a member of staff and also by fellow inmates, to which the rest of the staff turned a blind eye.