Criminology Student Studied Jack the Ripper, Then Killed Like Him

Posted by ralph on June 2, 2010

They caught this guy with CCTV, a “nuisance” the killer’s inspiration didn’t face in the 1880s. John Bingham, Paul Stokes and Gordon Rayner write in the Telegraph:

"A Suspicious Character," London News, October 13, 1888

As he began his shift on Monday morning, the caretaker of the Holmfield Court flats in Bradford settled into his office chair to review the weekend’s CCTV footage. He fast-forwarded the recording, looking out for evidence of vandalism or petty crime.

Instead, he found himself witnessing cold-blooded murder.

In a corridor of the flats, a man chased and grabbed a young woman before knocking her unconscious. The attacker then disappeared from view, only to return moments later with a crossbow which he used to fire a bolt into her head.

The man could then be seen dragging the body out of view, and later going backwards and forwards with bin bags and a rucksack.

The caretaker reached for the phone and dialled 999. Within hours West Yorkshire Police, for the second time in its history, was investigating whether a serial killer had murdered at least three prostitutes in the Bradford area.

At the time of Stephen Griffiths’s arrest on Monday, detectives had found no physical trace of three prostitutes reported missing over the previous year. But on Tuesday, the police received another call from a member of the public, this time reporting the discovery of female body parts in the River Aire in nearby Shipley. The dismembered corpse, which included a head found in a rucksack, was later identified as the remains of 36-year-old Suzanne Blamires, who had not been seen since last Friday.

Read More: Telegraph