Stephen Akinmurele, Britain's most prolific young serial killer, was 21 when he murdered his victims, now described as one of the most dangerous men in British criminal history.
The case known as the Garage Murders, which sparked a nationwide manhunt that saw Terry Clifton repeatedly evade the police before he was jailed for murdering two mechanics.
Dubbed the ‘Vampire Killer', 17-year-old Mathew Hardman killed then drank the blood of 90-year-old widow Mabel Leyshon of Anglesey in November of 2001. He performed a gruesome ritual, cutting her heart out, placing it on a silver platter, and then drinking her blood. After stabbing Leyshon twenty-two times, Hardman moved his victim's body to another chair, placed two candlesticks near her body, and set two pokers in a cross formation at her feet. Hardman made three gashes in Mrs Leyshon's leg and various other spots in an attempt to drain blood from her dead body. Failing to get enough blood from the stricken body, it is believed that Hardman went on to remove Mrs Leyshon's heart, wrap it in newspaper, and place it in a saucepan, which he put on a silver platter. Before doing so, he squashed the blood from her heart into the same saucepan, from which he then drank the blood.
When Joan Stirland's son Michael murdered Colin Gunn's nephew, she and her husband's lives were in danger. They went on the run, but their son's past soon caught up with them.
Paul Longworth murdered his wife by strangling her with sailing rope and arranging her body in their home, all whilst their children slept nearby, then claimed it was suicide.
Steven Grieveson is a serial killer who murdered four teenagers and terrorised dozens of others, becoming known as the Sunderland strangler.
Michael Ross was just 15 when he shot Shamsuddin Mahmood in the face and fled. When the police caught him a decade later, he was a Black Watch Sgt, guarding HM the Queen.
Dubbed the 'body in the bag' killer, Green murdered women and dumped their bodies in bags. It was the first time new advances in forensic face mapping were used for identification.
A secret love triangle led to Jack Campbell murdering his love rival in a siege which shook Orkney Island.
A profile of the serial killer John Cooper, who murdered four hikers and terrorised camp sites for decades, raping and robbing campers
Looking back at the case of the murderer Graham Fisher, who stabbed and then ate two of his young victims in the summer of 1998
Looking back at the case of Lithuanian murderer Vitas Plytnykas, who killed a fellow worker in Scotland, leaving her severed head to be found on a beach.
Less than 10 days before Christmas 1998 in the seaside resort of Southport a search was on to find the missing mother of two young children who had vanished from the family home. Mitchell Quy appeared to be the dutiful and worried husband and joined the Police search for his wife Lynsey, even appearing on talk shows and phoning radio stations, appealing for help. The 23 year old croupier who seem to bask in the attention of the media, was however hiding a dark and chilling secret, he had killed and dismembered his own wife. It would not be until summer of 2000 when a grisly discovery of a human torso in a shallow grave, near an amusement park in the town, that Quy was finally revealed to be a monster. After his arrest he told police that his wife was seeking a divorce and that in a confrontation with her, while holding her on the floor for some 20 minutes, had strangled her to death. Enlisting the help of his brother , a butcher, the body was chopped up. The remains aside from the torso were never recovered after allegedly being disposed of on a trash heap.
Stuart Diamond began his criminal career at a young age, robbing a post office at knife point at just 14 years old. He was involved in a stabbing, and even attacked his own stepmother before being detained in a young offenders institution for yet another violent incident with a knife. During one of his spells of detention as a young offender he told Doctors he fantasised about "killing someone and cutting them up", but incredibly he was released, a decision that only 3 months later would result in an horrific murder in 1997. After luring back a 17 year old man to his bedsit flat, with the promise of a warm bed on a cold night in the northern resort of Blackpool , Diamond savagely attacked, strangled , stabbed and decapitated his victim, Christopher Hartley, with a kitchen knife The body was stuffed into a holdall and dumped in a swill bin of a local hotel, however a keen-eyed policeman spotted blood stains at the bedsit, despite attempts by Diamond to clean the scene and he was promptly arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment at the subsequent trial. Gruesomely the head was never recovered. Diamond only admitted to the murder and revealed in 2006 that he thrown the head into the sea, as a pathetic attempt to manipulate the legal process and have his charge reduced to manslaughter by diminished responsibility at a later appeal in 2008. The appeal was rightly unsuccessful and Diamond remains detained for life in Ashworth High Security Hospital.
The discovery in 1961 by three cavers of a sack containing human bones in a disused lead mine close to the town of Caswell near the Gower Peninsula, South Wales, would finally resolve a mystery more than 40 years old. In the December of 1919 26 year old former chorus girl, Mamie Stewart, and her husband George Shotton, some 13 years her senior, both vanished from a Swansea hotel. With only a trunk containing women's clothing, jewellery and vitally, a piece of paper with Mamie's parents address on it, the Police followed up on this lead. The Police interviewed the parents who told them Mamie had written them letters saying George was a violent and abusive husband and that she feared for her life. Mamie had left home in Sunderland at the age of 15 to purse a stage career, eventually some years later falling for fellow wearsider Shotton, and after marrying they relocated to Caswell. During the investigation of the missing persons case , it was found that Shotton was already married and father to a son with another woman. He was tracked down, charged and convicted for bigamy and served 18 months of hard labour, however the Police were convinced he had killed his second wife. After the remains were recovered and identified to be Mamie, the police attempted to locate Shotton, but unfortunately he had died some 3 years prior in 1958 aged 78.
59 year old landlord Alec Warburtorn was savagely beaten, by what was in the view of the pathologist, most likely a hammer. His assailant David Ellis,41, then coolly drove the body over 140 miles to a disused quarry in North Wales that he had visited as a child, and thought was the perfect spot for disposing of his victim's body. He attempted a getaway to Northern Ireland by ferry, but was arrested there by the Garda after the victim was reported missing by his brother, some 3 days later. Most remarkably though, the heartless Ellis tried to claim self defence due to unwanted sexual advances from the older man, a claim that was not to sway the jury who were told by a forensic pathologist that the attack consisting of at least three heavy blows, was most likely from behind and there were no defensive injuries.
The strange relationship between mother and son Penelope and Barry Rogers, with eyewitness reports of overly close contact, leading some to believe incest was a possibility, was overshadowed by a much more sinister crime. The two planned and eventually murdered Penelope's own mother Betty Guy, intoxicating her with booze and drugs before callously smothering her. A rare case of both a mother and son involved in matricide.
A look back at the 1953 poisoning of Blackpool resident 79 year old Sarah Ann Ricketts by her new housekeeper , Louisa May Merrifield aged 49. Lousia was married to a much older man of 71 who was famously described as a simpleton , leaving the jury at Manchester Assizes unable to reach a verdict for his involvement. Louisa however was not so lucky and was dispatched by Albert Pierrepoint who coincidentally had honeymooned in the town.
After a fire breaks out at a home, police receive a strange phone call that triggers a hunt for a killer.
When Pierre LeGris reports his wife Rui Li missing, police are instantly wary, and they uncover a tangled web of loyalty and deception.
The case of John George Haigh, who came up with a plan for the 'perfect" murder when he was serving time in prison for fraud.
Investigating the murders of two elderly women, a decade apart.
The murder of a part-time actress triggers a nationwide manhunt for a killer.
When Linda Anders is found dead at home, her wheelchair-bound husband Malcolm claims an intruder broke in. Police findings quickly change the course of the investigation.
Dismembered bodies of two women are both found in car boots, the first at a train station, the second in a city.
The case of John Bodkin Adams, a trusted GP who befriended older patients and was often named in their wills after their deaths.
The case of Robert Henry Davies, who committed murder after a sexual assault investigation threatened to revisit sins from his past.
The case of Charlotte Pinkey, a woman who disappeared in Ilfracombe after going to a party and never returning.
An arrogant Bournemouth hotelier called Peter Taylor gets away with murdering his wife in 1982; but when he conspires to kill his son-in-law nine years later, his luck runs out.
George Smith, an Edwardian man who married a string of women, only to drown them in a bath and steal their money, was eventually caught and hanged in 1915.
In 1987, two brothers from a well-to-do family killed their parents in such brutal fashion that it still haunts the people of Jersey to this day.
Former military commander Neil Rutherford unleashes terror on the unsuspecting guests of a remote Welsh seaside hotel in 1976, before turning the gun on himself.
The discovery of the body of a lighthouse keeper on the Scottish island of Little Ross in 1960 prompts a massive man hunt for his killer, assistant lighthouse keeper Robert Dickson.
The story of a scandalous love triangle between a beautiful socialite, her young gardener and estranged husband.
Port Talbot taxi driver Linda Thomas made a fatal journey one night in 1973, when she picked up a homicidal homeless drifter called Trevor Howell.
A young man, Tyrone France, becomes embroiled in Newports drugs underworld, meeting a disastrous end in a remote forest clearing in 1996.
A two year investigation into the random murder of Margaret Wilson, would lead police on one of the most complex and fascinating murder investigations in recent memory
When Margaret McOnie is found dead on a cliff top, a nationwide manhunt followed. Her killer would soon be revealed as a deadly conman and a double murderer
When Danny Dyke tried playing the hardened drug dealer, he found himself in over his head, but it was his murderers ended up having sleepless nights.
When Michael Barber finds his wife Susan in bed with another man, she realises she has to take drastic measures to stop him leaving, but no one could suspect how far she would go.
After eleven days of radio silence, the Mochries were discovered dead in their home on a Sunday evening, in a twisted murder suicide. But police still had to discover why.
Miles William Giffard believed his parents owed him everything, and would stop at nothing to get what he needed for the lavish lifestyle he craved.
After a murderer mistakes a doctor for a vicar, he would proceed to travel the length of the country in search of another man of the cloth to kill.
Brian Bishop was shot and killed in a shoot-out with an armed robber as they returned to a stash point piled high with cash stolen from multiple post offices along the coastline.
Just before Christmas 1994, heavily tattooed Jason Mitchell strangled pensioners Arthur and Shirley Wilson, before returning to his fathers house and dismembering his body.
After Philip Manning shot his ex-wife, Margaret Whitcombe dead in a vengeful rage on Christmas day and hospitalised her boyfriend, he led police on a chase across the country.
Kirsty Carver, a 22-year-old civilian employee of Humberside Police, was murdered in a horrendous hammer attack in the back room of a petrol station in March 1998. A huge search ensued, but her body was only discovered a month later, in a shallow grave 30 miles away. The 7th series opens with Nell Darby looking at the case of Kirsty Carver. Kirsty worked as a civilian employee of Humberside Police. After she disappeared police organised a search for her. Her killer would be revealed as Craig Belcher.
Following the discovery of his affair with a much younger woman, police Sergeant Stephen Jones killed his wife Madeline with his truncheon in their garage at home. Police sergeant Stephen Jones, of Hawarden, had been hailed as a local hero for helping rescue a woman from a frozen pond when, only days later, his wife was killed in what appeared to be a car crash. But as forensics started to turn up some major inconsistencies, the ‘hero’ began to crumble under increased scrutiny.
Elderly couple Benjamin and Dorothy were killed in their home in one of the most terrifying home invasions ever seen
Marie Buls was an elderly woman in the care of wealthy spinster Noreen O'Connor. As time progressed O'Connor became convinced that Marie was possessed by the devil.
Defending herself against her husband Robert, Hazel Williams bludgeoned him to death. She then proceeded to hide his body in the cellar and told people he had left her.
Donald Hume murdered his business partner Stanley Setty following an altercation that saw the killer's dog being kicked. In 1949, Donald Hume murdered his business partner Stanley Setty following an altercation in which the killer's dog was kicked. Setty was stabbed to death, his head and legs cut off and his torso dumped from a plane over the Essex marshes.
Teenager James McElroy was on holiday with his friends, which became a nightmare when he turned on the boys and murdered them with a shotgun
Herbert Bennett tired of his wife and strangled her with a bootlace in the sands off Yarmouth beach and was hanged for the crime.
Teenager Clive Olive was a young member of the local biker gang the 'Sussex Mad Dogs'. But after crossing gang leader Brian Moore, he found himself being sentenced to death.
Torquay businessman Martin 'Marty' Fenton fell out with the owner of the local casino John Tsigarides. He exacted his revenge with a murderous shooting spree.
Roger and Josie Hartland discovered that the previous owner of their new home, a former inmate of a Nazi breeding facility that created children for Hitler’s Aryan race, was stalking them.
Helen Torbet visited the Highlands every year, but the proprietor’s son, Don MacMillan Junior, had developed an unhealthy obsession with her over the years.
Sandra Parkinson was a vibrant young woman filled with potential. Working in Salcombe, her life was ended she was murdered in broad daylight just a few metres from a busy beach.
When Patricia Causley disappeared, her husband managed to convince police that she had walked out - a decade later, detectives piece together what had really happened.
Nora Trott, a much-loved member of her community, was savagely murdered. 27 years after her death, advances in DNA technology would allow police to find a suspect in her case.
Deadly tales from the coastlines of the United Kingdom. Michael Brown's frustrations at his inability to get a job drove him to murder
When Jean Dicker’s son Steve moved in after her husband passed away, she thought he was just being considerate. But tension increased when she was discovered in what appeared to be a botched robbery.
Percy Mapleton was looking for a way to a fast fortune, and identified Brighton bond trader Isaac Gold as his target, but a robbery on a moving train turned into tragedy.
In order to avoid paying for an expensive divorce while having an affair with a much younger woman, Michael Peacock planned what he thought would be the ideal murder.
Peter Moore was perceived by his neighbours as a well-mannered cinema owner during the day. By night, he was a self-described mummy’s boy who, after the passing of his mother, turned to murder.