he 40-year-old man
stands quietly in a black
shirt and jeans. It’s just
T a five-minute hearing
in Bradford Crown
Court, but this ordinary-looking
defendant is about to make news
worldwide. Asked for his name he
finally speaks, declaring himself,
“the crossbow cannibal”.
His real name is Stephen Griffiths,
a man accused two weeks ago of
killing Suzanne Blamires, 36, Shelley
Armitage, 31, and Susan Rushworth,
43. The serial murder of these three
prostitutes has become a headlinegrabbing
case that is as gripping
as it is gruesome.
As Griffiths’ chilling and selfaggrandising
‘title’ implies, he stands
accused of shooting Suzanne with
a crossbow, a weapon most commonly
used in hunting. Grainy CCTV images
from the corridor of a block of flats
are understood to show a woman first
being brutally beaten, and then shot
with the weapon at almost point-blank
range. The same man is later seen
making several trips from the area
carrying bin bags.
There are echoes of the fictional
character Hannibal Lecter in the label
‘cannibal’, and police are investigating
whether the suspect actually ate parts
of the victim’s body after cutting it into
pieces. But what we do know for sure
is that parts of Suzanne’s dismembered
corpse were found in bin bags floating
in the River Aire, three miles from
Bradford. Her severed head was
discovered in a rucksack.
Perhaps the most compelling part
of the story is the emerging details
of Griffiths’ life. He is a Leeds
University graduate, privately educated
at a £9,000-a-year school and studying
for a Phd in Criminology as a mature
student at Bradford University. He is
reported to be utterly obsessed with
serial killers. Inside his third-floor flat,
just 300 yards from the court he is
being tried in, are, it is believed,
numerous videos and books on the
horrific history of past serial crimes,
including Women And The Noose: A
History of Female Criminals And Their
Execution, while his online wish list
includes box sets entitled Serial Killers,
Mass Murderers, Britain’s Bloodiest
Serial Killers and The International
Murderers’ Who’s Who.
Believed to be studying criminology,
his thesis, exploring UK murders
between 1842 and 1899 including
notorious prostitute killer Jack the
Ripper, is now being examined by the
police who are working their way
through each page of his paperwork
for further clues.
And in yet a further bizarre link to
past serial crime, Griffiths has chosen
to be defended by the same Bradford
law firm that represented Peter
Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper.
Sadly this is not the first time
serial killing of prostitutes has hit the
headlines. Throughout history, men
have ruthlessly targeted and viciously
murdered sex workers. In 1888 the
never-found Jack the Ripper cut their
throats and removed their internal
organs. In the Seventies Peter Sutcliffe
was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper after
it was discovered that he’d viciously
murdered 13 women, believing he was
on a “mission from God” to kill
prostitutes, although not all of his
victims were. In 2006, Steve Wright
killed five prostitutes in Ipswich.
After driving his partner to work he
would trawl the red-light district
for women, have sex with them,
then strangle or smother them.
In two cases he stripped their
bodies and arranged them in
the shape of a cross.
A GLOBAL HORROR
These gruesome acts are not
constrained to the UK. Eighties
Washington was terrorised by
Green River Killer Gary Leon
Ridgway, who killed at least 48
women, many of whom were
prostitutes. In Las Vegas Lorenzo
Gilyard killed 13 sex workers
between 1977 and 1993, dumping
each woman with paper towels
stuffed into her mouth and marks
around her neck. Robert Hansen
killed 17 prostitutes in the early
Eighties in Alaska. He would
kidnap them, fly them out to his
cabin, release them, stalk them and then
kill them with a hunting knife or a rifle.
Charles Albright killed three prostitutes
in Dallas in 1991, removing the eyes of his
victims to take home with him. In 2007,
Canadian Robert Pickton was convicted
of killing six prostitutes and is charged
with the deaths of 20 more, while in
2003, brothers China Shen Changyin
and Shen Changping killed and ate the
livers of 11 prostitutes.
But perhaps the most shocking fact
is not how often violence against sex
workers hits the headlines, but how
rarely. According to the Fawcett
Society, 81% of street prostitutes
have experienced violence from their
clients, and only a third reports it to
the police. In their study Prostitute
Homicides, researchers Salfati, James
and Ferguson estimate that women
working the streets are between 60 to
100 times more likely to be murdered
than non-prostitutes. Academic Devon
D Brewer agrees, “Female prostitutes
have the highest homicide victimisation
rate of any set of women ever studied.”
As for the chances of the killer being
caught, “homicides of prostitutes are
notoriously difficult to investigate,” says
Salfati, “and many cases remain
unsolved.” Figures in the UK back this
up, according to David Wilson, professor
of criminology at Birmingham City
University. “Home Office figures
STEPHEN GRIFFITHS, AKA
‘THE CROSSBOW CANNIBAL’
WHO IS CHARGED WITH
KILLING THREE
BRADFORD PROSTITUTES
“IT’S ESTIMATED THAT WOMEN
WORKING THE STREETS ARE
BETWEEN 60 AND 100 TIMES
MORE LIKELY TO BE MURDERED
THAN NON-PROSTITUTES”
demonstrated that between 1994 and
2004, 60 sex workers were murdered in
the UK, and there were convictions in
only 16 cases. Even ignoring serial
murders, from Sutcliffe to Bradford,
violence is a regular feature in what
happens in the lives of a prostitute.”
The most obvious reason is the
vulnerable position in which
prostitutes place themselves. “It is
easier [for the murderer],” says Gregg
Barak, professor of criminology and
criminal justice at Eastern Michigan
University, “if nobody cares about the
women on the streets. The police don’t
do much investigation as there isn’t
a family knocking at the door asking,
THE PERFECT PREY?
‘What happened to my wife?’”
But there is more to understanding
the targeting of prostitutes than ease
of access. A huge amount of research
has been done on the issue and it
seems many more factors are at play.
Those who study serial killers say
early experiences are key in the creation
of the killer psyche. “We know that
abusive sexual and violent experiences
play a part in the development
of future problems,” says Gerard Bailes,
a consultant in forensic clinical
psychology. “It damages identity,
self-image and destroys the ability to
make relationships with others.”
And for those whose childhood
abuse or neglect came from their
mother, this can build a complex and
deep-rooted hatred of the entire
female sex. Clinical psychologist
Dorothy Row says, “She is the person
who looks after you, provides you with
food, can be warm and loving, but can
also be cruel. I often see boys being
humiliated in public by their mother
or the woman in charge of them and
I think, ‘he is learning to hate women.’”
ROOTS IN CHILDHOOD
Dysfunctional mother-son relationships
chime with the childhood of the Green
River Killer, Gary Leon Ridgway. It’s
been reported that his mother was a
domineering woman, who bathed him
even in his early teens, when he wet
the bed. It appears that this ritual,
both sexual and belittling, was
something that he re-enacted with
some prostitutes before sex.
While little is known of Griffiths’
childhood, his uncle has spoken of him
being, “very quiet and withdrawn. He
didn’t run about the place like the other
kids. I remember him always being very
neatly dressed. You could never read
him. He wasn’t the kind of lad you could
talk to about football or things like that.
He was very much a loner.”
The son of a frozen-food company
rep, also called Stephen, and
telephonist Moira, Griffiths was the
first born, followed by a brother and
a sister. His parents separated when
he was young and he moved with his
siblings and mother to Wakefield. In
his late teens, he announced that he
wanted nothing to do with his family.
The reason why is unclear.
Experts say that abuse is often
found in the background of adult
killers. “When they are younger they
can’t do anything against a person
being violent to them,” says Bailes, “but
in their minds they can fantasise about
getting their own back. That then gives
them a buzz, makes them feel safer
and stronger. As they get older they
re-enact their fantasies. The role
of fantasy and imagination, and
the positive feedback of
that, whether sexual or
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