The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (45 page)

retain a lawyer to defend him. Hussain postponed furThe vacillating statements failed to impress Judge ther hearings until January 13, granting police more Ranjha. On March 16 he convicted all four defendants time to build their case with a remark that “some of murder. Iqbal stood convicted of all 100 murders, progress has been made in the investigation.” At the Sajib of 98, Nadeem of 13, and Sabir of three. A second January 13 hearing, Muhammad Sabir confessed to judge, Allah Baksh, sentenced Iqbal to “be strangled raping and strangling one boy in concert with Iqbal.

100 times at Minar-e-Pakistan [a Lahore landmark],”

Iqbal repeated his confession before Judge Allah Ranjha after which “his body should be cut in 100 pieces and on February 8, saying, “I have killed 100 children. I put in acid, as he did with his victims.” Sajid received should be punished.” Ranjha ordered a lawyer

an identical sentence, while the two condemned inmates appointed despite Iqbal’s protests. Nine days later, the also received superfluous prison terms of 700 and 686

defendant changed his tune, pleading not guilty on all years, respectively. Defendants Nadeem and Sabir were charges and informing Judge Ranjha, “I have not com-spared, after a fashion, sentenced to respective prison mitted murders. I am not the culprit. I am not mad, terms of 253 and 63 years for their crimes.

though I am regarded as mad.” Insisting that he was While Iqbal’s eye-for-an-eye death sentence captured

“only a witness” to the slayings of certain children, international attention, it was hollow theater. Pakistan’s Iqbal told the court, “I will expose those people who interior minister instantly challenged the verdict as are involved in this heinous crime.”

“barbaric,” while human rights activists noted that few That plea failed to prevent Iqbal’s formal indict-condemned prisoners are actually executed in Pakistan.

ment (with Sabir and two other defendants, Shahzad

“Police inconsistencies” overturned most death sen-Sajid and a 15-year-old named Nadeem) on February tences on appeal, and execution was commonly waived 17, 2000, but the court tightened jailhouse security for defendants convicted of religious homicides. Iqbal after Iqbal complained of attempts on his life. Some-appealed his verdict on March 22, and Pakistan’s one had tried to poison him, he said: “I could smell it Islamic Council rejected the court-ordered mode of exe-in my food and in my drink.” The 100-page indict-cution five days later, deeming it contrary to the tenets ment accused all four defendants of kidnapping, of Islam.

sodomizing and murdering 100 boys, dissolving their On October 8, 2001, authorities announced that corpses in acid. Defense attorney Aftab Bajwa sought Iqbal and Shahzad Sajid had been found dead in sepa-transfer of the case to a special anti-terrorist court, but rate cells at the Kot Lakhpat jail. Guards described both his petition was rejected. From jail, Iqbal told deaths as suicides, but reports conflicted as to whether reporters that his initial sodomy arrests were frame-the men were hanged or had died from ingesting “some ups, stemming from his research on a magazine article poisonous substance.” Newspapers termed the deaths on “fake police encounters.”

“mysterious,” reporting that “circumstantial evidence Iqbal’s trial began on February 18, with prosecution and the condition of the two bodies belied the official witnesses including parents of missing children and claim.” Mindful of the murder charges filed in Ishaq merchants who sold acid to defendant Sajid on various Billa’s “suicide,” jail superintendent Mian Farooq told occasions. On February 28, special prosecutor Berhan the press, “We are investigating the matter and nothing
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has so far been ascertained.” Another prison official, Abdussattar Ajiz, compounded the mystery by claiming that a guard, Iftikar Husain, found the two men hanging in their cells but failed to report it. Instead, he allegedly “untied the knots of the bed sheets, laid the bodies on the floor to create the impression that they were asleep. He did so to save his own skin.” Both corpses were dispatched to the city morgue for autopsies, which reportedly found signs that Iqbal and Sajid had been beaten prior to death. Officially, both deaths were classified as suicide.

IRELAND, Colin

Known in the tabloid press as London’s “Gay Slayer,”

Colin Ireland was a serial murder “WANNA-BE” who made the leap from morbid daydreams to multiple murder as a conscious, deliberate choice of lifestyle. While his final body count lagged far behind those of prolific British slayers BRUCE LEE, DENNIS NILSEN, and PETER

SUTCLIFFE, Ireland still deserves mention here for the sheer determination he displayed in pursuing his lethal

“career” choice.

Born in 1954, the illegitimate child of a news agent’s assistant, Ireland was raised by his mother and maternal grandparents in Dartford, Kent. He would recall himself in childhood as “a thin, lanky little runt, always getting the worst of it” from schoolyard bullies. By adolescence, Ireland was constantly in trouble of his own making, logging convictions for theft, burglary, and blackmail while still in his teens. He served two terms in Borstal reformatory, after which he was rejected in a bid to join the Colin Ireland (Author’s collection)

French Foreign Legion. No longer a runt at six feet two, Ireland had developed a taste for paramilitary garb and survivalist training, frequently camping out on the Essex crime scene, Ireland left the body with knotted con-moors. Twice married and divorced, he volunteered to doms jammed into the mouth and nostrils and two manage a homeless shelter in London, but an explosive teddy bears arranged on the bed in a sex position.

temper cost him the job in December 1992. A colleague Walker’s body was still undiscovered two days later, at the shelter recalled that Colin was “troubled, frus-on March 5, 1993, when Ireland telephoned a London trated, and didn’t know what to do with his life.”

tabloid newspaper, the
Sun,
to say he was concerned The answer, as Ireland divined it, was serial murder.

about the dead man’s dogs, left unattended in the flat.

He selected gay sadomasochists as his preferred vic-He also said, “It was my New Year’s resolution to mur-tims on the theory that they would be easy targets, der a human being.”

freely submitting to bondage at a stranger’s hands. (In Police had no evidence of any substance, and their Ireland’s view they were also less likely to arouse public manhunt was further hampered by a March 6 judicial sympathy.) Filling a knapsack with his murder gear—

ruling that acts of sadomasochistic sex were illegal for rope, gloves, a knife, a change of clothing (in case his consenting British adults. Potential victims were thus got bloody)—Ireland found his first victim, 45-year-old extremely reluctant to cooperate with authorities, and theater director/choreographer Peter Walker, at a Lon-autopsy results were inconclusive as to whether don gay bar called The Coleherne. Invited back to Walker’s death had been deliberate or accidental. On Walker’s flat, Ireland tied Walker to his bed, beat and balance, police knew little more than that the dead man whipped him, then killed him. (Reports differ on was HIV-positive.

whether Walker was strangled or suffocated with a In late May, Ireland returned to The Coleherne and plastic bag.) Lingering to watch TV and tidy up the picked up 37-year-old librarian Christopher Dunn.

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IRELAND, Colin

Dunn’s body, bound and gagged, nude but for a leather mouth, the cat’s mouth fastened on Collier’s penis. Both bondage harness, was found at his northeast London the tail and the penis were fitted with latex condoms.

home on May 30, police recording his death as a proba-This time, while he was cleaning up the crime scene, Ire-ble accident. No link was made to Walker’s death, three land missed one fingerprint, found by police on a win-months earlier. The “accident” theory took a hit soon dow frame.

after Dunn’s death when cash was removed from his On June 15, Ireland met Emanuel Spiteri, a 41-year-bank account, the thief using Dunn’s ATM card. A few old Maltese chef, and went back to Spiteri’s southeast days later, police received an anonymous call from London flat for sex. Once there, he bound and stran-Dunn’s killer, taunting them for their failure to link the gled his victim, then spent the night watching television, two crimes.

eating Spiteri’s food. Ireland set fire to the apartment On June 7, authorities found the corpse of 35-year-before he left, but the flames went out after causing old Perry Bradley III, an American businessman and only minor damage. Police were unaware of the crime closet homosexual, in his Kensington apartment. Once when he telephoned them next day, asking, “Have you again, the victim was naked and bound, apparently found the body in southeast London yet, and the fire?”

strangled, his credit cards missing. A plastic doll was By that time, authorities were finally prepared to left atop the body, posed to simulate a sex act. When admit they had a serial killer at large in London. Before the killer telephoned police again days later, he told they could make the announcement, though, their them, “I did the American. You’ve got some good leads quarry telephoned again. “I have read a lot of books on on my identity from clues at the scene.” Detectives were serial killers,” he said. “I think it is from four people inclined to disagree, but they worried more about the that the FBI classify as serial, so I may stop now I have anonymous caller’s stated desire to become a serial done five. I just wanted to see if it could be done. I will killer. He had studied “the FBI manual” for details of probably never reoffend again.”

technique and the minimum required body count. “I Ireland was half-right: the “FBI manual” actually have got the book,” he said. “I know how many you specified
three
victims for a bona fide serial killer, but he have to do.”

had claimed his last victim. Spiteri’s killing prompted Mention of “the FBI manual” prompted transat-Scotland Yard to launch a mass-publicity campaign, lantic phone calls to ex-FBI Agent ROBERT RESSLER, including televised pleas for the killer to give himself coauthor of the textbooks
Sexual Homicide
(1988) and up. Detectives learned that Spiteri had traveled by train the FBI
Crime Classification Manual
(1992), as well as with another man to Catford on the night he was killed, a recent memoir of his own career PROFILING serial and a British Rail security camera yielded blurry photos killers for the Bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit. (For the of the victim with an unidentified heavyset man. The record, none of Ressler’s books were ever found in Ire-photos were published, and several London gays land’s possession, though all of them were readily avail-reported meetings with a man matching the suspect’s able through public libraries and bookstores.) Ressler description.

cooperated with Scotland Yard on a profile of the elu-On July 19, 1993, Ireland approached his solicitor, sive Gay Slayer, but as usual, police would need a lucky admitting that he was the man in the photo, claiming break to place their man in custody.

that Spiteri was alive at his home with another uniden-By the time Perry Bradley’s corpse was found, Ire-tified man when they parted company. Police soon land later told authorities, he realized that he was losing matched his fingerprint to the Collier crime scene, but control. “I was reaching a point where I was just accel-Ireland hung tough until August 19 when he finally erating,” he said. “It was just speeding up, getting far

“crumbled,” in the words of one investigator, and con-worse. It was just like a roller-coaster effect.” His next fessed to all five homicides. On December 20, after anonymous call to police was almost a plea for detec-pleading guilty on all counts, he was sentenced to five tives to catch him. “Are you still interested in the death terms of life imprisonment. The judge who sentenced of Peter Walker?” he asked. “Why have you stopped him declared, “To take one human life is an outrage; to the investigation? Doesn’t the death of a homosexual take five is carnage. In my view, it is absolutely clear man mean anything? I will do another. I have always you should never be released.”

dreamed of doing the perfect murder.”

But Ireland was not finished killing yet—at least, if A few hours later, still on June 7, Ireland was back at rumors emanating from Wakefield Prison, Yorkshire, The Coleherne, picking up 33-year-old Andrew Collier.

are accurate. The stories—officially unconfirmed at this Upon returning to the victim’s flat, Ireland handcuffed writing—claim that Ireland strangled his cellmate, a and tied him to the bed, then strangled Collier. He also convicted child-killer, but no charges were filed against choked the life from Collier’s cat, arranging its carcass him, since he was already serving life without parole atop Collier’s corpse with the tip of its tail in Collier’s and no harsher penalty is available under British law.

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“IVAN the Ripper”

Two weeks after the reported killing, Ireland was trans-of a suspect surfaced in the city’s 17 taxi garages, enlist-ferred to maximum-security lodgings at Whitemoor ing cab drivers as lookouts in the search.