“The Crossbow Cannibal”, a murderer who saw his mother in prostitution, killed and ate her

To some visiting colleagues and very few friends Stephen Griffiths at his flat in Bradford, EnglandHis display of photographs of history’s most famous serial killers, neatly mounted with thumbtacks on cork boards, on the walls of his study never caught their attention. After all, the 40-year-old boy, quiet and asocial, had a bachelor’s degree in criminology and was preparing his doctoral thesis on the subject.

Show it off for your guests

Although little talkative, more than once he elaborated on them before his audience. It starts with a blank silhouette with a question mark over the face and name “Jack” below, that’s definitely “The Ripper”.

He also told the story Fred West and his wife, Rose, are the owners of the “House of Horrors”., they have committed nearly twenty crimes. And Ted Bundy, the American who killed more than thirty women between 1974 and 1978, certainly had a photo of him. John Wayne Casey, “The Killer Clown” starred in a murderous attack on teenagers in the 1970s and – Griffiths said – inspired him to write one of Stephen King’s most famous novels, “It”.

Few of those colleagues and very few friends would later remember—when Griffiths’ name became famous—in the gallery of the guilty in those “happenings,” the boy showed. Special interest in telling two stories.

One of them is Ed Cain, “The Butcher of Plainfield”A serial killer, not content with murder, but uses the skins of his victims and fresh corpses dug up from graves to make his cushion covers.

There was another Jeffrey Dahmer, “The Butcher of Milwaukee”, It held the skulls of 17 victims and the skulls of all young men as trophies.

In addition to the nickname “The Butcher” — Griffiths explained to his audience — both Cain and Dahmer acquired “cannibalism” for cooking and eating the body parts of the people they killed.

The stories were somewhat gimmicky but logical: as a biologist might talk about cells or a physicist about neutrons, Griffiths explained his passionate criminal subject with passion.

To all, Stephen Griffiths was a young scientist passionate about his subject. Except for studying serial killers, no one would have imagined he had become one of them until a security camera footage exposed him.

A security camera

One night in late May 2010, a security guard at the building where Griffiths lived killed his boredom by watching the camera footage out of curiosity rather than professional interest. Like that old lady who took her dog for a walk just in time for the middle of the night, maybe she was trying to spot some bad habits or weird habits in her neighbors.

As he was reviewing the images in the early hours of May 21, he panicked in front of the screen: he saw a man chasing a running woman, and although there was no sound on the recording, he could also be seen screaming. She saw the man come up to her and hit her, then less than a minute later she saw the woman lying unconscious on the floor. She saw the man return with a crossbow, aim at the woman’s head, shoot, and the arrow pierced her skull. He saw how the man carried the woman on one shoulder and walked with her until the camera was out of focus.

As soon as he reacted, the security guard called the police. They both watch another scene together from the same night on May 21, but after that, the same man walks away carrying two plastic bags. From the effort it seems to make, you can tell the bags are heavy.

– Do you know that boy? – A policeman asked the security guard.

– Yes, he lives here, he always seemed like a quiet guy.

A few minutes later, police officers led Stephen Griffiths out of the building in handcuffs and into the police station.

A murderer and a cannibal

Griffiths was arrested on the night of May 24 The next day the decomposed body of a woman was found in the River Aire, about three miles from Bradford. They identified her as Suzanne Blamires, a 36-year-old prostitute, a regular in the city’s red light district, an alcoholic and a heroin and crack addict.

Also, the woman who appeared in the security camera footage had a crossbow arrow in her head. Although the arrow was no longer in the skull, the hole was.

Griffiths agreed without protest. He also admitted murdering two prostitutes, Susan Rushworth, 43, in June 2009, and Shelley Armitage, 31, in April 2010.

He said he had killed others but could not remember their names or the dates he did so. Police searched unsolved murders and missing persons records in and around Bradford to try to identify Griffiths’ other victims.

In his confession, he hates prostitutes because in them he saw his mother, separated himself from his father, and slept with every man who came across him. And he has to endure it.

He didn’t remove the entire carcasses, he said Cut some pieces to eat them. He said he sometimes cooks them, but prefers raw meat.

He told investigators to find a website he used under the pseudonym Ven Pariah (come “pariah”), where he told stories of serial killers and admitted to admiring them.

He gave this definition of himself on Facebook. “Humanity is not just a biological condition. It is also a state of mind. On that basis I am at most a fake man and at least a monster.

Police also obtained Griffiths’ court records, which were filed confidentially because they were from when he was not of legal age. There he was recorded threatening a supermarket security guard with a knife when he was 17, and was repeatedly reprimanded by neighbors of the house where he previously lived with his parents for butchering their pets.

They also found a psychiatric report where the forensic doctor described him as “very dangerously mentally ill”.

“The Crossbow Cannibal”

The case quickly went to trial and the process did not last long because the evidence was overwhelming and Griffiths never denied his guilt. Instead, at his first trial, dressed in an innocent gray suit, he pleaded guilty and faced the judge and said:

– I’m Crossbow Cannibal, call me that.

By then the British press was defining him as the “new Ripper”, not the legendary and “Jack”, but the “Yorkshire Ripper”, a serial killer who took the lives of 13 women in the 1990s. ’70. Griffiths wanted him not to be misunderstood and nicknamed on his own merits.

Psychiatrists consulted by the press to profile the killer agreed that he must be found at some point. Otherwise, some “progress” in his work cannot be explained, especially in the case of a criminologist.

Criminologist James Treadwell, BBC consulted, He said that Griffiths presented a combination of two classifications of the serial offender: “We have a meticulous, detail-oriented killer who rarely leaves clues. The erratic murderer, on the other hand, commits sex crimes on the spot, leaving clues. From what transpired, Griffiths has characteristics of both. This was recorded on the CCTV camera of his building. It seems like a childish mistake. But at the same time the body was carefully hidden from the scene of events”, he outlined.

And he added: “Usually, these cases come out much earlier, around 40, but because of his studies, he knows that there are certain things that make him very aware. Crossbow cannibalism.”

On 21 December 2010, Stephen Griffiths was sentenced to life in prison by Leeds Crown Court. Suzanne Blamyers, Susan Rushworth and Shelley Armitage were sentenced to life in prison for their murders.

Although he claimed to have killed several people, these cases could not be included in the investigation as the bodies were never found.

Continue reading: