“Bundy wanted to be good” 90 days with the world’s most infamous killer
elena was
TAKEN
“they tried to ransom me”
cop slams botched case
britain’s deadliest predator?
we reveal new leads that could bring robert black’s true toll to 15
PLUS: • 8-year-old’s deadly ordeal • Shot, strangled & bludgeoned • Don’t drink the OJ – and more
Murder Doesn’t Happen Here
But that night, Iceland’s capital harboured a cold killer
Fessing Up Green Gold when police interviews The ex-cons making
go horribly wrong
millions from marijuana
Killer Colonel A cross-dressing commander’s secret
Issue 035
welcome
l
uck, and the quick reactions of a local man, had as big a part to play in the final capture of Robert Black as the investigation into a trio of child murders that had been linked to the same killer. Certainly, one of the officers at the scene of the arrest in Stow, Scotland, must have felt lucky: the six-year-old girl found in the back of Black’s van, mere minutes from death, was his daughter. The 1990 arrest of a man who had been hunted by police since 1982 in connection with attempted abductions, sexual assaults on minors and a number of murders – all young girls – opened up a horrifying possibility. Black
Contributors robert murphy An award-winning correspondent for ITV News based in Bristol, Robert has reported on well-known crimes such as the murders of Joanna Yeates, Sian O’Callaghan, Melanie Road and Melanie Hall. Rob’s written a minute-by-minute account of a murder caught on camera but not discovered for years, on page 32.
was a courier, and used his job as a cover to fulfil his sick fantasies. It took him not just to all four corners of the United Kingdom, but across the channel to France and Germany, too. He was ultimately convicted of just four murders, but the original investigation didn’t look beyond county borders for a remote killer from another part of the country. Could these many missing murders of Robert Black make him Britain’s most dangerous paedophile?
dr abby bentham Abby turned her back on marketing and copywriting to pursue a career in academia. Today, she teaches Salford University undergraduates literature (among other modules) and is widely published in subjects that range from Dickens to TV’s Dexter. She’s written our feature on UK killer Patrick MacKay, on page 62.
Ben biggs Editor
Black appears casual in an interview in Peterhead Prison in 1994. He would later talk at length with sex crime expert Ray Wyre, revealing far more about other murders he was suspected of committing than he initially let on
tanita matthews Tanita has a background in reporting and newspaper journalism and, as Real Crime’s resident writer, she’s had a hand in multiple parts of the magazine. Tanita has brought together three experts for our lead feature on serial child killer Robert Black, to shed some light on the true extent of his crimes, on page 14.
seth ferranti Seth began his career in journalism having served a 21-year stretch of a 25-year sentence for an LSD kingpin conviction. He is now free and writes regularly for Real Crime. Drawing on some shady underground contacts, Seth has spoken to several ex-cons exploiting a grey area in US marijuana laws, on page 78.
martyn conterio
© Shutterstock
A freelance film critic and crime writer based in London, England, Martyn has a long-time obsession with the crimes of Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac Killer. Why do people confess to crimes they didn’t commit? Martyn questions US law enforcement’s standard interview technique in Fessing Up, on page 52.
/realcrimemag /realcrimemag
joanna elphick Jo is an academic lawyer and lecturer specialising in criminal law, forensics, crime and deviance. She has created courses and given talks on subjects like Jack the Ripper. Her book, Murderous East Anglia is available on Amazon. Jo has written about Canada’s cross-dressing killer colonel, Russell Williams, on page 24.
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Contents Xxxxxxx
case notes
06 g unman kills 7 down under, pensioner’s revenge, on track to murder and more Stunning crime photos, present and past, from around the world
14 h is black heart exposed
Child killer Robert Black’s regular trips across Europe make him the prime suspect for many more murders
24 k iller in command
He was among the Canadian air force’s top brass, but the colonel harboured a very dark secret
minute by minute
32 d ouble killer caught on camera
Peter Fasoli’s death was ruled an accident, until his nephew happened upon a home video nearly two years later...
38 m urder doesn’t happen here
When Birna Brjánsdóttir disappeared after a night out in one of the world’s safest cities, no one conceived that she could have been murdered
46 9 0 days with ted bundy
Dr Al Carlisle tells us about the time he spent getting to know the world’s most infamous serial killer
52 fessing up
Why do people confess to crimes they haven’t committed? We examine America’s hallowed police interview technique
breakthrough
60 “ He said his name was dennis”
Her throat cut, little Jennifer Schuett was left for dead. But her survivor’s testimony would damn a vicious killer years later
4
his c ssing escalatreodsst-odre killing
contents 62 son of the devil
UK serial killer Patrick Mackay’s evil acts knew no bounds. Why did his manic behaviour turn to murder?
unsolved case
68 T racking the gatton triple murderer
The senseless killing of the Murphy siblings has become an Australian cold case legend. Why did they have to die?
78 green gold
Former LSD kingpin Seth Ferranti meets the ex-cons making a mint out of the US’s murky marijuana laws
84 elena was taken
Drugged, snatched off the streets of a Russian city then held for ransom: Elena Nikitina tells us about her eight months hostage to Chechen gangsters
harbouring a murderer
reviews
90 you were never really here, the face of evil, look for me and more The latest crime film, mystery fiction and true tales reviewed
94 alison gaylin & megan abbott
The authors of Normandy Gold reveal the striking influences behind their hard-boiled heroine
strange case
98 orange juice with bits
ht msotnetrhss g i e r o f heldchechen gang
by
This home intruder was caught leaving a disgusting deposit in his victim’s breakfast juice
discover more REAL Crime
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page 76
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Case notes
Strathfield,Australia,17August1991
Lone gunman kills seven down under Wade Frankum lies dead in a car park, having turned his gun on himself after coldly executing seven innocents in a frenzy of violence
H
aving downed a number of cups of coffee in the Coffee Pot café on Strathfield Plaza, local taxi driver Wade Frankum suddenly began an afternoon orgy of bloodshed, plunging a 50-centimetre bowie knife into 15-year-old Roberta Armstrong. Leaving the knife in her back, Frankum then proceeded to pull a rifle from a bag and began shooting at the customers desperately scrambling to escape him. Before he exited the café he fatally shot three of them, as well as the
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café owner. Approaching a nearby supermarket, Frankum then gunned down two more people (fortunately they survived) before killing Robertson Kan Hock Voon, who was queueing in a pharmacy. Taking the escalator up to the top level of the shopping centre, Frankum blasted a young couple and a cleaner (all of whom survived) before accessing the multi-storey car park, where he shot Gregory Read (who was later awarded the Star of Courage for helping others
to stay low and out of Frankum’s sights) in his feet as he dived for cover. Unable to shoot his way into the adjoining building, Frankum targeted two people below by the railway station and taxi rank. The police were rapidly closing in, so Frankum forced his way into Catherine Noyes’s car and demanded that she drive him to Enfield in Adelaide. But Frankum got no further than the level below when he realised that the game was up. He stepped out of the car and took his own life.
Š Getty Images
case notes
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Case notes
Nairobi,Kenya,27October2017
Looters Hit Kenyan Capital On the streets of Nairobi, violent raiders descend on properties in the wake of protests following a deeply divisive general election
F
ollowing the return of the popular opposition leader Raila Odinga to Kenya’s capital, police forces clashed with locals disgusted by the incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory in a re-run election that saw him claim 98 per cent of the national vote, despite only 39 per cent of registered voters turning up at the polling stations. As is often the case when such turmoil unfolds, looters were quick to capitalise: these criminals brazenly emptied the contents of a home in Nairobi in violent scenes that were widespread throughout the city, as opposition protesters fought pro-government supporters. It is estimated that as many as seven people died during the violence and numerous businesses were burned down, leaving people who already had little with even less, and with poor prospects of any help rebuilding their shattered lives. Democracy has often struggled to find a safe haven in Africa, and the chaotic elections in Kenya at the end of 2017 once again served to prove that free and open politics is by no means a guarantee in the world’s second largest continent. With two elections in the space of three months and rival leaders hailing from different ethnic groups – often a cause for violence in Africa – there is currently no end in sight to Kenya’s upheaval.
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Š Getty Images
case notes
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Case notes
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case notes
Luton, England, 7 July 2005
On track to murder S
houldering their deadly burdens, solemn expressions etched across their faces, the four men who would soon become known as the 7/7 bombers stroll calmly into Luton railway station in Bedfordshire on the morning of 7 July 2005. Three of the men – Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer and Hasib Hussain – had started the day in Leeds, emerging at 4am to drive the three-hour journey down to Luton in a rented car. At approximately 6.50am they met up with their fourth accomplice, 19-year-old Germaine Lindsay. The four men soon boarded a train for London, splitting up once they’d reached the capital to target four separate London Underground lines heading north, east, south and west respectively.
At 8.50am Khan (on the westbound Circle Line towards Paddington), Tanweer (on the eastbound Circle Line between Liverpool Street and Aldgate) and Lindsay (on the Piccadilly Line between King’s Cross and Russell Square) detonated their devices, killing 39 commuters. Hussain, the youngest of the bombers at 18, would not detonate his device until 9.47am, blowing himself and 13 victims up on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. Phone records would later reveal that Hussain had frantically tried to contact his fellow bombers before finally boarding the bus he would eventually destroy. Police believe he may in fact have intended to board a Northern Line train, but whether due to a technical fault with the train or another unknown reason, he failed to do so.
© Getty Images
The 7/7 bombers head into Luton railway station bound for London, intent on detonating bombs that will claim 52 innocent lives
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Case notes
Schwalmtal,Germany,19August2009
Pensioner’s revenge The body of one of three people shot dead by a pensioner lies outside a home in a quiet district of western Germany
L
ittle of note happens in the sleepy municipality of Schwalmtal in western Germany, so when a 71-yearold local man killed two lawyers and a property surveyor in the summer of 2009, the community was absolutely stunned. Named by locals only as ‘Hans P’, the shooter responsible for this brutal killing spree had hidden inside his son-in-law’s home and waited for his daughter Barbara to arrive with two lawyers and two property surveyors, who were there to discuss the forced sale of the property as a result of Barbara’s impending divorce. Enraged at the prospect of his son-in-law selling the
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home, Hans was adamant that those involved in the sale needed to be “punished”. As soon as Barbara opened the front door, Hans unleashed seven shots before reloading and firing again to “make sure that they were dead”. While three of his targets were killed, a female surveyor managed to drag herself to safety before Hans barricaded himself inside the property with his daughter. It took armed police three hours before they could convince Hans to give himself up and come out. When questioned about the killings, Hans simply stated that he’d wanted to send out a message that he and his family “were not to be messed with”.
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