Local Crimes - Serial Murders/Attacks and a Mystery Stabbing

Good evening, and welcome to this blog.

This time I am changing topic again to discuss the strange fact that here where I live, once a very quiet backwater of London, has recently seen a number of horrific, high profile crimes. This suburban district, the London Borough of Richmond (which includes Twickenham, my town) has been in the national UK news media in August and yesterday/today, and also in February last year, because of three violent crimes - murders - that have taken place only a few miles from my home. As a criminal psychology lecturer (part time!) for Birkbeck College, London, I am interested in the study of criminal or offender profiling, and have to teach about it. I also cover the question of mental disorder and crime. Both these aspects feature in the 3 local homicides that I discuss here.

In Twickenham there has been a series of attacks on young women since January last year (2003). The latest was the attack on a 22 year old French woman Amelie Delagrange, on the cricket pitch of Twickenham Green (less than a mile from my home) about 10 pm on the recent Thursday night of August 12th. She was taking a short cut, having been out with 2 friends to a local cafe bar. She was not sexually assaulted, and was hit with a blunt instrument. Last February (2003), there was a similar murder in Hampton, only 2-3 miles away, of Marsha McDonnell, a 19 year old student from the local Tertiary college (near my house); she was on the way home, having got off a bus after visiting the cinema. Another teenage girl was attacked (not killed) the month before, at Strawberry Hill, also in this neighbourhood. Later last year a teenage youth with long hair was attacked; also last and this year two older women in their 30s were assaulted (one at Hatton Cross, further away but still in West London; the other again in Twickenham). None of these was killed - all were attacked from behind: none of them could describe their assailant. Some CCTV film footage exists in some of these cases but it is unclear as to whether anyone shown could have been the attacker; a hooded person was shown in one sequence. Amelie's last moments are shown clearly on CCTV while she was on the way from a bus garage at Fulwell, about a mile from the Green, and earlier on in the cafe.

Last year a teenage boy confessed to the attack on Ms. McDonnell and was detained under the Mental Health Act, 1983; however he could not have committed the later attacks. Probably all were carried out by someone else. After the last murder in this sequence, Amelie's possessions have partly been found in the River Thames by Walton Bridge, about 6-7 miles away from Twickenham. This suggests the attacker is mobile and drives some sort of vehicle. An empty bungalow on Walton riverside was searched. The police are still actively investigating the case. Also noteworthy is that in 2002, a 13 year old blonde schoolgirl called Millie Dowler was killed in Walton, but the police have ruled out any link. I myself had a look at the last Twickenham crime scene from a distance, a few days ago when I had to cycle near the Green: the spot is in the middle of the cricket pitch where my son Tom played as a young boy, when he belonged briefly to Twickenham Cricket Club. I felt sad at the sight of these unofficial floral tributes, and over the change in this area - it used to be a place of peace, and old fashioned virtues. However, the nightclub, pub and binge drinking culture of most of Britain's town centres has pervaded Twickenham, spilling over into it from Richmond. Both towns become full of rowdy, drunken youths who come into the area to party on Friday and Saturday nights. Now, a pile of flowers that people have placed there marks the spot where Amelie fell.

The killer or attacker in these cases seems to be a man or older youth who dislikes young women - maybe he has an angry, vengeful grudge against a girl like those he killed (blonde, slim with shoulder-length hair), or he may have a deluded sense of "mission" telling him to kill or attack women like these. He does not have an obvious sexual motive, and robbery was not involved. It appears that he is a fairly "organised" serial attacker or killer, to use the two-way categorisation developed by the FBI in the 1980s. (The other category is "disorganised," where the killer leaves lots of clues at the crime scene, which is messy and chaotic.)

Not only have we had these murders and attacks, but very recently - only one day ago as I write - there was a violent stabbing in Richmond Park, the large, royal deer park just over the river in Richmond itself. We had been driving through there each day to visit our son Tom in the Roehampton hospital, and then take him for a walk there before he had to return at 5 pm (see some of my earlier blogs). My friend J., who lives near the park's Kingston Gate, rang me that day at 1 pm to tell me all the park gates were closed as someone had been stabbed. We did not then know he was dead. Today's newspapers stated that Richmond Park was closed for a few days due to a fatal stabbing of a male cyclist or jogger aged about 50 (the papers were divided on the details). Later that day the Evening Standard London paper had the banner headline, something like "Mental Patient Kills Man in Park": evidently the man arrested was mentally disordered, so the moral panic about dangerous mental patients was again renewed. In fact, killings by the mentally ill are very rare: a few extreme cases (such as the Zito case in the 1990s, where a paranoid schizophrenic mental patient, Christopher Clunis, killed an unknown young man on a railway platform). Far the most common is homicide by someone known - either a family member, colleague, drinking associate or neighbour. Depressed people do sometimes kill themselves, and occasionally their own immediate family. Killings by schizophrenics are even rarer.

Though these two recent murder incidents are unrelated, they are less than a month apart, in what is still officially a "low crime" area, according to police statistics. There have been isolated incidents here in past years - people have been robbed, maybe a youth has been stabbed or beaten up (the latter happened to my son, twice), and there have been a number of "muggings" of young people near the Tertiary College. About 2 years ago there was a nasty acid attack on 2 men in a local pub. But things seem to have escalated. Personally, I am not out very late at night, but sometimes I am travelling home about 10 pm from visitng a friend, or teachihg up in London. Over the last 2 years my husband D. has been more worried about my safety (and I realise he is right to be); in recent months he has picked me up with the car from J's in Kingston, about 6 miles away (I usually had to get the bus home and walk up the road). Coming from London, I usually take the main overground train from Waterloo, which has many other passengers. Yet there is a risk of being caught up in casual violence among other travellers - and the ever present fear now of terrorist attacks. The latter made me very nervous about London travel after "9/11" in New York etc., and earlier this year's train bombings in Madrid. (However, our transport police are very effective, as is British security in general.)

So that is it - a mixture of a lecture and some personal experiences - these may be at second hand, as I was not related to any of the victims, nor am I likely to be one in the local case (I am brunette and far too old!). It is rather chilling to live so close to some terrible crimes - in past decades, these have always been in another town or county - or even country (the USA, Mexico, Europe's mainland, India or Russia). We usually hear about them vicariously, via the mass media. it is differernt when it is one's own "back yard." But life goes on, and presumably the killer locally will eventually be caught - one of his family members may suspect something, or hius image will be captured on CCTV. I just hope there will be no more attacks int he meantime. Local churches are holding services for Amelie this Sunday.

Anyway it is time to end my missive again. I have to cook a meal for myself and my husband! If you have been thanks for reading this. My son comes home for a trial period for 3 days tomorrow. (He was in hospitial at the time of both these recent attacks, so could never be a suspect.) I am glad he seems to be improving, and hope he copes. I will be busy next week, so may not be able to write much for a while.

Take care on the streets and out in city,

Best wishes,
Tigey