00:00:05
-In the West Yorkshire city
of Bradford in 2010, one man's desire to
stand out from the crowd
00:00:12
was about to take
a macabre turn. Captured on CCTV,
student Stephen Griffiths arrives home with a young woman,
but just seconds later,
00:00:25
she's seen running away
from his flat. Griffiths, armed with
a crossbow, chases after her
and shoots her from behind.
00:00:37
She's dragged back inside,
never to be seen alive again. -It was absolutely astonishing,
00:00:43
very seldom is murder
captured on camera. -A psychopath with
a history of violence,
00:00:51
Griffiths confessed to the
murder of two other local women, and even claimed to have
eaten parts of his victims.
00:00:59
-He's dismembered the bodies. He's taken pictures of them. This is somebody who is
quite comfortable around death.
00:01:05
-The concept that
he gave himself a nickname, he wanted the celebrity
of being a serial killer.
00:01:13
-Stephen Griffiths, the self-proclaimed
Crossbow Cannibal, had emerged as one of
the world's most evil killers.
00:01:21
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ It was a case
that shocked the nation. 40-year-old
Stephen Griffiths, a serial killer obsessed student
with a history of violence,
00:01:53
admitted to murdering
and mutilating three women in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The killings took place
across a 10-month period
00:02:02
between 2009 and 2010. Shocking CCTV footage captured
the final moments before he executed
his last victim.
00:02:13
-This is the flat where
Griffiths lived and killed. He described it
as his slaughterhouse.
00:02:18
-But Stephen Griffiths' story
begins 40 years before. Griffiths was born
on Christmas Eve 1969
00:02:27
in the town of Dewsbury
in West Yorkshire. -There doesn't appear
to be anything really out of the ordinary
in terms of the family
00:02:35
that Stephen Griffiths
comes from. -He had two very caring,
loving parents, a stable marriage, and they were
moving up in the world,
00:02:43
you know, good, solid
Yorkshire folk, but then it all
went pear-shaped, now, I think that happened
when Stephen's parents,
00:02:50
Moira and Stephen Sr.,
split up. -Griffiths had always been
close to his father and he didn't react well
to the breakup.
00:02:59
-We know from listening
to some of the reports of people he went to school with,
his peers,
00:03:04
they reported
that he was a bit of an oddball. He was slightly strange. He would collect hunting knives,
and he would talk about violence
00:03:10
in a way that
other children wouldn't. -He became very,
very withdrawn, very, very difficult to get
on with, very disengaged,
00:03:18
but also he was observed
being sadistic towards animals, in the back garden
of the house
00:03:26
they lived in in Wakefield,
neighbors saw him shooting birds
and dismembering them.
00:03:31
-When we look at serial killers who have been abusive towards
animals when they were children,
00:03:37
that is indicative,
to me, of somebody who is trying to gain control, so they turn their attentions
to creatures
00:03:45
that they can wield power over,
and often that's small animals. I think those early indicators
were there, but he certainly
00:03:52
didn't come from the hugely
dysfunctional background that we see
other serial killers come from.
00:03:58
-Despite his unruly behavior,
Griffiths had a high IQ, and his dad worked hard
to send him
00:04:04
to a 9,000-pounds-a-year
grammar school in Wakefield. -He went to private school,
00:04:11
and I think that gave him a kind
of veneer of respectability. Had he been a young lad
at a badly performing school,
00:04:18
you know, in a deprived area,
I think, perhaps his behavior would have been
problematized much earlier.
00:04:25
He would have been on the radar
of police and social services and agencies like that
much earlier,
00:04:30
but I think social class
and middle class-ness provides a bit of
a protective layer
00:04:35
for some people who go on to
commit murder and serial murder because we don't want to think
of middle-class kids
00:04:43
to go on
and do things like that. -In 1986, at the age of 16,
Griffiths dropped out of school,
00:04:50
and it wasn't long
before the troubled teenager had his first brush
with the law.
00:04:56
-Stephen Griffiths started
getting into trouble with the police
at the age of 17.
00:05:01
He was trying to steal
some goods from a supermarket in Leeds. When the supermarket manager
tried to stop him,
00:05:09
he produced a knife
and slashed him across the face. The wounds were so severe that
the victim needed 19 stitches.
00:05:19
-Griffiths was arrested
and spent a year in a juvenile custodial unit. When he was released, age 19,
he wanted to make a fresh start
00:05:29
and enrolled
in a psychology course at the University of Bradford, but he was soon
in trouble again.
00:05:36
In 1989, Griffiths was arrested
for possessing an offensive weapon,
an air pistol,
00:05:43
and sentenced to 100 hours
of community service. -He got into further trouble
when he felt he'd been slighted
00:05:51
by some fellow students,
female students, at the college he studied at. He went up to them,
four girls, produced a knife,
00:05:59
held the knife to the throat
of one of the young girls, and asked her very menacingly
00:06:04
what she thought
she was laughing at. Understandably,
the girl was terrified. He didn't actually attack her,
00:06:11
but it was clearly
a serious offense. -This time, the authorities
had had enough.
00:06:16
Griffiths was sentenced
to 2 years in prison. During this time,
he spent 8 weeks
00:06:22
at Rampton Secure Hospital
in Nottinghamshire, where the psychology
student's behavior
00:06:27
was assessed by a professional. -The psychiatrist described him as a sadistic schizoid
psychopath.
00:06:34
He said, "He seemed to relish
the very idea of killing and maiming people" and really made it
absolutely clear
00:06:44
that he had
a personality disorder which would make him a very,
very dangerous man indeed.
00:06:50
-Psychopaths are people who are
essentially emotionally empty. They don't have the same range
of complex feelings
00:06:56
that the rest of us do. They tend to lack remorse. They have a shallow affect, kind of a shallowness
of feeling.
00:07:04
They are prone to boredom. There's a need for kind
of stimulation all the time. They can't feel real empathy
for other people,
00:07:12
so there's an inability
to put themselves in someone else's shoes,
so it's that kind of coldness,
00:07:17
that kind of detachment
from feelings and from empathy, really. -After his short time
in Rampton,
00:07:23
Griffiths was moved
to Leeds Prison, where reportedly he openly
talked to his fellow inmates
00:07:29
about murder. -Griffiths was a troubled
young man. He certainly had a very active
fantasy life.
00:07:40
He confessed that he fantasized
about killing and that he was sure he was going to kill
numerous times before he was 40.
00:07:53
-Griffiths was released
and continued with his psychology degree, and despite his ongoing
criminal problems,
00:08:00
the 24 year old
graduated in 1993. Now in the outside world,
he continued to display signs
00:08:08
that he wanted to stand out
from the crowd. -He had this habit
of dressing up rather like a cinema villain
with a large,
00:08:17
dark leather trench coat, and he walked
a pet lizard on a lead. He was not exactly a commonplace
figure in Bradford,
00:08:28
which I think
rather appealed to him. He was a vain man as well
as being deeply troubled.
00:08:36
-Stephen Griffiths had a fair
number of girlfriends and female acquaintances who initially were taken in
by his charm,
00:08:44
quite liked the way he looked,
quite liked the fact that he appeared quite clever,
quite well-educated,
00:08:51
but eventually
they would get tired of him because, you know, he was very
much a controlling character.
00:08:58
-In 1998, age 29, Griffiths met
a new girlfriend, Zeta Pinder. -Me and me friend was looking
through a lonely hearts column.
00:09:08
She said, "Ah, let's just see
if we can find you another one." I'm like, "No, because
it's full of psychopaths."
00:09:13
There were an advert saying,
you know, "20-odd-year-old male,
learning to be a counselor,"
00:09:19
and I thought, "Ah, fine.
I'll give him a ring." -Unaware of his previous
convictions and violent history,
00:09:26
Zeta decided
to meet Griffiths in a pub. -It looked like goth.
He had really long black hair,
00:09:33
all greased up, really long
black leather jacket, and he gave me
a photograph of himself
00:09:38
which I thought,
"What a bit of a poser." And he talked a lot
about himself. The time that I went out
with him he was really kind
00:09:46
and caring, very loving,
wanted to hold me hand when we went out, very tactile,
just, yeah, really loving.
00:09:56
-Zeta's opinion on Griffiths
changed when she found out he'd been lying to her. -Later, like 2 years
down the line,
00:10:03
we were in Bradford
having a drink, and he said, "I'm just going to
nip to me flat for something,"
00:10:09
and I was like, "What do you
mean you're going to nip to your flat for something?
You live with your mum and dad."
00:10:13
It was like he'd got himself
in a corner, and he went, "Oh, yeah, I've got a flat,"
00:10:18
and I'm like,
"Oh, well, let's go see it," so he's like, "All right,"
so we finished his drinks,
00:10:22
and then it was just right
literally around the corner in, like, this big complex.
00:10:27
I mean, why would you say, "Oh, I live with me parents,"
when you've got a flat?
00:10:30
-Zeta Pinder was about to meet
the real Stephen Griffiths. -I never felt threatened
until I went in his flat.
00:10:37
While he was opening the door, his exact words were,
"Oh, next door, we'll walk around next door,"
and I'm like, "Why?"
00:10:43
He said, "Oh, because a woman
got killed outside there." I said to him, "Oh, my God.
How can you live there
00:10:48
when a woman has been
killed there?" and he's just like,
"Oh, it's fine. It's fine."
00:10:52
I just remember he had
a little side table with a little white kettle
on it, and he's like, "Oh, sit down.
I'll make you a cup of tea,"
00:10:57
and I sat down, and I saw this
big, huge bookshelf, and it was just rows and rows
of, like, horror books.
00:11:04
There was not one nice book,
not one, and just all on, like,
mass murders, Yorkshire Ripper,
00:11:11
and above the bookshelf was,
like, two Samurai swords, one going that way
and then one going that way,
00:11:17
and on the floor,
he had, like, crossbows, and he's like, "Oh,
I'll make you a cup of tea,"
00:11:22
and I'm like,
"Actually I feel a bit sick. I may just go home. Can you just take me home?
I just feel really sick."
00:11:27
-Zeta was shocked
by the discovery of Griffith's hidden life
and left the flat. The following day,
she ended the relationship.
00:11:36
Zeta had had a lucky escape. By 2010, the man
she'd been dating had become a serial killer,
00:11:44
and Stephen Griffiths'
eerie flat had played host to the most brutal of murders.
00:11:54
By 2004, Stephen Griffiths,
a diagnosed schizoid psychopath, was well-know to the police.
00:12:03
He had three convictions for
causing grievous bodily harm, a fray, and possessing
illegal weapons.
00:12:11
He was fascinated
with crime and murder. -I think Stephen Griffiths,
you know, picked the most
bizarre role models.
00:12:20
I mean, most young men will be
looking to actors of footballers or musicians, but Stephen Griffiths was
looking to Peter Sutcliffe,
00:12:28
the Yorkshire Ripper, and I think it was the notoriety
attached to Peter Sutcliffe
00:12:33
that Griffiths found
quite appealing. This was somebody who already
had a taste for violence,
00:12:39
a taste for cruelty. -Despite his criminal
misdemeanors, 35-year-old Griffiths continued
on from his degree in psychology
00:12:48
by enrolling in a PhD course
at the University of Bradford. -I think for Stephen Griffiths,
being a PhD student
00:12:55
offered him the ideal cover to basically talk
about and research and get obsessed with the things
that he was obsessed with.
00:13:06
I think it gave a kind of veneer
of legitimacy and respectability to something that was
highly dysfunctional.
00:13:12
-His thesis title was "Homicide
in an Industrial City," and he specialized
on lethal violence
00:13:18
in the late Victorian period,
but at the same time in his home he had this library
of books, magazines,
00:13:28
videos all about murder,
torture, mass killings, anything really which fed
that obsession
00:13:40
he had with violence
and killing and maiming people. -I think it was because
he didn't have very much
00:13:48
in the way of boundaries
around that type of behavior, and he just wanted
to absorb himself in it.
00:13:54
For Griffiths, it was very much
about him. It was very much about what
he could achieve by it
00:13:59
by doing this sort of thing, so he was kind of
an apprentice serial killer. -And the apprentice was ready
to make the step up.
00:14:09
On June the 22nd, 2009,
a local Bradford woman, 43-year-old Susan Rushworth,
had just been reported missing.
00:14:19
-She had three children. She had grown up locally
with a very respectable, very loving, family,
00:14:26
but like a lot of girls who end
up working the street, she'd somehow become
involved in drugs.
00:14:32
The suggestion was that
she'd had a marriage split. She'd suffered depression, and she'd got in
with the wrong crowd.
00:14:40
Before long,
she was taking heroin. Before long after that, the only way of paying
for the heroin habit
00:14:47
was to sell her body
on the streets. -Susan was trying to break free
from her drug addiction.
00:14:53
-She was still in touch
with her family. They loved her.
They looked after her. She was still in touch
with her children,
00:15:00
and, you know,
there were often signs that she was turning a corner. One Monday, June 2009,
she was due to meet a friend,
00:15:09
and she just did not turn up, and the family waited however
long it was respectable,
00:15:14
you know, it was worthwhile
waiting before reporting it
to the police. The police made an appeal
for information.
00:15:20
They found out nothing. They scoured everywhere. They checked CCTV footage. They tried to find
her mobile telephone.
00:15:27
They found not a trace. -Records showed that Susan's
bank cards hadn't been used
00:15:34
since the day she disappeared. Her family launched a public
appeal without success.
00:15:40
Police scoured the local area, including Susan's last
known address, Oak Villas in Manningham,
but it seemed like
00:15:49
she just vanished off
the face of the Earth. Ten months passed. Susan Rushworth was
still nowhere to be found.
00:15:59
-A missing prostitute is not
particularly unusual. It happens a lot. They disappear to other cities.
00:16:04
They give up. There's no reason
why particularly they should be traced. -Then on the 26th
of April, 2010,
00:16:14
a very similar missing-persons
report was filed in Bradford. -This time it's
Shelley Armitage.
00:16:21
She's 31. She's a very
pretty-looking girl. She had aspirations
to be a model. She had lots of friends.
00:16:28
She had a boyfriend
who loved her. She grew up locally
with a family, you know, who very much loved her.
00:16:34
That said, she was also
a heroin addict. She'd also ended up selling
her body on the streets
00:16:41
in order to pay for her habit. She arranges to meet a friend
one night in Rebecca Street,
00:16:47
which is a street
in Bradford's red-light area. They have a bite to eat,
a drink.
00:16:53
They go their separate ways,
and then Shelley just vanishes off the face of the Earth
like Susan before her.
00:17:00
-Detectives conducted a detailed
search of Bell Dean Road near Shelley's home,
but they found no clues.
00:17:08
They did, however, discover CCTV
footage of Shelley walking along
Sunbridge Road
00:17:14
in the heart
of the red-light district filmed on the night
she went missing, but the police had no leads
00:17:20
on either the disappearance
of Shelley or Susan Rushworth. As they continued
to investigate,
00:17:27
in May, a third woman
disappeared -- 36-year-old Suzanne Blamires. -Her father was
a local businessman.
00:17:36
She went to a good school. Basically she had everything
going for her. She took A levels.
00:17:42
She wanted to build a career
in nursing, and everything was going
very, very well
00:17:47
until, like the two other women
who had vanished before her, she became involved
in the drug scene.
00:17:53
She became hooked on heroin,
and eventually she resorted to prostitution
to pay for her habit.
00:18:00
She was working the patch
in the early hours of Saturday, May the 22nd, 2010. A few of the women were aware
of the fact that she was there.
00:18:12
Friends knew that she was there. Friends expected her
to return home, you know, after work in the
early hours of Sunday morning,
00:18:21
but again, she vanished. -But this time, the police didn't have to wait
long for a lead.
00:18:29
Just two days after
Suzanne's disappearance, they receive news of
some horrific footage
00:18:35
captured on a CCTV camera
in a nearby block of flats, the home of Stephen Griffiths.
00:18:42
-So everything becomes clear less than 48 hours
after Suzanne's disappearance when the caretaker
of Holmfield Court,
00:18:51
the block of flats
where Griffiths lives, is reviewing the CCTV
footage for the weekend.
00:18:59
He's looking at the footage taken from the camera
outside Griffiths' flat. It's a Monday morning.
00:19:07
Like any other Monday morning,
he's just sort of sleepily winding his way
through this film,
00:19:13
and then all of a sudden
he sees this figure emerging from Griffiths' flat, running,
00:19:22
pursued by this figure,
which he immediately recognizes as Griffiths, carrying
what looks like a crossbow.
00:19:29
-The girl captured running
for her life was missing woman
Suzanne Blamires. -He took her to his flat.
00:19:37
She quite quickly,
I think, realized that she was
in grave danger and ran out. -You see Griffiths
chasing after her.
00:19:46
You see him shooting at her
with a crossbow. You then see him dragging her
back into his apartment
00:19:53
by her legs,
and that wasn't where it ended because afterwards
he comes up to the camera.
00:19:58
He sticks his middle finger
up to the camera, and he brandishes the crossbow. -In a kind of defiant,
angry gesture towards the camera
00:20:09
and anybody else
who might be looking at him. -On May the 24th, 2010,
after viewing the footage,
00:20:16
police immediately race
to the scene of the attack, hoping that Suzanne Blamires
may still be alive.
00:20:24
-Armed police officers
turn up at Holmfield Court. They storm up the stairs,
storm into Stephen Griffiths'
00:20:32
flat expecting, really,
some resistance. Stephen Griffiths just gives
himself up meekly
00:20:41
and tells police
somewhat inexplicably that he's
Osama bin Laden. -Griffiths was immediately
arrested
00:20:47
and taken
to Halifax Police Station. Suzanne Blamires
was nowhere to be seen. The following day,
a member of the public
00:20:57
made a grisly discovery
that would shock the nation. On the 24th of May, 2010,
in Bradford,
00:21:08
40-year-old Stephen Griffiths
had been arrested. CCTV footage showed him shooting
36-year-old Suzanne Blamires
00:21:17
with a crossbow
outside his flat before making an obscene
gesture to the camera.
00:21:26
-Oh, it was absolutely
astonishing. Very seldom is murder
captured on camera in the way it was captured here,
and it was particularly shocking
00:21:36
because of the enormity
of the case and just the sheer
gruesomeness of it. -For some observers,
the sheer audacity
00:21:49
of the notoriety-obsessed
Griffiths to commit such a heinous act
on camera was no surprise.
00:21:57
-I would say the reason
Griffiths was perfectly prepared for his actions
to be caught on camera
00:22:01
was that he actually
wanted to be caught. He actually wanted the celebrity that he'd been
seeking all along,
00:22:07
and after all, if he hadn't
been caught on camera, he could perfectly well
have gone on killing
00:22:11
other prostitutes in Bradford
and concealing their bodies. -With Griffiths in custody,
West Yorkshire police
00:22:21
began to search
the crime scene and surrounding area
for any clues leading to the location
of Suzanne's body.
00:22:31
While being interviewed,
Griffiths told detectives that there were deep issues
inside of him.
00:22:37
He admitted killing
Suzanne Blamires. However, he refused to tell
the police what he'd done with her body.
00:22:46
But they soon found out. On May the 25th,
the day after Griffiths' arrest, a member of the public found
a rucksack in the River Aire
00:22:56
in nearby Shipley, just 5 miles
from Griffiths' home. -He looks inside the rucksack,
and he finds a woman's head.
00:23:08
-Suzanne Blamires' head still had the crossbow bolt
embedded in it. -Obviously he's terrified,
calls police.
00:23:18
Police go along,
recover the bag, conduct a further search
of the river, find other body parts.
00:23:25
They turn out to be those
of Suzanne Blamires. -Once remains are found,
if the case appears suspicious,
00:23:33
as a dismembered body
in a bag would be, then the area is cordoned off. The scene-of-crime team come in.
00:23:41
The detectives come in. Quite often, at that point, the
pathologist is called to come
00:23:45
and give an initial assessment. -Police divers also found
a makeshift tool kit that could have been used
to dismember the body.
00:23:55
News of the gruesome discovery
soon broke across the nation. -The suitcase containing
the tools was discovered
00:24:03
just over there
some 200 yards from where Suzanne Blamires'
remains were found, and all weekend police divers,
as you can see,
00:24:11
have been scouring this riverbed
searching for clues that could help
this investigation.
00:24:18
-The police were able
to piece together exactly what had happened
to Suzanne from the evidence
found in Griffiths' flat.
00:24:26
After killing her, Griffiths dismembered her body
in his bathroom. He then placed the remains
in a rucksack and left his flat.
00:24:36
-There were also some clothes
belonging to Suzanne which were found in a bin a short walk away
from Holmfield Court,
00:24:44
and there was extensive CCTV
footage of Stephen Griffiths making a journey
with holdalls,
00:24:50
which he admitted
were full of body parts, to the nearest railway station, and he then caught
the train up to Shipley,
00:24:59
and it was there that he dumped
the body parts in the river. -As the search of
the River Aire continued,
00:25:06
back at Halifax Police Station, detectives had
another breakthrough during their interviews
with Griffiths.
00:25:15
Without prompting, he brought up
the names of missing prostitutes Susan Rushworth
and Shelley Armitage.
00:25:22
-He says he's killed
all three missing women plus a number of others, but although he admits
the crimes,
00:25:29
he's, you know, less than fulsome in the detail
that he gives them, and they're left
feeling confused
00:25:36
as to whether they should
believe him or not. -I think he was confessing
to the murders
00:25:42
that he admitted to because that was also
part of his performance. At this point in time,
he's playing the role
00:25:50
of this damaged perpetrator, and he's really aware
of serial killers. He's read about a lot of them.
00:25:57
He's read about the types
of things that are going to get them what
they want when they are caught,
00:26:01
so I think he's giving
a little bit in order to get
something back for himself. -It's very difficult
to understand
00:26:09
precisely the horrific fantasy
that he was living out. It was clearly to do
with control.
00:26:17
It was also clearly to do
with his own obsessions. -Griffiths idolized
serial killers,
00:26:24
especially the Yorkshire Ripper,
Peter Sutcliffe, who was convicted
of bludgeoning 13 women
00:26:30
to death with a hammer
in the 1970s. Just like Sutcliffe,
Griffiths targeted prostitutes.
00:26:38
The local sex workers
were shocked to hear that Griffiths
could be responsible for killing all three
of the missing women.
00:26:46
-A lot of girls knew him,
you know, like, I passed him every day, night
in the street, on Corridor.
00:26:52
"It's all right,"
lit up a smile, seemed right warm, welcoming,
and just polite in general.
00:26:58
-He used to, like,
come up to us, talk to us, say that he'd been out for
drinks at student nightclubs,
00:27:03
offer cigarettes. He was nice to me, really,
never wanted business. I asked him for business,
never wanted business
00:27:09
or anything like that. -I think there were multiple
reasons for Stephen Griffiths
00:27:13
targeting sex workers. They will willingly go with you.
They will go to your house.
00:27:18
They will get into your car, so they were easier prey
for Stephen Griffiths because he was
essentially a predator.
00:27:26
-Stephen Griffiths was charged
for the murders of Suzanne Blamires,
Shelley Armitage,
00:27:32
and Susan Rushworth
on the 27th of May, 2010. Although Griffiths bragged
to detectives
00:27:39
that he'd killed loads more,
they didn't believe him. Now investigators needed
to build a case against him.
00:27:48
As divers continued to search
the River Aire for more evidence, they found
a further 81 body parts.
00:27:56
Locals were stunned. -It's so close,
only 12 foot away, just bringing things up,
and not seeing too much,
00:28:04
but knowing that there were bits
that shouldn't be in that river. -DNA tests later reveal
that some of the remains
00:28:13
did not belong exclusively
to Suzanne Blamires. Parts of human tissue
belonged to Shelley Armitage.
00:28:21
Griffiths had already
confessed to her murder, but this was the first
physical evidence
00:28:27
that linked him to her death. As the media broke the news that Stephen Griffiths
would be charged
00:28:33
with three counts of murder, one viewer was left
completely stunned. -I was up watching television
with me husband,
00:28:42
and I just saw his face
on the telly, and I was like,
"I know him," and Dave is like,
"No, you don't."
00:28:50
I'm like, "Yeah, I do.
I know him. I used to go out with him." I'm like, "Oh, God,
has he died?" you know?
00:28:55
And then when they had said
what he'd done, I just got physically sick. -Years earlier,
Zeta had found out
00:29:03
that Stephen Griffiths
had a dark side, but now the world
was learning about him
00:29:08
and his online alter ego
Ven Pariah, who he described as a misanthrope
who brought hate into heaven.
00:29:16
It was revealed that just hours before murdering
Suzanne Blamires, Griffiths had written
on his social media feed,
00:29:24
"Ven Pariah has emerged
into this world." -Stephen Griffiths was
very much a narcissist,
00:29:32
and he wanted to perform this very kind of exaggerated
persona online, Ven Pariah,
00:29:40
and it's something
that indicates to me this is somebody
who is using this as a performance
prop essentially.
00:29:46
We can be different people
online and offline, but for me what I found
in my work
00:29:50
is there's much more continuity
than there is change when we look at people's
behavior online and offline,
00:29:56
so I think this was
an indication this was somebody
who wasn't quite normal. -Real serial killers are often
mundane, commonplace men.
00:30:06
They do not like to draw
attention to themselves. They don't care to be apart
from the crowd.
00:30:13
They want to merge in
with the crowd. Griffiths is a single exception
to that rule.
00:30:20
-Despite having found remains
belonging to Suzanne Blamires
and Shelley Armitage,
00:30:26
police had found no evidence
of Susan Rushworth. In a cold-blooded act,
Stephen Griffiths,
00:30:32
although admitting
to her murder, refused to tell police
what he'd done with her body.
00:30:39
-Griffiths took some pleasure
in leading the police a little bit of a dance, which was also designed,
of course,
00:30:50
to make him more famous. -Forensic teams painstakingly
searching Griffiths' flat
00:30:57
did eventually
make a breakthrough. Blood found in the bathroom
belonged to Susan Rushworth.
00:31:04
It's believed Griffiths killed
her using a hammer, the preferred weapon
of his idol, Peter Sutcliffe.
00:31:11
-The fact that the final victim was identified
through bloodstain shows how meticulously these
crime scenes are dealt with.
00:31:21
It would be very easy
based on the fact that we knew that somebody had been killed
with a crossbow to assume
00:31:29
that that blood related
to one of those two people, but these cases are examined
in such detail
00:31:36
that this extra blood spot
was identified that came from a third person. -On May the 28th, 2010,
00:31:45
Griffiths appeared
before magistrates, and just when it seemed
that he couldn't cause
00:31:49
any more suffering
to the victims' families, he left the entire
courtroom in shock.
00:31:57
In Bradford, serial killer
Stephen Griffiths had confessed
to murdering three women --
00:32:03
Susan Rushworth, Shelley
Armitage, and Suzanne Blamires. The brutal murder of Suzanne
had been captured on CCTV.
00:32:17
On the 28th of May, 2010, Griffiths was at Bradford
Magistrates' Court for his arraignment.
00:32:25
Even from the dock,
the fame-hungry killer continued to torment
the family of his victims
00:32:31
with his thirst for notoriety. -And when Stephen Griffiths
was brought into the dock,
00:32:36
the court clerk says to him,
"What's your name?" Everybody expected him
to say Stephen Shaun Griffiths.
00:32:45
-But Griffiths' answer
to the simple request completely stunned
the courtroom. -He describes himself
as the Crossbow Cannibal
00:32:54
with an utter contempt
for his victims, their families,
the justice system, the police, but with
a considerable amount
00:33:02
of adoration of himself. -Of course, this causes a stunned silence
in the courtroom.
00:33:10
That remained the case
for about 30 seconds, and then I think one of
the families started weeping,
00:33:14
and all the journalists,
they're looking at each other in disbelief, asking each other whether
he really did just say that.
00:33:21
-Well, I think
Stephen Griffiths felt the need
to give himself a brand because I think his crimes
were performance crimes.
00:33:30
They were crimes that were
enacted for the camera, and the fact that he imposed
this name on himself
00:33:36
rather than the media
labeling him the Crossbow Cannibal
is really significant. -We have a man who is deeply,
deeply narcissistic
00:33:44
and sees himself
as the center of the universe and sees nothing else at all
except his own vanity,
00:33:52
and that vanity is the hallmark
of Stephen Griffiths' character, that extraordinary,
overweening vanity.
00:34:02
-This is somebody who wanted
to be unique, wanted to stand out
amongst other serial killers,
00:34:08
and that was
what that name was about. -Griffiths had achieved
exactly what he'd set out to do.
00:34:14
With his self-proclamation,
the case had now picked up immense media attention,
and the nation was in shock.
00:34:23
-Can you confirm your name
to the court, he was asked. Barely audible,
a psychology graduate
00:34:28
believed to have been studying
criminology, replied, "The Crossbow Cannibal." -After he announced himself
as the Crossbow Cannibal,
00:34:36
of course there was
only one story that the whole media were
talking about, and that was it.
00:34:41
It just took over. I was just sitting there
speaking to a colleague. We said, "Have you seen this?
Can you believe that?"
00:34:48
At that time, we'd never seen
anything like it before. Most of the time, these
courtings are kind of
00:34:54
stare-down affairs, but there this guy had,
you know, stood up and announced himself
as this,
00:35:01
you know,
self-confessed serial killer, and really we were
just flabbergasted. -But could Griffiths really
have eaten his victims,
00:35:11
or was this just more bravado
from the macabre showman? -I think, looking at
did Stephen Griffiths
00:35:19
cannibalize his victims,
I think it's a possibility because this is a guy
who really didn't appear
00:35:24
to have any boundaries
around his killing behavior, but at the same time, he's aware
of the power of that statement,
00:35:31
the impact that saying
he's done that will have on his reputation, and he'd come up with that
moniker, the Crossbow Cannibal,
00:35:39
so he had to claim that he'd
done that, even if he hadn't. -Evidence found in Griffiths'
flat suggests
00:35:45
that he may actually
be telling the truth. -There was a certain amount
of DNA evidence
00:35:53
on Griffiths' cooker which, of course, you know,
sort of tends to back it up, but also I think
it's a case of there
00:36:03
being no real reason
to disbelieve him, and Griffiths, in his interviews
with the police,
00:36:10
was more or less truthful. He was incomplete,
but he was truthful, and I think as far
as they knew,
00:36:17
he didn't make up
any outright lies, and if you think
about Stephen Griffiths and what he tried to do,
00:36:23
achieve notoriety by somehow
concocting or contriving this series
of very unpleasant,
00:36:30
very gruesome,
very shocking murders, then the idea
of cannibalism would fit into
that kind of jigsaw.
00:36:41
-I think when we look
at the amount of time that Stephen Griffiths has spent
with the bodies of his victims
00:36:46
and what he's done
with those bodies, he allegedly cannibalized
some of the victims.
00:36:51
He's dismembered the bodies. He's taken pictures of them. This is somebody who is
quite comfortable around death,
00:36:58
around dead bodies
and the various things that come along with that. Other serial killers
are more repulsed,
00:37:05
you know, by dead bodies,
so it's the crime itself. It's the act that's important
for some,
00:37:13
whereas I think it's the process that was important
for Stephen Griffiths. -On the 16th of November, 2010,
00:37:22
a pre-trial hearing took place
at Leeds Crown Court. Even more horrific details
of the murders emerged.
00:37:30
Griffiths had filmed and
photographed himself at work. -I think Stephen Griffiths'
ongoing propensity
00:37:37
to document things
is what's going on when we look at him
keeping pictures of the bodies.
00:37:43
He's keeping these mementos because it's a way of proving
what he's done. I think it's demonstrating,
"Look at me.
00:37:53
Look at how sadistic I am." I think it's part
of the performance. -There was a picture of Shelley
bound naked in the bath.
00:38:01
There was some spray-paint
writing on her back, and there was a voice-over
in which Griffiths is heard
00:38:10
describing himself as this alter
ego he has, Ven Pariah. -On December the 21st, 2010,
00:38:18
the hearing began
at Leeds Crown Court. Seven months after calling
himself the Crossbow Cannibal,
00:38:26
Griffiths had yet
to make a plea. Cyril Dixon was
in the courtroom. -He's brought in by prison van,
but at this stage nobody knows
00:38:35
whether he's going to
plead guilty or not guilty, so that adds a kind of
an extra frisson of tension
00:38:42
about the proceedings. It's also quite tense because
it's the last court day before Christmas,
and it's one of those days
00:38:51
where people want
to get things out of the way. -After his previous performance
in court,
00:38:56
no one quite knew
what to expect from Griffiths. -The atmosphere
was highly charged,
00:39:03
and you had
a packed press bench. You had a large room of family,
friends of victims.
00:39:09
You had a lot of general members
of the public. All the senior police officers
were there.
00:39:15
It was one of those cases
which had really roused a lot of passion
in the local community.
00:39:21
-But this time,
there were no theatrics. Griffiths pleaded guilty to the
murders of Suzanne Blamires,
00:39:28
Shelley Armitage,
and Susan Rushworth. He was sentenced
to a whole-life tariff by Mr. Justice Openshaw
on the 21st of December, 2010.
00:39:39
-I'd like to say that
I'm extremely pleased with the conviction
of Stephen Griffiths
00:39:44
for what can only be described
as horrifying crimes. He's a heartless,
controlling individual
00:39:50
who takes advantage
of the vulnerable. -Stephen Griffiths
was immediately sent to Wakefield Prison.
00:39:56
He will never be released. During his time there, Griffiths has reportedly gone
on a hunger strike
00:40:03
and even attempted suicide
numerous times. -When we look at
what serial killers do
00:40:09
once they are behind bars,
what most of them will do is continue to try
and exert power and control.
00:40:16
Now, their options are much more
limited when they're in prison, so we see them doing things
like hunger strikes, self-harm,
00:40:23
that type of thing because that's something
they have control over. They still have control
over their own bodies,
00:40:29
and that's something that
they'll use to their advantage. -There's every indication
that his behavior
00:40:35
was just as outrageous
and extravagant and attention-seeking
as it had been, you know, in those distant years
when he used to dress up
00:40:48
in a long leather coat
and leather boots and put baby oil on his hair,
you know,
00:40:56
just to make himself look more
interesting than everybody else. -Despite many pleas
from her family,
00:41:04
Stephen Griffiths
has never revealed where the body
of Susan Rushworth is. For the families of all
his victims,
00:41:12
life will never be the same. The lives of their loved ones
were taken too soon by a deadly psychopath
with a hunger for popularity.
00:41:23
-I think Stephen Griffiths
was absolutely after 15 minutes of fame, and you could see that he'd been
his own marketing manager.
00:41:31
He'd got a brand identity. He was the Crossbow Cannibal,
and I think he thought that he was going to get
an awful lot more attention
00:41:39
that would last for much longer
than it actually has, so if you look at who his idol
was, Peter Sutcliffe,
00:41:46
we still talk about
Peter Sutcliffe today. -What struck me as particularly
unpleasant
00:41:52
about Griffiths was the fact that he was able to choreograph
everything he did. Many killers, you know,
even serial killers,
00:42:02
act upon urges
which they can't control. With Griffiths, although
he had that urge,
00:42:06
he was controlling it, and he was kind of embellishing
the kind of story he was trying
to write about himself.
00:42:15
-Stephen Griffiths is one of
the rare British serial killers who, I think,
could truly be called mad.
00:42:24
He's certainly
not criminally insane. On the contrary, I don't think
he would pass
00:42:30
any judgment of that, but his view of the world
is so bent, so deranged, if you like,
that he fails to see
00:42:41
that he doesn't fit in within
any other civilized action. -So if we're looking at
00:42:47
the psychopathic traits
and characteristics as being inherently evil,
then, yes, he is.
00:42:52
He's somebody who lacks empathy. He's somebody
who shows no remorse. He's callous.
He doesn't take responsibility.
00:42:58
The murders that
Stephen Griffiths committed were choices. Yeah, he chose to lure
these women back to his flat.
00:43:05
He chose to kill them. He could equally
have chosen not to. -Stephen Griffiths killed
three women
00:43:11
for his own self-satisfaction. He's never revealed why
he murdered Susan Rushworth,
00:43:17
Shelley Armitage,
or Suzanne Blamires, but he has seized
numerous opportunities to talk about himself.
00:43:24
His pure lust for infamy
and notoriety without regard for others is what makes him one of
the world's most evil killers.
00:43:33
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