00:00:03
[ominous music] NARRATOR: 17th of
September, 2004, 76-year-old retired pediatrician Derek
Robinson was eating breakfast
00:00:16
with his wife Jean at their
home in Highgate, London, when the doorbell rang. ADAM HIBBERT: His
eyes, piercing eyes.
00:00:24
And to me, he had the
eyes of a killer-- cold, heartless. NARRATOR: Within
minutes, Derek and Jean
00:00:32
were both dead, brutally slashed
to death by Daniel Gonzalez. He was only a young man.
00:00:39
He was only 24, and yet
it worked out in his mind what he wanted in life was to
be a notorious serial killer.
00:00:46
NARRATOR: Fueled by a
cocktail of alcohol and drugs, Gonzalez was on a murderous
72-hour killing spree.
00:00:55
This is one of those rare
cases in which we had-- and I hate to use the
term, but a perfect storm.
00:01:02
NARRATOR: This was what
his desperate mother had always feared. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Does my
son have to kill somebody
00:01:08
before he gets any help? The tragedy was yes, he did. NARRATOR: Daniel
Gonzalez no longer cared,
00:01:16
and six random strangers found
themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, becoming
victims of one of the world's
00:01:25
most evil killers. [dramatic music] [ominous music] September the 15th, 2004,
24-year-old Daniel Gonzalez
00:01:55
boarded a train from his
home in Woking, Surrey, bound for Portsmouth, England. Inside a rucksack, he
carried his diary, a hockey
00:02:05
mask, and a steak knife. JOHNNY GREEN: Daniel
Gonzalez was someone who had long lost
the ability to live
00:02:16
anything like a positive life. Probably still a lot
of work needed to-- to really try and understand
where he was within himself,
00:02:23
but clearly, he was in
a very dangerous place. NARRATOR: Gonzalez was a
diagnosed schizophrenic, who,
00:02:29
over the next 72 hours,
would kill four strangers and leave three with serious
injuries across three
00:02:36
different English counties. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
He's not thinking an hour ahead, a week ahead.
00:02:41
I think he is very much
living in the moment. He is hostage to
his own delusions
00:02:47
and his own psychosis. NARRATOR: Gonzalez made no
attempt to cover his tracks. He left his victims where they
fell, writing every chilling
00:02:55
detail in a diary. ADAM HIBBERT: That
would indicate that he wanted to be found.
00:03:00
Whether he wanted to
be caught or not is another question, but it would
indicate that his mindset was
00:03:06
such that he wanted to be
identified as the assailant for all these
crimes, which would
00:03:11
then underpin his notoriety
as a serial killer. NARRATOR: For Gonzalez, the
line between fantasy and reality
00:03:21
hadn't blurred. It no longer existed. There did seem to be quite
a fixation on horror films,
00:03:29
especially some of the
horror films of the 1980s and the 1990s, like
Freddy Krueger,
00:03:34
"Nightmare on Elm Street,"
"Friday the 13th." And I think at this
point in his life,
00:03:39
Gonzalez was consuming quite
a lot of violent media. Gonzalez only ever
wanted to use a knife.
00:03:47
The knife was his
weapon of choice. He didn't talk about shooting
anyone or strangling anyone.
00:03:55
He wanted to kill
them with a knife, and that was the
theme, the thread that ran through his killings.
00:04:06
NARRATOR: Two days later
on the 17th of September, 2004, Gonzalez was arrested,
his brutal rampage ended, but
00:04:16
the danger he posed continued. PAUL CHESTON: Even though
there was prison guards
00:04:21
present with access
to riot gear, he was still
considered to be too dangerous to appear in court.
00:04:28
It was an unprecedented
scene, the like of which I have never seen before. NARRATOR: This
killer's story begins
00:04:38
on the 21st of June, 1980. Daniel Gonzalez was
born at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey,
England, to Lesley
00:04:47
Savage and Julian Gonzalez. The family lived in
Woking, Surrey, and Daniel went to nursery and junior
school in the local area.
00:04:58
Gonzalez was an only child. His mom was English,
and his dad was Spanish. His parents separated
when he was a young child,
00:05:06
and he was largely
brought up by his mom. But he would go to Spain to
spend time with his father.
00:05:12
PAUL CHESTON: But he had
caused his mother problems even before he'd learned to walk.
00:05:17
She has told how, when he was
very, very young, that he used to pull her hair
not in a playful way
00:05:23
but in an almost malevolent
way, and that she'd caught him from
time to time bashing
00:05:28
his head against a wall. JOHNNY GREEN: It wasn't
a terrible separation, and his father had flown back
to Spain in high dudgeon.
00:05:36
He was still around. He was still supportive. So yes, there was a rift
between mother and father,
00:05:41
but it wasn't a-- a chasm. His father was around. As far as we know, he was
supportive of his son.
00:05:47
[uplifting music] NARRATOR: In 1991,
at the age of 11, Gonzalez was accepted into
Gordons School in Woking,
00:05:55
where his mother Lesley worked. PAUL CHESTON: And
there he was clearly-- was able to find some purpose,
some enjoyment in life.
00:06:04
He was a decent chess player,
a good actor, they found. He passed eight GCSEs. He was an intelligent boy.
00:06:13
NARRATOR: At Gordons
School, Gonzalez was found to have
an above-average IQ, but there were concerns
about his learning ability.
00:06:22
First of all, he's
diagnosed with dysgraphia, which is a difficulty in
writing, rather like dyslexia
00:06:30
is a difficulty in reading. But he nevertheless was
very good at Spanish, took his GCSE in Spanish
a year early, got an A.
00:06:40
And although he only ever
went there in family holidays, he was very fluent indeed.
00:06:46
NARRATOR: In 1995,
Gonzalez was excluded from school for bad
behavior, just as he was
00:06:53
about to sit his final exams. He was given a second chance
and allowed back to take them.
00:06:59
He attained a
further seven GCSEs and went on to study drama
and Spanish at Brooklands
00:07:05
College in Weybridge, Surrey. GEOFFREY WANSELL: So we have
a portrait of a boy who is--
00:07:11
has his difficulties
but is nevertheless apparently on track. NARRATOR: Gonzalez was
popular amongst his college
00:07:20
friends, who affectionately
nicknamed him Zippy. He appeared to be growing
into a balanced young man with
00:07:27
a bright future ahead of him. GEOFFREY WANSELL: But then
several things begin to happen.
00:07:32
One is he begins to
experiment with cannabis. There's no doubt
in my mind whatever
00:07:38
that those initial experiments,
which probably began when he was 14 or 15, did
something to the balance
00:07:45
of Gonzalez's mind. As he reaches adolescence, he
becomes increasingly troubled.
00:07:52
A dark and troubled
adolescence sets in. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Gonzalez was first convicted of a crime
in 1996, and this
00:08:00
involved an altercation with
a bus driver over a bus fare. And it was reported that
he'd punched the bus driver,
00:08:06
but it later emerged
that he'd actually bitten the bus driver's ear. So this was quite a significant
assault for somebody who
00:08:13
was quite young at the time. NARRATOR: 16-year-old
Gonzalez admitted the offense
00:08:18
and was formally
cautioned by the police. The family GP referred
him to a social services
00:08:24
children's center, and he
was sent for drug counseling. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
He then later commits
00:08:30
property offenses like
theft and burglary, quite opportunistic offenses. And we've also got to
remember that he's using
00:08:37
drugs at this point in time. He's using cannabis,
using marijuana. NARRATOR: In 1997, having
dropped out of college,
00:08:45
his mom Lesley found
him a job in a bank, which only lasted a few days. In April, he was
arrested for shoplifting.
00:08:53
His mother turned to
social services for help and asked them to find
Gonzalez a foster home.
00:08:59
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I
think this is a very significant stage
in Gonzalez's life because he's--
he's getting older.
00:09:05
He's getting bigger. He's getting stronger. He's also exhibiting some
quite disturbing mental health
00:09:10
symptoms, and his
mum is having trouble coping with him at home. So I think out of
a concern for him,
00:09:16
she decides to get some help in. NARRATOR: Social
services found Daniel a stable, loving foster
home with a local couple.
00:09:25
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think it's
a really difficult situation for any parent to be in because
you want your child to have
00:09:30
the help that they deserve,
but that is going to involve a little bit of
destabilizing them in a way
00:09:37
in order to get them to
adapt to a new environment. So there could have
been some feelings,
00:09:42
perhaps, of rejection,
of abandonment at this point in time. NARRATOR: In February
1998, after harming himself
00:09:49
by punching a
window, Gonzalez was admitted to an open
psychiatric unit under the 1983
Mental Health Act.
00:09:58
He was discharged by a
mental health review tribunal before a full assessment
was completed and returned
00:10:05
to live at his foster home. GEOFFREY WANSELL: This is a boy
who slipped through the net.
00:10:12
Instead of it being offered
to him as a support and a way of overcoming his clear
mental difficulties,
00:10:21
he isn't getting the support. So you have this awful
pattern of, well, yes, we'll give him some support.
00:10:26
We'll put him in--
into some kind of psychiatric environment. It doesn't last long enough.
00:10:32
NARRATOR: Gonzalez
remained close to his mum despite being in foster care. When he reached the age
of 18, a new foster carer
00:10:40
was found for him. 28th of September, 1998,
during a psychotic episode, Gonzalez calls public
criminal damage,
00:10:50
threatened violence,
and self-harmed by banging a metal saucepan
repeatedly on his head.
00:10:56
He was restrained by the police
and taken to a medium secure psychiatric hospital
unit called Oaktree,
00:11:03
where he was sectioned and
diagnosed as a schizophrenic. But he only lasted
three weeks there.
00:11:09
PAUL CHESTON: During
that time, he pulled a knife on a care worker. When he was discharged,
he was supposed
00:11:15
to be monitored by health
workers, health authorities of-- of every description.
00:11:23
He was clearly
mentally ill, but he fell into the trap of
being mentally ill but not
00:11:28
sufficiently mentally ill
to be suctioned properly and to receive the
full medication
00:11:34
and help that he needed. NARRATOR: Throughout his
childhood and teenage years, Daniel would spend
periods of time
00:11:41
in Spain with his dad
and other relatives. With no access to drugs and
more structure in his life,
00:11:47
his behavior improved. GEOFFREY WANSELL: So in
a way, Spain represents for Gonzalez a sort of respite.
00:11:53
It's not the same
as life in Woking. It's not like suburban Surrey. It's, oh, it's different.
00:12:00
And perhaps it's
hotter, or perhaps it suits his temperament better. But there's no denying that he
feels more at home, at least
00:12:09
apparently, during those
periods when he goes to Spain. NARRATOR: March 2000, when
Gonzalez returned from trips
00:12:16
to Spain, his use
of street drugs escalated, and he
became more unstable. His mother had a new
partner, and although they
00:12:24
welcomed Daniel into
their home, his behavior was hard to live with. Gonzalez moved out
and became homeless.
00:12:32
GEOFFREY WANSELL: He
returns, unfortunately, to life on the street,
back to street drugs.
00:12:38
Whether it's
ecstasy or cannabis, it doesn't matter
very much to him. NARRATOR: April 2000, just
before his 20th birthday,
00:12:49
Gonzalez was arrested on charges
of burglary and street robbery and held in prison in Reading,
England, where he received
00:12:57
antipsychotic medication. However, one doctor claimed
Gonzalez was being manipulative
00:13:03
and exaggerating his mental
illness to try and secure a reduced prison sentence.
00:13:09
In December 2000,
Gonzalez was sent to prison for two years, which he spent
in a young offenders institution
00:13:17
in relation to the burglary, the
theft, and some other offenses that he committed.
00:13:23
So for the first time, he
is institutionalized within the criminal justice system.
00:13:28
NARRATOR: At Dover Young
Offenders Institute, Daniel's parents hoped he'd
finally be given the help he
00:13:34
needed. GEOFFREY WANSELL: But I'm
afraid the damage has been done. Those teenage years
between 15 and 19
00:13:43
have taken a dreadful
toll on Gonzalez. He is paranoid. He's suffering from delusions.
00:13:51
He's addicted to drugs
when he can get them. He is literally a time
bomb waiting to go off.
00:13:57
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: While serving his
two-year sentence at Dover Young Offenders Institution,
Daniel Gonzalez was
00:14:09
assessed by the medical team. They found no evidence
of mental illness. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He's
released in 2001 on license.
00:14:21
His last six months of his
sentence are spent on license, and he behaves relatively well.
00:14:26
I think he probably doesn't want
to get involved with the police again if he can avoid it.
00:14:33
And so until then to
the autumn of 2001, Gonzalez is relatively quiet. Not much is happening.
00:14:43
But he's very introverted. He's watching a lot
of horror films. He's very much
living in himself.
00:14:50
His delusions are not
getting any better. He is, in many
ways, a tragic case. NARRATOR: Lesley knew
her son was mentally ill
00:14:59
and desperately wanted
to find him help. PAUL CHESTON: But what his
mother explained happened,
00:15:06
that he was passed
from pillar to post, from one health
worker to another, from one social worker to GPs,
to doctors, to psychiatrists,
00:15:14
none of whom had a, she'd
say, a coherent pattern of looking after
him and developing
00:15:22
a pattern for his care. GEOFFREY WANSELL: At one point,
Mrs. Savage writes to her MP
00:15:28
and says-- and it's a
heartbreaking quotation, this. Now, does my son
have to kill somebody
00:15:34
before he gets any help? The tragedy was yes, he did. NARRATOR: Daniel Gonzalez was
a young man whose mental health
00:15:43
was spiraling out of control. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
There is no doubt that in the first
months of 2002,
00:15:50
Gonzalez's mother sought
what help they could, and but it really
wasn't available.
00:15:55
He didn't have those
stable friendships with his peers and--
and with people that you might work with or--
00:16:01
or go to college with. So I think he was
very much a loner. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
There's more experiences
00:16:08
with A&E. He's homeless again. He's living with friends. He's living rough until
at the end of 2002,
00:16:17
he's convicted of
shoplifting again. The pattern is unchanging. He gets a community
punishment order,
00:16:26
and then he gets a community
rehabilitation order to try and get him back on
the straight and narrow,
00:16:31
to try and make his life-- well, I hesitate to say
normal, but at least steady. NARRATOR: 26 of
October, 2003, Gonzalez
00:16:42
went to Spain to
visit his father and then his aunts in La Coruna. He was hoping he would find work
and be able to stay in Spain.
00:16:51
GEOFFREY WANSELL: While he's in
Spain, at the end of 2003, is he writes a letter to his
GP, which he doesn't send,
00:16:59
in which he admits
for the first time clearly that he is a
paranoid schizophrenic
00:17:05
and says that he
deeply needs help. He never posts the letter. Perhaps he was ashamed of it.
00:17:13
Perhaps he didn't
think his GP cared. One can't be sure, but we
do know that by the time
00:17:20
it gets to the end of
2003, he's back in England. And he's back with his
mother trying to get help.
00:17:28
I mean, time after
time, they try and get him outpatient appointments. NARRATOR: Gonzalez begged
to be admitted to hospital,
00:17:36
but he was denied and only
seen as an outpatient. PAUL CHESTON: He had plenty
of contacts to supply him
00:17:41
with drugs but no
real friends, and he lived at home with his mother. He's-- he was
obsessed with horror
00:17:49
films and computer games. He had no sense of
purpose in his life. NARRATOR: January 2004,
Gonzalez broke his leg
00:18:00
and was in plaster. He was entirely
dependent on his family. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He did
kind of turn in on himself,
00:18:07
and he spent a
lot of time alone. And I think, because of his
mental health condition,
00:18:13
he develops quite
a lot of difficulty in distinguishing
fantasy from reality. So the two really
do start to overlap,
00:18:20
and things get very
muddled for him. NARRATOR: March 2004, when the
plaster was finally removed,
00:18:27
Gonzalez remained quietly
at home during the week in his bedroom, and at weekends,
he went to drug-fueled raves
00:18:35
in London. [ominous music] GEOFFREY WANSELL: He's
now in his early 20s. He goes out at night,
scores street drugs,
00:18:42
lives in darkness
in a fantasy world of his own creation peopled
by videogames, horror films.
00:18:51
I've long argued that video is
a much more dangerous influence on troubled young men than many
of us realize because it plays
00:19:01
to certain parts of their
mind which are theirs and theirs alone
and plays to their--
00:19:09
their fantasies of themselves. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Gonzalez
seemed particularly obsessed
00:19:14
with the "Nightmare
on Elm Street" series, those films with the
character Freddy Krueger,
00:19:20
so there did seem to
be quite a fixation on this particular
dangerous individual.
00:19:26
And I think Gonzalez
looks at Freddy Krueger, and he looks at the power
that this-- this individual
00:19:31
is able to have
over a whole street and a whole neighborhood. And maybe that is
something that-- that he
00:19:36
finds quite appealing. GEOFFREY WANSELL: And so in
the-- by the summer of 2004, Gonzalez is now 24 living
in this strange world
00:19:46
of his own creation, anxious
to find out what it's like to be a serial killer. In many ways, it's a tragedy.
00:19:54
If only, one says, if only
he could have got help, the help that he truly needed,
but perhaps that's being
00:20:02
naive of me or idealistic. Perhaps he would never be
capable of being helped, that that--
00:20:11
he saw this as his destiny. NARRATOR: September
the 11th, 2004. PAUL CHESTON: Daniel
Gonzalez headed up to London
00:20:22
to meet some of
his drug contacts and ended up at a rave all
night in Hackney, where he took
00:20:29
the most extraordinary
cocktail of drugs, including speed and cocaine
and ecstasy and ketamine,
00:20:36
which is a horse tranquilizer. And imagine the combined effect
on anyone's mental health
00:20:41
with such a cocktail
inside them. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He
punches himself in the eyes.
00:20:46
He has had a habit
of some self-harm, but this is quite severe. He punishes himself
brutally in both eyes.
00:20:54
So now you have a young man
of 24 who is literally-- someone somewhere has
lit the blue touch paper
00:21:02
to this particular explosion. PAUL CHESTON: On the
Monday, he was so affected that he was running through the
streets naked, which prompted
00:21:13
his mother to despair that why
wasn't he getting the treatment that he so clearly needed.
00:21:20
The second day, the Tuesday,
he stayed virtually all day in bed and in his bedroom.
00:21:25
He wrote in his diaries how
this was his plan to become a notorious serial killer.
00:21:33
He wanted to see his name
in newspaper headlines. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Very, very
few people with schizophrenia
00:21:40
will ever go on to harm
other people at all. They're much more likely
to harm themselves
00:21:45
or to be harmed by others, but
this is one of those rare cases in which we had--
00:21:50
and I hate to use the
term, but a perfect storm. GEOFFREY WANSELL: On
Wednesday, September the 15th,
00:21:57
he takes a kitchen
knife from his own home and sets off to Portsmouth. Well, that's not
entirely unreasonable.
00:22:08
Woking is on the train
line to Portsmouth. So he goes to Woking
Station, gets on a train,
00:22:14
and gets off at Portsmouth. NARRATOR: Gonzalez
got off the train at Hilsea Station, a quiet
suburb of Portsmouth, England.
00:22:21
61-year-old Peter King
and his wife Janice were walking their dog
along a local pathway
00:22:27
in the area popular with
runners and dog walkers. PAUL CHESTON:
Gonzalez leapt on him,
00:22:33
suddenly attacked him for
no reason at all, yelling, I'm going to kill you, and
started stabbing around
00:22:40
the face and the neck
and the upper body area with his steak knife. Mr. King was able to
fend off some blows.
00:22:48
He broke away and decided to
run away but not before shouting over his shoulder, I'm sorry.
00:22:54
I'm a schizophrenic,
and then rushing away. NARRATOR: Peter King
put up a brave fight
00:23:00
and sustained serious
injuries, which were thankfully not life threatening. Gonzalez fled back
to the train station.
00:23:09
GEOFFREY WANSELL: But sadly,
he doesn't run away back home. He gets another train because
it's a convenient train ride,
00:23:16
gets another train
from Portsmouth, this time to Brighton. NARRATOR: Gonzalez got off the
train at Worthing near Brighton
00:23:24
in East Sussex. Believing his small steak
knife was the reason Peter King escaped
alive, Gonzalez
00:23:30
went into a hardware
store and stole a bigger knife before heading
east to the area of Southwick.
00:23:37
PAUL CHESTON: While
Gonzalez was waiting to attack his second victim, he
searched through his belongings
00:23:43
and came across a
hockey mask, which was particularly
significant in his mind because it was similar to a mask
that was used by a character
00:23:52
called Jason in a horror
film, one of his favorites, called "Friday the 13th." ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Marie Harding was
00:24:01
very well-known person in the
community around Brighton. She worked for the
supporters arm of Brighton
00:24:07
and Hove Albion
Football Club and was-- was very well recognized there. And she was due to go on
a holiday of a lifetime
00:24:16
with her husband to Australia. She'd gone to pick up the
currency that morning. So here's somebody
who's in their 70s.
00:24:23
They have a very kind of
thriving, active life and-- and looking forward
to enjoying those
00:24:29
twilight years with her husband. GEOFFREY WANSELL: When,
by an awful twist of fate,
00:24:35
she's set upon by Gonzalez,
who stabs her ruthlessly, repeatedly, and kills her.
00:24:46
There is no rhyme nor
reason to the attack. He steals some of
the money from her,
00:24:56
but I think that's
more by the by, his old street robbery habit. It's most of all
about the killing.
00:25:06
NARRATOR: Gonzalez left Marie
Harding dead on the ground and fled the scene. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He must
have had some blood on him
00:25:14
but nevertheless perhaps washed
it off in a station washroom. That's merely
speculation on my part,
00:25:20
but certainly, he gets the train
from Brighton back to Woking and goes back to
his mother's house.
00:25:30
NARRATOR: Sitting on
the train, Gonzalez updated his diary, describing
the thrill he'd got
00:25:36
from murdering Marie Harding. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Gonzalez
has killed his first victim,
00:25:42
but he's intent on
not stopping there. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: 15th of September,
2004, Detective Superintendent
00:25:55
Adam Hibbert was the senior
investigating officer called to the crime
scene of the murder
00:26:01
of 73-year-old Marie Harding. ADAM HIBBERT: My
initial hypothesis was, given the location and
the nature of the assault,
00:26:12
was that this had to be a local
individual with local knowledge and potentially with a
propensity for assaulting
00:26:20
women, elderly or otherwise. So that sets in motion
some research, intelligence development around, who
do we know in the area
00:26:30
that would fit this criteria? Who do we know locally
that-- that has a propensity
00:26:34
for this type of offense? Because we have to have
something to work on. NARRATOR: Press Association
photographer Johnny Green
00:26:42
was one of the first
members of the media to arrive at the scene. JOHNNY GREEN: Being sent to
a murder scene was, as grisly
00:26:49
as it sounds, in many ways-- thankfully, it wouldn't
happened too often. But at least two or three
times a year, you'd be sent,
00:26:58
and it could be anywhere. ADAM HIBBERT: Police officers
were already in attendance,
00:27:01
uniformed police officers who
had cordoned off the scene, and one of my first roles was to
speak to my crime scene manager
00:27:09
to make sure that we had full
control of the scene itself to mitigate any potential
contamination that
00:27:15
might happen thereafter. JOHNNY GREEN: It was very
quiet, I have to say. It was very quiet, but there
were-- there were other members
00:27:21
of the press there. Information was scant. The one thing I would
say about all the--
00:27:25
all the scenes I have
been to over the years, it's just one of those things
where people are scared.
00:27:32
People are fearful because
this has happened so close to where they live,
to where they're
00:27:35
bringing up their own children. And I think it
makes us all wonder, well, if it happened that
person, it could happen to us.
00:27:43
ADAM HIBBERT: One of the
most important aspects of an investigation
of this nature
00:27:48
is managing the crime
scene investigation. We only get one chance to
secure, preserve, and seize
00:27:54
evidence from that scene. JOHNNY GREEN: When you
attend the scene of a crime and there's a mobile unit which
has been set up by police,
00:28:06
that certainly
gives an indication that this is a serious
crime, a very serious crime.
00:28:11
This doesn't just
happen for no reason. This happens for certainly
a very good reason.
00:28:18
ADAM HIBBERT: And it is to
the credit of our crime scene officers that they worked
through night and day
00:28:24
through some
unpleasant conditions in making sure that we
achieved the best we could do in terms of a
forensic harvest of that scene.
00:28:35
And by forensic harvest, I
mean, what evidence can we extract from the scene
that will give us our best
00:28:43
chance of identifying
who carried out the attack on Marie Harding? JOHNNY GREEN: I don't think
I had an awful lot to go on.
00:28:50
You know, it was one
of those murders, one of those rare murders
where I think they felt
00:28:55
the perpetrator was not
known to the-- to the victim, which then-- you know, they really
got a tough job to do
00:29:01
and very quickly. What if that person's
still out on the street? ADAM HIBBERT: For
Sussex police, this
00:29:06
was a significant investigation
in terms of resources, if you can imagine
from the outset
00:29:12
that this is a lone
female who transpires to be a pillar of the
community in an area
00:29:20
whereby this sort of
thing doesn't happen. NARRATOR: September
the 15th, 2004, while the manhunt for the
murderer of Marie Harding
00:29:30
continued, Gonzalez spent
the night at home in Woking. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When
Gonzalez attacked Marie Harding,
00:29:37
he was wearing a hockey
mask like the Jason Voorhees character in the film
"Friday the 13th,"
00:29:42
and we know that he was
quite a fan of horror movies. So I think that for
Gonzalez, the line
00:29:49
between fantasy and
reality really had been crossed at this point in time. I'm not sure he was completely
aware of exactly what he was
00:29:58
doing, but I think
this-- this willingness to imitate this--
this character is something that was being
driven by his delusions
00:30:06
and by his psychosis. [somber music] GEOFFREY WANSELL: The following
day, the 16th of September,
00:30:13
2004, he gets the
train to London, where he knows how
to score drugs, and he knows how to drink.
00:30:22
And he goes on a
colossal bender, out and out madness,
drinks through the night,
00:30:35
until in the early hours
of the 17th of September, he takes a night bus from
Central London to Tottenham.
00:30:46
It's quiet. It's dawn. It's-- it's not light yet. And he happens upon
another complete stranger,
00:30:56
this time a great
big tall Irishman called Molloy who's in his 40s. He's a pub landlord.
00:31:05
PAUL CHESTON: And in the
early hours of the morning, he was walking home through
the streets of Tottenham
00:31:11
without, you can
imagine, a care, really, just a matter of having
had a very nice night out.
00:31:17
And he was-- he
was wandering home. As he was walking down
the road, Gonzalez attacked him with
a very large knife
00:31:26
and stabbed all around
his face, his neck, his upper chest, and his head. And-- and Gonzalez just
walked away into the night,
00:31:36
leaving him dead. [dramatic music] GEOFFREY WANSELL: Well, now
all constraints are lost.
00:31:43
With the drugs and the drink
still flowing through his body, he goes to a house.
00:31:50
I don't think he
specifically chose it. I think it was
much more a matter of randomness in Hornsey, not
all that far from Tottenham.
00:31:59
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Gonzalez
breaks into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Constantino. And he grabs a knife
in the kitchen,
00:32:06
and he's threatening Koumis
Constantino, the husband, with the knife. Then the wife
comes into the room
00:32:13
and-- and starts screaming. And I think at this point,
Gonzalez gets quite fearful
00:32:17
and realizes, I need to get
out of here, so then he flees. GEOFFREY WANSELL: So
you have had a man who's
00:32:24
killed at 5:30 in the
morning, attacks a couple in their house at 7
o'clock that same morning,
00:32:32
and now he has an
appetite to kill again. And so he-- he moves location. He goes to Highgate
in North London
00:32:43
and starts ringing
doorbells randomly. It's by now about
8:30 on that morning. He's ringing doorbells.
00:32:53
By sheer chance,
one of the couples who live in the various
houses opens the door.
00:33:04
The man is called
Derek Robinson, and he's a very distinguished
pediatrician who's worked
00:33:09
abroad, worked in this country. His wife Jean is a
Christian Aid worker, and she's younger but not much.
00:33:15
They are an archetypal
professional North London couple living in a
comfortable house in Highgate,
00:33:26
but they make the
mistake of answering the door to a man who's
literally out of his mind.
00:33:32
NARRATOR: Derek Robinson got
up to answer the doorbell. Gonzalez pushed him
back into the hallway
00:33:38
and launched into a frenzied
knife attack on him. Mrs. Robinson
ran to his defense,
00:33:44
and the two older people
were desperately and bravely trying to ward the blows off.
00:33:50
But Gonzalez was young,
and he had an intent and purpose about him. There is going to be no mercy.
00:33:58
He's covered in
blood and decides that he's going to have a
shower to wash the blood off
00:34:06
and takes a shower. PAUL CHESTON: As Gonzalez
was showering himself in a vain attempt to rid
himself of the horrendous blood
00:34:15
staining on himself
and his clothing, he was shocked to find a
decorator suddenly arriving.
00:34:21
By prearranged
appointment, the decorator was hired by the
Robinsons to do some work.
00:34:25
Imagine his shock, then, to
find a half-naked bloodstain man sprinting out of the
house and down the road.
00:34:32
But the decorator was
able to raise the alarm, and for the first time, the
police were on the trail
00:34:38
of Daniel Gonzalez. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: September
the 17th, 2004, after murdering the Robinsons
in their Highgate home,
00:34:52
Gonzalez fled the scene and
headed for Central London. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Gonzalez left
the bodies of all his victims
00:35:03
essentially where they
fell, and he fled the scene. So this was somebody for whom
covering up after himself was
00:35:09
not an overriding priority
because I think he was acting on those impulses,
on those delusions
00:35:16
that he was having. And I think his-- his mental health had
deteriorated to such an extent
00:35:21
at this point that--
that he wasn't always in control of his actions. So I think after he
carried out a murder,
00:35:28
he just wanted to get as far
away from it as possible. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Well,
of course, the decorator
00:35:33
can give a description of him. Of course, he's
covered in blood. It doesn't take very long.
00:35:39
I mean, this is a double murder. At that point, they
haven't connected the other two murders
or the attempted--
00:35:45
the two attempted murders. This is a double murder. No wonder the Met are
going to respond quickly,
00:35:51
and certainly, they do. NARRATOR: In Sussex, at the
Marie Harding crime scene, the forensic team had discovered
some crucial evidence.
00:36:00
ADAM HIBBERT: Crime scene team
did their job, fantastic job, and were able to identify
a fingerprint from a money
00:36:07
bag which Marie Harding had got
when she'd exchanged the money for her trip to Australia.
00:36:13
Without the recovery of the
fingerprint, without the fact, then, that Gonzalez already had
an existing criminal record,
00:36:23
without those two things
enabling us to identify him early on in the
inquiry, this inquiry
00:36:32
could have ran on a-- for much, much, much longer,
and in addition to that and more worryingly
and concerningly,
00:36:40
so could have his murder spree. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
And by noon that day, Gonzalez is arrested
at Tottenham Court Road
00:36:48
Underground Station
with at least one bloodstained
20-pound note on him. NARRATOR: September the 17th,
2004, less than 72 hours
00:37:03
after embarking on
his murderous rampage, Daniel Gonzalez was
in police custody.
00:37:10
PAUL CHESTON: Daniel Gonzalez's
first appearance in court after his arrest was at Highbury
Corner Magistrates' Court,
00:37:16
where he had formally to
appear in court in requirement with the law. But in an unprecedented
scene, one I have never
00:37:26
seen in 30 years of
covering the courts on a professional basis
every day of my life,
00:37:33
he did not appear in court. The court, in terms of
the magistrate, the clerk, the barristers, the
police, the press
00:37:41
went down to the
cells inside the court because he was too dangerous
to be taken from his cell
00:37:49
up into open court. Very quickly, the
police knew they had a man responsible for
the three previous attacks
00:37:56
in the London area, but it still
took time to piece together his previous trail
through Portsmouth, which
00:38:02
was investigated by
the Hampshire force, and the murder in Southwick,
which was being investigated
00:38:09
by the Sussex force. NARRATOR: The
police knew they had the man responsible for
four heinous murders
00:38:15
and three brutal attacks. Gonzalez was charged
but could not be put on trial until extensive
psychiatric assessments were
00:38:24
completed. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Gonzalez is,
of course, remanded in custody originally to Belmarsh
but then before very long
00:38:37
to Broadmoor Secure Hospital. Gonzalez is now
so out of control that he tries to kill
himself in Broadmoor
00:38:47
by biting his arteries. Now, that is a-- a remarkable thing. One of the psychiatrists who
dealt with him said he'd never
00:38:58
seen anyone bite themselves
so fiercely nor so aggressively nor so
determinedly, so desperate
00:39:06
was Gonzalez to end his life. NARRATOR: February
2006, 18 months later, the trial of Daniel Gonzalez
began at the Old Bailey
00:39:18
in London. PAUL CHESTON: After the
prolonged examination by a huge number
of psychiatrists
00:39:23
and psychologists, he arrived
at the Old Bailey for his trial and pleaded not guilty to murder
but guilty to manslaughter
00:39:31
on the grounds of
diminished responsibility. He claimed that he was
a paranoid schizophrenic
00:39:37
at the time of the attacks and
was so mentally ill that that lessened his criminal
responsibility,
00:39:46
even though he admitted that he
had, in fact, been the killer. ADAM HIBBERT: When they
presented him in the dock,
00:39:51
I have a vivid
memory of thinking how intimidating he looked. He had bulked up significantly
from the time of his arrest
00:40:00
to the point of the trial. PAUL CHESTON: Over the
years, many Old Bailey juries have had to consider
the age-old question of,
00:40:08
is the defendant who is charged
with murder bad, or is he mad? This was a case in which the
lines between bad and mad
00:40:19
were seriously blurred. ADAM HIBBERT: The
thing for me personally that stuck out around
Daniel Gonzalez
00:40:25
was his eyes, piercing eyes. And to me, he had the
eyes of a killer-- cold, heartless.
00:40:34
I do know that he had
certain mental health issues, but nonetheless, he
grew up into a man who
00:40:42
decided to go and ruthlessly
take the lives of four people, try and take the
lives of others.
00:40:48
And for me, he was the
personification of evil. I think when we look back on-- on the police investigation,
we can see just how quickly
00:41:00
the police stepped
up and-- and tried to-- to catch this killer. So it was a very
fearful time, I think,
00:41:07
and I think it was also a
time when that stigma attached to-- to mental ill health
started to increase
00:41:14
a little bit, you know, this--
this notion of the-- the, quote, "madman on the run."
00:41:19
And that hasn't done
anything to help people with-- with mental illness. And I think when we've
got cases like this,
00:41:25
we need to remember
that they are very, very few and far between. Most people who
have schizophrenia
00:41:30
will never harm another person. One of the most damning
pieces of evidence that the prosecution
produced for the Old
00:41:37
Bailey jury was Daniel Gonzalez'
writings and his diaries. These showed exactly
how coldly and callously
00:41:47
he was working his
way through life in order to achieve his goal
of becoming a serial killer.
00:41:52
ADAM HIBBERT: Whilst
in court, Gonzalez was always flanked by two guards. He was an intimidating presence.
00:41:59
That must have had an impact
on the family members who are watching this unfold and
seeing the man that had taken
00:42:07
the life of their loved ones. PAUL CHESTON: The trial
lasted only a matter of days,
00:42:12
and it was really on a small
issue, which was, was he sufficiently
mentally ill in order
00:42:20
to be not guilty
of murder and just be committed to a mental
hospital for manslaughter?
00:42:27
It's a single issue. And so the psychiatrists
gave differing views, and the jury had to
make up their mind
00:42:33
whether this constituted
murder or manslaughter. In the end, they
took only 15 minutes,
00:42:39
certainly less than an hour,
to come to their unanimous view that this was murder.
00:42:44
NARRATOR: Daniel
Gonzalez was sentenced to six life sentences. He would never be
a free man again.
00:42:51
[somber music] GEOFFREY WANSELL: But the
tragic story of Daniel Gonzalez is not finished.
00:42:58
He's returned to Broadmoor,
and on the 9th of August, 2007, he kills himself
using a broken CD case
00:43:09
cover to slit his arteries. He's in his room at Broadmoor. He's 27 years old. [dramatic music]
00:43:23
NARRATOR: Maybe Daniel Gonzalez
no longer knew the difference between reality and fantasy.
00:43:29
Maybe his killing spree
made sense to him, but it made no sense to his
victims and their loved ones.
00:43:37
For them, Daniel Gonzalez
is one of the world's most evil killers.