All the girls were shapely brunettes; the other common factor was that a young, handsome man had approached other girls on the beach in Scarborough during that summer, which was Smith. There were no other clues to their disappearances until some forestry workers strolling in the countryside found a jawbone and other bones in the cluster of branches which had fallen from trees in a wood near Malton near Scarborough.
The discovery of these bones sent shockwaves through the town and they later linked the murders with the disappearance of two other girls in Ripon, North Yorkshire, where they were reported missing after a picnic in a local park. Again witnesses talked of the mysterious and charming tall black man who had been seen talking to the girls shortly before they vanished.
Smith had the means of long distant travel through his job as a lorry driver for Tesco and would regularly deliver to these outlets throughout the North of the country.
He lived with his wife and young daughter in a modest terraced house in Prestwich, north Manchester, nearby to Tesco’s main warehouse.
Police were stopping all Tesco trucks, due to the witness’s statements of a Tesco lorry always in the vicinity of where the girls disappeared and with so many companies’ vehicles on the roads, detectives were no closer after interviews with Tesco’s delivery department.
His victims were attracted by his good looks and after being charmed by Smith’s invitation, he would tie the girls up to a tree, remove their undergarments and rape them repeatedly. Once released from the tree, he would club his victim until their bodies became limp, then bury them in a shallow grave covered with leaves. The post-mortem revealed three of the victims had been buried whilst still being alive, where evidence of their desperation to survive was by the soil bedded deep under their fingernails as they tried to claw their way out through the soil, in useless desperation.
Smith also rented a small flat on the other side of Manchester, of which his wife had been unaware. Some victims had been lured to this flat for sex, after falling for his plausible methods and his striking good looks.
After renting the flat for only six months, the next tenants, a couple of young student boys from the nearby college, shortly after their occupancy they detected a foul smell which seemed to be emanating from a paper covered kitchen cupboard. Thinking that a rat had found its way inside and died, they ripped open the cupboard. What they found made them call 999 immediately. When the police arrived they stripped the flat. In the kitchen cupboard they found the bodies of three naked girls, two more bodies were found naked, buried in the back yard and another under the floorboards in the sitting room.
Their search intensified and the police now trailed all Tesco lorries leaving the depot for the northern counties. Smith was unaware of his movements being watched as he pulled in to a lay-by near a remote beach on the outskirts of Bridlington. As he approached two teenage girls sat on rocks, the police made their presence known and took Smith to the local police station for questioning.
He was transferred to the police headquarters in Manchester for further questioning.
The police went to Smith’s house to undergo a full examination of the premises, while his wife stood motionless as they ransacked the small house surrounded by curious neighbours.
His wife became hysterical when told of the charges her husband faced and screamed, ‘Rick is not a vicious or a savage murderer, he’s a kind and loving husband.’
After two days of interrogation, Smith still did not admit to his crimes, which by this time had caused snowballing hysteria amongst the three counties law enforcement departments which were desperate to pin all their recent unsolved crimes on Smith. He convinced the detectives that he had not been aware of any foul smell in the flat he had rented.
While he was still in custody, a well-timed breakthrough from the forensics showed unusual teeth marks on two of the victims.
Evidence from a dental expert proved that bite marks on the body of one of the girls matched Smith’s teeth. As one of the girls had lay dying, she had been brutally bitten on her breasts and buttocks. The other dead girl had been raped, battered and strangled so violently that a police witness said at first he thought she had been decapitated. This was the conclusive evidence the police desperately needed and he was arrested for the crimes.
When the verdict was announced in Manchester Crown Court, Smith’s wife shrieked in anguish and screamed from the public gallery. ‘He is innocent, he is innocent,’ The presiding judge described Smith as being ‘the most vicious criminal the Greater Manchester and surrounding counties had ever seen in the history of his court.’
He had been imprisoned in Strangeways five years before Bell’s arrival, so was well versed to life on the inside and had become a self-involved loner who was the leader of a small group of inmates, linked by similar criminal activities.
He was a tobacco baron who would hoard cigarettes and tobacco under his mattress and sell it at high rates of interest or against payment of other goods or services, many being sexual. He had a string of young boys who were known as ‘runners’ who would enforce payment. Those who did not pay or offer sexual favours were beaten up. Smith and other group leaders within the limited economy of a prison wing, were the outside equivalent to moneylenders or pimps.
Bell had not slept well through the night, being disturbed by the shouting of inmates, the constant banging of doors and the rattle of keys from the screws that patrolled the wing corridor. He climbed down from his top bunk to see a dull early morning light struggle through the small barred window and sat on the cold metal toilet bowl, looking over at Smith as he lay naked, snoring with his foot resting on the cold slab floor.
A loud rattle of keys opened the cell door with the harsh voice of a well-built screw shouting, ‘Out, out, out, come on, Smith and you Bell, showers.’
Smith woke and struggled off his bed as Bell dressed quickly, still not a word was spoken as Bell left the cell to join the stream of other inmates congregating on the corridor and slowly dragging their feet to the shower block, with a towel under their arms. Bell arrived at the shower block to see a multitude of naked men and boys, some in the shower and the others impatiently waiting for their turn. A young boy had been cornered in a shower cubical surrounded by naked men. It was difficult to see what was happening due to the amount of men blocking Bell’s view, but the screams of the young lad were enough to make Bell realise that he was being raped while the screws watched on, smiling at each other without intervening.
The attack lasted only a few minuets and when the on-looking crowds dispersed, the young lad squatted in the corner, crying in pain as he clutched his buttocks.
Bell took his turn in the middle row of open showers, with groups of inmates at each side soaping their bodies and some soaping other bodies, while the row of toilets were full of guys sat on the pans at the doorless latrines with the array of tones associated with the first ablutions of the day. The screws had by this time left the block due to the overpowering stench of excrement and body odour.
Bell dried off with the occasional glance from the few remaining inmates, and went down to the food hall to collect a breakfast of powdered scrambled egg and thin bacon with a piece of dry cold toast and weak tea.
Sitting next to him was a big fat guy with a rough complexion and thick glasses
This was Raymond Cole, the notorious murderer who had been in every newspaper in the country for his crimes against young boys, resulting in a similar fate to those who had been at the hands of Bell himself.
His heavy thirty stone bulk and sexuality constantly made him a figure of fun for the other inmates. At 13, his two elder brothers, who continued the incestuous relationship until he reported it to the police two years later, had raped him. For reasons he did not understand, he was blamed for the sordid affair, and forced to live a cloistered existence, which deprived him of normal relationships as a teenager. When he left school he took a job at Burtons Menswear as a sales assistant in his hometown of Bradford, but his n
ymphomaniac sex life forced him to leave town where he took a job as a gardener in a school near Otley.
On meeting a guy in the local public toilets, Raymond was taken to this guy’s house near Guisley, who attempted to rape him as soon as they entered the house.
Fearing the same fate which his brothers had reduced him too, a scuffle arose where Raymond strangled and battered his victim to death with a hammer which was lying on the kitchen worktop. He stuffed the body in the boot of his car and drove to a remote area of Fewston Reservoir, where he disposed of the body in the deep water.
The next day, he was driving to Harewood on the outskirts of Leeds when a young girl was waiting at the bus stop. He stopped the car to offer the girl a lift, which she accepted due to the cold wind and heavy downpour. He drove off the main road and as she tried to leave the moving car in fear, he attacked her as the car still continued along the quiet lane. As blood flowed from her mouth, he forced her into the back seat, ordered her to remove her clothes, and then violently raped her twice.
He pulled her out of the car and left her on the grass verge as he drove off. He turned the car around in a farm lane and unexpectedly headed back to his naked victim, who was staggering up the muddy grass bank in search of help when Raymond stopped the car and followed her up the bank. He strangled her until her body went limp. Convinced he had eliminated the only witness to his crime, he drove off.
A passing driver spotted the naked girl and alerted the police and ambulance.
She recovered consciousness in hospital and began giving waiting police officers extremely detailed descriptions of her assailant. Due to the severity of her wounds she was consigned to a wheelchair for six months, but her mind was unaffected as she continued to give evidence at the trial.
For three years his crime went undetected and in which time he had set himself up in business, selling frozen packed meats in a back street shop in Leeds.
He spent most of his time among the con men and dubious traders at the straggling markets outside the Central railway station. He became obsessed with the people inside the station – drifters from all over the country without jobs or money, homes or hopes, who would huddle on the platform benches at night to keep warm.
He knew he could make friends easily and soon realised there were opportunities for him among the young down and outs, some not more than twelve years old. They had run away from their homes, often unable to cope with life and their stern fathers and poverty existence.
Raymond would sit for hours listening to their grievances, offering them advice and winning their confidence. In a city like Leeds, where everyone was carefully documented, he had discovered a constant flow of people nobody could trace, they could disappear forever and their parents and police would be none the wiser.
The wretched youngsters he befriended were taken to his home for a good meal, often sexually assaulted, then he would kill them in the most savage fashion – a bite at the throat and the removal of their testicles and penis. He would then dismember the bodies, boiling the meat and throwing the skull and bones in the nearby river.
The police had been notified by neighbours that a constant stream of young boys went into his house, but that none ever seemed to come out. They had overheard sounds of screams, followed by the sound of chopping and splashing but no evidence of body remains were found in the premises and the police left, being satisfied that Raymond had nothing to do with the disappearance of these young boys.
A few days later, a neighbour was chatting to Raymond outside the back of his house. As they chatted and joked, a paper covering the bucket he was carrying slipped slightly, and she noticed the bucket was full of blood. She said nothing to him or the authorities as Raymond had to cut up carcasses of meat as part of his trade with his food business.
Pressure was building up on the Leeds police force as newspapers had noted that large numbers of youths arriving in Leeds railway station had vanished and the city was acquiring a sinister reputation. The published fears brought out into the open suspicions which many people had been prepared to keep to themselves; the skull of a young child, which had been washed-up on the bank of the river was the final straw.
Now the police had to deal not with the occasional distraught parent, but with outraged public opinion due to the latest find by the river.
A customer had purchased some meat from Raymond’s shop but found it did not resemble the normal pork she was familiar with. It had a strange, sweet smell and very tender to the touch but a much darker shade of pink than her usual purchase.
She ate a small portion of the pork, but found it inedible and took it back to Raymond’s shop to complain. He reimbursed her, assuring her it was fresh pork but not being satisfied with his explanation and apology, she took the spare piece of pork she had retained at her house to the local Environmental Health Office.
On examination, it was unmistakably human flesh and the police were immediately notified.
The police returned to Raymond’s house to undergo a full and detailed forensic job on the premises but as they arrived at the house, he broke down and confessed, knowing that the piece of pork had brought his reign of terror to an end. He was immediately arrested, as more and more human remains were being discovered on the bed of the receding river, watched by hundreds of people lining the banks.
Once in detention, the names of the missing boys were read to him, he refused to answer and kept his head down, staring at the floor.
Nearly fifty witnesses had to appear in the box, mostly the parents of the unfortunate youths. There were scenes of painful intensity as a poor father and mother would recognise some fragment or other of the clothing or belongings of their murdered son.
The belongings consisted of a handkerchief, underpants, and a greasy coat, soiled almost beyond recognition that was shown to Raymond and relations. He admitted to the court that once he had known of these items and of the boys who wore them.
He was sentenced to thirty years for his crimes, with refusal of any parole.
He had only served two years of his sentence when he was now eating his breakfast next to John Bell, whose crimes had a similarity to his own.
They walked together to the exercise yard and joined three hundred other inmates walking around at the command of a group of screws.
‘Watch that bastard over there, Bell,’ Cole said as he pointed to a shaven headed ugly man who was kicking a ball fiercely against the high wall of the compound.
He was pointing at Peter Booth, another lifer who killed men, women, children and animals, in fact he would kill anything he found.
Peter’s criminal life started at an early age when he witnessed the exploits at first hand in the tiny village of Spofforth in North Yorkshire. His father would arrive home drunk every afternoon, he beat the three children and sexually violated his wife in front of them.
He also committed incest with his 13-year-old daughter, Peter Booth followed his father’s example a few years later. From the age of 9, he also had another teacher; the local dogcatcher introduced him to torturing animals. Peter was an enthusiastic pupil, and progressed from dogs, sheep, pigs, goats, geese and swans; what excited him most was the sight of their blood. He frequently cut off the heads of swans and drank the blood that spurted out.
He soon switched his attentions to human victims.
As a boy he had drowned two playmates while all three, swam around in a lake a few miles outside the village. By the age of 16 he was living in York with a masochistic woman who enjoyed being beaten and half strangled. She had a daughter of 16 also and all three enjoyed a sordid co-existence, which was interrupted when his attempts at theft and fraud landed him a short spell in Wakefield Young Offenders Institute.
He always thought that the injustice and inhumanity of his treatment in the institution led to his blood-soaked career as a sadistic killer.
He was not the ideal prisoner; he would deliberately break prison rules to gain solitary confinement, where he indulged his eroti
c reveries.
When he was released from prison, Peter Booth began to turn his daydreams into nightmare reality, He became an arsonist, the sight of flames delighted him but above all it was the excitement of seeing people’s desperate attempts to extinguish the fire and the agitation of those who saw their property being destroyed.
His first attempts of murder were unsuccessful, as after meeting a girl in a local coffee bar in York, he assaulted her during intercourse at the back of the Minster. He left her body for dead but no body was ever found. It was assumed that the girl recovered enough to crawl away, too ashamed or scared to report the incident to the police.
Eight-year-old Janet Richmond was not that lucky, She was found in bed, violently raped with her throat cut, her father was arrested and tried but through the lack of evidence against him, he was released, but the shame of the charge stuck with him and he committed suicide shortly afterwards.
Starting his spree of killings and avoiding arrest at such an early age, he was now on a mission. He broke in to the Cow and Calf public house in Fishergate in York, where the owners lived upstairs.
As he climbed into an open toilet window on the ground floor, he went up the stairs to discover a child asleep. Her little head with blonde hair was facing the window as she slept; he put his hands around her tiny throat and strangled her for about a minute. The child woke up and struggled but lost consciousness. He took out a small pocket-knife and slit her throat. He sipped the blood as it trickled onto the mat beside the bed.
It lasted a couple of minutes, then he left the room and climbed back through the open window. The next day he was sitting in a café and read all about the murder in the newspaper, people were talking about it all around him, the horror and indignation fuelled his appetite for more.
He met a string of women and married one of them. For a time, he gave up petty crime and murder and got a job in Rowntrees chocolate works where he became a popular person and a respected pillar of society; quiet, charming, carefully dressed and meticulous about his appearance.
Inseparable Bond Page 3