One of London's most dangerous killers who strangled elderly victims in their beds
London has been home to many evil serial killers over the years, with one gaining particular notoriety under the name ‘The Stockwell Strangler’. Police officers were baffled in 1986, when a number of elderly citizens were found murdered in their South London homes over a short four-month period.
Several of them had been sodomised and sexually abused, with no signs of forced entry apparent at any of the crime scenes. A large-scale investigation took place to discover the depraved murderer that was targeting pensioners in Lambeth and Stockwell, often stealing their cash after strangling them to death.
A well-known homeless criminal was eventually found to be the perpetrator of the violent crime spree. Kenneth Erskine had repeatedly targeted the homes of widows and vulnerable citizens before he was caught by his own palm prints and jailed for life.
Who was Kenneth Erskine?
Born in Hammersmith in July 1963, Erskine was abandoned by his parents during childhood and attended various schools for children with special needs. It was said that as he grew older, he became increasingly violent and attempted to drown his classmates during a field trip when he was younger.
After leaving school, he became homeless and embarked upon a criminal career by committing a number of burglaries. Through the proceeds of his crimes, he managed to open 10 separate bank accounts before serving time in the young offenders institution HMP Feltham.
It was during 1986 at the age of 23 that he begun his violent killing spree, murdering a total of seven elderly victims. His first victim was Nancy Emms, a 78-year-old woman living in Wandsworth who was killed in her bed on April 9, 1986. Her death was initially suspected to have been due to natural causes however it was noticed by her home help that her television set was missing from her flat.
A post-mortem examination later revealed that she had been raped and strangled. His second victim was killed two months later in her bed on June 9, 1986, at another flat in Wandsworth. Janet Cockett, 67, was chairwoman of the tenants’ association and her death was also originally believed to have been from natural causes.
It was later discovered that she had been murdered with a post-mortem examination revealing that she had not been sexually assaulted. Police investigators found Erskine’s palm print on a window at her flat, but he was not connected to the murders until over a month later.
Following the death of his second victim, the depraved killer broke into the residence of an elderly man but abandoned this burglary when a noise disturbed him. He went on the commit his third and fourth murders at a residential home in Stockwell on June 28, 1986.
The two Polish men, one of whom was a World War II veteran, were sexually assaulted and strangled in their beds at their South London homes. On July 8, Erskine struck again and murdered William Carmen, an 84-year-old man living in Islington who was found dead in his bed by his daughter. Erskine had stolen money from his flat before sexually molesting him and strangling him to death.
Two weeks later on July 21, he murdered his sixth victim, 74-year-old William Downes, at a bedsit in Stockwell in a similar attack. His final victim was killed two days later after he murdered her at her home in Ranelagh Gardens Mansions in Fulham.
Florence Tisdall was an 83-year-old widow who lived on her own when she was strangled and raped in her bed by Erskine. Her body was discovered by a caretaker that morning and her murder was reported to the police. The depraved killer was arrested on July 28 at a social security office after police were able to match his palm print to the one he had left at his previous crime scene. He was also identified by a 74-year-old man who claimed Erskine had attempted to strangle him in his bed a few weeks before his arrest.
As he had a number of previous convictions for burglary, his fingerprints and photographs were already on police records and he was identified as the perpetrator during his killing spree. However, it was difficult to arrest him as he was a homeless drifter with no registered address.
It had been clear to detectives that the seven murders had been committed by the same man, given the similarities in their causes of death. In each case, the killer had knelt on his victims’ chests and placed a hand over their mouths while using the other hand to strangle them to death. Four of his victims had also been sexually abused, although it was unclear if this had happened before or after death and they had been found in their beds.
When entering the premises, he had used an unsecured window as police had failed to find signs of forced entry at any of the murder locations. While he was charged with the seven murders, police also believed him to be responsible for another four murders that had taken place in a similar time period and under similar circumstances. They did not, however, find sufficient evidence to charge him. Blaming a voice in his head, he told detectives: "I don't remember killing anyone, I could have done it without knowing it."
During his trial, it was reported that he was seen masturbating in the dock. He was later found guilty in January 1988 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was found to be suffering from a mental disorder and has been detained at Broadmoor Hospital ever since. In 2006, an assessment concluded that he had chronic schizophrenia and antisocial personality disorder, and that he had the mental age of a 10 year old.
Following an appeal, his murder convictions were reduced to manslaughter in 2009 on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The case centred on new medical evidence that he was suffering from an "abnormality of the mind" at the time of the killings.
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