When Stephen Griffiths was asked to state his name in court, his chilling reply was: ‘the crossbow cannibal’. One of Britain’s most horrific killers, he didn’t show remorse, instead, Griffiths exuded pride as he was charged with the murders of three women.
The only thing the killer showed frustration about was that his spree had come to an end.
It was a brave young woman called Suzanne Blamires and an unnamed caretaker who finally set the wheels in motion to put an end to his dark crimes, that needlessly cost Susan Rushworth, 43, Shelley Armitage, 31, and Suzanne, 36, their lives between June 2009 and May 2010.
The caretaker usually started his working week by reviewing CCTV footage taken over the weekend at aconverted Victorian textile factory on Thornton Road in Bradford, where Griffiths lived in a top-floor flat.
On May 24, the routine task threw up footage of Griffiths, armed with a black crossbow, dragging Suzanne along the corridor and through his front door. She had tried to escape from his home by quickly running away, but tragically, the killer caught up with her.
Sign up for all of the latest stories
Start your day informed with Metro’s News Updates newsletter or get Breaking News alerts the moment it happens.
When the video was first viewed, three days had already passed. The caretaker handed the information to the police, who hoped Suzanne would still be alive.
Damian Sharp, West Yorkshire Police’s firearms tactical advisor, was instructed to plan and execute the raid to arrest Griffiths. ‘As far as I was concerned, I was dealing with a hostage situation because I had no other information to say that she wasn’t alive at that time,’ he tells Metro. It was decided that a team of six officers would barge through Griffith’s door using force. The plan was to overwhelm him, so he froze and fell rather than fight, and no further harm would come to his victim.
‘He was in bed, and immediately upon their entering the room, he put his hands up,’ recalls Damian. ‘He was quite humble at first, but after the handcuffs went on, he started getting nasty, bragging about the things he’d done.’
The officers discovered that Griffiths had been luring sex workers back to his home. There, he would kill and dismember the women before eating their body parts. Recalling what was found in his flat, Damian says: ‘It smelled of burnt flesh and there was evidence in the bathtub.
‘The officers had been in a lot of not-very-nice houses, but they said this one made their skin crawl and left them feeling uneasy.
‘As far as the actual arrest was concerned, it went fairly smoothly, but it’s all sad for the victims. My sister went to school with Shelley — she was lovely, but trusted the wrong person.’
Shelley’s mother, Gill, said that her daughter was ‘very much loved’ and would be ‘sadly missed’ by her loved ones. After Griffiths’ conviction, in which he was jailed for life, Suzanne’s mother, Nicky, also bravely spoke, saying that ‘quite simply, no family deserves what we have gone through. All of these girls were people’s daughters and much-loved human beings.’
At her daughter’s funeral, she said Suzanne, who undertook nursing training, was ‘a bright and articulate girl who took the wrong path’.
Christine Thompson, the mother of Susan, told The Sun that her daughter was receiving treatment for addiction before her death. ‘I don’t know how I will cope without her. She was my best friend and like a sister to me,’ she said.
The killer’s plan
Behavioural scientist Dr Nicola Davies, an expert in criminal profiling, says Griffiths’ case is ‘the most horrific’ that’s crossed her desk.
‘It’s horrible to say, and it makes you shiver, but Stephen was very much hunting sex workers like animals, and the Bradford red light district was his hunting ground,’ she tells Metro.
‘He would cannibalise them because he wanted to own the victims. There definitely would have been more murders if he hadn’t been caught.’
Although the remains of Suzanne and Shelley were found, Susan’s body is still missing and Griffiths still refuses to reveal where she is.
‘He wants to remain the centre of the story, even in his silence,’ says Dr Davies. ‘I don’t think he’ll ever have any signs of remorse, because he just hasn’t got that in him.’
Following his arrest, Griffiths claimed that there were more victims, but again, refused to give any specific information. ‘I’ve killed loads,’ he proudly declared. However, Dr Davies believes that he lied about any additional murders because he was disappointed to be caught before doing everything he wanted to do.
Griffiths, who studied criminology and was researching a PhD entitled Homicide In An Industrial City at the time of arrest, idolised serial killers, his greatest influence being Peter Sutcliffe, who murdered thirteen women and attempted to kill seven more between 1975 and 1980.
Known as the Yorkshire Ripper, his crimes filled the news when Griffiths was growing up in the area. ‘He would have witnessed the fear people felt and the media obsession that surrounded Sutcliffe, which would have likely helped shape his early ideas of power. He wanted to be like Pete and also outdo him,’ says Dr Davies.
‘His pedestaling of Sutcliffe would have been one of the motives for targeting sex workers, too. But there was another reason: Griffiths wasn’t good at forming relationships, so he needed to pick victims who would be easier to lure back to his flat. He could offer them money, a cup of tea, food; they needed him, and he came across as a bit of a saviour to them.’
Early signs
Griffiths’ sister, Caroline, says her brother’s bizarre behaviour was present from a young age. In the Prime Video documentary, The Crossbow Cannibal, she recalls how Stephen, now 55, stole, pulled wings off birds, killed his pet rat with a hammer, and inflicted physical and mental torture.
He would give his siblings ‘points’ when they annoyed him, and if they reached an undisclosed maximum, he would become violent. ‘From a young age, he was problematic, and it just escalated over the years. It got worse and worse. Consequences didn’t matter to him,’ she remembers.
Dr Davies explains that the acts indicate an emotional detachment from an early age. ‘He was turning cruelty into a game, and enjoying seeing others in pain,’ she explains.
‘His siblings didn’t go on to behave similarly, which suggests that it wasn’t simply a product of the environment.’
At 17, Griffiths was arrested for using a knife to injure a shop clerk while shoplifting, and at this time, he was found to have a personality disorder. By 1991, aged 22, Griffiths had been diagnosed as a sadistic schizoid psychopath.
‘The sadistic part means he took pleasure in causing pain and humiliation, schizoid is because he was emotionally cold, preferred solitude and could not form close relationships, and psychopathic means he showed multiple signs of manipulation and grandiosity, along with a lack of remorse,’ explains Dr Davies.
‘Serial killers usually have one of these, but Griffiths had all three, which is a highly dangerous concoction. There’s some debate within the psychiatric community as to whether these types of conditions can be treated, but there was not much hope for him, in my opinion.’
Caroline was somewhat expecting that one day her brother would do something unforgivable, and recalls the day reports first broke. ‘I was enjoying my fish and chips, and the BBC News was on. “A 40-year-old man in Bradford was arrested, and body parts were found in the river”. I made a funny noise, sucked air through my teeth and said, “My brother, I bet you that’s my brother”.’
Crafting the narrative
Griffiths created a persona, Ven Pariah, which he presented himself as on social networking websites. In one post, he said: ‘I am a pseudo-human being at best. A demon at worst.’ Dr Davies believes this was a bid to ‘elevate’ himself.
‘He describes Stephen as just the outer shell, and Ven as his true self. He wanted to make himself bigger and better than anyone else, so he was almost beyond human,’ she explains.
‘Griffiths used names, like crossbow, cannibal, vampire, and bloodbath artists, and said in a police interview, “Sometimes you kill someone to kill part of yourself”, to not just shock, but also to secure his place in history, so that future PhD students would study him just like he was studying others. He didn’t want to distance himself from the crimes but to own them and craft the story.’
Caroline adds in the documentary; ‘He wanted to be someone. It’s not my idea of someone you’d want to be, but clearly to him it was.
‘If it wasn’t for the fact that the brave young woman had to run out of the flat, then maybe he’d never have been caught. She stopped it from happening to a lot more people.’
The Crossbow Cannibal is streaming on Prime Video now
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Josie.Copson@metro.co.uk
Share your views in the comments below.
