The Crossbow Cannibal | Stephen Griffiths
39:32 Share

Moments of crisis can happen without warning. Are you prepared? SelectQuote makes it easy to compare policies from trusted life insurance providers and get a personalized quote in minutes. Go to selectquote.com slash crimehub and find the peace of mind you deserve.

This message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely, and invest with your guardrails in place. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance, and keep an eye on your kids' spending with real-time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight. Get started risk-free at greenlight.com slash Spotify.

Are you saying that you've killed Susan Rushworth? Yes. And what was the other name? Shelley Armitage. Are you saying that you've murdered Shelley Armitage? Yes. And then the last one? Susan Glamour. You say you've murdered her? Yes. Why did you feel the need to kill her? I don't know.

As the caretaker of Holmfield Court in Bradford, England, part of Peter Gee's Monday morning routine was reviewing security footage from over the weekend. The apartment complex on Thornton Road was a few hundred yards from Bradford City Center.

It stood on the precipice of the Red Light District, where neighbors included rowdy pubs, seedy nightclubs, and the derelict remains of old warehouses. But despite the environment, nothing of note ever happened at the Holmfield complex. At most, Mr. G would catch drunk teenagers spray-painting the walls on Saturday night. They'd be long gone by Sunday, leaving the burly 53-year-old caretaker to clean it up on Monday.

The complex had 16 cameras covering every doorway, hallway, and stairwell. Most of the footage was of tenants going about their daily business or stumbling home drunk after an evening on Thornton Road. But no matter how uneventful the footage was, Peter had to spend Monday mornings reviewing every second of it on super speed. Monday, May 24th, 2010, began like any other.

Peter scrubbed through hours of boring footage from Saturday until he came to camera 14, which monitored the third floor corridor. A blur in the sped up footage caught his eye. Somebody was dragging something heavy. He'd seen hundreds of people taking out the trash in his day. This was something different. He rewound the tape and slowed the footage. The timestamp read 2:31 in the morning.

A man was dragging a motionless woman down the corridor and toward his flat. Peter rewound further and found the moment when both figures entered the building. He recognized the man as 40-year-old Steven Griffiths. He lived in flat 33 and was known to bring prostitutes home to Holmfield. The girl walking with him could have been anyone from Thornton Road. Peter didn't recognize her.

Her name was Suzanne Blamires, a 36-year-old prostitute who'd become severely addicted to crack cocaine and heroin. Her story was tragic, and it was about to get much worse. Minutes later, the cameras captured Suzanne running frantically down the hall. Peter could tell she was afraid, but assumed it was a lover's quarrel or a dispute over money. He didn't think she was running for her life. The cameras caught Stephen emerging from his flat.

He wore a snarl on his face. His fists were clenched and ready to start swinging. He chased Suzanne down and beat her unconscious. That's when Peter arrived at the frame that had initially caught his eye. He watched as Stephen dragged Suzanne toward his flat, only to drop her within a few feet of the door. He vanished into his dim apartment and returned a moment later, carrying something heavy.

Peter paused the grainy footage and strained his eyes to see the object. Stephen gripped it in both hands like a weapon. It was heavy, metallic, and oddly cross-shaped. He hit play and paused again as Stephen brought the object up. Now, Peter could see it clearly. Stephen had a crossbow aimed directly at Suzanne's head. The cameras didn't record sound,

Peter's imagination filled in the twang of the bow, the zip of the arrow through the air, and the thwack of it penetrating the woman's skull and brain. Peter watched in frozen horror as Stephen dragged Suzanne into his flat. Empty frames ticked by in what felt like slow motion, until the crossbowman appeared on screen again. This time, he stared directly at the camera and, in a sense, directly at Peter.

He knew the camera was there. He knew it recorded his every move. He slung the crossbow over his shoulder and held up a defiant middle finger. It was a "fuck you" to the world he knew was watching. Steven's crossbow was only half the battle. What he did with his victims' bodies afterward earned him the nickname "The Crossbow Cannibal."

He admitted responsibility for the Bradford murders, during which three Thornton street sex workers vanished after crossing paths with Stephen. The cannibal wasn't a mindless murderer. Griffiths was a criminology student at Bradford University, working on a PhD thesis titled "Homicide in an Industrial City, 1847-1899."

Did his research into the mind of England's most ruthless 19th century killers drive him mad? Or did he use their stories as case studies for committing the perfect crime? Part 1: A Christmas Miracle Stephen Griffiths was born in West Yorkshire, England on Christmas Eve 1969.

His parents, Moira and Steven Sr., joked that their baby boy was so keen on making an appearance that he could not wait until Christmas Day. Moira was 20 years old and five months pregnant when she and Steven Sr. tied the knot. Their respective working-class families helped the couple get on their feet after Steven Jr. was born. More children followed, as did a promotion at work for Steven Sr. Life was looking up.

The family of five bought a private home in Flockton, a tiny village in West Yorkshire, between Leeds and Sheffield. Stephen Jr. was always an introverted kid. He never played around the property with his younger brother or sister, nor did he offer much to say in conversation. He dressed neatly and was incredibly hard to read. Happy, sad, and angry all looked the same on Stephen's face.

According to Moira's brother Joe, young Stephen was brilliant. The world was his for the taking. "He's going to crack it," Joe said. "Stephen's got it all." The 1970s bliss faded quickly during the early 1980s. Moira and Stephen's marriage fell apart, and the latter left and married his second wife. They moved to Batley, England, leaving Moira with the three kids. His parents' broken marriage broke Stephen beyond repair.

He became quieter and more withdrawn than ever. He'd break into his neighbor's garages and steal whatever he could get his hands on. He'd only return the items after being escorted to the crime scene by police. One neighbor said Steven began catching, killing, and dismembering birds in their garden. "It looked as if he enjoyed what he was doing," they said. "He wasn't dissecting them bit by bit. He was ripping them apart."

The demands of single motherhood were too heavy for Moira to juggle. Her twenties had flown by and she felt as though she had never gotten to enjoy her youth. Now in her early thirties, she was still pretty and slim enough to hold wandering eyes at the local drinking halls. She became a familiar face at every nightclub in West Yorkshire. Her evenings would end in the early morning hours, often bringing that evening suitor back home to her bed.

Despite all the male attention, Moira never settled down again. Stephen spent his formative years resenting his mother and growing up without a stable father. To their credit, Moira and Stephen Sr. recognized that their son was hurting. They pooled their savings and sent him to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School.

known as "QUEGS" for short. QEGS is a prestigious and pricey school in Wakefield, England. It's been around since the late 16th century and has produced notable alumni like John Radcliffe, the namesake of the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford; Richard Henry Lee, a congressman who helped solidify America's independence; and John Potter, an 18th-century Archbishop of Canterbury.

Another alumnus that Queggs would rather sweep under the rug is John George Hay, the Acid Bath Killer of Kensington. His serial killer nickname should tell you all you need to know. John Hay was a ghost story around Queggs, one that the students talked about in secret when the staff wasn't around. Rumor has it that the Acid Bath Killer's old desk is hidden in the Queggs' basement. His initials are allegedly carved into the wood.

Stephen Griffiths attended Queggs between the ages of 13 and 16. His classmates described him as an insignificant loser, obsessed with weapons and martial arts. Instead of pens and notebooks, Stephen showed up with daggers, throwing stars, and kung fu magazines. His only friends were the animals he killed and carved up between classes. Stephen dropped out of Queggs when he was 17.

He drifted from his family and spiraled into a deep depression. He spent every waking moment alone in his room, perhaps thinking about ways to end his own life or somebody else's. He almost killed his first victim in the spring of 1987 when a grocery store manager caught him shoplifting. The manager wrestled with him over the stolen items. That's when Steven drew a knife and slashed the manager across the face.

The manager required 19 stitches to repair the wound. Stephen was arrested and sentenced to three years in youth custody. During that time, he was diagnosed with a personality disorder, though doctors claimed to find no evidence of a formal mental illness. Stephen was back on the streets by 1988. He'd completely cut himself off from his family and failed to hold a job.

During that time, breakthroughs in criminal profiling science were helping police officers track and capture some of England's worst serial killers. Among them were John Duffy and David Mulcahy, who were arrested for a rape and murder spree between 1982 and 1988. Films like 1991's The Silence of the Lambs helped bring forensic psychology into the zeitgeist.

The science fascinated Stephen, who leaped at the chance to study serial killers as part of a formal education. His probation service helped secure a flat in Manningham, a rundown suburb northwest of Bradford. Ironically, the apartment was around the corner from Nine Oak Avenue, where Peter Sutcliffe, aka the Yorkshire Ripper, murdered his first victim in April of 1977.

Stephen idolized Sutcliffe and made it his life's mission to one-up the Ripper. "He was a pussycat compared to me," Stephen told a prison officer during a short stint for possessing a weapon in public. "What Sutcliffe did was nothing. I'm going to outdo him." By then, Stephen was 22 years old and talking openly about the pleasures of killing people.

While in prison, he called for the extermination of a mentally disabled man and had drawn up a list of staff members he wanted to kill. Despite the open threats, Stephen was released upon society in the spring of 1993. He must have learned to suppress his impulses and keep his twisted thoughts to himself. He resumed his studies and achieved a Bachelor of Science degree from Leeds University with a focus on psychology.

He moved into flat 33 in Holmfield Court, where he amassed a personal library of books about serial killers and homicides. The more violent, the better. Follow enough true crime and you'll notice a pattern. Someone takes out a life insurance policy and suddenly they're gone. It's why Slayer statutes exist. Laws that prevent killers from cashing in. That should tell you just how valuable a life insurance policy really is.

SelectQuote makes getting one simple. For over 40 years, they've helped millions secure over $700 billion in coverage by comparing policies from top-rated insurers. Their licensed agents work hard to find a plan that fits your budget and lifestyle, even if you have pre-existing conditions.

Some even qualify for same-day coverage without a medical exam. Life insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50% at selectquote.com slash crimehub. Save more than 50% on term life insurance at selectquote.com slash crimehub today to get started. That's selectquote.com slash crimehub.

Running a retail business can get messy fast, dealing with inventory issues, scattered data, and missed sales. But Shopify Point of Sale brings it all together in one seamless system. Shopify POS connects your physical and digital storefronts, giving you a single view of your business. Whether you have one location or thousands, everything stays in sync. Inventory, orders, customer data, and more. Your customers get flexibility. Buy online, pick up in-store, or have it shipped online.

to their door, and your team gets fast, intuitive tools to close every sale with confidence. On average, businesses using Shopify POS see an 8.9% increase in sales and a 22% better total cost of ownership. It's simple to use, easy to scale, and designed to grow with you. If you're ready to ditch the guesswork and deliver seamless retail experiences, head to shopify.com slash crimehub, all lowercase. That's shopify.com slash crimehub.

Your next step towards smarter selling. Part two, the other girls. The reclusive Stephen Griffiths was well known around Bradford. He'd owned several Nile monitor lizards, which grew between two and three feet long. The locals knew them well, as Stephen would walk the reptiles on dog leashes around Holmfield Court. He dressed in black from head to toe.

He wore a long leather raincoat and circle-framed sunglasses that rarely came off. He had long hair bound in rings that stretched to his lower back. He smelled like baby lotion, and despite his oddities, he was still relatively attractive. He'd stalk Bradford's underground music bars looking for young girls to talk to. Sometimes, he'd bring one of his two-foot lizards in a bag.

The gag repulsed most women, but some couldn't help but find him interesting. One of those girls was Lee Miller, a pretty blonde in her early 20s. Steven went up to her one night and asked for her phone number saying, "You'll make a sad man happy." Steven and Lee dated for eight months. When she broke things off, he shoved a book about the son of Sam through her mail slot. She'd seen it in his flat before among the hundreds of books about serial killers.

"It was creepy," she said. "I didn't read it." Stephen met Zeta Ponder in 1998, thanks to a newspaper ad for Lonely Hearts. Their relationship revolved around sex, often having it three or four times a week. However, those sessions would last two to four hours, as Stephen could never climax.

Zeta noticed other oddities about him. At night, he slept with cotton stuffed in his ears because he was afraid of insects crawling inside his head. Steven was highly protective of his hair. He'd run his fingers through hers and then bark like an angry dog if she touched his. By '98, Steven had turned his flat into an Aladdin's cave of murder paraphernalia, as true crime author Cyril Dixon describes in their book, "Crossbow Cannibal."

He had books, DVDs, and several weapons, including swords and the infamous crossbow. There's a reason he lied and told Zita that he lived with his parents. She believed that lie for two years until Stephen finally slipped up and was forced to show her his flat. She was horrified and broke up with him over the phone the following day. She and Lee Miller got away without a scratch, but the women who followed weren't so lucky.

An ex named Diane accused Stephen of pouring boiling water on her stomach while she slept. She took him to court, but Stephen managed to convince the jury that Diane was making it up. He later got the phrase "Diane lost war" tattooed on his upper left arm. In early 2000, Stephen began dating a red-headed prison officer named Kathy Hancock. She describes "Psycho Steve" as being overly clingy and possessive.

He always had to hold her hand or touch her in public. He demanded every second of Kathy's attention. He was even jealous of her dogs and didn't like her living in her own flat in Wakefield. One night, while she was staying over at Holmfield Court, Stephen dosed her with dothiapine, an antidepressant that he knew wouldn't mix well with the medication she was already taking. "You're dying," he cackled when Kathy began feeling weak and dizzy.

He waited until the combination of drugs had almost killed her. Then, he brought Kathy to the hospital and left her there overnight. She returned home to Wakefield after being discharged the following morning. Stephen was there and claimed that somebody had broken in the night before, but the only things missing were Kathy's dogs, Yoshi and Taz.

Kathy couldn't bear to live in the flat without her dogs. Devastated, she agreed to move in with Steven, despite him poisoning her and possibly killing her pets. His flat was like a prison. Kathy wasn't allowed to go anywhere without him. When they did go out, he'd hold her hand like a vice and eyeball every man that walked by.

The mental abuse turned physical over the next few weeks. By then, Stephen had reconnected with his siblings. His younger sister, Caroline, asked to take Kathy out dancing. Stephen relented, but demanded that Kathy be back within the hour. Kathy loved dancing and was out longer than Stephen allowed. In the car home that evening, Stephen sucker punched her in the face. She fought back thanks to some self-defense techniques she'd learned through work.

But Stephen was bigger and faster. He wrangled Kathy and finished her with a vicious headbutt. Kathy finally worked up the courage to pack her things and leave. But wherever she fled, Stephen followed. One night, she awoke at her parents' house to find four flat tires on her car. Later that day, she received a call from Stephen at the local hospital. He'd been in a car accident and needed Kathy to drive him home.

"By the way, you can't use your car," he said. "I've slashed the tires." Stephen spent the next nine years torturing Kathy from a distance. He would threaten her and send her hateful voice and text messages. He'd buy animals only to torture and neglect them. Once, Stephen bought a puppy, dosed it with Valium, and cut off its tail. Kathy begged him to let her come and take the dog. Stephen agreed, as it was a chance to see her again.

Restraining orders meant nothing to him. He'd wait for them to expire and then call Kathy while laughing maniacally like the Joker. Her torture ended in 2009 when Steven was arrested for harassment. By then, his attention had shifted to the sex workers on Thornton Road. His bloodlust had become unquenchable. His desire to control and dominate women had completely taken over. The crossbow cannibal was ready to start hunting.

43-year-old Susan Rushworth had the displeasure of meeting him first. Part Three: Hunting Grounds They say sex is the world's oldest profession. In the United States, prostitution is illegal in every state but two: Nevada and Maine. In Nevada, sex workers are required to operate in approved brothels. In Maine, prostitution is decriminalized, but paying for sex is still illegal.

In Great Britain, sex work is legal. However, everything else associated with sex work, such as pimping, soliciting, curb crawling, and managing a brothel, is against the law.

The murky laws around prostitution force the working girls into the dimly lit, rundown outskirts of major English cities, where people like Stephen Griffiths like to play. "Our foolish laws mean that while prostitution is not in itself illegal, working in a brothel is," said Max McLean, the lead detective on the Griffiths case. "This gives a clear message to those who work in prostitution. You're on your own and out on the streets."

In recent years, there have been conversations in the UK to adopt laws similar to Germany and the Netherlands, where prostitution, soliciting sex, and running a brothel are legal but tightly regulated, assuming everyone is a consenting adult. In 2014, there were an estimated 400,000 legal prostitutes in Germany.

The industry brought in about 14.6 billion euros or roughly 19.5 billion dollars. Had any of the crossbow cannibals victims simply hopped on a plane, they could have made a better life for themselves in a country with laws aimed at protecting rather than punishing. Susan Rushworth, or Susie as her friends called her, was putting her life back together. She was addicted to heroin but sought professional help.

She'd been clean for five weeks before she went missing on June 22, 2009. The slim, 43-year-old prostitute was last seen near her flat in Manningham, a suburb north of Bradford. She'd left behind two adult children, a nine-year-old son and three grandchildren. "There is no reason she would have just left," said her 24-year-old son James. "She just started seeing her grandkids again and was finally getting to know them."

Susie was an epileptic, and her family feared that she had stopped taking her medication. Her life didn't have to be this way. She was married once, but the relationship imploded due to domestic violence. She discovered heroin and couldn't put down the needle. Jobless and looking to score, Susie turned to sex work.

Her 21-year-old daughter, Christy, went down a similar road. Her drug of choice was crack cocaine, and she'd been prostituting to feed her habit since she was 18. Sometimes, mother and daughter worked the Bradford streets together. Family members called Susie for weeks after her disappearance. Phone records showed that her phone was likely dead, as she hadn't used it since the day she went missing.

On Christmas, James and Christy spoke out via the local newspaper saying, "Somebody knows what happened to our mom. If you know something and expect it to go away, it won't. We will keep searching for answers." Shelly Armitage had just bought a new puppy before she went missing on April 26th, 2010. The 31-year-old prostitute had worked the streets of Huddersfield before moving to Bradford. The new dog meant the world to her. She'd never pack up and leave it.

Like Susie Rushworth, Shelley was ensnared by drugs and alcohol. She left home that day with a friend and told her she was going on the beat in Bradford. Nobody ever saw Shelley again. About a month later, 36-year-old Suzanne Blamires vanished after arguing with an unidentified man near her housing complex in Allerton, west of Bradford. Her mother, Nikki, said Blamires was a bright and articulate girl who'd taken the wrong path.

She was in college and training to be a nurse when she discovered heroin. Blamire's friends described her as a feisty woman who went by Amber on the Bradford streets. She lived with a boyfriend who allegedly encouraged her to prostitute herself to fund their drug habits. Other working girls described her as a mess and a drunk who was always stumbling around, but she was tough as nails and always picked herself up off the ground.

She'd been battered and gang raped more times than you can imagine. One of the other street girls said, "Suzanne was so mad she just slept it off like a hangover and went out again the next night covered in bruises." She grew up going to church each Sunday and getting straight A's in school. Her wedding photos from 2000 show a glowing 20 year old with her hair beautifully done. By 2001, she was spiraling on the streets and holding her hair up with a rubber band.

She ran into trouble that year when she propositioned a plainclothes police officer for sex. It was just one of many signs that the bright, church-going girl with a future had become lost in the shadows of addiction and desperation. That's when Stephen Griffiths entered the picture. Like many predators, he knew how to spot the vulnerable. He offered money, charm, or the promise of drugs, whatever it took.

Suzanne followed him home, just like Susan Rushworth and Shelley Armitage had before her. What happened to Rushworth and Armitage is a mystery. The only person who knows for sure is Stephen. And while he's been outspoken about his crimes, it's hard to believe a word he says. As for Suzanne Blamires, CCTV cameras outside Stephen's flat caught most of the crime from beginning to end.

If only there'd been a camera inside his apartment, we might have seen which pieces of Blemmeyer's wound up on his dinner plate that night.

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless. How did it get 30, 30, how did it get 30, how did it get 20, 20, 20, how did it get 20, 20, how did it get 15, 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month? Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes if network's busy. Taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile.com. The NBA playoffs are here, and I'm getting my bets in on FanDuel. Talk to me, Chuck GPT. What do you know? All sorts of interesting stuff. Even Charles Barkley's greatest fear. Hey, nobody needs to know that. New customers bet $5 to get 200 in bonus bets if you win. FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook.

Part 4. I am the crossbow cannibal. Home field court caretaker Peter G couldn't believe his eyes. Once he gathered himself, he called the police and showed them the sickening footage.

Detective Chief Superintendent Max McLean looked into Stephen's eyes in the footage and knew this was the man he'd been searching for since the summer of 2009. At that point, Bradford police didn't know if Suzanne Blamires was dead. She'd been shot in the head with a crossbow, but there was a chance she was still alive and being held prisoner inside Flat 33.

They stormed Stephen's apartment to find the killer relaxed and welcoming, as if he'd been waiting for them. Unfortunately, there were no signs of Suzanne. The first words out of Stephen's mouth were, "I am Osama bin Laden." Police took him into custody without incident, and he quickly confessed to the three murders without pressure. A search of his flat uncovered sadistic images on his computer, including photos of Shelley Armitage's naked body.

Police also found videos of the victims taken after Stephen had killed them. One of the clips showed Shelley Armitage's battered and bloodied body in the bathtub. Stephen had spray-painted the words "My Sex Slave" across her back. Police later recovered a cell phone that Stephen had lost on a train. On it, they found first-person footage of Stephen murdering Shelley while narrating the whole thing.

More security tapes revealed that Stephen was back on the hunt shortly after killing Suzanne Blamires. He went to the Red Light District and tried courting another sex worker, identified in court documents as "R." Her refusal to go with him likely saved her life. Stephen returned that night and began dismembering Blamires' body.

According to the police, he cut her into 81 pieces and brought them in suitcases onto a train the following day. He rode to the nearby town of Shipley, where he dumped her remains in the river Aire. Police divers searched the area and soon found what was left of Blamires. They also found a few fragments of Shelley Armitage along with the bag of murder weapons and tools that Stephen had discarded with their bodies.

As for Susie Rushworth, her body, or what's left of it, has never been found. Stephen had always wanted to kill. After his arrest, a former probation officer came forward with a morbid memory from Stephen's youth. The crossbow cannibal had told the officer that his murder career would begin in his early 30s.

In the end, Stephen waited until he was closer to 40. He needed to study. He needed to prepare. He needed to ensure that he would be remembered among England's most heinous serial killers. And every good killer needs a name. The tabloids swarmed the story like vultures. The Sun magazine quoted Peter Gee extensively in their lead piece.

They were the first to suggest that Stephen Griffiths had eaten parts of his victims, thus dubbing him the Crossbow Cannibal. Stephen took the nickname in stride. During his interrogation, he told police that he had eaten some of her when referring to blemishers. He described it as part of the magic. When he was formally charged in court, Stephen stood up, smiled, and introduced himself as the Crossbow Cannibal. Part 5: The Cannibal Trials

Nobody was surprised to learn that Stephen Griffiths was the crossbow cannibal. The police had been watching him for two years before the murders, after recovering a haul of hunting knives and crossbows from his apartment. A local librarian had warned the managers of Holmfield Court that Stephen was reading books about human dismemberment. Several neighbors had also complained about his threatening behaviors and gestures toward women.

In fact, the housing staff at Holmfield insisted that no female employees should ever risk speaking to him alone. The CCTV system that ultimately caught the killer was installed in 2008 to secretly monitor him. Stephen's trial began in November of 2010. He pleaded guilty to the three murders and was sentenced to three life terms in jail without parole.

Orrified family members heard how Stephen dismembered the women with power tools and left the body parts to bleed in his bathtub. They referred to his macabre flat as a slaughterhouse and pointed to bloodstain evidence proving that Susie Rushworth and Shelley Armitage had died there. Through it all, Stephen never showed a glimpse of remorse. Before sentencing him, Justice Openshaw said, "It is one thing to terrorize and kill a victim.

But to terrorize, kill, dismember, and then eat parts of them is taking the exercise of power to another level. The only explanation Stephen ever gave for killing the three women is that "sometimes you kill someone to kill yourself." He called himself misanthropic, and that he had little time for the human race. He made it clear, though, that he didn't have a grudge against sex workers, unlike his idol Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper.

He went on to claim that he'd killed loads of women, though none of those claims have ever been substantiated. The only strong case is the murder of Rebecca Hall, a 19-year-old prostitute who was found dead in a parking lot roughly 900 yards from Griffith's Homefield Court flat.

She was naked, and the police believe she died due to blunt force trauma to the head. There were also indications that she was killed elsewhere and then dumped in the parking lot. Rebecca was a regular at Stephen's flat. According to one of her friends, the girls would go to his place at Holmfield Court to smoke and do drugs. Kathy Hancock claims that while they were still dating in 2001, Stephen took her to where Rebecca Hall's body was discovered.

He jumped like a schoolboy and said, "This is where that dead prostitute was found." Kathy couldn't tell if he was trying to scare her or if he simply couldn't contain his excitement. She revealed that the parking lot where Rebecca was found was right behind the doctor's office and the pharmacy that Steven would go to. The plot got murky in 2019 when a woman was arrested in connection with Rebecca's murder.

According to the BBC, the unnamed 37-year-old was detained and released while under investigation. She would have been Rebecca's age, suggesting a fight between rival street workers. As of 2025, her murder remains unsolved. As for Stephen, prison life has not treated him well, nor should it. In 2024, he was attacked by a fellow inmate who used to be friends with Suzanne Blamires.

According to a prison insider, the rival inmate sent Griffiths flying and knocked him out. The dustup put the crossbow cannibal in the prison hospital, and it wouldn't be his first stay. In February of 2025, Stephen was observed stomping around the prison and telling other inmates that he wanted to kill one of them. Then, he picked a fight with someone in their cell.

When that inmate got the better of him, Stephen began to scream and begged the prisoner to get off. The beating put him back in the prison hospital, and now he's too afraid to leave his cell. Perhaps he understands what it feels like to be powerless, what it feels like to be taken advantage of by someone bigger and stronger than you. The bright kid from West Yorkshire could have had it all. Instead, he threw everything away.

He never worked a day in his life. He always lived off somebody else's dollar. He laughed at morality and responsibility, and got off on pain and fear. Now, he'll spend the rest of his life in a state-funded jail, cowering in his cell, wondering if his idols would be proud of him.

If you'd like to listen ad-free, head to patreon.com slash crimehub. There you can sign up for my seven-day free trial to get access to all my episodes completely ad-free. That's patreon.com slash crimehub.