Name: | John CHILDS |
Nickname: | Bruce |
Born: | 13 Jan 1961 |
Status: | Married |
Occupation: | |
Died: | – |
Classification: | Serial Killer |
Country: | UK |
Active: | 1974 -1978 |
Victims: | 6 |
M.O.: | Carried out a series of contract killings. Strangled, stabbed & shot. Cremated body parts in his fireplace. |
Arrested: | |
Fate: | Life imprisonment, 1980 |
Childs was a married man with two daughters at the time of the murders. He had been expelled from the Army after serving nine months as a sapper, for committing burglary.
Childs was arrested in 1978 and confessed to the murder of 6 people in apparent contract killings after being detained for a series of bank and security van robberies in Hertfordshire.
Childs had attempted to mince the body of the first victim and flush it down the toilet in his council flat. After being unsuccessful he turned to dismembering and burning the bodies. None of the bodies has ever been recovered. One victim, Terry Brett, was just 10 years old and killed after witnessing the murder of his father.
After his conviction he gave evidence that implicated two other men in the killings, however, they were released in 2003 after appeal during which the appeal judge described his evidence was unreliable as he was a pathological liar.
Childs is known as the most prolific hitman in British crime history.
In 2016 Childs brought a case to the High Court to allow him to seek a date when he can seek parole. His legal team lost the case and he remains on the list of those who will never be released from prison.