World's Most Evil Killers - Season 3, Episode 5 - Colin Ireland - Full Episode | Forensic Files

-London, England. On March 10, 1993, a man rang a national newspaper to declare that he'd just killed somebody.
The victim, 45-year-old Peter Walker, had been suffocated to death with a plastic bag
during a sadomasochistic sex session. -He's not just killed his victim, he's humiliated him, as well.
-The killer was 38-year-old Colin Ireland, a man with a singular obsession. -He gives himself a New Year's resolution in January 1993,
that he will become a serial killer. -Determined to get credit for his cold-blooded crimes,
he even called and taunted the police. By June 12th, four more men would be dead across London.
-He killed three men in a week. No, that's just unbelievable. It just -- just hadn't happened in -- in my experience.
-Colin Ireland had finally attained the attention he craved and became one of the world's most evil killers.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ London, England, 1993. The capital's gay community was terrified by a spate of killings that had torn through the city.
When 39-year-old Colin Ireland confessed to the murder of five men over four months in the spring of 1993,
the nation was in shock. The man the press were calling "The Gay Slayer" had dreamt of becoming a serial killer
and after carrying out his twisted self-prophesy, he gave himself up, just as the police were closing in.
Former crime correspondent for the "Independent" newspaper, Terry Kirby, remembers Ireland's brief
but brutal killing spree. -It all happened in quite an intense period, obviously,
in the early part of 1993 and there was this sort of sequence of -- of murders and the gradual realization
that they were connected and police beginning to join the dots. I mean, part of the problem at the outset
was that different murders were being investigated by different teams of detectives
and in different parts of London. Then when it became clear, as time moved on, that the police were looking for a serial killer, obviously,
there was -- there was a huge amount of interest in the story. -It was a case that frustrated the Metropolitan Police.
The investigator who finally gathered the crucial evidence that led to Ireland's conviction
was Detective Inspector Albert Patrick. -Colin Ireland was a man who was possessed
at becoming a serial killer. Ireland was a bit of a churl. He picked on easy victims.
He would play with them, he would, uh, tie them up and handcuffs, thinking they were going to have sex
and then suddenly, he got a rope 'round their throat and then strangled them and then release the strangle
and say, almost watched their fate, "Well, how are you feeling now?," and then eventually pull on the cord to kill 'em.
The pain they must've been going through, a heinous person, wasn't he? He was just an evil, bad man.
-This killer's story begins over 60 years ago. Colin Ireland was born in Dartford, Kent,
on the 16th of March 1954. His mother was just 17 years old. -His parents were unmarried teenagers.
His father disappeared, his mother struggled. To call it dysfunctional would be to compliment it.
Ireland's upbringing was horrible. There is no other word to use. -Ireland's mother struggled to settle down
and by the age of 10, he'd changed schools 6 times. They had also changed home nine times,
including a short spell in a homeless shelter for women and children. -And then, she met a new husband.
They had a child together and they made the decision that it was too hard to raise
both these children in the same household. And so, he was sent away and put in a home.
And the message that gets sent when a parent does that, is you're just baggage. You're not a part of my future.
I don't love you. I'll dispose of you when and as I see fit. -And this is a really crucial time
for our development as children. Our relationships with our parents are absolutely fundamental at this point in time.
And when you have an interrupted or a disrupted attachment, particularly with your mother,
that has a real impact on your ability to form attachments with other people throughout your life.
So, you've got all of the ingredients for at least a problematic life, but unfortunately, it's not just problematic, it's becomes fatal.
-Constantly on the move, Ireland regularly found himself as the new boy at yet another school.
-Witnesses that we spoke to told us that he was picked on at school and, uh, he was a bit of a loner, really.
-He was not a popular child at school. He was bullied by others and when you have that sense of isolation from your peers
and that inability to form those relationships, you do really turn in on yourself
and you become very insular, very isolated. And your reaction to others' behavior towards you
is maladaptive, it's abnormal. So, he would react by being violent, he would react by setting fire to things,
so there's some real warning signs here of a very, very troubled individual, indeed.
-In 1966, 12-year old Ireland found himself a summer job in his hometown of Dartford.
-At one point, he was working a fairground and -- and a man propositioned him with --
with gifts if he -- if he had sex with him. We can only with hindsight say that that may well have shaped his --
his view of gay men. -And often, sexual predators will prey on people like him, so they would've picked up on those vulnerabilities.
They would've picked up on the fact that he was the odd one out, that he didn't have
much of a support network around him and -- and targeted him for these advances.
-You have in this Petri dish of adolescence all these things added together, abandoned,
mother struggling in poverty, school to school, bullied, an extraordinary conflation of ingredients
that might make a serial killer. And slowly but surely, that reality began to emerge.
-As Ireland grew up, life didn't get any easier. He often found himself on the wrong side of the law.
-By the time he was in his late 20s, he'd already accumulated a -- a fairly substantial criminal record.
He'd been in and out of prison for things like robbery, theft, deception-type offenses.
And he became interested in survivalism. -At the same time, Ireland, who would become obsessed with gay men,
seemed to have little trouble in meeting women. In 1981, he met his first wife at a survivalist meeting
and they married the following year. -He may well have been gay throughout this period of his life.
I think Ireland felt deeply ashamed of his homosexuality and struggled against them
throughout most of his adult life. -Known by their friends as a gentle giant, Ireland became stepfather to her 5-year-old daughter.
-Not uncommon to see this kind of double life. He got involved with stepchildren
and taking care of them. He was a caretaker, he was kind, he was all the things you'd expect from a gentleman.
-However, five years later in 1987, Ireland's marriage ended in divorce after he cheated on his wife.
He then moved to Devon in the southwest of England intending to spend time on the moors as a survivalist.
Once there, he met a pub landlady in 1989. Three months later, in 1990, they got married.
-Here was a man, I think, who was living a lie and was angry with himself for living it
and was determined, in the end, to take revenge on people who tempted him. -Just four months after the wedding,
the relationship fell apart. Ireland emptied his wife's bank account and headed to Southend-on-Sea in Essex.
By 1991, Ireland had found work there in a homeless shelter, where he went on to become a deputy manager.
-I mean, in a way, Ireland's failed marriages really mirrored his childhood and people coming from broken homes
do tend to have difficulty forming relationships and you can certainly see the pattern here.
-Ever more isolated, 38-year-old Colin Ireland became obsessed with a book about serial killers.
-The inspiration that Colin Ireland talks about for his -- his killing, for his murders, he says that --
that it's a book by a former FBI profiler. And Ressler gives quite a lot of details
about investigations into serial murder, about the -- the way that the FBI investigated particular crimes.
And I think Colin Ireland would've spent a lot of time reading about these individuals who inflict harm on others,
time and time and time again. -On January 1, 1993, Colin Ireland made a stunning decision.
-He gives himself a New Year's resolution in January 1993, that he will become a serial killer.
But not just a serial killer, a serial killer of gay men. -Earl's Court, London, 1993.
Still living in Southend-on-Sea, his hunting grounds were a 45-minute train ride away in West London.
-The gay community were incredibly stigmatized still, at this time, and they weren't as part of the mainstream as they are today
and as such, they become an ideal group of victims for a killer like Colin Ireland.
-And the timing couldn't be any better for Ireland. His choice of victims, gay men who practiced sadomasochism,
were already under the scrutiny of the general public and the subject of a controversial police investigation
called Operation Spanner. -It was a big control list at the time. It'd become a big civil liberty, civil rights issue,
as to whether consensual sexual practices in the privacy of their own homes should be the subject of criminal prosecution.
And it was endlessly debated in the media and there were arguments on both sides.
And it may well be that that influenced, um, uh, Ireland's choice of victims, because obviously,
men who enjoyed being kind of subjected to pain, being tied up, being bound and gagged
would obviously put themselves in a vulnerable position to someone who wanted to exploit 'em with violent ends.
-At the time the -- the gay men who engaged in -- in sadomasochistic sex were breaking the law, so his choice of victims
is absolutely no accident whatsoever. He knows that this group of people are one that the police perhaps don't care about,
that society as a whole, doesn't care about, and as such, are easier to target and kill.
-Ireland had studied how to be a serial killer with meticulous precision. -He created a murder kit, a rucksack,
which he filled with rope and gloves. He was at least forensically aware. -The fact that he's carrying gloves with him
is indicative of the fact that he knows that the fingerprints can be traced back to individuals.
He's somebody who -- who went to great lengths to clean up at the crime scenes where his murders were committed.
So, here's an individual who -- who knows how to cover his tracks and he's got that in mind from the outset.
-He was not a teenager or a -- an aggressive young man at 22. He was a man who had thought out what was going to happen.
And what was going to happen was a spree of killings that was to send shivers down the spine of the gay community in London.
-As well as a type of victim, Ireland had identified a hunting ground, a gay pub in the Earl's Court District of London
called the Coleherne Arms. He was confident he'd be able to entice his prey. -He'd gone from this kind of skinny youth
to being quite a burly, well-built, big guy. He was quite tall, a sort of imposing presence.
Obviously, in -- in that sense, that sort of sadomasochistic thing, he might've appealed to a certain type of man
who wanted to be dominated by another man. -With everything in place, Ireland was ready to kill for the first time.
On the night of March 8, 1993, he met his unsuspecting victim. -Peter Walker was a 45-year-old theater director
that Ireland met in the Coleherne Arms. They went back to Walker's flat. -Peter Walker has two dogs,
a Labrador and a German shepherd. They shut the dogs in the living room and proceed into the bedroom.
Peter accepts that sadomasochism is part of the routine that he likes to play, part of the role,
and therefore, allows Ireland to tie him to the bed. -And Ireland whipped him and he held a plastic bag
over his head and suffocated him. -With plastic bag asphyxia, you're looking at a situation
where it's lack of oxygen that causes you to die, rather than lack of blood flow to your brain.
That is a much more prolonged and much more unpleasant feeling. Anyone who's kept their head under a swimming pool
for a bit longer than they normally would, will know that "air hunger," as it's called, that desire to breathe,
and knowing that that's not going to be allowed, would be a terrible way to die.
-After killing Peter Walker, Ireland created a bizarre spectacle at the scene. -He drapes condoms over his victim's face.
He poses two teddy bears in the oral sex position. And this is demeaning to his victim.
So, he's not just killed his victim, he's humiliated him, as well. Uh, and this is something that --
that Ireland is doing to say, hey, everybody, look at me. This isn't just a murder, this is more than just a murder.
-And Ireland's cruelty didn't end there. -He set fire to his pubic hair. He said later, "To see what it smelled like."
The poor man was already dead. Why humiliate his body any more? -Ireland didn't flee Peter Walker's flat
with any urgency. He spent the night there cleaning up any evidence that he may have left behind
before disposing of the murder kit on the morning train back to Southend. -He was throwing cuffs in the Thames
or out of the train window and disposed of every single murder weapon, uh, that he used to kill or strangle him.
-So, clearly, evidence that would be on that, his own DNA, fingerprints, evidence from the bodies
are not going to be available to the police to link that item to that killer, to that victim.
So, it -- it makes things more difficult when you're investigating a murder. -On March 10th, two days after killing Peter Walker,
Ireland was desperate to announce to the world what he'd done. -Ireland's pursuit of his role as a serial killer was sustained
when he phoned "The Sun" and said, "I murdered a man." He didn't say which man, but nevertheless, confessed.
He also went on to say, "Well, actually, I'm very worried about the dogs in the flat,
so perhaps someone should go 'round and look after them." -"The Sun" newspaper contacted the police
and forensic psychologist Mike Berry. -So, they rang me up and they said, "We've got this weird chap on the phone who says
he wants to be a serial killer." And from what they were saying about the very nature,
I -- I was quite concerned. Most people don't ring up the police to say they're going to be a serial killer and then to say,
"Oh, we want the police to go 'round, because of the dog in the house." -Earlier that day when Peter did not show up for work,
a concerned colleague went to his home to check on him. When there was no answer, the colleague sought
the help of the caretaker who managed to open his door and found Peter's body and reported it to the police.
The grim discovery confirmed that the call to "The Sun" newspaper was no hoax and Mike Berry knew
that the man on the phone had to be taken seriously. -One of the things I did say was,
not to antagonize him, not to -- to cry or devalue what he's done. When they found the body, they then found the dogs
and they made the mistake of calling him an animal lover, which was a bad mistake.
-And this is something that -- that he doesn't like. He doesn't want to be known as an animal lover,
he wants to be known as a serial killer and a -- a sadistic and a cold serial killer.
-Because of the ongoing Operation Spanner, the police found it very difficult to investigate Peter Walker's murder.
-The gay community as a whole were very, very reluctant to come forward and get involved with the police,
because obviously, they clearly would've been worried that if they in some way acknowledged
or admitted involvement in sadomasochistic practices, they might themselves be -- be prosecuted,
even if it was nothing to do with the case itself. -The police didn't know anything about S&M bondage
and stuff like this. They didn't know how to work with the gay community. They didn't understand the elements of the crime
and didn't recognize that they had a serial killer until it was far too late. -What was for certain,
Mike knew that this murder was not a one-off. -It was clearly well-planned and violent and therefore,
he was going to do it again. What I couldn't do is predict how quickly he was going to --
to kill again. -It would be over two months before Ireland would strike for a second time, May 28, 1993.
-Christopher Dunn was from London. Again, he was picked up at the Coleherne Arms.
Again, they went back to his flat. -This time, Ireland killed 37-year-old librarian
Christopher Dunn, not by suffocation, but by strangulation. -Although it can render you unconscious very, very quickly
in a small number of seconds, you have to retain that pressure for a number of minutes to kill someone.
So, it's something you can't usually accidently do, you have to maintain that pressure and maintain it
and maintain it to cause death. It has to be a very deliberate action. -And he would toy with the body, as well.
He would hold the strangulation until the face went a -- a different color, then release him.
Uh, so, he was, uh, getting satisfaction and enjoyment out of what he was doing to these --
these poor men. -Christopher Dunn's body was found two days after his murder by a concerned friend
who had visited his home in Wealdstone, North London. -The interesting feature about Christopher Dunn
was that the pathologist said he could've died from, uh, accidental death as a result of a perverse sexual act and --
and it wasn't treated as a -- a murder. Suspicious death, yes, but not a full murder inquiry,
at that specific time. -Ireland picked up the phone once again to tell people about the murder,
but this time, he cut out the middleman and went directly to the investigators. -And he made this series of phone calls at different points
to the police during the course of the investigation and it was clear, it was sort of strong desire of acknowledgement.
If he had been the ultimate criminal genius that he was, that he thought he was, of course,
he wouldn't have made those calls, anyway. But killers, serial killers, particularly,
wrestle with this internal conflict about, "I want people to know what I do, but I don't want to be caught."
-On June 4, 1993, Ireland was back in the Coleherne Arms. This time, he went home with a 35-year-old
American businessman called Perry Bradley III. -Unlike the other victims, he was strangled while he was asleep.
If you have somebody who's conscious and able to fight back, obviously, you will see injuries from a struggle.
If you're asleep, you will lose consciousness very, very quickly and that means that those defensive-type marks,
the struggle-type marks will not be readily apparent. -Ireland had used a rope from his homemade murder kit
to strangle Perry. Three days after his murder, the police were called to his apartment in West Kensington
by concerned neighbors. -The police do not link the killing of, uh, an American businessman in Kensington
with the killer of a librarian or the killing of a director and choreographer. -Now, the clear links between the cases here
are all of these victims are gay men, all of these victims have engaged in sadomasochistic sex,
and that should be sending alarm bells ringing, but it doesn't. -With three different investigations running
across three different policing areas, no link was made between the deaths. The killer himself became frustrated with the police.
-He wanted the attention and the police weren't doing their job, as far as he's concerned.
I mean, if you're going to be a serial killer, the world's got to know what you're doing.
-By early June, 39-year-old Colin Ireland had brutally murdered three men in the space of three months.
-For people like Ireland, who is ubiquitously unspecial, he had to become special in a bizarre way.
He had to become special doing something that he was good at. And getting these men to be with him and killing them
is what he was good at. -On June 7, 1993, the same day that police have discovered the body of his third victim,
Perry Bradley III, Ireland was on the hunt for another. This time, his victim was 33-year-old Andrew Collier,
a warden at a sheltered housing complex in Dalston. -Furious at the lack of connection with crimes,
furious at the lack of publicity, Colin Ireland kills for the fourth time. -In many respects, Andrew Collier was
the most significant of the victims. Um, Ireland had returned to the Coleherne Arms Pub again.
Andrew Collier lived in East London. They went back to his flat again. And it was a similar pattern of them engaging
in sadomasochistic behavior and Ireland strangled his victim. -He was strangled with a ligature, a noose,
and we're now looking at two victims with similar causes of death and that potentially means
you can start linking things together. -Once again, concerned neighbors alerted the authorities
and on the 9th of June, two days after he'd been murdered, Andrew Collier's body was found.
The case was handed to Detective Albert Patrick, who had no idea what he was about to discover
in Andrew Collier's house. -I put one foot in the door, looked at this naked body
on the bed, uh, a cat dead with a condom on its tail in the victim's mouth and the cat's mouth in the victim's with his penis and --
and with a condom on the end of it. So, most unusual, something that, uh, for me, was --
was a key, uh, piece of evidence that, uh -- that I wanted to keep as tight as possible.
Because if somebody 10 days later, a month later, year later said, "Oh, I killed, uh, Andrew Collier,"
"Well, tell me about the crime scene." And clearly, uh, the cat was -- I don't think there's ever,
ever been a case, uh, in the whole world where a cat has been killed and draped, uh, across the body,
uh, with condoms, as I described. -An extraordinary, bizarre act. The body will eventually be discovered
in this extraordinary position. If there is any explanation at all, apart from the sheer bestiality of it,
is that Ireland was seeking to capture the public imagination. I think he wanted the details to become public knowledge,
so that people would say, "Oh, that's the man who killed the cat." -After killing Peter Walker three months earlier,
Ireland had apparently shown concern for his victim's dogs, but now he'd gone to extremes to show the media that he wasn't
the sensitive person they had portrayed him as. -That really does get rid of any notion
that he's an animal lover, so he's quite pleased that he's managed to dispel this kind of cuddly element to the storytelling around him.
-Ireland's bizarre display help the police in their investigation. -And this was obviously very similar
to the arrangement of condoms and teddy bears, uh, on his first victim, Peter Walker,
that it allowed the police to link the two cases together. -I was aware of a previous murder about three
or four months before, being dealt with in South London, uh, and when I started talking to, uh,
the scene investigating officer, Roe Hemming, for the Walker case and looking at my crime scene,
uh, there was concerns that we could have the same killer responsible at -- at both scenes.
-There wasn't a system for connecting the dots, that we've now become so used to.
It was still card indexes and files and connections. It wasn't a matter of technology that now we take for granted
and so it took a long time for those dots to be connected. -And for the first time, Ireland had slipped up.
The man who'd been so meticulous in the past had left a clue behind at Andrew Collier's home.
-I was fortunate that I was the only detective to find a -- a crucial piece of evidence at the crime scene
at the East End of London. It was his fingerprint. -At some point in the evening,
Ireland handled the window frame, touched the window frame of the flat when he looked out of the window and he left a fingerprint.
-With the fingerprint sent off for analysis, the police now knew they were looking for a serial killer.
Ireland continued to call the local stations to goad detectives. -It was the 15th of June, 1993, 2:15 p.m.,
call into my incident room and, uh, my DC James Killian answered it and started talking to Colin Ireland.
He was -- he was saying, "Oh, by the way, I've killed somebody else in Hither Green in South London,"
and put the phone down. So, clearly, my hair's up. Here we are, our fifth victim, potentially.
And then about three hours later, got a call to say that a body had been found in a flat in Hither Green.
-Ireland had killed his fifth victim on June 12th, three days before his call to the police,
a 41-year-old Maltese chef named Emanuel Spiteri, whom he strangled in Emanuel's flat in Catford,
southeast London. -Emanuel Spiteri, again, he'd been to the Coleherne. I don't think they spoke but did sort of eye contact.
Emanuel Spiteri went home. Colin Ireland followed him, picked him up at the -- the tube station, and decided to go home to the flat.
-After forcing Emanuel Spiteri to give him his cash card and pin number, Ireland strangled him to death with a rope.
This time the 39-year-old killer tried a new way to hide the evidence. -There'd been attempt to burn the flat.
The -- the furniture had been piled up, he'd clearly set fire to it. Oxygen had run out and that's why it went out
and very, very fortunately, because it was a top-floor flat and it could easily have killed people below and --
and to the side of it. -We know that he's done a lot of reading around cases of serial murder.
He's probably got an awareness that fire is one of the few things that will destroy DNA.
So, I think what's going on here is that he's trying to destroy the evidence that --
that links him to the scene, but at the same time, he wants recognition for the crime, as well.
What he was doing was creating another murder, creating another scene, and -- and trying to get recognition
but still maintain that anonymity. -Luckily, the fire Ireland had started had gone out
and the flat didn't burn down. Three days later, on the 15th of June, Emanuel Spiteri's landlady found her lodger dead
and called the police. They retraced Emanuel Spiteri's last steps and for the first time, got a look at the killer's face.
-Fortunately, he was captured on CCTV at Charing Cross Station, so we've got Emanuel, 5'2",
in front of, uh, Colin Ireland, 6'1" on a single shot, just coming out of the tube station.
Not very clear at the head, but you can see the build and the height, uh, and clearly, you've got Emanuel is front of him.
-So, that was a crucial piece of evidence. Although, obviously, it was not the piece of evidence
which would necessarily confirm that he was the killer, but it was -- it was that kind of circumstantial evidence
on which a case can be built. -Armed with the image, the police went on full-offensive
to try and catch the killer. -They managed to blow up the image to get something that was, uh --
it was a reasonable representation of Ireland. They didn't know what Ireland looked like at the time,
but it was something that they could use in publicity to attract attention to the case,
to circulate crucially, amongst the gay community. -Myself and Killian joined at a midnight pressed conference,
because we were concerned that people were being too relaxed about it. Uh, we -- we gave a description of who we were looking for
and to warn them that they had to be careful, 'cause the next one could be you. -I think there was a general call out
amongst the gay community to be very careful who you go home with tonight, kind of thing.
There was a great fear, there was a great concern. -With the police closing in, Colin Ireland
decided there was no point in hiding and on the 19th of July, he went to see a solicitor.
-He decided that, I'll -- I'll go in to the solicitor and he gave an affidavit. He said, that, "Yes, I am the man in the video.
Yes, I did go to Emanuel Spiteri's address. But when I got to the front door, there was another man in the flat.
I didn't want a threesome, so, uh, I went home. And it was too late to get a train,
so I slept in a nearby churchyard." -Unbeknownst to Ireland, someone from the solicitor's office
passed on his details to the police, who already had his fingerprints on file from previous offenses.
-Eventually, we got Ireland's name, cross-matched it against the mark, and it was his.
So, that placed Colin Ireland in the crime scene and although, you can't date a fingerprint, it --
it most certainly helped in -- in the totality of the evidence. -On the 20th of July 1993, Colin Ireland was arrested.
On the 22nd, he was charged with the murder of 33-year-old Andrew Collier. The following day on the 23rd of July,
he was charged with the murder of 41-year-old Emanuel Spiteri. -If Colin Ireland had not been caught when he was,
he would've continued to kill relentlessly until he was eventually stopped. It is the classic element of any serial killer.
They won't stop until someone stops them. -And there was lots of work done. We had I.D. prints, we had voice I.D. prints,
forensication, and lots of other things. He never opened his mouth for three days.
But fortunately, because of the similar fact evidence from the pathologist and the crime scenes,
the fingerprint, and the CCTV image, prosecutor agreed that we could charge. -East Linton, North London.
Ireland had remained tight-lipped throughout his incarceration, but then on August 19th,
just a month from when he was arrested, the killer stunned the police. -He said to the warden in the prison, uh,
"I want to confess." He was remanded back into police custody and taken to Edmonton Police Station,
where there was a video sweep. And he -- he just put his hands up for -- he confessed to all five killings.
-He did the classic "no comment" for a while, then he was on remand for nearly a month.
And then one day, he decides to actually go off and tell the police what he's done.
I suspect, 'cause he wanted the attention. You know, he wasn't getting the attention that he needed.
This guy clearly wanted to be the film star, the center of serial killing in England.
-This is a person whose identity was -- and sense of self-worth, was so frail, so damaged,
he was so completely so self-esteemed that he would prefer to be infamous as a killer
than be unknown and be a nobody. -Detective Inspector Albert Patrick was in the interrogation room
and heard the shocking admissions. -The first interview was, "Okay, you tell us about
the five that you've killed." So, he talked about them very matter-of-fact. -Ireland told the investigators about each
carefully planned murder in chilling detail. -He was just spelling it out as it -- as it happened.
It was horrendous, really, uh, and the pain he must've put through, uh, all his victims was just, uh, unbelievable.
-In a couple of cases, he stayed there overnight, so as not to attract attention
by leaving the property late at night. He got it all organized in a very disciplined
and rigorous fashion. And -- and he admitted to the police that he could go on and do more.
He said, "I felt the process accelerating. I was on this kind of -- of this treadmill of crimes,"
and that he was going to keep killing and the gap between the crimes would become shorter.
-On the 22nd of August, 1993, Ireland was charged with the murders of Peter Walker,
Christopher Dunn, and Perry Bradley III. After the confession, there was no need for a public trial
and for Colin Ireland, bent on infamy, that was a missed opportunity. -If you want to be a serial killer,
you should have a nice, long trial, get all that public recognition, and then they're going to remember you.
If they don't know about the case, and most people didn't know about the case, again,
'cause it was in a very short time period, didn't get into the public attention in the way
it should've done, from his point of view. -The police didn't have a lot of evidence.
They had some evidence. It might've, if it had gone to a jury, he might have just scraped through.
The evidence was quite strong, but -- but nevertheless, a lot of criminals will say,
"Okay, I'll take my chance." But also, they know, and he would know, that the whole case would be examined in detail,
raked over by the prosecution, the defense, and the media. So, he would have his kind of moment in the sun.
-Ireland's hearing was on the 20th of December 1993. Terry Kirby was in the courtroom.
-We all turned up at the Old Bailey on the day and that's the first time actually journalists
really had seen him, uh, in the flesh. I remember these sort of very broad shoulders.
And he -- he was just sort of looking around like this, around the courtroom and his, kind of,
head really didn't stop moving all the while. But his face was a bit sort of expressionless,
so you occasionally got the feeling he was going to sort of break into a smirk. I mean, I rather got the feeling that he was kind of
looking 'round, um, just sort of saying to everybody, "Are you aware this is me?
I did this. Are you aware of this?", looking, and looking for people's reaction.
I mean, that's what he wanted. He wanted that attention. He wanted people to say, you know,
"You're the guy that did this." -At the end of the one-day hearing, Colin Ireland
pleaded guilty to all five murders and was given five life sentences, one for each of the men he killed.
He was immediately sent to Wakefield Prison. -Passing sentence on Ireland, the judge at the Old Bailey said
"To take one life is an outrage, to take five lives is carnage." I could not agree more.
-Colin Ireland was narcissistic and psychopathic, no sense of remorse of what he'd done.
Even when he was explaining to the police, he was victim-blaming or he was justifying his behavior
by saying they came and talked to him. A man talking to another man doesn't justify you killing them.
Uh, but he wasn't mad. He was bad, but not mad. -On December 22, 2006, the Home Office
changed Ireland's sentence to a whole life term, meaning he would never be released.
He died in Wakefield Prison on February 21, 2012. He was 57 years old. -And I think all the victims and families,
uh, would probably be pleased that that's happened, to be quite honest. -Colin Ireland essentially set himself a goal,
he set himself an aim in life to become a serial killer and for me, this really does mark him out as one of the --
the most evil serial killers that -- that I've ever come across, because his intention was to cause harm to other people.
This wasn't a means to an end, it wasn't a way of getting something else. He actually enjoyed hurting others
and he set out to do this. -We can have no sympathy for that. There should be no admiration for a man
who set out to be a serial killer. Ireland is a wicked, evil man and treated his victims in the most despicable, depraved way.
-In May 2007, a report by the Independent LGBT Advisory Group found that "a lack of knowledge of the gay scene in London
had affected the Metropolitan Police's investigation into the murders." -It's tragic that five people had to die before the police
and the community changed its behavior. But we're much more aware of equal rights,
we're much more open in many ways, so therefore, gay men, gay women, transgendered men,
women, they can be themselves more, without fear of, um, being criticized. They no longer have to be in the closet.
-The case still affects the detectives who had to sit across the interrogation desk
and interview a callous killer. -A striking moment was actually seeing Colin Ireland face-to-face.
He was so matter-of-fact, you know, just different from, uh, any -- any other person I've charged with murder.
Uh, he just didn't show any remorse for what he -- what he did. He was just a -- just a horrible,
horrible, evil man, being brutally honest. He was just a loner who -- who, for whatever reason, uh,
decided to become a serial killer. -Colin Ireland was a selfish killer who took the life of five innocent men,
just because he decided they deserved to die. His sick New Year's resolution to become a serial murderer
makes him stand out as a twisted individual and ensures he'll be remembered as one of the world's most evil killers.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

Colin Ireland made a New Year’s resolution in 1993 to become a serial killer and then murdered five gay men in London. In 2006, he got a whole life term.

An in-depth look at the lives and crimes of some of the world's most evil killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, Cary Stayner, Leonard Lake, Dorothea Puente and more.

Brief Summary

Colin Ireland, "The Gay Slayer," murdered five men in 1993, driven by a twisted desire for notoriety and sadism.

Key points

The First Murder. Ireland kills Peter Walker during a sadomasochistic session, marking the beginning of his killing spree.
The Rise of Colin Ireland. Colin Ireland, a man with a singular obsession, declares his intention to become a serial killer.
Confession to the Press. Just days after his first murder, Ireland calls a newspaper to confess his crime.
The Police's Struggle. The police face challenges investigating the murders due to societal stigma and lack of understanding.
Ireland's Frustration. After multiple murders, Ireland grows frustrated with the police's inability to connect the cases.
Colin Ireland's Arrest. On July 20, 1993, Colin Ireland was arrested after a series of brutal murders.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

No, that's just unbelievable.

1:15WatchJul 29, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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