All language subtitles for Britains.Most.Evil.Killers.S04E05.WEBRip.en

- MALE NARRATOR: Over the
August bank holiday weekend

in 1988 the mining village
of Wath upon Dearne

in South Yorkshire, England
was rocked to its core.

The body of 25 year old
Marcus Law was discovered

in his home, he'd been
tortured and mutilated.

- There were blood all over
the place and then he got

cigarettes stuck in every
orifice in his face,

he got 'em in his nostrils,
even in his eyes,

his ears, mouth.

And he just looked like
a birthday cake with candles in.

- NARRATOR: In a final act
of callousness, the killer

had inserted one of
Marcus' own crutches

into his abdomen.

- The sheer enormity of
the violence used in this case

is extreme.

It is, to use that word,
truly evil.

- NARRATOR: The killer
was 21-year-old

Anthony Arkwright.

Over the coming days more
bodies would be discovered

in similarly horrific
circumstances.

- He didn't just kill
his victims,

he completely obliterated them,

he humiliated them, and he
didn't feel bad about doing it.

If anything,
he quite enjoyed it.

- NARRATOR: Even the police
were wary of what they might

discover next.

- I was frightened, no two
words about it, and I said

to my colleague, "You know
what we're gonna find."

And he said, "Yes, Sarge."

And I said, "You have to
brace yourself for this."

- NARRATOR: In less than
a week, four victims

were discovered.

Anthony Arkwright had been
revealed as one of the

world's most evil killers.

- ♪

- NARRATOR: August, 1988,
Wath upon Dearne,

South Yorkshire, England.

Late in the afternoon
on the same day

as disabled resident Marcus
Law's badly mutilated body

was discovered, a neighbor,
Anthony Arkwright,

was arrested for his killing.

Just two days later,
45-year-old retired teacher

Raymond Ford was found
brutally murdered.

He'd been stabbed 250 times
before his organs

and intestines were removed
and trailed around his flat.

- Marcus is bad enough,
you know with cigarettes

poking out of his
gouged-out eyes and his crutch

stuck into his stomach,
but this is worse, if possible.

There's virtually no organ left
inside his body.

Raymond's entrails are all
around him,

they're in the bathroom,
they're in the bedroom,

and they were in the hallway.

- NARRATOR: As Arkwright's
lawyer proclaimed his client's

innocence to the press,
news of a second neighbor

found slaughtered after his
arrest began to spread.

A wave of fear descended
on the community.

Retired Detective Constable
David Winter discovered

the second victim.

- It did spread a lot of unrest
because of the fact that

the second body were found
while he was in custody.

That gave credence to,
"We've got a madman

running loose at Wath."

So everybody's thinking that
it's not him that, you know,

it's got to be somebody else.

- NARRATOR: There was more
to come, within days

two further victims were
discovered, including

Arkwright's own grandfather
Stanislav Puidokas.

Former Detective Sergeant
Richard Venables grew up

in the village and remembers
how inconceivable it was

that these horrific crimes
had happened there.

- RICHARD: Wath on Dearne,
a little sleepy mining village,

which it would be, we were
on the verge of pit closures

at that time, it was just,
it's the last place on Earth

you would have thought
that this thing could happen.

And I even think about it now
and say that Wath on Dearne

had a serial killer, as long
a shot as a lottery win really.

- The impact of crimes like
this on any local community

are going to be devastating
because here's somebody

who has been in this area
for a while, people know

who he is, he's a familiar face,
this isn't some monster

that's come in from the
outside, it's the evil within.

- NARRATOR: This killer's
story begins on

the 24th of March, 1967.

Anthony Richard Arkwright
was born in a row house

in Wath upon Dearne
in South Yorkshire.

The son a milkman,

he was the middle child
of five siblings

and his family life
was dysfunctional

from a very early age.

- DR. YARDLEY: Arkwright spent
a lot of his early years

in and out of children's homes

and this for
me means that he has

a very insecure attachment
with his caregivers.

So this is a child who doesn't
feel security, he doesn't

feel warmth, and what that
can sometimes translate into

is this kind of defensiveness,
this sense in which,

"I can't depend on other
people, it's just me

and I've got to look
after myself."

- NARRATOR: Arkwright
struggled in school and was

teased by his peers as people
began to speculate

about the true nature of
relationships within his family.

- Arkwright was bullied at
school because there were

rumors that were completely
untrue that he was the result

of an incestuous relationship
between his mother

and his grandfather.

- LOUIS: The reality is not what
counts, it's what he thought

and what he experienced
that was out there,

and the kids thought
it was true.

And so he was teased a great
deal and when an individual

is teased repetitively
in childhood it affects them

emotionally in very,
very significant ways.

- DR. YARDLEY: Off the back
of the bullying, Arkwright

kind of retreats into himself,
he spends a lot of time

on his own, he's a loner.

And when people don't have
those social connections

with others, they ruminate,
they spend a lot of time

thinking about things,
especially ways in which

they've been wronged
by other people.

So, you've got this kind of
undercurrents of rage,

I think,
that's developing in him.

- NARRATOR: The resentment
that young Anthony Arkwright

harbored for his family
smouldered inside him

and he became a troubled
teenager.

He often found himself
on the wrong side of the law

and he was a well-known face
in the local police stations.

David Winter remembers him
as one of their regulars.

- I've known Arkwright since
he was about 14 years old.

He were a petty thief and we
were forever locking him up

when he were a juvenile.

- NARRATOR: Over the
coming years he became

obsessed with weapons
and had a reputation

for being a habitual
troublemaker.

- MICHAEL: He got quite a few
convictions for petty crime,

you would call it,
not petty to the victims,

but burglaries,
damage, small assaults

and things like that.

He was forever getting into
trouble and he'd been sent

to youth custody and various
other penalties that

had been imposed on him
over the years.

But he was a troublesome
lad altogether.

- GEOFFREY: And while
he was in prison,

perhaps he saw a way of...

making himself glamorous.

He took a great interest
in Jack The Ripper

and The Yorkshire Ripper,
Peter Sutcliffe,

reading books about them.

Perhaps for the first time in
his life a subject engaged him.

He developed this fascination
with mass murder and I think

perhaps he saw it as a way
of making his mark

in the world.

- NARRATOR: By the Summer
of 1988, the 21-year-old

was working at a scrap metal
merchants in Mexborough

and living in nearby
Wath upon Dearne

in public housing
on the Denman Road estate.

Neil Hurst was one of his
neighbors.

- NEIL: Anthony Arkwright seemed
very weird to me.

He looked like a young
Clint Eastwood and he were very,

very frightening,
kept his self to his self.

He used to wear long coats
and cowboy hats and he also

had rollup coming out of
the side of his mouth.

- DAVID: He were one of them
people that he wanted to draw

attention to himself,
he really loved himself.

Tall, a lot taller than me.

But he'd spike his hair
and he'd bleached the points

of it and things like that
to get a distinctive look.

- NARRATOR: Another of
Arkwright's neighbors

was 45-year-old Raymond Ford.

- He was a gentleman who
lived opposite Arkwright

in a block of flats.

He was a retired school
teacher suffering from

ill health and kept himself
very much to himself.

- Raymond and Arkwright
had history,

Arkwright liked to bully him.

At one point he shoved excrement
through his letter box.

- NARRATOR: In August 1988,
Raymond was burglarized.

Several items had been stolen
including a microwave oven

and a mantle clock.

He reported it to the local
police.

- DAVID: One of the secondhand
dealers came up

to the police station and
mentioned that he'd bought,

um, a microwave oven from
Tony Arkwright,

given his name,
and he paid £20.

So then it were decided that
Arkwright were gonna

be arrested.

- NARRATOR: On the 26th
of August, the Friday

before the bank holiday
weekend, Arkwright was fired

from his job at the scrapyard
for poor attendance.

He was extremely aggrieved.

To add insult to injury,
early the next morning

the police were knocking on
his door and he was arrested

for the burglary of Raymond's
flat.

The officers were surprised
to find a whole arsenal

of knives in his home,
but there was something else

that sparked their interest.

- They found in his flat
a pocket watch and it was

the pocket watch that was
unique, that they'd not seen

before, and decided that
that, it wasn't right that

he would have such a pocket
watch, it was an old person's

pocket watch.

And so they decided to bail
Arkwright on the Saturday

evening in order that they
could make further inquiries.

- NARRATOR: Having just
started his evening shift,

Detective Constable David
Winter was tasked with

getting a statement from
Raymond Ford

about the burglary.

He offered Arkwright a lift.

- I took him back home
and as he's going into his flat,

which is on the right hand side,
I went to the left hand side

to Raymond Ford's.

Knocking on the door and he
hadn't gone in at that time.

And he said, "Oh, he'll be out
now, he'll be around pubs,

he's a drunk."

So, you know, I said,
"Well, I'll come back."

And I left it at that.

- NARRATOR: At the time it
seemed like an innocent remark,

but Arkwright would
do everything he could

to stop the police from getting
a statement from Raymond.

In less than 24 hours,
Arkwright had lost his job

and been arrested.

He needed an outlet for
the pent up energy simmering

inside him.

- I were coming down the
steps and Tony approached me

and he said, "Are you going
out tonight?"

And I just said, "Yeah."

He said, "Do you mind if I
come wi' ya?"

Well, I thought, "He's never
done naught wrong to me."

You know what I mean?

It might be a chance to get
know him a bit better.

- NARRATOR: Later that
evening Arkwright met up

with Neil and his cousin.

As the three men got into
the car, a neighbor,

25-year-old Marcus Law,
blocked their way.

- I started the engine and
then Marcus came in front of me

in his wheelchair.

Shouting, "Where you going?"

And I says, "Get out of the
road, Marcus, we're going out."

And then all I heard next
from the back of the car were

Tony Arkwright said,
"I'm gonna kill that bastard."

And then that's when
I thought, "Wowee."

I says, "No, he's only
having a laugh."

He says, "I'm gonna kill that
bastard."

And I looked at his face
and I could see from his eyes

that he meant what he said.

Yeah, and I believed it.

- NARRATOR: Once at the
nightclub, Arkwright's behavior

didn't improve.

He was so aggressive that
they were eventually

thrown out by bouncers.

Arkwright's whole demeanor
that night made Neil

incredibly nervous.

- To be honest, I didn't feel
safe meself at that time.

And I'm just lucky that we
managed to get home

and he got out of me car.

Then what happened next
were unbelievable.

In them days you used to have
a bin, like a metal bin,

and I saw him, he just picked
it up and threw it

straight through Raymond's
flat's window.

I'm thinking,
"What's he gonna do?

"Is this ticking bomb now
going off?

Is--what's he doing that for?"

All I needed to know were
I didn't need to be there

and I said to me cousin,
"Let's go."

- NARRATOR: Whilst Neil
and his cousin called it a night

and made a hasty retreat,
Anthony Arkwright was only

just getting started.

He had a score to settle with
his neighbor.

The bin was merely the
beginning of what he had

in store for Raymond Ford.

- Raymond, according to
Arkwright, had told the police

about the burglary, had
suggested Arkwright was

responsible, and in doing so,
he'd taken the power away

from Arkwright,

and Arkwright wanted that
power back.

- NARRATOR: In the early hours
of Sunday the 28th of August,

Arkwright entered
Raymond's flat using a key

that he'd stolen during
the burglary.

Bizarrely, he was dressed
in just a pair of underpants

and a devil's mask.

- But he didn't want to leave
any forensic traces

on clothing, that was why
he was wearing the devil mask

and also a pair of underpants.

- DR. YARDLEY: Not only did
Arkwright kill aymond Ford,

he stabbed him 250 times,
that's 250 decisions

to cause harm to this
individual,

and then he draped
his entrails around the home.

- NARRATOR: The force that
Arkwright used to stab Raymond

was so great that
several of the knives actually

broke in two.

- He must have been stabbing
and stabbing

for a very long time.

There are broken knives,
he would have had to go

and get another knife.

You would suspect that he'd
probably have to have a rest

during that because simply
the repetitive action 250 times

would be incredibly physically
difficult.

- Worse still,
he takes out

just about every single entrail

from Raymond's body and
drapes them not only

in the bedroom
but all around the flat.

Imagine the scene.

- Arkwright is somebody who
has always felt a sense

of humiliation, a sense of shame
and now he's projecting that

onto his victim.

He's saying,
"I'm the powerful one now,

I can do what I want to you."

- NARRATOR: Shortly
afterwords, Neil Hurst

was woken by loud banging.

Arkwright, having washed off
Raymond's blood,

was pounding on his door.

- NEIL: I heard some banging at
the door and when I looked

through the peephole
there were Tony

and I just didn't answer
the door.

And I went into me cousin's
bedroom and opened the door.

'Cause he went,
"Who's fucking banging?"

I just said, "It's Tony from
downstairs, just leave it,

he can't get in."

And that were last we heard.

- NARRATOR: Later that day,
David Winter was back on shift,

he was conscious
that he needed to get

a statement from Raymond
about the burglary.

- Went straight to Raymond
Ford's see if I could catch him

before the pubs were open
and still no reply.

And still Arkwright comes out
and he says, "Well, he'll be

"out now, he's been drinking
all day and he'll be out,

you'll not get in."

And I'll keep coming back,
I did that all evening.

Knowing that the file's got
to be in the Monday morning

I were desperate to try to get
this statement.

And each time I knocked on
Ford's door Arkwright came out

and it was strange, you know,

it were like
he were waiting for me.

- NARRATOR: Arkwright
spent much of that

Sunday afternoon with Marcus
Law, the same neighbor

that he'd recently threatened
to kill.

25-year-old Marcus had been
injured in a motorbike accident

as a teenager and lived in
a bungalow

on the Denman Road estate.

- Arkwright had shared his
cigarettes with Marcus Law

and he didn't have any money
with which to buy

any more cigarettes.

And so he was quite sure
that Marcus Law would have

cigarettes in his bungalow
but he'd not shown him

where the cigarettes were.

So that was what caused
the argument later on

in the night.

- NARRATOR: On the Sunday
evening Arkwright paid

Marcus another visit to try
to persuade him to give up

some cigarettes.

Still, Marcus insisted he had
none and so Arkwright

proceeded to search
the bungalow.

- And then Arkwright discovers
that there are some cigarettes

in a drawer and he feels,
you know, that,

"I've been lied to."

So it's this sense of real
disproportionate reaction

to a kind of everyday situation.

- GEOFFREY: We're now dealing
with someone who's...

disintegrating into a desperate,
horrific, sadistic fantasy.

All we know is that, in what
can only be described as

utterly-depraved manner,
Arkwright attacks Marcus

relentlessly.

- DR. YARDLEY: Marcus is not
just killed, he's brutalized.

Arkwright stabs him over
70 times and when he's there

with his body in the flat
afterwards he takes cigarettes

and puts them into his ears,
his nose, his eyes.

- LOUIS: You look at that and
say, "Well, how could he

"possibly be so angry
at this neighbor?

What did the neighbor do
to deserve that?"

And the answer is nothing.

But it was a displacement
from all of the anger

than Arkwright felt over the
years onto other people,

the neighbor being one.

- NARRATOR: The following day
was the bank holiday Monday.

Marcus's mother was moving
away for a new job

and at 11:30 in the morning
she called round to say

goodbye to her son.

- And was unable to get in
originally, which was unusual,

and she managed to slip the
chain on the front door

and get access to the place.

And she found that he'd been
very brutally murdered.

- NARRATOR: Marcus's
distraught mother ran

to the police station.

David Winter was one of
the first officers on the scene.

- DAVID: He were laid out
on the floor and all his

chest cavity were open.

There were a crutch through
his body, sticking--

it was actually sticking up.

There were blood all over
the place and then he got

cigarettes stuck in every
orifice in his face, I mean,

his nostrils, even in his eyes,
his ears, mouth.

And he just, it just looked like
a birthday cake with candles in.

- NARRATOR: The quiet
mining village

of Wath upon Dearne now had
a major murder investigation

on its hands.

Detective Superintendent
Michael Burdis was called in.

- MICHAEL: It was bank holiday
Monday and I was at home

gardening and got a call to
attend at the scene

of a murder at Wath.

- NARRATOR: As Michael
made his way

to Wath Police Station, an
officer leaving Marcus' bungalow

saw Arkwright in the street.

- MICHAEL: And they expected
Arkwright to speak to him

because they were on good terms
and spoke to each other

whenever they met,
Arkwright crossed the road

away from him and Humphreys
was very suspicious of that

because it was very unusual.

And so called him across
and decided that he would

invite him back
to the police station

so they could have a chat.

- NARRATOR: When Michael
arrived, Arkwright was already

in the interview room.

- MICHAEL: So far as we knew,
Arkwright was a friend

of Marcus Law's

and we were following that
line of inquiry.

What did he know about the
movements of this friend?

So we, we had no reason
to really suspect Arkwright

of any particular crime
except that he'd ignored

this particular detective,
which was unusual.

- NARRATOR: Investigations
into Marcus' killing continued

with officers making
door-to-door inquiries

in the hope of finding witnesses
who may have seen his killer.

On the Monday evening
they spoke with a lady

who recounted how Arkwright
had visited her that morning

and he'd broken the news
that Marcus was dead.

- He said to her,
words to the effect,

"It's a pity about Marcus."

And then explained that
Marcus had died

and she thought that Marcus Law
had probably committed suicide,

but that was an hour
before Marcus Law's mother

had found the body.

So it was quite clear that
Arkwright must be a prime

suspect for that crime.

- NARRATOR: Clearly, Arkwright
had inside information,

and he was arrested on
suspicion of Marcus's murder.

- Arkwright wasn't admitting
that offense Arkwright was

merely grumbling on all sorts
of subjects and talking anything

but the actual response
to the questions

about the crime itself.

At the same time,
we had a major investigation

to undertake with house-to-house
inquiries,

with searches of the scene,

the searches of the area,
the postmortem,

and the rest of the material
that goes on with a major

crime investigation.

- NARRATOR: On Wednesday
the 31st of August, as officers

continued to speak to residents,
David Winter's thoughts

return to Raymond Ford.

He'd been so involved with
the murder investigation

that he still hadn't managed
to get a statement

from Raymond about the burglary.

Coincidentally,
he was the only resident that

the house-to-house team hadn't
managed to get in contact with.

- So I went down with a
uniform lad and at that time

his front window was
smashed, so looking in,

we could see this sea
of bottles that went

from the window right
to the back of the room like a--

like a slope,

and his chair was in front
of the TV,

big piles of newspapers
all over the place.

He wasn't sat in his chair
but the television were on.

So they said, "Well, you better
go in and have a look."

- NARRATOR: David made his way
in through the broken window,

it was immediately obvious
that something was amiss.

- DAVID: I could just see blood
all over the wall and all over

the floor, you know, big piles
of it so I'm stepping over it.

Detective Inspector came down,
he's in the door.

I says, "I can't let you in,
there's no keys."

But I'm talking to him.

He said, "Well,
what's it look like?"

I said, "Well, it's carnage in
here, there's blood everywhere.

Blood's--
it's dried on the floor."

So, "Is he in there?"
"I'll have a look."

So then I looked through
into the bedroom and behind

the door was his body,
but it were all covered up

with cloths and that,
but I could see a hand.

So I said, immediately,
"Yeah, he's here."

- You couldn't call it anything
other than a tip but it was

literally three feet deep in
clothing and underneath that

was the body of Raymond Ford,

having suffered
grotesque injuries.

- NARRATOR: Whilst the
police were making their

grizzly discovery,
Arkwright was appearing at

Rotherham Magistrate's Court,
charged with the murder

of Marcus Law and the burglary
at Raymond Ford's flat.

Detective Superintendent
Michael Burdis now had

a second horrific crime
to investigate.

But he already had a good
idea who was going to be

their prime suspect:
Anthony Arkwright.

- MICHAEL: Two of the detectives
that had been talking to him

were sitting in the canteen
area and waiting for his

solicitor to attend so they
were merely sitting waiting.

And during that time on the
table was a pack of cards

and Arkwright was flicking
through these cards

and eventually he said to
the detectives, "I can read

the cards," and he turned
over the four of hearts.

And he said, "One you've got,
two, three, four to come."

That prompted alarms in
the officers because they,

as far as they knew there was
just the one body.

And so they rang that
information through to me

at the incident room.

But of course by that time,
we'd found Raymond Ford's body,

which meant then that there
were two more.

- LOUIS: He didn't wanna act
like the ordinary criminal,

the ordinary murderer who
goes there an confesses

or start crying,
"You got me, oh my God."

He didn't want to do that
at all, he wanted to do

the opposite of that,
he wanted to be newsworthy,

to be notorious,
to be infamous in some way.

- NARRATOR: The case had
just been blown wide open.

The police now believed
there were more victims,

but they had no leads as to
who these unfortunate souls

may be.

Both known victims had been
from the Denman Road estate

and all available police
resources were sent to the area

to knock on doors and make
sure that every resident

was safe and well.

- MICHAEL: And we used the local
authority who provided us

with a joiner to help us to
break into properties

if we couldn't get in,

in the fear that
there might be a body there.

But at the same time we had
another team of officers

trying to trace his family
background

and his family relations

and other people that he may
well have been in contact.

- NARRATOR: Detective
Sergeant Richard Venables

was part of the team
investigating Arkwright's

background.

- So, I was actually tasked,
with my local knowledge in mind,

to look at Arkwright's
family, to try and build up

a picture of the guy in
custody, who had allegedly

committed these horrific
murders.

- NARRATOR: Through his
inquiries Richard learned

that Arkwright's grandfather,
a 68-year-old Lithuanian

gentleman named Stanislav
Puidokas, lived with his partner

Elsa Konradaite
in nearby Mexborough.

- We made several visits
to that house from about

Tuesday the 30th of August,
went once, twice a day.

We didn't get any
[unintelligible].

- NARRATOR: By Friday,
September the 2nd, the police

still hadn't managed to speak
to the couple, but neighbors

had noticed normal activity
at the house.

The bottles of milk left on
the doorstep had been taken in

each day.

- DR. YARDLEY: They assumed that
either the grandfather or Elsa

were collecting it and taking
it into the house, but actually

the milkman was going by
later on in the day, noticing

that it hadn't been taken in
and he was taking it away.

- MICHAEL: So that meant that we
knew there had been no activity

in that house and so we
feared for the safety

of his grandfather.

- NARRATOR: On the Friday
afternoon Richard paid

a final visit to the house
in Mexborough.

When yet again there was no
response he had no option

but to break in.

- I noticed that the upstairs
window of the front bedroom

was open.

I needed to source
something to get up there

so the next-door neighbor,
he loaned me his ladder.

When I looked through the
window and I saw the untidy

ransacking of the bedroom,
I knew there was a problem.

- NARRATOR: The scene was
reminiscent of many burglaries

they'd seen before.

And so Richard and his
colleague made their way

through the window
and into the bedroom.

- And when I got into that room,

I've smelled death before,
many times,

and I knew the house had got
the smell of death.

What I was gonna be
confronted by I didn't know.

And that's when the heart
started to quicken.

- NARRATOR: After a search
of the upstairs room revealed

nothing but ransacked
belongings

Richard prepared himself
to go down the stairs.

- RICHARD: If I just asked you
to transport yourself into

this position: you're an
investigator, you've been

briefed as to what this guy's
allegedly done,

he's disemboweled a guy,
he's stabbed him 250 times,

he's stabbed another disabled
guy 70 times,

he sliced his body open,
he rammed a crutch up that body,

and then all of a sudden you
know you're gonna discover

this guy's work.

I was frightened,
no two words about it.

And I said to my colleague,

"You know
what we're gonna find."

And he said, "Yes, Sarge."
He says, "I know."

And I said,
"Remember the pictures,

you have to brace
yourself for this."

We walked down the stairs
together and as we got

to the spot where the
landing and the bannister

opened up sufficiently,
I leaned forward

and I looked back
towards the kitchen.

The old lady was laid in the
kitchen door and I saw

the axe protruding from her
head; clearly she was dead.

- NARRATOR: The body was
that of 72-year-old

Elsa Konradaite,
Arkwright's step-grandmother.

She'd been ironing
on the kitchen table

when she was attacked.

- She's struck in the head
with an axe but there's none

of the excess that's shown
with the other victims,

it's not the sort of clear
message that he's trying

to send with the others,
it's simply getting rid

of a problem.

- RICHARD: My next consideration
was, "Where is Grandad?"

And Grandad wasn't there
but I had an idea where he was,

because as part of
our investigation that week,

I'd been told by locals that
Grandad had an allotment.

- MICHAEL: The allotment
was locked,

the allotment shed was locked,

it was quite
a substantial home-build.

His grandfather had been
a miner and it was a really

well-made piece
of equipment.

And we had to open that
first.

- NARRATOR: Once they'd
broken through the door,

Michael and his team made
yet another gruesome discovery.

- MICHAEL: Inside the she itself
was--was a workshop, really.

And Arkwright's grandfather
was jammed against

the legs of this workbench
and again,

he'd been
very savagely attacked.

- DR. HAMILTON: Arkwright
stabbed him, first of all,

he stabbed him with such force
he severed the spinal cord,

that in itself is an incredible
level of violence.

That wasn't enough for him,
he then strikes him with an axe,

almost certainly when
he's paralyzed and unable

to respond, and with
a large heavy hammer.

So this is not just killing,

this is sheer
needless brutality.

- NARRATOR: Later Arkwright
would tell investigators

that he'd killed his grandfather
partly because of the rumors

that he may actually be
his father.

Rumors that had tainted
his whole life.

And it perhaps gives a clue
as to why he would exercise

such extreme brutality
on the old man.

- This was much more
violence than was needed

to end his grandfather's life,
so these are these feelings

of shame, of humiliation,
of rage

really coming to the surface.

And I think it's, it's a way
of kind of retaliating,

it's a way of taking back
power.

- Although Arkwright was
obviously the prime suspect,

you take all the right steps
to make sure that you

gather all the scientific
material that you can gather.

- NARRATOR: As crime
scene investigators

meticulously gathered
evidence,

21-year-old Anthony Arkwright

remained
in police custody

at Rawmarsh Police Station
charged with murdering

four people, including
his own grandparents.

Although he was confident
they had identified

the serial killer, Detective
Superintendent Michael Burdis

knew that proving the case
might not be that simple.

- One of the problems that
we had was that Arkwright

had a right to be in some
of the premises,

the grandfather's house, the
grandfather's allotment shed,

so any traces of
fingerprints or DNA

could have been legitimately
there and so it didn't really

provide us with,
with tangible evidence.

So it was a matter of proving
that Arkwright had actually

committed the murder
rather than merely being

present at the scene.

What did give us evidence
was the fact that there were

items that were stolen
from those premises.

- NARRATOR: In particular,
one item seized when

Arkwright was first arrested
for the burglary

at Raymond Ford's flat
now became very significant.

- The pocket watch that
was found in his flat,

that we believed originally
had come from Raymond Ford,

was actually his grandfather's.

- NARRATOR: With
difficulties gathering evidence

conclusively linking Arkwright
to some of the murders,

Michael knew that
what they really needed

was a confession.

However, despite already
having spent several days

in the interview room
being questioned about

Marcus and Raymond,
Arkwright had refused

to give up any information.

- MICHAEL: He refused to answer
questions; he did talk,

but he wasn't answering
questions that were rational

and wasn't giving responsible
answers to anything

that we were asking him.

- NARRATOR: When he
learned that the bodies

of his grandparents,
Stanislav and Elsa,

had been found, and another
two murder charges

were to be brought against
him, Arkwright made

an unusual request.

- He asked if he could be
interviewed on tape.

Now, we weren't using
tape recordered interviews

in those days but we were
about to start the process,

so we decided to go ahead
and hope that Arkwright

would then find the facility
useful for him

and would be able to talk to us.

Didn't work quite like that,
because he merely enjoyed

the experience and rambling
on tape about horror films

that he'd watched and
experiences that he'd tried

to relive himself but none
of it was a response

to the questions
about the murders.

So I put a stop to that.

- NARRATOR: Michael Burdis
was getting tired of Arkwright

stringing his officers along.

Later that evening, Arkwright
was fetched from the cells

and the Detective
Superintendent himself

started the tape
in the interview room.

- I asked him questions,
he didn't respond at all,

I continually asked him
if he would identify his name

for the purposes of the tape

and he didn't respond to that.

I asked him questions
about his family,

he didn't respond,
he never spoke at all.

So then I sweeped the tape
off and I came out

of the interview room
quite frustrated, and about

five minutes later the solicitor
came down the corridor

and said that,
"He wants to speak to you."

So I refused to go through
the scenario again.

But the solicitor really
was very persuasive

and said, "I think he does
want to talk to you."

So I went back into
the interview room.

As I was setting the machine
up again he sang a little song,

something like,
"Da-dee-da dee-da."

And I said,
"Strangers in the night."

And he said, "You've named
that tune, you won,

I'll speak to you."

- GEOFFREY: And then of cours,e
the reality begins to pour out

of Arkwright.

Because in a period of just
56 hours he's brutally killed,

and you cannot say more
strongly, brutally,

savagely dispatched four people.

- MICHAEL: And he then went on
to make a full confession

of the murder of Raymond Ford
and Marcus Law.

And then started to speak
about his grandfather

and the tape ran out.

- NARRATOR: He'd had to endure
more of Arkwright's games,

but Michael had
managed to get confessions

for two of the murders.

The following morning the
interview resumed,

and Michael hoped Arkwright
would also confess to killing

his grandfather and Elsa.

- MICHAEL: He didn't have
a problem reacting

to the grandfather's murder,

they'd argued over the fact
that they did not rebuild

this motorcycle he was supposed
to be working on.

And he felt justified
in committing

that particular crime.

- NARRATOR: He also began
to speak about something

that had haunted him since
he was a child.

The local folklore
that his grandfather

was in fact his father.

- Whether Arkwright ever
believed that to be the case,

it wasn't true, it's certain
that he wasn't the father

of Arkwright.

But Arkwright did, did give
that information and imply

that that was maybe why
he murdered his grandfather.

- NARRATOR: When it came
to talking about Elsa's murder,

however, Arkwright's whole
demeanor changed.

- His voice went particularly
quiet, he was talking about

darkness and light,
black and white,

he was black and Elsa was white.

And the fact that Elsa was
Lithuanian like his grandfather

and didn't speak any English,
he was concerned that

she didn't understand
the language and he felt

that he was doing the right
thing by taking her life.

- Her killing, it wasn't as
violent as the other murders

in this killing spree,
which suggests to me that

she wasn't part of this kind
of project of vengeance,

she hadn't done anything
to, in his mind,

justify or deserved the kind of
violence that he enacted

on other people.

So she was literally a barrier
that had to be removed.

- NARRATOR: Arkwright
revealed that his killing spree

had started on Friday
the 26th of August,

the day he was fired from
his job at the scrapyard.

- GEOFFREY: And in the wake
of that firing, he set off

on a 56-hour killing spree
which would leave

four people dead.

- NARRATOR: The victims
were found in the opposite

order to that in which
they'd been killed.

His grandfather might have
been the last to be discovered

but he was Arkwright's first
murder.

For his neighbor Neil Hurst,
this was a shocking revelation.

It meant that Arkwright had
already killed at least

two people by the time he
was trying to get into

Neil's flat in the early hours
of Sunday, the 28th of August.

It put a different perspective
on Arkwright's motive

for the visit.

- I reckon if I'd have
answered that door,

I would have been killed
that night me self.

Definitely, if I'd have
answered the door to him.

I think he would have to do
what he could and

[unintelligible] all in one
night, so yeah, I think

he'd have took my life if
I'd have answered that door.

- NARRATOR: In July 1989,
Anthony Arkwright appeared

at Sheffield Crown Court,
he was charged with

four counts of murder.

- At the trial, Arkwright
really is the director and star

of his own movie.

- MICHAEL: He was most
flamboyant, he appeared wearing

a jacket and a bowtie
in court and he waved

at the journalists
and waved at people.

- GEOFFREY: If you look at
pictures of him at the time,

you see the face of a man who's
almost sneering at the camera.

As if, "Look what I've done,
look at me, I'm so clever."

He wasn't at all clever.

- Our understanding, and the
understanding of the judge,

was he was pleading guilty
to all four murders.

It was quite the bizarre
event because

when he was arraigned before
the judge and the clerk

of the court put the charges
to him he pleaded not guilty

to everything.

Which took everybody
by surprise,

including his own barristers.

- NARRATOR: The hearing
was adjourned whilst

his defense team attempted
to find out the reasoning

behind the last-minute change
in plea.

Eventually, Arkwright
returned to the court

on the understanding that he was
permitted to read a poem

that he'd written.

- DR. YARDLEY: There's a very
clear reason why he does this,

'cause he's enjoying the
attention, he's enjoying

the notoriety, and a poem
is something that's

quite unique, it's something
that is quite unusual.

He knows that this is
something that the media

will pick up on, something
that he will be remembered by.

- MICHAEL: Wasn't really a poem,
it was just a rambling

of words and after a few
minutes the judge said,

"No, I think we've had enough,
and we'll stop the trial there.

How do you plead to
these charges?"

And he pleaded to the three
charges murder against

Raymond Ford, Marcus Law,
and Stanislav Puidokis,

and not guilty to the murder
of Elsa Konradaite.

- NARRATOR: The judge
ordered Elsa's killing

to remain on file and on
the 12th of July, 1989,

Arkwright was sentenced
for the other three murders.

- GEOFFREY: The judge describes
him as an evil fantasist

and calls the crimes
grotesque sadism.

It's impossible not to agree
with him.

He sentences Arkwright to
life with a minimum term

of 25 years.

- NARRATOR: In 1990,
his case was reviewed

by the Home Secretary, who
imposed a whole life tariff.

Arkwright is the youngest
person ever to have received

this term in the UK and has
been condemned to die

in prison.

- Life would mean life
as far as he was concerned,

and I think that that's
a proper sentence.

I don't think this is
a safe man to ever allow

out on the street again.

- His goal was not just
to kill and to destroy

and to release all of the
anger and rage he carried

with him his whole life,
but he wanted to be infamous.

- RICHARD: I have to say that
the discovery of both bodies,

really, was probably
the most horrific sight

I've ever seen.

And remains the worst
injuries I've ever seen that

a human can deliberately
inflict upon another human.

- GEOFFREY: Arkwright took
exceptional pride in killing

in the most grotesque way.

To take someone's life
is bad enough but to then

to destroy what remains
of their body either by...

eviscerating it or by
gouging the eyes out

or by stabbing it several
hundred times,

these are the acts of a man
who clearly deserves

to be called evil.

- NARRATOR: Arkwright
grew up harboring

a vendetta against his own
family, he cared only

for himself and would do
whatever he wanted

to those he deemed less
worthy.

He was a habitual criminal
who craved recognition.

And by engaging in a
killing spree fueled by rage

and revenge, was determined
to emerge infamous.

He slaughtered his
grandparents before torturing

and mutilating
two vulnerable neighbors,

making Anthony Arkwright one of
the world's most evil killers.

- ♪

♪♪

- [swishing sound]