Westley Allan Dodd was an American convicted serial killer and sex offender who sexually assaulted and murdered three young boys in Vancouver, Washington, in 1989. He was arrested later that year after a failed attempt to abduct a six-year-old boy at a movie theatre in Camas Washington.
Sarah Evelyn Isobel Payne was the victim of a high-profile abduction and murder in West Sussex, England in July 2000.
William George Bonin, also called the Freeway Killer and the Freeway Strangler, was an American serial killer and sex offender who raped, tortured, and murdered young men and boys between November 1968 and June 1980 in southern California. He was convicted of 14 murders, but he confessed to 21 and is suspected of even more.
Mark Richard Hobson is a British spree killer who killed four people in North Yorkshire, England, in July 2004. He was arrested after an eight-day nationwide manhunt involving more than 500 police officers and twelve police forces, during which time he was Britain's "most wanted man".
Arthur Gary Bishop was an American convicted sex offender and serial killer. In 1983, as a result of a routine police investigation, he confessed to the murders of five young boys between 1979 and 1983.
In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence that lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for parole after a minimum term set by the judge. In exceptional cases a judge may impose a "whole life order", meaning that the offender is never considered for parole, although they may still be released on compassionate grounds at the discretion of the home secretary. Whole life orders are usually imposed for aggravated murder, and can only be imposed where the offender was at least 21 years old at the time of the offence being committed.
The murder of Sophie Hook was a widely reported child murder which took place in Llandudno, North Wales, in July 1995.
Gerald Armond Gallego and Charlene Adell Gallego were two American serial killers and rapists who were active mainly in Sacramento, California, between 1978 and 1980. They murdered at least eleven victims, often kept as sex slaves.
Kenneth Eugene Parnell was an American convicted sex offender, child rapist, and kidnapper infamously known for committing the abductions of 7-year-old Steven Stayner in Merced, California, in 1972 and 5-year-old Timothy White in Ukiah, California, in 1980. He was convicted in 2004 for attempting to purchase a child for sex and died in prison.
Brian James Dugan is an American convicted rapist and serial killer active between 1983 and 1985 in Chicago's western suburbs. He was known for having informally confessed in 1985 to the February 1983 abduction, rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville, Illinois, which was a highly publicized case. He was already in custody for two other rapes and murders, one of a woman in July 1984 and the other a 7-year-old girl in May 1985. He was sentenced to life after pleading guilty to the latter two crimes.
Sidney Charles Cooke is an English convicted child molester, murderer and suspected serial killer and serial rapist serving two life sentences. He was the leader of a paedophile ring suspected of up to twenty child murders of young boys in the 1970s and 1980s. Cooke and other members of the ring were convicted of three killings in total, although he was only convicted of one himself.
Robert Black was a Scottish serial killer and paedophile who was convicted of the kidnap, rape and murder of four girls aged between 5 and 11 in a series of crimes committed between 1981 and 1986 in the United Kingdom.
On 12 February 1993 in Merseyside, two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, abducted, tortured, and murdered a two-year-old boy, James Patrick Bulger. Thompson and Venables led Bulger away from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, after his mother had taken her eyes off him momentarily. His mutilated body was found on a railway line two and a half miles away in Walton, Liverpool, two days later.
John David Guise Cannan was a British murderer, serial rapist, serial abductor, and suspected serial killer. He was convicted in July 1988 and given three life sentences for the murder of Shirley Banks in Bristol in October 1987; the attempted kidnapping of Julia Holman on the previous night; the rape of a woman in Reading, Berkshire, in 1986; the rape of his girlfriend in December 1980; and several other abductions, attempted abductions and sexual offences. He became eligible for parole in September 2023, which was refused the following month.
Brett Peter Cowan is an Australian murderer and serial child rapist. He was convicted of the murder of Daniel Morcombe, a 13-year-old boy who disappeared from the Sunshine Coast on 7 December 2003. His abduction led to an eight-year investigation involving various suspects. As a result of these investigations, Cowan led undercover police to a potential burial site. He was charged with the murder that same month, and Morcombe's remains were discovered days later on 17 August. Cowan was sentenced to life imprisonment, on 13 March 2014 in a trial that attracted worldwide attention. Cowan had two previous convictions for sexually abusing children, the earliest dating back to 1987.
Events from 2002 in England
Events from 1996 in England
Crimes That Shook Britain is a television series first aired in 2008 on Crime & Investigation UK, focusing on uncovering the truth behind crimes that shocked the nation. Some episodes were also rebroadcast in random episode order from 2014 to 2019, on Channel 5 originally under the title Britain's Worst Crimes.
Alun Kyte, known as the Midlands Ripper, is an English double murderer, serial rapist, child rapist, paedophile and suspected serial killer. He was convicted in 2000 of the murders of two sex workers, 20-year-old Samo Paull and 30-year-old Tracey Turner, whom he killed in December 1993 and March 1994 respectively. After his conviction, investigators announced their suspicions that Kyte could have been behind a number of other unsolved murders of sex workers across Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. He was apprehended due to the ground-breaking investigations of a wider police inquiry named Operation Enigma, which was launched in 1996 in response to the murders of Paull, Turner and of a large number of other sex workers. Kyte was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years imprisonment for the murders of Paull and Turner.
