Parents Who Kill--Shocking True Stories of the World's Most Evil Parents (24 page)

M
ost of the biological fathers in the previous chapters have killed their children out of madness or badness. But occasionally a father murders his offspring to prevent them suffering further. Most of these parents also kill themselves.

Sonnie and June Gigg dedicated their lives to their severely disabled fourth son, Lincoln, who had been born deaf, dumb and diabetic as June had suffered from German measles during the pregnancy. Lincoln had the mental age of a three-year-old but the strength of an adult male. Though he went to a community centre near his home in Bristol during the day, the popular couple had no other respite care.

They would bathe, dress and feed Lincoln every morning and give him his insulin injection. During the night, they took turns keeping him company as he would walk around the house, unable to sleep. They also had to keep constant
vigilance to make sure that he didn’t eat anything which would make his diabetes worse. Sonnie sometimes took Lincoln to the pub with him, but the younger man would often try to grab other people’s beer and would behave in an over-boisterous manner. The couple struggled to control their son as he was very strong.

Sonnie, a civil engineer, took early retirement due to ill health at the age of 60 and he and June continued to nurse Lincoln. Though he couldn’t express his feelings, they believed that he enjoyed spending time with his young nephew and nieces who were regular visitors.

In October 2007, June went into hospital for an operation. Though she at first appeared to be recuperating, the 70-year-old died suddenly. Sonnie, also 70, was understandably distraught. He and June were approaching their 50th wedding anniversary and had looked forward to many more years together. Equally overwhelming was the prospect of caring for Lincoln alone. (The couple’s other adult children and friends were happy to help, but Lincoln had always preferred being with his mum and dad. Now there would only be one person to sit up with the multiply-disabled man night after night.)

The future looked bleak to Sonnie Gigg and, the evening after his wife’s death, he put 39-year-old Lincoln and their two Yorkshire terriers in the car and deliberately drove it into the water at Sharpness Docks in Gloucester, drowning both of them and the two dogs. Friends and family later paid tribute to the Giggs through the local paper and on an internet tribute site.

Andrew and Mary Wragg married in 1992. It was his first marriage and her second. They were a good-looking couple (she was a former teenage model) but the relationship was
stormy from the start. He was 25 when they met but had already travelled the world as a merchant seaman and had an exemplary record. His parents and siblings were all equally successful. Mary had had a more difficult start in life but had rallied after being adopted by a caring couple.

In 1993, when she was seven months pregnant, the foetus was diagnosed with Hunter Syndrome. When the baby was born, the couple called him Jacob. Unfortunately he suffered from the early-onset type of the syndrome, which meant that he wouldn’t live beyond his teens. (Sufferers of late onset variety can live for 20–60 years, albeit with increasing medical problems, as a chemical build-up causes multiple organ failure and tissue damage.) By now, Andrew had joined the army and was working in the SAS Signals to some acclaim.

Later, when Mary was seven months pregnant again, they discovered that this foetus also had Hunter Syndrome so medics advised that she have a late abortion. This involved stopping the foetus’s heart in utero, after which Mary gave birth to it. This was an incredibly traumatic event and she would later say that she never fully recovered from it. Andrew was also deeply distraught and was given a compassionate discharge from the armed forces.

He set up a video business but this failed, leading to financial problems. Meanwhile, Mary had two miscarriages though the couple had a healthy son in 1998 whom they called George.

As Jacob’s disease progressed, he sometimes had breathing problems and almost died of pneumonia when he was six.

In 2000, the Wraggs separated for the first time but reconciled within a year. They split up a second time and again reconciled. On one occasion, police were called to the house and Andrew
was cautioned for kicking the front door of the house where Mary was living with the children. He alleged that she’d slammed the door on him.

Meanwhile, Jacob’s condition was worsening and, when Andrew was away doing security work, Mary was his main carer. It was a herculean task, especially as she was suffering from a kidney disorder and often felt unwell.

Whilst visiting Jacob in hospital, the Wraggs also saw various other child patients who were suffering and Andrew told another parent that, if Jacob ended up in unbearable pain, he would put a pillow over his head. Mary in turn told medics that, if Jacob’s condition worsened, they should not attempt to resuscitate him.

By the time that Jacob was 10 years old, he was deaf and mute and could only stagger a few steps by standing on his toes. He was largely confined to a wheelchair. His hands had curled permanently into a claw-like shape, he was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe and his only way of communicating was by giving hugs.

On 19 July 2004, Andrew returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, during which he had witnessed various atrocities. He was shocked to see how much Jacob had deteriorated. His son’s illness was terminal and it was likely that he would soon become doubly incontinent. His joint contracture would also escalate and he would deteriorate mentally.

On 24 July, he looked into his son’s eyes and believed that Jacob wanted him to take action. (His mindset at this moment would be described during the trial as delusional.) After drinking heavily, the former SAS man told Mary to get their other son, George, out of bed and take him to her mother’s. She put the child, in his pyjamas, into the back of her car and
drove to a lay-by, where she sat drinking wine from a bottle. Meanwhile, Andrew put a pillow over his sleeping son’s head. He would later allege that he phoned Mary in tears and said ‘I’ve done it.’

When Mary returned to the Worthing bungalow, Andrew was lying next to Jacob and cuddling him. She said ‘I hope you didn’t hurt him’ and he said that he hadn’t. He later added ‘He’s with Henry now, he’s asleep.’ (Henry was the name that they’d given to their dead baby.) They toasted the idea that Jacob was at peace.

Afterwards, Andrew dialled 999 and said ‘I’ve terminated my son’s life… so arrest me.’ An ambulance arrived and took Jacob, who was still breathing, to hospital but he died shortly afterwards.

When police arrived, Andrew begged them not to judge him too harshly, saying that it had been a mercy killing. Interviewed, Mary admitted that, at times, she’d hated Jacob and wished that it was all over. She had the feelings of exhaustion and desperation that many full-time carers share and had been so fraught at one stage that she’d threatened to leave the boy on the steps of a residential care home if she wasn’t given more help.

Police found that Andrew Wragg was three times over the drink-driving limit and that Mary Wragg had amphetamines in her system. Cocaine was also found in the house. Both were arrested, but Mary was later released without charge.

During Andrew Wragg’s trial in February 2005, the jury was hopelessly deadlocked. A second trial took place in December that year at Lewes Crown Court. The prosecution alleged
that Andrew Wragg had murdered Jacob for selfish reasons, because he no longer wanted to care for him. But the defence noted that he’d been a loving father, and witnesses backed this up.

By the time that the case went to trial, Mary had turned on Andrew and she told the court that he was a heavy drinker who avoided discussions about his son’s future. Andrew admitted this but denied that he was embarrassed by Jacob. He said that his son was facing a painful and undignified end. Several witnesses echoed this theme, saying that Jacob was so traumatised by his illness that he looked like a zombie and had become little more than a shell. In contrast, Mary alleged that he had been happy and comparatively healthy on the day that he died. But a pathologist noted that Jacob’s respiration was so poor that he could have died from a chest infection at any time. Indeed, they would not have known that the boy had been suffocated if his father hadn’t confessed to it.

Andrew Wragg took the stand and said that Mary had known that he was about to put Jacob out of his misery, but Mary denied this. The judge believed Andrew Wragg’s version of events, noting that it otherwise made no sense for her to take their son George out for a drive in his pyjamas in the middle of the night. (Mary had said that she and Andrew planned to have noisy sex so she wanted seven-year-old George to stay at her mother’s house.)

On 12 December, the jury found the 38-year-old not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. They recognised that he’d been shell-shocked after returning from Baghdad and that this, plus his marital problems and the tragedy of his son’s terminal illness, had led to a state of diminished responsibility.

The judge said that there was nothing to be gained from taking his liberty and gave him a two year suspended sentence. Mary, now divorced from Andrew, said that she was incensed
at the verdict. But Wragg’s father, Bob, a retired policeman, asked that the family be allowed to grieve for the loss of Jacob whom they had all loved.

Seeing his family unravel due to chronic ill-health, this American physician killed both them and himself.

Anthony was a respected cancer specialist who doted on his wife, a psychologist one year his junior. But, by the age of 43, she was in agony due to severe rheumatoid arthritis in her spine. He prescribed strong medication for her, but, over the next few years, the pain became unbearable due to nerve compression and her quality of life was very poor. Anthony Paul treated patients with intestinal cancer so knew that pain medication could only do so much. To make matters worse, one of the couple’s two children was severely brain damaged and, though a teenager, had the mental capacity of a one-year-old. This teenage daughter also had asthma and had to be given medication every six hours.

During the second week in July 1990, Mrs Paul’s pain was so unrelenting that she didn’t sleep for seven nights and tried to commit suicide. Unable to bear her suffering any longer, the doctor determined to put her and their retarded daughter out of their misery. Rather than spend the rest of his life in jail for their murders, he determined to also kill himself. More controversially, he also decided to kill his 12-year-old son, a gifted child with no health problems, as otherwise the child would end up in a succession of foster homes, grieving for his family.

On Monday 16 July 1990, he left his office, went home and gave his unsuspecting wife and children a drink laced with sedatives. They all curled up together on the same bed. When
they were deeply asleep, he gave them an intravenous solution of lethal drugs then administered the same cocktail to himself. His secretary found his suicide note the following day and phoned the police, who arrived at the house to find the entire family dead.

Anthony Paul’s heartfelt note said ‘I am writing this so that no blame should fall on anyone except me. I cannot go on with the present situation. There’s only one solution. It must end with my death.’ Later in the note, he gave details of the medication which his daughter required, lest she survive the murder attempt.

He continued: ‘I have no regrets. I have lived a good life. I have hurt nobody, I have loved my wife and children to the point that I am willing to sacrifice my career and my life for them.’

Colleagues and former patients later paid homage to his selflessness and dedication to duty.

A
n emotionally-immature man – particularly one who has endured an abusive childhood – is often incapable of bonding with a new lover’s children. He sees them as a reminder of her previous marriage and, whilst he may be unkind to his own children, he scapegoats his stepchild and treats him or her with mounting severity.

Sadly, the biological mother, who is often from a similarly deprived background, may collude in the abuse, either actively hitting the child or turning a blind eye to the numerous beatings and emotional cruelties that her new partner is meting out.

In the following cases, the stepfather was found guilty of murder or manslaughter, with the mother sometimes serving a lesser sentence. (The third section of the book is devoted to couples who jointly kill their children.)

This man repeatedly brutalised his stepdaughter, Maria Colwell, and she was ill-served by the social workers who were supposed to protect her. There was a public enquiry after her death, age seven, in 1973.

Maria was born on 26 March 1965 to Pauline and Raymond Colwell. She was the couple’s fifth child, though Pauline had given birth to an illegitimate child by another man before she married, and had given this daughter up at birth.

Raymond left Pauline a month after Maria was born, and died of heart failure three months later. Pauline, who had already been an indifferent mother, sank into a deep depression and neglected all five of her offspring. They were taken into care for their own protection and Pauline lost touch with all of them (despite the fact that two of the children were fostered by her own mother) except for her youngest, Maria.

Maria was fostered by her father’s sister and her husband, Doris and Bob Cooper, who loved the infant and gave her the same care as their own four children. Though she’d been underweight and listless when she arrived at their Sussex home, she soon began to thrive. Her mother took her back, but the National Society For The Prevention of Cruelty To Children were shocked at the way she was being underfed and neglected, and obtained a court order giving parental rights to the East Sussex County Council. They, in turn, returned her to the loving home of the Coopers who referred to her as their baby and were desperate to adopt her, but Pauline refused.

Pauline Violet Colwell continued to periodically disrupt her daughter’s life. She insisted that the child be raised as a Catholic, her own religion, though she’d made no such stipulation about her other children. Each time she moved house or formed another brief liaison, she told the Coopers that she wanted Maria back. The book
Remember Maria
by
John G Howells describes how the little girl was terrified of this happening, as she loved her foster family and was afraid of her mother. She tried to avoid her visits and was visibly relieved each time that the woman left. The constant fear of being snatched away from her caring foster family and siblings was so terrifying for Maria that she had nightmares and became clinically depressed.

Within a year of losing her first husband, Pauline had begun cohabitating with a heavy drinker called William Kepple, a confrontational man with a reputation for violence who occasionally worked as a labourer but more often signed on the dole. She later married him and became Pauline Kepple. The couple had four children together in quick succession, with Pauline intermittently asking for Maria’s return.

When Maria was six, the court decided that she should be returned to her biological mother, social workers stating that there was always a natural bond between mother and child. No one consulted Maria about whether this bond existed (it most definitely didn’t) and she was so distraught that she had to be removed by force on 22 October 1971 from the Coopers’ home. They too were desolate at losing their beloved foster child.

Maria began her new life on a council estate in Brighton with her inadequate mother and violent unemployed stepfather. He favoured his own children and would buy them treats, leaving Maria to go without. He also forced her to do numerous chores so that she became exhausted and ill. A teenage babysitter saw Kepple slap Maria twice across the face for watching television, despite the fact that the babysitter had given her permission to do so. The child tried to run away to a place of safety, but the handle of the bedroom door had been removed so she was trapped.

Over the next few months, the abuse escalated and William Kepple would often beat the seven-year-old and send her to bed early, whilst his biological children got to stay up and watch TV. He encouraged them to hit her – a relative saw one of Kepple’s children repeatedly kicking Maria in Pauline’s presence but Pauline refused to intervene. Kepple also increasingly withheld food from the little girl and neighbours saw her scrabbling for scraps in the dustbins and eating bread which had been put out for the birds. As the abuse escalated, she turned down food from concerned adults as she was terrified that her stepfather would find out.

Neighbours could see that the child was being ill-treated and was regressing. They made numerous calls to various agencies, including the police, the NSPCC and social work department. Her teachers also reported that she was losing weight and was often bruised. Educational welfare officers visited the home 17 times to remind the Kepples that Maria must be sent to school, but again and again the couple kept her at home, doubtless to hide her many bruises and injuries.

Social workers called on a weekly basis at the house but were afraid of the abusive William Kepple and accepted his reports that Maria was ill in bed and sleeping and mustn’t be disturbed. By the time she was seen by a social worker, she weighed less than two-thirds of what a seven-year-old should weigh, but the woman reported that she was fine.

On 17 October 1972, Maria attended school for what would be the last time. That same month, Doris Cooper asked social workers if she might visit Maria, the child that she’d raised for six years and loved dearly. Her request was refused. The following month, police called following a complaint from the neighbours and found that the children had been left to fend for themselves. When the Kepples returned from the pub,
they told them that they couldn’t abandon their youngsters in the evening. Thereafter, the couple often took their other children out with them, leaving Maria in her darkened bedroom with the door jammed shut.

The beatings continued apace and were doubtless more severe now that Keppel was keeping Maria permanently indoors and there was no one to look out for her. The school were so concerned that they made a medical appointment for her in December but the Kepples didn’t show up. A social worker saw her that month and failed to raise the alarm though neighbours (who called everyone from the police to the housing association in their desperate attempts to get help for the seven-year-old) would later describe the little girl as a walking skeleton.

On Saturday 6 January 1973, William and Pauline Kepple came home from the pub to find Maria watching TV. Enraged that she wasn’t in her room, her intoxicated stepfather beat her savagely. As usual, Pauline Kepple did nothing to help her child.

It’s likely that it was the following morning that they found the little girl dead. What’s certain is that they left the house at 7.45am pushing a pram – but it was 10.35am before it was wheeled into Royal Sussex Country Hospital in Brighton. The pram contained the little girl’s emaciated corpse. She had two black eyes, a fractured rib, internal injuries, massive bruising and brain damage. A previously fractured rib was beginning to heal. An autopsy found that there was no food in her stomach, that she had been tearing the wallpaper from her bedroom walls and eating it in a last desperate effort to survive.

Pauline Kepple said that her daughter suffered from
epileptic fits and had fallen down the stairs, but it was clear to the horrified medics that the child had been the victim of numerous assaults and that she was starving. They promptly called the police.

At Brighton police station, the bereaved mother stuck to her story for some time but eventually admitted that her husband had hit the child. He, in turn, confessed to striking Maria in the chest and stomach.

In April 1973, the stepfather from hell was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years. Incredibly, this was lessened on appeal to four years. After he went to prison, Pauline Kepple had a child by yet another man.

There was a public outcry about the way that so many agencies had failed Maria Colwell and the authorities swore that it must never happen again. Sadly, there have been similar cases since.

Steve, one of Maria Colwell’s older brothers, still puts flowers on his sister’s grave. He and his wife have had five children and they have never hit them.

After Maria Colwell’s appalling death in 1973, the authorities said that lessons had been learned. But just over a decade later, Jasmine Beckford suffered a similarly cruel fate.

Maurice Beckford brutally assaulted one of his stepchildren and was found guilty, whereupon his older stepdaughter, Jasmine, was taken into care. She thrived in the two-and-a-half years that she was with Brent social services, but eventually her biological mother got her back.

Beckford subjected the four-year-old to a catalogue of cruelty, burning her, cutting her and breaking her ribs. He
locked her in a small room with body building weights attached to her broken legs so that she couldn’t move about. He also withheld food and water from the brutalised child.

On 5 January 1984, she died. The pathologist said that it was the worst case of abuse that he had ever seen, for Jasmine weighted only 1 stone 9lbs, was covered in ulcers and injuries and ‘looked like a Belsen victim.’

Maurice Beckford was sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter, whilst her mother, Beverley Lorrington, got 18 months for neglect.

Heidi Koseda, who died at age four, suffered similar prolonged abuse at the hands of her stepfather Nicholas Price. He dominated her mother, Rosemary, until her mental health broke down. He also isolated Heidi from her maternal grandmother and made excuses to health visitors about why they couldn’t see Heidi when they called at the couple’s Hillingdon home in west London.

New neighbours moved downstairs from the couple in August 1984. By now, Mrs Koseda (who already had a second child) was heavily pregnant with Price’s baby but was refusing all medical attention. The new female neighbour heard banging and crashing followed by what sounded like a child’s screams. Alarmed, she phoned the NSPCC on 3 September. She called again in October and November. During the latter month, a social services inspector failed to gain access to the flat but falsified his records to say that he’d made a successful visit. He was later sacked for this.

Meanwhile, Heidi was being starved by her stepfather as an alleged punishment for eating too many sweets during the summer. Eventually she was so desperate for food that she ate part of a nappy and strips of wallpaper from the walls. In
November or December he locked her in a room without food and water and left her there until she died.

A police inspector, police constable and health visitor visited the flat on 27 December to enquire as to Heidi’s wellbeing, but accepted Price’s explanation that she was staying with friends. He barred them from entering Heidi’s bedroom, saying that it was unsafe because it had been doused with chemicals to treat damp. If they
had
entered the tiny room, they would have found the four-year-old’s decomposing corpse hidden at the back of a cupboard.

A neighbour phoned again in January expressing fears that the children were being ill-treated. (The baby had been seen wearing only a vest, despite the freezing weather.) Finally, on 23 January, police insisted on searching the entire flat, found the little girl’s emaciated body, and arrested Price. He was jailed for life, whilst her mother, Rosemary Koseda, was found guilty of manslaughter and sent to a psychiatric hospital.

Two years later, in Greenwich, another stepfather similarly starved and fatally beat his partner’s child. Nigel Hall met mother-of-four Pauline Carlile at a railway station. Her children had been in foster care but she had succeeded in getting them back.

Nigel Hall ill-treated all of the children, but reserved the worst of his rage for Kimberley, who was a bed-wetter. Social services became involved with the family again after the oldest boy, age seven, admitted to his teacher that Nigel Hall was knocking him about. Neighbours also reported hearing children’s screams and cries.

But Hall regularly refused social workers access to his home, determined that they wouldn’t find out that he was regularly starving little Kimberley. Her mother was also assaulting her.

In the final hours of her life, she was so hungry that she ate her own faeces. In the same time period, Nigel Hall held a cigarette against her spine in 15 different places. She died, age four, on 8 June 1986.

He was given a life sentence for her murder whilst her mother was sentenced to 12 years for child cruelty.

Nottinghamshire social services were warned by little Leanne White’s neighbours and grandmother that she was at risk from her stepfather, Colin Sleate. But they failed to properly follow up reports, and he continued to ill-treat her, repeatedly torturing her and making her sleep on the floor. She was also abused by her mother, Tina. In the last few months of her life she suffered 107 external injuries.

During one beating on 15 November 1992 at their home in Hucknall, he battered the three-year-old repeatedly in the stomach, causing severe internal injuries and a massive abdominal haemorrhage which proved fatal. The following year, he was given a life sentence for her murder, whilst her mother, Tina, received 10 years for manslaughter.