Sadistic Killers: Profiles of Pathological Predators (36 page)

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Dudson said that Glyn Powell started the fire but Jean Powell said that Bernadette McNeilly had initially started it. Dudson acknowledged that the first flames had gone out so Glyn Powell had started them again by using his cigarette lighter on Suzanne’s back. They laughed as their victim’s screams filled the air and only left the site when they believed that she was dead.

Naming her attackers

But after her tormentors had gone, the badly burned Suzanne staggered, naked, to the roadside where workmen took her to a nearby house and phoned an ambulance. The owners of the house gave her the six glasses of water she requested, though they had to hold the glass to her lips as her fingers had been burned away.

The couple were appalled by the girl’s injuries – her features had been obliterated by the flames and her legs and feet were horribly charred. Her tormentors had also shaved and cut her head.

The 16-year-old remained conscious long enough to tell police that she’d been held at a house in Langworthy Road, Moston, in Manchester. She named her six tormentors and gave some details of what they’d done to her. Shortly afterwards she lapsed into a coma and three days later, on 18 December, she died.

Autopsy

Her autopsy the following month revealed the extent of her suffering, for she had been repeatedly cut, burnt and beaten.

Moreover, the removal of one of her teeth had exposed a dental nerve. She had died of multiple organ failure, having suffered 80 per cent burns after being set alight.

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Unrepentant

Incredibly, the gang remained indifferent to the horror of their crimes. Jean Powell even sent her ex-husband a love letter when they were in prison which said ‘I love you, darling… your loving wife and best friend.’ Later she’d pretend in court that she only committed some of the abuses on Suzanne because she was frightened of him.

Trial

On 16 November 1993, the trial opened at Manchester Crown Court. Bernadette McNeilly and Jean Powell admitted falsely imprisoning Suzanne Capper, as did Jean Powell’s younger brother Clifford Pook who also admitted conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm. Jean Powell’s ex-husband, Glyn Powell, denied the charges as did Jeffrey Leigh and Anthony Dudson.

All six denied murdering the teenager.

During the trial, each defendant tried to minimise their part in the teenager’s ordeal. Glyn Powell said that he still loved Jean Powell and had only gone along with events to please her. Bernadette McNeilly admitted injecting Suzanne Capper with amphetamines but said she’d done so as an act of kindness to prevent others in the group injecting her with heroin. (In reality, one such torture session where McNeilly was alone with Capper had lasted for two hours.) Jean Powell noted that it was Bernadette McNeilly who had ordered Suzanne’s teeth to be pulled out, and Anthony Dudson said that Clifford Pook had laughingly carried out the extractions and that Glyn Powell had set Suzanne alight whilst singing the song ‘Burn Baby Burn’. In turn, Jean Powell said that Bernadette McNeilly had dragged Suzanne from the car boot, pushed her down the hill and set her alight.

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Jeffrey Leigh said that Jean Powell often ‘got mad ideas in the brain. She feels she could have people jump when she clicks her fingers.’ He described Bernadette McNeilly as ‘a bit weird’. Leigh admitted he’d untied Suzanne from the bed and put a balaclava over her head, knowing that some of the other gang members planned to dump her somewhere. He said that he thought ‘she would go brain dead’ and wouldn’t be able to identify them.

Both Powells and Bernadette McNeilly were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Anthony Dudson was also convicted of murder but was given an 18-year sentence because of his youth. Jeffrey Leigh was given 12 years for unlawful imprisonment and Clifford Pook was given 15 years for conspiracy and seven years for unlawful imprisonment. He was sent to a young offenders institution, the judge commenting that he’d been under the influence of his dominant older sister, Jean Powell. His counsel said that Pook was of low intelligence and that Jean Powell had introduced him to amphetamines when he was very young.

As usual, the press tried to create a moral panic, suggesting that the film
Child’s Play 3
was responsible for making the defendants maim and murder. But in truth the gang didn’t have a video player and a copy of the video wasn’t found in the house. They had merely taped the rock music soundtrack from the original
Child’s Play
film from the radio and played it during some of the torture sessions, and Bernadette McNeilly had repeated the phrase ‘Chucky’s coming to play’ from the film whenever she abused Suzanne. It would surely have been more helpful to look at the upbringings of these women who were single parents to three children by their mid twenties, had teenage boyfriends who were barely legal and who supported themselves through drug dealing and theft.

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A shorter sentence

In March 2002, Anthony Dudson’s sentence was reduced from 18 to 16 years because the authorities said he’d made

‘significant progress’ in detention. In 2003 (now age 27) he appealed for a further reduction, his counsel arguing that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child meant that he should have been given the lowest minimum term possible.

But the High Court opted not to reduce the term served before he becomes eligible for parole.

In cases like this which involve female and male sadists, the female’s role is invariably forgotten over time. This was apparent when Dudson’s appeals were reported in the national press. Manchester newspapers named all of the killers involved, but most less-localised reports simply referred to the ‘violent gang’ he belonged to, and it probably wouldn’t have occurred to newer readers that this gang included two merciless female sadists who thought that an allegedly stolen duffle coat was an excuse to torture someone to death.

But some members of the public will never forget the ordeal that Suzanne Capper suffered, and, when Dudson’s appeals were being highlighted, a woman who’d served on the jury at his trial wrote to the newspapers reminding them of this mixed-gender gang’s atrocities.

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PART FIVE

BOUNDARIES

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

SAFE AND SANE:

CONSENSUAL

SADOMASOCHISM

The burnings, tooth extractions and starvation highlighted in the previous cases are a world removed from consensual sadomasochism – yet the law often fails to make a distinction between forced and consensual BDSM (bondage, domination and sadomasochism) activities. Similarly, the psychiatric profession classifies sadomasochism as a paraphilia (deviant desire), ranking it alongside immoral practices such as paedophilia. In this climate of distrust, consensual sadomasochists understandably prefer to remain underground, so I’m indebted to respected erotic artist Lynn Paula Russell for speaking to me so freely about her sexuality.

Lynn Paula Russell is equally well known in the BDSM

community as Paula Meadows, editor and illustrator of the adult corporal punishment magazine
Februs
and a contributor to numerous associated publications. She prefers to be called Paula, her middle name.

Paula became interested in punishment for pleasure at the start of the 1980s. She explains: ‘I began to appreciate from 306

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my own personal experiences how the power of sex underpins most of what we do; also I realised that sexual relationships are rarely built on equality, but on power dynamics which are often quite unconsciously followed.’

She continues: ‘My first inkling of my own propensity for masochism came about when I read
Story of O
and later a book called
A Taste for Pain
by Maria Marcus. Both these books drew attention, in different ways, to the problem of how otherwise strong women come to terms with the fact that they need to be dominated, and sometimes experience pain in order to obtain sexual pleasure and liberation. It was this paradox that intrigued me.’

Unsurprisingly, Paula’s entry into power-play eroticism had its difficulties. ‘At the beginning there was confusion. I remember a specific occasion when my interest started to come to the surface – it was quite unexpected. I recall being aware of a strong impatience with my partner at the time and a desire to wake him up and get him going. Suddenly I found myself saying
I’d like to whip you!
He suggested I get on with it. This was one of those moments when you leap across an imaginary abyss… but it brought no immediate satisfaction. After giving him a few half-hearted whacks with a belt I began to feel bad.

However, when I let him spank me in return it was arousing, helped me overcome inhibitions and seemed to clear away emotional detritus. This was a turning point.’

Nevertheless, it took time for her to come to terms with sexual submission. ‘When you decide to act out a masochistic fantasy for the first time, you take a big step – you are confronted by the reality and harshness of real pain and this is a good thing.

It wakes you up, shows you what you are really doing and leads you away from the more unconscious gratifications of emotional masochism. Then, as you repeat the treatment you become more used to it and begin to enjoy that warm feeling and the adrenaline high it gives you. But the fact that you need 307

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pain or humiliation or whatever to achieve that erotic high means there is a problem somewhere inside the psyche which is trying to be resolved. If we just accept our submissive role this is not the answer, it is merely acknowledging that this is a symptom that needs attention. So we act out the problem (hopefully in safety and with controls), in the hope of fulfilment and resolution. I call it a problem, but in a way, you know, it is more like the grit in the oyster that helps to make your own unique individual pearl.’

Slowly Paula began to meet like-minded people and explore her limits, even making an adult video in which she was spanked. ‘This all led to meeting a different set of friends.

Some of these new friends were open about their interests in sadomasochism (SM) and I found myself involved in a network of people who met up regularly to enjoy themselves in a very uninhibited fashion. I can’t tell you how surprised I was to discover that the interests I had tentatively explored privately with my partner, thinking we were the only ones, were actually shared by hundreds of others! But at first, I didn’t know this was part of a worldwide scene.’

Like many females who choose to experiment with sexual submission, Paula is a strong woman who is confident and articulate. The same is invariably true of male submissives. It tends to be the headmaster and headmistress of a school – or company directors – who opt for sexually submissive roles in private, choosing to hand over their power for erotic delight.

That said, a percentage of women who are attracted to sexual submission have low self-esteem.

Like many of her contemporaries, Paula had struggled to find a suitable name for her sexual choice. ‘ I always had trouble calling myself submissive because that label never seemed to fit. I couldn’t allow myself to be controlled by another and always disliked bondage, however much I trusted people, but neither could I begin to control someone else. Let’s just say I 308

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was submitting to the experience – not the person. I was playing at being submissive because I found it impossible to initiate happenings for myself. I liked to be egged on to do things that normally I wouldn’t dare to suggest. That way I wouldn’t have to take responsibility for them. I’ve heard many other submissive types describe it like this. This meant I had a nature that had a strong tendency to be led and people looking for a submissive partner would have picked that up subliminally as soon as they met me.’

At first she was swept away on a tide of erotic bliss. ‘When you are susceptible to a dominant person you don’t observe the techniques they use to get their effect; you fall under their spell.

When you realise how they press buttons in you this is a big step forward. It is then possible to look out for these behaviour patterns with other people in your ordinary everyday life and practise resisting.’

This understanding has doubtless fed into her erotic books, the first being
The Illustrative Art of Lynn Paula Russell
which includes scenes from her own life,
Story of O
illustrations and a series of sensuous drawings called ‘Bodyscapes’. It was followed by
A Sexual Odyssey
, concentrating more on Paula’s illustrative work for corporal punishment (CP) magazines. Later she produced
Sexcitement,
a sex manual with a much more personal touch. It covered areas usually avoided by other manuals, like CP, bondage, and exploring submission and domination role play, the object being to encourage couples to be honest with each other, build trust and safely experiment. Her other titles include
Painful Pleasures
(a large collection of CP illustrations originally published in Februs) and
The Illustrated Book of
Corporal Punishment
, all published by The Erotic Print Society.

So what was the general public’s reaction to her work and chosen lifestyle? Paula admits that ‘as a rule I don’t discuss BDSM with people who aren’t in the circle so I don’t often get to hear outsiders’ views. Certainly, in the media there’s an 309