Sadistic Killers: Profiles of Pathological Predators (6 page)

Now Anthony Anderson gagged and bound the older man in his allotment shed and beat him to death with a sledgehammer, later telling acquaintances that the man’s brain had looked like baked beans. He locked the shed door before he left.

The fourth victim was Stasys Petrov’s common-law wife, Elsa Konrad. She was ironing in the kitchen when Anderson attacked her, battering at her body again and again with an axe.

Afterwards he covered her body with a sheet, stole numerous items – including a flick knife – from the house and bizarrely left his tie in the toilet bowl.

Arrest and trial

Anthony Anderson’s bizarre behaviour continued when he was taken into custody. He claimed that he had psychic powers and told the officers, ‘You know fuck all about black magic!’ Asked to talk about the murders he said, ‘They are just too horrible to describe.’ Later he justified his grandfather’s murder by explaining, ‘He raped me mother,’ adding falsely that his mother had committed two of the homicides. Later still he said that he had ‘a personality disorderment’. He also went on hunger strike for four days, though no one could figure out why.

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The sadistic psychopath remained terminally bewildered, telling detectives that ‘the only judge in the world is God’ and

‘I heil Hitler. Hitler was a Catholic and so am I.’

At Sheffield Crown Court he was found guilty of multiple murder and sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment with the proviso that he serve at least 25 years. After his trial he said, ‘I want to write a book about my life and how I’ve been tret.’ His mental health continued to decline and he was transferred to a mental hospital from which he’s unlikely to be released.

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CHAPTER FIVE

COLIN JOHN IRELAND

This killer is notable in that he killed five gay men
in 1993 but isn’t homosexual. He also said that his
motive wasn’t sadistic pleasure but the need for
publicity.

Endless upheaval

Colin was born on 16 March 1954 to 17-year-old shop assistant Patricia Ireland. His father ended the relationship during the pregnancy so Colin was initially reared by Patricia, her brother and her parents who all lived in the same house in Dartford, Kent.

But by the time Colin was five his mother understandably wanted her independence from the family, so she and Colin moved to a flat in Gravesend. Unfortunately, supporting them both from a part-time shop job proved impossible, and within a year she’d returned home. A year later she moved out again, this time taking six-year-old Colin to Sidcup. Again, the move was a disaster and, evicted, they moved into a homeless shelter which Colin would later describe as ‘cell-like’ and miserable.

After three months she admitted defeat and took Colin back to her family’s council house.

By the following year, she’d found herself a husband and the trio set up home in Dartford. But they still struggled to pay the rent so moved often to evade their mounting debt.

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School bullying

As a result of the frequent house moves, Colin attended six primary schools in the next five years. He was always the new boy who was picked upon for being shy, very thin and useless at sport. His parents couldn’t afford to keep replacing his school uniform so it was sometimes too short for him, yet another reason for the other children to mock. Colin began to arrive late to avoid the worst of the teasing and was frequently caned for this. Around this time, he began to have increasingly sadistic fantasies.

His sense of being an outsider was amplified when, due to serious financial arrears, he and his mother had to return to the homeless shelter for several months. (The shelter was for women and children so he was separated from his stepfather.) He also felt different because his mother had raised him as a Mormon and none of his acquaintances shared his faith. His religion forbade the drinking of tea and coffee and was against homosexuality.

Further trauma

Colin’s stepfather eventually left the marriage – which had been dysfunctional for some time – and was replaced by another.

Some true crime writers have reported that he was frequently beaten by this second stepfather whilst others say that the man was kind. The boy definitely became increasingly disturbed and the NSPCC became involved, giving him Christmas gifts.

He also later told a journalist that he was put into care when he was ten as his mother had given birth to his brother and couldn’t afford to feed two children, but that when her finances improved she took him back.

What’s certain is that after years of a lack of security the youth simply stopped trusting adults. He was particularly angry when his mother remarried, and chose to revert to his 51

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mother’s maiden name of Ireland rather than take his second stepfather’s name.

Paedophile advances

As a lonely and confused boy, Colin was a magnet for paedophiles. At age 11, he took a holiday job with a fairground and one of the older male employees lured him to a caravan and pulled down his trousers, but he left before the paedophile could take the situation further. At 12, he was using a public toilet when a man offered him money for sexual activity. Colin remained in the cubicle for some time, tempted at the thought of the money and vaguely curious, but when he left the cubicle the man had gone. Shortly after this he was offered sweets by a paedophile at the local cinema and a few weeks after that an older male acquaintance offered him money in return for sex. Ireland would later say that he rebuffed all four offers and was disgusted by them – but psychiatrists believe that he was sexually ambivalent, hardly surprising given the raging hormones of adolescence and his long-term loneliness. The bullying at school continued, making him feel increasingly sadistic and he fantasised about destroying the entire world.

Animal abuse and arson

By 13 he’d begun to catch and torture cats, eventually killing them. This gave him more pleasure than masturbating over lingerie catalogues and vanilla porn. He learned how to make a garrotte and would slowly strangle small animals to death.

At 16 he stole a few pounds and made plans to run away but was caught and sent to a school for disturbed teens. There he was mocked by another boy because of his poverty and got his revenge by setting fire to the clothes he found in the teenager’s room. Luckily a social worker found the fire and put it out quickly before the building caught alight, but it was a clear 52

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arson attack and Ireland was asked to leave the school that day.

He left with one ‘O’ Level, no future plans and a heart filled with hate.

Early criminality

Colin now fled to London and got another fairground job where he saw boys of his own age and younger being abused by paedophiles. To support himself, he took to burglary, was caught and sent to borstal. He quickly escaped. He was caught and sent to a stricter borstal where he remained until he was 18. He now began to read Nazi propaganda – as did Moors murderer Ian Brady when he was in borstal – fantasising that he was part of a cruel master race.

Ireland continued to offend throughout the remainder of his teens and was sent to prison again aged 21 for stealing a car and burgling two properties. Released at age 22, he moved in with a workmate, a West Indian woman with four children. They slept together and he at last lost his virginity.

But all too soon he went back to prison for demanding money with menaces. He served 18 months, was out for a few months then went back inside for two years for robbery.

The following year he committed the crime of deception.

He was also violent towards various girlfriends. Employees would initially like Ireland as he was polite and helpful. But his antisocial side would quickly resurface and he lost or quit various jobs – everything from a bouncer in a gay club to a volunteer fireman – because of his changeable moods.

Survivalism

Colin wanted recognition yet wasn’t prepared to put in the work necessary to get himself a good education or a work-based skill. So he turned to survivalism, joining other macho men who were determined to live off the land, albeit only at 53

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weekends. Unfortunately his fellow survivalists noticed that he often sneaked into town for fried chicken – when perfectly good berries were on the menu – and they began to call him Chicken Colin. Desperate to win their approval, he took to sleeping outside without even a sleeping bag and told them that he’d served in the French Foreign Legion, but the Legion have no record of this.

First marriage

Then, at 27, he met a 36-year-old disabled woman called Virginia. He was kind to her and unfailingly gentle with her five-year-old epileptic daughter – doubtless he remembered the fear and isolation of his own childhood and wanted to improve hers.

The couple married in 1982 but Colin was constantly in and out of prison and Virginia noticed that he was becoming increasingly erratic with violent mood swings. Four years into the marriage he had an affair with another woman and the relationship broke down irreparably. In 1987 they divorced.

Second marriage

Colin continued to go on survivalist weekends and one of them involved a trip to Devon. He went into a pub there called The Globe and immediately started a whirlwind romance with the owner, Jan.

Jan was seven years his senior and a single parent with two children – Ireland seemed to be attracted to ready-made family units where he became the stepfather, recreating the family of his youth. He married Jan after three months, though many thought them an unlikely match.

Four months later they went to visit Jan’s mother in Margate, but after dropping her off Colin returned home in his wife’s car. Back in The Globe he ransacked the till, stole cash and 54

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electrical goods and disappeared. Jan contacted the police when she returned to Devon but Colin had assumed an alias and wasn’t traced.

Alone again, naturally

He now fled to Southend-on-Sea and claimed unemployment benefit under the name of Colin Williams. He was homeless for a while then settled into modest accommodation provided by the Department of Health and Social Security, the other tenants noting that he was a loner who didn’t bring friends back to his room. Many people are loners by choice as they find too much company tiring, but Colin was actually lonely.

He just didn’t know how to connect to other people.

He eventually found himself a girlfriend but soon beat her up – damaged men like Ireland often beat up women who are getting too close to them. She called the police and he was accused of causing actual bodily harm. But, like many domestic disputes, it eventually ended in an acquittal and he was free to hurt other men and women. It’s unlikely that the sadism of his teens had abated, and he doubtless found some sexual pleasure in inflicting pain on his luckless girlfriends.

However, his fortunes improved markedly in 1992 when he volunteered to work at the town’s night shelter. He was so hardworking and polite that he was soon made a deputy manager. He’d known homelessness so wasn’t judgemental towards his clientele.

For the first time in years, Colin Ireland had stability. He had a roof over his head and employment status and was kept well occupied. Compared to the alcoholics and mentally ill people residing in the dormitories he felt like a winner. But all that was about to change.

Just before Christmas 1992, some staff members who didn’t like him made unspecified allegations. They were unfounded but frequent and eventually he became so incensed that he 55

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resigned, devastated because the job had meant everything to him. (Most reports erroneously state that he had a violent fight with a gay homeless man and was sacked.)

The next ten weeks, leading up to his first sadistic murder, were spent in increasingly vengeful fantasies. He read books on serial killers, noting that one FBI agent had said that you had to commit five murders to be considered a modern-day serial killer. (Technically a serial killer ‘only’ has to commit two murders but such double killers are sufficiently common that many law enforcement agencies only consider a man or woman to be a serial killer when they’ve committed at least three homicides with a cooling-off period between each.) The rst murder

On 8 March 1993, Colin Ireland made his way to the Coleherne pub in Earls Court that at the time was frequented by gay sadomasochists. He wore a handkerchief of a certain colour which indicated to the other men there that he was a dominant male. With his heavy build and somewhat stern expression he looked the part. Forty-five-year-old theatre director Peter Walker accidentally spilled his drink on him and half jokingly said that he deserved to be beaten. It was the invitation Ireland was waiting for and he agreed to take a taxi to the man’s Battersea flat to beat him there.

Unfortunately for Mr Walker, Ireland wasn’t interested in consensual erotic bondage, domination and sadomasochism (BDSM). Back at the flat, Walker took off his clothes and Ireland handcuffed him, gagged him with condoms and bound him with rope to the bed. He then beat Peter Walker with a dog leash and a leather belt.

But Ireland wanted the ultimate control, the power over whether someone lived or died, so, leaving his victim trussed helplessly on the bed, he went into the kitchen and fetched a plastic bag, putting it over his victim’s head. He watched the man 56

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