Anthony Hardy Charged With Murdering Three Women After Remains Are Found in Camden
A year earlier, police had found a woman's body in the same Camden apartment and accepted that she died of a heart attack. Now Hardy was charged with her murder too.
Published
A year before, police had found a woman dead in Anthony Hardy's apartment in Camden and accepted that she had died of a heart attack. In January 2003, Hardy was charged with her murder and the murders of two other women.
The case began on December 30 and 31, 2002, when the remains of two women were found at Hardy's apartment in Camden Town, north London, and in nearby trash cans. Hardy disappeared, and after a nationwide search he was arrested in a waiting room at Great Ormond Street Hospital in central London, after a retired police officer recognized him from the news and called detectives. He answered "no comment" to every question.
The two women were identified as Elizabeth Valad and Bridgette MacLennan, and Hardy was charged with their murders. He was also charged with the murder of Sally White, whose body police had found in his apartment on January 20, 2002, while investigating a complaint from a neighbor. Hardy had refused to answer questions about her then, too, but the autopsy found no clear cause of death, and the pathologist concluded that the evidence suggested a heart attack. No action was taken. Hardy, an alcoholic who had been treated in psychiatric hospitals for depression, was later sent to a hospital for an unrelated offense and discharged on November 4, 2002, eight weeks before the remains were found.
Hardy later pleaded guilty to all three murders at the Old Bailey on November 25, 2003, and was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommendation that he never be released.
The High Court spelled the third victim's surname MacLennan, while some accounts spell it MacClennan.
Sources
- R v Hardy [2010] EWHC 1064 (QB), High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division (Find Case Law, The National Archives)
- Anthony Hardy: The Camden Ripper, Crime+Investigation UK
Related News
- November 25, 2003: Anthony Hardy Pleads Guilty to Three Camden Murders and Is Told Life Should Mean Life