By Bridget Heath
Steven Griffiths was born in 1969 in Dewsbury, West riding of Yorkshire England.
These murders were the serial killings of three women in the city of Bradford West Yorkshire England in 2009 and 2010.
Susan Rushworth disappeared on June 22nd 2009, and Shirley Armitage disappeared on April 26th 2010 and Suzanne Blamires on May 21st of 2010. The women were all sex workers based out of Bradford. Parts of Blamires body were found in the river Aire in Shipley near Bradford on May 25th. There was other human tissue found in the same river laster shown to belong to Shelly Armitage.
When Stephen Griffiths was arrested and interviewed by police in 2010, he told officers that he killed a total of 5-6 workers in Bradford so that meant there were possibly two additional victims on accounted for. In 2010 the police had investigated and questioned Griffiths on another murder of a Bradford prostitute in 2001 her name was Rebecca Hall. Griffiths refuse to speak to the interviewers. Rebecca Hall had been found dead in a car parked only 800m away from where Griffith lived at the time in Bradford. Griffis knew who Hall was and she regularly visited his flat. Griffiths former partner at the time revealed that Griffith had excitedly taken her to the place where her body was found after she was found dead.
Another suspect in the murder of Rebecca Hall was fellow known killer John Taylor who had come to prominence after murdering LeAnn Tieman in 2000. The murder was one of several cold cases that were reopened after Taylor's conviction and he was questioned about it in part because evident showed Halls body had been stored for a period of time after her death which was a known hallmark of Taylor.
Griffiths criminal history included a 3-year sentence when he was 17 for an unprovoked knife attack on a supermarket manager. Well he was in custody he told the interviewers that he saw himself becoming a murderer, and psychiatrist worn that he fantasized about becoming a serial killer. In 1991 he was diagnosed as a schizoid psychopath and the following year received a 2-year prison sentence for holding a knife to the throat of a girl.
The police had been watching Griffiths for 2 years before he killed his victims and already seized hunting weapons. The police contacted the housing association which owns the flat in which Griffiths lived before after he was observed reading books on dismemberment. The housing association shared the police's concerns and fitted a better CCTV system in the anticipation of an incident at the time of the murders police had no evidence for any antisocial behavior order.
On December 21st 2010 Griffiths was convicted of all three murders after pleading guilty. At Leeds crown Court the same day, Mr Justice Openshaw sentenced Griffiths to life imprisonment with a whole life order so that meant he would not become eligible for parole and would spend the rest of his life in prison. While imprisoned Griffiths had attempted suicide on several occasions and as of 2011, he had been on a 2 month hunger strike during which the time he avoided contact with other people.
David Cameron, the then new conservative prime minister said the murders were a terrible shock. He said the decriminalization of offenses related to prostitution should be looked at again but he also added I don't think we should jump to conclusions on this there are all sorts of problems that decriminalization would bring.
In 2013 a well-known criminologist David Wilson released a documentary on Griffis as part of his Killers behind bars the untold story series, and which he examined an unsolved murders that could be linked to Griffis. He also linked the case of Rebecca Hall to Griffiths but additionally suggested he could be linked to the murder of Sheffield prostitute Dawn Shields in May of 1994. However the prime suspect in her murder was multiple prostitute killer Alun Kyte, who killed you prostitutes in December of 1993 and March of 1994 and was suspected of many more murders of prostitutes around Britain.
Editor's note: this article ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is reproduced as written, spelling slips and all: the subject is Stephen Shaun Griffiths, given here variously as Steven, Griffith and Griffis, and Shelley Armitage appears as both Shirley and Shelly. This archive records him at three, which matches the three murders he pleaded guilty to at Leeds Crown Court on 21 December 2010, for Susan Rushworth, Shelley Armitage and Suzanne Blamires. He received a whole life order. The figure of five or six is his own claim to police and nothing beyond the three has been established. Two other men are named as suspects in unsolved cases and neither has been charged with them: John Taylor, convicted of the 2000 murder of Leanne Tiernan, was questioned about Rebecca Hall, and Alun Kyte is described as the prime suspect in the death of Dawn Shields. Rebecca Hall's murder in 2001 remains unsolved, and David Wilson's documentary argument linking it to Griffiths is a criminologist's case, not a finding. Griffiths called himself the Crossbow Cannibal when asked his name in court, which the article does not mention and which is how most readers will know the case.