By Chris Bartholomew
A serial killer working alone. None of the victims was sexually assaulted or robbed. All four cases happened late at night, with the attacker creeping up from behind and striking with a hammer, iron bar, or similar heavy metal weapon. A maniac who has a hate complex against young women and stalks them just to batter them to death.
A charismatic and charming man, who can change in a flash. A cunning individual, and violent. He can switch from being nice to being nasty, instantly.
Despite his unattractive appearance, overweight, with slicked-back hair and a squeaky voice, he is reputedly a womanizer. Wonderful at first, charming, then completely controlling and evil. All of his old girlfriends said the same thing, that after a couple of weeks of them being together, Bellfield would take their mobile phone and swap it with another which contained only his number, saying it was all they needed.
He would stop them from seeing friends, parents or going out without his permission, and would constantly phone to check what they were doing.
One girlfriend said following an argument he told her to sit on a stool in the kitchen and not move. He went to bed and she sat there all night.
He dotes on his mother and her on him. He has a massive ego to feed, he thinks he's God's gift to everyone. He said it was no coincidence all his victims were of a similar appearance. His last girlfriend told police Bellfield always chased after small blonde girls with large chests.
The murder of Amelie Delagrange at Twickenham Green on 20 August 2004. The attempted murder of Kate Sheedy at Worton Road, Isleworth, on 28 May 2004. The attempted murder of Irma Dragoshi at Longford Village on 16 December 2003. Unlawfully and maliciously causing grievous bodily harm to Irma Dragoshi. The murder of Marsha McDonnell on 4 February 2003. Kidnapping Anna-Maria Rennie at Hospital Bridge Road, Twickenham, on 15 October 2001. The false imprisonment of Anna-Maria Rennie.
Giving evidence during his Old Bailey trial, Bellfield cut a strange figure as he attempted to charm the jury, portraying himself as an ordinary man who could not understand why he was there. He admitted to a range of previous offences, from stealing vehicles to assaulting a police officer.
Levi Bellfield, 39, was convicted of the west London 'hammer murders' on 25 February 2008. The following day, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he should never be released. Bellfield was not in court to hear his sentence.
Levi Bellfield was found guilty of killing Marsha McDonnell, 19, in February 2003, and 23-year-old French exchange student Amelie Delagrange 18 months later.
Ms McDonnell and Ms Delagrange both died after being hit with blunt instruments near bus stops in and around Twickenham. No murder weapon has ever been located.
Marsha Louise McDonnell, 19, was a beautiful and dynamic young woman with a passion for art and music. Marsha had the promise of a good life ahead of her. Then, one cold winter's evening, that promise was savagely taken from her.
On February 3, 2003, Marsha and two of her friends went to see the movie Catch Me If You Can and afterwards headed towards the bus depot to catch different buses home. Marsha caught the number 111 bus from Kingston and traveled the 10-mile route towards Hampton in southwest London. Shortly before midnight, she got off the bus at Percy Road and walked toward her house located several streets away on Priory Road. Just yards from her doorstep, she was brutally assaulted.
A neighbor was awoken by loud noises and ventured outside to see where they came from. The woman found Marsha sprawled on the pavement in a pool of blood, slipping into unconsciousness from severe head injuries. She was immediately taken to the hospital for treatment.
There was little chance of her ever recovering from her life-threatening injuries. Her family made the sad decision to turn off the life support machine. On February 5, Marsha passed away.
An autopsy determined that Marsha died from head wounds inflicted by a hammer or a similar type of blunt instrument. There was no evidence of sexual molestation.
One month earlier, on January 8, a 17-year-old woman from the Strawberry Hill area of southwest London was on her way back from the local shops, listening to a Walkman when she appeared to have fallen on the ice. The woman's father found her barely conscious and she was promptly treated at a hospital. It later emerged that the woman hadn't fallen, but had been attacked with a blunt hammer-like instrument.
The assaulted woman had been repeatedly bludgeoned about the head and face, resulting in deep cuts to her scalp, a fractured cheek, a ruptured eye socket and a concussion. The head trauma was so severe that the woman was unable to remember the event. Authorities believed that the person who attacked her was likely the same person who killed Marsha.
Several weeks after Marsha's murder and less than a mile from where her body was found there was another attack. The victim was an 18-year-old man, who claimed that an unidentified hooded man tried to strike him with a heavy tool resembling a hammer or wrench. The 18-year-old escaped unharmed, but was unable to provide police with a detailed description of the assailant.
On November 5, 2003, accounts clerk Dawn Brunton, 36, left a bus station and was walking down a footpath to the Hatton Cross tube station in Feltham, London, when an unknown assailant attacked her from behind with what authorities believe was a sledgehammer. Dawn suffered severe injuries, including a fractured skull, cheekbone and eye socket, several stab wounds to the back of her head, and severe bruising to her stomach area, possibly from kicking. Investigators believed that whoever attacked her was likely the same person who murdered Marsha and attacked the 17-year old girl the previous January.
On April 18, 2004, another young woman was assaulted. While walking after an evening out with friends, Edel Harbison, 34, was bludgeoned with a hammer-like instrument from behind. Even though she suffered severe injures, she was lucky enough to survive the attack.
Like the previous victims, Edel was not sexually assaulted or robbed and had little or no memory of the attack or the attacker. Detectives working on the case believe that the offender may have a particular dislike of women with light-colored hair because all of the victims had either blond or light-brown hair. His hate would result in another murder on August 20, 2004.
After an evening out with friends, Amelie Delagrange, 22, said her goodbyes and left for home. Shortly before 10 p.m., she got on the bus alone and traveled towards Hampton, but accidentally missed her stop. She continued until the bus terminated before realizing that she had gone too far. Slightly anxious, she asked the bus driver for directions and then began the long walk back home. On her way, she passed through Twickenham Green, where she was attacked and killed.
Half an hour later, a passerby found Amelie's battered body by the cricket pitch and flagged down police. She was immediately taken to a nearby hospital, but her injuries were beyond treatment. Amelie died shortly after midnight from head wounds believed to have been caused by a hammer-like tool or crowbar.
A hammer-wielding maniac attacked yet another blond woman, just days after Amelie was viciously murdered. A 28-year-old victim was hit from behind on the head with a blunt instrument on Hounslow Road in Feltham sometime between 10:15 pm and 10:45 pm on August 23, 2004. The woman had no memory of the event, but after regaining consciousness she went home. Two days later, she sought treatment at the hospital for her wounds.
Days later, not far from the most recent attack, a suspicious hammer was found at a recreation ground. Forensic experts examined the tool for fingerprints and any other evidence that might link it to the latest victim, Amelie's death or any of the other attacks. Experts didn't know for sure whether the actual instrument used in the attacks was a hammer, but if it was, it would likely be a flat hammer weighing up to four pounds. The weapon could also have been a bat, crowbar, pipe or some other kind of blunt tool.
On the evening of May 28, 2004, student Kate Sheedy, 18, stepped off a bus in Isleworth and began walking towards her home when her attention was drawn to a suspicious white car, resembling a Toyota Previa, with its lights turned off and revving engine. Sheedy tried to avoid the vehicle with blackened windows by crossing the street because she felt uncomfortable. It was then that driver of the car turned on the lights and began to drive down Worton Road before making a U-turn and driving towards her. Suddenly, the car ran over her, crushing her torso before reversing and running over her a second time and speeding off.
Even though Sheedy suffered severe injuries including a ruptured liver, collapsed lung, broken ribs and collar bone, she managed to contact her mother on her cell phone, who then contacted emergency services. Sheedy amazingly survived the harrowing experience and was able to provide investigators with important information about the car. The police probing the incident believed that Sheedy's attempted murder was related to the murder of Amelie Delagrange that occurred three months later due to the similarities between the victims and location. Both women had similar hair color and were attacked in the same general area in Twickenham.
Police describe Bellfield as a “clever, cunning, arrogant and very dangerous man”. “South-west London is a much safer place now he won't be about for some time,” it was said.
The European Court of Human Rights is reviewing whether lifelong imprisonment amounts to a violation of human rights legislation. Should the court decide that lifelong imprisonment is unlawful, then Bellfield and all other prisoners serving such sentences in Europe would have their cases recalled to court for a new minimum term to be set.
Investigators believe that Bellfield might be connected to at least a dozen attacks throughout South-West London, earning him the reputation as one of Britain's most brutal killers.
The jury was unable to reach verdicts on separate charges of the attempted murder and grievous bodily harm of Irma Dragoshi, 33, and the kidnapping and false imprisonment of 17-year-old Anna-Maria Rennie.
One case police are revisiting and are reportedly questioning Bellfield is that of Milly Dowler, who was murdered in 2002. He is being linked with at least 20 similar attacks upon young women in south-west London.
Teenager Amanda “Milly” Dowler was murdered in 2002, prompting one of the biggest investigations in the history of Surrey Police.
Dowler was last seen alive March 21, 2002, walking home from Walton-on-Thames train station in Surrey. A 36-year-old man from Surrey was arrested in connection with the inquiry and later released without charge. A man aged 52 from Ashford, Middlesex, was questioned and released without charge. Police arrested a 47-year-old man from Walton-on-Thames. He is later released without charge.
Two mushroom-pickers stumbled across human remains in Yateley Heath, Hampshire. And on September 20, 2002 it was released that it was the remains of the missing schoolgirl.
Undercover detectives had watched Bellfield sexually insult underage teenage girls at a bus stop and how, while even on remand, he earned the reputation as a “caveman” because of his barbaric attitude towards the opposite sex.
He had confessed to an inmate that 'you can do what you want to women'. The inmate also said that the murderer really acts like a caveman.
Born in Isleworth, west London, on May 17 1968, Bellfield never strayed far from his old home. His attacks on at least five women, carried out between 2001 and 2004, took place in an area of west London south of the M4 corridor, just east of the M25.
During this time, Bellfield, of West Drayton, west London, ran a wheel clamping firm under a number of aliases. He admitted using up to 42, including Lee Johnson and David Bennett, but claimed they were for “tax reasons” and to avoid people whose cars were clamped seeking revenge.
His criminal career started at 13, and he displayed aggressive sexual tendencies towards young women for most of his life. Only now can the true extent of Bellfield's intense loathing and predatory attitude towards women be revealed. The judge in the case ruled that much of the evidence gleaned while Bellfield was a suspect was too prejudicial for the jury to hear.
In his home town of West Drayton, Bellfield was renowned for pestering underage girls and trying to chat them up as he followed them in his Toyota Previa, complete with blacked out windows and a mattress, blankets and a baseball bat in the back.
He married four times and had eleven children by five different women. Bellfield was described as a “ladies' man” by friends. But while he liked to play the charmer, he had a low regard for women, seeing them as sexual objects. He turned violent when rejected.
Even while married, he singled out teenagers. To some he offered drugs, a ploy which police believe he had tried on at least one of his murder victims and possibly even Milly Dowler, or boasted of his body-building exploits; he had enhanced his physique with steroids. Rejection of his advances could trigger an incandescent rage.
One employee of Bellfield told police that his former boss had even offered to sell sex with his girlfriend, 16, and her sister, 14.
Levi is described as an animal. One person said he was disgusted after meeting Levi's girlfriend and Levi remarked, “Do you want to buy her off me?”
Bellfield, who has a tattoo of a boxing devil bearing his name, confessed to one former girlfriend that he would wait in alleyways wanting to “hurt, kill, stab or rape women”. She also told of her horror at discovering in his bin pornographic pictures on which he had slashed the faces of blonde models.
Another one-time girlfriend said in a statement that Bellfield “had a thing for his 13-year-old cousin” as well as a desire for his lovers to dress in school uniforms.
With access to hundreds of cars through his clamping firm, Bellfield was able to prowl the streets confident that he could evade detection.
Bellfield's conviction does not bring police interest in him to a close, with detectives analyzing a string of unsolved attacks for evidence of his possible involvement. The police have looked at a dozen crimes in west London and have not been able to eliminate Levi from any of them. They may have only scratched the surface.
Editor's note: this article was written in May 2008, three months after the hammer murders conviction, and its closing speculation about Milly Dowler was borne out. Bellfield was charged with her murder and convicted at the Old Bailey on 23 June 2011, receiving a second whole-life order. The retrial the article anticipates on the Irma Dragoshi count also went ahead: he was convicted of her attempted murder in 2008. The European Court of Human Rights question raised here was settled against the challenge, and whole-life orders remain lawful in England and Wales. Bellfield remains in custody with no prospect of release.