|
Kill Total: |
7 + |
Kill place: |
Stockwell, london |
|
Kill date: |
April 1987
May 1987
June 1987
June 1987 |
Victim(s): |
Eileen Emms
Janet Crockett
Valentine Gleime
Zbigniew Stabrawa
|
|
Date of Birth: |
1962 |
Marital Status: |
|
|
AKA: |
Stockwell strangler |
Occupation: |
|
At 24 Erskine was judged
to have had the mental age of 11. He was abandoned by his
parents, and was a loner that drifted from one
school to the next. He was arrested on various occasions
for burglary and had ten different bank accounts full of
the proceeds from his successful thefts.
Eventually Erskine felt the need to go one step further
and began taking more than money.
His first murder victim was Eileen Emms, 78. She was
strangled in her home in April 1987. Less than a month
later Janet Crockett, 67, went the same way. On June, 28
Erskine scored a double-header. First he got Valentine
Gleime, 84. And later in the day with 94-year-old Zbigniew
Stabrawa. All of these victims had been strangled
with his bare hands.
He had also molested all
the victims. The molested victims had all been sodomized.
The police could not determine if this buggery was done
before or after death.
It was at this time that Erskine was dubbed 'The
Stockwell Strangler', named such because the victims
all lived in this area of South-west London.
On July 28, Erskine was arrested for trying to conceal one
of his savings accounts from Social Security, and
unluckily for him his palm print matched one found at a
'Stockwell Strangler' crime scene. He was then picked out
of a line-up by a survivor of one of his attacks. When
questioned about the crimes Erskine said -
"I don't remember killing anyone, I could have done it
without knowing it. I am not sure if I did it."
Erskine was charged with seven murders (two more were
dropped on insufficient evidence, and police have closed
the book on two other murders) and was found guilty. He
was given seven life terms, but comes up for parole in
2028.
February 1996, Erskine was in
the news for preventing an attack on
Peter Sutcliffe,
the "Yorkshire Ripper", by raising the alarm
as a fellow inmate, Paul Wilson, attempted to strangle
Sutcliffe with the flex from a pair of stereo headphones.
DECEMBER 2007
Erskine has launched a new appeal, he is currently due for
release in 2008, the new appeal is based on the fact that
he was "Not of normal mind" at the time of the offences.
