An often missed case of a tortured soul who killed 5 innocent people. Akinmurele was a Nigerian born barman, born in 1978 and living in Blackpoll, Lancashire.
On 23rd March 1999 he appeared before magistrates in Blackpoll charged with killing three people, Eric Boardman (77) his wife Joan (74), whose bodies had been found in their house on 29th October 1998, and Jemimah Cargill (75) who had died in a house fire that same month. Two further charges that he murdered Marjorie Ashton (72) and Dorothy Harris (68) on the Isle of Man in 1995 & 1996 were adjourned until a later date.
He was due to re-appear to face the Isle of Man charges on 16th April, and to plead at Preston Crown court on 19th April for the three murders, but details are unclear as to what happened at these hearings. The trial had been set for September 1999, Stephen was remanded in custody to Manchester prison, (formerly Strangeways).
The Isle of Man cases were dropped because of a technicality, and three weeks before the trial in Preston Akinmurele was found hanged in his prison cell in Manchester. He was discovered hanging by a ligature tied to window bars in his cell, he left a note to his mother which said "I Couldn't take any more of feeling like how l do now, always wanting to kill". An inquest into the hanging heard that his girlfriend, Amanda Fitch, had warned prison authorities that he could be a danger to himself. After his original arrest he had been placed in a segregation unit, he tried to kill himself by over-dosing on his medication. He was placed in the prison's health care ward, on self harm watch, but staff found he has a sharpened toothbrush, and he admitted to thinking about trying to capture and kill a female member of the staff. He was moved back to segregation and two days later was found hanged. In August 1999 Stephen
Akinmurele, 21, was found dead in his cell at HMP
Manchester, formerly known as Strangeways.
As this case never actually came to trial, some of the details are unclear, and there are many conflicting accounts.
