Report sparks doubts over 10 deaths
A SUSPECTED serial killer who may have committed five “murdersuicides” of elderly couples has been named in a confidential report.
A senior coroner’s officer claims there are significant similarities between the deaths of couples across north-west England between 1996 and 2011.
Each incident, involving a husband seemingly viciously attacking his wife then taking his own life, was recorded as a murder-suicide by coroners.
As the Daily Mirror revealed, Stephanie Davies, senior coroner’s officer with Cheshire police, said at least two cases may be the work of a serial killer.
The report identified a male suspect living in the North. He cannot be named for legal reasons and strongly denies involvement. The report reviewed the double killings of Howard and Beatrice Ainsworth, aged 79 and 78, in 1996 and Donald and Auriel Ward, 73 and 68, who died in 1999. Both couples lived in Wilmslow, Cheshire.
It also called for three more double killing cases in homes in the North West to be re-examined.
Those of Michael and Violet Higgins, 59 and 76, in Didsbury, Manchester, in 2000; Eileen and Kenneth Martin, 76 and 77, in Davyhulme, Gtr Manchester, in 2008; and Stanley and Peggy Wilson, 92 and 89, in Kendal, Cumbria, in 2011. Det Chief Supt Aaron Duggan, head of crime at Cheshire police, said the cases had not been reopened.
But added: “The contents
SHOCK Mirror’s report last week of the report and its conclusions are being considered by detectives.”
The Higgins family said “kind and gentle” Michael had advanced Parkinson’s disease and was incapable of carrying out such a violent attack. In the Ainsworth case, Howard was assumed to have written a suicide note that said he had given wife Bea “some sleeping tablets”. Yet toxicology tests found no sedatives in either of them.
Former North West chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal said that: “The concerns raised in this report need to be taken very seriously.”
Concerns in this report need to be taken very seriously
NAZIR AFZAL FORMER CHIEF PROSECUTOR