Our race to catch Bullseye killer...
Cop feared monster would strike again
THE detective who caught the Bullseye serial killer has told of the race against time to jail him before he could kill again.
Evil John Cooper was locked up in 2011 after a five-year investigation led by Steve Wilkins into the murders of four people in Pembrokeshire.
And the handyman’s appearance on the darts-themed game show 22 years earlier was one of the crucial pieces of evidence that helped nail him.
Brother and sister Helen and Richard Thomas were killed at their manor house near Milford Haven in 1985, while husband and wife Peter and Gwenda Dixon were killed on a coastal path near Pembroke in 1989.
When Detective Superintendent Wilkins took over the serious crime unit at the Dyfed-Powys police force in 2006, the murders were still unsolved – and he was determined to bring the killer to justice.
Now retired, Mr Wilkins, 61, told the Mirror: “Cooper enjoyed the violence, I knew he’d kill again, but we
had to prove he was the killer. Not that they hadn’t undergone good quality investigations, but when I took on the job they were somewhat out of sight, out of mind.”
At the time, Cooper was serving a 14-year term for a string of violent burglaries in Pembrokeshire.
Mr Wilkins said: “I knew he had to be a contender. The problem was at that time he was about to be brought for parole and it was clear to me that whoever committed these offences enjoyed what they were doing.
“If it was Cooper, who we knew was a gambler, we feared he’d soon be back into that cycle of offending. If he was the killer, he would kill again.”
Cooper, now 76, regularly beat his wife Pat and children, once attacking his son so violently he broke his back.
He executed the family dog with a shotgun blast to the face, killed his children’s pet chicks for fun, and slaughtered a pig in a half- hour battering with a hammer. But despite DS Wilkins’ pleas to prison authorities to keep him locked up, Cooper was released in January 2009.
On Cooper’s first night at home Mr Wilkins was called by his team at 3am saying: “John Cooper has just phoned, we think he’s murdered his wife.”
His wife’s death was eventually put down to natural causes, but Mr Wilkins fears she “gave up”. He said:
“She’s had 10 years respite from him when he was in prison, then suddenly there he is, back in the family home.
“She must have been thinking there’s no escape from this, and I just think the poor woman gave up.”
However, Pat had already played a crucial role in bringing him to justice.
A police drawing from 1989, known as the “wildman” sketch, depicted a man seen using Peter Dixon’s cash card at an ATM after his murder.
A policewoman noticed some khaki shorts seized from Cooper bore a resemblance to those in the sketch, and also appeared to be women’s.
They turned out to be Gwenda Dixon’s, kept as trophy by Cooper, whose unsuspecting wife turned them up – and in doing so trapped vital DNA evidence dence in the seams. seams Mr Wilkins said: “We found the DNA of Peter Dixon’s daughter trapped in the seam. Now she’d been in Cyprus at the time of the murders so how the hell does her DNA make it into shorts owned by John Cooper unless they actually belonged to the Dixons?
“It’s absolutely incredible to think Pat’s simple act would lead to him finally facing justice.”
It also tied Cooper to an attack on five teens in Pembrokeshire in 1996, who were confronted by a man in a balaclava brandishing a sawn-off shotgun who demanded cash and subjected two girls to serious sexual assaults.
A further twist was how Cooper’s appearance on Jim Bowen’s Bullseye helped match him to the “wildman” sketch. At first it was thought show footage would be of little use as it was broadcast a year after the Dixons’ murders, but ITV news journalist Jonathan Hill worked with DS Wilkins and found it was filmed in May 1989, weeks before the killings.
Mr Hill told the Mirror: “Our archivist found it and I could not believe what I was seeing. seeing The sketch was just from fromover over his shoulder, and when I put it next to Cooper in the same position on Bullseye it was just a dead ringer.”
Mr Wilkins said: “In 33 years of policing I have never seen anything match as closely as that – you just look at it and you know that’s him.”
Cooper was arrested in May 2009, and jailed for life two years later.
The case has been turned into a three-part ITV drama starring Luke Evans and Keith Allen.
The Pembrokeshire Murders, ITV, January 11 to 13 at 9pm. The Pembrokeshire Murders by Steve Wilkins and Jonathan Hill is published by Seven Dials Paperback on January 7.
We knew he was a gambler. If he was the killer, he’d kill again
STEVE WILKINS FORMER COP WHO CAUGHT HIM