Hunt for ‘victim of Frankenstein killer’
Navy sailor disappeared 37 years ago
POLICE are chasing a new lead in the disappearance of a Royal Navy sailor more than 37 years ago.
Able Seaman Simon Parkes, 18, was last seen in December 1986 when the aircraft carrier he was serving on, HMS Illustrious, was docked in Gibraltar.
Former Petty Officer Allan Grimson, who was jailed for life for murdering two men, was serving on the ship at the same time as the 18-year-old.
Now, following new information, officers have returned to a car park at Town Range, Gibraltar, where they searched in August last year.
Police have previously carried out digs at a cemetery in the British Overseas Territory.
Simon, a radio operator, went ashore but never made it back on board. When the ship returned to Portsmouth days later, no one knew what had happened to him, despite a huge manhunt.
Grimson – dubbed the Frankenstein Killer due to his large forehead – was jailed in 2001 at Winchester crown court for murdering Able Seaman Nicholas Wright, 18, from Leics, in 1997, and barman Sion Jenkins, 20, from Newbury, Berks, in 1998.
The firefighting instructor lured each victim back to his Portsmouth flat, where he battered them to death with a baseball bat after they rejected his sexual advances. He then buried them in roadside graves.
He has long been suspected of murdering Simon, but it is also feared he could be connected to 20 other unsolved killings stretching from the UK to New Zealand.
Police have visited ports around the world where he had gone ashore from both Illustrious and HMS Edinburgh.
Grimson, 66, is also said to have used a Manchester United season ticket as cover to travel the country.
One former colleague said: “He never actually went to games. It was a cover for something else.
“He would make sandwiches and take a flask and then go and seek out young homeless boys.”
While he had denied his murders had a sexual element, he told police that killing was “better than sex” and admitted to scouring the ranks of trainees and cadets so he could kill the bestlooking ones.
A force spokesman said: “Officers are carrying out further excavation work at Town Range car park in Gibraltar. “A working group led by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, comprised of detectives and specially trained search officers both from the police and military, will be carrying out the work as we continue to investigate what happened to Simon Parkes.
“The activity is part of our work to assess a new line of enquiry that has been presented to us.”
Grimson has denied being involved in Simon’s disappearance.