A date with evil

STV, 9pm HE’S not a man who is easily fazed – having spent time with President Donald Trump, remember – but even Piers Morgan looks nervous as he prepares to meet his latest notorious serial killer.

Lorenzo Gilyard, known as the Kansas City Strangler, is alleged to have killed 13 women by strangulation. He was tried for seven of the murders and found guilty of six, and is now serving half a dozen life sentences.

The 67-year-old denies the murders, which brought fear to the streets of the Missouri city for nearly two decades – they started in 1977 and went unsolved until 2003 when DNA technology linked all 13 cases together.

Gilyard has never spoken publicly before but Morgan – in the latest of a run of interviews with killers – has secured some time on camera with him.

At Missouri’s Crossroads Correctional Facility, they shake hands and exchange pleasantries, which in itself is chilling in how normal it seems.

The details of the murders are grisly and a softly-spoken Gilyard has an answer for everything as Morgan presses him on his crimes.

There are moments when Morgan seems to antagonise him too, as Gilyard takes exception to the term “serial killer”, deeming it “horrible”. He says: “I don’t believe I am an innocent man, I know I am.”

Morgan also visits the scene of one crime, meets the daughter of one of Gilyard’s victims, as well as neighbours and colleagues who never suspected a thing, and the detectives who finally brought him to justice.