Jack the Ripper - London's Serial Killer of 1888: June 2010

British PhD Student Studied Jack the Ripper,
Then Killed Like Him

http://gawker.com/

As a PhD criminology student, Stephen Griffiths studied 19th-century murders with a special focus on Jack the Ripper. Now he's been arrested for murdering three prostitutes in Yorkshire, England—one of whom he killed with a crossbow.

The arrest came after an apartment building caretaker reviewed the security footage from the night before and saw this, according to the Telegraph:

In a corridor of the flats, a man chased and grabbed a young woman before knocking her unconscious. The attacker then disappeared from view, only to return moments later with a crossbow which he used to fire a bolt into her head.

Police believe the video shows 40 year-old Stephen Griffiths killing 36 year-old Suzanne Blamires, one of his three victims. When they arrested him at his house, he led them to the dismembered bodies of the two others.

Judging from media accounts he certainly seems like someone who would be a serial killer. In addition to his obsession with historical murder—he told his neighbor he was getting "a Ph.D. in murder and Jack the Ripper"—he kept two giant monitor lizards in his apartment, where he lived alone.

A neighbor said he bred mice to feed the lizards and kept 100 of them in a trunk in his apartment, according to the Telegraph. On his MySpace he goes by "Ven Pariah" and says he "is the misanthrope who brought hate into heaven." And he apparently bought parts for his crossbow on Amazon.

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