Colin Ireland

Colin Ireland
Background information
Birth name	Colin Ireland
Also known as	The Gay Slayer The Coleherne Murderer The Coleherne Killer
Born	16 March 1954 (1954-03-16) (age 57) Dartford, Kent, England, UK
Killings
Number of victims:	5
Span of killings	8 March 1993–12 June 1993
Country	United Kingdom
Date apprehended	21 July 1993

Colin Ireland (born 16 March 1954) is a British serial killer known as the "Gay Slayer" because he specifically murdered gay men. His victims were five men.

Ireland, who had picked up convictions for burglary and robbery in his twenties, decided to become a serial killer as a New Year resolution at the beginning of 1993. That year, while living in Southend, he started frequenting The Coleherne pub, a gay pub in west London. It was known as a place where men cruised for sexual partners and wore colour coded handkerchiefs that indicated their preferred role. Ireland sought men who liked the passive role and sadomasochism, so he could readily restrain them as they initially believed it was a sexual game.

Ireland claimed to be heterosexual — he had been married — and that he pretended to be gay only to befriend potential victims. It is unknown whether Ireland's murders were sexually motivated. Ireland was highly organised. He carried a full murder kit of rope and handcuffs and a full change of clothes to each murder. After killing the victim he cleaned the flat of any forensic evidence linking him to the scene and stayed in the flat until morning in order to avoid arousing suspicion from leaving in the middle of the night.

Murders

The Victims

• 8 March 1993 – Peter Walker, 45
• 28 May 1993 - Christopher Dunn, 37
• 4 June 1993 – Perry Bradley III, 35
• 7 June 1993 – Andrew Collier, 33
• 12 June 1993 – Emanuel Spiteri, 41

Peter Walker

Walker, a 45-year-old choreographer, took Ireland back to his flat in Battersea. There he was bound, and ultimately suffocated by a plastic bag over his head.

Ireland placed two teddy bears in a 69 position on the body. Ireland left Walker's dogs locked in another room. The day after the murder, having heard no news reports of the crime, he called Samaritans and a journalist from The Sun newspaper, advising them of the dogs, and that he had murdered their master.

Christopher Dunn

Dunn was a 37-year-old librarian who lived in Wealdstone. Dunn's death was initially believed to be an accident that occurred during an erotic game. In addition, because he lived in a different area from Walker, a different set of investigators worked on the case. For these reasons the death was not linked to Walker's.

Perry Bradley III

Ireland met a 35-year-old ^[1] businessman, named Perry Bradley III, at the Colherne pub. Bradley lived in Kensington and was the son of a prominent politician from Texas.^[2]

The two men returned to Bradley's flat, where Ireland suggested that he tie Bradley up. Bradley expressed his displeasure at the idea of sado-masochism. In order to get Bradley to comply, Ireland told Bradley that he was unable to perform sexually without elements of bondage. Bradley hesitantly cooperated and was soon trussed up on his own bed, face down, with a noose around his neck.

After Ireland had secured Bradley, he demanded money from him and demanded his PIN under the threat of torture. Ireland assured Bradley that he was merely a thief and would leave after he secured Bradley's money. After Bradley gave Ireland his PIN, which Ireland later used to steal £200, along with £100 in cash stolen from Bradley's flat, Ireland told Bradley that he should go to sleep, as he wouldn't be leaving his flat for hours. Bradley eventually did fall asleep and Ireland momentarily thought of leaving Bradley unharmed. Ireland then realized that Bradley could identify him, and he pulled the noose that he had earlier attached around Bradley's neck and strangled him. Before leaving Bradley's flat, he placed a doll on top of the dead man's body.

Bradley was described in police reports as heterosexual. This was not true and perhaps done to protect his family. This contributed to the failure by investigators to link the different murders.^{[peacock term]}

Andrew Collier

Ireland, angered that he had received no publicity even after three murders, killed again within three days. At the pub he met and courted 33-year-old Andrew Collier, a housing warden, and the pair went to Collier's home in Dalston. After entering the flat there was a disturbance outside and both men went to the window to investigate. Ireland gripped a horizontal metal bar that ran across the window. He later forgot to wipe the bar for prints during his usual cleanup phase. The police found this fingerprint.

Once he had tied up his victim on the bed, Ireland again demanded his victim's bank details. This time his victim refused to comply. Ireland killed Collier's cat in Collier's presence whilst he was restrained on the bed. Ireland then strangled Collier with a noose. He put a condom on Collier's penis and placed the dead cats' mouth over it, and placed the cat's tail into Collier's mouth.

Ireland had become angered at discovering Collier was HIV positive while rummaging through his personal effects looking for bank details. A suspected reason for killing the cat was because after Ireland killed Walker and had left his dogs locked in a separate room, he called anonymously to advise of the dogs being locked up. As a result the media called the killer an animal lover. He strangled the cat to demonstrate that the "animal lover" assumption had been wrong.

Ireland left the next morning with £70, he also left a clue for the police by putting a condom in Collier's mouth, just as he had done to Walker, creating an obvious link between the two murders.^{[peacock term]}

Emanuel Spiteri

The fifth victim of Ireland's series (he had read that serial killers needed at least five victims to qualify as such) was Emanuel Spiteri, aged 41, a chef whom Ireland had met in the same pub. They went to Spiteri's flat in Hither Green, and again Spiteri was persuaded to be cuffed and bound on his bed. Once more, Ireland demanded his bank number but did not obtain it. He again used a noose to kill his victim.

After carrying out his post-murder ritual of cleaning and clearing the scene, Ireland set fire to the flat and left. He rang the police later to tell them to look for a body at the scene of a fire and added that he would probably not kill again.

The connection

The police eventually connected all five killings. The crimes were widely publicised through the mainstream media and it was quickly known in the gay community and the wider community that a serial killer who specifically targeted gay men was operating.

Investigations revealed that Spiteri had left the pub and travelled home with his killer by train, and a security video successfully captured the two of them on the railway platform at Charing Cross station. Ireland recognised himself and decided to tell police he was the man with Spiteri but not the killer — he claimed to have left Spiteri in the flat with another man. However, police had also found the fingerprints in Collier's flat which matched those of Ireland.

Convictions and imprisonment

He was charged with the murders of Collier and Spiteri, and confessed to the other three while awaiting trial in prison. He told police that he had no vendetta against gay men, but picked on them because they were the easiest targets. He had robbed those he killed to finance his killings because he was unemployed at the time, and he needed funds to travel to and from London when hunting for victims.

When his case came to the Old Bailey on 20 December 1993, Ireland admitted all charges and was given life sentences for each. The judge, Mr Justice Sachs, said he was "exceptionally frightening and dangerous", adding: "To take one human life is an outrage; to take five is carnage."

On 22 December 2006, Ireland was one of 35 life sentence prisoners whose names appeared on the Home Office's list of prisoners who had been issued with whole life tariffs and were unlikely ever to be released.^[3]

Popular culture

Ireland has since become the subject of many books on serial killers, and is mentioned in the Manic Street Preachers song, Archives Of Pain.

References

1. ^ "TruTv.com". TruTv.com. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/ireland/page_11.html. Retrieved 2011-07-22. 
2. ^ Lambert, Pam (1993-07-12). "A Killer Stalks Gay London". People.com. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20110794,00.html. Retrieved 2011-07-22. 
3. ^ Rozenberg, Joshua (2006-12-22). "35 prisoners are told life means life". Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1537597/35-prisoners-are-told-life-means-life.html. Retrieved 2011-07-22. 

External links

• Crime Library article on Colin Ireland

Persondata
Name	Ireland, Colin
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	16 March 1954
Place of birth	Dartford, Kent, England, UK
Date of death
Place of death