Hey weirdos, Elena here. If you're looking to kick back and relax with Morbid, Wondery Plus is the way to go. it's like having a cozy seat in our haunted mansion no ads just you and early access to new episodes You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.
Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar.
Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, You can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities and new ways of thinking.
Listening can lead to positive changes in your mood, your habits, and ultimately your overall well-being.
Audible has an incredible selection of over 1 million audiobooks, podcasts, and Audible Originals all in one easy app.
Find the genres you love and discover new ones.
Explore bestsellers like my sister's title. new releases, plus thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and originals that members can listen to all they want with more added all the time.
I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.
I love all the Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen.
Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. visit audible.com slash morbid.
I am absolutely obsessed with a sweet treat after dinner, and my favorite sweet treat right now is my mochi.
It's mine now! Not yours. Just kidding.
You can have some too. This is a cool creamy scoop of ice cream. wrapped in a soft, chewy dough.
It's like a sweet little ice cream dumpling or ravioli.
I'm obsessed. It's pillowy. It's satisfying.
I feel indulged. I just love it so much.
I really am obsessed with the strawberry flavor right now.
My mochi is only around 70 calories per piece, which like, hello, that's amazing.
My mochi is gluten free and each box has six perfectly portioned mochi snacks.
Do I eat two a night? Yeah, yeah I do because they're that good.
And guess what? My mochi is the number one mochi ice cream in the US of A.
The strawberry flavor is bursting with fresh picked fruit flavor that tastes incredibly refreshing.
I love, love, love them after dinner. This August, look for the purple box of My Mochi ice cream at your local grocery store. and feel joyfully chill with the coolest treat around, my mochi.
Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid in the Morning.
That was off. It's actually morbid in the morning.
This is my morbid in the morning. And that is yours.
Okay. There's only one. There could only be one.
All right. The show's over. Bye. We're done.
I just slammed my computer. Did you hear that a little too aggressively?
I probably shouldn't have done that. Everything's gone now.
I think mine wins because it's to the tune of rolling with the home.
Yeah, that is a good one. All right, I'll give you that.
Thank you. I'm going to, you know. Give credit where credit is due.
Yeah, I'll give that. But hi, everybody.
Hello. It's the morning. This was a fake fight.
It was. It was fake. We're not ending. Don't worry.
We don't have, like, a ton of bid nests to talk about today, but...
We are doing a show this Sunday. We are.
It's the summer solstice show so you know it's gonna be good we've got costumes as usual Of course.
We are going to talk about... Should we tell them what we're going to talk about?
Get them interested? Yeah. Let's kind of like...
Yeah, let's let's let's pique the interest.
It's gonna be culty. We're gonna talk about some cults.
And you know, we're gonna we're gonna live that cult life.
We really are. And when we say that, we really mean it.
Absolutely. It's going to be a lot. Yeah.
Absolutely. Well, if you would like to join our cult, you can go to onlocationlive.com slash category slash morbid I believe tickets are still available for this event and just so everybody knows that even if you haven't bought tickets yet or if you have This is going to be available for up to seven days after Sunday.
So you still, you got time. Yeah. You got time.
If you haven't got your dad a Father's Day gift yet, give him the gift of us.
Give him the gift of a cult experience. I was going to say, give your dad a cult for his day.
As Karen and Georgia would say, you're in a cult.
Call your dad. Yeah, except maybe your dad might call you because you got him in a cult.
So there you go. I don't know. I don't have advice for that.
Maybe you call Karen in Georgia at that point.
I don't know. Maybe. I'm not real sure.
They said, though, to call your dad. I know.
Don't call them. I'm trying to make it work.
Don't cold call them. Yeah, I mean, don't cold call...
How? How would anybody cold call Karen in Georgia?
I don't know. I don't know your life. I love that you're like...
God, don't do that. Don't use the phone number you have for Karen and Georgia collectively in cold calls. have a collective it's just the karen and georgia line the hotline hello welcome to my favorite murder to my favorite i was just gonna say i not that they need it but like promo for my favorite murder But this is going to be a doozy of a case.
Yeah, this is a lot of... one might say the most.
Yeah, I'm both excited and really terrified.
Yeah, we're going to be talking about the Bradford murders today, otherwise known as the cannibal crossbow killings or the crossbow cannibalism.
Hannibal killings. Which everyone feels right to you.
Yeah. Alliteration. You can do it either way.
I hope neither of them feel right to you.
None of this should feel right. None of this should feel right.
This should all feel very icky, very dirty and very scary.
You should be very unsettled right now and only get worse throughout this episode.
Correct. All right. So now that we set you up with that lovely intro, I guess we should just get into it.
Let's jump right in. So we're going to be talking about Stephen Sean Griffiths. and he was born actually on Christmas Eve.
Oh, look at him. Celebrate. Just don't, though.
And it was 1969 when he was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.
Dewsbury. Dewsbury. I hope I said that right.
His parents were Stephen Sr. and Moira Griffiths.
Moira? I was going to say. Very different people.
Different Moira. Now, he was the oldest of three children, but unfortunately, when he was 13, Steven Sr. and Moira decided they were going to end their marriage.
Moira was the one to win primary custody of all three kids, which is Very strange, because Moira was a literal criminal.
Oh, yeah. She had been charged with fraud and apparently like was known in town as like a con artist.
It was a very well-known fact that she really liked to con people.
Wow. It was also rumored that she was a sex worker, and people around town said that they would see her out in her garden.
Not exactly like planting or pulling weeds, but completely naked and entertaining some male company.
In her secret garden. Yeah, it was a secret garden.
It's like, do whatever you want in your garden as long as you're not murdering people and your kids aren't around.
Exactly. But Stephen seemed to always be around when Moira was in the garden, not gardening.
And unbeknownst to her, he would watch her and her male company.
Yeah, exactly. That always ends up poorly. always always always it reminded me of like the btk thing actually he reminds me of btk in like a couple of ways that we'll get into Yeah, there's a lot of those that had mothers that they would watch. or view or know about what was going on.
It's like, yeah. I mean, that's like a perfect recipe for a serial killer here.
For disaster. Maybe think about that. Yeah, maybe definitely think about what you're unleashing onto the world when you do that. you know don't get it in the garden if your kids are around do your thing just don't don't have kids if that's what you want to do like that's cool yeah if you want to get freaky And you don't have to worry about it.
Do it while they're away. You want to get freaky in the garden?
Get freaky in the garden. but don't do it when your kids are around get freaky in the garden get freaky in the garden just do it when no one's around exactly there you go do it like no one's watching Get freaky in the garden like no one's watching.
There you go. Get freaky in your secret garden while no one's watching.
All right. I think we've killed it now. We killed that joke.
Now, a lot of people think that Stephen's hatred, like not only for women, but especially for sex workers. started with his mother.
Oh, really? A lot of people think that? A lot of people do think that.
That's a really good... Theory. It's a good start to everything.
Yeah. Now, the neighbors weren't only aware of Moira's garden activity, but...
Steven was having some activity time in the garden as well.
What the fuck was going on with this garden?
I gotta know. A lot. aphrodisiacs or something like what's happening i don't know about that i'm just saying Like if you eat a certain plant, I wonder if there are ones that are aphrodisiacs.
I'm sure. Everything's a fucking aphrodisiac if you try hard enough.
Some aromatics. I don't know why, but that just made me think of Febreze.
Hey, there you go. When you say a word and then you're like, what does that remind you of?
Fabrice. I say a word, you say a word. Aromatics, Fabrice.
Am I right? No. No. How many times an episode do I say that also?
But anyways, people were noticing Stephen's nighttime garden activity.
People only saw him in the garden at night.
And really, that's the only time anyone ever saw Steven was at night.
People literally referred to him as nocturnal.
You know, that makes me sad because there's a really beautiful children's book called The Night Gardener that I love to read to my children.
And this is... giving me scary vibes, and I don't love it.
Because what was he doing? What? Thank you for that segue.
You're welcome. I was going to say he wasn't doing like what the night gardener was doing.
He wasn't making like beautiful, you know, topiaries.
Tree artwork. No. They would see him in the garden that night like shooting birds and Oh.
And then dissecting those birds. At night? at night that's weird oh you didn't get that but it was a spongebob reference no i did not It's like, all the signs were there.
Like, he hated his mom. He only stayed, he only was seen at night, and now he's dissecting birds.
Yeah. And at night, that's like weird to me.
It's very affecting them with no light. Very strange.
It's very Jack the Ripper-y. It's very creepy.
Jack the Ripper actually was one of his idols, so.
Oh, hey, there you go. Because he would do his dissections like with no streetlights and everybody was like, how the hell did he do that?
Yeah. Well, that's what Stephen wanted to do as well.
Look at this guy, Stephen. Now, by all accounts, Stephen's father, sadly, was really trying his best for all of his kids.
He was actually the one who saved up all the money that it would cost to send Stephen to a better school, the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School.
But it didn't end up being worth it because Stephen was not interested in school or people his own age at all.
While he was in school, his teacher said that he would just sit in the back and not contribute to any... discussion or engage with any of the other students.
And the other students said that he was like really in his own little world.
Like, he was not... Not entertaining any other conversations at all.
You see that a lot with these kind of people.
Only just chilling in the back. They totally seal them off. themselves off from everything else yeah and he really loved like a like those like fantasy worlds like i was literally just gonna say I guarantee he was super into fantasy.
He was super. That was literally my next. sentence.
He was really into like dragons. He would read books about dragons and like dragon slayers and shit like that which by itself is super cool weird at all and it's like but when it's when it's coming out of that like trauma yeah that's when it's that's when they don't know how to they don't know how to shut it off Well, because that's like a coping mechanism.
Exactly. It's like you go to another place in your world.
It's like a disassociative thing. And normally children who don't have trauma know when to shut that off and when to join the real world and when to play with friends and when to talk to family. and aunts are teachers right the kids that went through what he's going through that's where they live And sometimes that can become their actual real world.
You know what's even more stressful than a packed calendar?
Realizing you're out of coffee right before a meeting.
That actually happened to me the other day.
And it's exactly why I stocked up during the Thrive Markets back to school sale.
Even if you're not going back to school, I'm not, it's the perfect time to reset.
Thrive makes it easy to shop for high-quality pantry staples, snacks, vitamins, even skincare. without the errands or the ingredient label deep dives.
I just restocked with aloha protein bars simple mills crackers and my favorite poppy drinks i love them so much Everything is delivered super duper fast, and I saved up to 25% on all of that.
Their filters make shopping by diet or lifestyle a breeze, and their healthy swap tool actually helped me upgrade my usual buys with zero label stress.
I love the Lesser Evil popcorn. I get my chomp sticks from there.
I love Thrive and you will too. Now's the best time to try Thrive Market.
You'll get up to 25% off select items. and new members get 30 percent off their first order, plus a free gift.
Who doesn't love that? Go to thrivemarket.com slash morbid to start saving.
The sale ends 831. Don't miss it. You know that person in your life who just can't stand mayo?
Call them traumatized. Call them close-minded.
We get it. They're stuck in their ways. But here's the thing.
They just haven't tried Hellman's flavored mayo.
We're talking bold flavors that will flip even the biggest skeptics.
Spicy mayo that adds the perfect kick to your burger.
Garlic aioli that transforms ordinary fries into something extraordinary.
Chipotle mayo that turns your basic wrap into a smoky sensation.
So to all the mayo haters out there, Yes, we're looking at you.
It's time to eat your words. Because with mayo this flavorful, any hater is just a mayo lover waiting to be convinced.
Hellman's Flavored Mayo. Get ready to eat your words.
Now, this is scary too because... Well, this part isn't scary.
He also really loved martial arts, but this next part is scary because...
On more than one occasion, he got into trouble for bringing weapons to school.
The weapons, scarily enough, were things like throwing stars.
You know what those are? Yeah, those scary ass, like really sharp things.
Yeah, I had to Google it and then it brought me to Amazon and I was like, no, I don't want to purchase one.
Do you want to buy one? I'm like, don't mess up my Amazon suggested shit.
And he also would bring some kind of dagger to school.
Oh, that's not okay. And knowing what we know now about this guy, that was like enough to send a shiver down my spine.
Yeah. You're bringing that shit to school when you're like 13 and then we know what you're going to do later.
That's terrifying. Now, he ended up dropping out of school, which is why I said it wasn't worth it to spend the money.
He turned 16 and he was like, I'm all set.
And he started getting into trouble very quickly.
It started out with shoplifting, as it always does, but things quickly escalated and he moved on to things like pulling a knife on a store manager and slashing the guy's face open.
That's a big leap. The usual. That's a big leap.
You know. The manager had actually caught Steven in the middle of shoplifting and he like tried to stop him and And that's when Stephen pulled out the knife and slashed his face open.
Jesus. That's like going to like try to actually kill someone.
Oh, absolutely. You're putting a knife into their face.
You don't know what you're going to hit.
All Stephen wanted to do was kill someone from a very young age.
Very clear. No, he spent three years in prison for that attack.
And while he was in prison, he was telling anyone who would listen to him that his main goal in life was to become a serial killer.
Like, that's what he wanted to do. He wanted the notoriety.
He wanted to copy other people, like he loved Jack the Ripper.
He had a really specific fascination with the Yorkshire Ripper.
Yorkshire? Yorkshire Ripper. Yorkshire Ripper.
Peter Sutcliffe. And it also reminds me of like Charles Manson being in jail at a super young age.
And telling everybody, like, I should stay here.
Yeah, like just letting everybody know. Don't let me out.
This is the plan. And because they're telling everybody what they're going to do when they're released.
But obviously, I think like we said in the Charlie Manson episode.
That's not a crime. You can't keep somebody in prison longer for that.
So I don't really know what you're supposed to do.
So after the three years he was released, but again, quickly landed himself in the slammer for pulling a knife on a young girl and and holding it to her throat.
Jesus. And just a year before that, actually, he had been sentenced to 100 hours of community service for having a gun in his possession.
That was actually the gun that he was still using to shoot birds and dissect them.
So yeah, we've got a lot going on. We have a lot going on.
We do. And it was at 22 years old that Stephen was officially diagnosed as a schizoid psychopath.
That's a different disorder than schizophrenia, but according to the Mayo Clinic, it can have some similar symptoms to schizotypial yeah, schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia.
Okay. So like The things that they share in common are a severely limited ability to make social connections. and a lack of emotional expression.
Okay. So in this case, it really makes a lot of sense because...
He actually received that diagnosis after pulling a knife again on some girls that he thought were making fun of him.
But they were like, we weren't making fun of him like we thought he was in on the joke.
It's like he couldn't make that. But he couldn't understand that that was the case. right again reality is not something he's able to really grasp right but then looking more and more into this like yes that's absolutely a mental illness but people with this mental illness still know the difference between right and wrong yeah so it's not okay that he went on to murder a lot of people yeah So now while all that was going on, Steven met a woman named Zeta Pinder.
I guess they meant after putting out an ad in the Lonely Hearts column, which usually would be adorable.
Right? Because there's a few killers that use the lonely hearts.
Yes. So now it just has this ominous, like spooky feeling to it every time I hear it.
I couldn't figure out if like, he had put the ad out or if she had or like they both did and somehow met.
I don't I don't know which one of them did it.
I don't know. But that's how they met. And they met at a pub for some dinner for their first date.
And things actually went really well. But looking back on their relationship as an entire whole, there was a lot of red flags.
For one thing, Steven gave Zeta a picture of himself that he had professionally taken on their first date.
I was just like screaming here. I had this picture taken of me.
I'd like you to keep it. I am screaming.
It's like in senior year when you like give your friends your senior picture and you're like. this in your wallet put this in your wallet but different and a little bit weird wow uh she like laughed it off at the time i think she said she called him a poser she was like oh look at you you little poser like she thought it was funny but knowing what she knows now she's like oh okay Cool.
Awesome. She remembered that he really liked horror films, not exactly like in the way that me, you, and Caleb liked them though she said like whenever someone was murdered he would just start laughing hysterically Yeah, that's not liking horror films.
That's not liking horror films, that's liking murder.
That's like watching, thinking, and again.
He doesn't know how to separate it from reality.
So to him, that seems like reality. Exactly.
And that's funny to him. That's his reality.
That's his reality. He also was like a super, super paranoid sleeper and if you don't like bugs, you should probably skip this part. but Zeta said that he was absolutely terrified of insects crawling in his ears in his sleep so he always had to plug his ears with cotton wool.
Ugh. Which, I hate your shit. Now, There was one night he spent with Zeta and she told him that she didn't have any cotton.
She was like, you probably like, hey, you used it all.
I don't have any. You stuck it all in your ears.
And he was like, OK, like I'm not getting into bed with you then.
Like I can't go to sleep. And he stayed up all night.
Wow. Yes. Yeah, that's a problem. Definitely like some paranoia mixed in there as well.
Which is, honestly, that's sad. That is.
You can feel bad for that part of it, but don't feel bad overall.
Exactly. Now, for the first part of their relationship, which lasted a total of two years, Zeta just assumed that Steven lived with his parents because she didn't ever see his apartment.
Yeah. But somehow she found out that he had his own place.
What? And she was like, um, we've been together for two years.
And like this entire time, I kind of just thought you lived with your parents.
Like, um, can I see your house? Like weird.
Am I allowed to go there? And he was like, oh yeah, like I'll take you tomorrow.
Let's go. Like, two years ago. Well, shit.
Like, of course you can come over. should have just asked you want to come to my place i just i didn't want to i didn't want to assume that you wanted to come so i just never brought it up Like what?
That's so bizarre. Well, there was a reason he didn't take her there.
Oh, there was? Yes. I'm shocked. Steven picked her up and the two of them just drove over to his place.
He lived in a third floor apartment in Bradford, not far from the red light district.
And as they walked in the door, Stephen just started showing her around, like, showing her different... knickknacks that he had, his names for certain things.
Xena was horrified. Oh, absolutely horrified because there was a lot of stuff playing around that was like super creepy.
He had horror films lined up on the shelves in the living room, but there weren't just like 30 horror films.
There was hundreds. hundreds of them. There was also like hundreds and hundreds of books about serial killers.
And when I first read that, I was like, I literally, when I first read that, I was like, okay, so he and Elena share a decor style.
I was literally like, Did they share a Pinterest board?
Like, but then I got to the part of the research where I'm feeling attacked here.
Okay. Okay. Well, this is where you're not going to feel so good.
Because I got into the part where they talk about his crossbows and samurai swords that were just like laying around.
Okay. Which you don't have. No, I don't.
I don't have. You do have like autopsy shit, though, which is a little bit weird.
But, you know, but I love you. And I know for a fact you haven't killed anybody and never once.
No, I have not. So it's okay. So again, that might not sound like super alarming to a community like all of us.
But in some sources, I also read that a lot of his surfaces in the apartment were just covered in plastic, like Dexter style.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, that'll get a little bit weird.
For sure. I mean... I just want to know, like, was there was there like did he give a reason?
Did anyone ask? I don't know if she asked.
I think she was just like, I'm really not feeling well.
I'd like to leave. Because I feel like I would at least be like, hey, like, nice plastic, like...
What's the plan? Are you renovating or is something happening?
I would need at least something. I think there was a lot of context clues for her and she was like, you know, I don't think I'm going to ask what the plan is because I think after this I'm never coming back. back here so I don't really need a lot of like context clues.
Yeah, I mean, that's probably the safest way to go about it, to be honest. she had immediately like a super bad feeling about this place and she was like I just thought this guy was like a cool goth dude like I did not think that this is what I was going to walk into.
So she was like, So she did ask. She was like, what's the deal with all this dark stuff?
And he goes, I just like stuff like this.
But OK, it's fair. It's absolutely fair.
But other than like the plastic, like you just like plastic. i was gonna because that one everything else i'm like all right okay like that whatever like Like, you like what you like, that's fine.
And then the plastic, and that's why I was like...
But again, I only read that in some sources.
I don't know how to say that. justify that I don't really know how to be like you like what you like like but I mean then again think of it like people put those plastic things on their couch I was just gonna say like like especially like I'm not saying everybody who has this is old but older people tend to have like the plastic on the couch that you would sit on.
It's like... yeah i'd never understand and it's you know it's so you don't hurt the furniture so maybe he was just really maybe he just really loved his furniture but Or maybe he was trying to set up a kill room like Dexter.
Probably that. I think that's what brought... I was trying.
I can't get there. Yeah. Now, again, just to really drive this point home, I only saw that in a few sources, but I felt like it was worth mentioning because-
Yeah. You know, we can't totally rule it out.
I wasn't there. Zeta was though. And she was like, I'd like to leave now.
And she made something up on the fly and she was like, can you drive me home?
And then the next day she called Stephen and broke up and broke up with him.
Broke up with him. She just broke it right off.
She just broke up with him. And now it would be 10 years before she saw him again, except it wasn't in person.
She saw his face flash across the TV screen one day.
And all of her feelings about this man were confirmed.
But before we get to that, we have one more thing to talk about.
I was like, how? We have to talk about the second woman that Stephen dated.
OK. Her name was Kathy. and their relationship was absolutely terrifying.
Kathy worked as a prison officer, actually.
And when she met Steven, she thought, again, he was just like a cool goth dude. yeah she liked his style she was into it um he had the look down he had like super long black hair he would dress in like dark clothes and trench coats and stuff like that and she was like oh hell yeah like that's my vibe yeah It would have been a whole ass vibe if he wasn't such a monster.
Exactly. But it was only two weeks into their relationship that Kathy started to get to know a completely different person.
This was not the guy that she thought he was.
He was controlling. He was violent and he was willing to go to great lengths to get her to do whatever he wanted.
She wasn't allowed to go anywhere if he wasn't with her.
And really early on in the relationship, he started talking about like, you need to move in with me.
I want you to live with me like i don't want you to live on your own but she couldn't move in with him because she had two dogs of her own and he I don't think he could have them in his apartment.
So instead of accepting that, he decided that the dogs were getting more attention than him and he didn't like that.
Oh, no. No, don't worry. Nothing happens to the dogs.
That's detrimental to their life. But still.
Yeah. So he went over to Kathy's house because he was like, I'm going to do something about this.
And he offered her like some kind of antidepressant.
And she was already on a different kind of medication for depression.
And Stephen knew that these two particular medicines couldn't be mixed, like it could be different. deadly if they mixed.
So she took what he gave her because she didn't really know exactly what it was or She trusted him, what he said it was.
And she immediately started to feel really weird.
She was getting delirious. And she said that as she started to tell him, like, I'm feeling really off.
And like, she was just like really panicking.
He stood over her laughing hysterically and just went, you're dying.
What the fuck? Laughing like maniacally and just went, you're dying.
And think about like you're in, because think about like a panicked moment.
Yeah. And all you're searching for is comfort.
And then you just add like 50 pounds of panic onto it.
And somebody's standing over you laughing.
Saying, you're dying. Oh my God. That like gave me... And it's not just someone.
It's your fucking boyfriend. It's the person you're dating.
Like what? Holy shit. She luckily was he refused to call an ambulance for her.
So she luckily was able to drive herself to the hospital.
Like she could have died on the way there and she had to spend the night to be treated.
And luckily she was able to get treated and everything was okay.
But when she got home the next day, her dogs were gone.
And Stephen told her that her house had been robbed, which was super duper weird because...
Nothing else in the house was touched. It was just the dogs that were gone. and a neighbor confirmed that he left when she went to the hospital. but a neighbor said that he came back later around like 3.45 in the morning.
And he took the dogs with him. And later, Kathy found out that he just like gave the dogs away to someone.
So he gave her dogs away. So then... Honestly, that is... horrific.
Right. But then she was like, I have nowhere to go.
Like, I don't know what to do. Like. so she moved in with him she had no choice he literally forced her to move in with her with him excuse me The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn.
The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.
His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant.
Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.
I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos.
As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.
Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Schick for The Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption, and magic.
Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mayor exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery+.
Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts Spotify or the Wondery app.
Now their relationship, by the way, only lasted a year.
All of this happened within the span of a year.
And throughout the rest of their dating, Stephen would regularly beat Kathy.
He split her lip. He broke her nose. He stabbed her in the legs on multiple occasions.
What? He told her one of the reasons that he liked her was that she fought back and it gave him, quote, a thrill.
No. Now in 2001, Kathy found out that she was pregnant.
So now there's really no way out of this.
Oh, man. But Stephen's behavior completely changed.
He was so excited to be a dad. He was like, we're going to do this.
I'm so excited. But he was definitely still an asshole, and he didn't go to most of Kathy's appointments with her. including one where she found out that unfortunately her pregnancy was ectopic.
Oh. So she was going to have to lose the baby.
Yeah, that's really funny. sad so sad and she said she was like I was sad about it but it was very early on in the pregnancy so in her mind she was like For me, it hadn't become a baby yet.
Yeah. Like a total baby. And, you know, for... for some people it's you know everybody feels different yeah and i'm sure that was also like she probably told herself that to get through it all.
And at least I'm glad she was able to, like... kind of cope that way.
Deal with it some way, right. Because that's like really, that's like fucked up.
Oh, yeah. Ectopic pregnancies are really... really dangerous and really scary 100 you can die yeah it's scary and it's very traumatic I looked into it because I was like, do you always have to lose the baby?
And there's been like some super rare cases where people have had ectopic pregnancies and like delivered.
Wow. It was like I think I literally found like two.
I was going to say that must have been extraordinary.
That's extraordinarily rare. Because the baby can't usually live outside of the womb, obviously.
No, of course. And you can't usually... have a baby outside of the womb that can that kills you easily right It's a really scary thing that happens.
And it's sad because there's no way of preventing it.
It just happens. No, it's literally just luck of the draw.
That's one of those things. Or not luck.
Yeah. But... So Stephen's reaction, she came home and she told him, and she said that his reaction was very strange.
She said he took the positive pregnancy test stick which we had kept and he made a coffin for it.
Which... Sure, like some of the things that people are like thinking are strange for him are just like... he's not like your average everyday Joe Schmo.
Like he's into like some darker stuff and you know, If he wants to make a coffin for the baby that he lost and put the pregnancy stick in there Okay.
That's the thing. It's like, you know, you can't judge everything.
Like some of these things are like, they of course now right it's all it rings very very scary and strange because looking back those things all line up with each other and at the time you might be like okay like this is a lot yeah But like, when you're judging it off of like, you know, separate events, you're just kind of like, yeah, sure, that's a little weird, but like,
People are weird. People want to react however they want to react.
We're weird. But right now, when we know what happens, it's like, ugh. like, yikes, that's a real weird dude.
Though this was when Kathy finally had the chance to get out of the relationship.
So they were going on vacation. And she actually enlisted the help of one of Stephen's ex-girlfriends, Amanda.
And while they were on vacation, Amanda went to Stephen's flat, they call it. and packed up all of Kathy's things that were at Steven's flat and set them aside for her.
Wow. Yeah. I love that. And when they got back, Kathy was able to escape Steven because of that.
Amazing. She got her dog who was staying with his dad and like quite literally just went into hiding for the next few years.
But somehow Stephen would find her, find out where she was, or trick her into speaking with him again.
There was one occasion where he actually came to her parents house.
He like knew that she was there somehow, came to her house, slashed all the tires on her car, and then crashed his car on the way home on purpose and told the responding officers to please call her.
Now, when she tried to get to him because she's an amazing person, apparently, who just like wanted to help him. she like tried to get to him but I guess he called her and was like yeah I actually slashed all your tires so you're gonna have to figure out a different way to get here She was like, you're going to need a new method of transportation.
Are you fucking kidding me? What? I love that he's just like, yeah, I slashed all your tires.
But like, please come rescue. me but like come get me but like you literally halted the production of me coming to see yeah it's like you stopped that sir you're annoying so you're annoying this next part is a trigger warning for animal cruelty so beep beep beep beep beep beep If you just want to schedule a 15-second skip ahead.
Got to go pee? Go pee. Got it. So there was another time that he called her knowing how much she loved animals and he would do this from time to time.
He it's so hard to even say this. He had cut the tail off of a little puppy that he had just got.
He got the puppy like hopped up on like Valium, I think it was, and just decided that he was going to like cut the tail off himself. fuck this guy it's so fuck this guy it makes me so angry now that like makes my stomach hurt He called her and told her this was happening, knowing that it would get her to come to him to rescue this puppy.
And luckily, she was able to get to him and take the puppy.
And she saved the puppy's life. So he lived.
Oh, good. Okay. But oh, trauma. But he would continue to stalk her for years to come.
He stalked her for a total of 10 years. They dated for one year.
And that makes me crazy because like the laws with stalking and shit are so fucked up. and just don't help the victims.
And it makes me crazy because you see these cases and you're like, who's helping her?
Well, because it wasn't until the late 90s in our country in America where the stalking laws got put into place.
I'm not so sure about like England, but this was like the late 90s.
90s yeah and it's like come on and even still to this day like they're still not as tightened up as they should be right there's not a lot that they can do They just don't treat it as dangerous enough as what it is.
And it is. It's a lead up. Like serial killers stalk their victims.
Exactly. And they treat it like, oh, well, you know, they're not doing anything to hurt and it's like, no, they are.
They're violating people's privacy and right to live their lives.
And they're escalating. That's an escalation that's going to happen.
This one was absolutely an escalation. They need to treat it like that.
They do, for sure. There's certain things that people do that are not murder that they need to treat. like it's ready to be escalated to murder because they are always a lead up to it.
Well, because exactly how many cases do we have where we show like the stalking period or even just an attempted murder, an attempted rape or a rape or a murder when it gets to the At that point, you know, like you have to stop that entire point of law enforcement.
Exactly. So this is one of those cases where something should have happened because he would show up at places she knew that he knew she was going to be at.
He would text her scary things all the time.
She'd change her number. He'd find it. And he would usually do these things because she took out multiple protective orders, but he would usually do them right when the protective order ended and it was going to take some time for the next one.
Now, she lived with her parents for like a long time or she would live in like little like hidden places. that she thought that he wouldn't find, but he would always find.
But then I guess she went through a period where like he didn't find her for a little bit.
So she found like She felt like it was finally safe to get her own place.
Yeah. And she did. But he found out where she lived.
Of course. And she had two cats. And then she had two outdoor cats that weren't hers.
They were strays. But they came to her house. all the time, so she thought of them as hers, and he knew that. and he found out where she lived and while she was away on vacation, he killed the outdoor cats. graffitied her house and painted all of the windows yellow spray painted all of the windows yellow What the fuck?
Right. Like what the fuck? So law enforcement was very, very well aware of him.
I was just going to say, and at that point, what do you expect someone to do? to spray paint somebody's house yellow.
And I think he spray painted like slag on the side of her house.
What the fuck? It's fucked dude. And he would consistently find her.
And it's like, what do you expect her to do at this point?
Because she can't go anywhere. Like, this has been 10 years of her life.
At some point, she's going to have to defend herself and she's going to have to make this stop.
And it's like, what do you think is going to happen here?
Nothing is going to end up good like this is not going to have a good ending if somebody doesn't fucking help her And it doesn't, unfortunately.
Luckily, Kathy was able to get away from him eventually.
And Zeta was able to get away from him, but these were not the only women that he tried to intimidate.
There were a lot of other women who had similar run-ins with him. that they just happened to get away from him before anything got too serious.
There was actually a sex worker who literally, like, considered him like a brother he would let her come shower at his house and like He would make her food and she was like, he was a really nice guy.
And like, I literally stayed at his house on multiple occasions.
My God. And I never had any inkling that he was like this.
So it was like a choice for certain women.
It absolutely was. And there were multiple women that he contacted through my space that It felt super uncomfortable with the things he would say to them.
He loved MySpace, by the way. One woman said that he knew her location and was able to tell her where she was at a certain time that he should not have known.
What? And she ignored that message because she was like, I'm not going to feed into this.
That's terrifying. But what am I going to say?
So he sent her another message that was like really irritated.
And was like, I know where you are. Like fucking answer me.
Like what? Crazy. so yeah and like i said he was a big myspace guy and he used the name ven pariah for his profile which later on becomes like his alter ego.
Now, then I guess was short for Steven. And then pariah, obviously, is somebody like... Pariah.
A pariah of society. So... That was like what he went by like after a little while.
Now, around 2007, the police were like, hey, maybe we should like check in on that guy who told everyone that he wanted to become a serial killer and then stalked his ex to the point where she had to get multiple protective orders.
Maybe we should like see what he's up to.
Yeah, let's see if everything's okay over there.
Yeah, like let's check that out. Maybe he's chilled out and everything's fine.
Yeah, they were also catching wind that he was reading books about dismemberment out in the open. as well as taking his gigantic pet lizards on walks around the halls of his apartment on a dog leash.
Yeah. So like shit's really escalating here?
Literally. He had pet lizards. This is a lot.
That he would take on walks around his apartment in a dog leash.
If I ever saw a man walking around my apartment. with a three-foot lizard on a dog leash, I don't know who I would call, but I would call someone.
Ghostbusters, I don't know. Oh, my God.
Like, yeah, I don't even think they could handle it.
I don't think so either. That's a case for lizard busters.
I was like, what? He would also like take them into clubs.
Like he would, he liked to go to like clubs at night and stuff. and he would bring his lizards he would bring his lizards in like a backpack oh that would probably stress them out so much that makes me so sad well and lizards like especially like they have like very specific like temperature conditions that they need to be in and he would also feed them live mice.
He also had snakes and he would feed the snakes live.
I have mice, which makes me so sad. But I think that's a good thing if you have.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That's why. I don't want to have a snake or a lizard.
But this next part is not a thing. A man once saw him eat a baby mice himself.
A live baby mice. He ate it. A live baby mice.
Mouse. I'm stressed. I'm stressed. So the English is hard.
Past tense is not a thing right now. He ate a baby mouse.
Why did he do that? That was alive for scare factor?
I don't know. That was like a live baby mouse.
He just ate it. He ate. a baby mouse that was once living I don't have anything to say about that that just feels very Ozzy Osbourne It does.
So yeah, the police were getting wind of this.
So they were like, Oh, they're just getting wind of this?
Yeah, you know. So they decided to call the housing association that was in charge of Stephen's building.
And they were like, hey, can you keep tabs on him.
That dude that walks those giant lizards and reads books about dismemberment and eats mice in the hallway.
Can you just like Can you just watch him a little bit?
Can you watch him? Would you mind? So they actually, the building was like, hell yeah.
And you know what? Let's get a fucking baller CCTV, like, fucking security footage maker I'm so glad that the building is doing more than the police that's good So they were like, yeah, we'll even get a better system for it.
So they did. Hell yeah, buildings. This was also around the time in 2009 when he decided to go back to school and get a master's degree.
So, you know, bettering himself. Yeah, he did.
I mean he had a thirst for knowledge. Yeah he went to Bradford University and he decided that he really needed to study the difference between homicides that happened in the 19th century versus today.
That's what he was working on in school.
Was that a class? I don't understand exactly.
Because I'm going to be real. I would have taken that class.
Yeah, but knowing what we know now. I was gonna say, but I don't do any of the things he does.
But... That's a choice. Yeah, so he was just going to class learning about homicides I was hoping he was going back to like maybe like a philosophy major and he was gonna like chill himself out and have some some deep thoughts no that was for like lizard walking that's when he had his deep thoughts yeah he did yeah So they had no idea what they were going to find on that footage eventually, but... yeah they found a lot they sure did so let's get into that Let's get into that.
Unfortunately, Susan Rushworth was the first woman to turn up missing when Stephen began structuring rolling the streets just hunting for women to take back to his apartment.
Remember, I said he lived really close to the red light district, so he was... on the hunt for sex workers, especially.
Susan herself was born on New Year's Eve, 1965, a holiday baby just like Stephen. oh wow and she too had dropped out of school at 16 so they had a couple things in common A year later, she was actually involved in an accident that left her with a brain hemorrhage.
So she was 17. And after that, she ended up developing epilepsy.
Oh, geez. She really had a tough go at things.
Yeah. She was trying to push through the hard times.
Soon enough, she met a man who she married and had two kids with.
Unfortunately though, the marriage only lasted 10 years and they decided to call it quits.
And at that point, Susan was struggling with not only epilepsy, but going through a divorce, She's a young woman with two kids.
She became depressed and eventually, unfortunately, she turned to using drugs to cope.
Okay. So four years after her divorce, she actually met another man and had one more child, but things didn't work out with him either. and she was still struggling with her mental health and drug addiction.
So she turned to sex work in the height of her addiction.
And she worked as a sex worker for almost 10 years.
And this is actually just so sad. At one point, she actually ran into her oldest daughter. who was also doing sex work at the time.
So they kind of like teamed up so that she could take care of her daughter on the streets. oh that's really sad it's so sad but she wanted to make sure that she was safe and protected yeah And I think her daughter got out of it and is living a great life now.
But the life that Susan was living was really taking a toll on her physical and mental health.
So she decided she wanted to stop using drugs and stop sex work and everything altogether.
Like she was ready to start fresh. and around the time she disappeared she had actually been off of drugs for six weeks She was living with her parents and she was helping her mom take care of her dad who was suffering from dementia.
Oh my God. So she had really made it a point to like turn things around.
And it seemed like she was on like the right path.
A great path. So the last time anybody saw Susan alive, it was June 22, 2009.
She left home in the morning. She was going to be taking a bus into Bradford to get her methadone prescription to make sure she could stay off – off everything that she was on yeah Uh, she made some stops along the way.
She met some friends for a bit. She made plans with another friend for later in the day.
She was supposed to meet this friend. But she never ended up meeting that friend and her prescription was actually never picked up and she was never seen alive again.
Ooh. So when she didn't turn up that night, her mom was really worried.
She was like, I know that Susan was trying to change things and like, She was really doing a good job.
Oh, that's so tragic. I think something's happened really bad here.
So she called the police and she reported Susan missing, but it would be a lot of time before Susan's family would find out what actually happened to her.
It's believed that somehow that day she met Stephen Griffiths and was coerced into going back to his place.
Like I said, she wasn't believed to be doing sex work at the time of her death So it's unclear why she went back to his place like how he was able to do that Yeah, but authorities did see that the last outgoing call on Susan's cell phone was to a friend that was also her drug dealer.
So they did assume that maybe like she slipped.
She was having a slip. And they thought maybe she had relapsed that day and spent a lot of time just like they spent a lot of time looking for Susan in the wrong places, unfortunately.
And maybe she was looking for more money.
Exactly. Because she had gotten herself like, you know.
She had done something that day, needed more.
Yep. And this is a quick way to make money.
Exactly. It's so unfortunate. It is. And this is just so tragic and sad.
Her body is still never been recovered. And Stephen Griffith won't say where it is.
Of course not. So they do know that Stephen was responsible for her murder, though, because blood was later found inside the bathroom that was a match for her blood.
And he when he later confessed to the other murders that we'll talk about.
He told authorities that he attacked Susan with a hammer in his bedroom and then disposed of her body.
And he just refuses to say where. Won't say where she is.
What a piece. piece of shit. Susan was only 43 years old.
Like I said, she was just getting her life back together. and she had just started getting to know her grandchildren.
Wow. So this guy is a piece of fucking shit for doing this to a woman like for doing this to anybody, but a woman like this, it's like so sad.
Yeah, and it's also, you can see how weak. these kind of assholes are truly like deep within their soul because they hang on to that last fucking power grab. of I'm not going to tell you where she is.
And it's like, fuck you. Because I need that.
Like, fuck you. You need that to keep going or else you know that you'll just fall apart.
He's also just a fucking liar. You're made of bullshit.
So if you give up this one last piece of fucking fake power you feel like you have then you're gonna crumble So it just makes them look even weaker.
He is weak and he's a fucking liar and he's an asshole.
And it's just so annoying. So Stephen would go back out on the streets of Bradford just ten months later, looking for his next the next victim and his next victim would be Shelly Armitage.
She was 31 years old. She was born September 22nd in 1978.
She was beautiful. She was smart. She was getting all A's in all her classes.
And she had a dream of becoming a model someday.
She fell in with a rough crowd at school.
She started dating the wrong guy when she was 16.
She dropped out of school. And she started using party drugs and then she eventually started doing stronger drugs and just really lost control of everything.
One of Shelley's friends remembered her potential to be a model. she really could have gone far with this.
Like she was absolutely gorgeous. And she said there was a potential there that Shelley could have been a beautiful model.
That's really sad. So sad. But she couldn't model anymore because she was getting sick from addiction and she needed a way to buy the drugs themselves. or else she was going to continue to get sicker and sicker, so she turned to sex work.
I really I wanted to make a point of getting as many details as I could about these women that lost their lives.
Because so many of the sources that I was reading just like barely mentioned anything personal about that happens a lot.
And they just glossed over who they were. and only called them sex workers and actually didn't even use that term.
Yeah. Shelly was a lot more than a sex worker.
She was a mother, she was a girlfriend, and she was a dog lover.
There were so many things about her and these women that... Yeah, it doesn't... find them you need to make you need to humanize them a little more yeah exactly a lot more Now, the last time that Shelly was seen was the night of April 26, 2010.
She was working in the red light district right near Steven's apartment.
And when she didn't come home that night, her boyfriend reported her missing and the search was on.
Now, they knew that this had to be serious because she had recently gotten a new puppy that she was just like, head over heels in love with.
And they were like, she would not have left that puppy.
No, like she loved him so much. So tons of people in the area were questioned.
Authorities were putting two and two together and realizing that Shelly and Susan's death were definitely connected.
And later, authorities would learn that Stephen had brought Shelley back to his apartment under the guise of paying her for her services.
When she got into the apartment, though, he shot her with a crossbow and then used his cell phone to record the rest of the night's events.
Yeah. So he took public transportation to get rid of Shelley's remains.
And at some point or another, he ended up leaving his cell phone behind.
Oh no. It was stolen and it was sold to a pawn shop.
While the owner of the shop was like clearing the phone, I guess, of the pictures and videos so he could resell it, they came across a terrifying video.
This is a big trigger warning. The video showed a woman lying hogtied on a bed with the words spray painted on her back that said, my sex slave.
What? Spray painted on her back. Then the video jumped to a bathroom where the woman was very clearly deceased at that point and was being actively dismembered.
And they could hear a band's voice narrating what was going on in the background.
And background, excuse me. And the voice said, What the f- fuck a model that is assisting me nope that is a woman that you killed And most likely tortured or did torture.
Oh. That, wow. And that pawn shop owner just like got changed for the rest of his life.
Literally got changed further. Like the far-reaching ripples of this situation.
Therapy would be needed. I can't imagine living with that.
You just go to work one day just clearing dad off a phone.
No, that's what you come across I mean, like we have said before, like we've accidentally seen pictures that we didn't want to see like during research and everything.
Yeah. I've never seen a video. It fucks with you.
It does fuck with you. Like you wake up in the middle of the night and that image will pop into your head.
Yes. I can't imagine seeing... That Leslie Ann Downey one will forever haunt me.
Always. I hate that I saw that. I... Literally, I will wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and I'll find that will pop into my head.
Like, we both just shuddered and are closing our eyes trying to clear it from our heads.
I hate it so much. fathom seeing a video of that woman hogtied and spray painted with my sex slave and then it jumps to a video where you're probably not even ready for it.
You're not ready for anything. When are you ever ready for this?
No. But jumping to a video of him actively dismembering her on a bathroom floor while narrating it?
Literally. I mean, what the fuck? And you're like, I'm the bloodbath artist and this is a model that's assisting me?
Like, what the fuck? Fuck. He's so sick.
Gross. Sick. In every way. It's... So twisted.
Wow. And unfortunately, I feel like I say unfortunately so much, but this is all unfortunate fitting.
That video wasn't seen in time to save Stephen's last victim's life.
Suzanne Blaymeyers, I believe is how you say it.
She was actually a friend of Shelley's. She was 36 years old when she was last seen.
She was born on February 26th, 1974. She was the oldest of three children.
Her family was a super, super close family.
They were pretty well off. Suzanne's mom was able to stay home with the kids while her father worked.
And when he wasn't working, they would go on nice vacations.
They actually went on an African safari.
Damn. And I read one article where there was a classmate of Suzanne's, and she was like, yeah, I was always wicked jealous of her family.
They were awesome. Growing up, Suzanne had dreamed of being a nurse and she actually started going to school to become a nurse, but...
She got too involved in the party scene during her time off.
She got involved with a guy who was into drugs.
He got her into drugs. Slowly but surely, she fell out of her routine of going to school and studying and she would go out with her boyfriend.
She would go to raves and parties. And again, she would quickly become addicted to the drugs that she had just started experimenting with.
Like it was just supposed to be. It never starts off with a full-blown addiction, obviously.
Of course not. Yeah. into it no but this led to a heroin addiction and when susan's marriage broke up she moved in with a known drug dealer in the area This guy, I think his name is Ifli Hussein, I think is how you say it.
He got Suzanne addicted to crack cocaine and basically forced her out onto the streets as a sex worker.
So that she could pay for the drugs and he wouldn't have to.
Wow. And he would beat her mercilessly if she came home with less than $200.
Wow, this is tragic in every way imaginable.
It's so sad. I just can't imagine. this this life i can't imagine like it it's heartbreaking yeah i truly can't imagine Now, Steven Griffiths met Suzanne.
She went by Amber while she was working.
So he met Amber. He took her back to his apartment like he did with the previous woman, but this time he did something different.
He kept her alive for two days. Now, at one point she somehow was able to escape and she ran out of the flat.
And as she ran out of the apartment, Stephen shot her with a crossbow.
In the hallway. In the middle of the hallway. and now obviously quickly realized that he was caught on camera because remember that updated cctv system yeah when the building did more than the police yeah He didn't care, though.
The video footage showed Stephen shoot Suzanne one more time, this time in the head with a crossbow.
Again, he then dragged her body into his apartment.
20 minutes later, he emerged from the apartment.
He was caught on camera leaving his apartment holding a crossbow.
And he walked right up to the camera and gave it the middle finger.
And you showed me this photo. And we'll post the photo.
It is... haunting, so haunting, haunting.
And that's not it, because I was in the middle of researching this case when I showed that picture to Elena.
This is another thing that happened that I hadn't even found out about yet.
Oh, my God. Ten minutes later, he was caught on tape again, and this time he was holding a drink and he made a cheers motion at the camera. like cheers cheers guys just you just caught me on camera murdering a woman with a crossbow Cheers.
What's up? Oh, he doesn't give a shit. No.
This is everything he's ever wanted. Oh, yeah.
He wants to be a serial killer. He wants to.
He thinks this is like his badass look. Oh, yeah.
Look at me shooting a woman. running away with a crossbow.
So fucked. Wow. Now, the poor man that found this footage. just working for like a management company going through some footage I think is I keep saying I think like I didn't write it down I think his name was Peter Gee I think that's how you pronounce it is what I was going to say.
Now, he was going over all the cameras on Monday, May 24th, 2010.
He immediately called police when he saw this and they were able to review the footage as well.
It was as clear as day that that was Stephen Griffiths, and it was clear as day that he was at least responsible for this missing woman's death. but they had a pretty good feeling that they could now link him to the other two women as well.
Yeah. Yeah. So 60 police officers surrounded the building that afternoon and they were able to force entry into his apartment.
And as they broke down the door, he literally just called from one of the rooms.
I'm in here. Over here, guys. I literally can't.
Thanks for coming. I'm in here. Yeah, good of you to show up right here.
The fuck? It was like he had waited for this moment his entire life because he had.
Yeah, I was going to say. Now, when they arrested him and read him his rights, his response was, I am Osama bin Laden.
You're not though. That's not the truth.
That's not true. Thank you though. he was being interviewed by police and he told them that he had not only killed six women total, they were like, he was like, I've killed more and they were like, how many and he held up his hands and did six but he also said uh six total i believe uh Actually, that's a good question, but I think he meant six total.
But he also told them that he ate parts of these three women that he was being questioned about.
He said he didn't have much time for the human race.
Okay. Now, while he was being held, they were able to search the river air because a black bag had floated to the surface that had been reported.
The bag contained the head of Suzanne Blaymeyers with a crossbow still lodged into her head, lodged into her skull.
That must have been the most macabre thing to see.
I can't even imagine. A head in a bag with a crossbow.
This case is obviously all the cases that we cover are so dark, but this one... wild has such a level of just like what the fuck wow Now, they were able to find some of her other remains, and they were chopped into what they said was nearly 80 pieces.
Now, she actually had to be buried in like a smaller coffin, like a baby-sized coffin, because they just didn't have all of her remains.
They never found everything. They also found other bags in that river containing weapons like hacksaws and razors.
And they were like, oh, like these are probably his.
Wonder what these are for. So they sent them to be forensically tested after letting them dry out.
And when they were tested, a small piece of spine was found and determined to belong to Shelly.
Holy shit. Yeah. So they were able to at least... I can't believe they were able to find that.
Seriously, like... What? It's so crazy.
Science. Science. told the investigators almost everything they wanted to know besides where they could find Susan Rushworth's body.
He told them, quote, The murders, they were horrific, butchered dismemberments, eating parts of all three of them.
In the first case with Susan Rushworth, in the aftermath, I got the cooker. was taken apart and gotten rid of.
So it was six months without a cooker before someone moving out of the flats gave me the present one, which you will find traces of Shelly Amatajian.
But the third one, I actually just went for it.
Tried eating bits of her raw. Oh! So now he's saying that he's eaten these women.
An insane amount of evidence was taken from Stephen's apartment, which was how they linked him to Susan's death in the first place.
But there was no evidence to prove that he had actually eaten them.
So he might just be saying that just for shock value.
They think he was saying it for shock value, and they think the same thing with the number of victims.
Like I said, he hinted at six. But the investigators were like, they think it was just the three women that we do know of.
Yeah. It sounds like he's just a big, he likes the shock.
Yeah. I mean, obviously. he flipped off the camera and shit yeah it's all cheers to it theater it's theater And they think that he tried to do this to gain more notoriety because, again, he wanted to become a prolific serial killer.
That makes sense. A professor of criminology, though, named David Wilson once said, Quote, the key to understanding Griffiths is to realize that he was fixated by the idea of fame.
He was like a nightmarish version of a wannabe X Factor contestant.
Wow. I was like, wow. Wow. That's a great way to describe that.
It's honestly like perfect sense. Truly is.
Stephen Griffiths did what BTK did, and he dubbed himself the crossbow cannibal. get out of here and he did this the first time he appeared in court he was asked to state his full name for the court and that was his answer I am the crossbow cannibal.
No. No one was impressed. You're Steven.
You're Steven... Fuckface McGee. Yeah. You're just Steven.
You're an asshat. Now, on December 21st, 2010, he did plead guilty to all three murders and he received a life sentence.
The judge on the case told the court, the circumstances of these murders are so wicked and monstrous, they leave me in no doubt that the defendant should be kept in prison the rest of his life.
So Stephen has gone on hunger strikes while he's incarcerated.
He attempted to end his life, I think like six different times at this point. but he's still kicking and having an absolutely terrible time in prison.
Well, that's good. And actually, Kathy said she was like, that's the worst place he could be because he's like. very antisocial and like he's forced to be around other people so He's not getting to be powerful in there.
Oh, and he definitely hates it. Now, one of Stephen's last MySpace updates quoted Thomas Harris's novel, The Red Dragon.
He wrote, he is going to become something that other people find astounding and awe inspiring and then went on to say, What will this pseudo-human do, one wonders.
Poor Steven, pretended to be me, but he was only the wrapping.
He knew towards the end that I supplied the inner core of iron, hatred bound tightly in flesh.
At very long last, the time has come to act out.
That was posted the night before Susan, excuse me, that was posted the night before Suzanne Blamires was murdered. that's fucked up and also don't fuck up red dragon yeah like don't do that don't do that but How haunting is that that the night before he murdered someone, he wrote that at very long last, the time has come to act out.
That's not acting out. No. Like fuck you, Steven.
You're a murdering piece of shit. Fuck you.
But I don't want to end this with him because that's what he would want.
Of course. So I want to remember the women who lost their lives and I like to finish this by just sharing what their families had to say about them.
So Suzanne Blamire's mother wrote on a wreath that was carried on top of her hearse, you will always be my shining star.
Oh. Which made me want to cry. Yeah. Susan Rushworth's family has begged Stephen Griffiths to tell them where her body is, but he refuses.
Of course. Her mother said people talk about the death penalty for Griffiths, but I don't believe in it because Griffiths still has secrets.
He knows where my Susan is. And if he was dead, then there would be no chance of him giving up that information.
Yeah, it's true. It is. And Shelley's family read a poem at her funeral by Joanna Fuches, I believe.
It's called A Better Place, and it read...
She's in a better place right now than she's ever been before.
All the pain is gone and now she's at rest.
Nothing troubles her anymore. They also said that she was loving and kind even when her life changed and she cared and helped for everyone, especially the girls on the streets.
And you know what? Here he was totally thinking that he was killing women. who wouldn't have friends wouldn't have family wouldn't have anyone meanwhile two of his victims were friends exactly and did have all of these women had families and children these are how stupid these dudes are that they just assume But you're a sex worker.
You must not have any connection to the outside world at all.
Doesn't matter. And it's like, nope, fucker.
They have friends, family, people who love them.
They have connections to the outside world.
Like, fuck off. Well, and actually, I wanted you to say what you had said to me the other day, because we were talking about this case and I was saying how frustrating it was that Because these women were sex workers, they were labeled prostitutes in many of the things that I read.
And we were saying, like, because people will be like, well, it's a high risk lifestyle.
Like, what is it? And it's like, OK, yeah, sure it is. so is being a race car driver.
Yeah, you make that choice. And it's like, so...
When they die in a car crash, should we just be like, well, it's a high-risk lifestyle.
I don't know what to tell you. Well, he was a race car driver, so...
No, everybody gets upset and mourns the person because they're a fucking human being.
And then we write articles highlighting what a great person they were.
Exactly. Everyone is a person. Exactly.
Like we even say like feel bad for the child that became a murderer.
Yeah, definitely. don't feel bad for the adult, but it's like...
I hate that like high risk thing because it's like there's a lot of high risk jobs.
And when someone dies doing it, you don't just go, Well, it was a high risk job.
Well, the desk doesn't matter because they put themselves at risk.
And then you don't go onto. It's still shitty.
Not shed any light into who they were as a human because they chose a high-risk job.
That's not all they were. It just frustrates me.
It makes me so fucking angry. Wow. That is the case of the Bradford murders.
Stephen Griffiths is a... fucking asshole he's a liar and he's disgusting that is the murderer steven yeah Just Steven.
That's Steven over there. Dumbass Steven.
Steven over there in the fucking garden.
Yeah. And there's, I, I happened to look up like some of the photos of the like CCTV footage and there's a couple of like that there's one of that they caught of her litter like that they published of her literally running down the hallway looking back at him and he is snarling. like a wild fucking animal snarling i'm not gonna post that one you can look for that yourself You want to see that yourself, you go look for it, but... I'll definitely post the one where he flips off the camera.
Just seeing how like... Just wild. Like animalistic.
He was in that moment. That poor... poor woman i can't imagine because she's looking behind her shoulder seeing a Something worse than a wild, terrible animal.
Yielding a fucking crossbow. How do you get away from that?
Snarling at her. yielding a crossbow that's that's stuff you can't make up it really is and can you imagine being kathy or zeta No.
Like, oh, I got away from that man or the woman who just like stayed in his flat and would shower there.
And he was like. he would cook for her and was nice to her.
No. She was probably like, why was he nice to me?
I literally can't fathom that. Could that have happened to me?
There were so many. There was multiple women who were like, that could have been me.
Yeah. That's outrageous. So sad. And it's so sad for these three women's families.
Yeah. that's it's so crazy to me it's nuts wow but yes that is steven wow thank you for that You're welcome.
I've never heard of that one. I hadn't either.
I think I had seen that photo before. Yeah, I think it had popped through somewhere.
Yeah, but I never knew about this case as a whole.
That's wild. so yeah damn um after that we definitely hope you keep listening we hope you keep it Weird.
But not somewhere that you walk around with your lizards on a leash on the hallway and then you go on to murder people with a crossbow because that's really just not okay and If you are going to do that, like, don't do that because I don't want you to.
Thanks. Bye. Yeah, don't do any of that.
Bye. Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
