The Hunt for the Silver Killer

The Shocking True Story of a Murderer who Remains at Large

David Collins

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781398505360
• eBook ISBN: 9781398505353

*HIGHLY COMMENDED FOR BEST AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE TRUE CRIME AWARDS 2023* 'A truly astonishing murder mystery – this is proper journalism' Jeremy Clarkson Following a long investigation by the world-famous Sunday Times Insight team, David Collins tells the truly unique story of a string of murder-suicides in north-west England and poses the terrifying question: are they the work of a serial killer who has been operating undetected since the mid-nineties? In 1996 and 1999, two elderly couples died in the small town of Wilmslow, Cheshire. In each case the husband was blamed for turning berserk and killing his wife using a horrifying level of violence. The police failed to make a link between the deaths – despite the similarities. That might have been the end of the matter. But when two coroner's officers began to piece together the evidence, it revealed a pattern which may prove the existence of a sadistic attacker known as 'the silver killer'. Using interviews with dozens ofwitnesses, including police investigators, forensic and crime scene experts, coroner's officers and family members, the author pieces together the clues in an attempt to solve the mystery of what really happened. A gripping true-crime investigation, the book reveals how suspicions were aroused and set investigators on a new trail to uncover the truth. Collins, whose reporting helped the police to convict the serial killer Levi Bellfield of killing Milly Dowler, has written a brilliant account of a crime that nearly went undiscovered which is sure to become a classic of the genre.

1 The Ainsworths

That Saturday lunchtime in Gravel Lane in Wilmslow, Cheshire, was like any other. Cars trundled to the shops, children kicked balls in the nearby playing field, and just up the road the tall, kindly figure of Howard Ainsworth could be seen taking advantage of the spring weather to potter about his garden. His neighbour, Margaret Farror, who lived in the house adjoining his own, popped over for a catch-up. He saw her coming and straightened up from the flower beds of tulips and pansies to crack a joke, warning her to stay away.

‘I wouldn’t come too close,’ he said. ‘Bea’s got the lurgy. You’ll end up catching it yourself if you’re not careful.’

‘Oh? Poor Bea. What’s wrong with her?’

‘Some sort of stomach bug. She’s been vomiting all night. I had to help her to the bathroom a few times.’

Howard was being his usual friendly self. He was tall and physically strong for a man of seventy-nine. He had a kindly face, a side-sweep of receding silver hair and a slightly ruddy complexion. Spectacles perched on top of a bulbous nose. His typical attire was a short-sleeved shirt and trousers. He was relaxed with people he knew, but with those he didn’t his manner could come across as a little brusque, typical for an ex-army man of his generation.

He had spent the Second World War fighting the Japanese in Burma. He watched his friends die there. He would never forget it. He left the army and spent most of his life working for the local council maintaining parks. It was steady work, enough to afford a semi-detached house on Gravel Lane, a property which had soared in value. Not that he would ever move. He lived with his wife, Florence, known as Bea to her family and friends. Her middle name was Beatrice, and she much preferred it. They were proud of their home and kept it immaculately tidy. They were fastidious when it came to household chores and liked everything to be just so. This was the house where they had raised their only child, John, before he grew up and moved away. John lived in Derby now, but still visited with the grandchildren.

It was fair to say the Ainsworths were a well-known couple in the town of Wilmslow, largely because of Bea’s old job at the funeral directors, which had an office just around the corner. She would often be stopped in the street by the bereaved families she had helped over the years. Howard and Bea were still physically active. Howard would be seen cycling around Wilmslow on a bicycle with a basket at the front. They both enjoyed walking, and would drive up to the Lake District to get lost in its hills. Howard felt most at peace in the countryside, rather than the busy urban centres, which is why he enjoyed living in Wilmslow so much, a small town that still very much felt like a village, particularly where he lived.

At 2 p.m. Margaret saw Howard mowing his front lawn. Nothing unusual about that. She approached him to get an update on Bea’s condition. Howard said she seemed to be improving and had managed a small amount to eat and drink.

‘That’s good news,’ Margaret said. ‘Well, if there’s anything I can do, you know where I am.’

That was the last time Margaret saw him. She didn’t see Bea at all that weekend. She had spoken to her on Monday. Bea had appeared her normal self. There was nothing to suggest anything untoward. Bea was considerably smaller in size than her husband. Howard was large and lumbering, whereas Bea was petite and bird-like, with a thin waist and delicate wrists. Like many women of her age, she kept her white curly hair short and cropped above the neck. She was known among friends as being ‘easy company’. Easier than her husband, perhaps. Howard could be more reserved. His work as a gardener for Manchester Corporation, later renamed Manchester City Council, had led him in his retirement to maintain an almost professional interest in his own garden, keeping the lawn, hedges and flower beds in perfect condition. He would leave seeds out for the wild birds. Neighbours often joked their garden was like a wild bird sanctuary. He was good with his hands and an excellent car mechanic, teaching his son the basics of vehicle maintenance in his typical no-nonsense way.

Howard’s rather blunt manner had led to a minor squabble with their neighbours, Halton and Jacqueline Cummings. The Cummings family had had an extension built onto the side of their home and there was a dispute over the boundary wall. Halton never spoke to Howard again after that. It wasn’t a major dispute; just an unfortunate disagreement which had cooled relations. Jacqueline maintained a cordial relationship with Howard and Bea, and exchanged polite greetings over the fence, or when passing them in the street.

In the last few days, Howard had been worried about Bea’s illness and had contacted the Kenmore Medical Centre to report that she was vomiting repeatedly. An appointment was booked for Dr Claire Redhead to carry out a non-urgent house call on Friday at 10 a.m. Before her visit Dr Redhead checked Bea’s medical notes on the computer, which showed no past medical history of note and no prescriptions for any form of medication.

A couple of months earlier, Bea had undergone her ‘75+ Health Examination’, a standard health check carried out by the clinic. The practice nurse had recorded a normal examination: nothing out of the ordinary about her physical or mental condition. In fact, it had been two years since Bea had last visited a doctor, when she was suffering from a sore throat. For exercise she would regularly walk five to seven miles a day and swim between ten and twelve lengths non-stop in the swimming pool. Her GP considered her a fit and healthy woman.

Howard stayed at his wife’s side during the examination on Friday. He was nursing Bea in the master bedroom at the rear of the house, where the windows looked out onto their back garden. Bea’s main complaint was vomiting. She had been retching since Thursday. The vomiting would start twenty minutes or so after eating or drinking, leaving her feverish and dizzy. Despite the rather alarming symptoms, which were causing Bea some distress, Dr Redhead found nothing to suggest it was a serious infection. Bea had no sensations of vertigo, tinnitus or deafness. No headaches, rashes or coughing. Dr Redhead decided Bea was suffering from a bout of gastroenteritis, a common form of tummy bug caused by infection and inflammation of the digestive system. Although unpleasant, Bea’s symptoms would only last for another twenty-four to forty-eight hours. After that she could expect to feel a great deal better.

Bea was given an intramuscular injection of 12.5mg of Stemetil, a drug used to treat nausea, vomiting and dizziness, and instructed to drink plenty of fluids. Dr Redhead told them to call the medical centre again if she developed any new symptoms, but she reassured them there was nothing serious or long-lasting about the bug. Bea was a fit and healthy 78-year-old, and Dr Redhead expected her to shrug off an ailment like this in a matter of days.

Like Bea, Howard was in good shape. Dr Redhead was not his regular GP, but his medical file recorded that he had no serious ailments, either. Howard had also recently visited the medical centre for his ‘75+ Health Examination’, where the nurse recorded full fitness and a ‘normal state of mind’. Dr Redhead left their house confident that Bea would make a full recovery and happy with the care Howard was providing. She was the last known person to see Bea alive.

The Ainsworths had been retired since the late ’70s. Howard had left the council, while Bea had quit her secretarial job at Albert R. Slack, the funeral director’s. ‘Slack’s the name, stiff’s the game,’ their son John and his wife used to joke. In 1978, Bea had told her boss, Robin Currie the funeral director, that she wanted to retire and spend more time with her husband. She was a big loss to Currie. Bea was popular with the customers: Currie would describe her as ‘pleasant’, ‘easy-going’, ‘reliable’ and ‘competent’. During weekdays, she would work in the front office from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., then take a short walk home around the playing fields. Sometimes Howard would meet her. They disliked being apart.

The last time they had been separated for any significant period of time was during the war. While he was fighting in Burma, Howard didn’t see Bea for six years. They remained engaged, and got married on his return. But the Howard who came back from overseas wasn’t the same happy-go-lucky lad who had gone off in his twenties to fight for his country. He saw many friends die in combat. He rarely spoke of it. Not to Bea or to his son John, who with his wife Rosemarie gave him two grandchildren, Peter and Heather. Rosemarie considered John’s parents a little ‘stiff and starched’ for her taste. John and Rosemarie had recently been through a divorce, which had been tough on the family.

Their neighbour Margaret slept soundly that Saturday night. Her bedroom was separated from the Ainsworths’ bedroom by a brick wall. She woke the next morning oblivious to what had occurred overnight inside the house next door. There had been no screams that she could tell of. No cries for help through the walls. Just the usual – silence. Margaret got herself ready and at 11.30 a.m. went out into her front garden to water the plants. The Ainsworths’ curtains were still closed. Strange, she thought. They were always up by now. In twenty-four years of living next door to the Ainsworths, Margaret had never known them to sleep in so late. She knocked on the front door and tapped on the windows. No response. She was starting to get worried.

She knocked on Jacqueline Cummings’s door and told her about the curtains still being closed. Margaret wondered if she should go inside the house to check up on them. No, said Jacqueline: it would be better to call the police – Howard might not take kindly to them poking around inside the house. There was also the possibility that if anything had happened to them, an intruder might still be inside the property. Margaret agreed. Something just didn’t feel right. Her heart thumping, she returned to her house and took the nerve-wracking decision to pick up the phone and call 999.

‘Hello, police? I would like to report something strange about next door…’

---

At 11.45 a.m. on Sunday, 28 April 1996, a message crackled on the walkie-talkie belonging to WPC Jennifer Eastman, collar number 2913. It was a request to check out No. 85 Gravel Lane. She was on standard patrol duties in Wilmslow at the time, and thought it would be a quick call to check up on an elderly couple – fifteen minutes, tops. The 25-year-old was new to the job, at the beginning of what turned out to be a lifelong career in the police. She drove her marked police car into the town centre and picked up PC Neal Miller, who was also out on patrol. Miller was two years her junior.

They parked outside the house in Gravel Lane to find the Ainsworths’ curtains still drawn. Margaret was waiting for them. She was the person who had called the police, she explained. She hadn’t seen Howard or Bea all morning, and Howard would usually be out in his garden by now. Bea hadn’t been well the last few days, she went on – something to do with a virus that was making her vomit – and Howard had been helping her to the toilet. The Ainsworths were creatures of routine: early risers. They weren’t on holiday either: as far as she knew, the car was still in the garage. It didn’t make any sense.

Eastman walked to the back of the house and found the rear kitchen door unlocked. The officers pushed the door open and walked inside the clean but slightly musty-smelling interior, Eastman and Miller first, followed by Margaret. They walked through the kitchen, searching the downstairs living room, the front room, the utility room and downstairs bathroom. No sign of Howard or Bea. No sign of a disturbance or a struggle, either. Leaving Margaret in the hallway, Eastman and Miller went up the gloomy stairs. At the top of the stairs on a sideboard, was a yellow piece of paper. Something was written on it in capital letters. Three words. DO NOT RUSUCACATE [resuscitate].

Eastman and Miller glanced at one another and headed towards the main bedroom. The door was open to the upstairs landing and they could see a pair of feet dangling off the bed, framed against the flowery yellow wallpaper. Inside, lying in the double bed, were Howard and Bea, side by side in blood-soaked sheets. Dead. Not just dead: Bea had been butchered. She was on the right-hand side, closest to the door, her face turned a little towards Howard. Most of her head was soaked in blood. Against her cheek was a pillow patterned in white, yellow and blue rectangles. Most of the pillow was crimson.

But that wasn’t the most shocking part. Not by a long shot.

Somebody had stabbed a kitchen knife into Bea’s head. All that could be seen of the knife was a black handle protruding from the centre of her forehead. Blood had seeped down her face to her right arm and collected in a red pool between the bodies, staining the mint-green bedsheets. Her crumpled white nightie had been yanked up at the hip to expose her pubic area. She had red scuff marks on her knees and her left hand lingered uselessly around her midriff, her other hand tucked awkwardly underneath her chin. On her ring finger was a gold wedding ring, and on her left wrist a gold watch. If this was a burglary gone wrong, the burglar had left some valuable items behind.

Howard was beside Bea in the bed. His head was covered by a clear polythene bag which was spattered in fine droplets of blood. The bag sat on his head, cone-shaped, like a ceremonial hood from some forbidden religion. His right leg was crossed over his left. His left arm was trapped awkwardly under his body. His right arm was laid across his chest. His head and neck were propped up against the headboard, again in a rather awkward resting position. His pale-blue pyjamas were remarkably clean. He had a few spots of blood on his top, but nothing compared to Bea, whose entire head, shoulder and side of her body facing Howard were drenched in blood. His pyjama bottoms were stained with urine.

On Howard’s side of the bed was a table with a portable TV set. The TV was switched off. In front of the TV was a bedside clock, empty tumbler glasses and a bottle containing twenty-two brown-and-grey pills. On the carpet next to the bed on Howard’s side was a ligature. On Bea’s side of the bed was a bedside table decorated by pink and white flowers in an ornate brown vase. Next to the vase was a hammer with a long wooden handle and a well-worn hammerhead. Also on the table was a shoe heel, a shoe brush, a picture frame and a white bowl.

PC Eastman walked slowly from the bedroom and stopped a moment to steel herself. This was a sight that would stay with her forever. She went down the stairs to where Margaret was waiting anxiously in the downstairs hallway and gently escorted Margaret out of the house, leaving Miller to secure the bedroom as a crime scene, ensuring that nothing was touched until the detectives, forensics experts and scenes of crime officers (SOCOs) had arrived. Eastman used her radio to speak to the control room. Two bodies found. Elderly couple. Female with knife in head. Male with bag over his head. No sign of forced entry. Request immediate assistance.

2 The Gucci Gang

The CID offices on the upper floor of Wilmslow’s Hawthorn Street police station were quiet apart from the occasional shuffle of paperwork and the low hum of the police radio. The detectives would keep the radio switched on in the background in case they picked up on anything which required urgent assistance. Working the Sunday shift were Detective Inspector Brian Hibbitt, Detective Sergeant Richard Woolley and Detective Constable Chris Warren. Their office was open-plan with a view looking out over trees and parkland in the direction of the fire station.

Hibbitt had his own office, separate from the banks of desks. Dark-haired and thick-set, he was a good old-fashioned DI who wasn’t averse to listening to new ideas from his younger detectives. His team at Wilmslow consisted of four detective sergeants and twelve detective constables. A superintendent was in overall charge of the police station, responsible for the oversight of around ninety staff, including uniformed officers, CID and the custody suite team.

Hibbitt got on well with DS Woolley, a tall man with dark hair and a passing resemblance to Robert Mitchum, one of the ‘golden oldie’ stars of Hollywood, although nobody would ever tell him in case it gave him a big head. Woolley was straightforward, dogmatic and great company down the pub. Twenty years in the force had given him a reputation as a formidable investigator. He once uncovered a drugs gang in possession of 400 kilos of cannabis. One of the major players had escaped to Spain, known as the Costa del Crime due to the number of fugitive criminals living there. Woolley waited eight years before nabbing him in Madrid.

Wilmslow CID were a tight-knit crew, one big family who lived and breathed policing. The detectives got the job done and didn’t mind a pint or two down the Boddington Arms after work. Back in the nineties, being an officer in Cheshire Police was like being a soldier in the army. There were strict chains of command. People did what they were told. Officers still stood up in meetings when the superintendent walked into the room. But that was put to one side down the pub, where people drank hard and smoked heavy. Nevertheless, the detectives at neighbouring Macclesfield Police Station thought Wilmslow CID a bit stuck-up. Maybe it was because they worked in well-to-do Wilmslow. Or maybe it was because the detectives would wear smart suits from Slaters in Manchester. Their sharp dressing earned Wilmslow CID a nickname from their counterparts at Macclesfield, the divisional headquarters. They called them the ‘Gucci gang’. The nickname stuck. Eh up, here come the Gucci gang. Criminals beware!

Every copper in Cheshire Police was envious of the facilities available to those lucky enough to be based at Hawthorn Street ‘nick’. Its custody suite meant suspects could be arrested, questioned in one of the interview rooms and locked up in a cell, all within the police station: no messing around having to transport suspects around Cheshire to other locations. The only downside to the building was the wasps, which would spring out from nests to harass the thin blue line of Wilmslow every single summer, driving the detectives mad as they chased the latest intruder around the office with a rolled-up newspaper and some insect spray.

Hibbitt and Woolley got the call. Two bodies found in a house in Gravel Lane, just a few streets from the station. Could they provide assistance to the uniformed officers at the scene? They arrived at the Ainsworths’ house to find Eastman and Miller guarding the property. Woolley and Hibbitt went upstairs to carry out some initial observations of the scene. The first and most obvious clue was the DO NOT RUSUCACATE note at the top of the stairs. Woolley, acting as the exhibits officer, meaning he was in charge of gathering up and cataloguing the evidence found in the house, logged the item as RGW/5.

Woolley entered the A...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Prologue
• Chapter 1: The Ainsworths
• Chapter 2: The Gucci Gang
• Chapter 3: Growing Doubts
• Chapter 4: Death Without Dignity
• Chapter 5: The Wards
• Chapter 6: Hunting a Killer
• Chapter 7: The Backdoor Murders
• Chapter 8: Occam’s Razor
• Chapter 9: The Real Cracker
• Chapter 10: Ghosts of the Past
• Chapter 11: Pandora’s Box
• Chapter 12: The Review: Ainsworths
• Chapter 13: The Review: Wards
• Chapter 14: Death in Didsbury
• Chapter 15: Salt Lake City
• Chapter 16: ‘Stop Rattling My Fucking Cage!’
• Chapter 17: ‘They Were 100% Murdered’
• Chapter 18: Reprisals
• Epilogue: Cracks in the System
• Copyright