Kenneth Erskine - Serial Killer

This man is not one of your well known killers, yet he ranks as dangerous as any British serial killer.  His targets were both elderly men and women, in which they would be sexually assaulted and strangled.  His rampage began in April 1986 and ended in July 1986, with seven known victims and another four he is suspected of.  He was handed one of the heaviest sentences ever given in a British court, a recommended minimum of 40 years.  The sort of sentence that would have the whingeing apologists screaming, yet conveniently forgetting how many victims this scumbag killed.

    Erskine was born in 1963 to an English mother and Antiguan father, but he was shunted between foster homes in his early life.  He drifted into crime and was such a prolific burglar that he was able to open ten bank accounts with the proceeds.  Mental health issues have been put forward as the reasons for his murderous spree but this was 18 years after he was caught.  His first victim was 78 year old Eileen Emms, raped and strangled in her home in Wandsworth on 9th April 1986.  Two months later, he murdered another old lady, 67 year old Janet Cockett, in her Stockwell flat on 9th June.  Crucially, Erskine left a palm print in the flat. He then committed a double murder at a Stockwell residential home.  His victims were Valentine Gleim, 84, & Zbigniew Strabawa, 94.  They were sexually assaulted and strangled.  The press dubbed the killer "The Stockwell Strangler".

    Now the next elderly person to suffer was 84 year old William Carmen, who was molested and then strangled in his Islington.  Erskine then moved on returned to his Stockwell killing zone and strangled William Downes, 74 on 21st July.  His last known victim was 83 year old widow Florence Tisdall, murdered in a Fulham retirement complex.  He was arrested in a social security office on 28th July and charged with seven murders.  Police had matched the palm print to him, and he was identified in a line-up by a 74 year old man he had attempted to strangle a month before.

    Incredibly, during his trial, Erskine was masturbating as he sat in the dock.  The Judge sent him down for no less than 40 years.  The psychiatric reports on him were done in 2004, and in 2009, the Court of Appeal accepted that he suffered from Chronic Schizophrenia and Anti-Personality Disorder and reduced the murder convictions to manslaughter.  Erskine was sent to Broadmoor, and is eligible to apply for parole in 2028, which, no doubt the way parole boards operate in this country, he will be considered fit for release and thus filling the community wherever he is put, with fear.  But their fears will mean nothing.  Erskine murdered seven people, and is suspected of four more, including 81 year old Wilfred P{arkes in Stockwell & 75 year old Trevor Thomas in Lambeth, but, hey, we should show compassion.  After all, Erskine didn`t.