John Sweeney to die in prison

Life sentence without parole for double murderer who killed girlfriends and left dismembered body parts in canals A carpenter who murdered and dismembered two former girlfriends before dumping their remains in canals in Rotterdam and London has been told he will die in prison. John Sweeney, 54, from Liverpool, was given a whole life tariff at the Old Bailey after being convicted on Monday of murdering Melissa Halstead, 33, a former model from Ohio in the US, and Paula Fields, 31, a mother-of-three living in north London. The women’s remains were found a decade apart, and detectives fear three other women known to Sweeney may also be victims. Sweeney, already serving a life sentence for the attempted murder of a third girlfriend whom he attacked with an axe and a knife, refused to leave his prison cell at Belmarsh prison to hear his sentence. Judge Mr Justice Saunders, sentencing him in his absence, said the gravity of the offences was exceptional and only a whole life term was appropriate. “These were terrible, wicked crimes. The heads of the victims having been removed, it is impossible to be certain how they were killed. The mutilation of the bodies is a serious aggravating feature of the murders. “Not only does it reveal the cold-blooded nature of the killer, but it has added greatly to the distress of the families to know that parts of their loved ones have never been recovered.” The remains of Halstead, whose head and hands were missing, were found in the Westersingel canal in Rotterdam after she vanished from her Amsterdam flat in 1990. She was only identified in 2008 after Dutch detectives carried out a cold case review and matched familial DNA. A freelance photographer, she met Sweeney in London and embarked on a tempestuous relationship, with him following her to Europe when she was deported from the UK for overstaying her work visa. Fields, originally from Liverpool, a crack cocaine user leading a chaotic life in north London that involved working as a prostitute, met him in 2000. She vanished three months later and 10 body parts were found in six holdalls in the Regent’s Canal near King’s Cross in February 2001. Her head, hands and feet were missing. Saunders said the killings had been planned. “The method of disposal of the bodies demonstrates that there was a substantial amount of planning. “Why the killings occurred, I cannot be sure, but I am satisfied that this defendant is controlling in his relationships with women and, chillingly, that control extends to deciding whether they should live or die.” The jobbing carpenter, who worked under assumed names on construction sites around mainland Europe and south-east England, had denied both murders. But, the jury heard, he had a hatred of women and turned violent when they tried to reject him. In 1994 he went on the run living under assumed aliases following the attack in Camden on Delia Balmer, a nurse, with whom he had a relationship. He was finally arrested six years later at a central London building site after the discovery of Fields’s remains. Police then realised there was a connection. The identification of Halstead then allowed them to place crucial pieces in a gruesome jigsaw they fear may not yet be complete. Detectives are appealing for information about three other women, about whom they only have sketchy information, who may also have been killed by him. One is a trainee nurse called Sue, from Derbyshire, who was said to have left for Switzerland in the late 1970s or early 80s. Two former girlfriends of Sweeney, a Brazilian known as Irani, and a Colombian called Maria, have not been seen since the late 1990s, when they knew Sweeney in north London. Asked if the three women were thought to have been murdered, Detective Chief Inspector Howard Groves said outside court: “We have some information which would suggest that is a possibility.” Clues to Sweeney’s visceral hatred of women were found in a hoard of more than 300 violent and lurid paintings and poems found at his home, with one, entitled the Scalp Hunter, depicting a female victim and a bloody axe. On the back of a scratchcard he had written a poem: “Poor old Melissa, chopped her up in bits, food to feed the fish, Am*dam was the pits.” They also found a calendar on the back of a minicab receipt with 16 December 2000 circled and then “9 1/2 weeks” and the letter “P” written under it which within three days was the period before Paula’s body was discovered on 19 February 2001. The jury heard that while on the run Sweeney had told his best friend that he found Melissa in bed with two German men and had killed them all. He also told his former wife, with whom he has two children, that the police were looking for him and he had “done something really bad which would make her hair stand on end”. Crime Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk

Posted by on April 5, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.