John Childs is a British murderer who killed six people between 1974 and 1978.

He was a professional criminal and contract killer, although he surpassed many gangland hitmen in sheer brutality. One victim was shot three times and then stabbed with a sword, while another was battered with an axe and a lead pipe before being strangled.

One unsuspecting victim was lured to a factory to be killed, and he turned up with his 10-year-old son. Ignoring the unwritten rule that gangsters supposedly refrained from hurting women and children, Childs shot both father and son to death.

The remains of Childs' victims were never found because he dismembered the bodies and cremated them in the fireplace of his London home.

Childs was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1980 and remains in prison. It is suspected that he is on a whole life tariff, meaning he will die in jail, though his name has never been publicised as such. The last published list made it clear that some names had been held back for various reasons, and it is possible Childs' name was one such.

Two alleged accomplices, Terry Pinfold and Harry Mackenney, were also sentenced to life, primarily on Childs' testimony, but in 2003 they were released after their convictions were quashed on appeal.

John Childs is a British murderer who killed six people between 1974 and 1978. Childs was a professional criminal and contract killer, although he surpassed many gangland hitmen in sheer brutality.

Victims

Terry (Teddy) Eve was killed in August 1974. Terry was beaten with a piece of pipe and an axe before Childs strangled him to death.

Robert Brown - was killed in January 1975. Robert was shot 3 times then axed and stabbed with a knife and a sword.

George Brett and Terry Brett murdered in November 1975, were father and son, both victims were shot in the head.

Freddie Sherwood was killed in July 1978, he was also shot in the head.

Ronald Andrews was killed in October 1978, shot in the head.

Childs burnt the body of each victim in the fireplace of his London home. Childs had tried to mince the body and dispose of it down the toilet. This proved to be impossible so the bodies were dismembered with a saw and a wooden mallet, before incinerating them. Detectives reconstructed this burning using an 11-stone pig to prove it was possible.

Trial

Childs claimed to have worked with Harry McKenney and Terry Pinfold and the trio were sentenced to life imprisonment, McKenney and Pinfold were recommended to serve 25 years before parole, but it has since been reported that Childs has been issued with a whole life tariff which means he is unlikely ever to be released.

However Terry Pinfold and Harry McKenny were both released from prison in 2003 after the Court of Appeal in London quashed the convictions as unsafe. The judges said the evidence against Terry Pinfold, from Hornchurch, Essex, and Harry Mackenney, from Dagenham, Essex, was “so unreliable that it is worthless”.

Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, said fresh evidence showed Childs - regarded as an unsatisfactory witness even at the trial - was a “pathological liar”.

Wikipedia.org