DEPRAVED Levi Bellfield has finally confessed to the rape and murder of
schoolgirl Milly Dowler – and is now “singing like a canary” about other
brutal attacks.
It may well be a very long song.
When Bellfield, now 47, was jailed for life in 2008 for the hammer murders of
two young women and the attempted murder of another teen, he was already
suspected of more than other 100 violent assaults and sex attacks.
Police could not prove them but he is now said to have made confessions about,
or implicated others in, crimes committed in nine different police force
areas.
Detectives are reviewing dozens of cases going back as far as the killer’s
SCHOOL DAYS, when the then 12-year-old’s ex-girlfriend, Patsy Morris, 14,
was found strangled.
Londoner Bellfield is said to have confessed to that 1980 killing, although
police are dubious.
But was he involved — or did the young girl’s death perhaps have such an
effect on him that it helped turn him into a monster?
The father-of-11’s first killing was of Milly, 13, in March 2002.
She was abducted on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey,
where Bellfield had a flat. He was found guilty of her murder in 2011
despite denying being involved until this week. That was long after he had
already been jailed for the hammer murders of Marsha McDonnell, 19, killed
in 2003, and Amelie Delagrange, 22, killed in 2004.
But the distinctive, nature of these murders — both girls were bludgeoned with
a blunt instrument — mean police are looking back at whether his first
hammer murder may have been in October 1990.
Widowed mother-of-three Judith Gold, 51, was killed on the street near her
home in Hampstead, North London.
Hatred of women drove Bellfield’s crimes and most of his victims were pretty,
young and buxom blondes.
Former partner Johanna Collings revealed how she found a mag which he had gone
through slashing pictures of blonde models with a knife.
He told her he wanted to “hurt women, kill them, stab them or rape them”.
Other exes talked of his lust for schoolgirls.
Ex Becky Wilkinson, who endured years of his abuse, said later: “Levi was a
cruel monster who cared nothing for anyone but himself.
“I believe he stalked Milly and killed her when she rejected his advances. He
treated all women the same horrific way.”
As well as other hammer attacks carried out in the areas where he worked as a
nightclub bouncer or wheel-clamper, Bellfield is suspected of numerous
rapes, often after drugging his young victims.
After his arrest in 2004 he was charged with nine rapes of three exes and
quizzed about five other drug rapes.
He was never prosecuted over any of the sex offences — but that could now
change.
By November 2005, a year after his arrest over the murder of Amelie, Bellfield
had been reported to police 92 times for alleged indecent assault, physical
assault and obscene phone calls.
Bellfield served two short jail terms in the early Nineties for actual bodily
harm.
It was after his release that the attacks which police are now examining again
seem to have got under way,
Most happened in the areas of West London and Surrey, where Bellfield was
known to hunt his prey. In July 1994 City worker Corrine McGregor, 29, was
hit over the head with a hammer in Hinchley Wood, Surrey, near where
Bellfield worked as a doorman.
In the late Nineties there was another hammer attack in Blackpool, where
Bellfield went on holiday, and the murder of a prostitute in Manchester.
Then, on the night of April 28, 2000, nurse Rachel Woodlock was hit over the
head as she walked home in Twickenham.
In August 2001 a woman, then 23, who worked at a disco in Uxbridge, West
London, claims he drugged and raped her. She later told The Sun: “As he
raped me I knew what was happening but couldn’t put up any resistance.”
In October that year Bellfield is suspected of trying to drag college student
Anna- Marie Rennie, 17, into a car in Whitton, West London.
Playing
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Shocking
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Later another teen girl claimed she had been drugged and raped by Bellfield in
nearby Kingston just two hours before the attempted abduction of Anna-Marie.
Around this time Bellfield was also suspected of raping a 15-year-old girl in
his van near Heathrow, West London.
His later murder trial heard how he kept a duvet in the back of his van for
sex.
Then, on March 20, 2002 Rachel Cowles, 12, was offered a lift by a man in
Shepperton, Surrey. He fled when police drove past. The next day Milly was
abducted in nearby Walton. Her body was found in woods six months later.
Another suspected victim, Sonia Salvatierra, 26, says she was attacked in
Twickenham in November 2002.
Then Jessie Wilson, 17, was bludgeoned over the head in the snow a few feet
from her home in Strawberry Hill, West London, in January 2003.
On February 4, 2003, Marsha McDonnell, 19 was murdered in a hammer attack by
Bellfield after stepping off a late-night bus in Hampton, West London. That
same year Charmaine Hook, then 17, claims she was drugged and raped by him
near Uxbridge.
Then Dawn Brunton, 36, suffered a fractured skull after being hit in a dark
alley at Hatton Cross, West London, on November 5, 2003.
The following month Bellfield is suspected of raining down blows on Irma
Dragoshi, 36, at a bus stop in Longford Village, West London. Bellfield was
charged with this attempted murder as part of his 2008 trial but the jury
could not agree on a verdict.
Bellfield was also suspected of two hammer attacks in one night at Hastings,
East Sussex, on January 11, 2004, while he was clamping cars at a leisure
centre in nearby Chichester.
Sarah Spurrell, 23, was struck three times over the head as she walked
listening to music. A short time later another young woman nearby suffered a
similar attack.
Then 34-year-old accountant Edel Harbison was attacked on April 18, 2004, in
an alley near Twickenham Green.
Next month, on May 28, Bellfield mowed down Kate Sheedy, 18 in his people
carrier after she stepped off a night bus in Isleworth, West London.
Bellfield was later convicted of her attempted murder.
Eight days later he allegedly took part in the gang rape of a girl, 14, at a
flat in Wandsworth, South West London.
Then on August 19, 2004, Bellfield bludgeoned French student Amelie to death
with a blunt instrument as she crossed Twickenham Green.
Months later Bellfield was arrested and his killings were over, even if he now
claims to have evaded justice for most of them – so far.