I’m an expert and police are wrong to say Croydon Cat Killer was just foxes – this is why he could go on to kill people
FOR four years, talk of the Croydon Cat Killer sent chills down the spine of every pet owner.
Harmless felines were stabbed, savaged and even beheaded by the sick predator between 2014 and 2018.
But police and forensic scientists concluded the killings were “probably” hungry city foxes.
Now experts tell new ITV documentary How To Catch A Cat Killer that the culprit could indeed be human.
Cat death investigator Boudicca Rising told ITV: “When the police closed down the investigation we thought, ‘Is this foxes? Can we just call it a day?’ It would be a huge relief if we could.”
But she says cats’ collars were posted through letterboxes and the twisted attacker had nailed a cat’s head and tail to its owner’s door. Boudicca set up animal charity South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty (SNARL) to investigate the Croydon Cat Killer in 2014, before leaving the organisation in 2019.
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In 2018, police closed the three-year investigation into the deaths of 400 pets, stating that the culprits were probably foxes.
Last year, the Royal Veterinary College confirmed they had found fox DNA on 19 of the 32 cats they had performed autopsies on. But at least six of the cats given a post-mortem died from unknown causes.
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Boudicca said: “There are so many things about this case that don’t make sense.
"The important thing for us is that there’s a prosecution at the end of this, so all of this effort is geared towards that prosecution.
“We’re not vigilantes — we just want him caught. In the end, we will get him and we are not stopping until we do.”
‘I followed blood trail’
Other mysterious cat-killing cases have turned out to be every owner’s worst nightmare — a sick individual with a bloodlust for felines.
On Brighton’s cobbled streets in late 2018, pets began to return home with major injuries.
In November that year, owners Tina and Keith Randall’s cat Gideon arrived clearly badly hurt.
Tina recalled: “There was blood everywhere and he was all weak and wibbly.
I said, ‘He’s been stabbed’.” Keith said: “There was a mix of emotions, from ‘Will he survive?’ to ‘How could anyone do this to an innocent animal?’.”
Gideon, who was saved by vets, is the first known victim of a cat killer who went on to wage an eight-month campaign of terror. Keith and Tina decided to warn other owners on Facebook.
As a result, two local cat lovers, known only as Holly and Wendy, created a leafletting group of 12 at locations where the killer had struck, and also set up a group to hunt them.
Fearing the culprit would go on to target humans, Wendy said: “We need to catch him before he takes it to the next level.” But their efforts did not come soon enough.
Just a few streets away from where Gideon was attacked, Agatha Altweg was busy helping adopted cat Hendrix settle into his new home.
"Six months later, the nine-month-old kitten fell foul of Brighton’s cat killer.
Agatha said: “I was getting ready and I realised there was blood on the floor.
"I followed the blood into the kitchen and that’s where I found him. He was just lying down — he wasn’t really moving. Every time I tried to pick him up we could see blood flowing.”
The vet told Agatha and her partner Stewart Montgomery that the injury was a stabbing — like two other cases he had seen that past fortnight. Vets battled to save the rescue cat, but his kidneys and bowel had suffered unsurvivable injuries.
By early 2019, Sussex Police had reports of 25 cats that had been attacked. They launched Operation Diverge to establish whether there was a killer on the loose or if it was a coincidental streak of accidents.
We need to catch him before he takes it to the next level.
Wendy
The Sussex force’s Detective Chief Inspector , who launched the taskforce, said: “There was no way I was going to let this investigation stop until we knew for sure whether or not it was a human doing it, or we had categorical evidence it wasn’t.”
Police ordered four post-mortems on cat corpses at the Royal College of Veterinary surgeons in Hertfordshire, and one in particular held answers.
Dr Henny Martineau, who carried out the autopsies, said: “With that animal we did find lesions that were consistent with stab wounds.”
The findings were proof someone was maliciously hunting cats in Brighton from around the station to the main shopping area.
DCI Ashford said: “Who’s next? Is it going to be a cat? Is it going to be a person?” By chance, a local spotted a suspicious-looking bald man in Shaftesbury Road and filmed him.
Fifteen minutes later a cat — nine-year-old Nancy — was stabbed and killed in the area.
As police searched for the man, Hendrix’s owners Stewart and Agatha were still seeking answers. Stewart followed his cat’s blood trail to Crown Gardens, where it abruptly stopped.
Watching a neighbour’s CCTV of the passage, the couple saw a harrowing scene.
Agatha said: “You see Hendrix walking back and forth in the alleyway and then you see this guy.” Stewart said: “Hendrix walks over to him, rolls over and then he pulls a knife out and stabs him.”
When the man returned to the lane, police were called by a neighbour to seize the sicko.
The cat killer turned out to be loner security guard Steven Bouquet, then 52.
Bouquet, who had served in the Navy for 17 years, lived alone in a flat near Brighton train station.
Cat DNA on the knife
A former colleague said: “I don’t think he had any friends — he was never chatty. He was just known as Creepy Steve.”
Sussex Police’s DI Chris Thompson said: “He worked at a shopping centre.
"He didn’t have much of a social life, didn’t have many friends and had very little on his record.”
Bouquet denied killing cats when arrested — instead painting himself as an animal lover.
In a police interview, he said: “They come up to me, I give them a stroke and send them on their way. I have no issue with cats or dogs.”
With no admission and only grainy CCTV, detectives searched Bouquet’s home, phone and laptop for evidence. On his computer they found videos of cats being mutilated and savaged by dogs.
DI Thompson, who led Operation Diverge, said: “We found some really concerning things — links to videos. I think he watched those videos at one or two in the morning.
“During the course of that period another cat was killed, almost as if that was him invigorating himself to go on and do something else.”
But when confronted by police about the videos, Bouquet denied any wrongdoing.
He claimed: “I was just playing around on the internet.”
Using a digital footprint from his phone, police could place him at the scene of 14 cat murders. They also found pictures of dead pets taken at around that time.
They come up to me, I give them a stroke and send them on their way. I have no issue with cats or dogs.
Steven Bouquet
Crucially, a knife was found in his flat that turned out to have feline DNA on it.
Bouquet called the cat hair a “complete coincidence”. He was charged with possession of a knife and 16 counts of criminal damage — a charge that carries a ten-year maximum sentence.
After entering a not-guilty plea, Bouquet failed to turn up to his trial in 2021, but the evidence was presented to the jury in his absence.
A manhunt discovered him as he tried to get back into his own house. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years and three months behind bars for killing nine cats and maiming another seven.
Six months into his sentence, he died of thyroid cancer, which had spread to his liver and lungs.
Until his dying day, Bouquet denied he committed the cat killings — but the case could have turned out very differently.
In early 2020, a cat killer in Norwich — known as the NR3 killer — had eluded police. Their main suspect was a man called David Iwo, who was questioned by police before being released.
In 2019, he was charged with the murder of pensioner Martin Decker at his home in Prenton, Wirral.
During the murder trial, Preston Crown Court heard details of his campaign of torturing and killing 30 cats.
Iwo would lure the animals with treats before twisting their necks, and once put a dead cat’s insides through someone’s letterbox.
He described the torture and slaying of cats as his “hobby” and believed the murder of Mr Decker was a “progression” from his sick acts of animal abuse.
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The court ruled there was no public interest in pursuing him on animal abuse charges, but sentenced him to 33 years for murder.
Boudicca said: “It wasn’t about the cats — he was just working his way up to kill a human being. The cats were almost like collateral damage for him.”
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- How To Catch A Cat Killer is on ITV, Wednesday at 9pm, and on ITV Hub.
Additional reporting: EMMAGAYLE HARPER
