How I exposed ‘serial killer expert’ who claimed to have met murderers Manson, Ted Bundy and Yorkshire Ripper as a fraud
THE audience held its breath as “serial killer expert” Paul Harrison relived the tense moment when Ted Bundy confronted him in an FBI interview room.
The packed theatre then filled with gasps as he told of a stand-off he had in Broadmoor with the Yorkshire Ripper.
And the crowd marvelled at the way the FBI begged the former British cop to help them unlock the minds of the world’s most deranged murderers.
It was another successful night on one of the many national tours that — together with the true-crime books he wrote — have helped make Harrison an estimated £100,000.
The problem, unbeknown to the sell-out crowd, was that it was all made up.
Harrison, who also appeared on CBS Reality TV as a criminal expert, built up a loyal online following, as well as that small fortune, by falsely claiming to have spent a decade interviewing America’s worst serial killers.
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And he would still be raking it in if the audience at the Tyne Theatre in Newcastle on that night in May 2019 had not included a sceptical Sun reporter.
I attended the show after my wife bought me a ticket, and left convinced that Harrison was a conman and his anecdotes were a tissue of lies.
It would take more than six weeks to prove my suspicions, with the help of an unlikely cast of characters.
A string of ex-FBI agents, the widow of Leeds United legend Billy Bremner and former Kray twins enforcer all helped expose him as a charlatan.
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A real expert, leading criminologist Professor David Wilson, is now exploring the strange case of Paul Harrison, in his new BBC series Crime Files: Scams And Scandals.
Prof Wilson says in the show: “Paul has never been charged with any crime, never been arrested.
“For me, he was pretending to be something he wasn’t and the lies that he told were the basis on which he sold his books and sold those theatre tickets.
"So, as far as I am concerned, that’s fraud — morally if not legally.”
Harrison was born in Cumbria in 1959 to dad John, a military police officer, and mum Mary.
After growing up near Carlisle he embarked on a career in the police.
What is known is that by the time he retired from the force in 1999, he was PC1060, a beat bobby based near Kettering with Northants Police.
He would later claim in his shows and books that during his police career the FBI invited him to its research centre at Quantico after he wrote to them about his interest in profiling.
He reckoned he was given access to America’s most infamous killers including Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy and Amityville Horror murderer Ronald DeFeo Jr.
He also claimed to have quizzed Aileen Wuornos, who was executed in 2002 for the murder of seven men and who was portrayed by Charlize Theron in the film Monster.
Of Bundy, who raped and murdered dozens of young women in the Seventies, Jaguar-driving dad Harrison told audiences: “Ted Bundy walked in like Liam Gallagher.
"He had a look of contempt on his face.
“He slowly walked behind me and stopped right behind me.
"Every part of my body was telling me to look round because you’ve got Ted Bundy behind you.
"I sensed him move forward, I felt his body-heat on me.
“Then he bent down. He sniffed me and I thought, this is going to be horrific, but he said, ‘I can smell your cologne’.”
Cult leader Charles Manson’s followers committed nine murders in California in 1969, including that of pregnant actress Sharon Tate.
Harrison, 64, said of his “interview” with Manson: “He was staring at me directly with cold, dark eyes and he launched into this tirade of abuse. He damned everything about me.
“I got up and walked out, telling him, ‘I’m not going to take this from you, who the hell do you think you are?’ ”
Harrison said the scariest person he ever interviewed was John Wayne Gacy, the “killer clown” said to have inspired Stephen King’s horror thriller It.
Gacy, who dressed up as Pogo the Clown while working as a kids’ entertainer, murdered at least 33 boys and young men in the Seventies in Illinois.
He was executed in 1994.
In one of a series of supposed interviews with Gacy, Harrison claimed: “I was looking into his eyes and thought, ‘Is there any remorse or regret?’ I saw nothing.”
He added: “I’ve communicated with serial killers of all types, asking the kinds of probing questions that make them squirm.
"You’re in a room and it’s one on one . . . I always used to position myself near a door.”
He claimed to have worked with the FBI’s pioneering Behavioural Science Unit, which featured in the film The Silence Of The Lambs and the Netflix series Mindhunter.
In the Eighties, special agent Robert Ressler organised the interviewing of 36 killers to try to work out what made them tick.
Harrison said of him: “A greater mentor and tutor one could not have wished for.”
But ex-FBI agent Mark Safarik, Ressler’s partner for six years, scoffed at Harrison’s claims.
He told The Sun: “I have never heard of Paul Harrison.
"He is making all this up. I have the transcripts of the Gacy interviews and Harrison is never mentioned.
“The unit chief, who would have been the supervisor who approved any outside agency accompanying an agent for an interview, has never heard of this guy.
"He is a fraud and a fantasist, unethical, unprofessional — a liar.”
A spokesman for Northants Police confirmed they had no record of Harrison doing any police profiling work in the UK or America.
Others contacted by The Sun also dismissed his tall tales.
Harrison’s second wife Elaina mocked the idea that he used to travel to America to work with the FBI.
She said: “He couldn’t have interviewed these killers in America in the Eighties and Nineties because the first time he ever went there was in 1999 to attend a Loch Ness Monster convention.”
Harrison also claimed notorious London gangster Reggie Kray wanted him to write his life story, and that they became such close pals he visited him on his death bed in 2000.
But former Krays henchman Freddie Foreman told us: “Reggie Kray was not a friend of Paul Harrison.
"He wouldn’t entertain the police in his company.”
Harrison also boasted he was close friends with Leeds United legend Billy Bremner, and that they would watch matches together before the midfield terrier died in 1997, aged 54.
But Bremner’s widow Vicky said: “I’ve never heard of this man.
“He’s not on my Christmas and birthday lists, and I still keep in touch with Billy’s friends.”
Most embarrassingly for Harrison, even the Yorkshire Ripper questioned his integrity.
Harrison claimed Peter Sutcliffe invited him to Broadmoor to discuss writing his life story, but that they failed to hit it off.
Harrison claimed: “He said, ‘Why are you so cold towards me?’ I said, ‘I don’t like you’.”
Harrison retold the story so many times, it reached the ears of Sutcliffe, who said: “Paul Harrison is an absolute charlatan, a conman.
"He never corresponded with me, nor did he ever visit me in Broadmoor.
“He needs to be exposed for the downright liar he is. What a wazzock.”
Harrison, of Wakefield, West Yorks quit doing live shows when The Sun finally exposed his lies in 2019, and his third marriage collapsed in the fallout when his then wife realised the full extent of his deception.
He has always declined to comment when approached by The Sun.
But when exposed, he said on his Facebook page: “I’ve decided to call it a day for now.
"No more shows or interaction on social media.
“All I wanted to do was help raise the profile of victims everywhere.
“Now, it seems I’ve let everyone down, I’m sorry for that.”
Harrison tried to blame his deception on promoters:
“Because I’m weak and vulnerable and utterly useless at decision-making, I was introduced into sensationalising events by promoters who often sent out misleading blurbs — something I had to live up to.”
Now the real experts have analysed his strange make-believe world for Prof Wilson’s new television show, and concluded he had narcissistic tendencies.
Psychiatrist Dr Sohom Das is also convinced that Harrison cherished his role as a media expert so much, he would never have stopped.
He said: “He wanted to form this identity as a media expert and continued his web of deceit until he was found out.
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"It was almost like an addiction for him.”
- David Wilson’s Crime Files: Scams And Scandals is available on BBC iPlayer. Harrison’s story features in Episode 3.
