Is There A Serial Killer On The Prowl?
A Serial Killer or Coincidental Murder-Suicides?
Seems likely that several elderly couples may have fallen victim to a serial killer
There are at least three different police forces in The UK that believe they may be seeking a serial killer in connection with the violent deaths of five elderly couples in Northern England.
A special investigation team has been set up by police to re-investigate a series of deaths that were originally believed to have been murder-suicides in Manchester, Cheshire and Cumbria.
Stephanie Davies, a senior member of the coroner’s office in Cheshire has compiled a one-hundred-and-seventy-nine page secret report looking at the five murder-suicides in which she suggests that actually the killings were murder, plain and simple and in fact were most likely the work of a serial killer.
The senior coroner says that there are “striking similarities” between the deaths of five couples between 1996 and 2011. In all five of the cases, it was originally said that the husband “went berserk”, struck his wife on the head, stabbed her, then killed himself. All of the cases were recorded as murder-suicides by coroners.
The report says that at least two of the cases were so similar, that they could only have been carried out by the same offender.
The first of theses cases features Howard and Beatrice Ainsworth, who lived in a semi-detached property in Gravel Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire.
On Sunday, April 28th 1996 when neighbours tried to visit the couple, there was no reply to the door and the curtains all remained closed, despite it being 11.30am. The neighbours became very concerned and called the police, they had no idea of the gruesome scene that awaited the officers when they entered the house.
78-year-old Beatrice, known to friends as Bea had a breadknife embedded into her forehead, she had been severely bludgeoned with a hammer and her face was partially covered by a pillow. Her devoted husband Howard, 79 was laying next to her with a plastic bag over his head.
The police decided that Howard had killed his wife in a fit-of-rage, then taken his own life. There was indeed a suicide note on the sideboard next to the bed. It seemed that Bea had been quite ill and that Howard had struggled to cope.
But now it has been suggested that, in fact, Howard had been forced to write the note and that the couple has been murdered. There were many inconsistencies at the crime scene in the Ainsworth house.
Howard had ended his note saying “we have had a good life together” but the words did not match with the heinous and vicious killing and the fact that Bea’s nightdress had been lifted up to her hips, thus showing her most intimate areas. This was clearly not the act of a desperate husband who simply wanted to quickly end his wife’s life, then commit suicide himself.
The report from the couple's GP makes things all the more confusing, as it indicated that the only illness Beatrice had suffered prior to her death was a stomach bug and that Howard Ainsworth was in relatively good health for his age.
Howard & Beatrice Ainsworth, murdered in their bed?
According to the suicide note left by Howard, he said that he had given his wife a number of sleeping pills and there was a tub containing such tablets on the sideboard, but the toxicology report states that neither one of them had consumed any tablets prior to death.
Interestingly, Howard Ainsworth had a bag on his head, secured with a ligature, the bag was absolutely covered in blood spatters, which could suggest that the bag was in place before Bea was stabbed. However, his pyjamas had hardly any blood on at all so maybe the killer put the blood on the bag when putting it over Howard's head.
The only possible factor that could have identified a possible link to the murder-suicide was that the couple had joined a right-to-die group just a few weeks prior to their deaths, but I do not accept this as an indication at all.
In my mind, it was merely their wish that as they became old and seriously unwell then they'd be allowed to die without resuscitation efforts. As there was no evidence of any severe illness in either of the Ainsworths then there is no reason to suggest any kind of suicide pact.
Now, just three years later on November 26th 1999, another elderly couple, Donald and Auriel Ward were found lying dead in their bed in Lacey Grove, Wilmslow, which was just a six-minute drive away.
What are the realistic chances of another murder-suicide in such similar circumstances, involving another frail old couple?
Auriel age 68 had been bludgeoned about the head, then stabbed in an almost identical manner to Beatrice Ainsworth. She had also been suffocated and her face partially covered by a pillow. 73-year-old Donald had a knife sticking out of his chest and his throat had been cut.
According to family members and friends, Donald and Auriel had been married for 45 years, they were absolutely devoted to one another, they had grandchildren, whom they adored.
The coroner who presided over that case, Nicholas Rheinberg considered that Donald’s mind must have been disturbed and he had killed his wife, then gone on to commit suicide. There was absolutely no evidence to suggest any sort of heightened stress in Donald’s life and no mental illness, so how Rheinberg was able to reach such a verdict, I really have no idea.
A devoted married couple, Donald & Auriel Ward
Eileen and Kenneth Martin, murdered in their garage
Peggy and Stanley Wilson, Found dead in their beds in February 2011
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