The 'thrill killers' who took strangers' lives without motive
Innocent people have been the victims of vicious killers simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The criminals targeted the strangers and left devastation in their wake.
The list includes Valdo Calocane who stabbed three people to death in Nottingham last year. Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley Kumar, both 19, were killed by the paranoid schizophrenic as well as 65-year-old Ian Coates.
And in the Midlands, Richard Hall was brutally murdered by Moses Christensen as he walked over Brown Clee Hill in Shropshire. The grandad was stabbed in the face, neck and chest.
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Scroll down to read more about each case.
The devoted granddaughter of a pensioner stabbed to death by a stranger who had a deranged desire to kill teachers and eat their flesh has spoken out following the 'animalistic' hilltop attack. Grandad Richard Hall was brutally murdered by Black Country man Moses Christensen after the savage killer trekked 20 miles across the countryside 'hunting' for a victim.
The 70-year-old victim, from Perton, was out on an evening stroll and had hiked to the top of the 540-metre Brown Clee Hill, in Shropshire, when he crossed paths with marine dropout Christensen in August 2020. His body was discovered near a communications mast the following day.
Investigations found 'jack of all trades' Mr Hall had been wounded with two combat knives Christensen - formerly of Corser Street, Oldswinford, Stourbridge - had armed himself with. The victim had been repeatedly stabbed to his face, neck and chest.
A thug who tried to use a stranger's bank card to buy a sandwich after leaving him for dead near a care home has been locked up over his barbaric four-day 'tornado' of violence. Killer Carl Ellitts ambushed 'devoted' dad Roy Deeley-Price, repeatedly kicking and stamping on him in what was the last cruel crime in his vicious frenzy.
The 26-year-old's brutal savagery' saw him strike his victim with 'such ferocity' that he fractured his face, neck and ribs with running kicks and a double-footed stamp. He brazenly 'swaggered' to a petrol station in the middle of his late-night assault in a failed attempt to grab a sandwich using his injured victim's bank card.
His 'merciless attack' continued minutes later as the 'utterly vulnerable' victim lay on the ground while he was either dying or dead. Twisted Ellitts left the dad's badly beaten body on the ground and returned to the scene to inflict more violence four times in the space of 11 minutes.
Valdo Calocane, 32, stabbed three people to death and tried to kill three others with a van in Nottingham on June 13 last year. Paranoid schizophrenic Calocane was sentenced for the killings of students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley Kumar, both 19, and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, on January 25 at Nottingham Crown Court after admitting manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Attorney General Victoria Prentis, who is the government's chief legal adviser, concluded Calocane's previous sentence of an indefinite hospital order was "unduly lenient" in February. On Wednesday, May 8, three appeal judges heard arguments from legal teams representing the attorney general and Calocane's barrister at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
While Deanna Heer KC, representing the Attorney General's Office, asked judges to consider whether imprisonment was needed, while Calocane's defence counsel Peter Joyce KC stated this would effectively be further punishing him for being severely mentally ill.
A woman has been jailed for life after she attacked a man and left him to die in a river. Scarlet Blake, who is transgender, singled out Jorge Martin Carreno as he walked home from a night out.
The pair did not know each other, a court heard. Blake led him to a secluded riverbank where he was hit to the back of the head with a vodka bottle, strangled and then pushed into the River Cherwell where he drowned.
Oxford Crown Court heard that the incident took place in July 2021. Blake killed Jorge, 30, because she had a “fixation with violence and with knowing what it would be like to kill someone”.
Two 12-year-old boys have been found guilty of the murder of a 19-year-man in Wolverhampton. The defendants, who cannot be named because of their age, were accused of killing Shawn Seesahai in November last year.
The two boys had been on trial at Nottingham Crown Court since May 2. Shawn died on November 13 last year after being found stabbed in Stowlawn playing fields in the East Park area of the city.
Emergency services were called to land off Laburnum Road just after 8.40pm that day. Shawn was found in a critical condition and given advanced life support but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
A teenager who carried out a "chilling" knife attack, fatally stabbing a stranger in the heart, was called "one of the most difficult and manipulative" prisoners ever encountered by the judge who sentenced him. Daniel Rounce, 18, has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 25 years behind bars.
Rounce was kept in handcuffs while in the dock at Leicester Crown Court, where the judge condemned his inexplicable and "merciless" murder of 79-year-old Gerald Wickes as a "truly wicked" act. Markfield resident Rounce was convicted by a jury after failing to provide an explanation for the brutal killing of Mr. Wickes at the elderly man's former partner's residence.