Real Crime

On January 1st 1993, 39 year-old Colin Ireland made a New Year’s Resolution – to become a serial killer. Within a three month period he brutally murdered five gay men, four of them in just 15 days. He became known as The Gay Slayer.

Using never before broadcast footage of Ireland’s chilling confession, in Real Crime: Serial Killer Caught On Camera, presenter Mark Austin tells the story of a nobody who wanted to be a somebody - and thought the best way to do it was to become a serial killer.

Preying on customers of The Coleherne pub in Fulham, Ireland would go to men’s homes under the premise of a sexual encounter where he would tie them up, demand pin numbers under the threat of violence before finally killing them.

An avid reader of true crime books and FBI manuals, Ireland would meticulously clean the scene to remove all traces of himself and stay overnight with the body, often just casually watching television, to avoid attracting attention by leaving in the middle of the night.

On the 8th of March 1993 he made his first visit to The Coleherne. In the pub that evening was Peter Walker, a 45-year-old West End theatre director.

“We went in a cab to his flat in Battersea,” says Ireland as part of the confession he made on camera to police.

“I put on a pair of gloves on the way. My intentions were different to his.”

According to Ireland, Walker agreed to be tied up as part of a sex game. Once Walker was tied to the bed Ireland beat and killed him, wrapping a plastic bag around his head.

“I remember after Walker, looking in the mirror walking down the road and I thought, ‘People must see in my face that I’ve just murdered someone, they must be able to tell, they must just by looking at me.’ I remember losing my virginity and I remember that same feeling then. You’re almost buzzing.”

It would be another 24 hours before his first victim was discovered – his body left in a bizarre manner with two teddy bears appearing to simulate the 69 position and a condom on his nose.

Police later discovered that, whilst rifling through the dead man’s possessions, Ireland had discovered that Walker was HIV positive and, in his fury, had decided to humiliate him by leaving the objects on his body in a ritualistic way.

Ireland’s first murder received no publicity so, unaware that the police had already found the body, he first made an anonymous call to the Samaritans to tell them what he had done and then, feeling that his call had been taken seriously, to the Sun newspaper.

Night news editor, Brandon Malinsky, says: “I’ve worked at the Sun a long time and I’ve never taken a call like that. I just picked up the phone to a man who started talking about the dogs locked in a flat then just suddenly dropped this bombshell that the owner of the flat was still there and he’d murdered the owner of this flat.”

After discovering more about the victim’s background, the police made a television appeal for information. However their investigations were hindered by the poor relations between the police and the gay community at the time.

Colin Richards, former deputy editor of The Gay Times reflects: “Looking back now it seems extraordinary because they clearly lacked knowledge of gay lives. To a small degree that was understandable because most of what they were getting from the gay community was hostility but that was quite understandable because we were feeling got at and not being protected.”

DI Martin Finegan explains: “We explored every avenue we could but the frustrating thing we never actually knew what happened in the last hours of his life. There came a point where we had to close the enquiry, effectively.”

For the next two months Ireland laid low, but his taste for murder would soon return and in June of the same year he returned to The Coleherne where he met 37-year-old librarian Christopher Dunn who was to be his next victim.

As with Peter Walker, Ireland went back to Dunn’s flat under the premise of sex. He tied Dunn to the bed, subjecting him to horrific torture in the belief that Dunn was supplying him with a false pin number for his credit card, before strangling him.

At the time the Metropolitan Police force was split into five areas. Walker and Dunn lived in two separate areas and as a result, despite the similarity between the two killings, their murders were investigated by two separate teams and police did not make a connection.

Ireland grew more frustrated as his craving for recognition remained unfulfilled.

Just a week later, he returned again to The Coleherne pub where he met his third victim, Perry Bradley – the son of a US congressman.

“It was building up,” explains Ireland, “I was on a sort of rollercoaster. I felt there was more I should be doing.”

Although Perry Bradley’s death did attractive national publicity, the police still failed to link the murders and Ireland’s desire to be recognised as a serial killer was still unsatisfied.

Just three days after murdering Perry Bradley, Ireland was back at the Coleherne pub where he met his forth victim, 33 year old Andrew Collier.

Andrew Collier, like Peter Walker, was HIV positive. The discovery of this information sent Ireland into a rage, leading him to burn parts of Collier’s body, kill his cat and decorate his corpse to further humiliate him.

Until this point the police had seen no link. But now a new team of detectives, led by Albert Patrick, were assigned to the Collier murder case.

The retired detective chief superintendent recalls: “The scene was very unusual. Someone had obviously killed him and killed the cat and laid it in a position with condoms on the end of the tail and in his mouth.”

“I quickly became aware of the Peter Walker case that happened a few months before,” explains Patrick, “so there was obvious concern in my mind that we had a potential serial killer on our hands.”

Officers from different areas of London began collating information and appealed to the gay community for help.

Initially, Perry Bradley’s death was not linked to Andrew Collier’s as his sexuality had not been revealed. This was also the case with Christopher Dunn’s death, which had been filed as ‘accidental’, the police having believed it to be the result of a sex game gone wrong.

However, five days after Andrew Collier’s murder, Ireland, still desiring recognition for his gruesome work, made a series of phone calls to the police who finally realised the four deaths were the responsibility of just one man.

Retired detective sergeant, Terry Webster says: “Unfortunately it wasn’t through any clever detective work. The linking was done as a result of Colin Ireland asking, ‘Why haven’t you linked these four murders?’”

But Ireland was eager to give them even more shocking news, while they’d been busy investigating Andrew Collier’s death, he had killed again.

Ireland first saw his fifth victim, Emanuel Spiteri, in the Colherne Pub, but did not actually speak to him until bumping into him later at Earls Court tube station.

The two men made their way back to Spiteri’s South London flat via several trains, unaware that they had attracted the attention of another man, who would later identify Ireland to the police.

Just hours after the discover of Spiteri’s body, police arranged a midnight press conference warning the gay community to be on guard in case the killer was preparing to strike again.

“I have a lot of time and a lot of praise for one member of the gay community who had the guts to come forward and actually talk to us,” says Albert Patrick, “It wasn’t easy. His parents didn’t know he was gay and he gave us an excellent description. He was on the same train as Spiteri and Ireland going down to Hither Green.”

Soon more witnesses came forward and, as well as being able to issue an E-FIT, the police were able to access CCTV footage from Charing Cross Station providing them with an image of Ireland and Spiteri together on the night of the murder.

Having recognised himself on the CCTV footage, Ireland visited a solicitor, armed with an alibi. He explained that he had gone with Spiteri to his flat but, upon discovering someone else was in the flat, had left.

Ireland was unaware however that, despite his meticulous clean up routine, he had made one major mistake - leaving a single fingerprint on the window at Andrew Collier’s home.

“That was his only mistake. There was no other forensic evidence whatsoever apart from that one fingerprint,” says Patrick.

Police had what they needed to charge Ireland with the murders of Andrew Collier and Emanual Spiteri.

Throughout two days of interviews and for weeks on remand in prison Ireland remained silent before suddenly finding his voice.

“I wanted to create a situation that I couldn’t back out of my decision,” says Ireland, “so I deliberately talked to wardens. I said I wanted to change my plea to guilty.”

The day after Ireland delivered his frank and horrific confession to police he was charged with the further three murders of Christopher Dunn, Perry Bradley and Peter Walker.

Unlike other high profile serial killers, Ireland pleaded guilty to all charges. As such there was no need for a full trial and, ironically, his decision to plead guilty meant his notoriety would never match the fame, which he craved, of other multiple murders.

Real Crime: Serial Killer On Camera is a Two Four Production for ITV1, produced and directed by Lee Salisbury. The executive producers are Mark Scantlebury and Joe Houlihan.

Last edited: Monday, 8 September 2008