Murder, Mystery & Makeup - The Crossbow Cannibal - PhD Student and *Secret* Serial Killer?!

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

Hi friends, happy Tuesday! This is the story of Stephen Griffiths... the Crossbow Cannibal. I mean, bizarre may be the best way to describe this horrible monster. He had bizarre concerns about his hair, used a bizarre weapon and had a bizarre outlook on who he actually was. The Crossbow Cannibal was active over in England in 2009 and 2010, but his shocking actions have ripple effects that are felt to this very day. Also, let me know who you want me to talk about next time. Hope you have a great rest of your week, make good choices and I'll be seeing you very soon xo Bailey Sarian I sometimes talk about my Good Reads in show. So here's the link if you want to check it out. IDK. lol: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/139701263-bailey ________ FOLLOW ME AROUND Tik Tok: https://bit.ly/3e3jL9v Instagram: http://bit.ly/2nbO4PR Facebook: http://bit.ly/2mdZtK6 Twitter: http://bit.ly/2yT4BLV Pinterest: http://bit.ly/2mVpXnY Youtube: http://bit.ly/1HGw3Og Snapchat: https://bit.ly/3cC0V9d Discord: https://discord.gg/BaileySarian RECOMMEND A STORY HERE: [e-mail] Business Related Emails: [e-mail] Business Related Mail: Bailey Sarian 4400 W. Riverside Dr., Ste 110-300 Burbank, CA 91505 _________ Right now, you can get a 30-day free trial PLUS 25% off your annual subscription when you go to https://www.dipseastories.com/makeup.  Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Download the Rocket Money app and enter my show name Murder, Mystery & Makeup in the survey so they know I sent you! Don’t wait! Download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from my show! Go to https://www.surfshark.com/sarian or use code SARIAN at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!

Hi friends, how are you today? Hi, how's it going? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and today's Monday, which means it's Murder Mystery and Makeup Monday. If you're new here, hi, my name is Bailey Sarian and every Monday I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my noggin and I do my makeup at the same time. But other than that, I will shut up and get into today's story. Because today we are going to the heart of Bradford, England. Oh yes, it was a city once known for its rich history and industrious spirit,

where a sinister shadow lurked around. Stephen Griffiths, do you know him? Well, let me tell you, he was a PhD student and a criminology scholar, and he harbored a very dark secret. Now, the year 2009, women began like disappearing without like a trace. They were just vanishing into the night.

But it wasn't until the disturbing discovery in the murky waters of the river air that the true horror began to surface. Well, who was this Stephen Griffiths guy and what drove him to commit such heinous acts? And like, how did he even evade suspicion for as long as he did? Well, that my friends is where I'm gonna tell you everything

because this man was something else. Stephen Sean Griffiths was born on Christmas Eve, kinda cute, on December 24th, 1969 in Dewsbury, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. I know a name, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. So I guess his father, I don't know, some people said he was a fisherman, some said that he was a frozen food salesman,

but either way, that was his dad, he was working a lot. His mother was Moira DeWurst, which is kind of funny because she is DeWurst. Get it? No, okay. Moira, she was a phone switchboard operator. So back in the day, you know, switchboard operators, they would connect calls by inserting a pair of like foam plugs into the appropriate jacks. Stephen, he had two

siblings, Caroline and Philip, and they were born in like 1972 and 1976. So Stephen was the oldest. And you can't really say that the family was close. It kind of seems like everyone kept to themselves, but I also wasn't there. So I don't really know, you know? What we do know is that his parents had divorced when Steven was 13, and the kids all like went to live with their mother. Now Moira, she got caught and arrested for like fraud. She was playing the system a bit.

She was lying to receive certain like government benefits. So she got caught, she got arrested for this and she ended up spending some time in prison. The family, they had their financial struggles, but Stephen's father, when they were separated, he had saved every penny. And he ended up sending Stephen to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School,

which is like a private boarding school in Wakefield. And this had me thinking because like, they must have saw something in Stephen, like he must have been really smart or something because they wanted to send him to this private boarding school for like smarties. So maybe he showed just signs of like being a smart guy. He's a smart guy.

Do do, do do do do. This private school, another serial killer had gone to Queen Elizabeth grammar school, just like a funny coincidence I guess. But it was this guy, he went by the acid bath murderer. It's this guy named John, he was a serial killer. But he went to that school as well. They didn't cross paths but they like both went there. Just a fun fact I guess. I don't know. It was said that during his time at Queen Elizabeth that his pattern of like strange behavior kind of started to show. He was a little different. There was this one guy, his name was Martin, and he was one of Stephen's classmates, but he would later say like in an interview that Stephen would carry around a briefcase at school and inside the

briefcase he always had a knife. I don't know, Martin would say that Stephen was like fascinated by martial arts magazines and also weapons. And another classmate described Stephen as quote a bit of a nutter going on to say that he liked skinning birds and doing things to animals. So to some people, Stephen like stood out as a bit of an oddball, I guess you could say, right? In 1986, when Stephen was 17, he ends up leaving school and he goes back to live with his mom. The Daily Mail had reported that his mom

was quite promiscuous and that she would have men over all of the time. And it was said that she would take them into like the backyard in like their garden area and have sexual relations with them in like full view of the neighbors. What's that called? An exhibitionist? Maybe she was that.

Either way, this seemed to really upset Stephen, right? He was like seeing men constantly coming and going. His mom seemed to be choosing men over the family. And it was said that he started to kind of like resent his mom during this time. It was said like throughout his upbringing, Steven was treated by different psychiatrists at three different hospitals.

Again, unsure what led to these visits. Like if they saw something in him, what, I don't know, but what we do know is that psychiatrists, after giving him medication, they had made notes in his file saying, he is a dangerous man. And that was about it. They just made that note in his file.

It's like, okay, great. And then in June of 1987, when Steven was 18, he was caught shoplifting at a local supermarket. And when he was confronted, he took out hislifting at a local supermarket and when he was confronted he took out you know his knife that he liked to carry around and he slashed the manager's face. This led to his arrest where he was sentenced to three years in youth custody. You know that feeling when you're deep in a steamy sultry romance novel

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DipsyStories.com slash makeup. So well in custody, Stephen told probation officers and psychiatrists that he fantasized about being a serial killer. I know he told he said this out loud you know most people keep it in their head but he was like yes my goals and dreams in life like that would be great so with these hopes and dreams he was released from custody the following year you'd think that they'd make a little note in his file saying like you know he dreams of being a serial killer maybe let's keep an eye on this one. But they didn't. So once

he was out at this point, Stephen had cut, like completely cut contact with his family and was ready to like just move on with his life. So he was able to get a flat in Manningham with different grants and like government assistance programs. And while living there, he attended Bradford College, their psychology program in 1988. So then in September of 1989, Stephen, he gets in trouble again. He was using, I guess, an illegal air pistol to shoot birds. He would go get them after he shot them

and then dissect them. Well, he got caught for this, you know, and then he ended up getting sentenced to 100 hours of community service. He would be sent to Rampton Hospital where he was diagnosed with a personality disorder as well as sadistic and schizoid psychopathy. Nailed it.

His psychiatric report described him as having a quote, preoccupation with murder, particularly multiple murder. Like, okay, great. He sounds promising. The following year, Steven is given a two-year prison sentence after he was holding, he like got caught holding a knife to a girl's throat.

And you know, I couldn't find any information about this. It was just like this happened and he ended up serving a sentence at Leeds prison. So feel like, you know, all the red flags have been there for quite some time now, you know? So he gets released from Leeds prison in like 1993. And, you know, he's still very fascinated with serial killers. And this leads him to just buying like a bunch of books and wanting to learn more about different killers so you know he could study them

more efficiently. He was I guess really into like Jack the Ripper, the Moors murderers, the acid bath murderer and one of his personal favorites was like the Yorkshire Ripper. He really liked the Yorkshire Ripper because like he killed a lot of women and also he was local to the area that Stephen had lived in. So Stephen's like, yeah. That's him jacking it to these killers. Then in 1996 at the age of 27, Stephen had moved into a one-bedroom flat in Humphield Court.

And this was like a housing association complex. Now his place was right on the edge of Bradford's red light district and it was known for being a spot where like sex workers would hang out and you know walk along this area, it's like Thornton Road and they'd be there like every day. When Stephen moves here he's still in school and he seems to be doing really well like he's really smart this guy. He had really high grades, he was excelling and I guess in the fall like 1997 Stephen begins pursuing a bachelor's degree in psychology at Leeds University. So while he's there, he meets a girl and the two of them start dating. Her name is Zeta.

It was said that he would usually go over to her place, you know, like three or four times a week, and that he would like never invite her back to his place. Now, if you're dating someone and they don't invite you back to their place usually it's like oh you must live with your parents or something right? Well it was more than that. But according to Zeta, Steven would experience like sexual difficulties and she said that he was just like straight up odd at times. Like he would get angry if she ever touched his hair. And that Steven was so afraid that insects or spiders would get into his ears at night that he would like plug them with cotton wool before bed.

But listen, like on TikTok, the algorithm, you know, just it, I don't know, but it's been showing me videos lately of people like cleaning out their ears and like a big old spider comes out. So like, I kind of get it. Because after seeing those TikToks, I was like, I should wear earplugs. I wanted to die. It was so gross.

But Stephen was like super paranoid about it. She was like, okay. Okay. So the two of them are dating for like two years and she still hasn't been over to his place. So it's like, okay, like, when are you gonna invite me over to your place? Like, do you even have a place?

You live on the corner somewhere? Like, I don't know, like, it's kind of weird, right? So he finally invites her over to his place. So she said that when she walked in, that her jaw just dropped because she said that his flat was horrific and very scary. She said that when he walked in first of all she would look to like her right or something and there was a bookcase and it was filled with different horror books on

just different serial killers and you know at the time you gotta think about this this is like pre-internet and all that stuff like it's got to be a little it was a little weird it was was like, what is that? And then she also said that there was a ton of quote, horrific video nasties. I know I didn't know what that meant exactly, but it was, she didn't like it. She didn't like it.

So she sees all that and she's like, oh my God, okay. I thought you liked psychology or whatever. She also said that on every single surface in the flat it was covered in plastic. Plastic. Even the carpets. Like everything was covered in plastic because Stephen was apparently a bit of a neat freak. She's like, okay, this is so cool, wow. So she said that when she got to his place, obviously like she was feeling uneasy, she was feeling unsafe, and she kind of just had that like gut feeling of like,

I need to get the F out of here. So she tells Steven like, I don't feel well, can you please take me home? And he does, she had to get out of there like ASAP. And then soon after this, she broke up with him. And good thing, good thing. So I guess after this, you know, Steven had like various different girlfriends

and he was just not ideal. It was said that he was very controlling. He would like make the girlfriends cut out all of their friends and families. He would stalk them, he would harass them, beat them, and it was said like at times he would spike their drinks with different drugs and then, you know, would do whatever he wanted with them. So what I'm getting at is that he was just awful to these women. There was one girlfriend specifically that had broke up with him and he had stalked and

harassed her like pretty badly and she had even gone to the police but like nothing nothing came of it Stephen would like go to her place and spray paint bad words on her walls he would leave these like super long creepy voicemails there's like one voicemail recording where he's like i'm not going away and he laughs like a psycho. I'm not gonna go away, so I guess you'd better. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha this and I think eventually he just realizes he's not really I don't know maybe he gets bored because eventually he starts leaving his exes alone maybe it was getting old and he was over it but now he got into something new he had a new hobby and it was lizards and snakes I know very random I was like what I was sharp left, lizards and snakes. He got into reptiles and it was said

that he would carry a few of them in his backpack because it was a good way to talk to people. I could see that. Like if you pull out a snake or like a big lizard or something, people are gonna be like, whoa man, that's cool. Maybe, I don't know. I'd run, but that's just me.

So this was his new hobby, lizards, snakes. His neighbors in the Bradford apartment building, they initially thought Stephen was just like a little weird boy, you know, like nothing major, like he's just a weirdo. They gave him the nickname Lizard Man. Oh yeah, because they would watch him or see him outside

taking his lizards on walks. Yes, he had the lizards on leashes and he would take them on walks. I was very interested in this. I was like, tell me more. Do they walk fast? Do they run? Like what?

What kind of leash? But he was doing this and his neighbors were like, that guy's weird. During his walks, Stephen always had like his hair slicked back, he would have his sunglasses on and he would wear like a long black coat no matter what the weather. I guess Steven at this point was like in his goth phase.

All black. Sometimes if his hair wasn't slicked back, it would be spiked. He'd be wearing makeup and it was different for the community that he lived in. And again, he was just seen as like a weird boy. You know, I live a good mystery, but one mystery I did not expect to ever solve was figuring out where all my money was going every month.

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and tell them you heard about them from my show. Thank you so much. Goodbye. So Steven, I guess he like never, he never worked. He didn't have to. He was living on benefits and different grants and then he was going to school. So if he wasn't doing that, going to school

or stalking his girlfriends or walking his lizards, he was spending his free time on MySpace. On MySpace, he went by the name Ven Prya, and many think he got the name Ven from the second half of his name, Steve Ven. You get it. And then Prya meaning like an outcast. If he wasn't on MySpace being weird,

he was being weird by downloading violent pornography for his own pleasure. Yes, he was a little weird boy, but he still managed to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Leeds University in 2003. And in 2009, Steven was admitted to the University of Bradford to write a PhD in Homicide Studies.

He was researching murders in Bradford in the 19th century for his thesis at the time of his crimes. And again, like he was really smart. He was always at like the top of his class and damn shame. So then on June 22nd 2009, 43 year old Susan Rushworth disappeared. Susan had first married in her early 20s and had two kids. And it was said like by all accounts she had a good life. And then after she and her first husband divorced, Susan would find a love again and would go on to you know have another child. But I guess when this second relationship had ended she you know met a

new guy and this new guy had introduced her to heroin. Not great. Susan's mother grew very concerned for her daughter and she tried to help her go to rehab, which was successful for a few months. But then Susan found herself drawn back to the drug again. And so began a cycle of addiction and trying to get clean. At one point, Susan became a sex worker to help pay for her addiction. And the day of her disappearance, she was on her way to the pharmacy and she was last seen in Manningham area, getting off the bus around 12 p.m.

Now, when she had gone missing, police, it's not like they didn't do anything. They actually interviewed potential witnesses. They had searched nearby woodlands. They drained a local lake, but there were no leads in the search for Susan. And it just went like nowhere. But then about 10 months after her disappearance,

another woman would go missing in the area. Shelly Armitage was a bubbly girl who grew up attending Catholic school. There's photos from her family's like beach vacation that show her it's to be like a carefree soul. As a young child, Shelley wanted to be a model and travel the world but sadly she became addicted to heroin at just the age of 16. And you know, she would struggle on and off with her addiction. And by the age of 31, Shelly had disappeared. She was last seen on April 26, 2010. It was like around lunchtime on April 26. And she had bumped into her parents while they were

out shopping. Little did they know like this would actually be the last time that they would see their their daughter see him talk to her because they stopped and like talked and then they went on their way and like this would be the last time they saw her. At 7 p.m that evening Shelly had left her flat with a friend and had they the two of them had dinner before walking toward Sunbridge Road and Rebecca Street to quote, "'Go on the beat'," which I guess was slang for like, I'm gonna go sex work and like get a client. She was last seen on CCTV footage at 10 PM that night.

And like, she just fricking vanished. So police had done a detailed search, hoping to find something but again just nothing no leads. So then some time goes by and then another woman goes missing from this area. Suzanne Blameyers was born and brought up in Bradford. Suzanne was described as like feisty, spirited and you know lovely woman and she actually like began training as a nurse. But her life like began to unravel in her early 20s when she started using heroin and by 25 Suzanne had started to do sex work to pay for her addiction.

Suzanne was last seen on May 21st 2010 by her mother who had dropped her off at her flat. So police would get one lead that would break this case wide open. So there was a man, he was just spying into his own business, walking his dog in Shipley by the water. And he looks out in the water and he sees a rucksack floating. He's like, oh weird, you know? and he looks out in the water and he sees a rucksack floating. He's like, oh, weird, you know? So he decides to like pull it out and it's heavy. It's filled with something.

So he decides to look inside. So he opens it up, you know? He opens it up and he said at first he thought it was a football. It's not funny. It's just like, you know, I had a trauma. He thought it was a football. But when he really like looked at it

It was actually a head It was a head could you imagine? No, so the head Badly dismembered and because of this it made it really hard to ID who the person was police Obviously they come out and they investigate it was said at this point like police knew that they had like a serial killer on their hands. You think? But yeah. Just two days before this happened a caretaker who was managing the property where Steven lived, this caretaker was looking through footage from the security cameras. It was said that like part of his job he would do this every couple of days, you know, to see like if there was any shitheads,

like who had vandalized the place or was doing something shady, whatever. But while looking at the footage, he came across something very weird. He sees that at 2.30 AM on CCTV footage, it shows Stephen heading into his apartment with Suzanne Blamires and you see like the two of them outside they seem friendly like they know each other and they're heading inside they get into the elevator and everything looked fine at first but three minutes later, Suzanne is seen running out of like Stephen's apartment

and she has this look of fear on her face. She looks panicked. Then you see Stephen coming out of his apartment, coming after her and he's holding a crossbow and trying to shoot Suzanne. So I guess he shoots it, it's off camera. So we don't know if he hits her or not, but whatever. He runs after her and again, all off camera.

And I guess he attacks, tackles her to the ground. But then you see Steven come back to the cameras and he's looking directly at the camera and he flips it off. He shows his crossbow and he's like, he's fully aware that the camera's there and it's recording and he's kind of like, just, I don't know, mocking it, I guess. Then you see him dragging Suzanne's body

back into his apartment with an arrow in her head. So maybe he did hit her, whatever, but you see that. He drags her back into the apartment and then a few minutes later, you see Stephen leave his apartment again. It seems like he's heading to the red light district in hopes to like lure another victim. Then at 3.35 AM, Steven is seen on CCTV footage

outside his place with another woman. Now the two of them are outside and they seem to be chatting and everything's fine. She must've felt that something was off. Maybe he was weird. we don't know. But she decides to not go inside with Steven and instead she like takes off for the night. So after this, you see Steven on CCTV

like leaving his place again with the goal, again of like trying to find another victim. He's then caught on CCTV footage coming home around 428 a.m. and it seems like he had no luck of finding his next victim. When police got the CCTV footage they arrested him like shortly after with 22 police officers like storming into his place on May 24th 2010. So after Stephen's arrest, he was questioned and he was pretty open about it. Like he told police everything. He explained that after killing the women, he ate parts of them. I know. I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with people. I

don't know. I mean, like he's kind of been telling everyone that he was going to do this for a very long time. You know like he told people he wanted to be a serial killer. I just feel like you know I don't know maybe it could have been prevented. I don't know. Police they could confirm this because like on Stephen's stove they found DNA that belonged to both Shelly and also Susan. Stephen went into great detail about like what he did. He said afterwards he would place the parts into different like duffel bags and plastic

bags and then he would take them to the nearby lake to dump them. Now police were able to get a very detailed picture of what happened to Shelly partly because Stephen actually recorded some of the killing on his freaking phone. Oh my god. I know. Now this is like a little side note but at some point someone found a phone on the train and this person they went like looking through the phone you know they came across this footage of what seemed to be a murder so they turned it into the police some people believe that like Stephen might have left the phone on the train on purpose because like he wanted the attention something like that others say it was like a dumb accident

but either way awful so police get this footage it's linked to him whatever but on the video it showed that after dragging Shelley back into into his flat he tied her up in the bath. So he gets her in the tub and then I guess he spray paints on her back my sex slave okay and while he's filming he gives like a little voiceover moment so you hear him say I am then pariah I am the bloodbath artist yeah here's a model who is assisting me he then again all this is on on he's filming all this. He then dismembers her in his bathtub using knives and power tools. Yeah not great. Once he's done dismembering her he takes parts of her body puts it in a rucksack and then is

caught like leaving the flat with it. Okay, so then he caught a train and was captured on CCTV at one of the stations with the rucksack. He then like, you know, gets off the train, whatever. He seems to dump the bag, and then he's seen on CCTV going home. I guess when he was home, he tried to like disinfect all the surfaces

and like get rid of any evidence and then after killing his final victim Suzanne, Stephen again going by Venpariah posted the following on myspace. He said Venpariah has finally emerged into the world. What will this pseudo human do? One wonders. Poor Stephen pretended to be me, but he was only the wrapping. He knew towards the end that I supplied the inner core of iron,

hatred bound tightly in flesh. At very long last, the time has come to act out. I guess these words like echoed author Thomas Harris's Psychopath in the Novel Red Dragon. It's the book that introduces the infamous Hannibal Lecter. Stephen told police that he would approach these women and tell them that he was a photographer and that he wanted to take photos of them back at his place.

And he said that a lot of the times he would offer them either drugs or money in exchange you know for the photographs. So if the lady's accepted you know they'd go back to his place and he would often tell them to lie on the bed and have their backsides in the air for portraits that would go in his new art gallery exhibit. You know Stephen did in fact photograph the women but sadly the I mean the photos weren't taken until like they were dead and the photos became part of his like personal trophy collection. So during questioning he like bragged to the officers that he had actually killed like many many more women than this but he never gave

details as to like how many, when, where, how. So police they went out to Stevens you know and searched his flat and while they're there they found you know two crossbows and bolts along with 30 knives and bookshelves filled with stories and magazines on different serial killers. They also found DNA evidence of like victims on his walls, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, just all over the place. Like he did not do a good job of trying to hide any evidence. So to the police it seemed that Stephen had tried to recently get rid of the evidence because his carpets, they were all ripped up and some of the tiles inside of his place, they were removed but you

know wasn't successful. While Stephen was in custody, a person out by the banks of River Air, which was like five miles north of Stephen's flat, they had discovered a woman's head and other body parts as well. There was the crossbow bolt and again there was like a knife still stuck in the head, the head had been skinned, and nearby was what seemed to be like a killer's kit bag, which had hacksaws, knives inside and it was assumed that this was used for dismemberment, you know? A few days later police confirmed that the body parts belonged to Suzanne and also Shelly. So Stephen was charged with their murders as well as with Susan Rushworth. Stephen confessed to killing Susan Shelly and Suzanne during an interrogation. So when police

asked him, you know, hey, why did you do it? He said, sometimes you kill someone to kill yourself or kill part of yourself. I don't know it's like deep issues inside of me. Okay at least he's self-aware I guess I don't know. Steven had told police that he killed in total six women but he wouldn't say who the others were. He also wouldn't tell them like where they are you know when where how where why why nothing. He also wouldn't tell investigators where Susan Rushworth's body was located and to this day he still hasn't said where she hasn't been found so Steven made his first appearance at Crown Corp on May 28th 2010

now this was just like one day after the tabloids had referred to him as the crossbow cannibal and he seemed to really like this. He was like, hmm, that's fun because when the magistrate asked for his name, Stephen had responded back saying the crossbow cannibal. I mean again since a young age he said he wanted to be a serial killer so I'm sure this title like made him happy. Well did it? I don't know. Gave him something. So after this his trial date was set for later that year. So December 21st 2010. Stephen dressed in a gray truck suit. He was surrounded by like five security guards. He enters the Leeds Crown Court.

So during proceedings the court showed the CCTV footage and presented the DNA evidence as well as a confession. And like there is no denying that he did this. Steven's defense argued that the quote unquote system is the one who's at fault because Stephen had been diagnosed as psychopathic nearly like 20 years earlier and like maybe they should have done something about it wasn't his fault. The judge convicted Stephen Griffiths of all three murders and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So England's then prime minister's name is David Cameron.

He said that the murders were a terrible shock and that the government should once again look at decriminalizing offenses related to sex work. You know, so they have protection and protection. But you know, that in itself like sent people into a frenzy. Oh God. protection and but you know that in itself like sent people into a frenzy. Oh God. As for Stephen Griffiths, he's still in prison and throughout the years, I guess he's attempted to off himself like numerous times after his sixth failed attempt.

He decided to go like on a hundred and twenty day hunger strike and the prison staff said that they knew that this was like Stephen's attention-seeking behavior and that he was essentially being a drama queen. They're like, go ahead, starve yourself. Eye roll. In 2019, Stephen was attacked by another prisoner with like a sharpened piece of wood and he was arrested at the hospital but he would survive the attack. And yeah, I mean, that is where he is at, even now sitting in prison. And that is the case of Stephen Griffiths. You know, I will agree with his defense

that the system as a whole definitely failed on this one, like throughout the years. I mean, you saw or you listened that they had been saying like, hey, red flag, this guy's a little concerning. Like he openly is saying he wants to be a serial killer. Like, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe he might be.

I mean, it's really frustrating when you hear cases like this, cause it's like all the signs were there. I mean, come on. But then again, I was thinking if all the signs are there, you can't just arrest someone because all the signs are there. You know, like you need evidence, you can't just arrest someone because all the signs are there, you know? Like you need evidence, right?

So it's like, okay, all the signs are there, but you can't just arrest someone because they're weird. You would think if local women were going missing who also do sex work, you would maybe go to, like as police, you would go to your files and like have a flag on certain accounts, like Steven's account, like, hey, this guy has been kind of weird throughout his life. Like maybe we should pay him visit I mean, I don't know how police like work. So

I'm just a girl on the internet, but you would think right? I don't know I just I'm sure we can all agree that maybe this this could have been prevented and sadly like Three lives were lost he claims more but I kind of think a lot of people think too that he's just saying that because he wants to be up there with that acid bath killer guy. No the Yorkshire killer guy. He wants to be like up there with him but whatever I mean get better goals. Get better goals. He could have like done something great. He was going really smart in school. It's a shame. It's a

shame he's an idiot. Thanks for hanging out with me. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices. All right. I'll be seeing you guys later. Bye.