Sword and Scale Nightmares - All Aboard

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

In 1986, a young Navy Seaman went missing from Gibraltar, a British naval base, after the ship The Illustrious docked for a few days. Simon Parkes’s  grief-stricken parents would search for him for more than fifteen years, until 2001 when a connection was made between Simon and two other young cadets who went missing. Their bodies would surface, but Simon’s would not.  Investigators would later discover the grim reality that they may have encountered one of the worst serial killers in England’s history.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5863198/advertisement

On December 12, 1986, the parents of Simon Park secretly awaited his return home from his first tour in the Royal Navy. It was almost Christmas and his mother couldn't wait to see him again. Simon was excited to go home too, and he'd spent a lot of his shore leave buying presents for his family, his friends, and his girlfriend. He called his parents when the ship first made dock at their last stop on tour and told his mother not to worry, and that he would be home soon. Days later, on December 14, his ship would leave without him.

His parents would be told that he likely ran off with a girl he met during shore leave. The Navy didn't seem all that concerned, so even though this was way out of character, his parents just waited for him to call or just show up. And they would wait for 13 years before having any idea what happened to Simon. Welcome to Sword and Scale Nightmares, true crime for bedtime. In December of 1986, the HMS Illustrious, which was a massive aircraft carrier in the Royal Navy, was on the last leg of its world tour. A tour is a time spent at sea doing operational duties like patrol, combat, or even just helping out an ally. The illustrious had been at sea for nine months around Southeast Asia and Australia.

18-year-old Simon was newly enlisted and served as a radio operator aboard the ship. And although he was young and boyish with his innocent face, he performed admirably at his duties. He was living a dream he had since he was a kid. He joined the sea cadets when he was 12, which is kind of like naval boy scouts. So by the time he was old enough, he went to the recruitment office on his own and enlisted. It was his first tour and he was looking forward to returning home, but there was one more port first. The last stop for the illustrious, heading back to the UK was Gibraltar.

Gibraltar is a British territory on the southern coast of Spain. It's stunning there. Gibraltar is a peninsula surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. The peninsula itself is narrow and long with Spain to the north. Gibraltar bay to the west and the north, Gibraltar Bay to the west and the straight of Gibraltar to the south. But its most notable landmark is the rock of Gibraltar, a 1,400-foot-high ridge of Jurassic limestone sits at the center of the peninsula, with the town surrounding it.

The town itself is charming with quaint shops and a cobblestone main street. There are hiking trails up to the peak of the rock where you can see for miles over the bay to the Spanish city of Agacidas. The city has long been a military outpost, but now mostly caters to bunkering or the refueling of many trade ships and warships that pass through the strait of Gibraltar. And of course, tending to the sailors of those ships, as such, the town has an active nightlife. Simon and about thirty other sailors also on leave, hit the town for a day of shopping, eating, and drinking. It is a cool day.

Temperature rising barely above 60 degrees because of heavy cloud cover. As the crew wanders the streets, they go in and out of shops and restaurants and bars. By that evening, the crew ends up at the Horseshoe pub, a little bar right on Main Street, and they begin drinking and having fun. But by 10.30, Simon decides to leave and go to another pub called the Hole in the Wall. The sailors in the Royal Navy have a saying, if you haven't been to the Hole in the Wall, you haven't been to Gibraltar. There was a naval function taking place, so there were other crew members there.

A few remembered seeing Simon there, very drunk. But as it is common for young crew members to get drunk while on shore leave, no one paid any attention to the state he was in. As the night wore on, the party died down and the sailors all stumbled out of the bars, flooding the cobblestone street and headed back to the ship to get some sleep before they had to work the next day. It wasn't until they took the roster, the following morning, that they realized Simon wasn't there. His bunk was untouched and all of his belongings, including all the presents he'd bought for his family and his passport were on the ship.

Of course, the sailors just assumed that he was somewhere sleeping off the night, but when he was missing for most of the day, they started to get concerned. So the navy carried out an extensive search. They looked everywhere, but they couldn't find them. This was odd because Gibraltar is less than three square miles in area, and most of that was the rock of Gibraltar itself. So it's small, not the kind of place you could get lost. And the only way out of the city was through the border in the Spain, which you couldn't

have crossed without his passport. After the search, a couple of more days passed without any sign of Simon. The navy listed him as AWOL, or absent without leave, and set sail without him. The Navy called Simon's parents and informed him that Simon had not returned to the ship after his leave into Balter. They were devastated. They knew this wasn't like their son. He only ever wanted to be in the Navy and he was so excited about coming home. Those days were a little different. While the Navy listed him as AWOL, no one reported him missing and no one feared the worst. that he could be hurt or even dead. They all just assumed that he would call or show up eventually. They were all wrong.

Simon would never be seen again. you Years later, it's December 12, 1997, and a young sailor named Nicholas Wright is enjoying his leave at home in Portsmouth. Just like Simon, Nicholas was young and newly enlisted. He too had a boyish innocence about him. He was out that night at a club called Joanna's. It was known for dancing and was frequented by sailors. It was so often the hangout for sailors in fact that it earned the nickname the Royal Navy School of Dancing. This was the beginning of Nicholas' shore leave, and he was seen that night by many of his crew.

But when he never showed up at home, his parents reported a missing to the Navy. After a brief investigation, they listed him as AWOL. Just like Simon's parents, Nicholas's parents trusted the Navy to handle the disappearance. But months would go by, without any word from Nicholas or the Navy. Eventually, his parents became dissatisfied with him, being dismissed as AWOL, and reported a missing to the local authorities. That's when an investigation began. But even after interviewing anyone who might know something about his disappearance, they came up with nothing. And the case went cold. By 1999, they still didn't have any leads, so they started over and went back to review

previous statements by his crewmates. One by one, they combed through the reports from the investigation. And one by one, the witnesses gave similar accounts from that night in December. Several of his friends remembered seeing him late that night at Joanna's, talking to someone in the back stairwell. Some knew his name, and others only recognized him as a naval firefighting instructor. The man was Alan Grimson, a petty officer in the Royal Navy that was in charge of training new recruits on fire safety and firefighting aboard the ship. He had spent the last 22 years in the Navy where most people called him Frankie, short for Frankenstein because he was

large and well because he was ugly. He was balding and just generally had a sour look on his face. But other than being ugly, he was considered a nice guy, funny and helpful. But according to his own statement, he was the last one to see Nicholas, who unfortunately was presumed dead at this point. So 18 months after Nicholas's disappearance, Alan is arrested under suspicion of being involved and is taken in for more questioning. When they bring him into the interrogation room, they immediately notice how imposing of a figure Alan is.

He's a big guy over six feet tall and hardened from years of working in the Navy. But otherwise he's well spoken, engaging with them, and seems like he really wants to help. So they start asking him about his naval career, and he's very forthcoming. He tells them all about his tours around the world, and the places he's been and seen. It's like their old friends just catching up on lost time. And they talk about his service in the Navy all day. But even though he seemed to be trying to help them in their investigation, it was what he didn't do that gained the detective's interest. You see, the detectives knew that if you arrest an innocent person,

they normally ask, why am I here? Why did you arrest me? Or they exclaim, I haven't done anything. You've got the wrong guy. Allen didn't do any of that. He just sat there and told them stories about his naval career for hours. So after talking all day about essentially nothing

and never getting to the matter at hand, they put Alan in a cell overnight. The next morning detectives arrive at the station early eager to continue with Alan, but no sooner do they walk through the door that the cell guard comes up to them and relays a message from Alan. He wants to tell them about the disappearance of Nicholas. They were stunned. They had spent countless hours pouring over witness statements and CCTV footage, and here was Alan just casually saying he wanted to tell them what happened.

The kind of new Alan wasn't telling the whole story, and they had developed some early theories of accidental overdoser, something that happened where Nicholas died, and whoever was involved panicked and got rid of the body. With what they were about to learn, they couldn't have been further from the truth. Alan went on to explain that he had spent his time in the Navy hunting and grooming young men. He used his position of authority to find and slowly get to know recruits he thought were good-looking. He admitted he was gay, something very few people knew, if any. The Navy at the time didn't allow homosexuals to serve, so he had kept his sexuality as secret his entire life, except from a select few, like Nicholas. Alan crafted his whole life around this secret. He often offered young drunk recruits a ride home, giving them his phone number. He

even had Manchester United season tickets, not to attend the matches, but to use as a cover when trolling for young homeless boys in cities across the area. Allen had given his phone number to Nicholas with an offer of a ride if he ever needed it. Later it would be revealed that he consulted his parents about Alan, wondering if he was gay. They just told him to be careful. Nicholas would later accept a ride from Alan that was completely normal. On December 12, 1997 1997, they take a taxi back to Allen's apartment from Johannes. Allen leads Nicholas up the long staircase to the back entrance. They get to the door. Allen unlocks it, and they walk inside. Nicholas walks over to the couch and flops down and Alan sits next to him.

While they are sitting there, Alan makes his move. He signals pretty clearly that he is interested in a more physical evening when he touches Nicholas sexually and leans in for a kiss. Nicholas being a bit shocked and, certainly uninterested, pushes him away. What Alan tells detectives happen next was disturbing. After Nicholas flat out refuses to have sex with him, Alan becomes enraged and punches him right in the face. Nicholas is stunned and kind of reeling from the blow. When Alan rips his pants down and hits him on the butt with a baseball bat. That's when Alan said Nicholas exclaimed,

why don't you kill me? Alan loses control of whatever urge he's trying to keep at bay and repeatedly hits Nicholas on the head with the baseball bat He explained that toward the end of the beating Nicholas was laying face down on the floor half naked and Alan straddled his body pulled his head back by his hair and slid his throat with a diver's knife. He also cut off part of his ear before performing a sex act over his dead body. He tells police that he punched the air and let out a roar of triumph during the killing. He confessed it was a feeling he'd never felt before, a feeling of

power, a good feeling. He said it was better than sex, better than an orgasm, but he claimed the murder wasn't about sex, It was about power and control. Afterward, he dumps his body in the bathtub, takes a shower, and goes to sleep. The next morning he wraps the body in trash bags while he himself is nude. He says that his entire body tingles during the experience. He spends the entire day trying to think of a way to dispose of the body. And by nightfall, he carries the body down the back staircase and puts it in the trunk of his car.

Once he pulls onto the street in front of his apartment, he sees a police officer and takes the time to stop and talk with him before driving Miles north of town and dumping the body on the side of the road. With what Alan admitted next, they would soon understand why he was finally telling the truth. During the conversation with the random police officer while the body of Nicholas was in the trunk, Alan said he wanted to tell the officer, you wouldn't guess what's in the boot of my car. Now, he had already confessed to murder, but this part of the confession really changed how they looked at Alan.

What he did wasn't some panicked decision. It was cold and calculated. It seemed like Alan knew what he was doing and now he was reveling in the recognition of it. But all of this amounted to nothing if they didn't have a body. So they asked Alan if he would take them to where he left Nicholas, and he agrees. He directs them north of town and they drive for miles before he tells them to pull over. They stop at an intersection that forms a Y, where a less traveled road meets the main road regularly traveled.

It isn't that remote, but there is no foot traffic. They let him out of the car and they follow him as he walks slowly, but in a straight line towards an overgrown portion in one corner of the intersection. He stops, raises one arm, and points to a thicket of vines and brush. An 18 months after Nicholas went missing, they had finally found his body. Back at the station, they had one final question for Alan before charging him with Nicholas's murder. So they sat him down and asked if there was anything else you wanted to talk about. And even after everything they had already heard, what Alan would say next is something they could have never expected.

Turns out that Alan did want to talk about something else. And he blurted out, there's one more. The detectives kind of looked at each other, not really understanding what he was talking about. And said back to him, one more what? This is when Alan says, one more body. The detectives were halfway out of the room, ready to go and charge him with murder. When he claimed there was another victim. They weren't even looking for another guy. A year to the day after Nicholas went missing and was murdered, Alan was back at Joanna's, and he met Sean Jenkins. On December 12, 1998, 20-year-old Sean

Jenkins was working as a bartender at a pub called The Hogshead. He started working there after he dropped out of the Navy. It only took him five weeks to realize the Navy wasn't for him. But while he was there, he met Alan. So after his shift that night, he went to Joanna's to blow off some steam and ran into Alan. By this time Sean was already pretty drunk and by the end of the night he was really drunk. So Alan offered to take him back to his apartment, the two left Joanna's and headed to Alan's place.

And just like with Nicholas, Alan made sexual advances towards Sean, which Sean turned down. And again, Alan became enraged. He pulls out his diver knife and holds it to his throat and tells him he's going to have sex with him or he's going to get hurt. Reluctantly, Sean agrees and they both go upstairs. Alan assaults Sean for most of the night. The next morning, he wants to, but Alan has other plans.

He wants that same feeling of power he had when he killed Nicholas. So he ties Sean's wrists and his ankles to the bathtub and wraps his head in a towel. He gets his bat, and after a few practice swings in the air, he beats Sean in the head until he is dead. They would find his body north of town less than five miles from where they found Nicholas. After Alan confessed to two murders, detectives realized there was a pattern here. Both Sean and Nicholas were young. Both had associations with the Navy. Both disappeared from bars and were reportedly very drunk

when they were last seen. But also, they both disappeared on December 12th. This pattern, combined with Alan's thirst for control and his eagerness to tell his story to an audience, led them to believe there could be even more victims. That's when they discovered Simon Parks went AWOL on December 12, 1986, from the HMS illustrious, a ship that Allen was also assigned to. Simon went missing under nearly identical circumstances. He was young, handsome, and last seen very drunk. Then, never seen again. Alan never admitted to Simon's murder, and the police actually went to Gibraltar and

searched the Trafalgar cemetery and did find some bones, but they would later be identified find some bones, but they would later be identified as animal bones. Operation Thornhill was launched to investigate the disappearance of young men from ports across the globe, where Alan had been during his various tours in the Navy. So far, they have found 20 other cases that he could be connected to. Alan Grimson was charged with the murder of Nicholas Wright and Sean Jenkins and was convicted. Once psychologists at trial called Alan, the worst psychopath he'd encountered in 250 murders.

And the judge, during sentencing, said, he was a serial killer in nature, if not in number. Alan Grimson was locked up, sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after a minimum of 21 years. And it's possible we will never know exactly how many young men he killed. If you enjoyed the show, please consider joining Plus at swordandscale.com slash PLUS. But if you can't, consider leaving us a positive review on your preferred listening platform. Sweet dreams and good night. you