Professor David Wilson reveals how Kenneth Erskine's carelessness led to his arrest and subsequent conviction.In the summer of 1986, the elderly population of south London were terrified by reports that a killer was targeting them in their homes. In just 17 weeks, Kenneth Erskine, the Stockwell Strangler, embarked on a spree of sexual assault and murder that shocked Britain. In this film, eminent criminologist Professor David Wilson explores the difference between Erskine's first and last kills in an effort to understand what triggered these crimes and how he was caught.
Catching the Stockwell Strangler
Professor Wilson, a former prison governor and expert on serial killers, begins by examining Erskine's childhood. At school, he was known for violent and irrational acts, including stabbing a teacher in the hand, pushing another pupil under a bus and killing the school guinea pig.
He left school in 1979 and, when he started using drugs, his mother ejected him from the family home. He lived in squats and on the streets around the Stockwell and Brixton areas of south London, beginning a career in petty crime to fund his drug habit. That year, he was arrested five times for burglary, finally ending up in Feltham Young offenders Institution.
James Doel, his cellmate at Feltham, speaks for the first time of the disturbing images of death and mutilation of the elderly that Erskine painted while he was inside.
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