He took a degree in psychology at the University of Leeds, it’s reported, and then moved to Bradford to begin a PhD in criminology, researching patterns of crime in the city during the nineteenth century. He had grown up in Wakefield and attended the prestigious independent Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. This is the name he used on a social website where he styled himself as a “misanthrope…who brought hate into heaven”. Griffiths was, by all accounts, a loner who spent much of his time engrossed in his academic studies and the bizarre online world of his alter ego Ven Pariah. Griffiths showed no emotion as the judge imposed the whole life tariff. Judge Mr Justice Openshaw told Griffiths he would be kept in prison for the rest of his life. Griffiths was jailed at Leeds Crown Court for life for the “wicked and monstrous” murders. There was evidence that Ms Rushworth and Ms Armitage had bled in the flat, he said. The prosecutor said furniture and the walls in Griffiths’ flat were splattered with the victims’ blood. Another, unidentified victim, was lying bound on the living room floor. One showed Ms Armitage lying dead in the bath. The court was told Griffiths possessed a number of “disturbing video recordings and images”. “We tried to put further questions to him”, said one police source, “but he wouldn’t entertain it….he is a fella who wants to be in control”. Tragically for the families involved, Griffiths has never disclosed what he did with the bodies of Ms Armitage and Susan Rushworth. They would also discover spinal tissue belonging to Shelley Armitage in the Aire, but nothing more. The police would later retrieve a holdall from the river containing the tools Griffiths had used to dismember her. He said a broken knife and a crossbow bolt were embedded in her severed head. Mr Smith told the court 81 different pieces of Ms Blamires were found. A member of the public saw her remains floating in the River Aire in Shipley, several miles outside the centre of Bradford. Body foundīody parts of Suzanne Blamires were found three days after she was reported missing. Many details revealed are too horrific to report. He said he told officers he had “eaten some of her” adding: “That’s part of the magic”.įamily members sobbed in court today as the prosecutor revealed gruesome details of the murders. Prosecuting, Robert Smith QC, told the court Griffiths claimed to have eaten raw parts of flesh of Ms Blamires. He would later identify himself in a court hearing as the “Crossbow Cannibal”. All had been sex workers from Bradford who had been reported missing between June 2009 and May 2010. In subsequent police interviews he admitted killing Suzanne Blamires, Shelley Armitage and Susan Rushworth (pictured below). The police arrested Griffiths, a 40-year-old bachelor and PhD student, the same day. He is then seen dragging her into his flat where, it’s understood, he then discharged a crossbow bolt into her skull. It was “quite graphic, quite horrific” one detective told Channel 4 News, referring to a scene in which Stephen Griffiths is seen assaulting Suzanne Blamires, his third victim, in a corridor outside his flat. What he saw would lead him immediately to call the police. The caretaker of a block of flats in a converted mill in the centre of Bradford had decided to view the internal CCTV system from over the weekend.
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