Kenneth Erskine

Kenneth Erskine (born 1 July 1963) is a British serial killer who became known as The Stockwell Strangler.

Erskine was born in Hammersmith on 1 July 1963 to a British mother and Antiguan father.

Erskine has three brothers.

He was abandoned by both parents during childhood and attended various special schools.

His parents divorced when he was 12.

On a field trip, he tried to drown his peers, and he became more violent as he grew up.

He eventually became homeless.

Erskine's criminal career began with a number of burglaries.

He was able to open ten separate bank accounts with the proceeds of his crimes.

Erskine served time in HM Prison Feltham.

He committed the murders of 7–11 senior citizens in London between April and July 1986.

During 1986, Erskine murdered at least seven elderly people, breaking into their homes and strangling them; most often they were sexually assaulted.

The crimes took place in London.

His first victim was Nancy Emms, 78, of Wandsworth, who died on 9 April 1986.

Her death was initially believed to have been due to natural causes, and declared as such by her doctor on her death certificate.

It was only established that she had been murdered when her home help noticed that her television set was missing from her flat.

A post mortem examination revealed that she had been raped and strangled.

His second victim was Janet Cockett, 67, who died on 9 June 1986 after being strangled in her flat on the Wandsworth housing estate on which she was chairwoman of the tenants' association.

Her death was initially thought to have been from natural causes.

She had not been sexually assaulted.

A post mortem showed that she had been murdered.

Erskine's palm print was found on a window at Cockett's flat.

He later broke into the residence of an elderly man, but Erskine abandoned this burglary when a noise disturbed him enough to make him flee.

On 28 June 1986, Erskine claimed his third and fourth victims at a residential home in Stockwell., one of them a World War II veteran: Valentine Gleim, 84, and Zbigniew Strabawa, 94.

Both men were sexually assaulted and strangled.

Erskine's fifth victim was William Carman, 84, of Islington.

He stole money from Carman's flat before molesting him and strangling him in an attack on 8 July 1986.

He claimed his sixth victim on 21 July 1986, when he committed a similar fatal attack on 74-year-old William Downes in a Stockwell bedsit.

The final victim was Florence Tisdall, an 83-year-old widow who lived on her own at Ranelagh Gardens Mansions in Fulham.

She was strangled and raped.

She was found dead by the caretaker on the morning of 23 July 1986.

Erskine was arrested on 28 July 1986 at a social security office.

Police were then able to match his palm print to one left at one of the murder scenes, and he was identified in a police lineup by 74-year-old Fred Prentice who claimed Erskine tried to strangle him in his bed a month before police apprehended him.

A homeless drifter and solvent abuser, Erskine was in his early twenties when he committed the crimes.

Erskine's burglary convictions before and during this killing spree meant that his fingerprints and photographs were on police record.

Police had identified Erskine as the perpetrator during his killing spree.

He was convicted of seven murders.

During his trial, he was seen to be masturbating.

Police suspected Erskine of four other murders.

These include the murder of Wilfred Parkes (aged 81, at Stockwell, on 2 June 1986) and Trevor Thomas (aged 75, at Lambeth, on 21 July 1986), but did not find sufficient evidence to charge Erskine with these crimes.