Philip Smith

Philip John Smith (born 10 July 1965) is an English spree killer serving a life sentence for the murders of three women in Birmingham in November 2000.

A former fairground worker employed at the Rainbow pub in Digbeth, Smith killed his victims over a four-day period.

All three victims were mutilated almost beyond recognition, but Smith was quickly identified as the killer on the strength of overwhelming evidence.

Smith's first victim was Jodie Hyde, a recovering butane gas addict whom he met at the Rainbow before killing her hours later.

He is thought to have strangled her before setting her body on fire near a recreation ground.

Three days later, he met mother-of-three Rosemary Corcoran at the same public house and drove her to a rural location, where he bludgeoned her to death and drove over the body.

Then, as he drove home, he hit care worker Carol Jordan with his car and, fearing capture, beat her to death.

All three bodies were discovered soon after the murders were carried out.

Smith was apprehended after he contacted West Midlands Police saying that he wished to make a statement about Corcoran's disappearance.

At the time, however, her body had not been positively identified, and inquiries quickly established that some aspects of his account were false.

The murder inquiry, named Operation Green, uncovered a large quantity of strong evidence incriminating Smith, but at first he denied responsibility.

Philip John Smith was born at the City Maternity Hospital in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, on 10 July 1965.

He was the oldest of five children to sawmill labourer Henry John Smith and his wife, Rose Smith (née Luckins).

Smith's family initially lived in Midland Road, where they were neighbours of serial killers Fred and Rose West, before moving to Hailes Road on the Coney Hill council estate in 1971.

The family's financial situation deteriorated when Smith's father was injured in a motoring accident.

Smith attended Coney Hill Infants and Junior School before being transferred to a special school for children with learning difficulties.

He left school at age 14 to join his father's new employer, Billy Danter's Funfair, which toured extensively throughout the UK.

He worked out of season as a farmhand, labourer and security guard.

As a young adult, Smith moved to Tewkesbury and then Ross-on-Wye, where he lived with a female partner.

Smith received over thirty criminal convictions for minor offences, beginning in May 1984 when he was fined £100 for theft.

His record also included handling stolen goods, burglary and driving without a licence, but no violence.

At 6 ft 4 in and weighing 22 stone, with a dishevelled appearance and a soft West Country accent, Smith was considered gentle by those he met.

They had three children between 1990 and 1992, but Smith left the family and moved to Cardiff when the relationship became difficult.

He then spent a year in Ireland lodging with a travelling family who took pity on him while he was hitchhiking in County Westmeath.

They allowed him to live rent-free in a spare caravan, while he contributed a portion of his unemployment benefit towards food.

However, they asked Smith to leave when they became uncomfortable about sexual remarks he had made to young women in the family.

Smith moved to Birmingham towards the end of 1999 and stayed briefly at the Trinity Centre, a hostel for the homeless in Digbeth, before moving to a property managed by a housing association in Braithwaite Road in Sparkbrook.

He became well known locally and was a regular patron of local businesses such as the Shamrock Cafe on Stratford Road and of the Rainbow pub in Digbeth, where he was employed on a casual basis as an odd-jobber and served as an unofficial taxi driver for drinkers.

Patricia Lynott, a divorced mother of two from Ireland who had moved to Birmingham, had been found dead in her flat in October 2000.

Police had not treated the death as suspicious, but after they discovered her connection to Smith, her body was exhumed for a second post mortem.

On 8 November 2000, Smith met 21-year-old Jodie Hyde, a recovering butane gas addict from Alum Rock, at the Rainbow pub, and they were seen leaving together.

He took her to a hospital appointment and later killed her.

Prosecutors believed that he strangled her at his flat and dumped her body near a recreation ground near Golden Hillock Road in Sparkbrook, where he set it alight.

The still-smouldering remains were discovered at 6:15 am next morning (9 November) by two patrolling police officers.

The body was barely recognisable and had to be identified using fingerprints.

He maintained his innocence as his trial began in July 2001, but later in the proceedings changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The motive for his crimes was unclear, but police who arrested him believed that a "lack of permanent sexual relations" was a contributing factor.

Detectives also investigated the death of a woman who had been a colleague of Smith at the Rainbow.

In an interview with the Birmingham Evening Mail following Smith's trial in July 2001, Jim Smith, proprietor of the Shamrock Cafe, said, "He was a gentle giant who we named 'Bigfoot' because his boots always used to leave black marks on the floor. Ninety-nine per cent of the time he had a dirty appearance and looked like he had been working on a car."

This proved to be inconclusive, and in January 2003 a coroner's jury in Birmingham recorded an open verdict after hearing that the cause of her death could not be determined.