Stephen Griffiths: Uneaten Body Parts, Stickman, Missing Pets And A Former Lover Talks

STEPHEN Griffiths: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at the alleged serial killer in the news: the ex-lover, dead pets, missing lizards and body parts uneaten…

Daily Mail: “Grinning shyly at his mother’s side, the boy who now calls himself the Crossbow Cannibal”

Griffiths’ family know him by his middle name, Shaun. Or “Stickman”.

His uncle Joe Dewhirst (his mum’s half-brother) says he was a “runt”, as a lad.

How many nicknames does one alleged serial killer need? A one who allegedly east his victims, Says Richard Bath:

Because of the Ripper link, the town of Bradford has once again been collectively traumatised by the grisly discoveries, although, given the news that the police are investigating whether the killer ate part of Blamires, the events of the past week would be harrowing even without the historical precedent.

As for being a cannibal, well, lots of human remains are being found:

The team recovered the body parts yesterday from the River Aire in Shipley, close to where the remains of another prostitute, Suzanne Blamires, were found on Tuesday.

India Knight muses on working girls in a article one might wrongly call Confessions Of a Media Whore, allegedly (joke):

Prostitutes often don’t look like prostitutes. When I interviewed Belle de Jour, the famous prostitute-blogger, last year only one of us was showing too much cleavage (me) and only one of us had a demure little cardigan on (not me). When I interviewed her again at a literary festival, only one of us was comprehensively lipsticked and only one of us looked as though she shopped at Laura Ashley.

NOTW: “’He gave me pills and smiled ‘You’re dying’”

Keith Gladdis & Lucy Panton, are talking with Kathy Hancock, who once dated the Crossbow Cannibal.

Lest we forget, Panton and Gladdis tell readers that Griffiths is “accused of murdering three prostitutes”.

It turns out that Griffiths might not be all the find of women in general, regardless of their jobs. Hancock calls him “Psycho Steve”:

“I was completely brainwashed by him. My personality had gone and I no longer knew who I was. It was ten years of mental torture and abuse. I just couldn’t get away from him.”

And lest you think Hancock was dating a fatso, she tells us:

“He was a lot slimmer then…”

Let’s not rush to judge her. And we move on to vignette of their time together:

Kathy was at his flat when Griffiths offered her the anti-depressant drug dothiepin. She was already on another anti-depressant and mixing the two was dangerous.

Kathy recalled: “As I started to feel ill he just sat there laughing at me saying, ‘You’re dying.’ He said, ‘You can’t mix those tablets’ and just kept laughing.

She lived. And because he allegedly sold or gave away her dogs when she was in hospital, she moved in with him:

“He knew I could never return to that flat. I couldn’t bear to see those two empty dog bowls. It meant from then on I was stuck in Bradford with him in his flat. Any independence I had was gone. I was crushed.”

She moved in with Griffiths one month after first meeting him. Time moved on:

“I love dancing and I was out for longer than I said I would be. When I got back he didn’t react or show any anger in front of his family. But in the car home he punched me on the nose.”

Kathy snapped and fought back. She said: “I was riot trained when I was a prison officer so I punched him back. Then he headbutted me.”

Adding, after tales of another alleged assault:

“One of the reasons he liked me, he said, was I fought back and he loved that thrill.”

Meanwhile, back at home. Says Kathy:

“He had his rat farm. There were hundreds of them. They stank. All you could smell was rat urine. He boasted how he’d fed live rats to the snakes. I was appalled. When the snakes died he moved onto the lizards. They were three feet long and he walked them on a lead around town.

“He even took them into a nightclub in his backpack. He used the animals to get people to talk to him.”

Finally, she tells us:

“He is loving this. He is going to milk this. When he gave his name as The Crossbow Cannibal it made me very sad. All I could think about was the parents who have lost their daughters.”

And the pets. Hancock fears Griffiths killed the feral cats she befriended:

Daily Star: “HUNT FOR MISSING PETS OF ‘CROSSBOW CANNIBAL’”