The Investigation

Killer on the rampage

"I don’t have much time for the Human Race"Griffiths during police interviewIt takes the police three days to interview Griffiths despite his initial confession because of his rambling. His confession alludes to his alter ego, Ven Pariah.Griffiths: I, or part of me, is responsible for killing Susan Rushworth, Shelley Armitage and Suzanne Blamires, who I know as Amber...Police: Why did you feel the need to kill her?Griffiths: ...Like I say, you just...sometimes you kill someone to kill yourself or kill part of yourself. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s like deep issues inside of me.He also indicates in an interview that he’s killed six women in total.He appears depressed but is initially helpful with the police. However, he won’t reveal the location of Susan Rushworth’s body.

Then the press obtain the CCTV footage of Griffiths killing Suzanne Blamires, and release it. Seeing her daughter’s last moments made into a spectacle is devastating to her mum.The police are able to build up a detailed picture of what happened to Shelly Armitage partly because, sickeningly, Griffiths records it some of it on his phone.After dragging Shelley back into his flat, he ties her up in the bath. On her back, sprayed in black paint are the words, ‘My Sex Slave’.As he films, he provides his own voiceover:"I am the Ven Pariah, I am the Bloodbath Artist. Here’s a model who is assisting me."He then dismembers her in his bathroom, his self styled slaughterhouse. He uses knives and power tools. He places parts of her in a rucksack and then leaves the flat with it. He catches a train, and is captured on camera at one of the stations. He dumps the rucksack and then is filmed again returning home.Once home, he tries to disinfect surfaces and eradicate all evidence of his kill.A small piece of Shelley’s spine is found in the same stretch of river as Miss Blamires’ remains. In total, the police recover 81 different pieces of Miss Blamires from the river.The police conclude that all of his victims entered the flat of Griffiths willingly, as seen on the footage showing the last moments of Suzanne Blamires. The approximate cost of a gram of heroin is around £50. Street prostitutes can sometimes charge as little as £20 for sex. Their need to fund their addiction makes them easy prey to predators like Griffiths.To further put them at ease, and along with offers of drugs and money, Griffiths tells police that he pretended to the women that he was a photographer. He tells them they will need to lie on the bed with their backsides in the air so he can take ‘portraits’ for a new art gallery exhibition. In fact, he photographs them dead and the photos become part of his trophies collection.Professor of Criminology David Wilson is brought in to advise police on the prosecution approach if Griffiths doesn’t confess at trial.He suggests the reason that Griffiths was so careful in covering up evidence of his first kill, and so brazen with his third, is that to be defined as a serial killer, a person must have killed three times, and over a period of time. As a student of criminology, Griffiths would have been well aware of this.