Image: Shutterstock.com | Above: A stock photograph of an abandoned Ford Capri covered in green moss and algae.
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Bachelor Barry Williams spent this day in the Britain’s West Midlands killing his neighbours.
He shot dead the father, mother and son of the Birkett family at his first location, Bustleholm estate. He shot the daughter six times but, despite being seriously wounded, she survived as did their next door neighbour and her husband who were also shot.
Williams then drove off in a Ford Capri and went to a petrol station where he shot dead the female petrol attendant and injured her husband.
After the shootings, road blocks were erected and Williams was arrested the next day after a car chase. Apart from the fact that Williams did not kill himself, in many ways, his random motiveless killing of non family members can be seen as a pre-cursor to Michael Ryan’s senseless slaughter at Hungerford. Despite being sentenced to indefinite detention in 1979 Williams was released after 15 years. He was placed in a hostel close to the scene of his first murders but re-housed after the inevitable public outcry.
No one knows where Williams is currently living but he is said to have changed his name and started a family.