John Martin Scripps (9 December 1959 – 19 April 1996), also known as the Garden City Butcher, and "Tourist From Hell" was an English serial killer who murdered three tourists—Gerard Lowe in Singapore, and Sheila and Darin Damude in Thailand—with another three potential (yet unconfirmed) victims. He posed as a tourist himself when committing the murders. He cut up all his victims' bodies, using butchery skills he had acquired in prison, before disposing of them.
Martin was arrested in Singapore—where he had killed Lowe—when he returned there after murdering the Damudes. Photographs of decomposed body parts were shown as evidence during his trial, making it "one of the most grisly" ever heard in Singapore. He defended himself by saying that Lowe's death was an accident and that a friend of his killed the Damudes. The judge did not believe Martin's account of events and condemned him to death by hanging, making him the first Briton since Singapore's independence from Britain and Malaysia to be given the death penalty. He is also one of the first Westerners to be executed in Singapore since independence, the first one being Johannes van Damme of the Netherlands in 1994.
Early life John Martin Scripps was born in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, on 9 December 1959, the son of Leonard and Jean Scripps, an East End lorry driver and a Fleet Street barmaid respectively. He travelled often in childhood, occasionally accompanied by his father, with whom he was very close. Leonard Scripps died by suicide when his son was nine.The Times (19 April 1996) mentions John was eight at the time, while Tan in Body Parts (p. 191) says he was 10. After his father's death, Scripps developed problems with reading and writing, which led to him leaving school at the age of 15. After dropping out of school he continued to travel, raising money for his trips by doing odd jobs and selling antiques.
Criminal career Scripps was convicted of his first crime in May 1974, when he was sentenced to a 12-month conditional discharge and fined £10 by Highgate Juvenile Court for burglary. The punishment did nothing to deter him from stealing, and by August 1976 he had stolen again three times. In June 1978, he was fined £40 for indecent assault.Tan, Body Parts, pp. 191–192.
While travelling in Mexico, Scripps met María Pilar Arellanos, of Cancún, and married her in 1980.In Body Parts, p. 192, Tan says that Martin met María in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They travelled together for two years until 1982, when he was sentenced to a three-year jail term for theft, burglary and resisting arrest. His imprisonment upset María, and their relationship was further soured when he ran away from jail during home leave in June 1985—just months short of completing his term—and burgled again. He was sentenced to another three years' imprisonment, during which she filed for divorce and married Police Constable Ken Cold, an officer in the Royal Protection Squad. This angered Scripps, who acted in revenge, stealing some of Cold's clothing while released on home leave. He was appeased only when she divorced her new husband and returned to her hometown. After he was released, Scripps legally changed his name to John Martin.Tan, Body Parts, pp. 192–193.
Scripps began trafficking in drugs, and carried heroin between Asia and Europe for a syndicate. Singapore authorities first encountered his name in 1987, when he was arrested at Heathrow Airport for possessing drugs. Police found a key on him that belonged to a safe deposit box in a bank in Orchard Road in Singapore, from which officers from Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau seized 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb) of heroin worth about US$1 million. For this and another drug offence, Southwark Crown Court in January 1988 sentenced him to seven years in jail. He escaped while on home leave but was later re-arrested. In July 1992, Winchester Crown Court added another six years to the original sentence, which would have kept him behind bars until 2001 had he not escaped again.Tan, Body Parts, pp. 193–194.
He was in custody at HMP Albany on the Isle of Wight from February 1992 to August 1993, where he became a model prisoner. Initially he did menial jobs such as dishwashing and general cleaning and was later promoted to the position of butcher, under the training of James Quigley, a prison caterer with more than 20 years' experience, and another inmate only identified as "Ginger", who had been a professional butcher. They taught him how to dismember and remove the bone from animals after slaughtering them. Martin performed his duties with such efficiency that he once told Quigley he wished to open a butcher's shop after his release.
On 20 August 1993, Martin was transferred from HMP Albany to HMP The Mount in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, as a result of a change in his security categorisation. In October 1994 he escaped while on home leave, which was granted only two days after being refused parole. His mother, noting that he had sold all his belongings to fellow inmates while in prison (a clear notice of his intention to escape), asked prison authorities not to release him. After Martin was sentenced to death, she reiterated:
His mother gave Scripps £200 to travel overseas after his arrest. To avoid recapture, he used the birth certificate of another inmate, Simon James Davis, to get a passport in Davis's name.Tan, Body Parts, p. 195. Within a month of his escape, he turned up in Mexico as John Martin. He reported to the British Embassy there that he had lost his passport, and managed to get a replacement. Martin arrived in Singapore from San Francisco at about 2 a.m. SST on 8 March 1995 (6 p.m. UTC on 7 March).Tan, Body Parts, p. 42.
Murder of tourists Martin killed at least three people in Singapore and Thailand, and was investigated for other murders in Belize, Mexico, and the United States. His modus operandi was to pose as a tourist and converse with another randomly chosen Caucasian, either aboard their flights or while waiting at airports. He stayed in the same hotels as his victims in a room near theirs. Once he had an excuse to be in their rooms, he used an electroshock weapon to immobilise them before killing them by striking their heads with a hammer and cutting them up in their bathrooms. He chose Caucasians as his victims because they were vacationing far away from their home countries, which made him less likely to be discovered. His motive apparently included money, as large amounts were withdrawn using the credit cards of Gerard Lowe and Timothy MacDowall.
Gerard Lowe
Gerard George Lowe came from Johannesburg, South Africa. He was a chemical engineer with South African Breweries. He went to Singapore to shop for electrical and electronic goods. Before he left Johannesburg on 7 March 1995, he told his wife Vanessa, a local airline employee, his exact schedule, saying: "I will call you the moment I check into the hotel to give you the contact number. If you do not hear from me on 10 March, it would mean that I would have a seat on the plane to return to South Africa and would arrive home on 11 March. But if I do call you on 10 March, that would mean that I have not managed to get a seat and would return on 12 March."
When Lowe arrived at Singapore Changi Airport on the morning of 8 March, he was approached by Martin (under the assumed name of Simon Davis), who struck up a conversation with him and suggested that they share a room, to which Lowe agreed. They managed to book Room 1511 in the River View Hotel off Havelock Road. The next morning, Martin asked a hotel receptionist to delete Lowe's name from the room registration system, saying that he had kicked Lowe out the previous night for being a homosexual, which was illegal in Singapore at the time.
Later that day, Martin forged Lowe's signature and used his credit card to withdraw $6,000 from a branch of DBS Bank at Raffles City Shopping Centre. He would withdraw a further $2,400 in cash using the same technique over the next few days. Martin also bought a $490 video recorder (which he mailed to his sister in England) and a $180 pair of Nike Alpha Trainer shoes with Lowe's credit card, and even attended a performance by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. On 11 March, he visited a Thomas Cook travel agency office in Anson Road to arrange the transfer of $8,500 in cash and US$5,000 in converted traveller's cheques to a San Francisco based bank account in the name of 'John Martin'. After being informed the transfer would take a few days to complete, he also bought a $485 return air ticket to Phuket via Bangkok with cash, and departed from Singapore at 7pm that same evening.Tan, Body Parts, pp. 57–59.
On 13 March 1995, a pair of legs, severed at the knees, was found in a plastic bag floating off Clifford Pier. Three days later, a pair of thighs and a torso were found in the same area, also in a plastic bag. Initially, Singapore police could only determine that the body parts belonged to a Caucasian, and they had a possible name after receiving a missing person report for Lowe from the South African High Commission. Vanessa Lowe filed the report because she was distressed that her husband, who used to make daily contact with his family when overseas, had not called home or returned to South Africa by 12 March. Lowe's colleagues at work also tried to determine his whereabouts through personal contacts in Singapore. Singaporean authorities decided not to immediately inform the local media about the discovery, as they did not want to alert the suspected killer to the fact Lowe's remains had been found and possibly dissuading him from returning to the country if he had already fled. On 1 April, Vanessa Lowe confirmed that the body parts were her husband's through visual identification. However, his arms and head were never found. According to Professor Chao Tzee Cheng, the senior forensic pathologist, he was unable to determine the cause of death due to the absence of the head or any severe injuries on the other body parts available for his post-mortem examination, but he noted that the body parts were being expertly dismembered, suggesting that the killer of Lowe was either a trained doctor, medical surgeon, veterinarian surgeon or a butcher; Martin made use of the butchery skills he picked up at prison to dismember the body of Lowe after killing him.
Sheila and Darin Damude
Sheila Mae Damude (22 May 1945 – 16 March 1995) and her son Darin Jon Damude (13 November 1972 – 16 March 1995) came from Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. She was an administrator at the Pacific Christian School in Victoria, while Darin was a college student. They had come to Thailand on holiday, with Darin flying to Asia first before Sheila met him in Bangkok during spring break. They flew to Phuket on 15 March with Martin (still using his assumed name) who was sitting in the same row as them. He befriended the two and they checked into Nilly's Marina Inn facing Patong Beach. Martin was given Room 48 and the Damudes were given the adjacent Room 43. The Damudes were not seen again after they ate breakfast the next morning; at about 11 a.m. THA (5 a.m. UTC), Martin asked the inn's receptionist to switch his room to Room 43, saying that the Damudes had left and that he would pay their bill.Tan, Body Parts, p. 67.
Martin checked out and returned to Singapore on 19 March. On that day the skulls of the Damudes were found in a disused tin mine in Kathu district.Tan, Body Parts, pp. 79–80. A torso and a pair each of arms and legs were found along Bahn Nai Trang Road, 9.7 kilometres (6 mi) away, five days later. The body parts were so badly decomposed that visual identification was impossible; Royal Thai Police used dental records to identify the skulls and forensic analysis concluded that the torso, arms, and legs were likely to be Sheila's. The other parts of Darin's body were never found.Tan, Body Parts, pp. 108–112.
Unconfirmed victims