Gay killers

Professor Elizabeth Yardley, Professor of Criminology and Director of the Centre for Applied Criminology, explores what the Stephen Port case tells us about gender, sexuality and hierarchies of victimisation in the Twenty-First Century.

In November 2016, 41-year-old Stephen Port was convicted of the murders of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor. He is one of only 50 people in England and Wales to receive a whole experience sentence, meaning that he will never be released from custody and will die in prison.

Port was named ‘The Grindr Killer’ by the tabloid pressurize because he accessed many of his victims through the Grindr dating app. Much of the media coverage of the story and the subsequent widespread interest in the case focused upon this fresh way that killers and sexual predators could access their victims.

Indeed, I acquire researched the use of social media by killers for several years now, exploring how homicide perpetrators use Facebook[i] and exploring the meaning of homicide confessions posted on social networking sites[ii]. However, focusing upon these elements can sometimes distract us from some of the bigger and more pressing issues – issues that a

The hunt for 'The Doodler,' 1970s serial killer who targeted gay men; reward now at $200K

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- It remains one of San Francisco's most notorious cold case murders that's never been solved, but investigators ponder they are close. "The Doodler" was a serial killer who targeted same-sex attracted men in the 1970s, and has never been caught.

San Francisco police now believe a sixth victim may be linked to the Doodler and own doubled the reward to $200,000.

Police have two sketches of the man that for the past 48 years San Francisco police have called the Doodler.

MORE: 'The Doodler': San Francisco police release sketch of suspect in 1970's frosty case murders

He frequented homosexual bars in the Castro and in the Polk Gulch including this one, the Cinch Saloon, still around today and investigators say, in the 70s, one of the Doodler's so-called hunting grounds.

"He'd pluck a guy somewhere at the bar, he'd recline at the table, he'd sketch them, he was a good artist, so then he would amble up to the guy and say like my doodle?" explained SF Chronicle Reporter Kevin Fagan

Fagan told me that was the Doodler's pick-up

How alleged Toronto serial killer Bruce McArthur went unnoticed

When the biggest forensic analysis in Toronto history began, it was still doable to be blind to the full extent of the horror.

On 18 January 2018, in the mid-morning, Bruce McArthur, a 66-year-old freelance landscaper, entered his Thorncliffe Park apartment building in Toronto, accompanied by a young man.

McArthur had been placed under 24-hour police watch the previous day. The surveillance officers had instructions to arrest him if they saw him alone with someone else.

They ascended to McArthur’s 19th-floor apartment and broke down the door. Inside, they found his companion already tied to the bed.

McArthur was charged with the murder of Andrew Kinsman, 49, who had gone missing shortly after Pride Day on 26 June 2017, and Selim Esen, 44, who was reported missing about two months earlier.

As a particularly cold winter dragged on into February, the metropolis was horrified as police began to unearth the remains of corpses buried inside more than a dozen decorative planters. The planters were located outside a modest home, on Mallory Crescent in the Leaside area of the city, where McArthur had been employed as

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