Sadistic Killers: Profiles of Pathological Predators (29 page)

His supporters – he’s been receiving gender identity counselling in prison – say that he should be allowed to become a woman despite the fact that he admitted to police that he hates them. His detractors agree on one thing – that it would be a good idea to cut his manhood off. Interestingly, this desire to cross-dress is common amongst violent men who’ve been sexually abused in childhood. He will be eligible for parole in 2023 at 51 years old.

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PART FOUR

EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN:

SADISM WORLDWIDE

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SADISTS WHO KILL

MEN

43 per cent of serial killers are known to have had
homosexual experiences, though not all gay serial
killers are sadistic – Dennis Nilsen, for example,
killed his victims as quickly and painlessly as
possible in order to have access to their corpses for
necrophiliac sex.

Nilsen’s childhood with a disapproving stepfather
was lonely and unhappy, but gay sexual sadists
invariably come from much more dysfunctional
backgrounds: John Wayne Gacy, who mercilessly
abused over 30 boys to death on his customised
torture-board, was beaten and humiliated by his
father and given frequent enemas by his mother
throughout his formative years. Similarly, Dean
Corll and Elmer Wayne Henley endured childhoods
with violent fathers, and Corll’s mother married
five times.

The bisexual teenager Peter Dinsdale murdered
26 people in British arson attacks, standing outside
their domiciles and enjoying their screams as they
burnt to death. His childhood was the most tragic
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of all as he was neglected, humiliated and rejected
by his prostitute mother for years then targeted by
paedophiles in children’s homes.

The first two cases in this chapter are of Michele
Lupo who was born in Italy (but killed his victims
in Britain) and Andrew Cunanan who was born in
America. At the time, the press concentrated on the
fact that these were revenge attacks by gay males
who’d been shunned by the glitterati – as such, the
sadistic aspect of their crimes was largely ignored.

MICHELE LUPO

Michele was born on 19 January 1953 in Northern Italy to a religious family who arranged for him to join the church choir.

Enrolled at the Leonardo Da Vinci school, he was creative, being exceptionally good at art. Virtually nothing else is known about his early years but he later told police that he had ‘been used and abused in the past’.

After leaving school the attractive and charismatic young man did a correspondence course in languages then was drafted into the army for the obligatory two years’ national service, ending up in an elite commando unit. Police believe that he was taught how to kill during these two intensive years.

At 21, Michele – who by now was actively bisexual – travelled to London and began work as a hairdresser, a profession he would maintain for the next three years. In his spare time he occasionally slept with women but mainly frequented gay clubs in London, Paris and Amsterdam.

Prostitution

With his dark good looks and slender body, Michele Lupo was a big attraction in these clubs and he realised that he 243

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could use this to his advantage. He placed an advert offering sadomasochistic services to gay males.

For the next three years he made a living from flogging men, building up a sizeable collection of whips, riding crops, nipple clamps and chains. He also built a torture chamber, complete with black walls and complex restraining devices, in his home.

In 1977 he was fined £40 for buggering a man in a public toilet

– but, fines aside, he found the work enjoyable and it could have gone on for many years if fear of the deadly disease AIDS

hadn’t gripped the gay community.

Gay men were the first to become aware of the dangers of promiscuous unprotected sex and began to take precautions.

Perhaps because of this, Lupo’s clientele dried up. It’s equally likely word got around that he was too sadistic even for a masochistic client.

Whatever the circumstances, Lupo cut back on his prostitution services by the spring of 1980 and became a sales assistant at the Yves Saint Laurent fashion house in Brompton Road, London.

The softly-spoken and compelling Michele was so good at his job that he eventually ended up as a manager, a post which brought him into contact with various wealthy socialites.

Lupo’s mediterranean good looks again won him many admirers, and he slept with both men and women amongst the trendy crowd. He also had sex in sadomasochistic (SM) bars in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Berlin. The police later found that he’d separately bedded a wealthy British husband and wife, neither of whom knew of the other’s infidelity. The authorities had to discreetly advise both to have HIV tests.

A less comfortable life

Something unrecorded happened in 1984 which caused Lupo to leave Yves Saint Laurent and lose touch with its fashionable clientele. Thereafter he took a badly paid job in a clothes 244

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store. But he again increased his earnings by charging men for sadomasochistic services. Sometime in the mid 1980s he found that he was HIV positive but he didn’t tell his many partners and continued to have unprotected sex.

As his life went downhill, he fantasised about torturing and killing these punters as he felt like little more than a rich man’s plaything. By now he’d had more than 4,000 gay lovers and was increasingly tired of consensual practices.

Attempted murder

On 10 March 1986, he made his way to the Coleherne pub in Earl’s Court, London – the same gay pub where Colin Ireland would find his victims in 1993. He got talking to 31-year-old Kevin Pius MacDonagh, a science graduate who worked as an osteopath. Michele had hung a black leather glove from his jeans back pocket, the sign that he was a dominant male, and Kevin enjoyed being the passive partner, so the two men agreed to a liaison and went to a nearby derelict building and entered the darkened basement. But before the sexual encounter had even started, Lupo wound a scarf around Kevin’s neck and strangled him until he appeared to be dead, then he slipped soundlessly away.

An hour later his victim regained consciousness and staggered home, deciding not to report the incident to the then homophobic police.

The rst murder

Five nights later Lupo re-experienced the urge to kill. He returned to the Coleherne and went to the toilets where he masturbated openly. Shortly afterwards he got into conversation with James George Burns, a 36-year-old British Rail guard.

James, a gentle depressive, was eager for company.

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Back at the derelict basement with Lupo, he either willingly indulged in or was coerced into a comparatively rare form of sadomasochism known as pet shop sex. This involves a tube being put into the passive partner’s rectum, into which the dominant party introduces a small animal such as a mouse.

The tube is then withdrawn and the terrified creature bites and claws inside the recipient’s rectum as it tries to fight its way out.

Before or after this agonising practice, Lupo bit James Burns three times in the chest, hit him about the face and head and strangled him with a scarf. He also attempted to pull his eyes out. Burns lost control of his bowels as he died, and Lupo smeared this excrement over the victim’s face and body. He also bit off part of James Burns tongue and threw it across the room.

Police awareness

When Kevin MacDonagh, who had been strangled into unconsciousness in the same basement, read about James Burns’ murder, he bravely went to the police and gave them a good description of Michele Lupo. They now knew that they were dealing with a potential serial killer who was targeting gay men.

The second murder

On 4 April 1986, Lupo killed again. This time the victim was 26-year-old Anthony Connolly who had an arts degree but had recently been made redundant from his chef ’s job.

Anthony loved attention and on that particular Friday night was wearing ripped jeans which showed off the pink tights he wore underneath.

Michele arrived at the Prince of Wales pub in Brixton with a platonic female friend but eventually left her with her 246

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colleagues and struck up a conversation with the extroverted Anthony. Shortly after 1 a.m., the men walked to the local railway line and entered a disused worker’s hut. There they partially undressed and caressed – when Anthony’s body was found, his trousers were around his ankles. Michele Lupo bit him on the chest, neck and penis during the attack. He may have used, or forced his victim to use, amyl nitrate – when inhaled, it causes the heart to speed up and gives the user a rush, but in susceptible people it can bring on a heart attack.

In the moments which followed, Lupo hit Anthony in the face, blackening one of his eyes. He then strangled him with a stocking. Afterwards he went on to a nightclub and socialised for an hour, completely indifferent to having caused another violent death.

The third murder

His next victim, in mid April, was a vagrant whom he walked past at a part of Charing Cross railway station known as Cardboard City. There, destitute men and the occasional alcoholic woman lived in boxes, enduring a cold and dangerous existence. Michele Lupo strangled the passing vagrant with a pair of tights. An unemployed man found the corpse and reported it, only to be regarded with great suspicion by the police. Already suicidal due to his reduced circumstances, he was interrogated in custody for the next two days.

Attempted murder

Later that same month, Lupo approached 22-year-old Mark Leyland who was hanging about beside the underground near Hungerford Bridge. The two men decided to have sex in a nearby derelict toilet and, when they got there, Mark began to give Lupo oral sex. Suddenly the younger man had an instinct that he was in danger and he moved away from Lupo, who 247

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immediately began to batter him viciously about the head with his fists. Lupo then left the building, grabbed a piece of wood and began to hit his victim through the broken window. He eventually collapsed to the ground and Lupo left.

When Mark regained consciousness he went to the police, but understandably gave the impression that he’d been mugged rather than admit that he’d gone with a stranger to an outbuilding for casual sex. It would be many months before the truth was revealed.

The fourth murder

In the early hours of 25 April, Lupo struck again – and this time he succeeded in killing his hapless victim. After an evening clubbing in the Copacabana in Earl’s Court Road, he picked up 24-year-old Damien McClusky and steered him towards a basement in a derelict building. There both men pulled down their trousers and embraced. A beating probably followed – the younger man’s corpse was bruised when it was found.

At some stage Damien began to fellate Michele Lupo, whereupon Lupo wound a ligature around his neck and strangled him to death. It was three weeks before his decomposing body was found.

Another attempted murder

On 8 May, the sadist arranged a sex session with another gay man on Wandsworth Road – but at the last moment the other man’s instincts told him not to go through with it. He left the scene and Michele approached David Nigel Cole who had been looking for a tryst. The two men went to a lorry park and indulged in mutual masturbation. They also fellated each other but Lupo soon lost his erection – this is commonplace for a sadist as they often become impotent when not causing suffering or fear.

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The killer looped a black stocking around David’s neck and began to strangle him. The victim struggled violently and Lupo retaliated by biting his thumb. He then got him down on the ground and knelt on his chest, punching him in the face.

David continued to struggle and finally managed to pull the ligature from his neck, whereupon Lupo casually got up and loped off into the night.

It must have taken courage for David Cole to report this encounter to the police, especially as he’d left his gay partner back in their flat after telling him that he was just going out for a burger. But he described the would-be murderer perfectly and was even able to hand them the stocking which Michele Lupo had used as a ligature.

The police asked David Cole to tour Brixton’s gay pubs with them in the hope that he would see his attacker – and on 15

May he successfully identified Michele Lupo in the Prince of Wales pub.

Arrest and trial

Michele Lupo was arrested and immediately admitted murdering Anthony Connolly and Damien McClusky. The following day he admitted James Burns’ murder. He eventually also admitted the vagrant’s murder plus the three attempted murders, though police wondered if he’d killed other men during his European jaunts. Appearing at the Old Bailey in the autumn of 1986, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The motive

The press (which anglicised his name to Michael) naturally assumed that Lupo wanted revenge on the gay community which had given him AIDS, but he told police that this wasn’t his motivation. He said that he’d been badly treated in the past 249