Murders in Hastings - Murder By The Sea - True Crime

[Music] what is it that makes the British Seaside  [Music] Sinister why does it seem to attract so   many killers is it the fact that the tide washes  away their sins is it the fact that it's the end   of the line there's nothing overly frightening  about a big wheel or a carousel but what is   undeniable is that the BR Seaside attracts  and has always attracted death and [Music] murder hello I'm Jeffrey wantel I write about  crime True Crime and in this new series I want   you to join me on a journey to the Cliff's Edge  where land meets the sea and where life meets   death whilst some may consider my opinion to  be bold they have been formed after writing   bestsellers about real killers for the past 30  years and staring evil in the face for make no   mistake there is something sinister about  our British Seaside towns on the surface   they are all funfairs candy floss and Breezy  pronard but by digging a little deeper in the   sand we uncover an underworld of Misfits  and misant murder and [Music] Mayhem and   reveal the dark lives of the most deadly  Coastal Killers to ever stalk our [Music] Shores [Music] today we're in Hastings to meet  a killer who was only caught after one of   the most complex murder in investigations ever  conducted along the South Coast his name Graham   fiser horrifying though it is to say by the  end of the 1990s the English Seaside town was   in terminal decline package holidays to Spain  and then to Turkey and later to Thailand had   rendered it irrelevant no one wanted to go  there anymore nowhere epitomized it better   than Hastings in East Sussex where these two  particularly unpleasant horrifying crimes took   place but they didn't start in Hastings  they started in Bromley in [Music] London   Graham fiser is a man who is convicted of  uh killing two women in Hastings and and   attempting to rape and attempting to murder  Another Woman Within the space of 7 Days in 1998 he was born in 1973 and when convicted was  36 years of age he was convicted of further two   rapes and is considered as one of the  most dangerous people we've dealt with   in Sussex the threat that he presents  to women especially vulnerable women is huge when you sit down and look at the  timeline from his childhood through to   his actual incarceration in prison when he  was arrested and charged with murders and   found guilty or time in Broadmore when you start  looking at the Timeline it's a classic series real   killer profile that you can actually start put  together from a very dysfunctional background   as a child of the parental home so he was  not aware of moral boundaries he was not   getting the right discipline as a child as he  Grew Older his behavior got worse to the point   where people alienated and did ostracize him  because people don't want to hang around with   people who behave in such an abor way he  started out as a schoolyard bullet where   he would start fighting calling names initially  but then that would deteriorate into fighting to   actually causing serious harm to other children  boys and girls and very often sometimes adults   who try to intervene to break up the fight this  gave him that excitement that gave him the buzz   that gave him that feeling of power because he  was a big lad anyways and that control of people   because he could then be seen and respected for  is basically his fighting abilties pugilistic   skills and people respected him for that which is  something that he not really had throughout his childhood when looking at gr Fisher's background  we obviously looked at his teenage years uh and   uh although we weren't able to get specific  information we did talk to people who knew him   when he was a teenager and had been to school  with him uh and he was very much described as   a strange uh and violent uh individual at  that time so to a certain extent um he was   the archetypical school bully uh his size uh  was a factor in his life he didn't like the   size he was um but he also used it to good  effect to threaten uh people so probably uh   more minor crimes were committed when he was  at school as a young person um when he started   to form Rel relationships with people uh when  growing up in and around the Bromley area I   believe that's when uh those crimes became more  serious uh and certainly there are instances of   serious sexual assaults occurring at that time  when he was uh in his late teens in the Bley area Graham fiser was an overweight arrogant  bullying and sexually predatory 18-year-old in   1991 in his native Bromley southeast of London he  attacked a vulnerable lady not once not once but [Applause] twice he attacked her in her home and left  her one day later he returned and attacked her again he attacked her so viciously that she almost   died there is something about this  young man that you could not possibly forgive when dangerous people Target  vulnerable people they do so quite   deliberately there is that element  of knowing that they are uh easily   targeted and that they can be selected  quite without difficulty and Graham   Fisher was manipulative and Direct  in the way that he chose his [Music] victims the feeling of power and control is never  quite satiated what happens then is it develops   into much more abor Behavior so it becomes  not only a slap it becomes a beating and that   level of power that's asserted has to continue to  grow and develop because all the while it's never   ever quite sufficient to make them feel as though  they completed what they wanted to do because the   person might get up and walk away other people  might come to that other person's support which   causes further harm and to their own self-esteem  the bully self-esteem and next is what happened   with grand Fisher as he Grew Older he needed more  and more excitement he needed to feel respected   he needed to feel the power and control  that his physical presence he felt deserved people do not go out and kill straight away  what they often do is build up so they have   sexual assaults or or physical assaults on  people they do that they build up the skills   they learn from their mistakes I've dealt with  Killers who have also leared by accident how to   improve their techniques so they do something  and it works and they say oh I like that and   they incorporate that in the next attack and they  work up their skills till eventually they can then kill fiser later admitted that he loved  the scared look on his victim's face can   you imagine the kind of belligerence that an  18-year-old can bring to bear on a vulnerable   elderly lady that gives him pleasure from  scaring her to death it's inconceivable but   2 years later he's moved to the aisle of white  and the connection with the sea and seaside is   formed he has a partner whom he takes offense at  he ties her up and tries to strangle her but just   to add a little peony to the crime he burns  her son not by him her son's genitals again   it is inconceivable to imagine how unpleasant  this young man was he was a monstrous creature   on the loose the growing catalog of offenses  committed by Fisher were difficult for even the   most experienced and hardened of police officers  to comprehend it's difficult to go into too much   detail about the uh the early offenses in  Bromley um because uh of the nature of the   victim um but it is fair to say that they were  sort of domestically related uh not involving   members of his his own family but people that were  acquaintances uh and one of those acquaintances   is is somebody who he uh attacked uh and was  eventually charged with serious sexual offenses against this time the authorities catch up CH with  Fisher and he gets 2 years for assault he should   have got far more in my opinion but then perhaps  those were different days when he's released he   disappears this time away from the aisle of white  on a journey that takes him through Kent another   series of Seaside towns Graves end and ends up in  Hastings in East Sussex which becomes his killing [Music] ground Fisher to it tents and purposes  looked a perfectly ordinary young man   but actually he was a sexual sadist there could be   no doubt about it and his behavior as he  grew into a 20-year-old was increasingly frightening Fisher's desire to inflict  pain upon others reached a new Zenith   when he attacked two innocent young women in  the seaside town of eastborn Graham fiser was   convicted of two sexual assaults in May  1998 he attacked two foreign students   two young foreign students who we would now  regard as [Music] vulnerable and he attacked   them in East he sexually assaulted both and he  committed those offenses with a knife [Music] he was arrested a very short while later and was  sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment he   went into the prison system and it became  apparent to the prison authorities that   he presented in their words such a grave and  immediate danger to women that when he was end   he was approaching the end of that sentence  he was then moved to Broadmore hospital and   he's never left Broadmore hospital since  that time and it was was Gran Fisher was   at Broadmore Hospital in the summer of 2008 that  he started to make admissions to his clinicians   of his previous offending he said to them it's  very difficult to live with these things in your head he harbored desires that were almost impossible to  conceal no one can say that a murder is inevitable   no one can say that it was impossible to predict  but in Fisher's case it would be difficult to deny   that he was a time bomb waiting to go off in  the end in Hastings in East Sussex he happens   upon a woman Lonely vulnerable kindly a bit  of a recluse lives near him she's called CLA leford Fisher decides that her life must  end Clare leford lived in the basement   flat of 46 cornales Gardens a large property  which was divided into Flats at the time and   CLA lived in that basement flat she had  difficulties in her life and found life   quite a challenge and was most certainly  very vulnerable she was quite um reclusive   and kept herself to herself but Graham  fiser having lived in that same property   knew that Clare leford lived in the lower  basement flat and he deliberately targeted her he doesn't want to steal her money he  doesn't want to inherit her house he there   is no connection between him except he's  lived nearby but he wants to terminate her life he does it in the most  brutal and unacceptable way   until this poor reclusive  lonely woman loses her life what is the reason for it the answer lies  entirely in his personality in the fact that   something within him drives him to destroy  vulnerable elderly women and he does it in   such a way that was is so depraved that it's  almost impossible to imagine [Music] it's bad   enough killing a poor innocent 40-year-old  woman living on her own but not only does   he do that he then proceeds to eat part  of her flesh now is there any conceivable   explanation for that answer no there cannot be  is there any exculpation no there can't be any what you're dealing with here in  fiser is a young man who is genuinely insane we believe he sexually assaulted her  tried to strangle her and set fire to her   body dragging her body out into the hallway  by one arm He piled some clothing and other   flammable material onto her body and set far  to it and we know that Claire suffered a very   awful and painful death because she was alive  when that fire was set when he started to tell   the authorities in the hospital about some of  his offending he said that he had cut a piece   of flesh away from her arm and eaten it there  is some suggestion that he bit uh her arm now   whether he actually bit and at a lot of a raw uh  flesh I think is unlikely because that you would   really have to be quite mentally Disturbed  to do that but certainly there is a history   of cannibalism in this country people do eat  body parts sometimes it's out of mental illness   sometimes it's some cultural value I mean in  the old days the the idea was that people at   the bodies of people they killed to gain their  powers and increase their own strength now I'm   not suggesting that was driving him but to bite  raw skin and raw flesh is actually unusual these days Fisher did not just attack  his victim he brutalized her   in the end he strangled her using his  shoelaces and then smothered her with a cushion now it's possible to conceive how  you could do that to take the life of a   vulnerable lonely utterly defenseless  innocent woman and not be played with   guilt but Fisher was not plagued with any  sense of guilt whatever indeed his carnal   desires were only inflamed by the act of  killing her fiser was not content however   he had already killed one woman he was  not finished not for one second was he finished barely 8 days after Graham fiser  had killed the first time poor reclusive   40-year-old Clare leford who had had The  Misfortune for Fisher to experiment with   cannibalism he'd cut off part of her arm and eaten  it Fisher killed again another vulnerable lonely   person in Hastings but this time she was called  barel o Conor she was unmarried and she was 75 barl o Conor known locally as dornie lived in  Clifton Court just a short distance away about   150 yards away from the flat where Clare leford  had lived Dy lived alone and she lived uh on the   fifth floor of Clifton Cor thought close to  where Gan Fisher had previously for a very   short period rented a flat and gram Fisher knew  that Dy lived alone in that property 25 years   I've known barl and she was the consultant for  Helen Rubenstein in deams and she was very very   good at her job she was a lady she was very  sweet she was M she was clever very clever   D's motto was if you couldn't say anything nice  about someone don't say anything at all she just   had a very sweet nature and um she sort of had  a a lovely sweet way of talking to people and   um she was just a really really lovely lovely  lady she was always with her husband of course   because she had no family her mother had died  while we were at the store and of course when   her mother died uh she'd got no one at all  other than the friends that were at work or   her husband and um so therefore that was it  was mostly visiting the public houses with him after her husband passed away dornie remained  a very popular and much loved member of the   community but friends worried for her safety  now that she was on her own we were waiting   for something to happen shall we put it that  way uh we the girls and I were used to discuss   things like that you and you know it was often  said among the crowd she's got to be careful you know I I think that perhaps the only place she  knew if she wanted any Recreation was that place   along there by the White Rock and uh they all knew  her of course because she used to go in with him a   lot now whether anyone tagged on to her that's the  only explanation I could give I'm sure that could   be [Music] it we do know that after the murder  of Clare leford on the 19th of January 1998 Dy   became very concerned about her own safety and  in fact she even told officers who were making   inquiries in local properties around the murder  of Clare leford that she felt quite vulnerable and   unsafe as a result of what had happened to CLA  so it is quite obvious that Dorney was feeling   frightened and intimidated and exactly a week  after CLA was was murdered Dy was visited by Gram fiser we believe that gram fiser  listened at the door of D's flat   listening to as to who was in that  property before he forced his way in tried to strangle her and set fire to her [Music] He Set Fire To Her by uh paper  and some clothing being put onto her   body setting fire to it and leaving the [Music] premises the fire brigade were called and again it was  immediately obvious that this was a murder   scene and a further second murder inquiry  began in that last week of January in 1998 well as I said initially straight away from  pulling up outside literally before I even   got off the fire plance and I could see um  the other crime scene the flat layout is   two bedrooms as I recall uh as you went in the  flat door um which was open um when the first   cruise uh went in so they didn't have force  entry the flat was open when I went into the   bedroom um Barrel was laid flat on the back uh  with a head furthest from the door uh towards   the window it's quite a small bedroom with a  bed it was quite untidy um there's a lot of   newspapers on the floor um magazines um and  I remember Barrel was laid with a head away   from the door feet towards the door um her  clothing was quite disheveled uh skirt was a   bit down and one of her uh Footwear was off I  think it was um like a slipper um and she was   burnt mainly on the right hand side and around  her rer tors so and face which was quite black   and rened from the fire and her left hand I  believe uh was raised above her head and her   right hand was down so she was clearly deceased  the smoke was starting to clear we could see that barrrel died as a result of strangulation  not of smoke inhalation I can only assume uh it   was in grah Fisher's mind that if he could  uh destroy the scene it would cover up his   crime of murder um is quite common in in  cases of arson where a body is involved   that they think by uh setting fire to a  place they could well destroy evidence   but unfortunately for gra Fisher that the  the fire wasn't of sufficient intensity to   destroy any any evidence uh the flat the  actual bedroom itself suffered some minor   fire damage smoke damage uh and the rest  of the flat suffered very min will smoke damage it was clear that there was some form of  link between these two murders because the bodies   were left in such a distinctive fashion and such  a distinctive way that the same person had to be   involved in both his first victim he killed and  then he set fire to her flat and interestingly he   did exactly the same with his second victim and  what's also unusual about this case is that both   victims lived within 100 yards or so of each  other so's a very small Killing Zone most most   Killers have a quite a wide range of killing it  Zone to start with and as they get more and more   confident they get nearer to home but he seems  to have kill very close to home and close to both victims the proximity of the murders in both  time and place was unheard of in a town such   as Hastings it generated an understandable sense  of fear among the locals oh it was awful I mean   everybody was shocked um when we heard about  the first murder was just awful um and then   to hear of another one a few days later it was  just nobody could believe it it just I mean it   just things like that just didn't happen  on the the morning of uh murder uh I was   listening to the radio and it came over that  there was a a murder in this these flags and   you know it really went through my mind oh my God  I hope Dawn's safe oh I was horrified absolutely   horrified she didn't deserve to end her have  her life ended in that way because she was   she was too kind she was too sweet everyone she  met she used to call Sweet everyone was sweetie   to her hello sweetie that was her greeting you  know so she didn't deserve to be murdered like that barely a few days after fiser had killed  indeed strangled and burnt barel o Conor he   was to attack again but this time with the more  obviously sexual motive in a train from Hastings   to Charing Cross in London he traps a Czech  student in the toilet now this is a massive   man 1819 Stone a monstrous creature what the  poor girl must have suffered is unimaginable   what is absolutely clear however is  that Fisher didn't kill her perhaps   she put up too much of a fight perhaps  he left the attack too late because what   happened was her blooded but still alive  body was found by a train guard in the toilet grah Fisher attacked the 19-year-old  language student on the Hastings to Charing   Cross main Railway line he attacked her very  soon after it had left Hastings railway station   and disturbingly probably when it was passing  the back Garden of CLA leford lower basement   flat who he had murdered just a few days  beforehand on the 19th of January 1998 he   had said that he saw a very attractive young  student sitting close by to him when he was   was on the train and she moved to the toilet  cubicle soon after it left the platform he   forced his way into the toilet cubicle and  initiated what can only be described as a   frighteningly violent sexually driven attack on  that young woman he was so violent to her that she   subsequently suffered a stroke and has suffered  physically and mentally since that [Music] time she was unconscious for many weeks and he  had stamped on her her head uh trying to crush   it she suffered a deicated joy as a result  of that particular aspect of the attack he   sexually assaulted her and she was not found in  that toilet cubicle until the train was returning   South having been to Charing Cross and she was  found when the train arrived at orpington and   the police and ambulance were called and there  was blood all around the toilet cubicle and it   was thought at one stage that she was dead the  two killings he actually carried out were both   in Flats he then later on attacks a woman on on  a train and it's clearly sexually motivated to   do it and it's quite interesting because it's a  different type of crime the first two he's gone   in he's been in control now he's taking a lot more  risk on a train where there more people could stop   him and also uh he could be caught by by being  stuck on the train but he's clearly not worried   about that he's seen an opportunity pushing  her into the toilet trying to rape her he's   done that because he's seen the opportunity  so he's impulsive and that makes him [Music] dangerous within a few months of  his attack Fischer was to attack   again this time he sexually assaults two  Spanish students holding a knife to their   throats it was that attack in May that  was finally to see Fisher incarcerated   but and it is a significant but he was never  convicted of the murders that he had already   committed in Hastings that was to remain a  mystery that was unsolved for several years [Music] grah Fisher has been arrested for the  sexual assault of two Spanish students in eastborn   he tells the investigators chillingly she looked  really scared but this really turned me on he is   imprisoned for the attack and after 3 years is  transferred from an ordinary prison to the secure   Hospital Broadmore because and I quote he is  regarded as immensely dangerous for him ever to be released it takes him a further 7  years to confess to the crimes that   he really should have been convicted  of originally the murder cold blooded   brutal killing of two vulnerable  lonely women neighbors of his in Hastings he also confesses to the attack on  a Czech student on a train from Hastings to   Charing Cross and even worse perhaps a further  rape this time in his native Bromley there is   something utterly chilling about the nature of  that confession I am absolutely certain in my   own mind that he did it simply so that he could  remain in Broadmore in the cushier conditions he   knew perfectly well when he was finally to  stand trial for the murders that the judge   would take his confession into account and he  hoped and I believed cynically manipulatively   decided that that was his chance to stay in the  comfortable conditions of Broadmore rather than   suffer the indignities and pressures of  a more ordinary straightforward [Music] prison in my opinion it was a mixture of a number  of things why gr and Fisher started to talk to   us at that time we do know that he was being  considered uh for being being uh put back into   the prison population uh before a future release  so that was a factor that was weighing on his mind   um he was certainly seen uh by himself and the  staff as as a very uh important uh character uh in   the community at Broadmore uh he'd set himself up  uh as such uh and he got a lifestyle there where   he was uh in a warm comfortable place four meals  a day um and I think a small element of protection   from the community um because there was a very  faint Trace in his interviews and confessions   uh of regret not very much but enough to for him  to feel probably that if he went back outside uh   into the community at large he would commit  further crimes and serious crimes so I think   there's probably a little bit of ground Fisher  that was saying you know don't go back outside   and and one way of of doing that was obviously  talk to the police about the serious cases uh   uh that he' had already been involved in when  people like that are actually incarcerated and   they then start making confessions about other  murders other attacks other assaults sometimes   that can be seen as again this wanting to leave  this longlasting Legacy that it's a desire to be   needed to be wanted to be viewed by the public  as a monster um it's creating that the the full   package the full image normally serial killers  or murderers or sexual deviants or killers of   any description they don't normally come out and  confess to their own crimes I've interviewed an   awful lot of killers and they're very very rare  that they will come out number one that they'll   want to talk about their own crimes because they  they feel quite not guilty but they don't want to   go there they'd only be judged on things in the  past because nine times out of 10 they've denied it when you look at his profile this man has all  the makings of somebody who has done this before   and I think there'll be many more if he's further  investigating many more victims can be linked to   this individual Graham Fisher could fairly be  described as a monster he killed vulnerable   lonely women without any remorse except finally  to try and get himself a comfortable life in   Broadmore I feel nothing but contempt for this  23 Stone monster who presumably grown fat on   the takeaway pizzas that are part of the regular  diet for patients or should I say prisoners in   Broadmore to add insult to injury he then had a  gastric band fitted at the price to the taxpayer   of a mere £15,000 Fisher is a cynical manipulative  monster for whom no one should have the slightest sympathy certainly everything that I know about  Graham fiser from when he was a young man until   now uh is that he would continue to offend  uh he would be a very very real and present   danger to people people uh and he's one of  those people uh that you come across in your   investigative experience with the police from  time to time that you really really hope will   never be released uh and that spending the rest  of his time uh in confinement uh is not only   best for him to stop him uh reoffending  but also uh best for the community at Large Graham Fischer is without doubt the most  dangerous man I have ever dealt with he   presents the most significant danger to women of  any offender that I have dealt with and I have   experienced a number of murder inquiries  and led a number of murder inquiries and   he is an extremely dangerous individual who  presents an existing and ongoing threat to   women and that's why I believe that the words  of Justice Keith the trial judge when he said   that you could expect to spend many decades  in prison is absolutely correct I'm sure he will when fiser finally confesses in a cynical  attempt to make sure he goes back to Broadmore   he says oh it was because it's so hard to  live with it in my head what complete clap trap He makes himself feel like a  victim but what about what about the   Dreadful killings of those two innocent  vulnerable lonely women Fisher is no   kind of victim Fisher is a monster  and should be dismissed exactly as [Music] such join me Jeffrey wall next time  for more murders by the sea [Music]

Channel: Banijay Crime - Crime Documentary

Views: 28,406

Keywords: beach town killings, bizarre crimes, british crime series, coastal crimes, crime documentary, documentary, graham fisher, hastings, hastings murders, murder by the sea, seaside murders, seaside resorts, serial killers, true crime documentary, unsolved mysteries, hasting murders documentary, graham fisher documentary, murders of graham fisher, hastings serial killer, graham fisher case, clare letchford, beryl o'connor, crimes of graham fisher, graham fisher crimes

Id: Qr-QTBXWhnM

Length: 45min 37sec (2737 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 21 2024