John Duffy biography

Synopsis

Early Life

John Duffy was a brutal rapist and killer who struck lone women at railway stations throughout the southeast of England and London.

He was at first thought to have carried out his heinous crimes alone and was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders. But police were sure that Duffy had an accomplice.

Only after 15 years did the advances of forensic science allow authorities to arrest David Mulcahy, a childhood friend of Duffy, who was eventually convicted.

Today Mulcahy still maintains his innocence, insisting that Duffy implicated him in the murders.

John Duffy and David Mulcahy had been lifelong friends since their days together at school in north London.

They both shared an early sadistic streak for tormenting and torturing animals starting with a hedgehog, which Mulcahy beat to death with a plank when he was just 13.

As they got older the boys began to transfer their sadistic and misogynistic tendencies to women, fuelling each other's dark sexual fantasies.

It is baffling to understand how a young friendship could have degenerated into a secret life of violence, rape, and murder. One theory is that bullying, which both Mulcahy and Duffy endured as schoolboys, may have been a key factor in driving them to rape and kill.

Whatever the trigger, the two boys had developed a severely psychotic side to their personalities at an early age. As he grew older, Duffy married and became a martial arts fanatic.

Their brutal crimes began on July 1, 1982, when the pair attacked and violently raped a 23-year-old woman in north London. Over the next four years 18 more women would be attacked.

Despite John Duffy's police record—he assaulted his wife and was found carrying a knife - he was still able to carry out a string of sexual assaults and commit two murders over a 15 month period.

Crimes

On July 1, 1982, Duffy and Mulcahy attacked and raped a woman close to Hampstead Station in London's Hampstead village.

The assault gave the two psychopaths a taste for terrorizing women in similar scenarios and for the next 12 months women were assaulted across London and its suburbs.

In all, 18 women were raped near various train stations, as well as in an area close to Duffy's Kilburn house.

The police set up an urgent workshop to try to find the perpetrators, called Operation Hart. It was the largest investigation to take place in the U.K. since the Yorkshire Ripper investigation a few years earlier.

In Autumn 1983 the attacks suddenly stopped. Police later found out that this coincided with Duffy's separation from his wife.

Early in 1984 the attacks began again, this time in west London and north London.