December 9, 1959 - John Martin Scripps
Scripps operated in a realm of particular vulnerability, targeting tourists in transit — people with no local connections, whose disappearances might take time to register. The method of concealment was systematic enough to earn a grim nickname from investigators, and the geographic spread of his crimes across Southeast Asia complicated jurisdictional response. His arrest came only because he returned to Singapore, placing himself within reach of the authorities investigating a murder he had already committed there.
From Wikipedia
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.
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