John Straffen: Child Serial killer with an IQ of 64, escaped prison to kill again.

Straffen was born on 27th February 1930 in Bordon Camp in Hampshire.An army barracks in the south of England around 50 miles from London, his father John senior was serving in the British army then. John spent the first two years growing up in the barracks alongside his 2 older siblings. In 1932 John’s father was posted to British-ruled India in Khumbathang. Not much is known about the Staffen's life during this time they however returned to England in March 1938, his father was discharged from the army and settled in Bath an idyllic English city, famous for its namesake Roman baths.  A few months after returning to the UK Joh c  cn did not waste time being a nuisance to his disciplinary father and doting mother, these boyish exuberances that most may right off landed John age 7 in front of a juvenile court for stealing a purse, he was sentenced to two years probation—a chance given by the courts to buck up his ideas. This was the start of John’s hatred of authority.  

During this time, John’s probation officer noticed something off about young Straffen. He struggled with right and wrong, the limits of his probation sentencing, and struggled to adhere to the rules laid out as part of his sentence. The Straffen’s lived in crowded lodgings, these modest homes could have upwards of 3 families stuffed into one house, because of this John’s mother has no time to keep an eye on her troublesome 7-year-old.The probation officer took it on himself to try to get this misguided young man some help. An honest good thing to do, he took John to a psychiatrist in Bath town. The psychiatrist ran a series of tests on John, and he found him to struggle with many basic tasks well below other boys in his age bracket. This term is now outdated but he was certified as a “Mental defective”. When he was ten John was subjected to an IQ test putting his IQ at 58. This is equivalent to a mental age of six years old.

Shortly after this John was taken to St Joseph’s in Sambourne Warwickshire a school for “mentally defective children” This school was 90 miles from his parents during the height of World War Two. 

A scary enough proposition for any young child, 119 ‘high grade, mentally defective boys’ joined John in the wall of St Joseph’s. From my research, it was been quoted that violence was normalized in the walls of the school, fro  m the other boys to each other but also from the teachers. Often smaller boys unable to fight would go hungry as the bigger bullies would snatch food. Silence was the most important thing at St. Joseph’s so grassing on your bullies would have been a mandate for extreme punishment and isolation. John spent two years there before moving to Besford Court a school nearby. Other students paid little notice to John a strange child who preferred to spend time by himself in his own world and rarely made himself known to the other kids in the playground. John however did make himself infamous in the school for being suspected of strangling two geese. He left at age 16 with no qualifications, an estimated IQ of 64, and a mental age of 9 years old. Through-out his time here it was noted that John’s issues with authority we frequent and the few time he spoke up was in pure objection of being told what to do by an adult.John returned to the only place he knew Bath, where he took several small jobs. He was still provided certification from doctors as mentally deficient. John eventually found a job in a clothing factory as a machinist. Straffen at this time started breaking into unoccupied homes and stealing items from themIn July 1947 John’s crimes escalated with the assault of a 13-year-old girl. Placing his hand over her mouth and looking deep into her eyes and saying “What would you do if I killed you? I have done it before.” The girl ran home to her father saying a boy named John had grabbed her and spoken horrible words to her. Police at the time were unable to connect the crime to Strafffen only later being linked. Shortly after John further tormented the girl and her family by strangling 5 chickens in their  garden. He was arrested for burglary and confessed in his police interview.  He was remanded in custody and sent to Hortham Colony in Bristoll due to his diagnosis under the Mental Deficiency Act.Hortham was an “open” colony a prison that specialized in the rehabilitation of mentally disabled offenders. As his crime was only burglary he was designated by doctors as “Not of violent or dangerous propensities”  Much like his time in school he was an isolated individual and behaved well enough to get a transfer to a lower security hostel in Winchester.  Here however he struggled, being caught stealing walnuts and sent back to Hortham colony. The troubles continued when he went home to Bath without leave and resisted the police when they went to pick him up. This led to 1951, when John was e cxamined at Bristol Hospital by a specialist in a new technology   Electroencephalography or EEG. A recording of spontaneous electrical activity of the brain is used today for epilepsy diagnosis. The readings showed that John had suffered severe damage to his cerebral cortex. It is theorized this is from his time in India with his father at age 6, contracting encephalitis.John was given leave and went home to bath getting a job at local farm. Hortham Colony gave over John to his mother as the house had become less crowded and she was able to provide some supervision to John. At this time John’s mental age was assessed to be 10 years old. On the morning of the assessment a 7 year old girl Christine Butcher of Windsor had headed into the town centre to get a glimpse of her hero Sugar Ray Robinson ahead of his fight with Randy Turpin. Sugar Ray was staying at the Star and Garter hotel. Christine had planned to join the throngs of crowds and even brought her favourite doll to show him as she believed it looked like him.But Christine would not make it to see her idol and wa s found by local police just near the Royal family residency Windsor Castle at the time Sugar Ray was knocked out in what was considered a major upset by Randy Turpin. Christine had been raped and strangled with the belt of her raincoat she had last been seen wearing before she vanished. Her doll was found nearby. This led to the largest-ever investigation for the county of Berkshire and a media frenzy with Sugar Ray been quoted as saying 

"I am very sorry about this – if I had known she wanted to see me, her daddy could have brought her in and then this never would have happened.”

The public outrage at a  lack of justice by the police was noticed by Straffen who noted that the strangling of young girls sure did cause a lot of trouble for the police. The police who since his childhood had been the epitome of the authority he had despised, from his time in school to prison. He knew what he could do to cause the chaos.On 15 July 1951, John went to catch the latest picture at the cinema Shockproof starring Cornel Wilde and his then-wife Patricia Knight. On his way to the cinema he passed by number 1 Camden Crescent where 5-year-old Brenda Goddard gathered flowers, maybe for her foster parent who she lived with. Straffen lured the girl from the safety of her home as he said he knew a place with the most beautiful flowers. Brenda agreed and John lifted her over the garden fence on to a tree stump she fell hitting he head on a near by rock. She was knocked unconscious and at this point John saw his sick opportunity to cause trouble for the police he despised. Much like Christine Butcher in Windsor, he strangled Brenda. Making no attempt to hide the body for it to be discovered by a passerby as he continued his way to the cinema and then returned home.  Straffen was considered a suspect immediately however not a top suspect as he had shown no sign of a violent nature. He was interviewed and questioned, the police even went to his workplace to try and gain an idea of his movements. This led to John being fired from his job at the farm.  Two weeks later August 8th John went to the same cinema he gone to after his previous murder and met 9-year-old Cicely Batston. He coerced her to join him at another cinema with promises of the best films in town. Cicely followed him, getting on the bus and getting off at the outskirts of Bath. Again John strangled Cicely making no effort to hide he body. Suspicions were immediately pointed towards John even before the body was discovered as people had seen John leading the young girl around, the bus conductor, the young couple in the adjacent field, and even a policeman's wife noted it as strange and alerted her husband and led him straight to 9-year-old Cicely’s body.John was immediately arrested the same morning and admitted to the murder of Cicely and 

Nonchalantly confessed to the murder of Brenda Goddard “The other girl, I did her the same”

At Taunton Assize Court, on 17 October 1951, Straffen stood trial for murder before Mr Justice Oliver. However, the only witness to be heard was Peter Parkes, medical officer at Horfield Prison, who testified to Straffen's medical history and stated his conclusion that Straffen was unfit to plead. Oliver commented, 

"In this country we do not try people who are insane. You might as well try a baby in arms. If a man cannot understand what is going on, he cannot be tried." 

The jury formally returned a verdict that Straffen was insane and unfit to plead.Straffen was interred at the notorious Broadmoor Hospital a former insane asylum

Straffen took a job as a cleaner in Broadmoor and was given a relative amount of freedom because of this and used it to his advantage to escape on 29th April 1952 John scaled the ten-foot wall by climbing on the roof of a shed and jumping to freedom and to seek out more chaos.

He stripped his prison uniform to reveal his civilian clothes, making his way unabated to Farley Hill 7 miles from Broadmoor. During this time he came across 5-year-old Linda Bowyer on a spring bike ride around the neighborhood. John would attack, strangle, and kill Linda. Before being recaptured.Bowyer's body was discovered the next morning, police questioned John with him claiming “I did not kill that little girl on the bicycle!” The police had not mentioned the bicycle and news had not reached the public or other members of Broadmoor staff.He was charged with Linda’s murder and held in Brixton prison as Broadmoor was seen as unfit to hold him due to his recent escape. The trial led to Straffen being deemed mentally fit as he understood that murder was wrong as according to him it “was one of the commandments”.  The jury heard all the evidence and retired for one hour returning a verdict of guilty as well as John Straffen as sane. The Judge sentenced John to death. John made numerous appeals against the verdict and all were dismissed. The date of execution was set for September 4th but was reprieved by the Queen John was moved to Wandsworth Prison in 1952. In 1956 John was moved to Horfield after officers had discovered an escape attempt by prisoners who intended to take Straffen with them and unleash him on the local area to serve as a distraction as they escaped.

While in Horfield John shared the prison with former politician Peter Baker, who was quoted as saying on John

 “ , being much taller than anyone else and wearing distinctive clothing for a special watch prisoner () “long, emaciated, miserable figure" looked "like a dying butterfly or a caged animal"In 1968 John was transferred to Durham Prison’s top security E-wing where he was housed alongside Ian Brady rime author Jonathan Goodman wrote that "the shambling lunatic [Straffen] … is in prison only because no mental institution is secure enough to guarantee his confinement. “Many years later, a prison officer recalled seeing Straffen "circling, banging the fence every couple of minutes" and that one fellow officer described him as aloof and hostile: "Never talks unless he has to ask for something. Always on his own” During Straffens time in prison the Home Secretary had to agree to the release of any prisoner serving a life sentence, not a single Home Secretary was willing to even fathom the idea of John Straffen being released. In 1994 the then-home secretary Micheal Howard complied a list of 20 prisoners who would never ever be released under any circumstances due to their danger to the public. Straffen was on that list.Straffen died in Frankland Prison in country Durham age 77 in November 2007 after serving 55 years,3 months, and 26 days, or a total of 20,206 days.