Mark Rowntree

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Mark Rowntree
Rowntree, pictured outside Leeds Crown Court, June 1976
Born
Mark Andrew Rowntree

1956
Bradford, West Yorkshire, England
OccupationBus conductor
Criminal statusIncarcerated at Rampton Secure Hospital
Motive
Conviction(s)Manslaughter (x4)
Criminal penaltyIndefinite detention within a psychiatric hospital
Details
Victims4
Span of crimes
31 December 1975
 – 7 January 1976
Date apprehended
7 January 1976

Mark Andrew Rowntree (born 1956) is a British spree killer who murdered four people in random knife attacks over a period of eight days in West Yorkshire, England in 1975 and 1976.

Rowntree's victims were typically chosen at random. All were stabbed to death within a ten-mile radius of his adopted parents' home in Guiseley, West Yorkshire.[1] His murders were motivated by a delusional belief that all women despised him, sourcing from a single instance of a woman rejecting his advances, in addition to a desire to surpass the total victim count of the then-recently arrested Black Panther.[2]

Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, Rowntree pleaded guilty to four counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility in June 1976. He was committed indefinitely to detention within Broadmoor Hospital, and is currently an inmate within Rampton Secure Hospital.[3]

Due to the timing and location of Rowntree's murders, two of his victims were erroneously assumed to have been killed by Peter Sutcliffe, who was known in the press at the time as the Yorkshire Ripper, which briefly distracted contemporary police enquiries.[4]

Early life[edit]

Mark Andrew Rowntree was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in 1956. He was the adopted son of a wealthy, middle-class couple and was raised in Guiseley, where he received a stable upbringing and a public school education.[5]

Rowntree's parents doted upon him and ensured he received a privileged upbringing. Upon completion of his secondary school education, his parents offered to pay for his university tuition fees; he rejected this offer and moved into lodgings in the town of Shipley. Shortly thereafter, he obtained employment as a bus conductor.[5]

Crimes[edit]

Grace Adamson[edit]

Rowntree committed his first murder on 31 December 1975. His first victim was an 85-year-old widow named Grace Edith Adamson, whom Rowntree observed sitting by her window inside her Bingley home. Rowntree knocked on Adamson's door, claiming to be a policeman; when Adamson opened her front door, Rowntree took a long-bladed commando-style knife from a bag he was carrying and stabbing the pensioner seven times in the chest, twice piercing her heart.[6]

After fleeing from the scene, Rowntree buried the murder weapon in a cemetery, then entered a pub in nearby Cross Flatts, where he washed Adamson's blood from his hands in the toilets before ordering a pint of beer. Adamson's body was discovered the following day.[7]

Stephen Wilson[edit]

On the afternoon of 3 January 1976, Rowntree purchased a new knife in Bradford. He then travelled via public transport to Sutton-in-Craven, before walking one mile to the nearby village of Eastburn, where he observed a teenage couple close to a fish and chip shop. Rowntree discreetly followed the couple from a distance, having resolved to kill one of the two. When the girl left her boyfriend—sixteen-year-old Stephen Anthony Wilson—standing alone at a bus stop and continued walking, Rowntree approached the boy and began stabbing him.[8]

Wilson managed to flee from his attacker after receiving three stab wounds to his chest and abdomen; he staggered to a nearby property, where the occupants summoned an ambulance. He later died in hospital, but provided police with a detailed description of his attacker: a white male, aged approximately twenty-two with black, shoulder-length hair and who was wearing a black jacket and carrying a backpack.[8]

Rowntree escaped from the crime scene by swimming across a river, then hitchhiking to a nearby taxi rank, where he ordered a taxi to take him to his lodgings in Shipley.[9]

Barbara and Alan Booth[edit]

Rowntree's final victims were 24-year-old part-time model and occasional prostitute Barbara Rose Booth—whom Rowntree had met via an advertisement she had placed in a contact magazine in 1975—and her three-year-old son, Alan. Having retained her phone number via their previous encounter, Rowntree contacted Booth to request her services, to which she agreed. He travelled by bus to her home in Greenhow Crescent, Burley, Leeds, on 7 January.[1]

Shortly after entering Booth's home, he stabbed the young woman eighteen times as they stood in her living room. As he prepared to leave the home, he observed Booth's three-year-old son cowering in a corner of the living room. Rowntree repeatedly stabbed the child to death—particularly around the neck.[10] He then buried the murder weapon before returning to his Shipley lodgings, where police were waiting to arrest and question him based on the physical description provided by Stephen Wilson and information provided by the taxi driver who had driven him from Eastburn to Shipley four days previous[8]

Arrest and confession[edit]

Upon his arrest, Rowntree confessed to all four murders, each of whom had been targeted to satiate what he termed "an urge to kill". He denied deriving any pleasure from his attacks and insisted they had been devoid of any motive.[1] Nonetheless, he did express regret at not having the opportunity to kill "just one more" victim in order to surpass the victim count of the Black Panther.[11]

Conviction[edit]

Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Rowntree pleaded guilty to four counts of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility at Leeds Crown Court on 9 June 1976.[12] His plea was accepted by the prosecution and he was ordered to be committed to Broadmoor psychiatric hospital for an indefinite period.[13]

Aftermath[edit]

In the years following his conviction, Rowntree has repeatedly changed his name; he has also been transferred to several different secure facilities. His most recent transferal dates from 2004, following a hearing at Teesside Crown Court which ruled he should be transferred from St Luke's Hospital to indefinite detention within a maximum-security unit at Rampton Secure Hospital. This ruling followed an incident in which Rowntree—then known as Mark Allan Evans—had repeatedly threatened to kill a social worker named Katherine Cogley, who had informed a mental health tribunal he holds no remorse for his crimes.[13][14]

There was no motive for any of the crimes. I should imagine that I am justifiably looked on with contempt by the public, but I did not get any satisfaction out of [my] dreadful actions ... I disgraced my dad and broke the hearts of the victims' relatives. They feel I am scum of the earth, but ... in that first week of 1976, something got control of my mind. I do not ever expect to be released. I do not expect compassion or forgiveness. What I did was morally unforgivable.

Section of Rowntree's written correspondence with a Telegraph & Argus reporter (2003).[15]

Rowntree had been incarcerated within St Luke's Hospital—a medium-security facility—for twelve years prior to his transferal back to Rampton (where he had been previously detained). Prior to this decision, he had been allowed to participate in periodic public outings—both supervised and unsupervised—to locations such as shopping centres in addition to a 1994 visit to Kielder Forest. These revelations caused a minor public outcry, forcing the Home Secretary to issue a public apology.[16]

Rowntree remains incarcerated within Rampton Secure Hospital.[17] He remains one of Britain's longest-serving patients detained within a psychiatric hospital, and is unlikely to be released.[14][18][19][11]

Within prison correspondence, Rowntree has himself repeatedly expressed no expectation of release, or of receiving forgiveness from the family members of his victims. By the 2000s, he had also expressed a desire to end his own life should the opportunity arise, stating to one reporter in 2003: "I just want to die and be erased from society's memory, of the embarrassment and inhuman individual I am."[15]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Lane & Gregg 1995, p. 322.
  2. ^ "Schizophrenic Killer Will Be Moved After Death Threats". The Northern Echo. Darlington, County Durham. 9 March 2004. Retrieved 14 May 2024.
  3. ^ "Serial Killer Locked Away Forever". Telegraph & Argus. Bradford, West Yorkshire. 5 March 2004. Retrieved 14 May 2024.
  4. ^ "Man, 19, Charged with Four Murders". The Birmingham Post. Birmingham, West Midlands. 9 January 1976. Retrieved 17 May 2024.
  5. ^ a b Lane & Gregg 1995, p. 323.
  6. ^ "Andrew Mark Rowntree: Murder of Grace Edith Adamson". The National Archives (United Kingdom). Retrieved 16 May 2024.
  7. ^ Wade 2005, p. 142.
  8. ^ a b c Wade 2005, p. 143.
  9. ^ Cross 1981, p. 23.
  10. ^ Cross 1981, p. 24.
  11. ^ a b Abrahams 2004, p. 273.
  12. ^ Cross 1981, pp. 24–25.
  13. ^ a b Mangold, Jessica (9 March 2004). "Judge Orders Killer to Leave Town". thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 17 May 2024.
  14. ^ a b "Mystery of Flowers on Murdered Boy's Grave". Telegraph & Argus. Bradford, West Yorkshire. 2 January 1999. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  15. ^ a b "I Will Find a Way to De, Says Killer". Telegraph & Argus. Bradford, West Yorkshire. 26 August 2003. Retrieved 19 May 2024.
  16. ^ Wade 2005, p. 144.
  17. ^ Langley, Robert (19 June 2017) [17 June 2017]. "The Terrifying Killers Treated at Rampton Hospital". Lincolnshire Live. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  18. ^ "Serial Killer Locked Away Forever". Telegraph & Argus. Bradford, West Yorkshire. 5 March 2004. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  19. ^ "'I Now Know They'll Never Release Me'". Telegraph & Argus. Bradford, West Yorkshire. 26 August 2003. Retrieved 21 June 2017.

Cited works and further reading[edit]

  • Abrahams, Ian (2004). Hawkwind: Sonic Assassins. London: SAF Publishing. p. 273. ISBN 978-0-946-71969-3.
  • Cobb, Richard Charles (2023). Convicting the Yorkshire Ripper: The Trial of Peter Sutcliffe. Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books. p. 163. ISBN 978-1-399-01190-7.
  • Dunning, John (1992). Mindless Murders. Great Britain: Mulberry Editions. ISBN 1-873-12333-7.
  • Cross, Roger (1981). The Yorkshire Ripper: The In-depth Study of a Mass Killer and His Methods. Hammersmith, London: Harper Collins Publishers. pp. 23–25. ISBN 978-0-586-05526-7.
  • Lane, Brian; Gregg, Wilfred (1995) [1992]. The Encyclopedia Of Serial Killers. New York City: Berkley Books. pp. 322–323. ISBN 978-0-747-23731-0.
  • Safarik, Mark; Ramsland, Katherine (2019). Spree Killers: Practical Classifications for Law Enforcement and Criminology. Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-72745-6.
  • Wade, Stephen (2005). Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths around Bradford. Barnsley: Wharncliffe Books. ISBN 1-903425-83-2.
  • Whittington-Egan, Richard; Whittington-Egan, Molly (1992). The Murder Almanac. Glasgow: Neil Wilson Publishing. ISBN 978-1-897-78404-4.
  • Wilson, Colin; Wilson, Damon (2007). The World's Most Evil Murderers: Real-Life Stories of Infamous Killers. Bath: Parragon Publishing. ISBN 978-1-405-48828-0.

External links[edit]

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