John Martin Scripps The Tourist from Hell and his Horrific Crimes in Asia (and possibly more..?)
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The Case of John Martin Scripps
Childhood
John Martin Scripps was born on December 9th, 1959, in Letchworth, Hertfordshire of the United Kingdom. His mother was Jean Scripps, who would stay home and take care of his sister, Janet. His father was Leanard Scripps who was a truck driver. John would accompany his father on his trucking trips, and he grew very close to his father. Unfortunately, when John was only nine years old, his father committed suicide which left John and his sister with their mother. After this John started developing dyslexia which affected his reading and writing skills and he eventually dropped out of high school at the age of 15. At this point John started traveling. He would find odd jobs wherever he travelled and sometimes found and sold antiques to fund his adventures.
Young at Crime
Also, at the age of 15 John was convicted of burglary, his first ever crime. He was given 12 months of conditional discharge and paid a fine of 10 euros which converted and translated to USD is $35.46 in 2023. Since he was given this conditional discharge, he wasn’t formally convicted because the judge didn’t see it as anything major. The charge would also be expunged after the conditions of the discharge were met. However, he wasn’t deterred, because he was caught stealing 3 more times by August of 1976. In 1978, he was convicted of indecent assault and only fined 40 euros which converted and translated to USD is only $120.57 in 2023. Now in 1980, John was traveling in Mexico and met a young lady, named Maria Pilar Arellanos and they soon got married. They travelled together for 2 years but John was arrested and convicted of theft, burglary and resisting arrest and was imprisoned for 3 years. John was given home leave and just 2 months before he was set to be released, John decided to make a break for it. Home release or a furlough is when inmates get to go home and come back to prison periodically, depending on different circumstances. He was quickly recaptured and sentenced to three more years for burglary. His wife had enough and divorced him and she then married a Police Constable Ken Cold. John was not happy about this and harassed them and even stole some of Ken’s clothes on home leave. I can’t believe he was granted home leave again honestly. Maria eventually divorced Ken and moved back to her hometown. John was then released after serving his full three years and legally changed his name to John Martin.
Drugs and Time in Prison
Now after this John started selling drugs and trafficking them from Asia to Europe. He was arrested for possession at Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom. The authorities searched him and found a key which went to a safety deposit box which contained 1 and a half kilos or 3.3 pounds of heroin which in today's money is worth about one million dollars. He was sentenced to 7 years in London in January of 1988. However, he escaped jail in 1990 and evaded police 2 months later at the airport by giving them an alias name. In November that year he was found and arrested and was sentenced to 6 more years bringing the total to 13. He was in jail for 4 years and quickly became a model prisoner. He started taking the basic jobs like washing dishes and general cleaning and eventually started doing butchery. He was trained by two other prisoners, James Quigley his advisor and another known as “Gingey” who was a professional butcher. John was shown how to dismember the animals and remove the meat from the bones. John loved it so much he ever told other inmates he wanted to open his own butchery when he got out. On August 20th, 1993, John was transferred to a different prison. John sold all his belongings in preparation for his escape at this point. John applied for parole but was denied, but he was somehow granted home leave 2 days later and ran away. His mother told the authorities not to release him, but they did anyway. She gave her son 200 euros to flee the country. While in prison John obtained a birth certificate of a fellow inmate, which he used to obtain a passport under the name Simone Jean Davis. A month later he made it into Mexico. He then walked into the British Embassy, claimed he lost his passport and obtained another one with his name, John Martin. On March 8th, 1995, John arrived in Singapore.
Singapore and The Murder of the Gerald Lowe
When John arrived in Singapore, he met Gerald Lowe and struct up a conversation with the man. They formed some kind of bond, and they agreed to share a room at the River View Hotel and split the expense. Now Gerald Lowe is a South African Tourist who was visiting Singapore to purchase some electronical goods. He was married to Vanessa Lowe, and he worked as a chemical engineer with South African Breweries which is a major spot in his hometown. The two then went and rented out a twin bed hotel room, 1511, which cost them 70 euros which converted and translated to USD is about $124.69 in 2023. When they got into the room, John quickly got his hammer and repeatedly hit Gerald in the head with it until he was dead. He then dragged Geralds body into the bathroom where he used a 6-inch deboning knife to disarticulate his body, meaning he cut Gerald at the major joints. Two legs, two thighs, one torso, two arms and one head. We don’t know if he cut him at the elbows since the head and arms were never found. But after this, John went to the front desk receptionist to tell her to remove Gerald’s name from the room since John had kicked him out over homosexuality and advances. No questions asked, Gerald last known location was erased from the records. John then went and withdrew 6 thousand dollars from Gerald’s bank account at a shopping center. That night he went and enjoyed a show at the Singapore Symphany Orchestra using Geralds money. Over the next few days John withdrew 2,400 more dollars from Geralds account. With this money he bought himself an 80-dollar pair of Nike Alpha Training shoes and mailed his sister a 490-dollar video recorder. On March 11th at 6:45 am, John was seen by security carrying a large suitcase and was seen again 15 minutes later without the suitcase. He later met with a Thomas Cook Travel Agent to arrange the transfer of eight thousand five hundred dollars in cash and an additional five thousand to be converted to travelers checks to a San Francisco based bank account under the name of ‘John Martin’. He was informed the transfer would take a few days, so John decided to purchase a plane ticket to Phuket, Thailand for 485 dollars in cash and left that day by 7pm. On March 13th, 1995, after John fled Singapore, Gerald’s legs were found floating in plastic bags off Clifford Pier. Authorities could only see it was a Caucasian man. On March 16th, three days later a pair of thighs and a torso were found off the same pier. Gerald was supposed to return home on March 12th, so his wife Venessa filed a missing person report in South Africa where they live. This report was just reaching the Singapore authorities and they suspected the body parts belonged to Gerald. The police there wanted to keep this under wraps though as to not alert the killer of the discovery. On April 1st, 1995, Vennessa Lowe positively Identified the body parts as her husbands. Professor Chao Tzee Cheng, the senior forensic pathologist was unable to determine a cause of death since there was no head or arms and there were no major injuries on the parts he had. He did say that the dismemberment looked professional, assuming the killer was a butcher, a doctor or some kind of surgeon.
Thailand and the Murders of the Damude’s
Now, as John was flying to Phuket, he sat in a row on the plane along with Shelia Mae Damude and her son, Darin Damude. Shelia was born on May 22nd, 1945, and was an administrator at the Pacific Christian School in Victoria on the southern tip of Vancouver Island in Canada. She traveled to Bangkok to meet her son Darin for his spring break. Darin was born on November 13th, 1972, and was 22 years old at this time. He waited for his mother so they could fly to Phuket together. This is where they sat with John Martin, going under the alias name Simone Davis still. John struck up a conversation with Darin and Shelia and gained their trust. Once there, they purchased hotel rooms which were right across the hall from each other at Nilly’s Marina Inn facing Patong Beach. The next morning the Demudes were seen eating the hotel breakfast and this was the last time they were ever seen again. John later asked the receptionist to switch his room to the Damude’s claiming that they had left and that he would pay for their bill. On March 19th, 1995, John checked out of the hotel and flew back to Singapore to try and finish the money transfer from Gerald’s account with the Thomas Cook agent. On that same day, both of the Damude’s heads were found located inside of a tin mine and five days later, two arms, two legs, and a torso were found along the side of a road, 9.7 kilometers or 6 miles away from where the heads were discovered. Because the bodies were so badly decomposed, they had to be identified through dental records. The body parts were found to be Shelia’s and the rest of Darin’s body has never been found.
Arrest
Upon arriving at the Changi Airport in Singapore on March 19th, John was arrested. John tried to get out of it by showing the authorities his alias passport for Simone Davis, but that was the name that was on the watch list, since that’s the name he used to check into the hotel room with Gerald Lowe. He was detained at the airport. He attempted to break a window and cut his wrists to avoid getting hung. He had this fear since he saw that Flor Contemplacion was hanged two days prior as a sentence for double homicide. He was then taken to Alexandra Hospital in Queenstown for treatment. The police found two passports for Simone Davis, Shelia and Darin Damude’s passports and Gerald Lowes passport along with his own personal one with his legal name, John Martin. All of these had John’s picture glued to them. They also found credit cards belonging to Gerald and Shelia and the birth certificate of Simone Davis, his inmate friend. They also found John’s murder kit with him. This included a hammer weighing 3.3 lbs. or 1.5 kilograms, a Z-Force III, an electric shock weapon, a can of mace, two pairs of handcuffs, a pair of thumb-cuffs, two Police brand foldable knives, an oilstone to sharpen his knifes and two Swiss Army knives. Bringing some of these items alone into Singapore is illegal.
Trial
So, John was taken to the courthouse and charged under the name of Simone Davis for forging Geralds signature on his credit card to obtain the 6 thousand dollars he stole on March 9th. Three days later he was charged under his actual name John Martin with the murder of Gerald Lowe. John also faced additional charges of forgery for writing Geralds Signature to acquire merchandise. Also, vandalism for smashing the airport window, possession of an offensive weapon, the Z-Force taser, and possession of a controlled substance for having 24 sticks or grams of cannabis. He returned to trial on September 18th, 1995, for a preliminary hearing. The prosecution prepared a substantial amount of evidence against John; over 100 photographs, 39 witnesses testifying, and more than 100 exhibits. The Magistrate, watching over this inquiry, ordered John to return to court and stand trial for the Murder of Gerard Lowe on October 2nd, 1995.
John claimed that Gerald tried to touch his butt while he was sleeping and when John woke up, all Gerald had on was his underwear. John was startled now thinking that Gerald was homosexual. John said he kicked Gerald away before Gerald threw the hammer at John. John then picked up his hammer and started hitting him in the head repeatedly. He then claimed he met his friend at the Sentosa Hotel where he confessed to the accidental murder. His friend then went to the hotel to dispose of the body in the river. He then travelled around in a dream like state saying quote "I am not sure what was the next thing I did ... everything was such a blur to me after this incident that I was walking around in a dream world for the next few days." When asked who his friend was John said quote "I cannot tell you his identity because if he knew he would harm my family back in Britain." But John did say he was a drug trafficker around 40 years old that he met smuggling drugs in the 1980’s. John then agreed to meet his friend again on March 15th in Phuket to obtain the Damude’s passports claiming he never met them. When asked about being a butcher John stated quote “I may have worked in the (prison) butchery but cutting up a human body is another thing. When I saw the photographs (of Lowe's body parts), it made me feel sick.” John doubled down with his story of self-defense claiming he freaked out because he’s had to fend off sexual attacks in prison, twice, once in Israel in 1988 and once in England 1994. When the deputy Public Prosecutors Jennifer Marie and Norul Rashid asked him what he had done after the killing of Gerald, John stated that he couldn’t remember much, and that he drank heavily and consumed Valium. He kept medicating himself until he was arrested. Stating again that he didn’t kill the Damude’s and he only came back to Singapore to clear his conscious.
The prosecution then started poking holes. They cast doubt on his ‘inability’ to recall certain events since he had very neat handwriting replicas of the Damude’s signatures on the memo pad in Phuket. They also challenged that the friend never existed, using a receipt John signed on the night of March 8th which was when John said he met up with this friend. John tried to recalibrate and said that he only tried calling his friend that night. He called the Beaufort hotel and the Shrangri La Rasa Resort, two hotels he thought his friend was staying at. However, he was informed his friend wasn’t in either. When looking at his itemized hotel bill, they confirmed he did call both these hotels but on March 10th not March 8th as he’s claiming. His friend then supposedly called him back that evening to say he moved to a different hotel in Marina Centre in downtown Singapore. He supposedly couldn’t remember if it was the Marina Mandarin, the Oriental, or the Pan Pacific hotel. So, because of this information, the Assistant Superintendent Gerald Lim and his team acquired the names of all single male guests who checked in or out from all five hotels on the date of March 10th, 1995. Producing a list of 150 men who checked out of the Beaufort and Shangri La Rasa Sentosa Resort on the day in question. Then these names were cross examined with the names of those who checked into the three Marina Centre hotels. Mr. Lim testified that none of the names overlapped in the registry of the hotels, but he did agree with the defense lawyer's observation the ‘friend’ of John Martin could've used different names for different hotels and in that case the results would be inconclusive. Two statements were made from hotel chambermaids who described a strange smell in the room where John and Gerald were staying, room 1511, when they cleaned the room between March 9th and 11th. Then the hotel security guard said he saw John leave the hotel in the early hours of March 11th with a large suitcase and return 15 minutes later without the suitcase. These statement backed the prosecution's theory that the body of Gerald was left in the room for several days until he disposed of the body on the 11th. They presumed that John murdered Gerald to swindle him, and it was not an act of self-defense. They then showed receipts from John’s shopping spree using Gerald’s credit card to rebut him walking around in a dream state as he claimed. John testified that he had previously taken photocopies of other peoples’ passports with his own photo affixed so he could attempt to cash their travelers' checks, which reinforced a financial motive for the murder. The Prosecution called attention to the similar factual evidence between the murders of the Damude’s and Gerald. They invalidated John’s defense in saying he killed Gerald in self-defense by showing he receives financial gain from their deaths. These were the similarities.
John met Gerald at the Changi Airport and shared a taxi to the hotel
John met the Damude’s at Phuket Airport and shared a limo to the hotel
John and Gerald shared the same hotel room
John and the Damude’s were in adjacent hotel rooms
John testified to killing Gerald with a hammer
The Damude’s skulls were seriously fractured which could've been caused by a hammer
All three victims were expertly disarticulated
John kept all three victims credit cards; travelers checks and personal belongings
John forged Gerald’s signature on multiple documents
John practiced writings the Damude’s signatures
And John glued his photograph on all the victims' passports
Now with all of this, on November 7th, 1995, Judge T. S. Sinnathuray adjourned the trial for 3 days to debate his verdict. The judge found that the prosecution clearly dismissed John’s versions of events and found John Martin guilty of his crimes and sentenced him to death. The judge stated
“I'm satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Martin had intentionally killed Lowe. After that, he disarticulated Lowe's body into separate parts, and it was he who subsequently disposed of the body parts by throwing them into the river behind the hotel.
On the evidence, I had no difficulty to find that it was Martin who was concerned with the deaths of Sheila and Darin and for the disposal of their body parts found in different sites in Phuket. The disarticulation of the body parts of Lowe, Sheila and Darin have the hallmark signs of having been done by the same person. Altogether, this similar fact evidence reinforces the decision I have made, for it puts beyond doubt that Martin is guilty on the charge of murder.
The sentence of this court upon you is that you will be taken from this place to a lawful prison and taken to a place to be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul”
Awaiting Execution
With that John was taken to prison. On November 15th, 1995, John declared he would appear the sentence. However, 4 days before his appeal, which was scheduled for January 4th, 1996, he withdrew his request without explanation. He then turned down his last chance to live when he denied submitting a clemency petition to the President of Singapore saying he was impatient to be executed already.
In Jonh’s final days before he was schedule to be hanged, he had written a bunch of notes including love poems he wrote to his ex-wife. However, a lot of the notes had major misspellings and many grammar errors. The first line of one of the notes says, “One day poor, one day reach.” but you can look up the rest of the notes in your own time if you'd like.
A couple days before he had a dream about committing suicide and getting out of his penalty. He recalled this dream in another note. Here’s the last line of it. “I woke up in darkness and felt a heavy weight on my chest. I cried out, "Mummy, I am here.”
John was interviewed by a criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee 4 days before his execution and explained in detail how he murdered and dismembered Gerald Lowe. John’s mother’s final words on the situation were quote "Whoever he is now, he's the person the prison service trained him to be. These bastards have no right to take my son's life. I brought him into the world. I am the only person who can take him out of it."
Hanged by the Neck until Dead
And with that on April 19th, 1996, John ate his last meal consisting of a pizza and a hot chocolate. In that early morning he was heard crying in his cell. He resisted the guards, so they bound him with leather straps. He proceeded to shit his pants before getting dragged to the gallows. A hood was placed over his head and the noose around his neck. The trap door swung open, and he fell, breaking his neck. The executioner miscalculated the fall length and because of this John’s head was almost ripped off. He swung there along with 2 heroin traffickers who were also hanged with him. John’s body was taken and cremated. His remains were taken by a family member who spent the night with his ashes in the River View Hotel, where John murdered Gerald Lowe. His body was then scattered in England at an unknown location and with that his sentence was served.
Learn How to Cook John’s Last Meal Here
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