How psycho ‘Scalp Hunter’ killer painted death scenes & tortured families by taking horrific final details to the grave

IT was the most gruesome of discoveries – three children out fishing in London’s famous Regent’s Canal in February 2001 uncovered holdalls containing the dismembered body of Paula Fields. The 31-year-old laundry worker’s body, missing its head, hands, and feet, had been wrapped in plastic bags and stuffed into black bin liners, before being placed in holdalls and weighed down with bricks. American model Melissa Halstead, 33, had been dating John Sweeney when she died – her body was pulled from a canal in RotterdamCredit: Refer to Source Paula Fields, who was murdered by John Sweeney Credit: Rex Police issued appeals far and wide and, in 2010, linked Paula’s death to the murder of a woman in Rotterdam, Holland. American photographer and model Melissa Halstead, 33, had similarly been fished from the city’s Westersingel Canal in May 1990 – and, like Paula, she had been dismembered and was missing her head. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! There was a clear link between the two women – both had dated John Sweeney in the late 1980s and 1990s. In 2010, Dutch and British police joined forces to formally link the cases. In 2011, monster Sweeney, then 54, was convicted of two counts of murder after a trial at the Old Bailey. Read more in serial killers John Sweeney who has died at 69 and was convicted of murdering two women, plus the attempted murder of another Credit: Handout Delia Balmer was one of John Sweeney’s girlfriends. In 1994 he was subsequently convicted of her attempted murder. Credit: ITV Yesterday it was announced the 69-year-old – who dubbed himself “The Scalp Hunter” – died of cancer at HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire. Sickeningly, he took his final secret – the location of the women’s heads – to the grave. Sweeney also failed to confess or provide any information about other killings he was suspected of. These included the disappearances of three other former partners: a Derbyshire trainee nurse named Sue, a Brazilian woman named Irani, and a Colombian woman named Maria. He had previously been questioned but never charged in relation to them. Most read in The Sun It will come as a bitter blow to the families of the victims who, in April 2011, begged for him to reveal where their body parts were. Irene Allahgreen, Paula’s sister, said that Sweeney should have been forced by law to reveal the location of her youngest sibling’s head, hands, and feet. “She was our baby sister,” she said previously. “We know she is never coming back and we never said goodbye. The person who did this should be made to explain the location of the body parts by law. Not understanding where or why is torture every day.” Mick Jones, an ex-cop of 30 years, said Sweeney, who grew up in Kirkdale, near Liverpool, was “a cold-blooded psycho”. “He is probably one of the most terrifying men I have ever interviewed,” he said. “He was a complete psychopath and a cold-blooded murderer. He was cold about everything. He showed no remorse and was matter-of-fact about the fact he cut people up and murdered them.” During the 2011 trial, Melissa’s sister, Chance O’Hara, then 63, gave damning evidence via video link from California. “Melissa told me if she ever went missing, that John Sweeney would have killed her,” she said. “He had threatened that he would kill her and he would make sure no one would ever find her body.” Chillingly, Sweeney also painted “lurid and demonic” scenes of his victims’ deaths. The scene of the Regent’s Canal where several bags which contained dismembered body parts of Paula were found Credit: PA:Press Association The canal in Rotterdam where the bag containing the body of Melissa was recoveredCredit: Refer to Source Around 200 of these pictures were found at his flat in Kentish Town, North London, which had been searched in 2001 after he was arrested and ultimately found guilty of the 1994 attempted murder of another girlfriend, Delia Balmer, who is now in her 70s. A machete and a garrotte made from bamboo and wire were also discovered. Brian Altman QC, prosecuting at the 2011 trial into the deaths of Paula and Melissa, said: “One painting, entitled ‘One Man Band’, contained a drawing of a woman, believed to be Ms Halstead. Correction fluid had been painted over a small area. “When forensic scientists shone ultraviolet light on it, they revealed a gravestone with the inscription: ‘Melissa Halstead, born 7 November 1956. Died’.” In another picture he had called The Scalp Hunter, he drew women tied up and holding blades dripping with blood. Mr Altman said the pictures were in many ways “autobiographical and confessional”. “Time had not dimmed his fascination and preoccupation with dismemberment,” he added, explaining that during the 2011 trial a brand-new picture of a headless body chopped into exactly 13 pieces had been found in Sweeney’s cell at HMP Gartree. Detective Chief Inspector Norman McKinlay, who visited Sweeney in 2002, described him as sinister. “He said nothing at all,” he said. “He just looked at me, staring and smirking. His eyes always got me. He had piercing eyes.” Delia, who met Sweeney in a local pub in Camden, had no idea he had killed two women when she started dating him – but during their three years together, which became increasingly violent, he alluded to it. “When I was tied to the bed and he was ranting and raving with the kitchen knife… first he interrogated me about things and then he said, ‘I suppose you are wondering what happened to Melissa?’” she previously said in Until I Kill You: The Real Story, an ITV companion documentary accompanying a true-crime drama series about the case starring Anna Maxwell Martin. In 1994, Sweeney tried to kill her by puncturing her lung, hitting her on the head with an axe, breaking both her arms, stabbing her, and cutting off a finger. The prosecution at Sweeney’s trial said this picture, by Sweeney, was him and Melissa Credit: Handout A picture of ‘The Scalp Hunter’, as drawn by Sweeney and released by the Met Police Credit: Metropolitan Police She was only spared her life after a neighbour heard her desperate cries. However, he went on the run for around seven years, using different aliases, before being caught and convicted of attempted murder. During this period he wrote a poem: “On the run from the law, with my back to the wall. Watching the windows and the door. I’m not afraid to do or die. Maybe when this life is over I will get some sleep.” Unfortunately for his victims’ families, while he might get rest, they’ve been deprived of the answers they so desperately deserved. Comment now