'Killers cruised streets on hunting expeditions'

Two serial killers carried out "hunting expeditions" in which they cruised the streets to the sound of Michael Jackson's Thriller album while looking for women to murder and rape, a court heard yesterday.

Two serial killers carried out "hunting expeditions" in which they cruised the streets to the sound of Michael Jackson's Thriller album while looking for women to murder and rape, a court heard yesterday.

During a four-year period, the two men attacked 15 women, aged between 15 and 32, killing three of them, in a succession of attacks carried out in north London, the jury was told. John Mulcahy, 41, was alleged to have been the dominant partner to his accomplice, John Duffy, 41, who was jailed for life in 1988 for the "Railway Murders".

A jury at the Old Bailey in London was told yesterday that Duffy will be the star prosecution witness in the trial of his former best friend and partner in crime.

Mr Mulcahy was questioned in 1987 by police about three murders and a series of rapes in London and the Home Counties, many of which took place close to railway stations between 1982 and 1986, but he was never charged due to lack of evidence.

But 10 years after being convicted at the Old Bailey of many of the "railway" crimes, Duffy agreed to give evidence against Mr Mulcahy in an attempt to "cleanse his conscience", the court heard.

Mark Dennis, prosecuting, said the men often spent their nights driving around the streets of London looking for women to rape.

"They called it going out hunting. They derived huge pleasure and excitement in the hunt - the searching and waiting for victims," Mr Dennis told the court.

The jury also heard that the pair often played a cassette tape of Michael Jackson's number- one album, Thriller, prior to their attacks.

"It became part of their kit. They repeatedly played it as they went out in the car looking for victims. They sang along with the music," the prosecution said.

The pair raped seven women and conspired to rape five more from October 1982 to March 1985, the jury was told.

In most cases, the men would attack their victims at night from behind, placing a hand or gag over the women's mouths, a blindfold over their eyes, and a knife to their throats before dragging them into woodland, an alley or wasteland to carry out prolonged and violent sexual assaults. Mulcahy frequently threatened to kill his victims and punched and kicked them, the court was told.

"It was perhaps a small step to the ultimate exercise of power - killing them," Mr Dennis told the court.

Alison Day, 19, was alleged to have been Mulcahy and Duffy's first murder victim. She died on 29 December 1985 on the way to see her fiancé.

The men grabbed Ms Day as she was leaving Hackney Wick station in east London. She was forced at knifepoint to the nearby river Lea where they took turns to rape her, the prosecution alleged.

Their victim later fell into the river and the two men, concerned that she might identify them, strangled her with a tourniquet cut from her blouse.

The two men were to kill again three months later on 17 April 1986, when the victim was Maartje Tamboezer, a 15-year-old girl from Surrey.

She was last seen after school, riding her bicycle to buy sweets from a shop near East Horsley station.

The two men hid among trees and later forced her into a nearby field.

Duffy raped her and Mulcahy allegedly struck her across the head with a stone after accusing her of looking at him.

Mr Dennis said Mulcahy tied the girl's belt around her neck and that Duffy had used a piece of wood to twist the belt and killed the girl. Her badly burned body was later found.

The last victim, Anne Lock, 29, had just returned from her honeymoon. She had been travelling back from work on 18 May 1986 when the men seized her at the railway station in Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire, and had led her down the railway tracks to a field where she was raped, Mr Dennis said.

Duffy said he raped her first and that Mulcahy told him to return to the village for their car while he took his turn. Duffy had told the police that when he returned he saw Mulcahy coming back from the field alone.

Mrs Lock's badly decomposed body was found two months later in undergrowth. She had been suffocated and an attempt had been made to burn her body.

While Duffy was acquitted of this murder at his 1988 trial, he now admitted his involvement, Mr Dennis told the jury.

Duffy has already been convicted of Ms Day's murder, of raping and murdering Ms Tamboezer, and of four other rapes. But following his confessions to police while in jail, he admitted at the Old Bailey last March to the rape of Ms Lock, seven other rapes and seven charges of conspiracy to rape. He will be sentenced for these crimes after the current trial.

Mulcahy and Duffy were 11 when they met on their first day at secondary school in north London. Both were singled out for bullying and often played truant, wandering the streets or going to Hampstead Heath. Their main shared interest was in martial arts, and they watched kung-fu videos together, the court heard. Both men married at a young age and both got jobs with Westminster City Council.

Mulcahy, a father of three who works as a builder and lives in north London, denies all 15 of the charges: three murders, seven rapes and five further charges of conspiracy to rape with Duffy.

The trial continues today