Teen killer Jack Crawley has been found guilty of murdering a war veteran and trying to kill a man in York after meeting them on a gay dating app.
Crawley, now 20, bludgeoned war veteran Paul Taylor to death with a hammer and later tried to murder a man in York in the same grisly fashion after arranging to meet them on Grindr, Carlisle Crown Court heard.
The hospital security guard – who reportedly had a fascination with US serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer – struck the York man to the head and body with a claw hammer after they met for a “quick sexual encounter”.
However, the named man managed to fend him off and drove off in his car.
Prosecutor David McLachlan KC said the victim had picked Crawley up at an address in Reginald Grove, York, before driving them to a secluded spot just south of the city.
It was while being quizzed by Somerset & Avon Police in May – four months after the attack in York on January 5 – that Crawley told them where they would find the remains of 56-year-old former Scots soldier Mr Taylor who was murdered in Carlisle.
Cumbrian police found the skeletal remains of Mr Taylor, a married father-of-two, in a shallow grave, hidden in bushes, in Finglandrigg Wood nature reserve near Carlisle.
Crawley, an ex-doorman, had arranged to meet Mr Taylor for a sex “hook-up” in a remote spot in Carlisle, but it turned into a grisly hammer attack which “completely smashed in Mr Taylor’s head”.
Denied murder
Crawley, of Sheehan Crescent, Carlisle, admitted unlawfully killing Mr Taylor, or manslaughter, before his trial, but denied murder, claiming the ex-soldier died in a “bungled robbery”.
He also denied attempting to murder the York man, claiming self-defence. However, he admitted possessing an offensive weapon, namely a hammer, during the incident.
Marcus Goodfellow, 20, of Greystone Road, Carlisle, denied assisting an offender by allegedly helping Crawley dispose of Mr Taylor’s Vauxhall Corsa.
Today, after a long deliberation which began late last week, the jury found Crawley guilty of murdering Mr Taylor and attempting to murder the named York man, who was 30 years his senior.
Mr Goodfellow, himself a security guard who worked alongside Crawley at Cumbria Hospital in Carlisle, was found not guilty of assisting an offender.
Mr Taylor – who lived with his family in Annan, Dumfriesshire, near Carlisle but just over the Scottish border – was last seen alive by his wife at about 9.30pm on 17 October last year.
Mr McLachlan said that after killing Mr Taylor by bludgeoning him “at least 10 times” in the head with a hammer, Crawley put him in the boot of the Corsa which he drove to Finglandrigg Wood, where he buried him in a shallow grave after trying unsuccessfully to burn his body using petrol, charcoal and cigarette lighters.
It’s believed that Mr Taylor was killed in the early hours of 18 October, by which time Crawley had taken possession of his car and tried to sell it.
When Crawley was arrested in November, he denied murder and didn’t reveal where the body would be found until several months later, following his arrest for the attack in York.
Fascination for killers
Crawley denied having a “fascination” for murderers, particularly for infamous killer Jeffrey Dahmer, also known as the ‘Milwaukee Monster’, who killed and dismembered 17 men between 1978 and 1991. He also denied he had a problem with older gay men who go with younger gay males.
When asked about his sexuality during police questioning, he said he was heterosexual but that “people could choose their sexuality, it’s up to them”.
However, during the trial he said he was “bi-curious” and had met Mr Taylor on several previous occasions for Grindr sexual trysts.
Crawley, who admitted taking cocaine and cannabis since his teens, was released on bail following his arrest for the murder, on condition that he lived at his grandparents’ home in Carlisle and reported to the local police station thrice weekly.
But on New Year’s Eve, he disappeared and headed for Penrith in the Lake District. At a railway station in the town, a rail worker said she saw him wearing what was “obviously a fake wig and beard…like the character Hagrid in Harry Potter” and using a fake east-European accent.
He then went “on a tour” of Scotland, taking in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, before crossing the border again and travelling to York, where he activated the Grindr app on a new phone and bought a claw hammer from a local tool shop.
The following day, he arranged to hook up with the man in York after sending him a lewd picture of himself.
On the late afternoon of 5 January, the victim collected Crawley in his car and drove them to the airfield at Acaster Malbis where they engaged in sexual activity as Crawley concealed a hammer in his waistband.
The victim said that as they started to engage in sexual activity, he “felt a blow to the top and left of his head”, before being struck in the eye.
Crawley then struck him “again and again to the left arm” with the hammer. The victim finally managed to escape after wrestling the weapon from Crawley, who had reportedly been smoking cannabis.
Crawley dumped the hammer near the airfield then ran to a farmer’s house in York where, “muddied and bloodied”, he told the farmer he had fallen off his bike.
The “kind” farmer gave him a lift into York where Crawley burgled a couple’s house, near the spot where he had been dropped off, and stole clothes from the property in an attempt to find a disguise and evade capture.
He then travelled to Leeds, Bradford, Birmingham and Bristol, before turning up in Bath where he was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder while on bail for the murder in Carlisle.
Crawley had a knife with him when he was arrested in Somerset.
Mr McLachlan said the murder in Carlisle and the attack in York were both premeditated and an “almost carbon copy” of each other.
Crawley admitted the burglary in York at a previous hearing. Judge Mr Justice Goose KC adjourned sentence to Wednesday (23 October).
He told Mr Goodfellow he was free to leave the court.