THE dark and disturbing image shows a man grabbing a screaming woman by the throat with one hand, and preparing to plunge a long knife into his terrified victim with the other.
It is just one of dozens of pieces of sinister artwork which eventually led cops to ensnare psycho killer John Sweeney.
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In a chilling reign of terror across the 1980s and 90s, the murderer attempted to bludgeon his ex-lover, Delia Balmer, to death, having already killed at least two former girlfriends and disposed of their bodies in canals.
His controlling and manipulative relationship with Delia – who miraculously survived an axe attack and helped finally bring the beast to justice – is now being portrayed in a gripping new ITV drama.
But it is his sinister sketches, some of which allude to how he butchered model Melissa Halstead, that give the deepest insight into his dark mind.
Detectives unearthed the alarming images along with creepy poems describing his vile murders, and used them as evidence to ensure he will never leave prison.
Crime psychologist Professor David Canter says sadistic killers like Sweeney keep mementos and souvenirs to relive the surge of power murder gives them.
He tells The Sun: “It is rare that serial killers set out to kill a specific number of victims. Usually it evolves over time and they like to keep records of their progress to feed their fantasies.
“Once they get away with murder, as Sweeney did, they start to think of themselves as significant – as if they have a God-given right to carry on.
“Sweeney was arrogant, he believed he was above the law, and that he would never be caught.
“Those sadistic desires to hurt others don’t go away, they resurface and looking back at his drawings and notes would have helped him relive those feelings of excitement.”
Sweeney’s extraordinary array of paintings and collages included specific references to his victims, particularly American model Melissa, whose dismembered body was found in a Dutch canal.
In one sick poem scrawled on a scrap of paper he wrote about Melissa being ‘fed to the fishes and chopped into bits, Amsterdam was the pits.’
There were also self-portraits labelled ‘seal hunter’ in which Sweeney was portrayed as a devil with a blood-soaked axe.
Prof Canter says Sweeney would have enjoyed referring back to his drawings – as others would look back fondly at photo albums.
“He was a classic psychopath who seemed charming on the surface but kept mementos of his achievements as a record for his own gratification.
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“It would have given him a sadistic sense of pleasure from hurting others,” he added.
When cops uncovered the cache of chilling clues, Sweeney was already in jail for the attempted murder of Delia in 1991.
And now her ordeal is being retold in Until I Kill You, which sees Anna Maxwell Martin star as Delia.
The award-winning actress also narrates a compelling companion documentary featuring many of the real people involved in the case.
Evil clutches
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Until I Kill You: The Real Story explores the haunting stories of Sweeney’s known victims, including Melissa and Paula Fields, a mother of three.
The powerful documentary reveals grisly details of how Sweeney dismembered the women’s bodies, removing their heads and hands so they could not be identified.
He trussed up their remaining body parts with rope and put them into bags weighed down with tiles and bricks. Melissa was thrown into a Rotterdam canal, while Paula’s body sank to the bottom of London’s Regent’s Canal.
After she escaped his evil clutches, Delia was determined to bring Sweeney to justice, and her survival sparked a crime investigation that criss-crossed Europe and spanned more than 30 years.
At the height of their toxic relationship in 1991, Sweeney kept Delia tied to a bed for days, and assaulted her repeatedly.
Astonishing, Delia still sleeps in the same bed today.
When they met, he had already killed two previous girlfriends – but Delia had no idea of Sweeney’s dark past.
She was studying to be a nurse in London when Sweeney approached her in a pub.
He was an unsuccessful artist who was working as a carpenter and living in a nearby squat.
“I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend,” Delia said, but within weeks they were living together. “I was so vulnerable and so alone.”
Criminal history
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Originally from Skelmersdale near Liverpool, Sweeney had been arrested for violent behaviour towards his ex-wife Ann Bramley and moved to Holland where, in 1986, he met Melissa Halstead.
He was convicted twice of assaulting Melissa – but their turbulent relationship continued.
Sweeney continued to be violent and controlling, so Melissa fled to Vienna to escape his clutches.
But he tracked her down, stalked her, tied her up and attacked her with a hammer – cracking her skull open.
Cops were stunned when Melissa bailed him out, but he was later sentenced to 12 months in an Austrian prison for the brutal attack.
He was released after just six months in 1989 – and Melissa quickly fell back under his spell.
They moved to Amsterdam in a bid for a new start – but in April 1990 Melissa went missing.
Former Detective Inspector Steve Smith explained: “With no body and no clues the Dutch police had nothing to go on, and the investigation ground to a halt.”
Sweeney returned to the UK and wormed his way into Delia’s life.
She took him to meet her family in Texas but her brother Stewart was immediately concerned.
“I asked him if he had ever killed anybody,” recalled Stewart. “He had those vibes about him, and he would not say yes or no. He said white men taught the Indians how to scalp, which was really strange.”
When Sweeney’s controlling behaviour became suffocating after two years, Delia begged him to leave. He refused.
One night, after yet another explosive row, she woke up to discover Sweeney tying her ankles to the bed.
He grabbed her arms and tied her wrists to the bed too.
“If I struggled the knots got tighter,” Delia said. “I was tied to the bed all night long and he ranted and raved and he was waving a gun and my kitchen knife around.
“He threatened to cut my tongue out if I screamed. He untied my ankles to have sex. I felt like I was in a padded cell with a complete maniac.”
That terrifying ordeal lasted six days. But living in fear, Delia was too afraid to report the incident.
When Sweeney had to go to Germany for work, she changed the locks, but that enraged him further.
He broke in and took her hostage again, raping and assaulting her repeatedly.
“I wanted to die,” said Delia simply.
He threatened to cut my tongue out if I screamed. He untied my ankles to have sex. I felt like I was in a padded cell with a complete maniac
Delia Balmer
When concerned colleagues sent police to her flat, she was able to escape, and Sweeney was arrested.
Cops discovered a bag containing a ‘killer’s kit’ of a tarpaulin rubber sheet, lengths of rope, surgical gloves and rolls of duct tape.
He was charged with false imprisonment and actual bodily harm but released in December 1994. Delia can recall with heart-stopping accuracy the fateful night Sweeney lay in wait outside her flat to take his revenge.
She said: “I told the police he knew what time I finished work and he would be waiting for me on the darkest day of the year – exactly what I said would happen.
“First with the wooden handle of the axe he bashes the side of my head. I held my hands up and he gives me a compound fracture on my ulna bone.
“So with my broken, bleeding arms I pulled my bicycle on top of me to try and have some protection, then he pulled out a knife, stabbed me through this breast into the lung, then he stabbed me through the thigh.
“I saw my finger fly through the air. He had the axe over his head ready to finish me off. I squatted down, put my hands over my face and shut my eyes ready to die.”
Sweeney fled the scene when her screams alerted a neighbour who threatened him with a baseball bat.
‘I died that night’
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While Delia lay in hospital on the brink of death, Sweeney vanished without a trace.
The trail ran cold – even though Delia had told police about a chilling confession he made to her about Melissa.
Sweeney told Delia he had found his ex-girlfriend in bed with two German men so he shot all three of them.
He claimed he had cut up the bodies and thrown them into the canal.
Police in London contacted their counterparts in the Netherlands who revealed they did have a record of a woman discovered in a canal in Rotterdam in 1990 – but cops were unable to identify the body, and the case was closed.
Slowly Delia attempted to rebuild her life and went back to university.
Then, in February 2001, three boys fishing in London discovered a holdall which contained the remains of another woman.
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The fingertips had been removed from her hands, but DNA from the remains matched that of a 31-year-old sex worker named Paula Fields.
Police began investigating her disappearance and discovered she was friends with a man called Joe.
Joe in fact turned out to be Sweeney – and detectives finally unearthed the true horrifying scale of his violent and murderous past.
After his arrest, officers searching his house found a collection of guns, ammunition, a machete, a garrotte and wigs.
There were also notebooks full of sinister poetry and hundreds more gruesome drawings, showing naked women with their heads and feet cut off.
Professor Canter added: “Sweeney’s drawings show utter contempt for his victims.
“They are a crude autobiographical way of taking him back to the moment he exercised the ultimate power over his partners -they are a form of trophy.”
In 2001 Sweeney was convicted of the attempted murder of Delia Balmer along with firearms offences.
Who are the UK’s worst serial killers?
THE UK’s most prolific serial killer was actually a doctor.
Here’s a rundown of the worst offenders in the UK.
- British GP Harold Shipman is one of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history. He was found guilty of murdering 15 patients in 2000, but the Shipman Inquiry examined his crimes and identified 218 victims, 80 per cent of whom were elderly women.
- After his death Jonathan Balls was accused of poisoning at least 22 people between 1824 and 1845.
- Mary Ann Cotton is suspected of murdering up to 21 people, including husbands, lovers and children. She is Britain’s most prolific female serial killer. Her crimes were committed between 1852 and 1872, and she was hanged in March 1873.
- Amelia Sach and Annie Walters became known as the Finchley Baby Farmers after killing at least 20 babies between 1900 and 1902. The pair became the first women to be hanged at Holloway Prison on February 3, 1903.
- William Burke and William Hare killed 16 people and sold their bodies.
- Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was found guilty in 1981 of murdering 13 women and attempting to kill seven others between 1975 and 1980.
- Dennis Nilsen was caged for life in 1983 after murdering up to 15 men when he picked them up from the streets. He was found guilty of six counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to life in jail.
- Fred West was found guilty of killing 12 but it’s believed he was responsible for many more deaths.
Delia added: “Testifying in court was extremely difficult. They made a mockery of my scars and this body. I’m an angry person. I’m still bitter about the damage that’s been done to this body. It need not have happened.
“As far as I am concerned I died that night.”
But there was a further twist.
In 2008, the Met received an unexpected phone call from a cold case investigation team in Rotterdam.
They had found a blood sample from a dismembered female body found in a canal in 1990, and when they ran a search through their missing person’s database, it came back as a match for Melissa Halstead.
This breakthrough meant Met police could finally confirm a link between the death of Melissa Halstead and the murder of Paula Fields which had never been solved – and that link was John Sweeney.
He had been in relationships with both women at the time they went missing.
British and Dutch police joined forces to build the case against Sweeney. Although he pleaded not guilty, it was his own artwork that proved damning.
When the jury saw the artwork they knew he was a dangerous man.
After a trial lasting five weeks John Sweeney was found guilty of all charges over the murders and ordered to serve a whole life sentence, meaning he will spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole.
While Sweeney will never be released, some detectives believe he is responsible for other unsolved crimes and that he may have killed others.
Police have already named three possible women in London – a Brazilian, a Colombian and a British trainee nurse who they think may be linked to Sweeney.
But for now, the chilling reality of coming so close to death at the hands of John Sweeney will haunt Delia Balmer forever.
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