Who are the railroad killers John Duffy and David Mulcahy?

SERIAL killers and sexual predators John Duffy and David Mulcahy were responsible for a series of horrific attacks in the 1980s.

The police called the scale of the kidnappings suspicious Railroad killersas they launched the biggest hunt since Yorkshire Ripper.

Who Is The Railroad Killer John Francis Duffy?

John Duffy, born in 1959, was a violent rapist and murderer who assaulted single women at railway stations in south-east England and London.

He was initially believed to have committed his horrific crimes alone and was sentenced to life in prison for the murders.

Duffy and pal David Mulcahy have been lifelong friends since high school North London.

Both men are said to have been victims of school-age bullying.

Duffy later married and became a martial arts fanatic.

He was already known to the police for attacking his wife and a knife was found on him.

It is believed that the pair attacked at least 19 women, killing three of them.

On 1 July 1982, Duffy and Mulcahy attacked and raped a woman near Hampstead Station in the London village of Hampstead.

Over the next 12 months, women were attacked across London and its suburbs.

In an attempt to catch the culprit – initially they were not sure that only one person had committed the crimes – the police organized Operation Hart, the biggest investigation to be carried out in the UK since the Yorkshire Ripper investigation.

In the fall of 1983, the attacks suddenly stopped, which police later determined coincided with Duffy’s separation from his wife.

At the beginning of 1984, the attacks started again.

In July 1985, three women were brutally raped on the same night, all in the Hendon and Hampstead area.

Duffy and Mulcahy were taken in for questioning but eventually released.

However, in August 1985, after a bout of domestic violence at his home where he assaulted his wife, Duffy was arrested.

In September 1985, a woman was attacked in Barnet, with the victim giving police a description of her attacker that matched Duffy’s profile.

He was brought in for questioning again, but was eventually released after the victim failed to recognize him during identification.

On December 29, 1985, 19-year-old Alison Day Duffy and Mulcahy were dragged from a train at knifepoint and repeatedly raped.

She was then strangled with a string.

This was the first time the couple killed their victim, fearing that she would easily identify them.

Maartje Tamboser, 15, was abducted from Horsley Station in East Surrey on 17 April 1986.

After rape and strangulation, the teenager’s body was set on fire.

On May 18, the victim was 29-year-old local TV presenter Anne Locke, who was abducted as she got off a train in Hertfordshire and later killed.

In October 1986, a 14-year-old schoolgirl managed to survive after being raped by both men.

During a pursuit of a woman in a park on November 7, Duffy was found and arrested.

The next day, he was charged with three murders and seven counts of rape.

Mulcahy was also arrested but later released due to lack of evidence.

Duffy went on trial in February 1988 and was found guilty of two murders and four counts of rape, although he was acquitted of the rape and murder of Ann Locke.

The judge sentenced him to a minimum of 30 years in prison.

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Who Is David Mulcahy The Railroad Killer?

Cops suspected that Mulcahy had been involved for several years, but had no evidence to charge him.

And it wasn’t until Duffy accused him 15 years after he was convicted that they were able to act.

Mulcahy, a married father of four, was followed by police for several months before his arrest.

DNA tests not used in the original trial, but now available, were able to provide evidence to convict Mulcahy.

He went on trial in 2000, with Duffy testifying as a witness for 14 days.

A former employee of the taxi company he worked for said he despised women.

Lola Barry, the company’s controller, said: “He liked to have women around the kitchen sink where they should be, or in bed.”

She said Mulcahy once snuck up behind her in the office.

Barry said: “He actually grabbed me by the neck and said, ‘How does it feel, are you scared?'”

Prosecutor Mark Dennis said at Mulcahy’s trial: “As they fed their new obsessions, they treated their victims as objects rather than persons.”

It was “only a comparatively small step” between the violence of rape and murder – and Mulcahy was the first to take that step.

“He was the instigator and prime mover of the murders, and someone for whom sexual violence became insufficient for satisfaction.”

Mulcahy maintained his innocence, but on February 5, 2001, he received three life sentences for the murders of three women.

He received 24 years in prison on each of the seven counts of rape and 18 years on five counts of conspiracy to commit rape, to run concurrently.

Where are the train killers now?

Both Duffy and Mulcahy remained in custody for their crimes.

Duffy is behind bars HMP FranklandCounty Durham, and Mulcahy is a prisoner in the HMP Full Sutton near Pocklington in East Yorkshire.

Given the sentences handed down to the pair, it is unlikely that they will be released any time soon as they pose a serious danger to society.