The drug-taking layabout, who embodies everything that is wrong with the welfare state, was still smiling even after being convicted of killing six of his children.
Together with his wife Mairead and friend Paul Mosley, he plotted to set fire to the family home in an appalling attempt to frame Philpott’s former live-in lover Lisa Willis.
The deadly gamble was to save the six youngsters, blame Miss Willis, and win back custody of five children who had recently moved out of the cramped three-bedroom semi with her. Mail online article April/May 2013, ‘Vile product of Welfare UK: Man who bred 17 babies by five women to milk benefits system is guilty of killing six of them’
First their father was seen as a hero. Then suspicions grew. Faking It Special s1e12: Mick Philpott
Ten seconds in, the performance of fake sadness is on. ibid. Cliff Lansley
We’re ten years on now and yet this case still shocks. How can someone play so fast and loose with their children’s lives? ibid. Kerry Daynes
Mick Philpott arranged a press conference but said no questions would be allowed. ibid.
He never once mentioned those six children. ibid. observer
The father who killed six of his children and tried to blame someone else. Faking It: Tears of a Crime s1e1: Quy & Philpott, Discovery 2017
A fatal blaze and a bizarre media appearance: the couple who tried to cry for the cameras. ibid.
Derby, May 2012: At four in the morning fire roars through a family’s home. ibid.
A tabloid villain … making £50,000 a year in state benefits and no job. ibid.
It was the heartbreaking story that horrified Britain. Six children killed in a house fire. The truth behind it was shocking. Parents who seemed distraught were responsible for their deaths. Mick Philpott, already notorious for his strange love life and seventeen kids … in one of the nation’s most notorious crimes. The Philpott Fire: Five Years On, Channel 5 2017
The 11th May 2012 3.30 a.m. Derbyshire emergency services receive a horrifying 999 call. Six children are trapped inside a blazing house. ibid.
How did a complex web of sex, lies and tangled relationships end in such a tragedy? ibid.
‘He also has signs of being a psychopath, a lack of emotion, a lack of remorse.’ ibid. Dr Adam Lynes, criminologist
‘The way he treated women was appalling.’ ibid. Carole Malone
Those who knew the Philpotts were already becoming suspicious. ibid.
Mick and Mairead were busy partying at their local pub. ibid.
On Friday 11th May 2012 a fire ripped through a family home in Derby, East Midlands. Trapped inside and fast asleep were six young children. Britain’s Most Evil Killers s2e1: Mick Philpott, Sky Living 2018
This was no accident. As Mick Philpott, the children’s father, wept in front of the British public he was hiding a sinister secret: he had deliberately started the fire. ibid.
After his release from prison [1982], Philpott had a series of volatile relationships. ibid.
Philpott was known nationally as a benefits scrounger. He abused and controlled his women, and used his children to get more handouts. ibid.
Six children dead, two parents under suspicion, a father with a violent history, and a taste for the media limelight … a plan that went tragically wrong, and a cover-up that unravelled as police listened in. Philpott: 5 Mistakes that Caught the Killer, Channel 5 2020
With an unconvincing [press conference] performance, the couple said they were unwilling to take questions. But the media had their suspicions about Mick Philpott even before the press conference … He preferred to live off state benefits rather than work. ibid.
At the time of the wedding one of the bridesmaids was pregnant with the groom’s baby … Soon afterwards, she moved in with the couple … Philpott had a string of affairs. ibid.
When the local authority refused to move him from his three-bedroom house he took his campaign public … He set fire to his own home. ibid.
Philpott’s taste for violence against women stretched back decades. ibid.
Philpott then bungled the plan, using too much petrol and creating an uncontrollable inferno. ibid.
In a cemetery a few miles from the centre of Derby lies six graves. Each of the headstones marks a final resting place of a family of children. The events that led to the children’s deaths began back in May 2003 when a 19-year-old single mother called Mairead Duffy married her fiancé … Whether his new bride was aware of Philpott’s history is unknown. But even on their wedding day Mairead’s father was concerned. The Philpott Fire: An Evil Conspiracy, Channel 5 2021
In the early hours of the morning on the 11 May 2012 a fire quickly spread through the home of a young family in Derby. The raging fire ripped through the small semi-detached within minutes and all six children lost their lives. The Philpott Fire: What Happened Next, Channel 5 2023
A shocking twist threw suspicion on the parents. ibid.
After ten years of sharing a partner and her children the mistress had had enough. ibid.
The actions of Mick and Mairead became increasingly bizarre. ibid.
PHYO, WAI: see KOH TAO murders
PICHUSHKIN, ALEXANDER: The Chessboard Killer TV - Alexander Pichushkin - Crimes that Shook the World TV -
This Russian shop assistant believed killing was his destiny. One body at a time Alexander Pichushkin turned a national obsession into a real-life game of terror. The Chessboard Killer, Crime Channel
His alcoholic father abandoned the family. ibid.
[Aged] four he suffered a life-changing injury: the boy received extensive medical treatment for brain damage. After the accident Sasha’s behaviour became impossible. ibid.
He worked ... played chess and drank vodka. ibid.
His dog died and the unassuming grocery assistant fell apart. ibid.
He re-kindled his long dormant fascination with murder. ibid.
He recorded each murder by placing a token on one square of the chessboard he kept in his bedroom. ibid.
The indifference of the Moscow police made Pichushkin feel invulnerable. ibid.
In reality I have committed sixty-one murders. Alexander Pichushkin
He is the worst serial killer in Russia’s history. For years he kept a city in fear; for years he taunted the police. He preyed on the lonely and vulnerable. And he kept a unique record of his crimes. Chessboard Killer: Serial Killers s/a Crimes that Shook the World, Discovery 2009
A vodka bottle or stick forced into the bloody gaping wound at the back of the head. ibid.
Before she left, Marina had tried to call her son on her mobile to tell him where she was going, but it wasn’t working. ibid.
It was an astonishing confession. Sixty victims. ibid.
The Chessboard Killer claims to have murdered more than sixty people. ibid.
PICKLES, KYLE: Killer at the Crime Scene TV -
A teenager [Loui Phillips] has been stabbed. And a family’s lives forever destroyed … A Sunday lunchtime in August: police are called to a stabbing at Fish Dam Lane on the outskirts of Barnsley. Killer at the Crime Scene s2e11, Channel 5 2022
Police have obtained some key CCTV footage. ibid.
‘He [Loui] had not seen him [Kyle] before.’ ibid. mum
PICKTON, ROBERT: Robert Pickton: Pig Farmer Killer TV - CTV News online - World's Most Evil Killers TV -
On this run-down farm the Canadian police discovered an unimaginable horror. A slaughter-house for human beings. For more than a decade a predator had hunted women in Vancouver. At the time of his capture the number of dead and missing women were staggering. His shocking crimes earned him the name the Butcher. Robert Pickton: Pig Farmer Killer
February 1999: Willie Pickton was on the prowl. ibid.
Brenda was the 53rd Vancouver woman to vanish without a trace. The missing women were all prostitutes or drug addicts from the city’s skid row. ibid.
The jury found Pickton not guilty on all counts of first-degree murder. But Pickton did not escape justice. The jury did find him guilty on six counts of second-degree murder. Judge Williams gave him the maximum sentence of twenty-five years in prison. ibid.
Vancouver – Serial killer Robert Pickton appeared in court by video Tuesday for a civil case involving the families of several of his victims.
It’s one of the first times anyone from outside the prison system has seen the notorious murderer in the years since his conviction.
Pickton – bald and wearing a white shirt as he sat in a room at Kent Institution, a maximum security southeast of Vancouver – was polite as he listened to a BC Supreme Court judge and the lawyer for nine families explain the proceedings. CTV News online article 14th January 2014
Willy Pickton who drove Stitch seventeen miles east to his pig farm … Stitch escaped with four stab wounds; she was critically injured but alive. Pickton had been sloppy; this one had got away. World’s Most Evil Killers s6e2: Robert Pickton, the Pig Fame Killer, Sky Crime 2021
Over the next five years at least forty-nine other women wouldn’t be so lucky. ibid.
Pickton was one of those predators who hunted women relentlessly. ibid.
PIKE, CHRISTA: Killer Kids TV - True Crime Recaps 2023 -
Knoxville, 1995: A young woman was essentially slaughtered … She cut her all over … Christa was later diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Killer Kids s4e5: Southern Belle from Hell & My Best Friend’s Girl, LMN 2015
When an 18-year-old girl lures her romantic rival away from their dorm room with promises of a fun night out, her victim hopes to God this is her chance to convince her nothing is going on with her boyfriend. But she doesn’t live long enough to make her case. She has no idea how dark and twisted her killer is. True Crime Recaps: The Most Shocking Teenage Murder Case Ever! Youtube 15.24, 2023
Christa Pike was just 18 years old when she was sentenced to death for the brutal murder of another teenager. ibid.