did my best for my first time [the attack
near Portsmouth] but the knife was too
small...”
Describing the attack on the man in
Hornsey, Mr. Horwell said: “Fighting
for his life, the victim took hold of
the hand which held the knife and
attempted to twist it. The defendant
tried to bite his hand, and the victim
bit the defendant’s neck.”
In a statement read to the court the
Hornsey man’s wife said she was in
bed with her husband when they heard
glass breaking. Her husband went to
investigate, telling her to stay in the
bedroom, but she followed him and
saw him grappling with an intruder.
“Both were fighting in the corridor.
He tried to push the knife into my
husband’s heart. My husband hit the
man and for that reason it went into
his upper arm. I got my slippers. I was
in the corridor and hit that man with
the slippers.”
She ran outside screaming for help,
the court was told, as Gonzalez ran
off. He then took a taxi to a hardware
shop where he managed to buy
another knife although he was covered
in blood. Then he headed for his next
victims in Highgate.O
n the trial’s
fourth day
the jury was told
that Gonzalez had
assaulted several
police officers after
he was arrested.
While he was being
fingerprinted he
punched a detective
in the face, splitting
his lip, and in the
police station’s
shower area he hit
another officer in the face.
“I said, ‘Why did you do that?’” the
victim, Detective Constable Stephen
Ridley, testified. “He suddenly stopped
looking aggressive and said, ‘Sorry
about that.’”
The court was told that Gonzalez
also aimed blows at officers on two
other occasions, and in video footage
he was seen throwing a hot drink in the
face of a policewoman.
Flanked by five staff from
Broadmoor, Gonzalez sat silently in
the dock on March 6th as tapes of his
interviews with the police were played.
Describing the deaths of the
Robinsons, he said: “I had no idea who
they were. It was just the first place
I went to. I wanted to kill someone.
It was just the luck of the draw that I
went into their house.”He had used a 12-inch kitchen knife
to kill them, and he told detectives: “I
just jumped up and I went ‘woomph.’
I stuck it all the way in. It was such a
long knife, the bloke had no chance,
the poor guy, absolutely no chance.
I stabbed him once and stabbed him
again. I wanted to kill him quickly so
I stuck it in his throat so he would
just run out of oxygen really quickly.
I think one of them could have gone
through his heart.”
He said he had also bitten off one of
Dr. Robinson’s fingers.
“Then the woman. I went like that- bang, bang – into her chest. She was
really strong and I started feeling really
sorry for her. I went through her throat.
I stabbed her lots of times in the heart
because I wanted her to die quickly.
“I just kept screaming, ‘Die quickly,
die quickly, die quickly!’ She was just
screaming for God and that.”
Asked how he felt afterwards,
Gonzalez replied: “I felt clean,
orgasmic. I had washed all the crap
out of my life. I felt better. This was
something to live for. It was a really
good buzz. I felt like a superhero.”
What had prompted his three-day
killing spree? “I wished that life
was just fantasy,”
Gonzalez said.
“I’m just a teenage
kid, man. I like
skateboarding. I
didn’t want to grow
up. I didn’t want to
do anything.”
Starting to weep,
he continued: “It
was very bad. I’ve
had a really shit life.
I don’t know what to
do. I’m going to kill
myself. I’m a little
baby and I don’t feel very well. I just
wanted to hurt someone, I just wanted
to kill someone...
“I haven’t had a job for four years,
I haven’t had a girl friend for ages. I
couldn’t handle growing up to be a
man. I was just sitting around playing
PlayStation. I just couldn’t handle any
more...I want to do the time. I want
to get locked up. In fact I should go in
the electric chair.”
Asked about Marie Harding’s killing,
he said: “My head was in the clouds. I
couldn’t see or hear much. I was sort
of miles away. I just thought I would
get on with it and get away into the
clouds. I was thinking about fairies.”
The court was told that, while on
remand at Broadmoor, Gonzalez
had repeatedly tried to bite himself
to death, using his teeth to open the
Krueger for a day. Then a little later,
perhaps appreciating his error, he said
it was the voices that had told him to
be Freddy Krueger.”
Describing how the Robinsons’
deaths were discovered by a decorator,
the prosecutor told the jury: “As he
entered he saw the two bodies lying
in the hallway and a large amount of
blood on the walls and elsewhere. At
the same time the decorator saw the
defendant walk from the kitchen to the
stairs. The defendant was preparing to
take a shower to wash the blood off his
body and he was therefore naked. He
said something like ‘Sorry about this,
mate.’”
As the decorator went for help,
said Mr. Horwell, Gonzalez fled after
searching drawers for cash. He had
deep cuts in his hands and a cut lip,
and he went to University College
Hospital for treatment, giving a false
name and saying he had received the
injuries from broken glass. When he
left he was followed, the police were
alerted, and after his arrest he admitted
killing the Robinsons. “As soon as I
got in there,” he told detectives, “I had
a breather and I thought, ‘OK, got it
into my head. Ready, steady, go,’ and
then I did it.”
In a locker at King’s Cross station he
had left items including a note saying
that Mrs. Harding’s killing “felt really,
really good. One of the best things I’ve
done in my life.” Her death, he wrote,
was “a proper bloodbath.” His only
“better buzzes” were from “pills, K [the
drug ketamine], puff [cannabis] and
tecno [sic] hardcore” music.
“I will be a serial killer. I mean it, I
promise,” his note added. “I am gonna
make sure I get to London and kill some
old bill as soon as I can. I will kill as
many old bill as I can as best I can...I
DNA was found on the ice hockey
mask that Gonzalez wore. Why
would he have it, if he did not have
murder in mind?
After one killing,
Gonzalez “felt clean,
orgasmic. I had washed
all the crap out of my
life. I felt better. This was
something to live for. It
was a really good buzz. I
felt like a superhero”The bloodstained knives Gonzalez used to make his frenzied attacks