Daniel
Gonzalez (far
right) tried
to explain his
deadly actions
by saying he
wanted to be
like movie
ghoul Freddy
Krueger (right)A
fter the special court hearing
held in his cell he was taken
to Broadmoor maximum-security
mental hospital in Berkshire, and when
his trial began at the Old Bailey on
February 28th, 2006, the jury heard
that he had told the police he wanted
to achieve fame as a serial killer and
had planned to kill at least 10 people.
Denying murder, Daniel Gonzalez
admitted manslaughter on the grounds
of diminished responsibility, the
defence accepting that he was the
killer. He admitted
the two counts of
attempted murder.
But the Crown
rejected his murder
denials. “Gonzalez
has claimed that he
was acting under
the control of
voices, that he was
being compelled by
the voices to kill.
We do not accept
the veracity of
those claims,” said
the prosecutor Mr. Richard Horwell.
“The details not only change from
claim to claim, but Gonzalez has in
the past accepted that he deliberately
fabricated the symptoms of mental
illness in order to avoid being sent to
prison. There is agreement that he was
suffering from an abnormality of mind,
but the extent of that abnormality is in
dispute.”
The prosecution contended that,
unemployed, bored and frustrated,In London the next day he stole
two kitchen knives from the Oxford
Street store of John Lewis, and at 5.
the following morning he waylaid
Mr. Molloy in Tottenham High Road,
using both knives to kill him with stab
wounds in the stomach, chest, neck
and face.
Shortly before 7 a.m. he forced his
way into the home of the Hornsey
victim, stabbing him in the chest and
arm, before going to Highgate and
killing Dr. and Mrs. Robinson an hour
later.
The DNA of one victim was later
found on an ice hockey goalkeeper’s
mask Gonzalez had dumped with
other belongings at a London railway
station. It resembled one worn by the
serial killer in the film Friday the 13th,
and Mr. Horwell told the jury: “It gives
rise to the question of why on earth
did he have that mask – a terrifying
item in circumstances such as these.”W
hen the trial continued the
next day the court heard that
Gonzalez had told the police of his
obsession with Freddy Krueger, a
character in the film A Nightmare on
Elm Street who kills his victims with a
glove bristling with knives.
When Gonzalez’s home was
searched detectives found a magazine
entitled Freddy Krueger’s Nightmares,
and Mr. Horwell said: “The defendant
told the interviewing police officers
that at home he used to watch a lot of
horror films and that he had wondered
what it would be like to be FreddyGonzalez sought excitement through
excessive drinking and taking drugs
including Ecstasy, cocaine and
amphetamine.
After attending a rave party in
Hackney, east London, the weekend
before the killings, the court was told,
Gonzalez took a variety of drugs and
ran naked through the street on his
return home.
The day he began his attacks, he
took a steak knife from his home
in Woking where he lived with his
mother, travelled by
train to Portsmouth,
and spotted his first
victim and his wife
walking their dog in a
secluded area.
“I’m gonna kill
you!” Gonzalez
shouted, lunging at
the man with the
knife. In the struggle
that followed the
61-year-old wrested
the steak knife
from his attacker’s
hand, receiving cuts to his head and
throat. Then Gonzalez backed off
and fled after saying, “Sorry, I’m a
schizophrenic, I can’t help it.”
Taking a train to Worthing, Gonzalez
bought another knife and ambushed
Mrs. Harding, inflicting deep and
fatal wounds in her back and neck as
she walked home from her daughter’s
home near Brighton. He didn’t like
school teachers and she looked like
one, he later told the police.ANTED TO BE
EGER FOR
A DAY
ANTED TO BE
GER FOR
A DAY
“I will be a serial killer. I
mean it, I promise. 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 did my best
for my first time but the
knife was too small...”