How ‘Jigsaw Killer’ Got Ensnared After Scattering Pieces of Victim’s Severed Body – With a Hidden Twist That Left Him Exposed
WHEN a perfectly severed human leg was discovered hidden in a green bag, police feared a skilled surgeon had turned to murder.
They were even more stunned when a arm was found just days later that was it cut to “almost surgical standards”.
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The body parts turned out to be the first clues in a gruesome murder case dismembered limbs scattered throughout Great Britain.
Even more chilling, killer Stephen Marshall had worked as a butcher for the infamous Adams crime family.
He was tasked with dismembering bodies and handing them over to be dumped in Epping Forest, and he was a skilled hand at dissection.
This became clear when, over the course of three weeks, victim Jeffrey Howe’s severed limbs emerged.
Following the discovery of his leg on March 22, 2009 in Cottered, Hertfordshire, his arm was found a week later – 25 miles away in Wheathampstead.
On March 31, a severed head was found in Ashfordby, Leicestershire, missing the eyes, nose, tongue and ears.
Than a pest control The worker was shocked to discover a right leg covered in maggots in a blue plot in Puckeridge, Hertfordshire, a week later.
A torso hidden in a green suitcase in Standon, Hertfordshire, led on April 11 Police until their first breakthrough when they discovered the victim had been stabbed twice.
But his identity remained a mystery afterward DNA none of the butchered limbs could be flagged in the police database.
The gruesome case is now under investigation documentary The Suitcase Murders on Discovery+ as experts reveal how they finally caught the “Jigsaw Killer.”
Police were able to determine that an experienced killer was behind the massacre, due to the “beauty” of the amputation.
Consultant clinical and forensic psychologist Professor Leam Craig tells the show: “The discovery of a leg that has been cleanly amputated suggests that we are looking for someone who has experience of mutilation, someone who has anatomical knowledge.”
Since their victim didn’t yet have a name, they decided to call in experts to do a facial reconstruction to see if anyone would recognize him.
The gamble paid off and a man came forward to reveal that his adopted brother Jeffrey Howe had been missing for weeks.
Using the facial reconstruction, experts were able to accurately determine that Jeffrey was their murder victim.
Further searches led them to his home in Southgate, north London, where they discovered he had been rent a room for Stephen Marshall and his girlfriend Sarah Bush.
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Marshall was a violent convicted criminal who Jeffrey had worked with when they were both kitchen salesmen.
Although he only charged the criminal a pittance in rent, Marshall and Bush eventually stopped paying Jeffrey altogether.
Convinced they had their prime suspect, officers began building a case against Marshall and searching the apartment.
They discovered that Jeffrey’s bed had been removed and replaced with a blow-up mattress.
Forensic officers also found evidence of a large amount of bloodstains and believed this may have covered the missing bed.
This, along with footage of him removing a mattress from the flat, was enough for officers to arrest Marshall on suspicion of murder.
Marshall did not cooperate with his police Job interviews but the police found one smoking gun nestled in gaffer tape wrapped around part of Jeffrey’s body.
The blue fibers on the tape matched those on the air mattress in his apartment that had been hastily placed in place of his missing bed.
ANPR cameras also managed to pick up a silver Seat – Marshall’s car – the driving from Hertfordshire to Leicestershire.
Just seven days after the murder, he had also flogged Jeffrey’s car, cashed checks to himself from the victim’s bank account and tried to sell his furniture.
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It turned out that the manipulative Marshall had taken advantage of his good-natured friend by refusing to pay him any more rent.
When Jeffrey stood up to him, the killer stabbed him to death while girlfriend Sarah Bush held a pillow over his face and then dismembered his body.
Marshall went on trial in January 2010 and tried to pin the brutal murder on Bush’s girlfriend.
But in a shocking twist, he suddenly changed his plea and admitted to killing Jeffrey.
Marshall also revealed the creepiest bombshell: that he was the Adams family’s personal butcher.
He had worked as a doorman in the 1990s for a club owned by the infamous clan, also known as the Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate.
The family terrorized Britain – torturing victims down to their limbs and amassing a £200 million fortune through drug cartels, extortion and theft.
Marshall would cut up the bodies of their victims and dump them in Epping Forest, admitting he had done this for the Adams on four occasions.
He got one life sentence with a minimum of 36 years, while Bush received three and a half years for perverting the course of justice.
Forensic psychologist Professor Leam Craig said: ‘Committing murder is gruesome, dismembering the body and then disposing of the body is even more gruesome.
‘And then having the feeling of self-confidence to drive along the country roads with body parts in the boot – again even more horrifying.
“But for Stephen Marshall, he would have seen this as a job he had to do.”
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