Tourists from hell: we know the type.
The girl who gets drunk, and then throws up on an ancient monument.
The guy who screams English “speak english!” to a local who doesn’t speak the language.
Any and all bachelor and bachelorette parties that go abroad.
There are many tourists from hell.
But none of them can hold a candle to today’s subject, a tourist who hit the road to...kill
other tourists.
That’s right, this is the strange story of John Martin Scripps, a man who took vacations
to kill people.
John Martin Scripps was born in 1959 in Letchworth, Hertfordshire - the most UK-sounding town
name we’ve ever heard.
He grew up traveling frequently, often along with his father, who was a truck driver.
When Scripps was nine, his father committed suicide though, and things understandably
started to go downhill from there.
Scripps eventually dropped out of school as a teenager and started traveling the world,
doing odd jobs here and there to stay afloat financially.
He was, in some ways, the original nomadic traveler influencer.
Except his vacations featured less flowy dresses and Photoshopped Instagram pics, and more
felonies.
He was first found guilty of a crime in May of 1974, when he was just 15.
Scripps was charged with burglary, but since he was a minor, he was given a conditional
discharge.
This meant he would only be imprisoned if he committed another crime in the following
twelve month period.
Scripps, clearly playing chicken with the justice system, would proceed to commit three
more thefts in the next two years.
For the rest of his non-incarcerated life, Scripps lived the life of a vagabond.
He roamed around the world, and even ended up getting married to a local girl from Cancun
when he was just 21 years old.
His wife, Maria Pilar Arellanos, joined him on the road, and they lived the #vanlife for
two years.
Up until Scripps, unable to stay away from a good crime, was sentenced to three years
in jail for theft, burglary, and resisting arrest.
This broke up the happy wandering couple, as Maria apparently prefered a husband who
wasn’t in prison.
When Scripps was released, he still had his travel bug, in addition to a good solid knowledge
of criminal activities.
So what more logical way to support his wanderlust than trafficking heroin between Asia and Europe?
Unfortunately, Scripps had once again conveniently ignored the fact that things like trafficking
drugs will get you - that’s right! - arrested.
He was searched in Heathrow Airport and found to be carrying way too much heroin for airport
security’s liking.
After his stash was found, Scripps was thrown in jail in various places around the UK.
Scripps then managed to escape.
Twice.
During “home leave”, where he got to leave prison, visit home, and was expected to return
when his time was up.
Who could have seen that coming?
His own mother told prison authorities, “the Home Office have buried their head in the
sand over this.
They know full well that if they had done what I told them, none of this would have
ever happened.
I begged them not to let him go”.
Of course, she did give him 200 pounds to help him escape abroad after his last prison
break; she was, after all, still his mother.
But when someone’s own mother is begging the warden to keep her kid locked up...maybe
that’s a sign that they really shouldn’t be allowed out on a prison field trip.
Scripps’ escape abroad, under the fake name Simon James Davis, would prove his mother
right, and the entire UK prison system deeply flawed.
No one knows what clicked in Scripps’ mind to send him on a serial killing spree, but
the training he received while locked up definitely didn’t help.
Of all possible duties and assignments they could have given Scripps, they made him...a
butcher.
That’s right, he was put to work under a former butcher-turned-prison inmate in the
kitchen.
The ex-butcher taught him how to dismember and remove the bones from animals.
Which...would turn out to be knowledge Scripps unfortunately put to use in the real world.
Scripps committed the first confirmed murder in his old drug running stomping grounds:
Singapore.
On March 8, 1995, Scripps decided to hang around Singapore Changi Airport.
He approached a solo male traveler by the name of Gerard Lowe, a chemical engineer who
had just arrived from Johannesburg, South Africa, on a business trip.
As serial killer true crime series have taught us - but as is rarely true in real life - Scripps
must have been quite the charming murderer.
We don’t know how, as at this point we would like to remind you that Scripps frequently
walked around like this:
After chatting with Lowe for a time, he somehow convinced the engineer to split a hotel room.
[spoken in a rapid, announcer-y type voice] Just a quick PSA from us here at The Infographics
Show: please don’t book hotel rooms with random strangers that approach you at airports.
It seldom ends well.
The two men booked a room at River View Hotel.
The next day, on March 9, Scripps went down to the front desk to request that Lowe’s
name be taken off the reservation.
Why?
Scripps said he had kicked Lowe out due to his being homosexual.
The actual reason Scripps requested the name removal was quite different.
See, the previous night, Scripps had immobilized Lowe with an electroshock weapon, killed him
with hammer strikes to the head, and then proceeded to cut him up in the hotel room
bathroom.
We told you he’d soon be using those butcher skills.
This technically means Scripps and Lowe weren’t sharing the room or the reservation anymore,
as Lowe was in pieces.
However, Scripps apparently also needed a couple of days for disposal, clean-up, and
perhaps just to gloat in the room where he had committed a horrific murder.
Because Scripps didn’t check out until two days later, on March 11.
On March 13, some very unlucky passerby walking close to Clifford Pier found a plastic bag.
The nauseating sight that awaited them when they opened the bag was a pair of human legs,
cut off at the knees.
Authorities would also eventually find a pair of thighs and a torso, though never the rest
of the victim.
Since Lowe’s wife filed a missing persons report for him after not hearing from her
husband for a few days and not seeing him return on his scheduled flight back, they
connected the dots...and the body...to Gerard Lowe.
Scripps would go on to make this strange way of approaching and killing victims his own
personal M.O.
Not even a week would pass until his next murder.
Scripps’ next stop was in Thailand.
Though most people go for the food, the beaches, and the Full Moon Parties, Scripps decided
to partake in a little recreational homicide instead.
This time, he didn’t even wait to get to the airport.
He met Sheila Mae Damude and her son Darin Jon Damude, Canadian citizens, on the plane
to Phuket.
He befriended them during the flight, and when he found out that they were staying at
Nilly’s Marina Inn on Patong Beach - surprise! - he was going to the same hotel.
Staying in the room next to theirs, in fact.
On March 16, the Damudes woke up in this beachfront paradise, ate an early breakfast….and were
never seen again.
At around 11 AM the same day, Scripps went down to reception and asked to be switched
to the Damudes’ room, as they had unexpectedly left the hotel, and he would take care of
their bill.
Inexplicably, the receptionist made this switch without checking if the Damudes were in fact
still there, or even alive.
True to form, Scripps hung around the hotel in Thailand for a few days, finally departing
on March 19.
Most criminals immediately flee the scene of a murder, but not Scripps - he apparently
needed some downtime right after killing people.
Right after he left, authorities found the skulls of the Damudes in an old tin mine,
and various body parts belonging to Sheila Damude a few days later on Bahn Nai Trang
Road, 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) away.
Those three murders are Scripps’ confirmed kills; the ones he was eventually charged
with in the Singapore courts.
However, police suspect that those are far from his only murders.
London-based financial adviser Timothy MacDowall was on vacation on an island off Belize in
the early months of 1995, when he made the mistake of teaming up with a new travel buddy
to go take scuba diving lessons.
We’ll let you guess who this new friend was.
Though MacDowall was - surprise surprise - never heard from again, his bank account got suspiciously
active, specifically with a £21,000 transfer to an account in San Francisco held by Scripps.
MacDowall’s body parts weren’t found for months, and by that time, Scripps was already
in Changi prison for his other murders.
He refused to be cooperate with Scotland Yard so detectives never got to the bottom of MacDowall’s
murder.
Accountant William Shackel also had the unfortunate luck to run into Scripps while on vacation
in Cancun, Mexico.
Once again, Scripps’ was never officially found guilty for his murder, but he was in
Cancun at the time, and Shackel disappeared right after £4,000 of his travelers’ cheques
were cashed.
Scripps also used Gerard Lowe’s credit card to withdraw large sums of money, so the motives
for the homicides seemed at least partly financial.
Eventually, as one might expect after he committed multiple homicides and then hung around his
victims’ hotel rooms for days, using their credit cards and transferring money from their
account, Scripps was caught.
Police apprehended him on March 19, 1995, as he arrived at Changi Airport in Singapore.
Helpfully for the local police, Scripps was carrying around an incredible mountain of
evidence against him.
His possessions included: two British passports issued to Simon Davis - his alias - and perhaps
more damningly, Sheila Damude’s and Gerard Lowe’s credit cards, the two Canadian passports
of Sheila and Darin Damude, and Lowe’s South African passport.
To further cement the case against him, Scripps was also carrying his murder weapons!
A 3.3 pound (1.5 kg) hammer, a Z-Force III electroshock weapon to immobilize his victims,
a can of mace, handcuffs, thumbcuffs, foldable knives, and Swiss army knives.
Meanwhile, last time you went through TSA, they took away your moisturizer and nail clipper.
After Scripps’ arrest, a district court decided that there was more than enough evidence
to proceed with a murder trial.
In addition to Scripps having conveniently carried all the evidence against him on his
person, 39 witnesses also provided testimony placing him with Gerard Lowe.
It may be obvious by this point, but Scripps had very little wiggle room to escape a conviction.
He tried to present a self-defense case, stating that Lowe had made homosexual advances towards
him in the hotel bed, and when Scripps declined them, Lowe had initially thrown the hammer
at him, after which Scripps retaliated by striking a blow to Lowe.
He further stated, “I may have worked in the butchery, but cutting up a human body
is another thing”.
To no one’s surprise, the statement about cutting up humans feeling different than cutting
up meat didn’t really convince the jury of his innocence, as Scripps was clearly hoping
it would.
The Singapore courts sentenced him to death by hanging, and though Scripps’ mother protested
the sentence, no other activists or groups jumped in to defend him, and the British government,
clearly not wanting to be associated with Scripps, declined to make a plea for clemency.
On April 19, 1996, just over a year after his traveling killing spree, John Martin Scripps
was hanged in Singapore’s Changi prison.
This made Scripps the first Briton to be executed in Singapore since its 1959 independence from
colonial rule.
Though Scripp was executed for Lowe’s murder, the police investigating the Damudes’ homicides
closed the file on the day of his execution, deciding that the case was effectively finished.
To this day, authorities around the world, and even Scripps’ ex-wife Maria, remain
unsure as to just how many travelers may have fallen victim to the serial killer’s predations.
After learning the story of the Tourist From Hell Serial Killer, hopefully you don’t
feel as annoyed at your hostel bunkmate snoring loudly three feet away from you.
Remember, there are much worse tourists out there.
What’s the worst thing you’ve encountered on your travels?
Comm ent below, and in the meantime, check out this video over here, or this other story
on The Infographics Show!