This episode may contain content of a graphic nature, including descriptions of physical and
sexual violence against adults, children, and animals. Listener discretion is advised.
Hi everyone, I'm Tanya and I'm Talia and we are Crimes and Consequences,
a true crime podcast. Hi Talia, Hey Tanya, how are you today?
Today's a good day. How are you awesome? I am sorry?
Yeah, everything's fantastic, fantastic. I have another fine episode for all of
us to listen to today, Hine, So welcome back everyone. Before I
get into it, I would just like to remind everyone to hit the subscribe
or follow button on your face app. And have you ever heard of John
Sweeney? No? No, no answers, no answers no, okay,
I've never heard of it. So here I'm gonna get to yeah, not
Sweeney, Todd, okay. John Patrick Sweeney was born in Kirkdale, which
is a middle class district in Liverpool, England, on October thirteenth, nineteen
fifty six, to his parents, Jack and Catherine. Although John's family was
relatively poor, his childhood was pretty uneventful. He was an overall happy kid
who was always smiling. He had curly red hair. And deep blue eyes,
a huge grin and thick arched eyebrows. Jack and Katherine raised their son
Irish Catholic, and John was raised to have a strong work ethic and family
values. He spent his time training as a carpenter and he was a really
smart kid and his family was pretty decent. He spoke with a stutter and
he was I know, he was made fun like yeah. For five years,
John found work throughout Europe. He worked for various construction sites like as
he got older, in Spain, France, Holland, Italy, Germany and
Austria. And because he had a really good work ethic, he made pretty
decent money. I think he was really hard working. And while he's traveling,
you know, he's dating and meeting various women, having a good time
time and he's young. But at some point something in his brain snapped.
When he came back to England after working abroad for a few years, he
seemed to be just incredibly angry, bitter and jealous use of what, I
don't know. He just was angry all the time. His life was just
now consumed by taking hard drugs and drinking, and with this came a thirst
for intense violence. Okay, he's overall I mean, I mean in college
I did some things and there was some drinking, but I did not have
a thirst for intense violence. No, I don't know what happened to him.
His overall appearance changed. Also. He once had a full head of
neat, curly red hair. He was thin. He just didn't take care
of himself. No, No, because he was an alcoholic at this point
and he faced his beat right. Yeah, he was just disheveled and his
appearance just kind of was a mess. Even though he had a vicious temper,
he still really wanted to settle down and start a family. So in
nineteen seventy six he met a lovely woman named Anne Bramley and he married her
that same year. Great, yeah, it was great, Not really though.
Anne was wonderful. She had a warm heart, kind smile, and
she was raised with the same kind of family values that John had. They
moved in together after they got married and lived near Liverpool, and they ended
up having two kids, Michael and Tracy. The happy family that John envisioned
for himself, it really never came to fruition because of his temperament. Yeah,
he's angry, He eventually got into committing like petty crime stuff. But
he was a hard worker. I didn't understand it was partly because he was
drunk, so he would commit petty crimes, assault, drug possession. In
the marriage between John and Anne, it was turbulent. Well yeah, and
it really only lasted till nineteen seventy nine when they divorced. At this point,
John had become distant and whenever he was around his family, he was
violent, and Anne wanted to keep the toaddlers Michael and Tracy away from Dad.
Yeah, he's violent. He's violent, and she would have to call
the police due to some of the abuse that he did. Anne, but
she also hit a soft spot because she's nice. Yeah, she's nice,
and John is the father of her children. Okay, So she wanted to
give him another chance, and he did apologize to Anne. You know how
it is. It's a vicious cycycle, right. He promised, I'm going
to leave the drugs and the drinking behind me, not steal from people.
Yeah, and he made Anne believe, you know, they had a bright
future. She gave him the second chance and invited him back into the family
and they got remarried in nineteen eighty one. So they did get divorced,
yes, And in her defense, when she met him, he was a
hard baker, right, and so she's thinking, Okay, maybe he just
lost his pack, lost his way. Yeah, And so they got back
together and she believed that, you know, he was changed, but she
actually remarried him. Yeah, and she read I mean she remarried him,
Wow, But he really didn't change. He was still surprise, surprise,
he was still drinking, and he vowed that he wasn't going to ever let
Anne leave him again. Their second marriage didn't last, by the way,
again, surprise, again, surprise, it didn't even last a full year.
At one point, this is really weird. John gave their child,
Michael, a drawing that showed Anne Michael's mom dead and lying in a coffin.
What I know, hay Son, I drew a photo. I got
a picture for you at your mom, And next to the coffin was a
gravestone that read rest in Peace. Anne Michael ran to his mom and handed
her the drawing, and horrible. Anne was like, what the fuck.
Yeah, She's kind of like this is just crazy, Like he's he's lost
his mind. She's not really scared yea. Clearly she knew she needed to
take Michael and Tracy out of the situation and just get be safe. Yeah,
and get safe. She ran away at midnight to her family's home in
Northampton, but John always had a way of finding them, and November of
nineteen eighty two, Anne had taken her children to a small cottage in Ormskirk,
which is a small town in West Lanchestershire. I'm saying it wrong,
I know it. It is fourteen miles north of Liverpool, and she thought
she'd finally escaped her abusive husband, But to her extreme disappointment and fear,
he had been following them the entire way, and he knew exactly where they
were stalking them. Oh yeah. After following his family to what they thought
was a safe haven, John watched his family leave for a quick outing.
The memory of how many times Anne continuously rejected him made him really pissed.
While Anne and the children were out, he broke the lock on the back
door and crept inside the home. Man, I know, he quietly walked
throughout the house and he knew that nobody was home, so I mean he
was pretty comfortable. Once inside the home. He had a plan. He
was going to hide inside annt's closet. That's fucking terrifying, right. He
didn't come to the home empty handed. With him, he had a pickaxe
in one hand and a claw hammer and the other. Oh my gosh,
John thought, you know, I'm probably gonna be waiting here for hours for
Anne to come back. But he was wrong. It was only a little
while before he heard movement throughout the house. As footsteps approached the bedroom door.
John held on to these weapons tightly so he'd be ruddy when Anne was
in striking distance. When John finally felt that it was time, he came
pouncing out of the closet, but rather than seeing his soon to be ex
wife, Anne, John saw two huge police officers right in front of him.
What a shot. John dropped. Both the weapons and the stutter that
he had suffered his entire life came out to play when he began making up
excuse and excuse on why the fuck he could possibly be hiding and his soon
to be ex wife's closet armed with some dangerous weapons pick axe, Hello,
Hello. Anne and the children were spending the night at the neighbor's house,
and while there, Anne heard the lock being broken and assume that an intruder
was breaking into the house, so he thought they were out in about.
He didn't know that she was just at the neighbor's yea, just at the
neighbor's house. He's not paying He's not a good stalker. No, and
maybe you know yeah, yeah, exactly, he's not a good stalker.
Used to pay better attention, doing a very poor job at stalking. John
was arrested but wasn't charged what with attempted murder? Well, your charger was
something. Yeah, he wasn't charged with attempted manslaughter. I don't even say
trespassing because I'll get angry. Well, no assault was committed, and law
enforcement felt that malicious intent was hard to prove. So authorities were at a
loss as to what to actually do with him, since technically he was inside
his own home, or so they said. It's not his own home,
it's not let's be any with an intent to cause very bodily harm, right,
clearly, But John was just told to stay away from Anne. Oh
okay, since he had a long history of violence against her, and Anne
was able to obtain a restraining order. That always is helpful. Yeah,
sarcasm and right now, we know that. We know that as lawyers,
restraining orders a piece of paper, protect yourself, right. The restraining order
said he wasn't allowed to go near Anne or the children ever again. From
now on, I'm going to refer to John as Sweeney since he no longer
deserves to be on a first name basis with us. Oh really, And
I don't let you know why he doesn't deserve it to begin with. But
we need to distinguish between his life before he started killing and during and after.
Okay, so he's turned into a Sweeney, Yeah, he's turned into
Sweeney. The same year after the break in arrest happened slash not arrest,
Sweeney started over and moved to London, and this is where he ended up
staying for decades. He only returned to his hometown in Liverpool to visit his
mother Throughout the years in London, John would have run ins with Anne,
but for the sake of their children, they remained civil. Or at all
he did, I don't know. Anne was probably scared as fock. But
Anne ended up passing away in two thousand and one after sadly an extremely long
battle with cancer. Sweeney never made another attempt on Anne's life. After that
incident where he was arrested, no arrested, he pretty much left her alone.
It's good. Not long after his move to London, it was now
time for him to seek another love interest. In two thousand and one,
Swinney would meet his first victim, a thirty three year old American model slash
photographer, Melissa Halsted. How is he getting a model? I don't know.
His heart was still filled with nothing but jealousy and hatred before he married
Anne, and unfortunately this was going to be prevalent in what he did to
his victims, probably throughout his whole life. Yeah. Probably. Melissa Halsted
was born in Oaquit, Ohio, and was the middle child to parents Margaret
and Jack. They were middle class and both Margaret and Jack worked in the
oral surgery field in Dayton, Ohio. Melissa was a very pretty girl and
her looks demanded attention. Although she was a little self centered at times,
she was very very intelligent. She had close friends who said she was the
type of friend that you would have for life. She was someone you could
both kind of love and hate at the same time. As of her attitude,
I think her incredible beauty and Her bubbly and bright personality attracted all types
of people, both good and bad. But even so, she was fearless.
She had sparkling eyes and a striking pose, and she was quickly scouted
by the famous New York modeling agency Ford follow Really so her fodeling career took
her across America, Asia and Europe. Despite the various types of personalities around
her throughout her career, Melissa always saw the beast in people, but she
wasn't that way with strangers. In nineteen eighty six, she slowed her modeling
career and trained as a fashion photographer and six I thought we were out two
thousand and one up. Yeah. So this was before she settled in London,
where she thought a new, exciting chapter of her life was just about
to begin. She had found a boyfriend and she told her family about him.
His name was Scouts Joe. She described her relationship with Joe as love
hate. She would experience the violence. I know, it's great, my
daughter says, I have a love hate relationship. Oh that's great, that's
wonderful. A marriage and Joe was sometimes violent, and she would show up
on set with black eyes. Oh that's horrible. You know, on bloody
lips. And if these hints about the black eyes and the bloody lip doesn't
tip you off enough, Joe is really Sweeney right. He had a short
fuse and he never hesitated to punch beautiful Melissa in the face whenever he thought
it was necessary to keep her in line. He was still this jealous,
angry alcoholic with an intense drug problem. With Sweeney, the relationship between he
and Melissa was just fucked up from the get go. On three different occasions,
Melissa tried to leave him, and each time she did, he would
end up being arrested and charged with ABH, which is actual bodily harm and
it's a charge specifically found in England and Wales. It's like domestic violence.
Yeah, it's when assault leads to the victim being hurt or injured. In
September of nineteen eighty seven, Sweeney literally smashed Melissa's face with a bar stool.
What And in December of nineteen eighty seven, he beat her so badly
as she lay in the fetal position that he fractured both of her legs.
Oh my gosh, someone needs to get her out right, And the authorities
were calling both of these occasions, but Sweeney served no prison time. He
was only fined five pounds. Wow, but she went back with him.
Yeah, he was hurt, saying at one point, who do you think
you are? I'm the one who says what you can and can't do.
In April of nineteen eighty eight, Sweeney threatened Melissa with a knife. This
threat scared her so badly that she called her sister and told her, quote,
if I go missing, it's John Sweeney who would have killed me.
She's been with him a couple of years now. Yeah. Melissa got a
restraining order from the courts, just as Anne had. Melissa's work permit to
be in London expired in October of nineteen eighty eight, and luckily for Melissa,
she was deported from the United Kingdom and was able to start a fresh
life hundreds thousands of miles away from Sweeney in Austria, Belgium, Germany and
France. Oh good for her. She got out one way or the other.
Yeah, But regardless of where she moved, stop Sweeney followed her.
No, how's he getting all those like those places? How's he getting this
money? I don't know. He was able to find her and each time
he did, Melissa strongly rejected him. His drinking just got worse and worse
too, regardless of her straining order against him. They restrainings in the UK,
so wherever she traveled to she knew that he wasn't far behind. She
did everything she could to cover her tracks. He stalked her abroad. He
stalked her across six different countries in Europe. I November first, nineteen eighty
eight, Sweeney was able to find Melissa and tractor to her new apartment in
the Austrian city of Vienna. He was high and drunk at the time.
He was obsessed with the notion that Melissa had cheated on him, even though
they're not together. They're not together in a different country, buddy, exactly,
and he refused to think that the end of their relationship was his fault,
so he wasn't giving up. He broke into Melissa's apartment through the back
door she was home at the time. He gagged her and tied her up,
and then he absolutely destroyed her apartment. He knew that if he looked
hard enough, he was going to find proof that Melissa didn't fact cheat on
him. But during the many times that Melissa was assaulted during their time together.
Melissa knew what pissed Sweeney off, so she was extremely careful not to
upset him since she was scared shitless. Yeah, oh my gosh, tiptoed
on. I mean, like, I love you so much. I know.
She never confronted him. She just tried to get him to relax and
calm down. Melissa did everything she could to a peace Sweeney, and eventually
he did release her. And because she knew how to get him to calm
down, and when you're with an abuser, you get to know the signals.
Eventually she bought him a ticket to Amsterdam so he could smoke some weed,
have a beer and get the fuck out. Yeah, and get the
fuck out and calm down. And he took the ticket and he laughed.
Even though he went to Amsterdam, he wasn't finished with Melissa. Rather than
thinking that Melissa knew him well enough to know what he needed when he was
upset, he took Melissa's act as some kind of scam to shut him up.
Every woman in his life up to this point had done the same thing,
or so he thought, I mean, he was paranoid. It sucked
him up so badly that any time a kind woman did anything at all,
heed it. Yeah, of course, he questioned, he thought it was
a bribe, or especially when you've gagged that woman and bound her. I
mean I would question the kindness too. I know. Right, all of
the women in his life are supposedly conspiring against him, and he was going
to make them pay one way or another. He had the mentality of everyone's
out to get me, and nobody could ever reason with him and tell him
any differently. In this case with Melissa, Sweeney just knew that she was
to blame for everything that had happened between them, and he wanted revenge.
On November fourth, nineteen eighty eight, six years after his failed attempt on
Anne's life, Sweeney approached to Melissa's apartment again. The only difference between this
time and the time before with Anne was that Melissa was home. He knew
he couldn't break in, so he knocked on the front door. Melissa was
pissed when she answered the door. I mean, he's it's like, what
do I want a cup of sugar? Add you gag me, bound me
and destroyed my apartment exactly and just like the night with Anne, Sweeney had
a claw hammer clenched in his hand, waiting with anticipation for his time to
strike. Melissa, knowing that it was in her best interest not to upset
him, led him up to the first floor of her apartment. I don't
think she saw the claw ham win her bag was facing him. Sweeney swung
the hammer and made contact with her skull. You know. Once she fell,
Sweeney straddled her and proceeded to hit her a few more times with the
hammer. She should never let him in. No, Melissa somehow survived this
attack O, and she woke up in a hospital bed. That's happy,
thank god. Right, Melissa sided the attack quote. I only ever wanted
to help him, But now I know he must have really hated me.
A. Yeah, he's a psychic or he's a psychopath, right psycho.
Sweeney was arrested later that day. The attack obviously left Melissa traumatized, yeah,
and disfigured. When question about the attack, Sweeney told investigators that it
wasn't premeditated. Okay, sure, I'm knocking on Tanya's door with my claw
hammer just for the fun of it. What's going on with you tonight?
Yeah? But it was instead based truly on the emotions of two lovers in
the heat of a passionate moment. Oh. Although Austrian authorities weren't able to
charge Sweeney with either attempted murder or attempted me and slaughter, I don't know,
he was found guilty of it aggravated assault and was sentenced to twelve months
in prison. Twelve months okay, so I've done like a five pound fine.
Twelve months and twelve months and he was to be deported for ten years.
He was of course released early, and Melissa helped him achieve this early
release. Melissa girl, she saw the good in him and fell for the
tears, begging and promise, just you know, he's gonna leave her alone
this time. I'm really I promise, I'm going to leave you alone.
Melissa spent two weeks in the hospital due to her injuries, and she relied
on pain killers to keep headaches from incapacitating her because she had a fractured skull,
but she still helped him. On March twenty seventh, nineteen eighty nine,
Sweeney was released after being in prison for six whole months, and just
like Anne, Melissa gave him another chance. What the two rekindled their relationship.
We have rules, clawhammer on my head. No, no second chance,
of second, second chance, and I would think this is more like
the fifth chance or tenth chance. But draw the bullshit. He's done.
I don't blame the victim. No, she's trying. The two rekindled their
relationship. A few months later, Melissa's body would be found in duffel bag
floating in a canal. I can see that, bumming. Yeah. On
the day that Sweeney was released, Melissa picked him up from prison with packed
bags so that they could relocate to Holland. Since he was banned from Austria.
You know, he got deported for the next ten years. Melissa ended
the restraining order she had so that the two could start their new lives together.
Sweeney was a sick man, but Melissa truly believed that he loved her,
even though he controlled every move she made. She just couldn't see it.
While in Holland, Sweeney spent most of his days in Amsterdam since drugs
were legal there. He's just probably having the time. This was the worst
spot for him to be. He was drinking, using drugs heavily. He
experimented with LSD and he became addicted to heroin, and although he got some
odd jobs in carpentry, Melissa was the breadwinner for the couple. She had
gotten a job as a fashion photographer and makeup artist, and that's pretty much
what paid their bills. Everybody probably must be wondering what she's doing with this
loser boyfriend. Oh right, I mean the money that he made his carpenter
that's what he used to pay for his drug and drinking habit. The physical
abuse didn't end either. Melissa was continuously beaten by Sweeney, and whenever she
was questioned about the bruises, she just covered them up with makeup and she
would make up excuses. Thankfully, her job took her out of town for
months at a time, but when she was gone for work, Sweeney just
got worse with his paranoia, his drug use, in drinking, his jealousy
was boiling over, and his mood got dangerously dark. In April of nineteen
ninety, Melissa came home from being away on business and she was on her
way home and she had decided that she was going to leave Sweeney for good.
But unfortunately, when she came home, that was the last anybody ever
saw her. I May third. That same year, an army Duffel bag
was seen partially submerged floating down a famous canal in Rotterdam, about fifty miles
from Amsterdam. Two police officers spotted the bag and just assumed it was lost
or stolen luggage. When the two men lifted the bag out, the water's
draining out of the bag, but the bag just was really heavy, like
dead weight. Once the Duffel bag was unzipped, police discovered the naked torso
torso of a female torso yeah, that had been sliced up, folded in
half, and jammed into the bag. There was no head, hands or
feet with her body. A carpenter saw was used to remove her head and
beat the tibia and fibula was sawn through. Her spine was completely severed and
her hands were cut off. Like I said, authorities believed that the bag
was in the canal for about a week and decomposition was in an advanced state.
The police had no idea who this woman was. She had no idea.
She was naked right, There's no hands, there's no feet. The
killer did everything he could to cover his tracks. Almost all of the DNA
evidence was washed away from the body being in the canal for so long,
the only thing the police had to go on was her torso so much.
No, and maybe there's a missing person report. Yeah, maybe, And
I think one of the reasons why her head for obvious reasons, identification.
But Sweeney, if you remember, had fractured her skull, and that hospital
records, Melissa Halstead was now marked as a Jane Doe and she was buried
in an unmarked grave in a Rotterdamn cemetery. Since Melissa was such a free
spirit, her family had no idea she was even missing until November of nineteen
ninety, when she failed to wish her mom a happy birthday. How long
had she been dead? By then, she had been gone for several months,
like her body was found in May. So this is what five five,
six months later, get a mask. The hosted family hired a local
lawyer to investigate Melissa's disappearance, but it was obviously too late. She was
gone, and Sweeney moved back to England, hoping to find another woman to
love. This time it was a woman by the name of Dahlia Balmer.
And before I tell you more about Delia, we're gonna take a break Dahlia
met Sweeney in nineteen eighty one inside of a pub in Camden, England.
Unfortunately, Dahlia was smitten with Sweeney from home, and she laid eyes on
him and I just don't get that. I don't seem like a toad.
Okay, that seemed attracted. No, but that's whatever. Maybe I don't
know, maybe their own extremely charming, who fucking knows. Dalia was a
petite, shy blonde who worked as a nurse and had no irrational fear of
any and all electronic devices. She was absolutely infatuated with Sweeney, and shortly
after their relationship began, he moved into her apartment, which coincidentally was located
about a mile from the canal where more remains would eventually be found. Dalia's
apartment was a little odd. She had every electronic device inside of her home
in cushions for fear that they would cause cancer. Did you ever see better
call Saul? Yes? Right? Yeah, so it's like chuck right,
yes, that like all the clothing everything to protect him from us from that.
Yeah, so this is what Dalia is like. Sweeney decided to redecorate
her apartment with various beer cans, crab pipes, oh, horror magazines,
and a pet tarantula. Oh but they didn't stop there. To top it
all off, he was a self proclaimed artist and decorated her apartment with morbid
depictions of headless female corpses, why not axes, blood torture, and various
body parts. He's an artist. He's an artist. Just like Sweeney had
with Melissa and Anne, Dahlia's life was strictly controlled. He mentally, emotionally,
and physically abused Dahlia over a four year span. I hate him,
I know, and she would soon be his next victim of unimaginable horror.
In November of nineteen ninety four, Dahlia attempted to leave Sweeney. She had
been beaten and bloodied so bad that she was just terrified for her life.
You do know that when the victim of domestic violence, either A becomes pregnant
or B decides to actually leave, the risk of them be murdered really really
increases. That breaks my heart. Pregnancy and then leading. Oh man,
that's terrible. I used to work at a domestic violin sheltered. Oh it's
so sad. Sweeney had ways of punishing Dahlia. He would tie her up
to the frame of her own bed, and he would use the same type
of rope that he used to tie Melissa's lifeless body up. That's what he
used, the same type of stuff with Dahlia. This punishment would last for
days forty eight hours days torture. She was repeatedly raped, tortured, beaten,
and strangled while a gun was held to her head. If she screamed,
she was told that her tongue was going to be cut out with one
of the kitchen knives. He used this time with Daalia to brag about what
happened to his last girlfriend. Oh shit, I know. When she tried
to leave him, he told her that Melissa was found in the Rotterdam canal,
decapitated with her hands and feet cut off. Surprisingly, Daa's life was
spared, at least at that point. He left her beaten and bloodied,
well tied to her bed. When Dahlia was finally out of that situation,
I think John Laughton, she somehow got away. Okay, she confided in
a friend about what had happened. The goddamn polite no and at this point,
Sweeney to Germany exactly, she probably is afraid PTSD right. She did
go to the authorities after this. Eventually, and since this wasn't the first
or second offense for Sweeney, he was arrested a few days later and deported
back to the UK. They found him. Why don't you just go back
to the UK. He just needs to go back. We don't want you
here, Dahlia said later. Quote. He will do something. He will
cut me to bits, just like he had Melissa end quote. On December
twenty second, nineteen ninety four, Sweeney was released on bail from Pentonville Prison.
This prison was walking distance from Dahia's apartment. I thought he got deported.
Well, that was in Germany. He had fled to Germany and then
they deported him back to the UK. Oh. Once word of his release
reached Dahlia, she's terrified. Oh yeah, she's scared for her life.
She knew she should be. He was coming for her. Absolutely. I
get the funk out of dog a man, right. So she's coming home,
probably from work, and in this little quiet town where she lived,
and she usually bicycled home, so she's off her bike. She's walking her
bicycle up to her apartment building. Sweeney jumped out and began slashing and slicing
her with a knife like surprised her. She put her hands up in self
defense, screaming her head off, as obviously anyone would in this situation.
Then she saw her own finger flying through the air. Oh man, Dahlia
said, quote, I saw my finger fly through the air, and I
thought, that's it. I don't want to live anymore. End quote.
That only was her pinky finger on her left hand, completely savered. But
Dahlia also sustained multiple lacerations to her hands, face, chests, and legs.
Both of her arms were broken, and she was stabbed in her size
and breast. She had an axe wound to her head. Oh my goodness,
an axound to the head and a punctured lung. And she lived,
and she lived. Wow. As she lay screaming in a pool of her
own blood, neighbors heard the screams and they all came running out, armed
with various weapons, and they chased Sweeney down the street. Damn, this
poor woman could have died. But yeah, she was a badass and she
survived this attack. Daia passed out from losing so much blood and woke up
in the hospital bed inside of the ICU of the Royal Free Hospital. Dahlia
said that she died inside that day and she was no longer the same person.
Fucking probably got PTSD right. Yeah, she was physically and emotionally scarred
forever. Yeah, absolutely she was mamed too. Sweeney went on the run
for six years, six years, six goddamn years. When told by her
friends to watch her back for Sweeney, Dahia replied, quote, it's too
late. I am not scared anymore, because as I am not me anymore.
I don't even know what to think of that. The police questioned Dahlia
about what happened to her, and she told him everything about the rate torture
and beatings. She told the police that Sweeney confessed to killing Melissa in Holland.
The police went to search Dahlia's apartment and they couldn't believe the artwork on
the walls. They also discovered that Sweeney had left his murder kit inside of
the apartment. K. Yeah, this kit was a similar green Duffel bag
that the remains of Melissa were found in. When Sweeney was on the run,
he found an old friend, Kevin Pratt, who he stayed with for
some time. He bragged about the attack on Dahlia. He confessed that he
had killed and dismembered Melissa. He also lied to Kevin about there being a
huge monetary reward for his capture. Sweeney died, I don't know, because
do you think that's what I like? Hey, I haven't seen you a
long time. Guess what, guess what? I had killed Melissa? I
almost killed Dahlia And there's a huge rewards. The would be a huge reward.
Oh, I'm impressed. I know, like I'm impressed. Oo right,
I do like what the fuck? You know what? Maybe Danny,
you need to find a hotel to stand to know if I want you here
at my blaze, I know, right. Sweeney did what he could to
keep his head down, so he moved on from Kevin to his ex wife
Ann and her kids. Yeah, you told me they were done. Yeah.
He never attacked her again, but while staying in the night with them,
he smoked weed and got drunks. He stayed the night there. Yeah,
he told Anne that he had done something so bad. And I think
maybe because there was so many years, probably you know, she probably let
her guard down and whatever. So in Anne's defense, maybe that's what happened.
He told Anne that he had done something so bad that it would make
her hair stand on end. He then confessed to murdering Melissa as well as
two other women. Oh, I don't know who. Yeah. He knew
that law enforcement was searching high and low to locate him due to his attack
on Melissa, so after leaving Anne, he hitched a ride back to Liverpool
to visit his mom. While staying with her, he taunted the authorities by
writing a letter to Scotland Yard and walking about his many crimes. He wrote
to them that they would never catch him. Arctassistic. Yeah, yeah,
guess what. He described his attack on Dahlia as an accident, a X
accident. Yeah, fucker right. Sweety had nobody else in his life at
this point, he had run out of options, so he decided to flee
the UK and he went further into Europe, where he decided he's going to
spend this is how he's going to get away. Knowing that he had to
remain under the radar, he continued to work as a carpenter, making money
under the table, and went back to using the many aliases that he had
come up with earlier in his life. Like when he was thieving. Member,
I told you he was doing these petty crimes. When he was first
with Anne, he lived with drug dealers to feed his LSD weed in heroin
habits. And like I told you, for six years he had fallen off
the grit he gone. Finally, after six years he resurfaced. He returned
to England and went out in search of another lover. This time it would
be a thirty one year old mother named Paula Fields. Paula was the youngest
of eleven children and was born into a typical working class family in one of
the poorer regions of Liverpool. The end of the nineteen seventies was really rough
for the Fields family as the shipyards closed down, causing poverty like just mass
poverty and unemployment. The underfunded council couldn't provide the area with basic necessities such
as housing, heat or even food, so thousands of families were homeless.
But the struggles for Paula had only just begun. Paula's mother died when she
was only nine, and all of the Field's children were split up to live
with various relatives. Yeah, you know, they went around to other family
members so that they could be cared for. Yeah, it owns a ship
ton of kids. Paula had no education, so she had trouble raising her
own three children. I mean she struggled for financial I imagine. In nineteen
ninety eight, she made the move to London to try to start a new
life for her in her own little family as a single mom of all boys
under the age of five. She worked shifts at the local laundromat and was
able to make enough money to get a single room at a nearby hotel and
halfway house called Highbury Hotel. Since she was no longer making enough money to
take care of her kids, though, Paula turned to sex work. She
was desperate to earn money trying to raise her children, but eventually she got
addicted to crack. Her children were taken away from her and placed in a
foster care. In the fall of two thousand, Paula met and fell in
love with a red headed carpenter named Scouts Joe. Scouts Joe Yeah, which
is John Yes, John's sweetie. Since Joe had access to drugs, she
moved into his apartment, even though he still had his morbid artwork hanging up
and he had got to let some things go right, and he had this
his duffel bag full of murder supply. I can only imagine what was in
there. Tools, yeah, tools and rope, and god knows what the
fuck else. He's a carpenter. Paula spent most of her time strung out,
and she didn't even notice when Sweeney really took over her life like he
had with the other women from his past. On December fifteenth, two thousand,
Paula was last seen walking into Sweeney's apartment. The last sound that neighbors
heard was loud swearing and screaming. I think it's probably an argument it's believed
that Paula found out her boyfriend's true identity. Sweeney moved out of the apartment,
and Paula was never seen or heard from again. A couple months later,
in February of two thousand and one, two boys were fishing a long
battle Bridge basin when their fishing hooks caught something heavy. Oh I know.
The boys reeled in their lines to find a heavy black duffel bag and it
was just reeking. Sweeney seemed to have learned from his mistakes with this discovery
of Melissa's body, so what he did to Paula was much different. This
isn't going to be good. He dismembered Paula's body into ten different pieces.
He cut through her neck, ankles, knees, wrists, and elbows,
wrapping each of them in their own separate bags. He weighed down the Duffel
bag with bricks so the pieces of Paula wouldn't make the bag float to the
surface. He did this in his own bathtub with the same saw he used
on Melissa. He cleaned the tub out, burned all of Paula's belongings,
and that's when he moved out of that apartment. As with Melissa, no
DNA was found on Paula's body. It had all been washed away, no
clothes, purse id There was no hands or feet or head found in the
bag to help authorities identify the remains. Paula's body was unclaimed, just like
Melissa's hand then, and it was buried in unmarked grave. Yeah, Sweeney
got away with yet another brutal murder. Unbelievable. After the remains of Paulo
were discovered, authorities kept hearing about Sweeney sightings in London. The police sent
out his description as well as his aliases to the various constables. On March
twenty third, two thousand and one, there was a red headed carpenter named
Joe Johnson working at a job site in Shoe Lane, Holborn, London.
He was cited and the police knew that he was a very dangerous man,
so they didn't want to take any chances. Armed officers surrounded Sweeney at work
and he was arrested. When he was arrested, he had a seven inch
knife in his waistband, of course, and a nine millimeter pistol was found
in his work locker. The police search, oh shit, probably some snacks
and a couple guns alright in case, just like knife on me and you
know guns in my life, I never know. The police searched his apartment
and they found everything that they needed to put him away for good. They
found two loaded shotguns, I'm machetti, zip ties, a duffel bag that
was filled with ropes, hammers, saws, and over two hundred dry and
poems depicting murder, torture, rape and dismember Oh my god, fucking a
right one of the paintings by Sweeney. He wrote a poem which read quote
poor old Melissa chapter up in bits food to feed the fish. Amsterdam was
the pits quote so clever. Wow, he could have had a whole another
career, you know, fucker. Another drawing had a gravestone that read rip
Melissa Halstead born December twelfth, nineteen fifty six. Many of the drawings were
of Anne and Dahlia being beheaded and tied up like those were the ones that
lived. Remember. For the attempted murder of Dahlia, Sweeney was sentenced to
ten years imprisonment. While in prison, he bragged a police about killing three
ex girlfriends, who coincidentally had never been found alive. He also admitted to
killing two German men who he had caught having sex with Melissa. None of
these confessions could be proven, so Sweeney couldn't be arrested for them. On
June twelfth, two thousand and seven, the remains of Melissa and Paula Fields
were identified. Thanks to advances made in genetic technology, Dutch police were able
to upload the DNA profiles of the unidentified females that had been found decapitated eighteen
years earlier. Wow, eighteen years Scotland yard also had the same type of
unsolved murder yea was killed in the UK, and so they had hers.
And so the Scotland Yard and Dutch police joined forces and they were able to
match DNA to both Melissa and Paula. The teams were also able to connect
the causes of death and identify the killer. Sweeney was arrested and found guilty
of the two murders on April fourth, twenty eleven, twenty eleven. He
was sentenced to life in prison. And I think he got a whole life
tariff, so his ass is not getting out. Dania Bomber has since retired
from nursing and has released a book about her time with Sweeney called Quote Living
with a Serial Killer. All the remains of both Paula and Melissa were sent
to their families for a proper burial, except their heads, hands and feet
were never found. And that is my story about John Sweeney. I hate
that fucker. What the hell I hate him. I never heard of him.
I didn't either. I know. I means horrible, horrible, horrible,
horrible, And I believe he killed more people. Oh, I'm sure
he did. I'm sure when he was bragging about those other murders, I'm
sure they are true. Yeah, he knew he wasn't going to get caught
for them, right gross? Anyway, Wow, well, thank you t
Lea for listening, and thank you everyone for tuning in. Thank is probably
outdated. You're not tuning in, you're just listening. You're playing, playing
your podcasts, playing your podcast that's showing my age. Thanks for tuning in,
y'all. Anyway, you're tuning in? Still appropriate? Is it?
When tuning in is like tuning in a radio step? But it's it works
for today. Okay, we're gonna have it work. It's fine. Still,
Hello, I'm a hundred, she's not even close. Well, thank
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