Philip Smith (criminal)

Philip John Smith (born 10 July 1965) is an English spree killer serving a life sentence for the murders of three women in Birmingham in November 2000. A former fairground worker employed at the Rainbow pub in Digbeth, Smith killed his victims over a four-day period. All three victims were mutilated almost beyond recognition, but Smith was quickly identified as the killer on the strength of overwhelming evidence.

Smith's first victim was Jodie Hyde, a recovering butane gas addict whom he met at the Rainbow before killing her hours later. He is thought to have strangled her before setting her body on fire near a recreation ground. Three days later, he met mother-of-three Rosemary Corcoran at the same public house and drove her to a rural location, where he bludgeoned her to death and drove over the body. Then, as he drove home, he hit care worker Carol Jordan with his car and, fearing capture, beat her to death. All three bodies were discovered soon after the murders were carried out.

Smith was apprehended after he contacted West Midlands Police saying that he wished to make a statement about Corcoran's disappearance. At the time, however, her body had not been positively identified, and inquiries quickly established that some aspects of his account were false. The murder inquiry, named Operation Green, uncovered a large quantity of strong evidence incriminating Smith, but at first he denied responsibility. He maintained his innocence as his trial began in July 2001, but later in the proceedings changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The motive for his crimes was unclear, but police who arrested him believed that a "lack of permanent sexual relations" was a contributing factor.

Detectives also investigated the death of a woman who had been a colleague of Smith at the Rainbow. Patricia Lynott, a divorced mother of two from Ireland who had moved to Birmingham, had been found dead in her flat in October 2000. Police had not treated the death as suspicious, but after they discovered her connection to Smith, her body was exhumed for a second post mortem. This proved to be inconclusive, and in January 2003 a coroner's jury in Birmingham recorded an open verdict after hearing that the cause of her death could not be determined. Provided by Wikipedia