Free Sadistic Killers: Profiles of Pathological Predators by Carol Anne Davis Page A

particularly thrilled to find a photo of a starving African baby and would later tell police that he ‘got off ’ on such images. He also loved the movie Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer , which represents the aimless life and supposedly daily violence of the late serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. He became equally enamoured of the Arkansas religious group Kingdom Identity which believes that homosexuality should be punished by death.
    Deciding to kill and maim the various societal groups which he despised, Copeland turned to the Internet and learned how to make explosives. He began to have panic attacks so returned home to his father for a few months but stabilised after being prescribed sleeping pills. He resumed his rambling talk to acquaintances about wanting to hurt black people and remained generally aggressive. The rows at home continued and eventually his father threw him out.
    In January 1999, David Copeland moved into a bedsit in Farnborough and found a job doing engineering work on the 67
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    Jubilee Line. A sympathetic co-worker befriended the boy, later describing him as ‘immature, unloved and insecure’.
    But 22-year-old David found a source of affection when he bought a white rat for company. He doted on his pet and would later pay for it to have the best veterinary care. (Though many sadists torture animals, a few – such as Christopher Wilder
    – are genuinely fond of them. After all, an animal can offer unconditional love, something that many sadists have never known.)
    Every night the young man returned to his bedsit and communed with his rat then spent hours making bombs, testing them on a quiet stretch of wasteland. He would later say that he wanted to be remembered.
    On 17 April 1999, he set off for Brixton carrying a bag with a pipe bomb inside. The bomb nestled within a sandwich container which was packed with thousands of nails which he hoped would lacerate human flesh.
    Brixton bomb
    Copeland travelled by train and cab to Brixton Market and put the bag with the bomb down by a busy bus stop. He then returned home to watch the news.
    At teatime the bomb exploded, sending nails into people’s heads, limbs and groins. Two people lost an eye and a two-year-old boy had a nail penetrate his brain. Ironically, given that the bomber wanted to hurt black and Asian people, 24 of the 42
    victims were white.
    But the young man with the bag had been captured on CCTV
    so Copeland’s freedom was limited. Later, when the photos were printed in national newspapers, one of his colleagues would recognise him and give his name to the police.
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    Brick Lane bomb
    Excited by the carnage which he’d caused, the dispossessed young man now focused on the Asian market at Brick Lane in the East End of London. He planned to cause as much carnage as possible before he was identified. He arrived on Saturday 24
    April, only to find that the market was now held on a Sunday.
    He also saw several white people, the so-called chosen race, in the vicinity. But sadism is no respecter of colour, so he set the bag containing the ticking pipe bomb down beside a car and left the area.
    The subsequent explosion blew the vehicle apart and damaged nearby shops and restaurants, perforating several shoppers’ eardrums. Others had glass from nearby windows embedded in their heads.
    Visions of torture
    David Copeland would later tell police that he felt nothing at the carnage he’d caused, but he continued to seek out cruel images, going to Soho and renting a video which he believed featured bondage and torture. He was incensed to find that it actually showed coprophilia (defecation for erotic purposes, one of the least popular fetishes.)
    Whilst returning the video, he heard on the shop radio that the police had video footage of the bomber. Determined to cause one final act of mayhem, he fetched