John Childs, a native of East London, is widely known as one of the most prolific contract killers in British criminal history. Very little is publicly known about his early upbringing or formative years, though he later served in the British Army as a sapper. His military service was brief, ending after just nine months due to criminal behavior — specifically burglary, which led to his dismissal.

Afterward, Childs accumulated a modest criminal record that included convictions for motorcycle theft. He was released from prison in 1972 and began working with known criminals Terry Pinfold and Harry “Big H” MacKenney, whom he later accused of involvement in murders. Childs was reportedly obsessed with weapons and war literature, indicating a fascination with violence that foreshadowed his later crimes.

He lived in a council flat in Poplar, East London, which he later claimed to have used as a crematorium for his dismembered victims. Childs married and had two daughters, but his wife Tina divorced him in 1982 after his arrest and conviction.

Between November 1974 and October 1978, Childs claimed responsibility for the brutal murders of six individuals: Terence Eve, George Brett, Terry Brett (George’s 10-year-old son), Frederick Sherwood, Robert Brown, and Ronald Andrews. According to his confessions, he dismembered and burned the bodies using a 55-gallon drum in his Poplar flat. No remains or murder weapons were ever recovered, leaving many aspects of his story unconfirmed but accepted by the court based on his own testimony.

Childs was initially arrested in September 1978 for a string of robberies and confessed to the murders in June 1979. He was convicted on 4 December 1979 at the Old Bailey and sentenced to six concurrent life terms. He later turned Queen’s Evidence, implicating former associates MacKenney and Pinfold. They were convicted in a second trial in 1980, though doubts about Childs’ credibility emerged soon after.

In 1986, while at HMP Winchester, Childs admitted in writing that Pinfold was wrongly convicted based on his false testimony. He later described his gruesome disposal methods in letters to penfriends and even confessed to five additional murders in a 1998 interview with the Daily Mirror.

Despite numerous appeals, it wasn’t until 2003 that the convictions against MacKenney and Pinfold were overturned. A forensic psychiatrist concluded that Childs was a pathological liar, a fact the jury had not been informed of during trial. The court ruled that his evidence was unreliable, leading to their release after more than 20 years in prison.

Claims later emerged that Childs had fabricated his identity, possibly being a Welshman named Martin Jones. His former wife and other sources corroborated inconsistencies in his background, further clouding the truth about his identity and crimes.