Just after the Second World War, England experienced a series of grisly murders carried out by a man who came to be known as the Moon Killer. Showing all the characteristic traits of a werewolf, he claimed that the lunar cycles influenced his behaviour and turned him into a homicidal maniac.
Allan Whitcomb Dennis was found guilty of a series of murders after telling police that “the moon does strange things to me“. He was eventually linked to three killings in the city of Birmingham over a seventeen year period. The press dubbed him the “Moon Killer”.
A werewolf in England strikes for the first time
His first crime was on Friday, 10 March, 1933. Aged only 17, he later confessed to the murder of his own baby niece. But at the time, he escaped conviction even though the baby’s mother – his sister – accused Whitcomb Dennis of slaying her child. One account claims that at the time, a medical report asserted the child had died of an epileptic fit.
But ten years later in 1943, Whitcomb Dennis told all to a police officer while doing military service during World War Two. Incredibly, he wasn’t believed and instead was discharged from the army on psychiatric grounds and committed for a while to a mental hospital in south Wales.
Two more deaths linked to this werewolf in England
In 1948, he struck again. Now released from the mental hospital, he murdered an elderly lady, Harriet Mills, who lived a few doors down from his family home. There was a thumbprint sized bruise on her neck and evidence of having been hit by a blunt instrument. Somehow, the jury returned a verdict of accidental death.
It took another killing eighteen months later to finally reveal the Moon Killer. On Thursday 30 March 1950, Ivy Watkins was murdered. Unlike the Mills case, there was clear evidence of a break in – through the coal cellar – and the victim had a pillow over her face and streaks of dried blood across her head. Again, there were bruises on this victim’s throat, as with Mills, but also bite marks.
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The police carried out routine investigations and questioned Allan Whitcomb Dennis. He had difficulty explaining why there were scratches on his face and all over his arms. Clearly, Ivy Watkins had not expired without a good fight. Although eventually, sadly, succumbing to the werewolf.
At his trial, both Whitcomb Dennis and his sister, the mother of the child he had killed, ascribed his violence to the moon. A psychologist told the court that he was aware of cases where lunar cycles influenced the behaviour of certain people. The jury found him guilty of murder but insane. He was committed to Broadmoor, one of the most fearsome psychiatric institutions in Britain.
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Old Stinker – a new werewolf in England
In 2016, there was something of a werewolf scare in the north of England with sightings of a beast dubbed ‘Old Stinker’. Also referred to in the local media as The Beast of Barmston Drain.
As in the United States, England is occasionally gripped by alleged sightings of huge mammals that it’s claimed pose a real threat to people, especially those who are weaker such as children and the elderly. In this case, people around the city of Hull claimed to have seen an eight-foot high half man/half dog creature carrying off its prey.
An American Werewolf in London
In 1981, the movie An American Werewolf in London was released in cinemas. It included a dramatic transformation scene that shocked audiences at the time. And of course it went on to be used by Michael Jackson a couple of years later in the video for Thriller.