By Martin Brunt, crime correspondent | Sky News – 6 hours agoRelated Content
Enlarge Photo'Black Panther' Serial Killer Dies In Jail
One of Britain's most notorious serial killers, known as the 'Black Panther', has died suddenly after becoming ill in jail.
Donald Neilson, 75, was serving a whole-life sentence for murdering five people, including the teenage heiress Lesley Whittle.
Neilson became infamous in the mid-70s when he went on the run after shooting dead three country post-masters during a string of night-time raids in the north and midlands.
But it was the kidnap of 17-year-old Lesley and her gruesome murder that put him top of the Most Wanted list.
He targeted her after reading how she had inherited £80,000 from her father two years earlier.
He snatched her from her Shropshire home in January, 1975, and forced her to hide, naked, with a rope around her neck on a ledge in a freezing drain shaft beneath a park.
Neilson used the park as a potential rendez-vous for a £50,000 ransom demand.
Her body was found hanging there a week later after a police search.
The former soldier stayed on the run for another nine months.
He later admitted he accidentally knocked Lesley off the ledge to her death.
Det Chief Supt Bob Booth, who led the hunt for Lesley's abductor, said: "I felt sick that it should have happened. We let her down.
"I had let her down. I am in charge, it was my fault."
Before he was captured Neilson shot dead a fifth victim, a security guard who confronted him in a railway yard where he was trying to set up another ransom drop.
He was dubbed the ' Black Panther ' because he wore a black mask and struck swiftly, according to his victims who survived.
He was eventually caught after taking hostage two police officers who had approached him.
He forced them at gunpoint to drive him away, but one crashed the car outside a fish shop and, with the help of a passer-by, Neilson was overpowered.
He was jailed for life and told he would never be freed .
It is believed he had been suffering from motor neuron disease and was taken from jail to hospital after suffering breathing difficulties.
Donald Neilson, 75, was serving a whole-life sentence for murdering five people, including the teenage heiress Lesley Whittle.
Neilson became infamous in the mid-70s when he went on the run after shooting dead three country post-masters during a string of night-time raids in the north and midlands.
But it was the kidnap of 17-year-old Lesley and her gruesome murder that put him top of the Most Wanted list.
He targeted her after reading how she had inherited £80,000 from her father two years earlier.
He snatched her from her Shropshire home in January, 1975, and forced her to hide, naked, with a rope around her neck on a ledge in a freezing drain shaft beneath a park.
Neilson used the park as a potential rendez-vous for a £50,000 ransom demand.
Her body was found hanging there a week later after a police search.
The former soldier stayed on the run for another nine months.
He later admitted he accidentally knocked Lesley off the ledge to her death.
Det Chief Supt Bob Booth, who led the hunt for Lesley's abductor, said: "I felt sick that it should have happened. We let her down.
"I had let her down. I am in charge, it was my fault."
Before he was captured Neilson shot dead a fifth victim, a security guard who confronted him in a railway yard where he was trying to set up another ransom drop.
He was dubbed the ' Black Panther ' because he wore a black mask and struck swiftly, according to his victims who survived.
He was eventually caught after taking hostage two police officers who had approached him.
He forced them at gunpoint to drive him away, but one crashed the car outside a fish shop and, with the help of a passer-by, Neilson was overpowered.
He was jailed for life and told he would never be freed .
It is believed he had been suffering from motor neuron disease and was taken from jail to hospital after suffering breathing difficulties.
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