John Sweeney, 69, was given a whole-life tariff at the Old Bailey in 2011 for the murders of former girlfriends Paula Fields and Melissa Halstead.
A double killer who was convicted of butchering two women and dumping them in canals in London and the Netherlands has died in prison. John Sweeney, 69, was given a whole-life tariff at the Old Bailey in 2011 for the murders of former girlfriends Paula Fields and Melissa Halstead.
Their bodies were discovered a decade apart in England and the Netherlands and police suspected he had murdered other former partners who had not been seen for years.
Sweeney is understood to have died at HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire on August 14.
The Times reported that he died of cancer. A Prison Service spokesperson said: “These were horrific crimes and our thoughts remain with the victims and their loved ones.
“As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman is investigating, and it would be inappropriate to comment further before the conclusion of its findings.”
Sweeney, a carpenter, boasted of his violence in lurid paintings and verse found at his home – and in one picture, showing a bloody axe, he called himself the Scalp Hunter.
In addition to the two murders, he also launched an axe attack on a girlfriend, nurse Delia Balmer, who was only saved when a neighbour arrived to help.
Former model Miss Halstead, 33, from the US, was killed in 1990.
Her dismembered body was thrown into a canal in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
She was only identified 18 years later by DNA, although her head and hands have never been found.
The body parts of Paula Fields, 31, were found in six holdalls floating in the Regent’s Canal in Camden, north London, in February 2001.
Her head, hands and feet are still missing.
Ms Balmer wrote a memoir about her near-fatal experience living with Sweeney which was adapted into a television miniseries called Until I Kill You by ITV in 2024.
