A serial killer told one of his victims he was attacking him "for fun".
Peter Moore reigned terror in four dark months of 1995. He killed and mutilated four men in a murder spree which struck fear in the community and meant loved ones were utterly heartbroken.
St Helens-born Moore targeted gay men in clubs and cruising spots across Merseyside and North Wales. He was known as an eccentric and dubbed the 'Man in Black' for his dark leather clothes.
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In a confession to detectives, Moore said he told one of his victims he was attacking him "for fun" and that he took a "certain enjoyment" in the killing. Before his true self was revealed via heinous crimes, Moore, who moved to Wales with his family as a boy, was known an an "upstanding" businessman and owned a chain of cinemas in North Wales.
But reports at the time said Moore's childhood home contained cuddly toys lying alongside a Nazi flag, handcuffs and military uniforms. Moore shared this obsession with his first victim Henry Roberts.
Mr Roberts was found dead in the yard outside his home in September 1995, with 27 stab wounds to his body. His pet Labrador was trapped inside the house.
The 56-year-old retired railway lived on the outskirts of Caergeiliog near Holyhead and was known as someone who "wouldn't hurt a fly" and a harmless "village eccentric". The community were stunned and asked who would kill him and why.
Murder detectives were also stumped by the killing in the early stages of their manhunt for Mr Roberts' killer. Detective Supt Eric Jones admitted police had few clues about a motive for the killing.
What investigators didn't know at first is that Mr Roberts shared an enthusiasm with his killer for Nazi paraphernalia. When Moore was eventually caught, the court heard Mr Roberts tried to protest he was not Jewish, as Moore stabbed him with a combat knife he bought a few days earlier for £25.
Just a month later after the brutal murder of Mr Roberts, Moore was prowling Paco's, a gay bar on Stanley Street in Liverpool city centre on an October Friday night. He was looking for his next victim.
In the club was 28 year old Edward Carthy, from Tranmere. Moore decided to offer a lift home to Mr Carthy, which he accepted. However, during this journey the 28-year-old realised something bad was going to happen and he tried to escape from Moore's van.
But Moore drove Mr Carthy to a secluded spot in Clocaenog Forest, near Ruthin, where he attacked him. It would be several weeks before his remains were found buried in a shallow grave in woodland, by which time three more men were also dead.
In Moore's confession, he described how Mr Carthy had asked if he was a "Nilsen type fellow", referring to notorious British serial killer Dennis Nilsen, who killed at least 12 men and boys between 1978 and 1983. Moore said he simply replied "yes" before plunging a knife into Me Carthy.
His body was the last to be found when the murderous Moore drew a diagram to help police find where he was buried in the dense forest. Mr Carthy's family said his murder "destroyed" them and it was only recently in a documentary called Dark Land: The Hunt For Wales' Worst Serial Killer, the family found out the truth of how the 28-year-old was killed after decades of rumours.
Home Office forensic pathologist Dr Donald Waite confirmed his death had been caused by three stab wounds to the stomach.
Moore's third victim was 49-year-old traffic manager Keith Randles. He was last seen buying fish and chips one November night before returning home to his caravan on a North Wales construction site.
Workmen found Mr Randles - stabbed to death - outside his caravan near Llangefni, on the side of the A5, around 7.30am the next morning. It was in Mr Randles's tragic death that Moore said to detectives that he told his victim he was attacking him "for fun" and that he took "a certain enjoyment" in the killing.
Murder detectives would later find out that on the night of his murder, Mr Randles had opened the door to his caravan to find Moore waiting for him. Why Mr Randles became the next victim of a depraved serial killer is unclear, but prosecuting barrister Alex Carlile said the victim's only misfortune was to be living on Moore's route home.
Moore's last victim was Tony Davies, a 40-year-old married man and father-of-two. Just a month after Mr Randle was brutally murdered, Mr Davies was stabbed to death on Pensarn Beach in Abergele.
On the night of his death, Mr Davies had driven to the beach near Colwyn Bay, a meeting place near his home which was used as a cruising spot for gay men. Moore told detectives he had been cruising the area when he saw Mr Davies expose himself.
He was stabbed to death in Moore's final killing. Blood found on the beach was matched by DNA profile to Moore - allowing murder detectives to finally close the net around a serial killer who had evaded them for months.
The predatory killer was also believed to have launched s avage, non-fatal physical and sexual assaults on 50 lone men across Wales and Merseyside in what the judge at his murder trial described as "20 years of terror".
He said: "When driving around, I would sometimes notice someone walking along the road late at night and I would stop and attack them. I would assault them with a police truncheon and strike them on the body and their heads many times.
"Usually I would be dressed as a policeman or in a Nazi uniform or something similar, just to scare them. I heard that a few of these men had been seriously injured after the attacks."
Once caught, Moore initially confessed to the murders in extraordinary interviews, but hours later he withdrew his confession. Instead he claimed he had confessed to protect the real murderer, a man he nicknamed 'Jason' after the killer in the Friday the 13th films shown at his cinemas.
This was dismissed by investigators and the jury at his trial, where prosecutor Alex Carlile, QC described Moore as: "The man in black - black thoughts and the blackest of deeds."
Following a trial in Mold Crown Court, Moore was given four life sentences in November 1996, with a recommendation that he never be released.
Moore remains in HMP Wakefield, a high security prison which holds 600 of the UK’s most dangerous prisoners, mainly murderers and sex offenders, including child murderers Ian Huntley and Mark Bridger.
