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Hitman's Confession: A Journalist's Decade-Long Investigation
4 May
Summary
- Journalist believes hitman confessed to previously unsolved murder.
- Hitman confessed to additional murders, mostly dismissed as fantasy.
- Key details of an unsolved murder matched hitman's confession.
A crime journalist, Jeff Edwards, believes he uncovered details of an unsolved murder from a notorious hitman, John 'Bruce' Childs.
Childs, who was serving a life sentence for six murders since 1980, confessed to Edwards during prison visits in 1998 and 1999.
While most of Childs' confessions were dismissed as fantasy, one murder from April 1979 in Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire, captured Edwards' attention.
The victim was 60-year-old petrol station attendant Gordon Snowden, whose death was the only unsolved murder in Lincolnshire at the time.
Edwards was persuaded by Childs' detailed description of the crime, which matched withheld police information about the cash register.
Lincolnshire Police later corroborated Edwards' findings, concluding Childs was likely telling the truth, though no prosecution followed due to lack of evidence.
Childs was previously described as a 'pathological liar' by a Chief Justice.
