STEVEN Wilkins is one of Grimsby's most notorious killers.
In five days he murdered two people, one of them a relative, who was killed and then burned.
A few days later he stabbed a petrol pump attendant in Coldstream, on the Scottish Border.
In the aftermath Wilkins was nicknamed "kill 'em and chill 'em".
In the 1970s he was convicted of raping an 80-year-old woman and sentenced to spend an indefinite period at Rampton, a high security mental health and criminal hospital near Retford in Nottinghamshire.
While there, he threatened to kill members of staff, spent time on a top security ward, and tried to escape at least once.
Tragically, Wilkins was granted 14 days' trial leave in 1979. It was while on leave he committed both murders.
His first victim was a relative, 68-year-old Marie Jensen.
Wilkins brutally raped the elderly woman and then, ignoring her pleas to be allowed to live, strangled her.
He set light to the bed where his victim lay.
The murder sparked a massive police investigation, but Wilkins had disappeared to Scotland in a stolen van with his 17-year-old girlfriend.
Four days later, Wilkins was to kill again. This time his victim was 63-year-old petrol pump attendant Sydney Mowitt, murdered simply for money to allow Wilkins to take a touring holiday around Scotland.
Mr Mowitt was robbed of £89 and stabbed ten times.
But the violent trail Wilkins left from Grimsby to Scotland had alerted police and the double murderer was not to avoid justice for long.
Police in Grimsby investigating Marie Jensen's death discovered Wilkins was on leave from Rampton and circulated his name to police forces throughout Britain.
When Wilkins was arrested by Scottish police the day after Mr Mowitt was murdered, the connection with Grimsby was soon made and Humberside Police were quickly informed.
With Wilkins under arrest, the full horror of his actions became apparent and he was committed to trial at Lincoln Crown Court.
Wilkins pleaded guilty to charges of murder, rape and arson. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1980.
Steven Wilkins was a rebel from an early age. Twice he managed to reach America.
In one of his journeys he earned massive media coverage, when only 14 years old, he crossed the Atlantic as a stowaway on board a giant cargo airliner.
In a childish escapade which gave little indication of the dreadful events to follow, Wilkins tricked his parents into believing he was off to sea on a pleasure trip before hitch-hiking to Heathrow.
At the airport he slipped past security guards, ran on to the runway and crept on board a Boeing 707 where he spent the nine-hour transatlantic crossing in a hold no bigger than a small coffin.
When he arrived at Kennedy Airport in New York he was quickly apprehended by immigration officials and returned to Britain.
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