Anthony Hardy
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Anthony Hardy (b. May 31, 1951) is an English serial killer who was convicted of murdering three women in London.
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[edit] Early life
Born in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, Anthony Hardy had an apparently uneventful childhood and excelled in school and college, particularly in engineering.
He married and fathered two sons and two daughters, but his wife divorced him in 1986, accusing him of domestic violence. In 1982, Hardy had been arrested for trying to drown his wife but the charges were later dropped.
After the divorce, Hardy spent time in mental hospitals, diagnosed with bipolar disorder[1].He lived in various hostels in London, picking up convictions for theft and being drunk and disorderly. He was arrested in 1998 when a prostitute accused him of raping her, but the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.
[edit] Murders
In January 2002, police were called to the block of flats that Hardy lived in after a neighbour complained that someone had vandalised her front door and that she strongly suspected Hardy. When the police investigated Hardy's flat they found a locked door, and despite his original claims to the contrary, police found that Hardy had a key. Investigating the room, the police found the body of a dead woman lying on a bed. She was identified as Sally White, 38, Hardy's flatmate.
A coroner subsequently determined that White had died of a heart attack, even though she was found naked in a locked room with cuts and bruises to her head.
Hardy spent a short time in jail for the vandalism offence then released.
On December 30, 2002, a homeless man hunting for food in some bins found some of the dismembered remains of two women found stuffed in bin-liners. The victims were identified as Bridgette MacClennan, 34, and Elizabeth Valad, 29.
[edit] Arrest and trial
The investigation lead to Anthony Hardy, who was arrested a week later. He had gone on the run but been spotted by an off-duty policemen when he went to a hospital to collect his prescription for psychiatric drugs. A search of his flat found that there was evidence, including old bloodstains, that indicated the two women had been killed and dismembered there. Both had died over the Christmas holidays.
Under arrest, Hardy simply said "No comment" to every question put to him by police. He was eventually charged with the murders of both MacClennan and Valad, as well as that of Sally White, the woman whose death had originally been put down to natural causes.
At his trial in November 2003, Hardy, despite his initial lack of cooperation with the police, abruptly changed his plea to guilty to all three counts of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Because of Hardy's history of psychiatric problems and violent behaviour, an independent enquiry was announced into his care [2]
Hardy has also been linked to the earlier unsolved murders of two prostitutes found dismembered and dumped in the Thames.
