The son of a serial killer once spoke about the moment his dad showed him a gruesome drawing he'd done.
The case of killer John Sweeney is gaining newfound attention due to ITV drama Until I Kill You, which stars Shaun Evans as Sweeney and Anna Maxwell Martin as Delia Balmer, a nurse who he attacked before going on the run for six years.
In the ITV drama, events range from the start of Balmer's relationship with Sweeney up to his eventual trial, and not to spoil things, but he was found guilty.
He had been sentenced to life in prison for attempting to murder Balmer, and then ended up going on trial again years later for the murders of former partners Melissa Halstead and Paula Fields.
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Halstead's body had been discovered in a canal in Rotterdam in 1990, but remained unidentified for 18 years before cold case investigators in the Netherlands looked into the matter again.
Body parts belonging to Fields were found in Regent's Canal, King's Cross, in 2001 but her head, hands and feet were not discovered among the remains.
Following his arrest, police found a number of paintings and drawings which included violent scenarios and dead women.
According to The Mirror, after his father's second trial in 2011, Sweeney's son Michael said that his father once handed him a drawing which showed the boy his own mother in a coffin.
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He initially thought it was his dad being bitter over their breakup, but after the trials came to know that it was a window into the world of a serial killer.
Michael said: "I could see it was my mum straight away. It was so lifelike. It was like a photograph. I thought at the time it was strange but just a symbol of their bad relationship.
"Now I know he has killed I can’t help but wonder why didn’t he kill my mum?"
Michael also said he'd pleaded with his dad to come clean about any other murders he'd committed, and that he never wanted to see him again after encountering him for the last time at a funeral.
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Sweeney was taken from the prison to attend his father Jack's funeral accompanied by prison guards, and his son remembers him saying 'Michael don’t make the same mistakes as I did!'.
Michael found it 'sick' that the serial killer was trying to give parental advice and responded: "There’s no chance of that is there dad!"
The BBC reported during Sweeney's trial that other drawings and paintings he did contained phrases like 'Never Die Till I Kill You', 'Crimes of Passion' and 'A Wanted Man'.
Topics: Crime, True Crime, ITV, UK News
Joe Harker