John Cooper (serial killer)

John William Cooper (born 3 September 1944) is a Welsh serial killer.

In 1978, Cooper, then a farm labourer, won £90,000 (worth over £500,000 today) and also a £4,000 car in a newspaper Spot the ball competition.

A friend said: "John developed a huge drink and gambling habit after his winnings went to his head... It was a life-changing amount of money and I saw a real change in him. He spent most of it in pubs and bookies... People were scared of him and he got into a lot of fights. As his money dried up he started the robberies."

On 22 December 1985, Cooper targeted a three-storey farmhouse at Scoveston Park, killing brother and sister Richard and Helen Thomas, and then burning down the house.

Footage from the television game show Bullseye in May 1989, in which he appeared as a contestant, was later used as evidence against him, comparing his image with a sketch of a suspect in the Dixons' murder.

On 29 June 1989, Peter and Gwenda Dixon were on holiday in Pembrokeshire and were due to take their last walk along the coastal path when they failed to return.

Their dead bodies were later found along the path.

Cooper had tied the couple up, demanded they hand out their bank card and then forced them to disclose their personal identification number (PIN).

Cooper, carrying a sawn-off shotgun, robbed Peter Dixon of £300 and shot the couple in the face at point blank range.

Footage from an edition of the ITV gameshow Bullseye recorded on 28 May 1989, on which Cooper was a contestant, was later used to match him to a sketch made from witness descriptions.

Flo Evans, a 72-year-old widow, died soon after Cooper murdered Peter and Gwenda Dixon in 1989, being found fully-clothed in a half-full cold bath in her cottage.

Cooper and his wife Pat both knew Evans and would visit her regularly at her smallholding, with Cooper often completing odd-jobs for her.

Cooper was also sentenced for the rape of a 16-year-old girl and a sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl, both carried out while a group of five teenagers were held at gunpoint in March 1996, in a wooded area behind the Mount Estate in Cooper's hometown of Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire.

Cooper had a history of criminal activities, including thirty robberies and violent assaults.

In 1996 he attacked five youngsters, threatening them with a gun, sexually assaulting one girl and raping another.

Cooper was sentenced to 14 years in 1998 for robbery and burglary.

By 1998, Cooper had committed 30 burglaries and an armed robbery.

He was released from prison in January 2009.

Because of subsequent developments in DNA and forensic science, the police carried out a cold case review in April 2009 and were able to identify Cooper's shotgun as being the murder weapon.

Further DNA evidence was provided by forensic scientist Professor Angela Gallop.

The police collected further evidence against him and Cooper was arrested again in May 2009.

On 26 May 2011, he was given a whole life order for the 1985 double murder of siblings Richard and Helen Thomas, and the 1989 double murder of Peter and Gwenda Dixon.

The murders were known in the media as the "Pembrokeshire Murders" or the "Coastal Murders".

He was convicted, on 26 May 2011, for the double murders and sexual assaults and sentenced to four life sentences without the possibility of parole.

For the brutality of his crimes, Cooper was also handed a whole life order, meaning that he will never leave prison alive, with presiding judge John Griffith Williams saying "the murders were of such evil wickedness that the mandatory sentence of life will mean just that."

He is serving his time in an undisclosed prison.

Between the ages of 17 and 21, Cooper was charged with theft of a vehicle, assaulting a police officer, being drunk and disorderly, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH).

In 2011, Cooper was jailed for life for the crimes.

In September 2011, he launched an appeal against his convictions.

The UK television series Real Crime broadcast a documentary about Cooper in November 2011.

In May 2011, after Cooper was convicted of the four murders, it was revealed that police were considering reopening an inquiry into the unexplained death in 1989 of a woman who lived near Cooper and only two miles from Scoveston Park, the site of his 1985 murders.

His appeal was rejected in November 2012.

In April 2023 he made an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission requesting a review of his conviction.

Cooper was diagnosed as a psychopath.

On 24 May 2016, the Welsh language television channel S4C broadcast a documentary in the series Y Ditectif (The Detective) about the way in which evidence against Cooper was gathered using the latest forensic techniques available at the time, the strategy used by Dyfed-Powys Police in interviewing him and his eventual conviction.

On 27 September 2016, the ITV Cymru Wales television channel broadcast a documentary in the series Crime Files which examined how police solved the two double murder cases in Pembrokeshire including an interview with the detective who was tasked with interviewing Cooper.

On 12 July 2018, a documentary about Cooper, named The Gameshow Serial Killer: Police Tapes, was aired by ITV as part of the channel's 'Crime and Punishment' season.

On 29 January 2019, the UK version of digital channel CBS Reality premiered a further documentary about Cooper's crimes in an episode of its true crime series Murder by the Sea.

In January 2021, ITV broadcast a three-part television series entitled The Pembrokeshire Murders, most exterior scenes of which were filmed on location in Pembrokeshire.

This was followed by an hour-long documentary, The Pembrokeshire Murders: Catching The Game Show Killer, featuring interviews with Detective Superintendent Steve Wilkins, the man who reopened the investigation, forensic scientists involved in the case, and footage of Cooper as he was interviewed by police.