John Wayne Glover

John Wayne Glover (26 November 1932 – 9 September 2005) was an English-Australian serial killer convicted of the murders of six elderly women (aged from 60 to 93), over a period of 14 months from 1989 to 1990 including Winifreda, Lady Ashton, widow of the English-Australian impressionist painter Sir Will Ashton, in suburbs located in Sydney's North Shore.

The fact that the victims were all elderly women led to Glover attaining the nickname by the press of The Granny Killer.

Originally from a working-class family in Wolverhampton, England, Glover was convicted of many petty crimes dating back to 1947 for stealing clothing and handbags.

He left school at 14.

He served in the British army but was ejected when these crimes were discovered.

Later, he emigrated to Australia in 1956 or 1957 with no qualifications where he first lived in Melbourne.

Shortly after emigrating from England to Australia, Glover (who would take up naturalised Australian citizenship) was convicted on two counts of larceny in Victoria, and a stealing charge in New South Wales.

In 1962, he was convicted on two counts of assaulting women in Melbourne, two counts of indecent assault, one of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and another four counts of larceny.

He was sentenced to a three-year good-behaviour bond.

He had a troubled relationship with older women in his life, especially his mother Freda (who had several husbands and many boyfriends), and after 1968, his mother-in-law when he married Gay Rolls and moved into his parents-in-law's house in Mosman, Sydney.

Glover's mother moved to Australia in 1976; she died of breast cancer in 1989.

Later that year, Glover was diagnosed with male breast cancer.

Glover separated from his wife, who took their daughters to New Zealand.

He denied responsibility for other crimes in which he was a prime suspect, including the bashing murder of 78-year-old artist Florence Broadhurst in her Paddington studio in 1977.

A number of years after his conviction, Glover admitted that he never worried about who his victims were, or why he killed them.

He said he wanted to stop killing, but could not.

After each murder, he apparently went about his normal life.

Before John Glover began his killings in the late 1980s, he was a volunteer at the Senior Citizens Society, and was considered among his friends a friendly and trustworthy man.

He was married with two daughters, and lived a contented lifestyle in Mosman.

Glover worked as a sales representative for the Four'N Twenty meat pie company.

No proof has been found of Glover killing before 1989, when he was 56.

At this stage, he had been married for 20 years with children, and his wife had no knowledge of his previous offences.

Glover admitted to the killings when confronted with the police evidence.

On 11 January 1989, 84-year-old Margaret Todhunter was walking down Hale Road, Mosman, where she was seen by Glover.

After parking his car, he walked up to the victim.

He punched Todhunter in the face, and stole the contents of her purse, including $209.

Glover then went to the Mosman Returned and Services League (RSL) club, where he spent Mrs Todhunter's money.

Investigating police concluded the crime was a mugging and held little hope of finding the perpetrator.

On 1 March 1989, as Glover left the Mosman RSL in Military Road, he saw 82-year-old Gwendolin Mitchelhill walking down the street.

Glover returned to his car and put a hammer under his belt.

He followed Mitchelhill to the entry foyer of her Military Road apartment building.

As she went to open the front door, he hit her with the hammer on the back of her head.

He then continued to strike her about the head and body; several of her ribs were broken.

Glover fled the scene, taking her purse containing $100.

Mitchelhill was still alive when she was found by two schoolboys, but died shortly after the police and ambulance arrived.

The police had no eyewitnesses or leads and nothing concrete linked this attack with the previous attack on Margaret Todhunter.

No forensic evidence was available, either, as well-intentioned neighbours, believing she had merely fallen, had washed the crime scene.

The police assumed that it was another mugging gone wrong.

Following his arrest in 1990, he admitted to the murders and was sentenced to consecutive terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

He hanged himself in prison on 9 September 2005.