A.K.A.: "The Railway Killer" - "The Railway Rapist"
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Serial rapist (4)
Number of victims: 2 - 3
Date of murders: 1985 - 1986
Date of arrest: November 23, 1986
Date of birth: 1956
Victims profile: Alison Day, 19 / Maartje Tamboezer, 15 / Anne Lock, 29
Method of murder: Strangulation
Location: North London, England, United Kingdom
Status: Convicted of two murders and four rapes. Sentenced to life in prison (minimum 30 years) in February 1988
photo gallery
John Duffy and David Mulcahy (born 1959) are two British rapists and serial killers who together attacked numerous women at railway stations in the south of England through the 1980s. They are known as the Railway Rapists and the Railway Killers.
The first attacks
In 1982 a woman (KJ) was raped by two men near Hampstead station and subsequently eighteen more were attacked over the next year. More occurred through 1984 and then three were raped on the same night in 1985 in Hendon. Police set up an urgent workshop to try to find the perpetrators, called Operation Hart.
The name of Duffy, a martial arts instructor, was touted as a suspect among thousands of other names as he was on the sex offenders register following conviction for the rape of his wife. Rope found in his parents house linked him to the second murder victim. Mulcahy was also questioned due to his close friendship with Duffy but victims were still traumatised and unable to pick him out of an identity parade. Mulcahy was released for lack of evidence.
The switch to murder
On 29 December 1985, Alison Day, 19, was dragged off a train at Hackney Wick station by Duffy and Mulcahy and repeatedly raped. She was then strangled with a piece of string.
Police further stepped up their search for the attacker who had been coined by the press as the Railway Rapist. The death of Alison Day changed this moniker to the Railway Killer, a tag reinforced by the rape and murder of 15-year-old Maartje Tamboezer in West Horsley on 17 April 1986. As well as rape and strangulation, Maartje's body was set on fire. A month later on 18 May 1985, local TV presenter Anne Locke, 29, was abducted and murdered as she dismounted a train in Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire.
