LADY ELEANOR TRUE CRIME REVIEW: The Bus Stop Killer - Geoffrey Wansell

Release Date: 28/07/11

SYNOPSIS:

On 23 Jun 2011 the convicted double-murderer Levi Bellfield was found guilty of the murder of 13-year-old school girl Milly Dowler.

Milly disappeared on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey in 2002. Six months later her body was discovered many miles away. A massive police investigation, the largest manhunt in Surrey's history, got nowhere. Only when nightclub bouncer and bare-knuckle boxer Levi Bellfield was arrested for the murder of another young woman did it become clear to police that they had a serial killer on their hands.

This is the full story of the murders, the victims and the pain-staking nine-year investigation and trial by police and prosecutors. It tells of Bellfield's terrifying, controlling personality - a man who went from charming to monstrous in the blink of an eye - and his depraved stalking of young women.

It is a terrifying portrait of the only man in modern British legal history to be given two whole-life sentences.


REVIEW:

I tend to read quite a few books on Serial Killers and usually they take the case in one of three ways, either they’re pro subject, anti-subject or take the middle road presenting the facts of the case to allow the reader to make up their own mind. It’s this last option that Geoffrey Wansell takes with this, his new title based on the crimes committed by Levi Bellfield, the man convicted of the murders of a few young women including Milly Dowler.

Whilst this book does contain all the fact pertaining to the case it felt that it had a beginning and middle without reaching a conclusion towards the end due to the fact that Levi Bellfield has never admitted his guilt to any of his crimes.

All in, this book was well written although in part repetitive but this I felt was mainly due to the author having to try to make the extra length due to the subject’s non-admittance of these crimes. As such this felt a little flat and that perhaps that the author could have spent his time more productively on a criminal that has admitted their guilt in order to give the reader a more rounded picture. Don’t get me wrong it is interesting, it does have a lot of plus points but when the evidence is laid out it does make you wonder exactly how the conviction was obtained purely as a lot of it seemed circumstantial.