These crimes took place very close to where I lived back in 1987, I was around 9 years old at the time.
Some links:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/serial-killer-murdered-wendy-knell-905508
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/serial-killer-murdered-wendy-knell-905508
Some cliff-notes:
Victims were two young females who lived in Tunbridge Wells, they both worked on the same road (Camden Road) and were murdered 5 months apart from each other. Both lived on their own in bedsits/flats and were 'similar' in looks. They were also sexually assaulted, whether before or after the murder I cannot confirm.
The killer seemed to be a trophy collector, so took items such as keys etc. from his victims.
Police were able to come up with a DNA profile back in 2007 but after testing over 500 men it looks like the case has stalled. There has certainly been no updates online since 2012.
To date, no-one has been nailed for the crimes.
I'd forgotten all about this case until a watched a crimewatch reconstruction back in 2007. For some unknown reason, I had assumed they had caught someone shortly after the second murder. I put this confusion down to there being a rape in the town shortly after the second women went missing. Police actually arrested someone in connection BUT nothing came of it, I assume the guy was released without charge.
A few days before the murder of Knell, a man knocked on the door of a neighbour and warned her about leaving windows open? Why on earth would any sane person do that? Very weird, and police released a photo-fit of this man.
From what I can remember at the time, the town was plagued with reports of peeping toms and prowlers but am not sure if those reports were related to the murders.
There had been some speculation that Tobin or Bellfied was the murderer, but that had been dismissed by the police. At the time of the potential Tobin link, there was an article in the Daily Express which went further into the circumstances surrounding the 2nd woman's death. In that when she was dropped off at home by a taxi, neighbours heard screams but no-one came out to investigate. The taxi driver heard nothing as he pulled away. A few weeks later she was found in a ditch over Romney Marsh area.
Romney Marsh, and the location she was found is a pretty desolate area and tricky to navigate if you don't know the area - so the murderer had to have intimate knowledge of that area.
The crimes then stopped, but did they?
Here's an interesting thing I came across whilst reading up on other mysteries at that time. Near enough a year to the day Knell was murdered, a young girl in Brighton vanished (along with her car): Louise Kay. When reading up on this, the hot money seemed to be on a link with Peter Tobin. However, I'm starting to think otherwise, of course this is just amateur speculation on my part. The thing that gets me about the murders in Tunbridge Wells is that both were committed near enough in the last week of the month and close to the same days - just like the disappearance of Louise Kay. So, to summarise:
Knell: 23rd June 1987
Pierce: 24th November 1987
Kay: 24th June 1988
Geographically, Brighton is not that far from Tunbridge Wells. OK, it's just dates and idle speculation, but I'm not convinced that the murderer just 'stopped' murdering. Looking into the murders in TW, it's apparent that the murderer was/is quite a sadistic SOB - which is obvious for a murderer, but his modus operandi was brutal to say the least - blunt instrument and strangulation. OK, I'm overstating the obvious, but the guy obviously had a screw loose so am somewhat curious of how he could just explode with such brutality and then stop.
So where is he now? Dead? In prison? It's certainly a strange one, and at the time I remember the town being gripped with fear.