Green - Cardiff murderer

‘Body in the Bags’ killer Malcolm Green

Green – Perpetrator of Body in the Bags murders

When Malcolm Green was 18-years-old, he witnessed the horrific death of his 20 year old brother, who was run over by a train going to a football match in Reading.

Malcom then had to undergo the traumatic task of identifying the mutilated body in a mortuary.

This story perhaps offers an explanation as to why Green grew up to develop a bizarre bloodlust and become arguably Cardiff’s most notorious killer.

As an adult, Green worked in a paper mill at Ely paper mill in Cardiff, at the age of 24, Green changed jobs, becoming a crane driver in the docks.

In the dead of night, Green, married and living in the Llanedeyrn area of the city, brutally murdered 41-year-old prostitute Glenys Johnson, slashing her throat after he bumped into her on waste-ground in the docks.

Yet killing her was not enough for the monster, who then proceeded to cut up parts of her body – cutting her chest and abdomen with a jagged bit of broken glass.

Hours after the slaying, police received a telephone call from a man who disturbingly said: “Have you found the body yet?

“There will be four more. This is the ripper.”

The caller described the killing, said he had been going to “screw” a car at the time, that he was only 15 and didn’t wanted to get involved.

Ms Johnson’s half-clothed body was later found lying face down in Wharf Street, in the docks.

Those calls were traced to the British Steel Corporation’s East Moors works where Green worked.

He had headed there to shower and change and wash his heavily bloodstained clothes.

When arrested, Green immediately confessed before later retracting his statement, calling police “barefaced liars”.

In his confession, he told detectives: “I don’t know how I done it.  All I had was a comb and a shilling. The next thing I knew I was walking home smothered in blood. I know I did it.”

Only months earlier, he had told his wife he wondered what it was like to kill somebody.

And chillingly, when police raided Green’s home for the murder of Ms Johnson, they discovered he had been rehearsing his violent act over and over again.

In the corner of a room was a “dummy” made out of rolled up carpet and dressed in a shirt and coat.

Embedded in it was a knife, which Green had repeatedly thrown at it at least 30 times.

And on November 5, 1971, a jury convicted him of Ms Johnson’s savage murder and he was subsequently given a life sentence.

Green served 18 years of his sentence before being let out on licence in October 1989.

Freedom was clearly not something which was precious to the then 44-year-old, as he continued to act out his sick fantasies. Five months after walking free, he went on to carry out the cold-blooded murder of his best friend.

Having moved to Bristol, Green battered New Zealander Clive Tully with a hammer before sawing up his body in a eerie re-enactment of his first murder.

Mr Tully’s decapitated and dismembered body was then found in bags on two South Wales roads.

It was a case which shocked the nation and which earned Green the label of the “Body in the Bags” killer. Two holdalls had been spotted in a lay-by by a school teacher, leading police to search them.

It came after a farm worker found Mr Tully’s head wrapped in a red bag. With it was a white plastic bag containing two “neatly amputated” hands.

Inside the holdalls were found the rest of Mr Tully, including his forearms, thighs and both calves.

The remains were only identified after a newspaper graphic artist produced a computer-enhanced photograph of the victim.

Police then discovered the murder scene when they went to Mr Tully’s flat and found blood stains on the stairs and under the bed.

A jury subsequently found Green guilty of murder for a second time and a judge then sentenced him to 25 years.

But then-Home Secretary Kenneth Baker felt the sentence was too lenient and ruled in Green’s case, “life should mean life”.

Green is one of only four Welshman to be given full life terms and who up until this week’s decision by the European Court of Human Rights that whole life sentences amount to “inhuman and degrading treatment”, were guaranteed to die behind bars.

The Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg-based court’s ruling now means Green, along with the other 49 whole-lifers, should be entitled to a review of their sentence after 25 years.

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