AS a young teen Matthew Hardman spent hours locked in his bedroom, poring over websites about vampires and ritual sacrifices.
But when he became convinced that drinking the blood of the elderly could make him immortal, his dark obsession turned into a murder plot.
In November 2001, the 17-year-old from the Welsh island of Anglesey stabbed pensioner Mabel Leyshon to death before cutting out her heart, attempting to drain her blood and drinking it from a saucepan.
The horrific murder features in this week’s episode of Kids Who Kill: Evil Up Close, which airs on Crime + Investigation on Monday.
Detective Superintendent Alan Jones, who led the 12 week hunt for the killer that finally put Hardman behind bars, says he has no doubt that he stopped a serial killer in his tracks.
“The advice I was given by the two psychologists who worked with me on the case was that whoever was responsible was likely to kill again,” he tells the Sun Online.
“If we hadn’t discovered the evidence, arrested and subsequently convicted him, he could have gone on to commit further horrendous crimes in Anglesey and elsewhere.”
On a quiet Sunday afternoon in November 2001, a volunteer was delivering meals on wheels to Mabel Leyshon’s Anglesey home in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch – previously famous for having the longest placename in the UK.
When Mabel didn’t answer the door, and the woman noticed a smashed rear window, the police were called.
The scene that greeted them in the neat, tidy bungalow was one of unimaginable horror, as DS Alan Jones recalls.
“It was totally macabre,” he says. “Mabel was sitting in her usual chair and had clearly been watching television when she had been stabbed from the back. She had suffered multiple injuries.
“A pair of pokers had been placed in the position of a cross in front of her chair, along with some candles.
“In front of her was a saucepan with something in newspaper inside. It was only later, in the forensic conditions of the mortuary, that we realized it was Mabel’s human heart inside that newspaper.”
A quantity of blood was also found in the saucepan and lip marks were discovered on the side, suggesting her killer had used it to drink her blood.
I’d been in the police force for 25 years, and I had never experienced anything as horrific as that murder scene before
DS Alan Jones
She was stabbed 22 times and jagged cuts were found on the side of Mabel’s neck, suggesting the killer was trying to sever her arterial vein.
Other wounds on her body, including deep cuts on her legs and wrists, suggested the killer had attempted to drain as much blood as possible from her body, and there was nine inch gaping wound in her chest where the heart had been ripped out.
“At the time I’d been in the police force for 25 years, and I had never experienced anything as horrific as that murder scene before, and neither had any of my colleagues,” says DS Jones. “It’s not something you could ever forget.”
The brutal murder shook the closeknit community of the small town, known to the locals as Llanfair PG, where violent crime was unheard of.
After Mabel’s brutal death, reports of strange vans being spotted driving around the area made people nervous and when a man set fire to himself and then jumped off the Menai bridge, and a woman was found dead in a local cemetery, the atmosphere of fear was heightened.
Although police quickly ruled out any link between the three deaths, the pressure was on to catch the killer as soon as possible.
“It was scary for the community because, of course, they thought that whoever was responsible might offend again,” says DS Jones.
Matthew Hardman had moved to the area to live with his mum after the sudden death of his dad from an asthma attack, when he was 13.
Investigating officers first spoke to the 17-year-old – who lived two minutes from Mabel – during house to house enquiries but he was not initially identified as a suspect.
The killer had left DNA at the scene and on the saucepan, and a distinctive trainer tread was found on the patio outside the broken back window.
But, despite 100 locals volunteering to be DNA tested, police were initially stumped – until DS Jones’ appearance on BBC’s Crime Watch prompted a flurry of calls suggesting they look closer at Hardman.
It was then DS Jones learned of the previous incident with a visiting student of 16, who was staying with a friend, when Hardman had begged her to bite him so he “could become a vampire and be immortal.”
The terrified teen refused and was assaulted. When police were called, he begged an officer to bite him.
Further investigation found Hardman was obsessed with vampires, devil worship and the dark arts, and had spent hours visited macabre websites in his bedroom.
It was also discovered he had regularly delivered a free paper to Mabel’s home and his alibi, that he was working at a local hotel that night, was quickly found to be a lie.
During a search at Hardman’s house officers recovered his shoes, which matched the foot marks found at the scene and, in the pocket of a coat hanging on the door of his bedroom, they found a knife stained with Mabel’s blood .
DS Jones admits he was shocked the killer was so young, but says Hardman was chillingly calm when arrested, In January 2002.
“There no panic, no objection to being arrested and he was perfectly happy to be interviewed,” he says.
“He freely admitted that he searched a lot of websites, looking at forensic issues and vampirism. In fact he was quite happy to talk about anything, except the killing of Mabel, which he denied.”
Psychiatric nurse Chris Kinealy, who met Hardman after his arrest, was also struck by his calm reaction.
“He was a young lad, handsome, blond hair, blue eyes, well dressed, well-spoken very polite,” he says. “I knew what he was accused of and I thought if my daughter had brought him home, I’d think ‘what a nice lad.’
“He was very confident and very polite. When I was 17 years old if I’d been escorted or dragged into a Category A maximum security prison and told I was charged with murder, I would have been in floods of tears as most 17-year-old boys would.
“But the thing that got me about Matthew Hardman was he had this incongruous smile, he was totally indifferent.
“When I asked him, ‘how do you feel?’ He said, ‘This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.’”
In August 2002, Matthew Hardman was convicted of murder and sentence to life, with a minimum of 12 years.
The judge, Mr Justice Richards, said obsession with vampirism was behind the killing, adding “you really did believe that this myth may be true, that you did think that you would achieve immortality by the drinking of another person’s blood and you found this an irresistible attraction.”
Psychiatrist Emma Kenny says Hardman’s extreme and brutal killing came from a desire to “fit in”.
“Kids have got this desire to always fit in, but also be somebody of some standing,” she tells the Sun Online.
“If you don’t really feel that you were ever going to get anywhere, or you’re ever going to succeed, connecting with something that makes you feel like you stand out, even if it’s macabre and black and wrong, is attractive.
“Then you can find websites and platforms that say, ‘Yes, you are special’ and you can almost start to live in a different reality.
“Hardman is a cold-blooded killer, and what he did was absolutely terrifying. But the delusions he had are so horrific, you have to ask what was going in his life that made him feel so invisible that he wanted to make himself visible is such a distressing and tragic way?”
Kids Who Kill: Evil Up Close airs on Monday night on Crime+Investigation.
