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Crime Scene Roseberry Park St George Bristol
crime scene: Weaver lived in Roseberry Park St George and it was there that he murdered his sister and his mother.
ON March 28,1988 at Bristol Crown Court, Mr Justice Webster ordered 24-year-old loner Kevin Weaver to be locked away for the rest of his days after his obsession with one woman had launched him on a senseless orgy of killing.
Labelled an appalling danger to the public at large, he was taken away to Broadmoor. The jury had sat horrified as the court was told how - in a killing spree that closely echoed Michael Ryan's Hungerford massacre - the former accounts clerk had slaughtered four people, including his mother and sister, as he set out to get even with the woman who had jilted him.

The psychopath had apparently kept TV coverage of the Hungerford killings, in which 16 people died, on video tape and had even planned a 'pilgrimage' to the town. Just like Ryan, he was a firearms enthusiast who kept a deadly armoury - including body armour - in his home. Weaver's trail of blood-letting across Bristol began in the calm silence of his sleeping sister's bedroom. After spending two whole years brooding over a break-up with his former fiancee, 21 year old Alison Woodman, he finally decided that the time had come for him to act.
Psychopath Killer Kevin Weaver
Psychopath Killer Kevin Weaver
But in his twisted mind, he thought that his 27-year-old sister Linda - with whom he was on friendly terms - stood in his way. Knowing that she would not lend him her car, because he had been banned from driving, to get to Patchway where Alison worked, he entered her bedroom and hit her about the head 30 times with a heavy hammer which he kept in a tool box under the stairs. Such was the force used by 16-stone Weaver that the wooden shaft snapped.

Weaver then decided that his mother Margaret, who was out shopping when he murdered his sister, should never know what he had done. As Mrs Weaver, a box office attendant at the Hippodrome, returned to the small, terraced family home in Roseberry Park, Redfield with pies for lunch, her son was hiding inside the door. She too was bludgeoned to death.

The killer then put both bodies in the bath and covered them with water. Spattered with blood, he washed his clothes and tumble-dried them before laying a trap for the police by turning on all the gas taps in the house. He also planted a detonator mine - the sort used by gamekeepers to scare poachers, a shotgun cartridge triggered by a tripwire - under a coffee table. Weaver then put three guns - including a pump-action and hundreds of rounds of ammunition - in a golf bag and set off to Alison's workplace - Alexandra.Workwear in Patchway.

He now intended to kill the girl he had once desperately wanted to marry It transpired later that he had bought the shotgun by mail order in 1984 while he was a member of a clay pigeon shooting club at East Dundry Two years later he purchased, also by post, Armalite body armour. By a miracle, his intended victim managed to escape death - but two innocent workers were to lose their lives in the carnage that followed. Weaver knew exactly where his ex-fiancee worked. Once inside the computer room, he found her working at her screen, surrounded by work colleagues.

Pulling out his single-barrelled, pump-action shotgun, fully loaded with five rounds, he walked over and, as he grabbed her, said: 'Come on Alison, we're going.' She screamed and, pulling away, ran to the far end of the room.
Girlfriend Alison Woodman
Weaver then brought terror to the computer room as he fired nine shots. Two men died - former policeman turned data manager David Pursall, aged 29, a father of new born twins, and accountant John Peterson, aged 48. Pursall, shot in the shoulder as he went out to investigate, was blasted again as he lay screaming in agony. The gunman later told police: 'I felt threatened by him. I thought that he was going to overpower me, so I shot him. I shot him a second time to stop him suffering'. Peterson, shot in the back through an office partition as Weaver sprayed the room with bullets, died before reaching hospital.

Alison and the other girls, by now totally terrified, were hiding under their desks. As she saw Weaver reloading the ' gun and then his feet coming towards her, she realised that her time had come. She would surely die. Then as he raised the gun to fire, Weaver suddenly changed his mind. He looked down to where she was hiding and said: 'This is your lucky day.' He simply couldn't go through with it, later telling police it was because he realised he still loved her.

As pandemonium raged throughout the factory Weaver walked back to his sister's car. As the 20 employees who had witnessed the shootings fled, one member of staff, polio victim Linda Evans, could not get away quite as quickly as the rest. She stumbled as far as a line of cars, and by a quirk of fate picked the gunman's to shelter behind. Two lorry drivers from a nearby depot rushed to help her away, but as they approached, Weaver came out of the factory As he raised his shotgun one of them bravely shouted out: 'Don't be silly - put it down.' He replied: 'I've done what I came to do', got in his car and drove off. He was later arrested by police on the A37 between Whitchurch and Pensford.

During the court case Paul Chadd QC, the prosecuting counsel, said: 'His detachment from reality was certainly chilling.' And Superintendent Ray Sarginson, the officer who headed the investigation, said: 'He is a cold, ruthless killer who inflicted some of the worst injuries I have ever seen in 25 years' experience. He has not shown one iota of remorse,'

Hero David Pursall - who risked, and lost, his life while trying to protect his colleagues from Weaver - received a posthumous award for his actions, the Queen's Gallantry Medal.
Girlfriend Alison Woodman
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