Killer Comparisons: Benjamin ("Tony") Atkins and John Cannan

They both claimed to have been sexually assaulted at a young age by an adult at school -- one of them at an inner-city home for boys, the other at a higher-end private school. For both boys, it was an event that influenced a future life of crime. Along with that, the latter boy was from an affluent background, while the former was just the opposite, raised poor and disadvantaged. They are Benjamin ("Tony") Atkins of the U.S. -- specifically, Detroit and Highland Park, Michigan -- and John Cannan of the UK.

Both of these men were violent sexual predators, both were done-in by DNA evidence, and both died in prison, Cannon only recently, in late 2024, while Atkins died with HIV in 1997. But how they worked their crimes, how they approached the women they targeted, and who they targeted, could not be more different. 

While Cannan was well-spoken and well-dressed, presenting himself quite well to reflect his more privileged background, Atkins was down-and-out, homeless most of the time, sleeping in this abandoned building or that one, along Detroit's historic Woodward Ave, afflicted with heavy drug use. In fact, to Atkins, drugs were not only a personal necessity but also a crucial tool in luring his victims -- who roamed the streets, as well -- to secluded places where he could assault them. Cannan, apparently not affected by any hard substances, lured women from respectable places -- women's dress shops in Great Britain, for instance. These were not street women living at risk. Cannan was suave, said to be a bit of a lothario even though he was a married man, and quite arrogant, even after he was apprehended. He considered himself untouchable. Atkins, on the other hand, with whatever he had going on in his head, could be considered quite the opposite. His academic scores in school revealed a lower-than-average intelligence and his psychiatric testing a lower self-esteem. Where Cannan bordered on the narcissist, that was not Atkins' frame of mind at all.

Both men when growing up were close to their mothers, and Atkins did not have a dad around at all, though he did have (sort of) father figures in his mom's various boyfriends. Cannan, born earlier, in 1954 to Atkins' 1968, was raised by a strict disciplinarian father that he did not get along with. Atkins had no family structure growing up.

Both men started messing with the law as teens. For Atkins, it was some thievery here and there before graduating to assault in his young 20s. Cannan committed his first sex crime at age 14 when he attacked a woman at a public phone booth. Years later, in 1981, he raped a woman at a clothing shop and served time for it. But in the 1970s, leading up to that conviction, he is suspected of as many as 20 rapes in homes on the real estate market of England's West Midlands area, where he lived. After Cannan's prison release in the later 1980s, he continued his assaults, sometimes getting away with his crimes. He was very prolific until finally he was arrested for good in 1987. He was tied to one actual murder but suspected of others, while Atkins can be linked to 11 murders and at least two additional assaults where the women survived.

Atkins never used a weapon -- he killed with his bare hands, studying a technique for strangling from a book, holding his thumbs over the front of a woman's neck while his fingers enclosed the rest of her neck. He had big hands for his average size frame. Cannan did use weapons, on the other hand, threatening women with a knife or gun, and beating his one known murder victim over the head with an unknown object, thought to be a rock. He took that victim to his home, police know, because her fingerprints were found there, whereas Atkins had no home to take a victim to, and wasn't interested in any extended encounter, anyway. In a fit of rage he would finish each female, and very quickly.

One aspect of serial rape and murder is for the perp to keep a souvenir. There's no evidence in Atkins' case that he ever kept souvenirs from his victims, though Cannan did at least once, grabbing what Britons call a tax disc from his murder victim's car and placing it inside a briefcase in the glove compartment of his own car.

All in all, in the '80s while Atkins was homeless and drug-addicted on the streets of Detroit, maybe once in a while working a legit job, before beginning his assaults, Cannan was preying on women in the UK looking every bit the well-put-together and respectable man, having served in the navy then working for his father in a car showroom, and being a family man with a wife and a daughter. But, as we learn with many serial offenders, looks are so deceiving.

Above photos:
- Benjamin Atkins, from Detroit Police files, image obtained by FOIA. See this blog post for more on this photo and the confusion over photos of Atkins.
- John Cannan photo from Avon and Somerset Police/PA.

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To learn more about the Cannan case, see the "World's Most Evil Killers" episode. For a deep-dive of the Atkins case, see "The Crack City Strangler: The Homicides of Serial Killer Benjamin Atkins."

BRBates.com
wbp.bz/CrackCityStrangler
Murders in the Motor City Series

And check out the other posts in this Killer Comparisons series by clicking on the label on the left or the links below:

Benjamin ("Tony") Atkins and Stewart Weldon
John Eric Armstrong and Wayne Adam Ford
John Eric Armstrong and Richard Paul White
John Eric Armstrong and Steven Dean Gordon
Benjamin ("Tony") Atkins and Leslie Allen Williams
Benjamin ("Tony") Atkins and Derrick Todd Lee
John Eric Armstrong and Benjamin ("Tony") Atkins
Benjamin ("Tony") Atkins and Anthony Sowell
Benjamin (“Tony”) Atkins and Douglas (Donna) Perry
John Eric Armstrong and William Devin Howell