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Killer Comparisons: John Eric Armstrong and Colin Campbell

They were both predators of women, scooping them up from wherever was convenient while behind the wheel of their vehicle. They both left their victims' bodies out in the open, daring police to find them in a deadly game of cat and mouse. One operated on the streets of Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A., while the other hunted years earlier in the UK. They are John Eric Armstrong and Colin Campbell.

Born in the 1940s, not much is known about the early life of Campbell, other than his father serving in the British military in India and his mother said to be quite protective of him. Armstrong had a military connection, as well -- his biological father served, and he himself was a Navy man for several years. He was born later than Campbell, in the early 1970s, and he killed 10 or 20 years later than Campbell (depending on whether you believe his Navy-era confessions). Campbell rampaged England in the early 1980s and was arrested then; Armstrong prowled Michigan Ave in Detroit in 1999 and 2000.

Armstrong, from Michigan Dept. of Corrections.

Both men had regular jobs and a family while they were active in their murders. Both hid in plain sight, seeming perfectly normal, with a veneer of respectability. Like chameleons, they blended into the background.

The victimology for these two cases varies, though: Campbell hunted what would be considered regular, everyday women, not women in at-risk lifestyles on the street like Armstrong. While out driving, Campbell offered a ride to hitchhiking or otherwise walking females. Armstrong picked up his victims under the guise of wanting sex.

Campbell, from Thames Valley Police.

Both of these men showed a lot of rage against women, raising issues of misogyny. Campbell went further, though, seeming to want to obliterate his victims by mutilating their bodies. Armstrong pushed each woman out of his vehicle after he had killed her (or after he thought he had, in at least one case).

Like Armstrong, Campbell sometimes strangled his victims, though he also beat or cut them with objects, like a hockey stick or knife. Armstrong sometimes used a knife to threaten or subdue a victim but never cut her with it -- he was a manual strangler, for the most part, but with some victims he may have used a ligature.

DNA evidence (though very early in Campbell's case) proved key in convicting both men.

These killers blamed their crimes on a medical condition: For Campbell, it was epilepsy; for Armstrong it was something a psychologist termed intermittent explosive disorder. In court, Campbell managed to work himself into a lesser conviction and sentence for one murder, though he received a later sentence for the second murder. Parole is a possibility for him, if he lives that long. Armstrong continues to serve out multiple life sentences in Jackson, Michigan, with no possibility of parole.

By some definitions, Campbell would not be considered a serial killer with his two known victims. It was the tip of a man who witnessed a hitchhiker picking up a woman that led to Campbell's arrest, while for Armstrong it was largely the accounts of multiple assault survivors, but you have to wonder if he had a subconscious desire to be captured, calling in his own victim for the second person he murdered in Detroit.

To learn more about the Campbell case, see the "World's Most Evil Killers" episode.

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