Serial killer Stephen Port made a chilling 999 call after murdering his first victim. Over the course of 16 months, Port went on to murder three other men and was dubbed the ‘Grindr killer’
After taking the life of his first victim, serial killer Stephen Port made a chilling 999 call in a sick bid to try and cover his tracks. Over the course of 16 months, he went on to murder three other men and eventually became known as the ‘Grindr killer’ owing to the chilling way he used the the dating app to lure his victims in.
Anthony Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25, were killed by Port between June 2014 and September 2015 after he gave them overdoses of the ‘date rape’ drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB). The twisted murderer used the internet to target his victims before he coaxed them back to his flat in Barking, London. Port’s killing spree began in June 2014 when he met Anthony Walgate, a fashion student.
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In the early hours of June 19, Anthony was found dead outside the communal entrance to Port’s flat. In an anonymous 999 call, Port lied to operators, claiming that he’d found Anthony’s body after coming home from a night shift. The calculated killer said: “There’s a young boy, looks like he’s collapsed outside.” His sick deceit went even further, as he told the 999 operator that the victim could have “had a seizure or something, or just drunk”.
One week after Anthony’s body was found, police discovered that Port had hired Anthony as an escort, though he denied killing him. He was then arrested for perverting the course of justice. However, it was while on bail that Port murdered his next two victims as police failed to connect the dots.
In August 2014, the killer lured Gabriel Kovari to his flat under the false promise that he had a room to rent. Port dumped his body in St Margaret’s churchyard and on the morning of August 28, a dog walker made a grim discovery as they found the body of Gabriel in a south-west corner of the graveyard.
Tragically, just three weeks later the same dog walker found the body of Kent chef Daniel Whitworth in almost exactly the same spot. “When I looked and saw another young boy sitting in exactly the same position in exactly the same place, it was a bit like deja vu. I thought I don’t believe it,” the dog walker told the BBC.
A fake suicide note was planted on Daniel’s body, suggesting that he had accidentally killed Gabriel. It claimed that he’d “got carried away” when he “gave him another shot of G”. However, it was vile Port who’d written the note.
In March 2015, Port was jailed for perverting the course of justice in the case of Anthony Walgate and was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment. He was released in June 2015 after serving just over two months of his sentence and he was electronically tagged.
Harrowingly, two months after his release from prison, Port went on to kill his final victim, Jack Taylor. In the early hours of September 13, Jack left a local social club following a night out and was contacted on Grindr by Port and the pair arranged to meet up at Barking station. 36 hours later, Jack was found dead after Port disposed of his body in the same church graveyard.
One month later, police found CCTV footage of Jack walking near Barking station with a mystery man, and Port was subsequently recognised by an officer who’d previously interviewed him. On October 15, Port was arrested on suspicion of causing the deaths of the four men by administering poison and three days later he was charged with four counts of murder.
In November 2016, Port, who denied all charges, was convicted of the 22 offences against him. These included the four murders, four rapes, 10 counts of administering a substance, and four sex assaults. He was cleared of three other counts of rape. He received a whole life sentence, meaning he will die in prison.
Speaking of Port, DCI Tim Duffield, who led the investigation, called him “one of the most dangerous individuals I’ve encountered”. He said: “He’s a voracious sexual predator who appears to have been fixated, nay obsessed, with surreptitiously drugging young, often vulnerable men for the exclusive purpose of rape. This is a highly devious, manipulative and self-obsessed individual.”
At the serial killer’s sentencing at the Old Bailey in November 2016, the judge Mr Justice Openshaw said: “It is not for me to say whether the seeming bizarre coincidence of these three gay young men being found dead so close together might have given rise to suspicions that these deaths were not the result of ordinary self-administered drug overdoses. The competence and adequacy of the investigation will later be examined by others.”
Five years later, the case was branded “one of the most widespread institutional failings in modern history” by the men’s families in a nine-week long inquest into the The Metropolitan Police’s conduct. Among the widespread failings highlighted were a failure to carry out basic checks, to send evidence to be forensically examined or to exercise enough “professional curiosity”.
At the 2021 inquest, the Met Police’s deputy assistant commissioner Stuart Cundy, who led a review of the investigation into the case, said he was “deeply sorry” about the missed opportunities to arrest the serial killer. The senior officer, who was not with the Met when the predator committed the murders, called it “quite astonishing” that some officers didn’t follow instructions to secure vital evidence.
Watch A Killer Makes a Call tonight at 10pm on C5
