Bonded By Evil

Finally, Liz Killingworth, age 41, could say sorry for a murder that had haunted her life.

Growing up, I sensed that my father, John Dickinson, had done something terrible. I hadn’t seen him since he’d abandoned me and my mum Marion after my first birthday in 1977. All I knew was that Mum and I didn’t talk about him.

Until, that is, aged nine, my grandad – Dad’s dad – took me to a looming building with bars on the windows – a prison. I was directed into the visiting room where a man with small eyes and a moustache held out his arms. ‘This is your dad,’ my grandad said. But I shrank away, frightened.

Thankfully, I didn’t hear from my dad again. But in 1987, aged 11, I found newspaper clippings in mum’s filing cabinet.

They concerned a murder, which had occurred a few doors from our home in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, seven years earlier, in march 1980.

Shocking discovery 

Single mum Susan Lowson, 25, was strangled to death in the bed she shared with her daughter, four-year-old Amanda. The killer also tried to throttle Amanda before torching the house. Amazingly, she was rescued by a passing milkman, although her legs were badly burnt.

In September 1980, the murderer was sentenced to a double life term at St Albans Crown Court. His identity? John Dickinson, 27.

Revulsion washed over me. now I knew why my dad was in prison. I realised that, coincidentally, Amanda was now in the year above me at school. Running into my room, I sobbed into the pillows.