John Martin Scripps (9 December 1959 – 19 April 1996), also known as the Garden City Butcher, and "Tourist From Hell"[1] was an English serial killer who murdered three tourists—Gerard Lowe in Singapore, and Sheila and Darin Damude in Thailand—with another three potential (yet unconfirmed) victims.

His imprisonment upset María, and their relationship was further soured when he ran away from jail during home leave in June 1985—just months short of completing his term—and burgled again.

He was sentenced to another three years' imprisonment, during which she filed for divorce and married Police Constable Ken Cold, an officer in the Royal Protection Squad.

[20] Before he left Johannesburg on 7 March 1995, he told his wife Vanessa, a local airline employee, his exact schedule, saying: "I will call you the moment I check into the hotel to give you the contact number.

Later that day, Martin forged Lowe's signature and used his credit card to withdraw $6,000 from a branch of DBS Bank at Raffles City Shopping Centre.

Martin also bought a $490 video recorder (which he mailed to his sister in England) and a $180 pair of Nike Alpha Trainer shoes with Lowe's credit card, and even attended a performance by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

[20] After being informed the transfer would take a few days to complete,[25][26] he also bought a $485 return air ticket to Phuket via Bangkok with cash, and departed from Singapore at 7pm that same evening.

[28] Initially, Singapore police could only determine that the body parts belonged to a Caucasian, and they had a possible name after receiving a missing person report for Lowe from the South African High Commission.

Vanessa Lowe filed the report because she was distressed that her husband, who used to make daily contact with his family when overseas, had not called home or returned to South Africa by 12 March.

Singaporean authorities decided not to immediately inform the local media about the discovery, as they did not want to alert the suspected killer to the fact Lowe's remains had been found and possibly dissuading him from returning to the country if he had already fled.

The body parts were so badly decomposed that visual identification was impossible; Royal Thai Police used dental records to identify the skulls and forensic analysis concluded that the torso, arms, and legs were likely to be Sheila's.

[35][36] Scotland Yard suspected Martin of having separately killed two men from south London: financial adviser Timothy MacDowall and accountant William Shackel.

[4] Martin refused to be interviewed by Scotland Yard while he was on death row in Changi Prison, thus whether he killed MacDowall remains unconfirmed.

Wenger's body was chopped up and drained of blood; it was found in a garbage skip (dumpster) in Myrtle Alley in the Polk Street district.

[40] Oblivious to the fact Lowe's remains had already been found by the police, and wanting to complete the transfer of money from Thomas Cook to his bank account in the United States, Martin returned to Singapore on the evening of 19 March 1995.

In addition, police found Simon Davis' birth certificate, and items that Martin had used to immobilise and kill: a hammer weighing 1.5 kilogrammes (3.3 lb), a battery-operated Z-Force III electroshock weapon, a can of mace, two pairs of handcuffs, a pair of thumbcuffs, two Police brand foldable knives, an oilstone and two Swiss army knives.

[44] Three days later, he was charged under his real name for the murder of Gerard Lowe in a River View Hotel room some time between 8 and 9 March.

The magistrate overseeing the enquiry ordered Martin to stand trial for Gerard Lowe's murder on 2 October after hearing statements from 39 witnesses, and looking at more than 100 exhibits and 100 photographs that the prosecution had prepared as evidence.

[50][51] The journalists (Andrew Drummond and Gary Jones) later admitted visiting him separately, along with his sister Janet Martin, with the subsequent report being published in the News of the World on 2 July 1995.

After this disclosure during Martin's cross examination, Assistant Superintendent Gerald Lim and his team approached all five hotels to obtain the names of all single male guests who checked in or out on 10 March 1995.

[78][79] Receipts from a shopping spree[80] by Martin using Lowe's credit card was also cited as evidence of premeditation and a rebuttal of him "walking around in a dream world" after the murder.

[81][82] Martin had earlier testified that he had previously taken photocopies of other people's passports with his own photo attached so he could attempt to cash their traveller's cheques, which further underscored a financial motive for the murders.

On the evidence, I had no difficulty to find that it was Martin who was concerned with the deaths of Sheila and Darin and for the disposal of their body parts found in different sites in Phuket.

Altogether, this similar fact evidence reinforces the decision I have made, for it puts beyond doubt that Martin is guilty on the charge of murder.

The week before he was due to hang, he dreamed that he had avoided the sentence by committing suicide: I tied the rope around my little neck before I got up on the old creaky chair.

Four days before his execution, in an interview with criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee, Martin described in detail how he murdered Gerard Lowe and then dismembered his body.

[93][94] On 19 April 1996, after a last meal of pizza and hot chocolate, 36-year-old John Martin Scripps was hanged in Changi Prison[95][9][96] alongside Singaporean heroin traffickers Richard Low Gee Boon and Lee Meng Hong.

In the episode, the real evidence of the case and actual photographs from the autopsy were shown, causing the series to be the first current affairs programme in Singapore to be given the PG (Parental Guidance) warning tag.

[102] On 31 January 1997, eight police officers who made significant contributions towards Martin's conviction were awarded commemorative plaques by the High Commissioner for Canada in Singapore, Barry Carin.

[103] On 26 April 2011, an Asian channel Crime & Investigation Network aired a documentary titled "The Garden City Butcher", which dramatised the events surrounding John Martin Scripps committing the murders in Singapore and Thailand, and his subsequent trial and execution.