Mark Andrew Rowntree (born 1956) is a British spree killer who murdered four people in random knife attacks over a period of eight days in West Yorkshire, England, in 1975 and 1976.

[2] His murders were motivated by a delusional belief that all women despised him, sourcing from a single instance of a woman rejecting his advances, in addition to a desire to surpass the total victim count of the then-recently arrested Black Panther.

[4] Due to the timing and location of Rowntree's crimes, two of his victims were initially—albeit briefly—assumed to have been murdered by an unknown offender soon to be known as the Yorkshire Ripper, which briefly distracted contemporary police enquiries.

His first victim was an 85-year-old widow named Grace Edith Adamson, whom Rowntree observed sitting by her window inside her Bingley cottage, knitting and watching television.

[10] After fleeing from the scene, Rowntree buried the murder weapon in a cemetery, then entered a pub in nearby Cross Flatts, where he washed Adamson's blood from his hands in the toilets before ordering a pint of beer.

He then travelled via public transport to Sutton-in-Craven, where he entered the Black Bull pub and purchased a pint of beer, which he drank while discussing Adamson's murder with the barmaid and remarking: "They might have let her live out her life properly.

"[12] Rowntree then walked one mile to the nearby village of Eastburn, where he observed a teenage couple close to a fish and chip shop.

[13] Wilson managed to flee from his attacker after receiving three stab wounds to his chest and abdomen; he staggered to the nearby residence of a school friend, where the occupants summoned an ambulance.

[16] Based on both the physical description of his attacker provided by Stephen Wilson prior to his death and recollections later given to police by the taxi driver who recalled driving a dishevelled individual matching this description from Eastburn to Shipley on the date of the fatal knife attack,[13] by 7 January, police considered Rowntree as a strong suspect in the teenager's murder.

As such, Detective Superintendent Dick Holland and several colleagues were waiting to arrest and question Rowntree upon his return to his lodgings on the evening of 7 January.

[12] Initially, Rowntree denied the murders of Wilson and Adamson; however, after several hours of interrogation, he informed detectives: "I'll just tell you a little story which may interest you before I go to sleep.

Initially, he had attempted to quell his rage by smashing shop windows and bus stops; however, when these acts failed to suppress Rowntree's anger, he had chosen to murder five individuals—one more victim than the Black Panther—to achieve a sense of accomplishment and grandiosity.

Taylor also hearkened to the testimony of Dr. Ronald Ingrey-Senn, who had testified Rowntree suffered from acute schizophrenia, and who had stated: "This abnormality of the mind was of such a nature as to substantially diminish his responsibility for [his] acts.

[3][4] This ruling followed an incident in which Rowntree—then known as Mark Allan Evans—had repeatedly threatened to kill a social worker named Katherine Cogley, who had informed a mental health tribunal he holds no remorse for his crimes.

Prior to this decision, he had been allowed to participate in periodic public outings—both supervised and unsupervised—to locations such as shopping centres in addition to a 1994 visit to Kielder Forest.

By the 2000s, he had also expressed a desire to end his own life should the opportunity arise, stating to one reporter in 2003: "I just want to die and be erased from society's memory, of the embarrassment and inhuman individual I am.