Episode 619: Peter Bryan AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Morbid

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Episode: Episode 619: Peter Bryan

Author: Morbid Network | Wondery
Duration: 00:59:58

Episode Shownotes

On April 25, 2004, Broadmoor Hospital inmate Peter Bryan attacked a killed fellow inmate Richard Loudwell, a man awaiting sentencing for the murder of an eighty-two-year-old woman. The fact that the murder occurred in England’s most famous and supposedly secure psychiatric hospital was shocking, but more shocking was that this

was Bryan’s third murder, and the second in as many months. Indeed, just two months earlier, while he was under the care of doctors and social workers in an open in-patient mental health hospital, Bryan left the facility in February and a few hours later he’d killed, dismembered, and partially cannibalized forty-three-year-old Brian Cherry.Peter Bryan’s murders were highly sensationalized by the press, particularly the tabloids, who fueled the ongoing moral panic over the abysmal state of England’s mental health system. While the reporting did little more than exacerbate the public’s growing anger with the government, they nonetheless highlighted a very important question everyone wanted answered: How was a man with Bryan’s mental health and criminal history able to get released institutional care, and moreover, why was he not under surveillance when he murdered a third time—this time in heavily guarded psychiatric hospital?ReferencesBennetto, Jason. 2005. "Care in the community patient sought buzz' from killing and eating his victims." The Independent, March 16.Bowcott, Owen. 2009. "Cannibal who killed three had seemed normal, NHS finds." The Guardian, September 3.Chelsea News. 1994. "Grudge ended in murder." Chelsea News, March 3: 1.Cheston, Paul. 2005. "Cannibal set free to kill in London." London Evening Standard, March 15.Feller, Grant. 1993. "Police hunt evil King's Road murderer." Chelsea News, March 24: 3.Garvey, Geoff, and Peter Dobbie. 1993. "Girl battered to death in King's Road." Evening Standard (London, England), March 19: 73.Mishcon, Jane, Tim Exworthy, Stuart Wix, and Mike Lindsay. 2009. Independent Inquiry into the Care and Treatment of Peter Bryan - Part I. Mental Health Treatment Review, London, England: National Health Service (NHS).Raif, Shenai, and Andrew Barrow. 2005. "Triple-killer 'cannibal' told: you'll never be freed." The Independent, March 14.Tendler, Stewart, and Laura Peek. 2004. "Cannibal fears after body found cut apart." The Times (London, England), February 19.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy` and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Summary

In Episode 619 of Morbid, titled "Peter Bryan," the hosts investigate the disturbing case of Peter Bryan, a patient at Broadmoor Hospital who committed multiple murders, including dismemberment and cannibalism. Bryan's tumultuous upbringing and mental health issues were explored, highlighting systemic failures in the mental health system that allowed him to roam free despite his violent history. The episode raises critical questions about the adequacy of mental health evaluations and the public safety implications of such negligence, particularly after his shocking attack on fellow inmate Richard Loudwell in a supposedly secure facility.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Episode 619: Peter Bryan) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_02
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00:00:08 Speaker_00
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00:02:19 Speaker_01
Hey weirdos, I'm Alaina. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. Well, there's not a lot going on, so why don't we get right into it? Yeah, nothing going on in these streets. Nothing going on that I want to talk about.

00:02:46 Speaker_02
Nope. Nothing good. Nothing good anymore. Nothing good. Bad, bad, bad.

00:02:53 Speaker_01
So let's talk about something worse. You know what? Let's get into something worse. All right, cool. Because I think that's really where we are. Loves it. We're going to talk about the London cannibal. Tell me everything. Peter Bryan.

00:03:03 Speaker_02
Oh, we're in a place of cannibalism because we're not. We personally are not. I don't eat. Or at least I am not. I'm not.

00:03:11 Speaker_01
I don't want to speak for you.

00:03:13 Speaker_02
No, actually, now I'm going to call you out. First, I'll finish my thought, and then I have something to call you out about. So first, my thought is that my movie pick for Scream this week that we're going to record is also based in cannibalism.

00:03:25 Speaker_02
Good call. Movie Fresh. So good. Check it out. Secondly, this morning for breakfast, Alina brought into the pod lab I'm not joking you, a plate full of burnt sausage links. Just little ones.

00:03:39 Speaker_01
Yeah, sausage links.

00:03:40 Speaker_02
Those mini little breakfast ones. But there was at least five, I would say. There was five. And they were carcinogens. Yeah, I like them very burnt. Burnt to a crisp. And that was your breakfast. It was giving frat boy. It's giving 2024.

00:03:55 Speaker_02
Yes, and 2025 and 2026 and 2027 and 2028 as well. Little tiny burnt sausages just on a plate running the country, you know? Got it. All right. Well, I just wanted to call you out about that. Now we talk about cannibalism. I appreciate that.

00:04:11 Speaker_02
They were good. They're the little Vermont maple ones. Oh, I like the maple ones. I do the banquet ones, the banquet little patties. Oh, yeah. Because I like to put them in an egg sandwich. I like to put them in an egg sandwich.

00:04:23 Speaker_01
And I don't like to burn them. I just burn them to a crisp and eat them.

00:04:27 Speaker_02
Because I don't care. You're just rough around the edges.

00:04:30 Speaker_01
I'm out here living.

00:04:32 Speaker_02
You're rough around the edges. I feel like people at home are just picturing you like foaming at the mouth. Yeah, that was what happened. Keep picturing it.

00:04:41 Speaker_01
Let's talk about Peter Bryan. This is a wild story. I don't know if I know this. It's very upsetting right off the bat. Please know that. OK. I mean, it does involve cannibalism. So there that is.

00:04:54 Speaker_01
And it also involves a lot of discussion about like mental health, mental illness, like the system around it at the time, and especially in the area. Yeah. So let's talk about Peter Bryan when he was younger.

00:05:08 Speaker_01
So Peter Bryan was born in London, England on October 4th, 1969. Scorpio. A Scorpio. He was the youngest of seven children. Damn. To parents who had moved to the UK from Barbados in the late 1950s.

00:05:22 Speaker_01
Many years later, after his arrest, Bryan recalled his early life as, you know, one that was not very smooth. It was a lot of disruption, a lot of difficulty.

00:05:32 Speaker_01
I mean, seven kids and like moving to like a completely new place that already sounds very disruptive.

00:05:37 Speaker_01
Um, yeah, they lived in Newham and, but starting when Peter was four or five years old, both of his parents were working full-time jobs and the three youngest children, which included Peter, were often left in the care of just like a rotating group of like babysitters, um, you know, anyone they could get to just watch these kids.

00:05:54 Speaker_01
Yeah, childcare is fucking hard. Uh, during this time, the children were often left at home alone for like long periods of time. That can be tough. Yeah. Now in 1974, Peter started attending primary school.

00:06:06 Speaker_01
He doesn't have great memories of this time of his life. According to Peter, quote, he had a few friends and was unhappy during this time, primarily on account of his sense of shame and embarrassment and needing extra reading lessons. Aw.

00:06:21 Speaker_01
That can be tough. when you're having to be pulled away to do something extra. I understand that.

00:06:25 Speaker_02
I think that's the thing is that like like pulling kids out is not always the way to do it but I also don't know like how you don't know how else to do it.

00:06:33 Speaker_02
But I remember like kids being embarrassed that they needed to get pulled out and have like be in like a different reading course or a different math course.

00:06:40 Speaker_01
It's an automatic like why am I different from them? Yes. It like just makes them question it immediately but again there's no real I don't have another solution. So it's like that if it works, it works. Exactly.

00:06:51 Speaker_01
Socially, it sucks that like we haven't evolved past the point where people are like, you're different. Yeah, like you feel shame. Yeah, like we need to get better.

00:06:59 Speaker_01
But his feelings of shame led Peter to seek out and bully those that he kind of perceived to be physically weaker than himself because he was feeling weaker in certain areas. So he had to kind of Make up for that. Yeah, exactly. Overcompensate.

00:07:14 Speaker_01
So he would force them, apparently, to give him, like, treats and, like, candy. He's a bridge troll? Yeah, and he would also make them tie his shoelaces. What the fuck? So it was very weirdly, like, authoritative of him. Yeah. And, like, strange.

00:07:29 Speaker_01
Tie my shoe. Yeah, this is when he's, like, you know, seven, eight years old.

00:07:32 Speaker_02
Like, he's just forcing kids to tie his shoes. Oh, honey, the day my kid comes home and is like, some bully made me tie their shoe. I'll shoo right up your butt, honey.

00:07:41 Speaker_01
Baby, you better believe. Shoo in your face. That would be a problem. Now by the time he was 10 or 11 years old, the bullying that he was committing had escalated to physical aggression towards his classmates.

00:07:55 Speaker_01
So before it was like, just give me your treats, give me your sweets, tie my shoelaces, but then it started turning into like, I'm actually hurting people.

00:08:03 Speaker_02
Give me your treats, give me your sweets, tie my shoelaces. It's insane. It goes crazy. Why is that like a campaign line? Give me your treats, give me your sweets, tie my shoelaces. Why am I picturing a child on a stoop?

00:08:17 Speaker_02
Why am I picturing the literal stoop kid?

00:08:20 Speaker_01
Stoop kid's gotta leave the stoop. But now that's all like funny to watch from, you know, the total outside perspective. But then it started escalating and actually hurting his classmates. I hate that. And it got even worse.

00:08:38 Speaker_01
And this is where it starts to get dark. Like we can laugh about like Give me your treats, give me your sweets. I will always laugh at that. It gets dark. Okay. Because then he started harassing female classmates. Oh, why I oughta.

00:08:49 Speaker_01
And he would try to literally, like, attack them. Ew, so he's a fucking predator. And he was very, like, weirdly aggressively sexual to them very early on.

00:08:58 Speaker_02
What's going on at home, Peeta?

00:09:00 Speaker_01
Now, as he entered his teen years, because he was doing that before he was entering his teen years, 10 or 11, he was getting into trouble at school on a regular basis and because of this he would get a lot of, because at the times, at the time period and in the place they were, he would get canings.

00:09:18 Speaker_01
Oh, I didn't think that's what you were going to say. From the head teacher.

00:09:21 Speaker_02
Yeah, they used to cane kids. Like with a literal cane they'd hit them?

00:09:25 Speaker_01
What the fuck?

00:09:26 Speaker_02
I knew about the ruler and shit, but damn.

00:09:29 Speaker_01
And he would get other forms of punishment, but this didn't really do a lot to stop him from lashing out at others because violence tends to reinforce violence. Crazy how that works. It's a weird connection that we've seen for millennia. So wild.

00:09:45 Speaker_01
In fact, by the time he was 15 years old and had transferred to a new school in London, he was routinely getting into fights with other boys. He kept getting into trouble.

00:09:54 Speaker_01
He would get reprimanded all the time for, and this is horrifying, feeling up girls. Oh my God. And on occasion he would be suspended and he even got suspended once for slapping a teacher. What the fuck? Yeah, he was. He needs to go to juvie.

00:10:08 Speaker_01
He needs the Beyond Scared Straight program. He does.

00:10:11 Speaker_01
Now, in interviews with mental health workers after he was arrested later in life, Peter also indicated that his early adolescence was when he started really going into his criminal career, we should say. It was like petty theft.

00:10:24 Speaker_01
He also committed muggings, which is like pretty aggressive. That's scary. And according to him, these activities gave him something to do.

00:10:32 Speaker_02
You could do a whole slew of other things. Maybe volunteer for the community.

00:10:36 Speaker_01
But he also agreed that he liked the feeling of power and excitement that he got from menacing others. Oh, that's so dark. Which is like, you need to go away. You need help.

00:10:47 Speaker_01
Now, around this time, he also started experimenting with drugs, which is not great when this is all happening. Initially, he was just smoking pot, but his drug use would increase and expand as he grew older. It's a gateway drug. Into like crack.

00:11:01 Speaker_01
other like cocaine other stuff. Now later he was diagnosed as dyslexic and he described himself as quote very slow and unable to keep up with his peers. Well, dyslexia, like that's a real challenge.

00:11:14 Speaker_01
Yeah, that's a real learning disability and it caused a lot of anxiety around schooling and it resulted in him like not ever wanting to go to school. So yeah, he had a big period of truancy.

00:11:24 Speaker_01
By the time he was 15 or 16, he had become so disengaged from school altogether that he just ended up dropping out. Damn, that's really sad.

00:11:33 Speaker_02
Yeah, because he just felt like he couldn't keep up. It's probably good for everybody else because he's like committing felonies at school. Because he's a fucking menace at that school.

00:11:40 Speaker_01
Yeah, if I was anybody else at that school, I'd be like, bye. Happy, like, bye. Yeah, good luck on your reading journey. Have fun. But so he did find a part-time job at Omcar, which was a clothing boutique at Petticoat Lane Market in London.

00:11:55 Speaker_01
I love that name, Petticoat Lane Market. I love it. It was owned by the Sheff family. And the job paid in cash, and according to Peter, he supplemented his income by selling drugs and stealing from his employers. Fantastic.

00:12:09 Speaker_01
So he worked, he also stole from the people employing him, and he sold drugs. Awesome. In 1992, when Peter was in his early 20s, his drug and alcohol use had increased exponentially. I mean you start that shit when you're a teenager, that's scary.

00:12:23 Speaker_01
He was spending nearly every cent he made or had on drugs and he reported that some days he would just spend all day at a friend's house or acquaintance house getting high. So sad. This period of his life was very unstable.

00:12:37 Speaker_01
In addition to the drug and alcohol abuse, his housing was unstable and his employment status was like informal I would say. Like really not solid. He had actually left his parents house because they told him get out.

00:12:51 Speaker_00
Yeah.

00:12:51 Speaker_01
And he had left at 17 or 18 and had been staying in hostels or staying with friends ever since. Wow. And it was through his occasional work at the shops that Peter met the chef's daughter. They were the people that owned the shop. Oh no. Nisha.

00:13:05 Speaker_01
So the chef's children, who also included a son seven years younger than Nisha, would often help their parents in the shops. They were regularly there. They were fixtures in those family businesses. Right.

00:13:17 Speaker_01
In interviews with his doctors later, Peter claimed he and Nisha had a, quote, intimate relationship. OK. Though he said the two had not had sex. Okay. Her parents, on the other hand, said abso-fucking-lutely not they did not.

00:13:32 Speaker_01
They were not anything past co-workers. They weren't even friends. Wow.

00:13:37 Speaker_02
Yeah. What a weird thing to make up. And I would believe her parents. Sometimes though, it's crazy how people can think that they're your best friend and you're like, I barely know you.

00:13:48 Speaker_01
I think he had a delusional relationship with her. In 1993, Nisha was in her first year at South Bank University where she was studying social work. She was a very compassionate young woman.

00:14:01 Speaker_01
Her friends and neighbors described her as the nicest, sweetest girl you could ever hope to meet. And she would quote, never have a crossword for anyone.

00:14:10 Speaker_02
She sounds like a really good person.

00:14:11 Speaker_01
She had always been kind to Peter Bryan. If you tell me that she's his first victim, I'm gonna be upset. She had always been kind to Peter Bryan, which makes his actions even more heinous when we get to them.

00:14:24 Speaker_02
Damn it.

00:14:25 Speaker_01
In the early evening of March 18th, Nisha's mother, Rita, had left the shop and gone upstairs to the family's apartment. Nisha and her 12-year-old brother, Bobby, were alone in the shop. Remember, mom went right up to the family apartment.

00:14:38 Speaker_01
Right upstairs, yeah. A little before 7 p.m., Peter Bryan entered the shop with a hammer. Nisha was on the phone and didn't see Peter enter so he turned his attention towards her brother, her 12 year old brother. Oh god.

00:14:52 Speaker_01
He struck him in the head with the hammer and knocked him out to the floor.

00:14:57 Speaker_01
This caught Nisha's attention obviously so she turned just in time to see Peter who pulled her away from the phone and threw her onto the floor and then began repeatedly hitting her with the hammer.

00:15:09 Speaker_01
what the this escalated so quickly he just walked in there and just attacked them both When he came to a moment later, Bobby, 12-year-old Bobby, fled from the store to get help. And he fled out onto the Kings Road District and he was chased by Brian.

00:15:26 Speaker_01
He chased him for a few blocks until he realized he was being pursued by a passerby who saw this whole thing. Oh my God.

00:15:32 Speaker_01
So turning around, Peter, I'm talking about Peter Brian, he brandished the hammer at the guy that was running at him and warned the man to keep back. and then fled in the direction of Chelsea Manor Street.

00:15:55 Speaker_02
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Get RocketMoney today at rocketmoney.com slash morbid. That's rocketmoney.com slash morbid. rocketmoney.com slash morbid. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This month is all about gratitude, so I wanna thank my lovely co-host, Elena Urquhart.

00:17:05 Speaker_02
Just kidding, it's Urquhart, for being my bestie. And along with Elena, there's another person that we don't get to thank enough, everybody, ourselves.

00:17:14 Speaker_02
It's sometimes hard to remind ourselves that we're trying our best to make sense of everything, and in this crazy world, that is not always easy. Here's a reminder to send some thanks to the people in your life, but always include yourself.

00:17:26 Speaker_02
I think the best way to give gratitude to yourself is via therapy.

00:17:32 Speaker_02
You can just set aside that one hour per week or every other week where you're just working on things that you need to work on and you're doing it and talking to somebody who doesn't have a horse in the race, so it just makes it so much easier.

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00:18:14 Speaker_01
Now this whole thing was like crazy quick. He ran in there, it was like a violent just ambush. Out of nowhere. Yeah. And during this whole thing, he said nothing to Nisha or Bobby. That's so chilling. Like, silent.

00:18:29 Speaker_01
and just like what yeah what why did he want it what was the motive here like what what motivated this well the attack was so bad and this is very graphic just so you're aware the attack left nisha with head injuries so severe that the brain tissue was exposed from her skull oh my god she was rushed to the hospital by ambulance but unfortunately she died on the way to the hospital

00:18:54 Speaker_01
Now, in his statement to the press, Detective Chief Superintendent Clive Ritchie told reporters, this was a cowardly and horrific attack. I've seldom seen injuries this bad.

00:19:03 Speaker_01
The family is well-known and well-liked in the area, and everyone is terribly shocked. And again, this was unprovoked. It was just an unprovoked attack. And at the time, they didn't know who the fuck did it. They were just like, what?

00:19:14 Speaker_01
And this is a family who's been good to him, who employed him. Yeah, yeah. So the press and the public thought this was just this motiveless crime that they were like, what the fuck is going on? But investigators were like, I think I know who did this.

00:19:27 Speaker_02
Really?

00:19:28 Speaker_01
Yeah. About an hour.

00:19:29 Speaker_02
I mean, yeah, the brother knows too. It's just like, where is he?

00:19:32 Speaker_01
Yeah. About an hour after the attack in the store, Peter Bryan was seen dangling by his hands from a third story balcony of an apartment building in the Battersea neighborhood area of London. What?

00:19:44 Speaker_01
He fell nearly 30 feet and severely broke both lower legs and ankles, and later he explained that he had intended to kill himself by throwing himself off the building headfirst, but he had second thoughts on the way and clung to the building until he couldn't hold any longer and fell.

00:20:02 Speaker_01
When he got to the emergency department of St. Thomas Hospital, he was repeating a phone number over and over, but wouldn't say what the number was for.

00:20:10 Speaker_01
And when the admitting nurse gave the number to police, they found out that it was the number for Nisha's parents. And he was just saying it over and over. What the fuck? Like why? Peter's injuries required him to have several surgeries.

00:20:26 Speaker_01
He had to get bilateral pins put into both of his legs and he was placed in traction.

00:20:33 Speaker_01
Although a police report filed several days claimed that he tested positive for opiates, the drug screening that was done at the hospital only showed weak traces of THC in his system. consistent with someone who'd smoked marijuana a few days earlier.

00:20:46 Speaker_01
Yeah. So the following day, March 20th, he was arrested for the murder of Nisha Sheth.

00:20:52 Speaker_02
To think that he, like, it doesn't sound like he was on anything as, like, what?

00:20:56 Speaker_01
No. And the news of the arrests made headlines, obviously, in all the London papers, and especially the tabloids, which at the time were, oof.

00:21:05 Speaker_02
Yeah.

00:21:06 Speaker_01
And they stoked the outrage over this quote, drugged up suspect having committed an unprovoked attack. Which is like, no, what's worse is he wasn't. I thought you were going to say he was like blitzed out of his mind. Yeah.

00:21:17 Speaker_01
And reporters stated the attack had been motivated by Peter having been fired by the chefs shortly before the murder occurred. But that wasn't accurate. No. Peter had been working more or less informally for the chefs, like I said, very informally. Yeah.

00:21:30 Speaker_01
And didn't appear to have kept any regular schedule. So it wasn't like he was fired. He didn't. really have a schedule. He would just kind of work when he worked. So this really was unprovoked.

00:21:39 Speaker_01
And he had been actively engaging with various members of the family up to the week before the attack.

00:21:44 Speaker_01
Though it looked like the chefs were, you know, the chefs were saying it looked like he was struggling with symptoms of mental illness in the weeks before the murder or they were concerned about his behavior. So maybe they were keeping distance. Yeah.

00:21:58 Speaker_01
A week after the murder, Rita Sheff gave a statement to police, and she described Peter's behavior in the weeks leading up to the attack as very concerning.

00:22:06 Speaker_01
According to Rita, she said, Peter's mood would swing from calm to violent, and he changed his appearance regularly. Sometimes he would grow a beard, then shave it off, and then he shaved the hair from his head.

00:22:16 Speaker_01
His clothing was sometimes dirty, and he often smelt as though he was not washing himself. One day, he smelt strongly of disinfectant, as though he was washing his face with it.

00:22:26 Speaker_01
He would wander around muttering to himself, and when he spoke, it was often as though he was talking in a language she could not understand. And he would repeat a word over and over and over again.

00:22:35 Speaker_01
One afternoon, he came into the shop saying he felt like killing someone. Jesus. And to me, I'm wondering if that appearance change up was to get rid of hair evidence. Yeah. He shaved his head and shaved his beard off. Yeah.

00:22:47 Speaker_01
Now, in addition to Peter's bizarre and sometimes very unsettling behavior, he was also getting very aggressive to the chefs and others in the neighborhood.

00:22:56 Speaker_01
In one incident, Peter bragged about, quote, how easy it was to take money from Pakistanis in East London. Jesus. Yeah. Implying that he had been stealing from them. Like he was telling people and bragging about it. Yeah.

00:23:09 Speaker_01
Which to me says like a lot of like um knowledge and awareness of what he's doing. Yeah.

00:23:15 Speaker_02
You know what I mean? Because it's like on one hand like I'm very much sitting here prepared to tell me for you to tell me that he's insane.

00:23:21 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:23:21 Speaker_02
But it's like then there's a lot of awareness of his bad acts.

00:23:25 Speaker_01
Yeah exactly. And in another incident a few days later he had been hanging around the shop and for no discernible reason he started kicking Rita in the shins. The mother.

00:23:36 Speaker_03
What?

00:23:37 Speaker_01
And then he grabbed a belt from the rack and hit her several times in the leg with the buckle. And did they report this to anybody?

00:23:45 Speaker_01
Well Rita reached for the phone to dial the police but Peter grabbed the phone out of her hand and hung up and then ran out of the store.

00:23:52 Speaker_01
And about an hour later he came back and asked whether she had called the police and she said no and he started apologizing and like freaking out.

00:24:00 Speaker_02
Wow, so she was like genuinely very good to him, even when he was assaulting her.

00:24:04 Speaker_01
He physically assaulted her and she was like, I don't know what he's going through here. Damn. In the week before Nisha's murder, Peter's behavior became even more erratic and at times even more frightening. He would steal items off the shelf regularly.

00:24:19 Speaker_01
And when he was confronted, he would get super aggressive with the person. Then at other times, he was like strangely over the top kind. Like one time, in the week before the murder. Now, this is a week before he's going to murder her ruthlessly.

00:24:34 Speaker_01
He gave Nisha an ornate box full of small flowers. That's terrifying. And this struck Rita as very strange because she's like, I had never seen him be nice or gentle before. He's always an asshole. Right.

00:24:49 Speaker_01
And after giving Nisha the gift, Peter didn't return to the shop for a week. And the next time he saw her, he attacked and killed her. So he gave her this gift and then the next time he saw her was to kill her. That's very scary.

00:25:02 Speaker_01
Now Peter remained hospitalized for a month following his surgeries and after that he was discharged to Brixton Prison. There's going to be a lot of things that make you very angry in this too because some of this stuff is avoidable.

00:25:13 Speaker_01
Within a week of arriving at Brixton, he had attacked two fellow inmates on separate occasions. One was occurring while he was still in a wheelchair. Jesus. He was in a wheelchair and attacked another inmate. How? I have no idea.

00:25:26 Speaker_01
But the unprovoked attacks led to Peter being evaluated by the psychiatric team from Hackney Hospital.

00:25:32 Speaker_01
They found him to be paranoid and mistrustful of others and noted their concern that there was a strong likelihood that he would or could be violent towards others. I mean, he is.

00:25:42 Speaker_01
During his interview with the team from Hackney, Peter told the psychiatrist that he had known the chefs for many years, having started working for them when he was a teenager, and that he had a, quote, love feeling for Nisha. Sometimes.

00:25:55 Speaker_01
But any time he got close to her, he said Rita would make him leave the store. And according to Peter, Nisha shared his feelings, like also felt love feelings for him. Doubt it. And would touch him sexually.

00:26:10 Speaker_01
But you also said that you didn't have a sexual relationship. He was very graphic about it, but I will not be reiterating his deranged quote. Because it's fake.

00:26:18 Speaker_01
But when he said that when he would touch her in response, she would, quote, become frigid and timid and run away. He's a liar. Yeah, none of that makes any sense. Yeah.

00:26:29 Speaker_01
In Peter's version of the events on that day of the murder, remember Peter's version of events, he said he had gone to the shop and she began kissing him and said, make, and this is awful.

00:26:39 Speaker_02
Yeah.

00:26:40 Speaker_01
And said, make me rape me in an intimidating tone.

00:26:43 Speaker_02
Okay.

00:26:45 Speaker_01
Peter claimed he had only happened to have a hammer with him that day.

00:26:48 Speaker_02
You know, cause just sometimes he goes about with a hammer.

00:26:51 Speaker_01
And they said, why did you have a hammer? And he said, I just had one. As one does. You don't need to have a reason. I walked into a store with a hammer. Can't just have a hammer on me. And he said he hadn't intended on assaulting Nisha with it.

00:27:05 Speaker_01
He just had it. But he believed that she wanted to kill him. Yep and he said that he believes that because and then he said that he also believed that what she was saying to him was that he wanted her to kill her or him to kill her excuse me.

00:27:22 Speaker_01
So he's saying she asked for me to kill her. He's saying she wanted me to kill her. No. And we were it was gonna be like a thing.

00:27:28 Speaker_02
No.

00:27:29 Speaker_01
Like we're just gonna kill each other. Nope. And he said, I know that she wanted this, in fact, because she didn't cry out or attempt to fight back when I started hitting her in the face with a hammer on the floor.

00:27:39 Speaker_02
She might have been unable to because you hit her so hard that her brain tissue came out of her face.

00:27:45 Speaker_01
It's also worth noting that Bobby Sheff, her brother, strongly refuted this entire fucking statement. He was screaming. And he told the police his sister had been, quote, screaming in a terrified manner. So he was like, that guy can get fucked. Yeah.

00:27:58 Speaker_01
And that, no, he did not walk in and she did not start kissing him. She was, like, Bobby was the one that was, like, he was, she was on the phone. Right. Like, he didn't even look at her.

00:28:06 Speaker_01
Although the evaluating doctors found Peter to be quiet and calm during this period, they also noted his very fragmented and very de lulu thinking. Sounds very de lulu. Yeah.

00:28:17 Speaker_01
And according to the report, Peter's train of thought would, like, shift really frequently from one subject to another, and there was no obvious connections between them. Just, like, boom, boom, boom.

00:28:26 Speaker_01
And during one interview, for example, he was giving a history of his mental health treatment, and then he changed the topic mid-sentence to tell the psychiatrist about his interests and practices of voodoo. Okay.

00:28:37 Speaker_01
And at the time, he also told the doctor that, quote, dead souls would sometimes listen into his conversations and that they hurt him when he was alone. He sounds, like I'm not gonna armchair diagnose, but I guess I am. He sounds schizophrenic.

00:28:53 Speaker_01
They did bring that up at one point. He was very hard to diagnose. Yeah. They had trouble diagnosing him. Well, he sounds like he's got bits and pieces of like everything. You know what I mean? He seems that way for sure.

00:29:04 Speaker_01
From their interviews, the evaluating team found him to be someone that was suffering from profound delusional and psychotic thinking that was frequently paranoid in nature.

00:29:14 Speaker_01
And it appears that he frequently misinterpreted social cues and signals from others as well. Or he just like experienced things in a way that was very inconsistent with reality. Like he was kind of living on his own plane.

00:29:26 Speaker_02
Like he thought Nisha was like so in love with him and she very clearly was not.

00:29:29 Speaker_01
And that just wasn't the reality at all. But he believed it to be. But he kind of delusionally put that together in his mind.

00:29:36 Speaker_01
Although his explanation for why he'd gone to the shop that day of the murder changed depending on when and whom he was telling the story to, it appears his intention, what he's claiming to be his intention for going in that day, was to end his relationship with Nisha that day.

00:29:53 Speaker_02
Okay.

00:29:54 Speaker_01
Regardless of, you know, what he believed that relationship was, it was not real.

00:29:58 Speaker_02
Okay.

00:29:59 Speaker_01
The relationship, he said, it had to end or move on. Okay. And he told the psychiatrist that his motive was that, he said, I just couldn't, I couldn't stand going on with this relationship anymore because it was too hard.

00:30:12 Speaker_01
And then he said, my hand went up and that was it. None of this makes any sense. And after months of evaluations, the psychiatric team were at a complete fucking loss for how to diagnose him or how to treat him. Yeah.

00:30:27 Speaker_01
One psychiatrist wrote, I found his mental state hard to assess. Although I am confident that he suffers from a psychotic illness, the symptoms are not well defined, and I found it impossible to come to a diagnosis.

00:30:38 Speaker_01
Despite not being able to arrive at a diagnosis, he was transferred to Rampton Hospital, which is a high-security psychiatric facility in Nottinghamshire.

00:30:48 Speaker_01
That's in England, whose notable inmates have included Charles Bronson, who's a notorious criminal, a spree killer named Mark Roantree, and a serial killer, Beverly Ullett. So they have some high-profile scary people in there.

00:31:02 Speaker_02
I guess so.

00:31:03 Speaker_01
Ultimately, Peter would spend almost 10 years at Rampton.

00:31:07 Speaker_02
Wow.

00:31:08 Speaker_01
During this time, he was a frequent fucking problem for the staff. That's so surprising. I'm shocked. Exactly. They said it was very clear that he had this grandiose thought process that he would go through, and he had very psychotic thinking.

00:31:25 Speaker_01
In fact, a nurse wrote, violence is a recurring theme in Peter's conversation with his peers, and he seems to be preoccupied with glamorized violence. Throughout this time, his memory of Nisha's murder remained distorted.

00:31:38 Speaker_01
He would change it all the time. And his motive for the attack would also change at various points. So he was just making it up. And it was always depending who he was talking to or how he was feeling that day.

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00:34:10 Speaker_01
While at Rampton, he would speak openly about his drug and alcohol abuse prior to being arrested and was very, again, grandiose and theatrical when describing acts of violence in his past.

00:34:21 Speaker_01
Staff interpreted it as an attempt to impress the other patients. That said, it does appear that he derived some enjoyment from talking about his past acts of violence. That makes sense. He would often smile as he spoke of the attack on Nisha.

00:34:36 Speaker_01
That's gross. Like it made him happy. On the other hand, when he spoke of the future, he would become depressed. He understood that he was going to be in the hospital for the foreseeable future, and he found that distressing.

00:34:49 Speaker_01
In fact, during one court appearance in 1994, he expressed absolutely no remorse for the murder. None. But he did regard the event as a matter of great regret, as the outcome was that he was now crippled and facing a bleak future.

00:35:05 Speaker_01
Right, so he's upset about where it landed. So he literally said, I don't give a shit that I did that.

00:35:11 Speaker_01
The only reason I'm upset about it is now I have to deal with pins in my legs because I jumped off a building and because now I don't know what's going to happen in my future because of it. This is so bleak. Yeah.

00:35:23 Speaker_01
In March 1994, he pled not guilty to the charge of murder, but he pleaded guilty to one charge of manslaughter and guilty to a charge of assault for the attack on Bobby.

00:35:32 Speaker_01
In the years after that, he continued exhibiting bizarre behavior and psychotic thinking, but the psychiatrist at Rampton could not find a diagnosis either. Right. They were just as at a loss as the other psychiatric team.

00:35:45 Speaker_01
Because he ticks off a lot of boxes, like everywhere. He does. Like all across the board. So as a result of them not being able to figure out a diagnosis, they found it very difficult to assess his degree of dangerousness.

00:36:00 Speaker_02
I don't think that would be difficult. Sounds dangerous. I would tick off very dangerous. First of all, his first crime, like his first crime on another person was incredibly violent. Secondly, he didn't regret it.

00:36:16 Speaker_02
Thirdly, he continues to attack people violently while incarcerated.

00:36:22 Speaker_01
I would say he's dangerous. Well, and as this is all going on, social workers continue to interview Brian's friends and family, looking into his background, trying to find anything that might help explain his mental state. Yeah.

00:36:36 Speaker_01
According to his sister, they had been raised in a home where violence was a regular occurrence. That makes sense. Mostly at the hands of their father.

00:36:42 Speaker_02
I was very interested to see if there was any information about that.

00:36:46 Speaker_01
Now, despite this, those who knew him best said that they insisted that Peter had been mostly pleasant and a hardworking child, which completely

00:36:55 Speaker_02
Who the fuck said that? He was filling up girls at school and making people tie shoes. Exactly.

00:37:01 Speaker_01
Now, the first sign of mental illness appears to have been noticed by a family friend in late 1991 or early 1992.

00:37:08 Speaker_02
No, honey, it was way before that. The first sign of violence was when he came into this world, I feel.

00:37:14 Speaker_01
Yeah. Now, according to the young woman, Peter began verbally and physically aggressive to the point where she felt unsafe around him. And at the same time, he also started becoming increasingly paranoid and isolated.

00:37:26 Speaker_01
In a short time later, Peter's father confirmed the narrative given by the family friend, saying that late 1992 was the point where Peter's behavior and thinking became obviously troubling to those around him.

00:37:37 Speaker_01
It also makes sense that that would be the time period where people would notice it, like, very blatantly, because that usually manifests at a certain period of time. in your life, like a lot of times it will, and that was in his early 20s. Yeah.

00:37:50 Speaker_01
So it's like late teens, early 20s. It's usually like when mental illness presents itself is what you mean. Yeah, I feel like that's when it becomes more easily identifiable as that. Yeah.

00:37:59 Speaker_01
Although he proved to be a challenge for the staff at the hospital, he did settle into life at Rampton pretty quickly. And within a year, he was telling his doctors that he preferred it to life, quote, on the outside. Okay, cool. Stay. Bye.

00:38:13 Speaker_01
Despite his inconsistent commitment to treatment, in 1995 he began to recognize his capacity for violence at the very least.

00:38:21 Speaker_01
He would tell hospital staff that he doesn't think that he should have a job where there are dangerous tools around because he said, quote, I could hit someone.

00:38:29 Speaker_02
Well, that's good that he's realizing that. That's awareness. And it's also like, kind of sounds like he's like, don't let me out of here. Exactly.

00:38:37 Speaker_01
Which is, that's good. He's telling you he can't be around tools because he'll hit someone. So don't let him out into a world full of tools. I feel like they do. Now, unfortunately, his progress was short-lived, if that was progress.

00:38:50 Speaker_01
By the summer of 1995, his paranoia had increased, and he continued exhibiting criminal and very deviant behavior. I wonder if he was medicated at all. I'm sure he was. I wonder even how they would, though.

00:39:01 Speaker_01
I know, because they don't know how to treat it. But he would expose himself to female doctors. And he burned a member of the cleaning staff with a cigarette.

00:39:10 Speaker_02
Jeez. I feel like it's, I hate to even go back, but I feel like when like people expose themselves to other people that's like a whole other layer. No it is. Just diabolical.

00:39:21 Speaker_01
Yeah it really is. That's fucked up. Because it's like this weird control thing. Yeah. You're taking the choice away from someone else. Yeah. Yeah.

00:39:29 Speaker_01
In early 2001, he submitted a petition to the Mental Health Review Tribunal requesting a discharge from Rampton. Honey, no. Or at least a move to a medium security facility.

00:39:39 Speaker_01
And in their assessment of the evidence presented, the tribunal concluded that Peter had made considerable progress. Where?

00:39:46 Speaker_01
Since entering the hospital, and quote, as a consequence of the medication, the illness was no longer of a nature or degree warranting liability to detention. Guys, is the progress in the room with us?

00:39:59 Speaker_01
Now, you should know this is a case that frequently gets cited on like this is like the mental health failure system was a complete and other fucking failure here. I mean, it was like unbelievable. Wow.

00:40:14 Speaker_01
On July 12, 2001, he was transferred to the John Howard Center, a transitional program for patients re-entering the community. Bitch, what? Where he was going to spend six months acquiring the skills necessary to live independently.

00:40:28 Speaker_01
During this time, it appears he adapted well to a more independent life. However, his attitudes about women and behavior with female members of staff was a big source of concern for his treatment team. They were like, it didn't get better.

00:40:41 Speaker_01
Like he was... Yeah, so maybe don't put him on the streets then. So the nursing staff was like, no, like he's gonna hurt someone, like you can't do this.

00:40:49 Speaker_01
Despite them, he was discharged from the Howard Center in early 2002 and moved to Riverside, a halfway house for those re-entering the community but not requiring institutional care.

00:40:59 Speaker_02
It's like I am all for people being rehabilitated, absolutely. I do though believe at the same time that there are certain people who simply cannot be rehabilitated.

00:41:09 Speaker_02
And it sounds like at some point he didn't think he should have been let out into society.

00:41:16 Speaker_02
If the person who is receiving the treatment is sitting there telling you this isn't working, I shouldn't be around tools, I shouldn't be let out, and then one day they say like actually could you let me out, you don't immediately say yes.

00:41:28 Speaker_01
We keep working. Exactly. Now Peter's time at Riverside was mostly unremarkable. As long as he remained medicated, his symptoms were minimal and he was manageable, but the medication did little to improve his personality or character.

00:41:43 Speaker_01
He still was who he was. And staff at the residential facilities continued to struggle with his Not even trying to hide his misogyny, like he hated women, and his immaturity, and just his aggressiveness.

00:41:57 Speaker_01
In January 2004, he had hoped to be discharged from intensive treatment and move out of Riverside, but that month, he was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl, resulting in his being transferred to a low-security ward at Newham General Hospital.

00:42:13 Speaker_02
So he sexually assaulted a teenage girl and got moved to a lower security program?

00:42:19 Speaker_01
No, so he was in a halfway facility.

00:42:21 Speaker_02
Oh and then they put him back into the institution.

00:42:23 Speaker_01
So he was out of a facility that was like even really like highly monitored. Yeah okay.

00:42:29 Speaker_01
And while as soon as they let him out of that things were going okay and then he immediately sexually assaulted a teenage girl so they put him in a low security facility where now he was in a facility.

00:42:40 Speaker_02
Like guys, now he's moving on. He's like a pedophile.

00:42:43 Speaker_01
Well, like guys, he just showed you what he'll do when he leaves. So maybe keep him in the high security. When people show you who they are, believe them, baby. Like he just showed you. My God.

00:42:53 Speaker_01
Now this ward provided 24-7 surveillance and management of care.

00:42:58 Speaker_02
Even though it's low security, that's wild.

00:43:00 Speaker_01
But the low security part was that it was relaxed and the residents were allowed to come and go as long as they returned by curfew.

00:43:08 Speaker_02
That literally sounds like a halfway house. That doesn't even sound like a fucking program.

00:43:13 Speaker_01
Well, and it really went bad. He should have been in a high security. Absolutely. On the afternoon of February 17th, Peter approached one of the nurses on the ward and said, can I go out? And she said, sure, as long as you're back on time.

00:43:26 Speaker_01
And they were probably stoked to get him out of there. Well, and again, he had every right. As long as you're back on time, the nurses had to say, sure. As long as they weren't acting like they were aggressively- Like being combative.

00:43:37 Speaker_01
When that same nurse was interviewed later, she described Peter as, quote, quiet and unassuming with no signs of being unwell. He was totally normal. That's even scarier. Yeah. That he walked up to her perfectly calm and said, can I leave?

00:43:49 Speaker_01
And she was like, sure. Well, and that shows that like he knows he has to be calm to get what he wants.

00:43:54 Speaker_02
Right.

00:43:55 Speaker_01
At the time, Peter did not tell the hospital staff where he was going, but around 4.30 p.m. CCTV cameras in a London hardware store recording Peter show him leaving the store after purchasing a claw hammer, a box cutter, and a screwdriver.

00:44:12 Speaker_01
From there, he got on a bus and went to the apartment of an acquaintance of his, Brian Cherry. Now, it's unclear how Peter and Cherry had come to know each other, but it seems that they had a friend in common. That might've been it.

00:44:27 Speaker_01
This girl was a girl that Peter had met a year or two earlier. I think they all kind of were involved in the same drugs kind of thing.

00:44:37 Speaker_01
And this girl, this friend, this mutual acquaintance, would frequently use Brian Cherry's apartment as a place where she and her friends could spend the day, like, you know, drinking, hanging out, doing whatever. Using, yeah. Yeah.

00:44:48 Speaker_01
According to the NHS reports compiled after the murders, the young woman had a history of manipulating Brian Cherry into giving her money, among other things. Okay.

00:44:57 Speaker_01
So I think that was the kind of relationship that was happening here, just to give a little context. Yeah. Now, Peter arrived at Cherry's apartment around 5 p.m. and he was met by Brian Cherry at the door. He let him inside.

00:45:08 Speaker_01
About an hour and a half later, Peter and Brian's mutual friend that I just spoke about arrived at the apartment to deliver Cherry some cigarettes. When she rang the doorbell, no one answered.

00:45:19 Speaker_01
So she didn't get a response but she could hear some moving around in the apartment and she knew the door was damaged and actually didn't lock properly so she just pushed it open and went into the apartment.

00:45:29 Speaker_01
She said the first thing she noticed when she entered the apartment was a strong smell of disinfectant. And she said that was not something she would smell in Brian Cherry's apartment so she was a little confused by that.

00:45:41 Speaker_01
The girl was startled when Peter Bryan appeared from out of the living room, and he was shirtless, sweaty, and holding a large kitchen knife. Oh no. When the girl asked where Cherry was, Peter told her, Bryan Cherry is dead.

00:45:56 Speaker_01
and then tried to get her to leave the apartment. Okay. So just as he said that, the girl looked into the other room behind Peter and saw Brian Cherry lying on the floor.

00:46:07 Speaker_01
From what she could tell, Cherry was naked, lying on his back and his right arm had been severed from his body and was lying a few inches away from him. Oh my God. Yeah. Yep.

00:46:22 Speaker_01
Terrified, she did her best to, which like good on her, she did her best to act very casual because she didn't want to upset him. And she told Peter, you know what, I'm going to go and I'll see you later. And she just left.

00:46:36 Speaker_02
That's wild that he let her leave. Like thank goodness that he let her leave, but whoa.

00:46:40 Speaker_01
And once outside, she ran to her friend's car and they returned to her mother's house and called the police to report what they had seen.

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00:47:44 Speaker_01
When the call went out over the radio, two police constables were actually stationed in their car nearby, and they went to investigate.

00:47:51 Speaker_01
When they arrived at the apartment, they knocked loudly on the door several times, but no one answered, so they forced their way inside. They also could immediately smell overwhelming disinfectant. Quickly, on that, I wonder, because...

00:48:04 Speaker_02
Rita had said that he smelled like disinfectant.

00:48:06 Speaker_01
He would wash his face with disinfectant.

00:48:09 Speaker_02
I wonder if he also smelled heavily of disinfectant because he had done something like this before and maybe just wasn't caught somehow.

00:48:14 Speaker_01
Maybe.

00:48:15 Speaker_02
It's a possibility. It's like, why do you just start washing your face with disinfectant?

00:48:18 Speaker_01
Exactly.

00:48:19 Speaker_02
I mean, he does. He's obviously mentally ill, so maybe there's no reason.

00:48:22 Speaker_01
So maybe there's something with that, but that's interesting.

00:48:24 Speaker_02
You know? The fuck? And I'm also like, there's witnesses now, so how is this going to happen again? How is this going to escalate to cannibalism? Yeah.

00:48:34 Speaker_01
Well, okay, so they'd only taken a few steps inside the apartment when they were confronted by Peter, who was still shirtless and now was covered in blood.

00:48:44 Speaker_01
Assuming Peter to be the victim of the assault at first, because he was covered in blood, they asked if he was all right, and he said he was.

00:48:52 Speaker_01
And it was only after Peter explained that he didn't live there that one of the officers started searching around the department and found Brian Cherry's body in the living room.

00:49:01 Speaker_01
By then, Peter had removed Cherry's right leg, and it appears as though he had begun to remove the other leg and was interrupted by the police.

00:49:11 Speaker_01
The constable also noted that Cherry's head and face were completely covered in blood and very damaged, presumably by the claw hammer, which was on the floor next to his body. Completely stunned. This is brutal. Yeah.

00:49:25 Speaker_01
The officers asked Peter whether he was the one who dismembered the body, and he replied that he had. And when they asked if Brian Cherry had been alive when Peter arrived, he said, yes, he opened the door to me when I knocked.

00:49:38 Speaker_02
Just matter of a fact.

00:49:39 Speaker_01
Yep. Peter also confirmed that he had killed Cherry, but didn't seem to know why he had done it. And after being placed in handcuffs, he watched as the other officer began walking towards the kitchen.

00:49:51 Speaker_01
And just as she reached the door, the officer, he called out to her with a big smirk on his face and said, I ate his brain with butter. It was very nice. Oh, he's like with a big smile on his face. Yeah.

00:50:07 Speaker_01
Can you imagine being the police officer as you're walking into the kitchen? No. He's like, by the way, this is what you're going to find. And did they actually find his brain outside of his? In the kitchen, the officer discovered a horrifying scene.

00:50:20 Speaker_01
A plastic plate sat beside the stove with what appeared to be flesh with human hair coming from it. And on the stove was a frying pan. with a white substance with a yellow tinge to it.

00:50:35 Speaker_01
There was an open tub of butter near the cooker and lab tests confirmed that the contents of the plate and pan were brain matter and a DNA workup confirmed the remains were those of Brian Cherry. Oh my God.

00:50:51 Speaker_01
So he literally fried up pieces of his brain with butter in his own kitchen. Holy shit. Yeah. Oh, that made me a little nauseous. Even Blanche was just like, excuse me?

00:51:03 Speaker_00
Yeah.

00:51:04 Speaker_01
Now, despite having committed a truly shocking act of violence, the officers noted that Peter was calm as a fucking cucumber. Sounds like it. Remarkably calm.

00:51:15 Speaker_01
He answered all their questions honestly and to the best of his ability, though he seemed confused about some aspects of the incident. He said, I wanted to carry him out bit by bit and get rid of the body.

00:51:26 Speaker_01
I used a Stanley knife to cut them off and some other kitchen knives, but I had to stomp on them to break the bone. Oh, fuck. Yeah.

00:51:34 Speaker_01
A few days later, when the autopsy was conducted, the technician confirmed that Sherry's limbs had been, quote, partly sawn off and partly fractured by use of force. Oh, yeah.

00:51:45 Speaker_01
So as they sat waiting for the police van to arrive and transport Peter to the hospital, the constables tried again to understand why the fuck he did this, because he was just like giving the nonsense.

00:51:55 Speaker_01
And this time all he said was, I wanted his soul. Oh, he's so scary. Like that is so scary.

00:52:04 Speaker_02
He's just devoid of all humanity.

00:52:07 Speaker_01
Yeah. Like truly. Now obviously the news of Brian Cherry's murder was picked up by most news outlets around in and around London none of them being able to resist talking about the cannibalism aspect of it.

00:52:20 Speaker_01
Police and a forensic team worked for more than a full day processing the scene and reporters were like all assembled outside.

00:52:27 Speaker_01
At one point one particularly shocked police officer fled the apartment and told reporters it's horrible it's terrible in there. I mean yeah.

00:52:35 Speaker_01
Now, after being cleared by the medical examiner to ensure that he hadn't suffered any physical injuries, Peter was taken to the John Howard Center.

00:52:42 Speaker_01
He was evaluated there by multiple psychiatrists trying to figure out what the fuck is going on and whether he was fit to even be interviewed by police in his mental state. And he was cleared to be interviewed.

00:52:55 Speaker_01
He was transferred to the custody of the justice system and charged with Cherry's murder. But in the weeks that followed, his mental health gradually declined.

00:53:04 Speaker_01
And by mid-March, it was apparent to the staff at the jail that he was actually getting more violent and more unwell in that environment. And they were like, we should get him out of here.

00:53:13 Speaker_01
So after a brief psychiatric evaluation again, the doctors at Pentonville Prison agreed. And on April 15th, 2004, he was transferred to Broadmoor Hospital. Oh, we've heard of Broadmoor before. Yeah.

00:53:25 Speaker_01
Just 10 days after arriving at Broadmoor, Peter got into an altercation with an inmate named Richard Loudwell. He had been awaiting his own trial for a charge of murder as well.

00:53:36 Speaker_01
It's unclear exactly what happened here, but at some point the argument escalated and Brian severely beat Loudwell, who died from his injuries later.

00:53:46 Speaker_02
oh my god when he was questioned about the attack Peter told investigators his only regret was that he quote was discovered before he had tasted his flesh oh I hate it yeah I feel like he also is not just saying like I don't think he genuinely I think maybe part of him means that but I also think he's saying things to shock and upset people I think so too it has that vibe to it it does like I mean obviously he did he was cannibalistic when it came to one of the murders but

00:54:15 Speaker_02
But I think he liked the reaction.

00:54:17 Speaker_01
But I think the shock factor fed him too. Now the murder of Brian Cherry horrified the public. Not only because of the whole cannibalism aspect, but also because of Brian's criminal history and long history of mental instability.

00:54:31 Speaker_01
Why the fuck was he out and about? In a statement to the press, prosecuting attorney Aftab Jafferjee said, the last two killings have taken place when the defendant was under the care of the mental health regime, which has manifestly failed to protect

00:54:45 Speaker_01
public. Yeah, like what the fuck are you guys doing? They fucked up. Absolutely they did.

00:54:49 Speaker_01
And in fact the case highlighted the serious deficiencies in the nation's dysfunctional mental health system and a lot of people were pissed off that a clearly unstable man was allowed to just be transitioned back into the community.

00:55:01 Speaker_02
Yeah.

00:55:02 Speaker_01
In the NHS evaluation that was conducted years later, several of the doctors and nurses on Peter's team refuted the press and public's claims that they had let an obviously dangerous person out into the street with no plan, which I'm like, huh?

00:55:15 Speaker_01
How do you even refute that? Yeah. One of Brian's psychiatrists said, And it's like, yeah, but why didn't you kind of like grab onto that? Right. Like you so you know that that's good. You've seen that. So it's too late.

00:55:40 Speaker_01
Don't allow him to go out and about town. Maybe maybe take some more time to figure out what that pattern is. Right.

00:55:48 Speaker_01
Now, in fact, it was later noted that his ability to project a sense of stability and appear, you know, quote-unquote normal, is among the things that make him so dangerous.

00:55:57 Speaker_01
Now, fortunately for the victim's friends and family, Peter did plead guilty to two charges of manslaughter for the murders of Brian Cherry and Richard Loudwell, which had been reduced from the original charges of murder because of his obvious diminished capacity.

00:56:12 Speaker_01
This spared everyone the pain of a very sensational trial. With the cannibalism part, it would have gotten out of control. Poor Brian's family did not need to deal with that. And it was just moved right into the penalty phase.

00:56:26 Speaker_01
On March 25th, 2005, a sentencing hearing was held at the Old Bailey in London. We've heard that before. She always appears.

00:56:33 Speaker_01
After the hearing, Aftab Jafferjee emphasized that this was not only a case of failure on the part of the mental health system, but also a situation in which the offender was thoroughly unpredictable and dangerous.

00:56:45 Speaker_01
He said, the circumstances of this offending, his mental condition, the inability of experts to detect when he's at his most dangerous, and his settled desire to cannibalize his victims, all combined to make him so uniquely dangerous that the life sentence to be imposed should be a whole life sentence.

00:57:03 Speaker_02
Agreed. You guys probably should have started with that. He literally walked into a store and attacked two people with hammers, one of them being a child.

00:57:10 Speaker_01
That he knew since he was a teenager. And I like that he said all of that. Like he said, he has a mental condition. He is mentally ill.

00:57:20 Speaker_01
there is an inability among experts around him to even diagnose him or to tell when he is at his most dangerous because he's that good at masking it. That's terrifying. And then there's the third aspect. He's a cannibal. Right.

00:57:32 Speaker_01
And he seems to like it and he has now had a taste. It's like when like a dog gets a taste of human flesh, you know what I mean? Like it's not a good thing for an animal to get a taste. No. Of that. No.

00:57:45 Speaker_01
And I'm glad that he put all the like those are all parts of why he needs to be away for life he can't come out.

00:57:52 Speaker_01
Now after hearing from both sides Judge Giles Forrester agreed with the prosecution and sentenced Peter Bryan to two life sentences and said that Bryan would never be released into the community again.

00:58:04 Speaker_01
He said, you killed on these last two occasions because it gave you a thrill and a feeling of power when you ate flesh. The violence on each occasion was extreme and unpredictable, accompanied by bizarre and sexual overtones.

00:58:17 Speaker_01
Ultimately, the inquiry into the failures of the mental health system concluded that the conditions and poor staffing at Broadmere at War Hospital and other agencies in London were major contributing factors to the murders. of Cherry and Loudwell.

00:58:30 Speaker_01
I would say so. But that, quote, there was no particular failure by any individual professional. That's actually, uh, wrong. Fundamentally wrong. So we're not going to point fingers.

00:58:40 Speaker_01
Also, the report noted that Peter Bryan presented with an atypical mental illness and symptoms that made it difficult to determine his capacity for violence in any given moment.

00:58:49 Speaker_02
Right. So if somebody is that unpredictable, don't let them on the street.

00:58:53 Speaker_01
Well, that's what I don't get. I'm like, I get that you're saying, I get it. You couldn't diagnose him. He seems undiagnosable. Absolutely. I get that. I'm not disputing that at all. I'm not a mental health professional.

00:59:04 Speaker_02
That should lead you further to keeping him incarcerated.

00:59:06 Speaker_01
But that's the thing. It's like if you are having trouble figuring out any of his patterns or any kind of thing, that's a sign that you have not learned enough to release him.

00:59:15 Speaker_01
It's better to keep him in there and figure it out than to release him and have all this happen. Absolutely it is.

00:59:21 Speaker_01
So what this inquiry, the report said was, he did not display the usual and expected signs of schizophrenia and appeared to behave normally even when seriously mentally unwell.

00:59:34 Speaker_01
Other than a couple of minor incidents during his early years at Rampton Hospital, Peter Bryan had not displayed any signs of aggressive or violent behavior since he killed Nisha's chef. That's not true. Fundamentally untrue.

00:59:46 Speaker_01
That's them trying to save their ass. Yeah, exactly. On the matter of the Loudwell murder, the panel was much more critical. The evidence suggested that Peter had planned to kill Loudwell. Yeah, he went to the store first.

00:59:58 Speaker_01
Yeah, it actually said it was planned for some time before the attack and he had been waiting for a suitable opportunity to do it.

01:00:04 Speaker_02
Right, absolutely.

01:00:05 Speaker_01
He had waited until they were alone in an area of the ward that would not be easily seen by any of the nine staff members on duty.

01:00:11 Speaker_01
And when he engaged Loudwell in an argument that eventually led to his death, no one was around to stop him and he knew that.

01:00:19 Speaker_01
The report also alleged there were deficiencies in many aspects of the care provided to both Richard Loudwell and Peter Bryan and shortcomings at every level within the trust.

01:00:29 Speaker_01
The evidence tends to suggest that a weakness in the structure and performance of management at all levels may have contributed to the context which permitted the deficient performance in Lutton Ward at the time.

01:00:40 Speaker_01
In the end, no individual practitioners were held responsible for Cherry or Loudwell's deaths. As of today, Peter Bryan is still in Broadmoor and will likely stay there for the rest of his life. Let's hope. Yeah.

01:00:53 Speaker_01
But no one else was held accountable for fucking that up. Yeah, they should have been. A hundred percent. They should have been. It's like, come on. Like, that was a clear fuck up defect in the system. Absolutely. That was going on.

01:01:06 Speaker_01
But it's a horrifying case.

01:01:08 Speaker_02
I wonder if they're still working to diagnose him, because I'd be very interested to see what the fuck is going on in his brain.

01:01:15 Speaker_01
I feel like he's a whole he could be a whole new entry into the DSM. Yeah, honestly. There might not be an illness that we have identified quite yet.

01:01:26 Speaker_02
Or he could be a combination of multiple illnesses. Which creates a new one. It's so scary. That's terrifying. Yikes. That was a bizarre case and truly horrifying.

01:01:38 Speaker_02
I really dislike talking about cannibalism, which is weird because we're going to do a lot of that this week. Everybody go touch grass. Yeah. And we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird.

01:01:52 Speaker_02
But not so weird that you don't touch grass every now and again. Do it. Bye. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

01:03:09 Speaker_02
Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

01:03:17 Speaker_00
Hello, ladies and gerbs, boys and girls. The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tiz the Grinch Holiday Podcast.

01:03:25 Speaker_00
After last year, he's learned a thing or two about hosting, and he's ready to rant against Christmas cheer and roast his celebrity guests like chestnuts on an open fire.

01:03:35 Speaker_00
You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Hamm, Brittany Broski, and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's a lot to love about the insufferable holiday season. But that's not all.

01:03:46 Speaker_00
Somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa, and everybody thinks the Grinch is responsible. It's a real Whoville whodunit. Can Cindy, Lou, and Max help clear the Grinch's name? Grab your hot cocoa and cozy slippers to find out.

01:04:01 Speaker_00
Follow Tiz the Grinch Holiday Podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Unlock weekly Christmas mystery bonus content and listen to every episode ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.