Did a woman’s rejection trigger Cumbria killing spree?

LONDON - Did Derrick Bird, the Cumbria killer, go on the rampage because he lost his mental balance after a girl he was fixated with ditched him? As the police leave no stone unturned to understand what made the taxi driver kill 12 people, the rebound effect is not being ignored.

Apparently Bird became fixated with a woman whom he knew only as Hon. He met her while on holiday in Thailand in 2007. She reportedly agreed to move to the UK and live with him.

Bird used to write to her regularly and send big amounts of money to her despite his own financial difficulties. However, last month, the woman sent him a message saying she was with someone else and had no desire to keep in touch with him.

The Telegraph quotes an unidentified friend of Bird’s saying the latter was distressed by the rejection. “She had no interest in him whatsoever, he felt like such a mug. Derrick said he had been made a fool out of, he couldn’t believe it.”

The friend obliquely questions Bird’s frame of mind because of the rejection: “He couldn’t believe he had been so stupid. He went downhill from there but no one in the world would ever suspected what he would go and do.”

Terry Kennedy, also taxi driver and friend of Bird’s, was one of a group who had travelled to Thailand with Bird when the latter met Hon. Significantly, Kennedy was shot in the hand last Wednesday by Bird and is still in hospital recovering.

Kennedy said: “Hon looked about 19, but I think she was about 30 at the time. I knew Derrick liked the lass so I told him to go for it, he had nothing to lose. To think I classed Derrick as a mate and then he goes and does this to me and all those other people is beyond words.”

Meanwhile, the inquests into the killings will shortly open at Whitehaven Magistrate’s court where west Cumbria coroner David Roberts will also open a separate inquest into Bird’s death. Post-mortem examinations of the victims are now complete, the police said.

– Indo-Asian News Service