Episode 619: Peter Bryan

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I'm Elena. 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.
Nope. Nothing good.
Nothing good anymore. Nothing good.
Bad, bad, bad. 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. Oh, we're in a place of cannibalism because we're not.
We personally are not. I don't eat.
Or love us. I am not.
I'm not. I'm not.
I don't want to speak for you. 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 on cannibalism.

Good call.

Movie Fresh.

So good.

Check it out.

Secondly, this morning for breakfast, Elena brought into the pod lab, I'm not joking,

you a plate full of

burnt sausage links. Just little ones.

Yeah, sausage links. Those mini little breakfasts.

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 her breakfast.

Because, you know. It was giving

frat boy. It's giving

2024. Yes.

And 2025 and 2026 and 2027 and 2028 as well little tiny burnt sausages just on a plate running the country you know like that got it all right well i just wanted to call you out about that now we talk about cannibalism i appreciate that yeah um they were good they're the little vermont maple ones just like the maple ones i um 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.
And I don't like to burn them. I just burn them to a crisp and eat them because I don't care.
You're just rough around the edges. I'm out of here living.
You're rough around the edges. I feel like people at home are just picturing you like foaming at the mouth.

That was what happened.

Yeah.

Keep picturing it. All right.
So 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. I mean, it does involve cannibalism.
So there's that. 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 um so let's talk about peter bryan when he was younger 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.
Many years later, after his arrest, Brian recalled his early life as, you know, one that was not very smooth. It was a lot of disruption, a lot of difficulty.
I mean, seven kids and like moving to like a completely new place. Yeah.
That very disruptive. 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, you know, anyone they could get to just watch these. Yeah.
Childcare is fucking hard. 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. 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.
That can be tough when you're having to be pulled away to do something extra. I understand that.
I think that's the thing is that like pulling kids out is not always the way to do it. But I also don't know like how – Yeah, you don't know how else to do it.
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 different math course 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 socially it sucks that like we haven't evolved past the point where people are like you you're different. Yeah, like you feel shame.
Yeah, like we need to get better. 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. 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. Tie my shoe.
Yeah, this is when he's like, you know, seven, eight years old. 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. Oh.
Shoe right up your butt, honey. Baby.
You better believe. Shoe 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.
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.
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? Right? Why am I picturing the literal stoop kid? Stoop kid. Stoop kid's gotta leave the stoop.
Oh, fuck. But now, that's all, like, funny to watch from, you know, the total outside perspective.
But then it started escalating into actually hurting his classmates. Yeah, I hate that.
And it got even worse. 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.
But then it gets dark. Okay.
Because then he started harassing female classmates. Why I oughta.
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.
Ew. What's going on at home, Peter? 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 time period and in the place they were, he would get canings from the head teacher.
Yeah, they used to like caning kids. Like with a literal cane they'd hit them? What the fuck? I knew about like the ruler and shit, but damn.
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. Wild.
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.
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. He needs the Beyond Scared Straight program.
He does. 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. He also committed muggings, which is like pretty aggressive.
That's scary. And according to him, these activities gave him something to do.
You could do a whole slew of other things. Maybe volunteer for the community.
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. 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, 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. 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.
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. Yeah, because he just felt like he couldn't keep up.
It's probably good for everybody else because he's like committing felonies because he's a fucking menace at that school like he's 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 um but so he did find a part-time job at omcar which was a clothing boutique at petticoat lane market in london i love that name Petticoat Lane Market. I love it.
It was owned by the Schef family, and the job paid in cash, and according to Peter, he supplemented his income by selling drugs and stealing from his employers. Fantastic.
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. 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.
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. 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. 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. Yeah, that makes sense.
They were fixtures in those family businesses. Right.
In interviews with his doctors later, Peter claimed he and Nisha had a, quote, intimate relationship. Okay.
Though he said the two had not had sex. Okay.
Her parents, on the other hand, said abso-fucking-lutely not they did not. They were not anything past coworkers.
They weren't even friends. Wow what a weird thing to make up and i would believe her parents sometimes though it's crazy how people can think that like they're your best friend and you're like i barely know you yeah like she 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. I mean, 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. She sounds like a really good person.
She had always been kind to Peter Bryan. If you tell me that she's his first victim, I'm going to be upset.
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. Damn it.
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. Right upstairs, yeah.
A little before 7 p.m., Peter Bryan entered the shop with a hammer. 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. He struck him in the head with the hammer and knocked him out to the floor 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 what this escalated so quickly he just walked in there and just attacked them both when he came to a moment later bob, Bobby, 12-year-old Bobby, fled from the store to get help.
And he fled out onto the King's Road District, and he was chased by Brian. 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. So turning around, Peter, I'm talking about Peter Bryan.
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. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
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See nerdwallet.com for details. Now this whole thing was like crazy quick.
You ran 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 and just like what yeah what why did he want to what was the motive here like what what motivated this. What, why did he want to, 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.
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.
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? And this is a family who's been good to him, who employed him.
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.
Really? Yeah. About an hour.
I mean, yeah, the brother knows too. It's just like, where is he? 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? He fell nearly 30 feet and severely broke both lower legs and ankles.
Ooh, ouch. And later he explained that he had intended to kill himself by throwing himself off the building head first, but he had second thoughts on the way and clung to the building until he couldn't hold any longer and fell.
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.
And when the admitting nurse gave the number to police, they found out that it was the number for Nisha's parents. What? And he was just saying it over and over.
What the fuck? Like, why? Peter's injuries required him to have several surgeries. He had to get bilateral pins put into both of his legs, and he was placed in traction.
Oof. 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.
Yeah. So the following day, March 20th, he was arrested for the murder of Nisha Sheth.
To think that he, like, it doesn't sound like he was on anything. No.
Like, what? No. And the news of the arrests made headlines, obviously, in all the London papers, and especially the tabloids, which at the time were hoof.
Yeah. And they stoked the outrage over this, quote, drugged up suspect, having committed an unprovoked attack.
Meanwhile, he literally wasn't. 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. 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.
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. And he had been actively engaging with various members of the family up to the week before the attack.
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 at the very least. So maybe they were keeping distance.
Yeah. A week after the murder, Rita Sheth gave a statement to police, and she described Peter's behavior in the weeks leading up to the attack as very concerning.
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.

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.

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. One behavior, he was also getting very aggressive to the chefs and others in the neighborhood.
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. Which to me says like a lot of like knowledge and awareness of what he's doing.
Yeah. 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.
Yeah. But then there's a lot of awareness of his bad acts.
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. What? 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? 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. 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.
Wow. So she was like genuinely very good to him.
Genuinely being very good to him. Assaulting her.
He physically assaulted her. And she was like, I don't know what he's going through.
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.

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. 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.
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.
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.

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 is.
Sometimes. started working for them when he was a teenager and that he had a quote love feeling for Nisha sometimes but anytime 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 but you also said that you didn't have a sexual relationship he was very graphic about it graphic about it.
Ew. But I will not be reiterating his deranged quote.
Because it's fake. But 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. 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.

Yeah.

And said, make me rape me in an intimidating tone.

Okay.

Peter claimed he had only happened to have a hammer with him that day.

You know, because just sometimes he goes about with a hammer.

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.

Like, you don't, I don't need to tell you why.

I don had one. As one does.
You don't need to have a reason. Like, you don't, I don't need to tell you why I walked into a store with a hammer.
Can't just have a hammer on me. Yeah.
And he said he hadn't intended on assaulting Nisha with it. 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 so he's saying she asked for me to kill her he's saying she she wanted me to kill her no and we were it was going to be like a thing no like we're just going to kill each other nope and she said i 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. She might have been unable to because you hit her so hard that her brain tissue came out of her face.
It's also worth noting that Bobby Sheff, her brother, strongly refuted this entire fucking statement. And he told the police his sister had been, quote, screaming in a terrified manner he was like that guy can get fucked yeah 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 although the evaluating doctors found peter to be quiet and calm during this period they also noted his very fragmented and very delulu thinking.
Sounds very delulu. Yeah.
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.
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.

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 going to armchair diagnose,

but I guess I am, he sounds schizophrenic.

They did bring that up at one point.

He was very hard to diagnose.

Yeah.

They had trouble diagnosing.

Well, he's not- I'm not going to armchair diagnose, but I guess I am. He sounds schizophrenic.
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.

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.

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 yeah he was kind of living in on his own plane like he thought nisha was like so in love with him and she very clearly wasn't the reality at all but be. But he kind of delusionally put that together in his mind.

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.

Regardless of what he believed that relationship was, it was not real. Okay.
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. 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.
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.
Despite not being able to arrive at a diagnosis, he was transferred to Rampton Hospital, which is a high-security psychiatric facility in Nottinghamshire. 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.
Jeez. So they have some high-profile scary people in there.
I guess so. Ultimately, Peter would spend almost 10 years at Rampton.
Wow. During this time, he was a frequent fucking problem for the staff.
That's so surprising. Yeah.
I'm shocked. Yeah, exactly.
They said it was very clear that he had this like grandiose thought process that he would go through and he had very psychotic thinking. 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.

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.
Yeah. And it was always depending who he was talking to or how he was feeling that day.
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Standard exclusions apply. 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.
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.
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.
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. Right, so he's upset about where it landed him.
So he literally said, I don't give a shit that I did that. 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.
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. In the years after that, he continued exhibiting bizarre behavior and psychotic thinking, but the psychiatrist at Rampton could not find a diagnosis either.
They were just as at a loss as the other psychiatric team. Because he ticks off a lot of boxes everywhere.
He the problem. 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. I don't think that would be difficult.
Which to me from the outside, I'm like, sounds dangerous. I would tick off very dangerous on that box.
First of all, his first crime, like his first crime on another person was incredibly violent. Secondly, he didn't regret it.
No. Thirdly, he continues to attack people violently while incarcerated.
Yeah. I would say he's dangerous.
Yeah. Well, and as this is all going on, social workers continue to interview Brian's friends and family, looking at his background, trying to find anything that might help explain his mental state.
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. I was very interested to see if there was any information about that.
Now, despite this, those who knew him best said that they insisted that Peter had been

mostly pleasant and hardworking child, which completely...

Who the fuck said that?

Yeah.

He was filling up girls at school and making people tie shoes.

Exactly.

Now, the first sign of mental illness appears to have been noticed by a family friend in

late 1991 or early 1992. No, honey, it was way before that.
The first side of violence was when he came into this world, I feel. 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.
And 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. 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. 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. 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.

Yeah.

Bye.

Despite his inconsistent commitment to treatment,

in 1995, he began to recognize his capacity for violence

at the very least.

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.

Well, that's good that he's realizing that.

Yeah.

That's awareness.

And it's also like, kind of sounds like he's like, don't let me out of here. Exactly.
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. 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. 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. Jeez.
I feel like it's, I hate to even go back, but I feel like when people expose themselves to other people, that's like a whole other layer of just diabolical mental illness. 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. 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.
And in their assessment of the evidence presented, the tribunal concluded that Peter had made considerable progress. Where? 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?

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. Fail, fail, fail.
I mean, it was like unbelievable. Wow.
On July 12th, 2001, he was transferred to the John Howard Center, a transitional program for patients reentering the community. Bitch, what? Where he was going to spend six months acquiring the skills necessary to live independently.
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. Like he was.
Yeah. So maybe don't put him on the streets then.
So the nursing staff was like, no, like he's going to hurt someone. Like you can't do this.
Despite them, he was discharged from the Howard Center in early 2002 and moved to Riverside, a halfway house for those reentering the community, but not requiring institutional care. 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.
And it sounds like at some point he didn't think he, yeah, he was telling them, should have been let out into society. Yeah.
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? And you don't immediately say yes.
Exactly. Like we like 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 he still who was who he was yeah and staff at the residential facilities continued to struggle with his not even trying to hide his misogyny.
Yeah. Like he hated women.
Oh, great. And his immaturity and just his aggressiveness.
Right. 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. So he sexually assaulted a teenage girl and got moved to a lower security program? No, so he was in a halfway facility.
Oh, and then they put him back into an institution. So he was out of a facility that was like even really like highly monitored.
Yeah, okay. 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.
Like guys, now he's moving on. He's like a pedophile.
Well, I'm 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. Now this ward provided 24-7 surveillance and management of care.
Even though it's low security. That's wild.
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. That literally sounds like a halfway house.
Yeah. That doesn't even sound like a fucking program.
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.
Well, they were probably stoked to get him out of there. Well, 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 come out of right then. 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?

And she was like, sure. Well, and that shows that like he knows he has to be calm to get what he wants.
Right. At the time, Peter did not tell the hospital staff where he was going.
But around 4.30 PM, CCTV cameras in the London hardware store recording Peter show him leaving the store after purchasing a claw hammer, a box cutter, and a screwdriver. 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 have been it.
This girl was a girl that peter had met a year or two earlier um you know i think they all kind of were involved in the same drugs kind of thing okay and um 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 according to the nhs reports compiled after the murders the young woman had a history of manipulating brian sherry into giving her money among other things okay so i think that was the kind of relationship that was happening here just to give a little context yeah now peter arrived at sherry's apartment around 5 p.m and he was met by brian sherry at the door he let him inside about an 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.
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. She said the first thing she noticed when she entered the apartment was a strong smell of disinfectant.
Oh, no. And she said that was not something she would smell in Brian Cherry's apartment, so she was a little confused by that.
Uh-huh. The girl was startled when Peter Brian 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, Brian Cherry is dead, 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.
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. Yeah.
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.

That's wild that he let her leave.

Like, thank goodness that he let her leave.

But whoa.

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. Amazon presents Jenny versus the sun.
An absolute giant ball of scorching plasma. The sun has one temperature setting.
Hot as f***.

But Jenny shopped on Amazon and bought 8 ounces of 50 SPF, a beach umbrella, and a large brimmed hat. Hey, son, Jenny just cooked you.
Save the everyday with deals from Amazon. When the call went out over the radio, two police constables were actually stationed in their car nearby, and they went to investigate.
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 um rita had said that he smelled like he would wash his face with this disinfection i wonder if he also smelled heavily of disinfectant because he had done something like this before and maybe just wasn't caught somehow maybe you know it's a possibility it's like why do you just start washing your face with disinfectant exactly i mean he does he's obviously mentally ill mentally ill. Yeah.
So maybe there's no reason. But that's interesting.
You know? The fuck? Mm-hmm. And I'm also like, there's witnesses now.
So like, how is this going to happen again? How is this going to escalate to cannibalism? Yeah. 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. Oh, God.
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. 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.
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. Oh, my God.
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. Oh my God.
Completely stunned. This is brutal.
Yeah. 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. Just matter of a fact.
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.
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 sick.

With a big smile on his face.

Yeah. 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. 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. 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 sherry oh my god 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? Yeah.
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. 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. 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.
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. 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. And this time all he said was, I wanted his soul.
Oh.

He's so scary. Like, that is so scary.
He's just devoid of all humanity. 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.
And police and a forensic team worked for more than a full day processing the scene, and reporters were, like, all assembled outside. 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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.

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. 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 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 so obviously he enjoyed that.
But I think the shock factor fed him, too. Now, the murder of Brian Cherry horrified the public.
Ah, yeah. Not only because of the whole cannibalism aspect, but also because of Brian's criminal history and long history of mental instability.
Why the fuck was he out and about? Right, right. In a statement to the press, prosecuting attorney Aftab Jaffer G 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 the public.
Yeah, like what the fuck are you guys doing? They fucked up. Absolutely they did.
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.
Yeah. 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? How do you even refute that? Yeah.
One of Brian's psychiatrists said, when he's relapsing, he can appear relatively free of symptoms much of the time. In my view, this is a measure of how, when psychotic, he can appear relatively normal while remaining capable of extreme and unpredictable violence.
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, but it's too late. So then don't allow him to go out and about town.

Maybe take some more time to figure out what that pattern is.

Right.

Now, in fact, it was later noted that his ability to project a sense of stability and appear, you know, quote unquote normal.

Sure.

Is among the things that make him so dangerous.

Ah, yeah.

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. Sure.
This spared everyone the pain of a very sensational trial. Yeah.
I mean, it would have— 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. On March 25th, 2005, a sentencing hearing was held at the Old Bailey in London.
She always appears. After the hearing, Aftab Jafferji 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.
He said, the circumstances of this offending, his mental condition, the inability of experts to detect when he's at its 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.

Agreed. Like, you guys probably should have started with that.
He literally walked into a store and attacked two people with hammers. Yeah, that he knew since he was a teenager.
Right. And I like that he said all of that.
Like, he said he has a mental condition. Yes.
He is mentally ill. Yes.
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. And he seems to like it.
Yeah. And he has now had a taste.
Uh-huh. It's like when, like, a dog gets a taste of human flesh.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, it's not a good thing for an animal to get a taste.
No. Of that, you know? And I'm glad that he put all the, like, those are all parts of why he needs to be away for life.
Yeah. He can't come out.
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. 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. Ultimately, the inquiry into the failures of the mental health system concluded that the conditions and poor staffing at Brad Merritt War Hospital and other agencies in London were major contributing factors to the murders of Cherry and Loudwell.
I would say so. But that quote, there was no particular failure by any individual professional.
That's actually wrong. Fundamentally wrong.
So we're not going to point fingers. 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. Right.
So if somebody is that unpredictable,

don't let them on the street. 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. That should lead you further to keeping him incarcerated 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 right it's better to keep him in there and figure it out yes than to release him and have all happen.
Absolutely it is. 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.

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. 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.
Yeah, it actually said for some, it was planned for some time before the attack, and he had been waiting for a suitable opportunity to do it. Right, absolutely.
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. 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.
Yeah. 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.
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. 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. But no one else was held accountable for fucking that up.
Yeah, they should have been. A hundred percent, they should have been.
Well, it's like, come on. Like, that was a up defect in the system absolutely that was going on but it's a horrifying case i wonder if they're still working to diagnose him because i know i wanted that too to see what the fuck is going on in his brain 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 yeah that we have identified quite yet he is maybe or he could be a combination of multiple illnesses which like creates a new one right right now it's so scary that's terrifying oh yikes uh that was a bizarre case yeah and truly horrifying 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.

But not so weird that you don't touch grass every now and again.

Do it. Bye.
Thank you. 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.
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Hey, weirdos. I'm Mike Corey.
And like you, I'm drawn to true crime, creepy history, and all things spooky. If you particularly enjoyed Ash and Elena's coverage of the USS Indianapolis, where 900 sailors battled rough seas, sharks, dehydration, and madness in the open ocean, you need to check out my podcast, Against the Odds.
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