Most of us have experienced the fear of watching Freddy Krueger invade dreams and Jason Voorhees calmly walk through camp, stalking his next camp counselor. But that sort of thing is only in the movies, at least that’s what my parents always said. But what if that wasn’t true, and there was someone out there, just like Freddy or Jason. Or even worse, Freddy AND Jason. Enter Daniel Gonzalez.
Daniel Gonzalez was born to an English mother and Spanish father. His parents separated when he was only six, leaving him in an especially fragile state. He wet the bed until he was 12, and had difficulty making friends. He would spend his days playing computer games and watching films, such as Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. He began to idolize Freddie Krueger as well as Jason Voorhees.
He attended school at Gordons School, a private boarding school in West End, a village and civil parish in Surrey Heath, Surrey, England. Gordons school was a highly recognized institution, having been placed in the top twenty most improved schools list published by the government in its yearly school performance tables from 1997 – 2000 (having received this honor 4 years in a row, something accomplished by no other school in Britain at the time.). From 1999-2016 it was in the top twenty non-selective state schools in Britain in the yearly government league tables, and in 2016, ranked the 2nd highest achieving non-selective school in England by the Daily Telegraph.
When he finished school, he had eight GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education is an academic qualification, generally taken in a number of subjects by pupils in secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.). He was considered to be a good actor and a chess champion. However others knew him as a “dark and troubled boy.”
When he was 17, Daniel “Zippy” Gonzalez was placed in the care of mental health professionals as he began exhibiting psychological problems. In 1999, he was diagnosed schizophrenic, but wasn’t considered a risk despite telling his mother he thought about killing people. He was released into the community. By the age of 24, he was unemployed, friendless, and using drugs.
In 2003 and again in 2004, doctors decided Daniel was not mentally ill, nor was he a “High Risk” person.
All that would change on Wednesday September 15, 2004.
While out walking their dog, Peter King and his wife were approached by Daniel. He told them he was going to kill them. Fortunately, the couple were able to fight him off, but Daniel wasn’t finished. He fled to Hove, a town in East Sussex, where he then stabbed 76 year old Marie Harding, who had been out for a walk near her home in Southwick, West Sussex. He wore a hockey mask, just like his idol, Jason. Authorities would later take the mask in for evidence, and on it, find Ms. Marie Harding’s DNA on it.
He returned home that night, and wrote a note to himself and his alter-ego. In it, he described the killing of Ms. Harding as “Orgasmic, the best thing i have ever done in my life.” He also believed his failure to kill Peter King was due to the fact that his knife was just too small.
The next morning, he traveled north into London. He spent the day drinking and walking about. At some point, he entered a department store where he successfully stole two large kitchen knives. Then, at approximately 5:30am on Friday September 17th, Daniel stabbed 46 year old Kevin Molloy in the face, neck, and body with a pair of large knives. He left him for dead.
He moved on quickly and at around 7am, he had forced his way into the home of Christina and Koumis Constantio who had been asleep in an upstairs bedroom. Daniel was able to stab Koumis in the arm, but was ultimately fought off. He moved on to Highgate, and around 8am, he tried to gain access to several houses by randomly ringing doorbells. At one home, he successfully broke in and murdered 76 year old Derek Robinson, and his 68 year old wife Jean. Their bodies were discovered later when a decorator arrived just minutes after the attack. The decorator followed the trail of blood across the walls of one room, which led to their bodies.
Derek and Jean Robinson
The decorator had arrived just in time to spot Daniel Gonzalez naked, covered in blood, and about to step into the Robinson’s shower. Upon being seen though, Daniel fled through a window and the decorator called police.
Around noon on Friday September 17, Daniel Gonzalez was arrested at Tottenham Court Road Underground station. He told police that he wondered what it would be like to be Freddy Krueger for a day.
He was held in Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric hospital at Crowthorne in Berkshire, England. While he waited for his trial, Daniel tried to bite himself to death, repeatedly by opening the veins in his wrists with his teeth. He was so violent he was accompanied everywhere by prison officers in full riot gear.
Consultant psychiatrist, Edward Petch, said: “I have never seen anyone bite himself with that ferocity. He allegedly had killed four people and tried to kill six, and we all felt there was one more left – and that was himself – and he would not stop until he had succeeded.”
On February 28, 2006, Daniel admitted to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, claiming he was schizophrenic, and the voices in his head told him to act like Freddy Krueger. In his defense, Dr. Edward Petch, a psychiatric consultant at Broadmoor Hospital, said Daniel was a schizophrenic, capable of “extreme, unprovoked and unpremeditated violence.”
The prosecution pursued the path that said Daniel was a psychopath, who used drugs and “killed because of the callous, cold person he is.”
Richard Horwell said, “It is his very personality that led him to kill – disinhibited by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol.”
On March 16, 2006, the jury returned a verdict after only 90 minutes of deliberation. Daniel Gonzalez was guilty.
On Friday March 17, 2006, Judge Ann Goddard QC sentenced Gonzalez to six life sentences, for four murders and two attempted murders, recommending that he should never be released. “You have brought unspeakable misery and grief to the families of those you killed.”
Why hadn’t Daniel received the help he needed before lives were lost? His mother, Lesley Savage, couldn’t understand either. “Every time we asked for help for Daniel, or Daniel did himself, we were told we would have to wait for a crisis to occur before he could get the help he needed,” she said.
In a letter dated 22 June 1998, she wrote to the director of Surrey social services: “Does Daniel have to murder or be murdered before he can get the treatment he so badly needs?”
Even Daniel knew he needed help. Just nine months before the killings, he wrote to his doctor saying he felt paranoid, suicidal and could not cope. “Please, please help me, this is very urgent,” he wrote. The doctor referred him to hospital but he was not treated.
In the end, Daniel Gonzalez was incarcerated at Broadmoor Hospital, and on August 8, 2007, he finally succeeded in taking his own life, using the broken edges of a CD case to cut his own wrists.
Now – have you heard about the Real Michael Myers?
