The scarf, that fashion accessory equally beloved by the rich and stylish and the soccer fan, has a darker history as an accessory to murder. Throughout the ages, serial killers have used the scarf as the preferred means of despatching their victims through strangulation. The scarf began as a man’s fashion item for at least three centuries before women adopted the garment as a sign of community, expression of machismo and as a murder weapon.
Perhaps the most organised and notorious use of what could be called designer scarves as instruments of murder was made by the Thuggees in India. A cult engaged in the multiple massacre and robbery of travellers, 4,500 were tried by the British between 1826 and 1848. The thugs (from where we get the name in English) talked their way onto caravans only to massacre the entire company. Their favoured technique was to garrotte victims using their Rumal or “Yellow Scarf. In some cases, the scarf was wound round a single Rupee coin to more effectively crush the windpipe. Most Indian men would have a head-scarf, worn either as a turban or draped to protect the back of the neck. Other types of scarves were worn as cummerbunds instead of a belt, so although seemingly unarmed, the Thugees were in fact tooled up to the hilt (or should that be kilt?).
More recently, Saeed Hanai, the so called Spider Killer in Iran used women’s scarves to despatch his victims. Targeting prostitutes in response to a supposed slur on his wife’s character, he used the womens’ own scarves to strangle every one of his 21 victims , throwing the bodies on the roadside or more often in open sewers, wrapped in long black chadors as a makeshift body bag bundled like a spider would its next meal on the web. Murdered 16 year old teenager, Leanne Tiernan disappeared after a shopping trip to Leeds on 26 November 2000. Her body was found in woods several miles away, nine months later. Her killer, a 46 year old parcel delivery man called John Taylor, was given two life sentences after he admitted kidnap, sexual molestation and strangling Leanne with a scarf.
Nelson Earle Leonard, AKA the Dark Strangler, carried out his reign of terror across the USA in the 1920s. Born in Philadelphia on May 12, 1897, Nelson was orphaned at nine months of age and raised by an aunt whose religious zeal bordered on fanaticism. He raped and strangled mainly elderly women who had taken him in as a lodger, beguiled by his apparent charm and his god fearing bearing, he used several fashion accessories as a ligature but showing a preference for ladies scarves.
