Above is the cover of an Inside Detective published in December 1966 with a story on the murder of Patricia Woolard. Woolard, during a train ride between Bognor Regis and Gatwick, England, had the misfortune of crossing paths with a young man named Michael Gills, who stabbed her to death in a fit of rage. Gills’ motive? “She snubbed me,” he said. “Women treated me like a leper. All the hate and resentment I had for women came into my head. I stabbed her.” Gills was convicted of manslaughter and served eleven years in prison. His incarceration perhaps taught him not to harm other humans, but sometimes an itch simply must be scratched. In 1998, while working as a beastman for a British circus, Gills was arrested for animal cruelty. Undercover investigators had filmed him beating elephants with iron bars, chains, shovels, and pitchforks. In one incident he flew into a rage and bludgeoned a restrained elephant across the face more than thirty times. He also hit tigers, a bear, and beat a chicken to death against a wall. If human life is cheap, animal life is almost valueless—for all of this, Gills spent a total of four months in jail.
