How a serial killer was snared after he appeared on Bullseye... He committed chilling murders but police were baffled. Then came the extraordinary twist: He was caught because he appeared on the the T

In many ways, John Cooper’s appearance on the Eighties television show Bullseye was quite unremarkable. John Cooper, left, appears on television show Bullseye in 1989 It would later transpire that Cooper’s genial demeanour was the mask of a serial killer But it would not be the last the public would hear of John Cooper, nor the last time that footage, recorded in May 1989, would be viewed. For, in quite an astonishing twist, it would transpire that Cooper’s unassuming appearance and genial demeanour were the mask of a serial killer; he was the man responsible for a string of crimes so chilling they remain among the most heinous ever recorded in Wales. In Bullseye, police hit the jackpot: it was well-known in the area that he’d been on the show, and as Wilkins wrote in his book: ‘We had amassed many images of Cooper over the years in various guises and with numerous hairstyles. Police worked out that Cooper wore the same pair of gloves to commit both sets of crimes – and, inadvertently incriminating himself, had slipped them into the pocket of Gwenda’s shorts.