A new predator seems to be on the loose in Britain. The similarities are obvious: nine women all strangled or beaten to death, and their bodies dumped half-clothed or naked on open ground. Nearly all victims were prostitutes. They have died over a seven-year period, each in a different police districts. The common features suggest that the various investigating teams could be chasing the same killer.

On May 26. 1996, in order to find out whether or not they are dealing with a serial killer, Brittish authorities have launched Operation Enigma . The files on the unsolved murders of scores of women over the past decade have been reopened and police will be harnessing the skills of criminologists at home and abroad, including the psychological profilers of the FBI.
The killings go back to January 1987, when 27-year-old prostitute and heroin addict Marina Monti's partially clothed body was discovered on waste ground near Wormwood Scrubs prison in west London. She had been strangled and beaten. Next was Janine Downes, 22, also a prostitute. Her half-naked body was found in a hedge near the Wolverhampton to Telford road in February 1991. She, too, had been severely beaten and then strangled. The other seven victims followed a similar pattern.
"From the general information, such an individual is likely to be personable and not stand out. He is able to blend in because he can approach and solicit victims," former FBI profiler, Richard Ault told authorities. According to Ault such a man would be employed and probably falls into what the FBI categorises as the "organised" killer-- someone of above-average intelligence, socially competent, often living with a woman and driving a well-maintained car who kills after some stressful event.
However the Brittish police is skeptical of the FBI's profiling and computer referencing techniques. They rather find their killers the old fashioned way. James Dickinson, an assistant chief constable of Essex police, who is co-ordinating Enigma, acknowledges some common traits in the nine separate murder inquiries but points out that the investigating teams, having considered all the relevant information, "do not feel that there were sufficient grounds to formally link the nine inquiries."