It was late at night when a vicious fire broke out in the Hastie house. The flames spread quickly and vertically through the building, while smoke ran through each of the rooms. Inside, a mother and her four children were sleeping at that moment, oblivious to the tragedy. The eldest son woke up coughing and tried to save the family from him.
First he pushed his mother out of an upstairs window. But, while trying to rescue two of her brothers, a draft fueled the flames and the three were trapped. The only one that could be saved was the brothers’ room, which managed to escape by jumping into the void from another of the rooms. As firefighters extinguished the fire, they observed traces of intentionality. Everything suggested revenge, but who was capable of something like that?
Peter George Dinsdale, his real name, was born on July 31, 1960 in Manchester (United Kingdom), after his mother, who was a prostitute, became pregnant by a client. Since his birth, the little boy was disowned by his own mother, to the point of sending him to live with his maternal grandmother and, later, to children’s homes.
Furthermore, our protagonist suffered from epilepsy and had congenital spastic disabilities in his right limbs, which left him with an obvious limp in his right leg and a compulsion to hold his right arm over his chest. In this sense, his physique made him an easy target for ridicule and harassers. In fact, his nickname was always “Silly Peter.”
At the same time, Peter began to develop a dangerous fascination with fire and even burned anything without caring about the consequences and damage it could cause. He committed his first serious fire when he was ten years old. On that occasion, Peter set fire to a store, although fortunately there were only material losses and no personal losses.
On the other hand, as he grew up, Peter showed a great interest in martial arts, mainly that of the sixties and seventies, and in mythical characters such as the actor Bruce Lee. So much so that, when he was 19, he changed his name to Bruce George Peter Lee. That was his particular tribute to the king of Kung-fu.
However, his criminal career as an arsonist had already begun and in a very dangerous way. From 1973 to 1979, the man now baptized as Bruce committed eleven fires and killed 26 people. His modus operandi, with a couple of exceptions, was always the same: first, he would choose a building at random and then use any type of accelerant to make the fire spread quickly.
The result of his pyromania was dozens of dead people, from children to the elderly, men and women who died as a result of burns or asphyxiation from the smoke. In most of these fires, authorities concluded that they were accidental events, so no one was looking for an execution hand.
“I never wanted to kill. I am a servant of fire… fire is my master. “That’s why I cause fires,” he said. In fact, he even boasted about his actions. And Bruce intended to “break the Guinness World Record” for serial killers. He wanted to go down in history for having the highest number of deaths in the country on his criminal resume.
His last fire was committed on December 4, 1979, it was the Hastie house, and Bruce had a special animosity against the eldest son, Charles. According to his story, the two were in a romantic relationship, but the boy, a minor, threatened to go to the police if he did not give him money. That extortion ignited the flame of revenge, taking the arsonist directly to the interrogation room.
Bruce often frequented the Hastie house and, therefore, some neighbors knew the boy. So when investigators took statements from the residents, a witness admitted having seen Bruce, Charles’s friend, on the night of the car. Once at the police station, Bruce defeated and confessed the facts.
In detail, the young man recounted how he poured paraffin into the Hasties’ mailbox and set it on fire. However, to the surprise of the police, he also revealed ten other fires perpetrated in the last seven years, in some of which babies barely a few months old died. A reconstruction of all the incidents was carried out and they discovered that his story was true.
In October 1980, Bruce Lee was charged with a total of 26 murders, in addition to other crimes such as involuntary manslaughter, eleven counts of arson, and two counts of serious bodily injury. Once the trial began, the defendant denied all charges of murder, but did plead guilty to 26 involuntary manslaughters, as well as arson.
In early 1981, Leeds Crown Court convicted him of manslaughter and, under the Mental Health Act, declared him a public danger and committed him to Park Lane Special Hospital in Liverpool. Some time later, he was transferred to Rampton Secure Hospital where he remains today.
In 2005, Bruce Lee married another patient, Anne-Marie Davison, causing dismay among his victims’ families. And eleven years later, in 2016, he began to enjoy provisional exits, which were captured by some media such as the Daily Mirror. That was a scandal: the relatives of those murdered were crying out for justice.
“It’s unusual, they should never allow him to leave,” said Roz Fenton, who suffered burns on 50% of her body and whose baby died in one of the fires set by the British arsonist. “It is dangerous for society,” she said, completely dejected. To this day, Roz still needs treatment to recover from the physical and psychological consequences of that tragedy.
