While murderer Mark Brown took great care to incinerate his victims’ bodies and evade detection, he went on to casually tell a friend exactly how he had done it
A twisted killer known to have murdered at least two women sent a chilling text to his friend after disposing of their bodies and even gave himself a horrifying nickname.
Although 41-year-old builder Mark Brown was convicted of two murders the body of his first known victim, Leah Ware, has never been recovered.
“It’s incredibly difficult to find a body, if people aren’t prepared to cooperate with police,”explained former Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Dal Babu in a new documentary about the case. “Bodies can be mutilated. They can be cut up. They can be burnt. They can be put into acid and and then decompose over time.”
Animal-lover Leah was delighted when she met a man online who lived not far from her, and had a parcel of farmland where she though she might be able to indulge her love of horse-riding. But Brown kidnapped her and kept her locked in a filthy shipping container where he sexually assaulted her before killing her.
Leah’s cousin, Alice Barnard told the Channel 4 documentary Social Media Monsters that she had believed the upbeat stories Leah had been positing on her Instagram page. She explained: “Everything I saw about Leah living life on the farm may have been true in the beginning but it wasn’t true later.
“She was locked away in a metal cabin inside a shipping container with three locks on the outside.”
At some point, Brown killed Leah and took extreme steps to erase any evidence of his crime. To this day, he has refused to reveal exactly where Leah’s remains might be.
But he did send a chilling message to a friend. After luring two victims to his East Sussex farm, 41-year-old builder Mark Brown killed them and burned their remains, telling a friend: “It’s a very unpleasant thing to do – an old oil drum, five litres of diesel, and hey presto, there’s not very much left.”
Investigators did manage to find remains of Leah’s beloved dog, Lady. The little Pomeranian was found in a lake on Brown’s land, having been tied to a weight and apparently drowned
Clinical psychologist Dr Roberta Babb said the way that Brown had tried to conceal the evidence of his crimes was “a really brutal way to dispose of someone”.
She added: “He not only took someone’s life, but he also burnt their body. There’s no regard for human life. It’s calculated. It’s brutal. It’s emotionally detached. And it takes a person with very strong antisocial tendencies to behave in such a way.”
Despite the concerns of Leah’s family, Brown might have escaped justice. Leah had been unwilling to reveal many details about the new man in her life and, Alice says, they hadn’t even heard his name until the murder investigation began.
He was only snared when, six months after Leah’s disappearance, he lured another woman to the remote East Sussex farmhouse five miles from where he actually lived with his wife and family. Again, he had contacted the woman online and this time convinced her to come and visit him.
Roberta Babb says: “The fact that Mark Brown had a family that was functioning and was also able to keep a girlfriend separate says a lot about him. It really highlights his ability to compartmentalise parts of his life and really reflects a calculated, emotionally detached person.”
The name of Brown’s second victim has been withheld to protect her family, but the Channel 4 documentary refers to her as “Jane.” While Brown had successfully groomed and love-bombed Leah to the extent that she had moved into his dilapidated farmhouse without taking very many precautions, Jane had been a lot more careful.
Police discovered phone messages from Brown offering her £100,000 for “filming work” at his farmhouse but before she set off from her home in Kent she left a “box of clues” in case something happened to her.
Libby Clark of the CPS said: “She left a note addressed to one of her sons. It said ‘Let’s go rollerblading.’ That was a clue to go to a box under a TV in his bedroom where his rollerblades were kept.
“In that box there was £2,000 in cash – a significant sum for Alex – and there was a note we’ve called something of a ‘breadcrumb trail’. There was a mobile phone and a PIN number.”
Also, crucially, was a piece of paper on which Jane had written the postcode of Little Bridge Farm.
When questioned about Jane’s disappearance Brown was evasive, answering “no comment” to even the most mundane questions.
But former Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Parm Sandhu revealed the crucial piece of evidence that cracked the case: “During the investigation, police officers spoke to Mark Brown’s co-workers and one of the co-workers remembered that Mark had asked if he could throw something into one of the skips.
“It was actually an oil drum. Something had been burnt inside that oil drum. When they were searching, they found some jewellery, some partial remains, and some teeth. When those remains were examined, they were identified as being belonging to the woman that was missing.”
It wasn’t until police made a second search of Brown’s van that evidence emerged of the previous murder – a crumpled prescription with Leah Ware’s name printed on it.
Dal Babu has little doubt that, after committing the second murder, Brown would have been “looking for his next victim,” and added that he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Brown had killed before, but managed to erase any trace of his victims.
While in some ways Brown had shown considerable caution, in others, he had been advertising his guilt publicly on the internet.
Digital forensics expert Vicky Saunders explained that Brown’s choice of email address was a huge red flag. She explained: “Lot of people use usernames that mean something to them and they can be quite telling. So, for example, people might use their football club or a pet name or a date of birth and it’s easier for them to remember and it’s personal to them. And Mark Browns was quite telling.”
The killer had used the name “Fisty McRapist” not only as his Instagram handle, but his work email address.
When he was arrested, police discovered that he had already begun to groom a third woman online. He had reconnected online with an old schoolfriend, Beth Howard, telling her: “[I] only want friendship and don’t judge any of the wrongs in my past please xx” and “You do deserve better than me. You’re amazing. I’d never want to hurt you.”
She later said: “If Mark had wanted to kill me, I would never have seen it coming. When I think about it, it’s chilling. People like him are not obvious monsters. They are hiding in plain sight.”
