"Grindr Killer" Stephen Port Notes:

Header Image Source: Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash

Other Images:

Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Jack Taylor and Daniel Whitworth (via BBC)

Stephen Port Mugshot (Metropolitan Police via Wikipedia)

"Stephen Port (born 22 February 1975)  is a British convicted serial rapist and serial killer. He is responsible for the murder of four men and for committing multiple rapes. Port received a life sentence with a whole life order on 25 November 2016, meaning he will never be released. Port met his victims via online gay and bisexual social networks and dating or hookup apps and constructed biographies in which he made false claims about his background, including one in which he pretended to have graduated from Oxford University and served in the Royal Navy. In another he gave his occupation as a special needs teacher. Port used gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), a date rape drug, adding it to drinks given to his victims, raped them, and murdered four of them in his flat in Barking. The prosecution said "postmortem examinations on the four young men who died revealed that each had died from a drug overdose featuring high levels of GHB", but Port surreptitiously used other drugs on his victims: amyl nitrite (poppers), Viagra, mephedrone, and methamphetamine (crystal meth).

The graveyard of St Margaret's Church, Barking: the bodies of three of the four murder victims were found here.

His first murder victim, Anthony Walgate, 23, a fashion student originally from Hull, who on occasion worked as an escort, was contacted by Port on 17 June 2014 pretending to be a client and offered £800 for his services; they later met at Barking station. At his flat Port drugged Anthony with GHB and raped him; Walgate died after being given a fatal overdose of the drug. In the early morning of 19 June, Port dragged the body to the pavement outside his flat and used his own mobile phone to call an ambulance. Not giving his name he told an operator that he had been driving past and had seen a "young boy" who was "collapsed or had had a seizure or was drunk" on the street. Port then returned to his flat. Shortly before 8:00 a.m. Walgate was pronounced dead. Evidence linking Port to Walgate's death was missed at this time. Port was convicted of perverting the course of justice in March 2015 because his account of the death to the police varied. He was sentenced to eight months, but was released in June and was electronically tagged.

Between August 2014 and September 2015 Port murdered three more men: Gabriel Kovari, 22, who had moved to London from Slovakia and had briefly lived with Port; Daniel Whitworth, 21, from Gravesend in Kent, who worked as a chef; and Jack Taylor, 25, who lived with his parents in Dagenham, and worked as a forklift truck driver. The bodies of the second and third victims were found in the graveyard of the church of St Margaret of Antioch in Barking, by the same woman on separate occasions walking her dog; the last victim was found in the park adjacent to the graveyard. Port had planted a fake suicide note alongside the body of Whitworth that suggested he was responsible for the death of Kovari, the previous victim, and that he had killed himself out of guilt.

Port used a number of internet hook-up sites and apps as a means of initially contacting his victims, including Sleepyboy, Grindr, Hornet, Fitlads, Badoo, Gaydar, Flirt, DaddyHunt, PlanetRomeo, Manhunt, Slaveboys and CouchSurfing."

— Source: Stephen Port Wikipedia

The Survival Story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates in the Peruvian Andes Notes:

Header Image Source: Photo by Adrian Dascal on Unsplash

Other Image:

Siula Grande, Cordillera Huayhuash, Peru—Kevin Wells (via Flickr)

Joe Simpson's book Touching The Void—Helene Rodgers (via Amazon)

"Joe Simpson (born 1960) is a British mountaineer, author, and motivational speaker. While climbing in Peru in 1985, he suffered severe injuries and was thought lost after falling into a crevasse, but he survived and managed to crawl back to his base camp. He described the ordeal in his best-selling 1988 book Touching the Void, which was adapted into a 2003 documentary film of the same name.

In 1985, Simpson and climbing partner Simon Yates made a first-ascent of the previously unclimbed West Face of Siula Grande (6,344 m) in the Cordillera Huayhuash of the Peruvian Andes. On the descent, Simpson broke his right leg and during their subsequent self-rescue in a storm, he and Yates became separated. The climb was nearly fatal for both climbers and, after they returned to Britain, a misleading article in a national newspaper led to Yates being criticised for having cut a rope that was keeping himself and Simpson together.

Simpson published an article about the Siula Grande ordeal in the climbing press shortly afterwards, and later wrote the best-selling book Touching the Void. The book has been translated into 23 languages and has sold almost two million copies worldwide. Simpson wrote further about the Siula Grande expedition in his book This Game of Ghosts as did Yates in his book Against the Wall. A film based on the Touching the Void book was released in 2003. It takes the form of a docudrama with climbing sequences filmed in the European Alps and the Peruvian Andes together with interviews with Simpson, Yates and the third member of the expedition Richard Hawking (a non-climber).

Simpson underwent six surgical operations as a result of the leg injuries sustained on Siula Grande. The doctors told him he would never climb again and that he would have trouble walking for the rest of his life. After two years of rehabilitation, however, he returned to mountain climbing.

His later non-fiction books describe other expeditions and his changing feeling towards extreme mountaineering brought on by the many deaths that surround the pursuit. A bad fall broke Simpson's left ankle while climbing with Mal Duff in 1991 on Pachermo in Nepal, and is described in his third book This Game of Ghosts. Simpson also made six unsuccessful attempts on the North Face of the Eiger from 2000 to 2003 with his regular climbing partner Ray Delaney, all of which had to be aborted due to bad weather. One of his books, The Beckoning Silence, was made into a documentary shown on Channel 4 in October 2007. The book won the 2003 National Outdoor Book Award (Outdoor Literature category).

Simpson has another career as a motivational speaker, addressing corporate events throughout the world. His most recent book is the novel Walking the Wrong Side of the Grass, published in 2018.

Simpson is one of six people mentioned in the song "Ali in the Jungle" by English rock band The Hours ("Like Simpson on the mountain"), as an example of someone who overcame hardship and beat the odds to make a comeback..."

— Source: Joe Simpson (mountaineer) Wikipedia