Kenneth Erskine (born 1962) is an English serial killer who became known as the Stockwell Strangler. The English are an ethnic group or nation primarily associated with England and the English language. ... Serial killers are individuals who have a history of multiple slayings of victims who were usually unknown to them beforehand. ...

During 1986, Erskine murdered as many as eleven elderly people, both men and women, breaking into their homes and strangling them to death. Most were sexually assaulted. The crimes took place in the Stockwell area of London. Stockwell is an inner city area in the London Borough of Lambeth. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of the United Kingdom and the largest city of England (strangely, England has no constitutional existence within the United Kingdom, and therefore cannot be said to have a capital). ...

A homeless drifter and solvent abuser, Erskine was 24 years old when he committed the crimes, but had the mental age of a 12-year-old. Following his arrest, he was convicted of seven murders, although police believe that he was responsible for four other murders with which he was never charged. It has been suggested that Petrol sniffing in Australia be merged into this article or section. ...

Erskine was sentenced to a minimum term of 40 years imprisonment, but has since been found to be suffering from mental disorder within the meaning of the Mental Health Act 1983, and is therefore now held at Broadmoor Hospital, a maximum security hospital. He is unlikely to be freed until at least 2028, when he will be 66 years old. Broadmoor Hospital is a maximum secure psychiatric hospital in Crowthorne in Berkshire. ...

In February 1996 Erskine was again in the news, this time for preventing the possible murder of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, by raising the alarm as a fellow inmate at Broadmoor, Paul Wilson, attempted to strangle Sutcliffe with the flex from a pair of stereo headphones. Peter William Sutcliffe (born June 2, 1946), infamous as the Yorkshire Ripper, was convicted in 1981 of the murders of thirteen women in the north of England and attacks on seven more from 1975 to 1980. ...