David Cedric Morgan - Rackham's Slasher

David Cedric Morgan (also known as The Rackham's Slasher) was a British man who wounded 15 people with a 12-inch butcher's boning knife and a bread knife at a department store in Birmingham, United Kingdom on December 8, 1994, before being arrested. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Text from the Birmingham Mail about Morgan:

"FOR millions, Christmas shopping means trawling tinsel-decked aisles to the strains of festive music being played on loop to try and pick out a last-minute gift for a loved one.

But for those who were in Birmingham department store Rackham’s on December 8 1994, it is a time of year which will always raise the ugly spectre of a bloodbath with changed their lives forever.

Manager Karen Crosby, then aged 35, was demonstrating fragrances on the Estee Lauder perfume counter at about 10.20am when she became the first victim of the frenzied attack.

She reacted to the sight of powerfully-built knifeman David Morgan raising a 10-inch-long butcher’s blade above her head by lifting her hands to save her face.

Such was the ferocity of his attack that tendons were ripped from her fingers and palm as she fought for her life.

Her quickly-raised defence saved her and she escaped with only minor injuries to her face.

But almost before anybody could react, crazed Morgan had moved on to satisfy his blood lust elsewhere on the ground floor.

Fourteen more victims were to follow and their accounts are no less harrowing than the first.

Shop worker Joanne Evans, then 28 years old, needed 34 stitches after she was caught up in the frenzy of violence.

Businesswoman Jan Twining, aged 50, was browsing Christmas cards when she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned round, expecting to see a friendly face.

But instead, wild-eyed woman hater Morgan slashed at her neck.

Witnesses painted a terrifying picture of several of the victims pleading with Morgan to spare them during a rampage which sparked a wave of panic through the store.

Every attack was a scene that could have been lifted straight from a horror film and it was only because of the professionalism of paramedics and doctors that nobody lost their life.

Just five minutes after 30-year-old Morgan had begun to run amok, his chilling attack was over.

It was brought to an end by the heroics of a former cop and his friend who was a serving police officer.

Keith Hart, then aged 43, armed himself with a golf club from the store’s sports department.

He had recently left the police but his instincts remained and he managed to stun Morgan with the club before overpowering him with the help of Sgt James Lavery, aged 38 at the time. The immediate terror was over but it quickly became clear that the psychological effects of the bloodshed would affect the victims for ever.

Pictures on the front of the late final edition of the Evening Mail that day go some way to giving an insight in to the horror witnessed by those inside the shop.

The striking images capture two women being led away – with blankets draped over their shoulders to protect them from the chill and grief etched on to their faces. Others are pushed away in wheelchairs, unable to walk either because of injuries or shock.

Just as Miss Crosby was the first to be attacked, she was also the first to give an interview. With incredible understatement, she said from her hospital bed: “It was a horrible experience.

“My blouse was absolutely soaked through with blood.”

As more became known about Morgan, questions were raised about whether he should have been free to walk the streets and whether more could have been done to protect the public.

The spotlight turned on the care he had been given by the health authorities and the specialists who would be asked by the courts to decide whether he was “mad or bad”.

He was a recovering schizophrenic who had been released from hospital in 1988 after it was deemed that he had made a recovery.

The court case which followed – where he was charged with nine counts of wounding with intent and one of assault – heard that he had visited his GP the previous October and complained that he had thoughts about attacking women.

But it was a cry for help which went unnoticed.

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More worrying were the two unprovoked attacks he launched on women in the street in 1992 and 1993.

Morgan, from Winson Green, was arrested twice but each time given a conditional discharge by the courts.

He also used a razor blade to attack a nurse at Ashworth Special Hospital where he spent a year on remand alongside Moors child killer Ian Brady.

Despite a disagreement between his legal team and the NHS, it was later determined by a psychologist that Morgan was vulnerable and isolated but suffered from no mental illnesses.

North Birmingham Mental Health Trust was cleared in an internal inquiry.

Morgan was later given ten life sentences and was warned that he may never be freed.

But in 2002, it was reported that he was being transferred from high security Broadmoor Hospital to a medium security unit where he would be allowed on escorted shopping trips as part of rehabilitation.

In 2006, health care bosses invoked the wrath of victims and their families after Morgan was pictured wandering unsupervised on shopping trips.

At the time he was being treated at Stafford’s St George’s Hospital, a medium security unit.

For those who were affected by his bloodthirsty spree 16 years ago, the sight of Morgan walking streets was salt in the physical and psychological wounds which will never heal."

Links: David Cedric Morgan - Amok Wiki, From the Archives: The nightmare before Christmas at Rackham's