Murderer who went on stabbing rampage jumped in a taxi halfway through to go collect new knife

Image credit: West Midlands Police

In September last year a series of stabbings over the course of a few hours in Birmingham city centre left seven people seriously injured and a young man dead, leaving the city shocked and stunned. 28-year-old Zephaniah McLeod has pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted murder, three counts of wounding and manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The events in the early hours of Sunday 6 September began half an hour after midnight when a 33-year-old man was stabbed in Constitution Hill leaving him with a neck wound.

Twenty minutes later a 25-year-old woman was stabbed to her shoulder in Livery Street and, minutes after that in Barwick Street, a 29-year-old man was left in a critical condition with a chest wound.

Detective Chief Inspector Jim Munro was the senior investigating officer for the case. He said: “It’s not unusual for us to receive several reports of assaults, some involving weapons, on a busy weekend evening, so the incidents were not automatically linked. “Our CCTV operators immediately began exploring footage around the scenes that had been reported to us and later that day we identified a potential suspect linked to each attack, so we began tracking his movements.”

We now know that it wasn’t until 1.50am that McLeod launched his next attack in Irving Street on a group of school friends from Liverpool who were returning to their hotel after a night out while visiting one of their group who was studying in Birmingham. Sadly 23-year-old Jacob Billington, a graduate trainee at Sheffield Hallam University, was fatally stabbed and his close friend, also 23, critically injured. McLeod went on to stab two men, aged 29 and 24, in Hurst Street and also inflicted critical injuries on a 23 year-old woman shortly after. Thankfully they have since recovered. From the CCTV evidence it emerged that after leaving Berwick Street, McLeod had dumped his knife in a drain and caught a taxi to his home address in Nately Grove, Selly Oak and re-armed himself, before heading into the city centre again to continue his assault an hour later. Det Ch Insp Munro continued: “The number of CCTV cameras across the city is significant and took an immense amount of co-ordination, however not all of the incidents were covered by cameras. We were able to match the clothing McLeod wore to witness and victim descriptions, to identify him and he was arrested from his home address 24 hours later. “McLeod has never given an explanation for his actions that night which leaves no closure for his victims or their families and friends, although I am pleased that the admission of his crimes has spared those involved the ordeal of a trial. “In accepting his pleas of wounding, attempted murder and particularly manslaughter for the deeply distressing death of Jacob, we have consulted all those involved fully and they understand why this decision has been reached.” McLeod will now be the subject of mental health reports ahead of his sentencing in September.