Motive: Sex
Crimes: Murder of Shirley Banks in Bristol on 8th October 1987; attempted abduction of Julia Holman on 7th October 1987.
Method: Shirley was hit over the head five or six times with a large stone.
Sentence: Three life sentences with a recommendation that he never be released.
Interesting facts: Cannan had a long history of violent attacks on women and had only finished a prison sentence for rape the year before.
Cannan was caught on 29th October 1987 when he tried to rob a petrol station. When he was arrested for it, the police found the tax disc for Shirley's car in his glove compartment.
Shirley's body was only found on Easter Day in 1988 - it had been dumped in a ditch called Dead Woman's Ditch. She was badly decomposed, but her thumbprint was intact. When Cannan's house was checked for fingerprints, a match to Shirley's thumbprint was found.
Cannan is the main suspect of two unsolved murders - those of Suzie Lamplugh and Sandra Court.Suzie Lamplugh went missing on 28th July 1986 in Fulham, London, after meeting "Mr Kipper" in her role as an estate agent. Cannan, until three days before, had been serving a sentence at Wormwood Scrubs prison, less than three miles from where Suzie was last seen.Her body has never been found. Sandra Court was found strangled on 3rd May 1986 in Bournemeouth. On this day, it is known that Cannan had made a trip to Bournemouth with a friend.