Mackay had a fascination with death. Apparently his father had regaled him with stories from the war about seeing his comrades shot down or blown up. Mackay himself spent a lot of time with the corpses of animals and birds. A neighbor saw him toss dead birds into the air and play with them. It's likely that he developed fantasies that involved the death process, which may have then become eroticized for him.

The British health system kept giving him a pass, permitting him to escalate his violence into repeated murders, including a priest who befriended him.

When the journey ended, the Jewish prisoners were led before an SS officer. His handsome face was set with a kind smile, his uniform impeccably tailored, cleaned and pressed. He was cheerfully whistling an opera tune, one of his favorites by Wagner. He carried a riding crop to indicate which direction he selected them to go in left or right. Unbeknownst to the prisoners, this charming and handsome officer with the innocuous demeanor was engaging in his favorite activity at Auschwitz, selecting which new arrivals were fit to work and which ones should be sent immediately to the gas chambers and crematorium.

Mengele occupied his time with numerous acts of extraordinary cruelty, including the dissection of live infants; the castration of boys and men without the use of an anesthetic; and the administering of high-voltage electric shocks to women inmates under the auspices of testing their endurance. He is most famous for his monstrous experiments on sets of twins, resulting in their death and mutilation. Mengele's imagination knew no bounds when it came to devising physical torments for his victims.

Susan Godfrey was on a picnic with her children in Savernake Forest, a few miles west. Mr. and Mrs. Roland Mason were enjoying a quiet day at home, Ken Clermont was out walking, and Abdul Rahman worked in his garden. Since more people were in town for the open market, Officer Brereton was making rounds in his patrol car. Francis Butler was walking his dog in the Memorial Recreation grounds, Douglas Wainwright was house-hunting, and Ian Payle was enjoying a shopping trip with his wife and two children.

To these people, as well as others who would soon cross paths with a rampaging killer, it seemed like a perfectly fine day. The weather was good and there was no particular reason to worry about anything. Someone needed shoes, others sought fresh air, and still others were simply relaxing.

Except, perhaps, for Dorothy Ryan, who was home in South View, not far from Hungerford. She was concerned about her 27-year-old son, Michael. Unemployed once again, he seemed irritable and restless. Lately, he'd been tense but she'd been unable to learn what the trouble was. The incident that was about to unfold would make it a day that Britain would never forget. Mrs. Ryan went out shopping before going to work as a waitress, unaware of what she would face when he returned.

Reporter Joe Cummings went up to the second floor, looked down the hall and turned right. It was still dark, the sun had begun to rise. He walked down the hall. To his right, he saw bodies of the nurses inside the bedroom, their skin a sickly ochre. A little further down the hall, he saw another bedroom with three more bodies and said. "Oh my God." That made seven upstairs and one downstairs. Eight in total.

He was at a convenience store when two young men approached him and brandished a gun. They ordered him into his own car. As his heart hammered, the men told him to drive to various ATMs where they forced him to withdraw $800. Later Andrew Schreiber said, "I was just hoping if I did what they said, they'd let me live."

They did. The assailants released him in a field, physically unharmed but badly shaken. They shot out the tires of his vehicle, then jumped in another car and sped away.

But this was just the beginning. Soon the city would be shocked by the brutal murders of a teacher and several college-age young people and then plunged into a crisis when the case was finally solved.