John Childs was convicted of the murder of six people in contract killings which were committed between 1974 and 1978; he implicated two others and they were convicted in 1980, but they were released on appeal in 2003 after his evidence was called into question.[13][15] He murdered Terence Eve in 1974, Robert Brown in 1975, George Brett and his 10-year-old son Terry Brett later on in 1975, Fred Sherwood in 1978 and Ronald Andrews later on in 1978 and was jailed in December 1979, with the murders being committed by shooting and stabbing. He confessed to a journalist in 1998 of five more murders while in prison, he appealed against his conviction in 2014 and his whole life sentence in 2016 but was rejected each time on account of his crimes being "exceptionally serious".