THE magnitude of Stephen Griffiths’s confessed crimes will inevitably open a floodgate of analysis into what drove him to such barbarity and whether he killed anyone else.

Griffiths has a violent past and has a history of poor mental health. He spent time in Rampton high security hospital in Nottinghamshire in the early 1990s.

As a 17-year-old he was arrested for shoplifting in a supermarket but as he was detained he slashed a security guard’s throat with a knife.

He was jailed for three years.

In 1989 he was prosecuted for possession of an air pistol but was not jailed. He was ordered to do 100 hours’ community service as he had fallen foul of the previous conviction.

In 1991 he received a 24-month sentence at Leeds Crown Court for affray and possession of an offensive weapon.

His girlfriends said he was violent and abused them but were too terrified to testify against him and no charges were brought.

Kathy Hancock told the News of the World newspaper how Griffiths battered and abused her and kept her a virtual prisoner as he controlled every aspect of her life.

But despite court orders and twice being put in custody, Griffiths continued to hound his girlfriend, the paper claimed.

Police sources believe his killing spree could have been triggered by his studies. It is claimed Griffiths’s PhD research into serial killers caused him to “flip” and seek out prostitutes.

His method of killing was so gruesome it could have come from a horror movie, using knives and a power tool to cut up the bodies in the bath of his flat.

He made attempts to clean up but blood spots were left in his flat and detectives were able to make a match.

Griffiths also claims to have eaten some of the flesh of his victims. He told police he cooked pieces of flesh and also ate some raw. Police said it is virtually impossible to verify his claims.

Detectives have not ruled out that Griffiths may have killed more women and are looking for any evidence which links him to other unsolved murders or missing persons. So far they have found no evidence of this.

At first Griffiths co-operated with detectives when he was arrested and confessed to the three murders but he has been silent ever since and now refuses to talk to police.

It is understood Griffiths “revelled” in his notoriety and the status he thought it brought him as a serial killer. There have even been reports he was unhappy when his macabre story was knocked off the front pages by Cumbrian gunman Derrick Bird.

Police also believe he could have gone on to kill more women before he was caught.

Widespread speculation has appeared in the media about whether Griffiths is responsible for other murders. Much of the speculation has centred on the cases of Yvonne Fitt, Gemma Simpson and Rebecca Hall.

Ms Fitt was a prostitute who lived in Bradford and Leeds and was found murdered in 1992. Ms Simpson, from Leeds, has been missing since 2000 but is not a sex worker.

Ms Hall’s body was found in the Bradford red light district in 2001.

But senior officers have been adamant they are not linking the murders of Suzanne Blamires, Shelley Armitage and Susan Rushworth to any other missing persons or murder inquiries.

Inevitably, though, detectives across the region and even across the UK who are investigating disappearances will take an interest in the Griffiths case.

Stephen Griffiths was a loner who was obsessed with mass murderers.

The 40-year-old perpetual student sealed his place in the macabre history of killers when he appeared in court for the first time and was asked to give his name.

His chilling "crossbow cannibal" reply referred to CCTV footage now in West Yorkshire Police's possession which showed his last victim, Suzanne Blamires, being shot in the head with a crossbow.

In the footage, from a camera in the corridor at Griffith's block of flats, Miss Blamires is dragged away and a man later emerges carrying bin bags.

The name he gave himself is also thought to be a reference to reports he may have tried to eat the flesh of some of his victims after chopping them up.

His behaviour when he made his first court appearance shocked onlookers.

But it also supported descriptions of Griffiths by those who knew him.

He had spent six years working on a postgraduate thesis about serial killers and murderers.

On the web, Griffiths set up the pseudonym Ven Pariah and posted page upon page of pictures and words about notorious mass murderers, terrorists and even Nazi war criminals.

Police closed down his MySpace site but the university researcher left a trail of pictures, messages and other information.

Griffiths styled himself as the "misanthrope who brought hate into heaven" and last accessed his pages on April 23 - a month before he was arrested.

Listing his mood as "evil", he quoted the Book of Ezekiel: "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides."

The same line was used in an execution scene in Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction.

His Amazon wishlist included 25 books and DVDs, the majority about real-life crime and serial killers. They included box sets titled Notorious Killers, Serial Killers, Mass Murderers and Britain's Bloodiest Serial Killers.

Griffiths posted this message on his profile: "Humanity is not merely a biological condition. It is also a state of mind. On that basis I am a pseudo human at best. A demon at worst."

He also posted the message: "Ven Pariah has finally emerged into the world. What will this pseudo human do. One wonders?"

Griffiths was in born on Christmas Eve 1969 in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, to frozen food salesman Stephen Griffiths and his wife, Moira. He has a younger brother and sister.

The family lived in the Thornhill area of Dewsbury but he moved to nearby Wakefield when his mother and father split up when he was young.

He lived on a Wakefield council estate but secured a place at the respected Queen Elizabeth Grammar School - a private school in Wakefield which now demands day fees around the £9,000-a-year mark.

John Haigh - who was known as the Acid Bath Murderer and who was hanged in 1949 - was also a pupil at the school.

When he was young, Griffiths had the nickname Penfold, from the children's cartoon Danger Mouse, because of his round glasses.

Others said he was known as Stickman because of his skinny build. His uncle said the family called him by his middle name - Shaun.

His father Stephen has explained how his son left home when he was about 18 and the family had seen little of him since then.

Mr Griffiths said he barely recognised his son when pictures emerged after his arrest.

Griffiths went to Leeds University, where he secured a degree in psychology.

Later he began studying for a PhD at Bradford University in the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Griffiths had been writing his thesis on murderers for around six years.

The university has been tight-lipped on the exact nature of his studies.

No-one recalls him ever having a settled job.

He had lived in his housing association third-floor flat in Holmfield Court in Bradford for more than a decade.

The converted mill building on Thornton Road is just a few hundred yards from the centre of the city and on the edge of the red-light district where his victims worked.

Prostitutes working in the area said he would chat to them but never asked them for sex.

Like his neighbours and others who knew him, they said he was a loner.

He was often seen in the area in his long, black leather coat and other "gothic" clothes.

Bizarrely, he was sometimes seen walking his lizards on leads.

Griffiths kept the reptiles in his flat. According to neighbours, they included 4ft-long monitor lizards along with a box full of dozens of live baby rats he used to feed them.

Some remember him taking his lizards to nightclubs in a rucksack.

Others said he took an interest in the local music scene in Bradford but, typically, was often seen at gigs by himself.

Those living in the Holmfield Court block said Griffiths only spoke to people about his lizards.

Security guard Glyn Tucker said he only ever had one long conversation with the loner in which he boasted about studying "killers".

Griffiths's ex-girlfriend Kathy Hancock, 37, told the News of the World how she lived in fear of him for 10 years.

Ms Hancock referred to him as "Psycho Steve" as she recalled how he controlled her life and was violent towards her after she met him in 2000.

In June Griffiths was taken to the care wing of Wakefield Prison following a "self-harm" incident.

Then, in September, he was treated again, this time after he slashed his throat with a shard of glass causing superficial injuries.