(SPONSORED CONTENT)"We called it hunting": How serial killer rapists trawled streets for young women while listening to Michael Jackson's Thriller

Depraved duo David Mulcahy and John Duffy were behind a terrorising six year rape and murder rampage during the 1980s.

They picked off lone female victims near train stations across London and the South East - earning them the tag 'The Railway Killers'.

David Mulcahy and John Duffy are just two of notorious killers featured as part of Really's Serial Killer Season this month.

The pair would trawl nearby streets in their car looking for women, listening to the sinister sound of Michael Jackson's zombie movie Thriller in a bizarre attack ritual.

Speaking of their fascination with the album, Duffy revealed: "We called it hunting.

"David had a tape of Thriller. We used to put that on and sing along as part of the build-up."

The confession offers a chilling insight into the twisted bond between Mulcahy and Duffy, who were inseparable since first meeting as 11-year-olds. And their friendship became ever deeper and darker as they grew older.

‘They were like two bodies with one brain, soul mates,’ recalled one intended victim.

After leaving school, the pair carried out petty crimes before committing their first rape together in 1982, aged 22.

They dragged their 21-year-old victim off the street in Kilburn, north-west London, before taking turns to rape her at knifepoint.

In the years that followed, they trawled the streets of London and the South East for victims, targeting lone women near railway stations.

As the years passed, the attacks became increasingly violent and just after Christmas 1985 they took turns to rape Alison Day on the banks of the River Lea, near Hackney Wick station in East London, before strangling her with a strip of cloth.

Two more murders followed by May 1986 – Dutch schoolgirl Maartje Tamboezer, 15, and newlywed Anne Lock, 29 – before Duffy was arrested and jailed for life in 1988.

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Mulcahy was also arrested twice, but police could not build a case against him. Duffy refused to name his accomplice.

A police officer said: "He was terrified of Mulcahy. They had this pact and he was scared. He stayed quiet."

It was 13 years before Duffy broke his vow of silence and told detectives about his former friend’s role in their crimes.

A prison psychologist painstakingly won his trust and he confessed to numerous sex attacks and implicated Mulcahy.

He was arrested and jailed for life in February 2001, finally marking an end to the reign of terror of two of Britain’s most depraved killers.

• Watch Born to Kill: John Duffy and David Mulcahy as part of Really's Serial Killer Season at 9pm on 20th July.

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