The sick serial killer Stephen Port tried to frame one of his victims by planting a fake suicide note on his body, an inquest jury has heard.
More details are emerging into how the drug-sex predator attempted to cover his tracks during his 16-month murder spree.
The inquest is looking at whether police could have done more to stop pornography-obsessed Port, now 46, who killed four people between 2014 and 2015 and is now in jail.
Seeking to distance himself from the death of his second victim, Gabriel Kovari, Port scribbled an apologetic note and placed it on the dead body of his third victim, Daniel Whitworth, 21, in order to make it seem like an apparent manslaughter-suicide.
The murders happened three weeks apart in near-identical circumstances, a short distance from Port’s ground-floor flat in Barking, east London.
The note, read to the inquest jury on Friday, said: ‘I am sorry to everyone, mainly my family, but I can’t go on anymore.
‘I took the life of my friend Gabriel Kline (Mr Kovari). We was (sic) just having some fun at a mate’s place and I got carried away and I gave him another shot of G (drug GHB).
‘I didn’t notice while we was having sex that he had stopped breathing. I tried everything to get him to breath (sic) again but it was too late.
‘It was an accident but I blame myself for what happened and I didn’t tell my family I went out.’
The handwritten note, on a sheet of A4 paper and wrapped in a protective plastic sheet found on Mr Whitworth’s body, added: ‘I know I would go to prison if I go to the police and I cannot do that to my family and at least this way I can at least be with Gabriel again.
‘I hope he will forgive me. BTW (by the way). Please do not blame the guy I was with last night.
‘We only had sex then I left. He knows nothing of what I have done. I have taken what G I had left with sleeping pills, so if does kill me it is what I deserve.
‘Feeling dizzy now as took 10 minutes ago, so hoping you understand my writing. I dropped my phone on way here, so should be in the grass somewhere.
‘Sorry to everyone. Love always. Daniel PW.’
It was not until much later that it became clear Port was responsible for the note.
Inquest jurors previously heard Port, a bus depot chef who was said to have ‘a revolving door of boys coming and going’, had told a neighbour that 22-year-old Mr Kovari has ‘died in Spain’ in mysterious circumstances.
Port was jailed for life in 2016 after being convicted of murdering Anthony Walgate, 23, Mr Kovari, Mr Whitworth, and Jack Taylor, 25, by plying them with fatal doses of GHB, as well as a number of rapes.
Henrietta Hill QC, counsel for the victims’ families, suggested to Inspector Mark Joyce that he had quickly ‘closed down’ the investigation into Mr Whitworth’s death on the day he was called to the scene.
Mr Joyce said: ‘I accept my objectivity might have been clouded. Confirmation bias – if you have a theory, you look for evidence that supports that theory.’
He admitted he did not check with Mr Whitworth’s family whether the note was genuine, as he did not consider it suspicious.
Addressing the victims’ families, he added: ‘My sincere condolences. As the father of a young man who is exactly the same age, I can’t imagine the trauma.
‘I made a decision at the time (that Mr Whitworth died by suicide) … based on the information I had available.”
Yesterday, a former friend and neighbour of Port told the inquest the killer had a ‘voracious appetite’ for meeting ‘very young’ men, and had a ‘strange’ obsession with children’s toys.
Neighbour Ryan Edwards said Port spent time with ‘vulnerable’ boys to such an extent that he considered the softly-spoken chef might have ‘paedophile tendencies’.
Mr Edwards also said Port also urged him not to speak to others about the death of 22-year-old Gabriel Kovari – who was a former flatmate of the killer.
In one text, shown to inquest jurors on Thursday, Port wrote: ‘Hey neighbour, have just heard sum (sic) sad news from one of Gabriel’s friends that Gab did return to Spain to be with his bf (boyfriend) and he died on arrival from an infection.
‘His (sic) being buried in slovkya (sic). Please don’t put on FB (Facebook) or mention to anyone else as his family are in bits.’
The inquests continue.
MORE : GHB serial killer Stephen Port ‘watched rape porn for hours’
MORE : Police launch manhunt for killer who escaped from open prison
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