John Sweeney, the man convicted of killing and dismembering two former girlfriends, has died in prison aged 69—ending his sentence but not the mystery surrounding the victims’ missing remains.

Sweeney was serving a whole-life order at HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire. Reports said he died on August 14, reportedly after cancer. Melissa Halstead, a 33-year-old American former model, was killed in 1990 and her remains were later found in a Rotterdam canal. Paula Fields, 31, was discovered in six holdalls in London’s Regent’s Canal in 2001. The heads and hands of both women were never recovered; Fields’ feet were also missing.

The coverage places different emphasis on the case. One account focuses on the families’ enduring loss and Sweeney’s failure to disclose where the remains were hidden, while others stress the graphic evidence found after his arrest, including paintings and poems depicting violence. Police also suspected Sweeney in the disappearances of other former partners, but he was never charged in those cases.

Sweeney was convicted in 2011 and had also attacked another former partner, nurse Delia Balmer, with an axe. Balmer later wrote a memoir that was adapted into ITV’s 2024 miniseries Until I Kill You.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: “These were horrific crimes and our thoughts remain with the victims and their loved ones.”¹ The spokesperson added that the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman was investigating the death, making further comment inappropriate at this stage.

Halstead’s family had described her as “an intelligent and very attractive young woman” who left the United States to “seek her fortune.”² Fields’ sister said: “We know she is never coming back and we never said goodbye.”³