Four Days of Violence: The Crimes of Philip John Smith

Philip John Smith was born on 10 July 1965 at the City Maternity Hospital in Gloucester, Gloucestershire. He was the eldest of five children born to Henry John Smith, a sawmill labourer, and his wife Rose, née Luckins. During Smith’s early childhood, the family lived on Midland Road in Gloucester, where they were neighbours of Fred and Rose West. In 1971, they moved to Hailes Road on the Coney Hill council estate, a change that coincided with increasing financial hardship after Smith’s father was seriously injured in a road accident.

Smith attended local infant and junior schools before being transferred to a special school for children with learning difficulties. He left formal education at just 14 years old and joined his father working for Billy Danter’s Funfair, a travelling operation that toured extensively across the UK. Outside the fair season, Smith took on casual work as a farmhand, labourer, and security guard, drifting between short-term jobs with little stability.

Philip John Smith

As a young adult, Smith moved around western England and Wales, living for a time in Tewkesbury and later Ross-on-Wye. During this period, he was in a relationship with a woman with whom he had three children between 1990 and 1992. The relationship eventually broke down, and Smith left the family, relocating to Cardiff. He later spent about a year in Ireland after being taken in by a travelling family he met while hitchhiking in County Westmeath. Although they initially allowed him to stay rent-free in a spare caravan, contributing only part of his unemployment benefits toward food, the arrangement ended when Smith made inappropriate sexual remarks toward younger women in the family, making them uncomfortable.

By late 1999, Smith had moved to Birmingham. He briefly stayed at the Trinity Centre, a hostel for homeless men in Digbeth, before securing housing through a housing association on Braithwaite Road in Sparkbrook. In the local area, Smith became a familiar figure. He was a regular at the Shamrock Café on Stratford Road and the Rainbow pub in Digbeth, where he worked casually as an odd-jobber and acted as an unofficial taxi driver for patrons.

Although Smith had accumulated more than thirty criminal convictions since 1984, they were largely for non-violent offences such as theft, burglary, handling stolen goods, and driving without a licence. Standing 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing over 22 stone, he had a scruffy appearance and a soft West Country accent. Many people who knew him described him as harmless. One café owner later referred to him as a “gentle giant,” nicknamed “Bigfoot” because of the marks his heavy boots left on the floor.

That perception was shattered in November 2000.

On the night of 8 November 2000, Smith met 21-year-old Jodie Hyde at the Rainbow pub. Hyde, who was recovering from butane gas addiction, was seen leaving with Smith. He later took her to a hospital appointment before killing her at his flat. Prosecutors believed she was strangled, wrapped in carpet, and transported to a recreation ground near Golden Hillock Road, where her body was set on fire. Her remains were discovered the following morning by police officers on patrol. Due to the severe burns, she was identified only through fingerprints.

A Criminal who turned into a Spree Killer. Philip John Smith, True Crime

Just three days later, Smith met another woman at the same pub. Rosemary Corcoran, a 25-year-old mother of three from Castle Vale, was seen leaving with him on 11 November. CCTV footage later showed her heavily intoxicated and being dragged into Smith’s vehicle. Smith drove her to rural Worcestershire, where he violently killed her before running over her body near Droitwich Spa. Her injuries were so severe that her face was unrecognisable. Her body was found the next morning by a dog walker near Junction 5 of the M5 motorway.

Smith’s third victim, Carol Jordan, was a 39-year-old care home worker and mother of six from Balsall Heath. She was attacked as she walked to work. Smith struck her from behind with his car, fracturing her hip. Fearing discovery, he moved her body to another location and beat her so severely that dental records were required for identification. Her body was discovered later that same morning in parkland near Bell Barn Road in Lee Bank.

Despite committing three murders in the space of four days, Smith initially attempted to present himself as a helpful witness. On 13 November, before Rosemary Corcoran’s body had been formally identified, Smith contacted police to say he wished to make a statement about her disappearance. He voluntarily attended Castle Vale police station and provided an account that attempted to distance himself from her final movements, claiming she had left him after an encounter with another man.

Police quickly became suspicious. Operation Green, a large-scale murder investigation led by West Midlands Police, involved hundreds of officers and extensive forensic analysis. CCTV footage placed Smith’s distinctive vehicle at multiple critical locations. Witnesses recalled seeing him with blood on his clothing. Forensic scientists identified blood from all three victims on Smith’s clothes, boots, car, and inside his flat. Tyre marks from his vehicle matched those found at the Worcestershire scene, and fragments of glass and paint on Carol Jordan’s body were traced directly to Smith’s car.

Smith was arrested and charged with Rosemary Corcoran’s murder on 17 November 2000. Within weeks, he was also charged with the murders of Jodie Hyde and Carol Jordan. While awaiting trial, he was held as a Category A prisoner at Woodhill Prison.

His trial began at Leicester Crown Court in July 2001. Smith initially pleaded not guilty, claiming evidence had been planted and offering implausible explanations for the presence of victims’ belongings in his flat. During cross-examination, he suffered what was described as a panic attack. Shortly afterward, he abruptly changed his plea to guilty on all three counts.

On 18 July 2001, Smith was sentenced to life imprisonment. The judge condemned the brutality of the murders and the additional suffering caused to the victims’ families by Smith’s decision to contest the charges despite overwhelming evidence.

Following his conviction, police examined Smith’s possible involvement in other deaths, including that of Patricia Lynott, a woman he had worked alongside at the Rainbow pub who was found dead in her flat weeks before the murders. Despite exhumation and multiple post-mortem examinations, no definitive cause of death could be established, and no further charges were brought.

Philip John Smith’s case remains one of the most disturbing murder sprees in modern Birmingham history—a reminder of how someone perceived as harmless and familiar can conceal extreme violence, and how swiftly ordinary routines can give way to unimaginable brutality.