Louise
In february 1994, 23-year old Louise from Denmark started her new job as a tour guide in beautiful Cyprus. After college, she had been travelling in Thailand and Indonesia and been to America. Now she wanted to spend some time guiding danish tourists around this enchanted island. Later on, she wanted to go back for new adventures in South East Asia.


Louise was a happy, fun loving and outgoing elegant girl. In Cyprus, she stayed at an apartment complex with a few other guides in the popular tourist resort Ayia Napa. She loved the place. Pleasant climate, palm trees, mountains and beautiful beaches. Her parents had been visiting in the summer the same year. Around the street corner, a few hundred meters away from her flat, her cypriot boyfriend Michalis worked in a bar.







Louise had spent seven months doing her new job. Monday, september 12´th the same year, she went to Larnaca at the south coast of the island for a danish flight departure at 2 p.m. Back at her flat, she spent some time with her two colleagues - a norweigean and swedish tour guide. In the evening, her boyfriend Michalis was going to take her out. Just before midnight she got impatient. »If he is not here within five minutes, I´m going out by myself« - she said. A few moments later Michalis arrived on his motorcycle.


Louise and Michalis went out riding the motorbike in the warm september night. The bike was low on gas. They therefore stopped at an all-night unattended gas station. Three british soldiers were refuelling their yellow mini-moke jeep too.
Louise, with her long blond hair, were spotted by the three soldiers. They looked at her in a strange way - Michalis later told. They were servicemen from the british-cypriot unit of The First Batallion of The Royal Green Jackets. They had been drinking heavily at the Jasmin Bar. Three hundred pounds were spent on beer, whisky and tequila. On their way back to the military base, they decided, that they »needed a girl«. »I´m going to give some woman a slap tonight« - one of them declaired.







The three british soldiers left the gas station. When Michalis and Louise later on tried to pass them, they veered the jeep towards them, knocking them off the bike. Lying on the ground, Louise said: »Well, at least they are coming back to apologize« - when the jeep came back in reverse. But the soldiers were not going to apologize. One of them went to the back of the vehicle and pulled out a spade. Then he swung it at Louise´s head. Michalis was threatened and ran away into the bushes nearby. Unsuccesfully the soldiers tried to catch him. Louise was forcefully thrown into the jeep, pleading for help and screaming her boyfriends name. Then she was abducted.
Later on, Michalis got a lift from a motorist to a police station. There, he reported the jeep´s license plate.


The soldiers rushed the jeep off to a deserted dirt road. There, Louise was forced out into the darkness. She was stripped, and her blouse was pulled up over her head. Then, two of the soldiers assaulted her sexually. Afterwards, the three soldiers took turns beating her with the spade. Unconscious and bleeding, she was again thrown into the jeep and transported 15 miles away to the little village Paralimni. There she was dumped and buried in the dirt.


The cypriot police immediately started a search for Louise. 90 minutes later, three drunk soldiers were stopped in a jeep at a road block. Their clothes and shoes were stained with blood. A bloodied spade was found in the jeep. They refused any knowledge of Louise. They came from The Royal Green Jackets in Dhekelia, 15 miles west of Ayia Napa. They were arrested and imprisoned.


A large scale search for Louise took its beginning. Two days later, cypriot police found her mutilated body in a shallow grave in the outskirts of Paralimni. She was buried in the dirt, a few hundred yards away from a local police station. Her hand, with a wrist watch, was above the ground. The clock was still working. The corpse was remarkably battered. 15 gaping lacerations from the spade were found in her flesh. Her face was split in half. Identification had to be done by a silver ring and a necklace with a cross. This was a gift from her father. The following legal autopsy revealed, that she was probably buried alive.







Louise´s danish parents rushed off to Cyprus the day after the dissapearence of their daughter. One day later, they got the worst of any message. The forensic pathologist, Marcos Matsakis, denied their access to the morgue - for their own sake. Newspapers around the world reported the horrendous killing. And the identity of the killers were revealed:

Allan Ford (28) (Sutton Coldfield / Birmingham, West Midlands, England)
Muscular with black hair. Nicknamed »the cube« because of his heavy build. A big bird tatoo on his chest. Several other tatoos on arms and legs. Tatooed the word »up« on his penis. Rumours says, that he lost an eye in a prison fight and converted to islam. Threathened his wife with a razor and a screwdriver. She divorced him after three months. By some characterized as a »Jeckyl and mr. Hyde« - type. A month prior to the killing accused of having smashed a beerglass in the head of a tourist, injuring him seriously.

March 28, 1996, the three killers were convicted to life imprisonment by cypriot lower Court for kidnapping, rape and homicide. In court, they were emotionally totally unaffected. They refused to answer relevant questions and never came up with a proper explanation for their actions.
An imprisoned british citizen in Nicosia Central Prison (Michael Andrew Flack, Bexley South, London) later on claimed, that Justin Fowler proudly had told him, that he was the one to deliver the final lethal blow with the spade. The blow, that cleaved Louise´s face in half. On the way to prison, one of the killers - Geoffrey Pernell - declared: »I´m not bothered, really. It´s par for the course, really«. He was the one, that forced Louise into the jeep. And he was the one to declaire: »I´m going to give some woman a slap tonight«.







In 1998, cypriot Supreme Court reduced the sentence to 25 years in prison on the grounds, that the lower Court had not taken into consideration their low age in time of the crime, their clean records and »the influence of alcohol as a mitigating factor«. Later on, the newly elected Glafcos Clerides granted a presidential partial pardon, reducing their prison time even more.
In 2002, they declined an offer of serving their sentence in a prison back in United Kingdom. Allan Ford was interviewed by The Times. »The conditions in Nicosia Central Prison is far better, that one would expect from an english prison.....« - he declaired.


Pressure from british military authorities and good behaviour finally resulted in a cypriot decision of releasing the three killers in august 2006. 13 years ahead of time. The forensic pathologist, Marcos Matsakis, that made the autopsy, is now a member of the European Parliament. He said: »What kind of country will release these killers, so that they can walk out of prison after having served only 11-12 years«.
Louises parents were horrified. They contacted the danish Minister of Justice, which forwarded a letter march 1´st to the cypriot ditto (Doros Theodorou) in urging him to change his decision. May 2006 the cypriot dept. of justice proclaimed, that the release would be carried through. In august 2006, the three brutal killers were quitely released and returned to England. They are now having a big jolly time.