Max Parry was born in Willesdon, a suburban area of North London. His father was a teacher and his mother an interior designer. He was a happy child, performed well at school and studied media at West Sussex Polytechnic.
In 1988 his parents were killed in a car crash. Too distraught to attend the funeral, Parry dropped out of college and travelled Europe. Two years later he re-emerged, making a living as a wedding photographer and although he remained in contact with his remaining family, they soon became aware that he had changed. 'He was bitter' his sister recalls 'criticising people for wasting their lives'.
On the surface, Parry lived a normal life. He had friends, girlfriends and employed an assistant, James Dalrymple to help run his wedding video business, but underneath, his trangression to murder was almost complete. In 1997 Parry claims to have rescued a suicidal stranger David Cummings from drowning in a river, but six months later he pushed Cummings off a tower block for 'continuing to be miserable with his life'.
What followed was a killing spree, recorded on videotape, which claimed the lives of six people before Helen Butler became his seventh victim. It was through her murder that Parry revealed his Modus Operandi; the diary he was recording was a confused attempt at understanding his own psychosis.
Instead of choosing victims at random, Parry developed a cunning ploy to engage them in his project before killing them. He rented a video cassette entitled The Last Horror Movie and recorded over it with his own 'snuff' footage. He then returned it to the video store and waited for the next person to rent it.
It was this desperate attempt to understand his condition that eventually exposed Max Parry, linking him to over fifteen murders.