AS the frantic pounding at the front door got louder and louder, Edd Hedges’ mind flooded with fear and panic.
Outside his Essex home was a childhood bully he thought he’d finally had the last laugh over – now, that same tormentor was caked in blood on his doorstep and screaming as whirring police helicopters closed in overhead.
SuppliedEdd Hedges has told his extraordinarily chilling story involving a childhood bully[/caption]
Essex PoliceBrett Rogers tormented Edd throughout his younger years growing up in an Essex village[/caption]
Stephen HuntleyA bloodbath played out on the streets of the tiny village of Stansted Mountfitchet[/caption]
Comedian Edd, 31, whose chilling horror movie-like ordeal has been turned into an unlikely stand-up show and hit podcast, admits he endured a “really bad upbringing” in the tiny village of Stansted Mountfitchet near Bishops Stortford.
One source of trouble – aside from being overweight, dyslexic, and asthmatic – was a local bully named Brett Rogers.
The thug was a constant, nasty menace who bullied Edd from pillar to post, despite being mates with his brother Sam.
“I was the kid whose hair was always too big for my head,” Edd tells The Sun. “I had big teeth. I was nothing.
“But it’s a standard bullying story. Handsome kid who’s good at football versus chubby kid who can’t read.
“Brett was never allowed to come to our house because my parents knew that he would be mean to me.
“Sam always turned a blind eye to it. I think it’s one of those things where he claimed he didn’t know what was going on.
“But it probably happened like that because me and my oldest brother weren’t close at all.”
In a small town, Rogers thought he was the big man, a future football star whose dreams were eventually dashed by a hip problem. He ended up working as a milkman.
Flashforward to that fateful summer’s evening on July 22, 2015, and the world looked a different place for Edd.
Having left school and become a rising star on the comedy circuit, he returned to Stansted Mountfitchet for a triumphant homecoming gig.
The local villagers had seen his rave reviews in the papers, and at £3 a ticket, his show was packed out to the rafters, with proceeds going to help fix the local church roof.
He happily strolled home to his parents’ house to get some sleep, with plans to head up to Newcastle the next day for another show.
He drifted off, only to be woken 20 minutes later by his mother, who was frantically standing at the end of the bed.
Someone was trying to get into his house.
Darkest turn
In the years Edd had been away, Rogers’ life had taken a dark turn.
A long-term drug user who had displayed psychotic behaviour, police were called 14 times to the home of his mother, Gillian Phillips, who was separated from his father. On two occasions he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
His behaviour spiralled so badly that he was eventually sentenced to five years in jail for breaking his dad’s cheek bone and eye socket, only to be released halfway through in April 2015.
Rogers, then 23, returned home to live with his mum, 54, and her friend, David Oakes, 60, who she was caring for as he recovered from cancer.
But on the night of Wednesday, July 22, he snapped.
East NewsGillian Phillips was stabbed 47 times by her son, Rogers[/caption]
Essex PoliceHe also slaughtered taxi driver David Oakes[/caption]
In a frenzied bloodbath using seven different knives, he stabbed his own mother 47 times in the face and neck, also killing David, whose head was crushed beyond recognition.
Edd explains: “Brett killed, stabbed his mum in the face and neck and stamped on the family friend’s head completely, like flushed to the ground.
“He trod it down. They identified him because his footprint was on there.”
“He wrote, ‘I’m sorry’ on a piece of paper like a hundred times. Tore it all up and chucked it in the bin.”
Fleeing the scene, Rogers took to the streets.
“I think he’s just walking around the houses,” Edd says. “Then he starts banging on my front door.
“In reality all this only lasted six minutes. But it felt like forever.”
‘He’s covered in blood, laughing’
Why Rogers had turned up at Edd’s door remains unclear. What is certain is that, had he and his mum opened the door, their lives may have been in danger.
Instead, they barricaded themselves in the bathroom until the arrival of a police helicopter halted the siege.
Rogers, who had called the police himself, was arrested at the scene.
“He’s covered in blood,” says Edd. “When they find him he’s laughing manically.
“He’s sitting on the green, he’s ten feet away from my house when they find him. Pissing himself laughing.”
The sickening crime saw Rogers jailed for life for murder and sentenced to 32 years in jail.
The court heard how “copious” amounts of blood stained his mother’s house, coating walls and soaking into the carpet, their cream sofa and kitchen bin.
SuppliedEdd says he was routinely bullied as a kid[/caption]
AlamyHe has now turned his harrowing story into an unlikely stand-up comedy show[/caption]
In a chilling final twist, two years later, Rogers was strangled in his own cell by two inmates – a Christian and a Muslim – who claimed they were “ordered by God” to attack him. Both were handed life sentences.
While his own parents were left “wrecked” by the incident – “the next morning they were just in floods of tears”, says Edd – the stand-up comedian found a unique way to process the shocking events.
Earlier this summer, he retold the story for his debut solo Edinburgh fringe show, Wonderland. Now, it has also been turned into a six-part podcast, Wisecrack, which has remarkably topped the UK iTunes charts.
“I wanted to turn it to a storytelling night to kind of process it a little bit,” he explains, speaking to The Sun at CrimeCon in Denver.
“I was struggling to think of something to write for the Edinburgh Fringe. I spoke to a friend of mine and she asked, ‘What’s the weirdest, craziest story that’s ever happened to you?’
“And I was like, ‘Well, this.’ And she was like, ‘You should talk about that.’”
The show, he continues, examines that night, his childhood, his parents and his bully.
“Our lives kind of ran in parallel, but then at the very last minute we turned into different adults,” he says.
Edd admits he sometimes feels “dirty” telling a tale that left one family destroyed and another struggling to cope with the horror that darkened a village of just 8,000 residents.
“When I started telling the story, it wasn’t for gain. It was to process it,” he says. “Then people told me it was powerful, and it became part of the show.
“At the end of the day, you might see it and think it’s the most powerful thing – or the worst thing – you’ve ever seen.
“But I’ll never forget what happened.”
You can find Edd Hedges podcast Wisecrack, here.
Who are the UK’s worst serial killers?
THE UK’s most prolific serial killer was actually a doctor.
Here’s a rundown of the worst offenders in the UK.
British GP Harold Shipman is one of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history. He was found guilty of murdering 15 patients in 2000, but the Shipman Inquiry examined his crimes and identified 218 victims, 80 per cent of whom were elderly women.
After his death Jonathan Balls was accused of poisoning at least 22 people between 1824 and 1845.
Mary Ann Cotton is suspected of murdering up to 21 people, including husbands, lovers and children. She is Britain’s most prolific female serial killer. Her crimes were committed between 1852 and 1872, and she was hanged in March 1873.
Amelia Sach and Annie Walters became known as the Finchley Baby Farmers after killing at least 20 babies between 1900 and 1902. The pair became the first women to be hanged at Holloway Prison on February 3, 1903.
William Burke and William Hare killed 16 people and sold their bodies.
Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was found guilty in 1981 of murdering 13 women and attempting to kill seven others between 1975 and 1980.
Dennis Nilsen was caged for life in 1983 after murdering up to 15 men when he picked them up from the streets. He was found guilty of six counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to life in jail.
Fred West was found guilty of killing 12 but it’s believed he was responsible for many more deaths.
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