Birmingham blackmailer caught after naked display

Nov 29 2009 by Mark Cowan, Sunday Mercury

A SUPERMARKET blackmailer who took on the identity of a Dirty Harry movie villain was caught after being arrested for parading naked around his living room.

In a chilling ransom note Mark David Hazel threatened to “kill and maim” three people at a Co-op in Erdington, Birmingham, unless he was paid £3  million.

He signed the letter Scorpio, the name of the killer who held San Francisco to ransom in the hit 1971 film starring Clint Eastwood.

Unfortunately for bungling Hazel, 39, he was easier to catch that his movie namesake.

He had left his thumbprint on the blackmail demand, which was written in his own handwriting.

His fingerprints were taken following his arrest after neighbours complained about his naked displays earlier this year – and cops found the match.

On Wednesday Hazel was jailed for 15 months at Birmingham Crown Court after pleading guilty to blackmail.

The investigation had begun more than a year earlier when a shocked member of staff at the supermarket discovered the ransom letter amongst regular mail.

The chilling note began: “It will be my greatest pleasure to select at random three people in your store then kill and main the people if my demands of three million pounds are not met.

“I will kill anybody in your store, whether it is staff, guards anybody shopping in the store if my demands are not met.”

The note ended: “If you are not willing to pay or heavens above get the fuzz involved then there will be no second chances.”

The 14-line demand, written in block capitals on A4 lined paper, was signed ‘Scorpio’.

The letter, which arrived on Thursday July 17 last year, gave the store until ‘Thursday July 22’ to respond with an advert in a local newspaper.

As the erroneous deadline July 22 was actually a Tuesday, security was stepped up around the store as detectives worked around the clock in the hunt for the extortionist.

Detectives investigated all ex-workers to see if any of them bore a grudge against the store and current employees were also looked into in case any were dissatisfied.

A thumbprint found on the back of the envelope offered a potential clue to the blackmailer’s identity – but there was no match on the national fingerprint database.

The day eventually passed without incident.

No further ransom notes were received and cops had exhausted all leads in the hunt for the author of the blood curdling note – until February this year.

That’s when unemployed Hazel was arrested following a complaint from neighbours concerned after he was seen walking naked around his bedsit.

No charges were ever brought against him, but his fingerprints were taken.

A week later, detectives on West Midlands Police’s Serious and Organised Crime Unit received a call: Hazel’s dabs matched the print found on the envelope in their dormant Co-op blackmail case.