British police charge man, 40, with the murders of 3 prostitutes in northern England

British prosecutors say they have charged a 40-year-old man with the murders of three prostitutes in northern England.

Stephen Griffiths is scheduled to appear in court in Bradford, about 200 miles  north of London, on Friday in connection with the killings of Suzanne Blamires, 36, who was last seen alive a week ago, Shelley Armitage, 31, and Susan Rushworth, 43.

Rushworth, a mother of three, has not been seen since last June and Armitage disappeared last month. The three women knew each other well, according to the Times of London.

Body parts of one of the victims was discovered in a river in Shipley, in northern England, earlier this week.

Griffiths, who was brought up in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, was educated from 1983 to 1986 at the town’s fee-paying Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. He later earned a degree in psychology at the University of Leeds, the Times of London reported..

For the past six years he has been studying at the University of Bradford, where he is said to have been a model student. He was comparing modern policing methods with investigations by detectives in the 19th century.

Griffiths is thought never to have worked and is understood to have survived on grants and disability benefits.

Blamires’ mother, Nicky Blamires, 54, said last night that they were “human beings who were also people’s daughters and didn’t deserve to die like this. Unfortunately, my daughter went down the wrong path and she didn’t have the life she was meant to have.”

Shipley was one of the towns plagued in the late 1970s and early 1980s by serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, who was convicted in 1981 of 13 murders.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click here to read more on this story from the Times of London.