Meet Edward Paisnel – a serial rapist who wore a ghastly rubber mask during his attacks to instill fear in his victims and conceal his identity.
Between 1957 and 1971, Paisnel, known as “The Beast of Jersey,” terrorized the island of Jersey in the English Channel by committing at least 13 documented sexual assaults, targeting women and children.
Wearing a wig, a ghastly rubber mask, and homemade cloth bracelets with nails sticking out of them, Paisnel would attack lone women, often at remote bus stops, and rape them in fields.
Over time, as his confidence grew, Paisnel began to enter family homes at night, where he would rape his victims, having obsessively studied their routines and movements.
For 14 years, Paisnel attacked women, girls, and young boys, and even reportedly used his access to a children’s home to feed his depravity.
Despite repeated appeals for help and questioning of 30,000 people, Paisnel evaded capture until 1971, when he was stopped by police for running a red light in a stolen car.
After a short-lived chase, Paisnel crashed through a fence into a tomato field and was arrested.
While searching Paisnel’s home, police found a secret room containing a studded raincoat, homemade wigs and hats, and false eyebrows.
In December 1971, Paisnel was sentenced to 30 years in prison for multiple counts of assault, rape, and sodomy.
After his release in 1991, the Beast of Jersey briefly returned to Jersey but faced public hostility, which forced him to relocate to the Isle of Wight.
Paisnel died of a heart attack in 1994.
