Suspected ‘Scalp Hunter’ serial killer ‘holds key to at least three murders of unidentified women’

A SUSPECTED serial killer dubbed the Scalp Hunter is believed to hold the key to at least three more murders.

John Sweeney, 66, is already serving life for two gruesome murders.

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Suspected serial killer John Sweeney, dubbed the Scalp Hunter, is believed to hold the key to at least three more murders[/caption]

Now his name is being linked to an Interpol appeal over the remains of 22 women found on the continent.

Operation Identify Me includes three murders in the Netherlands where Sweeney worked in the 1990s.

They match his method of decapitating victims and disposing of bodies in waterways.

Ex-Met detective Colin Sutton urged Dutch police to look at the link.

He said: “The Met will have lots of information on his movements. They will willingly share that.

“The striking similarity of these murders is such that efforts should be made to eliminate or implicate him — and I am sure that will happen.”

Liverpool-born Sweeney was given a whole life tariff in 2011 for murdering US-born Melissa Halstead, 33, in Rotterdam in 1990 and mum-of-three Paula Fields, 31, in London in 2001.

He also attacked ex Delia Balmer with an axe at her London home in 1994 but she survived.

He then fled abroad.

Sweeney earned his Scalp Hunter nickname from one of his many gruesome sketches.

He has refused to talk to police about his murders, telling them only that he had 30 to 40 ­relationships while working on building sites in Europe.