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29 December 2014, 12:18 | Updated: 29 December 2014, 12:38
Harry Street, a mass killer who shot five people dead in 1978, has died in prison of a suspected heart attack.
Formerly known as Barry Williams, the 70 year old, who suffered from Paranoid Schizophrenia, killed three of his neighbours in West Bromwich and a couple who ran a petrol station in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, during the shooting spree. He was committed to Broadmoor in 1979 after admitting five counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
He had been freed from jail in 1995, and lived in Hall Green, Birmingham until he was arrested again in October of this year when six guns, dozens of home-made bullets and a makeshift bomb were found at his home. Sentencing Street on October 6 this year, Mr Justice Blair ordered the pensioner to be detained in conditions of high security due to the nature of his previous offences and his ability to procure and modify weapons.
Mr Street was pronounced dead on Christmas Eve after being taken ill at the high-security Ashworth Hospital on Merseyside. A spokesman for Ashworth Hospital said: "A patient in long-term care at Ashworth Hospital has been admitted to general hospital after becoming acutely physically unwell. He died in hospital at 9.49am on December 24 2014.''