A SERIAL killer whose victims included a man found beaten to death at his home near Whitchurch has died in a secure hospital.

Robin Stanislaw Ligus, from Baschurch, had been held in hospital since 2011, after being found guilty of the murders of three men in the 1990s.

He was told in 2011 that he would remain in custody for life, and it has now been confirmed that he has passed away at the age of 71. 

Ligus first received a life sentence for the murder of Robert Young, whom he killed during a burglary of the victim’s home in Shrewsbury in 1996.

In 2011, he was charged with the killing of three other men in the county from 1994, but it was ruled that he was only responsible for two of them.

At the time, a jury found that Ligus was responsible for the killing of 53-year-old Trevor Bradley, whose body was found in a burnt out car at Melverley, near Oswestry, in April, 1994, and for the murder of 57 year old Brian Coles, who was beaten to death with an iron bar at his home in Higher Heath, Whitchurch, in October of the same year.

But the jury acquitted Ligus of involvement in the death of Bernard Czyzewska, whose body was found in the River Severn, in November 1994.

The serial killer, who used to live in Shrewbsury, was a former painter and decorator, and a father of three at the time of the killings.

The prosecution claimed Ligus was a heroin and cocaine user and had committed the crimes to obtain money for his drug addiction.

At the 2011 trial, the judge had taken the advice of clinical experts before sentencing Ligus, and he ordered for him to be detained indefinitely in a secure hospital, having suffered from the effects of a stroke.

Ligus was jailed for life in 1996 for killing Mr Young, 75, in October, 1994, and was charged by West Mercia police with the murders of Mr Bradley, Mr Coles and Mr Czyzewska, in September 2010 after a cold case review.

The coroner's office for Birmingham and Solihull confirmed that an inquest into his death will be opened on Monday, January 9 in Birmingham.