British police said this evening they had charged their chief suspect with the grizzly double murders of twin sisters and an elderly couple.
"Mark Hobson has been charged with the murders of Claire and Diane Sanderson and the murders of Joan and James Britton," a North Yorkshire police spokesman said in a statement.
He will appear before Harrogate magistrates tomorrow. Police launched a massive investigation after the naked bodies of the 27-year-old Sanderson sisters were found dead in an apartment in the village of Camblesforth on July 18th.
Diane had been strangled and both women had been violently attacked.
Later the same day, the bodies of an elderly couple, 80-year-old former Spitfire pilot James Britton and his 82-year-old wife Joan, were found stabbed and beaten to death in the nearby village of Strensall.
Shortly afterwards, police began looking for Claire Sanderson's boyfriend Hobson (34).
He was arrested in a field at Shipton-by-Beningbrough, a village five miles (9 km) north of York, after a week-long nationwide manhunt involviong more than 300 officers.
He had been spotted shortly beforehand at a petrol station where he had gone to buy matches, cigarette papers and water.
PA