him. After Martin was sentenced to death, she reiterated: His mother gave Scripps £200 to go overseas after his arrest. To avoid recapture, he used the birth certificate of another inmate, Simon James Davis, to get a passport in Davis's name. Within a month of his escape, he turned up in Mexico as John Martin. He reported to the British Embassy there that he had lost his passport, and managed to get a replacement. Martin arrived in Singapore from San Francisco at about 2 a.m. SST on 8 March 1995 (6 p.m. UTC on 7 March). Murder of tourists Martin killed at least three people in Singapore and Thailand, and was investigated for other murders in Belize, Mexico, and the United States. His modus operandi was to pose as a tourist and converse with another randomly chosen Caucasian, either aboard their flights or while waiting at airports. He stayed in the same hotels as his victims in a room near theirs. Once he had an excuse to be in their rooms, he used an electroshock weapon to immobilise them before killing them by striking their heads with a hammer and cutting them up in their bathrooms. He chose Caucasians as his victims because they were vacationing far away from their home countries, which made him less likely to be discovered. His motive apparently included money, as large amounts were withdrawn using the credit cards of Gerard Lowe and Timothy MacDowall. Gerard Lowe Gerard George Lowe came from Johannesburg, South Africa. He was a chemical engineer with South African Breweries. He went to Singapore to shop for electrical and electronic goods. Before he left Johannesburg on 7 March 1995, he told his wife Vanessa, a local airlines employee, his exact schedule, saying: "I will call you the moment I check into the hotel to give you the contact number. If you do not hear from me on 10 March, it would mean that I would have a seat on the plane to return to South Africa and would arrive home on 11 March. But if I do call you on 10 March, that would mean that I have not managed to get a seat and would return on 12 March." When Lowe arrived at Singapore Changi Airport on the morning of 8 March, he was approached by Martin (under the assumed name of Simon Davis), who struck up a conversation with