EVIL Mark Corner was embarking on a modern-day Jack the Ripper-style killing spree when he was caught, the ECHO can reveal today.

The schizophrenic believed he was on a mission to kill prostitutes.

Corner ended the lives of two prostitutes within 24 hours and detectives are certain he intended to murder more.

It was only because Margi Stephen, sister of second victim Pauline Stephen, said she was missing that police were able to stop more deaths.

Corner was today detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act after pleading guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The officer who led the hunt for Corner, Detective Chief Inspector Lol Carr, said: "There is no doubt this man would have killed more prostitutes.

"He took the lives of two women and there would certainly have been others if we had not got to him."

Corner began plotting the deaths after leaving his mother and father's house and moving into a flat in St Domingo Vale, Everton.

Around a week later the part-time security guard, who had used prostitutes for years, struck for the first time.

After having sex with Hanane Parry, 19, he strangled her then bundled the body into the bath.

There, he hacked the young woman's body to pieces with a kitchen knife and put it into bin bags.

The next morning Corner, who had only petty convictions to his name, began planning his next killing and bought tools and saws from a DIY shop.

As darkness fell he picked up mother-of-one Pauline Stephen, 25, in the red-light area close to his home.

Corner strangled Ms Stephen after they had sex then cut up and stuffed her body into bin bags in the same way he had done with Ms Parry 24 hours earlier.

Corner carried the bin bags to the alleyway behind his flat and buried them under a stack of rubbish.

But detectives were soon on Corner's trail.

Ms Stephen's sister, Margi, told police the prostitute had not been seen since she left her Skelmers-dale home to work the streets of Everton.

Her mother, Pat Brown, told how her daughter would not leave her eight-year-old son.

An appeal to trace Netherton-born Ms Stephen was launched. Police found her white Ford Escort car abandoned close to Corner's flat and a search of the area began.

Nine days after Ms Parry was killed, DCI Carr was told officers had found body parts in bin bags.

A post mortem confirmed they were dealing with a double murder.

As police carried on searching the St Domingo Vale area news came through of a vital breakthrough.

Corner's brother, Ian, had gone to Crosby police station and told shocked officers his brother was responsible for the two deaths.

Detectives raided Corner's St Domingo Vale flat and found traces of blood in the bathroom and tools used in the killings.

More body parts were found hidden in Stanley Park.

Corner was tracked to his parents' terrace house in Walton.

When officers went to the door Corner came out holding a knife but after being calmed down was taken away in a police van.