Until I Kill You is based on the true story of Delia Balmer, who had an abusive relationship with her serial killer boyfriend, John Sweeney.
Balmer has accounted for her time with Sweeney and all that she endured during that time in her autobiographical book Living with a Serial Killer (2017).
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The book was then adapted into a British true-crime docuseries, aired on ITV1/ITVX in the United Kingdom on 3 November 2024.
Until I Kill You is written by Nick Stevens and follows Balmer's relationship with John Sweeney, a man convicted for the murders and the disappearance of many women. The series stars Anna Maxwell Martin and Shaun Evans.
The series first aired on TVNZ+ in New Zealand on 7 April 2024. It then appeared on the Canadian channel Hollywood Suite on 18 April 2024 before debuting on ITV.
Details about Delia Balmer and her abusive relationship with Sweeney as told in Until I Kill You in our story.
Who is Delia Balmer? Until I Kill You explores her relationship with serial killer John Sweeney
Balmer was born in Canada and hoped to be a dancer. Later, she moved to the UK to work as a nurse.
She met Sweeney at a pub in Camden in 1991 and the two began a relationship. The couple soon moved in together. But Balmer soon started realizing Sweeney's sinister behavior where he would call her at all times of the day and emotionally manipulate her.
Balmer later recounted in her book that she should have paid attention to his changing behavior. Eventually, Sweeney turned violent and started abusing Balmer. Balmer also found a body disposal kit consisting of Marigold gloves, rope, a saw, and a plastic sheet in his bag.
When Sweeney assaulted a man in Germany in 1994, she left him and changed her locks. However, Sweeney managed to get inside the house, tied Balmer to the bed, and held her hostage for four days.
He also confessed to murdering his former girlfriend, Melissa Halstead. Balmer managed an escape, and Sweeney was arrested. However, he was shortly bailed out and was vengeful against his ex-girlfriend.
In December 1994, Sweeney again attacked Balmer and cut off her finger with an axe. She was saved by one of her neighbors. While Balmer recovered from her injuries in the hospital, Sweeney went on a run.
"My concern has always been to get the truth out by whatever means. I remain an angry person. Sweeney was let out on bail. The police gave me insufficient protection before his final assault. Later, I was forced to go to court to be further traumatised by the system."
What other crimes did John Sweeney commit in Until I Kill You?
Until I Kill You adapts Balmer's nightmarish relationship with her boyfriend. But this was not Sweeney's first abusive relationship.
Sweeney confessed to Balmer to have murdered his ex-girlfriend, 33-year-old Melissa Halstead, and two other men in Amsterdam. When Halstead ran away from him in 1986, he found her in Vienna in 1988 and attacked her with a hammer.
Despite that, the couple reconciled in 1990, but Halstead went missing in 1991. Police later found her dismembered body in a Rotterdam canal.
Until I Kill You also recounts the killer's other victims. He was also linked with the murder of Paula Fields, whose remains were found in Regent's Canal, Camden in 2001.
The police found 300 paintings depicting violent crimes and a poem titled 'Scalp Hunter' in Sweeney's London home. The killer is famously nicknamed 'Scalp Hunter'.
Balmer suffered life-altering injuries and changes in her body, which she has reminisced about in her memoir-
"I'm an angry person and I've been very bitter, and I'm still quite bitter. I don't like the damage done to this body. It need not have happened."
Sweeney, aged 67, is still in prison, where he will remain imprisoned for the rest of his life.
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