The Southbank Centre has removed a work on display after learning that it was created by the murderer of two teenage girls.

The visual and performing arts center bought the work, titled Bringing Music to Life, after seeing it in an exhibition of art organized by the Koestler Trust, which helps prison inmates create, show, and sell artworks.

The artist, Colin Pitchfork, was jailed for life in 1988 after raping and strangling Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth, both 15. He was caught in a mass DNA screening of 5,000 men and was the first person in the U.K. to be convicted based on DNA evidence.

Mann's mother, Kath Eastwood, said she was disgusted when she learned that the museum had paid £600 for the work.

"He's been rewarded now — the families of both victims are left to carry on suffering and going without their family," she said.

"'We very much regret any offence that we've caused and have taken the artwork off display," a representative from the Southbank Centre said. "We are presently in conversation with the Koestler Trust about future policy."