Darkness for Light?

Or revenge for the past...

You know Hannibal Lecter?

Everyone knows this scene:

Lecter, who is so dangerous that he haws to be kept in a see through cell so they always know what he’s up to? Yeah, that guy. What would you say if I told you that there is a guy that actually is kept that way in the UK? His name is Robert Maudsley, and currently, he is seventy-one years old. He has been in prison for fifty-one years, and a great deal of that time seventeen thousand days, he has been isolated from his fellow prisoners.

Why?

Because he has a nasty habit of killing them, and with some of them, taking a very long time to do so. However, before we get to the murders, we have to look at his childhood. I am not a person that gives a damn about serial killers. What I know of them came from a few different things.

1. I am a psychopath who writes about psychopathy. That means, everyone and their mom’s dad’s, girlfriend’s dog’s mailman’s waiter, in Tucson that one time her was there, asks me about serial killers. In many people’s minds, psychopaths are serial killers. In fact, there is a stupid saying, “All serial killers are psychopaths, but not all psychopaths are serial killers.” Good lord, this is so far from the truth. Most serial killers are neurotypical, but because this belief is so pervasive, I have to know about the mental workings of some serial killers so I can debunk the nonsense.

2. I like understanding things like criminal investigations. I have watched a lot of things like Forensic Files, read the books written by Roy Hazelwood, John Douglas, Robert Ressler, etc. This often involves cases of serial killers. It’s just part of the deal.

3. People who know more about serial killers than I do, inform me of things about them, often because it coincides with my assertion that the most notable serial killers are nowhere near being psychopathic.

All right, now that we have covered that, and I do think that it’s important for me to make my disclaimers to prevent people from asking me about some obscure serial killer that I have never heard of and has little to no information about available for research, whether or not I think they are a psychopath. I don’t know.

Now, onto Robert Maudsley and his crappy childhood, and terrible parents. Oh, and if you are looking for what creates a serial killer, based on what I have seen, a lot of it comes back to the mother. A lot. Just something to think about.

So, Mr Maudsley.

Robert Maudsley was born on June 26, 1953, in Toxteth, Liverpool, England, into a large, working-class family. His early life was marked by significant hardship and trauma, which would later shape his troubled path. Shortly after his birth—around six months old—he and three of his older siblings (Paul, Kevin, and Brenda) were removed from their parents’ care due to neglect and their parents’ inability to cope with the demands of such a large family. The neighbors noticed that the children were being neglected and abused and reported this to authorities. They were placed in Nazareth House, a Catholic orphanage in Crosby, Liverpool, run by nuns.

This actually was great for him and for his siblings. Robert did really well under the structure of the orphanage. They thrived under having a routine and expectations. Oh yes, and food. They thrived having food, go figure. But, you know that isn’t going to last. Nope, not at all. He lived there for eight years, and keep in mind, this is all he knows. He was six months old when he was taken from his parents, and they didn’t exactly keep in contact. He knew his siblings, the nuns, and the orphanage. However, selfish people are going to selfish, so…

Their parents, out of the blue, decide, “You know what? We should get go get our four children out of the orphanage so they can meet their younger siblings.” That’s right, they had more kids after the first set were removed from them. Nice, right? They didn’t just have like one or two, they had SIX. Six more children, making Robert the fourth of twelve. Just… wow.

Can you imagine being taken away at six months, and living in an orphanage, only to find out that your horrible parents gave birth to six more victims? That’s just messy. Things now, in Robert’s life, and I also am certain in his siblings’ lives, go very poorly for all of them. The reunion marked the beginning of a deeply traumatic chapter for Robert. His parents, particularly his father George, subjected him and his siblings to severe physical abuse. Paul later recounted that their father would beat them with his fists, a belt, or a stick, while their mother, Jean, often instigated or enabled the violence.

For Robert, the abuse was especially intense. He later stated, “All I remember of my childhood is the beatings,” describing a particularly harrowing period when he was locked in a room for six months, with his father entering only to beat him multiple times a day, sometimes four to six times, depending on his mood. During this time he was totally isolated from everyone else, other than his abuser, and it took a big toll on his mental health. Robert stated that the reason he was singled out, was because he was the only one that stood up to his father, thus making him the target child.

The house itself was disgusting. It was two or three bedrooms, for fourteen people. This is nowhere near enough room for the family. It was never cleaned, so it was positively filthy. All of the siblings shared a room, but there weren’t enough mattresses for everyone, so instead, the children would create makeshift beds out of clothing to sleep on. How there was enough floor space for twelve people, I have no idea. The clothing that they wore, and subsequently slept on, were never cleaned. Food in the house was scarce, leaving the children malnourished, and causing the children to have to steal to have enough to eat.

This is not the extent of the trauma, however. Robert stated that his father began frequently raping him. This left him with profound and deep psychological scars. He was in his parent’s him for a little more than a year, but then was removed again by social services. His siblings remained with their parents, Robert was the only one removed, which tells me that the abuse he suffered was far worse than his siblings. However, I would guess, once he was removed, someone took his place. That’s how it usually goes.

Robert was placed in a foster home. Details about the foster home itself are scarce. Unlike his time at Nazareth House, where he and his siblings described a relatively structured and caring environment under the nuns, Maudsley has not publicly spoken at length about his foster care experience.

Biographies and accounts of his life tend to gloss over this period, suggesting it was neither a dramatically positive nor notably abusive chapter compared to what came before and after. It’s likely that the foster placement was intended as a safer alternative to his abusive home, but there’s no evidence it provided the stability or emotional support needed to heal his deep-seated trauma. Given his later statements about his childhood being dominated by memories of beatings and his subsequent descent into instability, the foster home does not appear to have been a turning point or a place of significant recovery for him.

Regardless of whether the foster experience was a good, bad, or indifferent one, he ran away from it at sixteen, and fell hard into a drug habit. He had to sell himself in order to support it, which furthered his internal psychological downfall. He had many suicide attempts, and began to hear voices. Invariably, the voiced told him, kill your parents. These voices and his own trauma made him continually focus on wanting to cause harm to his parents. Robert was rapidly deteriorating. He sought psychological help, detailing these voices, and what they were telling him, to the doctors.

Unfortunately, his experiences with psychological care were both brief, and sporadic. No real treatment is known about for this time period, and he continued being pulled under the quagmire that was his mental health. What’s striking is the apparent lack of follow-through. Maudsley’s drug addiction, homelessness, and sex work would have complicated any treatment plan, and the system at the time wasn’t well-equipped to manage such a high-risk, disengaged individual. During this time, he was also raped by an acquaintance. His cries for help, such as reporting voices and attempting suicide, went unheeded in any meaningful way, as he remained on the streets until his first murder in 1974.

His first victim was John Farrell. John Farrell was a laborer from Liverpool, though little is known about his personal life beyond the circumstances of his encounter with Maudsley. On the day of the murder, Farrell was in London and reportedly picked up Maudsley for sexual services in Wood Green, a district in North London. Here there is a lot of conflicting information regarding the relationship between Farrell and Maudsley. Some state that they were in a relationship and dating for about six months, while others claim that it was a purely transactional relationship, and that this was thr first time that they had met. I am more inclined to believe that they were in some sort of arrangement that went beyond transactional sex, and we will get into why I believe this in a bit.

On a day in May of 1974, the two were going to meet up and have sex. The exact date of the murder is unknown, and you will find it varies or is omitted out of documentation. They were meeting at Farrell’s flat, which makes me suspect this is a normal thing that he has done in the past. Inviting random drug addicted prostitutes to your home is not exactly a great way to stay breathing, but by that token, he does end up getting murdered… sooooo maybe Farrell was just an idiot who was not particularly interested in self-preservation.

Robert arrives, he is high on drugs, which go figure, he’s an addict, and prostitution is hard on the mind, especially for victim of previous sexual abuse, and things progress as you would imagine that they would. While in Farrell’s bed, Robert states that he got up to retrieve something that he wanted to show Robert. Out of his dresser, Farrell pulls out a stack of photographs. He returns to the bed, and asks Robert, “Hey, what do you think of these photos?”.

All of them are child rape and/or exploitation images. In some of them. Farrell is there, abusing the children himself. Apparently, Farrell thought this would arouse Robert, and wanted to share them to make things more interesting. He even asked Robert if he could help recreate these images.

Robert did not have the response that Farrell wanted him to. Instead, he was absolutely horrified. It called to mind all of the abuse that he was inflicted with when he was a child. His mind became foggy, and then flashbacks started to play behind his eyes. John Farrell has, in Robert’s mind, taken the place of his father, and the voices in his head have been telling him for years to kill his father, and Robert snaps.

On the floor is a piece of rope, maybe there from previous sexual activites. Robert grabs this rope and strangles John Farrell to death. Farrell fought for his life, and lost. He also stabbed his body multiple times. He also found a hammer, and smashed in Farrell’s skull. This was Robert Maudsley’s first kill. Afterward, he didn’t feel guilty, he felt justified and believed he had relieved the world of a predator. he believed that he protected numerous future victims with his actions. Provided his story of what happened is true, he is correct about that. Predators like that do not have any inclination to stop victimizing people.

Later, Maudsley stated that at the time of the murder, he knew that what he had done was wrong, and that he did deserve punishment. However, he also stated that even knowing this, he didn’t care. That Farrell was a pedophile, and got what was coming to him. That afternoon, he turned himself in to the police. He walked up to the front desk of the station and stated that he had murdered someone and he wanted to tell them about it.

He was questioned for hours, but Robert was completely honest with what he had done, and why. He stated that Farrell deserved to die for what he had done.

Before you ask, I have no idea if they found the photographs at the scene. I wondered that too, because it would validate what Robert claimed happened that day. Unfortunately, his crimes weren’t part of public interest at that point, so the investigation details of what the police found, and whether it corroborated what Robert states happened. Granted, this is 1974, and I don’t know to what degree the police would have shared any of this information anyway. It seems that his immediate confession likely would have ended the case there and then. He murdered the dude, and confessed. Off to prison with you, sir.

Maudsley goes to trial, and the court sees the his history of atrocious sexual and phsycial abuse, drug addiction, suicide attempts, his hearing of voices, multiple hospitalizations for his mental health, and decided that he was unfit to stand trial, and to send him to Broadmoor hospital. Broadmoor is a rather imfamous high security, psychiatric hospital. It was built in 1863 and was the world’s first asylum for criminally insane. It was designed to house those that fell within that category, but also supposed to treat them. The patients there are not considered safe to be in the general population of the prison system. It has housed many notorious criminals in UK history.

So, Robert Maudsley is sent off to Broadmoor, and we will pick up there next week. You might think, if he was imprisoned after one murder, how did he end up being classed as a “serial killer”. Well, that’s where it will get even more interesting, and we will get there next week.