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Alright, welcome back to another episode of the Psychopedia Podcast. I am your co-host, Tank Sinatra, here with my co-host... Investigators later. And we are doing an early bird version of a case today. I just woke up two seconds ago.
I didn't, but this is very early for us. I didn't either. Yeah, basically it's light out and it's, you know, we'll see how the true crime fits into it. It reminds me of doing bar mitzvahs during the daytime when I used to dance at bar mitzvahs. Totally different thing. I used to dance at bar mitzvahs too, as you know. Right. There's daytime reception is not the same as a nighttime. It's not the same. Nighttime's for parties. Daytime is for...
work, I guess. I don't know, but we're working now. Yeah, but it's also a party, so. Such a good point. I do feel better. Okay, so before we get into the case this week, I have a crime that I was a victim of that I would like to report. Wow. I did not get a deal on Shark Tank. That was criminal. I mean, it's. Yeah, but you still killed it.
Oh, yeah. I murdered it. I murdered it. No, it was... I can talk about it now because the episode has aired. I was on an episode of Shark Tank pitching my influencers in the wild board game, which is a board game where you travel around the world, go to all these different influencer hotspots. You rack up followers instead of money. It's a grand old time. But I asked for...
way too much money. That was a heavy hitting number you came out with. I need 50 million for 1%. Like I just, you know, you would have gotten a deal if you came out with a smaller number. A hundred percent. They were totally behind the game and the concept and you. Yeah. But that number, man, I know I didn't think about it. I just like, do you didn't have anybody advising you? Oh, I did. I, I, I, I fucking blew it. Basically I am both the perpetrator and the victim here.
It was so hard to get yourself on the show that by the time it came time to like give the numbers and the sales and all that, I was like, ah, they'll figure it out. Like we've only been in stores for two weeks. What am I going to do? Tell them what I sold in two weeks. That's embarrassing.
That's true. When you recorded this, right? It was a while back. It was a while ago. Yeah. I didn't want to talk about the numbers. So I just kind of made, I literally said in the episode, Mark Cuban's like, these numbers are crazy. I was like, yeah, I made them up, bro. Like what?
Someone from the episode, she's like, oh my God, I loved when you said I made the numbers up. She's like, that made me laugh so hard. It's like, yeah. And that's what you do, Tank, at the end of the day. You make people laugh. I was just there to make people laugh. So the point of me bringing this up is,
If you're a psychopedia fan and you love us and you want me to not lose my house, go to Amazon right now and buy The Influencers and The Wild Games. That's the point of this. Yeah, yeah. Well, no, the point was a joke that I was a victim of a crime. But as I'm talking about it, I realized that I was actually the idiot in this situation.
Doesn't change the fact that I need to sell these games and I'm going to lose my house if I don't. I just want to tell you though, that episode was a great look for you. I know you didn't get the deal and obviously that's what you went on there for, but you killed the pitch. Every single one of them said that they follow you. Yeah. Right? They gave you great suggestions at the end there, like how to maybe change the box that the board came from. Yeah, go to all 1900 stores and put stickers on each of the three or four boxes they have in inventory. It was a good suggestion. I'm not saying that you can execute on it, but it was a good suggestion. Yeah.
Question, serious question. Is it a good suggestion if you can't execute on it? Serious answer, yes.
Oh, okay. Maybe you're going to sell out what you have and your next round. Oh, next round for sure. But the games that are out there are already out there. That's the hard part. Well, listen, you did great on the show. We were with you watching it on TV. Very, very proud of my co-host. Yes, we watched it together. You came over with the family, minus the younger son because he was sick. But, you know, he's okay now, I think. He is. Yeah. And we had a great time. I ordered food. You didn't eat it. I didn't know you were going to serve food.
Yeah, you said you had what? 42 ounce ribeye before you came over? She's like, I'm stuffed. I couldn't even eat a piece of pizza. I was like, I got all this pizza and salads too. But anyway, if you didn't see the episode of Shark Tank, go watch it. And yeah, influencersinthewild.com, please help me save my life. This is basically like a GoFundMe, but you get a game with it. Okay. So now...
Now, as we sink into this sure to be brutal episode, that's the other thing. Like it's daytime right now and I'm about to be dragged through some emotional turmoil and I don't know if I'm ready for it, but we will find out. What else would you rather be doing than true crime on a beautiful sunny day? Not a thing. Right. Not a thing. So without further ado, let's hear the case.
On March 21st, 1975, in the bathroom of a small cottage in the tiny Kent village of Shorn, England, a 64-year-old Roman Catholic priest named Father Anthony Crean floated in a bathtub filled to the brim with his own blood. Weird. His eyes remained wide open and his mind alert. What? Though Father Crean was completely unable to move his body as it slowly began to submerge into the crimson darkness. What?
Oh my God, this is already horrific. After an hour of panic-stricken, motionless lingering in the tub,
Father Crean finally died in a sea of his own blood, still wearing his clerical collar. Father Crean had been the chaplain to a small convent of Carmelite nuns that ran a nursing home for the elderly. He was a generous and forgiving man who just two years earlier had befriended a young man from a troubled home who looked to him for guidance and friendship.
Now that same troubled young man was standing triumphantly over the priest's body, holding a bloody ax. Already so bad. Have you ever seen the movie Lovely Bones? No, but you've mentioned it before and it's a book. Yes. It's a book and a movie and there's a scene. So I watched it with my stepdaughter when she was like,
Really? Eight? Sounds appropriate. Oh, I mean, well, she's like tough, you know? She's like, I could, dude, I'll watch this. They're all tough until you put them in front of a horror movie. Until there's a scene with a completely white background because it's like a visualization of, you know, whatever it is.
The main character, I think, I don't remember who it was exactly, is sitting in a bathtub filled with blood. And at that point, I looked back over at her to see if she was okay. And I was like, are you okay? And she was like, yeah. What? Yeah, her eyes were bugged out of her head. She definitely, that's one of those movies, like my mom got the movie Ghoulies instead of Goonies one time when I was five or six. From Blockbuster? Yeah.
Pathmark. Okay. When they used to rent movies there. She pops it in, goes into the kitchen. We're all sitting there. All of a sudden, there's literally a sacrifice going on and the woman is screaming. And we're all like freaking the hell out. We're like, what is this? Where's sloth? Like what's going on? And she looks at-
She looks at the box. She's like, oh my God, it's Ghoulies, not Goonies. And then she has to pay for therapy for all of you. Ghoulies were the little monsters that came out of the toilet and bit you on the butt. Oh my God. Yeah, it was really scary. I couldn't sit on the toilet for like two weeks after that. I saw Psycho.
During my formative years. So bad. Could not shower independently for a long time. Yeah, so bad. So anyway, watch Lovely Bones if you want to see a visual. This is a terrible visual. How about don't watch Lovely Bones and just listen to this case? Listen to this case first, obviously. But why? So he took this kid in. This is like Les Mis, but the bad version. Yeah, we're going to circle back to this scene that I'm...
opening up with. All right, Quentin. All right, we're going to make a full circle. All right, Quentin Tarantino. Unfortunately, Father Crean was not the first victim to have been violently struck down by this vicious killer. Though fortunately, he was the last.
This is the story of one of Britain's most prolific serial killers, an individual who had been officially labeled a, quote, cold psychopathic killer by a psychiatrist long before he even slayed his first victim. Wow. Today, we are covering the case of Patrick Mackay, also known as the Devil's Disciple.
To grasp the context of the nightmarish bathtub scene that we just went over, we're going to retrace our steps. We're going to go all the way back to the beginning of this gruesome tale. Quick question before we trace back. Why was he motionless in the tub? Was he just like... Because he was still alive, but severely wounded. But dying. Dying, rapidly dying. Like Will Ferrell in Austin Powers. He's like, I'm very badly burned. Yes, exactly.
Okay. In 1950, following time spent fighting as a corporal in World War II, a man named Harold Mackay signed a three-year contract to work as a bookkeeper at a sugar plantation in the then British colony in South America, British Guyana. There, he met and fell in love with a bright middle-class Creole woman named Marion McWatt,
Despite the fact that Harold was Methodist and Marion was Catholic, the pair got married on February 18th, 1952, as Marion was actually seven weeks pregnant at that point. And growing inside of Marion's pregnant belly was her son, the devil's disciple, Patrick David Mackay, who officially entered the world on September 25th, 1952 at Park Royal Hospital in Middlesex. So I'm taking you really back to the beginning here.
His literal birth. His date of birth. He's actually in utero while we're... Right. Okay. Following his birth came the arrival of his sister Ruth in 1954 and then another sister, Heather, in 1957. The Mackay party of five were an outwardly content family and a typical representation of many middle-class households at the time. Unfortunately, this was not the case behind closed doors. In 1959, Harold Mackay began to have an addiction to alcohol and...
and is believed to have suffered from PTSD due to his traumatic experience as a soldier in North Africa. Yeah. He was the only one to survive a deadly ambush that resulted in serious near-fatal injuries to his left arm that left him with lifelong pain and persistent discomfort. He witnessed his comrades getting blown to bits on the battlefield and bayoneted to death three feet away from where he stood. Mm-hmm.
Obviously, he came back with PTSD. Yeah. As a way to cope with his psychological and physical pain, Harold started abusing alcohol as self-medication. And this is sad, though, as I said, not terribly unsurprising. Yeah. The problem was that when Harold got drunk, Harold got violent, which was first made evident during Marion's pregnancy with Patrick, right?
when Harold kicked her very pregnant stomach. With Patrick in there? Correct. Oh, so the kids got that experience in his DNA. That's right. As we know from a previous episode where we discussed generational trauma. And to piggyback off that, babies born to mothers exposed to domestic violence or intimate partner violence, which is IPV,
during pregnancy often sustain altered brain development and changes in their brain structure. Yeah. Male offspring of mothers subjected to IPV have been observed to have a larger cow date nucleus, which is an area of the brain associated with important functions like memory, learning, reward, and movement. And that's babies who are in utero when what happens? When they're in utero.
when their mother experiences domestic violence. Domestic violence. So the short of the long is this. So not just stress, like there would have to be some kind of... No, physical. Okay. Children who experience brain trauma in utero are more likely to suffer from mental health problems later in life. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.
My friend's still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be.
Sadly, Harold's violent behavior towards his wife persisted long after the birth of all their children, and sometimes he would assault Marion right in front of the children, as well as in front of people living on their street. In fact, a former neighbor of the Mackay family named Ken Seegers revealed that he used to sleep with his boots on because he was so used to having to jump out of bed to go outside to stop Harold from physically attacking his wife and kids in a drunken rage.
Sometimes the police would be called, other times not. It's a lot for a neighbor to have to... That's a lot for the neighbor, the children, the wife. It's a shitty situation. It goes without saying it's a shitty situation, but the neighbor having to like be ready to go... He's a great guy, actually. He was very involved in... I'm going to get into it, but he was very involved in the children's lives as their parents had this very dysfunctional, horrible marriage. And he was definitely like a stand-up guy.
In addition to physically harming Patrick, Harold also intentionally inflicted psychological anguish on the young boy. He would graphically explain how his friends were killed in battle, painting a vivid and disturbing image of death for his son to imagine. And of note, a very young Patrick found himself interested and fascinated by his father's tales of death rather than afraid or repulsed. Mm-hmm.
In addition to enduring egregious physical abuse and intentional psychological torment, Patrick was also deprived of affection and often neglected by both of his parents as their home environment continued to deteriorate. As such, Patrick would retreat to Ken Seeger's house at least once a week where he'd ask the man for a bath and some clean clothing.
Ken recalls having to peel Patrick's filthy socks off his feet and commented that the state of Patrick's underwear each week was quote indescribable. So the level of neglect was really high.
Eventually, in 1962, when Patrick was just 10, Harold's body ultimately gave out from the years and years of unhealthy living and alcohol abuse. He suffered a heart attack on his way to work one day and died soon afterwards at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London at the age of 42.
At the time and for several years after, Patrick expressed his regret at no longer having an appropriate male role model in his family, despite the fact that when he did have an adult male figure around, he was a less than ideal role model. He's a piece of shit. Right. Patrick, I feel like that's totally like the grass is greener. Like when his dad was around, he was probably like, you piece of shit, I wish you were gone. And then his dad died and he's like, oh shit, I wish I had a male father figure around. Oh yeah, yeah.
Patrick was not allowed to view his father's corpse or attend his funeral, which may have contributed to the fact that he never seemed to sort of come to terms with his father's death. He never grasped the fact that his father was truly gone. He carried around a photo of his father wearing his uniform for much of his life, and he reported to often hear his father's voice, which was likely a result of having been denied the opportunity for closure.
Pop quiz numero uno. Oh, boy. After Harold's death, how did Patrick begin to immediately behave? A, he decided to become the new man of the house and ruled his mother and sisters with an iron fist. B, he vandalized his neighbor, Ken Seeger's house, to symbolize that he wasn't a weak child anymore who needed help, but rather the new man of the house.
Or C, he started sleeping in his mother's bed in a creepy, inappropriate, new man of the house kind of way. Oh boy. How old is he right now? 1962, so he's 12. Oh man. These are all bad in their own way.
Um, he started sleeping in his mom's bed? No. By the way, I stand corrected. He was 10. All right. Close, close enough. Um, he vandalized Ken Seeger's house? Nope. He started beating his fucking mom and sisters? Yep. Wow. He took his father's seat at the table, literally and figuratively, and began insisting that things in the home operate his way.
The challenge of assuming the role of the head of the household was that the only reference he had of the man of the house was someone who was prone to aggression and had a drinking problem. Sure. Which is why it should come as a shock to no one to learn that Patrick developed into a very violent little kid. Yeah. He was big for his age and established a reputation as a bully who would lie, steal, and terrorize smaller children, particularly girls, including his own little sister, Ruth.
He was jealous of his sisters and felt that their mother gave them preferential treatment, so he'd throw tantrums where he'd literally be flailing around on the ground while foaming at the mouth in rage. Wow, that's a lot.
Patrick was not a strong student academically and he despised everything and everyone at school. He could have been bright intellectually. No, it's not when you're acting like that. The two things just don't go together. I mean. I highly doubt he was on the honor roll and beating his sisters and foaming at the mouth. I feel like I may respectfully disagree. I feel like there's a lot of really brilliant fucking crazy people out there.
Can you name one? Not even by name. Just say, yeah, this kid I went to school with used to come to school drunk every day and he fought a teacher, but he fucking was really good at math. Tank Sinatra? No, horrible at math. That's kidding. Terrible. I'm speaking from experience. Yeah, when you are like that distracted, talking to my therapist years ago, I was talking to him about my school experience and he's like,
You know, it's not uncommon for kids who are in a home where there's some turmoil or chaos for their grades to suffer. Like it's actually more abnormal if it doesn't affect that. Like if you have someone who's good at school and tries hard and pays attention and does their homework, and then all of a sudden they're like detached and not paying attention and unable to focus or whatever, there's, I want to say, 100% chance of something going on at home. Yeah. Or going on somewhere. Yeah. Yeah.
When I notice a behavior change in my kids, the first thing I do, and maybe it's because of what I do for a living, but the first thing I do is talk to them about what's going on in other areas of their life. Yeah. Yeah, because you know the home life is good. Right. I know the home life is good. And I just feel like if there's a behavior change for me, I'm like, let's dive deep into this. Yeah.
So school sucked for him and life on the home front was no picnic either, which meant he really didn't have many places to turn. Patrick's mother, Marion, suffered a nervous breakdown in the fall of 1963 when Patrick was 11 and she was admitted to a hospital for four months. Wow. The kids were placed in the care of a foster mom in the North Kent coast and Patrick always resented the fact that he was, quote, farmed out to another home so soon after losing his father.
And the feeling was mutual. The foster mom found Patrick to be unmanageable and ended up relinquishing care. Wow. So by early 1964, the Mackay siblings were back with their mom, and Patrick's issues only continued to mount at an alarmingly high rate. His violence ramped up tremendously, and he could not control his constant seething rage and explosive outbursts. Pop quiz.
During one of his uncontrollable fits of rage, what did 12-year-old Patrick do? A. Slice his sister Ruth across the face with one of his father's old shaving razors. B. Force a neighborhood boy to bite the sidewalk curb while he kicked the back of his head. Jesus, what is he, fucking American History X? C. Grilled his pet tortoise alive on an open fire. Damn, what is he, from that other movie where he grilled a pet tortoise? Ha ha ha ha ha.
Sliced his sister's face? No. Grilled a pet tortoise? Yes. I know he didn't curb stomp. No. That wasn't invented until... I didn't know. I should have assumed because you're just worldly that you knew what that was, but... Oh, I'm so worldly that I've seen American history. Speaking of movies that were traumatizing, that scene really messed me up. Oh, yeah. In American History X. It messed...
The curb stomping scene? The world up. Oh. It messed the world up. So wait, he grilled his pet tortoise? Yeah. And then he threw the charred remains of the poor, innocent tortoise into Ken Seeger's backyard. By the way, I saw a video the other day of somebody cooking a fish alive. Yeah, I didn't like it at all. Obviously. It wasn't a malicious thing. It was a...
It was not. Oh, it was to eat like? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Listen, it wasn't nice. It wasn't like. People do that. People cook crabs alive. The caption just said rude. Ugh.
This thing was, it was a boiling hot wok filled with oil and they just threw the fish in there. The only thing I've learned from fishing, I think this could be true. This could be something we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better is that fish do not have a pain center in their brain. Well, I'm going to counter that by saying the following. They put sonar beneath fishing boats and detected that the fish scream when the hook hooks them.
They scream? Mm-hmm. Maybe something else happens, like when they think lobsters are screaming, but it's just the air escaping from their claws. Well, maybe lobsters are screaming when they're boiled alive. No, they're not. They're not what? Screaming? That's not what it is, yeah. I'm sure it hurts, man. Not if they don't have a pain center. Listen...
I don't know if they have a pain center. I like the pain. But it seems cruel and horrible. But when you cook lobster and you boil them, that sound is the air building up inside the clothes and escaping through the cracks. Okay, yes. I can absolutely see where that would be the case, but I still feel like it likely hurts them a great deal. Yeah, just like when I scream, it's pain building up and escaping through my mouth. Exactly. Right.
Don't worry. It's just pain building up in the lungs and escaping through the mouth. Thank you. It's not a big deal. Thank you. Sorry, dude. I'm a lobster. I screamed through my claws. Stop boiling me. I'm with that lobster completely. Yeah. All right. So he grills his pet tortoise alive on an open fire. He throws the remains into Ken Seeger's backyard. Oh. At this point, Patrick has also attacked his pet dog twice.
tortured his pet rabbit, has torn the wings off of birds, and strangled his neighbor's cat. Yeah, it's not looking good for him. No.
And that's not all. Patrick also became obsessed with fire and committed arson at a Roman Catholic church. I liked fire when I was young. I think that's okay. Yeah. I know that's okay to an extent. Yeah, yeah. Were you committing arson? No, but I do remember discovering that you could create a blowtorch with a bottle of hairspray and a lighter when I was a kid. Oh, yeah. Well, that's just cool shit. Yeah.
It's so fucking cool. And I remember doing it in my kitchen one day and my mom came out. She's like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm having fun. Yeah, that is fun. So,
Sorry. Hopefully no kids are listening to this and will try that. So this fiery characteristic, this interest in fire, in combination with Patrick's penchant for torturing four-legged and or winged creatures, constitutes two out of three qualities in the McDonald triad.
Now, true crime fanatics will likely know what the McDonald triad is, or they will have heard of it. But if you don't know what it is and you haven't heard of it, that's okay. I will lovingly tell you. Pop quiz. It's a Big Mac. McDonald. No. The McDonald triad is also known as the homicidal triad. And it's a collection of three behaviors that are thought to be linked to violent tendencies, particularly regarding serial crimes.
So when two of these three behaviors are present, they're seen as a predictor or a sign of potential violent behavior down the line. And the three triad behaviors are fire setting, cruelty to animals, and bedwetting. Damn it. In Patrick's case, by age 12, he already exhibited two of these behaviors. So just to get off topic, not really off topic, but bedwetting, right? So...
I heard from somebody, my oldest son wet the bed for like years after he was potty trained. And somebody told me that it has to do with them not breathing deep enough because when you breathe, moisture and toxins are released through the breath that you would normally get rid of and it just builds up in their bladder and they can't control it. Did
Did you say that's only true of boys? I didn't say that. Oh, okay. No, in my head, I was thinking that it's just boys take a little bit longer for a potty, even if they're officially potty trained. Yeah. In terms of bedwetting, like they still have to wear a pull-up for a little longer than a girl might. I truly think it's just developmentally appropriate, to be honest. I mean, I don't know for sure, but that's my understanding. And as far as him cutting off the dog's tail, somebody said that, no, I'm just kidding. He never did that. Oh my God. I almost ran out of here.
And as far as him setting the house on fire... Is that what happened to Ollie? No. Yeah, we said we rehomed him, but G.J. actually killed him. So not everyone subscribes to the McDonald Triad, suggesting a link between these three specific behaviors and violent offenders. So,
Some studies instead suggest that these three behaviors are actually more linked to childhood experience of parental neglect, brutality, or abuse, and that this is what in turn results in homicidal proneness. But it's six of one and half a dozen of the other in Patrick's case. No matter how you add it up, it yields the same result. He possessed clear and serious signs of future violent behavior.
Wow. Wow.
Patrick was in and out of various psychiatric facilities after violently attacking his sisters, beating his mom, assaulting neighborhood kids, destroying furniture and other items around the house, grilling a tortoise, and running away from various boarding schools and treatment centers. His behavior in all aspects of life was either violent, bizarre, or both.
In a documentary I watched on this case, one of Patrick's former classmates was interviewed, a guy named Roland Hayes. And he recalled a time in which he and Patrick went to play in the woods after school one day and Patrick did a thing. Pop quiz. What did he do? I did a thing. A, caught a garden snake, bashed its head in with a rock, and then began a game of tug of war using the dead reptile. Oh, shit. B, humped a hole in the grass.
Okay. C, filled a bell-shaped flower with his own urine and drank it. Fucking kid killed a snake? No. He humped a hole in the ground? No. Yeah, because that's relatable to me. I saw your face. You were like, and? Fuck's the big deal. Is that not supposed to do that? So he filled a bell-shaped flower with his own urine and then drank it? Yeah. That is a thing. That's a thing in the woods.
On May 16th, 1968, when Patrick was 16, there were another string of serious incidents that further highlighted the rapid decline of Patrick's mental health. Also, I'm just bombing these pop quizzes for the record. Which means I'm killing it. Yeah, you're doing good. First, Patrick attempted to strangle his mother.
Then, when the police were summoned, they discovered a completely deranged Patrick holding his head over a ring on the gas stove in an apparent effort to kill himself. When this didn't work, he held his face beneath the faucet in an effort to drown himself. Stupid deal. When that didn't work, he tried to stab himself with a bayonet. Oh, that's not good. When the police were finally able to detain him and bring him down to the station for questioning,
Patrick claimed that he lived with his father, who by this point had been dead for six years, and that he saw, quote, the faces of a snake. This guy's out of his mind. He's not well. Yeah. Absolutely.
Patrick was immediately sent to Stonehouse, which is a local psychiatric hospital, where he was declared a danger to himself and his family. For sure. He was detained as part of the 1959 Mental Health Act, Section 29, which enables a hospital to hold a patient for 72 hours. Home office psychiatrist Dr. Leonard Carr described Patrick as a cold, psychopathic killer who was explosive in temper.
So he was now labeled a psychopath and sanctioned to a special hospital in England under the control of the Ministry of Health, meaning he was sent to a place for mentally ill individuals who require treatment under conditions of special security because their dangerous, violent behavior warrants that type of security. Yeah.
For several years following his eventual release from the special hospital, Patrick abused alcohol, took speed, struggled to maintain employment, continued to beat the shit out of his mother, who by this point stopped calling the cops. Yeah, fuck. In total, Patrick was removed from his family home on 18 separate occasions between the ages of 12 and 22.
and placed into various schools, institutions, and prisons, and lived an unstable, unpredictable, vagrant lifestyle. He also became obsessively interested in which of the following things? Another thing to fail. Cool. Pop quiz. A. Prostitutes. B. Nazis and fascism. C. Religion. D. The military. Prostitutes, Nazis, religion, or the military?
Religion? No. Obviously. Nazis? Yes. Oh. He praised Hitler and raised his right arm in the Nazi salute while uttering some key anti-Semitic German phrases in a homemade knockoff Nazi uniform. I mean, that's...
Out of all the hobbies to have, that's probably the worst. Yeah, it's clearly the worst. I'm just like really into Nazi shit like memorabilia. He had some good ideas, that Hitler, you know? Listen, he openly fantasized about the extermination of all Jews and maintained a lovely little Hitler-centric shrine in his apartment. We don't like that at all. He even attempted to go by a different name, that of Franklin Bullvault I.
I guess he thinks that sounds fascist. It is dumb as hell. I mean... Franklin Bolvault III? The first. The first. There is no the first. Well, he is the first. Yeah, he is. He's gross. Yeah. So it might shock you to learn that Patrick didn't have many friends. No. He was frequently drunk, broke, and flying off the handle.
So when he randomly met a nice priest named Father Anthony Crean in May of 1973 in Shorn, England, near a Carmelite nun's convent called St. Catherine's, he was drawn to this man of the cloth. And Father Crean, having a nice habit of acting kindly towards needy people who were down and out, reciprocated the friendship and let him in.
The men frequently met up in pubs and Patrick even introduced his holy bestie to his mother. Holy bestie. Oh my God. Then one night in the middle of May, Patrick broke into the priest's cottage and stole a 30 pound check, which he changed to read 80 pounds.
Pounds like money. Money, yeah, yeah, yeah. The priest notified the police, of course, because he had no idea who the thief was. But when he learned that it was his pal Patrick, the lonely, strange man that he sort of unspokenly agreed to take in, he actually asked the police officers to drop the charges. So the court just fined Patrick 20 pounds and ordered that he return the full 80 pounds to Father Crean. So are we going to talk about Les Mis or no? No.
Why? Because this is literally the plot to Les Mis. Is it? I don't know the plot to Les Mis. I mean, I guess I do. You know what I was listening to? Whatever it was. It was Goth Family Annihilator, the episode. That's a good one. No, that's literally the plot to The Crow. But this is Les Mis. Les Mis, the guy, it's not the same because he's a
Oh.
Yeah, Les Mis is good. This does not have the same ending. No, no, no, no. But it is similar. You're right. Yeah. So Patrick went back to London with hardly a slap on the wrist. And once again, his behavior just went largely unchecked. Unchecked and crucially untreated. Yep.
So it seems almost inevitable that there'd be a profound escalation in his behavior, and that is exactly what happened. It is believed that Patrick started killing people in the beginning of January 1974, and there never seemed to be a rhyme or reason to his victim selection, which made investigating the various crimes very challenging for the Metropolitan Police Department.
It began one night that very month and year, so January 1974, with a liver full of whiskey while Patrick crossed the Hungerford Bridge across the Thames in London. During that walk across the bridge, Patrick encountered an old vagrant man who shouted, "'Fuck off' at him as he passed by." Fuck off. Cheerio, fuck off. Patrick's response was to pick the man up by his collar and toss him over the bridge.
There was never any evidence of Patrick on the dead man's body once it washed ashore. And about three bodies per month on average would wash up ashore. So no charges were ever made. Wow. And again, he just continues on. Profound escalation. So that was that. And Patrick continued living a drunk, nomadic, sporadically suicidal lifestyle.
He picked up odd jobs here and there between many different short-term stints and various different psych wards. So he's just in and out of very short-term treatment facilities, not getting the help he needs, not getting proper diagnoses, obviously not getting medication, not getting therapy. No stability whatsoever. No stability, no stable home front, no stable employment. He's all over the place. Yeah.
While working as a groundskeeper in February of 1974, Patrick came across an 84-year-old woman named Isabella Griffiths as she struggled to schlep heavy bags of cat food back to her home. Isabella was the widow of a surgeon and lived alone in a tall, lovely house behind the Chelsea Embankment. After a very chivalrous and charming Patrick offered to help her carry the heavy bags of cat food back to her home, Isabella invited him in for a drink.
She even gave him a five-pound tip for the trouble.
A few days later, Isabella went out to lunch with some friends and then she went shopping. And when she got back home, she received a knock on her door from a man who looked a bit weathered. That man was the formerly chivalrous and charming Patrick McKay. But Isabella could sense that something was different this time with Patrick. Something was off. So she refused to open her door and invite him inside this time. Good, smart, good instincts. Well, Patrick was enraged by this and he busted the chain open on her door and forcibly entered the home.
He immediately placed his hands around the elderly woman's neck and squeezed. Then, being fueled by a, quote, strong compulsion to kill her outright, Patrick grabbed a 12-inch knife from the widow's kitchen and stabbed her through the solar plexus. With the knife still inside Isabella's body, Patrick turned on the radio in the front room and helped himself to an entire bottle of scotch.
Then, after having a lazy stroll around the rest of her home, what did Patrick do next? Pop quiz. Did he A, urinate on the corpse, B, rape the corpse, or C, remove the knife from the corpse and plunge it into his own flesh? Remove the knife from the corpse and plunge it into his own flesh? Correct. Oh my God. Correct.
Correct. Which I obviously feel bad for him. He's not like you get one life as far as we know. Right. And this guy's life has just been absolute torture. He definitely was not set up for success. No, not at all. And also his parents both struggled with their own demons. So if you're talking about the generational trauma topic, which we often talk about, right. He didn't have that going for him. Yeah. Yeah.
Before leaving Isabella's house, Patrick randomly filled the kitchen sink with water, pots, pans, and shoes. Then he discarded the knife in someone else's backyard as he calmly walked out of the neighborhood. Isabella Griffith's body was discovered 12 days later. Oh my God. Incredibly, moments before murdering Isabella, Patrick had been a temporary patient at Tooting Beck Hospital in London where he was admitted following a suicide attempt in which he tried to throw himself in front of a moving train.
While at the hospital, the treating psychiatrist, Dr. Grenville Gundy, concluded that Patrick was not mentally ill. Rather, he diagnosed Patrick with a personality disorder of the psychopathic type. How is that not mentally ill? So psychopathy is a personality disorder. It's not a mental illness. There's no cure for psychopathy and they'll never be able to change, but their symptoms can be treated. Oh.
So the most successful treatments for psychopathy involved the use of multiple methods simultaneously, like psychotherapy, behavior skills training, and of course, pharmacological interventions. Now, Dr. Gundy wanted to detain Patrick as he felt that he posed a danger to himself and others, but he couldn't legally keep Patrick at the hospital for two reasons. One,
One, Patrick was over 21. And two, there's no treatment for psychopathy in a conventional mental hospital. So they released him. And when they released him, moments later, he murdered Isabella Griffith.
So you just... So he went for help, got out, and then murdered. Literally immediately went straight to Isabella and murdered her. Wow. Around this time, Patrick also picked up a fun new hobby. Pop quiz. Fuck. What was his fun new hobby? A, assembling and painting kits of monsters like Frankenstein, after which he'd burn out their eyes and stick pins in them. B, creating tiny model concentration camps complete with tiny little Nazis. C,
C, painting dead women in sexually explicit positions. The first one. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He assembled little monsters like Frankenstein and then he'd burn out their eyeballs and poke them with pins. And then he'd leave them on display like that. That's very strange. Right.
Now, following Isabella's murder, Patrick engaged in a series of burglaries and street muggings, enjoying the vulnerability and defenselessness of his victims. Yeah. One day, he decided to follow an 89-year-old woman named Adele Price as she walked home. Why does he keep going after these old ladies? Because they're easy targets. And these women had money.
So this woman was shopping in... Sorry, what was her name? The 89-year-old? Adele Price. She was shopping in Lounge Square, which is located one street away from Harrods Department Store, which is like a prestigious kind of department store. Oh, I'm very familiar with it. Oh, I bought a sick pair of boots from Harrods. Have you been to London? Yeah. I've never even... I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, it's just a beautiful department store. I'd like to go. Yeah. And get a belt. Why, get yourself a pair of boots too. Yeah.
Throw them in the sink with the fishes. Right.
So Adele was a widow who lived in a very large Victorian home and she was completely surprised by Patrick who was posing as a neighbor of hers suddenly feeling faint and needing a glass of water. Adele invited Patrick inside and let him into the hall where she instructed him to wait while she went to get him water. And while she was getting him water, she could hear the front door shutting and locking. That's fucking terrifying. So, so terrifying.
So he grabs Adele by her throat and strangles her to death. Then he hung out on her balcony that overlooked the square where she was just shopping, and he fell asleep in an armchair while Adele lay face down in the carpet. Oh, he's so relaxed. He's so relaxed. A clear sign of somebody who's not well. Yeah. Adele Price was later discovered by her granddaughter.
Following the murder, Patrick was once again detained at a mental hospital after he once again attempted to throw himself in front of a moving train. Is he getting picked up for these crimes? No, he isn't. Anytime he's in a mental institution, it's because he's self-admitted himself or was picked up by the police after a suicide attempt. Yeah. Okay. So nobody knows of these crimes.
Once again, he was released from the mental hospital. And once again, he killed immediately. No. Yep. Because after being released from the mental hospital at that point, he took a bus and then a long walk over to Father Anthony Crean's place. And this brings us to the top of the episode where I described Father Crean's mutilated body bleeding out in the bathtub of his cottage near the convent where he worked.
The axe wounds in Father Crean's head were so severe that his brain was exposed. Patrick stabbed Father Crean first repeatedly in the neck with a knife that he had in his pocket. Then he tried to stab the priest in the head, but this only served to bend the knife and render it useless as a weapon. So it was at that point that Patrick reached for the axe that was under the steps and just went to town.
The bathroom looked like a slaughterhouse. Do you remember what another name for a slaughterhouse is based on a former episode? Meet me at the slaughterhouse? Yeah. Hold on. Uh...
Ar-dwar? Oh, you're so close. Ar-bwar? It's not a piece of furniture. No, ar-mwar. That's what I thought it was. Right, right. You're so close. It was from our Hell Hath No Fury Like a Butcher Scorned episode. No, it was from the Meet Me at the Slaughterhouse. Not this word. Oh, okay. Hell Hath No Fury Like a Butcher Scorned. What's the word? Abattoir. You were so close. Abattoir. Albatross. Abattoir. So there was blood spattered on every wall and in every corner.
And the scene for Patrick was captivating. He could not pull himself away from the spectacle of Father Crean's bloody body slightly swaying in the tub for an hour before finally sinking to the bottom. Oh, so that's why he was staring at it. Right.
Patrick finally pulled himself away after remembering that he promised to roast a chicken for his mother for dinner, and he had to go. Yeah, you know what? I've had a lot of fun here, but I gotta go cook. Exactly. He went back to his mom's, he roasted a chicken, and then he went to see a movie, and then he robbed another woman. All in a night's work for this guy. Fucking guy.
Now, Father Crean's body was discovered by the mother superior of the convent, Sister Teresa. Must have been horrific. Horrific. She immediately phoned the police and mad props for some tremendous police work here because after showing up at the priest's cottage, Detective Chief Inspector Lou Hart recalled a case two years earlier
earlier in which Father Crean instructed the court to drop charges against a local man who had stolen an 80-pound check from his home. Good smart. And the culprit, of course, was Patrick McKay. Mm-hmm. Less than 48 hours after the priest's murder, the police tracked Patrick down at the hostel where he'd been staying and immediately placed his hands in cuffs. They knew they had their guy. Good.
This was almost instantly confirmed by Patrick, who once in custody, immediately provided graphic confections. Fuck me. Confections. Like it's a fucking baking show. Some sugar.
immediately provided graphic confessions to all 24 of his recent muggings, and more importantly, to brutally killing 13 people. 13? Mm-hmm. He later redacted nine of those confessions, but always accepted guilt for the deaths of Isabella Griffiths, Adele Price, and Father Crean. Beyond the three confirmed murders, Patrick was also questioned in connection with many, many others.
Mary Hines, a 73-year-old Irish spinster who was discovered with her head savagely beaten in with a piece of wood. Sounds like he'd do something like that. Frank Goodman, a 63-year-old man who ran a tobacco shop and was discovered with 14 blows to his mutilated head. Mm-hmm.
Stephanie Britton, a wealthy 57-year-old widow and her four-year-old grandson, Christopher Martin. Both were discovered brutally stabbed. Heidi Nilk, a pretty 17-year-old blonde girl from West Germany living in Kent working as an au pair. She was found after being pushed in front of a train.
Sarah Rodwell, a 92-year-old spinster and loner who was discovered beaten to death. What is a spinster? Oh, it's a woman of like an older age who never got married. That's what I thought. Okay. Ivy Davies, who was found hacked to death with an ax. And lastly, which was the first victim, the nameless vagrant man who yelled fuck off on the bridge who got his body tossed off.
So we're at the end here. We're up to the trial. Patrick Mackay was, of course, evaluated by a number of psychiatrists who all presented the same conclusion. He had a gross personality disorder and was one of the most severe examples of psychopathy they'd ever seen. That is gross.
Patrick was the first psychopathic killer to be tried after the publication of the report of Lord Butler's committee on mentally abnormal offenders. So this is a committee that was set up for the purpose of investigating the current law, hearing the views of relevant parties and proposing reforms. So here are the legal questions here, right? Yeah. Was Patrick guilty of the murders with which he was charged? Was his responsibility for any of these killings diminished by mental abnormalities? Yes.
Was he legally insane, meaning he didn't know what he was doing when he was doing it or know right from wrong? And if so, should he be sent to a secure hospital or to prison? Yeah. These are the legal questions.
Patrick pleaded guilty to some of the murders by invoking the Homicide Act, which suggested that he had a diminished responsibility while killing because he had an abnormality of his mind, in this case, a personality disorder. In making his plea, Patrick issued the following statement, quote, The doctors whom I have seen feel that I may not or would not respond to medical help if it were to be given or offered to me.
It is in fact the direct opposite. I would be willing, body and soul, to accept medical help in a secure hospital for many years to come if necessary, for I know deep down that this is just what I need if there is to be any future for me to lead a normal life. I believe that nowhere else except Broadmoor can I get the help I need. I must be helped. I cannot remain in the state I am in for the rest of my life. It is my last hope to survive as a human being."
In the end, the judge, Justice Milmo, convicted Patrick McKay of three counts of manslaughter and sentenced him to life in prison. Okay, good. Now, many politicians and members of the public were furious and they advocated for the death penalty. They believed that his sentence was too lenient and that he was being protected rather than punished for his crimes. And to be sure, the psychopath as a legal entity had its moment in the spotlight around this time.
One local conservative politician at the time said, and his name was Michael Brotheran, and I thought this was interesting. He said, this is the supreme conviction of the do-gooders. How much longer have members of society to tolerate their parents and children being cut down by beasts just because the sociologists believe that people like this can be rehabilitated? I repeat thunderously my demand that the death penalty be reintroduced so that society may protect itself.
Thunderous. Yeah, I like that word. Yeah. It wasn't. He was still sentenced to life in prison. In conclusion, Patrick Mackay was the broken child of a dysfunctional home and a life of insufficient, unstable institutional support.
All of the warning signs had been there since childhood. Once his animalistic, brutal instincts took over, he could not be stopped. He felt no remorse for killing and has only ever really reflected upon how his life was screwed up by his deplorable acts. Patrick Mackay has said, "'You know, when I look at myself now, "'I could put a bullet through my own head "'and through my brain for the kind of bloody life "'that I have had to live, "'but I do not know who would do me that service.'"
Maybe him. Maybe. Yeah. He did try to kill himself multiple times. Many times.
So he just wanted to kill or be out of pain. I don't know. The other thing in Lovely Bones that fucked me up for a while, this goes back to the episode where I was like, thank God that I was not a serial killer just because I know that they're acting against their own will. The guy in the movie is like, but I knew that it had come time for this itch to be scratched. I could bear the itch no longer. I was like, fuck. Yeah. So this guy was in the movie.
This person sounds very unhinged, unstable, just living completely free of any kind of social norms or morals or anything. Yeah. Really fucked up. But yeah, anyway. Yeah. So he was... Here we are. Cheerio. He was the UK's longest serving prisoner. Wow. He was actually up for parole in February of this year. Oh, fuck. Yeah. What do you think happened there? How old is he? 65. 65.
He's only 65? Do you think that he was granted parole? Is this a pop quiz? I can make it a pop quiz. Let's make it a pop quiz. A, did they grant him parole and did he kill again? B, did he mug a woman immediately and then get sent back to prison? Or C, was he deemed not suitable to be freed? Did you just make those up on... I've thought about it. Okay. Um...
He was doomed, not suitable. Yeah. Okay. However, he has been granted allowance to remain in an open prison setting. So he has day passes where he's allowed to freely roam the streets. And he does under the name David Groves. What do you mean roam the streets? He has day passes. So he has to go back to prison. He's not like fully free. Oh my God. But he can be out and about.
Wow, that's fucking wild. And this was the case of Patrick Mackay. That's the worst case scenario. So he just gets to go out during the day and kill and then go back to jail at night where he's going to wind up anyway. Correct. Terrible. I hate this man. But I hope he, I wish him well. Do you? No. I didn't think so.
Tim Dillon always makes fun of what Donald Trump said when Jelaine Maxwell was arrested. He's like, I wish her well. Okay. Tim Dillon's like, that's just something rich people say when their fucking friend's kids get in trouble for manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter. Like, I don't know what to say, you know? Right. I wish him well. No, I wish he would stay in jail and just, you know, serve out a sentence. I'm not against the death penalty for certain cases. Like, if this person is just beyond help...
What about if they truly don't have the mental capacity to know what they're doing and they don't have the ability to rehabilitate? They got to go. They got to go. Yeah. Especially in that case, if somebody is just like, if I get out, I will kill again. It's like, hey, let's do you a favor and society, but mostly you because you are obviously a
Your existence is tortured. So let's just put you out of your misery. But mental health issues, as we've said before, right? It's like somebody who has a sickness, a physical sickness, right? You wouldn't just say, let's just kill you. Well, you don't kill somebody who has a cold and you don't kill somebody who has pancreatic cancer, but pancreatic cancer is much more serious. This person had like the
the terminal version of mental illness. They were not going to enjoy their life ever. Yeah, but he, in his final statement in the court, he was pushing for rehabilitation. He was pushing for treatment versus incarceration. Now, maybe he just didn't want to be incarcerated, but in his last statement to the court when he made his plea, he said, I need help. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm not saying I disagree with you even. I'm just kind of. I'm not saying I feel so strongly about that either. It's just like some, in some cases, you know. Yeah. Sometimes you got to go. Yeah. Well, if there's a case for anyone, it would likely be him. What was his name again? Patrick McKay. Yeah. I'll pray for him. He's still alive, huh? Wow. In London. In jail. Yes. Just walking the streets. Are you really going to pray for him? That's very kind of you.
I'm going to pray he dies. Oh. I'm just kidding. Plot twist. All right. That was actually, I feel maybe the light helped me. Oh, I'm the opposite. I prefer the dark. No, but it helped me with this case because it didn't feel so unsettling. It didn't feel very unsettled. That's why I prefer doing this. I like it when you're a little unsettled. I don't want to be unsettled. Why? Let it infect.
you. Why? Yeah. Feel something. Oh, I feel something. I feel good. I feel fine. I feel like this was a good episode. You were interested but not totally horrified. Exactly. Okay. Yes. And it was pretty bad. All the elderly people being killed and
trying to kill himself, but he can't kill himself, but he can kill other people for some reason. Just kill yourself, man. Yeah. I don't know why he struggled with that so much considering he seemed to be very determined to see it through, but maybe he wasn't. Maybe he wasn't. Exactly. All right. Well, this was a good episode. I had a lot of fun. I hope you had a lot of fun too. I always do. And I hope the listeners had a lot of fun. And hey, listen,
Thank you guys for the reviews and the ratings and the subscribers. And I just want to give a little call to action. Tell somebody about the podcast. That's one way you can help us aside from buying the game at influencersinthewild.com or on Amazon. Yeah. Tell someone about the podcast. Find one psycho in your life and tell them about this podcast and tell them they have to listen to it. Then you have someone to talk about it with.
You can DM us too. We like talking to you about the cases. We love it. We love it. PsychopediaPod at Instagram or PsychopediaPod at gmail.com. But yeah, get some friends. Maybe we'll form a little club or something. I love that. Members only club. Love it. Yeah. All right. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. Bye everyone. That was a good ass episode. Was it? Oh yeah. I can't speak.