Five time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
This series explores the killings he confessed to, and which he committed.
PART B of Murder Mile covers the murder of Mary Hynds:
PART 2 of True Crime Enthusiast covers the murders of Adele Price & Isabella Griffiths:
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: 11 days after the murder of Heidi Mnilk, a lone elderly woman was brutally murdered in her home, and with Patrick MacKay having confessed to it, this was more in keeping with his method and motive. 22nd of April 1975, Canon Row police station, with MacKay having admitted to “killing eleven people” stating “all I want to do is to be frank and honest”, one of the eight earlier killings he was suspected of or had confessed to was so compelling for the Police that MacKay was charged with her murder. Detective Superintendent John Bland was stunned as Mary Hynds was the epitome of a MacKay victim; an elderly lady who lived alone, had let her killer in, and with no obvious motive, she was strangled or suffocated like Adele Price & Isabella Griffiths, bludgeoned to death like Father Anthony Crean, and with little or nothing stolen, the weapon was left, the keys taken, the door locked and the body hidden. MacKay’s memory would always be an issue being questioned about so many almost identical attacks months or years prior, and as a drunk and a drug-abuser whose recall was clouded by what he called “a white mist”, Justice Milmo who tried MacKay at the Old Bailey stated “it is quite clear that you are not insane”, but subject to “eruptions of violence followed by deep depressions which wiped from his mind any memories of what had happened”, serial-killer MacKay presented as “a classic psychopath”. When questioned, he remembered being in Kentish Town, he recalled that the house “had trees or a big hedge”, he asked for a glass of water, dragged her inside and the backdoor was nailed shut. DS Bland stated “I must be fair Patrick, this appears identical to the method you used because not only was the body covered, as in the Cheyne Walk job, but the doors were locked and the keys taken away, which as you admit, is your method”. And MacKay agreed, but owing to time “I just can’t remember”. With Mary’s murder under the jurisdiction of Detective Chief Inspector John Harris, interviewed again on the 3rd of July 1975 at Albany Street police station, MacKay was forthcoming, politely asking “if you can help clear my mind, I will tell you what I know”, and being shown ten crime scene photos of Mary’s murder to refresh his memory, MacKay said “it certainly sounds like me… but I just can’t remember”. Later that day, handcuffed in the back of a police van, MacKay was driven to Mary’s home at 4 Willes Road and declared “yes, I can positively say this is the house I went into, there is no doubt at all”. And with DCI Harris “quite satisfied” that MacKay was Mary’s murderer, he was formerly charged and even thanked the officer, again saying “this is a great weight off my mind. I have been worrying about this”. So if MacKay didn’t murder Heidi Mnilk, was the murder of Mary Hynds his first fledgling killing? Title: Patrick MacKay: Two Sides of a Psychopath – Part B. Patrick MacKay fits the archetype of a psychopath, yet it’s unclear why he became a murderer, maybe for thrills, to sate a sadistic streak, or maybe - as nobody who had achieved nothing - for attention? As a loner born in a family of fear with an abusive drunken father and a battered mother on the verge of another breakdown, although intelligent, when his dad died when he was just 10, he hadn’t the facility to process the trauma, so feeling abandoned by his mother, his emotional outlet was violence. As a lost boy, he stole, but it was rarely out of necessity. He lied, even when it served no purpose. He bullied, but his attacks were often random. And what is an arsonist, if it’s not a cry for attention? His split personality - that of an angel one minute and a devil the next - mirrors his lack of trust in the systems there to protect him, as – being described by himself as a chaotic “to and fro” - his life swung wildly from periods of happiness and semi-stability, to being put in foster homes, remand centres, borstals and long stints in psychiatric hospitals like Moss Side in Liverpool and Stone House in Dartford. Lashing out in rage at the only family he had left, across his teens and into his twenties, he never had a home, he hated every institution he was forcibly sent to, and seen as ‘a waste space’ by those who dictated his fate, every job he did – as an egg-packer, a labourer or a litter picker – frustrated him. Some of the most infamous moments in his upbringing, readily recounted by the press with real relish are those defined as the ‘making of a monster’; him strangling a dog, tortured a rabbit, glueing bird’s feet to the road to watch them get runover, and putting a live tortoise on a fire to watch it burn, as well as his only ‘pleasant memory’ being when his father told him his war stories of death and murder. His sadistic streak is a stick many would beat him with, failing to acknowledge that (as the Police called him) “an inveterate liar”, but many of these stories were told in hindsight by those who wanted to distance themselves from a serial killer and psychopath. So how much of this is proven, or even true? Cruelty was part of his life and empathy wasn’t a skill he possessed, and in the same way his dad doled out beatings for no real reason except to satisfy himself, one fascinating aspect of his supposed sadism was MacKay’s obsession with the Nazi’s. He reads books like Mein Kampf, he had a poster of Hitler, a bedside photo of Himmler, he made himself a fake SS uniform with jackboots and an Iron Cross, and saying to a friend “if I ruled, I’d exterminate all the useless old people”, it was said (although never verified) he was seen in the streets of Dartford goose-stepping, giving a Nazi salute with a ‘Heil Hitler’. This was just two decades after the end of the World War Two, London was still pockmarked with the ruins of the Blitz, and the trauma still plagued its survivors in a raw naked pain, like an exposed nerve. And yet, he also claimed that he believed in eugenics, he said he was of ‘Aryan’ stock and was ‘racially pure’, even though his hair was black as his mother was Guyanese meaning that he was of mixed race. He was a nobody, a nothing, who society had forgotten, and his crime spree were pointless and petty. So, was it all ploy to draw attention to himself, as were the murders, or the confessions? Mary Hynds was typical of the women that MacKay targeted. Mary Brigid Hynds was born on the 16th of November 1898 in Upper Strangford, a windswept village in a rural inlet overlooking the Irish Sea in what is now Northern Ireland. As the third eldest of ten in a staunch Roman Catholic family, they were working-class but literate, and like many families of that era were burdened by trauma as the First World War turned brave young men into rotting flesh piles. Both of her older brothers fought and died in the Belgian region of Flanders, with Patrick killed in 1914, John in 1917, and now the eldest of eight, Mary did her bit to support the family (like her parents did being farm workers), but having never married or had children, at some point, she moved to London. This is where Mary vanishes from official records, as being a childless spinster who wasn’t allowed her own home or bank account (as that law came two years after her death), instead she lived a hand-to-mouth existence being kept alive by a paltry state pension and living alone in a grotty lodging house. Sources state she was either 73 or 79 when she died, in truth, she was 75, but as a slightly larger lady who didn’t eat particularly well, was fond of the drink, and limped with a crippled leg, although she a solitary figure, she was a well-liked character who the locals of Kentish Town knew only as ‘Molly’. Flo Morton, one of her friends said “she was a quiet inoffensive person who wouldn’t hurt a fly”, which was literally true, as nicknamed ‘the animals’ guardian angel’, Mary spent many hours on park benches feeding the pigeons, she’d leave her door open so the stray cats could sling in for food and warmth, and as a creature of habit, twice a week he ate a modest pub lunch in Busby Place, and enjoying an ale at the Wolsey Arms and Assembly House pubs, she often staggered home a little worse for wear. Everyone who knew her agreed, she was a sweet old lady who was friendly to everyone… …so why was Mary Hynds murdered; was it a robbery, a mistake, or a killing for attention? MacKay’s so-called crime-spree, up to that point, had been nothing short of pathetic; an intermittent splurge of drunkenness, bike theft, bag snatching and smashing up a public loo, he couldn’t hold down a job for more than a few days, and blew the money he stole or was given as dole money on booze. Prior to Heidi’s killing, on the 21st of June 1973 at Northfleet Magistrates Court, MacKay pleaded guilty to cashing in a £30 cheque given to him by Father Crean who he’d met a month before, and having crudely amended it to £80, he was given a two year conditional discharge and agreed to pay it back. By July, with his only job (a cellar assistant at a Pimlico wine merchants) lasting a few days, his mother having kicked him out again of her Gravesend home, and the Cowdrey’s (his surrogate family) also booting him out owing to his bad behaviour, on the 14th of July, he was picked up by the Police because he was so drunk, he was unconscious. Released the next day, he was arrested for throwing bricks into a pedestrian subway and (as an ‘Aryan’) claiming he wanted to ‘kill all Jewish bastards’, said to be in a manic state, he was formally charged with chasing a homeless man with a four-foot-long metal pole. This was seven months after he’d allegedly drowned a vagrant by throwing him off Hungerford Bridge. Five days later and two miles north, Mary Hynds was murdered by someone described as a ‘maniac’. Friday the 20th of July 1973 was as ordinary as any other day for 75-year-old pensioner Mary Hynds; she’d fed the birds, had a modest lunch, a pint or two at the pub, and at 5:30pm, she chatted briefly with Brian Johnson, her neighbour who lived with his wife on the upper floor of this two-storey terrace at 4 Willes Road in Kentish Town, and with Hannah Carter, Brian’s mother-in-law living in the front two rooms of the ground floor, Mary paid £5 a week for a back-bedroom, which was cold and dark. Mary was polite and friendly, but as a solitary lady who kept to herself, rarely made a sound and had few visitors except a social worker, they only knew she was in as she left a lightbulb burning. But as her neighbour Barbara Herman said “she had been burgled twice recently… she seemed to take the attitude that if they wanted to steal £5 from an old lady, they were in a bad way”, and although as a security measure she had nailed the back door shut, she left the front door open for her two pet cats. When questioned, having had his memory refreshed by DCI Harris’ crime scene photos, as drink, drugs, time and the proverbial “white mist” had clouded his recollection, MacKay then recalled Mary’s killing. He stated “I would like to say that when I knocked on her door, my only thought was to get a glass of water”. It hadn’t been a hot summer, if anything it was cool and rainy, but as a tactic he later used to win an old ladies’ trust with sympathy, it was an effective way of getting in, without any forced entry. And although a psychopath who was prone to short bursts of rage, MacKay gave an interesting insight into his warped moral code. He stated “she shuffled away down the passage and came back with the water… It was when I told her that she shouldn’t answer the door to strangers… I just flipped and lost my head… I got hold of her by the elbows and pushed her down the passageway” towards her room. No-one came to her aid, as MacKay recalled “she wasn’t yelling, she seemed in a state of shock”. Said to be drunk during his attacks, MacKay’s description of Mary was predictably vague; “she wore slippers… was late 60s, early 70s… greyish black hair, not very tidy… she seemed to hobble”. And even though she blurred in the myriad of old ladies he’d robbed in a two-year crime spree, he said “there is one thing I remember, and that is the back door… it was black… I couldn’t open it, and I saw it was nailed up”, at which, in front of Robin Clark, MacKay’s solicitor, DCI Harris noted “this is significant”. And it was significant, it was a key piece of evidence which would prove MacKay’s guilt… …as MacKay’s memory of the murder was hazy at best. The next afternoon, with Saturday 21st of July being rent day, Hannah the landlady was worried, and asked Brian her lodger and son-in-law to check on Mary. Brian said “she hadn’t left the rent out, which is due on a Saturday morning and Miss Hynes never used to miss it. She always used to play her radio on a Saturday morning, and I remembered I hadn’t heard the radio”. But maybe she was ill in bed? They knocked, but she didn’t reply. Her front door was locked and the key was nowhere to be found. With no other option, Hannah & Brian went into the back garden, but with her backdoor still nailed shut, they peered in through the slightly dirty back window, and it was then that they saw her body. Like Adele Price & Isabella Griffiths, through a crack in the curtains, initially they thought she’d had a fall, having slumped off her bed onto the floor with all but her legs obscured by an eiderdown, but when ambulance man David Gilhead forced open the window, the true horror of the scene hit them. Although tiny, the room had been ransacked, but given her poverty, it’s unclear if anything was taken. Still fully dressed, she hadn’t been sexual assaulted, which we know wasn’t part of MacKay’s MO, but the body had been moved from where she’d been attacked and partially obscured, which we know was, as it seemed as if her killer had tried to get her into bed as if she had died there, but he had failed. Both her wrists and ankles were bound with a stocking, likely her own, as MacKay never arrived armed to kill. Instead he used whatever came to hand as if each murder was a soured robbery. And described by ambulanceman Eric Talmadge as “not a natural death, she died violently”, having strangled her, a stocking was forced into her throat as if to silence or suffocate her - which MacKay recalled “it’s a bit hazy. I do remember I stuffed stockings into her mouth” - and then, in a short pique of rage, identical to the killing of Father Crean, she was beaten about the face with a block of wood until her head split. It was sadistic and motiveless attack on a lone elderly woman in her own home - the hallmark of Patrick MacKay. It was so savage, Brian recalled “blood was up the walls, the ceiling… and the pillow”. Then, as he would do in later murders, instead of fleeing, he may have sat near the body, sleeping, listening to the radio or feeling depressed, stating “what I normally do is lock the door and take the keys. I’ve got a thing about keys. I usually thrown them away. I don’t remember doing it on this occasion”. Mary’s body was identified by her two younger brothers at St Pancras Mortuary. Her nephew, Michael said “it had a great effect on them… but their way of dealing with it was to not talk about it. It was all too horrific”. Flown back to Northern Ireland, with the coffin inspected by the Army, “one of the soldiers” a veteran “apparently said they had never seen anything like it, and never wanted to again”. Mary was buried Kilclief cemetery in County Down, with her mother, her father, and the two brothers who had died before her. To this day, Michael states “I’m 100 per cent sure that Patrick MacKay did it. I don’t feel anything about him… but I think he should have been convicted as part of the killings he is in prison for… MacKay was mad. You look at the photos of him and you can almost see it in him”. Even the detectives stated that the killer was likely ‘a maniac’, and with MacKay described by Dr Peter Duncan Scott, consultant psychiatrist who observed him for the seven months he was in HMP Brixton’s hospital wing as having “well marked sadistic interests…”, he gave evidence in court that MacKay has a “gross personality disorder, and a continuing need to try to solve emotional problems with violence”. MacKay admitted to him “any man doing a killing enjoys it at the time. It is an animal experience”. MacKay would confess to Mary’s murder, but was he really her killer? The investigation was headed up by Detective Chief Inspector John Harris, and although, there were no fingerprints found at the scene, the Police had a sighting of a potential suspect – “a man in a bright orange sweater was seen climbing on roofs in Willes Road on the day of the murder… we think he may be a totter”, a rag n bone man, “and have been making inquiries in local scrapyards”, detectives said. Compiling a Photofit, he was described as “average height, medium build, with a long face, long nose, thin lips, and light brown brushed forward hair (as if balding)”. In short, nothing like MacKay, again. Similar attacks on elderly women in their own homes in London caught the detectives’ eye, including the murder of 60-year-old spinster Irene Hoye on Old Montague Street in Bethnal Green, East London. On Monday the 23rd of July 1973, just three days later, having been drinking in the pub, this lone lady was strangled in her bedroom with a pair of her own stockings. Sentenced to life at the Old Bailey in March 1974, 36-year-old John Ward, a recently separated father-of-nine had mistakenly broken into the former home of his estranged wife, and drunkenly seeking revenge, instead he’d murdered Irene. The cases weren’t connected. MacKay wasn’t suspected of either. And with Mary’s murder garnering less press attention than the killing of pretty Heidi Mnilk, after a few short months, the case stalled… …until Patrick MacKay confessed “I killed eleven people”, and a unique opportunity arose. On the front page of the Sunday Mirror on 20th of April 1975, it read; “Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ernest Bond, Scotland Yard’s director of operations… ordered detectives to make urgent inquiries based on a multiple murder theory”, linking MacKay to any unsolved murders matching his MO, and stating “originally, there were no obvious grounds to suspect that the murders might be connected…”, but with a “psychopath” willing to admit to eight other murders, his confession could close the case. Openly confessing to being drunk, on drugs, a psychiatric patient, said to be ‘a maniac’, and stating “I have bag snatched and bashed in a lot of old ladies”, he recalled the house, her shuffling walk, asking for water, dragging her in, stuffing stockings in her mouth, taking the keys, and that the back door was nailed shut in what Police described as “an almost photographic description of the murder scene”. And although, unlike with the three killings he was convicted of, his memory was hazy, he said it was only “probable” that he had killed Mary, and that “although I cannot remember the details, I am sure that I, and only I, could have committed this murder. I am positive of that… I flipped and lost my head”. That said, these words were captured in an era before police interviews were recorded on audio tape, so we can only go by what his written statement declares, even though he was an “an inveterate liar”. So, could MacKay have fabricated his testimony using articles from the newspapers? No, as the case was barely covered, even locally. And when it was, in small paragraphs hidden on page 17, Mary’s age and name was wrong, her photo was never issued, her injuries were incorrect, several said she’d been sexually assaulted, her address wasn’t given on this street of 83 houses and 200+ flats and bedsits, and some of the press also incorrectly stated that the killer had left the gas taps on. DCI John Harris also stated they had deliberately kept “this detail of her having stockings in her mouth out of the press”, as the smallest clue can trap a killer. But this was incorrect, as the Sunday Express dated 22nd of July 1973 states “Molly Hinds… was gagged with a stocking stuffed into her mouth”, and in the Sunday Mirror of the same day, “Miss Hynes had… a stocking forced down her throat”. On the 4th of July 1975, at Clerkenwell Magistrates Court, Patrick MacKay, while awaiting trial for the murders of Adele Price, Isabella Griffths & Father Anthony Crean was charged with killing Mary Hynds. And yet he had an iron clad alibi… as on the 15th of July 1973, five days before her murder, while drunk, MacKay was arrested for chasing a homeless man with a four-foot-long metal pole, and was held at Ashford Remand Centre in Kent. At first, he wasn’t a suspect, but owing to his “photographic memory of the crime scene”, Police decided that – owing to staff shortages and a strike - he escaped, travelled 2 hours north to the home of a women he’d never met, killed her taking nothing, and broke back into the remand centre, where no-one noticed he had gone missing for the five hours it would have taken. In a report to the Crown Prosecution Service, DCI Harris admitted “…there is nothing to show that he either legally or illegally left prison… it would be impossible to climb the outer fence…”, yet he believed that MacKay had somehow ditched his prison uniform for his own clothes and walked out of the gate. On the 26th of August 1975, Robin Clark, MacKay’s solicitor wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions stating that his confession to killing eleven people was officially withdrawn with MacKay stating “there is no evidence to tie me, except statements I made in a fed-up and couldn’t-care-less frame of mind”. But, if he’d lied, how did MacKay have “an almost photographic memory of the murder scene”? The answer was in the statements themselves. When questioned at Canon Row police station about the murder of Mary Hynds, DS John Bland stated he told MacKay “she was murdered by being hit over the head with a piece of wood. After that, a stocking was stuffed into her mouth and I think one was tied around her throat. I must be fair Patrick, this appears identical to the method you used because not only was the body covered, as in the Cheyne Walk job, but the doors were locked and the keys taken away, which as you admit, is your method”. DCI Harris later probed MacKay to be specific; (Harris) “can you remember moving the woman?”, (MacKay) “what do you mean?”, (Harris) “did you try to pick her up and put her in bed?”, (MacKay) “I may have done out of a sense of decency”, (Harris) “do you remember covering her in an eiderdown?”, (Mackay) “no, I can’t remember that”, and it was then, with his memory being woefully hazy, that MacKay asked “have you photographs of the house?”. MacKay later recalled “there is one thing I remember and that is the back door… it was black. I couldn’t open it and I saw it was nailed up”, which DCI Harris said was “significant”. Yet, in the presence of the solicitor, Harris clarified, “I have in the past, and this morning, shown you photographs. Have I ever shown you a photograph with the back door in it?”, at which MacKay stated “no, I don’t think so”. Shown crime scene photos, MacKay initially said “that looks like the house I went to, but I had the impression that it was the last house in the street”, which 4 Willes Road was not. Shown a photo of the rear, MacKay said “that doesn’t ring a bell at all”, and of the bedroom, “no, that means nothing to me”. Yet, when driven to the murder location in a police van, MacKay stated “yes, I can positively say this is the house I went into, there is no doubt at all”, and he was charged with her murder. (Out) Tried at the Old Bailey on three undeniable and easily provable counts of murder – Isabella Griffiths, Adele Price and Father Anthony Crean – the trial itself lasted barely half a day, as the main focus wasn’t his guilt, but whether he should be convicted of murder or manslaughter by diminished responsibility. The murder of Mary Hynds, although both tragic and horrific, was a mere footnote in the proceedings, as detectives were unable to prove his miraculous escape from Ashford Remand Centre, his journey to Kentish Town and any connection to Mary or her lodging at all, so with MacKay’s solicitors stating he would deny killing her if he was tried for her murder, his confession was inadmissible as evidence. As one of the eight murders he confessed to, but just one of the two further murders he was charged with, the killing of Mary Hynds was never brought to trial. It was ‘left on file’, meaning the charge was dropped, MacKay would be (technically) found ‘not guilty’, and the investigation was closed. It can only be reactivated by a sitting Judge if and when evidence is found which could lead to a conviction. At his sentencing, Justice Milmo said of MacKay “you are a highly dangerous man and it is my duty to protect the public”, which was an undeniable fact based on cast iron evidence. He was a psychopath and a sadist, who killed for thrills and subjected his victims to unimaginable pain and fear in their last moments alive. He showed no remorse, except for himself, and was rightfully imprisoned for life. Whether he murdered Mary Hynds or not is unknown. Whether he escaped Ashford Remand Centre to kill her is unprovable. Whether his confession was real or a lie remains a secret only he knows. And whether the detectives deliberately refreshed his memory with photos, and coerced his testimony to wrap up an unsolvable murder by blaming it on a loose-lipped ‘maniac’ with a hazy recall is uncertain. But as a confirmed serial-killer with at least three brutal murders on his hands, why would he confess to eleven killings, only then to deny it? Was it due to drink, drugs, mental illness, or a cry for attention? Part C of ‘Patrick MacKay: Two Sides of a Psychopath’ continues next week, with Part 1 of 4 (covering in detail the killings of Father Crean, Isabella Griffith and Adele Price, as well as MacKay’s life, crimes and trial) available now via as part of this cross-over series with the True Crime Enthusiast podcast. Just search ‘Patrick MacKay: Two Sides of a Psychopath’, or click on the link in the show-notes. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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