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.
'The Mercer's (today)
This is a ten-part crossover series written and created by Murder Mile and True Crime Enthusiast. Parts A to F (covering the murders that serial killer Patrick MacKay confessed or was suspected of) are available via Murder Mile, and Parts 1 to 4 (covering the murders he was convicted of, as well as his life, his upbringing and his trial is available via the True Crime Enthusiast podcast.
PATRICK MACKAY: TWO SIDES OF A PSYCHOPATH: This is Part C of F of Patrick MacKay: Two Sides of a Psychopath, about the killing of Stephanie Britton and Christopher Martin. On the night of Friday 11th of January 1974, inside the six-bedroomed home called ‘The Mercers’ on Hadley Green Road in Barnet, north-west London, the bodies of 58-year-old window Stephanie Britton and her 4-year-old grandson Christopher Martin were found. This was two of the additional eight murders that British serial killer Patrick MacKay was suspected of, but why would he deny it? This series explores the killings he confessed to, and which he committed.
Part C of F by Murder Mile covers the murder of Stephanie Britton & Christopher Martin:
Part 3 of 4 by True Crime Enthusiast covers the life of Patrick MacKay:
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: ‘Maniac’, ‘Monster’, ‘Crazed’, these are the words proceeding MacKay’s name in every article written about him, and it’s how he’s been described by psychiatrists since his first diagnosis as a ‘psychopath’ aged 11. But it wasn’t a mental illness manageable by drugs, but an untreatable personality disorder caused by neglect and abuse, in which he would try “to solve his emotional problems with violence”. In his 40-page memoir written in Brixton Prison before his trial, MacKay stated “I only had the best of intentions in living my life, but one cannot, unfortunately, always foresee the certain type of stigmas that can form… in such an imperfect world”, as being a boy who distrusted adults, the system and was bounced between institutions, the only consistency in his life was solitude, violence and getting drunk. July 1966, aged 14, four years after the death of his drunken father who he idolised but never grieved, MacKay was sent to West Hill in Dartford, one of many psychiatric hospitals where as a young boy he spent his most formative years. January 1967, aged 15, he was back at West Hill. May 1968, aged 16, he was at Gravesend. That October, charged with the robbery and GBH of a 12-year-old boy, he was held at Moss Side Hospital in Liverpool (hundreds of miles from his home in Kent). And bounced from Moss Side to Stonehouse in Dartford - as a succession of doctors had no idea what to do with him - how could a child grow-up to be ‘normal’, if they’ve been told that they’re a ‘maniac’ or a ‘monster’? Medical experts stated he wasn’t mentally unwell, but plagued by depression and suicide attempts (in which many times he tried to drown, stab himself or jump in front of a train), were they a cry for help, were they spawned by a sense of shame, and were hospitals the only place he felt loved, or accepted? Title: Patrick MacKay: Two Sides of a Psychopath – Part C. Calling the early years of MacKay’s criminal career a ‘crime spree’ is a gross exaggeration, as in all parts of his life, he was an under-achiever; he had jobs but no focus, an education but it was fractured, he could be charming but had few friends and no girlfriend, and although when he wrote he was eloquent, in every institution he was lumped-in with the low-IQ kids doing menial work for low pay. He drank to quieten his mind and committed crimes to quell his boredom. By 1973, aged 21, although it’s unlikely that he murdered Heidi Mnilk, and 11 days later, it’s improbable that the killed Mary Hynds - as arrested on 15th of July for chasing a homeless man with a metal pole, he was held on remand at Ashford and wasn’t released until the 27th of July when he was given a six-month suspended sentence – he had two more convictions that year; 24th of September at Dartford for being drunk and disorderly and 25th of October at Highgate for stealing a bicycle - hardly the crimes of a infamous serial killer. That said, although a petty thief and a wastrel, he’d found himself a job, as being 6 foot 2 and solidly built, he was hired as a van boy for Perrin’s of Finchley, a furniture removals firm covering towns in the north-west London borough of Barnet which included Hendon, Golders Green, Edgware and Finchley where he was then living with Father ‘Ted’ Brack, as well as the wealthier villages like Hadley. Said to be “quiet and solitary”, this was one of the longest periods of employment he had, and with his bosses accepting his bouts of arrest and incarceration, it also marked a key moment in what truly was his ‘crime spree’, as the first provable incident in which he targeted wealthy old ladies had begun. In November 1973, 83-year-old actress Jane Comfort was appearing in the Agatha Christie thriller ‘The Mousetrap’ at the Ambassador Theatre in London’s West End. Mid-performance, MacKay snuck in via the stage door, stole £4 (£60 today) and fled as she’d seen his face. Oddly, two months later, asking an elderly lady for directions on her doorstep at Gloucester Place, it was only after he had punched her in the face and thrown her to the ground for the sake of £40, that he realised this again was Jane. She gave detectives an accurate description of her attacker, later discovered to be Patrick MacKay. Just days later, in an unnervingly similar attack three miles south in Cheyne Walk, he gained entry to the home of 84-year-old Isabella Griffiths and murdered her, marking his very first confirmed kill... …but in between both, did he also murder Stephanie Britton? She was the epitome of MacKay’s new victims, and although younger than most being just 58, she was a wealthy widow who lived alone. Born on 9th of April 1916 in Barnet, north-west London, Stephanie Elizabeth Nunn lived in the picturesque village of Hadley all of her life, from birth through to death. As a baby, she was born in The White House in Hadley Green, she was baptised in St Mary the Virgin church in Monken Hadley, in her early school years she’d lived on nearby Barnet High Street as one of three children to Dr John Wilfred Nunn and Hilda (who the census lists as a ‘householder’ as with three domestic servants, normally a ‘wife’ would be listed as doing ‘unpaid domestic duties’, but not here). This was a life of middle-class privilege, just a few miles from the city, but a distance from the slums, the poverty and the choking fumes, and as a picture-perfect idyll, it was safe and serene place to live. Like her brothers, Michael and John (who ran the local doctor’s surgery with his father), Stephanie was well-educated, but her place in life was as a wife and mother, and that is what she was to be. Having married at St Mary the Virgin church at the outset of World War Two to Mervyn Anthony Britton, a good man who later became a well-known solicitor at Longmore’s of Hertford, together they lived in the village of Hadley, where their two children - Oliver and Joanna - were also born and raised. Unlike most, their lives weren’t blighted by tragic pasts, as it was peaceful and calm, at least for now. In October 1969, around the time that MacKay was committed to Moss Side Psychiatric Hospital, after more than 30 years of marriage, Stephanie was widowed when her beloved husband Mervyn passed. Emotionally, it broke her, but surrounded by all she had ever known; her family, her friends, her priest, her clubs, and the familiar warm bosom of the village she loved, Hadley was always her safety net. Described as “kind, quiet, generous and modest with an immense charm”, Stephanie was ‘popular and well liked’, and was active in her local charities and organisations, like Barnet Arts Club, the Darby and Joan Club (as treasurer of this OAP’s social club) and the Barnet Old People’s Welfare Committee. With her grey hair, spectacles and neat clothes, she exuded a sense of propriety as she cycled about on an old-fashioned bicycle and was easy to spot. And hating fuss and being strong-willed, although it was said she was “gentle and lady-like”, she had a boisterous sense of humour, described as ‘masculine’. In 1965, with her husband still alive, they moved into a six bedroomed £60,000 Georgian house called ‘The Mercers’ on Hadley Green Road, worth £3.25 million today. Overlooking the soothing silence of the village green with its gently swaying trees and its duck filled ponds, it was her place of happiness. But by 1973, with her daughter Joanna having married and her son Oliver moving out, this family home was too big and empty for this widow to live alone, so in the New Year, she was planning to sell up. Stephanie’s life had changed to such an extent that – unaware of MacKay, his crimes and his need for attention forming in the mind of a serial killer to-be - she unwittingly became his perfect victim; she was lonely yet kind; isolated and defenceless, being a wealthy widow with a warm-heart whose door was always open, and whose home which was full of easy-to-steal antiques, jewellery and cash. Stephanie Britton would be victim number three of the infamous eleven… …the problem was, he never confessed to her killing. In fact, he “vehemently denied it”. But why? Friday 11th of January 1974 was a brutally horrible day, as with temperatures barely above freezing, a bruised black sky unleashed a bitter torrent of hard hail, lashing rain and violent thunderstorms across London. Many, like Stephanie may have chosen to wade it out inside a warm bright house, but on 1st of January, sparked by the worldwide energy crisis, the UK Government had introduced the Three-Day Week meaning that electricity and gas supplies were strictly rationed to conserve its dwindling supply. Inside ‘The Mercers’, this oversized nine-roomed house where Stephanie lived alone, that night, it was only lit by candle light, only warmed by a log fire, and with entertainments like television and radio off at a respectable hour, from the outside, it looked as if no-one was in, except for the flicker of a torch. Stephanie was last seen alive by her daughter at 6:30pm, two hours after dusk, and was said to be in good spirits. She had no worries, she hadn’t enemies, she hadn’t befriended a stranger and although these houses were often the target for professional burglars, her worldly goods weren’t all on display. On the 1st of February, three weeks after her murder but crucially a full year before MacKay was even on the Police’s radar as a burglar and murderer of lone elderly ladies, an eye-witness in Hadley recalled seeing a man at 8pm near Joslin’s pond, a 30 second walk from ‘The Mercers’. He was “tall, about 30, with dark short hair and wearing a long military top coat with a belt”. MacKay was 6 foot 2, 23 but looked older, had dark short hair and wore military style coats, which although not unique, it is similar. At the time, MacKay lived with Reverand Brack in East Finchley, five stops south of the Northern Line, a short ride by bus, and having quit his job at the Perrin’s on 5th of January, he was unemployed and broke until the 14th, three days after her killing, and that day, he couldn’t account for his whereabouts. Typical of his crimes, Police said “there was no evidence of a break-in”, as MacKay’s method was either to snatch his victim’s handbag on a street, attack them on their doorstep, or using a sympathetic ploy by asking for a directions, a glass of water or to use the toilet, he’d come across as a softly spoken boy. Joanna, Stephanie’s daughter later stated “she was not very careful about locking-up”, but that night, her front door would be deliberately left off the latch, as at around 8pm, she was expecting a visitor. Later found on a table in the sitting room, it is believed she had left a handwritten note on the front door which read, ‘Alan, I am on the telephone, please come in, Steph”. Said to be “a prolific user of the telephone”, she had a lot friends locally and across the country, but all Alan’s were unaccounted for. Even though it’s clear that she knew him, she trusted him and (as planned) she was expecting him. MacKay often used the alias of Peter McCann, but was he the ‘Alan’ she was expecting? Many of his victims weren’t strangers, as being amiable and charming like a kindly grandson, prior to his attacks, he would chat with them, drink with them and carry their shopping like a family friend. Records also show that she received a call at roughly 8pm, but detectives couldn’t tell who or where it came from. So, if this was MacKay, what was his motive… …a robbery for greed, an attack for thrills, or an accidental murder resulting in shame? Detective Chief Superintendent William Wilson of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad stated, “if it was an intruder, there was no need to kill a small, defenceless woman, there wasn’t even a dog in the house”. Found downstairs in the sitting room, not far from the phone, Stephanie was fully dressed and lying prone on the floor (identical to Adele Price and Isabella Griffiths). With a seven-to-nine-inch single-edged knife with a brown handle missing from her kitchen, it was likely but unconfirmed that this was the weapon used to kill her, as it was never found. And yet, with some early confusion over the length and type of the blade, it could easily have been a five-inch stiletto MacKay admitted he often carried. With cuts, grazes and bruises to her head and hands, the pathologist said these were signs of a violent struggle as – fighting for her life - Stephanie was kicked and punched to the ground by her assailant. Overpowered and helpless, nine times he had stabbed her in her chest, her neck, her back and under her armpit, penetrating her most vital of organs like her lung and heart. Described by DCS Wilson as “a frenzied attack, one of the worst murders I have ever encountered”, with a single ferocious strike, one of the stab wounds was so vicious, the blade had penetrated her body and the floorboard below. Again, MacKay would later state the same fact about Isabella Griffiths, but was this untrue, or had he conflated the 25+ identical attacks on elderly ladies, as he had done with the murder of Mary Hynds? As was said, nothing was stolen, so either robbery wasn’t the motive, or he had been disturbed? But either way, as with other attacks by MacKay, detectives felt it was a cruel and “a motiveless killing”. With the energy crisis making the house inordinately cold, pathologist Dr David Bowen could only put a time of death - as she died not long after the attack - somewhere from 8:30pm to 10pm. As was his method, it looked like a robbery, but detectives felt the rooms had been “superficially ransacked” as if the suspect was obfuscating his crime “as nothing of value was taken… other than a kitchen knife”. But perhaps, what began as a robbery had ended in a brutal murder, due to something unforeseen? That night, except for ‘Alan’ - who may have been MacKay using an alias, or an unknown guest who might not have turned up - Stephanie was supposed to have been alone in her large empty house, but at the last minute, her plans for the evening had changed, and for her, it would change for the worse. On the 3rd of March 1969, having previously married 32-year-old Michael Martin, Stephanie was elated that she’d become a grandmother, as her daughter Joanna had given birth to a boy called Christopher. Like his granny, being born, baptised, raised and living his whole short life in Hadley, Christopher Jan Nicholas Martin was small, fair-haired and described as a “happy and brilliant little boy”, who always smiled, eternally giggled, was quiet but bright, and was often seen helping his granny in her garden. A year earlier, Joanna & Michael had separated, and not wanting to disrupt his education, aged just 4, he lived with his mother at Hadley Highstone and went to Monken Hadley junior school. That evening, with his mother out with friends and his father flying over from Ireland the next day to see him, Joanna had dropped him off at ‘The Mercer’s at 6:30pm, so he could sleep - as he often did - at his granny’s. It was a place he felt safe, they both did, and yet someone would devastate this entire family. DCS Wilson stated “if it was an intruder, there was no need to kill a small, defenceless woman…and why go upstairs and kill a sleeping child? It would only delay his escape. No-one in their right mind could have murdered those two”, clarifying “no normal person would have gone to those lengths”. Dressed in his pyjamas and having been told a bedtime story, about 7pm, Christopher lay curled up in his bedroom, with the lights off, wrapped-up in a warm duvet, and by 8pm, he was sound asleep. With no witnesses to the crime, only a trail of devastation, it's uncertain what had occurred. Was Christopher sleeping as was stated? Was he awoken by his granny’s screams, did he see her brutal death from the stairs, and racing back up to his bedroom where he mistakenly thought he was safe - with the intruder not wanting to leave behind an eyewitness – was he killed to ensure he never spoke? Using possibly the same blade which had slayed his granny, in his bed, the tiny boy was stabbed several times, as the knife penetrated his pyjamas and blanket, held over him for warmth and protection. That night, two murders occurred; one was the epitome of a MacKay victim, the other was not. At an undetermined hour, the killer left. As MacKay often did; the lights were off but only because of the energy crisis, the front door was locked with the key taken but the French doors at the back were open, and - possibly with the killer prone to depression and staying with the body hours after the murder - just as an eyewitness had seen “a tall man, about 30, in a military style top coat” walking by Joslin’s pond at 8pm, another saw a man fitting that description leaving Hadley Green at 5:30am. But was it MacKay? The next morning, with Stephanie having not returned Christopher back to his mum’s house, at 10am, she went to ‘The Mercer’s. It was a sight so horrifying, it left her traumatised until her death in 2007. On Wednesday 23rd of January, at Monken Hadley Church, 300 mourners attended the double funeral of Stephanie Britton and Christopher Martin, with both buried side-by-side at Bells Hill burial ground. An incident room was set-up in the top two rooms of Barnet Police Station on the High Street, with 30 detectives, a few desks, two phones, and a bookcase bowing with the weight of statements, maps and street plans. Dog handlers scoured the green, frogmen searched the ponds, 3000 people were spoken to, with 1000+ statements taken. DCI Joe Pallett stated “the biggest headache was the lack of motive. The house was ransacked. It had all the appearance of a burglary with the thief being disturbed. But nothing was stolen… It’s got all the signs of a break-in, but there are too many inconsistencies”. Again, what was clear was that the killer was “a maniac”. DCI Pallett said “whoever committed these murders was unbalanced at the time. That does not necessarily mean that we believe whoever did it is permanently unstable, but the severity and brutality of the attacks indicate a kind of frenzy” – so someone who wasn’t necessarily ‘mentally unwell’, but had a ‘severe psychotic personality disorder’. Local hospitals and psychiatric units were checked for missing patients, drug addicts were questioned, as well as felons with a history of burglary and violence, but no-one seemed to fit the bill. MacKay wasn’t questioned, as being just a petty thief, he was yet to appear on the police’s radar as a murderer. Forensics swarmed The Mercer’s, but with the doors left open and the night bitterly cold, they couldn’t shorten the ‘time of death’ window to less than 8:30pm (when Stephanie ended her call) and 10pm, and as a very popular woman whose large home was used as a meeting place for her many charities and clubs, more than 200 sets of fingerprints were found, one of which may have been her killer. What was clear, as DCI Pallett said “someone went to a lot of trouble to disguise these killings”. But who, and why? Three days after the discovery of the bodies, Police stated that a man “early 30s, well built, fair hair… had spent his third night at (Barnet police station)”. They refused to name him, “but he has not been detained and came to the station voluntarily”. Some have suggested that this was the Police’s primary suspect, or Patrick MacKay in disguise? In truth, it was Christopher’s grieving father, Michael. Having flown from Ireland, he spent 60 hrs being questioned, and as must be done was ruled out as a suspect. The ”tall, dark haired man in the military style top coat” was never identified. But was it MacKay? The killing of Isabella Griffiths - his first confirmed kill - four weeks after Stephanie’s murder had as many similarities as dissimilarities, but as we know, MacKay’s method of killing was inconsistent. On Thursday the 8th of August 1974, at Hornsey Coroner’s Court, it was ruled as a ‘murder by persons unknown’. With no-one charged or suspected, and every angle investigated, the case went cold until Patrick MacKay made his miraculous confession, “I killed eleven people”. On Sunday 20th of April 1975, the Sunday Mirror declared ‘Scotland Yard is carrying out one of the most sensational mass murder investigation in its history. Detectives are examining clues which could link several killings with one maniac… Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ernest Bond… ordered detectives to make urgent inquiries based on a multiple murder theory. Originally there were no grounds to suspect the murders might be connected’ – but one of those was Stephanie Britton & Christopher Martin, along with Mary Hynds. Unlike the killing of Heidi Mnilk, this one was sparsely covered, so even if he had lied in his confession, he would have got most of the facts wrong. Unlike in Mary Hynds’ murder, detectives couldn’t coerce him to wrap-up to an unsolvable case, as he ‘vigorously denied’ he had anything to do with the murder. In ‘Psychopath’ by Tim Clark & John Penycate, it states “Mackay is said to have confessed to this crime to a fellow prisoner”, but this cannot be verified, and many details in this book are woefully incorrect, such as claiming “MacKay had visited the house when working for the removals firm, Perrin’s”, but why would Stephanie call a removals company, when she hadn’t even put her house on the market? Handcuffed and driven to ‘The Mercer’s in a police van, in his memoir, MacKay wrote “I went to view the outside of the house. However having said that, it is my belief that they will always wonder whether I knew something about this bizarre slaying or not. The answer is, of course, that I did not”. MacKay remains the Police’s only suspect in this double murder… and it makes perfect sense why. Stephanie was the epitome of a MacKay victim, the murder mirrors that of Isabella Griffiths and Adele Price, he was possibly seen in the area at the time of the killings, he was local, knew the area, and the next job he got just three weeks later was as a patrolling ‘trustee’ picking up litter in Hadley Green. When he was tried at the Old Bailey in November 1975, Patrick MacKay was subsequently convicted of three murders – Adele Price, Isabella Griffiths and Father Anthony Crean – and of the two additional murders he was suspected of, confessed to and was charged with, Stephanie & Christopher’s killings weren’t ‘left on file’. In fact, the evidence against MacKay was so slim, it wasn’t even brought to trial. In 2012, with this cold case being reviewed, MacKay still hasn’t been charged, he denies their killing, and even the last surviving members of Stephanie’s family “don’t think MacKay was the killer”. (Out) But why would this attention-seeking serial-killer, who had already murdered three and had confessed to eight more murders, deny – in the strongest, unwavering words – that he’d anything to do with it? It could all just be a game, a ploy to keep his name in the headlines, because as we know, detectives stated that MacKay was “an inveterate liar”, or again, he’s simply mistaking one attack for another? Maybe realising that - as a nobody who had achieved nothing and was destined to be forgotten - now having become an infamous serial killer, that he wanted to be written about like John Reginald Christie and John George Haigh, but not hated like Myra Hindley & Ian Brady – The Moor’s Murderers, was the murder of Stephanie Britton acceptable in his warped moral code, but not the killing of her grandson? Were both killings a mistake, as there’s no hard evidence to prove that the murders he was convicted of were premeditated, beyond being robberies which went wrong. And as a psychopath prone to short powerful burst of violent rage followed by long periods of self-hatred and depression, are we too ready to accept his retelling of the murders in his 40-page prison memoir, which bolsters his infamy? Maybe he “vehemently denied” the killing of Christopher Martin, as having been routinely beaten and abused as a young boy himself, did this killing make him realise that he was becoming like his drunken violent father, a man he hero-worshipped but couldn’t mourn? Either way, MacKay did have a history of attacking young boys; as in 1967, he was charged with the assault of two boys on a building site by smashing their heads into the rubble, and in 1968, he attempted to strangle a 12-year-old boy who he robbed for a watch, in which a Home Office psychiatrist described him as a ‘cold blooded psychopath’. That said, when he attacked those boys, he was little more than a child himself… …but was it all because of shame, confusion, or was he building a legacy? Part D 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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