Calm and composed.. the monster who had just butchered 3 people composed..themonster justbutchered3people
Former police chief tells TV series about his chilling encounter in the wake of killing spree following a breakout from Carstairs in 1976
HE HAD just butchered three people, yet axe murderer Robert Mone sat “calmly” and “composed” in the back of the police car showing no emotion or remorse.
It’s been 45 years since Mone and his fellow inmate Thomas McCulloch broke out of Carstairs Hospital in a murderous rampage but for former senior police officer Graeme Pearson it seems like only yesterday.
Pearson, who went on to be an MSP, accompanied Mone in the car on his journey back to Scotland after the depraved duo, who hacked three people to death during their escape, were apprehended near Carlisle.
Speaking to leading criminologist Professor David Wilson on the new series of Crime Files, Pearson admitted the memories of the time he spent with Mone on that horrific night are etched on his mind forever.
In his first TV interview about the spree killing that sent shockwaves through Scotland, he said: “I was a member of the serious crime squad at that time and we had been delegated to help local officers in locating the escaped patients and arresting them. Before we set off down the M74, we were told we needed firearms and we understood then it was very serious.
“I had to bring Mone back. He seemed calm, he seemed composed and didn’t feel at all affected by the events of the earlier evening and he remained that way until we had returned to Lanark police office.
“Any time I spoke to him he gave very matter of fact replies and obviously didn’t feel intimidated. He seemed to understand what he had done but he tried to persuade me it was inevitable he needed to be part of the events of that night because it was his intention to get out of Carstairs and those events would ensure he would never go back again. No remorse was expressed.”
Pearson, who went on to head the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, added: “I was shocked by his attitude and could not believe that someone who had been involved in the occurrences of that night could sit with me in the back of a police car and be unaffected by the merciless way he had murdered these people. “Bear in mind they had been preparing for this night for some weeks and months and they knew they would need to murder other people in order to escape from Carstairs. “I said to him
quite candidly, “What happens next?” and he said, “We will be fine, we will get to court.”
He indicated that it was his view that the authorities would never place him back in Carstairs and by obtaining a prison sentence he would have a date of release marked against his name. That’s what motivated him.
“I said, ‘What you have done has proved that you are mad. Only a madman could do the things you have done tonight and sit calmly.’”
Rumoured to be lovers, Mone and McCulloch plotted and planned their escape for more than six months.
McCulloch was the brains behind the operation. The pair had managed to stash axes, knives, fake IDs, uniforms, nurses’ hats and garrottes and, on November 30, 1976, they decided it was time to go.
During their escape they butchered Carstairs nurse Neil McLellan, 46, fellow patient Iain Simpson, 40 – with McCulloch hacking off his ears for trophies – and policeman George Taylor, 27.
Graeme said: “I got the impression that rather than being two people engaged in a single incident their time at Carstairs had made them almost one person.
“McCulloch being the strong able-bodied one and Mone being less impressive physically but mentally really strong and controlling.
“Power was important to them as it is to others who engage in terrible violence as it is more about power than anything else.”
Pearson’s revelations are featured in the second episode of BBC Scotland’s Crime Files – Spree Mass Killers – in which David Wilson tries to understand what could motivate a person to commit mass murder.
Record columnist Wilson, who was brought up on a Lanarkshire farm not far from Carstairs, said: “Neither Mone or McCulloch had any remorse or empathy. They were psychopaths and had underlying personalty disorders which meant they didn’t recognise the gravity of the crimes they committed.
“I wanted Graeme to talk about what it was like to be in the car with an unremorseful Mone on the journey back. It was the first time he spoke about that. It happened 45 years ago but Graeme describes it so vividly viewers will feel they are in the car with him.
“That’s the whole idea of this series – helping people visualise how and why these crimes were committed in a bid to make sense of horrific acts of violence.”
In the second episode of the 10-part series, Wilson also speaks to forensic clinical psychologist David Cooke, who speaks about one of Scotland’s worst mass killings, the Dunblane Massacre.
Cooke was called in to examine Thomas Hamilton after the event for the Cullen Inquiry.
Wilson said: “Professor Cooke talks about his examination of Hamilton’s life, about the personality traits of a mass killer and which of these Hamilton displayed prior to the shooting.
Prof Cooke said: “One of the things I was given by the police was a series of video tapes which Hamilton had taken of his boys during gymnastics and they were clearly pornographic.
The boys were stripped to the waist and he was putting them into poses which they were obviously finding uncomfortable.Thomas Hamilton wasn’t insane in the technical sense. He was suffering from a sadistic personality disorder.
“There is evidence of cruelty on the videos and that he took pleasure in their pain and evidence of grandiosity. He wanted to be notorious. He planned it and he achieved it.”
David’s final guest on Crime Files is Dr Mick North, whose daughter Sophie was killed during the shooting at Dunblane Primary School on March 13, 1996.
Dr North talks about his own feelings towards Hamilton and highlights his journey campaigning for gun control in the UK.
David Wilson’s Crime Files is on BBC Scotland tomorrow at 10.30pm.