Britain’s Forgotten Serial Killer

The Terror of the Axeman John Lucas Pen & Sword 2019 Pb, 213pp, £14.99, illus, bib, ind, ISBN 9781526748843

Britain’s Forgotten Serial Killer tells the story of Patrick Mackay, who went on a rampage in the mid1970s, murdering at least three people.

As a young man, Patrick Mackay made a career of mugging wealthy old London ladies. Since at the time, such a cowardly crime was quite uncommon, the trusting old women allowed Mackay to carry their shopping home for them, and invited him into their flats. The psychopath repaid them by knocking them down and stealing their belongings. One of his victims was 84yearold Isabella Griffiths, whom he robbed and murdered in 1974. The following year, he dispatched 89yearold widow Adele Price, before murdering Fr Anthony Crean, a kind but foolish Roman Catholic priest, in a bloodbath.

John Lucas rightly points out that there was a surprising number of mysterious unsolved murders in London and the provinces during Mackay’s reign of terror, and it seems likely that his tally of victims is a good deal longer than the three counts of manslaughter for which he was convicted. In Murder Houses of London I have speculated that Mackay holds the macabre record of no fewer than six murder houses still standing today.

Mackay was bundled into a prison cell; the key was thrown away. Fast forward 44 years. The key was retrieved in 2019 and Mackay was dusted off and put in an open prison. There was an outcry in the press that such a fiendish serial killer should be on the route to freedom, however, and it appears that at the present time, the 66yearold Mackay is still behind bars. This book contains everything you need to know about his sanguineous career in the 1970s; it belongs in any larger true crime collection. Jan Bondeson

★★★