At 2.10pm, Olson suggested she should surrender, and Brenda said she would think about it. He suggested they hang up for a while and said he would call back in 20 minutes. After consulting fellow detectives about how best to end the siege, he called again and suggested she leave the house and lie face down with her hands above her head.

Brenda refused but began asking questions about her eventual arrest: whether she was going to juvenile detention or the police station, whether she would be handcuffed, whether she would be given a lawyer, and what the charges would be. Olson understood that she wanted to be taken from the scene in handcuffs. He said the charges were not up to him, but that a lawyer would be provided if she requested one once she was in custody. He also reminded her that the Whopper she had asked for would be hers once she was in the police vehicle.

Switching topics, Brenda said: ‘Bugs Bunny will be coming on at three o’clock. Let me tell you, watching Bugs Bunny and listening to the stereo is really something.’ Then she said: ‘If I shoot at the police, they will shoot back.’ Olson responded: ‘That’s not a good idea, Brenda. You don’t really want to do that. If you have been watching the SWAT movies, you know that if a police sniper is assigned to do his job, it will end in tragedy.’

Brenda became increasingly agitated, and the negotiators believed she was considering another attack. ‘If you do that, Brenda, I can’t control the SWAT officers,’ Olson said. Searching for something she could identify with, he added that officers would probably use gas and that her pet animals might die from the fumes.

Brenda had spoken about having a rat, a snake and a dog, but she did not give in. ‘Well, if that’s what has to be done, that’s what has to be done. They have to take care of themselves,’ she said. Then she asked whether she was on television. Olson replied that there was plenty of media interest outside. ‘That’s great!’ she said.

She then said she would sit back and think about things. ‘Keep talking to me. You’re making progress,’ Olson replied. They continued to speak, and Brenda relaxed her position and finally agreed to leave her house and place her rifles on the ground. She would then re-enter the house and bring out the ammunition.

Brenda asked: ‘Should I leave the rifle unloaded or loaded?’ Olson suggested she unload it. A few minutes later, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer casually left her house carrying her new .22 rifle and her pellet gun covered in a sweatshirt. She unwrapped the guns and slowly laid them next to each other, then calmly wandered back into the house and got back on the phone as instructed.

To Olson, she was eager and co-operative, so he asked her to pick up all the ammunition and place it outside, not too close to the weapons. ‘It’ll take me a while. There’s ammunition all over the house,’ she replied. Five minutes later she came back on the phone and said: ‘Okay, I’ve got it.’ Then she exited her house for the final time with an armful of .22 ammunition.

She walked to the end of the driveway, stepping around the two rifles before lowering the ammunition boxes. On her right, two SWAT team members with shotguns had sneaked forward and into her view. A few other SWAT officers raced towards her from her left. Brenda did not resist but was startled as she rose slowly to her feet. She was apprehended at 3.06pm, seven hours after her first shots on the school. Her hands were cuffed behind her back as she was led away.

For the first time, the world got sight of the deadly sniper who had callously and without rhyme or reason killed two people and seriously wounded a number of young children. Brenda Spencer stood only 5ft 1in and weighed just six-and-a-half stone. She dressed in boys’ clothes and, even though she was soon turning 17, she looked years younger. Painfully skinny and slight, she had long orange hair reaching to the middle of her back.

Even as a child she had often looked as if she had never seen a comb; perhaps this was because she did not live with her mother and did not have a close relationship with her older sister.

In court many months later, Brenda pleaded guilty to two counts of murder in the first degree. She also pleaded guilty to several counts of assault with a deadly weapon. She was unemotional until Judge McMillan asked her what happened that day. With tears in her eyes, she replied in a low voice: ‘I shot from my house and killed two people.’ To the 11 other charges, she simply whispered, ‘Guilty.’

She was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, but with the chance of parole one day. Today, 47 years later, she is still in prison, having had numerous parole applications refused. In those hearings she claimed she had been sexually abused by her father – which he denies. Although neighbours and acquaintances had their suspicions, the author could find no independent confirmation of this. She also hated her mother for leaving and breaking up the family.

She claimed she had been high on drugs and alcohol, though a blood test when she was arrested showed no such stimulants. She also claimed she had intended to shoot over the children’s heads, though all the evidence contradicts this. On another occasion, she said she was hallucinating when she carried out the shootings and that voices in her head would not let her stop. One parole board after another felt these explanations indicated that she had not accepted full responsibility for her actions.

Behind bars, she became something of a model prisoner. She attended Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous activities, completed anger-management and self-help courses, studied animal grooming, took vocational electronics and hobby and craft classes, and attained a qualification as an electrical test technician.

She earned top marks in upholstery, obtained her driving licence so she could work in the prison’s car repair shop, and became an accredited forklift driver working in the prison warehouse. She helped other inmates learn to read, played for the prison softball team, performed in a musical group and, for many years, created a garden in the prison.

It did not help her argument for release that she had become one of the most famous criminals in the United States. The Boomtown Rats’ song I Don’t Like Mondays, based on what she had told a newspaper reporter as the reason for her killing spree, propelled her to the status of an international poster child for evil. Interestingly, she told her parole board last year that she did not remember saying that.

In 1979, the school-shooter phenomenon was rare, and for the perpetrator to be a young woman was rarer still. It is also unusual for a school shooter to survive. As a result, whenever another school shooting occurs, her crime is brought up again.

In making her case for parole, Brenda said: ‘I’m really deeply sorry for what I’ve done. I know that saying sorry doesn’t make it all right. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what I did and I realise that not only the people I hurt are victims but everyone who went to that school, their family and friends.’

She was opposed vociferously at every parole hearing by Cam Miller, who was nine when shot by Brenda just one inch from his heart. ‘She clearly has no regard for human lives,’ he told a hearing in 2001. ‘She was shooting to kill any human target that walked into her path. She is a cold-hearted ruthless murderer who needs to be in prison for the rest of her life for the safety of the community.’

Crystal Hardy, who was ten when Brenda shot her through the wrist, said: ‘She shot children, a police officer, and adults trying to help. I have images of those bodies in the bushes, and they never leave me. Nothing can fix that. There is solace in knowing she is in prison.’

And so, more than 47 years after she took her rifle and brought slaughter and terror to a primary school, she is still in prison, but remains a paradox. Despite having been examined by numerous doctors and psychologists, to this day we are no closer to understanding why she did what she did.

Two men were dead, nine children wounded and a policeman was fighting for life. A police SWAT team was waiting in case she didn’t surrender . . .

For whatever reason, Brenda did not try to run; she remained in the house. It was unclear what she was doing, but it was now more than two hours since she last discharged her hunting rifle.

SWAT teams were in place, one in the driveway of the house next door to Brenda’s, preparing to unleash disabling gas on the Spencer house and its occupant if necessary. Police worried that the sniper might pick a new target and begin firing again. There was a housing complex with young adults and new families in easy range. Directly behind the school, it had balconies and a large parking space in view of the shooter.

Meanwhile, crowds of onlookers – terrified parents of children at the school, journalists, and so-called lookie-loos drawn to the scene by news coverage – were growing and becoming difficult to control. Officers feared they, too, might prove a possible target. The remaining children in the school – those not mown down by Brenda’s sharp-shooting – had been marshalled onto buses and driven to another school where frantic parents had been told to go to collect them.

Just after noon, Brenda answered the phone. It was Detective Paul Olson calling from the house next door. As primary negotiator, he was making the first attempt at building a rapport. He asked if she was OK and if she needed anything right away. Olson says she asked for a Burger King Whopper sandwich, and he agreed to get her one, but only after she surrendered.

‘Why do you think you are in this predicament?’ Olson asked her. ‘Everybody’s got problems. It isn’t me,’ Brenda replied. Olson asked what weapons were in the house. She did not answer directly but did say: ‘The scope on my rifle had been knocked out of place once when I was out hunting. That’s why it didn’t shoot straight.’

Before Olson responded, she continued: ‘Hey, do you think I can have some lunch?’ He told her he was interested only in caring for her safety and the safety of anyone in the area. It was best to resolve the incident as soon as possible, and then she would be able to eat. When asked about surrendering, she said she was at home and perfectly satisfied with where she was. ‘I’m having a lot of fun.’

About ten minutes into the talk, Brenda said she could hear noises outside and could see SWAT officers around her house and across the road at the school. ‘If I had wanted to, I could have shot several of them. Tell them to back off. They are p***ing me off.’ The SWAT team was told they were not helping and duly backed out of sight.

Olson would later say: ‘She was, let’s say, “irritated” but not raving mad. She settled down after the SWAT officers moved.’ Olson asked again what weapons she had. ‘I have a pellet rifle, and I am a crack shot,’ she replied. ‘I used to shoot it a lot in my backyard. I have shot rabbits in the back of the head at 25 yards. They would feel no pain. I’m also a good shot with my .22 rifle.’

‘Why don’t you throw your rifle out the front door through the broken window?’ Olson asked. ‘No way!’ Brenda cried. ‘I don’t want to injure it. It is my security blanket. As long as I have it, there is no way you’ll come into my house.’

‘What reason do you have for the shootings, Brenda?’ Olson asked. ‘I have no reason. I just thought of doing it at the spur of the moment. I’m gonna stay here awhile. I want to have some more fun. It was fun seeing kids being shot in a group,’ Brenda responded. She tried to explain that some children stood around looking at the victims, so she shot at the onlookers too.

‘It looked like a herd of cows standing around the one that was shot. It was really easy pickings. The kids that had red or blue ski jackets made the best targets. It was like shooting ducks in a pond, it was so easy. I enjoyed watching them squirm around after they had been shot.’

She expressed anger at Mike Suchar, the school janitor, whom she would have known because five years earlier she had been a pupil at Cleveland Elementary. She said she shot him because he was trying to get everybody off the school grounds and out of the way. She also indicated she knew exactly who he was, saying: ‘He was always out there ordering the kids around. I didn’t think this was a good thing. I wanted to make sure I took care of him.’

She said: ‘Also, I know I shot a pig.’ She told Olson she hoped to have shot other ‘pigs’, especially the one who drove the refuse truck into the playground to block her view. Throughout the conversation she repeated that she was ‘really having a lot of fun’.

When Olson asked whether anything had happened that day or over the weekend that made her upset enough to shoot people, Brenda replied: ‘I grew up hating people all my life. At school, my friends. I hate everybody.’ When Olson asked why, she replied that people were mean to her. Asked again for her reason, she said: ‘I have no reason for doing anything. I just thought of it this morning.’

At 12.26pm, authorities cut off the electricity to the Spencer residence, but Brenda did not appear to notice. For the next 20 minutes, Olson asked about her relationship with her family and whether she was upset with her father. She had continually refused to discuss him – police had brought him to the scene – until Olson asked if she had any message for him. ‘Yes, I do. Tell my dad to go get screwed,’ she said, adding: ‘I grew up hating people, and I will never change my mind.’

Over the next half-hour Brenda stayed on the line but was not very responsive. Olson found himself doing most of the talking and struggling to engage her. A little after 1pm, and without prompting, Brenda started to offer details about her mental state: ‘Oh, I’ve seen a shrink. I gave him three pages of notes, but that’s all.’

Then she began to share her drug history: ‘I use dope. I even fight my friends over dope deals. My father gives me $5 a week allowance. He’s been supporting my dope habit for about five years.’ When Olson asked what kind of dope she used, Brenda said: ‘I use any dope I can get my hands on. Today I took some downers, smoked some pot, and drank some beer and whiskey.’

She paused and then curiously said: ‘Let me give you some advice. Don’t chew bubble gum and drink whiskey at the same time. It ruins the bubble gum, and you have to throw it away. Also, M&Ms and beer are a bad combination. It’ll make you sick.’ Then she roared with laughter.

Olson wanted to let her speak freely but changed the subject. Asked what she had done over the weekend, Brenda said she had stayed home and that a 13-year-old friend from Santee had visited. She continued: ‘I like to fight. Whenever I fight, I fight dirty.’ She described injuring a friend during a dispute over drugs.

She said she carried a hunting knife whenever she left the house and hid knives in her clothing at night so police would not find them. She also bragged about shoplifting ammunition from different stores, sometimes for friends, and taking ammunition from her father’s van without him knowing.

As the negotiation carried on, Olson could tell that Brenda was either getting bored or was tired from the suspected drugs and drink. During this period, she told him: ‘I’m reloading my rifle. I have plenty of ammunition.’ She then hung up. When she picked up again, she warned him: ‘I heard noises in the front yard. If they don’t stop, I’m going to do something else.’

She told him she had boxes of ammunition for her .22-calibre semi-automatic rifle and could be there all day if she wanted to. Her father had told police his daughter might have as many as 600 rounds available.

To be continued…

Daniels appeared at Milton Keynes Magistrates’ Court on the September 21^st. He appears to have been released but is due to appear at Aylesbury Crown Court in late October.

Daniels represents himself as a musician, music teacher and author on his social media accounts. He claims to be “pacemaker dependant” with a bladder cancer diagnosis but is “doing ok”. The few posts under

his name are rants against the modern world chastising “do-gooders” and the attention the “LGBTQ……..XYZ brigade” receives.

Is this the same Trevor Daniel’s?

Back in early 2003, Paul Daniel’s younger brother was found guilty of indecently assaulting a girl of 12 in a classroom. Trevor Daniels was then a 58-year-old music teacher and organ aficionado living in Towcester, Northamptonshire.

The story fell under the headline; ‘TV Daniels’ Perv Bruv’ in a tabloid but quickly disappeared. The detail of the indecency is difficult to source but indicates that Trevor Daniels pounced on a schoolgirl after she visited his classroom alone.

Quoted from the Daily Mail Prosecutor Andrew Wilkins told magistrates: ‘He grabbed the girl, pushed her against the door and kissed her on the lips but she escaped from him. She had gone to see Daniels alone and later told someone what had happened.’

A court report says he grabbed the 12 year old once he realised they were alone and pushed her against the wall. He held her and kissed her until she was able to escape.

The appeal against the conviction was eventually dropped, eleven months later, in late 2003.To the victim and her family’s relief. She was in need of counselling for years after assault.

Daniels denied indecent assault but was found guilty a couple days later. He was given an 18-month community rehabilitation order, forced to pay the victim a tiny sum of $100 and put on the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years.

He was once part of duo with his magician brother. Trev played the mus

ic as Paul did the card tricks. A few years later, he became the musical director for his brother’s act while making props on the side. Trevor married a dancer named Rosemary Lane in 1987 who stood by him throughout the trial. His brother Paul was the best man at their wedding and has obviously never mentioned this arrest. He remained close to his brother until his death in 2016.

So just giving you that I’m looking at a photograph of a 12-year-old American high school student, a lad named Craig Chandler Price, 12 years old. Within a year, that young man had brutally and pointlessly knifed to death a female neighbour and got away with it. Two years later, however, aged 15,

Price became the USA’s youngest ever serial killer when he slaughtered a 39-year-old mother, her 10-year-old daughter, who witnessed that murder, after which he crushed the skull of the woman’s seven-year-old daughter, who’d seen the first two murders. He also inflicted 30 stab wounds on the It’s a must-read. Good morning, Leigh.

We spoke relatively recently about a previous book of yours, I Don’t Write Mondays, about Brenda Spencer, the spree killer, the teenage spree killer. This is a very different story involving a much younger person, somebody who at, what, 13 years old claimed his first victim. What was he going through in his own life, then, that may possibly have pointed him towards this?

Well, morning to you. It’s great to chat to you again. I think it’s difficult to understand why a 13-year-old does anything. But of course, why they would sneak into the neighbor’s house and, you know, stab to death someone essentially asleep. It’s a shocking story. The book titled Boy Next Door. It’s exactly what it was.

I mean, I know that those words conjure up somebody who’s handsome and, you know, that boy next door is the one you always want to be with. But this is quite a different story. And the reason why I titled it Boy Next Door is because he one day will get out of prison.

This kid who was 13. Kills one neighbor, takes a two year hiatus, and then slashes to death a family. Both these properties that he entered as a teenager are about 100 yards as the crow flies from his house. So this is literally within the circumference of his small, tiny neighborhood.

He scared the bejesus out of everybody in his little town, and nobody knew it was him for two years. It’s a remarkable story.

Now, I think, as you point out in the book, the services of profilers were calling the question on the murders. And they thought they were looking for somebody completely different, did they not?

Well, we go back in time. I’m a harsh critic of the FBI forensic analysis and all that stuff, profiling. And we now know, 50 years after them doing it, a lot of it is hocus pocus. They were playing the odds. So it was assumed that because this was an all white neighborhood and because the crimes are so grisly, it must have been somebody who was white, who lived fairly nearby or traveled into the area. And it was most likely somebody who, you know, traveled on the weekends because this is when the crimes happened. And so I think they just jumped at what was probably the most obvious, not really following the trail. Two doors down from the first victim was, you know, somebody well known to the police. He doing a lot of breaking enterings. But it’s just the fact that he’s 13. It was just inconceivable. The 13-year-old could commit so many crimes.

So he went unnoticed by not just the police, but also by the FBI.

Now, before the break, we played some of the interview carried out with him when he was 15 and when the police had tracked down this young man. His mother was in the room for that. You’ve got some audio for us as well from when he was a much older person, because he’s still in prison at the moment, as you say, incarcerated. May will be released one day. And in this, I think he’s talking about that first murder and how he felt when he was just very close to his victim. Can you tell us about what we’re going to hear next, Leigh, please?

Yeah, you know, I built this curious relationship with this gentleman now. He’s in his 50s, Craig Price, and he is engaging, he is funny, and he is also very, very well liked by his old friends. They’ve all accepted that he is a serial killer and that he’s human, but humans also do very, very bad things.

And this is one of these dilemmas. I think we saw it as well with with Ted Bundy, where people said they actually liked Ted Bundy, even though they knew what a horror he was. This clip is me chatting to him. And I asked him, I said, look, Craig, I’m going to record you.

And I’d like you just to explain to me, you’re a 13 year old. And you’ve gone into this house. Tell me what was going through your head as you entered this home. And this is what he said.

I recall one particular moment while I was sitting about 10 feet away from the person I was about to kill. And the next room, just like literally 10 feet away, it was the living room area, small little walk-in kitchen, and a place where there was like a back door and a garage area. And I was sitting there.

And it wasn’t just about contemplating murder. It was more so how it was going to be accomplished.

I mean, that is so coldly self-appraising. It makes me think that he’s not somebody who has no empathy. Is he somebody you think without the capacity for human warmth or compassion?

You know, all of the above. He claims he was 13 and that he was acting out. And, you know, he entered some context. He entered through what was essentially an unlocked back door. And he slipped into the lounge area where Becky Spencer, a single mom who’s preparing to move the following day.

So the house is all packed up for her to leave. Her children were at her ex-husband’s house spending the night. She was alone and she was sleeping in the lounge because she’d already packed the bed away. So this woman was sleeping alone in the lounge to the glow of the television.

And he came and sat in the chair next to her. And when she awoke, he stabbed her to death. It’s gruesome. It is a gruesome story. And he was 13 when he did this. And it’s unbelievable.

Was there any sexual element to the first attack?

Neither of the attacks had a sexual element. And the police searched quite heavily for it. I think this was the part that threw them off the scent of Craig and everyone else. Because I think it was assumed that when someone so horrible I mean I’ll say it bluntly.

They catch a woman who’s alone, and they are a narcissist like the murderer. I think they believe there will always be a sexual element to it, or they knew her somehow, or there was some sexual relationship of some kind. In this case, there wasn’t, and they searched a boyfriend, the ex-husband.

They went through everybody who was in the neighborhood as well who could be a suspect and nothing. Two years went, and this crime was never solved.

And why do we think he stopped, you know, he kills this young woman. He gets away with it. He then stops for two years. What was going on in his life then, Leigh?

Well, I’ve asked him and he said that, you know, there was an element of fear and he was scared. And in the end, he explained it to me. And I’ve heard many stories, as you do from killers. He just said I was busy being a teenager. I had my own stuff going on.

And that seems like a very remarkable thing to say from someone who was murdered at 13. But on the other hand, teenagers do very bizarre things. And he just said that I was busy being a teenager. I didn’t realize that I hadn’t killed in two years.

And then he goes and makes up for it in the most horrendous of ways. He takes care of the entire Heaton family, you know, the two summers later. It’s incredible. Still just 15.

I don’t understand how he went on with his normal life while hiding that secret.

At such a tender age. There’s photographs that Leigh’s found at the back of the book of him on stage doing the Super Bowl shuffle as part of a school concert. He’s living a normal teenage life.

No suspicions whatsoever at all in the neighborhood at all?

Well, none. None whatsoever because of his age. And let me just, we talk about the Super Bowl shuffle, I mean, you know, this is sort of Sunday night, everyone’s watching the NFL, but he, as kind of the only black family in this all-white neighborhood,

He is quick to say that he was pointed out as playing this character in the Super Bowl Shuffle. You say he was the Fridge. So as all the kids were playing the different characters in this role, he was playing the Fridge. I mean, all Americans know who that is.

And so he was kind of put into this typecast role of the sort of the sort of Fat Albert, the jolly black kid. And I think that added to the fact that, you know, it couldn’t be him. Plus he was 13. He lived next door to this lady. It just wasn’t, it just didn’t seem conceivable.

Even if the evidence led to him, I don’t think anybody would have looked at it. I really don’t.

And then the nightmare descends again, terrifyingly, with Joan Heaton, 39 years old, whom he stabbed 57 times. And I think I mean, it seems fairly certain from your book that the daughters saw that attack because she’s calling to one to try and get the phone. He then kills the two daughters in the most appalling way.

There’s no words to describe this. There’s no way I can sort of describe it to you in real time without you having a visualization of what this would look like. Craig enters. He’s six foot. He’s about 18 stone. He grabs the mother with one hand. He grabs the older daughter with the other,

while the third child or sorry, the second child, the seven year old, stands literally frozen in place. And as he dispatches the mother, he then goes for the middle daughter. The younger starts to scream. He then finishes off the mum and goes into the kitchen to take care of the seven-year-old.

And he does this all within two minutes. And he describes it to me in a certain way. He talks about going back to the kitchen to get a bigger knife. And I’ve got another clip of his words, and this is him in his 50s, re-talking about that time. And this is chilling.

But then there was this big butcher knife, you know?

I remember like, you know, I can still feel the weight of it in my hands. And I’m looking at this now as an older person and I’m really focusing on really what was in my mind at the time.

I mean, those two little girls would be, one would be, what, 50 now, one would be 47, they’d have had lives, they’d have had families, and that was crushed, completely destroyed on that night. And because of his age, there seemed a chance, in the way the law was that it’s on Rhode Island, it’s happened, that he could have been out by the age of, what, 21? Is that right, Leigh?

Yeah, exactly right. And Rhode Island is one of the original 13 colonies. So it’s the smallest state in the Union. It’s that tiny little dot that’s above New York, way in the top right-hand corner of America. Most people have heard about it, don’t really know where it is. It’s not that far from Boston.

It’s kind of just down the road. It’s a beautiful state. It’s a lovely place to holiday if you can afford to go. Let’s put it like that. But it also has some of the oldest laws. And one of them at that time in the 80s was that anybody who commits a crime before they’re 16 They can only be held in prison until they’re 21, regardless of what they do. So Craig Price, America’s youngest convicted serial killer, is arrested one month before his 16th birthday. So the moment that he confesses and the police are high-fiving, they’ve got the guy, some great groundwork by the local cops, all hats off to them. They did something the FBI couldn’t do. Then suddenly it was bittersweet because they realized that They’ve got five years and the clock’s ticking. It won’t be long before this kid’s out.

And that provokes a huge outcry, understandably, not just locally, it seems, from your book, Leigh. Do we know N Leigh Hunt, author of The Boy Next Door, the shocking true story behind America’s youngest ever serial killer, published by Mirror Books, that provokes an absolute furor and uproar, Leigh.

Well, what would you what would you notice? Let’s let’s troubleshoot this. What would you do? I mean, in this in this country, we’ve had a number of cases this year where the sentences have been too lenient and we pushed back with the Home Secretary to get something changed. This is the change of state legislature.

They created a bill and literally called it the Craig Price bill that didn’t go far enough. So they created a second one, which they gave a just as tremendous name, the Craig Price two bill, the sequel, and both were passed in the state legislature, which exists today. But didn’t change the law for Craig Price.

So he was virtually, virtually one week away from coming out of prison. The parents had made his bedroom. They’d moved to a different town. They made his bedroom up. They had bought him clothes to wear when he came out of prison. Everybody in sort of North Rhode Island and South Massachusetts were preparing for Craig Price to come out of prison. And lo and behold, he revealed himself. And this is where I think The argument goes, is it okay to stretch the law to protect your community? And that’s sort of the second half of the book, and it’s amazing what Rhode Island does to protect their community.

Well, I don’t want to give too much away about that, but what do you make of the changes in this man in prison? He’s now a very devout Christian, apparently. You’ve spoken to him many times. I mean, is he somebody that could ever be Quite apart from the fact that these crimes would follow him through his life and the impact I want to talk about in a moment, but is he somebody you believe could ever be assimilated back into our society safely?

In all honesty, no, no. I think Craig, he’s an incredibly engaging He’s intelligent. He’s fun. And actually, when he calls, we sometimes have lovely chat, but I’m never far away from him describing the butcher knife or describing sitting in the chair before he attacks somebody. He has a dark rage inside him that comes out when he’s provoked.

And I think in prison, they know that they can just poke him. And he will go off and he will attack. In 2017, it’s exactly what happened. He attacked a cellmate and stabbed him a number of times, almost killing him, and is now serving 25 to life for attempted murder.

He has served his time for the serial killings and is now serving time for infractions whilst in prison. And whether or not I think he can simulate to real life outside of prison, I don’t think he’ll ever get that opportunity. I’m just not sure. That the powers that be and who he is and how he guards himself, I think the moment that he is ever close to getting free from prison, something else will happen. I’m just certain that his destiny is to forever be a convict and a convict that’s been created over time. I just don’t know how to say it other than I don’t feel he has the ability. And when he mentions it to you on the phone, is it in almost a proud, boastful way? Or is it almost a therapy talking to you?

It’s not boastful at all. I mean, again, if we think back to that recording you just played, I mean, there is a hint of remorse in this. I don’t think he’s without remorse of what he’s done. He’s very aware of the pain that he’s caused an awful lot of people.

But he’s also very true to himself in saying that I couldn’t resist. So I think he’s with his own conflict, and I think that’s the mind of a serial killer. I think is that even when they say, I know I can do that, eventually they reveal themselves next time to just be as gruesome as they were.

But there is remorse, and it is something remorse is taught in the American penal institution like this in this country. They’re taught what to say. But I do note some remorse with what he says. I just don’t think he can control himself.

It’s an incredibly moving book. I think it’s a very important book. It’s called The Boy Next Door, the shocking true story behind America’s youngest ever serial killer, written by our friend N Leigh Hunt, published by Mirror Books out now. And it’s far more than just a true crime book because it shows absolute compassion for the victims as well. And when I started the book, I read the dedication is to a woman called Kim. And I wasn’t sure if there’s somebody in your own life, you know, or whatever. It says, this book is dedicated to Kim. Forever the sister, mother and protector. Peace be with you. But this is a woman.

Who’s in the life of the killer, is she not so, Leigh?

She’s his older sister. And, you know, I start the book, The Dedication, and I think the last sentence of the book is to Kim. She was his older sister. She was incredibly popular. She had a lot of friends in town. She strayed A’s through school. She was a good egg, a real good egg.

And her parents were hardworking, living the American dream, and they had moved up from the south. They’d moved to this all-white neighborhood in Rhode Island, one of the nicest states in the Union. And they worked two jobs. Dad sometimes worked so much overtime, he was up till 2 in the morning at the Pepsi factory.

And their son did something that was so atrocious that the family just Hung their head in shame and disappeared into the middle of nowhere. And Kim has been the one who has never forgiven her brother, but she has helped him in prison. She’s made sure he’s had money to buy deodorant and shaving cream and things he needs in prison, even when her own life wasn’t so financially secure. I just think she’s a really good, decent person. And serial killers, they leave a lot of shrapnel. They hurt an awful lot of people with the actual victims. They destroy people’s lives. They destroy communities. But actually, They destroy their own family, and I just wanted to make it very clear that Kim is loved even though her brother loved no one, if that makes sense, that she’s a good person, and that it’s the small thing that I could do. When you write a book about serial killers who do so many horrible things, it’s hard to – when you write the truth, it’s hard to look out for the victim. But I wanted to make sure that Kim wasn’t forgotten, so that’s why I dedicate to Kim, and Kim Price is just a good person.

That’s a remarkable read, it’s called The Boy Next Door, published by Mirror Books, out now by our friend N Leigh Hunt. He’s been talking to me, Paul and Kane, readers on talk Sport and on talk, but we are live till five.

Steven Lightfoot, the genius behind the ‘Lennon Murder Truth’, has travelled the country in his van for over four decades. He says the generally accepted facts surrounding John Lennon’s murder is horseshit. The dude the NYPD identified as Mark David Chapman, was actually a decoy according to him. Or as Lightfoot claims, a ‘lookalike’. The real perpetrator was none other than the top novelist Stephen King - Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan put him up to it as part of an elaborate conspiracy.

Lightfoot is now in his early 80’s and began this crusade 44 years ago after spotting hidden messages in a few major news magazines like Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report and Time. His comically brilliant conspiracy gained traction once he learned how to use the internet in the late 90’s. I remember him calling into the Dennis Miller radio show on a weekly basis and Miller cleverly dispatched him each time.

Lightfoot was born in Helena, Montana and moved to Santa Rosa, CA as a child. He spent the late 70s and 80s in my hometown of San Diego. This is where he decoded the clues about the real murderer in the national weeklies. Growing up he wanted to be a golfer or maybe a golf course designer. But he ended up being a conspiracy theorist instead.

He says the extraordinary headlines and macabre photographs contained secret messages or ‘government codes’. To him, there is no way to argue the powerful cryptographic trail that reveals the advance knowledge of Lennon’s pending death. The codes also identify the responsible conspirators – a former impeached US President and the incoming president-elect.

The claim is that the headlines before and after the murder is the cryptic evidence to exonerate Chapman. He cites examples of magazine headlines that repeatedly reference Lennon, the need for violence, overarching political power and the removal of anyone who disagrees. I gave these a few scans over the years have never been able to spot what he’s seen.

These secret messages were deliberately inserted into national news magazines to communicate information amongst the ‘insiders’. Lightfoot says that these messages will forever remain undetectable by the general public. The frequency and timing of these alleged codes, he says, makes them impossible to be a coincidence.

An important part of his wild argument is the political controversy surrounding John Lennon. Richard Nixon’s administration apparently attempted to deport Lennon from the USA during the 1970s. He says Lennon was his number one target because of his anti-war activism and popstar influence. Lightfoot also interpreted Nixon’s book ‘The Real War’ as undeniable evidence that powerful figures viewed outspoken hippies and cultural warriors as treasonists. He maintains that this hostility towards the former Beatle is a motive for an administrational organised hit.

But the most controversial element of this caper is the claim that bestselling author, Stephen King, was the actual gunman. The photographs of King, published in magazines and newspapers, prior to the murder are said to show a man who looked remarkably similar to Chapman. The image of a man receiving Lennon’s autograph outside the Dakota building on the day before the murder is the best example, according to Lightfoot.

He contends that Chapman was only selected because he superficially resembled King, the real killer. The physical characteristics, head and body proportions, hair texture, and facial features are more consistent with King than with Chapman he claims. Judge for yourself.

It does not stop there. King’s novels also contain references that describe the murder in detail. Salem’s Lot, The Dead Zone, and Firestarter are all said to contain direct evidence of King’s wrong doings which link him to Lennon’s death. In particular, he points out chapters that involving shootings, political figures, and multiple characters named John, Johnny or Jonathan. He seems to think these references amount to a confession or, at least, a coded admission of his involvement in the crime.

Let’s not forget Mark David Chapman. He also plays a role in the conspiracy. Lightfoot says, Chapman’s letter to the U.S. News & World Report editor, published just before the murder, contained wording that alluded to him being armed and guided by the ‘giant hand of Ronald Reagan’. He interpreted this as evidence. Chapman had knowingly participated in a military style operation directed by, the soon to be, President. Reagan has just been elected and did not take office until 6 weeks later in Jan 1981. I am still unclear how Nixon is involved although his name is mentioned throughout the findings.

Chapman’s guilty plea and the absence of a highly publicised trial also indicate a government cover-up. The limited media attention pertaining to specific court proceedings is also suggested to be evidence that authorities looked to prevent closer scrutiny of the official narrative. In Lightfoot’s mind, this all spells out deception.

During the amateur investigation, Stephen King allegedly responded to a letter from Lightfoot. These un-confirmed letters were simple acknowledgements of the investigation and nothing else. But Lightfoot is certain the communications amount to an admission. He also thinks King is trying to discourage him from breaking this story open wide.

Lightfoot has spent decades promoting his evidence to anyone who will listen. He plastered his van with signs and information and hit the road. He travelled throughout the lower 48 states trying to drum up attention from the media. He portrayed himself as an independent investigator who’s uncovered irrefutable evidence that has been deliberately ignored by mainstream media and law enforcement. Over the years he has upgraded his van but the messages remain.

I saw him once. Back in Pacific Beach, San Diego in the early 90s. He had a big sign on the back that said, “Ignoring me is screwing all of you!”.

Not sure what happened to Steve but his fantastic dedication to the absurd is to be commended. With the growth of the internet and social media, old skool weirdos like Lightfoot are now relegated to the annals of history. Or maybe just swallowed up by the sheer amount of people just like him on the internet?

Disclaimer: It is important to point out that none of the stuff about the murder is true. It is certainly not to be considered as factual in anyway. Lightfoot’s claims are not accepted by notable historians and law enforcement agencies.

The official record still stands. Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon outside the Dakota building in New York City on 8th December 1980. Presidents and famous fiction writers had nothing to do with the death of John Lennon.

The nature versus nurture debate will continue with or without my input. Is a murderer simply born or does a killer develop from their upbringing?

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Do they learn right from wrong and are they able to control themselves?

Or are they born evil and can never control themselves?

This book explores one of America’s most horrific series of murders, and it may be one you’ve never heard of, which is good, because I start from the beginning, and I take the reader through the unimaginable, step by gruesome step.

Can the boogeyman be rehabilitated, or is that the stuff of legends? What if the accused is so young that they cannot be legally responsible for their own behavior?

At what age can someone be held accountable for their actions? Rational people find it inconceivable that someone sane can take the life of someone else, yet it happens so often in our society.

Is it okay to rewrite legislation to ensure bad people stay where they belong?

So many questions, so many opinions. You can be the judge.

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In 1987, Craig C Price the youngest son of a well-known African American family in central Rhode Island. Craig was only 13 when his neighbour was murdered in the most horrific fashion.

The local officials were baffled and the crime soon went cold. But two years later another neighbour (and her two children) was brutally stabbed to death, the police called in the FBI to assist.

The crimes were professionally profiled and authorities began their search for a local white male who may be working with someone else. They could not have been more wrong.

Craig was a happy teenager but was occasionally in trouble for petty crimes but was never on any police list. But when a community officer noticed he had a bandage on his left hand, they began to take a closer look at Craig.

After a search of his shed they found incriminating items and took him downtown. Over four hours, 15-year old Craig C Price would not only confess to the brutal family slaying but also to the cold case from two years prior.

He was convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison - Rhode Island did not have legislation to keep him past his 21st birthday. The state works with local community groups, authorities and even the president to keep the perp locked up. As his own worst enemy, Craig is currently serving 25-life for the attempted murder of fellow inmate in a Florida State Prison.

Despite convicting and later exonerating Nicholas Yarris for the murder and rape of the defenceless shop worker; the actual killers have never been brought to justice.

Yarris had a lengthy rap sheet for petty crimes and eventually talked himself into a life sentence for murder. He served 21 years in prison before he was released, wrongly convicted. The details of his time in prison is well documented and the story has grown, taking multiple twists and turns as time goes on. He has become a ’une sorte de célébrité’ from the attention it has gained him.

Yarris has been on Joe Rogan, multiple TV appearances, a documentary on Netflix and was portrayed by Adrian Brody in a West-End production. I went to the second performance, it was fantastic.

But sadly, you will be hard-pressed to find any information about the crime or which he was convicted. It’s an unsolved murder from almost 44 years ago.

So here it is…

Linda was a vivacious 33-year-old mother of two who was brutally raped and murdered in late 1981. Police currently have two different unknown male DNA samples on file but have yet to apprehend the culprit(s).

Linda May Craig’s middle name was spelt two ways in court documents and newspapers from the time. The families and most newspaper’s spelling (May) versus the prosecution’s variation (Mae).

She was a tall ‘statuesque’ woman about 5’7, from the Boothwyn section of Upper Chichester Township, Pennsylvania. Between Phili and Wilmington, DE. Her husband described her as a 130lb, beautiful brunette with a ‘fluffy, frosted’ hairstyle that was not uncommon at the time. She was an ‘outgoing woman with a good sense of humour’.

Arthur and Linda Craig were both native South-Philadelphians and new the area extremely well, having lived in the region their entire lives. Arthur was a painter at the Glen Mills School in neighbouring Thornbury. The Craig family moved into a rented house on Chichester Avenue in the autumn of 1980.

The Craig’s had two children (Artie 12 and Linda 11) and an older son from Arthur’s previous relationship. Arthur’s brother, Sam, also lived with the family and often loaned Linda his car so she could get to work safely. Sam loved his 1976 yellow, full-sized luxury Chrysler Cordoba with a brown landau roof.

Linda picked up dayshifts every holiday season at the once thriving Tri-State Mall, just over the state border in Delaware. She started the job about Thanksgiving time for extra income and to make Christmas extra special for the two younger ones at home. Friends and family say this was customary each year and nothing out of the ordinary. She would use different cars to drive the ten minutes from their home and park in the back of mall’s huge parking lot.

Linda told her husband that she had previously been bothered by a ‘slovenly man with long dark hair’ while working at a blown glass figurine stall. They reported it to the Delaware State Police as it was the jurisdiction of the shopping centre. She told the authorities a man had been harassing her and trailed her car when she left for home in the afternoons.

On Tuesday, December 15^th she was working at her kiosk in an upstairs common area of the huge shopping mall. She finished her shift about 4pm and started the long trek out of the building and then through the snow to her car. She was last seen wearing a long blue dress and a short grey fur coat as she left the mall and braced herself for the cold walk to her vehicle.

There did not appear to be any witnesses to say if she was followed, or not, during the ten-minute hike to her car, but she never returned home as expected.

About 5:30pm her husband began worrying that something was wrong and would eventually alert police. About 8:15pm he and his brother flagged down a police car outside their house and formally reported her missing.

He described his wife’s appearance and his brother detailed the unique vehicle to the passing officers. The cops immediately reported it on the county wide police radio network as an APB. Almost within minutes a patrolman replied saying he had noted a similar car on an isolated stretch of Township Line Road about a mile and a half south in Trainer.

The officer’s notes say he spotted the “apparently abandoned” Chrysler Cordoba about 5pm, roughly 60 minutes after Linda left work.

The police quickly drove both Arthur and his brother to the scene. They were able to confirm the vehicle was the one she was driving. The brothers and police could see her handbag through the window and opened the unlocked door. Inside they found the car keys, then spotted bloodstains on the console and between the bucket seats. They stepped back to not disturb the scene pushing away the brothers. Her purse still contained a small amount of cash and looked to be undisturbed.

Most importantly, the police also collected a pair of male gloves from the car. Years and years later detectives were able to extract two sperate DNA samples from the evidence, which would exonerate Yarris. These samples are still in their database, but no arrests have been made.

Police scoured the mall looking for witnesses or foul play of any kind. After an extensive search, authorities were able to find a single woman’s shoe in a snowbank. It was not far from where they believed her car had been parked. It was confirmed as hers.

The next morning about 7:30am, two young boys began building a snow man in the Chester Baptist Temple on Cherry Tree Road. They could not believe their eyes when they stumbled across a fully clothed body in the rear of a church parking lot. As the victim was covered in the recent snow fall but wasn’t under the hard packed snow, the police assumed Linda may have arrived there sometime before the heavy midnight snow fall.

The church was about five miles North of the shopping mall, in the opposite direction from the location of the Chrysler. The culprits would have almost driven directly past her home during the commissioning of the crime.

Linda was sexually attacked and had six stab wounds in her chest. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Police concluded the victim was grabbed and pulled from her shoes in the mall parking lot then driven to church where she was brutally raped and murdered. She was left ‘like an animal’ for someone to find her the next day. They believe the assailant(s) then drove to Trainer and deposited the car on a desolate stretch of roadway.

Detectives collected scrapings from under her fingernails and preserved her clothing. They were put into storage for almost two decades until they were finally tested in the late 1990s. Two unknown male DNA profiles were found on her underpants, one of which matches the sample found in the gloves in the car.

Without a suspect, Police began by questioning her co-workers to see if they had seen anything sinister. They attempted to create a composite drawing of the man Linda said was harassing her. They could only go by what her co-workers recalled her telling them as well as a brief description she had told police. It was not long before they located two people who gave similar descriptions of a man. They would later testify against Yarris, even though there initial descriptions did not match him.

Arthur Criag was shocked to find that local investigators were unaware of the previous report filed by his wife. Local police contacted the Delaware State police in hopes of getting more information about the incident but gained nothing.

A week after the murder, Police Chief Anthony Mastro tells reporters they have their first witness to the murder. A local citizen says they saw a man sitting in Linda’s car about the time of the incident and is working with a sketch artist to get a composite of the suspect. This also came to nothing.

Four days later, at 1am on December 20^th, police arrest Nicholas Yarris for assaulting an officer after being pulled over. Yarris had blown through several stop signs and was stopped. Yarris reportedly grabbed the service revolver from the officer’s holster and a fight ensued. The case was acquitted but, over the next 40 days he would become the prime suspect in Linda’s case.

According to the prosecution, Yarris was a 20-year-old drug addict who was well known to the cops. He fabricated a story about the murder in hopes of receiving better treatment for his own conviction, but it backfired. He ended up implicating himself. They claimed Yarris was recently jilted by his lover and took the life of Mrs Craig because of her striking resemblance to his ex.

Yarris had been in a relationship with Theresa Vaughn before she dumped him a few days before the murder. It was alleged that Yarris stalked Mrs Craig over the next few days and eventually took his opportunity to kill her. He was fingered by two witnesses at the shopping mall as the ‘wild looking’ man gawking at women.

He took the stand in his own defence saying, through tears, “I never saw Linda Craig in my life”. Yarris was convicted and told the judge “Go to hell” as he left the court. He served almost 22 years on death row before the Innocent Project orchestrated his release.

Linda Craig’s son said in a 2008 interview that he still thinks Yarris had something to do with the crime. “I believe he was involved,” he said. “Is there anything I can do? No. God will sort him out”.

The District Attorney in Delaware County says he “remain steadfastly in his resolve to solve the homicide” but to date they have been unable to match the two DNA samples to suspects.

Philadelphia police have solved many other cold cases since Yarris’s release. Most notably the Denise Pierson murder from April of the same year. Pierson was an 18-year-old who went missing after she failed to return home.

Her body was found about three years later near railroad track in the area. The evidence collected 40 years prior, finally helped to charge a hapless pair who lived about 300 yards from where the victim was found.

Just so you know, Nick Yarris is a friend of mine. Well… he was. We met after his release from prison and he moved to the UK. It was in the early 2000s. He and I were the only two Americans in our village and we struck up a friendship. We had never spoken about Linda’s murder but after glossing over the subject, it appears that we may never discuss it.

After exhonoration he had pushed extremely hard for the rightful criminals to be brough to justice. He petitioned the courts and made directive statements to the press. He even went as far as standing in front of a courthouse with signs demanding new DNA tests.

Over the summer 2025, I finally asked him about case and he was very unreceptive to the discussion. I had always assumed that he would still want to know who actual perpetrators were. But for whatever reason, he was not interested. In fact he was angry. He told me a friendship is more important than bringing up the past and did I want to risk our relationship over the story. His reaction surprised me.

I guess Yarris had moved on with his life and has done all he can for Linda Mae Craig. He may be right; as the police have DNA samples of the perps and advances in technology should certainly help them to find a match. “If they wanted to”, he said.

Yarris now lives in a van in and around Los Angeles. At the end of the summer, he and I disagreed on a very minor non-political issue. He abruptly accused me of being MAGA, then blocked me on social media. It appears his minor fame and time in California has changed things. I was friends with him for over 20 years and I hope he unblocks me.

The brilliant stage drama, “The Fear of 13” is based on Nick Yarris’s story. I saw it at the Donmar Theatre in London and thought it was beautifully crafted. It opened on Broadway in early 2026. Adrien Brody is superb and grab tickets if you can.

Please remember that there was a victim at the heart of the story. Nick Yarris is enjoying well deserved success but dont forget about Mae. Linda Mae Craig’s family still do not have answers…