HANNIBAL THE CANNIBAL-Alan R. Warren

the plaster began to fall off the ceiling. Nurses and guards had to watch on, not being able to get into the cell, hearing the victim's head crack each time it was smashed against the wall. After Modsley finished with the attack, he sat the limp body up against the bed, got down on his knees and started to eat chunks of the brain with his homemade knife. Robert Modsley was dubbed Hannibal the Cannibal on account of his thirst for eating the brains of his victims. He is one of

the most interesting and thought provoking murderers in prison. He will be housed in a Bullefrooit cage in the basement of Wakefield Prison, England, where Briton holds its most savage, high profile convicts. He is known to be such a danger to others, even inmates. He lives in a specially designed cell that doesn't allow him any contact with anyone except for guards that slide his food through a small

hole at the bottom of his cell. Robert Maudsley is deemed to be the most dangerous prisoner in Britain, even though he only killed one person outside of prison. His remaining victims were claimed while incarcerated. This book reviews Maudsley's life from his tormented childhood, his rage filled murder outside of prison, and the planned tortuous murders of three convicted pedophiles.

The book that we're featuring this evening is Hannibal the Cannibal, The True Story of Robert Madsley, with my special guest journalist, author and radio co host Alan R. Warren. Welcome back to the program and thank you very much for Greenness interview. Alan R. Warren.

his siblings. Tell us a little bit about the family life and before you talk about them being placed into adoption.

ended up in an orphanage. I think three times in his young life, and once he was taken away by social services, so it was kind of a poor upbringing. He he claims that his father would beat him, beat him with a pole, with sticks, even a rifle, a twenty two caliber, and he also claims that he would be locked in his room for months at a time.

He also claimed that his father had raped him. So in his claims or explanations of his young life, it was pretty struggled right from the get go, like I said, in and out of all sorts of different orphanages and a Catholic church, and it was a pretty rough start.

treated well by authorities. This is a new one for true crime. Listeners. They were treated well by authorities at the orphanage and they had a pretty good family bond according to them, to their reports, and then the parents brought them back home. And you say that Robert was especially targeted by the abusive father. You say not only rape, but beatings and sexual abuse, but he seemed to be especially targeted from his father for abuse. What's next for

Robert Maudsley at a young age? What does he do and what does he resort to?

lifestyle all of them. But by the time Robert was sixteen, he decided to head to London, you know, got away from home and went to the big city and he ended up living, you know, on the street and doing drugs and getting involved in life as a rent boy. So he would sell himself for sex to men with money and he continued doing that for a few years. And during that time, he overdosed, he attempted suicide, he ended up in rehab. Like life was not any better there. He was just on his own in a big city

and had control over the money he was making. So there was no more parents or orphans to decide where he'd eat, or where he'd live or sleep, or who he'd be with. So it wasn't getting any better. It was just continuing how it was at home. But he was on his own.

to six months. John Ferrell would pick him up whenever he got back from work. He was kind of a labor or construction person, so he would go away on jobs. So now the one time in nineteen seventy three, probably there I don't know how many dates they'd already had by then, quite a few. He picked him up and

took him home. And this time it was different. After they started being together for a little while, John got up and pulled out of his drawer a big pile of pictures of a younger boys and they were in different sexual positions and they were being were being hard to describe in the pictures, they were being forced to do things. It was it was the pictures portrayed that they were being raped. I'm not sure that they were

real rapes or real bondage pictures, but that's what they portrayed. Now, according to Maudsley, he he was forced to look at them and he he was John Farrell was trying to have sex with him involving these pictures, and that, uh, it was too close to home, and I think it brought him back to the time where he was, you know, being raped and assaulted by his father and being attacked and and he had a real, uh, real psychological problem dealing with this, and so he blew off Blue a stack.

He went he went crazy, and he ended up attacking John Ferrell and killing him.

that you don't want to miss, you know. You see when he talked about how much he enjoyed his time in the orphanage and uh and this this relates to this the hospital. He loved being in hospital. He loved

checking himself in as well. In his time as a rent boy, I think he found life outside of a hospital uncontrollable and he felt he felt tortured, you know, with his parents, with his family in London, being a rent boy, all all of outside life was was just wild to him and he couldn't seem to rein it in and it cost him to do a lot of drugs. When he was in the hospitals, he felt very at peace, at ease, and he felt like his life was structured

and he seemed to really enjoy that lifestyle. So going to Broadmore was something that he really liked and he wanted to stay there. He did not want to go anywhere else. And I think that's important to say because according to him, throughout the story, you'll hear that crimes that he committed a lot of times he used that as his kind of his original plan of why he did it like that that was kind of his goal was to get to a hospital. So it's a bizarre

way of looking at things. But as you go through and if you read the book, you'll read in parts where he sort of talks about that a lot.

sexually assaulted a friends, a friend of theirs. Now, I say, despite this peace that had overcome Robert Maudsley, what does he and David Cheeseman do one day in nineteen seventy seven.

David Francis was the same way. He was a convicted pedophile, so they became aware of him because of raping a friend. But it was this pedophilia that really drew and drove Maudsley into wanting to kill him. Wanted him to punish him. So when the two of them, Cheeseman and Maudsley grabbed Francis, they had pre planned this and they had taken apart little pieces of a radio so they could plug the lock of the office. So what they did was they grabbed him and dragged him into the office and broke

the lock off so that people couldn't get in. So the nurses and the few guards there and a lot of the inmates see in and could hear what was going on, but they couldn't get in. So they had sort of preset this up, and so what they did was they tied him and they tortured him, and they made him in great deal of pain and scream out and yell, and they did this for about eight to nine hours, and then they grouted him, or Maudsley himself garrouted him on the throat. So that's how they killed him.

So the whole intention was to make him feel punished, to torture him, and to make him feel a pain for what he inflicted into the kids when he was convicted pedophile. So that was his goal behind that. He wasn't. It's just really hard to explain in that way. I'm just trying to put you in his mind of he thought he was doing something good.

they had plastic spoons. But if they fashioned them a certain way, cut them down the middle, they'd have the equivalent of a knife in prison terms. What happens with them with the David Francis after they garat him and make sure that he's absolutely dead. What else happens after that concerning Robert Maudsley.

they didn't just choose a regular, average prison. They put him in a category A prison which is for the killers, the worst killers. And actually the people in Wakefield are usually the most notorious. They are the worst of the worst, and in some cases they are just the most popular. People that have garnered a lot of media attention are also put in there. So it is the you know,

the highest and the roughest prison. And so he was sentenced to there in July of nineteen seventy eight, and he absolutely hated it and he just couldn't take it. He hated the life there and he wanted to go back to Broadmoor. He wanted to go back to the hospital where he felt in his mind at peace.

What else was done? And what did the guards find and where does he get this reputation from?

how do I say this? He he would he would get accused of being like eating parts of the body, and and that came from one of the guards, and you know, so they ended up calling him what spoons I believe was the first next nickname, and then blew and it was never confirmed, but what it was was when he when you were reading the opening description, you know that the head was sliced open and spoon was placed into the brain of the victim, and one of

the guards had claimed that he saw Maudsley eating the brain, but Maudsley denied that claim and said that what he did was he did this because he wanted to be found insane and.

you know, drugs or who knows. Sell Darwood. He was able to get back into a cell. We're not sure exactly why, but Maudsley quickly stabbed him and in the back and the neck, the head, and when he fell on the floor he was bleeding. He rolled him over and then he stabbed him again in the chest in the face, so he really you know, he was a

real rage killing. And then then to finish it all off, he had strings that he had hidden under his mattress, kind of like shoe string styles, and so he wrapped it around his neck and he held it for several minutes because he wanted to make sure he was dead.

And so after that, of course, he tied it into a bowl, a bowl, you know, like a you know, for the string around his neck, and they rolled the body under under the bunk, washed his hands, and then went back out into general population as if nothing happened.

get put back into a hospital by doing it. So that's his mindset. So when he comes across Roberts, Roberts was sleeping in a cell, like you said, so it was a perfect opportunity. And he was a fifty six year old that was again another convicted pedophile and killer, and so he was sleeping, so it was perfect. You know, he was able to get right into the cell without

him hearing. And he again started stabbing him in the back, the back of the head, turning him over and stabbing him in the front, the chain, you know, the face, the chest, the whole works, and he would do it. And the beginning statement when you were reading, it's part of the first part of the book, you know, where he's just like stabbing him so harsh that the uh, lifeless bodies just laying Then it's twitching and all sorts of parts of the flesh are coming out and and

blood and it's flying all through the room. And then and then he would then he took the head and he and he grabbed kind of the skull part and he would crack it against the wall or and then the floor because he wanted to break it open. So it was it was it was like a huge mess that he made. And so eventually again it was the same thing. He uh turned the body around and uh kind of had the head laying on the floor and there was it was just you just have to see it.

At this this particular person, there's over forty stab wounds throughout his body that they could count. So this was this was rage. He really hated this person, not because of a lifetime of knowing him, because of what he had done and how it related to him in his own childhood and being raped and going through that torture. So that that's kind of how that went, you know.

And he ended up just washing his hands and wiping his knife, and and he went into the guard's office and he placed his makeshift knife on the table and apparently he said, it looks like it will be too short on roll call and smiled. And so this is so that's how callous he was toward this.

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of them. There's two of them. They actually created a double cell and they would keep the worst two or at the moment I guess, or at the month that were in the death row or you know, total confinement. And Maudsley's always one of them. So this is a very small, I don't know how it's to describe it. It's like a five by four meter almost square cell.

And uh, you know, the unit has bulletproof, window shatterproof, it's kind of it's it just has that look silence of the lambs really took their imaging of that cell from that. You know. Inside he's got the little little teeny weeny table with one chair. It looks like a kiddie table made from cress pressed cardboard and it's on

a pure cement slab. Toilet and the sink are both bolted to that cement slab, you know, and and when you hear about how the conditions are, this is one thing Maudsley complains about quite often is that with that the toilets are always backed up, they're sewer all over the place. Really stinks, you know, It's just it's just things like that. And it's the same thing as they you know, when you say the guards pass the food

through that little little slot. It's at the bottom of the floor, right where the waist runs off and everything. So it's it's very unsanitary. It's not a it's not a nice setup. And he's put in there for twenty three hours a day and he's permitted one hour escorted to the to the yard with no less than six guards. So it's kind of how they show it too on the movie in that sense. And he's not allowed to communicate with anybody else or talk to anybody in the yard.

It's just it's solitary one hour in the yard. So it's a really it's a pretty traumatic place to be And I'm not sticking up for him or anything. I'm not trying to feel sorry for him. It's just it's it is very intense.

But you know, any so that was kind of the idea of it. It was more about what they could sell.

and and killing the pedophiles and about his life. And he's also very very vocal about the conditions that he's kept in as long along with the other prisoners as well. And he's used a lot of his notoriety to try and get that information out there. So a lot of the comments and a lot of stuff I put in from that, it tells you about a day in the life, about the breakfast in his cage and the keepers and and you know, the sour milk and all of the

things that he complains about in in his life. You know, it's it's it's just one of those situations. It's it's a tough one to talk about.

I listen to beautiful music? Or so I guess at one time part of the privilege is the privileges that he had denied were things like books and television, and that situation, as you write, has changed, and you also had correspondence, and or at least you write about the correspondence and the contact that Robert Mosley has with his nephew now that he's in prison.

Should he be allowed to listen to music? Should he be allowed to enjoy the life that he has left? And this sort of is what has a lot of controversy because some of course, a lot of the people and government and media has said, well, yeah, we shouldn't treat them like animals, But then there's also the call and the people, the families of victims and around that feel betrayed of course by the public or by the media and even the justice system by allowing them to

have more luxuries, as we would call them. So it's it's kind of and Gavin's one of those that's very outspoken about the whole thing. He'll go to sometimes, he goes to all the media as much as he can, you know. And it's also brought on other high profilers as well, you know, Charles Bronson probably being the most popular of the killers over there. And when Bronson assaulted

a guard. You know what came out of that was he said that it was because of the stress and the mental anguish of the way they're treated and housed, and he wanted Maudsley Robert Modsley to be a witness toward it because of his outspokenness toward all the problems in prisons like that.

not so bad in terms of who he killed. But people forget that there're still the victims' families and they're not focused on any of that. They're focused on this what this killer has done and the impact on their family. And yet the government and people like doctor Bob Johnson who said after three years or so, well, I was about three quarters of the way through his treatment. That

was very, very encouraging. So some people are very enraged by that they would even consider psychiatric treatment to a person that's never ever going to get out of prison anyway, and is so dangerous that they have to customize and build a separate cell system a self for him, and people like TRS Bronson next to him so dangerous that they can't be among other dangerous criminals.

a tough call because you get you know. And and I will say and look at look at when we talk about putting him in a special prison built for him and stuff. I don't know, is that realistic? Is he really that dangerous? Is he the worst of the worst, or is a lot of it just talk gossip and blown out of proportion. He's a rather meek person. He's not a big, aggressive hulk by any means, you know.

And not taking away the crimes he committed, but in my eyes, there's some people in that prison, and we're talking several people that have done far, far worse and that are much more threatening than Maudsley. And I think that he was placed there all on reputation more than actual crimes. Of course that's just my thinking, but there's certainly a lot worse out there, and they're not in nearest restrict incarceration as he is.

eaten some of the brain? Tell us about that?

He wanted them to think that he did. He did want that and that was his intention, but that's not what he really did. He was not the cannibal as people. He wasn't like the Jeffrey Dahmer where he was eating parts of the body. This isn't true. The idea was in his mind, he's portraying this person that's nuts, that's totally insane, that shouldn't be in a prison, that should be in a hospital like this. So you know, from his point of view, that's what he wanted, and so

he went along with it. Of course, then with the guards and with the other nurses and other inmates talking about the rampage, and it give him a reputation far more than what he ever ever was or did, not justifying anything by any means. But what we're talking about here is we're talking about saying this man likes to

eat bodies. He'll kill you and eat your brains and do all this stuff, and that's that's all, you know, good for the movies and for the shows, But the truth is that's not what happened, and that's not what he did. Not saying again, I don't want to I don't want you to think that it's okay what he did, but it's one of those that's way blown out of proportion and he's made out to be much worse by reputation than what he really really is. Not that he should be out by.

If you just look at the description of the murder itself and what he probably said to police, that the descript the outline of it, it would seem that that would be certainly murder and he shouldn't have been placed in the hospital in the first place. From there, he was misguided despite his near genius IQ, he was misguided

in the idea. You know, three times he did murders at trying to go back to that hospital in Vain and just added to his own discomfort and persecution as he claims in prison, but justifiably he's there may be more dangerous people. And you write then in Wakefield they have about sixty people that will never ever get out of prison. Unlike the US and Canada as well, there are very few, Like in Canada, very few people that would be deemed never to be released. Absolutely that's a guarantee.

And like Britain, there are only so many people that have a no parole eligibility whatsoever, no ability to ever get out of prison. And they are in Wakefield. So maybe not exclusively in Wakefield, but sixty of the worst of the worst are in Wakefield. And this person that smashed people's brains open to be able to create this mythology that he may have eaten those people's brains, he still had the capacity to kill these people two in

one day or more. And they just calmly walk into a guard's station smiling and say, here go, here's the knife. You're going to be a couple of short he's cracking jokes. So he's certainly a psychopathic killer, capable of murder, rage, murder. So yeah, yeah, oh yeah, gaggerated, don't get me real exaggerated. But this, this certainly is one of the most shocking killers I've ever read about.

was doing something good. And in fact, when he killed the two on that one day before he gave up, he intended he wanted to kill a handful. He wanted to kill more than two. He wanted to kill quite a few, and he had mentioned how he was he thought for sure they were going to send him back to the mental hospital. So before he was taken to the mental hospital, he had to clear the deck of a many as many pedophiles as he could. So in

his mind he had a job to do. He better do it before they send him out of that prison. So he had a total different idea behind him. And as far as the eating of the brain, that was just kind of the symbolization that he would do that. And they were, oh, this guy's nuts. Because of the way people talk and the way it grows and all of a sudden, Oh, this guy's not this guy's crazy, this is insane. So for him it was just more of a show. And like I said, I don't think

any of it makes it right. But I think what happened is from the outside we've totally misjudged who he is and what he did, and in either case he should be put away for life. That's not a question. It's just you know, and you're right. I mean in itself of just thinking that way and doing a display as if you were eating someone's brains is enough to make you think, well, yeah, we don't want him out teaching school tomorrow.

what they're getting out of it. And I don't think there's any surprises there when it comes to that.

and phone calls. So what would people believe again, and like for the the government to do, for the state to do for this person as he gets older and as you say, probably getting less harmful as time goes on due to his physical physical condition.

to the two extremes right now. And and I think the truth is probably or what it should be, is probably somewhere closer to the middle, you know, because if if ath a nation we've we've decided, just like the UK, that we're not going to kill our criminals, then we're not going to kill them. Should they have a good life? Probably not? But what do we do with them? You know,

like what what? It's kind of one of those questions that's really hard to answer because the closer you are to the victim or to another victim of another crime in in in sort of a same sort of situation, it's painful to see that that that criminal, uh you know, on a PlayStation. It's it's hard to see them getting treats or getting things that are are considered kind of a good or a luxury in life. And meanwhile, your family member, whoever that was or friend or whoever was

the victim, doesn't have a life anymore. They're kids the family. So it's really where do you draw that line? Like what do you call luxury and what do you call, you know, necessity And when he does complain about things like the sour milk and things like that, and that in itself that's true, that is kind of you know, if we're going to keep them alive. The nation said we can't kill them, okay, So here we got a person. Do we give them sour milk and bad food and

and all of these other things? You know, let the feces, you know, you know, it's toilets backed up, and he's got you know, all that laying across the the floor where they slide the food in. And that is that okay, you know, it's you know, and doesn't say more about us by allowing that to happen and how we do these things to them or is it? You know what

I mean, it's really where's punishment and where's compassion? You know, It's a question that I think we'll always be fighting with and it's going to swing all sorts of directions depending on society at the time. In the government, I guess,

but I don't know. I do think there are bad things that we do to people like that, and I think that's it only makes things worse, you know, This isn't making him better, not that we ever think we would, but it makes them more of a challenge for the people that are in charge of securing them, like the guards. They have to deal with more of an unstable person and even in a worse condition than they got them.

And then somebody saying, well, we got to worry about the psychiatric the psychological welfare of this person. And that's where people have a problem, not in terms of so much of money, but in terms of there's assumption that you can fix everyone, and obviously this person is broken so regardless, and so somebody has made the decision to

put this person in solitary confinement. Like I say, in Canada, there's talk of that person in solitary confinement needs at least a few hours of other human contact in order to maintain a certain level of psychological health. So again, where does that end? And where does that And so we've seen in Canada where a murderer is is it's time served because they spent so much time in solitary confinement.

This is a little place like thunder Bay, Ontario, where so much time in solitary confinement that that charge was dealt with as time served. But why were they in that solitary confinement? Is the question? Alan?

has with his nephew. So I think, like I said, in Canada at this same time in twenty nineteen, they're talking about the constitutionality of solitary confinement itself, psychologically, welfare of these people. So if you say, where does that go, I mean, this is where it's gone.

So if you can't get that right, how comfortable are you with killing people?

you know. But you start to hear all these stories, you start thinking Wow, what is the answer.

they've said no death penalty. In Canada said no death penalty. So solitary confinement is all that you can do if a person continues to murder in prison and you have no death penalty as an option to I guess not to necessarily stop this person, but this person as football murderer, so and then the solitary confinement. But the idea that we're dealing with here is that this person it seems inhumane the treatment, and that's what he complains about. That's

what his nephew complains about, is the inhumane treatment. This person had a horrible life. He just liked to know how this occurred. And he's usually writing a book. It was twelve years before he had a haircut because even the barber was afraid to go near him.

and whats are we aren't. And it varies so much when you talk people to people what they think they should get and if anything, I think if you asked and took a poll of general population and on what people think a prisoner has to live in, if it's bad or you know, if they've got a cushy life, I think most people think that prisoners lived in a really good situation in prison. I think there's a strong feeling that people get away with too much.

They would be instantly fighting for those numerous appeals and the best of attorneys to be able to defend them, and then once they're incarcerated, they would certainly want their loved one. Most of these people, A lot of these people still support their family member that's a killer or a rapist. Oh, I would say rapist, but definitely serious criminals like killers are supported very often by family members, and they would want them at that time despite their

initial opinion before. They would want them to be housed in humane conditions. So I'm all for humane conditions. I'm not for punishment. Once you're there jail, your conviction is punishment in itself. They don't need to administer other punishment. That's the sort of where correction should be. The sentence

is punishment enough. I think. I don't know for certain, but I can imagine, and I have said this before, if life in a cell is not good enough for those people seeking retribution, I say, maybe you should visit there or find out more about that. I think certainly that they would not want to be there. They would certainly believe that that was punishment. And if that's what you want, that's what you got, and that's what you

got with this person. He certain you can't do any more to a person than this, And if he has a PlayStation or if he gets a TV set, which has afforded most prisoners in most judicial systems in the first world, I would say that he is certainly entitled to it, despite the murders and the shocking behavior and the atrocities that nurses, guards and other inmates had to witness at the hands of Robert Maudsley. But that's where

I would stand on that. In terms of psychiatric treatment, I worry when you talk about this, Bob Johnson, and he says, while we were three quarters the way into terms of it, didn't stay cure. But I'm afraid of psychologists and psychiatrists when they start have control of deciding who is fixed and who isn't.