Random Revelations About Robert Maudsley, The Real-Life 'Hannibal The Cannibal' (15 items)

• (#12) Maudsley Maintains How Solitary Confinement Is Counter To Rehabilitation

  While Maudsley and many of his friends and family members have said he is no longer a danger to others, the number of murders he's committed behind bars has many people concerned about the risk he could pose if he's around other inmates. Instead, Maudsley believes prison officials want to keep him confined and isolated from others, seeking not to rehabilitate him, but simply to prevent him from killing anyone else.

  According to Maudsley, the authorities aren't concerned about trying to determine if he committed his crimes because of mental health issues or simply a depraved desire to murder people. Prison officials maintain the special solitary unit does not mean rehabilitation will discontinue. Maudsley, however, contends that all he has "to look forward to is further mental breakdown and possible suicide."
• (#8) He Killed Two More Men While In Wakefield Prison

  On July 28, 1978, while serving his sentence in HMP Wakefield for killing Francis, Maudsley allegedly told his fellow inmates he wanted to murder seven people in a single day. After successfully getting Salney Darwood - a man who had been convicted of killing his wife - to enter his cell, Maudsley slit his throat and hid Darwood's body underneath his bed. 

  According to his fellow prisoners, Maudsley tried to get other inmates to enter his cell, but they all refused. Consequently, Maudsley went into the cell of Bill Roberts. He accosted the 56-year-old with a shiv and beat Roberts’s head against a wall. After killing Roberts, Maudsley gave the makeshift knife to prison authorities, telling the guards he'd murdered two men.
   
• (#7) He Was Sent To A High-Security Prison For Killing His Second Victim

  After killing David Francis while serving a life sentence in Broadmoor Hospital, Maudsley was tried and convicted of manslaughter. Instead of being remanded to the psychiatric hospital in which he'd tortured and garroted his second victim, the courts sentenced Maudsley to serve his time at Her Majesty's Prison Wakefield, a high-security facility in West Yorkshire, England.

  When Maudsley arrived at the prison, his fellow inmates were already aware of the crimes he had committed while in Broadmoor, causing other prisoners to give him the nickname "Spoons" because of the utensil he'd allegedly left jutting out of Francis's brain. 
   
• 

  (#10) The Press Dubbed Him 'Hannibal The Cannibal'

  The British press dubbed Maudsley "Hannibal the Cannibal" largely because a guard at Broadmoor Hospital alleged Maudsley ate a portion of his second victim's brain. The nickname is associated with Thomas Harris’s 1981 fictional character, Hannibal Lecter - who Anthony Hopkins portrayed in the 1991 adaptation Silence of the Lambs - because Maudsley’s special cell is also made up mainly of Plexiglas.  Like Lecter, Maudsley murdered people while behind bars, making him a uniquely dangerous criminal.

  Additionally, Maudsley is incredibly intelligent - with a genius-level IQ - and he shares the fictitious doctor's love of art, literature, and classical music. He is reportedly interested in taking college classes on art and music, and the people have remained in contact with Maudsley during his time in prison have described him as distinctly pleasant.
   
• 

  (#9) A Special Glass Cell Was Built To House Him

  After the courts convicted Maudsley of murdering fellow inmates Bill Roberts and Salney Darwood, he returned to Wakefield Prison to serve his sentences in solitary confinement. In 1983, prison officials decided it was too dangerous for them to house Maudsley in an ordinary cell, so they built a special unit for the convicted killer in the prison's basement.

  Maudsley’s cell consists of two rooms, and it's made primarily out of bulletproof Plexiglas, causing many to compare the special accommodations to the cage designed to house Hannibal Lecter in the movie The Silence of the Lambs. Maudsley's cell only contains a concrete bed, sparse furniture made from compressed cardboard, and bolted-down bathroom fixtures. The unit itself, compared to Alcatraz, also houses cells for notorious criminals Charles Bronson and Reginald Wilson.
   
• 

  (#15) He's Said He Wants To Kill Himself If He Can't Have A Pet In Prison

  Depressed and distraught because of decades in solitary confinement, Maudsley has made a number of requests for different remedies to the constant boredom and sadness he's experienced in prison. In 2000, the convicted killer wrote letters to a British newspaper asking for a pet bird to keep him company in his cell, as well as a television and classical music. 

  Maudsley also told prison officials that if they were unable to provide him with the items he'd requested, he would like them to give him a cyanide capsule to end his life. 

  In 2010, Maudsley reportedly asked officials to let him play board games with prison officials, claiming it would help ease some of the gloominess and monotony of life in solitary confinement. However, because of the multiple murders Maudsley committed while behind bars or in a psychiatric hospital, authorities are reluctant to grant his requests.
   

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking