Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Entitled Millionaire Just Started Killing People // The Malcolm MacArthur Murder

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

In 1982, Malcolm Macarthur, a refined but impoverished socialite, committed two brutal murders in Ireland as part of an ill-conceived plan to rob a bank. After squandering his inheritance, Macarthur bludgeoned nurse Bridie Gargan with a hammer to steal her car and later shot farmer Dónal Dunne with a shotgun he was pretending to buy. The subsequent manhunt ended in a major political scandal when Macarthur was discovered hiding in the home of the Irish Attorney General, Patrick Connolly, who was an unwitting acquaintance.

When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to Westjetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. So this guy is super rich, and that's ultimately going to cost him his freedom. So the guy's name is Malcolm, and Malcolm is about 29 when all this starts, and he's living in Ireland.

And Malcolm, he grew up as a rich kid. His parents own this big estate, and he doesn't really have to work for anything. In fact, he considers himself an intellectual, and he feels that getting a job is beneath him. But then, one day in 1974, his life changes, because his dad unfortunately passes away. And Malcolm is sad, but he also inherits the majority of his dad's estate, which is about 70,000 pounds, or the equivalent of nearly a million U.S. dollars in today's money. So now he has all this new wealth, which gives him the freedom to live out his dream of not having to get a job and just, you know, kind of hanging out with his friends all day or doing whatever he wants to do.

So he moves to Dublin, and there he rents an apartment and he starts spending his weekends, partying it up in London. And he's like blowing through money left and right, going to nice bars and going to nice restaurants. And eventually, he moves out of Ireland and down to this little Spanish island off the coast of West Africa. And he just like chills there. But as the years go by,

that money he inherited gets spent little by little. And by 1982, when Malcolm's about 37 years old, he's basically broke. Like he spent all that money. So he starts stressing out about what to do. He can no longer afford to just sit around all day and do nothing. And of course he's not going to go out and get a job. Don't be ridiculous.

That's beneath him. So that's when he comes up with a surefire way to make a lot of money fast. He'll just rob a bank. But he's not going to do it on the island where he lives. No, no, no. He's going to go back to Ireland and rob one of the banks there. I guess bank robberies were somewhat common. in Ireland during this time because of the IRA.

Anyway, once he gets back to Ireland, he starts looking for a gun, because he needs a gun to pull this off. So he starts searching through the local newspaper, looking at some of the classified ads. And eventually he sees this ad for a farmer selling his old shotgun. And he's like, oh, I'm gonna have to hit that guy up. The other thing Malcolm needs is a getaway car. So he decides he's gonna steal one. And then he goes to a local park, to see if he can find a car to steal.

And there, he sees a random bystander out sunbathing. And that is when he sneaks up on her, and he waits. A bit later, she gets up to go get in her car. And suddenly, boom, he appears out of nowhere, and he pulls out a fake gun, and he points it at her. But, you know, she doesn't know it's fake. And he tells her, get in the back seat. Then he pulls out a hammer.

And pow, he hits her with it a couple of times, and this knocks her out. Meanwhile, a gardener working nearby notices all this going on, and he runs over to the car and he starts banging on the window. And Malcolm gets out and he pulls out that fake gun and he points it at him. But this gardener, he's a fighter. So boom, he tries to grab it and wrestle it away from him, but he fails to get a grip on it.

And so Malcolm gets back in the car and he drives away. Now, during this drive, Malcolm, he gets stuck in traffic. And he's worried that police are going to catch up to him. But then, in a strange twist of fate, an ambulance pulls up next to him. And the driver of that ambulance notices the woman in the back seat, hurt. He also notices the hospital parking badge on the window of the car. Because remember, the car actually belongs to the woman, and by sheer coincidence, she just happens to be a nurse.

So the ambulance driver thinks Malcolm is a doctor trying to get a hurt patient to the hospital quickly. So the ambulance driver tries to help him out, and he pulls out in front of him, turns on his. siren and provides an escort all the way to the hospital, which ultimately helps Malcolm flee the scene. But when they get to the hospital and the ambulance goes through the gate, Malcolm quickly turns his car and he drives away. And after that, he drives to a random alley and he ditches the car and the woman inside, and she, unfortunately, doesn't survive. And after he ditches the car, Malcolm walks over to a local bar and he goes into the bathroom and he shaves off his beard. so that no one will recognize him.

Three days later, he takes a bus over to a different town. Because, remember that farmer who was selling his old shotgun in the classified ad? Well, now Malcolm is going to go get that gun. Because he's still determined to rob a bank so that he can have enough money to not have

to get a job with his lazy ass. So Malcolm meets up with this farmer pretending that he wants to buy his gun. And then the farmer drives him out to a local swampy area so that Malcolm can test this gun out. Once the farmer gives Malcolm that shotgun, he immediately turns it on the guy and blam, he shoots him. And this, unfortunately, kills him.

Then Malcolm steals the guy's car and he flees. Now, at this point, there is a massive manhunt for Malcolm. I mean, police are all over the place looking for him. So he lays low. And almost two weeks go by. And by now, he's changed his plans completely. He's not going to rob a bank. He's no longer going to do that.

he's going to rob a diplomat. So he shows up to the house of a U.S. diplomat, and he knocks on the door. And this diplomat opens it, and Malcolm tells him this whole bullshit story about how they're part of the same social circle and that they share a bunch of mutual friends and that he wants to come inside

and take a picture of the view from one of the windows. And so the diplomat believes this, and he lets him in. Then suddenly, boom, Malcolm pulls that shotgun on him. And he's like, give me all your money. And the diplomat is just like, sure, just let me go in the other room and get you a check. And so Malcolm lets the guy go in the other room, but he doesn't like follow him or anything. And so the diplomat just runs away.

Like he completely gets away. Now from here, Malcolm, he isn't sure what to do. So he hitchhikes until he gets to the house of one of his old buddies. His buddy is actually the Attorney General of Ireland. Because remember, Malcolm came from a wealthy, well-connected family. So they have friends in high places. So now all Malcolm has to do is lay low at his buddy's house for a while, and maybe this will all blow over and he can get away.

Until... Until Malcolm gets his worst idea yet. He starts thinking that he can just call the police and explain that all this was just a prank gone wrong and that they'll probably just, you know, forgive him and let it go. So he calls the police. And he says, I didn't try to rob a diplomat yesterday. No, it was actually a prank, bro.

And if that isn't dumb enough, he then gives them his real name for some reason, first and last. And so police are able to use this info to track him down. And so, bam, Malcolm is arrested. And I don't have his mugshot, but here's a picture of him going to court. Anyway, so pretty quickly the media learns about this story. And so now it's all over the news in Ireland. and it blows the fuck up into this huge scandal there that the Attorney General was harboring a wanted murderer in his house. And so the Attorney General never actually recovers from this scandal and eventually he's forced to resign.

While Malcolm ultimately takes a plea deal and he gets sentenced to 30 years.