True Crime All The Time - Robert Black

Episode Date: October 16, 2017

Robert Black was a pedophile and serial killer from Scotland. He operated all across the UK and police may never know the true number of his victims. What is known is that he left a trail of devastation in his wake. There were a large number of families that were affected by the horrific crimes perpetrated by Black.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss this serial killer from across the pond. The types of crimes that Black committed make him one of the worst human beings that ever walked the face of this earth. His past gives a lot of clues into the type of killer that Black would ultimately become. Learn how police were finally able to put it together that Black was behind these unbelievable series of murders. You can help support the show by visiting patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact and merchandise information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

one and welcome to episode 49 of the true crime all the time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, what's going on? I'm doing all right. Are you? Oh yeah. In a Scottish brogue.

That's best as I can do it. Not giving anything away here, are you? No. I don't know where the hell I'm from on that one. That we might be going to Scotland. I don't think you gave anything. People are just like, what the hell? Irish English.

What the hell was that? Yeah, what was that? All right, let's start off with some Patreon. We have new supporters. We've got Bridget Bernard, Ulysses Moore, Lois Cary, John Woolley, M. M. Just him. All right, we had Tyler Whitfield, who came in at our highest level.

And then Jacob A. Stone came in above our highest level and just said, Mike drop, big baller status. That's right, man. I'm going for it. Esquire. Esquire. Gibby thinks Jacob A. Stone is like a attorney firm name. Yeah.

I don't know how you get three names out of that. I just think he's an esquire. You just think he's an esquire? Yeah. We had Liz Hunter, Allison Foreman Rickert, Christy Lee. Christy Lee. Now, this is Christy Lee from Canadian True Crime. last week when I said Christy Lee, that was another Christy Lee.

Yeah. So I felt bad because I didn't give Christy Lee her just due. So I'm apologizing for that. But Christy Lee, the podcaster, got such a kick out of it that she supported us on Patreon. So two great people. We appreciate you both. We'll take three or four more Christy Lee's. Absolutely.

You can never have too many Christy Lee's. Let's gill all the Christie Lee's out there. Don't I say that all time, Gibbs? You can't have enough Christie's? Right. Christy Lee's. Christy Lee's, yeah, exactly. You just can't.

Can't. So going back into the vault, Pucker Factor, we selected Savvy Geek Girl, and she has been supporting us for a long time at a high level. So great supporter. Savé. Savé. We appreciate it. We appreciate all the new supporters.

We appreciate all the people that. support us month after month, as well as all the people that are behind us on Facebook and Twitter, Instagram, or in front of us. Yeah. Some, some of them to the side of us. Yeah. I see them out of my peripheral. If you got good peripheral.

I do have good peripheral. And on top of that, you know, just the people that are telling their friends, we keep hearing about it all the time, it's awesome. All right. Got to give a big shout out to Maggie for her writing and research on this episode. She's amazing. Great contribution to the show. Much appreciated. And then true crime all the time unsolved. When you're done with this episode, go check it out. We dropped an episode about the Oklahoma Girl Scout murders. Tough case, twisted case, evidence, suspects. It's all there, but it's tragic. No doubt about it. All right, Gibson, kind of gave it away a little bit, but we're traveling over to Scotland. Cotton. You might take our...

You may take our lives but never take our freedom. We remember that Braveheart? Yeah. You remember that? Remember that one time? Remember that one time? How he said it with a Scottish accent? You like Chris Farley in that old Saturday Night Live sketch?

I don't know. You remember when you're in that movie? That was awesome. Oh, that's me. Yeah. Brave heart. So Scotland's perfect for me. Ferguson.

I'm the son of Fergus. You're the son of Fergus. Son of Fergus, which roughly translates to, if it's not Scottish, it's crap, I believe. I don't know, scholars maintain that the translation was lost long ago, so. Do you play with bagpipes? I don't. That's not what I hear. I am wearing my kilt today, though.

You called a kilt. It looks like somebody's a Catholic girl skirt that you kind of made into a kilt. So I'm just saying, one, it's too tight and two, do not. Do not. Uncross my legs. Exactly. So we're talking about Robert Black. And Robert Black was born April 21st, 1941 in Grangemouse, Scotland.

Now, Gibbs, let's get this out of the way. We're going to Scotland. There's a good chance that we're going to pronounce a lot of things incorrectly. Just a wee little bit. Just a wee bit. It's going to happen. But Robert Black was born to an unwed mother by the name of Jesse Hunter Blach. and the identity of his father was never known.

But his mom had already made up her mind to give Robert away because she was very ashamed of having a child out of wedlock. And the other thing is she was getting ready to move to Australia. And she wanted to give him up for adoption before she did that. Robert's mom, after moving up to Australia, would marry a man named Francis Hall. And they would have four children together. We've talked about this on other episodes, how some of these folks are given up for adoption and then later on their parents go on to have, you know, large families.

So again, maybe she wasn't ready for this child. We know she was ashamed at having a child out of wedlock. Now, this was 1941, right? Much different than today. And the four children that she would have with this, with her new husband, they would never know about their half sibling, Robert Black, because his mom would never talk about it. Black never saw his mom again after she gave him up to the foster system. Now, he was not immediately adopted. So he was placed with the foster family, Jack and Margaret Tulip, when he was only six months old.

This was a well-adjusted middle-aged family. Jack and Margaret were both in their mid-50s. They had fostered children before and Black would live in their home for the next 11 years, he would essentially be cared for by Margaret Tulip because Jack died when Robert was only five years old. Now there's a lot of things that would come out about Robert's childhood. There were people that would say when they saw him, he was covered in bruises. But Robert would say, you know, he didn't know how he got these injuries. He said he never remembered being hurt by his. foster father, Jack, but he did say that his foster mother, Margaret, would punish him by locking him in the house and spanking him with a belt when he was not acting properly. I don't know, Gibbs,

for 1940, late 40s, early 50s, does that seem out of the ordinary? I mean, we weren't born yet, but getting spanked with the belt, that happened in my house when I was... Happened to me. younger. Now, I wasn't walking around with a bunch of bruises. No, me neither. But I would get spanked with belts or, you know, sometime of switch that I had to pick off the tree myself. Plastic racetrack. Something. Yeah, I forgot about your plastic racetrack. Oh, yeah. Whatever you can get your hands on. Wooden spoons. Oh, everybody remembers some wooden spoons, man. And Robert would talk about later on that he had a lot of bad dreams. And all of these dreams were focused. around monsters.

You know, monsters living under his bed that were going to hurt him, monsters in the basement. And these nightmares that he had would cause him to wet the bed. And this act of wetting the bed would cause him to get spanked. Now, one thing that had a very big impact on Robert Black in later years throughout his life happened when he was only five years old. And the story goes that he and another. little girl were comparing their genitalia. And for some reason, this act caused Robert to believe

that he was meant to have been born female. So he's looking at his, looking at hers. And he's like, yeah, maybe I was supposed to be a female. That's as the story goes. Yeah. You know, as told by him. And again, how many times we talked about this? You're hearing a lot of things from these monsters later in life after they've been caught, after they've been locked up, some of it's true, some of it's not. You tell the story and then you try to weed through what you believe is true and what's not. But what is true is that Robert Black ended up developing what you'd have to call an abnormal fascination with his own private parts and the female genitalia of children and other body orifices. I mean, I don't know if it all stemmed from this one encounter, but there's no doubt that whether it be just from this or from something else, he developed an abnormal fascination.

So just a greater intense, right? Because kids, they're going to be kind of fascinated with what they have in that area as they grow older. Oh, yeah, I think kids have a fascination. And that's why I think you use the word abnormal. Yeah. Not normal. It's normal for kids to be curious. about their bodies and especially, you know, at a young age. Or older, like you were saying earlier when we're offline, you know, how fascinated you are sometimes with what you come across. Offline when we're offline?

Yeah. You're just trying to get me one way or another, aren't you? Never. You know, Robert Black was a child that was said to have suffered from antisocial tendencies. He was very aggressive for a child, didn't have a lot of friends, spent a lot of of time on his own, mainly because other kids didn't want to be around him. They didn't like him. Well, if he was trying to get a glance at their private areas. Or playing with his own. Or playing with his own. Sorry. Outside of the house. Yeah. Not going to make a lot of friends.

No. Roll them up and walk away. Exactly. You know, he would throw tantrums. It was said that he enjoyed defacing school property. Well, what kid had to did a little defacing? Yeah, we don't want to give away all of our secrets. But, you know, so because of all of this stuff, he ended up getting bullied by other kids for what they deemed to be strange, odd behavior. So what Robert did is because he was getting bullied. He turned around and became a bully towards younger children because he could. Right. So maybe he couldn't stop the bullying from kids' own age, but he could do the same thing to kids that were younger than him.

And I don't know how many times we've talked about how cruel kids can be, you know, at that young age, school age. But the other kids called him Smelly Robbie Tulip. Not a nickname that you would want to have. Smelly is never a good thing. No. But apparently he didn't care about hygiene at all. Didn't care about what his other bloke's thought, huh? Nope.

So he earned the nickname, but it's still cruel. But what was strange was that it was said that his mother was almost obsessive about cleanliness. But for whatever reason, he would ignore her, wouldn't do what she said. Now, keep in mind, she's a single foster mother at this point, maybe a little hard to control him as he's getting older. So he's not getting along with kids his own age. He's hanging out with younger kids that he can bully, that he can dominate, and he ends up forming his own type of gang, all made up of younger children. The little rascals? Maybe, maybe, maybe not as fun as the little rascals.

They were pretty fun. I liked the little rascals. A little spike guy. Alfa. Yeah. Did you say the spike guy? Yeah, he had a little spike thing on his hair. Yeah, his name was alfalfa.

Yeah, that guy. Spanky hit me with a golf ball one time when I was a kid. Did he? At a golf tournament, yeah. Came over and talked to me. Got to meet the real spanky? Real spanky. Did the dog with him?

No. Okay. So he's got this gang. He's not allowing anyone his age or older to join because he likes this sense of power, right? He's able to control all these younger kids. And we talked about bullying. There's one incident in particular where Robert beat up a boy that had an artificial leg, beat him up pretty badly for no reason.

at all. This kid was just walking to school. Robert jumped on top of him and ended up punching and kicking this kid. So there's a pattern here where Robert Black is prone to violence and not only violence, but random, senseless kind of violence against younger kids. Given the kind of profile he has as an opportunist psychopathic killer, it would be surprised. It would be surprised. if he hadn't started exhibiting that behavior earlier in his life. Because by and large, serial killers and serial killers in particular are usually men in their 20s or 30s. But that's just an normative thing. So we know that Robert Black is going to go on to do some horrible things.

And I like this clip because it talks about signs. And it's something that you and I talk about Gibbs where, you know, what were the signs? What were the early warning signs? And we're talking about them now. But that's the reason why I like to clip because the guy's kind of saying, you know, in most serial killers, you can go back and see. Yeah, sign, signs, ever were signs. That was a good one. But there were. I mean, there were signs. A lot of times people don't see them as that as they're going on, you know, in a little kid. You don't think, okay, in 20 years, this kid's going to be a serial killer. But you can definitely look back and see there were some signs here.

As Robert Black got older, you know, he was known as a problem boy. He was known as a rough type of kid. He had no respect for authority. And he had this wild, mean streak. But he didn't get into any type of major trouble when he was living in his foster home. for those 11 years. You know, he did get slaps on the wrist for, you know, petty violence like we talked about, beating up a kid or something like that, but nothing major.

But we have to go back and talk about Robert at age eight. We know he was becoming sexually aware of himself as early as five. We talked about that. At age eight, it was said that he started inserting objects. into his rectum, and this is a pattern that he would continue into adulthood. That's what happened to those little green army men. Yours or? No, not mine.

You lost your green army men? No, I'm good. Age eight. I mean, I get exploring your body. You would. That's deep space exploration right there, man. You would know better than I. That's deep space nine.

The only thing I were stuck in my body was a bebe up my nose. Why the hell would you stick a BB in your nose? You know what? By accident, it was like, remember the little plastic BB guns that had the little yellow BBs? I was watching TV and I was just kind of rolling it on my, like, under, just my face. And somehow I rolled it and I got it near my nose and I sniffed in. And up it went and it got lodged and I couldn't get it out. I started panicking.

I was freaking out, man. How old were you? 22, 22. No, I'm just, I was like. Nine, ten years old. I don't know. How'd they get it out? I had to go to the doctors, and they pedigowing with forklips, forklips.

A forklift? No, a forklift. Did they take a forklift and get it out? Forclips. Not forklift. What are they? Forcips. That's what I said at the beginning.

You said for clips. I think I said forci-s. I think you said forklift at one point. Tweezers. Big tweezers. Big tweezers and a bright light went in and found it and got it out. Oh my gosh. But I remember my aunt was watching me and I thought I was dying.

I thought I would die because of it. I didn't know. I thought it was going to go straight in my brain or something. Well, yeah. Somebody tried to stick a fork lift up in there. I'd be seven or eight, but I just thought, yeah, I was going to die from this. So anyway. That story was worth it just for the pronunciation.

Yeah. Might want to delete that. That's not getting deleted. I don't know. And later on, when Robert Black is talking about these things that he is doing as early as eight years old, you know, he's, asked about what types of things he would stick up there. And his reply would be, you know, he used his fingers. He used small pieces of metal. Really? That just seems like a strange

avenue to go down. Seems a little risky. You got to get, that stuff's got to come out. Stick with pliable. Is that your advice? I'm just, I wouldn't know. I'm just saying. I was going to say, you're speaking from a lot of experience. It's just logical sense there. But it does stop there because, you know, around that same age, Robert Black starts having fantasies. And one of the fantasies that he's having is about his own feces, basically taking a duker into his own hands and rubbing it all over his skin. That's pretty gross. It is gross.

And we've done a lot of these. I don't know that we've heard some of this type of stuff. There was a troubled kid that went to college that he would do that in his hand, but he did it just then he would throw it at people. All right. That was weird alone, but smear it on your body. So he went to college with you or just in general? Some of my friends knew him.

He was in the same dorm they were in. But he did this while he was in college? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. All right. So Robert Black's doing it at eight years old. Still not saying it's okay.

But again, at this point, he's continuing. to have these thoughts about the fact that he should have been a girl, he would have been better off if he was a girl, and he starts developing, I guess you would call it a hatred of his own penis, thinking that he would be better off and much happier if he had a vagina. But he wasn't homosexual. Sexuality really doesn't come into play in this thing as far as his urges. You know, this is not an isolated thing. It's a probably a rare thing, but it's not an isolated. I mean, I think there's young kids coming about that they're not sure. Oh, you're talking about the, if you're a boy and think that you should have been a girl.

Oh, I think that happens a lot. Right. I thought you were talking about some of the other stuff. No, no, no. I don't think rubbing feces all over yourself is, is quite as normal as that part. Exactly. But I do think the identification or wishing. you had been born, the opposite sex, or whatever that, I think that does happen a lot.

But to back that point up, later on, he would say that when he was little, his, one of his favorite things to do was look up the skirts of girls in class. And he said he took off the diaper of a neighbor's baby when he's around eight so he could look at the baby's private parts. He would say at this point, his life, he was obsessed with genitalia. And I think in particular, vaginas and anuses. I don't know how many times I'm going to have to say some of these words, Gibbs, but these are his words, not mine.

The interesting part is he would say that his fascination was around how big they were and how much they could hold. So he's in the volume. Yeah. But these are the type of issues. And again, we're talking five, six, seven, eight years old. these are going to go a long way in the development of the monster that Robert Black's going to become. His foster mom, Margaret, died in 1958.

And this would have huge repercussions for Robert because he had no mother. He had no foster home. So he was sent to a children's home at that point. He's living at the Reading children's home. And this is where his abnormal fascinations with. sexual organs and orifices and all this stuff is going to switch over to engaging in criminal behavior because he's only 12 years old when he tried to rape a girl. You know, he tells it as he and two other boys took this girl to a field, removed her underwear, and all three of them

tried to rape this poor girl. But apparently they were not able to do so, but they did end up, you violating her. They, you know, they touched her. They did things they shouldn't have done. Eventually, this incident came to light and Robert was shipped off to a much stricter children's home, one that was all male. Makes sense, right? He shouldn't be around girls at this point, given what he had just done. So he's moved to a place called the Red House in Musselberg, but it's at this place, the Red House, where Robert was sexually abused by a male who worked at the home. This man forced Robert to give him oral sex. And you have to think about this. Robert has all these ideas in his head about domination. He was already dominating younger kids,

bullying them. Now he's being dominated in a sexual way. So he gets used to this idea of sex being about domination and submission. Well, when he was picked on in school, what do? He just rolled it downhill and picked on younger ones. Right. So now someone's abusing him sexually so we know where we're headed. So what's he going to do? You're going to do the same thing to somebody in a weaker position. Younger, weaker, that he can control.

I think you're absolutely right. But I think the other thing is that it warped his sense of what sex was, right? He never got to the point where he experienced sex as something between two consenting partners. You know, at a young age, he's being taught that this is what sex is. Now, I'm not making excuses for this guy because he's going to be at the bottom of my list by the time this episode is over. But I think you have to tell this story. You're setting a stage. You have to set the stage for what's to come. And it's not just going to be about sex because Robert Black is going to take on this thought process that it's acceptable to take whatever you want from other people by any means

necessary. Now, that's going to include sex or sexual gratification, but it's not limited to that. Now, I guess what I'm getting at Gibbs, he really only cares about himself and about getting what he wants or what he needs. You know, it was said that he was academically, slightly above average, but he was more interested in sports than anything else. He liked football. and he liked swimming. In 1962, at the age of 15, he had to leave the children's home at 15. So he got a job working as a delivery boy and he rented a room at a boy's home outside of Glasgow. And during this time, as a delivery boy, as he's working this delivery route, he would admit later on that he had molested between 30 and 40 young girls.

Wow, it's a lot. It is a huge number because we're not talking a long period of time here. And it would be a whole year before he was actually formally convicted for a crime. So he got away with a lot of this in a short period of time before he was caught. And what happened for him to be convicted is he was able to coax a seven-year-old girl playing alone in a park to an abandoned air raid shelter. using the ruse that he was going to show her some kittens. Oh, the old, come see my kitten. Yeah.

But this is 1963, 6263. I don't know if we have Stranger Danger at this point. I don't know what you call it in Scotland. Is it still called Stranger Danger's Danger? It's probably called Danger's Bloke. Maybe. I don't even, do they use the word bloke in Scotland? Where else would they use it?

I thought they used it in like Australia, I know. They probably took it down there when they went down to visit. left it behind. They probably do. I'm just giving you a hard time. You know, but back to the seven-year-old girl, Robert Black ends up choking her until she passes out. And then he proceeds to masturbate on her body. So he was arrested and he was charged the next day after this happened. And it's at this point that he was given a psychological evaluation where it was said that the incident was one that was totally isolated and would not happen again. So somehow he made it through this psychological evaluation and snowed him to the point where they thought, okay, this is a one-time

thing. He didn't even need to be treated. He was given a warning to not do it again. And that was it. So just a slap on the hand or wrist. So he gets this relatively minor slap on the wrist. but he's also given a social services probation report, which looked at this incident in a much more serious life. Because I got to tell you, Gibbs, this incident to me is a hell of a lot more serious than don't ever do this again. Yeah, I agree with you. You choked a seven-year-old unconscious and then did something sexual. It's not normal. That's not right. So they concluded that it would be better if Robert left the city, went back to Grangemouth, and made a new start for himself there. So he does this. He gets a job at a builder's company and he rents a room from an older couple.

And it's at this point in his life that he met his only girlfriend. And this was a woman by the name of Pamela Hodgson. They would date. They almost got engaged. But ultimately it didn't work out. Robert would try to say that during the time he was with Pamela, he did not molest any girls. But we know this isn't true because he ends up having to leave Grangemouth. And the reason why is because he victimized the nine-year-old granddaughter of the people that he was renting his room from. But what happened in this case, and this happens quite a bit, I think, the parents of the girl thought, you know, she'd been through a enough with the abuse. They decided they didn't want to get the police involved. They didn't want her to have to go through that. So they just had black leave. So he was never held accountable for that.

Again, that's a decision that you have to make as a parent for your own child. I can't say whether it's right or wrong. Now, what I will say is that there's a chance it has implications down the road. So he's forced to leave this house. He ends up renting another room from a couple who had a young daughter. And again, he ends up sexually abusing this girl, just like he did his previous victim. He's caught again, and he's not as lucky this time. You know, police are called, and he ends up getting punished for this. 1967, he's found guilty of three counts of indecent assault, and he was sentenced to a year of

Borestall training. I had to look that up, Gibbs, because I don't know what the hell that is. But apparently it's some type of youth detention center in the UK. It's intended to reform delinquents, young people. So when he gets out of this year of training, he decided that it was time to leave Scotland altogether because he's pretty well known at this point in time. He's got a police record. It's getting bigger and bigger.

And he decides to go to London. Nobody's going to know who he is there. You know, living in London, you know, he stayed in cheap hotels. he went from job to job finding whatever work he could. But he's not convicted of any crimes during a pretty good stretch of time. And one of the reasons that's been given for this is that he discovered child pornography. And, you know, he would go to Amsterdam where he was able to get some of this type of stuff, some of these magazines, I guess, that dealt with children.

And he was able to live out some of his obsessions this way. At one point, he got a job working as a swimming pool attendant, and he said later that he really enjoyed this job because he could remove the lights from the pool and look at little girls as they swam. Kind of creepy. This guy's nothing but creepy, man. And it's going to get worse. We know it is.

It's building to a crescendo, unfortunately. Right. And Robert Black would say that during this point in time, he was going around a lot of lot of the time with the broomstick stuck up his ass. So like a wooden broomstick cut off? I don't know. I think a wooden broomstick is dangerous. Yeah. You get a splinter in your sphincter. It's not going to be good. No. So he's just making like a little wooden dildo. Yeah, apparently. Maybe it was plastic. Maybe it was wooden. I don't know. Either way, he made one and was shoving up there and keeping it up there. Yeah, and I would think it would have to be pretty short. You can't be walking

around with a four-foot broomstick sticking out of your keister. Again, I wouldn't know, but I'm going to believe you are correct on that. I'm trying to get into the head of this Robert Black, trying to figure out what, I mean, these are his words. He's telling his story. Yeah. After the fact. Now, why you want to give that much detail, I don't know. Right. But it's not long before he's going to be accused again of inappropriately touching another little girl. And in this case, there's no police action. He ends up losing his job, but that's it. So I know Gibbs, we talk about how much people get away with. And there's circumstances related to everything. We don't know all the details. If parents don't want their little kids to be, they think they're going to be, they've already been harmed and they think they're going to be more harmed by whatever action is to come. It's hard for me to argue with that, but we hate it when, you know, these people just get away with so much stuff.

Happens way too often. Yeah, it really does. It's almost like every case we do. Black's spending a lot of time in bars. And he meets a couple by the name of Edward and Kathy Rason. And they let him move into their attic in 1972. And around this time, he also picks up the hobby of photography. And he would go to the beach.

He would go to the playground. he was taking a lot of pictures of children. In 1976, Robert got a job working as a driver at a place called PDS. And his job was to deliver posters to various places around England, around Scotland. And he worked there for 10 years. So poster delivery boy? Yeah, basically. So he had this van and it was said that he put black curtains up in the van so no one could see inside.

And the other thing that this van allowed him to do was keep a lot of strange things in there that he used to masturbate. Some of these items he would insert, you know, into his anus all the while having these horrible thoughts about children. He also said that he would dress up in little girls swim clothes and masturbate. Getting a little freaky. Oh, man, I'm telling you. This guy's out there.

Yeah. And he's definitely masturbating. He's masturbating. I don't know. Cracks me up first time you say that. To the point, I remember we were at CrimeCon last year, and some random listener walked up to us out of the blue. It was cracking up because that morning in the hotel room, she was playing that episode. That episode where you said that, and she just could not stop laughing.

She thought it was funny. Yeah. Well, it is funny, but it's probably not funny given the fact of what we're talking about. Right. And I don't mean it to kind of go. with what we just talked about. No. It's separate.

Separate from what we're talking about. Yeah. Take it out. Laugh about it. And then we're coming back. Because now we're going to talk about the first murder committed by Robert Black. At least that we, it's proven. This is another case where we don't know how much this guy did.

I mean, if you think about the fact that he molested 30 or 40 young girls in maybe a span, as little as a year, how many people could he potentially have killed and murdered? Yeah, he desperately needed to find a hobby, not this type of hobby. He had the wrong hobbies. That was his problem. He's in the country. He's in Scotland. Why wouldn't he be playing golf? I thought everybody in Scotland played golf. Yeah, I did too. I want to go to Scotland just to play golf and play some of the old courses. Play some of the, like, really old courses. Like the, like San Andrews and some of those. Yeah. Royal Trune. I don't know what any of those mean because I'm not go off her. So this first murder committed by Robert Black that we know of was that of nine-year-old

Jennifer Cardi. She was abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered on August 12th, 1981 by Robert Black. Jennifer was last seen by her mother at 140 p.m. as she left on her bike to go to her friend's house, but she never arrived. In August, the 12th, 19881, Jennifer went out on her bike. She was nine years of age and it's very hard sometimes to explain to people in this day and age what it was like in 1981. We lived in a country.

There's no traffic. Little boys and little girls cycled each other's houses so there was no danger involved and the word paedophile was not even in our vocabulary so it wasn't. So we had no problem

letting our children go out on bikes. She went out in the bike and she got about a mile, mile and a half down the road and obviously Robert Black snatched her off the road, threw the bike over the hedge and took her away and sexually assaulted her and strangled her and threw her into the McKee's Dam. When I got home from work, Pat was very concerned that she

hadn't come home for tea and she had set her watch and she was always punctual and she hadn't come home for tea and she was very worried and I wasn't because nothing like that had ever happened. So that's Jennifer's father in an interview. One thing gives that I want to talk about from that interview, you know, we're talking about 1981. You and I were kids in 1981. And what he's describing is what you and I have talked about before. Being able to ride your bike all over town, riding to your friend's house with very little

worry. You know, it was just a different time. And I think he does a good job of explaining that and why you would let a child ride his or her bike to a friend's house. That was normal back then. Did it all the time. And he talked about how Jennifer didn't come home for tea, which was apparently normal for her. And hours later, her bicycle was discovered less than a mile from her home.

It was covered with branches and leaves. The stand, the kickstand of the bicycle was down. And investigators thought that this was suggesting that she had stopped her bicycle. She had gotten off to talk with someone. Most likely her abductor. 200 people came out to help look for Jennifer, but no one could find her. And it was six days later that some hunters discovered Jennifer's body. It was about 16 miles from her house.

Pretty far. It is. That's a long ways. In a reservoir in Hillsborough. Her body showed signs of sexual abuse. And her dad mentioned that in the interview. The autopsy concluded. that she had drowned and had also suffered some type of strangulation by some sort of ligature.

And one interesting fact was that they noted the watch she had been wearing that day had stopped at 5.40 p.m. So we know she was last seen by her mother at 140. So her watch stopped four hours later. The location where her body was found was near a major road between Belfast and Dublin. And this led police to suspect that her murderer had been very familiar with the area. The other thing that they thought was that the reservoir where her body was found was very close to this route that was frequented by long distance delivery drivers. So right away, they're starting to think that maybe it's some type of person that, you know, as a driver, is, travels extensively and is familiar with the area.

Robert Black's second confirmed victim was an 11-year-old. girl named Susan Claire Maxwell. She lived in the village of Cornhill on Tweed on the English side of the England-Scottland border. Susan Maxwell was abducted on July 30th, 1982 as she walked home from playing tennis. She was last seen alive at 4.30 p.m. crossing the bridge over the river Tweed and it was theorized that she was probably taken not very long after this point in time by Robert Black. The following day an all-out search was conducted for Susan. Dogs were used. They had at one point at peak 300 officers full time on this case. That's a lot. That is a lot of officers. Scott and the Yard too. I would assume. A thorough search was made of every property, every property.

Yes, I mean, they're going house by house in both Cornhill and Coldstream and over 80 square miles of terrain. That is a huge area, 80 square miles. There were several witnesses that reported seeing a white van in the area. One person said that the van had been parked in a field off the A697. So Susan's body would not be found until August 12th and would be found by a truck driver. Her body was covered with plants and debris. Now she was fully clothed except for the fact that she was not wearing any shoes or underwear. He redressed her? Had to have. Had to have been redressed. The precise date and cause of her death could not be determined because of the decomposition. Because you got to remember, she went missing July 30th. She's not found until August 12th. That has a

long time to be out in the elements. But what they did know was that Susan had been bound and gagged and her underwear had been removed like we talked about, but it was found folded neatly beneath her head, almost like a pillow. So to me, a couple of things. You know, that suggests that she was sexually assaulted. Why else would you remove the underwear? But you and I have also discussed previously people who make it seem like they're caring for the victim.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, they get emotionally entwined to it and feel bad for what they did. And is that what happened here? he had already removed the underwear, redressed her, and then thought, you know, I'm going to fold this up and place it under her head as a pillow. Yeah, I just don't know. I think if you was, I think you could see, like, trying to cover her face if he felt really bad or something like that. So I don't know why he, why he did this, why he even left it. Why did he just dispose of it somehow? Well, we know we can never make sense of it. Right. We never really will know. It's more of a discussion around could it be. be this, could it be that. But we have seen it before where whether people have covered the body

or have made it look like somebody, they've made somebody more comfortable. Yeah, they did that with the kids up in Oakland County. Right. Now, the person's deceased. So obviously there's no real reason to do that. It has to be something psychological. Yeah, some type of guilt. guilt or clearing my conscious because I made them better. Like you feel like you're doing something. You've committed this heinous act, but now I'm doing something nice for them. So the coroner concluded that Susan had died shortly after being abducted. And the thought is that she remained in Robert Black's van, either alive or dead.

They're not sure about that part for over 24 hours as he made his deliveries. You know, we're talking about going through cities like Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow. And it's in Glasgow where he made his final delivery close to midnight. So this guy's working some strange hours. But he made it close to midnight on the 30th of July. The following day, he returned from Glasgow back to London. And the thought is that he discarded Susan's body beside the A518 road. And this was two.

264 miles from where she had been taken with Jennifer Cardi 16 miles from her home. 264 miles. That's quite a bit. It is quite a bit, but are you also tipping your hand a little bit maybe with this delivery driver thing? Because why would somebody drive that far to dispose of a body? Yeah, I mean, it's not needed. You're not accomplishing anything, are you? By going that far?

Yeah, I mean, he's. You can be trying to make it look like that's where it occurred, but they're going to be able to find where the body came from and circle back. Right. I mean, they know where she was abducted from. So, yeah, I just don't get that. I mean, I get it in the fact that he's a delivery driver. So he was keeping her for a specific period of time. And then when his deliveries were over and he's on his way home, he's got to dispose of the body at some point.

And now we have to talk about five-year-old Caroline Hogg. This is Black's youngest victim, known victim. Caroline disappeared while playing outside of her Beach Lane home in the Edinburgh suburb of Portobello. And this was on July 8th. It was early evening, 1983. She failed to return home by 7.15 p.m. And her family got worried.

They started searching for her. During the search, they ran into a boy who told them that he saw Caroline with a man in a nearby area. The family went and searched this area. They didn't find anything. And this is when they called police. Well, we came here today. Open it. If somebody does see it, they'll just bring her back whoever has her.

If anybody knows anything at all, just to let the police know. So a press conference with Caroline's family. You can hear her father doing the talking. You can hear her mother is just beside herself in tears. She's probably not even able to talk at that point. And you can hear the emotion in the father's voice. He just wants his little girl back. That's it.

At that point, you don't care about anything else. Just bring her home. Now, once police get involved, this search for Caroline Hogg is going to be the largest search in Scottish history up to that point. It was said that there was 2,000 local volunteers, a whole bunch of law enforcement. They started their search in Portobello, expanded it out to Edinburgh. And by July 10th, just a couple days after her disappearance, it was making headline news all across the UK. And one of the things that authorities did is they were looking at known pedophiles in the area. And they identified nine as having been in Portobello on July 8th when

Caroline went missing. So they rounded them all up. But all nine were eliminated during the investigation. But they had a lot of eyewitnesses that had seen what was described as an unkempt, balding. They used the word furtive looking man wearing horn-rimmed glasses and these eyewitnesses said this man was watching Caroline as she played. Then he followed her to a nearby fairground. There was a 14-year-old girl that came forward and said that she saw Caroline Hogg sitting with this man on a bench and she overheard the little girl say, yes, please, when the man asked her some questions. And then a Immediately they got up and the two walked to the fairground holding hands. And this 14 year old girl said she sat there and watched it.

She watched the man pay for Caroline to ride a carousel and he sat there and watched her ride the carousel. There was another witness that saw them as well and said that as they left the fairground, Caroline seemed frightened. And again, Caroline would be in the back of Robert Black's van while he delivered. his posters, making his way to Glasgow, and it was said that he even refueled the van early the next morning. And it's not going to be until July 18th that Caroline's body was found in a ditch close to the M1 motorway in Twycross. And her body was found with no clothes. She was dumped there.

In this area where she was dumped, it was 310 miles from where she had been abducted. But only 24 miles from where Susan Maxwell's body had been found the year before. So again, Gibbs, I go back to this route that he's taking to make his deliveries and he's dumping the body somewhere along that route. Yeah, he's pretty comfortable with his different routes that he takes. But because of the time that had elapsed prior to her being discovered and the extent of the decomposition, they couldn't determine a precise cause of death. What they could tell by insect activity was that they thought her body had been placed in

the ditch on or after July 12. So they were trying to narrow it down that way. And Robert Black had made a delivery to Bedworth along that route on July 12. Very easy for a grown man to push about a five-year-old, a 10-year-old, a 15-year-old girl. And as a consequence, they are perfect targets. The patron very often with people like him is not to conceal, but it was quite clearly part of his woods upper hand type. So you can hear in that interview them talking about Robert Black's M.O. And also about, you know, how easy it would have been for him to control

and dispose of a five-year-old, a 10-year-old. But it goes back to what we talked about earlier. He had prayed on younger, weaker victims all of his life from the time that he was young. And he just carried that through into adulthood. But the severity of it got worse and worse as he went. The following March, it was a television program that did a reconstruction of the abduction. and it was broadcast nationally. The program appealed for witnesses to come forward.

And on there, Caroline Hogg's father said, you think it can never happen to you, but it has proven time and time again that it can and it could again if this man isn't caught in the near future. And I don't think you can make a much truer statement than that. A man like this, I don't see stopping. A man like this, Gibbs, has to be stopped. Would you agree?

Absolutely, I agree. I don't think one day a man like Robert Black is going to wake up and say, you know what, I've grown a conscience. I don't want to do this anymore. No. It's too ingrained in him. I don't think somebody like that can be repaired. Not this guy.

Now, I just think he's so morally bankrupt at this point. That's never going to turn around. If you're able to do what he's done even once, I don't see you coming back from that. No, I think some folks out there will say that people can be made better. But like you said, I don't know, man. It's just too horrific. I think there are some things or some instances where there's the possibility for rehabilitation. But in my eyes, this isn't one of them.

I just, I don't think that if you can do this of your own volition, that you can be turned around. Plain and simple. Right or wrong, that's what I think. This is as bad as it gets. Can you be a worse person than this than Robert Black? Not really. It'd be tough. It would be tough.

I don't know what you'd have to do to be a worst person. They're a little Arthur Shawcross in there and you're done. Yeah, he was bad. But this is rough, man. It was after the police had found Caroline, they realized the connection to Susan Maxwell. They would not link Jennifer Cardi until 2009. You know, it's at this point the police were thinking that the murderer of, of both Caroline and Susan had to be somebody that worked as a delivery driver, somebody that could

travel easily. Again, both girls had been tied up. Both had been sexually assaulted. And one strange thing, Gibbs, is that they were both wearing ankle socks. I mean, that was pointed out. I don't know what that means. Maybe he had a fascination with those. I don't know. It was pointed out that they were both wearing ankle socks. So the police started to question drivers about the murders, but they were getting nowhere. And because of that, all they could do is put all this information into the database so that other agencies could access the file. They became cold. On March 26, 1986, 1986, Sarah Harper vanished from her home in Leeds. She had gone out to buy a loaf of bread. And when they interviewed the owner of the store, the owner said she had bought bread, she had also bought some chips, but that he had seen a

balding man enter and leave the shop around the same time that Sarah Harper was in there. Sarah was last seen alive by two little girls that saw her walking. And when she didn't come home, her mom called the police after she did some searching. A large search was done, but they didn't find Sarah. And it would be almost a month, April 19th, until the body of Sarah Harper was found floating in the river Trent 71 miles away from where she was taken. And authorities were able to determine that she had been in that water for about three weeks. She had been drowned,

but she also on top of that, she had bruises all over her body. And they were able to determine that she had been sexually assaulted. And the murder of Sarah Harper would eventually be connected to the others. Now, a girl named Teresa Thornhill was almost kidnapped on April 23rd, 1988. She was walking home. Someone tried to grab her, but luckily she was able to get away. She fought off her attacker, ran home, told her parents what had happened, and Teresa could give a description of the man.

And the description she gave was dirty, balding, fat, nearly 50 years old. Gibbs, I don't know what you were doing over there. at that point in time. I got my hair. I feel like I'm happy to be here and I'm like happy that I've survived the tale. But then I look back and think about the poor girls that haven't survived and sometimes feel so guilty. And that's sad that she feels guilty. She should be, I mean, just thankful like she is.

And there's no guilt because she survived. I think it's both for her is what I took from it, right? She is thankful to be alive, but you're right. It's sad that she has to carry around that guilt that she survived when so many others didn't. And this was a little girl. Now, obviously, that interview was much later, but this was a little girl who wasn't doing anything wrong.

Somebody tried to grab her. She got away. But probably for the rest of her life has to live with the thoughts of that. day and about the thoughts of what happened to the other girls. It's so unfair to her. It's so unfair to all of these girls. I don't know, Gibbs. Sometimes it's just hard to put into words. Yeah, it is. But police finally catch up to Robert Black. He's arrested on July 14th, 1990 near Stowe, Scotland. And he had been seen trying to take a six-year-old and put her into his van. Luckily, someone was witnessing this. They called the police, police chased after the van and caught up with Black. This little girl happened to be the

daughter of a police officer. When they got to Black, she was unharmed, found in the back of his van. And apparently they don't mess around over there because he was convicted of kidnapping the next month and given a life sentence. No, I mean, that is really quick. Sometimes you wish it could be done that way here. No, you do. Especially for. the families of the victims. Yeah. That's the one thing that really bugs me. Now, I like our system.

Don't get me wrong. Because I think there are safeguards built in. There's pros and cons of our system. I think it takes a very long time for things to go through the system. And then, especially if you're given a death sentence, it takes a very, very long time for those to be carried out. But on the other hand, we've also seen where there's been police coercion, people, confess to things they didn't really do. So yeah, I can look at it both ways. But for the families, you would really, you really want to see things kind of wrap up quickly. But that's just not the

way our system works. But we do have a really good system. Yeah. No, I'm not bad-mouthing it. It's just none of them are perfect. So he has a life sentence for this kidnapping. But the police also suspect Black of the murders of Susan Maxwell, Caroline Hogg, and Sarah. Harper because they know he was a delivery driver. They knew he had the opportunity to travel. They also knew that he was now a convicted kidnapper of a little girl and they were able to see some of his past record. So all of that has got him squarely on the on the radar. And the one thing that they do is they check his gas receipts or petrol as they would call it over there, right? And these receipts placed him in the correct locations, tying him to all three murders, as well as the

attempted kidnapping of Teresa Thornhill, which we talked about in 88. Quite remarkable case that was based not on not on sort of great detective work, but on absolutely slogging away through thousands and thousands and thousands of company records. The company that Black worked for had kept very detailed accounts of all the deliveries that all their drivers had made, all the petrol sales that the drivers had made. And they were able to put Black in areas of the abductions and the dumping of the bodies by meticulously piecing together all these things. Now, he said that it wasn't done by great detective, work, but that seems like great detective work.

We talk about slogging through, as he said, slogging through all these receipts. And that seems like good detective work to me. Yeah, I think it does too. So in the spring of 1994, Black stood trial for the three murders. And I say three. It's Susan Maxwell, Caroline Hogg, and Sarah Harper. He still at this point has not been connected to the murder of Jennifer Cardi. denied all the charges against him. But like we talked about, the prosecution could place him at the

scenes. They showed the similarities between all three of the murders, along with the kidnapping of the six-year-old girl and the 15-year-old girl that happened in 1988. On May 19th, the jury found Robert Black guilty on all counts. He was sentenced to life in prison and told that he would have to serve at least 35 years before even being considered for. parole. I don't know about you Gibbs, but a man like this shouldn't get parole. Shouldn't even sniff ever the outside of a jail. Now, I don't think he ever will because he already had life for the other one, but still. And it's not till December 2009 that they connect him and bring him to trial for the murder of Jennifer Cardi. And he's found guilty for that murder as well, given another life sentence. And at this

point told that he would be at least 89 years old before he would be considered for parole. I wouldn't let him out if he was 104 and going to die next week. I still wouldn't let him out. No. I want to kick him right in his ball sack right now. I'm so upset because he got convicted of murdering four innocent little girls, but we talked about it. How many did he molest? How many lives, other lives, did he change? And we were, we? we don't even know how many more he murdered. Right. I mean, all these numbers could have it up to a hundred.

Yeah. Between murders and molestations. And, I mean, the police think he did kill more people. I think he did too. But they haven't been able to connect him to anymore. Now, he has been linked to 13 more that range between 1969 and 1987. And these span, we're talking about different parts of the UK. even spilling out into other parts of Europe.

Because again, as far as he was traveling, we don't know. We have had to endure and listen to how Robert Black kidnapped and sexually abused and murdered our daughter and our children's sister. And it has been absolutely horrendous. we heard things that in all honesty was not even in our imagination. And for 30 years, we as a family really have never tried to understand or try to think of what in the last hours of our life that she went through. And all of a sudden we're confronted with the awfulness of them last. few hours and what she would have had to suffer. And that has been truly awful for each and every one of us.

And Robert Black stole the life of our daughter, Jennifer. But Robert Black didn't steal the lives of me and my family. We've lived a happy, prosperous life. But we missed Jennifer each and every day. So that was a clip of Jennifer Cardi's father after the trial, after the conviction of Robert. Robert Black. And Gibbs, one of the things that we don't talk about all the time is what it has to be like for the victim's family. So in this case, the Cardys, they have to sit in court and listen to all the excruciating details of what this monster did to their little baby. Yeah, it's tough, man. That's, that's hard to fathom what it would be like to have to sit there and hear all the details. Now, Robert Black died.

in prison on January 12th, 2016. So although he's been linked to a lot of other murders and other possible crimes, you know, his death kind of leaves a lot of that stuff a mystery probably. I mean, even if they figured it out, it's not, they can't do anything to him, obviously. Right. But one of these cases in particular is the case of Jeanette Tate. And Jeanette Tate was kidnapped while she was delivering news. They found her bike, but they never found her body.

And it's been said that Robert Black was delivering posters near the place where she vanished. And at the time of his death, the police were trying to file a case against him for her abduction and murder. And I want to play a clip of Jeanette's father. I basically hoped that we were going to find out what actually happened to her and roll out once and for all that she was. wasn't alive somewhere. And if she was dead, find it where he put her, and put her to a proper burial. Well, basically, I campaigned us to try and see him.

All I wanted to do was to talk to him and try and find out what he did with her. And then perhaps we could come to an end of it all with finding her body and giving her a funeral, you know. but never got an opportunity. He wouldn't see me and we just dropped it in the end. I've written lots of letters to him and things as well, but never got anything to work from him. So that was Jeanette's father,

and you got to feel for that guy because he didn't get any answers. No, nope, never will. Sounds like it, you know? Not if it was Robert Black. I mean, you can hear him talk about all he wanted to do was talk to Robert Black. All he wanted was Robert Black to tell him, what did you do with my daughter? Yeah, let me retrieve her. Let me have her. Let me have my daughter back.

No matter what happened, let me have her back so we can get closure. And the one thing I don't understand Gibbs is, and maybe I do understand it, because this guy's an absolute piece of shit. He's a chicken shit. Why not give up that information at this point? You got four or five life sentences. I'm not going anywhere. You're not getting out. Make peace with what you can make peace with. I mean, you can't even do one slice of a human thing. Yeah.

He's rotten in hell. Yeah, he is. And he should. Now you got me all fired up. But they got monsters over there too, man. Yeah, they're everywhere, man. They are. Don't matter where you travel, where you live, where you go.

There's always somebody terrible. And we're going to be here to talk about him. So that's it. That is the case of Robert Black. Got to be one of the worst. He's got to be up there as one of the most vile human beings I've ever researched. Oh, yeah. He's in the mix.

There's a lot of them. There is a lot of them. He's in the mix for sure. All right, Gibbs, we've got some voicemail. So let's play those. Hey, Mike. Hey, Givie. Katie, you're calling in from D.C.

I knew you got a lot of voicemail, so I keep the short and sweet. I'm a new listener and I love the show. It's informative. It's entertaining. And it's funny, but tastefully so, considering the subject. matter. Thanks so much for all the hard work you guys put into the podcast. Love you guys. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking. And we love you too, Katie. That was a great voice mail. Yeah, it really was. Thanks, Katie. I mean, literally in 20 seconds, she made us feel like on top of the world. Can you do that

every day? Can you call Gibby every day and just tell him how much you appreciate? Or a tweet, something like that. It doesn't take much, right? No, I'm pretty easy to please. But really, literally, Literally, somebody's saying that. It's not just Katie. We get it through Facebook and email and Twitter. Yeah. And people probably don't think that it's that big a deal when they say, you know, hey, just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate what you're doing.

It puts us on Cloud 9. It does. Because we know how much work that we're putting into it. Just to have people say they like it. It's awesome. It means a lot. It does. It really means a lot.

Hey, Mike. Hey, Gibby. This is Nicole. I just want to say, I love your show. And it's Team Ferguson, not Team Givie. And I hope you have a wonderful day. And by the way, hey y'all. Hey, y'all. Hey, y'all. I love that. I'm sure you met Team Furgy. I'll take either. No, I'm just saying, you know, you're coming around. It's all right. Should come around. Can you let me have at least a couple? All right. Not everybody can be Team Ghiby. No, that's true. All right. Team Furgy. Now, that was a great, great voicemail. And you and I have a lot of fun with the team Fergie, team Gibby stuff. But yeah, we do. At the end of the day, as long as people are team TCAT, T-CAT, that's all we care about. All right, folks, that is it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.