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your first month. There is by location and is

0:29

subject to change. Welcome to devils

0:31

in the dark with me, Helen Anderson, and

0:33

me, Danny Howard. We're two best friends

0:35

entering the world of true crime. We'll

0:38

be sharing the stories of some of the worst

0:40

and most horrific murder cases in

0:42

history the help of professional criminologists,

0:45

and we're taking you along for their

0:47

ad. In this episode, we're

0:49

turning back o'clock to look at one of the most deadly

0:51

mass shootings in UK history. It's

0:54

the hunger food massacre.

1:07

I'm taking the lead today, so I'll I'll

1:09

start things off. Hello, Helen.

1:11

How are you? What machinery would you like to

1:13

talk about today?

1:16

Deakers. That was reference to

1:18

last week when we

1:20

spent probably a bit too long talking about

1:23

cranes. because that's what the people

1:25

want to hear. We know it. So this week, what

1:27

do you have for us, Ellen? I'm gonna tell you a

1:29

story about something that happened to me at primary

1:31

school. It was ADT

1:33

lesson. So I was making things out

1:35

of wood, anti DTI

1:37

went primary school. Yeah. It was primary school.

1:39

It was Well, you know, CT.

1:42

Design tech. Okay. But it wasn't,

1:44

like, period. It

1:46

wasn't, like, design tech at this time. it

1:48

was primary school, so everything seemed to just merge

1:51

whatever the teacher felt like doing. Anyway,

1:53

I made a crane. I

1:56

made a crane. was

1:58

made out of wood. I made

2:01

a windy thing inside. I

2:04

was like, like, imagine,

2:06

ah, yeah, I made it from, like, you know,

2:08

thread. Goes around the windy thing.

2:10

New thread from a sewing book. There's a new thread.

2:12

Yeah. And then it was a bit string was wrapped around

2:14

it. There was a a hand on the end

2:17

and it went up the crane and then

2:19

down and there was a hook on the end and it worked

2:21

like, you could push it around and you could wind it up

2:23

and down, the little hook up and down. It worked,

2:25

and I would pick things up. I made like these little

2:27

fake palettes where I put paper

2:30

clips to make little hoops

2:32

to for the hook to pick up. Mhmm. It was

2:34

great. It was functional. It worked.

2:37

And then I did such a good

2:39

job. I got to go and assembly,

2:42

show and tell, to show this

2:45

thing that I had designed and made

2:47

with my own two tiny hands. I

2:49

Even tiny lands. And then I got to build

2:51

an actual crane. No. And then

2:55

my pink faced Headmaster

2:59

teacher, mistress. I'm

3:01

not gonna say her name.

3:04

Broke it.

3:04

On purpose, when

3:07

she was using it, she

3:09

broke it. And

3:10

I looked like a fool in front of the entire

3:13

What a cow? I know.

3:15

I

3:15

bet she did that on purpose as well just

3:18

despite you. Yeah. She looked like I'd been

3:20

too smart. You know what? This kid's too into

3:22

her cranes. She's gonna take a She's

3:24

too good at engineering. Nobody should

3:26

nobody should know the secrets of cranes

3:28

at the right page of nine. She

3:31

knows too much. She must be brought down.

3:33

Yeah. The new story, my

3:36

boyfriend, Philip. Hello,

3:38

Philip. is finally listening

3:40

to the podcast. Fuck off, Phil.

3:42

What are you

3:42

doing since February? Like,

3:45

I know. I saved

3:47

him. Have

3:47

you listened to my podcast yet? And he's like, no.

3:49

And then I don't know what it was that recently he

3:52

decided, I think it's because I personally

3:55

physically got it up on his Spotify on

3:57

his phone. So when his phone connects to

3:59

his van on his way to and from work,

4:01

he has no choice there staring at

4:03

him in the face. So we started listening

4:05

to it and he comes along

4:07

and goes, I'm a listen to your podcast. I'm

4:09

really invested. It's really great. And I'm thinking

4:12

what took you so fucking long. Oh, wow.

4:14

What a privilege, Phil. Thank you.

4:19

Hello. Hi, Phil. How are you? I'm in Chees listening.

4:21

What are you doing? Are you on your way home now? Should I put the oven

4:23

on? Yeah. Please. I'll put tea. I'll start

4:25

tea. How are you? Anyway, I

4:27

just can't relax. because apparently,

4:29

I'm a stupid adult who do do everything.

4:32

We're having a baby. We're trying to move house,

4:34

you know, all at the same time

4:36

because why not why not I'll

4:39

tell you another thing that's put me on edge

4:41

is leaking into today's

4:43

case. Mhmm.

4:44

Have you ever heard of the hunger

4:46

food massacre?

4:48

No. No.

4:49

I've heard of the Hunger Games. It's

4:51

not the same. Okay. It's no.

4:54

Well, No.

4:57

It's not the same. No. I have not.

5:00

So I am here to be educated. Well,

5:03

okay.

5:03

I'm gonna say the word hunger food a lot.

5:06

Okay. So

5:07

just be prepared for that.

5:09

This is mad. It's completely wild actually.

5:12

And it is I love

5:14

the UK. One's the best. Like, I

5:16

mean, America, you guys have some fucking

5:19

absolute nutty serial

5:21

killers, man.

5:22

them But

5:25

Brits

5:25

are coming for you in this

5:27

one. This is

5:29

yeah. It's just interesting because this

5:32

happened in our country not

5:34

while we were alive. Okay.

5:35

Not long before we were alive. No.

5:38

Shall we set the scene? Go on. Set it. I'm setting

5:40

the scene everyone. It's

5:42

a lovely summer's day in August

5:45

in nineteen eighty seven in the

5:47

picturesque village of hungerford in

5:49

Barkshire.

5:50

That's like oh, quite a

5:52

it's a nice county, but she isn't it.

5:54

There was a nice county. Aark

5:55

shear. It's in the name. Sounds like there's

5:58

lots of trees, all the shears.

5:59

a, like, shite

6:01

tree. Yeah. Aren't they? That's why

6:03

the shire is called the shire.

6:05

Is it? No.

6:06

I don't think it was British. Yeah. But I

6:08

I imagine that he knew that too. So he

6:10

called the shire, literally the shire.

6:12

Yeah. Not everybody has hairy feet, they're just

6:14

some of them. I

6:15

do.

6:16

It's just Helen.

6:18

And she is also hobbit sized.

6:20

That's right. The

6:22

people of the village are going about their day,

6:24

saying hello to the people they know. and

6:26

it's the epitome of a quite little

6:29

English town. As a mother sits in

6:31

a local countryside park with her

6:33

two young children, she's approached by a

6:35

twenty seven year old man. As she

6:37

turns to face him and say hello, she's

6:39

met with a gum. The

6:41

man horrifically murders the women

6:43

in front of her children before running

6:45

away from the scene. What

6:47

started as a normal day in

6:49

this rural southern town is about

6:51

to become one of the darkest days in

6:53

modern

6:53

British history. The young man continues

6:56

on his way, firing his weapons at the

6:58

strangers he comes across, but

6:59

many of his victims don't survive

7:02

they're completely random attacks. Oh

7:03

my gosh. When we look at spree killers,

7:06

we look at what drives them. It's

7:08

often an underlying simmering

7:10

resentment. that is often

7:12

years in the making. It's a very unique

7:15

form of of mass murder. The

7:17

town is thrown into complete chaos

7:19

and the police are inundated with conflicting

7:21

information. It's the late eighties. They don't

7:23

have social media. They don't

7:24

really even have mobile phones.

7:27

This all landlines, telephone boxes.

7:29

as they desperately tried to locate the killer.

7:31

The young man, soon to be identified

7:34

as Michael Ryan,

7:34

killed sixteen innocent

7:37

people.

7:38

People were deeply shocked at

7:40

the way this chaotic violence

7:42

had erupted into what were small

7:45

scale placid English lives.

7:50

So let's go back to the start. Michael

7:53

Ryan was born on May eighteenth nineteen

7:56

sixty to parents Alfred

7:58

and Dorothy Ryan in Marlborough

7:59

Wilshire, which is around ten

8:02

miles away from hungerford.

8:03

His

8:04

father was fifty five years old when

8:06

Michael was born. And so because of the

8:08

age difference, they never really clicked.

8:11

But Michael's mom Dorothy was twenty

8:13

years younger and her husband and had a completely

8:15

different relationship with her son. Here's criminologist,

8:18

doctor Elizabeth Yardley. Here she come.

8:21

Michael

8:21

was a bit of a mommy's boy.

8:23

She really did panda to him

8:25

and tended to insulate him

8:27

quite a lot from the out side world, but I

8:29

think in insulating him, she

8:31

tended to isolate him a little bit

8:33

as well. So he didn't really

8:36

develop the the skills of of social

8:38

interaction with his peers all that

8:40

well. I think because he

8:42

hadn't had those relationships with

8:44

siblings that that most children

8:46

have, He found it difficult to relate to

8:48

other people. So he didn't really make any connections

8:50

with others at school and and

8:52

I think he he got a bit of apputation as

8:54

being the older one out, the slightly

8:56

strange kid. When he

8:59

was sixteen after struggling to

9:01

fit in, Michael dropped out of school and

9:03

started working as a part time handyman.

9:05

Even at sixteen, his

9:07

mom continued to spoil him.

9:09

apparently, buying him everything he wanted,

9:12

including his

9:14

first air rifle. Why?

9:18

Lots of people have air rifles. Yeah. I

9:20

suppose you have an ex who had

9:22

air rifles? Yeah. There's

9:24

a few air rifles in my house

9:26

because Baker went for a a soft

9:28

face, air rifles

9:30

use

9:31

Oh, he does. Doesn't he? Because I wanna help

9:33

help you sort out your house. I found them all.

9:35

air rifles use air to propel.

9:38

Pril Oh, it's a

9:40

name? Yeah. Air. Rifle?

9:42

Yeah. Rather than rather than,

9:44

like, a gunpowder or

9:46

explosive material. Basically,

9:48

airsoft people run around in

9:51

camo and, you know,

9:53

just like It's almost like laughing

9:55

but not med evil.

9:57

So Michael's air rifle was the first in his

9:59

collection

9:59

of guns. which are actual real

10:02

guns because this was before

10:04

the firearms act was amended,

10:06

and he

10:06

proudly displayed those

10:07

guns in his room. In

10:09

nineteen eighty five, aged just

10:11

twenty five, Michael lost his dad to

10:13

cancer. And

10:14

in his grief, he became even more

10:16

we've drawn and spent his time away from any

10:18

friends or people in the community. And

10:20

in all this solitude, he grew his

10:23

passion for guns, spending all his time

10:25

at the local firing range.

10:27

Okay. Often when we look at spree killers,

10:29

we look at what drives them.

10:31

It's often a underlying

10:33

simmering resentment that is

10:35

often years in the making. And because

10:37

they don't have those social connections with

10:39

other people, they simmer away

10:41

and they just get worse and and worse and

10:43

they spend a lot of time on their own

10:45

ruminating and planning

10:48

So in Michael's time, at

10:50

the time, it was

10:52

legal to own a firearm

10:54

if

10:54

you were licensed

10:56

the process for getting a license, you basically

10:58

just had to meet certain criteria and if

11:01

there wasn't a reason for you not to have

11:03

a license. then you

11:04

could have one and being a

11:06

member of a gun club or

11:08

like Michael was going to the

11:10

firing range to to shoot your

11:12

guns was allowed.

11:14

Well,

11:14

that is totally

11:17

mad. Isn't it?

11:19

I know. Oh, wow. Okay.

11:23

Well, let's take a quick

11:25

breather to hear a word from our

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11:33

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11:35

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11:37

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11:39

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11:41

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11:43

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11:45

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11:47

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11:49

It's really easy to do though in it. It becomes

11:51

all consuming. Yeah. It's a it's

11:53

AAA

11:55

cycle of thought behavior

11:57

as my therapist is.

11:59

Oh, working on

12:01

that. It's habitual, isn't it?

12:03

Mhmm. But also,

12:05

it's very easy to see

12:07

the negatives than the positives,

12:09

especially like especially with me.

12:11

I might get loads of really lovely

12:13

comments and it's always the negative

12:15

ones that stand out and

12:17

ruin my day. Yeah. And rather

12:19

than being overwhelmed of happiness at all the

12:21

positive ones. I feel like sometimes

12:24

like, the the positive

12:27

positive thoughts are like a

12:29

stream and they'd sort of they'll happen

12:31

and they'll move out like, you know, they'll move through your

12:33

brain and you'll be like, oh, that's nice. Oh, it's sunny.

12:35

Like, oh, this went well. And then you carry

12:37

on living your life. And then these negative

12:40

things come in and they start like a whirlpool

12:42

and you'll be Yeah. Yeah. This is a negative. And

12:44

then, oh, I keep thinking about it. Oh my god. What

12:46

am I doing? Yeah. Yeah. And your stream

12:48

gets lost in the world full.

12:50

Exactly. Oh my god. What great analogy?

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13:41

Now,

13:41

Let's get

13:42

back to Michael. On August nineteenth

13:45

nineteen eighty seven, the now twenty seven year old

13:47

Michael was unemployed and still

13:49

living at home of his mom. and the

13:51

frustration that had been simmering inside him for

13:53

years was about to come to a head.

13:55

Don't like that. The choir, August

13:57

morning, was about to take a turn. as

13:59

Michael loaded his car with gums

14:01

and drove out to Savanak Forest,

14:04

which is seven miles west of hunger

14:06

food. There he found

14:08

thirty five year old Susan Godfrey, who

14:10

was picicking there with her two young children.

14:13

Michael instructed Susan at

14:15

gunpoint to put her

14:17

two children in the car, then led

14:19

her into the forest and shot

14:20

her thirteen times in the back.

14:23

Heartlessly, he had just committed

14:25

his first murder and the only witnesses

14:28

were her two children. Oh

14:30

my lord.

14:31

This has

14:32

come out of nowhere. Indeed, it

14:34

was her children who

14:36

subsequently first

14:38

raised the alarm when they told her pass

14:40

away. A

14:41

man in black has shot her mommy.

14:45

Oh

14:45

my god. Yeah. How bad

14:47

is that? After

14:48

maturing season, he

14:51

set off down the a four towards

14:54

hungerford, stopping at a petrol station to fill up

14:56

his car, and also to

14:58

try and murder the lady behind

15:00

the counter.

15:01

From his car at the petrol pumps, he opened

15:03

fire through the windows of the petrol

15:05

station, aiming for the lady behind the

15:07

hill as she ducked the cover. this

15:09

is kind of wild to me anyway because I'm like

15:11

firing guns in a petrol station seems like

15:13

such a massive

15:15

risk to you as a

15:17

shooter.

15:17

Yeah. It's just not particularly

15:20

smart. So perhaps, you

15:22

know, he's not

15:23

fully of his own mind or he we won't

15:25

we might never

15:26

know. Having missed his target

15:29

so

15:29

he missed He was outside. He walks across

15:31

the forecourt and into the shop

15:33

to finish the job. But

15:36

his gun jammed. god.

15:39

Yeah. How lucky is that? And he just legged

15:41

it. The lady behind the hill immediately

15:43

phoned 999 and alerted

15:45

the police. god. Dude, shut my

15:47

petrol station. Meanwhile,

15:50

Michael's got back in his car and

15:52

continued down the road. he was nowhere

15:54

finished with his day of destruction as he

15:56

headed directly back towards

15:58

his hometown of hunger food. Right.

16:00

So around

16:00

twelve forty five So

16:03

just

16:03

after midday, Michael arrived home

16:05

to his house, which is number four,

16:08

South View, in hunger food.

16:10

He was gonna pick up the rest of his guns from

16:12

his room. When he got back into the car

16:14

to continue on his rampage, the

16:16

car wouldn't start There's some

16:18

kind of, like, outside force here, like, his

16:20

gun challenge is trying to start. That's like

16:22

Michael, this is not

16:23

for you today. Please just go

16:25

home, isn't it? Also, I because

16:27

I'm

16:27

sad, I Googled number

16:30

four South View on Street View.

16:32

Creek. Yeah.

16:33

I'll tell you a bit more about it in a bit.

16:35

Okay. So, yeah, the car wouldn't start and he

16:37

was so mad at the

16:39

car for not starting. He

16:41

shot the car. Oh, five

16:43

times. Well, that's definitely not gonna

16:45

make it start. Then he killed his

16:47

dog. No.

16:48

Yeah. I'm done with

16:49

this man. Podcast over. Yeah. I'm

16:52

leaving. And then, seemingly

16:54

for no reason at all, he

16:56

set fire to his own house. Is

16:59

he he's not alright. Not okay.

17:02

No. So, yeah, a pretty

17:04

intense time. And I had a

17:06

look. And interestingly,

17:07

for Southview, I thought,

17:09

oh, I bet you can probably tell that

17:11

it's like been So,

17:14

like like yeah. And so, like, maybe it's a

17:16

bit more modern -- Yeah. -- rebuild.

17:19

But, yeah, it's just sort of like an end of Terre

17:21

Southview is a cold attack.

17:23

and it's does anyone live in his house? I

17:25

think they must do. I was a proper

17:27

creep and I was like zooming in to look at the house

17:29

and look at this. I always do

17:32

that. If anybody tells me if anybody

17:34

tells me where they live. Oh, that's

17:36

creepy. You shouldn't you shouldn't like

17:38

No. No. No. No. Not anybody. But like

17:40

I have I have friends who live

17:42

elsewhere. Right. I I just moved

17:44

here on a couple street view.

17:46

Okay. because in one day,

17:48

I'm gonna go there.

17:49

I like to I like houses. Sure.

17:52

It's not

17:53

weird. Look at loads of things

17:55

on street view. Oh, could I spend a lot of time on,

17:57

like, googler. You do there for your job though. I do

17:59

for my job. Yeah. But then also, I'm

18:02

like, what are the beaches?

18:04

What's Bali like? And I'll just go and look on

18:06

satellite view. You know once, I went on

18:08

street view and pretended I was

18:10

driving around a town. You know, on the on

18:12

the on the three d

18:14

street view, you know, yeah, it was straight viewing

18:16

it. I had to do that. I'm going down here.

18:18

Wait. You go to the shops. Turn left. Whoo.

18:20

We had to do that for a

18:21

course once, and I had to drive around this

18:23

town and look at the way it was designed.

18:25

Did you? Yeah. Michael

18:27

wasn't

18:27

content with shooting his car

18:29

and killing his dog and killing Susan

18:31

and setting fire to his own house.

18:34

So he then murdered his

18:36

neighbors, Roland and Sheila

18:38

Mason, who had just happened to be sitting in

18:40

their back garden. What? Mhmm. So with

18:42

the house in flames, Roland and

18:44

Sheila gone, Michael took three of the guns

18:46

from his car, a barretta nine

18:48

millimeter pistol, which are handheld.

18:50

One. An m one carbine assault

18:53

rifle.

18:53

Okay? Yep. Bit of a step up -- Yep.

18:55

-- and an AK forty seven machine

18:58

gun. Whoa. That's definitely

19:00

not legal. It was licensed. Was

19:02

it? Automatic and semi automatic weapons

19:04

weren't illegal yet. Oh,

19:06

okay. For private ownership, right, with the

19:08

right license. Okay. So he took

19:10

those guns and headed east on foot, which kicked off

19:12

the next part of his spree. This isn't

19:14

the same day. It's

19:17

within like an hour. Oh my

19:19

gosh. Yeah. And then obviously, no

19:21

social media. So and mobile phones,

19:23

even mobile phones, like, if you see something crazy. You get

19:25

your phone out, you call someone. Yeah. Like, the lady

19:27

at the petrol station should've just got her iPhone

19:29

out on top nine on nine straight away rather than

19:32

having to duck and then feel safe

19:34

to get to a phone. So there's no

19:36

way for the people of hunger food to know

19:38

what's They have no

19:40

warning, yeah, as Michael headed

19:41

east on foot. he shot

19:43

and injured

19:44

two more people at the end of his street, one of

19:46

them being a fourteen year old girl.

19:48

It seemed as though because it's August at

19:50

some holidays. Right? It seemed as though he

19:52

had no plan other than to cause destruction

19:55

as he walked through the small town and

19:57

Liz has some thoughts. We will

19:59

probably never know what

19:59

Michael Ryan's intentions were. when

20:02

he he left the house on the day

20:04

that he carried out these these

20:06

killings. I think when we look at some

20:08

of his behavior around it

20:10

though, we can perhaps speculate

20:12

that he was suffering from some kind of

20:14

mental illness. Some of the

20:16

things for me that would support that

20:18

would be have close together these killings

20:21

were. When killings are

20:23

further apart, when there's time in

20:25

between them, the person is thinking

20:27

about it the person who's deciding to

20:29

do it again. But when it's in a

20:31

continuous spree like this, there's less

20:33

of that decision making going on and

20:35

psychosis or Frenia,

20:37

do you come into the picture?

20:39

Yeah. He's he's a loss of

20:42

control. Well, with psychosis,

20:44

there's a a loss of reality.

20:47

Yeah. So and

20:49

particularly those, like,

20:50

psychosis schizophrenia

20:52

are quite isolating can

20:54

typically be quite isolating mental

20:57

illnesses before they're properly diagnosed,

20:59

and particularly in, you know, the late

21:01

eighties. These things probably

21:03

weren't as widely. You

21:04

know, it would just be like, oh, he's just a bit quiet.

21:07

He's just a bit of a weird kid. Yeah.

21:09

Because when I first was reading about

21:11

this, I thought oh, this sounds like

21:13

a psychotic break -- Mhmm. -- because I watch too much criminal minds.

21:16

Yeah. And so,

21:18

I mean, like, if he is suffering a psychotic

21:21

break, Yeah. Once again,

21:23

though, we because he's, you know, his

21:25

eighties is a homerooke. There's no sort of

21:27

evidence of a stressor. That was a

21:29

trigger, but he could be

21:31

thinking everybody that he sees as

21:33

a zombie trying to kill him or whatever, like and

21:35

say he's just firing at random. They're

21:37

like, oh, he could have convinced himself that that's what he

21:39

has to do. And that's the right that is the right

21:41

thing to do. Like, there's the perception

21:43

of the situation is

21:45

I'm gonna shoot this person, and that's okay.

21:48

That's what I have to do today. Well, that

21:50

wouldn't be schizophrenia. That wouldn't be

21:52

schizophrenia, or I suppose it's necessarily. Okay.

21:53

What would that be? Schizophrenia would be something

21:55

in his head is telling

21:58

him. Right. These people are a threat to

22:00

you. Oh, and you

22:02

need to end them before they they

22:04

end you, or this situation is

22:06

harmful to you. You need to be doing

22:08

you need to get out of here. You need to do

22:10

this. and

22:10

that is,

22:12

like,

22:13

almost out of his control. He's he's being

22:16

he's and something in his head just

22:19

convincing him that that is his reality.

22:21

Okay. One woman who Michael

22:23

had shot and injured through her living room

22:25

window had managed to call 999

22:27

and call the police. So by now,

22:29

reports of the shootings have begun to reach

22:31

newsrooms across the country. News

22:33

had also reached the

22:35

mayor of hungerford Ron Terry

22:37

who was at a meeting in a nearby village.

22:40

I was in the Lambert area and I

22:42

had the car radio on when

22:45

I heard that had been

22:47

shooting in hungerford. Number of

22:49

people have been killed. My first

22:51

thought was there are a number of hungerford. There's

22:53

one there in your house. Sure. And

22:55

it probably not ours. And then it said, hungerford is a

22:57

small market town in Berkshire. Suddenly

22:59

shock came in. It was

23:01

was abnormally hungerford. If I like

23:03

to call it that, how can it happen in a patient like

23:05

hunger food? At that

23:07

point, I had an antique

23:10

store in hunger food. And

23:12

so I knew the town really very well used

23:14

to go there every week that fell, Saturday

23:16

and Sunday. It was very comfortable

23:20

and

23:20

warm and an

23:21

enjoyable place to be,

23:24

which

23:24

makes the juxtaposition with

23:26

Ryan all or more

23:29

dramatic. because

23:30

we're not talking about the main streets

23:32

of Chicago here. We're not

23:34

talking about East Los Angeles.

23:36

We're talking about hunger food.

23:39

a

23:39

delightful,

23:40

charming, English

23:42

county town

23:43

with no

23:45

real worries and equally

23:47

no history of violence.

23:50

A little

23:50

bit of personal information from Jeffrey

23:52

once again. Yeah. was thought that

23:54

was interesting. Yeah. And then when you think about it, like, of

23:57

course, you owned an antique shop at some point.

23:59

Definitely. He looks

23:59

like an antique dealer. Yeah. And he

24:02

sounds like one. So

24:05

he, as

24:05

a writer, has first hand experience. Yeah.

24:08

Michael's killing spree continued

24:11

as he came upon a family walking along a footpath.

24:13

Their fifty one

24:14

year old dad, Kenneth Clemens, put his hands

24:16

up in surrender, giving the rest of his family

24:18

the chance to run. Michael didn't head

24:21

state and shot him in the chest, killing him

24:23

instantly, making him

24:24

the fourth victim of the day.

24:26

There doesn't

24:26

seem to be a pattern, too

24:29

Micron's behavior on the day that he caries out these

24:31

shootings. It appears to be

24:34

indiscriminate. They are everyday people doing

24:36

everyday normal things.

24:38

And I think Michael Ryan never felt that he was

24:40

part of that normal part of that every

24:43

day. So perhaps there is

24:45

patent underlying it in the the

24:47

people that he's he's taking his his

24:49

rage out on are the people that that

24:51

he wants to be like. It's

24:54

that picture

24:55

of perfect suburbia

24:58

with people's perfectly

25:00

cut lawns and fences,

25:02

and that community sort

25:04

of spirit in this really

25:06

it's quaint. Ridic place in the

25:09

countryside and he feels

25:11

isolated through various

25:14

from various different reasons and perhaps

25:17

It's frustration. Yeah.

25:20

I think that's the biggest thing coming out of this. Like,

25:22

the whole thing is just fucking

25:25

sad.

25:25

It's so horrible.

25:27

this whole question throughout this whole day as we go

25:29

through the day. I can't stop asking

25:31

why? Yeah. We're going through I

25:33

like this. It's almost like a day in the life.

25:36

of Yeah. This is this is mad.

25:39

So now we're gonna look at

25:41

another hunger food resident police

25:43

officer Trevor Wainwright. who was out of

25:45

town enjoying a day off when he heard the news of

25:47

a shooting at the petrol station in

25:50

Sabahac. Right. So the

25:51

town across. Okay? Because

25:53

the petrol station was actually in the neighboring county

25:55

of Wilshire, Trevor didn't realize

25:57

the immediate danger his family was in

25:59

until

25:59

he got a distressing call from

26:02

home. Right. Here's Trevor. And it was my

26:04

wife

26:04

saying Trevor's better go home.

26:06

Don't know what's happening, but this gunfire going

26:09

across our garden. So

26:12

I thought, oh, what's all that about? Could

26:14

it be connected with this savonak thing?

26:16

You know, I didn't know.

26:18

But obviously, you'd like to get back

26:20

to hunger food. As

26:21

Trevor raced home, he quickly became aware of

26:23

the true severity

26:24

of the situation. As I drove

26:26

across hunger for common, I

26:28

could see on the edge of the

26:31

town, a couple of houses on

26:32

fire, you know, you could see the smoke. And

26:34

I could see in a clump of trees,

26:37

there was a group of people in the trays.

26:39

So I pulled up

26:40

and I knew a couple of people that said,

26:42

what what's going on? And they

26:44

said, Oh, a bloke on mad with a

26:46

gun. I just didn't know what I think, you

26:48

know, and you could smell the chordae from

26:50

the weapon in the air, which

26:52

I've never experienced that before, not not

26:55

like that, you know, because you could hear

26:57

the sound of gun going off. But I

26:59

think the smoke and and the fire

27:01

from the house was the thing that was

27:03

quite frightening. By

27:04

now, police were beginning to arrive

27:06

in hunger food still totally unaware

27:09

of the sheer

27:09

scale of destruction that

27:11

was happening. Forty one year old, Roger Breiter,

27:14

a colleague of Trevor's, was

27:16

the first officer on the scene.

27:19

Roger Breiter

27:19

was a lovely lad.

27:21

it was a local bladder, I

27:23

think, came from wantedgue originally.

27:27

He came to hungerford as a PC.

27:29

We used to go out, crew a

27:31

car together on many occasions going

27:33

around the rural area. He

27:36

was always a laugh at a joke.

27:38

He was a good police officer. he

27:40

was out in the Newbury area, and

27:42

the call came up. There's a shooting in Angieford.

27:45

And bravely, he said, I'm on

27:47

my way. At

27:49

this point, Michael had turned

27:51

around and was headed back to

27:53

his house. But when he

27:55

arrived back at Southview, he

27:57

spotted officer Roger Breton in his police

27:59

car. Roger was unarmed

28:02

because police

28:04

were back in the day. And

28:06

so he was defenseless when

28:08

Michael Ryan fired twenty three rounds

28:10

at the police car hitting Roger

28:13

four times. Oh, my

28:15

gosh. PC Roger Breiterton had

28:17

just become Michael's fifth victim of the day.

28:20

Meanwhile, an increased number of police in the area

28:22

began making it difficult for people,

28:24

you know, outside of the village,

28:26

including Mayor Ron Terry,

28:28

to get anywhere close. So hunger food basically

28:30

went into lockdown. But while that

28:32

was happening, Michael Ryan carried

28:35

on. After killing

28:35

his fifth picked him, he started shooting

28:37

at passing cars on his street

28:39

of Southview. First, he fired a

28:41

mother and her daughter who

28:44

managed to escape by driving away.

28:46

Whoa. Then

28:47

he shot and killed driver George White

28:49

before killing another neighbor

28:51

eighty four year old Abdul Khan who is in

28:53

his back garden. Well, that's a seat.

28:55

You hike on

28:56

fire. You see smoke. You're gonna go outside to see

28:58

what I know. can't you? Yeah.

29:00

Jeffrey wants

29:01

or knows what happened next.

29:03

He shoots at a neighbor. He shoots at

29:05

an ambulance, which has also responded to

29:07

the concept of shots fired.

29:10

demand assembling, disintegrating

29:13

before your very eyes, falling

29:15

apart, shooting at people

29:17

entirely at random, and

29:19

then of all remarkable

29:22

coincidences.

29:22

His mother drives into

29:25

the south view.

29:26

almost impossible to imagine what

29:28

she must have thought. Her house is

29:30

on fire. There are bodies in

29:32

the road. Her neighbor's event and there's

29:34

a son carrying two rifles in an hand

29:37

gun. Clearly, having done

29:39

something absolute be

29:41

terrified. His mother gets out

29:42

of the car, puts a

29:44

hands up, and pleads with him.

29:48

Ryan

29:48

on shoots

29:49

kills

29:50

you her. Well,

29:52

that took a

29:53

turn. Yeah.

29:55

Right? So

29:56

in an instant, Michael

29:58

Ryan made his mom

29:59

the eighth victim of his killing

30:02

spree. Just like that. But why

30:04

exactly? Why? He's supposed to be mommy's

30:06

boy. Well, doctor

30:08

Elizabeth Yardley thinks that Michael might not

30:10

have been fully in control of his actions at

30:12

this point. Okay. It

30:14

could be theorized that that

30:16

he accidentally shot his

30:19

mother. I mean, if he was

30:21

experiencing some kind of some

30:23

kind of mental health condition where he wasn't in

30:25

control of his actions. He could well

30:27

have just been targeting people

30:30

randomly, people who appeared in his line

30:32

of sight and his mother happened to be one

30:34

of those people.

30:35

Meanwhile, police officer Trevor

30:38

Wainwright returned back to the

30:40

town and reported for

30:40

duty at hungerford police station.

30:43

It was quite bedroom, to be

30:45

honest. In those days,

30:46

we only had two phone lines into

30:48

the police station. and it

30:50

was a lot of movement. The

30:52

first

30:52

thing I wanted to know is who

30:54

this was that was shooting people.

30:56

because, you

30:57

know, I'd been at Angieford as a

30:59

Bobby fifteen years. I knew all the kids.

31:01

I played football with them. I took them

31:03

for football. And I had

31:05

a wonderful relationship with people in the

31:08

town and this name Michael Ryan came

31:10

out and it didn't mean anything to

31:12

me. I was like, oh, who the hell's that?

31:14

because he wasn't

31:14

outplaying football. That's why, because he was

31:17

at home. Hello. Yeah.

31:18

Hello. That's just it. Nobody people

31:21

I get you the real feel of this town. Everybody

31:23

knows everybody. Yeah. But

31:25

nobody knows Michael Ryan, nobody knows who this

31:27

is or why. he's doing this,

31:29

and it just sort of portrays

31:32

even

31:32

more so his loneliness.

31:34

And and

31:35

perhaps his fear

31:37

of missing out or feeling of missing out

31:40

on all on all the

31:42

the community that he

31:44

is not part of. He

31:46

did the

31:46

even the policeman that's been there for fifteen years

31:49

doesn't even know who he is? Yeah.

31:51

Says it

31:51

all. They all know who he is now.

31:54

Maybe

31:54

maybe that that's exactly Now you all

31:56

know who I am. Maybe that's why.

31:58

That's it. There's so many reasons why this

32:00

could possibly have happened. Yep.

32:03

Yeah.

32:05

That is baffling,

32:07

isn't it? Yeah. Completely.

32:09

So I think we should take a breather.

32:11

How about you? I think we I think we yeah.

32:14

Please. I'd love a

32:16

breather. Show a chat close.

32:18

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32:20

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32:33

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35:40

Hold on to your hats everyone. We're

35:42

diving back in.

35:44

at one

35:44

thirty. So that's approximately

35:46

forty five minutes after my

35:48

call first arrived at Southview shooting

35:51

up his car. The specially trained

35:53

tactical firearms unit were brought in to assist the

35:55

local police. So I think given the

35:58

communication

35:58

i think given the communication like I've you

36:00

know, I think that's quite a fairly decent response time. I'm still my

36:02

mind's still blown over the two phone lines into

36:04

the police station. You know, it

36:06

was the eighties. Yep. That was

36:10

a treat. to vote. Yeah. Trevor was eager to help stop

36:12

the gunman terrorizing his hometown and

36:14

went to the highest street to gather as many

36:16

street maps as

36:18

he could. so that they could record, oh, okay. You

36:20

know,

36:20

the whereabouts. By the time he

36:22

returned to the

36:22

police station, there were senior police officers

36:25

and armed response vehicles coming

36:27

in. So the cavalry's assembling. Yep. Things are happening.

36:30

Information about the shooting was flooding in from

36:32

residents of the town, but the telephone

36:34

system was

36:36

overwhelmed. Yep.

36:36

With an influx of conflicting information because people are

36:38

gonna be getting through at different

36:39

times. Oh, yeah. Okay.

36:41

different things. The

36:43

police were struggling to actually locate Michael.

36:46

Mhmm. Michael continued

36:48

on his way away from home

36:50

after wounding another of his neighbors.

36:53

He

36:53

headed back across hungerford common

36:55

where he murdered Francis Butler,

36:57

a young father who was

36:59

just walking his dog. Gosh. His

37:01

tenth victim of the

37:02

day was a taxi driver named Marcus

37:06

Barnard. So I think in reality,

37:08

this has been because the first

37:10

shooting and the second shooting

37:12

were outside of the town. Right?

37:14

their so the residents of the town if unless they're at

37:17

home by their phone and somebody's called them

37:19

to tell them this is happening,

37:21

aren't gonna know what happening aren't

37:24

gonna know. because they're not gonna get news alerts on

37:26

their phone because you didn't have phones. They're

37:28

not gonna know to stay at home. No. Be

37:30

careful. Although to be fair, like,

37:32

one lady was shot in her living room, and

37:34

staying at home isn't particularly helpful about this. But if you've got someone

37:36

out on

37:36

a killing spree, he out

37:40

is poor probably not the best places to be. So no fees, catching all people

37:42

completely unaware and unexpected of

37:45

that you just wouldn't expect anything

37:46

like this to happen. No. Michael

37:50

was far from done after his

37:52

tenth victim -- Mhmm. -- and started heading towards

37:54

the heavily populated town

37:56

center. On his way -- Lord. -- on

37:58

his way. he shot and

37:59

injured two more people.

38:02

So

38:02

there's there's bodies everywhere. This

38:05

is a

38:05

mess. Yeah. It's a real mess. It's

38:08

chaos. It is. As officer Trevor

38:10

Wainwright worked to bring Michael

38:12

in, things took a tragically

38:14

personal turn. Oh, shit. This makes

38:16

me emotional. I

38:18

got called into the sergeant's office, and

38:20

he said to me, Trevor, I

38:22

don't know how to tell you this.

38:25

I said, what? He

38:27

said

38:27

he said, your dad's been

38:30

shot, and

38:31

he said, oh, fuck. Trevor's

38:33

parents, Douglas

38:35

and Kathleen Wainwright, had been driving

38:37

to see their son completely

38:40

unaware of what was waiting for them. Oh my god. Of course,

38:42

because he was on a day off journey.

38:44

Yeah. I didn't even think

38:46

about my mom and dad coming

38:49

to hungerford that day. They lived in

38:51

Kent, and

38:51

they traveled one hundred and twenty

38:54

miles that day. And they've

38:56

driven three hundred yards from

38:58

my house. and they drive straightened

39:00

up Michael Reiner, who shoots into the car, and he shot my dad

39:02

in the head, and he died instantly.

39:08

Oh my goodness.

39:10

It makes me wanna cry.

39:12

That's so horrific clear. And

39:15

he's working on the case as well. Yeah.

39:17

And that's so deeply personal. Isn't it? It's

39:19

just so, but I'll say, it's so completely

39:22

random. Like, they were literally just in the wrong

39:24

place that they want at the wrong time. Yeah. One

39:26

traffic light could have made all the difference

39:28

between

39:28

them. Yeah. It's it's

39:30

it's it

39:31

is unbelievable. Yeah.

39:34

That's the whole thing.

39:36

I've got a look here in my mind. Danny is well. He

39:38

doesn't take a lot

39:39

these days, but those are

39:40

good. It's just sad. Sometimes I worry

39:43

that I made a vice. I am

39:44

I do have, like, a

39:46

lot of it doesn't take much. I've

39:48

I've spent this little while this morning crying

39:51

at dog videos on the internet. Yeah. homemade old pregnant

39:53

lady. Don't worry. There

39:56

is a very small

39:58

light in this one personal

39:59

instance. In that Kathleen,

40:02

Trevor's

40:02

mom, was luckily able to

40:04

pull herself out of the car and hid from

40:07

Michael until she was rescued by

40:09

a local resident who ran out and took her

40:11

into their house and then

40:13

called an ambulance. I

40:14

mean that is a light, but

40:16

it's also still horrible that she

40:18

has just seen her husband

40:22

die. and she has just

40:24

had to escape the situation. But it is great that she survived.

40:26

But also, fuck. So

40:28

she was taken to the

40:30

hospital and more.

40:32

And that was sort

40:34

of

40:34

the end of Trevor Wainwright's workday

40:36

because his sergeant took into

40:38

the hospital. Yeah. He used to go.

40:41

be with

40:42

boat, be with your mom.

40:43

But to make matters worse,

40:46

journalists were turning up in droves

40:48

desperate for information about what was happening in

40:50

the small town. Great. Whilst it's

40:51

still happening, whilst it's still happening, because

40:54

the police don't have enough to do.

40:56

Yep.

40:56

Yep. Michael McCarthy

40:58

was one of the journalists present.

41:00

You

41:00

couldn't get into the town center, but you could see there was police helicopter

41:03

overhead and it was

41:05

smoking the distance. was

41:07

I checked in the office, and they told me that there had

41:10

been multiple shootings, and they knew

41:12

even then that it was in the

41:14

street called

41:16

South View which is on the eastern side of the town and they wanted me

41:18

obviously to get there as soon as I could,

41:20

but you couldn't get within half a mile

41:22

of it. I mean, there

41:24

was there was no way on earth. You could get

41:26

anywhere near us at that

41:28

time.

41:29

Okay. Right. Let's Let's

41:31

go into the scene of the

41:33

cry whilst it's still happening to report on

41:35

it and put all of our lives in danger.

41:37

I guess that at once again, at

41:40

the time, that was the only way that sort of on the

41:42

spot journalism could happen. There

41:44

was no drones to

41:46

fly over and get satellite footage. There

41:50

was no Yeah. They had to just turn up and sort of

41:52

be brave, and that's when investigative

41:54

journalism was really like a,

41:56

you know,

41:56

the name brave. a

41:58

time to be alive? Yeah. But I'm

41:59

also a bit like, they turn up at this police

42:02

station asking questions. These guys are

42:04

busy.

42:05

Yeah. I mean, But equally, they don't

42:07

know what they're

42:07

turning up to find out. No.

42:10

Because changes they've heard there's

42:12

gunshots, there's

42:14

smoke. a

42:15

sign happened. That's that's it.

42:16

We need to get the scoop on

42:19

what this actually is. Yep.

42:21

So

42:21

at that time, that's kind

42:23

of all they really know. Somebody

42:26

is is shooting.

42:27

Yeah. We're here to find out

42:29

more. Both the media the

42:30

journalist present and the police had no idea how quickly

42:33

Michael was racking up victims.

42:36

Gosh. Handyman Eric

42:38

Vardy became Ryan's twelfth victim of

42:40

the day when he was shot on his way

42:42

to work. He then killed twenty

42:44

two year old Sandra Hill as

42:47

she passed him in her car. Then forced his way into a house

42:49

belonging to Victor Gibbs and his wife Myrtle. He

42:51

shot and killed them

42:54

both. bringing his victims

42:56

to fifteen. What is going for

42:58

his brain right now? Nobody knows.

43:00

I don't even think he

43:02

knows. I just I can't understand.

43:05

Yeah. I can't understand

43:06

it. Michael

43:07

kept moving south away from the town center

43:09

and towards his old school. John Agorn

43:11

to Community Technology College.

43:14

On his way, he shot at a

43:16

family driving by a new car and

43:18

a thirty four year old father

43:20

Ian Playo was hit in the neck and died. In

43:24

less than an hour and

43:26

a half, Michael

43:27

Ryan had killed sixteen

43:30

innocent people. Oh my goodness.

43:32

Many of

43:32

whom were complete strangers. Yeah.

43:35

But

43:35

the horror he was inflicting on the town he had

43:38

grown up in was finally coming to a

43:40

close. Finally, Ryan,

43:41

I think symbolically,

43:43

returns to his old school, the John

43:46

Agorn Community College,

43:48

and he locks himself in.

43:52

By this

43:52

time, the police have managed

43:54

to assemble a reaction,

43:56

and

43:56

he begins to

43:59

negotiate. Thankfully, It's

44:01

August. It's the school holidays. No

44:03

one's there. Nobody's at school. Yeah. I was about to think

44:05

that when you first mentioned school, I thought, oh,

44:08

shit, but then remember So I thought the summer holiday.

44:10

So Mark, he's in a school. This is gonna go

44:12

even worse. Yeah. Yeah. No.

44:14

So at least there was no kids in

44:16

the school. For five hours, the police

44:17

negotiated with Michael trying to get him to give himself

44:20

up, and it sounded like he was coming

44:22

to terms with what

44:24

he's done. How

44:25

does a police person, a

44:28

police

44:28

officer negotiate

44:30

for someone to give

44:32

themselves up? Like special training, don't

44:35

Like, do

44:35

they bribe them? Do they do

44:37

they blackmail them? What do they what do

44:39

they say? Depends on who they're talking to,

44:41

what the circumstances are. Sometimes they'll

44:43

offer them stuff, reduce sentences, like --

44:46

Really? -- that's all a lie, or

44:48

sometimes I don't know. He

44:49

seems incredibly concerned about

44:52

his mother. That seems to be what is at the forefront of his mind, what most

44:54

concerned with. And you could interpret

44:56

that as some kind of remorse

45:00

but actually I think it's more indicative of his enmeshed

45:02

with his mother and his dependence

45:04

upon his mother because they

45:08

had an intense relationship. He he really was quite a

45:10

a mommy's boy. And I think the

45:12

the thought that that he had killed her

45:15

and taken her out of the equation was something that he

45:17

was having quite a lot of trouble

45:20

with.

45:20

Very near the

45:21

end of

45:24

the events at

45:24

Hankeford that day. He said

45:26

to the

45:27

police negotiators, Hankeford must be a bit of

45:29

a mess by now. I wish I'd

45:31

stayed in bed and

45:33

that in a

45:34

way encapsulates

45:36

the tragedy of him.

45:38

Shortly

45:39

before seven PM, Police

45:41

had a single shot from inside the school. Oh, okay.

45:44

Michael Ryan had shot himself with one of his

45:46

own rifles.

45:49

the hunger for massacre had

45:51

finally ended. Yep. I

45:53

thought that that might be the case.

45:55

In

45:55

a way, it was sort of something

45:58

of relief for then, it was over then. You know, he couldn't shoot

45:59

anywhere else. And in a

46:02

way, it sort of was brought some

46:04

closure in my mind.

46:06

It didn't bring any

46:08

closure to the events of that and subsequently, but

46:10

but it did bring closure to that event. He

46:12

couldn't show any more out and no

46:14

more lows will be

46:16

lost. I

46:16

don't know if this is going

46:18

to be an unpopular opinion,

46:21

but when

46:22

someone causes that much

46:25

damage and destruction and just

46:28

outright violence,

46:30

you know, when they

46:32

then take the gun on

46:35

themselves. I

46:36

can't help but feel

46:38

that justice still hasn't been served.

46:40

i. e. like, yes, they're no

46:42

longer here to cause any more damage,

46:44

but it's almost like, I don't I don't I don't

46:47

have to atone. No. I don't they

46:49

don't have to I don't wanna

46:51

say what a waste because

46:53

that sounds insensitive, but it is like what a

46:56

waste of a day. Why did you do that?

46:58

You caused all that out the middleman

47:00

and just Yeah. Like yeah. And just, like, why couldn't started

47:02

the day yourself? Yeah. I

47:04

just wanna hear an explanation.

47:06

I think

47:08

why? That's it, and you'll never get that

47:10

why. No. Never get that why. I do wonder though, from

47:12

the local perspective, the

47:16

people in

47:17

the village, the people who are all affected by

47:19

this, the families of the victims, does

47:21

that change how

47:25

you get your closure, how you make,

47:27

how you grieve the situation

47:29

because once, like like

47:31

Maia Tari just

47:33

said, like, you do get a

47:36

closure, like, this is

47:37

over now. This isn't gonna get

47:39

any worse -- Yeah. -- that

47:41

you wouldn't necessarily do

47:44

when

47:44

it goes to is

47:44

this how is he gonna be punished? How long

47:46

is he gonna go to jail for? Is he gonna go, you

47:49

know, is he gonna go to jail? Is

47:51

he gonna go to psychiatric prison, like --

47:53

Yeah. -- you know, and that whole thing

47:55

is sort of really drawn out

47:57

and agonizing and these people have to relive these

47:59

events over and

48:02

over again. well. It's in the news. Yeah. It's very true.

48:04

So I I think that's quite

48:06

interesting. And I

48:07

know in sort of one of

48:09

the clips. PC, Trevor Wainwright,

48:12

did say that if he'd been caught

48:14

and arrested, I would have hated him

48:17

so much. and I would have been at every court hearing to

48:19

see him get sentenced. But the fact that he

48:21

killed himself, I didn't have that

48:23

hatred. Yeah. I

48:24

think that's it's so interesting. and

48:26

it is interesting. I just don't suppose you can

48:29

really comment on it until you've you would

48:31

know how you'd feel about something

48:34

like that. and I suppose that hatred towards

48:36

him may have caused

48:38

him some, you know, mental

48:41

health issues as well. You you just don't

48:43

know. Yeah. But in a way, I

48:46

feel like he kind of gave

48:48

himself an easy way out by

48:50

just in getting it then and there. Yeah. And I would I would be

48:52

inclined to say, no. Make him suffer. Yeah. I'm

48:54

gonna be old enough to say. Knock him up in a

48:56

cell and let him

48:58

gonna be bold enough to say that it's a coward's way

49:00

out. I I was thinking this year. Like,

49:02

you, you know, you can't own

49:04

up to you can't either can't or won't own

49:06

up to you've done and faced the

49:08

consequences. Yeah. Yeah. In

49:10

the wake of the tragedy, news began to

49:12

spread about the devastation that had happened in

49:14

hunger food. No one could have possibly imagined the scale

49:16

of destruction that Michael had caused, and as the news of the murderer became

49:18

public, many people were shocked

49:20

to see a familiar face. When

49:25

I saw the picture of Ryan

49:25

in the papers myself, I knew it was

49:27

the guy. I used to see walking

49:29

his dogs on hunger

49:32

food common. in his

49:34

combat jacket and his hat,

49:36

but that wasn't anything

49:38

alarming to me because a lot

49:40

of people wear those type of coats, you

49:42

know. especially around this area. He

49:45

was

49:45

a guy that was

49:48

quite insignificant, to be honest. It

49:50

was quite polite. When I show him on the

49:52

common with his dogs, we'd say good morning, but

49:54

his dogs would stiff each other and

49:57

he'd walk off. know,

49:58

I'm just looking at pictures of right now

49:59

on Googly. And he does

50:02

just look like she's

50:03

a regular guy. Not

50:05

just a guy. just a regular guy.

50:07

he's forgettable. Look at anything. Yeah. It it

50:10

doesn't just it's not very

50:12

striking. There's not anything there's

50:14

not, like, he doesn't have he

50:16

doesn't have a look. And I think a lot of the people that

50:18

we look at -- Quite striking. -- they or

50:20

or they look like murder y. Yeah.

50:22

They look like they could be murder y. He he

50:24

just looks like a normal

50:25

kid. Just just bucket out on. It

50:28

looks quite innocent faced.

50:30

Yeah. Just not

50:30

yeah. Not very memorable. So imagine

50:33

him coming out I can't

50:35

you I'm looking at him right now thinking how

50:37

could someone that looks like that? I know you

50:39

can't judge ruble by her, but judge her by its

50:41

cover, but you just couldn't see it. I couldn't see

50:44

happening. No. Okay.

50:46

This has been a big one this week,

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53:25

The

53:25

country was desperate to know more information about

53:28

the gunmen and about

53:30

the attack. which means one thing, journalists

53:32

absolutely everywhere. At one point, there were

53:34

up to fifty journalists in the small town

53:36

trying to get the

53:37

next scoop. which just actually seems quite cruel to me.

53:39

Yeah. I was to say

53:40

that's pretty insensitive and also just,

53:42

like, fuck off. Yeah. One, the

53:45

people that lived there it

53:47

gets worse. One, no,

53:49

horrible news report,

53:50

in particular, left police officer

53:52

and some to one of the victims,

53:55

Trevor Wainwright, completely start? Oh,

53:57

no. Probably

53:58

the thing that upset

54:03

me really badly. was the press

54:05

coverage. The headlines were

54:08

PC Sign farther's own Death Baron.

54:11

I read that. just

54:14

couldn't believe that. And it

54:16

meant to me that if I sing

54:18

my dad's deaf warrant, then I

54:21

sing the deaf warrants. of all

54:23

the other people that got shot. And to me,

54:25

that was so unfair because

54:29

Ryan was a member of a

54:31

gun club.

54:32

He had several weapons and each

54:34

time you have a weapon, you have

54:36

to be vetted or have the

54:38

license amended and approved. If he

54:41

wasn't a suitable person,

54:42

I'd be the person able to say

54:44

that. but because he had no record and nobody really

54:46

knew him, although he was a local lad,

54:48

he was a loner

54:50

That doesn't prevent you from

54:53

having a firearm certificate. And,

54:56

you know, clearly, there

54:57

was no reason for him not

54:59

to have a firearm certificate. Oh,

55:01

that's

55:01

incredibly cool, insensitive.

55:04

Mhmm. And just I

55:05

just I hope

55:07

he I hope he lost

55:09

his job after that. Yeah. because well, it's

55:11

like he said, like I said earlier, if

55:13

there's no reason for you not

55:15

to have, like, there's no reason

55:17

for you not to have a gun. Yeah. You

55:19

can have one if you meet the criteria.

55:22

Exactly. And there's anybody there's it's

55:24

minority report territory to, like,

55:27

you're gonna kill somebody so you can't

55:29

have this gun. Nobody can say that.

55:31

Yeah. So, like, naturally,

55:32

those reports and allegations

55:35

really devastated Trevor. you can hear it, but he really hid from

55:37

everyone, including his family. Oh.

55:40

I was so upset that

55:41

I didn't want to go

55:43

to a hospital see my man because she was in a ward

55:45

with the other people that had been

55:48

shot. And I couldn't

55:50

face

55:50

them. they

55:52

obviously saw the the paper

55:54

in hospital. My mom was told that,

55:56

you know, I was very upset. and

56:00

she phoned me up from hospital

56:02

and she said, Trevor, get

56:04

your ass in here, the

56:08

people want you.

56:09

Oh, god. Told

56:11

you. They know, but they are

56:14

right.

56:14

Those up there.

56:16

Right? I've been cracked. The ice queen has cracked.

56:18

I knew it would be true ever. Don't

56:21

look at me like.

56:24

and But it's

56:26

so true that he's gonna think

56:28

that everybody is reading that and believing that,

56:30

like, some dickhead journalist that's

56:33

written this horrible headline doesn't

56:35

know doesn't know what he's provided for the

56:38

community. And the people,

56:40

the community,

56:42

are gonna

56:43

obviously be supportive of him because why wouldn't

56:45

they be? In no way,

56:47

anyone that know him

56:50

would think that you would do

56:52

something like that. Exactly. Especially

56:54

because this man,

56:54

like Michael Ryan, he was

56:57

nobody. Yeah.

56:57

And also, let's just think about

56:59

the facts here. His parents were

57:02

just driving from Kent to visit

57:04

him. In no way, did he know that

57:05

this gunman was gonna be oh,

57:08

his parents were gonna be in the wrong place at the

57:10

wrong time. you cannot blame anyone for the

57:12

actions of a spree killer like this.

57:14

Nope. And I don't think unless

57:16

you can, you know, unless somebody was, like,

57:18

literally being,

57:20

like, and kill all these people. Yeah. In which case, yes, you can blame them, but you have

57:22

to blame the person who's doing it. You can't even blame

57:24

the guns for killing these people, not because somebody has

57:26

to pull the trigger. Exactly. Yep.

57:30

The

57:30

hungerford massacre sparked a wave of change in the UK

57:32

with

57:32

many people calling for changes to be

57:35

made about gun laws. Those are

57:37

all the questions like why does

57:39

a man need these guns? Like, why why is

57:41

it

57:41

necessary? does he need the Yeah. And why

57:44

is it necessary to

57:46

license them? you have to license

57:48

them because they're unsafewired, should people

57:50

actually have these for private ownership? For

57:52

no means just for fun? Yeah. That's

57:54

because they don't do any good because you armed

57:56

response in when they are

57:58

responding to

57:59

an armed person.

57:59

Yep. Thankfully, I

58:02

don't don't

58:02

often agree with a lot

58:04

of government decisions, but definitely agree with

58:06

this one. The government listened to

58:09

the police for change. Good. What

58:10

the government decided to

58:11

do very quickly. In short order, I

58:13

think Douglas heard was the home secretary. They

58:15

commissioned a report

58:18

about this. from the head of TEMS

58:20

Valley Police, which came in quite

58:22

quickly. And as a result of it, they amended the

58:24

firearms act. You could not

58:26

any longer be in possession of a fully

58:28

automatic assortment, and that was done really quite

58:30

quickly. Firearm's

58:32

Amendment

58:32

Act was passed in nineteen eighty

58:35

eight So less than year after the hunger for Moscow

58:37

-- Mhmm. -- banning the ownership of

58:40

semiautomatic centrifuge

58:42

rifles and

58:43

the restricting the

58:44

use of shotguns with a capacity to

58:46

shoot more than three cartridges, okay,

58:48

to hold more than three cartridges.

58:50

in the hope that something like this

58:53

would never ever happen again.

58:54

And, I mean, obviously,

58:56

a lot of people in the

58:58

UK will know that the act was

59:00

actually had to be amended again

59:02

after Dumblaine in

59:04

nineteen ninety six, which then banned

59:07

the private ownership of handguns as well. I think maybe

59:09

they should just ban

59:10

the ownership of

59:12

guns completely

59:14

private ownership of guns is is not a

59:16

thing here now.

59:18

You can own a a

59:20

shotgun It

59:22

can't be pump action. Yeah. because I'm thinking

59:24

of farmers. Right? Yeah. And you

59:26

have to be licensed and there has to be

59:28

sort of a reason That's

59:31

what I may have it. Like, if you're a member of a gun club, you go play pigeon shooting, that kind

59:33

of thing. You can have a shotgun. It's

59:35

licensed. You have to

59:38

pass like,

59:38

you have to be vetted. Okay. You can't just go buy

59:40

one and decide that I Yeah. She should

59:43

create pigeons now.

59:43

So, thankfully,

59:46

you know, the gun

59:48

ownership

59:48

is very

59:49

heavily regulated. We actually have one

59:51

of the most restrictive gun ownership

59:54

laws in

59:56

the world. Good.

59:56

And I think it shows it does go to

59:58

show itself. Yeah.

59:59

The firearms amendment

1:00:00

act was a victory for

1:00:03

the people demanding change. back

1:00:05

in nineteen eighty eight. However, for the people of hungerford, the damage was

1:00:07

already done. The effects of the actions taken

1:00:09

by Michael

1:00:09

Ryan on

1:00:12

August nineteen nineteen eighty seven still live with those involved. The

1:00:19

scars linger now. thirty

1:00:21

years on because how could they not?

1:00:24

Entirely random

1:00:24

neighbors were killed, people

1:00:26

you knew, people

1:00:27

your children been

1:00:29

in school with, someone who might have

1:00:31

day a community.

1:00:34

And there's no way a

1:00:35

community could have

1:00:38

suffered such a

1:00:39

trauma without

1:00:41

having been dreadfully

1:00:43

affected. The press asked

1:00:45

me, when was the last murder in Hungary,

1:00:47

do you think? And There were two

1:00:49

policemen murdered in Hungary in eighteen seventy six. And I

1:00:52

said, well, I think, a hundred and eleven years

1:00:54

ago, I don't know anyone

1:00:56

should understand. not

1:00:58

the sort of thing you would expect to hear in a place like

1:01:00

Hanger food. I think the community has

1:01:03

got stronger as a result

1:01:05

of what's happened and as

1:01:07

time goes on, you know, the hunger

1:01:10

thing fades out a little

1:01:12

bit, but it will always

1:01:14

be there. I think it strengthened community spirit. It

1:01:16

made hunger for better

1:01:18

known for all the wrong reasons.

1:01:20

hunger here was more than that. That was just one

1:01:22

dreadful day,

1:01:24

but there's been hundreds of years of history when that wasn't

1:01:26

hungerford. And so we don't

1:01:28

think of Mark O'Brien

1:01:30

on that day in August.

1:01:33

Oh, yeah. He said there's been what hunger

1:01:35

is

1:01:36

about. I was

1:01:38

gonna

1:01:38

say I've just googled hunger food.

1:01:41

just to see what it looks like because I wanted to see what it looked

1:01:43

like. Oh, yeah. Get see look. You're

1:01:45

on satellite. Are you on the street view? You don't have

1:01:47

no no one on Google. Not weird. No one on

1:01:50

Google images. Oh, on street view. It's a

1:01:52

lovely little place. Well, I'm just looking at pictures to

1:01:54

see what it looked like. And

1:01:56

third row down, there's his face.

1:01:58

So -- Yeah. -- even when you google it,

1:02:00

he's there. Yeah. He's just gonna always be a a dark

1:02:02

shadow. Yeah. Yeah. Crick. Yeah.

1:02:04

And

1:02:04

that was the hunger

1:02:06

food

1:02:08

massacre. That wasn't very nice. I know. Isn't it it's it's mad think

1:02:10

that that happened, what,

1:02:12

thirty five years ago --

1:02:14

Yeah. -- in our country.

1:02:16

the country I know.

1:02:18

And just

1:02:19

It's also reasons that we don't even

1:02:21

know why It's so sad to

1:02:23

think that in other places

1:02:25

in the world. this

1:02:26

isn't a rare occurrence? I know. And that that

1:02:29

horrifies me. That I cannot come

1:02:31

to terms with that. That

1:02:34

is mad. we're so lucky to be so safe

1:02:36

and we I think I don't know if

1:02:38

we I don't know if we

1:02:40

take

1:02:40

our safety for

1:02:40

granted, but maybe we do I

1:02:44

don't think we do, and I also don't think we're lucky because I'm

1:02:46

very pro gun reform.

1:02:48

So No. I'm not entirely wrong. But

1:02:50

lucky in the sense that we

1:02:53

we just go live in our day to

1:02:55

day life, not worrying about that. Oh, what

1:02:57

does that mean? Yeah. Because it's not

1:02:59

commonplace. Yeah. But

1:03:02

Yeah. I don't know. Are we lucky? It's it's it should

1:03:04

be a basic human ride. Well, yeah. Yeah.

1:03:06

We are lucky. No. We are

1:03:09

as I

1:03:09

was sort of doing my research through this, I was

1:03:11

just like, I really hope, like, please

1:03:14

god. Like, I really hope that

1:03:15

this actually

1:03:17

the something did something. Yeah.

1:03:18

And so knowing that this is what sparked the

1:03:20

firearms amendments. Like, I was like,

1:03:22

like, it's

1:03:22

not it doesn't take away all the Lysol,

1:03:25

but at least, like, something

1:03:26

really good come from this? Yeah. Random

1:03:29

fact. Right. Following the

1:03:32

latest

1:03:32

firearms amendment act, which

1:03:34

was in nineteen ninety seven. Mhmm.

1:03:37

the

1:03:37

only one of the

1:03:39

only handguns still allowed following the

1:03:41

ban on handguns.

1:03:44

Right. uptake and muzzle loading black powder guns,

1:03:46

like from Hamilton. Oh,

1:03:48

yeah. I'll get you with my gunpowder

1:03:50

gun. So you can have one of those.

1:03:54

Yeah. It next next

1:03:56

time.

1:04:02

So next

1:04:04

time.

1:04:06

I'm Devil's

1:04:07

in the dark with me, Helen Anderson

1:04:09

and me, Danny Howard, We're turning around

1:04:11

the clock to look into the life of sadistic murderer and slave

1:04:14

owner, madam Lellori. Subscribe

1:04:16

or follow to make sure you never miss an episode

1:04:20

of Devil's adapt. In the meantime, if you've been affected by any of the

1:04:22

themes in this episode, please do check out

1:04:24

the description for lots of

1:04:26

helpful resources. special thanks to

1:04:28

Woodcut Media and our wonderful

1:04:30

producers at audio

1:04:32

boom studios.

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