Memories of Murder: Part One
I Did Promise You Murder…
When I launched this site, I may have hinted at some darker stories. Maybe even promised a splash of blood on the blogroll.
And so far? Nada. Not even a paper cut.
So, before you accuse me of pulling a classic bait-and-switcheroo and replacing grit with writing tips and neuroses, I present to you: Memories of Murder.
Way back when I had use for a comb and thought I might still become someone respectable, I was studying law.
As part of the degree, we had to do two six-month internships. I did one with a glossy commercial firm where people said “circle back” and pretended not to be crying inside.
The second was at a criminal defence firm in London.
Let’s just say it was a little less glossy.
Phones rang, clients shouted, and one guy kept eating dry Weetabix at his desk.
It was during this second stint that things got…murdery.
We had two clients charged with murder in the space of six months.
And yes, I was in the thick of it.
This post is about the first case. Well — more specifically, about one moment from the case. Not the trial itself. You’ll see why later.
The full breakdown of the second case — and trust me, it’s juicy — is coming in Part Two. So sharpen your curiosity (not your knives) and stay tuned. Sign up for my free newsletter HERE so you don’t miss out (and also get a free short story based on my weird experiences at a different law firm).
Why is murder so popular?
I think murder cases have the potential to generate stories beyond the violence, the body and the subsequent investigation. Stories that you don’t expect.
Case One: The Body in the Fridge
Flashback to 2003.
East London.
A humid summer.
Something sweet and putrid is wafting through the hallways of a block of flats (apartments, for our North American friends).
Neighbours complain.
Police turn up.
Door gets booted in.
Inside the flat: silence, rot, and one very ominous chest freezer.
With the power off and the summer heat doing its thing, it’s not long before the officers discover what’s been cooking.
Inside: a woman’s decomposing body.
She hadn’t been tucked in for a nap, either — the autopsy reveals close to a hundred stab wounds.
Let that number sit with you for a second.
This was not a heat-of-the-moment thing. This was a full psychotic break.
There’s a husband.
The husband is missing.
Then the husband is found.
Then the husband is arrested.
Enter: us.
From the jump, it was clear. Our guy? Bang to rights — criminal law slang for absolutely, unmistakably guilty.
But here’s the twist: he was also clearly, undeniably mentally ill.
And that’s where the case stops being Law & Order and starts being… institutional.
The murder charge was quickly downgraded to manslaughter by diminished responsibility, which in plain English means his mental state — think severe schizophrenia — meant he couldn’t understand what he was doing, couldn’t control it, and couldn’t make rational decisions.
He wasn’t going to prison. He was going to be locked away somewhere padded and permanent.
But before that happened?
Before the court hearings?
Before the white coats and medication?
He was remanded into custody — i.e. held in a regular prison.
This happens far more than you’d think.
The UK criminal justice system — even back then — was a leaky, understaffed, cash-strapped ship. And it’s only sunk deeper into the mire since.
At the time, I was seriously considering a career in criminal law.
By the end of my time at the firm?
Not a bloody chance.
The system was (and remains) a chaotic mess.
Conservative estimates say at least 40% of prisoners suffer from mental health issues.
What happens to them?
They’re shoved into cells, untreated, unsupervised, and often deteriorating fast.
Not out of cruelty.
Just neglect.
Just no money, no space, no real plan.
I didn’t want to be a part of it.
So I left.
(And later became a man who blogs about Princess Diana and tries to escape Korea via novels — but that’s another story.)
Pentonville Blues (or: What’s That Smell?)
So. Our guy’s banged up.
And this — this is where I enter, stage left, briefcase in hand, innocence intact.
One of the many, many things you do as the lowly intern at a criminal defence firm (besides enduring the incessant teasing about your Northern accent or being sent for Pret sandwiches you won’t get reimbursed for) is make prison visits.
And reader, I loved a good prison visit.
Why?
Because it made for an excellent — if utterly ineffective — pick-up line.
“I’ve been in every prison in London,” I’d say, with a straight face and high hopes.
Shockingly, this never once sealed the deal.
Anyway.
One of my jobs was to visit clients inside and gather background info — especially if they were coming up for sentencing. You’d go in, ask about their upbringing, mental health, dreams of being a professional footballer — anything that might get the judge to hand them 3 years instead of 10.
Only… with this guy?
My mind’s a total blank.
Because what I remember most isn’t what we said to each other.
It’s everything else.
So: picture it.
HMP Pentonville.
Set in leafy, latte-sipping Islington. Victorian pile. Over 150 years old. Looks like a gothic boarding school that got turned into a nightmare.
It’s 2003. I’m wearing a cheap Austin Reed suit.
I’ve got a minidisc player (remember those?) pumping out The Smiths (because of course I do), and a full, glorious mop of blonde hair.
RIP, bushy friend.
First visit. No idea it’ll be the last.
I get through reception — show my driver’s licence, sign the clipboard, pretend I don’t notice the passive-aggressive eye-roll from the officer at the desk.
They make you wait. Always.
Defence lawyers are seen as the enemy here — people helping the guilty wriggle out of consequences.
You get the vibe.
There’s a vending machine offering molten “hot chocolate” that tastes like melted chalk and regret. I pass.
Didn’t drink coffee back then anyway. Young. Naïve. Hydrated.
Eventually, a gruff, bald officer with a drill-sergeant aura calls out:
“Mr X?”
That’s my guy.
I follow.
Still haven’t seen a single prisoner — just locked doors, dim corridors, disinterested guards flicking through Loaded.
Then it hits me.
Not a door. A smell.
A medley of human failure:
Sweat. Stale fags. Bleach. Overflowing plumbing.
A base note of despair with mid-tones of grease and faint ammonia.
All occasionally spiced by the ghost of school dinners past — cheap meat, cheaper chips.
In 2023 Pentonville was declared an ‘unfit place for prisoners to live‘ by inspectors (good job they’re not an Airbnb, imagine the star ratings).
I remember thinking it smelled like my uni bedsheets at their peak filth.
(And yes, I kept them that way because no one was getting close enough to notice.)
Don’t go to prison, kids. It stinks.
But the smell tells me something important:
We’re inside now.
The real bit. The bit where power shifts.
Where I don’t get to say when the door opens.
Where I don’t know what’s waiting around the corner.
My guts start twisting.
Visiting clients at court is one thing.
Here, it’s their house. Their rules. Their smells.
I’m on his turf.
And this wasn’t some petty thief or slightly edgy weed dealer.
This was a man who’d killed someone.
Brutally.
And who was, by all clinical accounts, severely mentally ill.
So yeah, I was a little nervous.
Okay, a lot nervous.
Also trying really hard not to touch anything with my bare hands.
The Interview: Or How Not to Die in a Tiny Room
We’re here.
The prison officer behind the desk doesn’t look up from his register.
“What’s the name?”
I give it.
Tick.
He jerks his head toward a dead-end corridor.
“Room 8.”
The corridor’s grim. No windows. Bare walls. Just a row of doors like something out of a psychological horror film. The only thing missing is flickering fluorescent lights and a soundtrack of distant screaming.
We come to the door.
Of course, it’s the farthest door away from the guards if anything were to happen to me.
Of course, the other rooms are empty, so putting us there is completely unnecessary. Duh.
I step into Room 8.
One table. Two chairs. Concrete walls.
Decor: Post-Apocalyptic Functional.
I choose the chair facing the door so I can give Mr X a polite, professional smile when he comes in.
Mistake number one.
I pause.
Maybe I should sit nearer the door, you know, just in case…
Too late. Footsteps. He’s coming.
I grab my pen, open the file. There’s no photo. I don’t know what this guy looks like.
But I’m about to find out.
And then… the door fills.
I mean fills.
Mr X enters the room like a rolling fog of doom.
He must be 6’4” and shaped like a wardrobe full of kettlebells.
Imagine Zangief from Street Fighter II — but taller, angrier, and with less body hair and possibly more issues.
He looks like he could crush walnuts with his earlobes.
For comparison: I’m 5’7” and, at that point in my life, weighed roughly the same as an empty rucksack.
Picture Where’s Wally, if Wally had anxiety and was regretting every life choice that had brought him to this moment. I even had the same quirky glasses.
The guard glances at me. “Shut the door?”
Mistake number two.
Now, I’m in my twenties. I’m a serial yes-man.
If you had a badge, a clipboard, or even a confident walk, I’d probably agree to anything.
Lend me twenty quid, JL?
Why not.
Photocopy these files for me?
No problem.
JL, d’you mind dragging your testicles through a mile of broken glass while listening to Crazy Horses by The Osmonds on loop and repeatedly punching yourself in the face?
You got it.
So I say: “Sure.”
The door shuts.
With an ominous click.
And now I’m trapped in a tiny, windowless room with a mentally ill murder suspect who could probably use my limbs as drumsticks.
I try to introduce myself.
My voice does this fun thing where it wobbles like a pensioner on a trampoline.
I usually shake hands with clients.
This time?
Not risking it. I like having two hands.
He sits opposite me, silently.
I fumble through my notes. Blather about the purpose of the visit. Ask some standard questions I barely remember.
He says almost nothing.
Just stares.
I’m convinced he’s sizing me up — not intellectually, but nutritionally.
Don’t make eye contact. Don’t make eye contact.
That’s my internal monologue, while my legs — under the desk — quietly reposition themselves for maximum launch velocity.
Any sudden movements by Mr. X, and I’m gone.
I am 90% adrenaline and 10% regret.
I start speed-reading through the file. I could’ve been reciting IKEA instructions for all the coherence I had.
Every second is one second closer to survival.
Then — finally — we reach the end.
I think: I’ve made it.
I risk a glance.
And that’s when everything shifts.
He’s not glaring.
He’s not calculating.
He’s… terrified.
Wide eyes. Glossy.
His face is a mosaic of confusion and fear.
He looks less like a monster and more like a lost kid in the wrong place, in the wrong body, at the wrong time.
A gut-punch of shame hits me.
Here I am — practically sweating through my shirt, convinced he’s about to snap my neck with one twitchy hand — and this guy?
This guy’s broken.
A mentally ill man stuffed into a system that doesn’t know what to do with him.
I’d been so focused on my own fear that I hadn’t stopped to ask what it must be like to be him.
Still. I’m not a hero.
I get up.
Consider shaking his hand. Think better of it.
(Not just because I’m still scared. But because I’m embarrassed. I didn’t give him a fair chance.)
And then I leave.
I never saw him again.
Sometimes I wonder where he is now.
Institution? Released? Forgotten?
Does he remember me — the sweaty, rambling law student who sprinted through an interview like it was a hostage negotiation?
Probably not.
But I remember him.
JL
PS: If the above tale tickled your fancy, sign up for my free newsletter so you don’t miss out on part two. As well as updates on my latest shenanigans, you’ll also get a free short story based on my weird experiences at a different law firm, as well as other freebies. What else are you going to do in 2026 ?
Go on, I double dare you.