On 5th September 2012, Saad al-Hilli, an Iraqi-born engineer, his wife, Ikbal, and her mother, Suhaila al-Allaf, were gunned down and killed in a layby on remote forest road in France
"I hated prison. Every day was a torment. Surrounded by stupid and ignorant people. Forced to follow petty rules and be polite to idiots. I passed the time in the prison library where I had managed to get the job of librarian. Pretty ironic when you think about it - somebody who left school at 16 hardly able to read and write being in charge of the library.
But I was left alone and treated with respect - even by the staff. At that point I had never killed anybody but I knew that I could and I guess they sensed it. The prison psychologist said I was a classic psychopath but that is just a label. I am what I am. I knew that I would never go to prison again and laid my plans.
I was in prison because the cops put pressure on the fences and they talked. There were three of us. We would steal a car then look out for English registered cars that we fancied and "accidentally" bump into them. When they stopped, we stole everything they had. The car, money, jewellery, credit cards, passports. The lot. We passed it on to a guy who in turn passed it on to a number of other people. The fences.
The last car we stopped was a Range Rover with tinted windows. The occupants were all Asian or maybe from the Middle East. I grabbed their kid and held a gun to its head and demanded money. The guy very slowly removed a few bills from his wallet but then the woman started screaming at him and he went to the back of the car. I covered him in case he had a gun but he emerged with a pile of notes three inches thick. When we counted it later there was just over 25,000 euros.
At the trial we were convicted of stealing all their stuff but only 500 euros in cash. This made a big impression on me. And I had plenty of time to think about it. Whether it was stolen money or just untaxed money from their kebab take-away or whatever was of no interest to me but I sensed the route to the perfect crime. Stealing large piles of cash from people who would not report it. People from places where paying tax was voluntary and they hate the police.
While in prison I shared a cell with an Italian guy and he taught me to speak Italian and I helped him improve his French. It took us a few years but there was no rush - we had all of the time in the world. After a while I would only speak to him in Italian and he would always reply in French. Perfect.
When I got out I still had the 25,000 euros plus a bit more I had put by. My partners had been quite happy for me to keep it all - they were weak people and I think they were worried that I might kill them both. Which is what I was going to do so they definitely made the right decision. They would have just disappeared and nobody would have missed them
I never told anybody of my plans. I just walked out of the prison gates carrying my discharge papers and disappeared. Somewhere warm, with mountains and hidden trails up into the hills. Deserted roads with handy lay-byes. And lots of tourists from England. I found the perfect spot near where France, Italy and Switzerland meet.
I have always been good with my hands and I needed a place with a big secure workshop. No windows. Where I could keep an off-road motorbike and burn things without causing comment. I found the perfect place. An old mews - downstairs there had been horses and the stable boys had lived upstairs. It was on the edge of a small town near the junction with several roads. Out the back there was a big piece of scrub land which was included so I could use it to try out my bike when I needed to - it even had a bit of a pond. Even better it led to open land where I could just disappear if the police ever turned up. To Italy or Italian speaking Switzerland, perhaps. Or maybe Paris or Marseilles.
I paid the lady who owned it three months rent up-front in cash. She had started off by wanting ID and references but the sight of a big bundle of notes shut her up. After a couple of months I gave her another big bundle and explained that I had sold my business and was really into off road motorcycling. I told her that if she wanted to check out her property that was fine but I would appreciate a bit of a warning as I had a couple of married lady friends who might be there and I had no wish to cause anybody embarrassment. She blushed a bit and said she understood.
As it happened, I did have an ID card in a false name but the fewer people who saw it the better. I knew exactly what bike I needed and bought it for cash and just drove it away. I even registered it properly and insured it. That hurt but I did not want everything to unravel by being stopped in a random check while riding a stolen bike.
I went to a lot of trouble to make the bike really quiet. When I was in the army I went on an exercise to Gibraltar and was amazed at the racket. The local idiots deliberately remove the baffles so they make more noise!. A total lack of consideration for other people.
It looked just like any other off-road bike really - that was the whole point. If anybody had asked you what colour it was, you would have said it was red. In fact it was mostly black with some white but the sides of the fuel tank were red and that was what you would have remembered. Off-road bikes don't normally come with panniers but I needed a pair. People carry stuff in haversacks but I needed freedom of movement if something went wrong.
I bought a helmet to match the colour of the fuel tank and a white one which fitted inside a helmet box at the back of the bike. In the workshop I made a pair of plastic white panels which attached to the sides of the fuel tank with velcro. With my white helmet on, we really looked the part. I even borrowed the number of a police off-road bike I had spotted 50 miles away. So, in less than two minutes I could transform myself from a red off-road bike to a police bike with a number that matched. On one occasion a passing cop even gave me a wave.
Taking off the side panels and swapping helmets and number plates took less than a minute. The panels were in four sections and fitted inside the panniers. I needed the panniers but they made me nervous. They made the bike a bit too noticeable - "he was a on a black and white bike with side panniers". So, after a lot of thought, I decided to make them detachable. They bolted onto an almost invisible frame which I had welded onto each side of the bike. Attention to detail is everything.
As far as my neighbours were concerned, the bike did not have panniers - I would set off on a red bike with a small haversack on my back. When I needed the panniers I would pick them up from a lock up storage unit I rented about twenty miles away. It was on a big bit of land covered with old shipping containers. I rented one that had been divided into two. My area was about ten feet square which was far more that I needed but I could literally drive into it, close the door, fix the panniers and then drive off with nobody clocking me. There were no cameras that I could see. It is just possible that a really observant person would see me turn up with no panniers and leave half an hour later with them fitted but I doubt it. Even if they did - so what?
I filled it up with a load of old furniture and all kinds of crap - I explained that I was moving house and would need it for a few months. I paid him for 6 months in cash and he gave me a scribbled receipt. My guess is that as far as anybody else was concerned the unit was still empty. I then started to tell him a really long story about my divorce and I could see his eyes glaze over. The next time I turned up I saw him glance my way and walk off in the opposite direction. Perfect!
The panniers contained a tent, sleeping bag, small stove, dried food, water containers and spare clothes. If a job went really wrong I could live in the hills for a week while I worked out my next move.
Now I needed a gun and some ammunition to put in the hidden compartment under the seat. I went to a town about 100 miles away and went into an internet cafe and researched gun clubs. I found the number of the guy who was the main man. I rang him from a throw away mobile phone and he invited me to come along on Tuesday - "pistol night". He was a bit reluctant to give out the address but while chatting he told me he was an architect and I told him that I was looking for somebody to design a new house and I think that tipped it. A couple of days later I rang him and told him that I had to go to Paris but would ring him when I got back. A month later I was there in my van spotting car number plates. Afterwards they all went to a local bar - their car boots all full of guns and ammunition. I chose a car I knew I could steal which belonged to the guy who was carrying the biggest bag.
I had waited a month because I didn't want them to associate the missing car with my phone call - I might need another gun sometime. Having said that, even if the architect guy did guess what had happened my guess was that he would keep quiet - he was hardly going to tell everybody that it was his fault.
I dumped the car in an area of Lyon where I knew it would just disappear. The bag contained several pistols and about 200 rounds of ammunition. I chose a Luger which had three magazines, which was very handy. The rest I hid very carefully in a steel underground safe which I had excavated in the floor of the workshop - the type with an access hole about 5 inches across that you put your arm down. The safe was underneath the lavatory so you had to move the pan to get to it. Unless somebody demolished the place they would never find it.
While waiting to visit the gun club I spent a lot of time memorising every road and trail in the area for maybe 50 miles around. I have a good memory and had planned escape routes in every conceivable direction. Even into Italy and Switzerland via mountain trails - I did not want to show up on any cameras.
Now I was ready for the next stage. I drove to a nice restaurant about 50 miles away on a route over the hills - I actually enjoy riding so this was no hardship. I also like eating. In the car park there were a couple of big English cars. I got a table where I could see what was going on. They both paid with credit cards.
The next day I repeated the exercise - I knew where every restaurant was and would move round them all - never visiting more than once a month. Every so often I would see a guy in an English car produce a big wad of notes to pay. I would follow their car and work out where they were staying so that I could pick them up a couple of days later.
It worked like it said on the tin. I waved them down on my "police bike" and they handed their money over. I did one about every couple of weeks and was averaging about 5,000 euros per time. Occasionally it was clear that they did not really have much cash and they would offer me jewellery - the women screaming, the kids crying and the men as white as sheets. When that happened I would apologise and give them their money back.
I watched the news like a hawk - as well as the police. I knew where all the police stations were and there was no unusual activity. Nobody had reported being robbed. Even the people I had apologised to. What could they say? They just left the area as quickly as they could and went home - it made no sense to them and would have made even less sense to the police.
But after a few months my mate the local copper mentioned that a friend of his who worked about 50 miles away had had some tourists come in and claim that they had been held up at gun-point by a policeman who had demanded cash. But when they started crying he had apologised and given it all back! We both laughed and shook our heads.
And then it all went wrong. I set off as usual and waved the big English BMW over into one of my lay-bys. They were just starting to get out - the kid was already out when the stupid cyclist turned up. I had listened for cars and assumed I had the couple of minutes I needed - I had timed each encounter in the past. When he saw us all, he started to slow down but then suddenly he began to sprint away. Maybe he had recognised me or word had got out, I don't know. But I could not take the risk so I ran after him and shot him. Meanwhile the guy driving the car started it up and put it into reverse but fortunately for me when he went backwards he got stuck and his wheels just started spinning. So I killed them all. Or at least I thought I had but both of the kids survived - I'm glad about that, really.
Afterwards I did what I had always planned to do if it went wrong. I rode on slowly for a mile or so then literally took to the hills up a track I knew. After a bit I got off and parked the bike. Removed the side panels and swapped helmets and suddenly I was just a guy on a off-roader. I then took the collapsible spade out of the pannier, together with a roll of toilet paper and walked about thirty yards into the trees and dug a hole about two feet deep and buried the gun. It was inside a strong plastic bag filled with acid that you can buy for cleaning brickwork. Within a day the gun would be half gone and certainly nobody would ever match the bullets even if they found it. But they wouldn't. Even I would not be able to find it - hundreds of square miles of dense woodland and no chance of an aerial survey revealing disturbed earth.
I then walked back to the bike. There was nobody around but if there had been they would have just seen a guy with a shovel and a roll of toilet paper. I would have laughed nervously and blushed and so would they. No big deal.
I headed off until I hit a main road and then drove to my storage unit where I dropped off the panniers. I put the white helmet in my rucksack. Then home via a track with a stretch that is very wet and muddy. When I got back the bike was covered in mud. I waved to a couple of neighbours and then pressure washed the bike very thoroughly while a couple of local kids watched. Afterwards I went in and had a bite to eat. Just like any other day when I came back from my trips.
It was getting a bit chilly so I lit the stove and very carefully burned my white helmet, the haversack, all my clothes and shoes as well. The slightest trace of blood could give me away. I had a complete change of motorbike gear including a rucksack so had no need to rush out and buy more. If it had been warm I would have had a fire outside - I often had fires because I was turning part of the back into a garden. My landlady thought I was the perfect tenant - which I was.
I also changed the tyres on my bike over to new tyres with a slightly different tread pattern. One that the local kids would not spot - "hey, mister, you got new tyres - what was wrong with the old ones?" Getting rid of the old tyres was a problem but one that I had planned for. So, the next day I slit them both on the sides with a knife, put them in my van and drove about thirty miles to a tyre dump. While I was tipping them a guy turned up. I saw him looking at the big chunky treads. "Some bastard slit them" I said and started to go on about how the world was going to shit. We chatted for a couple of minutes and then we both drove off. Burning them would make too much black smoke - even at night you can see it.
When I got back home I wandered down into the village where everybody was talking about the murders only fifty miles away. I acted surprised and stayed for a few drinks in the local bar as I often did. The guy behind the bar asked me what I thought of it all and I told him that it made no sense to me - maybe it was a mad man?
Later all the stuff came out about family disputes and even I began to think that maybe the brother had done it. Meanwhile the French police were under orders to pin it on a foreigner - anything to avoid hurting the tourist industry. All the English media seemed to fall for it. Maybe in England the police actually investigate crimes? In most places they just decide who did it then beat a confession out of them. Job done.
When I got back I filled in the safe with concrete. I kept just one gun. A really tiny .22 with a single full magazine - the last bullet was for me. People laugh at the .22 but the thing is, the bullet goes in your head all right but lacks the power to come out so it just goes round and round inside your brain.
After a few days I fetched the stuff I needed back from the storage unit and just abandoned the rest. They are used to that. Obviously, I wanted to move on but disappearing a few days after the event may have looked suspicious.
A few weeks later my workshop and flat all went up in flames - including my bike, van and all my clothes. Unfortunately, I had left the bottom vent on the stove wide open and it had got red hot and set fire to some kindling in a basket and that had spread in turn to my armchair. I remember a mate of mine saying that the three most essential items in any workshop are a stove and couple of armchairs. I only had one - visitors were not welcome.
Meanwhile, I was down the local bar having a few drinks with my friend the local copper - he was ex-army too so we had a lot in common. So you can imagine my surprise on coming home to find every conceivable trace of my existence burned to a crisp. Fortunately, the 75,000 euros I had accumulated were in my pocket - in very big notes.
People came and stood around being sympathetic and I was in tears. What will you do they all asked. I shrugged and explained that my sister in Paris had offered to put me up and I was going up there for a bit while I decided what to do next. My friend then turned up with his hat on and was a bit sharp I thought. He wanted to know if I had been insured. I explained that the bike and van had the legal minimum, which was true, but nothing else was insured. He patted me on the back. "Sorry, but I had to ask". That was OK, he had to do his job just as I do mine.
The next day a bloke from the fire brigade poked around for a few hours but said it could have happened to anybody. When he had gone I started walking - the sun was shining and the birds were singing. I was done with guns, motorbikes and fires - time for Plan B"
Bob Cory
Modified on 20/11/2023 at 20:13:19 by ℗ Bob Cory