Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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See what we can do for your organisation at london.edu. So you know it's not a crime to be fascinated by all things criminal. And if you do like delving into the underworld, why not join us for a special live show on March 27th at the Cork Opera House. We'll be talking about the making of a cartel and all the wild and crazy stories that happened along the way.
So why not join us for this special live show? Tickets from corkpodcastfestival.ie His mind, in order to protect himself, fractured into different personalities so that he could avoid being Billy. He could speak different languages. He's never been to any of these places, never studied the languages, so he could reel off shit in other languages. So that's the brain.
He's seen, obviously, something in Ukrainian on television as a kid, and it's taken it and just stored it. It's not possible. I'm Nicola Tallent and this is Crime World, a podcast about criminals, drugs and the sins of the underworld. If you like this podcast and want to learn more about crime, go to our new website www.crimeworld.com for stories, extras and podcast subscriber specials.
Spencer Matthews first hit the headlines as one of the posh pampered stars of Made in Chelsea. But in recent years, he has won over a new generation of fans with his heartfelt documentaries and self-depreciating podcast appearances. Today, Spencer talks to Nicola about why he loves true crime and his plans for the future. I'm Niall Donald and this is Crime World, a podcast from crimeworld.com.
Do you know who Billy Milligan is? No. Billy Milligan is one of the most fascinating... studies of people, one of the most fascinating people, in my opinion, that's ever existed, right? So he had multiple personality disorder.
So he had, I think it's called, and I'm so sorry if I get this wrong, disassociative personality disorder or something like that, where his mind literally splits into different characters. And I think he had, and again, I'm probably right, he had something like 20 or 22 people living inside his body. He... was the first ever recorded case of committing a crime.
He was called the college campus rapist. He raped and beat up a woman and got off completely by being able to prove that it wasn't him, that it was somebody else living inside his body and that he had no recollection, nor was he even there, right? And... Just in passing, he didn't get off.
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Chapter 2: What sparked Spencer Matthews' fascination with true crime?
And she was like, that's used to clean, you know, the Sultan's clothes or whatever. Sorry if that's... You know, that's used for something else, right? She knew what it was. And he was like, no, no, it wasn't. She has this argument. She knows she's right. And, you know, long story short, and you should read the book. It's easy read. Lovely. She goes back into therapy.
He starts doing past life regressive therapy and starts hypnotizing her. She starts coming out with a lot of stories from different times and different places. And he's really skeptical. He's a psychotherapist. So he doesn't believe in any of this at this stage. And he goes away and he fact checks a bunch of this stuff and realizes that there's no possible way that she could know these things.
He does a massive deep dive and she's in shock.
1404 and she's in the middle of, you know, the Black Plague and, you know, she's describing all this stuff that's happening to her in real time and how she's dying and, you know, turns out that did happen then and, you know, that would have been something that they would have used and that is the kind of medicine that was used in that time and she knew all of this stuff.
And then when she was her normal self, she wouldn't have a clue about any of it.
he'd chat to her and she'd just be blank and of course people can go well yeah she's just like pulling his leg but it's a bit of a bit of a random thing to do to someone and also you know she would describe dying and she would describe because each of her experiences would end in a death and she would come back as somebody else and she would always be at the kind of shallow end of stuff so she would always have a really rough life this woman and
It's a shame, isn't it? Yeah. I hope she comes back as a queen at some point, but she didn't. So unfortunate. And she would describe the same process every time when you die. It starts with pain, then the pain ceases, then there's a bright light, then you're transported up through this kind of portal.
Then you chat to these kind of like hooded individuals who are called the Masters, that's the name of the book. And they would... you know, speak this godly language onto you and she would regurgitate it to the thing.
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Chapter 3: Who is Billy Milligan and why is he significant in true crime discussions?
And he found himself just like not, you know, finding it all incredibly inspiring. And then they would decide whether or not you went back to earth or died. And they would put you in a new body. And that's her experience. Catch you back wherever. Over and over and over again, this experience. Oh, I don't know. That's, yeah. You asked me about reincarnation. Yeah, I did.
I did because I think that sort of always feeds into the multiple personalities thing.
Chapter 4: How does multiple personality disorder manifest in real-life cases?
Perhaps, you know, there's something there. We're getting a bit deep. I'm going to bring you back to our quickfire questions on this. Lovely. You're obviously very well read and you watch a lot and you like to take in I find things fascinating. I'm really curious. If someone tells me that something godly is happening over here, I'll go and watch it. Yeah.
So we'll start with who is your favorite TV detective and or criminal? Who's your favorite criminal? Hmm. Your favorite, like, that's a bit of a difficult one. Your favorite criminal. Hannibal Lecter's hard to beat. Yeah, well, true, true, true. But, you know, I do love Anthony Hopkins' Oscar-winning performance in Silence of the Lambs. You know, I think he is, I love his intelligence.
So memorable. I love his wit. Yeah, I love his nature. Well, you know, I find his nature fascinating, shall we say. I think he's a very interesting character. You know, I could watch a lot of him. There's a strange kind of like drama and like intensity to Andrew Cunanan. Do you remember him? The guy who killed Gianni Versace?
Chapter 5: What are the implications of Billy Milligan's case on the justice system?
Yes, yes. He basically was just looking to get a leg up in life and, you know, ended up making a mistake, basically then was on the run quite violently in Miami. He's an interesting watch. I quite like Benoit Blanc, the detective played by Daniel Craig. Yes. Bit of a Poirot vibe to it, but a little bit less gimmicky. Yeah. And no, I like Daniel Craig. So you watch loads of that stuff.
I like a murder mystery job, you know. What would your death row meal be? My mum's roasts, probably. Okay. I like that kind of thing. Also, you know, nice and simple maybe for death. you know, just to exit gracefully. Yeah. You know, a nice sandwich maybe, like hard to beat ham, cheese and pickle sandwich, pretty good. Bread and butter, like a baguette with nice butter, loads of salt.
You want it well seasoned. The problem is in prison, right, on death row, if you order like some delicious T-bone with, you know, mac and cheese, they're not going to season it and then you're going to... It's actually a bit shit. It's going to be disappointing. Imagine if it was disappointing. That's the thing. You know, like you can't order like...
If you can choose where it comes from, then possibly you'd have the T-bone from Dorian in Notting Hill or something like that. Or you get Tom Straker to make you his muscle bread or whatever. That's not muscle bread. Muscles, obviously, are delicious. But no, if you're just asking the prison to get it for you, you'd better go simple. Sambo. Yeah. Did you say a salmon bowl? Sambo, I said.
Oh, Sambo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, yeah. Ham, cheese and pickle. You should be used to the Dublin accent. Yeah, Sambo. I love a Sambo, actually. Now, have you ever been the victim of a crime? Look, I'm sure we all have if you think about it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, stuff's happened to me. I won't dig into too much just because, like, I've been in, you know. I'm sure you've been robbed.
Yeah, I've been robbed in the street. Yeah. You know, the odd street fight. Yeah. Ever got a thump? Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. Can't you tell? Yeah, you should be able to tell, no? Yeah, no, of course, of course. Crime's all around us, really. You know, petty crime and whatever else.
I'm sure I've been shortchanged in a deal once or twice, you know, without being told that's technically a crime. Some stuff's happened to me as well that I'd rather not go into. Yeah. How do you feel about seeing a corpse? I've seen corpses. I've seen dead bodies on Everest. I was on Everest for five weeks looking for my brother's body. Made a film called Finding Michael.
We returned a dead body to a family actually. So I flew down from base camp in a helicopter with a dead Sherpa who we returned to find. To his family. And the daughter was my age when I lost Michael. She was 10 and she was incredibly upset to see her father like that. And for a second, I thought we'd done the wrong thing.
Although in Nepali culture, he can't pass the afterlife until he's cremated. So he was stuck up there. So his family were deeply grateful. And It would be a huge comfort to them, I'm sure, with that belief. Yeah, I think the daughter also came around to it. I think it was just the initial shock because he was frozen stiff, obviously. So yeah, I spent several hours with a dead body.
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Chapter 6: How does Spencer Matthews relate to the stories of crime and trauma?
I don't mind a bit of risk, you know, but it's kind of... Hit the buzz. I think back to our very first point almost is, you know, I'm very lucky with the upbringing I've had. I'm very lucky with the set of scenarios I have in the life that I live. If I didn't have a lot of the options that I do have, well, it could be very dangerous. Absolutely. Spencer Matthews, thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you. You've been listening to Crime World, a podcast from crimeworld.com. Edited and presented by me, Nicola Talent. Co-presenter, Niall Donald. Producer, Ian Mullaney. Senior writer, producer, Jenny Friel. Assistant producers, Nasa Kumalski and Chloe McPolin. Episode editor, Jason Mullaney.
If you want to subscribe for exclusive crime content and podcast specials, go to www.crimeworld.com. If you are already a subscriber to crimeworld.com, you've probably binged on our six-part deep dive into the life and the rise of the dapper Don Christie Kinahan. From the streets of Dublin to the head of a global cartel, what made and moulded the ambitious Kinahan?
And where is he now as he runs from the law? For those of you who haven't joined us yet, here's a short extract from our exclusive series, which is just a click away. So we're going to do a rest here. We're going to start this tome, which is the sort of the life and crimes of Christy Kinahan Senior, who has to be the most fascinating individual in the entire sort of Kinahan cartel set.
You know, I mean, he is... an intriguing character, to say the least. I think he's the most interesting of all the gangland criminals, really. If you see where he's come from and where he's ended up and how he's managed to navigate through all of those eras of organized crime. An incredible story. If he was involved in another arena of life, he'd be regarded as a kind of heroic businessman.
But of course he's not. He's involved in a murderous cartel, but an incredible story. And there's a little bit of intrigue and mystery to his background, which we're going to go into. Some of it is clear and other bits, the stories that go around the mix and you can never, like, for example, you know, some people would say he was a heroin addict.
I know he did tell the courts at one point that he did, but he did it for a reason.
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Chapter 7: What are some notable true crime documentaries or books recommended?
And the reason was he wanted a free education. Yeah, no, I mean, it's very interesting, the heroin addict. And maybe we'll come back to that. We'll come back to it because that is something that, you know, certainly some people close to him say that was never the case. Yeah.
And those who are sort of, I suppose, become his enemies in more recent times would definitely say that like it's a... A stick to beat him. Exactly. Yeah. But there's other little bits that are unusual. We'll start and we'll go through as much as we know factually and then we'll also discuss the rumours. So he's born in 1957.
He's six years older than Gerry the Monk Hutch, which just gives him a little bit of a... And, you know, we can we can see where he is. He's what I would always say was into the bosom of a respectable middle class family. Now, some intrigue comes with this. His father, to my understanding, was a taxi driver who worked the Gresham rank on taxis.
Stephen Screen, and that would have been a good job. That would have been a good job, a well-earning job, certainly back in the day when taxis were protected. His father was also at some point registered, I think, as a dairy farm manager. And also people would say he was involved in street trading, not, you know...
as a lot of people in Dublin would have been over the years, involved in some stalls and selling in that sort of arena. So, Christie Kinnan is raised in Cabra, but his birth certificate says that he was born in England, in a place called Perryvale, near Ealing, I think, in London. So this is the late 1950s when at that time in Irish history, there was high unemployment.
A huge number of people left Ireland to go to England at times to get work. Many of them returned, but that would have been one of the big points of emigration where young couples got married and went over there. Certainly, Christy Kenan wasn't raised in England, but he certainly does seem to have had lived there at times.
He's had connections to Birmingham and that sort of area, maybe all his life. So he's described, I suppose, as a middle class, having a middle class upbringing. Well, I suppose the first house that we can look upon that we know he was in as a child, and he was the only boy in a family of three girls, Denise, Maria and Sally-Anne.
The mother appears to run a B&B from what is a generous Edwardian house. Do you know the name of the road? Charlville Road. So, I mean, yeah, I know it well. I mean, I would have grown up very close to there. I mean, those houses are worth a huge amount of money.
Now, like a lot of houses in that area, for example, those big houses on the North Circular Road, which aren't far away, there probably would have been times where you would have picked them up at a bargain price. But it would be, you know, very, very far away from some of the figures we've discussed, for example, the grinding poverty in which Gerry Hutch would have been born into poverty.
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Chapter 8: How does Spencer view the relationship between crime and personal identity?
And, you know, it just shows you when somebody gets as big a news story as Christy Kinahan that his leaving results have been made public. Do you know that? Didn't know that. And maybe not made public, but the son did a story about how he actually failed his leaving. Right. So...
Christy Kinnan, look, there's no doubt about him being smart, but certainly that was said, that he only passed two subjects. He would have gone to, it's said he went to Declan's in Cabra first and got expelled and then went to O'Connell's in the north inner city. Now, O'Connell's Christian Brothers School, probably one of the most famous schools in Dublin. My own father would have gone there.
People would have got a scholarship and it would have seemed to have been a really prestigious school. Past pupils would have included James Joyce, Pat Kenny, the broadcaster, former Taoiseach Sean Lamass, PJ Marra.
Also, interestingly, and probably a relative contemporary of Christy Kinnan would have been Tony Gregory would have gone there, who would play a huge prominent role in the anti-drugs marches in the city. So he would have gone, he would have, again, that would have been sort of a prestigious school. But he seems to have not thrived.
And then I think we get into a bit of a grey area when he leaves school. But he excelled, apparently, at sport and at kickboxing. Yes, and that was a thing that he kept up, I think, through all his life, one way or another. And obviously his sons would have a huge interest in boxing as well.
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