2002: The Monster Butler Archibald Hall Dies in Prison as the Oldest Whole-Life Inmate in Britain
Archibald Hall began as a teenage thief in Glasgow before reinventing himself behind bars, studying antiques and taking elocution lessons to erase his Scottish accent. He adopted the alias Roy Fontaine, borrowed from actress Joan Fontaine, and used the new identity to work as a butler to British aristocracy.
The disguise concealed a killer. In 1977, Hall shot a gamekeeper during a staged rabbit hunt after the man threatened to expose his criminal past, then buried him beside a stream. Later, while working for a former Labour MP and his wife, Hall and an accomplice suffocated the wife after she caught them plotting to rob the couple. They drugged her husband and drove him to Scotland, where they buried her body before strangling him and beating him with a shovel. The couple’s housekeeper was also murdered during the spree.
Convicted of four murders, Hall was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He died behind bars in Portsmouth, England, with the Monster Butler persona outliving the man who had built it.
