What crime did Erwin James commit?

Killing An Arab?

A massively violent double murder suggests to me that he might have killed a couple, OJ style, but who knows...

Or WPC Yvonne Fletcher, or the Brighton bombing...

does seem awfully strange that no one has dug up this info and written an article about it, considering he's a public figure.

A massively violent double murder suggests to me that he might have killed a couple, OJ style, but who knows...

Or in the course of a robbery/break-in?

and often sleeping rough

Is his real name Anton Chigurh?

dunno, but it ain't erwin james.

dennis wise.

The best thing about this threa is the random outbreak of mancunian schoolgirldom.

TS Erwin James streetteam v Vampire Weekend streetteam

Well, Vampire Weekend exist, so that gives them an immediate advantage.

What crime have they committed?

They love too much.

would it have to have been murder? or was life sentencing in place for rape in some cases?

No way, murder or armed robbery would carry the longest sentences

was life sentencing in place for rape in some cases?

no, and certainly not in the 80s.

most murder sentences are under 20 years, as it goes, unless it's of a policeman or the guy is properly psycho.

"...Erwin James, who is now in the pre-release phase of a sentence for two murders..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1010880,00.html

Must have been nasty

If they, or he, ever happened.

Is his real name Chris Morris?

Proof, if proof be need be.

An archived segment of a BBC webpage suggests that he murdered his wife and daughter. The archived segment is incomplete though and I don't really know if this is true. He refuses to discuss the matter though so it does makes sense that it might be something so ghastly that he is concerned that it will, even now, affect people's acceptance of him. The length of his sentence is also a good indication that it was no "spur of the moment" pub type bashing gone wrong.

If you use a library that subscribes to the Times online archives, you can find the relevant 1984 article with a bit of nous.

this thread is creepy.
slmost as creepy as the ask freud murder threads(s)

Why creepy? The guy has established a very public media career based on his experiences as a lifer. Surely a bit of curiosity as to what he did is not unreasonable?

it does makes sense that it might be something so ghastly that he is concerned that it will, even now, affect people's acceptance of him

i've gotta be honest, a single, double or whatever murder is pretty much doing this for me right now anyway.

circumstances would be interesting to hear. can't you just tell us zelda zonk?

I don't think it's creepy btw, I think it's understandable he doesn't want to talk about it but also understandable that people want to know.

I just did a keyword search of the Times archives and came up with this:

"28 August 1984
Man questioned about two London killings
The French police have detained a British deserter from the French Foreign Legion for questioning about..."

Unless there were two ex-legionnaire double murderers in 1984, that must be Erwin James. If you've got £4.95 worth of curiosity (or library access), you can go to http://archive.timesonline.co.uk and read the rest.

his name wasn't erwin james though was it?

im lazy. but if i can find what you found i'll post it here. i have a subscription. why so coy?!

i don't think it's partic creepy in a world where heave ho and dom passantino walk free.

Not coy - curious enough to search the archive, but unwilling to spend money to read the rest of the article! If you have a subscription, go to the archive, limit the time range to 1984, search for foreign legion.

Lexis Nexis has this from the Graun itself:

A British deserter from the French Foreign Legion is being held at Toulon in connection with two murders in London in 1982.
Scotland Yard said the extradition of the 27-year-old man was being sought.

A second unnamed man, serving a prison sentence in the North of England, has also been questioned over the killing of a theatrical agent, Mr Greville Scott Hallam, and a National Coal Board solicitor Mr Angus Cochrane.

The Legionnaire joined the Second Parachute Regiment, based at Calvi, in Corsica, and deserted on August 16, this year, French police said.

Mr Hallam aged 48, was strangled in September, 1982, at his flat in Haverstock Hill, north London, a television set and video recorder were stolen.

Mr Cochrane, 29, died from head injuries after being attacked in St James's Park, near Buckingham Palace. on December 4 the same year.

Mr Cochrane was section head of the coal board's legal department in Doncaster, and had been staying at an hotel in London. His wallet and personal documents were stolen.

I'd say that was definitely "Erwin James", who was born in 1957 hence was 27 in 1984.

I found his real name just now.

yeah, thought i'd leave that off the thread. pretty common name anyway.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Erwin James is a pseudonym used by a Guardian journalist. His real name has not been revealed but it is known that he was a former life sentence prisoner and served 20 years in prison for a double murder[1]before entering journalism.[2] The circumstances leading to his arrest and conviction and the identities of his victims have also not been revealed.

you are doing some pioneering work here fellows.
and i was not creeped out by your interest, but by the prospect that a double-murderer is out of jail and has a public life while choosing to keep his identity secret. also was creeped out by the prospect of a wife/child double murder. that's always sad.

It says that this person "received two life sentences".

Wikipedia has now been updated to show his full name and crime, i'm guessing someone here did it.

and now its back to how it was...

hmmmm

changed back by someone at Bristol Uni.

of course the name etc are still in the revision history.

if Muchness was actually Erwin James all along that might explain why he's such a dick about deleting funny shit from the Fluxblog entry

interesting that this muchness guy on wiki has completely deleted the revision that said erwin's real name. it's possibly right & decent that they're giving the guy a break (paid his debt to society etc), but should wiki be censoring things like this - has muchness given any reasons why?

Yeah he attached a link to the biographies of living persons guidelines, which say "caution should be applied when naming individuals who are discussed primarily in terms of a single event. When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed (such as in certain court cases or occupations), it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context."

Can someone post his name and the text of the Times article? The suspense is killing me.

"An archived segment of a BBC webpage suggests that he murdered his wife and daughter. The archived segment is incomplete though and I don't really know if this is true." - I posted this above and have gone back and checked the archived content. The first segment is definitely referring to James but the middle segment is missing and then comes the reference to the murdered wife and daughter. There is nothing directly connecting the two.

James Monahan

James Monahan's arrest, conviction and sentence for the murders of Scott Hallam and Angus Cochrane is publicly available information. This is surely relevant to the Wikipedia article on "Erwin James" and to consideration of his continuing public commentary on criminal justice issues. The Guardian originally argued that the pseudonym (Erwin James) was necessary to protect him because he was writing his column from his prison cell. This arrangement, however, ceased some years ago and Monahan has been released after completing his sentence.

So he didn't murder his wife and child then?

It looks like he murdered two guys in 1982

I've posted on Wikipedia under the discussion section of the Erwin James article. We'll see what the response is, if anything.

cosign

lonely ex-con just thinking baout things
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Society/Comment/Columnist/2009/4/24/1240562572899/James-Monahan-Erwin-James-001.jpg

I'd much rather deal constructively with issues around the question of prisoner rehabilitation in a world where victims' families have feelings and rights, as does any prisoner with a discharged sentence.

well, self congratulatory posts on a message board are certainly the best way to do that. Carry on, by all means, and mind the soapbox on the way down.

How, exactly, was I congratulating myself by pointing out the existence of prison writing programmes or questioning the crepey motives of a one-off poster to this thread? How does a desire to see convicts rehabilitate successfully constitute the annexation of a soap box?

and i'm reductive.

agreed on the creepiness of one-off subject poster, i'm sure we all know that prison writing programmes exist and i'm equally sure we all wish for full convict rehabilitation. jeez, how did we ever end up calling each other names?

http://i41.tinypic.com/2q88w04.gif
^^^
Stan - I just did that cliched snorting tea over my keyboard thing.

http://i44.tinypic.com/2lc78ra.jpg

(xpost lol)

looks like this is going to feature in the mail on sunday tomorrow :\

by lukeybaby?

what crime did lukeybaby commit?

More like stalkybaby amirite?

The Mail article is more of an attack on the Guardian.

I hate it when people who've completed their sentences and satisfied a parole board that they have processed and understood their offence to the degree that James has done are subjected to a malice that they are actively working against in their new lives. Yes, I understand the anger and sadness victims' families exhibit but clinging to rancor for the rest of their own lives isn't going to bring a loved one back or move anyone forward, and it's just as irrational to ask a prisoner to live aspic-suspended in a past moment just because your loss is the only thing giving your own life meaning.

lot to unpack in this. wouldn't want to subject anyone to malice, but completing a sentence and satisfying a parole board are irrelevant to the point at hand. if EJ had processed and understood his offence, maybe he wouldn't have come clean about with his readers? idk, seems off to me.

as for 'clinging to rancor', etc: you sound way out of your depth here.

the guardian say they needed someone who'd been inside for a long time -- ok, maybe. but maybe a double-murderer was pushing it. or, coming from another angle, d'you reckon they'd have stood by a paedophile or serial rapist to this extent? i don't think they'd have risked it, personally. the living victims may well have clung to their rancor in public.

ha, this whole deal reminds me of this
http://www.break.com/tv-shows/saturday-night-live/prose-and-cons-626242.html

The Mail article is more of an attack on the Guardian.

― weight and bulk are your enemies (Ned Trifle II),

Who'd have thought it, eh?

ha, this whole deal reminds me of this
http://www.break.com/tv-shows/saturday-night-live/prose-and-cons-626242.html

The requested video cannot be displayed in your region because we are stupid.

Disappointing lack of comments on that Mail article - it's as if nobody really cares.

if you google eddie murphy and "prose and cons" you might get another source that plays it. it's a classic snl short that spoofs on the whole norman mailer/jack henry abbott debacle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abbott

Henry, I'd like to know exactly why you believe I sound out of my depth here, as your dismissal was a bit...shallow. I draw on many things I'm not prepared to discuss in depth on a public message board but what I will say is that I've had a lot of access to law enforcement opinion over the years and have helped to administer prison writing programmes in the past. I also have zero time for over-reliance on victim status as a kind of everlasting gobstopper of emotional blackmail when other victims and survivors aren't like that. My opinion isn't derived solely from watching how the topic plays out in the media and if there's a non-spectator element behind your words some clarity is in order, because it doesn't seem like it.

I'm satisfied with EJ's rationale behind his previous anonymity and I wonder what the reasoning behind his outing *really* is. Attack on Graun for its recent stance on criminal justice, maybe?

To answer your other question, comparing murderers with sex offenders for the purpose of this discussion is a bit apples and oranges.

At least this thread is good for one thing: capturing the reptile-brain thought processes of tabloid reporters in real time.