James avoids recounting the murders in his book, although the details emerged in 2009, thanks to internet users picking and picking at the facts.
At the crucial point in his memoir, there is a newspaper clipping reproduced on the page. The details are sketchy but seedy: 28-year-old James Monahan (as James was then known) and William Ross, 25, were convicted for killing Greville Hallam, a 48-year-old theatrical agent, and Angus Cochrane, a 29-year-old solicitor.
Hallam was robbed and strangled in his London home in 1982. In a separate incident, Cochrane died in hospital after being mugged in the West End.
James fled and joined the French Foreign Legion, but deserted to hand himself in. He still remembers the words the judge used to describe him at the trial. Brutal. Vicious. Callous.
Few people know exactly what happened when James’ victims died. He has written down the story only twice: once in a confession to Joan Branton, the prison psychologist who helped transform his life, and once when applying for approval to visit Sydney in 2013. (It was granted. He gave a talk at the Opera House titled, A Killer Can Be a Good Neighbour.)
He believes that to give gory details would be an affront to the men he killed. “Just me being around is painful for my victims’ families, I’m sure it is,” he says.
By the time Hallam and Cochrane’s names were linked to The Guardian’s columnist, James was free. A woman who had known Hallam emailed to say she had admired James' writing for years “and now I’ve discovered you killed my friend”.
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