You may not know who Robert John Maudsley is, but if you saw his prison cell in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, you would instantly recognize that he was Thomas Harris’ primary inspiration for Dr. Hannibal Lecter. As described in the novels and in the Anthony Hopkins films, the cell is solitary confinement, underground, through multiple, locked checkpoints with armed guards, and the Prison officials take such care to secure Maudsley because he is, in reality, no less the monster that Hannibal Lecter is. He is not as smart or well educated as the character based on him, but he is the pristine definition of a pure sociopath. He has absolutely zero interest in either the sanctity of human life, or the rules of any society. He does not kill for enjoyment, at least as determined by his many psychological evaluators. He kills because he feels it is his duty. The very presence of another person obliges Maudsley to desire to kill that person, and to try if he thinks he can succeed.

Although it certainly doesn’t justify what he did, Maudsley’s sociopathy stems from being beaten horribly by both parents throughout most of his childhood. He claims to have been raped by his father, before social services rescued him. By then it was too late. He was incarcerated for strangling a man who attempted to pick him up for sex, then showed him pictures of children the man had sexually abused. While in Broadmoor Hospital for the Criminally Insane, surrounded by pedophiles, he decided to take it on himself to kill as many of them as he could. He and another inmate captured one pedophile and locked themselves in his cell, where they tortured him for an hour, breaking all his arms and legs, castrating him, and finally smashing his skull open, killing him. Maudsley then got the nickname “Hannibal the Cannibal” when he ate some of the prisoner’s brain with a spoon.

This incident got him transferred to Wakefield, “the Monster Mansion,” where all the very worst, most violent prisoners in the UK are held. One day in 1978, he lured a rapist named Salney Darwood into his cell, where he stabbed and strangled him. He hid the body and attempted to repeat his tactic, but no other inmate wanted to enter his cell. Several of them testified that they “saw death in his eyes.” Maudsley would not be deterred, walking around the prison until he found a random prisoner alone, stabbed him and bashed his head against a wall, then walked into the guardroom and gave them the shank he used. “Your next roll will be two men short,” he said. The guards stated that he smiled and laughed a little as he walked out. Since then, he has been kept in his “Silence of the Lambs” cell. Guards, and even the other inmates, are terrified of him escaping. Once, in 1984, when a new guard attempted to open his cell, Maudsley snickered and said, “Look, if you come in here, I’m going to have to kill you. It’s not personal. I don’t hate you and I’m not angry. It’s just something I’ll have to do.” The guard quit his job and visited a psychiatrist. The prison’s psychiatric experts have labeled Maudsley “100% psychopath. He only regards the rules of society because, in his case, those rules are made of brick.”

(Source: ramirezdahmerbundy, via bandages)