Michael married and had a daughter but soon lost them as a result of his ongoing bisexuality. A second marriage also ended in divorce and he led an increasingly rootless existence, relying on drink.
Moving to London, he hung out at various strip clubs hoping that he would meet big-time crooks such as the Kray brothers – but he only succeeded in committing more and more petty crimes. He would steal and receive a fine or, more rarely, a short jail sentence. On his release, he’d work as a bouncer or a porter for a while then steal again. He’d repeat this small-time-crook pattern until meeting Roy Fontaine in November 1977. By then Kitto was on the run, having stolen a hundred pounds from his employer whilst working as a barman. He was sleeping with Mary Coggle (who by now was working as an early morning cleaner) but was aware that she slept with other men, sometimes for cash.
Kitto and Fontaine established a working relationship in which Fontaine identified wealthy properties and Kitto climbed through their windows to rob them. (By now, Roy Fontaine was fifty-four and overweight, whereas Michael Kitto was thirty-nine and slender.) The suave, big-time conman Fontaine and the small-time thief Kitto had little in common, but Roy was happy to boast of his prowess and Michael was easily impressed by tales of the older man’s exploits and was eager for money-making tips.
The exact nature of their relationship remains unclear. Roy swore that the sandy-haired, balding and moustached Kitto simply didn’t appeal to him sexually, that they merely had a professional relationship. Kitto at first said the same thing, but later told his barrister that he’d been sexually dominated by the butler, had played the passive role.
Roy offered to show Michael the Scott-Elliots’ fabulous antiques and jewellery and the two men made their way to the impressive house. His employer, Mr Scott-Elliot, would be safely tucked up in bed and would know nothing of the late night visitor, and his wife was supposed to be spending a few days in a private clinic as her health was poor.
Believing that they had the run of the house, Fontaine and Kitto approached Dorothy Scott-Elliot’s room. To their horror, her door swung open and she stammered ‘Roy, what’s this man doing in my house at this time of night?’ In answer, Michael Kitto (according to Roy Fontaine) sprang at her, covering her mouth and nose with his powerful hand until they started bleeding. She collapsed and when Fontaine took her pulse he found that she was dead.
The next day they put her corpse in the boot of a friend’s car. Bizarrely, Roy then got Mary Coggle to dress in Dorothy Scott-Elliot’s clothes. The trio gave Mr Scott-Elliot a large doze of sleeping tablets and settled him beside Mary in the back seat of the car, explaining that they were taking him to join his wife in Scotland. Roy added that Mary was a friend of his and the old man stared at her in drugged confusion, probably recognising his wife’s fur coat. Having Mary dress as Dorothy Scott-Elliot was important to Roy Fontaine and Michael Kitto, because it meant that the casual observer thought that the woman was still alive. It also helped them to cash Mrs Scott-Elliot’s cheques in various hotels and shops.
Kitto, Fontaine and Coggle booked into a Blair Atholl
hotel and spent the night eating and drinking the finest fare whilst Mr Scott-Elliot dined alone in his hotel bedroom. They’d enjoyed his money and now wanted to return unseen to rob his house. It was time for him to die.
The trio set off the following morning and drove to the Highlands, their unsuspecting victim dozing in the back. When the old man woke up and wanted to urinate, Roy Fontaine helped him out of the car. He nodded to Kitto and they crept up behind the eighty-two-year-old.
Fontaine started to strangle him with a scarf, but the former MP managed to get his fingers beneath the garment. Struggling, the two men fell to the ground. Kitto took over the strangling whilst Fontaine kicked the old man in the chest. They thought that he was dead but suddenly he groaned and the butler screamed at his accomplice to get a spade from the boot and batter Walter Scott-Elliot about the head. Michael Kitto did just that and eventually their victim succumbed to the crushing blows. Fontaine and Kitto then buried Mr Scott-Elliot and drove on with Mary Coggle to Aviemore.
By the time they booked into an Aviemore hotel, the camaraderie between Roy Fontaine and Mary Coggle was breaking down. Drunk, she phoned several of her prostitute friends, telling them of the high life that she was living. Roy, who knew that the trio would face a life sentence for murder if they were caught, was appalled.
After enjoying Aviemore’s hospitality for a few days, Kitto and Fontaine returned to the Scott-Elliot’s home and
cleared it of all its expensive property. Meanwhile, Mary took off around the village in Mrs Scott-Elliot’s mink coat. The two men discussed her inappropriate behaviour and eventually agreed that they should kill her – but both first had sex with her multiple times.
The killing was a joint operation with Kitto pinning Mary to a chair by her arms whilst Fontaine battered her with a poker. As she lost consciousness, the former butler fetched a plastic bag and put it over her head and the two men sipped brandy as they watched her suffocate.
Roy Fontaine’s attitude to the murder, as with everything else, would change over time. He initially told writer James Copeland that Mary was a stupid and greedy little woman, but years later he’d decided that she had a heart of gold.
Afterwards they dressed the corpse in male clothing, hoping to make it look like a lesbian murder. The following morning they drove to Dumfries and put her body in a stream.
The men now lived in the Scott-Elliot’s home for several days, enjoying the wealth of their victims. Then Roy received a phone-call from his stepfather to say that his half-brother, Donald, had arrived and wanted to live with him.
Donald Hall, like his half-brother, Roy, was no stranger to prison and had just been released from a three-year sentence for burglary. But, unlike the clean and
well-dressed
butler, he was dirty and unkempt. Roy would also say that he was a paedophile but the evidence for this is almost non-existent – Roy’s ex-wife Ruth had said she
‘thought’ she saw him touching a schoolgirl once.
What’s certain is that Donald Hall was violent and had beaten his wife so badly that she left him. He also drank heavily and couldn’t hold down a job.
It’s clear that Roy Fontaine had to psych himself up to commit each of his first four murders – calling David Wright a blackmailer, blaming Dorothy Scott-Elliot’s death on Kitto, telling himself that Walter Scott-Elliot had to die if he himself was to survive. Similarly, he’d reminded himself over and over again of how stupid Mary Coggle was being, told Kitto that she deserved to lose her life. Now he persuaded himself that children were at risk from Donald Hall, thinking of him as ‘lowlife, nonce, ponce, scum.’
Having no idea what his half-brother was thinking, Donald Hall went all out to impress when he arrived. He demonstrated various tying-up manoeuvres that he’d been shown in prison – but as soon as he tied his own thumbs together, the killers struck. Kitto grabbed the middle-aged man and held him tightly whilst Fontaine forced a chloroformed pad to his nose and mouth.
But his half-brother fought ferociously for his life, managing to break free of his bonds and scratch Kitto’s face. Determined to kill him, Roy kept the chloroformed pad over his face.
Eventually Donald Hall appeared to be dead (and the subsequent autopsy would show that he did indeed die at this point) but to play safe they put him in a water-filled bath and held him under for five minutes. Then they drove to Berwick with his body in the boot.
When they stopped for the night at the Blenheim Arms Hotel, the manager thought that they looked like car
thieves. He phoned the police who found that the number plate on their car didn’t match the road-tax disc. The men were taken into custody for questioning but Roy escaped through a bathroom window. When recaptured, he took the barbiturates he habitually carried, his overdose kit, but was found unconscious and had his stomach pumped out.
By now the police had found Donald Hall’s corpse in the back of Fontaine’s car. The two men were questioned endlessly and eventually Kitto said that there were two more bodies. Realising that the game was up, the butler then told them about the first solo murder, that of David Wright. He admitted ‘I can’t feel anything for killing these five people – not even remorse’ and added the criminal’s usual passive statement of ‘why did this have to happen?’ rather than ‘why did I make this happen?’
Alone in his cell, he tried to commit suicide again, taking Librium tablets that he’d concealed in his rectum. For the second time he had his stomach pumped out.
In January 1978 he directed the police to the burial sites. In the Highlands they found Walter Scott-Elliot’s disembodied head whilst Lady Hudson’s estate offered up one of David Wright’s feet. Dorothy Scott-Elliot was also decomposed. Mary Coggle’s corpse was in better condition as it had been found by a shepherd on Christmas day.
That summer, at Edinburgh Crown Court, Roy Fontaine was found guilty of murdering David Wright and Walter Scott-Elliot. He pleaded not guilty to murdering Dorothy Scott-Elliot, who had collapsed after being grabbed by
Michael Kitto. Fontaine and Kitto both got two life sentences for their respective parts in the Scott-Elliots’ untimely deaths. As he was taken from the dock, Kitto grinned at the reporters and said ‘Life begins at forty’ but he was later to change his mind as he had no friends in the Scottish prison system and only had one visitor. At this stage Roy still liked Michael and made out a will leaving Michael’s daughter one hundred pounds.
That October the men were transported to the Old Bailey to stand trial for the murders of Mary Coggle and Donald Hall, as they’d both been killed in England. By now Kitto was trying to implicate Roy’s stepfather in the murders so Roy turned completely against him. He’d later allege that he tried to have Michael Kitto killed by putting pure nicotine in his food. Kitto suspected poison and didn’t eat the meal but other cons – who hated the fact that he was a grass – apparently poured boiling cocoa over his head.
Kitto’s defence during the murder trial was that he was afraid of Fontaine, but in truth he’d had numerous opportunities to leave the older man’s company. Nevertheless, he was seen as the lesser of the two evils and found guilty of manslaughter, with a recommendation that he serve at least fifteen years. The butler was given another two life sentences with a recommendation that he never be given parole unless seriously infirm.
As a five-times killer in Hull Prison, Roy Fontaine now found himself unpopular with the prison staff. They would put him in a filthy cell, wait until he’d cleaned it thoroughly then move him to another dirty cell.
Eventually he went on hunger strike and starved himself for eighty-four days until his weight dropped from thirteen stone eight to five stone four. But he decided that he didn’t want to die, for as the son of a religious man he believed in an afterlife and later wrote ‘Who knows what judgement I will receive, when I finally depart this world. I dread to think my torment will continue.’
He failed to add that his torment was all of his own making – he had been loved and had robbed or rejected his many devoted lovers. He’d had legitimate business opportunities but had spurned them in favour of a life of theft.
So what kind of man robs employers, partners and friends then goes on to kill two lovers, two employers and a
half-brother
? Roy himself wrote ‘I am not a man prone to introspection,’ qualifying this later by adding ‘I have killed for money or for self-preservation.’ But those who knew him recognised that he also killed out of revenge. David Wright had once used some of Roy’s expert knowledge to pull off a very lucrative burglary, but hadn’t given the butler any of the promised proceeds so Roy was determined to get his own back – and did just that when he fired his rifle into the young man’s head.
Similarly, he believed that his half-brother had once grassed him to the police, and this may have been the real reason behind chloroforming him until he stopped breathing. Only three of the murders – the Scott-Elliots and Mary Coggle – came about because they stood between Roy Fontaine and immense wealth.
Yet he wasn’t all bad, showing kindness to one of the
girls he lived with, Margaret. He admitted that her vulnerability touched him and that he identified with her loneliness. He also maintained a loyal friendship with his mother’s second husband, though he tended to phone the poor man at all hours of the day and night asking for a lift to a safer city than the one he was in.
He also loved animals, doting on a little cat, Whisky, who he befriended in prison. He wrote that keeping an animal allows a con to ‘reveal his gentler side.’ During another prison stretch he cared for various pet birds, including a canary and a cockatiel.
Reading about his life, one gets the feeling that he used crime as more than just a way to make money, that it gave him an excitement that was missing in his daily life. Many young men find that excitement in sex, but Roy Fontaine wasn’t quite satisfied with his abundant sex life. The sex he had with other men was somewhat aggressive and he was always the active partner during sex.
But again there are contradictions in his sex life. He was asked to beat one man with a birch and afterwards decided that sado-masochistic sex did nothing for him. It was a statement he had to reverse somewhat after a dominant female employer took him into her bed. She talked him down, slapped his buttocks as they had intercourse and squeezed his testes, and he later admitted ‘I was unable to separate what I was enjoying and what was just pure pain…if ordered, I would probably have gone down on my knees in compliance…being controlled and humiliated while you orgasm does strange things to you.’ Despite this experience he decided that he preferred to be master of his own destiny and never slept with her again.