Jack McVitie

Jack McVitie (19 April 1932 – 29 October 1967), best known as Jack the Hat, was an English criminal from London during the 1950s and 1960s. He is posthumously famous for triggering the imprisonment and downfall of the

Arriving at Payne's home, McVitie hammered loudly on the front door, which luckily for Payne was opened by his wife. "He's not in," she said. "That's all right," said McVitie and he and Exley left. Instead of repaying the money, McVitie kept it. This incident led, in part, to McVitie's death.[2]

Death

With McVitie's drink and drug use growing ever greater, he started going around the pubs of London taunting the Krays and saying that he was going to kill them, which both twins soon heard about. Joey Pyle, a friend of McVitie's since childhood, contacted him half a dozen times to tell him to reel it in: "If you carry on like this," he told him, "one day you're gonna get it".^[3]

On 29 October 1967, McVitie was invited to a party at Evering Road in

Following McVitie's murder, the Krays and several other members of their gang were finally arrested by the Scotland Yard police officers who had been watching their exploits for years. At the Old Bailey on 4 March 1969, both were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that they should each serve a minimum of 30 years. Ronnie's murder conviction was for the murder of a rival gangster, George Cornell, whom he shot dead in March 1966.

The jury took 6 hours and 55 minutes to reach their unanimous verdict. Never before at the Old Bailey had such a long and expensive trial taken place.^[7] The Krays' elder brother Charlie, together with Freddie Foreman (who helped move the body) and Cornelius Whitehead, were all found guilty of being accessories to McVitie's murder.^[8]

Prison seemed to do much to encourage the myth and legend surrounding the Krays. Both wrote best-selling books about their lives and, in 1990, a full-length

• List of solved missing person cases

References