The Butler Did it

An incredible, blackly humorous, first-hand account of one man's friendship with a notorious serial killer, who served a life sentence from 1978 until his death in 2002

This book is in one sense the record of a friendship, if friendship can be held to include death threats. To this day I cannot sharpen a pencil—and as a writer I sharpen a lot of pencils—without experiencing a frisson of fear. Roy is once again thrusting the pencil's needle-sharp point towards my retina, threatening to ram it through my eye and into my brain, as he helpfully informs me "This'll kill you outright, you cunt!"

Medical experts I have subsequently consulted tell me he was right: that is indeed a very effective way of killing someone. One of the many strange things about Roy is that though he may have been a pathological liar, in his own peculiar fashion he was a stickler for the truth.

Roy Fontaine, also known as Archie Hall, was a butler to Britain's aristocracy, and a rumored lover of Prince Charles' great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten. He was also a serial killer whose modus operandi was to gain the confidence of his wealthy employers before taking their jewels and then their lives. This is the dark and strange story of an unusual friendship between screenwriter Paul Pender and Roy Fontaine, who considered Pender an ally and asked him to write his life story. In a chilling twist, Fontaine then threatened to kill Paul. Paul Pender reveals the secrets of Roy Fontaine's double life and describes his often terrifying encounters with a convicted serial killer.

Paul Pender wrote and coproduced the movie Evelyn starring Pierce Brosnan and is currently head of television at Infinity Media, the company that produced the Oscar-winning film Capote. He lives in Hollywood.