Episode 2: Finance and The Power of Female Community with Mona Ahmadi

So you know, it's not a crime to be fascinated by all things criminal. And if you do like Delving into the Underworld, why not join us for a special live show on March 27th at the Cork Opera House? We'll be talking about the making of a cartel and all the wild and crazy stories that happen along the way. So why not join us for this special live show, tickets from corkpodcastfestival.ie. His mind in order to protect himself, fractured into different personalities so that he could avoid being Billy. He could speak different languages. He's never been to any displays, never studied the languages, so he could reel off shit in other languages. So that's the brainless. He's seen obviously something in Ukrainian on television as a kid and has taken it and just stored it. You know, it's not possible. I'm Nicola Talant, and this is Crime World, a podcast about criminals, drugs, and the sins of the underworld. If you like this podcast and want to learn more about crime, go to our new website www.crimeworld.com for stories, extras, and podcast subscriber specials. Spencer Mathews first hit the headlines as one of the posh pampered stars of maiden Chelsea. But in recent years, he has won over a new generation of fans with his heartfelt documentaries and self-depreciating podcast appearances. Today, Spencer talks to Nicola about why he loves true crime and his plans for the future. I'm Nile Donald, and this is Crime World, a podcast from crimeworld.com. Do you know who Billy Milligan is? No. Billy Milligan is one of the most fascinating studies of people, one of the most fascinating people in my opinion that's ever existed. So he had multiple personality disorder. So he had, I think it's called, and I'm so sorry if I get this wrong, disassociative personality disorder, something like that, where his mind literally splits into different characters. And I think he had, and again, I'm probably right, he had something like 20 or 22 people living inside his body. He was the first ever recorded case of committing a crime. He was called the college campus rapist. He raped and beat up a woman and got off completely by being able to prove that it wasn't him, that it was somebody else living inside his body, and that he had no recollection nor was he even there. And just in passing, he didn't get off. He was a, he avoided jail time and was put in a facility. But he didn't serve, he didn't go to prison. He was shooting at people and there was many counts of rape and lots of different things. One of his characters commits arson and theft and robbery and gunpoint and held up banks. Another was an incredible artist. Another one was stronger than all of the other ones and was really violent and could fight. Others couldn't fight to save their life. I think it even said that one was allergic to bees and the other weren't. Like wild stuff, right? The mind is fully reprogramming this person to literally, I think, do you know, M. Knight, Shaliman's split the film that they made with James McAvoy, quite a cool film. What's her name, Taylor Joy? Anna Taylor Joy. And James McAvoy, and he has, I think, six or seven different people. And he kidnaps the girls. And, you know, some are really scary and one's a little kid. That's off Billy Milligan. So, split is not a true story, but it was inspired by Billy Milligan. Tom Holland played him in some Apple series, I can't remember the name of. But something inside me or you know, do find that multiple personality thing really scary. You have to say, you know, I find that, you know, really frightening that somebody can jump from one personality or one of them can look, I suppose really the brain's capabilities. Yeah. And if you're wild correctly, you don't do that. But if you're not, that's an example of the brain just being extraordinary, isn't it? Being able to create, so as well, sorry, one last point on Billy. One of his altars, they call them, alter egos, altars, was Ukrainian. Right. Yeah. And could speak like Ukrainian, right? And Billy Milligan has never been to Ukraine. He was brought up on some farm in Oregon, I think. His father used to sexually abuse him and bury him and do all kinds of just awful shit to him. Like, he used to urinate on him, used to beat the shit out of him and chain him up in barns. And like, he had, you know, the worst part of it, you can imagine. And so his mind in order to protect himself fractured into different personalities. So that he could avoid being Billy, because Billy was so traumatized that he would become you go or whatever it was. And he was able, he could speak different languages. He's never been to any of these places, never studied the languages. So he could reel off shit in other languages. So that's the brain. He's seen obviously something in Ukrainian on television and kid and it's taken it and just stored it. You know, it's not possible, right? But you should watch documentaries called The Many Faces of Billy Milligan or The Many Sides of Billy Milligan. It's typing Billy Milligan to Netflix. It's all this bill. But you're very recommendable. I like it. And lastly, one of his authors was a doctor. And in order for the prosecution to try and prove that he was full of shit and just lying, they got an actual doctor to come in and discuss medicine in an open court setting, right? And the doctor, the actual doctor came out and said, yeah, absolutely categorically the bloke in there that I'm talking to is a doctor. Never studied, never been to, you know, so yeah, just mad shit, you know, do you believe in reincarnation? Yeah, I'll probably explain it. Yeah, yeah, no, no, I probably do. Yeah, so not in the sense that like, I die and I come back as a caterpillar or something. But no, I think that there's a great book called Many Lives Many Masters. Don't know if you've read that. And it's all about, I can't remember the author God. It's been the end of a very long day. I'll send you the author's name. But Dr Brian Vice, I think look at that. Dr Brian Vice, I believe, it's definitely Dr Brian. And he writes about this, sorry, do you mind me telling another quick story? Do it. It's a good recommendation. It's not bad. It's not bad. It's a pretty good one. He is a psychotherapist and he had a client come to him who's a middle-aged woman who was not particularly well-educated, like, you know, not, not dummy, though, but just didn't have a big worldly view and didn't have lots of education behind her. She was a normally anxious woman who was having an affair with with a guy behind her husband's back and she was just anxious and generally stressed. She came to Dr Brian Vice is vice. And he ended up taking her to some Egyptian memorial thing like a museum. And she has never had any interest in Egypt but she went because she's shagging this guy that she was interested in and she couldn't care less about Egypt. And she went along to this thing just to appease him and found that she knew absolutely everything about Egypt when she arrived to write. So she was looking at stuff and the guy giving the lecture would say, this is an ancient artifact from this time period and this is what it was used for. And she's a shy woman and she went, no, it wasn't like just out of the blue and she was like, that's used to clean, you know, the sultan's clothes or whatever, sorry for us, you know. That's used for something else where she knew what it was and he was like, no, no, she has to say, she knows she's right. And, you know, long story short and you should read the book, it's easy read, lovely. She goes back into therapy, he starts doing past life-regressive therapy and starts hypnotizing her. She starts coming out with like a lot of stories from different times in different places and he's a rees skeptical, he's a psychotherapist. So he doesn't believe in any of this at this stage. And he goes away and he fact checks a bunch of this stuff and realizes that like there's no possible way that she can know these things, you know, he does like a massive deep dive and she's in 1404 and she's in the middle of, you know, the black plague and you know, she's describing all this stuff that's happening to her in real time and how she's dying and he turns out that did happen then and you know, that would have been something that they would have used and that is the kind of medicine that was used in that time and she knew all of this stuff. And then when she was her normal self, she would never clue about any of it. Like he'd chat to her and she'd just be blank. And of course people can go, yeah, she's just like pulling his leg but it's a bit of a random thing to do to someone. And also, you know, she would describe dying and she would describe because each of her experiences would end in a death and she would come back as somebody else and she would always be at the kind of shallow end of stuff. So she would always have a really rough life this woman. So shame isn't it? Yeah. And she comes back as a queen at some point but she didn't. And she would describe the same process every time when you die. It starts with pain, then the pain ceases, then there's a bright light, then you're transported up through this kind of portal, then you chat to these, these kind of like hooded individuals, who were called the Masters, what's the name of the book. And they would speak this godly language onto you and she would regurgitate it to the thing and he found himself just like not finding it all incredibly inspiring and then they would decide whether or not you went back to earth or died and they would put you in a new body and that's her experience. - Patch it back, wherever. - Over and over and over again. - Yeah. - So I don't know, that's yeah. If you ask me about, really. - Yeah, yeah, I did, I did because I think that's sort of always feeds into the multiple personalities thing and perhaps there's something there. We're getting a bit deep. I'm gonna bring it back to our quick for questions on this. - Lovely. - Now you're obviously very well read and you watch a lot and you like to take in. Yeah? - I find things fascinating. - I'm really curious. If someone tells me that something godly is happening over here, I'll go and watch it. - Yeah. So we'll start with who is your favorite TV detective and/or criminal? Who's your favorite criminal? Your favorite, like is it? That's a bit of a difficult one. Your favorite criminal. - Hannibal Lexus hard to beat. - Yeah, well, but I do love Anthony Hopkins as Oscar winning performance and silence of the lambs. I think he is, I love his intelligence. - So memorable. - Yeah, I love his nature. Well, you know, I find it nice. - It's your fascinating. I think he's a very interesting character. You know, I could watch a lot of him. There's a strange kind of like drama and like intensity to Andrew Kunananan. Do you remember him? The guy who killed Johnny Visachi. - Yes. - Yeah, he basically was just looking to get a leg up in life and you know, ended up making a mistake. Basically then was on the run quite violently. And Miami, he's an interesting watch. I quite like Benoit Blond. The detective played by Daniel Craig. - Yes. - Bit of a pooro vibe to it, but a little bit less gimmicky. - Yeah. - And no, I like Daniel Craig. - So you watch loads of that stuff. - I like a murder mystery job, you know. - What would your death throw meal be? - My mom's roasts probably, you know, she's like, I like that kind of thing. Also, you know, nice and simple maybe for death. You know, just to exit gracefully. - Yeah. - You know, nice sandwich maybe. Like hard to beat, ham cheese and pickle, sandwich is pretty good. Bread and butter, like a baguette with nice butter. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Just salt loads of salt. You want it in the well season. The problem is in prison right on death row. If you order like some delicious tea bone with, you know, mac and cheese, they're not gonna season it. And then you're gonna, it's actually a bit shit. - It's gonna be disappointing. - Imagine if it was disappointing. - That's the thing. - Yeah. - You can't order like, you know, if you can choose where it comes from. - Yeah. - And possibly you'd have the tea bone from Dorian in Notting Hill or something like that. You know, you get Tom Strayker to make you as muscle bread or whatever. That's not muscle bread. Muscles obviously, you know, delicious. You know, but no, if you're just asking the prison to get it, if you'd better go simple. - Sambo. - Yeah. - Do you say a salmon bowl? - Sambo, I said. - Oh, a Sambo, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ham, cheese and pickle. - You should be used to the double and next. - Yeah, a Sambo. I love a Sambo actually. - No, have you ever been the victim of a crime? Look, I'm sure we all have a thing in bed. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stuff, stuff's happened to me. I won't dig into too much. Just because, like, I've been in, I'm sure you've been robbed. Yeah, I've been robbed in the street, yeah, the odd street fight. I've got a thump. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, definitely, you can't eat out. I see. Yeah, you should be able to tell me. Yeah, no, of course, of course. Crimes all around us, really, you know, petty crime and whatever else. Yeah. I mean, we're sure I've been short-changed in a deal once or twice, you know, without being told that's technically a crime. Some stuff's happened to me as well that I'd rather not go into. Yeah. How do you feel about seeing a corpse? I've seen corpses. I've seen dead bodies on Everest. I was on Everest for five weeks looking, looking for my brother's body. I made a film called Finding Michael. We returned a dead body to a family, actually. So I flew down from base camp in a helicopter with a dead churper who we returned to to his family and the daughter was, the daughter was my age when I lost Michael. She was 10 and she was incredibly upset to see her father like that. For a second, I thought we'd done the wrong thing. Although in the Polly culture, he can't pass the afterlife until he's cremated. Okay. So he has stuck up there so his family would be deeply grateful. It would be a huge comfort to them. I'm sure that that belief, yeah. I think the daughter also came around to it. Yeah. I think it was just the initial shock, because he was frozen stiff, obviously. So yeah, I spent several hours with a dead body. I've seen dead bodies in Arusha. I've seen dead bodies in Morocco. I don't think it's. I don't think it's creepy. I imagine, and I've only seen photographs of murder victims. It's a totally different thing. The violence of us, the contorted way they are left. Those kinds of things are totally different, but a peaceful person who has passed away is a different thing altogether. Going for an app and not waking up would be a nice way to go. Oh, for God's sake. What percentage of people do that? Is it quite a lot? Is it an app like during the day? No, I'd like to go nice. Oh, does the maximum of both times? Yeah. Okay. These are guys I'd like to be. If you were just going for an app, you could be going out or something. You're disaster. Yeah. I suppose, yeah, if you had dinner reservations, maybe you'd rather have an app. No, I happen at night. Do you read crime fiction? If so, what was your last read? I don't think you know. I might, though. I think I have enough interest in it. I just. I tend to read. I don't read any fiction really. I read like. Psychology, like, obviously. Yeah, I read stuff about the mind. Yeah, psychology. Yeah, that's. I read stuff about sport. I recently read "Enjoy" by Alex Hutchinson, an amazing sports book. Obviously, this isn't a sports podcast, but if you're into the body and the mind and how you push yourself really far, this book is incredible. But no, maybe I would like a bit of crime. Yeah. Oh, what about that guy recently? Is it Desz? He just killed a bunch of people and just had like, bone stuff in his. In his plumbing. Can you remember? Desz. Yeah, I think it's called Desz. It's on Netflix again. Okay. I look. Do you have a notice that I like that? It's not a name that you'd expect. I think it's called Desz. Yeah. Murder is called Desz. And he's played by. Desmond. Well, yeah, I guess, yeah. Desz-y, like a Desz. Yeah, yeah. Right, we'll look at that. Yeah. So this guy in this play, yeah, I was just killing people and just stuffing them like down the drains, basically. Dends, drains. If you had to commit a crime, what would it be? I would sell stuff with incredibly high margins. Yeah. Yeah. I did the same. I actually went once to Indonesia posing as buyers for, you know, tobacco. Like, and we actually got a deal to have us brought into Croatia and then we were going to sell us. Like, I mean, this was all this sort of. Tobacco you say? Fictiony sort of character. Yeah. Because I thought tobacco was okay. So I've drugs and it's okay. And then I was looking at the kind of the. How much I could make. And I was never so tempted in all my life. Yeah. And then you thought. Yeah. But I'm just. This model is interesting. I know. And I would just go once, make a little, you know, a packet and that be it, I would never go back to it again. I think that's the problem with it, isn't it? I think, I think same as, same as most things. If you dip your toe and. And you pull it off. Yeah. I've got an addictive personality. Oh. And it's just. You can imagine it being quite easy money. So it's kind of like, you know, you look at it and you go, you'd be in just. I'm just not going to start because, you know, if I get that easy, you know, easy money, it's quite hard to come by. I don't mind a bit of risk, you know, but it's kind of. It's a buzz. I think back to our very first point almost, is, you know, I'm very lucky with the upbringing I've had, I'm very lucky with the set of scenarios that I have in the life that I live. If I didn't have a lot of the options that I do have, wow, could be very dangerous. Absolutely. Enter Matthews, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure. You've been listening to Crime World, a podcast from CrimeWorld.com. Editors, represented by me, Nicola Talant, co-presenter Nald Arnold, producer Ian Millini, senior writer, producer Jenny Freel, assistant producers Nasakomersky, Chloe McPoland, episode editor Jason Millini. If you want to subscribe for exclusive crime content and podcast specials, go to www.crimeworld.com. If you are already a subscriber to CrimeWorld.com, you've probably binge on our six-part deep dive into the life and the rise of the Dapper Don Christy Kinahan. From the streets of Dublin to the head of a global cartel, wash, made and molded the ambitious Kinahan. And where is he now as he runs from the law? For those of you who haven't joined us yet, here's a short extract from our exclusive series, which is just a click away. So we're going to do a rest here. We're going to start this tone, which is the sort of the life and crimes of Christy Kinahan, senior, who has to be the most fascinating individual in the entire sort of Kinahan cartel set, you know, the, I mean, he is an intriguing character to say the least. I think he's the most interesting of all the gangland criminals really. If you see where he's come from and where he's ended up and how he's managed to navigate through all of those years of organized crime. An incredible story. And in a neuter, if he was involved in another arena of life, it he'd be regarded as a kind of heroic Mrs. Man. But of course, he's not. He's involved in a murderous cartel, but an incredible story. - There's a little bit of intrigue and mystery to his background, which we're gonna go into. Some of us is clear, and other bits, the stories that go around the mix, and you can never, like for example, some people would say he was a heroin addict. I know he did tell the courts at one point that he did it, but he did it for a reason. And the reason was he wanted a free education. - Yeah, no, I mean, it's very interesting, the heroin addict, and maybe we'll come back to that. - We'll come back to it because that is something that's, certainly some people close to him say that was never the case. - Yeah. - And those who were sort of, I suppose, become his enemies in more recent times would definitely say that like it's a. - A stick to beat him. - Exactly. But these are the little bits that are unusual. We'll start and we'll go through as much as we know, factually, and then we'll also discuss the rumors. So he's born in 1957. He's six years older than Jerry the monk Huch, which just gives him a little bit of a, we can see where he is. What I would always say was into the bosom of our respectable middle-class family and their summer tree comes with this. His father, to my understanding, was a taxi driver who worked the Gresham rank on Stephen's green. And that would have been a good job. - That would have been a good job, a well-earning job, certainly taxis back in the day when taxis were protected. His father was also, at some point, registered or I think as a dairy farm manager. And also people would say he was involved in kind of street trading, not, you know, as a lot of people in Dublin would have been over the years involved in some stalls and selling in that sort of arena. So, the Christian is raised in Cabra. But his births are says that he was born in England in a place called Perri Vale in near Ealing, I think, in London. So this is the late 1950s when, at that time in Irish history, we were, you know, there was high unemployment, a huge number of people left Ireland to go to England at times to get work, many of them returned. But that would have been one of the big points of emigration where young couples got married and went over there. Certainly, Christy Kenan wasn't raised in England, but he certainly does seem to have had lived there at times, he's had connections to Birmingham and that sort of area, maybe all his life. So he's described, I suppose, as a middle class, having a middle class upbringing. When I suppose the first house that we can look upon that we know he was in as a child, and he was the only boy in the family of three girls, Denise, Maria and Sally Ann. The mother appears to run a B and B from, what is a generous Edwardian house? Do you know the name of the road? - Childful road. - Childful road. So I mean, yeah, I know it well. I mean, I would have grown up very close to there. I mean, it, those houses are, worked a huge amount of money. And now, like a lot of houses in that area, for example, those big houses on the North Circle of Road, which aren't far away, and there probably would have been times where you would have picked them up at a bargain price, but it would be a, you know, very, very far away from some of the figures we've discussed, for example, the grinding poverty in which Jerry Hutch would have been born into certainly Kristikinan, would have been raised in something that's now worked a huge amount of money at home. And it's part of-- - Would they have always been a middle class sort of a home or are you using that term very loosely here? - I, I, you know, that's part of East Cabra. - Yeah. - Right. - Now, if you walk through East Cabra now, you can't, there's, there's organic coffee shops and all of that sort of stuff. And houses being sold for routinely close to half a million. Like back in the, in the 60s, it wouldn't have been so much like that, I think. And those houses, like a lot of places in, in sort of Stony batter, also more like that, they, those houses wouldn't have been seen as, you know, posh houses. - Would, would a taxi driver's wage have bought that house? - Well, it would have, you know, it would have, I mean, it would be, it would be far, far bigger than most houses in that area, and would have cost a lot of money. But I suppose it's a different context than Cabra would have been different then. And Kristikinen would have been growing up in, like, in the, in the 60s, early 70s when he's a teenager. And Cabra at that stage would have been a lot kind of wilder, I suppose, like a lot of areas, it was, there was a lot of homes built at one stage and young people grew up. And, you know, it certainly would be a far more settled area, just like places in places like Cromen and Dremna, have become far more settled as the time has gone on. And so he would have been brought up in an area that I wouldn't describe as being sort of upper middle class, middle class area. He would have been grown up in a working class area, in a big house, in a working class area. - And yeah, it's the big house. It's an impressive looking house, it always would have been. We do have some suggestion that the family originally lived in St. Teresa's Gardens. - Yeah. - To go from St. Teresa's Gardens to Cabra, and to this Edwardian period property is a huge leap. - It is a huge leap and people would have said to me, for example, that, you know, the connection between the Covenant and the Kinnon family, for example, has always been a bit, where does that-- - Is that the Barmer Covenant's parents? - Barmer Covenant's parents would have known Christy Kinnon's dad, they would have been friendly all those people have known, involvement in crime. There's no suggestion of that, but that it would have been, I suppose, you know, maybe not as straightforward as this is, and he's a middle-class guy. It's somewhere along that line, I suppose. And like most Irish people have, you know, it's the poverty is only one generation away, I suppose. - Well, he certainly had aspirations, and he was very smart. - Very soon, school. - Though, though, it is said, and you know, it just shows you when somebody gets as big a new story as Christy Kinnon, that his leaving starts results have been made public. Do you know that? - Did you know that? - Not made public, but the son did a story about how he actually failed his leaving. - Right. - So Christy Kinnon looked as though that had a better being smart, but certainly, that was said that he only passed two subjects. He would have gone to, it said he was, went to Declan's and Cabra first and got expelled, and then went to Oconnell's in the North-Heners City. Now, Oconnell's Christian Brother School, probably one of the most famous schools in Dublin, my own father would have gone there, that people would have got a scholarship, and would have seen to have been a really prestigious school. Past pupils would have included James Joyce Pakenny, the broadcaster, former T-Shok Shallamas, PJ Mara, and also interestingly, and probably a relative contemporary of Christy Kinnon would have been Tony Gregory, would have gone there, who would play a huge prominent role in the anti-drugs marches in the city. So he would have gone, he would have, again, that would have been sort of a prestigious school, but he seems to have not thrived. And then I think we get into a bit of a gray area when he leaves school. But he excelled apparently at Sporch and a kickboxing. Yes, and that that was a thing that he kept up, I think, through all his life one way or another, and obviously his sons would have a huge interest in boxing as well. 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