Infamous Shite in History.

[sierraman]

The significance of this has always fascinated me, the police think it has some link to the Melanie Hall murder. According to the very vague news reports they suggest it was ‘off the records’ at the time of the murder. Seems very tenuous to me? Where have they got the picture from? 

[MiniMinorMk3]

5 hours ago, sierraman said:

The significance of this has always fascinated me, the police think it has some link to the Melanie Hall murder. According to the very vague news reports they suggest it was ‘off the records’ at the time of the murder. Seems very tenuous to me? Where have they got the picture from? 

Someone fitted late model Big Bumpers and cross spoke alloys.

 

The car is still on SORN with the DVLA. Last change of V5 was December 1998.

[sierraman]

7 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Someone fitted late model Big Bumpers and cross spoke alloys.

 

The car is still on SORN with the DVLA. Last change of V5 was December 1998.

Reading between the lines it was probably bought by the person they strongly suspect has done it but not registered in their name. From watching the various documentaries the Police and the family have a good idea who has done it but can’t for whatever reason conclusively prove it, they cryptically hint at this whenever it comes up. 

[Shite Ron]

6 hours ago, sierraman said:

What car did Fred have? I thought with the building game he’d have something a bit more substantial than a crappy Rascal? A bag of sand and a couple of bodies and you’d be over the weight limit?

I get the impression that he was not too worried about complying with the law, I don’t think bodies are considered substantial footings for building regulations either but that did not seem to worry him. 

[warren t claim]

A couple of Rover SD1 celeb deaths.

 

[Lord Sterling]

Seeing as a few shiters have had these BMWs, I thought I'd add this here. 

The BMW 750iL that rapper Tupac "2Pac" Shakur (b. Lesane Parish Crooks) died in after being shot at several times. The car was owned by former NFL player and former, but then CEO of Death Row records, Marion Hugh "Suge" Knight, who is also a former convict and all round arsehole.

At some point, the car has been recovered and now resides at some "Celebrity Cars" museum in America.

[Lord Sterling]

The Rettendon "Essex Boys" Range Rover murders has been mentioned here before.

However, less well-known is the murder of John Marshall, an Essex-based car dealer 5 months the Rettendon murders.

John Marshall would be shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest, his body was bundled into his car and the car dumped in Round Hill, Sydenham, South London. A grey "Head" sports bag, 2 mobile phones and his Patek Phillipe watch were all missing, but £5k in cash left behind with him.

John Marshall did have a brief car dealings with Patrick Tate a few years before but decided to part ways due to Pat Tate's increasingly nutty behaviour. 

[Pieman]

44 minutes ago, Lord Sterling said:

The BMW 750iL that rapper Tupac "2Pac" Shakur (b. Lesane Parish Crooks) died in after being shot at several times.

I always think that he is only famous because he's dead.

As for John Marshall's murder, it was probably an organised crime/gang related revenge killing, same as the Rettendon murders almost certainly were.

[Lord Sterling]

1 minute ago, Pieman said:

I always think that he is only famous because he's dead.

As for John Marshall's murder, it was probably an organised crime/gang related revenge killing, same as the Rettendon murders almost certainly were.

As someone who was a teen in the 90s, I absolutely loved rap/hip-hop music so even before 2Pac was shot dead, he was definitely famous but of course, only to those like me who were into rap/hip hop scene.

Yeah, I agree about John Marshall. He was almost certainly involved in something bigger than he could handle. Seems to be a thing these days 

[DSdriver]

1 hour ago, Lord Sterling said:

Seeing as a few shiters have had these BMWs, I thought I'd add this here. 

The BMW 750iL that rapper Tupac "2Pac" Shakur (b. Lesane Parish Crooks) died in after being shot at several times. The car was owned by former NFL player and former, but then CEO of Death Row records, Marion Hugh "Suge" Knight, who is also a former convict and all round arsehole.

At some point, the car has been recovered and now resides at some "Celebrity Cars" museum in America.

Am I the only one who read that as BMW 75 oil?

[sierraman]

4 hours ago, Lord Sterling said:

As someone who was a teen in the 90s, I absolutely loved rap/hip-hop music so even before 2Pac was shot dead, he was definitely famous but of course, only to those like me who were into rap/hip hop scene.

Yeah, I agree about John Marshall. He was almost certainly involved in something bigger than he could handle. Seems to be a thing these days 

With Tupac I find it odd how people hold him (not necessarily you… 🤣) up in some god like status. By sounds of it he was persistently involved in some sort of criminal activity. If he’d not got blown away in 1996 it’d have happened not long after. 
 

I don’t think we’ll ever get to the bottom of the Pat Tate one, there’s been all sorts of wild conspiracies over the years. I suspect the people that were arrested were those that did it but were probably sent there by someone else much bigger that they’d pissed off or bumped for money. 

[Lord Sterling]

25 minutes ago, sierraman said:

With Tupac I find it odd how people hold him (not necessarily you… 🤣) up in some god like status. By sounds of it he was persistently involved in some sort of criminal activity. If he’d not got blown away in 1996 it’d have happened not long after. 

I don’t think we’ll ever get to the bottom of the Pat Tate one, there’s been all sorts of wild conspiracies over the years. I suspect the people that were arrested were those that did it but were probably sent there by someone else much bigger that they’d pissed off or bumped for money. 

People do put Tupac on a pedestal. However, he was, believe it or not, before getting into rap music, he was aspiring to become some sort of Shakespearean-influenced actor. 

It was the like of all-round tosspot Suge Knight that pulled him away from that road and turned him into the rap monster he eventually became.

I absolutely agree about Pat Tate and his crew. People love to make stories about him, some do hold him/them on a pedestal too unfortunately. There are so many conspiracy theories going around. What people don't seem to accept is that the truth is; they pissed someone off so much that they got blasted, simples. But of course, the truth is often more boring than what others might like to think.

[sierraman]

28 minutes ago, Lord Sterling said:

People do put Tupac on a pedestal. However, he was, believe it or not, before getting into rap music, he was aspiring to become some sort of Shakespearean-influenced actor. 

It was the like of all-round tosspot Suge Knight that pulled him away from that road and turned him into the rap monster he eventually became.

I absolutely agree about Pat Tate and his crew. People love to make stories about him, some do hold him/them on a pedestal too unfortunately. There are so many conspiracy theories going around. What people don't seem to accept is that the truth is; they pissed someone off so much that they got blasted, simples. But of course, the truth is often more boring than what others might like to think.

They fucked about then found out, as you say that’s all there was to it. 

[Jerzy Woking]

1 hour ago, Lord Sterling said:

 

I absolutely agree about Pat Tate and his crew. People love to make stories about him, some do hold him/them on a pedestal too unfortunately. There are so many conspiracy theories going around. What people don't seem to accept is that the truth is; they pissed someone off so much that they got blasted, simples. But of course, the truth is often more boring than what others might like to think.

Interesting if morbid thread, just read through it for the first time.

I always had an interest in the Rettendon murders, since Darren Nichols (the first ever supergrass?) occassionally drank in my local pub. I hasten to add I only knew him by sight and name. 

I opened the website linked on page 2 regarding photos of the Range Rover that Womes and Steel allegedly shot the three.

http://www.bernardomahoney.com/

 

Very, very odd!

 

 

 

[sierraman]

8 minutes ago, Jerzy Woking said:

Interesting if morbid thread, just read through it for the first time.

I always had an interest in the Rettendon murders, since Darren Nichols (the first ever supergrass?) occassionally drank in my local pub. I hasten to add I only knew him by sight and name. 

I opened the website linked on page 2 regarding photos of the Range Rover that Womes and Steel allegedly shot the three.

http://www.bernardomahoney.com/

 

Very, very odd!

 

 

 

It’s illegal to post his picture on the internet but newspapers have put his pixelated image up that to be fair was clear enough if he lived next door you’d be able to identify him. 

[Jerzy Woking]

Wouldn't recognise Nichols now. It was a long time ago.

Any reason why this website http://www.bernardomahoney.com/ is about Korean football? 

[sierraman]

Everyone including their milkman has come out and done a podcast for a few quid now with their theories about what happened. Every time there’s a little bit they’ve got to add like ‘Pat was reciting Margaret Thatchers quote on Francis Assisi as he was shot’ or ‘The Birdie Song by the Tweets was playing as they blew their brains out all over the seats’. As for the Range Rover, it’s looking unlikely the one that’s touted about is the real one, supposedly the real one does/did exist but it was totally fucked. 

[Lord Sterling]

8 hours ago, sierraman said:

Everyone including their milkman has come out and done a podcast for a few quid now with their theories about what happened. Every time there’s a little bit they’ve got to add like ‘Pat was reciting Margaret Thatchers quote on Francis Assisi as he was shot’ or ‘The Birdie Song by the Tweets was playing as they blew their brains out all over the seats’.

Absolutely. It's all a bit tiring now. It's been about 30 years since since this happened. They fucked about and found out. One YouTuber seems to do nothing more than read out newspaper articles from after the event, it all sounds like desperate now.

[Lord Sterling]

8 hours ago, Jerzy Woking said:

Wouldn't recognise Nichols now. It was a long time ago.

Any reason why this website http://www.bernardomahoney.com/ is about Korean football? 

I think even one time Essex Boys associate Bernard O'Mahoney is getting tired of the events surrounding this, I remember when that site was up and the graphic photos on there. A couple of films and documentary have been made about it. But still there are hangers-on who think they can solve the case from behind a computer screen. 

[Missy Charm]

17 hours ago, Lord Sterling said:

The Rettendon "Essex Boys" Range Rover murders has been mentioned here before.

However, less well-known is the murder of John Marshall, an Essex-based car dealer 5 months the Rettendon murders.

John Marshall would be shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest, his body was bundled into his car and the car dumped in Round Hill, Sydenham, South London. A grey "Head" sports bag, 2 mobile phones and his Patek Phillipe watch were all missing, but £5k in cash left behind with him.

John Marshall did have a brief car dealings with Patrick Tate a few years before but decided to part ways due to Pat Tate's increasingly nutty behaviour. 

Does anyone know what the rumours are regarding F424NPE, a.k.a. the Rettendon Range Rover murders Range Rover?  We all know that Rolfe, Tucker and Tate were found dead in the car, in the village of Rettendon in Essex.  

What happened ultimately, to the car, seems to be murky - at least there appear to be lots of people who want to make it murky.  We know that the Range Rover passed into the custody of Essex Police, who carried out a forensic examination and gathered the usual evidence.  

We also know that a blue Range Rover purporting to be F424NPE has been 'seen' in various places; indeed the registration plate is still existent in the DVLA database and apparently attached to a blue Range Rover.  This F424NPE last passed an MOT in 2009.  Interestingly, however, a new logbook was issued for it in 2020 and, even more interestingly, the car was presented for an MOT in 2021.  It failed, with a litany of faults and may, therefore, have had its last ride. 

What I know, or at least have been told, is something else.  I worked at Essex Police HQ for a time, circa 20 years ago.  Back then, standard procedure was for long-serving officers who could no longer manage the front line to be given a nice little number to see them out to retirement.  HQ had a variety of these nice little numbers, which were of the training, administrative and PR variety.  Anyway, given this was 2000-and-whenever, most of the not-quite-ex police officers had served on the front line in the eighties and nineties.  One such had been involved in the Rettendon murders investigation and told me and a few others during a chat about the matter that F424NPE was crushed after the necessary forensic examination had been completed.  

There's no reason why he'd make that up, and it stands to reason.  The murdered men were shot dead in the car, which means bullets or shot were fired into it.  That would have caused significant damage to the interior and exterior.  In 1995, a Range Rover of that age wouldn't have been worth that much money.  It would have been worth even less after the police had finished with it.  The only reasonable explanation, therefore, is that the car was passed back to whoever owned it, or the insurance company, and that it was written off.  That would back up the information given by the policeman.  

A Facebook post from a couple of months ago supports the above:

To confound matters further, the Daily Star ran the following article in 2023: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/notorious-essex-boys-gangland-range-29970002

I don't believe it, personally.  Well, it's more than possible that the chancer involved has got a blue Range Rover for sale, possibly even one bearing the number F424NPE, but I doubt it's 'the' F424NPE'.  

The Star illustrate their article with the following photo:

which is, I believe, a prop from 'Rise of the Footsoldier III' (2016).  Shows the, ahem, exacting nature of the red-top's research.  

Notwithstanding the above, there is something odd going on with registration number F424NPE.  It may be possible that someone managed to detach it from the real Rettendon Range Rover at some point prior to that car's alleged destruction.  Further to that, the plate may have found its way on to another Range Rover, the one that breathed its last in 2009.  Even further, the alleged Range Rover offered for sale in 2023 (conspicuous by its absence in pictorial or film depiction - perhaps Range Rovers are the coquettes of the car world), may be a different car again.  I doubt that out chancer has paid handsomely to have the 2009 crap-out-job restored.  Perhaps he has.  

@LightBulbFun: can a 'dead' number plate be resurrected?  Is it possible that F424NPE was removed from circulation back in the 90s and later reissued?  

[sierraman]

I’d heard it was handed back to the finance firm as they had someone else take the finance out for them. Technically then it was the finance firms asset, as far as I’ve read the original is long gone, supposedly it survived after the police had done with it and the remains survived for a time but it’s not the car that’s touted as being F424NPE. For a start the hinges on the front are wrong. 
 

If it was still in a scrapyard somewhere/storage why have they not took a photo of it? Likely because it’s long dead! 

[LightBulbFun]

16 minutes ago, Missy Charm said:

@LightBulbFun: can a 'dead' number plate be resurrected?  Is it possible that F424NPE was removed from circulation back in the 90s and later reissued?  

unless a number plate was explicitly put on retention then assigned to another vehicle, then a number cant be re-issued if its already been assigned to a vehicle, even if that vehicle is scrapped, since a VRM stays with a vehicle for life unless its explictly transfered off said vehicle 

but could have the number plate and chassis plate of that Range Rover ended up on another? that could be entirely possible, I have seen plenty of dodgy Land Rovers about the place 

ie the 1990's 4 door is being sold as a heavily upgraded 1972 Model that happens to conveniently be registered before 1973...  (back when that had significance)

 

for what its worth F424NPE has had 13 total keepers with the last keeper change on the 10th of October 2020

[Jerzy Woking]

NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

https://www.thetruecrimedatabase.com/case_file/tony-tucker/

Contains speculative accounts of the murders, but as it contains photos of the three dead in situ in the car and in the morgue.

Probably taken from the O'Mahoney website that I linked to that is no longer his.

[sierraman]

It’s doubtful at the time it would have been crushed but before that someone took the tags off it. Nobody would have done that. I suspect someone just applied for some documents to register it as if they’d bought it without a V5. 

[MiniMinorMk3]

Sandra West  was a Beverly Hills socialite and wife of Texas oil tycoon Ike West. When she made her will, she requested that she be buried inside a Ferrari “with the seat slanted comfortably."

This week in in 1977, socialite Sandra West was buried in her Ferrari in San Antonio

[AnthonyG]

On 06/01/2025 at 23:11, warren t claim said:

A couple of Rover SD1 celeb deaths.

That’s a pretty immense amount of damage for a Transit ‘delivery van’ to do to an SDI as they were pretty solid cars for the era and one of the few 70s designs to pay any attention to side impacts/off centre frontal impacts. 

Guess it could well have been one of those big twin rear wheel ones firms like White Arrow used to have.

A York diesel is also a very solid lump of metal when it encounters something weaker at 40mph or so, a bit like a moving anvil basically. 

[Richard_FM]

2 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

That’s a pretty immense amount of damage for a Transit ‘delivery van’ to do to an SDI as they were pretty solid cars for the era and one of the few 70s designs to pay any attention to side impacts/off centre frontal impacts. 

Guess it could well have been one of those big twin rear wheel ones firms like White Arrow used to have.

A York diesel is also a very solid lump of metal when it encounters something weaker at 40mph or so, a bit like a moving anvil basically. 

Mike Hailwood & his daughter died in an SD1 with his son injured, though they collided with a lorry.

[AnthonyG]

Yeah, it says ‘In collision with the back of a lorry…ripped the roof from the car’ so in effect I suspect he drove under the back of the lorry and the car didn’t even reach the rear axle judging by the lack of damage to the front end. 

This used to happen a lot until rear ‘bumper’ bars, and side bars, were required on trucks, which happened in the UK sometime in the mid 80s. 

This is also how Jayne Mansfield died, circa 1970, this time not only did the car lose its roof, Jayne literally lost her head.

In the usual macabre American way, the actual vehicle, a ‘66 Buick Electra I think, survives somewhere in its wrecked state although I don’t think it’s on public display. 

[D.E]

The murder of Sicilian mobster Giovanni Fici, 1988. 

[lesapandre]

1 hour ago, AnthonyG said:

Yeah, it says ‘In collision with the back of a lorry…ripped the roof from the car’ so in effect I suspect he drove under the back of the lorry and the car didn’t even reach the rear axle judging by the lack of damage to the front end. 

This used to happen a lot until rear ‘bumper’ bars, and side bars, were required on trucks, which happened in the UK sometime in the mid 80s. 

This is also how Jayne Mansfield died, circa 1970, this time not only did the car lose its roof, Jayne literally lost her head.

In the usual macabre American way, the actual vehicle, a ‘66 Buick Electra I think, survives somewhere in its wrecked state although I don’t think it’s on public display. 

The Mansfield car was on display. A shocking death at the time.

Amazingly the Kennedy Lincoln was repaired and put back into service and used by LBJ and even later I think. The car actually belonged to Ford and was lent or leased - now in one of the Ford museums.

We think we know the USA through the media - but having visited quite extensively I find it more 'foreign' than European countries despite the language.