07 June, 2006

Robert Thompson Rumour

Laban Tall has an interesting post about a rumour about one of the killers of Jamie Bulger.

A man convicted last month of the attempted murder of his pregnant girlfriend and her three-year-old daughter in Ireland is rumoured to be Robert Thompson.

The crime took place in November 2004.

The news articles (here and here) say he was trying to get full time psychiatric treatment in August of that year, but his attempts were unsuccessful. He has claimed to be Robert Thompson. His claims to actually be Thompson have been written off due to the fact he has been described as a “fantasist”.

Walsh moved to Ireland in 2001. That was the same year that Thompson and Venables were released from prison.

After reading Laban’s post and following the links I came to the conclusion that it was probably just a rumour and nothing more. I’m personally not convinced by the photographic evidence. Others have said Walsh looks like Thompson, but I would say, you could probably find ten young men who could look like a grown up Bulger killer in any High Street. But I will say that, I could certainly believe that the photos could be of the same person.

Later I had an interesting thought about all this. I remembered the story in one of the Sunday papers about a year or two ago about Denise Bulger (now Denise Fergus) tracking down Robert Thompson after receiving an anonymous letter from a “wellwisher”. The date of that article’s publication was 28th November 2004. The same month that the two attempted murders happened. I’ve searched but I’m unable to find the exact date of the crime. I can’t help but wonder, if it is indeed Robert Thompson, could the date of the crime be in the last couple of days of November? He was clearly not in his right mind for a while before then, and this news coverage could well have pushed him over the edge.

Although I can’t believe that it is him. He may have been given a new identity and newspapers would get themselves into a little bit of bother should they reveal his name or location, but I can’t imagine those facts would be withheld in a scenario like this.

Killkenny People 10 May 2006 ~ 15-year sentence for would-be killer

Killkenny People 17 May 2006 ~ Walsh sought help months before attacking girlfriend

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