Kill, Sleep, Repeat: Real-life story #4

Hello from Texas,

What an amazing book release this has been. Thank you for your part in making that happen.

ln honor of Kill, Sleep, Repeat, below is the fourth and final post in the series featuring stories of real-life secret identities.

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Albert Pierrepoint

The public persona:

In the 1920s, Englishman Albert Pierrepoint was employed as an unassuming drayman (that’s a person who delivers groceries on horseback— a job that doesn’t exist anymore but absolutely should.)

In 1946, his meager savings allowed him to buy Help The Poor Struggler, a pub in Lancashire. While tending pub, Pierrepoint earned a reputation as a friendly character who loved to sing and dance with his patrons.

Help The Poor Struggler Pub. Photo via Facebook.

The secret identity:

Imagine the surprise of Pierrepoint’s customers when they discovered that jovial Albert Pierrepoint bought their favorite pub with the execution fees he earned hanging hundreds of Nazi war criminals.

From 1934 to 1956, Pierrepoint was the Chief Executioner of the United Kingdom, introducing more than 430 convicted criminals to the long end of a rope. Since his execution orders only came by mail (by mail?) around once a month, and hangmen were expected to be exceptionally discreet, Pierrepoint simply kept his day job and never mentioned his part-time gig—not even to his wife.

That all changed with World War II, when Pierrepoint finally had to give the missus an honest explanation after being called away to execute a pair of spies in Gibraltar. And his forced truthfulness came just in the nick of time, because soon thereafter he was called on to execute the hundreds of Nazi war criminals being cranked out by the Nuremberg trials, a list which included Josef Kramer, the Beast Of Belsen, and Irma Grese, the Hyena Of Auschwitz. Since hangman was a pay-per-swing gig, Nuremberg was like winning some macabre lottery.

Eventually, the British Army leaked Pierrepoint’s name to the press. Suddenly, merry Albert became a morbid tourist attraction, with busloads of people pouring into The Pub That Dead Nazis Built. Still, despite being outed, Pierrepoint stuck to his principals and refused to discuss his work with his patrons … save for one, James Corbitt, a longtime patron, and friend known as “Tish” to Pierrepoint’s “Tosh.” One night, after singing a rousing rendition of “Danny Boy” with Pierrepoint, Corbitt went straight home and murdered his girlfriend. Because Pierrepoint was arguably the man with the most unflappable work ethic in the history of the world, he absolutely carried out his friend Corbitt’s execution.

Pierrepoint died at a nursing home in 1992, aged 87. His diary went up for auction last year.

Albert Pierrepoint. Photo via Wikipedia.

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Several times a week, Charlotte Jones leaves suburbia behind and boards a chartered flight to parts unknown, where she wraps her hands around the necks of marks for just as long as she has to.

Then she goes back to domestic life with a paycheck, defense wounds, and the sense that she can handle anything.

Which is good, because being a wife, mother, and sociopath, with an insatiable taste for murder, gives the term work-life balance new meaning. When one life unexpectedly bleeds into the other, leading to a secret admirer and borderline insta-fame, Charlotte is forced to ask herself if she really can have it all.

Slick and unsettling, Kill, Sleep, Repeat is a cunning tale of deception and desire that begs the question: Do we ever really know people the way we think we do?

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