The Magnus Archives - Full Transcript

MAG009 | A Father's Love

Recorded April 10, 2016 | Summary: Statement of Julia Montauk regarding the actions and motivations of her father, the serial killer Robert Montauk.

Warning
child harm, child neglect, death of family member, death of parent, religious violence, serial killer, gore, cults, being chased, darkness, heartbeat sound

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[CLICK]

ARCHIVIST

Statement of Julia Montauk, regarding the actions and motivations of her father, the serial killer Robert Montauk. Original statement given December 3rd, 2002. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

My father was a murderer. There’s no way I can reasonably deny it at this point; the evidence provided by the police was overwhelming, and I saw his shed myself. I’m not here to try and clear his name. There wouldn’t be much point, anyway, as I’m sure you know he died in prison last year. Seven years isn’t much to have served out of a life sentence, but I doubt it was the early parole he’d have hoped for.

Sorry, maybe that wasn’t in the best taste. Still, his passing is why I feel like I can tell this story; something I’ve never really felt free to do before now. I always expected him to talk about it during the media frenzy that surrounded his trial, but for whatever reason, he kept quiet. I think I understand a bit more now why he never spoke about it, preferring people draw their own conclusions, but at the time, I couldn’t fathom why he just sat there silently, letting others talk for him.

I’d like to tell someone now, though, and I’ve only recently finished my court-appointed counselling sessions, so I’d rather not tell the tabloids and have ‘MY FATHER KILLED TO FUEL CULT MAGIC, SAYS DAUGHTER OF MONSTER’ splashed over page 7 of the weekend edition. So that leaves you guys. Respectable is hardly the word I’d use, but it’s better than nothing.

So yes, my father killed at least 40 people over the course of the five years prior to his arrest in 1995. I won’t recount the lurid details – if you’re interested you can look up Robert Montauk in the newspaper archive of any library. There’ll be plenty there: the papers clearly didn’t care much about the American bombing, because in April of that year they seemed to be talking about nothing but my father. There are also a couple of books on him, none of which I can really recommend, but I guess Ray Cowan’s No Bodies in the Shed is the closest to what I’d consider accurate, although it does imply that I was an accomplice, despite the fact that I was twelve years old at the time.

Honestly, I discovered most of the details from the newspapers and the court, just like everyone else. My father spent my formative years killing dozens of people and I had no idea. But the more I think back over my childhood, the more sure I am that there was something else going on. I don’t have any theories as to what any of this means, but I just need to get it down on paper somewhere. And this seems as good a place as any.

I’ve always lived in the same house on York Road in Dartford. Even now, after all that’s happened, and all I know about what went on there, I can’t bring myself to leave. As far as I know, the shed came with the house; it always sat in the garden: old, wooden and silent. I don’t recall it being used until after the night my mother disappeared. That’s when everything started to get strange.

My memory of early childhood is patchy – mostly isolated images and impressions – but I remember the night she vanished like it was yesterday. I was seven years old, and had been to the cinema that evening for the very first time in my life. We had been to see The Witches at what was back then the ABC, down on Shaftesbury Avenue. I had seen films before, of course, on our tiny living room television, but to see a movie on the big screen was awe-inspiring. The film itself was terrifying, though, and even now I’d say it’s far scarier than any “child’s film” has a right to be. I remember I spent a lot of it close to tears, but had been so proud of the fact that I hadn’t cried at all. When we got home, I lay awake for a long time. That scene where Luke is transformed into a mouse kept playing in my mind, and for some reason, it left me too afraid to go to sleep.