Now, it is certainly possible that someone could access the back gardens of Redstart Road. All they would have to do is walk around the side of number one and unlatch the waist-high gate, which is almost obscured, even today, by an arch of privet.
The Macleods lived on the odd-numbered side of the street, roughly in the middle, so whoever was knocking in the middle of the night must have specifically targeted the Macleods. At least, that’s the conclusion most people drew.
—What happened when you answered the door?
—It … You see I didn’t at first. At first I went to the window. The sleet and rain were coming down and the wind was buffeting the place – you know when it comes in those great big gusts, almost flinging the water against the glass? There are switches on the kitchen wall, next to the key rack that Dad hung up – it’s shaped like a sporran with little hooks where the tassles should be. Next to that there’s the light switches. One … no, two for the kitchen and one for the porch light.
—Was the light on in the kitchen?
—No. But either my eyes were used to the dark by then or the light from the hall was on. Whatever it was, I couldn’t really see outside, just my reflection in the window. It were double-glazed so I looked really weird, like an overexposed photo … like a ghost.
—What happened next?
—I had my fingers on the porch-light switch … I remember the feel of it under my nails. I were about to turn it on when I heard … I heard them speak.
—Go on.
—It were horrible. It were like they were in the house already.
—What do you mean?
—There was this whispering, like they were standing right next to me.
—Who was whispering? Had you seen them yet?
—No, but … it were like when I used to see that family. It were like Cornwall all over again … It … I knew. I knew it were them…
—Who?
—Those two kids – the ones I’d seen from the train. I could, like, see them in my head, stood outside the door.
—Did you go to the back door and look?
—I were so scared. I were almost in shock, stock still, rooted to the spot. I could hear one of them knocking and I knew it were the little one, the boy. It were like … it was like I could sense them through the door. I could see them already…
So I got down quick on my hands and knees, so they couldn’t see me. I knew though – I knew as soon as I’d got down that it were pointless. I knew they knew I were there.
And that whispering. I could hear it like something shuffling in its nest, like something turning over in bed. It sounded like there were mice in the walls or something. I couldn’t hear any words, just this whispering, as if the words were rustling together … I could feel it inside my head.
I crawled as quietly as I could over to the kitchen window. I were crouched behind the sink – I could smell the cleaning stuff that Mam kept under there. I didn’t want to look – I swear I didn’t – but it was like … it was like I had to. Then the knocking came again – rat-a-tat-tat – I poked my head up and looked.
—And what did you see?
—It was … they … I didn’t see them at first, and I felt this sort of jolt in my heart, like when you wake up from a bad dream.
I could see the back doorstep through the rain – the edge of it anyway – and there were nothing there…
And then it appeared – they appeared, as if they were stepping back from the door, stepping back and waiting for me to ask them in.
I saw their legs first – pale and twiggy, white as bones in the darkness. The boy … the … the little boy was wearing shorts, and she – the older one, the girl – she had a dress on. It looked … wrong, just all wrong, like they were from some history programme about the Victorians or something…
—They were wearing old-fashioned clothes?
—Yeah and you know, it were that … it were that that really freaked me out, like it were a game or something … kids from an old book…
—A game?
—Yeah, like knocky-nine-doors or something.
Just to clarify for international listeners, ‘knocky-nine-doors’ is an old term for the kids’ prank of knocking on doors and running away. It’s interesting that Arla uses such an archaic term, perhaps unconsciously mirroring the anachronistic appearance of the children’s clothes.
—Did you think you were experiencing something paranormal, Arla? At first, I mean?
—No way. Not once … they were too real, too … solid. They were there … right there. And then I were suddenly at the door and my hands, they were opening it, like I weren’t in control or nowt. There was this cold feeling inside me, this icy pool at the bottom of my belly, dark and cold, a black, icy hole widening, and all my hope, all my everything was getting sucked down into that frozen darkness…
It were only when the door opened and the cold air came rushing in like it were escaping from something, right into my face, that I sort of woke up. I was standing there, the door a few inches open and I were looking out at them.
—The children were still there?
—Yeah. In the flesh, bold as brass. Stood there, the older girl and the little boy. They were pale and they were soaked, I mean drenched – those clothes of theirs were clinging to them like skin. But you know what was weird? Despite that, they didn’t like look cold, if you know what I mean. They weren’t hunched or shivering, they were just stood there.
—Did they speak?
—Yeah. They weren’t, like, looking at me though; they were looking at the ground, as if … I dunno, as if they were shy. And when he spoke, the little boy, I wasn’t even sure he’d moved his lips – it were like a robot or something had spoken, like the words just sort of fell out.
—What did he say?
—It were something like, ‘Please miss, let us in. We lost our mum and dad and we need somewhere to stay for the night. It’s very cold out here. Please let us in.’ But he wasn’t begging, like; more … I dunno … as if he were reciting it, you know? As if he were in a play or something.
—What did you do?
—I sort of bent down to try and look at his face – you know how a teacher does. I could feel that horrible icy hole inside me getting wider with every second, but I … I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t stop looking at him.
—What about the other one – the older girl – did she speak?
—No. She were a few feet back, looking at the floor, too. She had this long, black hair, dead straight, and the wind was whipping it all round her head, like … like a blur, a scribble, a photo gone wrong or something.
He spoke again, the little boy: ‘Please miss, it’s so cold out here and we lost our mum and dad. Please will you let us in?’ And you know something? That black fear inside me, it spoke, it spoke to every cell in my body. It told me that by no means should I let them in – no way. That if I did, something terrible would happen.
I dunno how I managed it, but I found my voice from somewhere and I were like, ‘No, I’m sorry…’ I felt bad. Like, how could I do that to a couple of kids?
Maybe it were the … the guilt that overshadowed, that overpowered, everything. It felt so wrong to let them in; but it felt even worse to leave them out there.
Then the boy, he said it again, only this time, it were more like an … like an order. But still in that weird robot voice, like it were one of those phone lines which says ‘Press hash now’.
‘It’s COLD out here and we need to come in and use your PHONE.’
So … I … I couldn’t even believe I were doing it: I opened the door, I pulled it wide open, I nodded and I stood to the side to let them in. Every part of me was screaming, was howling that this were a mistake, but I just … I couldn’t do anything. I just watched them sort of … float … like they were walking a millimetre off the ground. They didn’t look up, not yet anyway. They just walked past me and into the house.
I sort of snapped to my senses again, as if �
� as if I’d been hypnotised or something and I realised what I was doing. I had this feeling – this terrible, terrible feeling – that I’d done something awful; that this was the end … like one of those dreams where you’ve killed someone.
They were past me, gliding up the hall silently – too quiet, like their shoes weren’t making any sound. I started to panic. I knew that if they went any further, that … that something really bad was going to happen. So I sort of called out in this … in this fucking stupid laughing way, like I were in a shop and had forgotten to give them their change or something. I were, like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m afraid you can’t come in after all…’
That’s when that boy looked back at me. He turned his head and looked up…
There’s a pause – a long, long pause. I don’t know what to do, whether I should push Arla any further. Her voice has become increasingly agitated as she’s describing the experience. I can hear her breathing. In and out, in and out. When she continues, it’s in a whispery voice that sends a chill dancing down every vertebra of my spine.
—When he looked at me I saw his eyes. And they were black. All over. Just black.
There is a click and the line goes dead. I sit there staring into my phone for what seems like a very long time.
Arla Macleod pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of her mother, stepfather and sister. Her defence successfully argued that Arla’s psychosis warranted that verdict. Two court-appointed psychologists, as well as a psychiatrist hired by Arla’s defence team, agreed that she was unable to decipher reality from fantasy at the time of the killings.
Even if Arla herself tells us what happened, we’ll never know for sure what exactly occurred that night in 2014. Below, I will lay out the Crown Prosecution Service’s version of events based on the forensic evidence and analysis. This is your one and only warning: what I am going to describe to you is deeply unsettling.
Twenty-one-year-old Arla Macleod, at some time close to 2 am on the 21st of November, woke up and went downstairs to the kitchen. Her mother, stepfather and sister were asleep upstairs in their beds. Arla poured herself a glass of water before opening the kitchen door that led out into the garden. She then walked from the back door and across the lawn to the garden shed. She then unlocked the shed and took a hammer from a metal toolbox inside.
By the time Arla returned to the house, Stanley Macleod was awake and had descended the stairs to the hallway that led to the kitchen. This is where his stepdaughter attacked him with the hammer, dealing him a blow to the temple that broke his skull and knocked him unconscious. Arla continued to beat her stepfather with the hammer until her mother and sister, roused by the noise, also began to descend the stairs. Alice Macleod, Arla’s sister, came first. Arla attacked her halfway up the stairs, and it is thought she fell, breaking her ankle and knocking herself unconscious. Her sister then repeatedly beat her in the face and head with the hammer until her skull was completely caved in and her face was nothing but pulp.
What happened to Lucy Macleod is less straightforward. It has been widely speculated upon – notoriously by the UK Television documentary She Never Told Us (Blamenholm Productions, 2015) – and unless Arla tells us, we’ll never know for sure. Crime-scene investigators and forensics have pieced together a sequence of events based on Lucy’s injuries and the position of her body when she was found. It is suggested that Lucy saw what happened to her daughter and husband and stayed calm. It is thought she may have tried to reason with Arla, talking to her calmly, imploring her to put down the hammer, all the while walking down the stairs, trying not to react to the bludgeoned bodies of her loved ones.
Lucy Macleod must have been stepping over, or have stepped over, her loved ones’ corpses when Arla swung the hammer and hit her in the side of the head. There were no defensive wounds on Lucy; it was a single blow from the hammer that felled her as opposed to the frenzied attack on the other family members. This creates speculation as to why. There are three explanations, it seems: Arla was tired; her psychotic episode was drawing to an end; or her relationship with her mother was different from those she had with Alice and her stepfather.
I ask Dr White for her opinion.
—It’s interesting isn’t it? There’s no definite answer to that question.
—What do you think?
—About what?
—About why she did it that way. I mean, the rest of the family were bludgeoned, her sister’s face beaten to a pulp. What do you think this says about Arla’s relationship with her mother?
—I think Lucy Macleod most probably stood and watched Arla kill her husband and her other daughter, or at least saw the aftermath. For me, this suggests that Lucy probably knew more about Arla’s psychosis than the family ever let on. And if she did, I imagine she’d have seen Arla have psychotic episodes and knew how to deal with her.
—If that’s the case, why do you think she never got any help for Arla?
—I think the reasons are complicated. The Macleods were quite traditional in their views. Things are getting better but there is still, unfortunately, huge stigma around mental illness. My guess is that Arla never did anything too extreme – nothing to make her parents seek help. Lucy could manage her and no one else had to know.
Also, her stepfather was the dominant one, remember – his religious beliefs dictated everything that went on in the family. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Stanley Macleod refused to get therapy for Arla, but instead trusted in the power of God.
—All this said, don’t you think the fact that Lucy being left until last suggests Arla had a better relationship with her mum than with the others?
—Actually I believe it was the opposite. But that’s only what I think. I may, of course, be wrong.
—But Arla only hit Lucy once.
—In my opinion, that says a lot about Lucy and Arla’s relationship, or the lack of one…
—Really?
—I can’t give any definite answers, but the way you could think of it is that Arla didn’t actually want to kill her mother.
—I don’t follow.
—Arla killed her mother’s husband and her mother’s daughter. So Arla got to see Lucy Macleod’s reaction to these deaths. Apparently, Arla allowed her mother to walk towards her – she didn’t chase her. The single blow to the head was almost an afterthought. In my opinion, that shows a kind of disdain for her mother, as opposed to the passion she showed when she killed her stepfather and sister. Bear in mind, this was during a clear state of psychosis.
It’s an opinion. Whether it’s right, we’ll never know. As far as I’m aware, Arla has not deviated from her version of events. Indeed, it could be said that her diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia-induced psychosis caused Arla to believe that her home had been invaded by these black-eyed children. It is important to note, however, that Arla has never blamed the black-eyed children directly for killing her family. At least not to my knowledge.
So let’s focus on what we do know. A young woman suffering from psychosis killed her family. It’s tragic and it’s sad and it’s horribly straightforward.
Or is it?
Before we end this episode, I want to briefly expand on Arla’s sighting of these black-eyed children – or BEKs as they’re known. Because this particular delusion isn’t exclusive to Arla Macleod.
BEKs (black-eyed kids) are a fairly modern phenomenon, and sightings of them have increased significantly with the birth of the internet. The first sighting of archetypal black-eyed kids was reported by a US journalist named Brian Bethel back in 1996.
Bethel was sitting in his car in a Texas parking lot at around 9.30 pm when he was approached by two boys, around twelve or thirteen years old, who knocked at his window. Bethel describes one of the boys as being ‘olive-skinned’ and ‘curly-haired’, and the other being ‘redheaded’ and ‘pale-skinned’. The curly-haired boy asked if Bethel would give them a lift to their mother’s house as they had forgotten to pick up their money for the bus. The boy assured h
im it wouldn’t take long.
A strange enough situation; but Bethel reports that, as he spoke with the boys, he became consumed by an irrational fear – something like a fight-or-flight response. Arla describes a similar sensation.
Bethel goes on to say that he was just about to open his car door when he noticed the eyes of the boy. In Bethel’s words they were ‘the sort of eyes you see on late-night television, on aliens or bargain-basement vampires. They were soulless orbs, like two scraps of starless night.’ Bethel did not open the door; instead he drove away.
The story began to spread online and more and more sightings of black-eyed kids were reported on paranormal forums and the like. A ‘typical’ BEK encounter begins in a home or in a car, usually late at night. The person will hear a knocking on the door. If they have pets, these become agitated. And when they answer the knocking, they are met with children – usually an older one of around twelve or thirteen and a younger one. These children will ask to come in for a variety of reasons – to use the phone, for example, because they’re lost and they need to call their parents. Everyone who has allegedly come into contact with BEKs reports the same feeling of irrational terror in their presence.
Online speculation about what these creatures are is rife, ranging from vampires to aliens to an elaborate internet hoax in the vein of Slenderman. What is certain is that BEKs are a very modern phenomenon. It is entirely possible that Arla was au fait with these stories; according to others we’ll talk to, she did spend a lot of her time at home, online. Was it the story of the BEKs that stimulated Arla’s delusions?
Whatever conclusions we draw about Arla Macleod and what happened that night in 2014, the outcome is, sadly, the same: three of the Macleods are dead, and one is locked away for life in a secure hospital.
It should be cut and dried – what else is there to speculate about? What else is there to discover in this tragedy?
Hydra Page 5
