Linda Calvey, Double Back Widow – England, 1990

Linda Calvey was a British gangster moll connected with cockney gangs in East London. It is said she earned a million pounds sterling during her robbery career. Linda earned the nickname Black Widow because “every man she has ever been involved with is either in prison or dead.”

In 1990 Linda paid a hitman £10,000 to whack her then-current paramour, Ronnie Cook. At her home in Plaistow, east London the hired killer changed his mind and refused to finish off the cowering Ronnie, so Linda took the shotgun and did the deed herself. It is suspected she had previously polished off two other former lovers. But Linda asserted: “Men close to me end up dead or in prison... it's not my fault.”

A year later, Nov. 12, 1991, Linda was convicted of the Cook murder and sent off to serve a 7-year minimum sentence at Highpoint Prison, Suffolk. In prison she got to know the sadistic serial killer with the famous hair-do: Myra Hindley Linda was Myra’s hairdresser.

Linda also managed to get a new husband in a behind-bars matrimonial move.

[Robert St. Estephe, May 4, 2020]

~ Linda Calvey & Myra Hindley ~

“Linda Calvey struck up a bizarre relationship with Myra Hindley. She says they weren’t friends, but they were close enough that Linda dyed Hindley’s hair regularly. She clearly doesn’t put herself in the same criminal, morally deficient class, though. ‘Myra never regretted what she had done. I was often shocked by her. I remember when I was working in the prison library she came in and asked to order a book, but she wanted me to put it in the name of another girl, who never came into the library. I asked what book. It was The Devil And His Works. She got it, too.” [Jenny Johnston, “Would you marry the black widow? Ex-gangster Linda Calvey finds a new fiancé,” Daily Mail, Dec. 18, 2008]

***

CHRONOLOGY

April 8, 1948 – Linda E P Welford born, Ilford, Essex, England

1978 – husband Mickey was shot dead by police in 1978 as he was carrying out an armed robbery.

1986 – Daniel Reece jailed for 13 years and nine months in 1986 for indecently assaulting a boy aged 15 years and raping a woman who he tied up and threatened with a gun and a hypodermic needle in her own home.

Nov. 19, 1990 – murder of Ronnie Cook at Calvey's home in Plaistow, east London.

Nov. 12, 1991 – Sentenced to life in prison; Highpoint Prison, Suffolk.

1991? ­– Daniel Reece, unreliable hit man, who was also jailed for life,

2002 – Kate Kray book detailing Calvey's life and crimes was published.

YEAR – marries Daniel Reece behind bars

Oct. 7, 2003 – Today Mr Newman told the court that the trial judge set the minimum period she must serve for retribution and deterrence at seven years - but the then Home Secretary more than doubled the tariff to 15 years in 1993. The tariff was reviewed and reset in 1998.

2008 – Linda released.

2009 – Linda marries George Ceasar

Dec. 2011 – Daniel Reece is accused of gagging and raping a 22-year-old inmate at HMP Coldingley.

Apr. 2012 – Linda Calvey Donates Mementoes To Crime Museum. Huffingtonpost2012-04-23.

Sep. 4 (circa), 2015 – George Ceasar (84) dies in Spanish hospital.

Jul. 2019 – Andrew Nilson book

***

[Jim Goad, “The Kiss Of The ‘Black Widow’: 17 Women Who Murdered Their Husbands (And Others) For Cash,” Thought Catalog, Jan. 23, 2016]

***

***

***

***

 

For links to other cases of woman who murdered 2 or more husbands (or paramours), see Black Widow Serial Killers.

***

[502-1/3/2021]

***