Linda Calvey

Linda Calvey (born Linda E P Welford, 8 April 1948) is an English convicted murderer and author. She was convicted of a number armed robberies in the 1980s. In 1990 she murdered her lover Ronnie Cook and was sentenced to life imprisonment in November 1991, of which she served 18 years. She was known as the "Black Widow" because all of her lovers ended up either dead or in prison.

Early life Calvey worked as a receptionist at a paint factory while a teenager.

Previous criminal career Calvey began her criminal career as a lookout after being invited by her cousin to a party for armed robber Mickey Calvey, who at the time was on temporary home leave towards the end of his eight-year prison term, where she fell in love with him. She later became a getaway driver and eventually wielded guns herself during robberies. She went on to make £1 million in robberies, saying in 2002: "I loved the buzz of picking up a shotgun, confronting men in armoured vans and forcing them to hand over vast sums of money." She later said she always thought that the money was "rightfully hers". Most of her sentence was served at HM Prison Holloway. As part of a criminal gang she had helped in a series of post office robberies, in which staff and customers were sprayed with dangerous ammonia. He suffered horrific and fatal injuries to the head on the second shot; the blast also broke his neck. He also would have found that she had spent the cash he had entrusted to her. He was shot only about half an hour after he had been collected by Calvey from the prison.

Calvey was convicted of murder and sentenced to eighteen and a half years in prison. During her imprisonment in 1995 a tribute was written to her by Charles Bronson, considered Britain's most violent prisoner, with Bronson saying that she was "a true lady, a real east London girl". Calvey herself sent a floral tribute to the funeral of gangster Ronnie Kray alongside her fellow inmate and criminal associate Tina Molloy, who was imprisoned aged 17 for the murder of Edna Phillips in 1992 soon after the infamous murder of James Bulger. Calvey and Molloy's tribute read: "To Ron, with love and affection from Linda Calvey, Tina Molloy, and the girls of H-wing". She claimed that, after they got home, "the door burst open and a man shouted, 'Get down. Police!'" before shooting him. In 2013, Di Stefano made headlines by proudly declaring he would have represented Hitler if he had had the chance. Under Di Stefano's representation Calvey appealed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, but they were unconvinced and rejected her appeal. By this time she was no longer married to Reece, who as of 2017 was himself still imprisoned, with Calvey having married for a third time in 2008.

However, according to Kate Kray, the partner of infamous gangster Ronnie Kray, hardly any convicted gangsters like Calvey regard themselves as guilty, and so it is not surprising that Calvey claims she is innocent. Furthermore, despite claiming that Reece killed Cook, she later married Reece at HM Prison Durham in 1995. Reece's best man at the wedding was Mike Martin, the lover of Suzanne Capper torturer and murderer Bernadette McNeilly. Around this time she published a book about her life with the support of her family, one of whom – brother Anthony – had himself been imprisoned with her for housing Calvey's robbery gang.

Personal life Calvey has been married three times. Her first husband, Mickey Calvey, was an armed robber who died after being shot by police during a botched robbery on 9 December 1978. She was then briefly married to Danny Reece, the hitman she had originally hired to kill Ronnie Cook. Their marriage took place at HM Prison Durham. Her third marriage, to millionaire George Caesar, occurred in Dymchurch on 4 April 2009. He died in September 2015.

Calvey has two children with her first husband Mickey Calvey named Neil and Melanie, as well as several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.