#Robert ryan puppetry series#

Was it a clever way of brainwashing them by allowing his victims to hear the song again and again and associate it somehow with running away? One lie that Freegard would sometimes tell potential marks was that he was related to Duran Duran bassist, John Taylor.įreegard was fond of the British band and, according to the documentary, he played “Ordinary World” on repeat in the car while making his getaway with Hendy, Atkinson and Smith. Freegard convinced Atkinson that a friend’s recent death was not an accident and that the three of them all had to leave the area with him and to live incognito.ĭuran Duran provided the soundtrack for Freegard’s getaways. All three were conned into believing that their lives were in danger. Unknowingly, she became a victim of what might’ve been Freegard’s longest con: the manipulation of herself and her college friends, John Atkinson and Sarah Smith. However, he still treated her horribly, so much so that she was once evicted while he was on one of his….er, trips for the agency.įreegard first met Hendy while working in a pub in Newport, UK in the 1990s. She eventually gave birth to two children, girls, while with Freegard. He took her last name after making her his common-law wife, often leaving her alone for weeks at a time in a flat with no money for food. Adams’ stepfather had won part of a group lottery and his winnings were reportedly in the millions, which must have been very attractive to the puppet master.Ī victim-turned-girlfriend gave birth to two of his children while on the run.įormer college student Maria Hendy actually gave Freegard one of his alias surnames. The catch was this so-called “spy school” was really expensive. After he proposed, Freegard convinced her to give up her career and train to become a spy. Adams fell in love with Freegard, who was then working as a car salesman, and soon they were engaged. Somehow, she failed to observe the disturbed mind of her new boyfriend. Kim Adams, Freegard’s only known American victim, was a child psychologist when she met him after she moved to London.

He was with his latest victim at the time.įreegard was able to psychologically manipulate… a psychologist. “He’d switched out his phones, linked out of his address and he was on the run… It was like chasing a ghost,” he says.įreegard was eventually brought to justice when Scotland Yard, along with the FBI, apprehended him at Heathrow Airport in London. In the documentary, he says Freegard actually acted like a spy, making it hard to trace him. London Metropolitan Police Detective Sergeant Bob Brandon worked the case and features in The Puppet Master. Freegard would get his victims to use aliases, and eventually he’d separate them so that they didn’t have each other to rely on. Once in his clutches, victims would rapidly be moved from location to location, city to city, country to country, allegedly because the IRA was out to get them. The most surprising fact may be that he was able to get away with it for so long! Freegard’s victims believed in him.They were emotionally involved and willing to do whatever he said based on his lies.

#Robert ryan puppetry series#

But his eventual release is just one of many surprises from the new Netflix true-crime series that takes you on the chilling journey of Freegard’s psychological games.īelow are five facts from the series that are surprising, frustrating and maybe a bit hard to believe. It’s hard to say what’s worse, the fact that he was able to get away with it for so long or the fact that he was set free.

He was convicted of kidnapping, theft and deception and sentenced to life in prison in 2005, but after an appeal, got his kidnapping conviction overturned after serving nine years. He spent 10 years emotionally manipulating his victims into giving him their money, their trust and eventually their freedom by running away with him. In the 1990s and the early 2000s, Robert Hendy-Freegard, aka David Hendy, was a con man who ruined numerous lives while posing as an MI5 agent in Europe.