Archibald Thomson Hall was born on June 17, 1924, in Glasgow, Scotland. He grew up in a working-class family, but details about his childhood are not widely known. 

As a teenager, Hall began to engage in petty crime. At the age of 15, he initiated his life of crime by stealing. By the time he was 17, he was sentenced to prison for his illegal activities. One notable incident involved a scam where he used two Red Cross collection tins—one for the charity and one to keep for himself.

After his release from prison, Hall moved on to more serious crimes, including theft and confidence tricks. He became skilled at deception, often pretending to be a wealthy aristocrat or an American. In the early 1960s, he escalated to jewel theft. In 1964, Hall received a ten-year prison sentence for his crimes related to jewelry.

During his time in prison, he made efforts to improve his social skills. He learned about antiques, studied etiquette, and took elocution lessons to soften his strong Scottish accent. After escaping from Blundeston Prison in Suffolk shortly after his sentence began, he was recaptured in 1966 and received an additional five years for this escape.

When he was paroled in 1972, Hall began a relationship with an Irish woman named Mary Coggle. During periods of incarceration, he worked as a butler for various wealthy families. At the end of 1973, he found a job in the household of Lady Margaret Hudson, a widow living in Dumfriesshire. However, by 1977, Hall was back in prison again and continued to lead a life of crime interspersed with his service as a butler.

Archibald Thomson Hall, also known as Roy Fontaine, was a serial killer who committed a series of murders in the late 1970s. His criminal activities escalated from theft to murder, beginning when he shot David Wright, an acquaintance who threatened to expose his past. After killing Wright, Hall buried his body on the grounds of Kirtleton House, where he was working.

Following this crime, Hall moved back to London and became a butler for Walter and Dorothy Scott-Elliot. While planning to rob them, Hall suffocated Dorothy when she caught him discussing his plans with his accomplice, Michael Kitto. Afterward, they drugged Walter and transported the couple's bodies to Scotland, where they buried Dorothy in Braco and beat Walter to death before disposing of his body in the woods.

The murders did not stop there. Hall and Kitto then killed Mary Coggle, a housekeeper who had become a liability, after she refused to dispose of incriminating evidence. They left her body in a stream in Dumfriesshire, where it was later discovered by a shepherd.

Hall’s final victim was his half-brother Donald, whom he killed in a bath after incapacitating him with chloroform. They attempted to dispose of Donald’s body but were eventually caught when they stopped at a hotel in North Berwick. The hotel staff noticed their suspicious behavior and alerted the police, who discovered Donald’s body in the trunk of their car.

Hall was arrested and charged with multiple murders. During the investigation, he confessed to five murders and led the police to the locations of the buried victims. He was tried and sentenced to life in prison for his crimes. After many years in prison, Hall died of a stroke in 2002 at the age of 78.