James Alfred Moody was born on 27 February 1941 in Looe, Cornwall. His upbringing was shaped by wartime tragedy—his mother had been evacuated from Camberwell during WWII, and his father lost his life when the ship he served on was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Moody’s path into crime began early. He rose to become a feared enforcer for the Richardson gang and sometimes worked for the Kray twins. Fellow criminals referred to him as “the hardest man in London”—a reputation well-earned. His weapon of choice? A chainsaw. Along with a crew dubbed the Chainsaw Gang in the 1970s, he terrorized armored truck shipments, cutting into security vehicles with chilling precision. His first major conviction came in 1967, when he and his brother Richard were found guilty of manslaughter for killing William Day, a merchant navy steward. After serving time and being released in 1972, he was again held on remand in 1979 for armed robbery. In Brixton, he shared a cell with IRA member Gerard Tuite.

Jimmy Moody’s criminal story takes a cinematic turn in December 1980, when he escaped from Brixton Prison alongside IRA's Gerard Tuite and criminal associate Stan Thompson on 16 December 1980—a daring breakout that catapulted him to the top of Scotland Yard’s most wanted list. Rumors swirled that he was paid £10,000 by the IRA to help facilitate Tuite’s escape.

He resurfaced in Northern Ireland, now aligned with the Provisional IRA. It was during this time that he coined the grim phrase “awarding someone an OBE”—a chilling euphemism for shooting someone in the head (“one behind the ear”)—that became grim slang among paramilitary circles in Belfast for years to come. When he returned to London in the late 1980s, he was using the alias “Mick the Irishman,” and was under surveillance by both the Royal Ulster Constabulary and MI5-level services. 

His death came on 1 June 1993 inside the Royal Hotel (now the Royal Inn on the Park) in Hackney. An unknown assailant—described as late-forties, wearing a leather bomber jacket—burst in and shot him dead, fleeing immediately in a stolen Ford Fiesta.

After his death, investigators began linking him—though never officially charging—to several cold cases. These include the 1989 slaying of the Dixons in Pembrokeshire, who may have stumbled upon an IRA weapons cache; the murders of David Brindle in 1991, and businessman Terry Gooderham and Maxine Arnold in Epping Forest; and even speculation around car dealer Nick Whiting's 1990 death. However, many of these links remain speculative. Notably, serial killer John Cooper was later convicted of the Dixons' murders in 2011, removing Moody from that particular suspect roll.