Kray Twins: Life, Crimes, Deaths, and Unanswered Questions

Almost six decades after their arrest, the Kray twins still grip the British imagination — two identical brothers whose names became shorthand for 1960s London gangland, their empire built on fear, celebrity, and a carefully polished myth that outlived them both. This guide sorts the documented record from the lingering rumours, from their 1969 murder convictions to the mystery of Ronnie’s missing brain.

Years active: 1950s – 1969 · Confirmed murders: 2 · Criminal empire: roughly 20 years · Born: 1933 · Died: Ronnie 1995, Reggie 2000

Six entries, one pattern: the record is precise about birthdays, convictions, and deaths — and far blurrier about the empire in between.

What happened to the Krays twins?

By the late 1950s the Kray twins had built a reputation across the East End that was equal parts boxing, charm, and menace. Their criminal work ran from armed robbery and arson to protection rackets and illegal gambling, and ‘The Firm’ — a shifting circle of enforcers and hangers-on — turned that work into a business. Two murders ended the run: Ronnie killed George Cornell in 1966, Reggie killed Jack McVitie in 1967, and the twins were arrested on 8 May 1968 and convicted in 1969 (A&E (true-crime network feature)).

Timeline of rise, arrest, and convictions

• 1952 — Called up for National Service; both went AWOL and were discharged (Crime Library (true-crime archive)).
• Late 1950s — The Firm takes shape around protection, armed robbery, and gambling across the East End (Wikipedia (Kray twins biography)).
• 9 March 1966 — Ronnie kills George Cornell at the Blind Beggar pub (Wikipedia (Kray twins biography)).
• 28 October 1967 — Reggie kills Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie.
• 8 May 1968 — The twins are arrested; the trial follows within the year.
• 4 March 1969 — Convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Final years and deaths of both twins

• Ronnie was sent to Broadmoor Hospital after his schizophrenia diagnosis and spent the rest of his life there; by one account he died of a heart attack in 1995 (WALKS (London tour publisher)).
• Reggie served 31 years before being released on compassionate grounds in 2000 and died of bladder cancer later that year (A&E (true-crime network feature)).

The consequence: the 1969 trial turned two local criminals into national celebrities and lifelong convicts at the same time — a status that shaped every biography written afterwards.

Are any of the Krays family still alive?

The direct line stopped with the twins. Neither brother had children, so the surname survived through widows, cousins, and the industry of memory that grew up around them.

Surviving relatives beyond the twins

• Neither twin had children, and their older brother, Charlie Kray, died in 2000 — which is why the twins have no direct descendants today (Wikipedia (Kray twins biography)).
• Reggie’s widow, Roberta Kray, kept the name visible for two decades, writing crime fiction under the Kray surname and controlling the family story in the press.

Descendants of the Kray family

• There are no children, grandchildren, or direct descendants of either twin.
• More distant relatives still appear in documentaries and anniversary stories, but none inherited any position in a criminal enterprise; that world ended in 1969.

The implication: the family story after 2000 belongs to widows and biographers, not heirs. That is unusual for such a famous criminal brand — and it is exactly why Roberta Kray’s version of events carried so much weight.

Who inherited the Krays’ money?

For men who supposedly controlled half the East End, the money question has a surprisingly small answer. What is known comes from probate and from the family’s own later accounts, which never produced a hidden fortune (Sunday Report’s Kray family guide).

Reggie’s will and estate

• Reggie married twice: Frances Shea in the 1960s, and Roberta Jones, who became Roberta Kray, in 1989 while he was in prison.
• Roberta inherited his estate and the rights to the family story, which turned out to be worth more than the money itself.

What happened to Ronnie’s assets

• Ronnie’s affairs were built around the family: Violet Kray, their mother, was the figure he trusted with money and property.
• The twins’ legitimate income came largely from property and from nightclubs that worked as respectable fronts for the cash business.

The trade-off: the brothers converted fear into cash for a decade, but the cash ran out faster than the legend. What survived was the brand — and the brand was worth more to widows and writers than to criminals.

Why was Ronnie Kray buried without a brain?

This is the detail that refuses to fade in any retelling. Ronnie was buried — but not complete.

Autopsy and brain removal

• When Ronnie died at Broadmoor Hospital in March 1995, the post-mortem included removal of his brain, which was retained for Alzheimer’s research — an autopsy footnote that became public knowledge years later (Wikipedia (Kray twins biography)).
• Because Ronnie had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, the tissue had research value; the brain was never returned to his body.

Burial arrangements

• Ronnie was buried at Chingford Mount Cemetery, with a funeral that drew crowds and press helicopters — a Kray production to the end.
• The burial plot, in other words, contains part of him, a detail that still surprises visitors to his grave.

The pattern: the brain question matters less for what it reveals about medicine than for what it shows about the Kray myth — every detail, including a dead man’s brain, becomes part of the show.

Which Kray twin was the worst?

The standard answer, in almost every account, is Ronnie. The sources support that with one important caveat: both brothers were killers.

Personality differences

• Ronnie, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, is consistently described as the more violent and erratic twin — theatrical, unpredictable, and dangerous in public. Reggie comes across as the controlled one: businesslike, quieter, better at keeping up appearances (Wikipedia (Kray twins biography)).
• Inside the Firm, the division of labour followed the same split: Ronnie supplied the rage, Reggie supplied the strategy.

Level of violence and criminal responsibility

• Both were convicted of murder and given life sentences: Ronnie for George Cornell in 1966, Reggie for Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie in 1967.
• The myth tends to rank the twins, but the criminal record treats them as equals: two men, two killings, two life sentences.

The implication: ‘worst’ is the wrong question. Ronnie was more visibly dangerous, but Reggie’s calm made him no less lethal — and the record did not distinguish between them at sentencing.

How the twins compared: Ronnie vs Reggie

Two brothers, ten minutes apart, with opposite reputations — the contrast runs through nearly every account, even where the details stay fuzzy.

What this means: the twins were packaged as a pair, and the packaging shaped how the law, the press, and the public read them. Split them apart and the mythology loses its hinge.

Key dates in the Kray twins’ story

The chronology below is the part of the story that can be checked. Everything around it — motive, money, reputation — shifts depending on who is telling it.

• 24 October 1933 — Ronnie and Reggie Kray are born in East London.
• 1952 — Called up for National Service; both go AWOL and are discharged (Crime Library (true-crime archive)).
• Late 1950s — The Firm takes shape around protection rackets and armed robbery in the East End.
• 9 March 1966 — Ronnie Kray shoots George Cornell dead in the Blind Beggar pub (Wikipedia (Kray twins biography)).
• 28 October 1967 — Reggie Kray kills Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie.
• 8 May 1968 — The twins are arrested.
• 4 March 1969 — Convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
• 17 March 1995 — Ronnie Kray dies at Broadmoor Hospital.
• 1 October 2000 — Reggie Kray dies, months after his compassionate release.

The trade-off: the timeline compresses the criminal reign into roughly a decade of fear, followed by two lifetimes of consequences. That asymmetry — ten years of crime, fifty years of aftermath — is the real shape of the Kray story.

Confirmed facts and what remains unclear

A handful of facts are documented beyond dispute. The interesting details — heritage, hidden money, unsolved crimes — stay stubbornly unproven.

The pattern: almost everything confirmed about the Krays is a date, a conviction, or a death. Everything colourful — heritage, money, unsolved crimes — lives in the unclear column.

What people close to the twins said

Three voices frame the story from very different corners: a man who worked for the Firm, the mother who defended her sons, and the detective who finally caught them.

John Dickson, one of the few Firm members to write about the twins, described Ronnie as a man you couldn’t read: the charm could switch to rage mid-sentence, and that unpredictability is what made him feared.

John Dickson, former Kray associate, in The Secrets of the Krays

Violet Kray, the twins’ mother, defended them publicly to the end, insisting the brothers she raised were nothing like the gangsters the courts described.

Violet Kray, the twins’ mother, as recorded in family biographies

Detective Leonard ‘Nipper’ Read, who led the investigation, described the case as a race to persuade witnesses that the Firm’s rule — no one talks — had finally ended.

Detective Leonard ‘Nipper’ Read, lead investigator

The pattern: even the people closest to the twins disagree about who they really were, which is why the argument over the Krays started long before the films did.

The takeaway: why the Krays still fascinate

The twins built their empire on fear, but what survived them is the story. Decades after their deaths, the public record still contains only two murder convictions and a shifting pile of anecdotes — which makes the legend both frustrating and remarkably durable. The Guardian’s assessment is that the Krays were, at bottom, mediocre criminals who created their own legend through celebrity contacts and a cultivated public image (Wikipedia (Kray twins biography)). The same trick has been pulled by other former mob figures — Michael Franzese, a former mob capo who turned his own story into a public career — but the Krays did it first. For true-crime readers, that means enjoying the drama without mistaking it for evidence; for historians, the twins are a case study in how fear can be manufactured and sold. And for anyone tempted to treat them as folk heroes, the choice is clear: accept the thin record, or the story writes itself.

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