Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with IHeartRadio.

It was early morning, about 6 o'clock on November 13, 1536, when Robert Packington, a London merchant, was fatally shot while on his way to attend early mass at Mercer's Chapel at St. Thomas of Acon.

It was the first firearm crime in London's history and a crime that has never been solved.

Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarky.

And I'm Holly Fry. It was a short walk from Robert's home on Needler's Lane to the chapel, one that he made

daily to worship.

That day, he carried a lantern.

It was still dark, and the air was very foggy, filled with chimney smoke and mist from

the Thames.

His route took him, as it always did, down

Cheapside Street, which ran east to west between two public water fountains in the city,

the great conduit to the little conduit. As he crossed the street, just a few feet from his destination,

a single gunshot rang out, and Robert, fatally hit by a bullet, fell to the

ground. A crowd, many of whom were his fellow churchgoers, began to gather around him and began asking

questions such as, who would kill Robert, such a respectable fellow, and why? The murder was a shock for Londoners.

After all, nobody had been killed in London by a handgun ever before, and there was little

information to go on. Most, if not all, detailed accounts of this killing derived from a single primary source,

a man named Edward Hall, who was a member of parliament and chronicler of Robert Packington's life.

They were contemporaries.

Of Packington's death, he wrote that a gun was heard by neighbors and bystanders,

but no one saw the assailant because it had been a densely foggy night.

Let's break out of Robert's death scene for a moment to talk about gun crime and a little gun

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