Ronald Christopher "Buster" Edwards (27 January 1931 – 28 November 1994) was a British criminal who was a member of the gang that committed the 1963 Great Train Robbery.
After leaving school, he worked in a sausage factory, where he began his criminal career by stealing meat to sell on the post-war black market.
After tampering with the track-side signal lights, they stopped the train at Sears Crossing and moved the engine and high-value carriage to Bridego Bridge, near Cheddington, escaping with £2,600,000 of used banknotes (the equivalent of £68.8 million today).
The driver, Jack Mills, was beaten over the head and suffered from related complications for the rest of his life: opinion is divided as to whether the injury was a factor in his death.
[2] He gave interviews to writer Piers Paul Read, persuading him to write in his 1978 book The Train Robbers that the robbery was led by German commando Otto Skorzeny, and that Edwards was the person responsible for hitting Jack Mills.
[6] At the time of his death, he was being investigated by the police as part of an inquiry into a suspected large-scale fraud and it is speculated that fear of being re-imprisoned could have led to a suicide attempt.