Following the crash his grieving father turned to alcohol and became a violent drunk, inflicting much of his angst on his subsequent partners and on the young Erwin.
Monahan and his co-defendant, William Ross, whom he had met in a squat in London, were convicted of murdering theatrical agent Greville Hallam and solicitor Angus Cochran in 1982.
After receiving information from Ross, Monahan was traced by Scotland Yard, and in August 1984 he handed himself in to the British Consul in Nice.
In January 2006, Monahan wrote an article for G2, a section of The Guardian (as "Erwin James"), recalling his time in the French Foreign Legion.
[7] For the majority of the time during which he wrote for The Guardian the circumstances leading to his arrests and convictions were not revealed, but in April 2009 Monahan's full name became public.